All That Remains – Overcome: This was one of my “Highly Anticipated” releases for 2008. After really enjoying The Fall Of Ideals and This Darkened Heart, I couldn’t wait to see what was next. When the first two singles dropped I really liked them. The sound was a bit different and I couldn’t wait for the album. When I got it I was pretty stoked. I wrote a great review for it and said it surpassed their previous releases. While the album is different from the previous two and is good in it’s own right, it lacks longevity. I wouldn’t call it “uninspired” as many others have, but it It doesn’t having the lasting effect that The Fall Of Ideals has.

The Acacia Strain – Continent: This is another one of those albums that doesn’t have the lasting effect. It’s heavy and brutal, but it lacks the hooks that I feel is necessary to make an album stand the test of time. The vocals and lyrics are great, but a good chorus or breakdown is needed for me to truly appreciate this album. Like The Dead Walk, I really dug it at first listen but it’s easily forgotten within a week or so.

Austrian Death Machine – Total Brutal: Tim Lambesis side project with Ahhnold was fun at first few listens. The music is cool and there are a lot of guest solos in the mix. Paul Raven (From The Critics Den) kind of opened my eyes up a bit more on this album. In his review he states that it is one of those albums that get’s passed around by teenage metalheads and that the novelty of it doesn’t last very long. He was exactly right. It’s a “Solid thrash album”, as he says in the comments of my review but it doesn’t last long and gets thrown in with the stack of things such as Beatallica, the Jerkie Boys and such. Funny, yes. Overwhelmingly wowing…’fraid not.

Soulfly – Conquer: I stated in my review that this is probably Soulfly’s best release ever…and I still feel that way. If you ever plan on getting a Soulfly album then start with this. If you want to reach in to their back catalog, then go for their self titled debut. Everything in between is garbage in my opinion. Conquer brings a thrashier feel to it as if Max and Igor Cavalera Conspiracy release resurrected something inside of him. Let’s not forget that Marc Rizzo is a complete bad-ass guitar player too.

Withered – Folie Circulaire: This one was really tough to get in to. The blackened death metal genre is something I’m fairly new to and if your not totally in to that music then it will either take some time to get used to or it will just not sink in at all. The Funeral Pyre is the same way. Their 2008 release Wounds has that strange effect where it takes some time. Prosthetic Records signs acts that stand out from the rest. That’s where bands like Lamb Of God and All That Remains got their big start. Other bands that made their Prosthetic label debut this year that deserve a listen are Book Of Black Earth with Horoskopus and The Antagonist with Exist.

Children Of Bodom – Blooddrunk: This album seemed to fall short of my expectation upon first listen. I honestly don’t know what I expected of this album considering that I only heard Hate Crew Deathroll and Are You Dead Yet? before I got BloodDrunk. I bought it and the same day immediately after first listen wrote a review saying that it was mediocre. A day or two later I wrote a quick re-review, something I don’t often do. The album grew on me and I was really getting in to it. While it’s still not my favorite COB release it’s a good release nonetheless. After I bought Blooddrunk I went on the search and bought the remaining C.O.B. re-releases of the albums I didn’t have.

Finally Slipknot and Metallica: I loved the old Metallica like a million others have. I’ve also been disappointed like a million others have since the release of Load, Reload and St. Anger. What I expected of Death Magnetic was another over-hyped piece of dog excrement. What we got was a not-so-bad album with a more thrash feel than the previous four Metallica studio album with it’s ups and downs. This album proved that Metallica haven’t totally lost touch with their past, but are still far from re-achieving the expectations of a lot of their hardcore following fans from the beginning. At some points is seems as they are trying too hard and some times it seems they aren’t trying hard enough. Better than expected but still no enough to quench the hunger of a dying Metallica fan. Progress has been made but they might never make another Master Of Puppets and that’s something we all need to live with. To name this as “Album Of The Year” is just plain idiotic.

Slipknot really disappointed me this year. All Hope Is Gone was hyped and hyped some more. The best songs were released as singles and most everything else on the album felt like a rushed filler. We’ve seen a different progression of the band since MFKR, but this one was a giant step sideways instead of forward. Iowa had me wanting more and Vol. 3 made me a happy fan. The Stone Sour releases in between sufficed but All Hope Is Gone made me second guess myself as a fan of this band. I don’t really know if I will anticipate the next one as much as I have in the past. Also I have found so many more bands and releases this year that it was almost easy to forget how much I disliked this record and that makes me feel as if perhaps I’m growing away from Slipknot, which ultimately is not necessarily a bad thing. All Hope Is not Gone, but on more release like this and it may be.

Writing reviews is not as an easy process as some might think. After you have written so quite a few it’s tough to come up with creative ways to say just how “Brutal” or shitty an album really is. For some it comes easy and for others like myself it’s not always a piece of cake. You also have to battle your own feelings sometimes and try not to second guess yourself in fear of drawing a negative response from someone that doesn’t feel the same way about an album. At times you read a comment from someone after you’ve posted a review and it’s get’s you thinking about that album. You go back and you think to yourself, “Damn, they’re right.”. You don’t want to change your mind but sometimes you have to bite the bullet and either say so or just ignore the fact. Some albums deserve a full track-by-track review and other just need a simple explanation that the album slays. With the Internet it’s fairly easy to find reviews before you buy a cd. Who’s advice you take is solely up to you and your liking. If ever you agree read a review in Rolling Stone Magazine and it says nothing but negative things about the album…chances is are that the album is great. If they say and album is innovative and spectacular…buyer beware.

All Images: Amazon.com

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Win A Signed Guitar PIck From Opeth’s Fredrick Akesson

Enter to Win All That Remains Overcome

Image Sources: (guitar pick Metalmartyr.com) Album image from Amazon.com

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Also today kicks off All That Remains tour with headliners In Flames and label-mates Gojira, with 36 Crazyfists opening the show. You can check out a tour poster after the fold. Overcome has sold more than 70,000 copies in less than two months since it’s release on September 16th.

Album Image Source: Amazon.com

Tour poster courtesy of Prosthetic Records.

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ALL THAT REMAINS on tour

(In Flames, All That Remains, Gojira, 36 Crazy Fists)

• 11/06 Montreal, QC – Metropolis
• 11/07 Toronto, ON – Sound Academy
• 11/08 Detroit, MI – Emerald Theater
• 11/09 Cleveland, OH – Agora
• 11/10 Chicago, IL – House Of Blues
• 11/12 Minneapolis, MN – Myth
• 11/14 Calgary, AB – MacEwan Hall
• 11/15 Edmonton, AB – Events Center
• 11/17 Vancouver, BC – Commodore
• 11/18 Seattle, WA – Showbox Sodo
• 11/19 Portland, OR – Roseland
• 11/21 San Francisco, CA – Warfield
• 11/22 Los Angeles, CA – The Nokia Club
• 11/23 Las Vegas, NV – House Of Blues
• 11/24 Phoenix, AZ – Marquee Theatre
• 11/25 Albuquerque, NM – Midnight Rodeo
• 11/26 Denver, CO – Fillmore
• 11/28 Dallas, TX – Palladium
• 11/29 Austin, TX – La Zona Rosa
• 11/30 Houston, TX – House Of Blues
• 12/02 Orlando, FL – Hard Rock Live
• 12/03 Atlanta, GA – Tabernacle
• 12/04 Norfolk, VA – The Norva
• 12/05 Baltimore, MD – Rams Head Live
• 12/06 Worcester, MA – Palladium
• 12/07 New York, NY – Terminal 5
• 12/09 St. Louis, MO – Pageant
• 12/10 Milwaukee, WI – The Eagles Club

(with The Haunted, Johnny Truant)

• 1/17 Nottingham, UK – Rescue Rooms
• 1/19 Birmingham, UK – Academy 2
• 1/20 Glasgow, UK – Garage
• 1/21 Manchester, UK – Academy 3
• 1/23 Brighton, UK – Concorde 2
• 1/24 London, UK – LA 2

(with The Haunted, Deadlock)

• 1/26 Stuttgart, GER – Landespavilloin
• 1/27 Bochum, GER – Matrix
• 1/29 Hamburg, GER – Knust
• 1/30 Göteborg, GER – Brewhouse
• 1/31 Stocholm, SWE – Kägelbanan
• 2/02 Helsini, SF – Nosturi
• 2/04 Copenhagen, DK – Pumpehuset
• 2/05 Berling, GER – Magnet
• 2/06 Leipzig, GER – Conne Island
• 2/07 Prague, CZ – Abaton
• 2/08 Wien, AT – Arena
• 2/10 Milan, IT – Zoe Club
• 2/11 Winterthur, CH – Salzhaus
• 2/12 Trier, GER – Exhaus
• 2/13 Amsterdam, NL – Melkweg
• 2/14 Paris, FR – Noveau Casino
• 2/15 Brussels, B – AP Box

Image ©MetalMartyr.Com2008

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MM: Hey Mike, how’s it going?

Mike Martin: Good, we’re just watching the Sox game.

MM: I’m a Yankees fan, myself.

Mike: Then you must hate us.

MM: Nah, I’ve had 4 years to get over it. (Referring to the last time the 2004 play-offs where the Yankees were up 3 games and then lost the next 4.) Good thing I didn’t put money on that series.

I was scheduled to talk to Phil and all these questions were geared toward him so maybe you can answer them and maybe not…

Oli: We’ll try to answer them like Phil.

MM: On the new album. With all the layered clean vocals, a lot of people were not necessarily saying that their bad, but weird. Was there any reason why they layered them so much?

Oli: You’re talking about all the vocal tracks?

MM: Yeah.

Oli: Just to give it a bigger sound.

MM: To make it sound bigger? Something different than before?

Oli: Just to give a thicker sound.

Mike: It wasn’t to specifically to piss people off. They’re going to freaked out when they hear more singing regardless, they’re going to hear more singing and say (In a kind of deeper condescending voice) “Oh, That’s not metal”.

MM: Was that something that Jason Seucoff suggested doing?

Oli: Absolutely.

MM: You guys covered Nevermore’s Believe In Nothing. I thought it was a good cover. Some people said it was good but it made you want to hear the original. Right after it was released it was announced that Firewind did a cover of the same song. Are you guys familiar with Firewind?

Mike: Yeah, we got a kick out of that. We shared a bus with them in England.

MM: I saw them live back in May, they were great, I expected Firewind’s cover to be a lot better because Apollo has a different range than Phil does because he’s got that big power metal sound but I actually liked your version better. (Shameless ass kissing)

Mike: Anytime you read anything on the internet, most people get on there just to smash the band, especially Blabbermouth. They’re going to comment (again with the voice)”Uh, that’s the worst just cause I feel like saying it.

Oli: You’re never going to top the original, but you try to keep it as close as possible. We changed it a bit with the chorus and a little guitar and added some more layers.

(Mike Martin claps at the TV because the Red Sox just scored. He comments that everything started going well in the game ever since I got there. I guess I was like a good luck charm or some shit. Too bad the Sox lost the next day)

MM: IN the new Revolver and how You (Oli) and Jason would get in there and you (Mike) and Phil would get in there and would ask them to “Dumb it down” a bit.

Mike: Yeah, definitely as far as Oli goes, Jason being a drummer…I think every drummer we’ve ever worked with has gotten mad at us because at some point we might say “Hey, can you just do a really dumb Metallica beat there or something.” and they would say (Once more with the voice) “That just sounds stupid” It’s always like that with a drummer go, you’re gonna deal with that all the time. Sometimes a really heavy riff just sounds so much better with like the dumbest possible drumming that there is. A lot of drummers don’t want people to think that they’re crappy drummers and want to put something complicated over it, but we want to do whatever fits the song best. Oli writes some very aggressive stuff sometimes too, sometimes he comes with a whole song on the computer and if we did it exactly how it sounds, the computer would not sound like the band at all. We have to strip it down here and there.

MM: When you (Oli) write the main riffs and leads and rhythms and it comes down to what Mike will be playing, so you suggest to him how he should be playing it?

Oli: I usually have both the parts written.

Mike: Everybody kind of picks everyone’s parts apart and sometimes say, “Hey you should try this” and sometimes it sounds a lot better. Everybody pretty much knows how to push each others buttons the right way and it works out for the better.

Oli: I write the guitar and bass parts…

Mike: He’s a writing machine…

Oli: I take each guitar part and work on the sound and try to make it sound as big as possible.

MM:Phil keeps it lyrically simple without over-thinking the lyrics by throwing big words in there. You don’t have to sit there and wonder what that means.

Mike: Some people might say it’s stupid but by keeping it simple the kids really relate to it. There are so many people on the internet with tattoos of the lyrics all over them.

Oli:It’s not as dumbed down as like, let’s say Hatebreed, it’s just obvious, especially in metal, you have to have a straight forward message.

MM: You guys sold like 28,000 in your first week and that’s twice as much as the last record. Some people say “I don’t give a shit about record sales because I don’t make my money off of cd sales” but every cares how many people are buying the cd. You guys care, right?

Mike: Numbers to an extent don’t lie. There are some bands that don;t sell a lot of records but they draw a ton of people, but for the most part numbers are numbers and it gauges how you do to an extent.

Oli: It looks good on paper too

Mike: Yeah, it always looks good on paper, even if you;re not drawing a lot of people, the venue might see the numbers and say, “Oh, you’re selling this much, we’ll give you this much money.

Oli: We don’t see money from cd sales for a long time, but it’s always better to sell a lot of albums. We don’t write the records with the though in mind that we’re going to sell a million records, we just right the songs the way we think they should be.

Mike: It’s all like a resume thing.

MM: What about label support? Do cd sales key in to a lot of label support meaning, like the bus is a big expense. Does the label help out fund that kind of stuff.

Oli: The label does but you have to pay it back. They might say, we’re going to give you $40,000 to pay for your bus, but that money will come out of your record sales. You’re way better off being able to just pay for it yourself as a band and not take money from labels because they’ll just take it back. It’s an advance and you always have to pay it back.

MM: I just wanted to better understand that. Do cd sales directly effect label support going in to the future?

Mike: Sometimes with festivals you have to take some money for tour support because you get so little money from festivals.

Oli: You take as little as you possibly need because…

Mike: You don’t want to dig yourself a hole.

MM: How many bottles of Jim Beam do you guys usually go through on a tour

Mike: Jim beam…hmm.. that’s been really slacking off on this tour a lot. Jeanne and Phil  are the main ones and they have barely drank at all on this tour. Phil quit smoking this tour so his Red Bull and whiskey intake has really slacked off cause the two kind of go hand in hand. For a little while there it was getting pretty impressive.

MM: You gu8ys still big in to Guitar Hero on the bus?

Oli: We haven’t had it this time around. We’ve been rockin’ the Whitesnake live Still Of the Night DVD. We have NHL Hockey and he (Mike) kicks my ass every time. Sometimes I feel like cross-checking him on stage sometimes.

Mike: He hit me in the face with his guitar yesterday…

Oli: Yeah, that was for the game.

MM: First thought. First thing that comes to mind…

Oli: We both get to do it?

MM: Yeah why not? ok…Sarah Palin?

Mike: Stupid…

Oli: Hot

Mike: I don’t know why everybody says that.

MM: She’s got a cuteness too her but she’s ridiculously stupid

Mike: I saw her on that Katie Couric interview and I was like ‘Oh my god’, I could have answered that question and I’m a moron.

MM: Favorite city to tour?

Mike: New Haven Connecticut. Last night was so out of control you would not believe it.

Oli: Want to know the worst city to tour in? Sioux Falls South Dakota.

MM: Why’s that?

Mike: It just sucked. The turn out sucked and the kids just stood there with their fingers in their asses the whole time.

MM: What’s the worse job you’ve ever had before playing in ATR?

Mike: I’ve only had one other job, it was a family business awesome, so I’ve never really had a shitty job.

Oli: Dishwashing at Dennys. That’s a bad fucking job. I got fired and I was happy.

MM: What kind of music do you generally listen to, Oli?

Oli: I like a lot of progressive power metal. I also like a lot of traditional music like classical and jazz.

MM: It’s seems like a lot of your guitar playing is classically influenced.

Oli: Oh yeah.

MM: How about you mike?

Mike: I like a lot of 80’s hair metal, it’s like my favorite thing ever as a kid. I also listen to an insane amount of bubblegum pop because I really like bad music. I can’t help it, I just like it.

MM: Favorite porn star?

Mike: I’d say right now….I love Gina Lynn.

MM: I have no clue who that is…

Mike: I know them all…I’ve done a severe amount of masturbating…

Oli: I would say Belladonna because she’ll do anything dirty

MM: Well that’s all the questions I have. Thanks for your time and I’ll see you out there.

There may have been some other stuff said but you could hear 36 Crazyfists playing in the background and something were inaudible. I wanted to talk to Oli in my first interview back in March but only had a chance to talk to Phil and Mike Martin for a short time, so this was cool for me and Oli seemed like a really cool buy. They ended that tour last Sunday and will be heading out with In Flames, Gojira and 35 Crazyfists starting on November 6th in Montreal Canada.

Image ©MetalMartyr.Com

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All That Remains played a lot of the classic/typical songs from This Darkened Heart and The Fall Of Ideals as well as about 4 or 5 from Overcome. Any doubts about how the new songs will sound live can be put to rest. They all sounded great, even though I kind of think that they used a chorus type effect or someone doing backing vocals on the clean parts, but I could be wrong. I had a copy of Overcome that I was hoping to get signed by Phil, but that fell through when the interview fell through and I didn’t think to get it signed by Oli and Mike. I’ll still be giving that away though. Until then, enjoy the pictures.

I wish I got more good shots of Jeanne Sagan.

All Images are property of MetalMartyr.com and are not to be used without specific permission. If you would like to use an image, please email me at metalmartyr.com@gmail.com

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This is my second interview with Phil and he’s a really cool guy so I’m looking forward to hat again. So here is video block of everything All That Remains. I kind of wish they did videos for a song or two from Behind Silence And Solitude.

All Videos sourced from MTV.com

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Post from: Metal Martyr

“Overcome”, the new album from Massachusetts metallers ALL THAT REMAINS, is on track to sell around 25,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release, according to Hits Daily Double, the companion web site of music industry tip sheet HITS. The CD is being streamed in its entirety as part of AOL’s “Free Full CD Listening Parties.”

That’s pretty good considering that The Fall Of Ideals sold about 13,000 in it’s first week. Any musicians that tells you that they don’t care about cd sales is a liar. Phil Labonte said recently on his Myspace blog after Overcome was leaked “I don’t think I’ve ever made a dime off a record sale. And I can’t stop it anyway so why worry about it?”. But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care about record sales. In the October issue of Decibel Magazine Phil had this to say:

“In a way, I feel sorry for labels,” Labonte Concludes. “In the past, they could get some idea of how well an album was going to sell based on past performance and recent concert turnout. Now it’s just get that f*cker out before it leaks and hope to hell somebody buys it. Sales are less about acquiring a commodity and more about fans showing support. I’m grateful as hell for every CD we sell. By the same token, I have no problem with people downloading our stuff. I play shows for a living.”

Post from: Metal Martyr

Death Magnetic was finally released and aside from all the trash-talk and anticipated disappointment, I actually kind of like most of it. I listened to it the other night from beginning to end while working. Still have a problem with James Hetfield’s vocals at some points and hate where some of the songs go after the first 4 minutes but it’s much better than anything they have done in a long time. I never thought I would actually like any new Metallica that would come out these days but every now and then I have to be truthful and admit when I’m wrong. It’s not some epic metal, but as I said, it’s better than most anything they have done in a long time and that’s more than most expected.

Finally got my review for All That Remains’ Overcome out and I can’t get some of the choruses out of my head, like the one in Chiron. A bit different from their last three but that’s a really good thing.

I got an advance copy of Tom Morello’s new Nightwatchman solo album to review at the rock dose. That’s a really cool album, nothing like anything Rage has done and Tom has a rather nice voice.

Also got an advance of David Gilmour’s Live In Dansk, Poland that is simply amazing. If you dig Pink Floyd or live Pink Floyd you might want to check that out when it hit’s the stores. Richard Wright, one of the founding members of Pink Floyd died on Monday from cancer. He performed on the CD/DVD as well.

I never did get around to posting my reviews for Prosthetic Record’s artists Antagonist and Book Of Black Earth and I just received Gojira’s new album The Way Of The Flesh in the mail today. So far that’s a really cool album too. Chances are if you like Gojira and From Mars To Sirius you’ll like The Way Of The Flesh. I’ll try to get those reviews up by mid-week.

I picked up Amon Amarth’s 2004 release Fate Of Norns. I’m not feeling it as much as With Oden On Our Side, but it’s still a good album. Also picked up Suffocation’s latest release on Relapse Records. If you’re in to good brutal deathmetal/Grindcore You’ll probably like that as well. Check it out sometime.

AC/DC has been kickin’ ass on the charts with a lot of their older stuff and with their new/old DVD ‘No Bull’

Image Sourve: My Webcam

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