The last week has been kind of crazy being back actually working for a living. I’ve tried to update here when I can, but time has been tight. This will be my last Scrap Metal Report and my last post. However, this isn’t the end of my metal blogging. As I’ve said before, blogging has renewed my faith in metal and I want to keep updated on it and have an outlet for that. For that purpose I started my new, personally owned blog called HookInMouth.net. If you would like to continue to read my metal bloggings, you’re more than welcome to come by, add it to your RSS or whatever and enjoy. I’m not trying to take anything away from Metal Martyr or the next writer, but that’s where I’ll be doing my thing.

With that said, let’s get on to the last little bits of news I’ll ever publish here.

• Roadrunner Records allowed you to download a new Killswitch Engage track called Reckoning. If you missed it, fear not because you really aren’t missing out on a great song. It’s kind of weak in my opinion. Hopefully the rest of the record will be better but I’m just not impressed with it. Search around and you may still be able to find it.
• Suffocation is supposedly filming a new video for the song called Cataclysmic Purification, which has been up on myspace for about a week or two and will be on the new album, Blood Oath.
• I really don’t know if this next bit is Ozzy’s or Sharron’s doing, but the “Prince Of Darkness” has filed a lawsuit against Tony Iommi saying that the Black Sabbath trademark should be owned equally between the for original band members. Regardless whether it’s Sharon pushing Ozzy to do this or not, it doesn’t matter. He claims that Tony secretly filed for patent and trademark of the name and is the sole ownership of the name, but yet Tony is still selling merch and such with original band members faces on them. You can read much, much more on this story at Blabbermouth.

Well that’s it for me, folks. It’s been a fun time here but it’s time to move on.

Post from: Metal Martyr

Image Via Nuclear Blast Records

Post from: Metal Martyr

Blood Oath regular North American track listing:
01. Blood Oath
02. Dismal Dream
03. Pray For Forgiveness
04. Images Of Purgatory
05. Cataclysmic Purification
06. Mental Hemorrhage
07. Come Hell Or High Priest
08. Undeserving
09. Provoking The Disturbed
10. Marital Decimation
11. Pray For Forgiveness (Instrumental version)
12. Dismal Dream (Rough mix un-mastered)

Limited Edition Blood Red Mail-Order Version:
01. Blood Oath
02. Dismal Dream
03. Pray For Forgiveness
04. Images Of Purgatory
05. Cataclysmic Purification
06. Mental Hemorrhage
07. Come Hell Or High Priest
08. Undeserving
09. Provoking The Disturbed
10. Marital Decimation
11. Blood Oath (Instrumental version)
12. Cataclysmic Purification (Rough mix un-mastered)

Also includes: red jewel case,  limited edition shirt, trading cards (featuring all 5 members), poster autographed by the band, exclusive red SUFFOCATION bag to house all of these items listed above.

iTunes track listing
01. Blood Oath
02. Dismal Dream
03. Pray For Forgiveness
04. Images Of Purgatory
05. Cataclysmic Purification
06. Mental Hemorrhage
07. Come Hell Or High Priest
08. Undeserving
09. Provoking The Disturbed
10. Marital Decimation
11. Undeserving (Rough mix un-mastered)
12. Marital Decimation (Instrumental version)

Image: Nuclear Blast Records

Post from: Metal Martyr

I was in my mid teens, working as a dishwasher during the time. My coworkers were all in to the grunge thing and were neo-hippies to boot. We had a prep room where we would prep food and had a cd player in there to listen to music while we worked. I would often get ridiculed for my music and get the typical “Kill your mother, kill your father!” mocking when they walked in to the prep room while I was working. I would either turn it up louder or change it to something a little heavier, darker or evil sounding. I didn’t mind grunge so much, but disliked a lot of people that listened to it for their total lack of having an open mind. Most of them were in to it because it was the popular thing at the time.

During that time you had to already be an established band or release an album of epic proportion in order to survive. Even the ones that struggled or didn’t pull through during that era still live in our hearts. The bands on this list were the ones that survived by releasing truly amazing work and deserve the recognition. I know I’ve missed a load of albums that deserve to be on a list of this sort, but keep in mind it’s just “10 Metal Albums” and not a “Top 10″ list.

Flotsam And Jetsam: Cuatro. Released in 1992, Flotsam And Jetsam were a radio hit band and had already been on the scene for almost 10 years when Cuatro was released. Their fourth album and their fourth bass player, Cuatro took a slight step away from their the thrash metal roots. Often overlooked and forgotten about, Cuatro was and still is a great album.

Anthrax: The Sound Of White Noise: (1993) Anthrax’s first album with, in my opinion their best singer, John Bush previously of Armored Saint, The Sound Of White Noise had so many killer songs on it. Beginning with Potter’s Field, Only, Room For One More, Packaged Rebellion, the list goes on until the end.

Iron Maiden: Fear OF the Dark. Released in 1992, Fear Of The Dark is never considered one of Maiden’s best albums but it’s not their worst. Sure it may not be a classic like most of the 80’s albums, but it was one of their best of the 90’s and has plenty of great tunes on it. This was also Bruce Dickenson’s last album before his return to the band in 1999.

Death: Individual Thought Patterns. Death’s 3rd release in the 90’s came in 1993 with Individual Thought Patterns. I bigger, cleaner sounding album than any one before it. ITP was my first taste of exceptionally technical death metal. If there is one subgenre of a subgenre you could label Death as, it would be Progressive Death Metal. Chuck Schuldiner always raised the bar a little higher with each album, but Individual thought patterns took it up a few notches.

Carcass: Heartwork. In 1993 Carcass were criticized by a lot of long time fans as breaking away from the grindcore sound and heading in more of a death metal direction. You can actually hear that transition in Necrotism, but regardless of what specific sound direction Heartwork took, the sound was amazingly clean, fast and ferocious. Still quite underground and unrecognized by the outside world, their Heartwork video put them on the map all around the world.

Entombed: Wolverine Blues. Another album criticized by their fans due to a lesser death metal feel and more of a “Death N’ Roll” sound to it, Wolverine Blues was still a great album. It may not have been fast but it was still heavy as all hell and punchy enough to be a classic. The title track and others such as Hollowman, Full Of Hell and Out Of Hand, you can’t go wrong with this album.

Suffocation: Pierced From Within: Suffocation released their last album for a long time in 1995. Pierced from within was the best sounding album of their first 3. The production was cleaner and Roadrunner Records was taking off like a bat out of hell. Unfortunately this was almost the end of Suffocation as touring as a death metal band at this time was barely livable income. 9 years later the legacy would begin again.

Fear Factory: Soul Of A New Machine. Before Nu-Metal actually had a name there were bands like NIN and Fear Factory releasing albums in the early 90’s. I don’t think it was until Korn’s self titled release that people started to truly hate what was to become a monster mainstream metal genre. Soul Of A New Machine was just considered a new metal band with their first major label release. Not an album that catapulted them in to the nu-metal world like Demanufacture, but a great album.

Helmet: Meantime. Helmet’s 1992 release introduced a slightly different sound to the metal scene. Coming out of NYC, The post hardcore band still brought a slight hardcore sound to them with stop-and-go riffs that were heavy enough to be called metal and a sound that was still raw enough to keep them out of the mainstream. Most people can only name one song from Helmet, that being Unsung.

Sepultura: Chaos A.D. Another band that was raising the bar with every release was Sepultura. With a consistently small change of sound to each album, Sepultura released, arguably their best album with Chaos A.D. in 1993. This was also a turning point as we saw more down-tuning that ultimately lead to Roots, the worst album of the Cavalera, Sepultura era.

Metal never died during the grunge era and it was never mainstream. Hair metal/glam rock was sort of mainstream, but the metal we love with the ferocity, controversy and darkness was still well underground. If anything Grunge did us a favor by decimating glam and weeding out the bands that weren’t quite good enough to make it. Sadly there were some bands that were good enough but fell to the mass-marketing of grunge. No big label wanted to sign another metal band when grunge was the money maker. Lucky for a lot of metal bands there was still the independent labels like Roadrunner, Metal Blade and Nuclear Blast that knew that grunge was only a fad and believed in their metal bands and fans. Every genre has it’s fads and trends, but sooner or later they die or fade away and the true warriors and torch bearers of that genre keep marching strong. The rest end up on VH1 classics…

(all images: Amazon.com)

Post from: Metal Martyr

1. Blood Oath
2. Dismal Dream
3. Pray For Forgiveness
4. Images Of Purgatory
5. Cataclysmic Purification
6. Mental Hemorrhage
7. Come Hell Or High Priest
8. Undeserving
9. Provoking The Disturbed
10. Marital Decimation

Image: Nuclear Blast

Post from: Metal Martyr

If you want to learn more about the Summer Slaughter Tour Check it out on Myspace. Also check MetalInjection.net from time to time to see if they are giving away any tickets. They’re one of the sponsors of this tour. Tour dates after the fold.

Summer Slaughter North American Tour Dates

• 6/05 – Baltimore, MD @ Sonar
• 6/06 – Richmond, VA @ The National
• 6/07 – Philadelphia, PA @ TLA
• 6/08 – Hartford, CT @ Webster Theater
• 6/10 – Charlotte, NC @ Amos Southend
• 6/12 – Louisville, KY @ Headliners
• 6/13 – Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade
• 6/14 – St. Petersburg (Tampa), FL @ Jannus Landing
• 6/15 – Jacksonville, FL @ Plush
• 6/16 – Orlando, FL @ Club Firestone
• 6/18 – San Antonio, TX @ White Rabbit (Night One)
• 6/19 – Houston, TX @ Java Jazz Outdoors
• 6/20 – San Antonio, TX @ White Rabbit (Night Two)
• 6/21 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
• 6/23 – Denver, CO @ Gothic Theatre
• 6/24 – Albuquerque, NM @ Sunshine Theatre
• 6/26 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Marquee Theatre
• 6/27 – San Diego, CA @ Soma
• 6/29 – Las Vegas, NV @ House of Blues
• 6/30 – Los Angeles, CA @ House of Blues
• 7/01 – San Francisco, CA @ The Grand Ballroom
• 7/02 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater
• 7/03 – Seattle, WA @ King Cat Theater

Image: Summer Slaughter Tour Flyer

Post from: Metal Martyr

I could have done without White Crapel and Veil of Spooge, they did NOT belong on this fucking bill, nor does any band with cry shield haircuts and big cock rings in their ears.

I kind of agree. Check out the videos. Not the best video footage, bit it’s not the worst and the audio isn’t too bad either.

Check out CapitalChaose.net

Post from: Metal Martyr

Suffocation isn’t new to the Death Metal scene. Having been around for nearly 20 years, they’re one of the bands that pioneered and helped blaze the trail with countless other bands to help create the scene of today. Even after releasing amazing album after amazing album, they just never seemed to get their big break like some other death metal bands. They’re still big and they still have a huge, mainly underground following but they just don’t get the attention they deserve. Perhaps their next release, Blood Oath will change all that.

On St. Patrick’s day I had a chance to sit down with frontman Frank Mullen for about 15 minutes and run a few questions his way.

MM: Last time you guys were here you almost started the place on fire.

FM: Yeah, we had a little fan accident there, so…

MM: I thought it was just the speed of Mike [Smith's] blast-beats that ignited it.

FM: [laughing] Yeah it was crazy.

(when they toured with Carcass last year there was a lot of electrical conversion going on with the gear on tour. During Suffocation’s set, the motor in a small fan that was behind the drum kit burned up halfway through a song. Frank smelled it and stopped the song. I don’t think he wanted another Station nightclub incident)

MM: You guys just signed to Nuclear Blast records a little less than a year ago, what kind of opportunities has that maybe afforded you that you may not have had in the past?

FM: You know, I don’t think it really changes anything as far as opportunities go. Pretty much every label we’ve been on have been good labels with Roadrunner and Relapse. We signed a two year deal with Relapse and we just  wanted to see how things worked out. After we were done with Relapse we figured we’d start looking around for a new label and Nuclear Blast has been around forever and they’ve wanted to talk to us in the past about coming aboard and we talked to them and they came up with a nice package and it’s pretty much like a one album deal and we’ll take it from there and see how it goes.

MM: You a Yankees or a Mets fan?

(As a Yankees fan, this is where I was going to ask him what he thought about the whole Clemens/A-Rod performance enhancing drugs thing. Not a metal question, but sometimes it’s nice to ask about other things besides the music.)

FM: Ahhh, I don’t like baseball.

MM: What’s this game concept that we’ve heard about?

FM: Yeah, someone came up with the concept of doing like a first person shooter perspective type game and it’s in the works and stuff and you know it’s supposed to be comin’ out soon, you know. I think it’s just going to be a pc based game. That will be coming out, I’m not exactly sure when but they’re working on it now. You know, it’s just something that’s going to revolve around all the different albums and concepts.

MM: You guys toured with Carcass last year and have a couple more dates this year, right?

FM: We toured with Carcass before, a long time ago. It was a nice opportunity, the shows were great, really great and packed out.

MM: Any particular bands that you’d like to tour with in the future?

FM: I don’t know, I’d like to get on something kind of big, you know, like um, Slipknot, Slayer, Mudvayne, Lamb Of God, you know something like that or whatever. I’d like  to try to get on something bigger where we’d be playing something like arenas, halls, whatever. That’s something that we’ve never had the chance to do, so I think that would be really cool.

MM: Coming up in the NYC death metal scene it didn’t break out as much as let’s say the Florida Death Metal scene with the exception of Cannibal Corpse, who came out of Buffalo and I don’t mean to compare you guys to them but do you think if you guys came out of the Florida scene, do you think you’d be bigger than what you are today, not saying that you guys aren’t big, you have a huge following and I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t a fan.

FM: I don’t think so. I think what made it unique about coming out of the NY scene was that we had a different sound and approach to the music. I think that’s what made us unique. I think what hurt us at the beginning was, you know, I was newly married and had a child and I couldn’t tour the way that those bands could. Death metal at that point didn’t make any money. You went out on tour and you might only make like $2000 on tour for an entire month, so it’s like, and I had good job at home and you just can’t do that when you have a family to support. I think that more or less what hurt us as far as going to the next level like the bands coming out of Florida, because you know, they had the opportunity to tour like crazy and it really blew up in the scene.

MM: Are you kind of surprised that um, well I’m sure it was the same way for you, back when I was in high school, metal wasn’t cool. You wouldn’t see too many kids wearing metal shirts and these days it has exploded and it’s a lot bigger, maybe with more scene kids…

FM: Yeah, metal, different forms of metal will always be around around. I can remember when I was in high school it was Slayer and Ozzy and things like that. That was the real heavy stuff, Celtic Frost, Destruction. I just think people will always be looking for something heavy no matter what generation and how it passes down and translates through death metal or extreme music, kids are always looking for it. I think the only thing you’ll never really see again is the hair metal or glam metal, I don’t think that’s going to come back where you see guys teasing their hair and wearing the spandex. That’s not going to happen…

MM: That’s not a bad thing. They try, they really try…

FM: no, no, no…they’re always going to have their old fans, their old school fans but they’re not going to get new fans. Kids aren’t in to that…

MM: No, even with new albums. Motley Crue made a good effort with their new album, but I thought it was garbage. The older fans ate it up and love it.

FM: I didn’t hear the album, so I don’t know, but it’s just a different mind-set. The kids aren’t in to that anymore. So you know, your old fans will buy it and they come out and see you and you can continue to play music but you aren’t really going to get any new fans.

MM: Do you think nu-metal might have brought the metal scene to a more mainstream level during it’s run?

FM: Yeah, in a way. They were able to play songs on the radio and play bigger venues and stuff like that and basically give it an opportunity to grow, where as like death metal and extreme metal was just too crazy for the radio and the mainstream.

MM: What are some of your guilty pleasures, music that people wouldn’t expect to find Frank Mullen listening too?

FM: [Laughing] I don’t know, I mean I listen to a little bit of everything, I’m a big fan of like Stevie Ray Vaughan, old hard rock, The Who, The Doors, Zeppelin. You know.

(I was hoping Frank would open the floodgates and just unload some of the most unexpected bands, because this is always a fun question. Unfortunately Frank didn’t want to tell me about his huge Abba collection. Not that he really has one, but sometimes you find that some people are fans of music that you would never expect them to listen to.)

MM: Blood Oath. There’s a lot of buzz about that. We’re hearing that it’s going to be a bit different than past albums. What’s going to be different about it?

FM: I wouldn’t categorize it as different. The production on it’s going to be very good, best production we had so far and I think the last album came out really, really good but I think this album, production wise, you’ll be happy with it. As far as different, not anything has really changed differently. It still has the basic structure and formula that Suffocation has always used.

MM: Some say from album to album they can see a progression of slowing down, is that true?

FM: No, no, no. There’s speed on it and its pretty much the same. I wouldn’t look at is necessarily as slowing down.

MM: I was listening to the old three album on the way here and you know, they have fast parts and then it slows to a chugging breakdown and then it speeds right back up. Then I listened to the self titled and it’s the same way, just cleaner. After Effigy and Breeding and then Pierced From Within there was a big difference after breeding, Pierced From Within was much better as far as production. I don’t know where I’m going with this, I guess I’m just sayin…

FM: Yeah, definitely there was a progression of just recording and technology, you know.

MM: That about covers everything. I know you have family in town, so I don’t want to waste anymore of your time. I appreciate your time and I’ll see you guys tonight.

Frank was a great interview, even though I’m a lousy interviewer. The show was great. I think the Veil Of Maya and Whitechapel fans that stuck around for Suffocation have a new found respect for the band and hopefully it will spur their interest in to the bands that made it all possible for the Deathcore bands to do what they do today.

All Images © MetalMartyr.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

Before the show I had a quick interview with Frank Mullen of Suffocation. I’ll have to transcribe that and get it up later this week.

The venue wasn’t nearly as full as it was the last time they played on the Exhumed To Consume tour, but it filled up pretty good once Suffocation took the stage. I was also pretty impressed with the opening act, Malebolgia.

To open the show was a fairly local band from Walkertown, NC called Malebolgia. Normally when I see a local band open a show it’s quite mediocre, but not these guys. Although there wasn’t many people in venue during their set, they tore it up. They have a cd out on Comatose Music called Requiem For The Inexorable. The cd sounds similar to Cattle Decapitation and if you like Cattle Decap then you’ll like these Malebolgia. During their set they had a  good death metal sound but after they played I asked the drummer, Kevin Hedgecock how he would best describe the band, Death metal, deathcore, etc? It’s not always easy to tell what kind of sound a band’s going for when you hear them live for the first time. He quickly laid to rest any kind of “Core” association and said that they are more of a death/grind band, which after hearing the cd is how I would totally describe their music.

The next band was Veil Of Maya. I don’t know if their sound guy was just having a bad night or what, but there was massive feedback during the show. I didn’t take any pictures and I wasn’t really in to it during their set, but they played well and got a good response from the crowd.

Decrepit Birth. Shame on me for hearing that name hundreds of times but never giving them a listen. In my opinion Decrepit Birth should have went on between Whitechapel and Suffocation. Bill Robinson, the singer, was really cool after I pretty much unintentionally insulted him early in the evening. He’s got a great sense of humor and seems like a very happy-go-lucky dude. Maybe he just smokes a lot of weed, I don’t know. The band was simply awesome and Bill is quite the showman on stage. If you have heard the name then hear the CD, Diminishing Between Worlds on Unique Leader records. They’ll have a new album coming out within the year on Nuclear Blast Records.

The Whitechapel fans loved their show. I snapped off a few shots but I just wasn’t in to it. Maybe I’ve lost interest for these guys altogether. I’m not trying to discredit these guys, I liked “This Is Exile” when I first got it but it doesn’t do anything for me anymore.

Having learned from the last time I saw Suffocation with Carcass, I got right up front so I could try to get some good shots and have fun. Suffocation put on a hell of a show and sound great live. Mike Smith is an unbelievable drummer and again, Terrance Hobbs is grossly under-rated as is Guy Marchais. Frank Mullen chopped the shit out of the air, stuck his tongue out and growled his ass off as usual. Let’s not forget Derek Boyer whom used to play with Decrepit Birth as well. I probably looked like a convulsing retard up from banging my head, stomping my feet and hitting the monitor, but I don’t care because I had a blast. If this tour comes to your town, go!

All images © Metal Martyr 2009

Post from: Metal Martyr

1. The local band that opened the show, Malebolgia, don’t want to be associated with anything ‘Core. That and they kick ass.
2. Veil Of Maya is not my thing, but they played well and the crowd liked them.
3. Bill Robinson of Decrepit Birth (pictured above) is the coolest dude in the world.
4. Whitechapel’s hardcore fans worship them.
5. If you like death metal and you never see Suffocation live, you might as well die a virgin.

Oh yeah…and I’m pretty sure I have a neck injury too.

I will elaborate more tomorrow.

Image © MetalMartyr.com

Post from: Metal Martyr