Metal Hammer

With Danzig on The Blackest Of The Black Tour and Doyle currently touring in support of the gawd-awful “Gorgeous Frankenstein”, a real Misfits reunion is not likely to happen anytime soon. From the beginning, the Misfits line-up has changed and has a ‘former members’ list almost as big Glenn’s ego. I would drive well out of my way to see a full fledged reunion tour if it did happen. We’ll just have to wait and see what’s going to happen, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I wonder if Doyle has to sign everything with that full name?

Image Source: Rockabilia.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

I didn’t bother watching the news this morning because everything is about 9/11 again. It was a terrible tragedy for the United States and they say “We Will Never Forget”. Even if we wanted to forget, we couldn’t. It’s embedded in our brains and every year they have to hold a ceremony and repeat the names of the people that died. I’m not trying to be a negative, cynical bastard about this, but is a ceremony necessary every year? Can we not take other measures to remember and perhaps start moving forward? Like I said, I’m not being disrespectful to anyone that participated in the rescue, died or had a loved one that died when this happened. I’m just saying that each year is the same and I think it would benefit the U.S. and the victims more if we found a way to move forward. Not to forget, but to move forward in some way and still be able to honor those that we lost.

With that said, let’s round up some Metal news:

• Despised Icon have announced that they will off tour for the next couple of months and working on new material.
• A deluxe edition of Machine Head’s The Blackening will be released with a bonus cd with rarities and b-sides and a DVD with Live videos from various tours. You can check out more about here.
• Kataklysm will be filming the video for Blood In Heaven from Prevail.
• For everyone that illegally downloaded Metallica’s Death Magnetic and thought it was ok, but some songs were way too long there is hope for you after all. Some audio engineer thought the same thing and did some editing. Check that out at Metallica – Death Magnetic – Better, Shorter, Cutted (2008) Yes, “cutted”. Not my words, but theirs. Update: The link reported that the content is blocked because it’s suspected to contain illegal content. Q-Prime didn’t was a minute taking care of that, did they? Well everyone is saying that it sounds better than the original. Go figure.
• Michale Graves, the former 90’s era Misfits frontman said that there was more to the breakup and reunion issues of the band than the press or Doyle is telling you. Check out more on that here.

Post from: Metal Martyr

As reported by Antimusic.com, The Misfits have pulled out of the Volcom tour with Motorhead, Valient Thor and Airbourne. Antimusic said they were waiting on The Misfits PR to get back to them with a reason but have yet to publish one. All That was said was this short statement by the only original member left in the band, Jerry Only:

“The Misfits have always held an incredibly high standard of performance and quality in everything we do. Our fans expect this and deserve it. I will not compromise their expectations for any amount of money, prestige or fame.”

I don’t know what the hell that means. Maybe they were expecting to headline or didn’t like where they stood on the bill or whatever. Sounds to me like a clash of egos to me but I read a rumor that it was a fallout with organizers of technical issues…whatever that means.

Post from: Metal Martyr

I’m a Misfits fan since the mid 90’s when a co-worker/friend of mine introduced me to them, but it wasn’t until I saw a live show with then vocalist, Michael Graves, before they put out American Psycho. They played most of the classics and I loved it. I say most of the classics because they are all classics…with exception of the new stuff. American Psycho had some really great songs but Famous Monsters sucked and Project 1950 was only ok.

Anyway, you probably know the story goes that Doyle left in 2000 and it was never really clear why. Since then Jerry Only has hinted at a Misfits reunion several times and Glenn Danzig has pretty much put an end to the rumor every time it’s asked about. As you know now, Doyle has his own new band called Gorgeous Frankenstein and recently told The Cleveland Scene this:

“We were actually going to do a Misfits reunion with Glenn,” says Doyle. “But Jerry put a fuckin’ monkey wrench in it. [In] 2002, we had meetings … And [Jerry] kind of fucked it up, him and his manager. We were going to do a record, do a tour and everything. So let all the Misfits fans put that in their pipe and smoke it.”

Put that in your pipe and smoke it…that’s so 90’s. Well if this is true then thanks for screwin’ that up, Jerry. I’m sure everyone loves you and your post punk buddies version better.

Now I haven’t heard this new Gorgeous Frankenstein, but I have read some rather bad reviews of it. Should I listen to those reviews? Probably not because American Psycho got a terrible review but I really like that record. Maybe one day I’ll check out the whole thing, but until then I kinda of dig this song. Still riding the horror theme gimmick and Elvis’y singing, but ok. It also has former WCW girl Gorgeous George Dancing on stage and in the video…who doesn’t like to look at that? Video After the fold.

Post from: Metal Martyr

Rolling Stone Magazine recently caught up with Metallica at Record Store Day on April 19th and conducted an interview with drummer Lars Ulrich. Here is a few excerpts.

RS: You went through four boxes of Sharpies signing autographs on Record Store Day. Can you talk about that marathon meet and greet?
Lars: I think the intense energy and all the love carried us through. I didn’t even take a pee break! It’s probably the longest we’ve gone for as long as I can remember. We used to be like, “Where’s the beer? Fire up the Misfits!” It would be a lot more reckless. Now it’s more personal and less about you and your beer needs. It’s funny. You’re at home chilling out in your backyard, being a parent, and driving your kids around town and you conveniently forget. At 9 a.m., I spent ten minutes wiping the shit off my nine-month old. At 12 p.m., I was in the dog park cleaning up dog shit. Then you get into a car drive down to Mountain View and go, “Holy shit!” By 2 p.m., they’re saying how amazing you are. It’s easy to forget in your own little bubble.

RS: What did you take away from the fans this time?
Lars: I would say the main thing is that it continues to reinforce how varied metal fans are; how difficult it is to define who they are. You are talking about fans that cross all lines of age, gender and cultural backgrounds — it’s not categorizable. You see parents there with their kids who say they finally found something in common through Metallica. I walked away totally humbled, whereas in my twenties and thirties there’s these big black holes. I didn’t remember walking away with that feeling.

RS: You signed a lot of Guitar Hero controllers. Is that cool?
Lars: It’s fucking way cool. Our kids love playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band. It’s awesome. There’s something really positive coming out of video games. It’s so cool to sit there and have your kids talk to you about Deep Purple and Black Sabbath and Soundgarden.

RS:What made Metallica want to be part of Record Store Day?
Lars: It was a no-brainer for us. It took three seconds to decide to do it. The record store has been such a huge part of our lives. When I was twelve, fourteen years old in Denmark, the record store was the Holy Grail and the guy who worked there was my hero. I would go two to three times a week and get Judas Priest, Accept, Triumph; this guy was like a God to me. In America it was places in San Francisco like the Record Vault where we’d sell our demos, T-shirts, hang out.

RS: How would you feel on the day the last record store in America closed?
Lars: I’d do my best to try and be there playing “Fade to Black” as the last song, but I don’t think it’ll come to that. iTunes? I’m there as much as everyone else, I’m not against that. If you look at vinyl, fifteen years ago CDs came out and yet it continues to make more of a comeback. I don’t think you’ll be able to kill the record store, at least not in major cities. I’m worried about the smaller cities. I’m against these soulless megastores.

Read the rest of this interview at Rollingstone.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

Is creative Lyric writing getting stale or is it me? With bands going for concept albums it kind of make you think something is wrong in the mind of the lyricists or something.

I love Judas Priest but this whole new concept album about Nostradamus has me wondering. You kind of saw this type of song writing with Lochness on their last release Angel Of Retribution, which I thought was a pretty god come back album. But it depicted the Lochness Monster as some blood thirsty beast preying on man in Scotland. Does anyone else kind of find that a bit hokey? So this next album is going to be 23 songs about the predictions of Nostradamus. We’ll see how it turns out and you can hear the first track from it on Monday here: www.livenation.com/judaspriest

Next on the concept list is Sepultura, or Andreas Kisser, Paulo Jr and two other guys. Their next record is going to be a concept album about the cult classic Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. Max did a concept song on Cavalera Conspiracy called Ultra-violent. I don’t know exactly what this will bring to the record either. If you’re an uncultured bastard and haven’t seen A Clockwork Orange, go rent it, keep an open mind and enjoy the brilliance of Stanley Kubrick.

Concept albums have been done here and there by various bands. Mastodon did one with Leviathan and that actually went over quite well, The Misfits did two of them as they usually do with American Psycho and Famous Monsters. Back when they were doing it with Glenn Danzig it was done much better in a songwriter sense. It wasn’t so obviously cheesy. While American Psycho was not a bad record, Famous Monsters was absolute garbage. A lot of Led Zeppelin songs were based around J.R. Token’s The Lord Of The Rings. It just brings me back to my original question. Are concept albums a sign that the lyricist has writers block and is turning to singing stories written by someone else?

Post from: Metal Martyr

I saw Slayer at The 9:30 Club in D.C. back in 97 during the Diabulos In Musica tour. System Of A Down opened the show with Clutch following…it was a long wait through System Of A Down because I had never heard of them before and their live show was absolutely excruciating. Clutch was pretty cool but when you have 500 or more people waiting anxiously to see Slayer your kind of screwed no matter who you are. Imagine your in a band going on before Slayer and while your an established band everyone in the venue is screaming “Slayer-Slayer-Slayer” before you even get through your first song.

Not only was this a great show because it was Slayer but I got to go to signing session up in Baltimore before the show and got one of my prized possessions autographed by the band. I have a copy of ‘Til Death Do Us Part, a studio rehearsal session recordings from 1984 on vinyl from Jester Productions that I found in a record store in Woodbridge Virginia that actually sold records and cassettes. As far as I know and from what the sleeve says there are only 500 of these out there and I got Slayer to sign the back of it. Unfortunately this was back in 97 and Paul Bostaph was the current drummer and while he is a great drummer, Dave is the one in the picture from ‘84 so he signed off to the side. Maybe one day I’ll get to see Slayer again and get Dave Lombardo to sign it. That would allow me to die happy.

Post from: Metal Martyr

1. Progenies Of The Great Apocalypse – Dimmu Borgir (I love the symphonic aspects of this band)
2. One By One – Immortal (One of my new favorite Black Metal Bands)
3. Angel’s Don’t Kill – Children Of Bodom (My favorite from Hatecrew Deathroll)
4. And Death In My Arms – All That Remains (This entire CD is awesome)
5. The Eagle – Light This City (One of many great songs on Facing The Thousand)
6. Dethharmonic – Dethklok (It’s Dethklok, nothing more to say)
7. In My Darkest Hour – Megadeth (This Song Never Gets Old…never!)
8. Believe In Black – Hail!Hornet (This is the band that turned me onto the souther sludge metal)
9. Skulls – The Misfits (I’m always liking older Misfits tunes)
10. God Luck And Good Speed – Weedeater (Another Southern Sludge Pioneering band I’m getting into)

Top Ten Cds

20 Years Of Nuclear Blast, this is a must! 20 years of Nuclear Blast bands on 4 cd’s. Jam packed with kick ass metal. Hands down the best label anniversary compilation

Children Of Bodom – Hate Crew Deathroll A new favorite of mine. I don;t know how I went this long without getting into Children Of Bodom.

Light This City – Facing The Thousand I said before that I have never been a big fan of female vocals in the metal genre, but Laura Nichole works well as does the rest of the band.

Dethklok – The Dethalbum I wasn’t sure what to think when I heard about this show, but when you hear the music you instantly fall in love with it all.

Dimmu Borgir – In Sorte Diaboli I’m still not a big fan of the gimmick behind Black Metal but I have come to love the sound and Dimmu Borgir Mix the symphony with the devil’s music…and it’s cool!

All That Remains – This Darkened Heart I can not say enough good things about this band and honestly a lot of you are probably tired of hearing me talk about them…be prepared for more.

Testament – The Best of Testament When I picked up this one I was just ashamed that I went this long without listening to Testament. Sometimes It’s amazing how you miss a band like this for so long.

grief of WAR – A Mounting Crisis Another new overseas favorite. Japan’s grief of WAR are phenoms at bringing back the old school thrash sound. Nothing polished and painted pretty here. Just thrashing.

Burn The Priest I haven’t the slightest idea why I have been into this one as of late. The vocals are incomprehensible but the music rips!

Yakuza – Transmutations Versatile Chicago metal artists Yakuza bring the metal and a whole lot more. Jazz and metal would normally not mix well…except when done by Yakuza!

What are the big hits for you so far this year?

Post from: Metal Martyr

Danzig (one) was their first big label sign with producer Rick Rubin at the helm. With better production settings and a good producer Danzig took the sound that was Samhain and molded it into a heavy rock groove. With songs like Twist Of Cain, She Rides, and lets not forget Mother, this record was a great start for the Danzig Legion and followers clinging to his coat tails since the Misfits era.

Danzig II Lucifuge. In my opinion Danzigs best work, Lucifuge brought more blues driven metal to the fans with songs like Killer Wolf and I’m The One while keeping the groove heavy and hard with Long way Back From Hell and Devils Plaything. Satan was evidently present during recording sessions now and was an avid listener of Danzig’s music. Blood And Tears took a 50’s/ 60’s ballad sound and showed and soft yet dark side of the band.

Danzig III How The Gods Kill was a slight change but still a great record starting off with Godless, which starts off heavy and slows down to the beat of the sound of pounding nails that are supposed to be depicting the nails being driven into the hands and feet of Christ on the cross. The title track How The Gods Kill starts off really soft and delicate and then BAM! it kicks in, the best track on the cd. Sistinas is yet another 50’s sounding ballad that just shows you that that’s where Glenn get a lot influence in his writing. Heart Of The Devil shows once again that the blues are alive and well in Danzig at this point and his vocals are a well oiled machine during this recording.

Danzig 4 id where we all noticed some kind of change going on. It wasn’t so blatantly obvious but we knew something was happening. The sound started to change a bit. Tracks like Can’t Speak, Bringer Of Death and Sadistikal were having this weird industrial sound to them. However there was still hope with songs like Until You Call On The Dark, Let It Be Captured and I Don’t Mind The Pain. in typical fashion there was that usual ballad of Going Down To Die which was a killer track and probably the best on the cd.

The First four Danzig cd’s were produced by Rick Rubin and as we all know you can’t go wrong with Rick. Unfortunately for a lot of Danzig fans,Glenn started producing his own records after Danzig 4. He changed the line-up drastically and the music started to have a more industrial sound to it. Lets move into the new era of Danzig.

Danzig 5: Backacidevil. You can’t blame the guy for trying to keep things fresh with a new sound but this was every Danzig fans biggest disappointment. If your a hardcore Danzig fan and you say you were not disappointed with Blackacidevil then your just lying to yourself. With such an industrial turn to the music a huge line up change and Glenn producing the record everything took a turn for the worse. 7th House is just an annoying wall of noise In fact this whole CD is just terrible and I don’t even want to talk about it. Even the Hand Of Doom Black Sabbath cover was bad. It has you thinking ‘This Is Danzig?”

Danzig 6:66 Statan’s Child was a turn in the right direction. returning to a better sound yet still not traditional Danzig sound. Five Finger Crawl was a mediocre track, much better than anything from 5. Even thought this album was better than Danzig 5, it’s still an easily forgettable recording. The best song on the CD is Thirteen, which Johnny Cash did a great cover of. I tried as hard as I possibly could to get into this cd, but just couldn’t do it.

Danzig 777 I Luciferi brings yet the same style sound from Danzig 6:66. Overmixed guitar also drown out a lot of the Vocals on this record. Kiss the Skull has a really heavy yet Marilyn Manson Beat to it, bland sounding vocals a chorus that becomes annoying after the first Wo-oh. Dead inside has Danzig slowing things back down to ballad form for a second however his vocals are weak at first and then song kicks in heavy and he sounds raspy. Another yet disappointing addition to the legacy.

Danzig: Circle Of Snakes doesn’t do much better. Hollow sounding snare, squeely/crunchy guitars become redundant. 1000 Devils Reign has a cool beat and sound to it, but it can’t hold everything together on this record. Most of the record sounds like garbage with the exception of Black Angel, White Angel which has a cool rhythm and overall sound to it. By this time Glenn’s voice is sounding old and horse. Obviously he has strained it over the years touring and recording.

Lastly The Lost Tracks Of Danzig. This 2 disc compilation of hits that didn’t make it, covers, or remixes is good for the price. The ballad Cold, Cold Rain on disk one is great but could have sounded better. The mixes of When Death Had No Name are pretty cool and even the cover of T-Rex’s Buick McKane. You should be dying is also a real cool tune on this set. The biggest downfall of this release is disk two. Disk two is where it all goes downhill and has all the stuff that didn’t get released while Danzig was producing. It’s mainly Industrial sounding. So not a bad addition to the collection and a much smaller disappointment.

In closing this is what I have to say if your now a Danzig fan but have heard a few songs and liked them. Don’t taint your interest by buying anything after Danzig 4. In fact you could probably do without 4 as well. Stick to the first three and if your really interested in the history of Danzig pick up Misfits Collection1 and 2 and Samhain Final Descent.

I didn’t include any live releases in this discography because I wanted to just generally cover studio recording and typically Danzig is Shitty live. Even if the live CD’s sound good, it’s only a few tracks. Danzig is not one of those bands that sound really great live…never has been.

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Post from: Metal Martyr

I cleared out my iPod Shuffle the other day and reloaded it with more variety of music then just all Metal like it was before. In the process I loaded every studio song from the Misfits. The old Misfits. This only took a fraction of my iPod space because as you know Misfits songs are pretty short.

Well these last few days when I’ve been listening in the car on the way to work or where ever, an old favorite (Misfits) song comes on and it reminds me just how much I’ve missed listening to the Misfits. Sure the Misfits aren’t metal and the closest they get to metal is the stuff from American Psycho, but it’s still good heavy, fun music. It’s dirty, raw, and to the point.If you ever want to take a chance and buy a misfits album, go and buy Collection I. This collection has the essentials to get you started to become a fiend. Below are a few of my favorites that are available on songza.com

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Now playing: Megadeth – Chosen Ones
via FoxyTunes

Post from: Metal Martyr