Hail of Bullets combines a love for war history and old school Death metal in the vein of British metal stalwarts Bolt thrower.
Hail of Bullets continues this artistic direction with III: The Rommel Chronicles, the bands third effort since forming in 2006.
Filed under Metal Dan
We usually have these MP3 mashups leading into the year end podcast. I’ve had this one done but now that we’re not doing the podcast (more on that in the fan club) I’d put it here. This contains all of the genre winners and the personal picks, but it’s not clear what are what! Mysssteryyyyy!
Filed under 2013 FOWRies
Originally formed as a grindcore/D-beat band in the mid 80’s, Liverpool UK’s Carcass grew to be one of the most beloved and influential Death Metal bands. Their first album Reek of Putrefaction was a brief, roughly produced, and abrasive effort. Despite the bands dissatisfaction with how their debut turned out, it managed to catch the attention of the late DJ John Peel. Peel invited the band onto his show where they recorded an EP entitled ‘The John Peel Sessions’. The EP featured songs that would end up on the bands second effort ‘Symphonies of Sickness’. Symphonies marked a vast improvement over ‘Reek of Putrefaction’ in the production department, and marked a stylistic change towards a Death metal sound.
Carcass recruited British-Swedish guitarist Michael Amott(then of the recently defunct Carnage), to join Bill Steer as a second guitarist. The band then went into the studio and recorded ‘Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious’. The album featured a slightly more melodic edge, particularly in the leads department. Amott and Steer made an interesting team trading off different types of guitar soloing technique; Amott’s more melodic and influenced by the Swedish Death Metal scene, and Steer’s more atonal and decrepit sounding. The transition towards a more melodic sound continued on the bands magnum-opus ‘Heartwork’. ‘Heartwork’ featured a combination of crushing riffs with dual guitar harmonies, melodic solo’s, and Jeff Walkers savage shrieks. ‘Heartwork’ became a pioneering and extremely influential piece of work that continues to inspire bands working within the melodic death metal genre, to this day. Before the release of ‘Swansong’ Michael Amott made his exit, and went on to form Arch Enemy. Carcass went back to performing as a 3 piece. Taking influence from more traditional rock and roll, and combining it with the intensity of death metal, ‘Swansong’ -released in 1996- would become the bands final album before ‘Surgical Steel’.
Filed under Metal Dan
R.A. the Rugged Man (Richard Andrew Thorburn) has been in the game for a long time now. Despite the fact that he was originally signed to a major label in the early 90’s, and received support from big names in the business such as ‘The Notorious B.I.G.’, he was continuously shelved in favor of other artists.
He eventually made his full length debut in 2004 with ‘Die Rugged Man Die’, an album that contained some quality beats and guest slots, but ultimately was lacking in the lyricism department. Legendary Classics Volume 1, released in 2009, was a compilation that contained many collaborations and unreleased tracks spanning his career. Included was the stellar Uncommon Valor: A Vietnam Story from Jedi Mind Tricks’ 2006 album ‘Servants in Heaven, Kings in Hell’. The song showed vast growth in R.A’s ability as a lyricist and had me very excited as to what he would do next.
It was only this year that his full length followup to ‘Die Rugged Man Die’ was released, and while it was a very long time coming, it was completely worth the wait.
Filed under Metal Dan
I thought nostalgia was defeated. This is the part of the movie trailer where the camera rises up from darkness, filming a busy sidewalk and playing it back in fast forward. I really thought we’d gotten over it. Daft Punk’s album came and went, now most known for the backing song of that thing Colbert did instead of an artistic statement of any value. That was the monster suddenly coming back to life for one last swipe before it really died, I thought. Camera passes through the concrete, somehow ending up exactly in a lit, large sewer. A shadow grows on the center framed wall. Sting, followed by sudden cut to black.
I was wrong. Continue reading
Filed under John
THEME: Albums we liked and either couldn’t figure out how to podcast about or just straight haven’t.
Filed under necessity
Yeah! A podcast! We still do these!
This one’s from weeks ago, which is why what we talk about is just SO RECENT AND RELEVENT.
0:13 – Deafheaven
11:01 – Zebra Fucking Katz
20:01 – Even More About RAM
Filed under Podcast?
“It’s easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they’ve been fooled.” ~Mark Twain Continue reading
Filed under John
Fermata over Whole Rest 