Wondering Where Real Music Went?

[haVoc 0]

Ok,

 

I’m always being accused of being too negative so I thought I’d start my come-back article for Metal Sludge on a positive note. Now before any of you bitches start complaining that some of these have been out for awhile, I know they have--it's more a list for people who don't know, so stop bitching.

 

Fu Manchu: Start The Machine -- A lot of people were wondering if we'd ever see this album and now that we have, everybody can breathe a sigh of relief. Fu Manchu are making the groovy foot stomping jams that made them the legends they are today.

 

Black Helicopter: That Special Function -- A group that has written blisteringly emotional and crushing songs based on the ramblings of a drunk--amazing stuff. You can check them out on Traktor7 records.

 

Blacktail: Styrofoam Island -- Another great Traktor7 Records release. This band makes brutal, ugly, crushing, fist bashing music that is as exciting and riveting as it is destructive. A must for any extreme music fan.

 

Unearth: The Oncoming Storm -- These guys have been through a whirlwind of bullshit that woulda killed most bands. Instead they turned it into one of the best metal offerings this year. MetalBlade Records

 

The Black Keys: Rubber Factory -- I know, I hate the hipster style these guys sport but their drums and guitar blues jams fucking kill. Great song writing and a haunting voice make it one of my favorites for this year. Imagine the White Stripes--but good. Epitaph Records.

 

Bury The Needle: S/T -- I was introduced to these guys first when they played live and just slapped me around. Heavy, thick and pounding but with a hint of dark humor, really great shit.

 

Witchcraft: S/T -- Imagine if a super psychedelic, drugged out seventies rock band went through a time machine and landed in 2004. They took a look at all the modern equipment and said "fuck it, let's still make shit with old gear!" Instead of striving for a seventies super rock sound, these guys just have it, in spades.

 

Neurosis: Eye Of Every Storm -- I think this is the best thing they've released since Enemy Of The Sun, but that's me. Evil, heavy and still with that dark emotional core that makes Neurosis one of the only bands to have NEVER released a sub-par album. Relapse Records.

 

Throbbing Gristle: Box Set -- IT'S A FUCKING THROBBING GRISTLE BOX SET--I DON'T NEED TO EXPLAIN IT!!!

 

Backstabbers Inc: Kamikaze Missions -- While everybody else in hardcore is styling their hair and singing like a bunch of bitches--Backstabbers Inc have made a fast, brutal and crushing hardcore album. All you other bitch ass bands should take a listen. Trash Art Records

 

Mastodon: Leviathan -- Simply one of the best single slabs of metal I've heard in years. The first riff will make you scream “Holy Nuclear Assault Batman” and the songs just get better from there. Mastodon are head and shoulders above everybody else, period. A concept album about Moby Dick written by masters of their craft, it just doesn't get any better. Relapse Records.

 

Lamb Of God: Ashes Of The Wake -- Even though I didn't get a shout in their two page long "thank you" list, I can't deny the power of the record. The constant fight to see what's more hateful, the lyrics or the music makes Lamb Of God top dogs at what they do. This is like a heavy metal tour through the darkest part of the human soul, it can both wear you out and invigorate you at the same time. Hopefully being on a major won't fuck them because I'd like to see these dudes around for a really long time.

 

Shadows Fall: The War Within -- Another band laying the smackdown on me thank you wise, but ah well, they still made a killer fucking record. It’s like Testament for the new millennium with a brutality that’s tempered only by a great style for writing songs. You also need to dig the leads -- dude, remember leads!!! Great shit from a great band. Century Media Records.

 

Wolf: Evil Star -- Snatching the torch from Iron Maiden Wolf deliver a seriously great third album, complete with their trademark old school metal riffs and vocals. Some people bitch on this band but fuck ‘em, I love it. Prosthetic Records.

 

Gonga: S/T -- While a lot of the “stoner rock” genre makes me ill because it’s the same guitar effects written with the same “oh feel like you’re in the desert” tempo -- sometimes it strikes gold. These guys simply rock and crush and maim and destroy -- all with a Sabbath groove. If you dig the sludgy, thick guitars -- you need this album. Tee Pee Records

 

Today is The Day: Kill The Pigs -- Ever been punched in the face by a professional boxer with broken glass covering his fist -- if not then you haven’t experienced the lavish beatdown of TITD. Kill The Pigs is confrontational both musically and lyrically and Steve Austin pulls no punches. At the end you don’t know whether to celebrate, cry or just hide—powerful stuff. Relapse Records.

 

Japanische Kampfhorspiele: Hardcore Aus Der Ersetn Welt -- Rarely do I get anything in the mail that amounts to more than bad hardcore but holy shit did I get knocked for a loop with these guys. JK are a blend of hardcore, thrash, death metal and grindcore but instead of meandering through various genres they’ve whipped it into a frenzy of nut-kicking heavy music that literally blew me away. Check out Bastardize Recordings for these guys -- holy shit!!!

 

Pig Destroyer: Terrifyer -- Another band that can do no wrong in my eyes. These guys are consistently fucked up, evil and mean spirited as only the bastard son of thrash, grind and death could be. The lyrics are evil, the music is ugly -- God I fucking love these guys!!!

 

Well, those are some of the things blasting from my CD player lately, you may know about all of them, some of them or none of them but hey, I hope I helped a little. I’m also into the new Dillinger Escape Plan, rarely is a record released that I love but can’t describe, just go get it. I hear Witchery is in the studio, and that fucking rocks. The new Helmet record sucks incredibly, thanks Paige for ruining the legacy Helmet had left behind. Well, I’m going to go back into the world and see what pisses me off -- be back soon.

 

Credit: Metal-Sludge

 

Can anyone fill me in more about The Black Keys? They sound like something I could be interested in.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I just bought that Mastodon cd. Haven't got the chance to listen to it yet, but it's probably really good. I doubt I say anything retarded like he said I would though.

[SinToxic 0]

My friend is into the black keys, they're basically a garage punk rock band with a twist of blues. All 3 albums are good, especially thickfreakness, so i've been told.

 

The list is pretty fresh but these bands offer just what you expect them to offer, nothing more and nothing less.

 

If you want something heavy with a kinky twist try bands like Ram-Zet and Ensoph, they are a joy.

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

I just bought that Mastodon cd. Haven't got the chance to listen to it yet, but it's probably really good. I doubt I say anything retarded like he said I would though.

 

Oh lordy man, you have picked yourself up a gem right there. Resides at the top of my album of the year listing along with the new Woods Of Ypres album.

 

The list is pretty fresh but these bands offer just what you expect them to offer, nothing more and nothing less.

 

Yes because the Neurosis album is so very much like their previous one. Which band's are you referring to here?

 

If you want something heavy with a kinky twist try bands like Ram-Zet and Ensoph, they are a joy.

 

I don't quite know what a 'kinky twist' in metal is, but I'm just going to say Mastodon - Leviathan again.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

I need the new Shadows Fall album, dammit! Alas, no money...

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

This cd fucking kills. I like it even more than the new Dillinger. The fact that I cannot describe Mastodon makes me like them more.

[Nighthawk 0]

That's it, now I'm gonna buy it.

[Steviekick 0]

Out of that list, the only two albums that I'm excited/interested about are the Shadows Fall adn Today is the Day.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Mastodon is the best heavy metal band to come out in the last five years, at least.

[SinToxic 0]

I just bought that Mastodon cd. Haven't got the chance to listen to it yet, but it's probably really good. I doubt I say anything retarded like he said I would though.

 

Oh lordy man, you have picked yourself up a gem right there. Resides at the top of my album of the year listing along with the new Woods Of Ypres album.

 

The list is pretty fresh but these bands offer just what you expect them to offer, nothing more and nothing less.

 

Yes because the Neurosis album is so very much like their previous one. Which band's are you referring to here?

 

If you want something heavy with a kinky twist try bands like Ram-Zet and Ensoph, they are a joy.

 

I don't quite know what a 'kinky twist' in metal is, but I'm just going to say Mastodon - Leviathan again.

Let me get this out first, I am in no way trying to come off as a "smarter" music listener but I just can't stand one-dimensional metal, unless it's from the classic era where most of it was original.

 

Mastodon's Leviathan was a fine album but it bore me after few weeks and with most of my collection I don't get bored.

 

I was just trying to intro you guys on some bands that might take awhile to get into but after you're there you're staying and you're finding new things with each listen.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Mastodon does that...

[Nevermortal 0]

Yeah, so this Mastodon is cool.

[Nighthawk 0]

Pretty sick album. I didn't expect it to be that funky, but that's a pleasant surprise.

[Red Baron 0]

Picked up the new Mastodon and Megadeth CD, and neither of them have left my CD player

[Placebo Effect 0]

Mastodon's been in my car's CD player for the past few days. Very, very good stuff.

[Nevermortal 0]

The guitar riff in "Megalodon" at the 1:18 mark is just ridiculously southern and great.

 

I love this album so much.

[Nighthawk 0]

You know, I think that's part of what makes them a good band. You can tell they're from Atlanta. You don't see a band's roots show in this genre as often as you should.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Mastodon does that...

Clarification:

 

I was replying to

was just trying to intro you guys on some bands that might take awhile to get into but after you're there you're staying and you're finding new things with each listen.

this.

 

not

Mastodon's Leviathan was a fine album but it bore me after few weeks and with most of my collection I don't get bored.

this. The latter statement is illogical, but not quite to the level of

I just can't stand one-dimensional metal, unless it's from the classic era where most of it was original.

this one.

 

I don't like one dimensional metal that much either, and Mastodon is anything but one dimensional. They're coming at "extreme" metal with a southern sound, almost. They're so technically superior though, so it almost sounds progressive at the same time..the vocals are constantly changing, and the rhythm section is less a rhythm section and more of a..a..something else entirely. The only thing one-dimensional about them is that they are also completely original. Name another band that sounds like Mastodon. Seriously now.

[Nighthawk 0]

They do jazz drumming, really. Also, I crashed my car while playing the Mastodon cd. Now that's rawk.

[haVoc 0]

Could America Just Be That Stupid?

 

by Iann Robinson

 

Sometimes, when I’m tired, I step back and look at the raging battle between the underground music scene and the world of Commercial Music and I start asking myself: what are we fighting for? Day in and day out I hear kids bitching about why such and such band isn’t huge, why do video music channels suck so badly, how come Mastodon and Slayer aren’t really played on major radio stations? We like to chalk it up to some grand conspiracy within the walls of MTV and Clear Channel, but what if that’s not it. What if we’re fighting an opponent that’s just too stupid to understand what they’re doing? It might just be that 90% of America is too fucking stupid to appreciate or understand underground music and we’re all just screaming at a wall trying to get them to see it our way? What’s a huge seller in the music world right now? Usher, Britney Spears, Maroon 5? It seems to me-- and people like me-- that anybody with the propensity for rational thought could see that these “artists” are cardboard cutouts raised and groomed to sell a music product—not music. For awhile Limp Bizkit was huge, so was Disturbed and Saliva—I mean for fuck’s sake: SALIVA. These bands suck on so many levels it seems to us standing in the corner with the Obituary T-shirts on that they should be laughed at. Instead they’re trumpeted as metal, as something that’s part of the same scene as Slayer and Celtic Frost---BULLSHIT.

 

Most of the time large scale success is reserved for bands that are just awful. Success may happen on a small level for bands like Lamb Of God, Cradle Of Filth, Shadows Fall and Mastodon but after awhile the raw power and unforgiving music of those bands scare the audience and it’s back to Disturbed shouting “Oh waah ahh ahh” in front of sixty thousand screaming jocks. Do you really want to be part of what I call “Ignorant Metal”. Usually it’s surrounded by frat guys hiding in metal t-shirts and their idiot girlfriends who are dressed up in fifties gear and shaking the oh-so-irrelevant “metal horns”, and yes once Paris Hilton and the guy on The Amazing Race start using the metal horns, they are IRRELEVANT. I sure as hell don’t want that representing me. Some say that the video channels and radio stations have the power to persuade the American masses. If they’d play good music, everybody would be into good music. What if that’s not true, what if trying to get mass-mall-America to buy underground music is like feeding a Grizzly Bear a salad—they don’t know what it is, what to do with it and they sure as hell don’t want it.

 

I used to hate the bands for making the music but now it seems like they just don’t know any better. Maybe getting angry at Breaking Benjamin or Cold for not being good bands is like getting mad at kids in the Special Olympics for not being professional athletes—it’s just wrong. Some of you might think it’s just the metal scene but look around, this championing of mediocrity seeps into every music genre. Remember when hardcore and punk were scary, brutal and spit in the face of the status quo? Now look at it, it’s a homogenized fashion show with bands that really try to prove that they’re aggressive but it all ends up sounding like hardcore for girls. Why is that? Why didn’t Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Black Flag and so on become huge? Is it a conspiracy or is just that America is too stupid to understand those bands and needs something easily digested and pretty to look at. When Nirvana hit big everybody thought “Oh, ok, here’s the entrance of great music into the mainstream.” Well, no, that didn’t happen. The Melvins, Sonic Youth, The Pixies and such didn’t get huge—instead it was Bush, Stone Temple Pilots and Candlebox. The so called indie scene didn’t get huge with Guided By Voices, Superchunk or Husker Du. That scene didn’t get big until bands like The Strokes, White Stripes and Interpol came along with their re-hashed retro sound and polished good looks.

 

It seems like popular culture in America is just too shallow to appreciate the music that might actually make a difference so why try and force the issue? Look at Europe, Japan and South America. So many bands go there and play to huge crowds, with fans that go apeshit when they arrive. Bands can play two thousand seaters to stadiums in those places and then they come back here and play to 500 people —why is that? Don’t get me wrong, I love America, I just think we’re wasting a lot of energy trying break down walls that are better left up. Fuck ‘em, let them have the bad hardcore, nu-metal, shitty indie and the rest of the paper thin bands that try to front like they matter. Keep the underground music world within itself, let it grow naturally, don’t be cliquish—let anybody come in who wants to but if they want to leave, show ‘em the door. My whole point is that why fight to be part of an American landscape that doesn’t want us around and are too stupid to understand what we’re doing anyway. I don’t really want popular acceptance that much—do you?

 

Credit: Metal-Sludge

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Oh shut the fuck up, Robinson. Mastodon and Slayer are both famous enough to where anyone who knows anything about metal has at least heard of them. Where's your love for TOTALLY independent metal acts like Avulsed or Nunslaughter? Yeah, granted, both of those bands suck, but he's making a mockery of himself there for championing independence and making fun of the American public. That's old hat.

 

If you're going to be an elitist metal zine dork, at least go the full monty.

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

Snip Paragraph 1

 

Iann Robinson has just started a column by doing something that he hates. He just wrote a nu metal song similar to the most typical and banal Limp Bizkit rejection ranting.

 

I'm pretty sure that nobody is stupid enough to lump Mastodon and Slayer into the same scene as Bizkit/Saliva etc unless they are connected by the fact that the listener happens to listen to both those types of music. The...."scenes" only get connected via Ozzfest type super festival tours that include billions of bands.

 

Snip Paragraph 2

 

 

Lamb Of God, Shadow's Fall, Cradle Of filth, Mastodon are failed examples here. Cradle Of Filth are certified platinum and Shadow's Fall are being groomed as the next Metallica. They're going to be right there in the future and I have no doubt that they will be charted highly on coming albums. Lamb of God and Mastodon (he's front running HARD for mastodon, ain't he) are at, or are going to be at the point of their bands being their only needed source of income. I'd say for an... 'intelligent' metal band that's a pretty good career.

 

Do you really want to be part of what I call “Ignorant Metal”.

 

Uhhh...Heavy Metal isn't actually rocket science. Not like Lamb Of God and Shadow's Fall have become a trend or anything...

 

does anyone really care about keeping the "metal horns" anymore?

 

As far as big music feeding "underground" music to the kids...I don't give a shit. The only negative is that they would probably start their own bands and then disgustingly misuse the influence of good metal bands and create a beast that is just as bad as the music Idiot Boy is complaining about here.

 

Snip this retarded paragraph numero 3

 

Iann just comes off jealous of the fact that his unwashed, crusty Obituary shirt wearing ass is never going to be 1/10 as successful as Cold. Now he's in the mode of lashing out to make himself look good somehow by appealing to the lowest common metal fan denominator. If Metal Sludge has a feedback section, I'm sure it will be flooded with "YEAAAH FUCK SALIVA DUDE, CELTIC FROST FOREVER \m/" and " Shadows' Fall rule s man!!!!! \m/ \m/" thus justifying the column and not actually making him actually think of what he's saying.

 

I mean, fuck, the shit he's written about here, I got over when I was 17 years old.

 

Snip the (thankfully) final paragraph

 

Yeah, maybe America is to stupid to get the super intelligent musicality of *snicker* Shadow's Fall and Lamb Of God of Geniuses. That's why everyone loves Europe metal culture. America isn't without metal shows/tours. America isn't without great bands. Instead of writing these columns diverting attention away from proper promotion of these bands, how about you just write a column that has no contrived nU Metal bitching and pissing and whining and a whole ton of good words about unknown groups. Maybe you could throw down the hot tours and advertise unsigned bands.

 

Big music doesn't give a shit about Iann Robinson and Metal Sludge, so why give them this attention that looks like it's written like a numetalpop song?

 

Big music be damned, Heavy Metal is just fine. sales wise it's doing better than ever.

 

People should give a listen to Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk, or A Blaze In The Northern Sky, or Leviathan(I'm frontrunning now I guess), or Pierced From Within, or Serenity In Fire.

 

They'll then see that publicity isn't needed and it's a lot easier to ignore the popular music business.

[Nevermortal 0]

Needs more Lividity.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

Are they your favorite band now?

[Guest Temet]

Black Keys are a very funky dirty blues-rock duo. Check out "Thickfreakness", "10AM Automatic" and "Set You Free." The new CD hasn't been out of my CD player since I bought it two weeks ago.