Corey_Lazarus

Cryonic Disdain Cryptic Salvation Necromidus Xenotopia

Dude, I've been to a handful of BHC shows. I've heard a lot of Converge. I've hated it all. I repeat: BHC is all about Toxic Narcotic as far as I'm concerned.

I see The Calamari Wrestler on the shelf whenever me and my girlfriend go into Hollywood Video...and I try to convince her that we should get it, but alas: no dice. I'm gonna rent it one day without her knowing and then make her watch it. Though I have a feeling if I were to do that she'd respond by getting some awful z-grade comedy, like Band Camp. Oh, and cabbageboy, you really have no idea how awful some horror movies can be. Night of the Zombies will make you want to die. Just check out BadMovies.Org and read some reviews of those rated with a skull.

Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2 would have turned out much better if they were edited so that the first one wasn't ALL action and the second wasn't ALL dialogue. If they took one or two of the fight scenes from vol.1 and placed them in vol.2, and took a couple of the character-building scenes from vol.2 and placed them into vol.1, both would have turned out much better.

Converge is boring. BHC is all about Toxic Narcotic as far as I'm concerned. And snuff, sXe hardcore differs from others because EVERY SINGLE SONG IS THE SAME. Whereas your average hardcore band will have a lot of songs that are sarcastic, some about drinking, and others about politics, every single sXe hardcore band uses the same Drop-C tuning and generic double-kick drum style, and their lyrics are always about self-empowerment and honor. The words "destiny," "honor," "family," "friends," and "blood" appear in the majority of sXe hardcore. As for Lamb of God, Chimaira, and Hatebreed...yes, they are good live. I've seen Hatebreed live four times, three of which they were opening for Slayer and one time at WAAF LocoBazooka '02, and they do have an aura to them onstage that few bands can replicate...it's just too bad that they're awful. And yeah, Chimaira's been around since the mid 90's at least, but back then they played nu-metal, and now that metalcore is popular they play metalcore. And you're right, J0b, there's nothing wrong with being sXe. There's just something wrong with you as a musician if all you do is write the same song over and over again with little to no variation. And don't worry about never hearing of The Deepest Remorse. That's the metalcore band I fronted from August until earlier this month, and outside of the whole band having some good chemistry...they're not worth much. "Nation of the Dead" and "Oceana" are really the only songs, musically, that stand out, and that's because they don't sound identical to the other tunes (and I won't get into how Scott butchered "Oceana" anymore than I did in my earlier post). And really...how can you consider new Bleeding Through to be "great"? It's lame and Brandon's voice went from being good to being emo, and it's overproduced to all hell. The "gothic hardcore/metal" style they once had has become just generic metalcore, bordering emocore, with some small hints of ambience here and there. The Truth is the reason I don't even care if I go see them when they come back to MA in a month or two, and considering I used to kick myself if I missed them...yeah, that means something.

1. I agree entirely with Agent in that Mastodon owns every band on that list. Including my beloved Shadows Fall. 2. Yes, snuff, Boston is the base for metalcore. There's a few good reasons for that, but it all comes down to the Boston hardcore scene pretty much dying out because the bands involved started listening to Iron Maiden more than they did Black Flag. And Jobber, this is the actual way to write this list out... GREAT METALCORE: -Shadows Fall: The only metalcore band, as far as I'm concerned, that shows any diversity in songwriting. Only a handful of their songs feature the standard "chugga chugga" breakdown bullshit, and you can clearly hear the band's influences in their music (80's Metallica, Iron Maiden, At The Gates), and considering their influences are some of the greatest heavy bands ever...then yeah, that's a good thing. One of the only metalcore bands with a distinct sound. BTW, Brian Fair (vocalist) isn't the one doing the growls, more often than not. Jonathan Donais (lead guitarist) does the majority of the death growls, and he and Matthew Bachand (rhythm guitarist) trade off who does the clean singing (though it's usually Jonathan). -Unearth: Yes, their breakdowns usually fall into the "chugga chugga" bullshit, but they have one thing over most of the competition, and that is sheer energy in their music. You cannot, honestly, listen to "Zombie Autopilot" and not be impressed in you're even slightly into heavy music. Trevor's voice shines through despite his one-dimensional style, and the guitar work is just perfect in that one guitarist will be doing some insane metal sweeps and the other some generic hardcore backing, leaving us with a damn good sound. Average Metalcore: -God Forbid: Borderline metalcore. A lot of their stuff is pretty damn thrash-y, but due to the overusage of the "chugga chugga" breakdown, I'm going to have to call them metalcore. Byron's screams are sorta lame, but the musicianship for half of their songs is great. The songs often stretch on for far too long, also, which hurts them. -Killswitch Engage (all eras): All of their fucking songs sound identical to each other it isn't even funny. I own the Leach version of Alive or Just Breathing, and the only songs I can tell apart are "My Last Serenade" and "The Element of One," and that's because I heard them before buying the album. Every other song is pretty much the same with two notes and/or riffs being different. -Bleeding Through: This is Love, This is Murderous is a terrific album. Brandon's voice sounds amazing as he growls and screams his way through the majority of the tracks, and when he actually DOES sing on "Love Lost in a Hail of Gunfire" and "On Wings of Lead" he sounds reminiscent of Phil Anselmo (and that's DEFINITELY a good thing). It's just too bad that Portrait of the Goddess is overly redundant and their new album, The Truth, is glorified emocore in the vein of As I Lay Dying. -Avenged Sevenfold: "Chapter Four" is their best song, hands-down. Waking the Fallen is a decent album with some standout tracks, and they're fucking incredible live. Plus, they don't take their music too seriously, which definitely helps them in my eyes since I can't take their singer seriously (at least now that his voice is blown out, as his voice on "Chapter Four" is VERY good). Like I said, fucking INCREDIBLE live. -Darkest Hour: A lot of their songs are good for bashing people's fucking skulls in, but the newest album...I'm just not feeling. Haven't seen them live yet (which will hopefully change come the next New England Metal and Hardcore Festival, assuming it's not 80% shitty hardcore bands like it was in '05), so I can't talk about much there. "Oklahoma" is a good tune, and Hidden Hands of the Sadist Nation has gotten a few plays in my stereo when a friend of mine let me borrow it. -Trivium: Great musicianship here, and a few songs really stand-out songwriting-wise (namely "Gunshot..." and "Ascendancy"). The singer is terrible, though, and he needs to learn to vary up the vocalwork more than just growl/scream through the verses and sing during the chorus. That's every song they have in a nutshell right there, and it gets annoying three songs in. Very good live band, though. -Every Time I Die: Most of their work is great, honestly, but it gets boring after a little while. "Ebolarama" is good, as is "Kill The Music" and that one song whose title escapes me right now (but the first line is "what we're doing is so wrong"), but a lot of their other songs just strike me as filler. Good sarcastic take on the style as a whole, though, which I dig. -The Deepest Remorse: Well, for when they had me as a vocalist, and that's no just my ego stepping in, it's pretty much true. The new singer, Scott, ruined "Oceana" to the point where I can't even listen to it. The kid can't sing and has little sense of timing, and their reliance on "chugga chugga" to fill in the void between verses and choruses annoyed me a whole lot during practices. -Watch Them Die: With vocals that are borderline black metal screeches half the time, and music that goes fluently from hardcore to metal within one song, they earn the right to be called "average" until they either improve to be "great" or start writing lame songs and become "bad." Hopefully they'll improve, as I can hear some definite potential in them. terrible metalcore: -Sinai Beach: Lameness in musical form. Heavy for the sake of being heavy with no real feeling behind the music at all. -Lamb Of God: Mix the worst elements of Pantera with guitars that sound like the tech guy from KoRn tuned them and produced their albums, and just, in general, write annoying songs, and you've got Lamb of God. Part of my hatred for them comes from them being the favorite band of a few people I want to bash with the claw-end of a hammer, but most of it comes from them writing incredibly awful music. -As I Lay Dying: Yay for glorified emo with some growling during the verses! That's all they are: emo with some death growls thrown in here and there. -Scary Kids Scaring Kids: See above. -Atreyu: See above. Plus, they dissed Black Sabbath by saying they didn't influence hardcore at all (when, you know, heavy music wouldn't have been the same with Sabbath innovating metal in the late 60's/early 70's), so they lose points even more besides the fact that they absolutely suck and their fans are faggots. -Diecast: Nu-metal repackaged for nu-metallers that don't like nu-metal anymore and have moved onto metalcore. -Chimaira: See above. -Demon Hunter: See above. - Aside: -Hatebreed, Bury Your Dead, and Throwdown aren't metalcore, they're straight-up sXe hardcore (AKA the worst kind). I've never heard any of these bands referred to as metal besides by people who use the term "metal" for anything remotely heavy. -Underoath and Bullet For My Valentine are glorified emocore. -Candiria is just fucking terrible and should never be listed on any list as anything but fucking terrible. Wow, you can play jazz bass and write off-time shit and your singer can growl and then sing and then rap, good for you! Now write a fucking song that doesn't make me want to murder the lot of you.

Actually, it succeeds with the "villain is the focal point of the movie" aspect since, well, the villains were the whole focal point of the movie. Sheriff Wydell isn't in the movie for nearly as long as Otis and Baby are, or even Captain Spaulding, and he's the "good guy" of the flick. Maybe it's because I'm a blind Rob Zombie fan...no, wait, The Sinister Urge is a terrible album with only a few listenable tracks (and they were all released as singles), and I found House of 1,000 Corpses to only be good due to Bill Moseley's performance as Otis and Zombie's directing during certain scenes. Basically, The Devil's Rejects succeeds as the sort of flick it is - exploitation/horror - for nearly every reason you just gave for not liking it. It's what Hollywood was in desperate need of in a post-9/11 world: a film that pulls few punches. Plus, given the knowledge that the whole movie was completed in 30 days? That, in itself, is a triumph given how it was more coherent and better in a cinematography sense than the majority of films that have come out in the last few years. Really, if your only reason for not liking the movie is because of how sadistic the Firefly clan is and how it shows the more despicable side of good when Wydell gets revenge, then you shouldn't be watching these kind of movies. That'd be like me watching Saving Private Ryan and not liking it for how it depicted D-Day.

I was actually going to bring that up. Scaregrow Gone Wild is the best of the Scarecrow movies...but that isn't saying much at all.

Aye, I knew that. I used to watch Ultimate Muscle on Saturday mornings all the time when it was still on. I wonder if the Inverted Muscle Buster that Kid Muscle used is possible, because that'd be a sweet finish.

No, it's not. That's Xtreme Fight Club and going to be heardquartered in Philly, and is going to be on a much smaller scale. This promotion is being headed by Kevin Kleinrock's video company. There's another huge name that's going to be involved in the project, but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag quite yet. Heyman. Heyman is under WWE contract. Next.

I had the "pleasure" of listening to a Soundgarden greatest hits album tonight at a friend's house. Outside of "Rusty Cage" every song sounded...well, boring as hit. The drumming on most of their tracks is what puts me off about them, as it's just sorta...there.

They're pretty good. Outside of AiC, I'd say they're actually the best band of the grunge era (though they sorta hit it big right after grunge died). I can still listen to "Zero," "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," "Today," and "Tonight Tonight" and not get bored. Plus that song whose name I always forget, but the chorus is "the killer in me is the killer in me" or something. I love that song, but can never remember the title. And Machina wasn't too bad an album. "Everlasting Gaze" was good, and so was "Heavy Metal Machine." I also remember a few songs off Adore being decent, and their song from Batman & Robin, "The End is the Beginning is the End," is a damn good song.

Man...you guys REALLY need to pick up a few of the no-named indie releases at your local Blockbuster or Hollywood Video locations... Hell of the Living Dead (AKA Night of the Zombies) Most people here know that I'm a zombie fanatic. Hell, for a very short while, the movie board was owned by vivisecti, Satanico (IIRC), and myself with nothing but talk of zombie films. This is one of the worst zombie films I've ever, EVER seen. Terrible acting, lackluster special effects, and a good 20 minutes of the film's 90-minute running time is stock footage. Fuck, the only good thing about this movie was that every character dies at the end of it, and that the soundtrack was stolen from Dawn of the Dead (yeah, director Bruno Mattei stole the Goblin songs). Island of Death Excruciatingly horrible. This movie is what every exploitation movie should aim to avoid being: lame. The kills, while somewhat inventive, were just pulled off in the worst ways possible (and with kills such as a bulldozer decapitation, a man being thrown into a limestone pit during a rainstorm, and somebody being hanged from a plane 10,000 feet in the air), and...it just hurt me to watch it. Redneck Zombies There was one interesting part about this movie, and it's such a small scene that has nothing to do with the rest of it: one of the main characters drops acid and begins pulling the innards out of one of the zombies, and mistakes his pancreas for a squeaky-toy. Everything else...made me want to kill myself. Alien Resurrection The only "good" movie on my list. Completely ruined the entire series by throwing every little fact about the xenomorphs out the window (they don't spit acid, their whole bodies were shown when it was made clear in the first and second film that the reason they work as deadly killers is by camouflaging themselves in their surroundings, and the main characters were all the same one-liner wiseasses that are the solitary heroes in your average action flick) and bringing Ripley back with a shitty storyline (they cloned her...and somehow she had alien DNA in her, despite the fact that parasites don't bond with their hosts on any genetic level). Plus...HALF ALIEN/HALF HUMAN!?!?!? WHAT THE FLYING FUCK?!?!!? Return of the Living Dead 4 and 5 Let's forget about 2 and 3. They still followed the rules set forth in the first film (Trioxin 245 brings the corpses back to life, they run and talk, and they can only die by some form of incineration). In these two, the fucking zombies by BY TAKING SLUGS IN THE CHEST! And then, of course, there's the horrible acting, mediocre-at-best special effects (and I accept terrible dark blue facepaint and can lids on pullstring covered with putty as bulletholes for zombie flick SFX), and...gah. They shat on a horror legend more than the other two piece of shit sequels did. EVERY FILM BY BRAIN DAMAGE FILMS Seriously. Every movie I've seen by this company - Hell's Highway, The Zombie Chronicles, Dead Life, and Grave Vengeance - has made me want to stab people, namely the assholes who work at Brain Damage Films. Avoid all of these at all costs. Black Mask 2: City of Masks Not even the ownage of Rob Van Dam and Tyler Mane could make this watchable. Tyler Mane is incredible in b-grade action/horror yarns, and RVD is fucking RVD, who made the 10 minutes he was in Blood Moon wonderful (and, BTW, Blood Moon is actually a damn good action flick). It was...ugh. I sat through what seemed like an hour and a half, and then it turned out that I'd only watched half of it. One of, if not the, only movies I've ever rented and then returned without finishing watching it.

Most powerbombs, true, but the move in itself is plausible, so I can stretch my suspension of disbelief far enough to believe that most variations of the powerbomb are plausible.

So I heard this band the other night, I think they're called "Corn" or something...they kinda suck. My cousin had a demo tape of theirs from LA when he went on vacation there, and he saw them, and he told me I might like them. Dear Lord, they'll never make it anywhere.

The night before New Year's Eve featured a 20-minute conversation between myself and three people regarding why the new TMNT cartoon was better than the old one, and why the first movie was the best. It all came back down to the "Ninja Rap" as to why TMNT is better than TMNT2.

Difference being that a Gory Guerrero Special is only loosely applied because if it was locked on tightly it could tear your pectoral muscles. The Reverse Gory Special Driver is a decent stretch of the suspension of disbelief, but not so much when the person doing the move does it in one fluid motion (ie. Megumi Kudo, who I believe originated the move, with her Kudo Driver; Homicide's Cop Killer version which is more of a faceplant than a head-drop, IIRC). The Canadian Destroyer just doesn't look that believable due to Petey's small stature (he's smaller than most of his X-Division brethren, actually) and the fact that he usually stalls right before hitting it (making me ask the question of why his opponent just doesn't tackle Petey down to the mat). Though, I will say this regarding the CD'er: last week's Impact had a 6-man tag of Team Canada vs. Sabin/Dutt/Bentley, and the CD'er that Williams hit on Sabin was MARVELOUS in how quick it was (and thus pretty believable). Sabin was hunched over because he was hit below the belt, Petey hit the ropes, and BAM! CD'er.

I could actually see this becoming something that isn't terrible, honestly. Anybody remember the "WCW Lockdown" idea that was going to be used if WCW were bought by Fusient Sports and not sold to Vince? I remember one of the ideas being that there were hidden cameras all throughout the back to catch all of the action, and all legal dilemmas (save for outright murder, IIRC) were to be waived when occurring in the arena. Sounds promising, to say the very least. It will probably suck due to only being given a half hour to an hour a week, most of it being filled with interviews and extremely short clips of the matches, but hey: it's something new.

Only for Varg to escape from prison, stab everybody to death, and then get caught and sent back to prison, where he records another new album.

I'm lost, so I'm likely not behind the Green Glass Door.

Ah, so I misunderstood you. I thought you were trying to say that the scenes in the book were meant to be sexy, so I was like "wow...no they're not." But yeah, you're right. That's a thing that irks me about most directors: trying to make the scenes accessible. I don't want easily accessible scenes where the killer slices and dices his/her victim(s). I want it to be so graphic I can barely watch it.

The thing is that Benoit used to cut some decent promos in ECW...but that was thanks to the magic video editing. Most people that can't cut good promos don't just learn how to get better. It takes a worker either finding the right niche or just being naturally gifted to cut good promos.

Horrorpunk is my new favorite style of music.

Yeah. IMO, the placement of Bateman's nervous breakdown didn't help to construe that he really WAS killing those people. In the book, the nervous breakdown (the one at the phone booth when he's calling his secretary) happens either shortly before or VERY shortly after we discover he is a serial killer. In the film it happens after the majority of the killing. That didn't help it, IMO, stress that it was really happening.