Corey_Lazarus

There's a decent White Zombie tribute album out there, Super Charger Hell, but that's really iffy. And the cover of "Thunderkiss '65" by, IIRC, Catch 22 is putrid.

Actually, you could always understand what Rob was saying. His lyrics were better back in the day, a lot more off-beat and nonsensical (similar to Danzig-era Misfits), but really: how can you listen to just the INTRO to "The Devil's Rejects" and not feel like you're in a 70's exploitation horror flick?

I think it has more to do with personal pride, actually. I'm a fan of thrash and death and punk, and I'll definitely agree that I prefer the American bands over their European counterparts. There's actually a quote I use to explain this, and it's from SLC Punk: That's something I actually believe in. When I hear European metal, I hear amazing technical proficiency. Musicians that know what they're doing and excel in their abilities. But when I hear American metal, I hear musicians that feel as though they just NEED to do this. I get a sense of urgency in American metal that I don't with European, a sense of energy, which is why I prefer my heavy music from the States. Fuck Dragonforce. They have solo's and...well, that's it. They're Stratovarious only a little faster. Slayer will actually explain it better as to why they pale in comparison to many slower power metal acts, but I believe he'll explain it along the lines that Dragonforce just plays fast whereas other power metal acts will actually write full songs. Iced Earth is alright, but there's too many songs of theirs that I feel are there for the sole purpose of letting Schaeffer show off his abilities. That's all fine and dandy if your name is Joe Satriani, but when you listen to a band for the songwriting and not the technical precision it becomes grating. Rend, check out Shadows Fall's second album, Of One Blood. It's their best work, almost sounding European save for a few songs, and there's rarely a dull moment. Plus...Fair does more than just scream about his life as a vegan and his spirituality. There's a lot of Shadows Fall songs I don't care for, most of it from The Art of Balance and the radio tracks from The War Within. You should really listen to "Those Who Cannot Speak," because it's almost the perfect Shadows Fall song. It has a pure epic sense, a good breakdown that blends metal and hardcore wonderfully, and it runs under 6 minutes (I believe it's actually under 5, but still: a short "epic" nonetheless). And don't knock Drop-D. A lot of good bands have played in Drop-D or even lower and don't resort to just strumming a one-finger chord or doing a bastardized White Zombie riff without the groove and with extra simplicity. Nile, anyone?

Ahem...Rock and Shock Festival this past weekend, where I picked up 3 CDs, and I grabbed a couple CDs I've been putting off getting for far too long Friday. Sepultura - Roots A classic Sepultura album, but then again all of the Max-era ones are. Not as strong as Chaos AD, but a fun listen nonetheless. Simple riffs, easy to see why so many nu-metal acts listed Sepultura as an influence, but they're heavy and catchy as hell. Not a day goes by that I don't randomly break out into "Roots Bloody Roots," and I'm fucking serious. Cannibal Corpse - Tomb of the Mutilated In truth, this is my first full Corpse album. I have the Worm Infested EP which I bought for the "No Remorse" cover (which owns seven different kinds of ass), and now...I like. A classic death metal album, and one of Corpse's best as I've been told, and it's just enjoyable gore throughout. Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV soundtrack Although it lacks the fine production and the varied punch of the Tromeo soundtrack, it's enjoyable nonetheless. The use of the songs in the movie are perfect, and when I recognize a song, it makes me think of that particular part in the film. In between each track is one or two clips from the film, but unlike the Tromeo soundtrack where the quotes came at the end of each song (which was a nice touch), these are stand-alone tracks and make the time between songs seem longer than it really is. Death - Leprosy The only Death album I'd heard before this was The Sounds of Perseverance, which is a little too progressive and not heavy enough for my liking. I'd heard that older Death was much more straightforward death metal, which is what I prefer these days, and...it's good. VERY good. While I can't say that other bands since Death's early work haven't done the style a little better, I can definitely say that if you were to play these songs to somebody unfamiliar with the band they'd think they were new. Whether that says that Death is still fresh enough to take a nearly 20-year-old album and have it sound brand new or that death metal hasn't changed at all in 20 years is up to you. Amputated - Gargling With Infected Semen This is my prize pick of the weekend. Grind mixed with a decent batch of brutal death and will gore and porn lyrics. It's fucking hilarious, and even my girlfriend loves it (and she's usually only into melodic metal). The billfold is filled with pictures of porn acts (including milk enemas and scat) and...children with Down Syndrome. The vocals leave much to be desired as they sound like little more than a frog doing a poor Chris Barnes impression, but the music is about on par with Skinless.

That's just fucking wrong and you know it.

That's what I love about you, Corey... you can be such a metal snob, its ridiculous. Just think: I used to not be. At all. I used to hate metal elitists and how everything with any hint of a fanbase was "pop music" and how newer metal bands were terrible but this one obscure band from Finland that WON'T tour and WON'T play shows is better even though it's just two kids with a guitar, mic, and a drum machine (I shit you not, I actually remember somebody praising some band that would never play a single live show over a band that toured extensively and wrote better music). But then I started to understand the way they thought as I grew older and got into more and more metal, and began understanding that it was about the lifestyle and mindsets just as much as it was about the guitar riffs. And the more I thought about it, the more I became an elitist. But what really pushed me over the edge was the feminization/emo-ization/commercialization of what some people call the "New Wave of American Heavy Metal," but most people would just call metalcore. It started off as an entire breath of fresh-air, taking the old-school crossover bands like SOD and the Cro-Mags and bringing it up-to-date with more recent metal and hardcore bands as influences, and now? If you label your band as "metalcore," your fanbase is likely to include bigger fans of Thrice and Thursday than it is fans of Death and Testament. And while I know every era and every style of metal has its "commercial" bands and its lame bands that get more attention than they rightfully deserve, it pisses me off that my generation gets the worst of the bunch with the likes of BFMV, Killswitch Engage, and Lamb of God. For fuck's sake, metalheads - REAL metalheads - fucking hated Coal Chamber when they came out, and Lamb of God is Coal Chamber with guitar solo's, and more people like them than more deserving bands like Darkest Hour and Tunnel Drill (though, to be fair, Tunnel Drill is more of a Mass "keepin' it local" band, but they're very fucking good and worth a listen or two)! I can't wrap my mind around it. Exactly. I saw a decent amount of kids my age when Maiden toured the States with Dio and Motörhead a few years ago. There are PLENTY of people in their teens and 20's who listen to older metal and like it, so grabbing an older band - or at least a BETTER new one - would've made much more sense. But they grabbed a shitty band that has little-to-no lasting power, and it pisses me off. Not every band on every bill has to be a knockout act, but when you're fucking Iron Maiden you should have some stones and do your best to tour with a band that you think might put on as good a show, or maybe even better, than yours.

I forget the author's name, but Heavy Metal: The Music and its Culture. It's a nice look at the history of metal and how it's changed over the years, not taking one side or the other (pro or anti-metal, that is) and just defining its sound and examining the myriad of sub-genres.

Yes. Yes I did. FUCK stupid-ass foreign names that I can't fucking spell.

Yes and no. It's actually DVDA - Trey and Matt's joke band - providing the music, but James does the vocals. At least that's what I believe the end credits say, because there's no track by Metallica on the soundtrack.

But that's my point: they could have done BETTER. There are BETTER bands that the younger fans of heavy music (read: fashioncore) who aren't 100% into Maiden yet would enjoy as a prelude to seeing one of the greatest live bands ever rock their fucking world. BFMV are pretty much the Kick Axe of the "metal" movement right now: they have a fanbase and get pseudo-mainstream MTV attention, but have a sound that lets you know they won't last.

The more I watch Boondock Saints, the more I like it. First time I saw it was after all the hype from my friends, IRL and online, and all the messageboard hooplah I've read about it. Fucking hated it. Was trying to find the plot in it, tried to pay attention as best as I could, and couldn't decipher why half of what was happening was happening. Then I watched it again. And liked it. A lot. Now I'll pop it in and watch it from start to finish without taking my eyes off the screen, noticing little things I didn't before. It's really growing on me. The flow of the movie is interesting - DaFoe's character explaining how he believes the murders went down (usually right, save for that "6 guys with guns" theory) and then the flashback of the actual scene - and the typical indy "deep" aspect by asking whether what the McManus brothers were doing was right or wrong was fun to inject into a popcorn action flick. Soundtrack is terrible because of how most of it's stock music because they couldn't get the rights to the songs they wanted to use, but it's a really good flick. Definitely worth a watch by all means.

Yes. I was forced to listen to them ad nauseum for a while by a high school fling/friend (long story, and I do believe I've ranted on her before) who was also into local indie act The Dresden Dolls. Needless to say, I've since done nothing but disrespect her taste in music. Oh, that reminds me... FUCK THE DRESDEN DOLLS. You are the reason the Boston music scene has died. I don't care if it wasn't too active before you got together besides the almost monthly DKM show. It's because of you that most Boston bands turned pussy and started singing generic indie bullshit, and I'm glad Robby Roadsteamer is bringing ballsy rock n' roll back to Boston and the North Shore.

An uzi is an efficient way of letting EVERYBODY know how fed up you are.

Fuck the Spike TV Scream Awards. Great concept - giving a deserved nod to horror and sci-fi since most awards shows don't touch them outside of the occasional special FX awards - but poorly delivered. I mean, for musical guests...My Chemical Romance and KoRn? One makes some sense since they're a popular act from the last three years, but the other lost most of its fanbase - and all of their mainstream "credibility" - years ago after their fourth album. Why not a performance from Rob Zombie, since he's a guest anyway? Why not a performance by Marilyn Manson or Ozzy Osbourne, since both have appeared on the show already? And why the fuck did they not have ALICE COOPER up there, since he started the whole horror rock/shock rock thing back in the 60's?! Fuck stupid new co-workers that ask you five times for directions to a place you've already taken them four times, that make you look bad by telling your boss how you make sure to lounge around until they (the boss) come looking for you, and that have no fucking idea how to take any fucking initiative when you're busy running from one end of the warehouse to the other to help a customer when there's another customer waiting to be helped. Fuck the G-ra, I want the machine that's been making 'em. Again...FUCK the Scream Awards. Best Mutiliation to fucking Hostel for ONE FUCKING EYE being torn out when another nominee is the entire dismemberment of that skateboarding kid from Land of the Dead? A scene that featured each limb being ripped apart, blood gushing everywhere, and his intestines being pulled out (you know, MUTILATION)? And fucking "SCREAM QUEEN" goes to Kate Beckinsdale for that piece of shit Underwold: Evolution? Eat my fucking bung. Fuck...I think Perineum would be an awesome band name. First album: It Came From The Grendel. Fuck those stupid-ass Helio commercials. It's a fucking phone, assholes. You use it to verbally communicate with others across a distance where verbal communication would otherwise be impossible. You dial PHONE numbers to talk to people not on your "friends list." Most cell phones have access to the Internet today anyway, so don't bother pimping that as your big difference. Eat shit and go puke it all up so you can eat it again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Fuck Carnival for his blind Jarrett worship when it's obvious to anybody with more than one testicle (or ovary, should they be female) that the man who once called everybody "SLAPNUTS" and who will be best known as "that redneck that hit women in the WWF in 1999 who lost to Chyna before he left the company" is ruining the company he and his daddy started. ...uhhh...FUCK...I'm outta rants...

I believe it was used on a soundtrack, I forget which, but it was originally off La Sexorcisto. It's really funny, because if your introduction to Zombie was Astro-Creep, like mine was, hearing the last three or four songs off La Sexorcisto is a kick in the sack because they're pretty much pure thrash metal tunes, like stuff you'd hear from Exodus or very early Slayer. Re: the max True, he's gone away from the amazingness of his WZ days, but his latest album - Educated Horses - is actually VERY good. John 5's blend of country and basic metal riffs makes for an interesting listen on its own, but Rob's addition of creepy noises and samples makes it all the better. It's true horror rock, as in it sounds like the soundtrack to a horror movie, which is what I believe Rob has been aiming for since he started making music.

...how is "Paranoid" an emo song, I'm wondering... And Agent, I agree that it's an amazing album from a technical standpoint, and each jam is as complex as it is beautiful, but I felt a little underwhelmed by how, I dunno..."radio-friendly" most of it was. The thing I really loved about Mastodon was that they showed that you could play brutal, sludgey music without disregarding amazing musicianship. Sure, that's already been done a million times over, but Mastodon really hit the nail on the head. I dig it a lot, but I'll always look back to the tracks I've heard off Remissions (like, half of the album) and Leviathan when I think of Mastodon. This may be their finest true piece of work, but I'd rather listen to the heavier stuff they offer.

I think it'd be much better after taking a perc with a six-pack. Now THAT would not only be full of hilarious spelling errors, but would also be quite incoherent.

Yes they are. But they also sell day-to-day items like lightbulbs and diapers, and also are in on the DVD/CD business now as well with discount DVDs/CDs.

Fuck not being able to sleep because you got a headcold.

So it's basically the Past, Present, Future release from a few years ago with less White Zombie songs and two songs from Rob's latest Educated Horses. A good introduction to his work with both White Zombie and his solo stuff, but I wish there was some pre-Sexorcisto White Zombie on there, like stuff off of Make Them Die Slowly and some of the earlier demo's. Not well-known by any means - fuck, most people think La Sexorcisto was the band's first album when it was really their third LP - but it'd be a nice touch. Eh...strong recommendation to avoid, even though I know most of you would anyways since I'm, apparently, the biggest Rob Zombie fan here. I'll prolly grab it for fun one day at CVS or somewhere else that sells these cheap CDs for $7 or so, but it's not a big deal by any means.

Nope. And it's a damn shame that I still hear Linkin Park once an hour on WBCN, but never hear anything even REGARDING Mastodon on anything but Mike Hsu's metal show Harder Faster at 11p.

I hate him so. He IMs me whenever I'm on to talk about nothing. We have no common interests. We have no common friends. We've never met. The only thing we once shared was we both belonged to the same e-fed. I haven't fedded since early this year, and I haven't fedded with him in over 3 years. I don't know why he IMs me, but he does. ...so until then, I will continue the rambling on and on and on, going on down to the Hotel California where I can check out anytime I'd like, but never leave...what, you ain't had that spirit since 1969!? What the flying FUCK? Oi!

There's assholes in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Fuck everybody. Niggers. Kykes. Spics. Chinks. Gooks. Cameljockeys. Crackers. We all die, we all bleed red, so shut the fuck up.

And fuck the politicians fighting to keep marijuana illegal despite clinical tests proving that it's less harmful than tobacco and alcohol.

Mastodon - Blood Mountain Read my review for Blood Mountain in the "Comments that don't warrant a thread" thread. Everything that can be said without giving a track-by-track review is. All you need to know is that the final grade is an A (94-96/100). Wednesday 13 - Fang Bang This album is a solid outing, though not as good as his solo debut Transylvania 90210 two years ago. If you've never heard of Wednesday 13, he is the former singer of both Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13 and The Murderdolls (yes, the side project of Slipknot where Joey Jordison played guitar). He plays enjoyable rock n' roll with an extremely overt horror theme (just about every song title on Fang Bang is a pun, changing one word of a popular phrase into something morbid, ie. the opening track "Morgue Than Words" and "Home Sweet Homicide," etc.) that borderlines on 80's hair metal and Walk Among Us-era Misfits. Overall, I'll say it's about a C+, not as good as Transylvania 90210 (which I'll give a B+), but better than most sophomore solo efforts.