Well as i previously posted up, there was an announcement made by one of the members of the army of guitarists that make up Guns n Roses these days that they were going to set out on a giant 2 year world tour. Well, not true. Current,one time,sometime,future….whatever guitarist Ron Fortus says he was miss-quoted and never actually mentioned any of this tour being set to go down. I’ll be damned if this doesn’t take some wind out of my entertainment sails! I really, really wanted to watch this circus from the outside and sit at home with my counter and see how many musicians ended up circulating through this band from start to finish.With the way science is headed and the size of Axl’s ego, we actually might have had a chance to see this band as five cloned Axl’s up on stage doing everything including spending 2 additional years per show just to get the stage set up. It could have happened folks, but it looks like many a good blog postings have gone by the way side before they ever even got a chance to see the lighted screen of a computer. Oh well, i am sure there is plenty of asinine stuff to come. Stay tuned. I’ll let ya know.
A video was posted up on the web recently of Morbid Angel performing a new song entitled Nevermore(look at the bottom to see video). This is good news for everyone as far as i am concerned. Even if Youdo not like Morbid Angel,I think the world is a much better place to live when we have new music from this band. Fan filmed concert footage is never great but this video is pretty decent and the song sound great. This new material is also going to mark the return of original bassist/front man David Vincent. i really like the direction the new song is heading, it has the same sort of fell on the guitar riffing as the stuff on their last album Heretic,I think this is a good thing. Its also nice to hear David Vincent going at it on vocals, he has a pretty unique sound which is not always easy to say in this genre of music. The new album doesn’t yet have a label or even a title yet, but it is expected that the title will begin with the letter I following their trend of releasing their albums in order of the alphabet and I would think a label will be pretty quick to pick them up,with possible Roadrunner being in line and i would also suspect that Koch records might be a front runner to pick this up. Anyway you go, we all win when this gets released. Here is the video. Enjoy.
Looks like good ole Axl is getting the band back together, and by band i mean all those guys he is trying to pass of as GnR. One of Axl’s revolving door guitar players made statement that the “band” is hitting the road in March for a world tour that is supposedly going to run for close to two years. With this bands current trend of band member swapping I don’t see how there are enough musicians in all the world to make this tour run for two years. At the end of 2 years the last few shows may not even see Axl himself on stage. The members of this “band” may change so often over a two year tour that Steven Adler may actually play a gig before its over. Hell in two years Axl might hire Slash,Duff and Matt back much to the joy of everyone only to kick his own self out of the band before they actually take the stage. This would only be fitting.Hopefully this two year tour wont go the way of Chinese Democracy and take 15 years to complete. Could happen, don’t under estimate the power of Axl to do whatever the hell he feels like. Anyways, i think you can see pretty clearly my opinion on the “new” Guns n Roses. The whole thing just doesn’t fly for me and that new record wasn’t even close to being worth the wait, but that’s just this man’s opinion. I’m going to end it right here and go listen to Adler’s Appetite or something, its as close to being Guns n Roses as Guns n Roses of 2008 are anyways. See ya.
Well, its Christmas day. I have dealt with the storm of toys that comes with being gone out on the road and letting Santa shop for “her” self.. I have to honestly tell you, i am brain dead and the news is slow. What i will do is name a few things things that we get to look forward to in 2009 because honestly, as hard as my creative mind wants to give you something profound and new and exciting…I just don’t have it. I am sitting here drinking Jameson Irish Whiskey listening to The Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza and loving life but I have nothing new to contribute to the world so I will tell you these things….
Lamb Of God will release Wrath on February 24. This is news enough to stay alive for a few more weeks. great live band, great studio band,great dvd band. Just a great band. Stick around for it.
Down/Hank III and Weedeater and Evil Army. February-March of 2009. Need I Say more?
Kilkswitch Engage expected to release new album in Spring of 2009. Leave my page right now if you aren’t at least interested in hearing this new album from KSE.
New Mastodon expected very early part of 2009. Again, if you don’t understand why this is important, just click yourself away right now. I’m not in the mood to discuss it.
Last but not least..We haven’t heard anything from the genius Trent Reznor lately and i cant imagine he is going to let 2009 get to far under the sun before he drops something cool and/or free on us, so a new year in it’s self is something to look forward to if you are a NIN fan. Anyways, I could probably dig for more stuff but Jameson’s is working on me hardcore and its Christmas and I feel lazy so this is all i have. If you read it, thanks. If you don’t read it, well i wont tell you anything because you won’t know anyways. Bye for now. More important news later.
Yeah, I gotta do the stereotypical thing and post up some “Metal” Christmas music, but I am not gonna give a a typical Christmas cover that your are going to hear on your classic rock station in your home town. Instead i will offer you a nice piece of trippy,crusty,grindcore,deathy noise piece by an outfit called Vomito. It’s a tune called Screaming of Christmasand it is a hell of a weird listen and if you let it keep on looping and playing it will almost trance you out. I am not sure what to make of it, all i know is I am not much in the spirit this year and i don’t really care for regular Christmas tunes on a good day so this is the kind of anti music that i need. Its not for everyone, not even sure if its for me, but you gotta listen to something Christmas related and you don’t want to hear the same old stereotypical stuff. Take a listen, its strange and its loud and it has the word Christmas in the title, what could go wrong?
I will start off by apologizing if it seems like I get going on bands from the home base of Tennessee to much. I think this is my third post already on bands from the Volunteer. It may seem like overkill but we have so much damn good metal here and have had so many bands either break out or come close that its just not right to me to not write about it and maybe send another listener or two their way. With all of that said, do you know the The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza? If you don’t, get off your backside and go find all you can on these guys. They started off in the Nashville/Murfreesboro scene in Tennessee, they always did their own thing and were always able to pack their shows.I’m not real good with all the genre/sub-genre flavor of the day,cool phrase to say titles that are out there but I guess if anything a lot of people would dump them into some sort of metal-core category although its a little more on the extreme side. Sub genre titles suck and all of us with any sense realize this and just let good music be good music.. None of that is important though, what you need to know is that it is just raw and chaotic,some of that stuff that really gives you the idea you should be tearing something up. Some of that cant stand still music. Song titles like Nobody Eats Barbecue Two Nights In A Row,You gonna Buy the Beers or the Whole Damn Bar,Big Pun’s Not Dead Because I Just Saw Him At Krispy Kreme and I Bet Heaven Looks A Lot Like Talladega make it seem like its going to be ironic wannabe clever silly stuff but its all serious business once the tracks start hollering out of your speakers.TTDTDE managed to break out of Nashville a couple years back and have been hitting the road in a serious way playing all over the country on some pretty good tours and opening for some pretty serious bands,The Red Chord,Psyopus,Unearth,The Devil Wears Prada just to name a small few. They most recently wrapped up the Agents Of Chaos Tour with Arsonists Get All The Girls,Architects, Stray From The Path,Abacabb and Beneath The Massacre. The last thing they have lined up for this year if you are in the area is a New Years part in Murfreesboro Tennessee at Temptation Club with Under The Earth. I highly recommend this as a place to go if you truly want to get your face shredded off with music. The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza have two albums you can get your hands on, the first being a Self Titledrecord,click on the link to pick it up from Amazon. The Most recent release is entitled Danza II: Electric Boogaloo. It can also be picked up at Amazon or HERE from SmartPunk. Whatever you do, at least go hit up their Myspace page and sample the tunes, its well worth the time. Again, sorry about Tennessee dominating the blog, all i can say is other places better start doing it better. Go Check it out. And Oh Yeah, how about that name?????
Fear Factory guitarist and once upon a time bassist Christian Olde Wolbers has a new project called Arkaea. The band also includes Fear Factory pummeling superhuman bass drum machine Raymond Herrera and Threat Signals vocalist Jon Howard and also Threat Signals bassist Pat Kavanagh. Arkaea has a demo sampler up on their Myspace page and it sounds solid as hell. You can definitely tell the influences of the two involved bands, specifically the Fear Factory part but it does sound as if Olde Wolbers has opened up his playing a bit and is venturing a little ways off from the prototypical Fear Factory riffs while still being recognizable. It’s a project i am definitely interested in checking out once the album is complete and out to the public. Speaking of that, just when will this happen? Well let me tell ya. Courtesy yet again of the fine folks with a seemingly overacctive recent appetite for metal over at Koch Records we will be getting this album March 10 of the up coming year if everything follows to plan. Looks like Koch just cant get enough of the hard stuff these days. This new project does look and sound like it has promise though and it should be something good to entertain the ears with until Fear Factory gets ready to gear back up again in the future. Hit the Myspace link up at the top and go check it out, and go drop Koch Records a line and tell them good job.
Disarray. Plain and simple just one of the best bands out there that most of you probably don’t know and should. Disarray was first assembled in Dickson Tennessee around 1993. The band was founded by vocalist and guitarist Chuck Bonnett.Disarray has gone through a few lineups over the years but has always been anchored and led by Bonnett. The band is currently rounded out By Vance Wright on bass and backing vocals and drummer Keith Feulner. This band has been around for years now and have been just criminally ignored and under rated for most of that time. Disarray were very prominent and leading members of the local rock scene of Nashville Tennessee in the early and mid nineties while recording and releasing 2 albums. Disarray was a self promotion machine and they pushed their goods to anyone that would listen until finally grabbing a record deal with Eclipse Records.Between 1999 and 2007 the band released 3 more studio albums, one(2002’s In The Face Of The Enemy) being produced by Dave Brockie of Gwar and another(2007’s Edge Of My Demise) Being produced by Gary Meskil of Pro-Pain. Disarray have toured the country from end to end and shared the stage and tours with Pro Pain ,Dave Brockie Experience, Gwar, Soilent Green,Pissing Razors,Crowbar and many others and released 5 studio albums and been included on numerous tribute and compilation albums but are still pretty well unknown to the casual metal fan. Disarray have one of the most slamming groove metal sounds to come out of the south and they deliver live every time. Bonnet is as talented of a guitarist as there is and his voice is powerful and tailor made for the type of metal they play. Disarray are currently performing a limited schedule but you can still catch them out and about in the Nashville and regional areas.Hit Their Myspace up HEREand do yourself a favor and listen to Punishment For Being Born and Piss on their page. Just check them. They have top notch guitar playing and riff writing, one of the best voices you will run into and a rhythm section that holds the pocket and grooves harder than just about any other bass and drums you will find. Hit them up and take a listen and get to one of their shows if you ever get the chance. By a disc or something, just check them out. They need to be known.
The List of bands for 2009’s edition of Warped Tour has been announced. All the venues for the shows have not been secured and listed just yet but the cities and dates have been listed.The tour will be running from June 26 through August 23. You can hit HERE to take a peek at the dates and cities. This isn’t really a metal tour but they always toss in a few bands to heavy it up a little, plus a little punk just isn’t a bad thing anyways and the Warped Tour generally has pretty good bang for the buck as far as ticket prices go and the massive number of bands you get spread out through the day. Anyways, enough with my ramblings, here is the list of bands for 2009.
3OH!3
A Day to Remember
A Skylit Drive
Alexisonfire
Anti-Flag
Bad Religion
Bayside
Big D and the Kids Table
Black Tide
Bouncing Souls
Breathe Carolina
Brokencyde
Cash Cash
Chiodos
Dance Gavin Dance
Dear and the Headlights
Dirty Heads
Escape the Fate
Every Avenue
Flogging Molly
Gallows
Hit the Lights
I Set My Friends on Fire
Jeffree Star
Less Than Jake
Lights
Meg & Dia
Millionaires
NOFX
Outernational
P.O.S.
Saosin
Scary Kids Scaring Kids
Senses Fail
Shad
Silverstein
Sing it Loud
Streetlight Manifesto
Tat
The A.K.A.s
The Architects
The Ataris
The Devil Wears Prada
The Maine
The White Tie Affair
There For Tomorrow
Therefore I Am
Thrice
TV/TV
Underoath
Valencia
Westbound Train
Okay, so this doesn’t completely classify in the metal category but I am going to give it the nod anyway. Sevendust guitarist Clint Lowry recently released a side project with his brother Cory entitled Hello Demons….Meet Skeletons. I give this the nod for two reasons.Wether you believe it or not, Sevendust is metal and very good. Two, Clint Lowry has a killer voice and is a very solid guitar player. This release is mostly acoustic and is said to chronicle different aspects and problems from his personal life over the past few years. I am a big fan of Clint Lowry and his work with Sevendust and Dark New Day and i say go give it a listen. If you are one of the few who still actually pay for music you can get it HERE and some of the proceeds will be going to Make A Wish Foundation with other charities to be added later. If you don’t pay for music, then I don’t need to tell you were to go, everybody has their own place.
In a recent trend that I am just enjoying more every time it happens, another band is just flat out for free giving away its new music with artwork and everything. Sweedish death metal project Torture Division recently completed the third three song installment of their trilogy. The latest entitled Our Infernal Torture can be downloaded here . The first two installments of the trilogy are also available for down load at the same link. Memebers of the band have stated that they started the project with the intentions of giving everything they record away for free.Torture Division does not even sell physical copies of their music and fully encourage everyone to download their tunes and post them up on torent sites for the world to hear.”Just get the fuckin’ thing out there. Have people discover the world’s best fucken death metal. Do the same with our two previous demos, thank you. After that — support us by buying our coming merchandise. All the money we get from that go straight into the recording of the first part of the next trilogy and future shirts. Just as we have done all along. No need to change a winning concept, right?” Tha’ts a direct quote from those guys and although it is a very odd way of doing things I applaud them for it and it really is looking more and more everyday that this might be the way of things to come for most bands in the not so distant future. Go check it out. It don’t cost nothin’!
Ok, so i just posted yesterday about Koch records and their very apparent and so far very good attempt at taking a big part of the metal game all for themselves. I listed some very solid bands and as I am reading up this morning i notice something that flew under my radar. Satyricon has also been signed on with Koch records as well and are scheduled to release their newsest album The Age Of Nero here in The States on January 13th. I hope Koch keeps up the good work. This is amazing to see a label grabbing up so much good metal in such a short time.
Lamb Of God are currently scheduled to drop their new studio release on Feb.24th. The album is going to be titled Wrath.Down below i am posting a video of a live performance of a brand new song from said album entitled Dead Seeds. This video was shot while on direct support for Metallica. If you havent seen it, then enjoy.
This may have already cross the radar for some of you but in what I consider good news, Alice In Chains is back in the studio to record new tunes for the first time in over a decade. Yeah Yeah Yeah, i know most people will just automatically right it off because Layne Staley is gone and can’t be replaced. While I agree that he will forever be remembered as the face of AIC and has a voice that won’t be duplicated and is as classic as anyone of our generation, I have high hopes for the new material for a couple of different reasons. The first major reason is Jerry Cantrell. While Layne was the face and had the voice out in the front, Jerry was the main songwriter and contributed heavily in the vocals department both with lead vocals on a song or two and with the unmistakable harmonies AIC were known for. Jerry is still there and more or less the leader of the band. He is still a fantastic guitarist and still knows how to write a good song if you have ever heard any of his solo stuff. The second reason is that new front man William Duvall actually has a pretty damn good set of pipes. He is not Laynes reincarnated ghost nor should he be, but he does the classic songs justice and i think he will bring some serious game to the table on the new stuff. Run through some clips on YouTube of live performances they have done with Duvall, the guy can sing. While it won’t be the same Alice In Chains it will still be Alice In Chains. Three fourths of the original band are still there and the music will still be recognizable as AIC just with a new solid voice out in front. I will be giving it a good listen when it comes out and i hope everyone will. People didnt write off AC/DC when Bon Scott passed and that band has managed to put out a few good tunes since then. Anthrax is tuning up their 4th singer as we speak. Van Halen went on to still be big after switching voices. Sure, its been a long layoff for AIC and that might be a problem when it comes to getting their name back out in the public at the level they once were, but the point is lots of bands have lost important faces and went through different front men that people thought they couldn’t do without. A lot of these bands have went on to keep successful careers and put out great music. Long story short. AIC in the studio. Don’t write it off before you give it a chance.
In the not so distant past when Hatebreed inked a deal with Koch Records I kind of scratched my head a little bit. That just didn’t make my list of logical labels I figured they would head to once they were free to shop. Well Koch then goes and gets In Flames signed, another pretty heavy solid pickup. Well i am reading through some news earlier and i see that two bands i enjoy quite a bit have new albums coming out in the first half of 2009,High On Fire and Throwdown. I hit the links to get the details only to find out that they both have new deals and are releasing their new albums through Koch. Looks like Koch is pretty serious about getting the metal department going. Another thing that excites me is the fact that V.O.D, the mighty Vision Of Disorder have a new DVD lined up through Koch and it just so happens they are also working on a new album that I can only assume will come out on Koch as well. That’s a pretty stacked lineup of bands they have managed to snag so far and they also have OTEP and Straight Line Stitch on the class role as well. Kind of nice to see another label paying a little attention to the harder stuff and keeping some talented bands signed up with a home. Good for Koch records and good for us when these new albums drop.
