You have been good, children? St. Nicholas filled your boots with gifts, cookies and sweets overnight? I’ve got something sweet for you today kids. The ninth studio album from Boston ska punk band The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, “The Magic Of Youth”, released today, 6th December, 2011 on Big Rig Records will definitively cheer up your day. Sick of too much hatred? Sick of winter? Sick of another day? Well, this definitively gives another perspective, it will make a difference, will bring at least a sunshine. No emo-shit, no post-whatever, no alternative – or alternated – metal. This is straight, simple, charming ska/punk rock, served hot and full flavored. Read more The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – The Magic Of Youth (2011)
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Blackout Beach – Fuck Death (2011)
This album sounds like a mesh up of David Bowie with Brian Eno, a little bit of both of them and a twist of everything, a mysterious hellhole of soulful electronics and psychedelic post-whatever – intentionally avoiding the therm of rock. It’s spooky, but simultaneously quite fascinating. Its have charm, spirit – and ultimately soul, soul that is totally lacking from the music nowadays when everything is resumed to sound, production and trends. Well, this is absolutely out of trend, off beat as it says. But it feels good, I like it.
This is Carey Mercer’s (of Frog Eyes and Swan Lake) solo creations began as a project called “Bertrand Russell and the Country Club” and the first album entitled “Light Flows the Putrid Dawn”, was issued in June 2004 on Soft Abuse. Read more Blackout Beach – Fuck Death (2011)
D-A-D – DIS.NEY.LAN.DAFT.ERD.ARK (2011)
When the lights are out in Disneyland, anything can happen. This was Disneyland After Dark back in ’82. Then the lawyers of The Walt Disney Company showed up, threatening with lawsuit and the Danish rockers changed their name subsequently into: D.A.D., D•A•D, D:A:D and D-A-D, and each name practically represents a period in the band’s history.
The brand new album entitled “DIS.NEY.LAN.DAFT.ERD.ARK” was released on the latest fatalistic date of the human history: 11-11-11, while the album is another nice piece of the history of the band and a fresh set of pulsing, pounding hard fucking rock songs in the best possible tradition. It’s odd, but nowadays, two thousand fucking eleven, you need lot of guts to play – and release – a hard rock album.
D-A-D began playing together in the early 1980s in Copenhagen, Denmark, and they released their first EP in 1985 and have now existed for more than twentyfive years, with only one change in the lineup, as Laust Sonne replaced former drummer Peter Lundholm Jensen back in ’99. This is odd too for a rock band, isn’t it?
And they (still) got a good sens of humor. 🙂 Read more D-A-D – DIS.NEY.LAN.DAFT.ERD.ARK (2011)
The Prestige – A Series of Catastrophes and Consequences (2009)
I was digging at their MySpace profile for “skeletons in their closet” and I find only this at their bio: “We are a three-piece band from Paris, born in Jan. 2009. Stop reading. This is about music.” And well, actually I have to admit it: music is what exactly not about lately the music business. It’s kind of sick, twisted joke, but actually this is reality. So, let’s take fucking business out of music and focus on music. And one pretty good option might be this Parisian band – meantime becoming quartet – which delivering some quite impressive post-hardcore/post-rock/post-what ever you might thinking of noisy and head kicking music. This is not for trend followers, not for posers. Not for your underage kids too. 😀 This is serious shit and although “A Series of Catastrophes and Consequences” was released in September 2009, it’s still sounding absolutely fresh and brutally honest – honestly brutal. Read more The Prestige – A Series of Catastrophes and Consequences (2009)
Crown The Empire – Limitless, EP (2011)
As I suspected, new trend rising at the horizon, resulting from the mixture of emocore leftovers and the hursh electro/dubstep. Asking Alexandria get few steps ahead, but already there were a few quite interesting followers such as Given The Day or Crossfaith, not to mention the fresh Korn album which probably will considerably influence a bunch of other bands.
But Crown The Empire delivered an absolutely exciting debut EP consist of 7 intense metal butcheries filled with contorted electronic flavors, but staying metal and brutal.
And Crown The Empire is giving away “Breaking Point” for free by post their message on your Twitter – HERE – which, by the way is one of their great songs.
And no matter how reserved I’m regarding new trends, Crown The Empire kicks ass, but also know to write quality songs, merge musicality, quite singable elements with extreme, death metal like brutality. They future sounds quite promisful, trust me! Read more Crown The Empire – Limitless, EP (2011)
Korn – The Path Of Totality (2011)
They previous venture – and first album delivered to Roadrunner Records – issued friendly, achieved unsatisfactory results. Korn became a brand and it seems they get lost rediscovering their past by recycling it more or less inspired. After selling 63,000 copies during its first week in the US, and landing at number two on the Billboard 200, “Korn III: Remember Who You Are” has sold over all only 170,000 units in the US.
Guitarist James “Munky” Shaffer declared that they’re “definitely moving forward” and mentioned something about a song which reminds him Soundgarden. Than Jonathan Davis released a 14-second sample on SoundCloud in late March, of a new song entitled “Get Up!”, featuring dubstep/electro house artist Skrillex. Dubfuckingwhat?! 😀 Gee! Good that I had wrote about dubstep just a few days back. Still, if you want some quality dubstep, dig out the Brit Subsource – they are just murderous!
But honestly and seriously I doubt it that rockers/metalers will appreciate the latest trend riding from Korn. Read more Korn – The Path Of Totality (2011)
Venom – Fallen Angels (2011)
“Welcome To Hell”, their 1981’s debut album influenced literally thousands of bands, and while Venom were one of the first incarnations of extreme metal their giving the name of a brand new sub-genre of metal with their 82’s, second album: “Black Metal”. Although lending its name to the latter genre, today the album is often regarded as thrash metal rather than black metal. Venom’s music contributed to shape the style and to the development of many metal bands and numerous bands copying styles, themes and imagery from the band. Although even Metallica had opened for Venom on an early ’80s tour, Venom were regarded by many critics and some metal fans as “a trio of buffoons”, but also they had several conflicts with other musicians. In his Black Flag tour diary, Henry Rollins wrote about a 1986 performance when Black Flag opened for Venom and he mentioned that Venom was hilarious, with mediocre playing. Venom replayed by saying: “his band was useless and that’s why he writes books now”.
As teenager back in the 80’s I was quite fascinated by the epic 20-minute title track of their 1984’s “At War with Satan”, but honestly I never took too seriously their Satanic references. But also I have to admit that I wouldn’t bet back then that in 2011 I will listening – and really like it – a brand new Venom album. Read more Venom – Fallen Angels (2011)
Kill The Noise – Kill Kill Kill (2011)
Dubstep originated in south London, England, back in 1998 and the earliest releases were darker, more experimental, instrumental dub remixes of 2-step garage tracks attempting to incorporate the funky elements of breakbeat, or the dark elements of drum and bass while the term “dubstep” in reference to a genre of music began to be used by around 2002.
A very early supporter of the sound was BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who started playing it from 2003 onwards. Throughout 2003, DJ Hatcha pioneered a new direction for dubstep on Rinse FM and through his sets at Forward>>. Playing sets cut to 10″ one-off reggae-style dubplates, he drew exclusively from a pool of new South London producers—first Benga and Skream, then also Digital Mystikz and Loefah—to begin a dark, clipped and minimal new direction in dubstep.
Dubstep started to spread beyond small local scenes in late 2005 and early 2006. In the summer of 2005, Forward>> brought grime DJs to the fore of the line up. Building on the success of Skream’s grimey anthem “Midnight Request Line,” the hype around the DMZ night and support from online forums and the almighty media, the scene gained prominence after former Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs gathered top figures from the scene for one show, entitled “Dubstep Warz”, later releasing the compilation album Warrior Dubz. The show created a new global audience for the scene, after years of exclusively UK underground buzz. Read more Kill The Noise – Kill Kill Kill (2011)
Infected Rain – Asylum (2011)
Imagine a band which have some Pantera-like powerful riffs, plays mainly Korn-like twisted themes and have at the microphone a girl who may howling sometimes, but mainly sings like Amy Lee of Evanescence. But they also use samplers, insert contorted dubstep/drum’n’bass breaks and distorted noises in several songs such as “At The Bottom Of The Bottle”, “Judgemental Trap”, “Unwritten Letter”, etc . Not the usual/conventional metal outfit, but still extremely intense and brutal, Infected Rain build up their own blended style.
Formed in 2008, in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova – a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania and Ukraine eventually knowned for its wine and pretty girls -, they recorded their first demo in the same year and participated in Crimea at the metal festival Red Alert and played several concerts in Moldova and Ukraine. Read more Infected Rain – Asylum (2011)
Black John Wayne – Serenade Of The Black And Blues (2011)
This might become my favorite metal album of this year. It’s a hell of an album out of the blue. Black John Wayne? Are you kidding me, don’t you? And the answer is, well, no. This is absolutely serious shit. And brilliant. They delivering a killer combination of metal, hardcore and eventually sludge (and even sometimes blues) which sounds like a brutal collision between Slayer, Sick Of It All and Down. This is absolutely deadly! Trust me on this one. It’s been a while since I was excited that much by a metal release, altrough I had listen a lot of interesting products, some of them were quite heavy while others were gloomy and experimental. But this is different: quite groove oriented, full of hardcore energy and armed with cutting edge metal riffs, but also introducing some southern spirit and black musical ingredients (with roots back to blues and gospel), Black John Wayne are both groove and harmony oriented, managed to combine brutality and traditional taste-like musical elements resulting a quite original post-hardcore conglomerate. Read more Black John Wayne – Serenade Of The Black And Blues (2011)
