Heavy Street

The doom masters have done it again. One of the most consistent bands in the doom scene put out another solid record….and could you even think any different? Lee Dorian probably never expected that Cathedral would be able to continue twenty years on, but not only have they continued, they are still able to put out solid stuff.

Out of all the bands that came out of Los Angeles after the GNR Appetite explosion of 1987, The Hangmen were the most solid, and original of the bunch. Their self titled album came out in 1989 and has remained timeless. The album was produced by Vic Maile who’s long resume list includes Motorhead, The Kinks and Jimi Hendrix. While other  eighties hard rock producers like Tom Werman and Ric Browde were getting this thin, mid range production that has timed itself into a certain era and now sounds totally dated (listen to those eighties Twisted Sister and Motley Crue albums and try to tell me different), Vic got a raw, garage sound out of The Hangmen. This style of production complemented The Hangmen, as they were pretty much a nononsense kind of punkish rock band ala MC5, and The Stooges.

The first time I heard Carcass, it scared the shit outta me. It was unlike anything I had heard before.  At the tender age of eighteen, I did not know what to make of this unholy gurgling, vomiting, stench of mess. I tell ya, listening to Reek Of Putrefaction was the equivalent of watching Henry:Portrait of a Serial Killer. I felt dirty, gross and just wanted to take a shower afterwards. And talk about songs titles, this band had it all….from “Regurgitation of Giblets”, to “Crepitating Bowel Erosion”, and “Swarming Vulgar Mass of Infected Virulency”.

Carcass may have been lumped in with other bands in the death metal genre, but they were unlike any of their peers at the time. From first listen of the early Carcass records, it may sound like the flushing of an over filled toilet, but after a few spins it all starts to make sense. You then figure out the choruses behind the grind and youre hooked for life. Some of my death metal friends give me grief for calling Carcass a “hard rock” band. I give them the term out of respect, cause if you take the static grind out from the face of the tunes, you get catchy as hell songs that you can sing to…well if you ever memorise the complex medical dictionary lyrics.

Bands like Carcass also never had to rely on throwing blast beats into the whole song, instead they used it when it was necessary, this could not be said with most death metal bands back then, and even now. Carcass was all about bringing feel & aura to the mix, not just an endless, buzzing, repetitive wall of noise.

One of the great things also about Carcass was that unlike most other death metal bands, the band did not have a very high turnover rate of musicians coming and going. It was for the most part a stable line up of Jeff, Bill, Michael, and Ken. So many bands have tried to take from Carcass’s sick, pungent recipe, but have failed miserably in recreating the vomit inducing sounds of the true gore kings. Carcass is one rotting corpse who’s stench never gets old.

Dont know how much of a truth there is to this, but Scorpions & Ratt may be doing a US tour this summer. Yee-hah!!!! if this is fact. This tour will sell out arenas all across US & Canada, as both bands are more popular now then they were in the early nineties when the bottom fell out from the hard rock scene.

If Judas Priest era Painkiller & Stryper had a love child, it would be Shadows Fall. I have given the songs off all their albums an open try, but every time the sugary, sappy chorus kick in, that’s it Im done.  I don’t think the singer of Shadow’s Fall has ever figured out whether he wants to be Phil Anselmo or Michael Sweet. This album is no different than their past efforts.

Exodus as I have mentioned before were one of the most underrated bands in the eighties thrash scene. They always say the “big four” …well to me it  was always the “big five”. If any thrash band out there has been the most consistent, it’s gottta be Exodus. How they still create thrash metal albums more ferocious and solid then what they put out in the first part of their career in the eighties I will never know.

For “true” metal fans (I hate that term….BARF!), this Iron Maiden & Dream Theatre tour is their wet dream come true. This is a pairing of atomic proportions my friends.  It’s like the leaders of the dungeons & dragons themes meets the prog metal maestros. The only difference between the last Iron Maiden tour and this one is that they will be playing new songs off their record that is being released soon. I will decide to see this tour when I hear the new batch of songs, as Maiden will most likely be playing many of the new songs live and I don’t want it to be a snooze fest, as the last two records were let downs for me.

The show I caught two years ago was perfect as it was just songs from 1978 – 1991 (what more could a Maiden fan ask for!). As for Dream Theatre, its not that I hate their style of proggy metal, it’s just that I cant handle more then 5 minutes of their singer James LeBrie’s operatic vocals (the thing I hate most about prog metal bands of this ilk). With that said guitarist John Petrucci & drummer Mike Portnoy are musical gods that should not be messed with in a sound off. This tour of course will sell out all across Western America as Iron Maiden are now on top & more popular then they were in the eighties. Who knows, maybe this time out they’ll add my fave song on their set list Revelations.

Pure grimy, dark, blasphemous, haunting, and sexy this record is. The songs are sloppier & messier then any Sloppy Joe  you will ever eat. And that is what makes this record so amazing, as beneath the whole mess, are some of the most evil songs ever created. Hellhammer was Tom G Warrior’s band before his Celtic Frost days. While Frost was just a tad more technically proficient and a lil more structured, Hellhammer is all out garage rock for hell. This band was way ahead of its time as the record was first released in 1984 (since then it has been re- released a few times).

I remember my friend trying so desperately trying to get me into death metal in 1991. He lent me his Napalm Death & Suffocation albums, and while I was interested in the first few minutes of listening to the songs, after that I started dosing off. All the songs seemed to blend into one another, with one blastbeat song after another. BORING! Then a year later he hooked me onto Fear Factory’s Soul Of A New Machine record. I had never heard anything like it in my life. I mean, it was death metal, but it was so much more. The record was like a cross between the grind of Napalm Death with subtle industrialism’s of a Ministry. They incorporated blast beats on certain songs when it was needed and not throughout the whole track. The vocals were also not all growled on the album, as the singer actually put in some diverse melodic vocals in certain parts of the tracks.

Christopher Waltz won award for best supporting actor at the 2010 Oscars today for his role of the almighty Cols Han Land in Inglorious Basterdz. Fuckin eh. For anyone who has not seen Inglorious Basterdz, it’s an epic behemoth of a movie about….well basically jews hunting & killing nazi’s.

It’s my fave movie of 2009, so much that I had to see it twice in the theatre. The first time I saw it, I was speechless after the movie ended. Nothing could have been said to give the movie justice to how great it was. Christopher Waltz did an amazing job and literally stole the show in Basterdz. Waltz’s acting was as intense as any of the fist three Slayer albums. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, then you’re missing three hours of genius film making. Easily Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece thus far.