For those of you who may not be familiar with Megaupload, allow me to explain how the site works. Megaupload was a file hosting site that allowed users to upload whatever they want for either sharing or storage purposes. Obviously, while this leaves room for abuse and infringement, is completely legal. However, the site was shut down despite Megaupload being compliant with DMCA notices, removing files that were reported as abuse.
If there was any doubt that Megaupload served a legal and legitimate purpose, friend of the site Drewsif Stalin would have you know otherwise.
And with this government take down, they’ve effectively nuked a site because of its abuse on part of the end-user and not of the site itself, taking countless documents and backups with it.
At the end of last week, Every Time I Die and The Damned Things frontman Keith Buckley posted a long and obviously well-considered blog entry onto his website. On January 1st 2012, Keith deleted his Instagram account, and removed the temptation to post to Facebook and Twitter constantly by deleting the apps from his phone (although not deleting the accounts, because that shit is hard to get verified).
The piece itself runs at over four and a half thousand words, but his writing style makes it an easy read, and you should definitely go and check it out. No, seriously.
Tl;dr? Fine. Essentially, he wasn’t liking what he saw from friends and other people who, without these outlets to spew forth their every thought, would keep certain controversial or plain retarded opinions to themselves, and he’d be much more inclined to spend time with them.
So, rather than unfollowing/unfriending, which would undoubtedly cause that frankly bizarre overreaction people have to digital snubs, he has instead opted for a full black-out from social media. His decision is summed up perfectly by this:
“So while it may not be ‘polite’ to remove myself from your inexorable stream of self dick-suckery, if you’re that offended you can bring it up in conversation. Unless we don’t have any, because we’re not really friends.”
We’re only two weeks in, and 2012 has already got off to a funny start. We’ve had some drab news; The Human Abstract have faded away quietly at the height of their power, along with the likes of The Carrier, and Oceano; the latter due to the departure of vocalist Adam Warren amongs other things. Similarly, Killswitch Engage are without a frontman as Howard Jones confirmed he had left the band, although they are looking for a replacement, who may or may not be Jesse Leach… We also had last week’s announcement that absolute metal legend Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath being diagnosed with early stage lymphoma. Although we remain hopeful, in the vein of 2010′s Nergal crisis, nothing is assured.
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. The past few days in particular have seen a couple of rays of excitement, firstly in the news that post hardcore legends At The Drive-In have made good on a statement made by Cedric Bixler-Zavala in 2009 that the El Paso quintet could once again play together, and secondly with the word that Swedish hardcore punk heroes Refused are also back and scheduled to play Coachella in April, Way Out West in August, and possible other shows beyond to give The Shape Of Punk To Comeits proper dues. This got me thinking; what with Paul Scholes re-signing for Manchester United, Thierry Henry returning to Arsenal on loan, and my hamster from when I was thirteen clawing its way free of the shoebox in which it was buried to terrorise the cat, it seems like 2012 could be the year of the grand return. Whether or not you think this is a precursor to the actual dead walking the earth, and thus a sign that the Mayans were right and we’re all going to die up by December 21st, you have to admit that there are a few more legends that need to resurface to make the end of the world party worth attending. Behold my humble wishlist:
At The Drive-In
First up, the mercurial masters of nineties post-hardcore, who as I said above, reunited this week after eleven years away. It’s a fucking good start, I tell thee. If you do the math, you’ll know that At The Drive-In were last seen in 2001. March, to be exact, off the back of a six year recording/touring cycle that culminated in a world tour. By that time they were fucking tired of each other, and vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez were on some serious drugs by this point. Things were not happy. In this video, filmed for the renowned …Later With Jools Hollandshow in the UK in late 2000, you can see the sheer passion with which they played, but also how much they clearly despised each other by this point. On the one hand you’ve got guitarist Jim Ward and the rhythm section soldiering on, playing the fucking song…and then you’ve got Cedric leaping around, throwing around chairs and not bothering with half the songs, and Omar at times barely playing his own damn song…but then pulling it back at others. Absolutely electric stuff, and for me 100% what At The Drive-In were about.
Bonus shot: Robbie Williams’ face at having to follow ‘One-Armed Scissor‘.
Younger metal fans might not be aware of who this guy is, so let me explain; Chuck Schuldiner IS death metal. The man who formed the band Death, he is pretty much responsible for creating death metal, and as such he was (and still is) very important for me, as death metal is my favorite genre, and my favorite bands are directly influenced by this man’s work (Obscura, The Faceless, Necrophagist and Fallujah to name a few).
Ten years ago today, on December 13th, Chuck Schuldiner passed away. He was struggling with brain cancer, and the medication he was taking made him weak to common diseases which took his life – but his legacy lives on, and unlike many other guitarists who became a big deal after their death, Chuck is irrefutably one of the most important people in metal. His philosophical take on lyrics, his jazz-influenced songwriting and his early era technical/progressive death metal is still unmatched by most. When most bands were concerned with thrashing, Chuck was making music for the mind. Some of his prowess is still unmatched; many bands mistake technicality and progression for chugging on the open string with staccato rhythms, whereas Chuck hit all the strings with odd timing, and screamed like hell at the same time.
So today, one decade on, we celebrate his life and works, and if you haven’t heard them before (or just need a refresher), here are some of his great, unparalleled works to remember him by:
We now interrupt your previously scheduled METAL for some mindless bullshit! Please bear with us.
It’s pretty hard to describe the amount of fucked up that goes into the process of picking a Grammy nominee, let alone a winner, but it’s clear that the group of people involved in those decisions are never all that concerned with which artists have put out the best releases. Normally I wouldn’t pay attention to things like this, but this year I was actually invested in quite a few “mainstream” releases; judge me all you want, but I love me some Lady Gaga and Kanye West.
With that said I can’t help but feel that the Grammys have missed the mark once again with their announced 2012 nominees. Maybe it shouldn’t matter to me, but it just feels wrong to leave an album like Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy out of the Best Album nomination slot. It was easily one of the most eclectic and widely acclaimed hip-hop albums of last year, and having him on the list just seems like it would pull the publicity and attention that these sort of Entertainment Galas thrive on. Now I get that Kanye has caused problems in the past, but depriving one of the few eligible and truly talented men (despite what you think of his personality and presence, he is definitely talented) out of an honor like this just seems to cheapen the award ceremony even more than it has been known for in the past.
I know Mr. West isn’t the only great artist from the mainstream that was left off of this list; bands like Bon Iver, The Antlers, and Florence and the Machine were also left off the list in place of truly mediocre and terrible acts like Bruno Mars, Adele, and Rihanna — a woman with a great voice but some truly awful music to accompany it. Sigh. My only hope is that Foo Fighters or Lady Gaga get the prize for Best Album, but I won’t be holding my breath.
Anyways, here’s the full list of 2012 Grammy nominees. Feel free to peruse the list and grimace at the choices. A few good Metal bands have been nominated for best Hard Rock/Metal act. So I guess you can get excited about that. /End Rant
Sometimes writer/full-time layabout Ed Newman weighs in eight months later with the follow-up to his critically ignored first entry in his column:
To Earplug Or Not To Earplug?
Remember me? Probably not, it’s been a while and I did only contribute one article many months ago back in March of this year. I’m also no longer playing in Cyclamen after the disbanding of the live line-up, so I guess rather than “Ed Newman of Cyclamen” I’m now just “Ed Newman…some guy”.
To business. Now you may (or more likely, you don’t, so here’s a link) remember that the article I wrote all that time ago was concerning the obscene volume levels that we are faced with at shows. Well, back in that piece my main gripe was with the loss of sound quality when we’re listening to music that loud. This time, I’m afraid it’s all gonna get a little super cereal as I address the other connotation of gigs being too loud – the damage we do to our hearing.
I’ve got a bone to pick about Structures‘ debut album Divided By, which was just released this week on Sumerian Records.
First off, I’d like to say that this isn’t to be considered our official review; we’re saving that for later. Typically when we review things, we try to focus on the good and bad parts about an album and try to give things their fair shake — I do take some sort of pride in being able to find nice things to say about Limp Bizkit and Design the Skyline. No, today I’m focusing entirely on a glaring and unignorable flaw to what could have been an otherwise good album that was worth your time:
Divided By sounds absolutely terrible, and could very well be the worst produced album from a widely-distributing label this year.
As anyone who has read our acclaimed ’Things That Are Fucking Metal‘ series will know, suicide is Fucking Metal™ - and you don’t get to generally get to the point of suicide without depression. That being said, depression is not metal in the slightest.
I’m going somewhere with this, trust me.
A couple of our online brother rags – Metal Insider, Metal Injection, and I’m sure a few others – have today picked up on a story regarding a study conducted at an Australian university regarding metal and depression. They’ve both suggested that the conclusions drawn are a little unfair, but I’m leaping to research Dr. Katrina McFerran’s defence a little here, and suggesting perhaps a little over-defensiveness regarding her results.
Here’s what she stated, for starters:
“Most young people listen to a range of music in positive ways; to block out crowds, to lift their mood or to give them energy when exercising, but young people at risk of depression are more likely to be listening to music, particularly heavy metal music, in a negative way.
Examples of this are when someone listens to the same song or album of heavy metal music over and over again and doesn’t listen to anything else. They do this to isolate themselves or escape from reality.
If this behavior continues over a period of time then it might indicate that this young person is suffering from depression or anxiety, and at worst, might suggest suicidal tendencies.”
I don’t know why I was so surprised to read on Blabbermouth about Robb Flynn discussing the 20 year anniversary of Machine Head. Granted their debut came out in 1994, but still; I guess it just doesn’t feel that long, especially with The Blackening and Unto The Locust causing them to be probably more relevant than ever. It seems like after wave upon wave of metalcore/mallcore bands name-dropped them and Pantera as primary influences, everyone slowly started to realize that no one could quite crack their sound in the same way and instead of drinking from the brook they began to take from the river directly. Obviously, Machine Head borrowed heavily from other bands too, but my poorly worded metaphor makes some sense.
Personally, I have no time for new Machine Head. It just doesn’t appeal to me and I don’t get the hype. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the sound and it sure as hell is a definite improvement on this but I just can’t appreciate it. Maybe I’ll give those new records a try again someday but for now their career begins with Burn My Eyes and ends with The More Things Change for me – two albums that I grew up with. I must have been roughly 2 or 3 when my parents bought this album but my life is littered with memories that are soundtracked by “Old” or “Ten Ton Hammer” and I’ll still come back to them periodically. Neither record is perfect but they’re definitely great, there aren’t many bands that could create such a tight and heavy groove like they do on “Davidian” and you can most definitely tell where bands like Lamb Of God take their influences from.
So for the sake of nostalgia/furthering your knowledge, why not take a couple of minutes to appreciate a real classic that has had a profound effect on modern metal?
There’s a raging debate in the metal community when it comes to how far-reaching digital influence has on modern recording. Purists yearn for the old analog sound, where drums were tracked unreplaced, guitars still had amps, and everything was recorded to tape. Like it or not, the digital revolution is happening; amps are modeled and drummers need no longer apply for bedroom products.
Programs like EZ Drummer and Superior Drummer have been a source of controversy since their inception. Meshuggah‘s caught some initial flack when Tomas Haake worked with Toontrack for creating Drumkit From Hell, an EZ Drummer plugin where Haake’s playing was sampled, allowing anyone to create drum tracks that sounded like they were played by Haake himself. Their 2005 album Catch Thirtythree was groundbreaking in its programmed drum tracks, using the Drumkit From Hell product they helped create. This paved the way for many other metal acts to obtain a painlessly perfect rhythm section, including Devin Townsend with his DKFH-programmed prog classic Ziltoid The Omniscient (2007).
Now, anyone with a guitar and some money to spare can afford a home studio capable of churning out some quality recordings. Periphery‘s 2010 self-titled album was finished way before Sumerian Records offered them a record deal because of guitarist Misha Mansoor’s home recording techniques, recording guitar parts with interfaces and modelers like Line 6′s POD and Fractal Audio’s Axe-FX and drum programming software Superior Drummer. Misha handled the production and mixing himself, and the record sounds quite polished; such a high quality recording was not so readily available and cheaply until the last decade or so.
I for one welcome the availability of these tools where bands can get their music to the masses much faster. However, with the creation of new guitar-sampling software by 8Dio centered around metal seeing release, it leads one to question how far this push for ease and digital perfection has gone.
