Category: Interblog Bullshit

Metalsucks Has The Inside Scoop! Animals As Leaders To Sign With Sumerian; The Faceless are Bassless

Filed Under: General News, Interblog Bullshit

Mar.22, 2011

The always glorious SXSW was last week, and Metalsucks were there to relay their readers less fortunate (me) details about how the event went down. In his recap of Day 1, Vince shared a bit of news on the Sumerian Records front.

First things first, Animals as Leaders:

Also of note was Tosin Abasi’s slip-up that kind of announced the band had signed with Sumerian Records after releasing just one record for Prosthetic. Tosin from the stage: “Thanks to Sumerian Records for putting this show on. [pause] We haven’t signed with Sumerian yet. [pause] Undisclosed information. [laughs]” So, expect that news to come down the official pike pretty soon.

Sweet! Animals as Leaders always just sort of made sense and I always wondered why Tosin wasn’t offered a deal in the first place, considering his previous band Reflux was with Sumerian founder Ash Avildsen. Now it seems that Tosin (and touring guitarist Javier) will be pulling double duty on Sumerian in both Animals as Leaders and TRAM. I hope the projects don’t sound too similar; that would be pretty pointless.

Anyway, on with the night. Apparently The Faceless‘ latest bassist pulled a dick move and called it quits right before the tour.

On this day they were without bassist Jared Lander, who according to guitarist/mastermind Michael Keene had quit the band the day before the tour. But you know what? If I’m being honest I did not even notice the lack of a bassist until Keene announced it.

Can these guys even keep a bassist? Something similar happened last year, so they toured for a while without one, and apparently it works for them. Hopefully they can find a new dude that wont flake in 6 months.

Keep up with Metalsucks as they recap SXSW, as I’m sure they’ve uncovered more tidbits of knowledge. Heavy Blog needs to hit it up one year. Spring 2012, you’re on watch!

- JR

Tags: Animals As Leaders, The Faceless

Being In A Successful Band Will Make You Rich!

Filed Under: Editorials, Interblog Bullshit

Jan.19, 2011

Metal: All About The Benjamins.

Although I wish that was the case, unfortunately things usually don’t work out quite like that. This article published by Alternative Press (yes I know, eww) talks about the fact that many successful bands still struggle financially, even at their peak. The article is filled with often humorous stories from members of many popular bands talking about life on tour and the struggles that come with it, and also the reasons why they do what they do. It’s a great read, and it’ll hopefully give you a greater appreciation for all of the hard working bands out there.

- PM

Tags: Bands, Money, tours

The Number Of The Blogcast: Episode 31!

Filed Under: Audio, Downloads, Interblog Bullshit, The Number Of The Blogcast

Jan.12, 2011

This is the first Blogcast that we’ve taken part in so far this year! Hurray!

We have the usual suspects in Quigs and I as well as the help from our friends Sawyer Hildebrandt and Brent Petrie. We ended up discussing (among other things) instrumental music and a bit of nu-metal(?!). But hey, at least we didn’t start talking about porn and penises!

Oh, wait…

Here’s the playlist:

Katatonia – Forsaker
The Mire – The Rift
In Flames – Disconnected
Devin Townsend – ZTO
Oceansize – Build Us A Rocket Then…
Ihsahn – The Barren Lands
Deftones – Rocket Skates

Listen to and download the podcast below!

TNOTBlogcast – Episode 31

- JR

Tool Are Awesome; Tool Fans Are Not

Filed Under: Audio, Editorials, Interblog Bullshit

Jan.12, 2011

The feathery bastard's got a point!

So two bits of Tool-related frippery waltzed into my peripherals today. Funnily enough, they explored the two ends of the Tool spectrum: on the one hand, how awesome Tool are, and on the other how mind-numbingly retarded Tool fans can be.

On the first count we have Axl Rosenburg of Metalsucks‘ post about a hidden track from 10,000 Days that, let’s face it, some probably incredibly socially inept fanboy discovered. Using some amazing mathematical skills, this person realised that the tracks ‘Wings for Marie‘ (6:11) and ‘Viginti Tres‘ (5:02) fit perfectly into the title track ‘10,000 Days‘ (11:13) and like some garish Transformers/Power Rangers cartoon hybrid from the 90′s, form up to make one super-powered megazord uber-track.

Although I’m not sure this would convince an unbeliever of Tool’s genius, I still think it’s pretty cool.

So what of the other side of the coin? The dark underbelly of Tool’s prodigious shining light? The gremlin that lurks under the proverbial bridge?

The Tool fan?

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Tags: 10000 Days, Tool

The Number Of The Blogcast: Episode 28

Filed Under: Audio, Downloads, Interblog Bullshit, The Number Of The Blogcast

Dec.16, 2010

This week’s podcast was late to arrive because of scholastic endeavors. Better late than never!

This week, Quigs and I had on Gaia, Alex_P, Grover, new TNOTB writer Reilig (she’s a lady!) and our very own Chris, who says less than Mitch ever did when he was on last! We actually attempted to stay on topic and we discussed music and things related to the blogs, but we do manage to get into the realm of the disturbing that Quigs tends to bring us into.

Here’s this week’s playlist:

The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza – Yippie-Kay-Yay MOTHER!@#$%^
Manilla Road – Necropolis
Vulture Industries – Bolted Door
Big Business – Grounds for Divorce
Isis – So Did We
Enditol – Ayin

Episode 28

Have fun!

- JR

This Is Basically What We Listen To

Filed Under: General News, Interblog Bullshit

Dec.14, 2010

We’ve got a bit of a reputation around the blogosphere for having our heads stuck up Misha Mansoor’s butthole. Whatever; it’s cool. Progressive djent wankery-type stuff is our bag, and we’re wearing it with pride baby. I personally have one of Alex Bois’s guitars hidden in mine (disclaimer: not really).

So it figures that something like this would interest us. Our British bros got-djent.com have probed the minds of their members – those like us – and collated the data into this who’s who map of the genre. The larger and darker the circle, the more popular it is amongst members, and the circles’ proximity to one another indicates how many fans overlap.

Click to enlargify

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Tags: Got-Djent, Meshuggah, Periphery, TesseracT

Songs I Like by Bands I Don’t (Part 3): Gein Edition (Part 1)

Filed Under: Editorials, Interblog Bullshit, Lists!, Video

Dec.14, 2010

PARTS. PARTS EVERYWHERE. I figured I’ll probably end up making more parts to this as I have a seemingly huge list of bands that I dislike, but have one or two good songs. Thanks to Alkahest for the killer idea and DeusExMachina for further inspiring me, but I’ll spare the super long intro of how this shit originated and get straight to the chase.

Warning, though: some of the bands you find in this article may cause extreme what the fuckery.

Periphery – Racecar; Jenova Theme (Cover)

Easily the most overrated band in the djent pseudogenre. Now before any buttfrustrated fanboys backlash at me hear me out: I don’t think they’re bad by any stretch, but you have to admit they’re overrated, at least to a small degree. That said, I like the musicianship Periphery has going, but that man upfront isn’t very good in my eyes. I appreciate that he doesn’t resort to blatant autotune and other gimmicks, but his singing is poor and his screams are really stale. But in this song the combination of his voice and the musicianship is really enjoyable. The strangest thing is that I don’t even like the instrumental version of this! It’s the vocals and instruments coming together that make a really wicked song:

Okay, I know Periphery had nothing to do with this cover, but I didn’t want to make a 2nd entry for their guitarist so I’m just gonna classify them as one. Anyway, Bulb to me isn’t very special (and I think Eggeh is far better, but that’s just me being a fanboy), but oh man did he cover a really killer song from one of my favorite games, Final Fantasy 7 (inb4 weeaboo). Everything about this is fucking awesome:

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Tags: Bulb, Converge, Cynic, martyr, Mastodon, nightrage, Periphery, what the fuck is wrong with me

Songs I Like by Bands I Don’t (Part 2): DeusExMachina Edition

Filed Under: Editorials, Interblog Bullshit, Lists!, Video

Dec.13, 2010

Damn December. The promise of snow is great, but with December comes stagnation in the metal community for the month. So during this uneventful time, we here at Heavy Blog Is Heavy have to get creative to fill up our blog. I lack any form of creativity sans music creativity (and even that lacks), so I decided to take Alkahest’s idea (who actually borrowed the idea off of another blog that borrowed it from yet another blog. [THE CHAIN MUST CONTINUE! - Ed.])

These bands listed below do nothing for me, but they have the occasional gem that makes me pay attention to them to see if I can find another.

Bullet For My Valentine – Your Betrayal

Despite me being an avid fan of metalcore at one time, I never could get into BFMV’s mix of metalcore and hardcore. However, the song, “Your Betrayal” off of their latest album Fever, is very catchy. The military-style intro, followed by a cool (yet generic) guitar line over the intro always gets me in a mood to kick some ass.

Avenged Sevenfold – A Little Piece of Heaven; Blinded in Chains

I’ll admit it, there are two songs by A7X that I enjoy. But before I continue, let me state that I think that A7X is a band that is massively overrated, and that people claiming that Synyster Gates is the best guitarist alive right now are foolish.

“A Little Piece of Heaven” offers for me that really cool blend of orchestra work and well-used heaviness. The Rev has his best vocal performance on this track. The 5/4 part is amazing. And the video is fucking hilarious.

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Tags: Avenged Sevenfold, Bullet for my valentine, Dimebag Darrell, Imogen Heap, Pantera, Slipknot

Songs I Like By Bands I Don’t (Part 1?)

Filed Under: Editorials, Interblog Bullshit, Lists!, Video

Dec.10, 2010

I saw this idea thrown up by the ladies over at Reign In Blonde (via Metalsucks, of course), outlining a list of enjoyable songs by bands who are otherwise not all that enjoyable. I thought to myself, “Well, here’s a short gap in studying and homework and there’s fuck all in the news this late in the year, so I might as well bite at the idea.”

So here I am! And here are some songs I like by bands I don’t!

Children of Bodom – Tie My Rope

I’ve tried to get into Children of Bodom in the past, but they never really clicked for me, save for this song, “Tie My Rope,” which comes off of their last album Blooddrunk. I liked my melodic death on the side of In Flames and Soilwork around that time, so Children of Bodom’s more thrash-influenced approach didn’t do much for me, but this song has a certain catchiness and groove that drew me in. Unfortunately, the rest of the album failed to get that sort of attention from me, but I still enjoy this particular song.

Muse – Supermassive Black Hole

Despite their praise as a prog rock band, I could never get into Muse as a whole. “Knights of Cydonia” is alright, but it didn’t stick with me like this one did. This song is too damn catchy for its own good, though. That riff is infectious and the lyrics are catchy. And yes, I know this song is on the Twilight soundtrack, effectively ruining Muse with an army of Twilight fans. Regardless, this is a fun song.

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Tags: Children of Bodom, Mercenary, Muse, Queens of the Stone Age, Rick Astley, Scar Symmetry

Heavy Metal Ménage à Trois: Alkahest’s Most Anticipated Album Of 2011

Filed Under: Editorials, Heavy Metal Ménage à Trois, Interblog Bullshit

Dec.09, 2010

The Number of the Blog, Hook In Mouth, and Heavy Blog Is Heavy are having a threesome. Heavy Metal Ménage à Trois features a three-way of related articles in discussion of the same topic, with each post found on each of our respective websites. To get the whole experience, you need to visit the other sites.

You can read Desee’s post on The Number Of The Blog.

You can read Scott’s post on Hook in Mouth.

The Number Of The Blog’s Desee and Scott from Hook In Mouth came to me months ago with this idea of doing a column series called Heavy Metal Ménage à Trois, in which we all do a write-up on the same topic and throw them up at the same time to get some sort of multi-leveled experience going on. I loved the idea and was more than happy to be on board!

So here we are a few months later. I had school to attend to, Des had a kid (congrats Mr. and Mrs. Desee!) and Scott moved and presumably kept a bitch or two in line in prison. We’re all busy, sure, but the hardest part was coming up with a topic. With the end of the year winding down and the focus being on the best of what this year had to offer, it seemed obvious that we point our attentions forward and discuss our most anticipated album of 2011. Sadly, I don’t know Des well enough to peg what he’s most excited for next year; the dude refused to tell me! However, I’ve got $5 on Scott’s most anticipated record being the new Megadeth album. How could it not be? The name of his site was inspired by Megadeth! I don’t know, I haven’t read his; I’ll find out when you do!

I might just be the most predictable, though. In his post, Desee says my most anticipated album of 2011 will most likely be “pretentious piece of post-ambient-math-djent-core.” He left out the prog genre prefix, but that’s okay. It’s a given at this point, where I’m known around the metal blog circle as “The Sumeriancore Guy.” My enjoyment of the genre is a bit overstated, as my appreciation for it is wearing slightly thin. While I do obviously love me some post-prog-ambient-math-djent-core (oh sweet jesus, we’re getting new Protest the Hero, Between the Buried and Me, Last Chance To Reason, Tesseract, The Faceless, Born of Osiris, and The Human Abstract!!!), I’m also holding out for some new Opeth, Necrophagist, and maybe even something out of the Pig Destroyer camp? I know it’s a long shot, but a guy can dream.

Those are all well and good, but Des was right on the money as he predicted my most anticipated album was most likely going to be the new Devin Townsend Project records.

Like I said, I’m too goddamn predictable.

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