We’ve got the new Ghost album spinning at Heavy Blog HQ, and we’re so on the ball that we have a review of it coming up later today. Here’s a spoiler alert though: We like it. A lot. The album’s closing track ‘Monstrance Clock’ is a groovy track in particular — but that’s more of the 70′s type of groovy, if you know what we mean.
Few current day bands seem to divide the heavy music community, let alone Heavy Blog’s readers and contributors, like Periphery, and few musicians are as controversial and as outspoken as the band’s mastermind, Misha Mansoor. So when the band was recently in Melbourne for the Soundwave festival, I jumped at the chance to sit down with Misha and vocalist Spencer Sotelo for an extended chat regarding, amongst other things, their views on their expansive social media footprint and the utility of modern production techniques, as well as a world first exclusive insight into the definitive meaning behind their recently released video to ‘Scarlet‘. To be warned, this interview clocks in at around 6000 words, so if you’ve got a few minutes to spare, check out our interview below!
Following an instrumental set from metal giants Meshuggah, Soul Cycle guitarist Chris Catharsis opines on instrumental music and the options (or lack thereof) that we’re afforded as listeners. Read his thoughts on the subject below.
Suddenly there I was, living the dream in Mexicotown, USA. Put down those trumpets, stereotypical mariachi band in my head. I didn’t exactly ride into Santo Poco like Steve Martin on the hunt for El Guapo. Let’s just say that if everyone there had to take a foreign language class in high school, it was probably English. The Quality Inn I would call home for the evening was strategically placed between two separate restaurants featuring “Pollo” in their name, followed by either an incredibly obvious or an equally obscure identifier. The garbage I ate at McDonald’s earlier in the day would have to last, because I sure as shit wasn’t taking any chances with my bowels at Pollo Caliente or Pollo Mario.
None of it really mattered, because I was in Orlando to see Meshuggah for the first time ever. It would cost me $80 in gas, $40 in hotel accommodations, $30 in cab fares, $30 in PBR tallboys, and two paid vacation days, but the experience was sure to be priceless. Viva la vida, as those self-righteous gringos in Coldplay would say. After a few hours of waiting around, tapping kick pedal and snare patterns on the dresser, I took a terrible cab ride into downtown Orlando with a geographically oblivious Jamaican driver. We were forced to rely on my phone GPS to find The Beachem because he did most of his driving around the Disney resorts. How very nouveaux riche of him. Were those resort tips not enough to finance his weed habit AND a Garmin? A plebe like me could only wonder.
Hey everybody, it’s Shjon Thomas and Ryan Mattheu from The Deadstation! We’re a dystopian progressive metal band based out of Boston, MA. The awesome guys at Heavy Blog have given us the opportunity to write another article on whatever we wanted… so we put on our thinking caps and tried our hardest to narrow down the infinite possibilities to ONE idea.
We decided to list five bands that are, in our humble opinion, the FIVE MOST IMPORTANT bands in metal right now. These bands are the ones who are shaping metal music of the future, by kicking major ass in the present.
We have to reiterate though that this is just our opinion, and that we are not stating it as fact in any way! Everybody will have their own opinion on this subject, and they are all just as valid as ours.
In fact, why don’t you post YOUR list in the comment section below! We love to hear about what bands people are digging these days.
If you’re interested in checking out The Deadstation, you can download our free EP “Episode 01” here. It was mastered by the one and only Jens Bogren (Devin Townsend, Opeth, Katatonia)!
So anyways… here we go!
The Deadstation are good friends of the site. Ever since Gunnar gave them high marks, we’ve invited them to contribute to Heavy Blog and we’ve been running an ad on the site for their debut EP since October. When considering who to ask to contribute to our year end retrospectives, it only made sense to extend a guest countdown to these purveyors of prog. Below, TDS guitarists Shjon Thomas and Ryan Mattheu outline their picks for 2012, offering a touch of contrast from our otherwise collective overlapping selections!
Danko Jones01. Terrified
02. Get Up
03. Legs
04. Just A Beautiful Day
05. I Don’t Care
06. You Wear Me Down
07. Type Of Girl
08. Always Away
09. Conceited
10. Don’t Do This
11. The Masochist
12. I Believed In God
13. I Believed In God (Reprise)
In every metal-head’s life, there was a time when we listened to accessible music albeit classic rock on prime-time radio or the pop stars that our young minds were susceptible to. We all started with commercial and arena friendly jams and whether you’ve abandoned that kind of music completely, revisit it for nostalgia’s sake or you simply still enjoy it like a lot of us used to it still exists. While commercial music still has plenty of innovative and legendary bands such as Muse and The Foo Fighters respectively, there is a lot of rock and roll that just won’t stay dead. The AC/DC‘s, Metallica‘s, Aerosmith‘s and Kiss‘ of the world have long overstayed their welcome for the sake of monetization while not bringing anything new to the table. They take a lot of spotlight from bands who are the least bit interesting and fun. Enter Danko Jones, a Canadian hard rock three-piece that beckon a refreshing take on vanilla rock music.
Nowadays, it seems everyone is interested in the newest, most interesting music. The Contortionist have upped the amount of complexity in their new album to 11. Between the Buried and Me have a 15 minute song on their latest album that is a journey across genres spanning countless riffs. But why do we always look to what’s newest for the most mindblowingly advanced music? Is it correct to think that the newest thing is always the most advanced when it comes to music? Today I am here to argue that this is not necessarily the case. First I’ll start off with a small history lesson, and by the end of the post I’ll get to some music that is still ahead of the times.
The Deadstation.1. Hundred Foot Drop.
2. Subsistence Defined.
3. Like Peering Into The Deepest Ocean Abyss: Drugs For Pain Inside.
4. Like Peering Into The Deepest Ocean Abyss: August 4th – 3:21 AM.
5. Like Peering Into The Deepest Ocean Abyss: Anything But This, Anywhere But Here.
6. Like Peering Into The Deepest Ocean Abyss: I Cannot Explain Myself Anymore.
7. Slowly, But Surely, I’m Drowning.
As we have mentioned before in a previous article, progressive has many meanings, interpretations, and sub-genres. With some albums, you can point out numerous qualities that gives it it’s progressive nature. However, with some albums, you can’t explain why it’s progressive; it just is. Enter The Deadstation., a 3-piece band from North Chelmsford, MA. They tread familiar waters already paved by bands such as Metallica, Rush, Dream Theater, etc., but they mesh the sound of those legendary groups with more modern metal groups, such as The Devin Townsend Project, to create something very familiar, yet very original. In fact, perhaps their closest contemporary is The Omega Experiment, in that both share 80s progressive metal leanings, and both are very vocal and guitar driven.
Here’s an interesting measure of how tr00 you are. Think hard — when, exactly, was the moment that Metallica fell from grace?
If you said “Never! They’re so consistently good!” then dear god, learn to respect yourself. Nobody deserves that kind of treatment. If you said “Just after Kill ‘Em All” then well done, you’ve managed to miss out on some of the greatest metal albums of all time! Everything in between is a sliding scale, with an average of “right after …And Justice For All.” Which leaves The Black Album, which marked the band’s transition from thrash kings to surprisingly acceptable radio conquerors, as the most controversial Metallica album there is and, interestingly enough, you can see it clearly in the line up chosen for the recent Kerrang cover album, in which the magazine chose bands to cover the entire tracklisting:
01. Enter Sandman – Rise To Remain
02. Sad But True – Your Demise
03. Holier Than Thou – DevilDriver
04. The Unforgiven – The Defiled
05. Wherever I May Roam – Yashin
06. Don’t Tread On Me – Hawk Eyes
07. Through The Never – Evile
08. Nothing Else Matters – LostAlone
09. Of Wolf And Man – Savage Messiah
10. The God That Failed – Black Spiders
11. My Friend Of Misery – Motionless In White
12. The Struggle Within – Devil Sold His Soul
Sitting alongside some pretty respectable underground acts like Evile, Savage Messiah and Black Spiders are some more questionable bands including the fringe-filled Motionless In White, Scottish ‘post-hardcore’ group Yashin and Famous-Dad-Core pioneers Rise To Remain. Major respect to all bands involved for paying tribute to a great album, but it seems for every band that tastefully stays true to the original or even subtly add their own spin to it, there’s another that wrecks it beyond all recognition to the point where it’s not even funny. I can completely understand the idea of covering the track in your own style, but when it seems like you’re just baiting people to hate it, it becomes hard to see it as anything other than a brazen joke. After the jump you can check out the highlights, both good and bad, and it would be interesting to see what you all think of it:
View Full Article »
