Cheers guys. I think I'll probably give Lulu a miss as I don't think it will really be for me. But you've given me new resolve to give St Anger a proper go! I'll burn a copy for the car tonight. I can't guarantee it won't end up getting tossed out the window.

If you're downloading it, it might be worth looking for the "rehearsal" audio from the DVD that came with the album. The tin can snare really does grate on the studio versions.

Cool; I will check it out.

I still only listen to the Guitar Hero mixdown of Death Magnetic due to compression issues...

Watching Skindred live from Kentish town on Scuzz. Benji is legendary and he did a DJ set in Meze Newport on Halloween, was funny as.

People need to invest a fiver to see these on the Jagermeister World Tour. A Fiver to see Skindred and Therapy? is a fucking steal.

LONG SHOT

i saw a video on scuzz of what looked like a death metal band. i tried using shazam to tell me who they where but it couldn't connect and i didn't see the writing on the label (that comes on the screen to tell you the band and song) my eyes are fucked (should have my glasses on)

all i can remember is the band where playing in a very dark orange background, the lead singer had long hair and played a little solo on a acouitisc (Sp? i know it sucks) guitar and whilst he was playing a big orange fire ball came up.
i could swear it came up betrayal but i ve searched facebook and metal-archive but it just brings up some hardcore band

Any fans of Hour of 13 aka one of the best things to happen in the music world?
New song off the new album sounds freaking amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfymbMR9m-E...eature=youtu.be

That's some nice doom there, i've found a rather odd Black "Metal" band recently i thought i'd share as it doesn't use any guitars but instead uses a hammered dulcimer in it's place. I'm not 100% sold on the sound, a lot of the album is just trying to be generic BM (the vocals are bland) with an odd instrument but it's decent and i like the whole lefty/green/red scene that's around.

Botanist - Helleborus Niger

not news or anything but Mastodon's ' The Hunter' album took the no.1 spot in the critics 'Albums of the Year' lists in Kerrang!, Metal Hammer & Rock Sound. Wild!

been reading this week about the botting Bring Me The Horizon have recieved from Machine Head fans on the UK tour, i looked for some footage on youtube but instead come across this from October, where Oli Sykes invites a fan on stage to fight after something got thrown...

BMTH incident

pretty wild, Sykes needs to learn to button it though, he apparently provoked the Machine Head crowd too when they were throwing stuff....i imagine it's easy to want to react, but he's gotta realise that he's putting himself in a pretty dangerous situation (The bassist is also pretty lucky that his guitar missed the attacker's head when he swung it at him).

Has any metal band ever provoked so much hatred as Bring Me The Horizon?

A lot of security/backup there, what a very brave man Oli Sykes is.
He's the new generations Liam Gallagher.

I've been wondering this too. When BMTH started getting a lot of shit the likes of Kerrang! & Metal Hammer put it down to small minded metulz peeps who were angry by 'how BMTH dressed' and suchlike but given they've been attacked on-stage at their own headline shows there must be more to it than that?

I was at the Manchester Machine Head gig & there were some people booing when their backdrop was lowered & when they came on-stage a handful of bottles were thrown but it wasn't anything really bad, I've seen far worse & by about 2 songs into the set it had pretty stopped. Then Oli Sykes started to give the crowd shit, basically calling the crowd 'Cunts', said 'This next song's called we're getting 25 grand for this show'…'How do you cunts feel about us playing with your favourite band every night when you never will' etc etc. At this point they were getting hammered with bottles & Oli Sykes was just chucking them back at the crowd & mooning the audience, they definitely instigated the worst of it.
It must be tough for bands on tour who know that the crowd don't want them there. IMO they've got 3 choices…keep your head down, plough through your set & get paid. Go out there, try & put on the best show possible & see if you can change some of the preconceptions people might have or go out & rile everyone up basically saying 'fuck you!'. I'd favour the 2nd option but BMTH are in the position now where they can sell out the Manchester Apollo in their own right so it's not like they're struggling. I do believe that this attitude will stop them breaking through to the next level though, to get the top 4 festival spots & the arena tours you need to be able to convert the 'casuals' & that's where they're falling short.

I actually don't mind BMTH's music. Suicide Season and the Remix version i both really liked, the album before was ok, but there latest was just plain awful.

But Oli Sykes is obviously such a horrible person, it's hard to like them as a band. The above post and plenty of other evidence shows this.

I can't stand BMTH and I just left the arena on the Machine Head tour while they were playing. The loudest cheer of the night was when their banner came down.

So I've never had the displeasure of actually seeing them live, but it is pretty apparent from all the reports that Oli Sykes is an utter cunt. And from what I've been hearing, Machine Head will never be working with them again, Demmel and Duce were apparently absolutely furious with how they spoke to the crowds, and by the second show no other band on the tour was speaking to Sykes, and the rest of his band suffered from the silent treatment by association!

I've never heard the band but reading about this dude acting like an utter dickhead, provoking the crowd and failing to get on with any of the other bands kinda makes me like them.

Chest - How did you get on with St Anger?

If all that doesn't make you dislike them, hearing them will.

Seriously one of the most atrocious bands I've ever seen and most of their fans are just as abhorrent.

I'm with Dent on this one. How they got so big I'll never know but, as a metal DJ the few times I've had to play them due to multiple requests I've just stood there, watching the dancefloor wondering how people are actually getting enjoyment from the music. It's awful.

I haven't really had a chance to listen to it yet. I burned the cd, but I've been working up in London so I've been taking the train as opposed to driving in... Will post my thoughts when I've given it a decent airing!

How do you mean? Do you not agree?

no, i agree. The albums a blinder, just thought it was quite an achievment to get the no.1 slot in every magazine.

where does the 'Oli is a horrible person' thing come from then? i remember the incident where he apparently pissed on a girl on the tour bus, but he was cleared of that in court...other than that im not aware of anything he's ever done that's wrong? Reading Dead Mike's gives a different take to what happened on the Machine Head tour, Kerrang! painted it as if the band reacted due to constant abuse, but from what you said it seems they totally asked for it.

for the record, i aint in any way a Bring Me The Horizon fan, i saw the band once back when they were touring their first album years ago and they were shit then, but im pretty open to feeling that they've improved immensely since...ive still never heard an album though.

But, i aint talking music here, it's the flat out hatred the band get that im interested in...

It's pure elitism from what i've seen from people, "They ain't real METAL!!!!11~" and the sort.

yeh, that's the feeling i get. It's just a case of jumping on the hate bandwagon.

30 Seconds of Mars are another one which fall into the category, i know they aint a metal band but people hate them with a passion. I kinda guage the whole thing on my housemate because he'll whatever he thinks he's supposed to hate, 30 Seconds To Mars being one, i once heard him say 'i used to think Jared Leto was a good actor until heard his band'...how the fuck does that work!?!?

Black Veil Brides are next on the shit list though, they are well on their way now but i think they might take it to a whole other level.

I'm the last person to care about what's metal and what's not, but I hate everything about BMTH. Their music is horrible, the titles and lyrics are even worse, they act like cunts, dress like cunts and have a bunch of fans who think its cool do the same.

Of course theres the element of people jumping on the bandwagon, metal fans are the absolute worst for that, but I think a lot of the hate toward them is legit. They, particularly Sykes, go out of their way to provoke a reaction from anyone that doesn't care. It's not cool and dangerous, just makes them look like a bunch of little shits. I'm happy to ignore them but if they're on at a festival or something I make sure I'm as far away as possible.

At the Machine Head gig I was actually quite looking forward to checking BMTH out, I don't give a shit what's 'hot' how a band dresses or how their hair is. I'm far too old to care what Kerrang thinks matters & critics who's opinions I trust had said good things about the last BMTH record. I think there's just a genuine unlikeable vibe given off by them….you know how some people have just got a punchable face? That!
From where we were stood (about half way back near the sound desk) it looked like a lot of the bottles being thrown by the crowd didn't even get close to the stage when they first came on, just that people were winging empty bottles. They completely brought the worse of it on themselves & I'd guess it was the reaction they wanted as they had photographers taking pics of all the bottles at the end of their set. I bet Kerrang et al gave the bottling incident more coverage than the fact Phil Demmel's dad died the day of the show & he still came out, they dedicated a song to him & Phil played his heart out. Far more deserving of column inches IMO.

BVB are fucking shocking though, just dull metalcore who are only becoming popular due to their image. Which is just ripping off Motley Crue who were some of the worst thing on the 80s rock scene.

Is anyone thinking about going to any festivals outside of the UK this year?

I went Brutal assault last year, and the plan was, to go to a different festival in Europe each year but this years line up at Brutal Assault is looking great: Brutal Assault

Machine Head, Deicide, Immortal, Suicide Silence, Dimmu Borgir, Converge........

I would've loved to go to Wacken, but that sold out so fucking quickly. I'm waiting for the new year to see who is announced for Sonisphere, I enjoyed last years lineup more than the previous years Download. Download obviously has gone on the offensive this year giving out their headliners early, but Sabbath is the only one that interests me.

To be fair i've never paid any attention to BMTH's music or antics so i can't judge, it just comes from how people around me say things about them and they are usually closed minded idiots to anything that isn't <insert trve black metal band here>.

Now festival wise i'd love to goto Roadburn this year, i can't say i've ever seen a line-up as good as this. http://www.roadburn.com/roadburn-2012/lineup/

Wacken for me this coming year. Getting married the day before and heading over for the honeymoon. Best idea she's ever had!

It's Hellfest for me this year. Black Sabbath, Lamb Of God, Skynyrd, Machine Head, Amon Amarth & Orange Goblin being among the bands I can't wait to see.

Pentagram, Sabbath, Vitus, Goblin and Yob on the same line-up?! Bloody Hellfest! It looks like heaven for any doom/stoner fanatic, I starting to think of going to this

Hellfest looks kind of tempting, especially it's not far for me to get the ferry from Plymouth.

went to a bit of a nostalgia gig last night. Back around 2000 when i was following the emerging Welsh music scene there were a ton of bands, some hung around like Funeral For A Friend, but tons of bands just disappeared. Anyway's 2 re-formed for 2 gigs in the Welsh Club, Hondo Maclean + Johnny Mental.

Hondo Maclean actually did alright for themselves at the time, they toured and made a bit of a name for themselves before changing their name and trying again before finally giving up (2 of the band are now in Funeral For A Friend). They played a fun, drunken set the singer was destroyed.

Johnny Mental on the other hand never broke out of the local scene, but they are fucking tremendous. I saw em ton of times on local shows but i never really got into them till after they split up when i dug out a Split EP they did with another local band called Shaped By Fate, great stuff. They stole the night last night without doubt, in a day where so many metal bands are overly technical it was great to see a band just play straight up metallic hardcore, no fancy shit, just riffs and breakdowns. Such a weird rag-tag bunch of guys in the band too, the singers about 4 and a half foot tall (no shit). Bonus of the night was that they were selling old merch, and they had an album on sale i never even knew they released, so i got that for a couple of quid.

It kinda reinforced why im constantly looking for little lost gems of albums, a band like Johnny Mental pretty much disappeared without trace but they had shit to offer.

Tremendous.

I had no idea about this or that 2 of them are in FFAF. Was the gig a one-off?
I really liked Hondo Maclean. Got all there EP's and albums, ive even got The Future album d/l and listen to it regularly. Saw them live so many times, they even supported Lostprophets for a tour.

yeh, the guitarist and bassist are in Funeral For A Friend now. They 2 shows in the Welsh Club in Cardiff, one last night and one tonight. Think it's a one-off thing.

Primal Rock Rebellion

remember about a year ago something was posted in here about Iron Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith having a band with former Sikth frontman Mikee Gooman? at the time i thought it was a joke but it's true and the first track is in that link above. I quite like it too, it got my head nodding.

Anybody in the Glasgow vicinity wjo enjoys a bit of Thrash Metal? If so, I'm putting on a big all-day Thrash Metal festival entirely out of my own pocket. This is actually the third one I've done, and the last, simply because I don't want people to start thinking I'm an actual promoter. I've been doing it really because I just want to see bands I like. Anyway, it'd be good to see new faces turn up as it'll be a fantastic night.

We still have all the usual suspects (Amok, COT, Citizen Death) plus some good friends from last time (Thrashist Regime, Strike Offensive) and some great English and Edinburgh bands. After this year's madness where 2 people ended up running around the pit in a child's play tunnel, I hope we can keep up the same level of drunken stupidity without excessive casualties.



The third and final Glasgow Thrash Bash is taking place on the 29th of January at Stereo, opposite Glasgow Central station down Renfield Lane. Tickets are £6 in advance and can be bought from Tickets Scotland, the bands or myself. The line-up is:

AMOK
BLOOD, SWEAT AND BEER
CIRCLE OF TYRANTS
STRIKE OFFENSIVE
CITIZEN DEATH
BLUDVERA
THRASHIST REGIME
REDMIST DESTRUCTION
DISPOSABLE

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/events/312708742091730

Howard Jones has left Killswitch Engage.

Not really a shock, you get the impression that Howard wasn't happy in the band for a long time, I always felt that he was never truly comfortable being on stage either. Great vocalist no doubt, but he always seemed out of place to me.

Band are looking for a new singer.

They certainly are tremendous but they actually did a full UK tour with Malefice a few years back and the two of them were signed to Hangmans Joke Records for a brief period of time. I was working for a music magazine as their metal reviews guy and would always get pre-release albums and AAA passes and Johnny Mentals record and Malefices debut E.P both arrived the same day and when I heard they were playing some shitty pub locally I got myself over. Johnny Mental headlined but Malefice blew them out of the water, a few months later they were supporting Slayer and Johnny Mental dissapeared. Shame.

Just read the awful news that Tony Iommi has been diagnosed with lymphoma. They've caught it early and are hopeful he'll beat it. Massively sucks though, best wishes to him. Fuck cancer.

My friends have a metal band, called FINISH HIM!, and their new album 'Like Facing The Firing Squad' is out soon. Their first album got a five K review in Kerrang, don't you know.

Anyway here's a track from the first album; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCSUb-govE0

At the Drive-In have reformed.
knowing that Refused will most likely never reform, this is the next best thing for me. Im a very happy man right now.

Refused and At The Drive-In are playing Cochella, Hopefully we end up getting some shows out of this!

Apparently Refused are gonna' come over here before the year is out! Christmas really did come abit late!!

Refused and ATDI announce reunions on the same day. 2012 fucking rocks!

aye, I spoke a bit too soon.
I first heard shape of punk to come in 2000 and it instantly became my favourite album. This morning I am probably the happiest man on earth.

ATDI makes me happy, I was really disappointed by Mars Volta. I'll be listening to one armed scissor and rolodex propaganda in the car when I finish work.

Thin Lizzy. Now there was a band. God, they were good.

And a huge collection of unheard songs has just been recovered.

At The Drive In and Refused are 2 of my favourite bands, so i'm delighted. Will definetly see both bands live even if they don't play the UK.