The Metal/Punk/Rock Thread

[d-d-d-dAz]

That oneloveforchi is great, but the picture updates were disturbing.

 

He had this scary fixed expression of horror on his face, had no meat on his bones and had a blown pupil. Search 'Chi Cheng 2012' on google, it's horrible.

 

Even weirder was they all took turns posing with him in different places, him with exact same fixed expression. The cat even had a go.

[Forrest]

I was never a fan of Deftones, but christ, this guy went through some misery. No-one deserves to go through that, not a way someone should spend the last few years of his life..

[Merzbow]

Real sad news, it's also 3 years to the day that Peter Steele passed. In my opinion Peter was the greatest frontman in metal and just one of the coolest guys ever.

[Up Chuck]

Gutted about Chi. I'll never forget that awesome Download 2006 Friday main stage triple-whammy of Coheed & Cambria, Deftones and Tool. One of the best nights of my life, that.

[martyngnr]

Gutted about Chi. I'll never forget that awesome Download 2006 Friday main stage triple-whammy of Coheed & Cambria, Deftones and Tool. One of the best nights of my life, that.

That was the same day Jonathan Davis was ill so Korn had Corey Taylor/M Shadows etc fill in on vocals.

Brilliant day.

[KingOfMetal]

so, after a few weeks away to get married and go on my honeymoon to Rome, here are my two most recent reviews

 

Volbeat - Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies (Universal/Vertigo)

 

Three years on from releaseing their critically acclaimed forth album 'Beyond Hell/Above Heaven', Volbeat return following some minor line-up tweeks. With Thomas Bredahl departing the band in the winter of 2011 at the conclusion of the band's European tour, the band headed into the studio as a three-piece and roped in then Anthrax guitarist Rob Caggiano to produce the record. As it would turn out, in February 2013, Caggiano announced he was joining the Danish outfit on a full-time basis (having announced his departure from Anthrax a month earlier) as the lead guitarist. It is with that in mind that I approched this album with a degree of nerve, wondering how the sound and direction of the band may have altered since that triumphant forth album.

I needn't have worried too much, as straight off the bat, it is clear that Michael Poulson (Vocals/rhythem guitar) still holds the cards with how Volbeat operates. And that is in telling great stories of western gun slingers without subscribing to being a laballed a 'southern-metal' band content with wearing Jim Beam t-shirts to show how much of a drinker they are. 'Lets Shake Some Dust', a chunky slab of western tinged slide guitar and thick drums lead nicely into proper album opener, 'Pearl Hart', which comes with a driving twin guitar attack from Caggiano and Poulsen. The trademarks of the band are all on show early with echoes of 50's rock n' roll mixed with punk rock swagger.

'The Nameless One' is a strong mid-tempo tune with a bluesy verses and catchy chorus hooks, you would be forgiven for thinking that Volbeat were more content with being labelled a hard-rock band these days. However, 'Dead But Rising' quickly reminds everyone of the roots of the band with groove riffs and showing that it is very hard to pigieon-hole exactly were the band belong. Metal? Hard-rock? Punk? combine all of them and get Rockabilly?.

Lead single, 'Cape Of Our Hero', adopts a much more somber tone and holds a nice spot in the running before the albums first special guest makes his appearance. And it is with King Diamond, here on guest vocals and co-writter of 'Room 24', were Volbeat unleash an iry dark metal masterpiece shades of early Black Sabbath. Diamond is on top form with his vocals (reminding me how i should go and dig out my Mercyful Fate records again) and Caggiano plays some great leads.

Alongside all of these are throwbacks to traditional thrash metal which goes alongside a cover of 'My Body' (originally by American indie act Young The Giant) and the ultra uplifting 'Lola Montez' (a track I'm going to enjoy driving along to with the windows down come the summer time) without sounding like a magazine mix-CD.

Volbeat are an act who seem to have so much respect for so many different genres of music that they don't to be too sure about which one is influencing the most. From 50's pop to thrash metal 'Doc Holliday', to country outlaw anthems ('Lonesome Rider' ft. Sarah Blackman) the band is able to intertwine them together in a style that doesn't just sound like a band who are indecisive about were they want to go. Everything on this album serves a purpose and is done for a reason, and the album flows brilliantly, never feeling like it is sagging anywhere. Uptempo tracks are broken up with slower ones perfectly all the while remaining a fist pumping rocker of an album, before closing on a slower note with 'Our Loved Ones', another somber track reflecting on lost loved ones.

With the line-up changes that have occurred over the last 12 or so months, fans have nothing to worry about with the future of Volbeat. They have once again released an album that is true to their identity of mashing together the hard sound of metal with the raw emotion of a country in their own unique way. The main question is, how much longer can they keep it up. This being the 5th album for the band, where do they go from here? Rumors are still abound of Poulsen teaming up with Iced Earth mainman Jon Shaffer on an un-named project after appearing onstage with Iced Earth in Denmark in early 2012. All the while, he is a man who strolls around looking like Elvis but who also enjoys the odd Napalm Death show. With the band currently gaining more and more attention outside of the native Denmark, its being asked 'can they become the next major rock act?'. Having honed their sound since their 2005 debut, 'The Strength/The Sound/The Songs', Volbeat have honed their sound to be instantly recognisable and have got the tunes to put on one hell of alive show (the band play Download on June 14th, 4th from top on the 2nd stage, giving them around 45-50 minutes, which is going to be interesting to see what they include and leave out)

If your a fan of rock/metal/punk or pretty much anything involving a guitar and drums, grab yourself a copy of this great album, which Im sure will be high in listener polls at the end of the year

9/10

Edited April 15, 2013 by KingOfMetal

[eugenespeed]

After yesterday's news, I'm listening to Around The Fur for the first time in a good while.

 

It still stands up to this day, great album.

[KingOfMetal]

Ghost (B.C.) - Infestissumam (Loma Vista Recordings/Rise Above Records)

After putting on a brilliant show just over one month ago at the Jagermeister Music Tour (along with Gojira and The Defiled), Ghost (or Ghost B.C. as they are now know stateside after a legal challenge from the Japanese band of the same name) release the eagerly awaited second album, the follow-up to 2010's incredible debut, 'Opus Eponymous'.

This is an album that I have been looking forward to for a long time. It has been asked here before by users with regards to what exactly the appeal of the band is besides wanting to sell some cool looking t-shirts. To that, for which I don't hold anything against anybody (if you don't like them, I'm cool with that), the appeal of this modern metal band is that they don't sound like a modern metal band.

Being one of the acts at the forefront of the recent revival in occult/psychedelia related rock, which will see King Diamond headlining at Bloodstock 2013 in addition to new Black Sabbath, '13'. What made 'Opus Eponymous' so brilliant in my opinion was that you could easily be forgiven for thinking that the album had been locked away since the early 1970s when the likes of Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult were touring the world bringing (as Ozzy Osbourne liked to put it) "scary music" to thousands of gig goers. Ghost sounded old-school, which made them stick out amongst the new-school.

Three years on, and its now the 'tricky second album' which has seen many an act fall victim (Guns 'n Roses probably being the most obvious example of this). As anyone who has read one of my reviews before, one key element that I always look for is progression. What makes this release different from the last one? It drives me mental when a band finds something that worked once and then seemingly stick to it forever (Slayer, Killswitch Engage) rather than make each release stand-out on its own merits (Slipknot, Opeth).

The album begins in soaring fashion on the short intro/title track, with choir vocals not previously heard form the band, something reaffirming the reliogious iconography that sound the band in the lyrics, costume and artwork (an homage to the play/movie Amadeus ).

Papa Emeritus II (as he is known on this second album, played by, but not confirmed to be, Tobias Forge, formally of Swedish bands Repugnant, Subvision and Crashdiet) is once again a master of the spooky vocal line on 'Per Aspera Ad Inferni', which instantly comes across as being heavy without having to be drop-tuned to ridiculous levels, and is a great lead-in to first single, 'Secular Haze', with a menacing church organ running throughout, and another creepy performance from Emeritus.

While the songs on show are well written, there is something about this second release that loses a bit of the charm of the first album. Recorded at Blackbird Studios, Nashville TN, the album appears to have lost that raw sound of the band's debut. Everything sounds that little bit cleaner now. I'm not saying that the band should have gone ad recorded the album in a shed onto anologue tape, it is the 21st century afterall.

Add to that the unexpected piano/keyboard led Pink Floyd-esque 'Ghuleh/Zombie Queen', its clear that the band have thought alot about this album being different from the first, rather than just riding the coat-tales. Guitars and keyboard are very much equals on this album and compliment each other very well rather than hindering.

The band take a side-step into having industrial effects on 'Year Zero', which personally I didn't mind as there was still enough from the core band to offset the electronic additions, but their inclusions may alienate the minority, seeing as a step towards 'selling out'. Like I say, i didn't mind it myself as I see it as being the band trying something different on one track which will work for some but might not for some others. Its not like they did a full industrial album like Danzig's 'Danzig 5: Blackacidevil' completely different from anything they had ever done before. 'The Burning Red' by Machine Head this is not.

'Body And Blood' is more akin to the bands first album sound, while 'Idolatrine' is possibly the happiest sounding evil song you'll ever hear. Imagine if The Beatles were to jam with Deep Purple, that is the story of this album. It is not, in the sense of the word, a 'metal' record despite having a distorted guitar and chilling keyboards. In many ways, its an ultra dark rock/pop record. If John Lennon had written songs about Satan, this may have been the result of those recording sessions.

While at this early stage i didn't enjoy this album as much as the bands first, it is still a very enjoyable album. Certain choices may drive people away into the arms of something else, but there is alot here to keep fans from the first album coming back for more. A few weeks down the line, I may find that I really enjoy this album. At no point is the album anything less than entertaining, at times it is very enjoyable. A solid record, but sadly lacking that brilliance of the first album.

7/10

Edited April 15, 2013 by KingOfMetal

[Egg Shen]

After yesterday's news, I'm listening to Around The Fur for the first time in a good while.

 

It still stands up to this day, great album.

when magazines do Deftones retrospectives they always list White Pony as the definitive Deftones record...but for me it's always been about Around The Fur.

[Up Chuck]

Gutted about Chi. I'll never forget that awesome Download 2006 Friday main stage triple-whammy of Coheed & Cambria, Deftones and Tool. One of the best nights of my life, that.

That was the same day Jonathan Davis was ill so Korn had Corey Taylor/M Shadows etc fill in on vocals.

Brilliant day.

 

That was the day after, actually, but yeah, lot of fun. Especially Corey Taylor messing up the words to Freak on a Leash.

[Merzbow]

 

New Black Sabbath~

 

It's alright i guess, not something i'd go out of my way to listen to but not something i'd turn off if it randomly came on either. The new Cathedral track is better..

[Scott Malbranque]

After yesterday's news, I'm listening to Around The Fur for the first time in a good while.

 

It still stands up to this day, great album.

One of my favourite albums of all time. The title track, Lotion, Damone and Headup remind me of a very fine period in my life.

[Harvey Dent]

so, after a few weeks away to get married and go on my honeymoon to Rome, here are my two most recent reviews

 

Volbeat - Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies (Universal/Vertigo)

 

 

Been a huge Volbeat fan over the last few years and wasn't really feeling this new record on the first couple of listens but I'm really into it now. Definitely grew on me quickly though, maybe I just wasn't paying attention. I really hope they do get 45-50 minutes at Download. They're probably the kind of band that would benefit from a high profile support spot over here. Get them on the Sabbath tour or something and I think it'd open doors for them.

[KingOfMetal]

Yeah I knew you were a fan Harvey, and was suprised to see you hadn't mention it in the thread.. I didn't get to here it until the week after it came out.

The spot at Download would give them a decent amount of time, and I echo your sentiments regarding a good support slot. They did play with Megadeth in the states last year, and I think they are booked to play Orion+, or whatever it is that Metallica's festival is called.

A spot on the Sabbath would be a great fit for them I think, but it'll end up being someone that Sharon picks and she doesn't have a Scooby Doo.

Personally I'd like to see Ghost on the Sabbath, but maybe that would be too similar a band to have on with them.

Having listened to new Ghost album a few times, im now completely hooked on it, a truely great record

[Egg Shen]

it took me a few listens to the Volbeat record too, there's some belters on there but some of it took a few listens. They are definitely on the top of the list of bands im still yet to see.