Dear Mr. Mustaine

I’d like to take just a moment to address politics. Maybe you’re a conservative, maybe you’re a liberal, maybe you’re somewhere in between, or maybe you just don’t give a shit. I think that you should give a shit but that’s just me. Whatever you think or don’t think odds are that you haven’t been able to escape the election. Metal and politics don’t usually mix and when they do the word ‘censorship’ generally rears its ugly head (remember the PMRC?) But just recently someone picked up an endorsement from someone in the metal community. Obviously that person is Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. Megadeth has often been more political than most of the others in the Big Four. “Peace Sells,” “Holy Wars,” you know that songs. And like most metal bands those songs have generally tread a liberal path. But you might also remember United Abominations both the album title and the song condemned the United Nations, not exactly a liberal opinion. Now I know that Mustaine voted for Clinton and covered the Democratic Convention in 1992 but I also know that he had some serious problems with drugs and got out of it with the help of the church. That’s right, in case you didn’t know Dave Mustaine is now a self-described born-again Christian. I’m not a fan of the Church (not many metalheads are) but I have been able to overlook Mr. Mustaine’s newfound affinity for the church, I generally try not to judge. But just the other day Mustaine decided to throw his support behind none other than Rick Santorum. Now Republicans have never exactly been the party that upholds the ideals of metal but Santorum is pretty much the anti-metalhead. You can go on Wikipedia and read up on his views but let me just give you the bullet points: Christian theocracy, creationism, extremely anti-homosexual (ok so maybe metal isn’t big in the gay community but think about Rob Halford), basically the most conservative view on everything. I’m a liberal and being a metalhead that’s not all that weird. So I’ve been really torn since I heard this news. Part of me wants to stomp all over my Megadeth collection and part of me wants to just not judge. But goddamit what the fuck? This is about the most unmetal thing you could do right after cutting a song with Miley Cyrus. Maybe I wrote this because I just need to vent but I also wrote it as a political statement. I hope that Mustaine returns back to the good side but religion has powerful holds. If I were religious like Mustaine I would probably pray but since I’m not all I can do is hope.

Sentenced to Life - Black Breath

Holy shit it’s a band you’ve probably never heard of. Don’t worry though, this is only their second release. I’ve actually been following Black Breath since I first picked up their debut EP Razor to Oblivion. It instantly blew me away and while I usually don’t go for underground bands I decided to follow them. Their debut album Heavy Breathing was one of the best pieces of new metal that I’ve seen in a long time so I was pretty excited to see what this album had to offer.

Now most bands can pretty easily fit into a category. Slayer is thrash, Mayhem is black metal, Vader is death metal, etc. Some bands are a little more difficult, like Poland’s Behemoth, which are one of the few bands to be described as blackened death metal. Well this band is fucking impossible to categorize. There is so much going on here. The vocals are nothing but pure crust punk. The music has tinges of punk but is mostly a wild mix of old school death metal, thrash metal, crossover thrash, and doom metal. The best description I can really come up with is crossover-thrash-death-doom-crust, but that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Submissions of possible genres are greatly appreciated.

This album basically picks up where its predecessor left off. Same people, same studio, same producer (Kurt Ballou of the metalcore band Converge does another amazing job). This album however is shorter than it’s predecessor, clocking in at just over half an hour. The longest song here is actually just over five minutes. This means that most songs are short bursts of pure anger, angst, and all the evil that this band can pack in.

The opening track “Feast Of The Damned” does a quick fade in and then gets right into the music. The vocals are really punky here. Something that your bound to notice is the double bass drumming, it appears on just about every song. I’m always torn about double bass since sometimes it just sounds like its throwing off the tempo but the drumming here is immaculate. It seamlessly shifts from double bass to drum roll to pounding to machine gun, all in a fifteen second span.

This album seriously gets going on the title track. The song has a really great riff and a chorus that was made for singing along to. The buzzawing guitars here are really great but at no point do they drown out anything else. They are always crisp and clear.

This is a really excellent album. I’m glad to see that Black Breath hasn’t fallen into the sophomore slump. This band seems to be quickly rising in the metal community, they recently played Austin’s SXSW and were nominated for Metal Hammer’s Golden God award for best underground band. This is one of the best releases of this still new year and I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Sentenced to Life

The Flame

Feast Of The Damned

Powerslave - Iron Maiden

Well guess who had the smart idea to tour America this summer instead of Europe? Iron Maiden did. And thank god they did because unless you want to shell out a trillion dollars for Gigantour, which (except for Megadeth and Motörhead), has a pretty sorry lineup, is all that there is. Now I’m not saying that we are stuck with Maiden, I’m ecstatic to have them back. But I am kind of worried. Last time they came around they decided to do the anti-Somewhere Back in Time tour, meaning that most of the set list was from Fear of the Dark forward. That meant that I didn’t get to hear stuff like “The Trooper”, “Run to the Hills”, “Aces High”, “Two Minutes to Midnight” etc. So I left that show a little disappointed and I must say that I am a little apprehensive about this one. The band says that this tour will be about two-thirds Maiden England, the supporting tour for Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, and one-third other stuff. I can only hope that that other one-third is closer to their Somewhere Back in Time tour.

But lets get on to the main point. In celebration of Maiden’s North American tour I’ve decided to go back and take a look at their 1984 release Powerslave.

This is the last album of Maiden’s holy trinity, the other two of course being The Number of the Beast, and Piece of Mind. While this album doesn’t quite capture the sheer inspiration and amazement of The Number of the Beast, it does beat out its immediate predecessor. Where Piece of Mind succeeded it soared but when it fell short it became slightly boring.

Powerslave takes the term epic to a whole new level. It begins by slapping you in the face with two of metals greatest songs of all time: “Aces High” and “Two Minutes to Midnight”. The former is about air battles during World War I while the latter is all about nuclear destruction, making numerous references to the Doomsday Clock. Interestingly the album then shifts into an instrumental. Instrumental pieces are generally left for the back end of the album so that the singles can go first. The only thing is that this instrumental is really pretty strong. Most instrumentals just end up being the band stroking their own ego but here we have a great demonstration as to why Maiden has one of the best instrumental sections in music.

Next up is “Flash of the Blade”, a personal favorite (that is until Avenged Sevenfold promptly ruined it with their cover). There’s something about that chorus that is just so goddam catchy.

Bruce Dickinson happens to be a professional fencer (among many other talents [he’s a renaissance man]) and he named his own fencing organization after the next track “The Duellists”. This song has Dickinson spitting out words faster than most of Maiden’s songs but it’s a great song.

“Back in the Village” is another highlight and one that I would like to see Maiden do live more often.

The title track opens with and ominous laugh and then dives right into its galloping riff and Dickinson’s soaring vocals. Just like the Egyptian theme on the cover, the Middle Eastern influences are immediately apparent. This song is probably one of the weaker ones off of this album (I’m not a fan of drawn out bridges) but it still gets the job done.

Okay so how long would you say the average metal song is? Five minutes? Six? Maybe eight? Any of those are good guesses and most songs that go over that time are unnecessary pieces where the band has crammed too many scraps into boring extended plays. The last track on Powerslave, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, breaks all of those conventions. This is one of Maiden’s best songs and is right up there with “Hallowed Be Thy Name” and “The Trooper”. Some how Maiden seem to have a never-ending supply of great riffs. And the one that they use here plays great with the whole nautical theme. Remember how I said I’m not a fan of long bridges? I love this one and it’s one of their longest. And the lyrics here are some of the best that Harris has ever written (although some of the credit should go to Samuel Coleridge who originally wrote the epic poem that the song is based on, and some of the actual lines from the poem are spoken during the bridge). While most people would go to one of the two openers I go straight to this song as the best on the album. This is easily Maiden’s second best album and definitely one of the best of all time. A must have for metalheads.

Aces High

Two Minutes to Midnight

Flash of the Blade

Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Dirt - Alice in Chains

Contrary to popular belief (most would say it’s Nirvana’s Nevermind) this is grunge’s finest hour. Alice in Chains just made the most sense, especially when looking at the grunge scene from the perspective of a metalhead. These boys were much harder and much heavier than all of their peers, although Soundgarden had a good dose of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

Alice in Chains had actually been an opening act for the famous “Clash of the Titans” tour (which included Slayer, Megadeth, Testament, and Anthrax) just before dropping their debut Facelift. But it would be another two years before Alice in Chains gave us their masterpiece. Bolstered, but also overshadowed, by the success of Nevermind and Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger, Dirt managed to make it to number six on the charts.

Here we see Alice in Chains shedding a lot of the filler that had been the back end of their debut. The lyrics here are extremely personal with many tracks relating to Layne Staley’s continuing decent into his heroin addiction. “Rooster” is all about Jerry Cantrell’s father’s experience in the Vietnam War and is probably Alice in Chains at their most political.

The musicianship has also been taken a step further (let’s be honest: the riff to “Man in the Box” is slightly less complicated than “Smoke on the Water”). The opening to “Them Bones” sounds like it could come from a death metal song, and the song continues its thunderous beat, never letting up. But that doesn’t mean that Alice in Chains has gone the way of Slayer (although Tom Araya makes an appearance towards the end of the album on Intro (Dream Sequence)). Alice in Chains seems to mimic the slow melodies of Nirvana on “Down in a Hole” but to a much better and moodier effect. The album is capped off with two great songs. First is “Angry Chair” a heavy dirge that has a very ominous almost Black Sabbath feel to it. The last track, “Would?” is maybe Alice in Chain’s best song. The song is a tribute to Andrew Wood, the lead singer of lesser-known grunge band Mother Love Bone, who died of a heroin overdose. Reminiscent of Megadeth’s “Peace Sells”, the song opens with a bass riff, which then leads into the main guitar riff. Most of the song is kept at a fairly low and brooding tone. Only during the chorus and end of the song does it really kick up the intensity. The end of the song extends the chorus allowing Staley to ask the questions “Have I run too far to get home?” and “If I would could you?” as if Staley were asking the questions to himself and not his friend.

Them Bones

Rooster

Angry Chair

Would?

Nu Metal

Back in November Vh1 Classic had their first annual metal day and one of the things that premiered was the first in an eleven part series called Metal Evolution. It’s a series that goes through the history of metal with each episode focusing on a specific genre or time period in metal. It’s done by Sam Dunn, who did the great documentary Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, so I was pretty excited. I knew that there would inevitably be an episode on Nu Metal and just this past Saturday that episode premiered. Since I committed myself to watching the entire series I had to watch the episode.

A little while back I had also heard that KoRn was releasing a new album. I thought that maybe I should review it but I quickly forgot about it. Seeing this recent episode of Metal Evolution reminded me of that album and brought back all of the hatred that I have for Nu Metal. As I’m writing this review I am also listening to Seasons in the Abyss in order to cool down. Yes, that’s right; I’m listening to Slayer in order to cool down.

There are so many ways to describe Nu Metal. I thought about calling it a one-trick-pony but after thinking about that, I realized that that’s really just an insult to one-trick-ponies. Poison is a one-trick-pony; Nu Metal is something else entirely. The absolute total lack of any sort of integrity or effort in Nu Metal is staggering. As I was watching the Nu Metal episode of Metal Evolution I was (obviously) subjected to much of what the bands had to offer. And of course many of them went to great lengths to defend their music. At one point all I could think was “The sound of me jacking off into a microphone is better than this”. And that really is the summation of everything that is wrong with Nu Metal. I cannot think of a single thing that I would like to hear less than Nu Metal.

I’m now finding that its very hard to concisely word my hatred of Nu Metal so let me focus on the specific bands.

KoRn: Coming up with a good name for your band can certainly be hard but KoRn seems like they’ve made an effort to pick the absolute worst one. Any time I hear any one of their songs all I can think about is some emo teenager in their room with a razor blade and bad mopey poetry. Of course after listening to their music slitting my wrists doesn’t sound like such a bad idea as it usually destroys what little faith I still have in modern metal music. Back when I heard KoRn had released a new album I decided to listen to a few previews on iTunes. I expected to hear something bad but what I got was much much worse than even I had expected. The album is billed as a cross between the insufferable new genre of Dubstep and Nu Metal. This is like taking a pile of vomit, letting it decay in a dump for a while, picking it up with a rusty shovel and mixing it in with a pile of shit, and then deciding to eat it. I can honestly say that I don’t think I have ever heard anything worse than this album. It elevates albums like Turbo by Judas Priest or St. Anger by Metallica to the status of Reign in Blood.

Slipknot: The other day I was trying to google Slayer. I got to “Sl” and the drop down thing gave me Slipknot as an option. This really pissed me off. Of course what pisses me off even more is that Slipknot is currently one of the most popular metal bands. Who the fuck is paying to listen to this band? If anything we should be paying for them to go away. I think it was last year that I heard that their bassist died. I know that this is going to sound bad (and I apologize in advance) but I thought that maybe this would make the band go away but unfortunately they seem undeterred. I’ve read that their whole gimmick with the jump suits and the masks is to draw attention away from the performers and more towards the music. This is like Kiss saying that they wear makeup for the same reason. And of course their music is exactly the same as KoRn’s. It’s the whole look-at-me-I’m-in-a-mental-institution schtick.

Limp Bizkit: The day that Fred Durst dies will be a happy one. Not only did he create one of the worst bands in one of the worst genres, he intentionally incited riots at the disastrous Woodstock ’99. But the fun doesn’t stop there. Durst is just an all around asshole who attacks his critics simply for the reason that they are his critics. Now in his music he actually takes a different approach than the two bands mentioned above. That is by no means a good thing though. His music is simply him whining about all of the little problems in his life. If a bee stings Fred Durst, odds are that he’ll write a song attacking that bee.

All right I’ll end that there. But lets not forget about the actual music. If Nu Metal has taught us one thing it’s: DO NOT DOWN TUNE. I'm not sure that I can stress that enough. Also we should add onto the old rule of “fire the keyboardist” that you should also fire the DJ and smash the turntable.

The only bit of optimism I can put into this review is that Nu Metal appears to be waning. This is good. Of course its bastard cousin Metalcore is rearing its ugly head. But that’s a review for a different time.