Fourth (actually ninth) album from Dutch thrashers
By pdfreeman Jan 4, 2011 8:11AM
Dutch thrash/death band Legion of the Damned have been around for almost 20 years. They originally formed in 1992 as Occult, and released four albums—1994's Prepare to Meet Thy Doom, 1996's The Enemy Within, 1999's Of Flesh and Blood, 2002's Rage to Revenge, and 2003's Elegy for the Weak—before changing their name. On The Enemy Within and Of Flesh and Blood, they had a unique two-singer thing going, featuring blackened shrieking from Maurice Swinkels and death growls from female vocalist Rachel van Mastrigt-Heyzer, who later fronted Sinister. As Legion of the Damned, they've released four studio albums—2006's Malevolent Rapture, 2007's Sons of the Jackal, 2008's Cult of the Dead, and this one—and a 2010 live 2DVD/1CD set, Slaughtering.... They also released Feel the Blade in 2008, but that was a reissue of the final Occult disc, Elegy for the Weak, with a slightly altered track listing.
Anyway, if those album titles haven't given you a pretty big hint as to their sound, well, you just haven't been listening to much metal in the last 20 years. Their songs have a Slayer/Kreator-ish thrashiness, with harsh (but never guttural, and always comprehensible) vocals and plenty of killer, headbang-worthy riffs. Songs like "Desolation Empire" and "Shrapnel Rain" have a good dynamic feel, with tempo changes that build suspense until the main, thrashy riff returns, presumably causing the pit to explode. Lately, veteran acts have been delivering the goods much more reliably than youngsters, and Descent into Chaos is a journeyman outing from experienced masters of the form. This is one of the first metal releases of 2011—I believe it comes out on Friday—and it's a headbanging start to the year.
September 18, 2010
By pdfreeman Jan 3, 2011 9:20AM
Ozzy Osbourne's 2010 US tour was fantastic; if you missed it, you really missed out. He played long sets packed with classic tracks from Black Sabbath and his own albums, the current band (guitarist Gus G., keyboardist/second guitarist Adam Wakeman, bassist Blasko and drummer Tommy Clufetos) killed it...it was generally awesome. Well, here are some videos from a September 2010 UK performance as part of the European edition of Ozzfest. Enjoy!
I'm only running this story so I can run the photo
By pdfreeman Jan 2, 2011 2:32PM
The Polish web portal Onet.pl (their equivalent to Yahoo or MSN) conducted a year-end survey of their readers, and black/death metal band Behemoth was named "Artist Of 2010."
Guitarist/vocalist Adam "Nergal" Darski, who's currently undergoing treatment for leukemia (and consequently could use some good news), said: "Well, let me start with saying that most probably no one takes such polls very seriously. However, it is always great to see the commitment of people, fans, who vote with such intensity and support their favorite artist. Thank you very much for this! I would also like to comment [on] the presence of my fiancée Doda [26-year-old Polish pop singer Dorota Rabczewska; pictured below with Nergal] in the front ranks... If you sum our votes you will see that we have the monopoly and nobody can win with us! Apart from that—all stays in the family, doesn't it? Haha. Someone asked me today: 'What would you do if Dorota wins?' Well, to lose with her is to win in fact...Once again, regards to all the involved! Horns up!"
According to reports in the Polish media, Darski underwent a bone marrow transplant procedure on December 17, having found a donor that was a genetic match. He will spend the next couple of weeks in an isolation room at the hematology division of Uniwersyteckie Centrum Kliniczne (UCK) in Gdansk to avoid any infection while his immune system is low.
Guitarist/vocalist Adam "Nergal" Darski, who's currently undergoing treatment for leukemia (and consequently could use some good news), said: "Well, let me start with saying that most probably no one takes such polls very seriously. However, it is always great to see the commitment of people, fans, who vote with such intensity and support their favorite artist. Thank you very much for this! I would also like to comment [on] the presence of my fiancée Doda [26-year-old Polish pop singer Dorota Rabczewska; pictured below with Nergal] in the front ranks... If you sum our votes you will see that we have the monopoly and nobody can win with us! Apart from that—all stays in the family, doesn't it? Haha. Someone asked me today: 'What would you do if Dorota wins?' Well, to lose with her is to win in fact...Once again, regards to all the involved! Horns up!"
According to reports in the Polish media, Darski underwent a bone marrow transplant procedure on December 17, having found a donor that was a genetic match. He will spend the next couple of weeks in an isolation room at the hematology division of Uniwersyteckie Centrum Kliniczne (UCK) in Gdansk to avoid any infection while his immune system is low.
Now, to reward you for reading that relatively low-content story, here's an absurd photo of Nergal and Doda looking...well, not very metal.
Metal-friendly NYE options
By pdfreeman Dec 30, 2010 8:02AM
New Year's Eve is traditionally the kind of night where people want to listen to party-time, upbeat music that helps them banish the crappy events of the past 365 days and convince themselves that the next 365 are going to be better. So metal tends to get the short end of the stick when it comes to NYE bookings. But there are one or two metal (or metal-adjacent) gigs happening tomorrow night that will allow you to rock your way into 2011. Here they are.
Atlanta
Royal Thunder, Jack's Pizza
Heartbreaker (Led Zeppelin tribute), Orange County Fairgrounds, Costa Mesa, CA
New York
Mr. Brownstone (Guns N' Roses tribute), The Rock Shop, Brooklyn
San Francisco
Primus, Fox Theater, Oakland, CA
Y&T, Avalon Night Club, Santa Clara, CA
Savannah
Molly Hatchet, Club Revolutions, Hinesville, GA
Seattle
The Reverend Horton Heat/The Dwarves/Zeke, El Corazon
Tampa
Aaron Lewis (of Staind)/Corey Taylor/Stone Sour, Straz Center
"In Service of Time" streaming on MySpace.com
By pdfreeman Dec 29, 2010 7:50AM
California-based technical death metal group Abysmal Dawn has released a new song, "In Service of Time," from their upcoming second album Leveling the Plane of Existence. The album will be out February 1 on Relapse Records, and the song can be heard on the band's MySpace page. If you really like it, you can download it as part of Relapse's free 2010/2011 sampler, which is available at the Relapse Facebook page. and also includes songs by Baroness, Revocation, Death, Kill the Client, Brutal Truth, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, and 19 more.Abysmal Dawn will be touring the US and Canada with Kataklysm, All Shall Perish and Decrepit Birth starting February 24; here are the dates.
February
24 Peabody's Cleveland, OH
25 Reggie's Rock Club Chicago, IL
26 Harpos Detroit, MI
27 Station 4 St. Paul, MN
28 Park Theatre Winnipeg, CAN
March
02 Starlite Room Edmonton, CAN
04 Rickshaw Theatre Vancouver, CAN
05 Studio Seven Seattle, WA
06 Branx Portland, OR
09 Soma San Diego, CA
11 El Cien Amarillo, TX
12 Ridglea Theatre Fort Worth, TX
13 White Rabbit San Antonio, TX
15 State Theatre St. Petersburg, FL
16 Volume 11 Tavern Raleigh, NC
18 Alrosa Villa Columbus, OH
19 Evening Star Music Hall Niagara Falls, NY
20 Club Soda Montreal, CAN
Marco Minnemann rumored to be replacing Mike Portnoy
By pdfreeman Dec 28, 2010 11:08AM
Rumors are swirling that Dream Theater has selected a replacement for drummer Mike Portnoy—and it's Marco Minnemann, who's recorded with Illogicist (on 2007's The Insight Eye) and Ephel Duath (on 2009's Through My Dog's Eyes) and toured with Kreator and Necrophagist, as well as making a million appearances in various prog-rock, jazz-fusion and other musically complex projects.
Dream Theater's guitarist, John Petrucci, wrote on the group's website, "Auditions went great and we do have someone but we are spending some time getting everything in order before making an official announcement. Let me just say that we are all incredibly excited about our choice and just bursting at the seams to let the world know!"
Minnemann, a native of Germany who currently lives in San Diego, is highly regarded by his peers—he's won awards for his educational drum books and videos and been featured on the cover of Modern Drummer magazine. But what makes this choice interesting to me is that unlike Portnoy, who was totally identified with Dream Theater, Minnemann is a sideman to his core. He moves from project to project seemingly every year, like Gene Hoglan or a jazz musician. I'm genuinely curious to see whether he proves to be a permanent addition to Dream Theater's lineup, or whether he moves on when a more musically exciting or financially rewarding opportunity pops up.
With or without Minnemann, Dream Theater will co-headline next year's edition of Classic Rock magazine's High Voltage festival, set to take place Saturday, July 23 and Sunday, July 24, 2011 in Victoria Park, London, England. The band will headline the main stage on July 24. High Voltage 2011 will mark the first U.K. performance of the group's new lineup following Portnoy's departure.
Minnemann, a native of Germany who currently lives in San Diego, is highly regarded by his peers—he's won awards for his educational drum books and videos and been featured on the cover of Modern Drummer magazine. But what makes this choice interesting to me is that unlike Portnoy, who was totally identified with Dream Theater, Minnemann is a sideman to his core. He moves from project to project seemingly every year, like Gene Hoglan or a jazz musician. I'm genuinely curious to see whether he proves to be a permanent addition to Dream Theater's lineup, or whether he moves on when a more musically exciting or financially rewarding opportunity pops up.
With or without Minnemann, Dream Theater will co-headline next year's edition of Classic Rock magazine's High Voltage festival, set to take place Saturday, July 23 and Sunday, July 24, 2011 in Victoria Park, London, England. The band will headline the main stage on July 24. High Voltage 2011 will mark the first U.K. performance of the group's new lineup following Portnoy's departure.
Here's a video of Minnemann soloing:
Ninth album by long-running, perpetually changing Dutch death metal band
By pdfreeman Dec 27, 2010 9:56AM
The Netherlands hasn't produced that many death metal bands, but those that have emerged from the land of dikes and weed smoke have frequently been impressive and worth paying attention to. Pestilence, for example. Or Prostitute Disfigurement. You should also be listening to Sinister.
Legacy of Ashes is pretty basic death metal. It's not death 'n' roll like you'd get from an old-school Swedish band; there's no swing to their music. It's all headlong, full-speed-ahead bashing, with minimal groove. Sinister's sound, on this record anyway, is mostly rooted in Floridian sludge-death. "The Sin of Sodomy" could be a cover of a song by Obituary or early Cannibal Corpse. "Anatomy of a Catastrophe" sounds like something from Napalm Death's late '90s experimental period (think Diatribes), with its dissonant guitars, almost tribal drumming, and a dramatic spoken-word part in the middle. The title track is very Diatribes-esque, too, with a prominent, thundering bass line over which Kloosterwaard roars, sounding like Behemoth's Nergal with throat polyps. "The Hornet's Nest" features a fuzzy, buzzing guitar line over a martial drum barrage that gives way to frantic blasting in the song's final stretch. Overall, Legacy of Ashes isn't a pathbreaking album, but it's solid stuff. Each track is just unique enough to distinguish itself from the one before it and the one after it (with the exception of the end of "The Hornet's Nest" and the beginning of "Righteous Indignations," which sound like two parts of the same piece) and has some actual songwriting, rather than mere riff-display, going on—something that can't be said for, say, Hate Eternal.
Originally formed in 1988, Sinister has undergone a pretty mind-boggling run of lineup changes over the course of nine albums. They've had five different vocalists (including last remaining original member Aad Kloosterwaard, who was the drummer until 2005), six guitarists, four bassists (including the new guy, who was hired after the recording of their most recent album, on which the guitarist pulled double duty), and three drummers. The band actually split up in 2003, but Kloosterwaard and guitarist Alex Paul realized the music they were making with their new group sounded so much like Sinister they might as well just reopen for business, so they did.
For a little while in the early 2000s, Sinister was female-fronted; Rachel Van Mastrigt-Heyzer growled and barked on 2001's Creative Killings and 2003's Savage or Grace, the last album before the band's hiatus. Savage or Grace was the last time I paid attention to them, and I remember liking the record. Seven years later, I'm impressed all over again.
Legacy of Ashes is pretty basic death metal. It's not death 'n' roll like you'd get from an old-school Swedish band; there's no swing to their music. It's all headlong, full-speed-ahead bashing, with minimal groove. Sinister's sound, on this record anyway, is mostly rooted in Floridian sludge-death. "The Sin of Sodomy" could be a cover of a song by Obituary or early Cannibal Corpse. "Anatomy of a Catastrophe" sounds like something from Napalm Death's late '90s experimental period (think Diatribes), with its dissonant guitars, almost tribal drumming, and a dramatic spoken-word part in the middle. The title track is very Diatribes-esque, too, with a prominent, thundering bass line over which Kloosterwaard roars, sounding like Behemoth's Nergal with throat polyps. "The Hornet's Nest" features a fuzzy, buzzing guitar line over a martial drum barrage that gives way to frantic blasting in the song's final stretch. Overall, Legacy of Ashes isn't a pathbreaking album, but it's solid stuff. Each track is just unique enough to distinguish itself from the one before it and the one after it (with the exception of the end of "The Hornet's Nest" and the beginning of "Righteous Indignations," which sound like two parts of the same piece) and has some actual songwriting, rather than mere riff-display, going on—something that can't be said for, say, Hate Eternal.This album was just released on December 17, and it's worth hearing. If, afterward, you decide you need to hear everything Sinister's ever done, you're in luck; they've got a boxed set coming in 2011 from the lunatics at Metal Mind Productions in Poland. Altered Since Birth will include all eight of their studio albums prior to this one, plus their 2006 live DVD Prophecies Denied and a thick book full of pictures and telling the entire story of the band. The box will be out in February in Europe and April in the US.
A headbanging holiday tradition
By pdfreeman Dec 24, 2010 8:17AM
Every year, Iron Maiden sends out Christmas cards (real ones, in the mail) to friends, members of the fan club, journalists who've interviewed the band, etc., etc. The illustrations are often quite funny, and in the past they've chosen the artwork through fan contests, which is really cool. Here are a few of the cards from years past. Merry Christmas.
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