Archive for December, 2009
Thursday, December 31, 2009 No Comments
If I don’t do this now I’ll hate doing it hung over and tired in the morning, so here you bastards go, in no particular order:
- Skeletonwitch: Breathing the Fire
- The Black Dahlia Murder: Deflorate
- Job for a Cowboy: Ruination
- Austrian Death Machine: Double Brutal
- Slayer: World Painted Blood
- August Burns Red: Constellations
- Lamb of God: Wrath
- Dethklok: Dethalbum II
- Darkest Hour: The Eternal Return
- Revocation: Existence is Futile
Most of these were awesome, though to be honest 2009 wasn’t the best year for metal in my opinion so it wasn’t exactly hard to shine. Job for a Cowboy seems to have matured to the point of a reputable death band with Ruination, The Black Dahlia Murder stepped it up even harder (which was hard to imagine) with Deflorate, and Skeletonwitch…they just continue to amaze me with their excellence. With these exceptions, better luck next year folks. Stay classy metalheads.
Thursday, December 31, 2009 No Comments
What a hell of a year! So many great albums, so many horrid albums. But I’m going to keep this short and sweet. So here we go, Butters top 10 metal albums of 2009. YES!
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Thursday, December 31, 2009 3 Comments
So it’s pretty sweet when you can listen to shitloads of new metal and then decide what’s great and what’s not so great… and then tell everybody. I love this gig.
You don’t have to agree with me on this. Or really on anything ever. But feel free to comment below if you’d like. And in no particular order (because honestly, it’s too hard to decide) my top 10 metal records of 2009 are:
Tombs – Winter Hours
The Black Dahlia Murder – Deflorate
Behemoth – Evangelion
Gaza – He Is Never Coming Back
The Red Chord – Fed Through The Teeth Machine
Revocation – Existence Is Futile
Job For A Cowboy – Ruination
Cannibal Corpse – Evisceration Plague
Goatwhore – Carving Out The Eyes of God
Cattle Decapitation - The Harvest Floor
What I CAN tell you is that of those top 10, the ones I listen to the most are the new Gaza and the new Red Chord. But those are more recent releases… so that may be why. 
I also fucking adore Mastodon’s Crack The Skye but am starting to feel like I can’t call them a metal band anymore. Tombs had the most interesting record and Cattle had the most brutal record in my top 10… and the rest are listed because they didn’t disappoint me. Or were actually pretty good.
Happy New Year to all, be safe in your revelry and thank the lord (whichever one you worship) that 2009 is fucking over. 2010 will give us a new Misery Index record and a new Whitechapel record… so we have something to which we can look forward.
Monday, December 28, 2009 3 Comments
American Carnage Tour
’nuff said.
Friday, December 4, 2009 No Comments
Why I’ve been sleeping on the new Red Chord album is beyond me. Fed Through The Teeth Machine is, simply put – great. The subject matter seems to be a bit random as the album plays on. From “Hymns And Crippled Anthems – “Just be forever faithful to the family that you love.” …interesting. (This is assuming I’m hearing any of the lyrics correctly, and quite honestly even if I’m not, Guy has upped the ante on his masterful vocal prowess regardless.) The musical writing, the performance, the overall intensity is all pure, good, old-fashioned Red Chord brilliance.
The sweet, dying sigh of the guitar line in “Ingest The Ash” is refreshing, while I don’t understand the use of Vari-Fi in the middle (aren’t we done with that plug-in yet?) I adore the screaming that tears out of it. “Embarrassment Legacy” is really smooth (the beginning tones somehow remind me of “11th Hour-”ish Lamb Of God.) That track is topped off by a very precisely played blast section towards the end, mostly due to the punishing assault of drums – this may be Brad Fickeisen’s best recorded-performance to date.
I like that their tracks average a little over 2 minutes, that they’re in and out, point made, no need to rehash… other than the repeated lyrical lines which have their individual impact on your soul… some of them angst-fueling.
“While I was counting hours, you were counting fists.”
“My life’s work, forgotten.”
The longest musical journey on the album is the final track, “Sleepless Nights In The Compound.” Feel free to get lost in it and let it drag you around. Once you finish, you could just kick it back to the second track “Hour of Rats” and unleash.
The new effort from The Red Chord, out on Metal Blade Records now, will sit strongly in their own album repertoire and is better than their oft-coupled tourmates’ “Deflorate.” If I had my way, I’d say next time Black Dahlia Murder and The Red Chord go out together, The Red Chord headlines.
