metallized – blogging for metal

Bands with Evolving Logos

Posted in Bands, Metal culture with tags All Shall Fail, Crust, Darkthrone, Death (band), Immortal, logo, Metalsucks, Roadrunner, Unreadable Band Logo on October 12, 2009 by Metallizer

You probably know of Metalsucks’ regular promotion, “Unreadable Band Logo,” sponsored (?) by Roadrunner Records.

One of the best examples of an unreadable logo is Immortal’s original design:

This is a very in-your-face logo, with barbed wire and an inverted cross as its centerpiece. Also notice the inverted pentagram above the inverted cross.The lettering is difficult to read, in a weirdly occult way.

Now compare with the new logo:

Here’s my point. Band logos are not only funny to look at, as Metalsucks does with the most extreme of them, but they are a bellweather for a band. When a logo changes, there’s a good chance that music is changing along with it. If you listen to the early Immortal, it’s much less accessible than the newer material–including “All Shall Fall,” which came out on October 6.

Immortal is not unique in his regard. Other bands also polished their edges and modified their logo accordingly as time went by.

The legendary band Death began as a leader of a new genre, Death Metal. The original logo:

However, as the band became more technical the logo went through a serious cleanup. Out were the dripping blood, the cobwebs, the ghost face… and the inverted cross:

Others have remained consistent despite some serious changes. Darkthrone began as a run of the mill Death metal band; but they quickly revealed their awesome talent for dark melodies. Even when they migrated into Crust, they stuck to their original logo:

I would love to find other bands whose logo evolved with time. Especially bands who modified their logo to better fit a new orientation. Do you guys have any suggestion? Write them in the comments!

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Bathory now on Napster

Posted in Bands, Napster with tags Bathory, Napster on July 11, 2009 by Metallizer

Napster finally obtained the Bathory catalog. It’s all available for rental if you are a member. I am not familiar with their work, but soon I will!

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That One Night – was really forgettable

Posted in Bands, DVDs, Reviews with tags Megadeth, Metallica, Some Kind of Monster, That One Night on July 10, 2009 by Metallizer

Over the years I have become a bigger fan of Megadeth than Metallica. What sealed the deal for me was Metallica’s freaky promotional video, “Some Kind of Monster.” I cannot imagine something less metal. I don’t care about the argument that this is what saved the band; they had reached the point where it was no longer worth saving it.

Yet, their arch-rival Megadeth is not without its flaws. Case in point: the “That One Night” DVD, recorded in Buenos Aires. I was really looking forward to watching it. I had studiously avoided the CD and any reference to the playlist, to get into the show as much as possible.

Well, I am saddened to report the (old news) that the song selection is puzzling at best. I understand that bands with a large catalog are torn between playing the classics and promoting their new material. I sympathize with those bands. Yet with bands like Megadeth, who ceased to be a creative force long ago, they should stick to the classics. Does anyone in this solar system want to listen to any of the songs from ”Risk” live? Of course not.

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More Metal, less tattoo-cry-baby-soft-rock

Posted in Uncategorized on June 22, 2009 by Metallizer

Is it me? My ears tell me that SiriusXM have been playing real stuff more frequently. I think I will cry. I am a very sensitive human being.

Ok, fuck that.

The percentage of soft, anal-retentive bands is still too high, but lately SiriusXM have been playing some real extreme metal. More power to them!!!

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Grotesque Formation

Posted in Bands, Bloody Roots, Napster, Reviews, SiriusXM Liquid Metal with tags Basement Decompositions, Bloody Roots, Effigy of the Forgotten, Grotesque Formation, Napster, Napsterlink on June 19, 2009 by Metallizer

I discovered Grotesque Formation last night on Bloody Roots‘ freakin awesome show about slam death metal. That was an incredibly good show, by the way. Thanks Ian! In case you missed it, click here for the playlist.

Starting today, if I write about an artist and their stuff is on Napster, I will add a Napsterlink so you can quickly access their music.

Going back to Grotesque Formation, this is pure death metal. If you are a Napster subscriber (5$/month for all you can stream music), you can stream their entire album Basement Decompositions for free.Well crafted but not overly technical, fast but not pointlessly so, with slow, fat vocals. They clearly are worthy heirs to Suffocation circa Effigy of the Forgotten. Also click here for their best of, in streaming.

Update: the Napsterlinks force you to register for Napster. Napster is well worth the 5$/month, but I don’t want to send people to a signup page. So, no more Napsterlink.

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All right motherfuckers, I’m back.

Posted in Bands, Management issues, SiriusXM Liquid Metal with tags I Wrestled a Bear Once, Sirius Liquid Metal, Warbringer, XM Liquid Metal on June 9, 2009 by Metallizer

New and Improved! Now with even more venom against Metalcore, and whatever you want to call the stuff that IWABO excretes.

Yep, I’m still blogging against this waste of storage space, this incontinence stain on the computing cloud that is IWABO. Liquid Metal has decided to play another “song” of theirs, and it’s no better than the first one. I hate their faux-original music. Maybe they should take a stroll on the Golden Gate Bridge, it might help them creatively speaking.

Ok, enough said about these losers for today. Time to go listen to the new Warbringer!

Sick of “Mandatory Metallica”

Posted in Bands, SiriusXM Liquid Metal with tags Metallica, Sirius Liquid Metal on April 2, 2009 by Metallizer

Metallica is the biggest, highest-selling metal band ever. Good for them.

Does that mean it’s ok for them to take over SiriusXM for a month of their catalog with snippets from braindead fans and cautious musicians who played with them? No.

Metallica suck big time.

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Metallica wins a Grammy – Steals Recognition Away From Better Bands

Posted in Bands, Insanity League, Metal culture with tags Grammy, Metallica on February 9, 2009 by Metallizer

So it is Metallica. No surprise, I suppose. The Grammys are a sad show. So many metal bands made better records than Metallica’s fake “going back to roots”, but we all knew they would win.

Metallica’s new album sucks, big time. It’s a clumsy collage of riffs, with no effort at making a good end product.

The list of nominees was not very inspiring this year, but they managed to pick the most stale, the most spent, the most packaged, metal band around and gave them some pop-rock recognition. Insane.

You know what? I am going to stick to Black Metal.

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Gravest Catholic Sin: Genocide? Nope. It’s spitting out the Eucharist.

Posted in Atheism, Insanity League with tags Eucharist, Jesus, religion, Sin on January 15, 2009 by Metallizer

You know there’s something seriously fucked up about a belief system when they want you to eat human flesh. You know it’s fucked up beyond repair when its greatest sin is spitting out that human flesh instead of swallowing it.

Enter the Catholic Church. According to official Church doctrine, the Eucharist is the actual flesh of Jesus. Not a symbol of it, not an ersatz, but the actual flesh of Jesus (technically, he is “substantially present” in the Eucharist).

Since the Eucharsit is substantially the body of Jesus, desecration of the Eucharist is a grave sin. How grave? Only the Pope can absolve you of this sin. That’s right. Your friendly (too friendly to children?) local priest or bishop cannot receive your confession on this matter. Only the Pope can. However, you can confess whatever horrible act against any number of living persons to any random priest. Genocide; mass murder; the torture of children; the Holocaust; all are ranked as lesser sins than spitting out the Eucharist.

Some people argue that you can’t be moral without religion. Looks to me like you are more moral without religion.

Cock Rock Guitar (really)

Posted in False metal, Insanity League, Metal culture with tags cock rock, glam metal, wangcaster on January 14, 2009 by Metallizer

Here’s the ultimate glam “metal”/cock rock guitar:

(Nightmarish image courtesy of Metalsucks.)

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Funk Metal on Bloody Roots

Posted in Bloody Roots, SiriusXM Liquid Metal with tags Bloody Roots, funk metal, Ian Christie, SiriusXM Liquid Metal, Sound of the Beast on January 6, 2009 by Metallizer

I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never been a fan of funk metal. To me, metal is funny precisely because it takes itself too seriously (cases in point: Manowar of course; but also Deicide, any band with corpse paint, any band with even only one bullet belt; and so forth). Funk metal, because it does not takes itself seriously, deflates what makes metal funny in the first place. That’s why I never thought funk metal was cool. To me it was flat, even as I could understand intellectually that the music was anything but flat.

But that was more than 15 years ago. This week, Ian Christie gives me (and you) the chance to go back to some classics of the genre and who knows, I might end up liking it.

While at it, visit Ian’s blog and buy his excellent book, Sound of the Beast!

BLOODY ROOTS OF FUNK METAL
Sirius XM Liquid Metal (Sirius 27, XM 42)
Saturday, Jan 10 @ 12pm ET
Sunday, Jan 11 @ 2pm ET
Tuesday, Jan 13 @ 3pm ET
Thursday, Jan 15 @ 9pm ET

Singers getting older

Posted in Bands, Metal culture, People on January 4, 2009 by Metallizer

Let’s look at some singers who have been around since 1989. Did their voice stand the test of time? Have they been surpassed? Do they sound metal still?

Let’s focus on two criteria: influence and talent. I will put influence before talent, simply because some very talented voices never leave the parents’ basement, but influential voices stay with us regardless of their intrinsic talent.

Which brings me to the second main considerations: intrinsic talent vs contextual talent.

Intrinsic talent is straightforward. It’s the traditional definition of a good voice: range, precision, stamina.

Contextual talent is specific to the various sub-metal genres. Clear vocals are technically speaking better than guttural growls; or so the conventional wisdom says. But how many people do you know can sing “Hammer Smash Face” in the same way that Chris Barnes did? That’s contextual talent.

James Hetfield:

His influence is failry limited: a few New Trash bands like Trivium have borrowed from him. By the mid-80s, his angry voice had been overtaken by Death/Black vocals. Nowadays, he sings in a coutry key, and he has long lost the edg-A that made his voice so edgy in the good old days. He now sounds like a tragic imitation of himself.

Ozzy Osbourne:

His influence comes from the simple fact that he is alive. He’s Ozzy. Nobody tries to imitate his nasal voice–not even himself if we are to believe his uneven performance at various concerts.

Bruce Dickinson:

He’s the best singer in the history of Heavy Metal. He’s the most talented singer, no one in their right mind woud deny that. But what about influence? It’s hard to imagine Power Metal bands making any headway without Iron Maiden leading the way. With Dickinson’s grandiose voice and amazinfg acrobatics on stage, the onslaught of the New Wage of British Heavy Metal was irrestible.

Ronnie James Dio:

He saved Black Sabbath, and had an incredible career afterwards. So influence is real strong. Talent is also there, a plenty. From his work in Rainbow, Black Sabbath, or solo, he has an indredible voice.

Bizarre sexual practices

Posted in Management issues on December 23, 2008 by Metallizer

Case in point: one of the keywords that led someone to this site today is “fuck me while i shit.” WTF…

If that turns you on, well, I hope you have an open-minded partner.

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Back to blogging after a long break

Posted in Management issues with tags gamertag, guitar hero III, Manowar, metallizer, metallizer 666, xbox 360 on December 22, 2008 by Metallizer

Sorry for the lack of posts in December folks, I had to grade a ton of papers–and I got my Christmas present early, a Xbox 360 with Guitar Hero III. Man, my fingers hurt now!!! You can find me on Xbox Live; my gamertag is “Metallizer 666″; cheesy, I know. But it’s no secret that heavy metal is all about cheesy stuff, as Manowar gloriously proves year after year:

Anyway, now that the madness has passed, I’m back to posting on a regular basis.

Coming soon:

–An exclusive interview with Moloch from Melechesh on heavy metal and diversity;

–My top 10 CDs of 2008;

–A new section of the website called “Bookshelf” with book reviews on heavy metal, atheism, and other stuff;

Get the RSS feed (top right corner) to stay informed!

Oh, and Happy Holiday/Winter Solstice! (No Merry Christmas here, punks!)

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Kill With Power! …and other powerful stuff on Bloody Roots this week

Posted in Bands, Bloody Roots, Sirius Hard Attack, Sirius Liquid Metal, SiriusXM Liquid Metal with tags Bloody Roots, Hail to England, Ian Christie, Manowar, Power Metal, Warriors of the World on December 12, 2008 by Metallizer

Honestly, I have no idea if they’ll play “Kill With Power” by Manowar on Bloody Roots this week. What I do know however, is that this week is about Power Metal. Dragonforce, Lost Horizon, Saxon, Rhapsody of Fire, Sonata Acrica, Battlelore, Kamelot and, yes, MANOWAR!

Bloody Roots, the one history lesson you don’t want to miss, because it’s all about metal and Ian Christie is at the helm, is on SiriusXM Liquid Metal Channel 27/42):

Saturday, Dec 13 @ 12pm ET

Sunday, Dec 14 @ 2pm ET

Tuesday, Dec 16 @ 3pm ET

Thursday, Dec 18 @ 9pm ET

My favorite Manowar album is by far “Hail to England,” but I have to confess a weak spot for “Warriors of the World.”

That last album is very much Manowar in its pompous style, but the historical context is important to appreciate it. Written in reaction to 9/11, it is a very nationalistic album. Yes, nationalistic. Americans think they’re patriotic and the rest of the world is nationalistic. IT’S THE SAME FUCKING THING. Nationalism = patriotism.

However the flags on the album art do not make sense.

You have NATO flags, but also Brazil’s. So to me it suggests that while the inspiration is 9/11, this is about Manowar’s fans and their reaction to 9/11 rather than a literal “Call to Arms” to invade the Middle East. What do you guys think?

Side note: the first music file I ever bought was from Manowar’ website, directly and without intermediary. At that time, paying for mp3s–let alone subscribing to music services like Napster–seemed ridiculous. Still, I wanted to give them my money because I liked their stuff, and I especially appreciated their uncompromising attitude. Power to MANOWAR!

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20 Years of Dismember on Bloody Roots Tomorrow!

Posted in Bands, Sirius Hard Attack, Sirius Liquid Metal with tags Bloody Roots, Dismember, Sirius Liquid Metal, XM Liquid Metal on December 5, 2008 by Metallizer

Tomorrow on Bloody Roots, the beyond excellent weekly heavy metal history lesson hosted by Ian Christie (author of the book Sound of the Beast) which airs on SiriusXM Liquid Metal, will celebrate 20 years of Dismember, the celebrated Swedish death metal band. The show promises to be “hideous, frightful and repulsive to the senses”! At least, that’s what you would think if you were a British customs official, who banned Dismember’s first album “Like an Ever Flowing Stream” because of songs titles like “Skin Her Alive.”

Don’t miss it on Sirius 27, XM 42:

Saturdays 12 Noon ET
Sunday Metal Church 2 pm ET
Tuesday Lab Class 3 pm ET
Thursday Night School 9 pm ET

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This shit is really popular

Posted in Management issues with tags shit on November 23, 2008 by Metallizer

For the last few days, “shit” has been the single biggest traffic driver for this blog. I’ll leave to the readers to decide whether it says a lot about this blog, humanity, or both.

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Here we go again: great band [insert great band name here], vs. multi-million crap band Metallica

Posted in Bands, CDs, People with tags Death Magnetic, Kirk Hammet, Lars Ulrich, Metallica, Psychopathy Red, Rick Rubin, Slayer, Tom Araya on November 23, 2008 by Metallizer

I really wanted Death Magnetic to be good, and I gave it a fair number of serious listens. I gave up for two reasons.

1- The songs are a collage of pointless riffs. There is no direction. If a song has to last 8 minutes, fine. If it can’t last beyond 3 minutes, fine. Metallica forgot to make the difference. The songs are a clumsy string of disjointed and rudderless riffs.

2- The album’s mixing is horrible. As Kirk Hammet conceded, “I do hear a bit of clipping here and there. It was more a Rick Rubin [producer] sort of decision rather than the band decision [...].” Lars Ulrich disagrees about the quality issue, but did not lose time blaming Rick Rubin, just as Hammet did: “Listen, there’s nothing up with the audio quality. It’s 2008, and that’s how we make records. Rick Rubin’s whole thing is to try and get it to sound lively, to get it to sound loud, to get it to sound exciting, to get it to jump out of the speakers.”

Blaming Rick Rubin is not very nice. I thought Metallica was a class act. But they’re trying to shift the blame to rescue themselves.

Slayer’s Tom Araya got the best response ever in the following:

During the interview, Araya was asked if he has heard METALLICA’s new album, “Death Magnetic”, and what he thinks of it. “You don’t wanna know,” Araya replied. “I heard the album. That’s all you wanna know. I heard the album… That’s why when they [the SLAYER management] said, ‘We wanna release this [new SLAYER song], ‘Psychopathy Red’.’ And this is after listening to the [METALLICA] album. I’m like, ‘Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Let’s release this song and give it away, because at least the fans will know what they’re getting with our album.’ [Laughs] I’m being serious. When I heard the METALLICA album, it didn’t appeal to me at all. And all I could think about was, ‘Man, what happened?’ And then they wanted to record three songs to help sell the tour, that we’re working on new material, and I’m like, I thought it was a great idea to release this song. Because people then can have something to compare something to — [show them] that Rick [Rubin, SLAYER and METALLICA producer] still has it. It wasn’t Rick. And that was kind of a way to show people, ‘Hey, it’s not Rick Rubin. It’s the band. It’s what the band brings to the table. People are always comparing albums. So now they have something that they can compare it to. And they know that this is what they’re gonna be getting with our record. You’re gonna be getting SLAYER.”

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Don the Reader: they should have stuck to reading

Posted in Bands, False metal, Insanity League, Sirius Hard Attack, Sirius Liquid Metal with tags Don the Reader, Human Esque, Insanity League, Liquid Metal, Metalsucks, Mouth of War, NYHC, Sirius Liquid Metal, XM Liquid Metal on November 19, 2008 by Metallizer

Once again, trend prevails over talent. “Don the Reader” got a record deal against all odds and common sense, and even gets airplay on Liquid Metal with their grotesque waste of satellite bandwidth, “Human Esque.” According to their Myspace profile, they are “everything that Los Angeles isn’t.” Sounds like L.A. is a good place to move to. (No, I am not going to stain your screen by linking to their Myspace profile. Google it at your own risk.)

They proudly display a Metalsucks “endorsment” on Myspace, which by the way was about only one song that the band distributed for free–and that post only got nine comments since August 25. They also refer to a review by Mouth of War, but neglect to mention that the reviewer says that “the cacophony ends up taking on a repetitive nature as you’re left unsure if you’ve already heard a series of riffs previously on the album.” How a repetitive cacophony could lead a reviewer to give that album a score as high as 3.5/5 is beyond me. Anyway, if Don the Reader can only find a score of 70% to promote their album, I think it says a lot. It’s like bragging about a C- to convince your old man to give you 15$ as a reward. Ain’t gonna work.

I’m not even sure it’s metal. Degenerate NYHC, perhaps. Certainly in the same Insanity League as I Wrestled a Bear Once. (I guess I just coined a new category for my blog!) Is this just another piece of junk that the industry is pushing through our good friend José?

Anyway, if you like that band please leave a message telling me why you believe it’s good. I want to understand. I really do. ‘Cause right now, I just don’t get it.

Cop eats pot, thinks he’s dead and call 911

Posted in Uncategorized with tags Cop Fail, Failblog on November 15, 2008 by Metallizer

I can’t resist:

Thanks to Failblog for the link!

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