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Metalheads Podcast is a metal-themed podcast featuring George, Jay, Will, John, Matt and Markisan. The guys discuss metal news and new releases, perform in-depth interviews with great metal bands, and just generally have a blast arguing about that greatest of musical styles: Metal!
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METALHEAD PODCAST
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You must listen.
You must listen.
You must listen.
Now, here is the podcast, Metal Heads Podcast.
Hello, and welcome to the Metal Heads Podcast.
My name is George.
This is Jay.
This is John.
This is the situational paradox.
This is Markisan.
Will is not joining us today because he frankly has better things to do than hang out with bums like us. But hey, you don't do you. So sit back and get comfy. I feel like you should have said that in a Barry White type voice, George. He's got better things. Get comfy. Oh, wait, I can do that. Hold on. Or Satan's voice. I'm Barry White, bitch. Whoa.
That was pretty good.
There is no Dana, only Zool.
There is no Dana, only Zool.
Just one of the new effects that we have available.
Nice.
I can also talk like this.
All right.
Wow.
I don't even know what to say to all this.
to start.
Sir, yes, sir!
Alvin, Simon, Theodore, and George.
Yeah.
All right, so here we are.
It's March.
We're doing an episode.
We're doing an episode.
And I guess the only thing to do is go to T-Shirt and Beer Check.
Like, stat.
Boom.
Right there.
T-Shirt and Beer Check.
Okay, first, I am drinking Uakari from Half Acre Brewery here in Chicago. And this is a special limited release. It's an imperial stout aged in apple brandy, ambarana, and bourbon barrels, and finished with Madagascar vanilla. It's 13.2%. So I had it on reserve.
and just picked it up yesterday so brand spanking new continuing the tradition of 10 plus yeah yeah i was gonna go lighter actually because i haven't been drinking as much but i'm like i have to try this thing it's got this awesome monkey on it too okay sweet yeah um all right and i am wearing a shirt for the pod father because of an upcoming news item that he's very sad about so usually i wear something very metal but this time
I'm wearing a mashup shirt. So if you can imagine the Misfits classic skull logo, then put a blue Batman mask and call on that skull. And the Batman name is in the Misfits logo font above the bat skull. That's my shirt. So here you go, George. Stand up a little more. Nice. What's NAMTAB? That's pretty badass. Cool. Yeah, that is badass. Oh, did I not mirror?
I always do that I'm surprised I could read it though that's what's even funnier it's like damn tab I was looking like an old man what did I say let's dance here uh let me try again there is that better same nope same not damn tab oh no sir sorry weird I just hit mirror my video and it's not doing anything uh oh this is the only way we can see you weird is in reverse
Yeah. All right. All right. Like you, George, my basement is freezing. So I am repping a, my Buda Cantation long sleeve and my Temple of Void Snuggie to stay warm. And I am drinking a Rusty Nail. Nice. You're like classing the joint up. I'm an old man. Better than stepping on it. Yeah. All right, John.
All right, so I'm wearing my Disillusioned Back to Times of Splendor 20th Anniversary shirt I got at Prog Power last year. And it's cool. Yeah. And what I'm drinking, it's not as big as Marcassons, but it's 12.5%. Ooh. It's vintage. It's from 2023. And spelled backwards is abacus.
spelled backwards again is Sukaba from Firestone Walker. Nice. I personally think this is the best barley wine. This is my opinion. I know other people have other opinions. Well, Sukaba is Sukaba. I like it. I like it. But if you say it backwards, Abacus will be in there somewhere. And I believe TR gave this to me. I can't remember. Sweet. Metalheads but love. He may have.
I can't remember. I could have gotten it from Dominion locally. So sorry, Jay. What's up? I hope he's getting tickets to the Shanker My Years in UFO Tour. That's right. Yeah. I'd like to go to that, but the closest thing is Phoenix, so fuck it. Oh, and so it's me. So it's cold here, too. Actually, it's rapidly warming, apparently, because I'm getting warm. But we're wearing the Slayer Snuggie today. Yes.
This is the zipper. It's got the... That's awesome. I love that. I love the red strings. 285. This is the Hella Waits. And then it's also got some pictures from Hella Waits inside the hood. Oh, nice. That's blood, Jay. Yeah. It's got the demons on the back. My God, Jay, where did you get that? Is that new? I think I got... No. Let's see.
It was either an anniversary release or I might have got it at one of the last shows. Dang. That's awesome. It's pretty busy. They have a few different. Oh, no. You know what it was? They were doing this thing on the website for a while where they were doing stuff like this for not every record, but they'd be like, now it's Hellwaves, and there was all this cool shit you could get. They did everything up at least through Seasons in the Abyss. Dang. It's a little too busy to wear outside, quite frankly. It makes me look like I'm a rap artist.
or something.
They do a lot of cool stuff like that because I have a
rain and blood battle vest that they put out
limited edition. It's pretty cool.
I bought the big expensive denim jacket
too at the last show because I wanted to get
something special and it's
got all kinds of kick ass shit on it.
Nice.
And I'm drinking ice cold water waiting for supper.
Mm-hmm.
All righty. I am wearing my
testament hoodie because it's cold but underneath
that
Celtic Frost's Monotheist, because there can be only one.
And it can only get colder inside, George.
And I am drinking from KCBC, Kings County Brewers Collective, Sheepless in Seattle.
Which is a West Coast IPA. Not that we'll see here.
So just an IPA.
Yes.
Regular.
I can see through it.
Where did you get that Monotheist shirt, George?
I think it was like Etsy or something. Okay. It's totally. I bought one at the show. Counterfeit. Worn out and it was too small or something. I would like to have another one. Another one. And I was looking one time and couldn't find anything at the time. This one's not great. It's okay. Okay. But. Yeah, that's the risk you take on Etsy. Sometimes you can get some amazing things, but sometimes they're just kind of meh quality. Who cares? Yeah. But it's like the only place you can get certain things.
because bands don't put the stuff out. You know, most of the bigger merch places don't carry it. But Etsy, they've got a shirt for everything. Especially that album. For some reason, you can't get merch for it. Yeah. It's so crazy. I'd buy everything for that album. I finally got an all shirt, like the band all. I don't know if anybody's heard of them. They're a punk band. Yeah. Descendants adjacent. And I got an all mass nerder.
Shirt, which, you know, you can't find all shirts anywhere, anything all. Partly because if you search on all, you get all. It's impossible to find anything. But I'm pretty sure it was Etsy. Or no, it wasn't. It wasn't actually. It was some, you know, shirt place that I'd never heard of before. There was some really good one I used to order from. And I want to say it was, I'm pretty sure it was European. And whenever I was like looking for an old Saxon shirt,
or a Bathory shirt. They had everything. I'll see if I can find it. God, man. I mean, whatever you could think of they had. It was insane. And I used to think somebody's not getting paid for this. I'm standing by this statement. One thing that's definitely better for us in the 80s was that dude who walked up and down the street near the venue before a show selling shirts for 10 bucks. Because now when you look back on it, you're like, I bought that shit ass shirt, but it was only 10.
bucks. They still do that, though. Yeah, but not like those guys. These guys, at least, Jay, when I go to the Cow Palace, you know, I'm sure you've been there. These dudes, their arms were completely wrapped in shirts, both arms and legs, and they would just reach in and pull a shirt out from underneath, and they knew every size. One dude looked like he weighed 200 pounds. It was only about a buck 20, maybe. Yeah. About 50 shirts on him. I know they still do it, George, but it just was just something different about it back then. I don't know, because
Because you could get shirts decent price still at shows. They weren't that bad. Yeah. Now they're like 50 effing bucks a shirt at a show now. That's nuts. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. I bought a shirt at the Judas Priest show and it was like with tax. It's like $60. Like, why am I doing this? Yeah. And if you go to any of the big shows like, you know, Paul McCartney or forget it, you know, yeah, it's like at least 50 bucks.
for those bands I found, I go on their website right away because they do sell some of the tour merch. You'll pay probably close to the same price, but you won't get dinged on the venue fees. You know, the venue charges that extra percentage. You won't get dinged on that. But there's something about going to the show and then picking up the shirt where you're there that I liked, you know, spontaneous decision. It is. That's how I kind of think of it, even though it's a ridiculous price.
I like the memory of the tour is over and they got to clear out their warehouse and now all shirts are 50% off. There we go. It's a special memory. I was at that show too. When I went to the Manowar show back in November, they had like a shirt for the show because it was like a big deal at the King's Theater. And I was like, oh man, I want to get one of those, even though it's like 50 bucks. But there was one merch booth.
And it literally was in the middle of the lobby
and the line went upstairs
Oh, shit
Well, that's like the Warner Theater in D.C.
Yes, exactly
Yes, it was like that
I was like, nope
Not too bad
Was it a cool shirt?
Yeah
Well, I mean, it was
It was kind of standard Manowar stuff
And so I just ordered a couple shirts online
Dudes and wearing cloths
I was just thinking that
Yeah, but
But, you know
But they didn't have the
So when Will and T.R. and I went to Opeth, T.R. decided he wanted to get a shirt, I think is what he did. He got in line for that, or was by one of the special variant vinyls, I can't remember. Because each show you could get a specific variant. And so, George, you know the Warner Theater. So he was so far back in the line,
Have you been to the bathrooms at Warner Theater where they're upstairs? Yeah. At the upstairs bar? Yeah. I went to the bathroom up there and it's like, you know, climbing through a jungle of trees because it's all people. Yeah. And I came out, he was still in the back of the line. He has to go all through that upstairs bar, down the stairs and then back in. And I was just like, I'm going to the bar. I'm going to have a drink. And we waited for him. We stood there at the end of the bar downstairs and watched him on the stairs come down. Oh, man. Yeah. But how much were those drinks, John?
It was just one beer, dude. It wasn't that bad. It was like $25. It wasn't that bad. Exactly. They only took the tip of my little finger. I'll tell you what it wasn't. It wasn't me standing on the stairs for half an hour. Actually, the line did move fairly quickly. Anyway. All right. Well, I guess let's move on to the news.
And the big news, uh, this big news. I think this is huge news. Yeah, this is crazy. The minor, and it's inconsequential news this week that you probably didn't hear about because nobody cared was that Brent Hines has left Mastodon. And of course, the world waits to see if Matt
Complies with contractual obligation to list Leviathan as his pick from the crypt. What will he do? I thought Matt ended that. He wasn't doing that anymore. His contract. Well, I thought that too. And then I received a letter from said contract holders legal team and said, you will carry that over to pick from the crypt. I, again, there's nothing I can do. I did not read the fine print. I didn't.
Matt got a cease and desist on his ceasing and desisting.
He got white wailed, man.
Exactly. I got ceasely desisted.
But yeah, I mean, this to me was, I don't know, in some way I wasn't shocked because he, I don't know, to me he is a little bit the odd man out when I look at the four of them in terms of, I mean, he's just, he's a wild.
I mean, he's just, you know, he definitely stands out with this, but yeah, exactly. He's weird. Yeah. And I don't mean that in any sort of bad way. Cause again, like we were talking earlier, he is so talented. And when we think about, you know, how much he's written for the span, it's, it's just such good stuff. And, and even his other projects that he has going on, you know? Well, we talk about Mastodon and when we do, we always sort of put them
in this Metallica slash Gojira place, which is, for the most part, we all kind of liked the earlier stuff. And I mentioned that particularly because I really think he was more responsible for the earlier stuff. And so, hey, maybe in a way he checked out a while ago. But he's an odd guy. Every interview I've ever seen with him, he's a little erratic. And I'll say it, we said it privately, but my thinking is kind of a prick.
or full of himself or something. I saw them live a bunch of times, but I saw them right when Once More Around the Sun was about to come out. And they came out and it was a great tour. They did just kind of greatest hits type deal. And he had this white SG that he was tuning the shit out of all night. And this is just an example of the kind of guy he kind of was. And that was that they started playing a song or counting into a song.
and he literally stepped up to a microphone and yelled at the rest of the guys in the band. It's like, fucking wait, I'm tuning my guitar. Like, I've never seen anybody do that at a show. And he was literally like, I don't know if there's an audience. You guys are pissing me off. And I think that's the way he kind of navigates the world a little bit. Like, he's eccentric. He's a shithead. But it's interesting, though, because if he was responsible for writing those earlier songs, which are much more metal and much heavier,
And then we've heard him talk about how he doesn't like metal over the years, whether he's kidding or not. We don't know. Probably not. The band clearly changed direction and it's less metal, less heavy than it was before. So what's going to happen now? Maybe he's gone. Yeah, who knows? You know, one other interesting thing, and I, well, I have two other things to add, but I'll do one at a time in case somebody wants to step in here. But one was, I liked how they went and got a replacement for him for this show they had.
which was they went and got this like youtube guy who's like a mastodon expert yeah and so this
fucking guy gets a call out of the blue and they're like hey we know you can play all this will you come and play the show with us so that's kind of cool it's crazy it's really cool i've seen it happen before um but yeah it's cool and they haven't said if he's going to replace him full time he just made that show so i'm wondering it's even maybe strikes me as not terribly likely but maybe who knows i mean now the second thing i was going to mention and this is
You know, conjecture, obviously, but they did this. They had just done this thing where they talked about Leviathan. Was it an anniversary thing, Matt, or were they just like, let's just talk about it? No, it's 20th anniversary was last year. Yeah, that was the tour I saw was the 20th. I don't remember if they talked about that specifically, but my guess is that. I thought it was. I thought that's what that video thing was all about. I thought so. I can be wrong. Here's an interesting thing about that.
and I'm not really conjecturing this, but they put, I don't know, and I'm just suggesting, but they put out a statement, and all bands have management that write the nicest statements for them to put out, with the exception maybe of Exodus, I don't know, but the, um, but I couldn't help but notice that Brian Taylor had a black eye at that fucking thing. Ah, he really? And I honestly thought that they come to blows, and that,
came out right around that time and the jay stoke in the flames the rumors i can still see him taking the high road and writing a very nice thing but he also strikes me as the kind of guy who can go off on the off off the handle so i that's not fair but i'm just saying it was interesting to me that brand dealer had a black guy at this public you know what you know it stood out to me the most of all this which wasn't talked about that much is that this has been the same
four guys for 25 years. Totally. Rare. And that's kind of a bummer in that aspect. Set aside whatever you think about him. I don't disagree with anything he said, Jay. I also know that he is unbelievably talented. More so than I think he gets credit for it because people see his personality first sometimes. But it is kind of a bummer to see a band lose an original member. Good or bad. Good or bad. Oh, yeah, I agree.
Well, and Bill just recently put out a statement a couple days ago, and he said, you know, it's amazing that we made it 25 years with the four of us. I mean, it's like being married to three other dudes, traveling the world, trying to stay the course and having everybody agree. That we managed to do it this long, I feel like that's a feat in itself. There's a lot in that without saying a lot. That we managed to do it this long. Long, exactly. You know, I find it interesting that Bill is now kind of,
their spokesman a little bit more usually you know it was um brand that would do a lot of it the drummer but it's interesting to see bill doing it so yeah i'm glad he is though dude because honestly when it was brand and then brand i got tired of their fucking sarcastic interviews like they would do these interviews and they just acted like i don't even want to sit be sitting here talking to you i'm just gonna make jokes about every fucking question i stopped watching masters much more diplomatic you know ryan reminds me a little bit not not the same situation
And I don't know how much you guys paid attention, but when Portnoy left Dream Theater, they had to find a new person to speak for the band because Portnoy did all that stuff. And all of a sudden now, John Pertucci did stuff like that, but now he was front and center as the guy to always represent the band. Yeah, yeah. I read that, John. I was like, wow, that's a completely different dynamic. And coming back and remembering that you did that, how does that work? How do you navigate that? Yeah. And John's still their spokesman.
That's how that works. Yeah. I mean, yeah. But the point I'm making is it's interesting to see a new person in Macedon. The guy I'd never hear from that often is the guy I like the most to band, which is their bass player, Troy Sanders. I like him. Agreed. Agreed. I do think he's kind of private. I saw him interviewed. He seems like he's a pretty cool dude. I could be 100% wrong about that. Oh, no, no. I think he's really a really cool dude. And he's the only dude without tattoos that you can see.
Yeah.
He's got long sleeves.
Even those are private.
I saw, last summer I saw them on the tour.
It was like 100 degrees out outside.
He's wearing a long sleeve.
I'm sweating just watching you.
I always dug his playing.
I think he is the most underappreciated person in that band.
And I always loved his harsh vocals, but I agree with him.
You can't do them forever.
So I think that's why a lot of the vocals have switched to the other guys.
Which is the one that looks like Will with a mustache.
Bill.
Bill.
And, you know, building on what y'all are saying, I felt like his stage presence was a little bit more front and center this last summer, seeing them. And granted, I had not seen them since, uh, Bill, I had not seen them since probably when they did, when they, they did the tour where they're playing crack the sky in its entirety with that movie in the background. So we're, you know, we're not talking 20 years, but we're probably talking 15 years. That was an awesome tour. Yeah, it was. That was such a good tour.
So here, anyway, my,
I want to, my kind of my personal thesis statement here is like,
I, brand dealer is a very unique drummer.
There's no question about that.
And I think they can't like afford to lose him and stuff.
And that's maybe true all the way around the band, but boy,
they should have lost a real unique part of their band.
Yeah.
I'm curious to see how they bring it.
It's going to be a weird transition to see what happens.
Yeah.
No, I'm really curious to see what their sound is going to be afterward.
And maybe part of it was that Brent wrote a lot of songs early on and then Bill started doing more of that and now you see him coming to the forefront to be more of the leader of the band like Matt saying. I don't know. We don't really know. The other thing is that I don't I wouldn't hold my breath but Brent is like best friends with Matt Pike. It sure would be cool if they did something but he's not likely to jump in another metal band. That'd be cool. They I know they have a side project
But yeah, like seeing him hop into High and Fire or something like that. It would be pretty awesome if Brent suddenly just got into a death metal band or something. Completely different than what he's been saying. I'll take it one step further. He needs to join High and Fire, but he has to go shirtless. So you've got two guitars up there shirtless. Whoa. All right, guys. Look, I'm not even drunk yet. I'm looking up. It's, what is the band? George would definitely buy that shirt, by the way. Shirtless Men.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was the dude from X. Yeah. Yeah. I think he's kind of more like on that speed. Right. I did actually check out some of his stuff back when I was masked on crazy. And I like checked out East End Motel and he had another one that he did. And then he did a project with Danny Curry that never came to much. But it was this weird thing about it was about like seafaring. The legend of the Seagullman.
Oh, é? É um...
the next crypto animal that's going to be brought forth. I mean, we're sort of running out of them, and I need to know where we're going next. Have they done a mammoth yet? Does anyone know? It's probably going to be... No, it'll be... Thank you, Jay. It'll be the woolly mice mammoth. Oh, yeah. Yes, yes. I'm like, why are they...
so bent on cloning a woolly mammoth. It's like they want to do a dinosaur, but they don't want to do a dinosaur. So they want to do something kind of dinosaur adjacent. I'm like, you know, what about like a dodo bird? Something a little more recently gone that maybe, maybe. Oh, because didn't they find that mammoth like somewhat intact? Yeah, it was like it was complete. I think that's why. Yeah, but given like the state of the planet, a woolly mammoth is going to be awfully freaking hot. It's going to be like,
Dude, shoot me down. Those things are badass. They just walk real slow and just smash everything. I don't know. I'm just saying Dodo or, you know, one of those. Maybe there's got to be some sort of... Dodo died off on its own. It didn't need an asteroid, didn't it? No, but still. It's smaller. They had some really weird bad habit like smashing their own eggs or something. They were really dumb. Yeah, they were just a problem child. There's got to be some sort of rhinoceros that's died off, you know. Dude, rhinos are crazy, man.
I know, but they're all like dying out. They'll run your ass down in a second. Hippos are the worst. They just have a bad attitude. They're hungry all the time. Hungry, hungry hippo. I'm playing Assassin's Creed Origins. I know I'm behind the times, but I'm running around playing hippos. Hippos and gators, man. Hippos, they'll just... My final thought on the Brent Heinz thing is, and I kind of don't care, but I'll be interested when he starts talking.
because the other thing is I just feel like there's probably a little more going on here than
Parted Ways as lovers. I just don't buy that. Not that it matters.
You know what? Just put out a fucking awesome album and that will close down everything.
And I'll cross my fingers for that. On both parts. I want a good Macedon album.
I miss Macedon.
I don't like pretty good the last time was pretty good yeah I agree but there was that gap there it just made it hard and I'm a prog guy and I was like oh dude don't go back to the hard stuff the hard stuff because it was better well but also just Leviathan and Blood Moms they're so good Remission's awesome practice guy that's four bangers in a row and yeah the first one Remission and then all the way up through I mean come on they got a song called Mother Punch
What's the tour one? Crack the Sky. Those four records, those are like, I mean, that's like... And the two EPs are awesome, too. Yes, agreed. I love that opening track. I love the two EPs. By the way, to give you a little hope, and you probably know this, but obviously Brent didn't write everything cool, but Brand Daler actually wrote the opening riff for Blood and Thunder.
Oh yeah. I mean, all the, everyone, actually that's an unusual band where everybody, including the drummer, writes the music. Yeah. And it's not going to get that really cool. Like those ripping searing, you know, instrumentals that they did. Right. And three of the four guys sing, which is really cool. That's true too. Oh boy. See, there you go. This complicates things. I hope they get somebody who can sing. I don't know. Maybe Steve I'll join.
was just thinking, man, I wonder if Steve Vai joined him. I'd be pretty badass, actually. Because he's so, so freaking talented. It's unreal. That would actually be really funny. Well, we had to bring in a guy that was pretty good, so we got Steve Vai. I say that because I just, TR and I just saw, I talked about this a while ago, we saw Beat, which was the kind of revision of King Crimson from the 80s. It was two of the guys that were in the band in the 80s.
And they needed to replace Robert Fripp, who is King Crimson, and Bill Bruford, the drummer. And so they got two okay guys to replace them. They got Danny Carey on drums. Not a bad choice. Yeah, it was all right. He's all right. Even though I like Bill Bruford better, I still love Danny Carey. And it needed a guitarist, so I got Steve Vai. You know, John, I just took my mom, who just turned 80, incidentally. And so I bought her tickets to go see
which is the backup singers on the pulse on and graceland record that is african and she and she likes that and i like it too but and while i was there it was this great little theater in tucson and they were advertising john anderson and the band geeks and i really think i'm gonna go they're doing a whole bunch of selections from close to the edge and a bunch of other stuff and that band is really good and my my yes pedigree is probably a little thicker than i oh i'm a huge yes sometimes i mean i i went through a huge yes
I think they are getting more praise than the actual current Steve Howell version of yes, to be honest with you. Yeah. So anyway, George, I like your idea of Steve Vai. I think he can adapt. He's done with Beat slash King Crimson. So now next project, Mastodon. If he looked through Frank Zappa, would you do it?
You know, you can do anything. Oh, yeah. Speaking of which, is anyone ever heard or seen live Zappa play Zappa? I've seen a ton of stuff. I don't remember if I watched that. Oh, Dweezil. Dweezil's Apple. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have seen a bunch. There's video out there. I've seen them. Dweezil's Zappa's, you know, Zappa play Zappa, but without Steve Vai. But I've seen clips where Steve Vai sat in with them as someone who, you know, he played with Vi for or with Zappa for years. Wow.
I've never seen it. And uncanny Eddie Van Halen, too, by the way. He is so good. And everyone thinks, because remember we grew up with the Zappa kids, remember? Union Unit and Dweezil. They were like, we thought, oh, this kid's your flower, whatever. My guitar wants to kill your mama. Yeah. He's the real deal, man. He's the real deal. He can play. He's so good. Maybe he should be in Mastodon. I don't know. I like him. He's got the hair. He's got the hair, man. He's got the pork chops. Yeah, I think, does he, Jay?
Yeah. I just, in closing, I just want to say this has been a really good episode. I've enjoyed just talking about Mastodon. Everybody, thank you for joining us. We'll catch you next time. Take care. I think the fact that we spend so much time on it says a lot about part of that career. I mean, Leviathan to me, I know, Jay, you and I have talked about this before, Matt. I know you joke about it by any feeling, and maybe Marcus and George, you do too. Leviathan was, we did that,
best of what up to what year was it up to 2015 early on 50 years no no no this is we did uh first part of the century yeah oh and yeah i think leviathan was like number two or three for me no jay it was really high for you yeah that album is just so damn good it's so good and so good you know i i read it up there with like it's one of those ones that came along like blackwater park or something or or even number of the beast or something that just kind of
changed my life for a little while you know i was just like this is all i'm gonna be
listening to james metal yeah it did change that i thought i don't know vast-paced sludge yeah it was
proggy for me it actually took me time to actually let it fully sink in and realize just how amazing it was and it's it's like one of those movies that you know every line to that's what that album has become in my life and that's why like last summer when i saw that tour was going on um you know i drove like four hours with my friend to go watch and play the whole album in the middle of nowhere at some amp
theater. And I mean, it literally felt like five minutes. You know, I knew I'd throw that clip in the chat, I think last week, but just that opening of Moby Dick and then going into the song. And I just like someone just, you know, I've died and gone to, you know, some utopic society and could do this for the rest of my life on repeat. Where you became a longshoreman? Yes. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned the five minute thing though, Matt, because one thing that has always stunned me about that record is this, the sheer volume of
and amount of riffs and weird turns and everything. And that record is only 45 minutes long. And one song is, what, 12 minutes long? Yeah. And that's a good point, John. So that means the rest of those songs have to get done in 33 minutes. Sea Beast is like a huge song at four and a half minutes. And so it's kind of like a master class in economy, really. Oh, no, there's no wasted space on it. Yeah. And the last song might be, you know, a closer, you know. Oh, that John Merrick thing.
I mean, it's hard to live up to what came
4 even though it's pretty close. It just happens that way. Yeah, that's a good point. It was the first record after fucking the life. I mean, it's how I look at load and reload. You know, reload just gets overlooked because it butts up for loads so closely. Yeah. Well, and it's the second load. Yeah. Right. It's not going to be as big. The second one's never as big as the first one. No. And it took so long to come out and everything, you know.
I would ever say this, but I'm thankful we'll be on here right now.
We're going to have to spend the next 10 minutes.
It took so long to come out is one of the best lines John's ever said.
Just saying.
We've all been there.
Oh, man.
I don't know.
I love how much we talk about this band.
And for whatever reason, I even like, I think about like, we were watching this show as a family and somebody was on it and like, oh, I like heavy metal.
And the person's like, oh, Mastodon. My daughter looks at me like, oh, do you like Mastodon? I'm like. A little. Pause. Hold that thought for one second. It's kind of complicated. Put your heavies on. Exactly. I like the first four albums a lot. And then I like selected songs. Yeah, exactly. Although I agree with you, George. I did think the last album was a definite positive take. Totally agree.
Yeah, it was good. I need to go back to it. So, well, we spent a lot of time about Brent Hines. Well, great episode. It's the end of our era, and it's a band that we all love and respect, even with the fact that they're not doing what they used to do. That's how much we love and respect. That's what they're a band we're talking about. I mean. TR and I have seen them with, they've played with Opeth so many times. It's kind of weird. They have a good relationship with those two bands. Yep.
I'm not going to be that much into it. That show starts and they're going to play three songs out of 15 that I'm really into and I'm still digging the whole show. Even if I don't like some of the songs because they're just they're a machine on stage as a band. Yeah. They really are. We can be talented musicians. All right. Well, we'll see what the future brings. Yeah. Now we upset George. Yeah, I'm pissed.
Fuck this, I'm out of here. We just want to thank our guest, The Topic of Mastodon. It has been great. Thank you. Moving on to the rest of the episode now. Way to go, Brent. Fucking up our whole episode. So, Glenn Danzig shot down my dreams from last episode of a new Misfits album. But he says that singles may happen. And I don't...
Compilation three years from now. Exactly. He was like, you know, why would I waste my time and money putting out an album when people are just going to steal it? It's a lot cheaper and more efficient. Oh, is that really his quote? I didn't read that earlier. Yeah, yeah. He said that, you know. But they steal singles too? Yeah. Yes, but I guess it's a lot cheaper to make a single. Well, he also criticized the state of the music industry, saying that people are more interested in digitally released songs than albums. I agree.
And I think that's definitely overall true, but I don't think that's true in metal and punk, though. Agreed. I think the mainstream audience who wants singles isn't really the Danzig or Misfits crowd. It's totally close. Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter, if I may invoke that name. This doesn't have to factor in, though I bet it does at least a little bit, into his worldview, but I just looked up how old he is. Do you know how fucking old this guy is? 17. He's much of a 70, 69.
69, yeah. 69, yeah. 69, dude. And I, maybe should, that may be if I sat down and did the math, that's what I would have guessed. But damn, Danzig's almost 70. I didn't, I didn't take that in. That's crazy. Been around a while. Yeah. Yeah. He also said that he might do Danzig singles too, which kind of got buried in the news. Yeah. Yeah. But Danzig's single, I mean, Dan, his stuff has not been good for a while. I know he had some, I don't know, like the last album or two,
or maybe a little bit of room.
No, not the last one. The previous one. The last one was produced so fucking poorly that it was just ridiculous. But I know the one you're talking about.
And it's too bad because the songs on it are actually good. If they were produced well, I think that album would have been really awesome.
I'll put my head on the chopping block and tell you I like the Elvis one. I mean, I get it.
What's not to like?
What's that?
What's not to like? It's Elvis and it's Danzig.
But I know he loves Elvis.
It's not the one that he does Elvis songs, but he reimagined the Bowie album cover. No, I thought it was kind of an Elvis cover. Let me look and see what it looks like. You sure? What the cover looks like. He reimagines the Bowie album cover, I thought, for Pin Ups. Because Pin Ups is a cover album by Bowie. Yeah. Okay. It's... Because doesn't he have like... Isn't there two people on the cover and one person's got their head on?
his shoulder? No, no. You know what? It's really kind of a re... There might have been another thing he did, like a single or something. But no, this is Elvis-esque. I just noticed John's name tag. Which is the name himself The Hair Situation. I did that last episode. I just noticed it now. That's awesome. Jay, the album's called Skeletons. That's the one that looks like the Bowie. With him and the girl and the skeleton face. Yeah, so if you look at Bowie's
pinups. It's similar to that. Yeah. Okay. I'm not sure I need more Danzig or more Misfits. I would like, I would like Misfits just to see what it would be like. I mean, it would probably suck. Yes. You know, but I would listen to it, George, of course, but I don't know if I need it. I don't know if you need it either, really. No, it's more of a morbid curiosity. But do we, do we know about the live situation? Do we think we'll ever see like a Danzig live again? Or I know he's done a few one offs with Misfits.
I went to Danzig last year. Did you really? But that wasn't like a full tour, was it? They did a tour, but it wasn't a lot of dates. He's not doing many tour dates now. Yeah, I thought he said he was going to scale back. He's going to scale back even more. He came to Chicago and I had to go. So yeah, if he comes to your neck of the woods, I would probably go. And it was actually good. I thought he sounded pretty great. I was surprised. I thought he would not be able to carry that.
But he did. I thought the performance was excellent. And I enjoyed it a lot. I really just want Danzy to re-release those albums. Especially How the Gods Kill. Because I can't get it on vinyl. There's a lot of counterfeits. Yeah, I have a counterfeit vinyl. Which might be good. You have it? Yeah. Is it good, George? No, I mean, it's a counterfeit, I'm sure. So, yeah. So, I don't... I wish they would re-release it. Because I think a big anniversary happened like a year or two ago. I don't remember where that album came out.
Now,
I don't think Glenn's got good management or something.
Or he might not have the rights to it.
I don't,
I'm not really sure.
That's possible.
But,
you know,
we'll see what happens.
He always says this stuff and then,
you know,
something will come out and he's going to do something.
What's he going to do?
Otherwise make more movies.
Maybe it's just set up,
setting things up to do the opposite.
Yeah.
He's Costanza-ing it.
Yep.
Any certain certain artists you hear him say stuff you're like something else is gonna happen. I know it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Slayer is never playing again. Oh, we got coming out.
Yeah, there's so much Slayer now just stop just just say you're touring band and that's it and nobody will say another word.
That was pretty bad John.
Because they made you believe, like, this is it. This is all it's going to be. I mean, I don't want to name any other bands that have done that. Ozzy Crew. Ozzy, Motley Crew. Motley Crew, yeah. Just say, we're not going to make any more music. It will tour when we feel like touring. Then you can take off as much time as you want. Nobody gives a crap. They want you to come back. Hey, maybe they'll come back. Yeah. Is Ozzy even playing or singing or performing, or is he just sitting in a chair at this event?
That's gonna happen. TBD. The part of Phil Collins will be played by Ozzy Osbourne. He's probably gonna do like a couple songs and that's it. That's what I thought. And that's okay. I mean, if that's the case, it's not the end of the world. I mean, there's like 47 other bands playing. Yeah. Macedon without Breton. He's not gonna do a full set, John. No. That's okay. That's fine. I agree. It's fine. Just the fact that he's gonna go and do it because he really shouldn't. Now what would be bad at State is they brought Tony Martin to come sing his songs.
because he could still sing.
Let's see what Jay would think about that.
Jay, would you be in favor of that?
At the Black Sabbath final show, which, you know, is there like, they're not
kiss, but they're getting close to final shows.
If Ozzy can't sing every song to have Tony Martin come sing some of his songs.
Oh, you're muted, Jay.
I say let's get Glenn Hughes up there.
That'd be awesome to get them both.
Well, just let's get Ian up there to sing a couple songs to Ian Gillen. They did just do that Tony Martin box set, too, I think, didn't they? Yeah. Special edition of all those. A lot of people like those that came out. A lot of people really like those. Yeah, they really did. I honestly never really got into them, but maybe it's one of those things I should just do a deep dive. Revisit. Yeah. I think all those albums have probably songs that I like. I don't know if I like this. I like the parts. Maybe not the sum of all the parts.
Yeah, fair enough. I mean, I've pitched this before, and I'm going to pitch it now. I'll do a second, you know, number from the crypt, but I only Hughes. Awesome. So good. So damn good. Heavier than I'll get out. You know, it's a super heavy record. That's why I wish all that stuff was just I only solo career. I wish he wasn't forced to use the Black Sabbath name because then he could have done whatever he wanted. Yeah.
Well, I mean, that one came out under Iomi's name, but actually it was called Iomi Hughes. Yeah. No, but I mean, then all that could have been his thing and he could have been all just him. And it would make a lot more sense. And it would probably be liked more. How did the Ozzy thing come up? Oh, we're talking about, I just made a comment about how bands say they're done and they're not like the Misfits. And I said, maybe he's just doing a decoy to do something.
I may have mentioned Slayer and Motley Crue saying that they were done and they're now still doing shows. It just kind of, it defaults from there. Are you talking about the fact that Glenn himself was just sort of shitting on that? Because he was. Yeah, and I've said now that they'll go on tour next year. Well, in fairness to him, he's never said he's done. He just said he was going to limit time. I'm just poking fun at it. That's all. But John made really good points.
about all these bands that say that they're going to be done or they're winding down and they just come back from four. Kiss is the worst. I don't know if the Nisfits did a farewell or something. They just kind of broke up. I mean, so they can do whatever the fuck they want. Margaret Sun, to bring, to just add real quick, I saw Kiss in 95. I'd never seen it before. I was like, well, I got to go see him at least once. And we had a great time. The show was actually a lot of fun. All right, then this next tour is our last tour. We're done. I've been to four final shows.
Yeah. George, Will, and I went to a final show. We did. They still played shows until what? Just recently? The current one? Yeah. Yeah, but I kind of... Kiss is a band that I... I don't like Kiss that much, but if they said something like that, I would think that they would come back and do it. There are certain bands that said if they were done that I would believe them. Like if Iron Maiden says they're done, I would believe them. Yeah, I would too. I think when Maiden's done, they'll be done. Yeah.
Yeah, I agree with that. I'm just saying, Kiss kept billing it as, this is it, we're not doing it anymore. Well, they're marketing geniuses. Yeah, they had a farewell tour. Yeah, literally, a farewell tour. I do think they're done, though, now. Paul's voice is gone and stuff. I think they're done now. They're done now. Long time. Yeah, that's true, John. Gene can still sing, because he never really was much of a, he didn't do any of that, he just kind of like, yeah. Oh, now we get Tony Martin to do it.
Hologram Kiss, though.
Marcus, and I like what you're thinking.
Right?
It would be a lot better.
But he can't be the star child.
He'll have to be somebody else.
Hologram Kiss can go on tour with Hologram Dio.
Hey, speaking of bands that will or won't get back together, Will finally watched We Are Twisted Fucking Sister and loved it.
Nice.
How many times have we all said it's hands down one of the 10 best rock and metal documentaries?
I finally just spoke to him. I watched it again and I was like, you know what? I'm texting this motherfucker. I was like, dude. I'm not even a Twisted Sister fan and I absolutely loved it. Well, to be fair, I was finishing it up. I thought of him, texted him and he watched it that night. And he fucking loved it. It's great. I don't give a shit about Twisted Sister, but the documentary is great. So well done. Jay, you and I have talked about this. I'll watch any documentary from almost, almost
I don't care either I just like watching them I'm interested to hear what they have to say I watched Taylor Swift's documentary I don't care about that at all I said I will almost watch every documentary I watched that I watched well there's a couple of I watched uh you watch the Gaga I haven't no I love the Gaga almost where do I find it George everywhere or is it it's probably Netflix no don't do it I'm gonna pitch again um
Hey man, and I like this band, but I, um, the fucking, uh, Sly and the Family Stone one was good. Oh, yeah. I watched it after. I haven't watched it yet. It was good. We're going way off track, but I got to say this. So did you hear about the Prince documentary? Yes. They did a nine hour documentary with this guy who won the Academy Award for doing the OJ Simpson documentary, which was an excellent documentary. And then the estate, uh, reviewed it and for factual,
errors, which they had none, but they didn't like the way Prince was portrayed in the documentary. So they shelved it and now they're going to do a sanitized version of it. And that amazing documentary, which a lot of people, there's a, well, not a lot. There's a handful of people have seen it and they say it's a masterpiece and we're never going to see it. So we're going to cut it down to like 90 minutes of sanitized. Is this the Prince family or the Hendrix family? Because that sort of sounds like the Hendrix family sanitizing.
everything that comes out. I feel like the Hendrix family, if it's got his name on it, his dad was only too happy to sell the fucking name. Sure, but it has to be approved by them first. I actually watched that again recently, the original Hendrix documentary. The one that came out in 70-whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah. You should watch The Tragically Hip. I love that band, but that documentary that came out in four parts is excellent. Even if you don't even like the band, you will like that documentary.
It's really well done. They go into all of it. They don't hold back. And that's what I like in documentaries. We're not holding back, eh? We're totally telling the whole story. Don't you know? Did one of those guys have a serious health challenge or something? What happened? Gort Downey, he had a brain cancer and died. That's right. That's a singer, right? Yes. And so he was, they put on these final shows where he had the cancer.
And it was really difficult for him because he had to memorize those lines and his head was all messed up and he performed amazingly on this final tour to close it out. And he did a lot for the native people there as well because in Canada there were all these schools that they had that they would send the natives to and treated them terribly. And so he did a lot to bring awareness to that as well towards the end of his life.
And the documentary just kind of goes into that where, you know, they're trying to do this final, final tour. And there's so many challenges to, to go down and to pulling it off. And Canada or the Tragically Hip is like Canada's like biggest band of all time. It's not really close. You know, there's a lot of great bands from Canada, but I'm sorry, talking about in the public consciousness. Yeah. The Tragically Hip is huge because they, a lot of their songs are represented.
to Canada. And so the documentary is kind of amazing, but it's not just that. It's the challenges that the band themselves faced throughout the years, too, when they were making the albums. And they don't really hold back on how they felt about each other and how they almost broke up and stuff like that. So. To talk about their rivalry with Rush. You know, Rush, they interview people from Rush. Of course they do. I'm trying to remember that the rivalry is really,
talked about in there. I don't think so. No. But they're in it. There probably isn't one, but I remember getting in it for sure. Did Ray Daniels create that rivalry? If you know anything about him being Russian Van Halen's manager. So I have to take this moment then to kind of push at least John, who might have watched it, but the Triumph documentary is awesome too. I saw part of it. It's so good. This is a great time to transition to the next news item because... Exactly.
There is a documentary on this band coming out. Whoever it is better not to fuck it up, man. Yeah. Yeah. So that mentioned news item is that Iron Maiden is going to release a book called Infinite Dreams, the official visual history this fall. And most bands, who cares, visual history. But Iron Maiden, that's something else.
So I have a question though. Is it being released by Iron Maiden or is it like a Ross
Halfland? That is a good question. And I asked that because I bought some of the Ross Halfland
stuff and I was disappointed. It's very Maiden. It's super Maiden. Yeah, I agree with you, George. Like I'm not, I'm not into getting photo books normally, but because I don't really look through them all that much, but I have to make an exception for this one. So the, it said, I wrote down some of the stuff. So the book incorporates commentary by band members past and present.
and never before seen photography from the iron maiden archives including iconic album and single artworks photographs of the band's instruments past and present stage props handwritten lyrics and artifacts from the archive and the band's personal collections as well as landmark photographs from from ross half and and john mcmurtry but it has a it's bookended with a forward from steve harris and then afterward by bruce dickens
That's completely different. That's worth it because that's instruments and it's everything. This is the gold standard right here. I don't know if you guys have this book, Back to the Front, Metallica. And this is, it better at least be this fucking good. And this is all just about Master of Puppets, this book. And it's everything. Everything. Pictures from everything that matters and stories and stuff right up to where Cliff dies.
This is the metal book that I hold all other metal books for.
This sounds like it's going to be good because it's got commentary for the band.
Like I said, it's got an intro and afterward by the members.
Okay.
And it's, you know, it's 50 years of history.
Plus all the artwork, if there's going to be stuff that is not, well, that's the stuff I would really be into.
Like all those great singles from the 80s and stuff.
If there's any stage design stuff that they have, that would be great to see that.
Yeah.
By the way, a great title.
I thought that was a really good title to choose for at Infinite Dreams. Yeah. As a whole retrospective of their career, and not only is it a great song, but that's a great way to describe Maiden's career. Also, you can't deny them. Yeah. They never read it. They'll never see the last one. Is this book going to be like a thousand pages because it's Infinite? I know. That's what I'm wondering. It's up, I think, for pre-order. Maybe? I don't know. I have to look. $52,000.
It sounds like it sounds like it's gonna be they talking about all the album covers and the single covers too they're gonna be in there like that's a lot of stuff just that Amazon's gonna take a hit to print this one yeah I don't mean Amazon the business I mean the rainforest so and it comes out in the fall and and Jay mentioned to there's they put out an announcement about the documentary that's also gonna be released in the fall and maybe we're gonna get it in the theaters as well they haven't said if the American release will happen
But if it does go to the theaters, even for a couple days like they did with the Dio documentary, I would see it in the theater. Any documentary they do should only start one way and one way only, just so that everyone in the theater says it. And it should be the start to the number of the beast. And it should be just pitch dark. And that's all you should hear. And everyone should just stand up and say it. That's my fantasy. I'm not trying to direct this fucking thing. I'm not going to fuck this up. I thought Netflix was responsible for the documentary.
I thought they said that but this new announcement does not say Netflix so it doesn't mean that it's not going to be on Netflix but I think they're maybe angling for a theatrical release first and then we don't know where it's going to land they've only said it's coming out in the fall well I need to watch that deal one again that well that really was pretty good they did a good job and I saw it in the theater and at the end of in the theater they had all these like outtakes and these extra scenes and stuff and I don't know if they're on the DVD or not or blu-ray I haven't
I actually don't have that I should buy that because it was really good it made me cry documentary made me cry nice well we got stuff to look forward to for them that's awesome I'm glad they're going all out for this 50th anniversary because I mean they deserve it that's an amazing achievement and they've been the high middle for a long time maybe we'll get some rarities that were played before like would it kill them to play sanctuary again yeah just saying that's a little weird
That would be an omission that I wasn't even aware of. They haven't played it in a long time. I mean, they play it, but they haven't played it in a long time. We had an episode where we talked about the deep cuts that we wanted. So, yeah, hopefully they play it. And my hat is off to you. You've already got huge points in my book, Markisan, but you chose, if I'm not mistaken, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, which I think is such a good song. Right? And not often mentioned in lists and stuff. And that, I get, my hair raises up.
on my arms when he says I've got to keep going, be strong. That whole section right there just, I get teared up during it. I mean, it's powerful. Yeah. They're amazing. So can't wait for all this Maiden stuff. And I can't wait to see him again live whenever they come around. Yeah, I would love, it's not going to happen, but I would love if they would drop a number of songs. Just to. Oh, sure.
Just to do something different. I mean, obviously, you're never going to drop the song Iron Maiden. It's just not going to happen because that's how they close every show. Yeah. Yeah. Man, it'd be nice to drop some songs they play all the time. There's four or five they could get rid of. Yeah. Yeah. That's not much. And by the way, and replace them with four or five just as viable crowd pleasers. You can dump Fear of the Dark now. I'm ready to move. You just need to listen to our episode where we talked about it and just follow exactly what we said. You know? And then we're fine. You don't have to do Rhyme of the Ancient Man.
I mean, I want Rhyme of the Engine Manor. We all do. We all do. Hey, I got to hear Alexander the Great. I'm good. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Just saying, you know, would it kill him to play Phantom of the Opera one last time? That's a great choice. I'd lose my shit if they did that. Well, you've always got Beast over Hammersmith, John. Would it kill Bruce to take four minutes off?
for Lost for Words. No, it would actually help him. How many albums do they have now? A thousand. It's lower than you think. It's like 15 or 16. Yeah. They've gone slow since... Yeah, it's a lot lower than you think. Actually, I prefer that, to be honest with you. I don't want bands just churning.
They've got 17.
They've got 17.
Senjitsu is number 17 minus live record.
Don't get me wrong.
I love Saxon, but I only need the first five.
And I love them.
I love them to death.
I think it's good and bad, though, John, because with Maiden, because they take so long
to put out albums.
And the albums are so long.
And they're so long.
That's because they have so much time.
So they're throwing everything into it.
If they went faster, maybe they would have shorter songs.
We would have more of an impact.
The problem is they need to take Steve Harris's prog collection away from him right now. That's John saying that so you know it means something. I like some. Like, Passchendaele is fucking amazing. I love that song. If you've ever heard Wishbone Ash Argus, if you've never heard that record, that's the one they need to take away from him. He has been trying to make that record his whole life, dude. Yeah, no. It's a good record. Wishbone Ash doesn't exist anymore. We broke the wishbone. It's gone.
By the way, that is like one of his big formative bands. And if you've never heard that in old Genesis, the album Argus in particular is actually really good. Yeah, I've heard of it. But I do think that's Steve's that's where Steve's prog experience ends. And so it's always that kind of mid paced, not too crazy. He does. He is a big old Peter Gabriel Genesis era fan. He loves that stuff, too. Which again, that old build up stuff.
Damn it. You know what? Cut the intro down by a minute and a half. They've been around 50 years. You do whatever the fuck you want. I don't care. I'm just glad you're still there. Yeah, but their fans are getting that old, too, now. They are, yeah. Yeah. Fans have died off now, John. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. It's not just intro, John. It's intro, and then repeat the intro as an outro. Ash Metalheads are still here, though. Yeah. I mean, I feel like every time I see them live, it's on an album, which then you're getting,
like four or five songs from the new album which sure but i mean i would rather
substitute the majority of those for older stuff well if the new album was awesome like it was a
brand new world type new album i'd be like yes i can play five songs from that album no but matt you
must have gone to some of those sure that you were like at one of the somewhere in time tours oh yeah
that was awesome hello yeah sorry yeah i did i think i'm probably just blending it because i know i saw
when it would have been Final Frontier. And then it was... I saw that....Book of Souls, and then it was Sunjutsu. And I feel like in between each of those, there's probably more of an era-based one, which I always seem to miss, which is my own fault. So I'm the one to blame for this. But really what I'm saying is I just need to be a better person about what I go to for shows. Somewhere Back in Time, that was awesome. Where did you see that one, George? Which one? Somewhere Back in Time.
Probably Jiffy Lube. Okay, that was the second go around, right? I guess. Because remember the first go around, they only played three dates in the U.S. They played, or in North America, they played Toronto, L.A. And Marcus, they played one in Chicago for that, too? I couldn't remember. Or was that New York? They only played three dates in North America. I don't think so. And remember, each song was filmed in one of the cities on that tour, remember? Do you guys remember that for the 666 video? I went to Toronto to see that. Nice.
Yeah. And it was cool. As a matter of fact, Sam Dunn was in our section after the show filming. Really? Yes. Fans were running up and I was like, I'm not going to go bug him. I mean, he's like, oh my God, it's Sam Dunn. What the fuck? And I was like, it's Sam Dunn. Let him do his job. I just spun Beast over Hammer Smith like two days ago. Yes. I don't care what anybody says. George, I agree with you up to a point.
About what? About what's the best made in live album. Yes, Live After Death is 99.9. B-Star Aerosmith is 100. No, I get that. I'm not going to argue that. Oh, no. It's just that I've listened to Live After Death more because it was available and I know it better. And it's awesome. Don't get me wrong. But Marcus, how awesome is that live on the vinyl? It is my favorite, especially on the vinyl. Yeah, I love it.
I mean, John, it's so good that when I put it on, like, I can't do anything else. I just have to sit there and stare at the album cover. That's how good it is. Stare at the album cover, you know, look at all everything that's inside it. And then that's it. Just totally, total immersion. And then you laugh and realize they played Number of the Beast third in this show. What? What? Nobody even cheers for the song.
They're like, ooh, yeah, cool. What is this? Not Number of the Beast, Run to the Hills. Excuse me, I apologize. Run to the Hills, they play third. Oh, right, right, right. Like, you're the ones who made this popular with the Sunday Western show or something to that effect. Do I have Beast over Hammersmith? His was, is the name of it, yeah? Yeah. They put it out a couple of years ago. And the guy plays movies, and he was playing Western movies. But I don't know, his was,
Weirdest name for a show. Yeah. Plus his voice is kind of not raw, but it's not the same yet. It's kind of like Ozzy on the first Sabbath album. Remember, it just didn't sound like you're used to hearing him. It's just so good. It is. I can, I, I'm going to keep high as much as Will crushes the Black Album, I will promote Beast Over Hammersmith. Yeah, me too. How do those two things even like coincide? Because they're so extreme on either side.
That's the point. He's so emphatic about it. I'm trying to say I'm that emphatic about this. Got it. I gotta get my dinner too. Jay, you're making me hungry. Although, George, if they release the full version of Live After Death, that might be kind of tough then. Yeah. It's missing like three songs. So this isn't on the script, but I'm just gonna bring this up because I saw it and I sent it. The teaser for the new
Spinal Tap Movie.
All right.
Did you happen to notice that this one doesn't go to 11?
It goes to infinity.
Do you, do you guys, now I've, I've known about this for a while.
I don't know if you guys had heard about this yet, but do you know how they're, the storyline, the basis for the story?
If I remember correctly, I could be wrong.
Cause Tara and I had a very long conversation about this in a hotel room before a show drinking.
I believe the storyline, I don't think this is ruining anything now that they're finally teasing it, is that their manager dies and they all come together because of that. Okay. Because we were like, boy, I hope they don't screw this up. So they had to come up with something. So that could actually be really funny, that whole concept of them reuniting because of that. Well, that tracks with the history of how they write things too, because
Zeppelin when they played that reunion show was because that Amit Ertkin guy died from
Atlantic. And that was something that brought them together.
And that's the whole idea behind Spinal Tap is they were kind of mocking all these different rock stories over the years. I mean, if one guy in the band looks like Jeff Beck. I mean, come on. Nigel Tufnell?
Yeah.
Don't even look at it.
You know, I saw in the Saxon documentary.
That's good, too.
Derek Small, whether Harry Shearer, for like two weeks when they were writing the movie. And he swears, the guys in Swaxons swear that when Nigel Tufnut goes down onto his back and one of his roadies has to pick him up so he can keep playing. Yeah. But that happened when Harry Shearer was watching them. And so they firmly believe that story is. You know, I was in the car yesterday and, and a UFO came.
Come on with rock bottom. And I was like, Oh my God, we must've been at the same time. Cause I heard that yesterday too. Yeah. I was like, rock bottom, big bottom. I'm just saying. Yeah. I mean, I hope it's good. I really want it to be. It's just, it's gotta be. I mean, first of all, those guys are all amazing and it's been so long to, to put out garbage just doesn't make sense. I know. I,
I mean, I hope it's 80% ad-libbed again. I just saw, um, accidentally, um, the folksmen, who is the guys that they played in, um, a mighty wind. And they do a version of start me up by the rolling stones. It's hilarious, dude. They just, it's just like, and it's really funny. Really good.
Yeah, that was a good one, too. Yeah. Awesome. All right. All right. Moving on again, I guess. So Behemoth released a new single, The Shadow Elite, from their forthcoming new album, The Shit of God, O.V. God, which is out May 9th. I kind of dig the new song. I don't know what anybody else thinks.
There's a lot of the fans on this podcast, and I admit I haven't heard it yet, but I'll probably listen to it tonight. Okay. I was speaking with someone else that we know, not on the podcast, and I was like, hey, did you hear the new Behemoth? And they were like, ugh. And I was like, what? And they were like, the album title is so stupid. And I was like, shit of God.
It's O.V. God, though. It's kind of O.V. It's like, yeah, it's metal. But yeah, no, I get that. It is kind of dumb. But I don't care. I mean, the new song's cool. Your shit of God is really funny. I actually laughed out loud when I heard the chorus to that first track they put out. We are the shit of God. Because God dropping a giant human deuce is something I just didn't expect to visualize in my life. But the song is pretty good.
The Tour Song is better than that one, though. I quite liked it. It kind of has that demigod daze feel to it to me. No children singing, so hopefully not yet. Hopefully Will's on board. Stay tuned. This is in no way related, but I've just remembered it jogged my memory for some reason. And I'm sure you guys are all aware of this. But Trevor, one of his fans, that is
It's awesome, dude. They're going to open for a bath. Yeah, it's... Which band is it? Not... Aboria? Aboria, yeah. Aboria is opening. Yeah. Good for him, man. That's just so cool. Yeah. He was stoked. I take it it's just one show, I think. I don't think that... Yeah, it is. Yeah. No, he messaged me before that was a public thing, and he was like, dude, I mean, I think we're talking already. It's not like he comes to me to tell me things.
But we were talking about something else. And he was like, dude, this isn't public yet. So don't say anything. But we're opening for Abbott. And I was like, what? Abbott? Like the band from Sweden, right? That would be. I hate Abbott, but that would still be huge. Abath. Abbott, Abbott, Ebith, Abbott. I don't know how you want to say it, but I say Abath. He says Abath. I once saw him interviewed him. They said, he said, it's like a bath. Take a bath.
All right. Fine. And of course, Matt and I spent a weekend with him. So yeah, of course. Well, regardless, that's really cool. Was that a plural marriage then? Yeah. Nice. Yeah. That's how we were able to have an adult so easily. It was a throuple. I mean, it was Vegas, right? Yeah. What throuples in Vegas? You know, throuples in Vegas. All right. Well, I guess
We got about as much as we're going to get out of that one. I love that that Markisan has himself a little bib. Hell yeah, you don't want to jack your shirt up. Exactly. Dude, it's Italian. It's like pasta. Like get it everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you look like you're a made man at the Italian eatery. I got a spicy meatball. I got a spicy meatball. I don't want to get it on my nice shirt. I don't want to get it on there. Batman, he don't get none.
She's on mine.
All right, next up, Acid Bath.
Continue their series of reunion shows, and I'm super jelly.
I'm a huge Acid Bath fan.
Dax Riggs, amazing singer.
I like his solo, like, kind of folky stuff, too.
And I really wish they would come out to the East Coast so I could see them,
because I would venture out to see Acid Bath.
Any other Acid Bath fans around here? I don't think I've ever listened to one song. Are they the band with that clown on the album cover? Yes. I like them a lot. And also of Acid Bath fame is... Sammy from Goat Whore. Yeah, so that was Sammy from Goat Whore's kicking off point, I suppose. Yeah. They're playing here in Chicago with High on Fire, and I considered going, but I've just never really been into Acid Bath.
I actually spun a few tracks from their two albums a couple days ago, and I had the same reaction I did when I was a 20-something. I just, it's fine to me. I mean, when I know a lot of people are really excited like you, George, because they're coming back and they haven't played in what, like 30 years or something? Yeah, yeah. You know, when their bass player died, they pulled a Zeppelin and they broke up. And, you know, When the Kite String Pops is a little more raw, pagan terrorist tactics.
I think this is so
so good I mean
come on
and
Dax's vocals are just ridiculous
so
I would really like to see this because this is something
that I never thought would happen
you know there's been no talk of this for
decades and for them to come back
now and do this stuff I really would
like to see this do you have any evidence
that he still sounds good
He's got a solo album that came out last year, I think, that still sounded good. George, come to Chicago. I'll go with you. Okay. Forced my hand. Yeah. Up and down. You kept forcing it up and down. Those shows are selling out, though, because I actually got a notification because I put a thing in that I was interested in it, and it told me that tickets are already low for the Chicago one. I'm sure. Crazy.
Yeah.
That would be cool to have goat whore and acid bath on the same set.
Acid whore.
Acid whore.
Acid goat.
Acid goat.
Goat bath.
Goat bath.
It took you a while, but you got to the best plug.
Goat whore.
Goat bath.
Goat acid.
Keep them going.
Yeah.
All right.
Last news item.
So apparently Tool is on the, they're on their fans' naughty list over some two-day show thing where they played basically the same set both nights. I didn't really read into this, but. Sounds like it's a promoter issue more than it's a band issue. Well. No, meaning the promoter billed it as something that it wasn't supposed to be. Like it was supposed to be two different shows and. Yeah, like really super unique and the band just came out. I thought though that it was their deal.
I thought they put that's I'm hearing two stories so who knows the fuck happened but it's a clusterfuck that's for sure we just blame Maynard and move on this is what I heard so they're upset with the band because they played a 10 song set the first night and nine songs the second night and four of which were played that first night and so they felt like they were ripped off because the festival promised two unique sets from tool so the band was
flipped off during their Saturday night set, which is the second one. And one of the attendees is an attorney from Georgia. His name is Stass Rusick. What a name. And so his firm is rallying up fans who want to take part in a class action lawsuit against Tool. So it's a potential lawsuit that's being investigated. And he hears this quote. This is what he's, what
this guy said what it boils down to is that purchasers of the festival package were promised two unique sets by tool while the comments and these posts argue about what that unique means the reality is that the opportunity to see tool play two unique sets ie no repeats was the determining factor for most attendees to pull the trigger on spending thousands of dollars to attend i think that's also the key thing there's a lot of money to go to this so most tool fans like me
have attended multiple shows on the same tour, and we know that due to the spectacular and complex nature of their show, most songs will be repeated. However, this is not what festival attendees were promised. And he claimed that fans who take part in this suit will not have to pay a fee unless they win. So, I don't know if it's actually going to happen. So, to add to that just a little bit, and I think this is all bullshit, but the reason it's expensive
is because it was like in the Dominican Republic or something. It was a destination festival. Okay. So that's what pissed people off. It wasn't, I bought a ticket and went to Chicago, you know, it was that they flew, they had to book hotels and all this shit. And the interesting thing is that's where Mastodon played with the YouTuber. Oh, that's, yeah. You know that, um, there was some other cool people on that set too. I think I'm, yeah. In any case. So yeah, the question is like,
As fans, do we have a right to say what they play and what they don't? Like, do you have a right to expect them to play completely different sets both nights? I don't, you know, I don't think I would even think about it because I don't wouldn't go two nights. I would just go one night. Yeah. I mean, Metallica does this stuff and they do unique sets. Cause you know, Metallica is cool. Blackout rules. If they're going to do two nights, why would you play that?
the same songs over and over when you know people are going to that festival. That's not very cool. It's not cool. So I don't know if it's like litigious, not cool, but it's not cool. Yeah. Yeah. I get that they're upset, but I don't, I don't know if that lawsuit's going to go anywhere. It's not. And it isn't law set uncool, but I do agree with you a hundred percent, Marcus. If you're going to a destination thing and there's a band you love and they're playing two nights,
I mean, just from the band's perspective, you'd be like, it's going to be the same group of people. Let's mix it up. And you know people are paying thousands of dollars to go there, not just for the show, but to get there. Wouldn't you want to put on something unique both nights so that they have the ultimate experience because they're investing in this, investing in you as a band? It was a little out of touch on their part. Yeah. Yeah. But Tools always had this weird relationship with the consumer products.
that I don't always like.
The decision sometimes they make on that I don't always agree with.
So I'm not surprised.
But at the same time, like.
I hope this isn't happening with other bands because wow.
Well, everybody else is looking at this going, dang, what happened to Tool?
Let's not do that.
They probably will.
But I agree with Marcus and also that I just can't see this lawsuit going anywhere.
No.
No. They didn't sign a contract that saying, hey, completely different sets both nights. Yeah. So it's disappointing for those fans that were there, but. Oh, well. I don't know. It was me, though, and I really cared about Tool like I used to. I don't so much now, but I would have been okay with it. I wouldn't give a shit. You're too easygoing, though. Okay. Not a litigious lawyer.
What a tool. What a tool. Indeed. Yeah. You got me there. All right. Shall we move on to new releases then? First up. All right. First up, we have the new Havukrunu album. Tavastland. I have no idea how to say that, but hey.
It's their fourth album, their Finnish black metal band. Who cares how it's pronounced? It's just kind of cool. Anybody else like this one? Am I cricketing all by myself here? Sorry, George, I was muted. No, I like it a lot. I thought this album, it really delivers complexity and big anthemic metal. There's fucking folk choirs, icy black
metal cut with these like massive uplifting guitars it was really good i was digging the whole like clean vocal choir thing i was just like that's like epic yeah no it's really epic yeah i thought it was really good and i like their previous stuff but i think i like this one probably better than the other ones they've done they've been around like what 10 years something like that four albums anyway yeah maybe longer than 10 years yeah exactly so i thought this was really good yeah it's pretty cool i didn't particularly care
for the production on speaker. When I listened to it, it was like, yeah, this kind of sounds like shit. Me? Is that you? No, no, no. Let me finish. On speaker, I just, it felt tinny to me. So I went on under cans and it sounded much better there. So I would suggest if you want to listen to it, give it a spin there. Well, that was good, but it just, that turned me off a little bit. I didn't dislike it at all. I just, you know, I gave it a spin. Thought it was all right.
It's loaded with riffs, that's for sure. For a black metal album, there's a lot. 20% more riffs. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot going on, but that's what I like. There's a lot going on, and then all of a sudden, they just sit down on those riffs, and you're like, whoa, your hair blows back. It was good. All right, moving on to the next one. Jesse Stiletto, self-titled first album from this mysterious unknown band that we know
nothing about. But we do. But we're not saying. They wear masks on stage, I heard. Yeah. What'd you say, Markisan? I said cryptic. Yes. So it's kind of desert rock, kind of heavy, hard rock psych. The psych doom kind of thing. I mean, it's definitely heavier. It's definitely heavier.
than like a desert rock album you know um it's pretty rock oh it's heavy though it's like 70s style rock yeah but it's heavy yeah but it's heavy but it's rock isn't it heavy and i you know i'm listening to this thing going like the very first song i was like wow it almost reminds me of angel rat by voyvod just hold on though but on the first song did you think man the production sucks on this album when it first starts because they kind of really you went with the
the whole garage thing where it sounds a little muted then it kicks in you're like oh yeah oh yeah you sneaky bastards but like i i heard all kinds of stuff on this nothing super specific like they don't sound specifically like anybody but i like i said i there was a little bit of angel rat on there i was like daniel ash loving rockets what is kind of like that maybe some thin lizzie it reminds me of all kinds of things without sounding like anything specific and i
I absolutely love this album.
Really?
And it's got a little bloister cult to them.
I mean, they cover bloister cult on the album.
There's a song on there they cover.
Yeah.
So it's got a little bit of that.
It's really cool.
It's in the vein of that, I should say.
This is where my headspace is right now, musically speaking.
You know, I've been listening to a lot of Stoner Doom and Desert Rock stuff, trying to find stuff that I like.
But honestly, there's a ton of it out there. Not a lot of it's great. It all sounds the same. It all sounds the same. That's the problem. This, though, is something special. You know, my album of the month would probably appeal to you, George. It's a lot more stoner, doom, sludge rock than you might guess. The new Pentagram record. Yeah, but it's no. He's an asshole. Fuck that guy. I know. I know. Bobby's an asshole.
The music may be good, but I know what Bobby did to his parents. Yeah. By the way, that's a damn good documentary, too. Yeah, it is. That's a really good documentary. And how he's still alive is a good question. That's anybody's guess. He obviously is related to an Englishman named Keith Richards. Yeah. Actually, I just watched him, and I agree with you, George. He's a prick. But he's weirdly sweet.
and other times. I get that.
And as junkies are, because they need to be so that you'll love them.
Okay. Fair enough.
But they just, he just did a what's in my bag at the, at Amoeba.
And I have to say it was kind of endearing of the stuff he chose.
He chose two Rocky Erickson records.
So already he's off to a good start with me.
Johnny thunders, the stooges.
And, and he just comes across as that sweet guy that he is sometimes, but he may be,
But he's... Until he gets high. Yeah. Until he gets high. He almost has to be clean now to still be alive. Sure, sure. But does that earn you forgiveness, getting clean? I don't know. No, no, no. You're right. But, you know... Now, what are you speaking about in particular? Because it's bad enough the way he treated his parents, but I mean, there was an actual assault on his mother or something. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, there was. And his parents lived or lived... Like, I used to work right across the street from where they lived. What was...
She must be dead by now, too. Probably. Anyway, sorry to get off on. Yeah, sorry. I was going to say to get back to Jesse Stiletto, but if you want to continue your thought, go ahead. No, no, it's just a freaking awesome album. I love it. I love it. All right, you sold me. I haven't listened to it yet, but I will. Oh, you need to. Yeah, it is. That's cool. It's very good. It's right up my alley. But we all need.
I call this it's not a palate cleanser it's just a shift in direction when it comes to music. Marcus and I sometimes like to talk about ambient stuff we like. Yeah need to get away from that. That is a really good way to describe because I don't think it's metal and I'm not really into that 70s sound but I think this is really well done for that style. And it does it where it's welcome it's not a long album what about 38 39 minutes roughly 37 which is nice don't get me wrong I'm not a
covers fan, but it's cool who they picked. I mean, a Bloyster Cult song from their debut album is awesome. And the album cover is pretty great, too. That sci-fi album art is really good. And we need some more rock, man. I miss rock. This is R-A-W-K, rock. Yeah, it's like a metal-adjacent album. I think a palate cleanser is a good way to describe it. Well, yeah, that's why I also sometimes when people say it's like, oh, you just need to
I just like to take a different path
I'll come back
I spent the last two weeks listening to the last three records
Loretta Lynn recorded before she died
I have hardly listened to any metal this year
I've listened to so much prog rock
it's unreal
but I think it's good
I've seen that on Bandcamp
because I see you buy all those prog rock albums
like oh John's in his zone
he's in his zone
I'm listening to metal too, but of course I gotta mix it up. George, you were saying, Oh, this is like my favorite album so far this year. Nice. Hands down. You know, and, uh, you know, they're, they seem like they're cool guys. Yeah. I mean, whoever they are. I, I, when we started talking about it, um,
Well, today, actually, prior, I listened to it, and I just have not gotten back to it, but I really, really liked what I heard. Yeah. So that's my camp. All right, next up, we have the third album from Night, N-I-T-E, San Francisco black heavy metal band. It's called Cult of the Serpent's Son. I dig this band because it's like, we play traditional heavy metal, but we have harsh vocals.
Or at least semi-harsh. I was going to say black-ish. Slash. Or just heavy metal band, yeah. Black heavy metal is what it says on Metal Archives. It's funny because the music's not black metal at all. No, it's just the vocals. The music is heavy metal. It's straight up metal, yeah. Yeah, it's kind of cool. I dig these guys. I was going to say, for Will, it's like tribulation without being tribulation. I mean, I thought of you immediately when I heard
Because I'm such a loser? No. I was thinking on the Tribulation and the Unto Others piece. I mean, I think it sounds great. I like it. The other stuff I listened to, it was like, oh, it's okay. But this I thought was kind of cool. It kept me engaged the whole album, which I thought was cool. This is kind of like if Midnight didn't suck. Oh, boy. I'm going to cut that. Let me say that again.
It's kind of like if Midnight was more hard rock. Okay. Without the masks. Yeah. I mean, I thought this was pretty good. It's got that kind of a retro feel to it. Yeah. But yeah, black and heavy metal. So I love the way the guitars just, they really gallop and they swirl on this thing. And then they also have some really cool atmospheric sounds that add variety to it. So there's like a slow meditative opening to the mystic, that song, which I like.
And I can't say that I was all into this band before, but I do like this one. I feel like I'll be spinning it a little bit more. Exactly. Marcus, you have the same reaction I had to this album. Same thing. I was like, I never really cared. I didn't dislike them. I was like, this is kind of cool. I like it. I feel like the vocals are a little bit better on this one too, for some reason. They might be. I'd have to listen to the last one again. This one connects with me just more than the stuff from the band.
I like that you know yeah that's true from my old hood I'm still trying to figure out where they took their band picture from and what what church it's in because it looks familiar to me obviously they're fans of will cult of the serpent done okay anyway meanwhile meanwhile back at the podcast next up we have our wake and their
Sixth album, The Return of Magic, an Arkansas sludge doom band. It's their first album in 14 years. So clearly fans of the band are freaking out. I've seen a lot of high praise for this online, which kind of made me listen to it because I probably wouldn't have otherwise, but everybody was so stoked about it. It's like, let me give us a listen. And yeah, not bad. It's not bad at all. Yeah. I mean, I thought this was the best.
record in the new releases by a good margin. I thought it was a great comeback album for them. And it felt like a statement, to be honest with you. But it's got just a killer merge of the progressive metal, sludge, just fucking metalcore on there, black and post-metal, doom. I really enjoyed this one. And again, just like the last album, I would not say that I was a huge fan of our wake before.
Yeah, I've never heard of earlier stuff. I've heard of them, but I've never listened to them before. So is it pronounced R-R-A-K? I have no idea. I just call it R-A-K. It would be way better, John. Yeah, I like that. R-A-K-E. R-A-K-E. R-A-K-E
I just went with what George said. We're going to find out like the K is silent. It's not R. Kelly. It's R. Wake. It's just Ake. Anyways, it's a really good album. Yeah. I feel like I liked their last album, but because I have no actual memory, I can't say that for sure. I don't think you were born yet. I don't think I was either. I didn't even know this band existed. Yeah. Well, a name like Wake is hard to forget, and that's
I may have tattooed that on my body somewhere. I just don't know. And like I'm going to say about, yeah, so I got to find a mirror. But like I'm going to say about every album tonight, I gave it a quick listen and I would like to get back to it. But I like what I heard. The only reason I knew about it is George Kobuz, you know, does the new releases. I was like, what's this? I'm in the office now full time, so I have to go to, I don't have anything to look at.
for new releases. I got to figure out where to go. I'm like, oh, fuck. I forgot about that. This one. Whole list of shit that I can listen to while I'm sitting there. This one I put in the promo box. I've listened to it for a bit before it actually came out. Yeah. And I believe he did. When I go through those lists, if I don't see anything that I recognize, I just, it's real quick. See, I'm the opposite. I'll listen to the things that I don't recognize. I'll put the things that we know, but I'll also put things that I think I preview it at a mic on.
this could be pretty good.
And then I end up listening to those because I want to know what's new that I might have missed in the past. So digging this one.
Yeah, I've heard of them previously, but I don't know.
Maybe it's just the name of the band or something.
I always thought it was like a new metal or metal core or something that just wasn't my style.
So I just never listened to them before.
There is metal core in there for sure, but it's so many other things.
It's much more sludgy though. Yep. So. I was wondering if maybe Wake lost a member or something and they were changing their name but they didn't want to be like everybody else and do an X or an AD so like fuck it we'll just put an R in front of our name. R. R. Wake. It's pirate metal. R. R. That reminds me of a joke. Do you know what a pirate's favorite letter is? R. R. Oh it'd be the C.
That was the second joke in that one. Walked right into that one. Yeah, he did. A little girl told me that joke, so. You fell for it, too, then. I fell for it. Oh, look at that. Keep it going, John. Last new release, the new Warbringer album, Wrath and Ruin, their seventh album, Ventura, California.
I have a special place in my blackened heart for Warbringer because back in 2011 I interviewed the singer John Keevil here in Frederick, Maryland behind Cafe 611 in a grassy knoll up against a brick wall video interview freaking horrible but it's on YouTube if you want to look it up it was rock music critic back then
He's a critic, Warbringer, Frederick, Maryland. The doldrums of Frederick. Yeah. And he was such a nice dude and put up with it. Right by the dumpster behind the building. Yeah. And no, he was a good dude. And he played an amazing. I mean, John, you've been to Cafe 611. It's a little it's a little teeny ass hole in the wall. And so, you know, when they played, it was just a massive pit right in front of the
the band. It was hands down. You could see the band. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you could walk up, you could headbutt the band, you know. So it was an amazing set. I've always been a fan of Warbringer. It's a cool name. Yeah. And, you know, the first few albums were my favorite. Then they had a couple albums where I was just kind of like, yeah. But I listened to Wrath and Ruin and they bring both of these with this album. It is a cool thrash album. Awesome. I saw it, but I didn't get a chance to listen yet.
It was a little busy. Yeah, I mean, I thought it was decent. I mean, not all the songs don't have enough
bite to me, but I feel like Warbringer tried to do a few different things on this album, and I always liked that.
So there's definitely some black metal elements there. There's just more going on in a few of the tracks, like Cage of Air stands out to me. It's not just straight-ahead thrash attacks, and I think that's good, especially with thrash bands, because it's,
They kind of get a lot of thrashers just getting that one rhythm, you know, kind of it's nice to be able to spread out a little bit try something new. So I would say that it wasn't completely successful in what they were trying to do, but I like the way they're moving towards something else. All right, that's fair. Anyone else listen to it? I liked it. I mean, we kind of share that weird little pocket together.
I mean like trying to think of who I was. The thrash pocket. Yeah but I mean like a prison purse or something like that and I love these bands that just have their shtick and do it you know. I can't say that I know the whole history of Warbringer but I liked it a lot. Cool. Yeah. Alrighty. Listen to it. I'll probably get back to it later but I liked what I heard. Where have I heard that before? Oh right.
It's the last album. Matt's answering everything. To be continued. I like it, but I need to get back to this. Let me get back to you. Yeah. Next episode, what we're listening to, Matt's going to talk about all these albums. Matt will have his people get a hold of our people. You should totally do that, Matt. You should always be one up behind. I will. All right. Well, with that, we will move on to what we are listening to.
Mark is on.
I ate a cannoli.
I had to cough that out a little bit.
Sorry.
Leave the cannoli.
Take the phlegm.
I didn't expect to get a cannoli. Tracy went to a restaurant with some friends and brought me back chicken parm and a cannoli. Nice. Go, Tracy. We just celebrated her anniversary. Happy anniversary. Yeah, how did you get such a cute wife, dude? Seriously. Is it like a make-a-wish type thing? I mean, I'm adorable, but also the charm is very strong. The charm is strong with this one.
Yeah, congratulations on your hand. No, I'm lucky. Indeed. All right, so getting back to what we're listening to. Fucking cannoli is just really sitting right here, dude, right in the gullet. All right, so I've been really revisiting my favorite 90s metallic hardcore albums a lot lately, and so it got me wondering if there were any new bands that were delivering that sound that I love so much, and it turns out there's
I've actually revival happening now that started up in the last couple years. I didn't know anything about this. Especially through this one record label called Aphira. So there are two bands I discovered that I absolutely love now and I've been playing their records on repeat over the last week or so. And the first band is Contention. They released an album in 2024 called Artillery from Heaven. And holy fuck, this one is one of the most bombastic records I've heard.
a while. It's straight for the jugular riffs upon riffs in short two to three minute demolition bursts. It's an absolutely pulverizing album. And I actually had to make the sad decision to stop listening to it when I drive because I was worried I might headbang my car apart. That's how freaking heavy this fucking thing is. So their previous record called Laying Waste to the Kingdom of Oblivion is nearly as good
as this artillery record as well so i i couldn't recommend it more highly and then the second one uh the second metallic hardcore band is balmora and so their 2023 record with thorns of glass and petals of grief also brings seismic riffs but the songs are longer um they're more intricate they sound more like a melodic death metal band but with
of massive hardcore breakdowns. So they released three songs after this album on a split that are just as good. And they're working on a new full length right now. In addition to those LPs, I've also been working through various catalogs for indie metal labels who have been offering Bandcamp Friday sales. I love Bandcamp Friday. I don't know if you know, but I buy a lot of stuff. I didn't know if that was still going or not. I guess so.
So I've discovered quite a few albums I had not heard or I just missed them when they initially dropped so it's been pretty fun to stumble onto some of these gems from a year two years three years ago and so here's a few of those the first one is called Rana Richtfuehrer this band plays long winding black metal with meditative elements of post-rock neocrust and shoegaze so this album definitely
I definitely would have made my list in 2023 if I had heard it then. Fucking Kill Records picked it up and then re-released it in 2024 and I found it through them because I follow that label. So if you like really savage black metal that's heavy on melodic riffs and despair, you'll dig this one. Next one on my list is Miko Ziggurat on Total Dissonance Worship.
which is a label I've been getting into more and more. This is a very dissonant, blackened, post-hardcore from 2022. So it's absolutely vicious and discordant, but it's somehow just really listenable too. When I feel mad about the government, we were talking about that earlier, and that's all I'm often mad about the government. I play this one and I tend to spin it a couple times in a row just to get that anger out of me. It's that kind of a
It definitely satisfies it. Yeah. Also listenable. That's interesting. Yeah. Right. A weird combination. It's like, it's dissonant, but you play it and you want to play it again. You also, I apologize. Go ahead. Go ahead. Jay, what are you gonna say? You just reminded me of a joke from Seinfeld that made me laugh really hard. And it was when, um, I don't remember what Kramer was doing, but he was starting some sort of business and to do the business, he just went, I've got a bunch of homeless guys. And they were, and, and,
and he was like here's the crew and and it was a rickshaw business the rickshaw business and one of the guys just had a big bushy beard and they were all dirty and rough looking and and one of the guys all he had to say was this the homeless guy the government nice yeah and miko also means monkey in spanish which pleases me a lot uh the next one on my list is returning and the album is called severance um
Breath Sun Bone Blood records another label that I've been getting more and more into this album dropped in 2023 I picked up the deluxe cassette for this on the last Bandcamp Friday since I now have a quality tape deck and that's all they had physically so it rides the currents of Cascadian black metal and dark ambient textures with a ritual like atmosphere to it which is right up my alley and makes me feel
like an evil sorcerer whenever I spin it. So you think Black Magic Forest, Dark Rivers, Bloody Sacrifice in a satanic ceremonial tent. That's basically this album. I also learned that Bind Rune Recordings signed the band and they have a new album coming out this year and they're going to be putting out a vinyl release of Severance. So I hope moving to that label gets them more notice because I think they're a really good band. Cool.
Next on my list is Forfeit, Numb, Self-Released. And this was a surprise find for me. I took this terrarium building class a few weeks ago, and after it ended, I went to this cool horror-themed coffee shop called The Brood. And then I went to a record store called Record Breakers. So like I always do, whenever I go to a new record store, I flip through every metal release, every punk and hardcore album release they had in the bins, and I found this
2016 album and I had no idea what it was so I looked up the LP on Bandcamp and I previewed a couple tracks on my phone I put it up to my ear and listen I do this a lot if I if I'm not heard a band and it turns out that forfeit was this Chicago band that mixed post-rock screamo post-hardcore and doom and so I like what I heard when I previewed it and the LP was only six bucks so I took a chance and I picked it up
And that ended up being a wise decision because I love the record. And then I immediately ordered one of the last vinyl copies of the band's follow-up record, Perennial, that they put out in 2017. So this band is what I would also call metal adjacent, although it's heavier. But I wanted to mention it because I really like finding something new out in the physical world. Getting into a record store and picking up an album,
by a band I've never heard of that I'll now enjoy spinning for years to come. I mean, that is a thrilling treat for me. It doesn't happen that often these days, you know? You remember those moments. Right? I loved it. It was like a special moment to me. And I just built a terrarium, so I was like feeling good. So unfortunately, Forfeit only released two albums. They forfeited. And a couple EPs. They forfeited, yeah, before disbanding. So I'm a little sad.
I never got to see them play live that would have been cool but some of the members did start up a new band called bleached cross and that funnels the aggression of screamo and hardcore through a I would say like post-punk dark wave shoegaze type lens so it has more of a pop hooks reverb ethereal synths in it but I'm digging that one quite a bit it's a lot different than four
but it's pretty cool so hopefully they'll keep going with that they have a couple releases
next i saw helmet on wednesday i've had a i've run a lot of shows how was that it was
excellent so they played their entire betty album from start to finish wait because it's the big
anniversary and then they also put a bunch of tracks from their whole catalog so i uh ended up
I was spinning the first four albums prior to that performance which were really fun to revisit but while I was at the show two weird things happened to me the first one was this girl comes up to me when I go to shows I usually move a lot like I'm really going I don't do it as much as a decimal because we're always moving around and drinking when I go to shows I'm either going in the pit or I'm like really going all out at the very front so this girl comes up to me and she told me this is great she wished that
her man moved like me. I was like, really? And he was like, not, I don't think he heard it. Thank God. But he was like, right there. I was like, okay, I feel pretty good, especially for an almost 50 year old man. And second, a dude named John asked me for my phone number while I was at the show. So I met this guy in front of the stage before helmet came on and I gave him metal recommendations and told him about our podcast.
And it turns out he's a musician whose band called Empyrean Sky put out these two progressive metal albums. I know. I figured you might, John. So the first one's called The Snow White Rose of Paradise in 2004. And then the one after that is called Extending the Tangent in 2012. So I listened to them and they're really good. Nice. The songwriting and musicianship is excellent. And both albums are just like, wow.
and I think you
a spin. So now I might have to text him and be like, okay, let's hang out. Let's go on a date.
Let's go on a man date.
But yeah, it was cool. I like meeting people at shows like that. It doesn't happen that often, but we talked for a good while. And it's neat because people tell you they have these bands and you're like, oh, cool, I'll check that out. But I don't always expect to really like them, but I thought this was quite good.
Yeah. So was there an opening band at the show?
Yes, there were opening bands. Shoot, I can't remember the name of the band that played. I missed the first band. War on Women was the first one I missed. Slow Mosa was really good, actually. Yes, I bring that up because somebody told me to check that out. You would like Slow Mosa. Actually, based on what we were talking about earlier, you would definitely like them. They were very good live, actually. So I've been checking out their albums. It was weird, too, George, because I'm at the show, right?
And there's all these people in horse masks. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Why are these people wearing horse masks? And it was cool rocking out to it. And I dug slow Mosa. And so afterwards I looked them up and I found out they have a song called horses. And the video is all of people in horse masks. And that's why people are doing that. So I thought that was really cool that people liked the band enough that they went out and bought horse masks to bring to the show.
Everybody should have a horse mask in their closet. Yeah, but they're they're from Norway and
yeah, I shouted really loud skull and they they said it back which was really cool because they were doing cheers before that and I was like, what are you doing?
So yeah, they were cool. I didn't expect I didn't
I was really just going for helmet. I missed the first I don't know if there was two bands or three the Warren women was right before them
I don't know if there's another band or not, but
Yeah, I'm glad I caught slow mosa. No, it's definitely rock, but it's pretty heavy
And then last but not least, I'll mention that I have been spinning Coroner's catalog a lot. Because I saw Helmet on Wednesday and last night I saw Coroner. Nice. So I've been spinning their album, especially Mental Vortex and Grin. Yeah. And because those are my favorite. And they were phenomenal live. I've never seen them live. First time. And I was really long. You weren't at MDF for that?
I don't think so I've only been once did they play when I was there I thought they did I mean it's the last time we were there I was when Matt got it yeah yeah that's a great weekend I forgot wasn't was it Galen Tekken for them yeah yeah yeah yeah they were awesome I don't even remember that okay well then maybe you're in the parking lot I don't think so because I love corner yeah but yeah that's weird anyways
Here's what I found out though. So they played a new song and it fucking ripped, especially the end was just huge riffs. And they're putting out a new album in October. Sweet. Nice. We've been kind of waiting for that for a while now. They changed that a long time ago. Many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many years. They didn't even hesitate. That's when it's coming out. And the new song was real good. Awesome. Visible for some other news thing just recently. Let me see what was it.
They only have five albums.
R.I.P.
Which is awesome.
Wait, no.
I mentioned Metal Vortex, Grin, No More Color.
No More Color is my favorite.
Punishment for Decadence.
Yeah, Punishment for Decadence.
They have that compilation, but I think half the compilation is new material, unreleased material.
So they've got like five and a half, I guess.
But five studio albums, yeah.
And it was like 30 year anniversary. And yeah, they're awesome. So they played, they played stuff from every album, which was really cool. I like that. I think that was great. If you get a chance to see him, I mean, apparently I forgot I saw them, but that was nice to see him in a, in a smaller venue. I was right up front. Nice. Yeah. Very cool. There you go. Awesome. Alrighty. Situational paradox. I like music. It's good.
Yeah. All right. John. I've been listening. I've previewed a few things. I'm going to tell you about them next episode. I'm going to have to get back to you. Can I go next episode? Yeah. We got a new track from Rivers of Nile, American Death, from their upcoming album, self-titled In May. I like it. But it kind of got me on this weird tangent of the band Fallujah, which I really dig. Not so much the last.
album, but some of their earlier stuff, I really dig kind of their blend of techie prog, to the point where that's mostly what I've listened to the last 30 days. What else? A band called Ancient Death. They have an album coming out, I think soon. Yeah. Called Ego Dissolution, but I heard at least one or two tracks. Really, really dig it. Just kind of super catchy, energetic death battle. Oh yeah, I agree. That sounds good. Dying Sun is the name of the band. Rot, W-R-O-U-G.
G-HT is what the album is called. What has that rot? Rot, kind of like Rick. It's kind of a doomier version of The Lion's Daughter, which is my words, not theirs. John, the band Sadist, which could be confused with Say Dust, but I do like this new album, Something to Pierce. For me, it's death metal with what I would call sprinkles of prog influence, but again, I don't know shit about shit, but it is good. Check it out.
And lastly, I think this is actually in the box, which I didn't know that at the time, but the band is guiltless teeth to the sky and a killer noisy sludge, which I'm digging without a shovel. So word. That stuff in the box. I mean, that's pretty good. What's in the box?
I've been getting so many emails. I'm going to try to keep up with it. I'd say that because I just looked now because I'm like, oh shit, write the box. And it's like, there's like 30 albums in there. I don't think I've listened to any of it. So I got to get on it. Good to know my work is being appreciated. Well, I will skim them and I'll get back to you in the next two episodes. Thanks, Matt. Appreciate it. All right. Now, John. All right. So I have not listened. I said this last episode, it still has continued.
this episode, I have not listened to that much new metal. N-E-W, space metal, for a while now. But I do have a few. Matt mentioned Sadist. S-A-D-I-S-T, not S-A-D-U-S. Like, Sadist. Something to Pierce. Matt, they are actually a progressive death metal band. You can throw the prog in there. It's okay, don't worry. No one's going to mind. Satan.
And I'm laughing at that meme you sent me, John. Oh, yeah. Sadist. Sadist. I have their first album, and that's all I had from this band, and I listened to their previous album that came out, but Markisan's brother from another podcast, Ben, had mentioned them, how much he liked this band. When I posted, I was listening to them with New Music Friday, and this came out. And then he actually sent me a message and said how much he liked this band.
I like the album so I was like well I gotta go back and listen again and I love this album
it's
somewhat different from when they
where they first started which was more
in the vein of atheist and cynic
you know that death
pestilence era right there in that mid
early mid 90s sound
but it's good I like it it's they've got
enough of something different
so they're not like
atheist necessarily
because they use a lot of keyboards and
everything but it's cool I dig it
It's been getting a lot of spins. So I'm digging through their catalog. Next one is Primrose Path, Ruminations. I don't know anything about this band. I saw the album cover. I was like, I'm going to check this out. I don't know who they are. And it's this kind of cool modern prog metal band from Australia. It's their debut album. Their band camp, as quoted by their fans, says the way to describe them is that they're psychedelic space witch metal. It's like, well, okay, I'm going to check that out. And it's cool. It's a modern prog metal album.
The singer Lindsay Rose has got some great vocals. She gets pretty high, but not operatic high. She's got a lot of power in her voice, which is kind of cool. So I've been spinning that quite a bit, actually. I didn't think I would like it. And the more I listen to it, the more I like it. Because some modern prog can be a little annoying, to be honest with you. But no, it's really good. Next one is Cryptosis, Celestial Death. It's the second album of their tech prog thrash band from the Netherlands.
It's cool. I like it. I'll describe it basically using Bandcamp again as the description from the label. Celestial Death showcases the group on a darker, heavier, more melodic, and extremely cinematic journey. There you go. That's all you need to know. It's cool stuff. Next one is Void Chaser Trust. It's an EP. Canadian prog metal band. Canadian and Swedish prog metal band. Excuse me. A solid EP that has
Best Appearances from members from a band called Universal Effects, which is actually a Canadian prog metal band. Jim Gray of Caligula's Horse. They're from Australia, another prog band. And then a little band we may have had a connection to called The Anchor It is on this EP. So, yeah. So, it's cool. It's three songs, but the nice thing is it's a maxi EP or expanded EP or a deluxe EP. So, you get the three songs with the vocals and then three songs as instrumentals. So, that's kind of cool.
Some band, I don't know where they're from, called Jesse Stiletto. We may have talked about them. I thought that was pretty good. It's not bad. It's all right. You know, whatever. We may have discussed them earlier. And then I would be remiss if I didn't mention the new Stephen Wilson album, the overview of Stephen Wilson, if you don't know who he is. Who is he again? I forget. Some dude from... He's the drummer from López. Oh.
Is that his name? Guy from Porcupine Tree. He's a producer. He may have produced Blackwater Park by Opeth and Deliverance and Damnation. It's his kind of return to his prog rock roots a little bit. A lot. Two songs. One's 22 or 23 minutes long and one is 18 minutes. It's his latest album. Kind of brought me back into full because he lost me with some of his pop rock stuff that he did that I just wasn't digging on. But I like it. I've only given it one list.
and I gotta give it more so that's all I got I got some other stuff but it's real prog stuff and I'm not gonna mention it's out there it's way out there I'm not going that prog I don't want to feed you here all right um I uh I think based on John Sykes guy and I kind of started with a little John Sykes kick and then I went to and I realized I didn't really know Tigers of Pantang which was his original
New Wave of British Heavy Metal band. So then I got stuck in this New Wave of British Heavy Metal fucking rabbit hole. It happens. It happens. And the cool thing is that no matter how many times I do that, there's always somebody I don't know. And so these are all bands I know, but Witchfinder General, Angel Witch, Pagan Altar, recently, as mentioned, Tigers of Pentang. So I was listening to a lot of that stuff this week. And then I also discovered a record I knew about, I rediscovered, and I had never heard it.
I'd always heard it was a really good New Weave of British heavy metal album. And I can't say enough how much I like this record. It's a band that made one record. I'm not even sure if it came out on the label or if they self-produced it, but it's called Ethel the Frog. Oh my, I was just going to say, do you know Ethel the Frog? Well, I was going to say it to you because it kind of fits in with your, not Stone or Doom thing, but this. This was one of my holy grail vinyls. I have this on vinyl. I finally found it.
Yeah, and it's good. It's really good. And I had, and it kind of fits with that Wishbone Ash thing I was talking about earlier and some other stuff like that. But it's just, I don't know what happened to these guys, but that's a good fucking record. Yeah. So I spent a lot of time on that. And then also, as mentioned, I do like the new Panic Room record. It's really big, huge riffs on it. I'm digging that. Controversy notwithstanding. Spent some time listening to this stuff in the new release section of the pod. And also, I wanted to make,
Sure, I gave good attention to the Thunderdome, which I'm about to do. I won't mention the titles of those records, but I want to make sure I spun those. So I listened to both of those records and came out with a clear winner for myself, by the way. And then finally, as mentioned, just to get off the metal track, I just discovered, you know, I've been doing a lot of digging deep in country bands.
And I, one of the people I really love is Loretta Lynn. And I discovered that these last three records she made before she died, like 2021, 2018, are so fucking good. It's ridiculous. Oh, and then also in the other non-metal thing, I watched A Complete Unknown recently. Did anybody have you guys watched it? I've been waiting for that to come out. So check it out. It's good, dude. And I'm kind of over-educated on Bob a little bit. And they really got it. They really captured the story correctly.
And so it made me go listen to everything up through John Wesley Harding again. Wow. Which is kind of more or less the period it takes place in. So I kind of had a little Bob Dylan freak out. Yeah, I love Dylan. Do you want to watch that? I was waiting for it to stream too. It really, it's streaming now, but I paid the premium price and I don't know if it's dropped in price yet, but I did the $20 or something, you know. Yeah, I'm waiting for like $5.99. I will say this. I'm waiting for free. His performance is amazing. The guy sings just like Bob Dylan.
I know a lot about Bob's history and it really captures the history with kind of conglomerates a couple of little things that happened and maybe puts them in a slightly different time period and stuff but it's accurate for the most part and it catches the vibe of the whole thing. And then the last thing I'd say about it is that it's just like the right color. You know what I mean? It looks like it must have looked in 65 and everything. And then there was one other thing.
I was going to mention about it. Anyway, it's super authentic. It's totally worth your time. Did you read Chronicles? I did, yeah. Has there been one or two of those? I don't know if there's a two, but if there was, I have. There is going to be a two. I think it came out under a different title. I think he did a second one, and it's not called Chronicles 2. Okay. Yeah. And the other thing that you'll kind of realize about him, and I kind of got this from this movie, and then also,
found out that other people have got this too is that bob's not just kind of like cool he's kind of on the spectrum oh yeah yeah you know and and you really that's the way he's sort of played in this movie but it makes sense because he still looks and acts like bob dylan acted at that time and it was the first time i realized oh shit bob's fucking borderline autistic yeah he is yeah anyway oh oh and uh and then i i got into another deep dive on a metal
early metal adjacent thing that is going to be my pick from the crypt.
Okay.
But a guitar player that I love.
You've been busy, Jay.
Yeah, I've been listening to a lot of stuff.
That's what you do when you retire.
There's no way of a British heavy metal rabbit holes will kill you every time.
Yeah, they will.
Nice.
There's always a new one to go down, too.
It's crazy.
There is.
There's always something you just don't know about, you know?
But Ethel the Frog, that blows my mind.
I knew about it and there was something along the lines that told me it was their favorite new wave of the British heavy metal record of all time. I don't know if I agree with that, but I never heard it. Yeah. But I finally sought it out and listened to it and I dug the shit out of it. Yeah. It's hard. Well, it was anyway. I think they might've re-released it, but. I just listened to it on YouTube to be perfectly honest. I mean, the vinyl though, it was hard. It was really hard to find. And I'm pretty sure I paid a premium for it. But then I was like, oh,
They reissued it or something. So. Gotcha. But. All right. Up to me then. My list is. Diverse. So first up I have the. New Black Spiders album Curses. And that's C.V. R.S.E.S. They're a UK hard rock band. But apparently they're black metal as well. Given their.
You know, writing style.
I dig these guys.
They're just a hard rock band from the UK.
They make hard rock music, and it's just fun.
And I saw this was a new one was out, and so I checked it out.
Next up is a band that I've never cared for before, but I'm going to go back and listen again.
This is Coheed in Cambria, and their 11th album of prog rock.
The Father of Make Believe. Be a little descriptive, please. What do you mean? I'm sort of interested in them, and I saw them open for somebody, and I'm sure it was a tour you guys all saw. I mean, I used to be really into that band. I want to say they opened for Gojira or In Flames or something. That would make sense. And I remember thinking, this is not at all what I expected, but I'm so curious. It's like it's kind of heavy, but it's very proggy.
Previously, I'd never really liked them because the guy's vocals are a little high for my liking. But I listened to this. I didn't get all the way through it, but I got a good portion of the way through it. And I was like, I'm going to come and listen to this again because the vocals didn't bother me so much. So I would like to revisit their catalog because they've got so much stuff and it's just so crazy.
Like storylines to every album. Yeah. Yeah. Very intense stuff. So it's like progressive emo. Yeah. The second stage turbine blade was the one that I really, really got me the best. I can't remember if it was the first one or second one. Yeah. I remember when they came out and I was just like, Ooh, what's this? And then I was like, eh, I don't like it. I'll go down the road with you, George. I'll, I haven't listened to it, but I will. Cause then we can compare notes. Sure. Kind of in my periphery. Exactly.
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And I think we're interested to hear about it on the next episode. Absolutely. All right. Next up is a stone cold metal band. The only one on my list. And that is dismember like an ever flowing stream. The first album from 1991. This Swedish death metal band because some of us will be seeing them next month at decibel in Philadelphia.
And I've never seen them before. I do dig this album. So I'm looking forward to seeing that. Next up. Very polar opposite. Mayhem. The sixth album from Lady Gaga. Yeah, you thought I was going to talk about Mayhem. You thought I was going to talk about Mayhem, but no, it's Lady Gaga. Too bad Will's not here to bust my head.
of balls over this. But the new Lady Gaga album rules. So good. She said it was influenced by, among other things, Nine Inch Nails. And I totally hear that. You could throw the first couple tracks on this album and put, like, Trent Reznor singing and it would be Nine Inch Nails. It's really good. She's just awesome. You know, I mean, obviously it's not metal. It's not even technically rock. Though it kind of rocks.
But it's very poppy. But she's just so good. I don't care. She transcends genres. She's awesome. I love Lady Gaga. Period. Also, I saw maybe advertisement or something like that. Something in it. And isn't Mayhem written in kind of a medley script? You know? Maybe it was. I don't recall. I'll look it up. She looks kind of like gothy on the album cover because she's got like black hair. But yeah, I don't remember the script.
Okay. Two more. New York Dolls. I was listening to the first two albums because the recent passing of David Johansson, their singer. He had brain cancer. And you may have also known him as Buster Poindexter. You know, in the 80s, I was like, Buster Poindexter's so lame. But then I realized it was David Johansson. I was like, Buster Poindexter's pretty cool.
Then you realize it was cool how he held that drinking cigarette in one hand. Yeah. But David Johansson, amazing singer, actor. He was in a number of movies. Free Jack, I think. Was that the one with Mick Jagger and them? Yeah. Yeah. He was in the Aemili West of his? Aemili West of his, maybe. I think so, yeah. Yeah. But he's a good actor. He's a good singer. RIP to David Johansson. That really kind of tore it out.
They were pretty influential. Oh, yeah. The dolls were, you know, they were proto-punk. The Ramones were the first punk band. Don't even argue with me. But the New York dolls were from the same scene a little earlier. They were more glam rock. But they, you know, and Johnny Thunders, you know, they were still proto-punk at the very least. Take a look in the chat when you get a chance to answer it.
Yeah, it was part of that whole Bowie, Stooges, Dolls, all that T-Rex, for that matter, the proto-punk scene. T-Rex wasn't ball. I watched, I think I told you, I watched the T-Rex documentary, and I loved it, dude. Yeah, the Mark Boland thing, right? Yeah, it was great. Yeah, I want to see that too. All right, one more, and John's already mentioned this one, and that's the new Stephen Wilson album,
The Overview. Yeah, that's right. I listened to it. I didn't get all the way through. It's funny. Initially, I thought it was a double album because what they did was they took the two long songs and put them on one disc, and then on another disc, it's broken down by subtracks. Yeah. And so I was like three quarters of the way through, and I was like, oh, wait, these are the same songs. That's awesome.
But yeah, no, it's actually really kind of cool. I like it. I need to pay more attention to it, but I just listened to it this morning and I dug it, so right on. Yeah, I'm glad he's back in that world again. Yeah. All right. It's time for two bands enter, one band leave. Take us away, Marcus Zahn, to Metal Thunderdome.
Yes, so this is a battle of two highly regarded doom albums from 1995. So in honor of their 30-year anniversaries, I decided to go with skepticism, Stormcrow Fleet versus My Dying Bride, The Angel, and The Dark
So yeah, this one came to mind because I gave My Dying Bride's Angel in Dark River a spin recently when I heard it was the 30th anniversary of the record. And MDB was one of a small handful of bands I really fell in love with when I started making the move into metal. So this album in particular was a favorite because the musical emphasis was more on that goth sound, completely goth
vocals on this one and the violin keyboards they're just a lot more central to the tracks so after i played it it got me thinking about what other albums were turning 30 this year and i realized holy shit storm crow fleet from skepticism which i consider a funeral doom master class just most people do perfectly evokes that dark sullen atmosphere that you want from that type of metal and it sounds like a
as the world is crumbling apart. And the fact that it's the band's debut is pretty remarkable, too. So that's how I arrived on this particular Thunderdome. And, you know, which seems like a hard one, but you never know how it's going to go with everybody. Jay said a little earlier that he knew after he listened to the two albums, which one it would be right away. So I guess I get to go last. So, yep, Matty. That goes first.
I also want to say I think I know what everybody's going to pick individually. I don't know why I have an idea about this one but go ahead man I apologize. So super cool I really dug this because I have not spent really any time with either of these bands knowing like being familiar with their names and being familiar with what their styles were or what I thought they would be. So I was able to you know kind of spin them a few times back to back.
I think throughout my entire life, even when I was a baby, I really struggled with funeral doom. It's probably why, you know, I would say that I'm bitchy about it. So it's definitely something that requires a little bit of extra thought, a little bit of extra care. And what I learned from this was the skepticism album is I just really struggled to get into it. I can totally appreciate that genre or that style.
of Funeral Doom, but someone like me, I need a little bit more for my distracted brain. And that's the flip of that is I really dig the My Dying Bride album. I actually feel like I would like to spend more time with this band. I heard, you know, even just from the guitar tone to the vocal style to hearing subtle, like just inflections of the band. Oh, crap.
It's this British band. They play atmospherical black metal, but it's kind of weird. I don't know. I'll just shout it out when I think of it. So my pick is going to be My Dying Bride. I wonder if that's how visible is this band that you're talking about? Because I think we can help you. Semi-visible. Semi-invisible. Semi. They're opaque. I think George knows who it is. Opaque would actually be a good name for a band.
If it is a wide rating. Does it start with an A by any chance? Have they been around a while? Yeah, they've been around for probably at least 15 years. They haven't put anything out in probably five or six years. Agar Karkar? Forest of Stars, that's what I'm thinking. Way off. Way off, yeah. Well, I mean, it starts with an A, right? Yeah. Well, the A Forest of Stars. Yeah, it was way off. What's a slippy, slappy?
Slippy Slappy would not be a good name for a bird. I was way off. I was like that joke. What's the look on the luggage? Maybe her name's in the luggage. Samsonite. I was way off. God damn it, that's funny. All right. John. Matt, I'm a little disappointed you didn't wait till next episode to tell us about that. It was too soon. Can I need a little bit more time?
a little more time to think about this.
So when I saw this, I knew right away that this was going to be easy for me, but I wanted to make sure I listened to both albums.
And after I finished listening, I would say that my initial reaction was spot on.
I knew exactly who I was going to go with.
So I went with My Dying Bride, The Angel in the Dark River.
I've made it no secret I love this band, especially the early period, because they're part of the Peaceville Three.
And I do like this album a lot. Even though it is somewhat of a controversial album in their catalog. Because they had ditched all their death doom vocals. And went to straight on clean vocals. And like Marcasson said, the focus is more on the violin and keyboards than it is really on the guitars. Even though the guitars are heavy. Right, right. But the song structures are based on the violin and keyboards.
I don't really know anything about them and I'm really not a big
funeral gym fan I'm just I'm not I like Shape of Despair I like Evoken and I like a few
other albums here and there from other bands but just it's slow for me and I'll be honest and I mean that
literally I mean it's just it's agonizingly slow sometimes for me especially as a drummer because it's so hard to play
to keep that time.
One thing I didn't like about the album is the vocals, at least what I listened to, and I listened to both the original and the remix version. They're so buried.
And it kind of bummed me out because the music is pretty cool.
I mean, even though it's slow, there are some cool things that they do and some unique sounds they come out with.
And I can see why this is so highly regarded, especially the band itself.
But in the end, it went with My Dying Bride. I don't find the album to be controversial. It's just they did something a little different. And when they finally got to the Dreadful Hours, where they combined both the early Death Doom with the goth stuff, with the mix of vocals, I thought they really hit their stride. But Just a Cry of Mankind is just such a damn good song. Especially on the live album, The Voice of the Wretched. I don't know if you guys ever heard that. God, it's so good. And it's half. It's not as long.
It's half the length of the song on that. It's just so good. They do hit a little bit of the early period with Your Shameful Heaven, which is funny to say their early period, but they had two albums, like three EPs prior to this. But I'm just a huge fan of this period. You know, I was thinking we should do a top five about the Peaceville Three. What are our top five favorite Peaceville Three? That'd be great. If we do that, can we expand it to bands that are like them? Because while they're
They get the credit. Like Catatonia is really almost like a peaceful three band in that early period. But if you don't want to, I get it. Well, the joke is that it's a top five about three. Yeah, I know. I got it. But there is an actual correct answer. Okay. It's number one, Paradise Lost. Number two, My Dying Bride. Number three, Paradise Lost. Number four, Anathema. Number five, Paradise Lost. Hey, man, are you feeling like you want to go hit the bar real quick?
I've only heard three songs from that band. No, it's two. Okay, so I'm going to stop you, George. What's your anathema that you're putting in that? Because I might put that number one, if it's the one I'm thinking. I was just making a, I was continuing to make a joke. It wasn't anything specific. That's what I thought. Because I mean, I like all three bands, but I like Paradise Lost more than all the other two. So that was the
I still think is the best.
No, it is good.
But that's just me.
I do support that episode you're talking of, George, but Jay and I will do it from the bar.
In Las Vegas.
Yes.
Or can I just say, free the priest feel free.
That was hard to do.
Try saying that three times real fast.
Yeah.
I said I made an easy choice and I did and it's interesting because I went the opposite direction everybody's spoken so far I'm going with the skepticism record I I like that early formational kind of death doom stuff you know the doom was so much cooler a few years ago if you ask me and and I don't mean like specifically because of this record or anything but when it was there was like the Sabbath worship guys and then
there was the guys that started in the death doom stuff or funeral doom and all that kind of different stuff and and it was just such a really cool exciting period actually for doom and was electric wizard comes to mind too the earliest stuff even though it was didn't really fit into those categories i just mentioned um but just comparing contrast in these two records the skepticism just appealed to me more um and um i'm not you know it's interesting i i can appreciate that you guys uh john like in particular
He really liked My Dying Bride, but I don't know. It didn't totally work for me somehow. I think his voice didn't really work for me a whole lot. There was some things about his voice I didn't like. I can't be more specific than that. But I also would tend to lean towards the sound presented on a skepticism in a broader sense, in any case. So I went with skepticism. And just like Matt, I can't claim to have been deeply familiar with either of these records before we went in. Nice.
Well, that's cool. I'm glad you get to listen to them and really kind of immerse yourself in them when you haven't really given them the time before. That's nice. Well, that and I love it when it's like something that's so seminal in some corners, you know, and I'm like, apparently I missed out on that or whatever because you miss out on stuff. And so it's so fun to visit things that was a big group of people had a really heavy opinion about. And then to come into it fresh like that is like,
I'd be interested to hear and I have no issue what you said about the vocals because I've heard a lot of people say that but I'd be interested to hear what you think about them if you went back and like listen to turn loose the swans you know or like the dreadful hours where he combines both his vocals and his clean because his death vocals can be just absolutely nasty consider it done I mean yeah the record itself was not a I was
I wasn't like oh well it's obvious I like this one better because this one sucks but I'd be very curious I mean that's not at all how I felt so I'd be very curious to see them in that um in that presentation that you suggest it's unique I actually like him better when he incorporates both in the songs because they both play a certain part I agree with something you said that most people don't talk too much about it we always talk about the first wave of doom which wasn't yet doom but the sabbath pentagram early on that stuff yeah the mask
Well, no, no, that was going to be the second, the first true wave of doom would have been then the 80s. Oh, like Trouble. Candlemas, those type of bands. But then you had this kind of, I guess, second true wave, but be a third part of it if you want to include the 70s stuff. And that would be this early Death Doom stuff that came out in the 90s. And I agree. It really, it would be kind of fun to go back and relive some of that again, where you discover these bands you'd never heard of. And it's not just these ones were mentioned.
There's a whole slew of them from this period that... I mean, shit, The Gathering's first album is a Death Doom album. Actually, what's funny about these records too, John, is they both... And I don't mean this in a negative sense, but they're both a little bit dated. No, that's what makes it kind of charming a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. The production's not great on them. Something about those 90s albums with kind of eh production, I like them even more. I don't know why. It's just because it reminds me of that period.
Well, it's part of the reason why I chose it too is because we haven't really talked about these for Thunderdome before. So it is interesting to visit that period. It's a little bit different than what we've had in previous ones. And we've only done one other Doom one, I think, right? I did Candlemas and Trouble. Which is that first wave like you're talking about. You know, it's funny because, and I'm sorry, it's just occurring to me as we're talking about this, but Sabbath was such a legitimate
part of the second wave too because of like my rules it's like such a huge that's like one of the doomiest records they ever fucking did but it's not at all like the early stuff no so they were a legitimate part of the second wave you know and the 70s versus the 80s versus the 90s are and i don't count everything after 2000s the whole hodgepodge those are three completely different sounds but yet they're all under the doom umbrella to some degree
I guess I already said this but that's why I really appreciate this one because these are so clearly like early genre records you know and like you know if you listen to enough music and you put them on you're going to know that like I I mean I could see like all this neither of these ideas were completely thought through yet let's put it that way or they hadn't completely gotten to where they were going oh well shit if you go back and listen to turn loose the swans it's like a whole it's not 180 degree turn but it's it a lot of people were pissed when the
Yeah, it was just...
Turn Loose to Swans is, like, iconic, that album, for Death Dune.
Right on.
All righty.
So, when Marcasson announced the choices here, my response was, ouch.
Because I love both these bands.
However, I like both these bands differently during different periods. I like My Dying Bride's early catalog more than their later catalog. I like Skepticism's later catalog better than their early catalog. So doesn't that leave you kind of fucked on both of these? No, because, well, not early, early. I mean, Angel in the Dark River is still early catalog to me.
It's the third album, I think? Third album, yeah. And so I have to go with Angel in the Dark River. When this album came, and that's the other thing, is that I got Angel in the Dark River when it came out in 1995, 30 years ago, because I'm old. And it blew my mind. 1995 was 30 fucking years ago. Yeah, it was. What the fuck? Yeah. I got this, and I was like, whoa. You know, first of all, the album cover is like lame.
What is that like Helvetica on the cover font? I don't know. It's bad. But the music was nothing I'd ever heard before. And then when the second track kicks in and there's violin. Oh yeah. I was like what? You know because I mean that's like you know commonplace these days but in 1995 it was not. Groundbreaking. And I just dug it so hard. And you know Aaron
vocals, clean vocals, I should say. They're very... Unique. Unique. Yeah, you know, you hear him, you know him. That's the way it is. Oh, yeah. And while I absolutely love... And if I had to choose, like, modern day right now, I would probably say skepticism because the last few skepticism albums are just freaking phenomenal, and I saw them at MDF.
It's probably been a while back, probably been 10 years now. But they were absolutely amazing. I've never seen MDB live, surprisingly. But yeah, so both these bands are amazing at different periods of time for me. So here I choose My Dying Bright. Nice. Okay. All right. Well, I love all these answers because I feel like what you guys have seen
said, a lot of that resonates with me. Each thing that you've said, George said, well, not Matt, because he's deferring. Also, you said, you know, I, this one, I thought I was, I knew what I was going to pick when I decided I was going to do this. I thought I was going to pick the angel on the dark river because when I heard it, which was when it was
just like George. It's an album I just, I owe a lot to in my early days of metal because, you know, it's one of those first few albums that I was really getting into. I spun it a ton. And I just, it was one of my favorite bands back then. But spinning it now, I don't quite revere it as much as I once did. I really like, like the next one, like Gods of the Sun. Me too. So much better. I do. I like that one better too.
And I like the one before it as well.
If you have a time to lock about it.
Yes.
So, but this is still an excellent record.
And this is where what Jay said resonates with me.
I'm less into the gothic vocals than I was when I was younger.
I do not care for these kind of gothic vocals as much in metal today as I did when I was fucking 20-something.
So, in contrast, I did not spin Stormcrow Fleet when it was first released. It came, I came to it a few years later when some of my tastes had changed. So I'd say that my love for Funeral Doom is probably at its peak right now. I really like Funeral Doom and Doom in general, but I've just come to appreciate Funeral Doom on another level that I didn't as much back then.
Do you like the Thurgothan album? I don't like that one's kind of odd. That's got some weird vocal deliveries and I can't get into it. I know it's like a seminal record, but I cannot get into that one, George. But this album, you know, this is grown in my esteem over the last three decades, which is weird to say. So I love those ethereal keys. It's got horns on
it's seminal doom for me and it's also my choice for Thunderdome and yeah I really liked revisiting because I hadn't spun it in a while because like I said when I chose this Thunderdome I put on my dying bride because again it was a pretty important album to me back in the day so when I heard 30 years I played this again I haven't played it in a bit and then when I was thinking of Thunderdome I come up with skepticism like holy shit I really have not spun
this thing in a long time so I've been playing it a lot lately I've been in that mood it's got me in that headspace I like slow yeah sometimes you know I like fast things too but and they're very different records when you spin them like there is a definitely a gallop to that my dying bride record and I always think of them as a slower band but when you listen to that like there's some pretty moving songs on there yeah so the last song gets pretty up last song sounds like it's for the first album
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I agree with John.
Like, I really like when it's a mix of the death vocals and the goth,
because I'm not as big a fan of the goth, but when you mix the two,
there's something a little bit more special to me about that.
And, you know, so even though my dying bride was,
and it will always will be an important band.
And especially I would say like, God's the sun, you know, this record,
Turn Loose the Swans. Dreadful Hours I really like as well. But those three in a row are really, really important to me. But yeah, I quite like this Stormcrow Fleet record. Nice. I'm glad. I'm with Jay. I'm glad a couple people went with it because I figured it was going to be a sweep by My Dying Bride. And I didn't want that because while, you know, at this period of time, I'm more of an MDB fan.
But I so love skepticism
as a band
And so I'm glad
As always it'll be interesting to see
how this goes live
I think My Dying Bride is just so much more visible
That's gotta be it
Skeptic is
They only have what five albums I think
And My Dying Bride's got like
15 or 16 so they're just more exposure
Has anybody else seen them?
I've seen video
Of them
I don't think I've ever seen that I mean you were probably there Jay I don't know if you were with me when they played but at MDF it was in Edison well I yeah I'm I'm having a hard time convincing my dying bride didn't play MDF sometime we were there but I guess you would have remembered and yes I played there but it's been a while I think hasn't I don't think I I've they're one of those bucket list bands that I've never managed to see some no you'd you'd know I just I
I'm confusing them with somebody else who is the like Black Dahlia Murder. So I know they're very different bands, but their titles are similar to me. Yeah. I will say one thing that's cool about both of these albums are the song titles are just so dismal. And you're just like, why am I listening to this? It's just, it's all going to, I'll go real old school. It's all going to hell in a handbasket, you know? Well, it's funny too, because I remember when I,
I thought it was the most depressing thing ever but then you get skepticism and you're like oh it does go a little bit more dark there's nothing like them I mean I don't know how if I just had a good show or if they're always like this but I've never seen anything like skepticism live I think they translate better live than on at least the first album the production is not great in my opinion so I bet they translate great live well you've got a full sound you wouldn't
I don't think so though because funeral doom
I mean it's a sludge
you know
Matt remembers
Ahab
Ahab at
Wagen great band
schnoozer live
but they sound good on album
though they do
maybe that's the difference
but you know
you get one or the other not both John I guess
the difference is that Ahab were just up there
playing
got on stage and it was a performance. Yeah. That's what you said. I remember you saying that the way they were dressed and they were like wearing like tuxedos and the singer had like the tie like undone and he was emoting all over that fucking stage. Yeah. It's presentation. It's like nothing. Yeah. It is presentation. Yeah. I saw when I saw Celtic Frost on the.
Monotheistic Tour. Sun opened for them, and they were fucking awesome. The sun is badass, man. Yeah, but they spent the first, for 10 minutes before they even came out, they filled the place with smoke. I mean, it just kept going. And then they came out in robes, and I mean, that's not an exaggeration. Then they came out in the robes and the everything, and I just was riveted, you know? It was so good. And I hear those big sun amps live. Then you're like, wow, I didn't bring the earplugs.
This sucks.
Yeah.
That was great.
It was them 1349 and then Celtic Frost.
Jesus.
Wow.
It was so fucking good.
And I knew a guy who worked there.
They played at the Fillmore.
And I knew a guy who worked there at my work.
And he would do the security.
And he's kind of, he was kind of a hillbilly type.
And he said, hey, man, did you go to that show last night?
Because he used to say, come around.
I'll get you a free beer or something.
And he said,
everybody who worked at the Fillmore agreed that son was the worst band that's ever played.
That's funny.
That reminds me of cafe 611 and all the fog,
John.
Right.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah.
All four of us there to watch that show.
Yeah.
It's still a pretty good show,
but I mean,
the fun sucked.
Yeah.
The sound there sucks,
but some bands sound good.
And like I saw Warbringer there,
as I mentioned earlier,
and it was freaking amazing.
And I saw Crowbar there and that was okay. That was pretty good. Seems like that would be a place that would work. Yeah. For that kind of deep, dirty sound. What's that? Battle... Battle... Battlecross? Battlecross. They were kind of cool there. But yeah, some bands, not so much. Yeah. Well, I think this proves yet again how we keep going back to the 90s and everyone keeps telling us how the 90s sucked for metal.
I'm just like what are you talking about you weren't paying attention all the commercial metal sucked but there was plenty going on man that was so much it's so many different subgenres all the time yeah that's where everything splintered off into a million different pieces yeah because in the 80s would not would not be what they are without the 90s I mean it's not even close yeah yeah right so right it's still what I mean grunge that doesn't matter there was still a lot going on yeah in the 80s I didn't
have a bunch of metal genres. There was metal. There was metal that was Sabbath and Ozzy and Kiss and ACDC and whatever. And then there was speed metal before it was called Thrash. It was speed metal. And to me, it's always been speed metal. And that was it. You know, it wasn't until death metal and black metal came along that things really started to splinter. Oh, this is power metal. This is traditional metal, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, because they weren't calling it prog metal yet. That was well into the 90s when they went back and said, oh, wow, fates was prog metal. It was just metal. It was just metal, yeah. Possibly speed metal. The 90s is when a lot of stuff happened. Yeah. In fact, my pick from the crypt is from the 90s, too. What? So is mine. So is mine. It's my favorite period. The 90s to 96 is my favorite period. It's when it started branching out, like you just said. Yeah.
It exploded into all these different genres. And so the bands that we're talking about started something a little bit new and it's been influential all these years that we've been listening to metal. And I feel lucky because that's when, you know, I'm a teenager. Like that's when you, you, you're old enough to appreciate music really well. And you're also old enough to where you understand what the style of music you really are going to gravitate towards is. And I feel fortunate that I was around that.
on that period at that time oh yeah matt you can tell us all about your thoughts in the back to future episodes next time i will i've just been taking notes now but i'll kind of put together a more formal outline for our next episode thanks yeah make sure you attach that to the script all right well speaking of the picked from the crypt let's do that yeah so when we did what we're listening to you i talked about some
new metallic hardcore records i'm loving so my pick from the crift i'm going with a classic in that genre and it is the rain and endless fall by prayer for the cleansing released in 1999 on tribunal records it's the only full-length album the band recorded but has had a major influence on hardcore over the last 20 plus years and metal so it was also the
So Prayer for the Cleansing blends melodic Swedish death metal with the brutality of hardcore. And then it dips a toe in a saucer of black metal viciousness. So when this album came out, I instantly loved it. But the production, and John mentioned this earlier too about 90s albums, it sucked. So George, you have... Never mind. However, stick with me here, George.
You would hate the production on that early one, but fortunately
a few years ago to live a lie records went back to the original recordings and remastered and
Remixed the album and it's a whole new experience. It's so much heavier
You can hear all the individual instruments now. It was
Remixed by engineer Jamie King who's known for his work on between the buried in me
And that connection runs deeper because three of the members from prayer of the cleansing went on to form between the buried and me. Oh, so this is one of those seminal one and done bands whose legacy has endured. They had a huge impact on that genre. And now this album has a stunning new life with a superior mix. And I actually got the vinyl because I've been spinning it so much lately.
because it's the big anniversary for it I got the violin the mail today so I'm really excited to to spin it on wax and you know those three members that went on to do the buried in me I think there's only one left in the band Paul Waggoner about Paul Waggoner I think that's right the other two aren't in anymore but quitters this is a really great record so I encourage people to spin it especially you know that we have the remix
version because it's fucking awesome. I'll check it out. 99, bitch, 90s. All right, Matt, what are you going to talk about next episode? Well, because it was mentioned three times before we started recording and six times while we were recording, I have to go with the contractual obligation that I'm legally bound to, and that is the album Leviathan by the band Mastodon. That said,
While we've been recording, I had my lawyer reach out to the legal team of the holder of this contract just to say, can I just make a secondary choice? I have not heard back, but I'm going to move forward with that secondary choice. And George, I may just have to have you edit it. So I'm not taken to court yet again and just wrapped up in litigation. So for my secondary pick, I'm going to go back to what I talked about when I was listening to a lot of that is Fallujah. Go back to the first album that's called The Harvest Wombs.
Go check it out. It's techie, proggy. And I really dig it. And it's from 2011, so I'm not actually cool. Going back further. But it's too late. It's too late. All right. I don't know anything about Fallujah, but I feel like I should listen to them. Oh, yeah. I think you'd like it. They're very techie. I like Fallujah, too. Yeah, they're tech. Even their newer stuff, I really like it. All their records are pretty good. I don't know why they never really make my list.
because I think they're all good.
I think they get wrapped up in kind of that Death Corps wave.
They do get, that's true.
Which I'm not a lover of Death Corps.
But there's so much more than that, though.
That's how I felt.
I felt like that's what was happening to them.
Not that I didn't want to check it out.
Yeah.
You know, I actually saw them live open for Devin Townsend.
What?
It was a good time.
And John, I'll be curious to your thoughts on the next episode as to what you think. John, I'll get back to you in two episodes. It'll be two episodes, probably. I think we might be questioning the second episode after that. The super episode. Pretty fully booked. But I'll get back to you in the future. I appreciate that. Back to the future. All right, John. All right, so for me, I mentioned this band already, and I decided to dig a little deeper, even though I have to
this album. So I'm going with Sadist Above the Light from 1993. Just wanted to go back to it. Say Diss. Not Say Diss. Say Dissed. Say Dissed. You're so Dissed, John. It gets dangerously close to it, Abbott and Costello a bit. Yeah, it really is. It really is. Because it's funny, I asked Matt the other day, I said, you're into Sadist, right? He says, well, I like him, but it's actually Say Dissed.
And I was asking for a reason because I sent him a meme of that, what's his name again? Is it Gall? Whatever. Gall. Yeah. And it's him with the, you know, the face where he's holding the wine and he says, Satan. And all I did on the meme is I just put this. You know, so. I actually pronounce it sad us. Sad us, yeah. Or sad us. Sad us. Anyway, yeah.
I've been digging through Satis. They fit, like I said, in that death, atheist, cynic kind of pestilence realm from the mid-early 90s, whatever you want to call it, that period. And it just fits in. They do something a little different. They add more keyboards to their sound while still having that kind of progressive tech death sound. The original technical death, not tech death. Tech death is the kind of amalgamation of
a few things that it's not technical death it's kind of like prog with a lowercase p and prog with a capital p if you know that story anyway it's cool i liked it and i've been digging through their catalog more and more and i'm not going to probably like everything because i read a couple albums kind of kind of stinkers in their catalog so but i've always had this one in my collection i just had to revisit it nice that's fun john all right well whenever i end up in the new wave of british heavy metal thing i always there's a lot there's this
I like and it's something there's so much music that was created around the time that
wouldn't even really remotely be considered metal now but it was god damn it especially it was I mean I've mentioned this before but you see people with for at the you know probably in beast over hammersmiths there's probably guys with vests on that have a maiden patch and a ufo patch you know what I mean like it was what there was at the time you had to take what you could get and I like those weird kind of hazy times for some reason I find it's a lot of weird
a lot of good music in there.
And so sort of in honor of Michael Shanker doing his tour, My Years in UFO, this has nothing to do with Michael Shanker, another guitar player from around that time who hazed the lines and the new wave of British heavy metal.
Love this guy for the first, you know, he had a couple of records that fit on the battle vest.
Anyway, Gary Moore, Corridors of Power.
And in particular, there's a song, the first song on side two is called End of the World and Jack Bruce from Cream plays bass on it and sings and Jack's got a great medley voice when he wants to. And it's just one of those ones that it sort of fits adjacent to say slide it in or something like that. It's sort of like kind of a rock record, but leaning towards metal a little bit and early MTV would have called it metal. And also, he's just an amazing guitar player. There's a lot of good songs on that record. So Gary Moore, Corridors of Power for those
of you who wish to know what your ancestors were doing.
Yeah.
And if you want to listen to like sellout Gary Moore, listen to my favorite album, Wild Frontier.
Oh, yeah.
It's a little sellout.
I'll give you that.
But it's him.
So he gets it.
It's so good, though.
It's good.
It's still got Gary Moore playing guitar on it.
Over the hills and far away.
Come on.
Love that.
Love that album.
Just the fact that you love a Gary Moore album makes me love you all the more. All the more. With two O's. And an E. Oh wait there's an E in it anyway. Never mind. So all cool choices for picks from the Crypt so far. So my pick from the Crypt is a 90s Swedish grind band. Originally known, this is very little known fact, originally known as Jay's Nose.
They changed their name to Nazem. And this was their first album. Inhale, exhale. This is like one of the greatest grind albums of all time. I mean, Napalm Death excluded. But I love Nazem. I'm sure I've talked about them plenty in the past. But I was looking for something old and something that nobody talks about. And Nazem's not around anymore. Their singer died.
in 2004 during that tsunami in Thailand, I think it was.
Yes.
Oh, wow.
Indonesia too, right?
Yeah, somewhere in that part of the world, yeah.
And he was like at some resort and the tsunami came in and he was one of the fatalities.
And that was the end of the band.
I mean, I know they did the grand or grind finale after that, but I think that was just
Like previously recorded stuff. But such a cool band in grind, as far as I'm concerned. Love it, love it, love it. And this is Inhale Exhale is the one I always go back to. It's a long album. It's 44 minutes, 52 seconds. Granted, there's 38 songs on the album. 107 songs. A lot of songs, a lot of songs. So this is a quadruple album.
John what's the name of those guys the Hudson Valley guys that have the oh see a tranquility I think because um they did a um a basically a thunderdome one time of corridors of power and I'm trying to run with the other record I have I want to watch that again I'll see if I can find it I mean just for my own benefit but they did uh they had like five people in the studio and they did corridors power verse and another sort of guitar
Slinger record from around that time. Oh, yeah. Wasn't awesome? Then fuck off! Just kidding. Just kidding. Is it always called Sea of Tranquility? Do they call it anything else? It's called Sea of Tranquility. And that's it? They don't have like another show too? Well, there's a gazillion different types of episodes they do, but that's the name of the channel on YouTube. Okay, I'll find it. Yeah, you'll have to just go and literally search. There's so many videos. They do so many different things.
Oh, here it is. I got it. Oh, yeah. Actually, it's pretty good. It's Gary Moore's Corridors of Power versus Michael Schenker's Assault Attack. Oh, my goodness. Which is like a really good underdog. Okay, I'm going to watch that again tonight. Yeah, that's actually if you guys are, I know we're kind of deviating, George, from your pick. Oh, I'm done. Sorry. So don't worry about it. If anyone's interested in that channel, I mean, he talks, they talk about metal, they talk about rock and jazz.
and it's all kinds of stuff but that channel cranks out so much stuff it's unreal i they'll but
they'll go through like they're like us dude is what they're like i mean they'll they'll go through
whole catalogs or and they'll do like a whole catalog and right and literally put them in order you know
they'll do that like with you've seen it obviously yeah like with priest or anything and i'm there's stuff i've
learned from them that i didn't know about where i'm like oh shit i don't know who that band is pete does a uh
He does a thing with
Ken Golden from Laser's Edge. Jay, I think you've bought from them before. I've been buying from Ken for like 25 years.
You just want something different.
I don't like everything they do or talk about, but there's tons of stuff on there I do, so it's just nice to mix it up, I think, once in a while.
I also have a question for you, Marcus, since he mentioned Martin Popoff, which makes me think of Adam Tepedelin.
Oh, yeah.
Did you read that book yet? The Gary? I haven't gotten that one. Will got it. Will got it. Okay. I haven't gotten that one yet. No, I haven't read it. I'm just curious if it's going to be. The Gary Holt? Yeah, did you get it? No, no. I, you know, they fired Zetro, so screw that guy. Did you guys see that at Decibel, they're going to have the immolation book and immolation is going to be there to sign it. And I don't have that book yet. So I want to get that.
But George, I just want to go back to your pick. It was a great pick, I thought. Really? You like Mousel? Yes, especially because the things you've been listening to were really for like dad bods and like little girls. So this is nice for you to actually, you know, get some metal in there. Hey, I like metal too, okay? I can't help it if there's not a lot of new metal coming out these days that feels any good. Well, no, it reminded me that, oh yeah, George does like metal.
I do like metal.
You know,
fierce.
Also,
John,
not that it matters,
but I,
I don't know if they always do this,
but this particular iteration seems to be called Hudson Valley squares,
which maybe they do that.
That's,
that's one thing where there's,
yeah,
that's a whole.
One of their things.
Well,
yeah,
they've got so many different things.
You can literally just go through a Jay.
You'll come out and be like,
there's like 14 different shows.
They do on here.
I appreciate that.
They do so much content,
but I'm totally watching that episode again.
Ja.
you said a little over three hours like wow that's kind of nice we have a lot of interesting stuff to talk about tonight too though yeah we don't need guests to have an engaging no we don't expect i mean i like talking to you guys that's the whole point of the we just need brett heinz news that's it yeah yeah i'm also going to say this again but we do the shortest episodes when will is not here and i don't understand that because he's the one that complains about how long they are yeah he does sleep the more we're like let's really get this
I'll be honest with you not have Matt saving everything for next week kind of probably
next week you mean next month so you need to carve out about 10 hours with that in mind the
mid-year should be done in like two hours yeah keeping the episodes long just for will take reminds me
in uh in Goodfellas where they walk outside the diner and he's like and he wakes the cops up and he's
I'm going to keep these fuckers driving around all night. The guys who are tailing them. Yeah. Save it for later. Maybe a good title for this episode. You know, I was thinking about the mid-year earlier today and I was like, oh my God, 25. I don't think I can come anywhere near that. I don't even have seven. I don't think right now. Well, but it's early, dude. Early is getting late real fast. I looked at the calendar today. It's like,
I mean, I'm going to have to just put stuff on there that it's not going to. I mean, we could always go to like a top 10 if we had to, but. We'll see how we feel when the time comes, but yes. We're right. It is kind of thin. I mean, most of the stuff, what we're listening to, especially for me and you guys too, is older stuff. It's not new stuff. Yep. Marcus, I've always said I would love to go back to a top 11 for the mid-year. But why 11? Because it goes to 11. Oh.
Let's hope we don't have to do an affinity. That's the year end. To completely change the subject here, and I apologize, and I don't think I told you this, Marcus, but I did watch American... Gladiator? No, what the fuck is it? Primeval? It was so good from start to, but it was ultra-violent, man. The first episode is basically Blood Meridian, dude, but yeah, I really, I really
I enjoyed it. That was a very good recommendation. Cool. Yeah. I will recommend it, but I seconded it. So yeah. But yeah, I loved it. Yeah, that was good. And I'm a little bit out if there's anybody who wants to suggest anything they're watching right now, because I always like to have a series. Acapulco. Is that true? That's true. It's on Apple TV. It's hilarious. Okay, I'll look at it. Jay, did you watch Severance yet? No. Oh, no. Thanks for the reminder. Oh, that's such a frustrating show.
I watched the first season after you guys started talking about it. And I'm, I don't think I've started the second season. I think I'm waiting because I want like all the episodes out and they're not quite out yet. So. Oh, they're not. There's only one more for the season. Yeah. Yeah. So anytime. I love how fucked up the second season is. I like Silo so much more than I thought I was going to. That was really good. It's awesome. Yeah. It's the backstory. That's actually more engaging than the actual story. And Silo thinking about, well,
the hell did they get here kind of thing was there another season of that coming it should be there will be two more i think two more yeah i'll tell you uh something to watch that maybe you guys haven't seen uh mrs davis so i don't know how to describe this series but it's a super quirky kind of a mystery story about this nun who's trying to expose this kind of um
This tech that is completely affecting the world and it's a limited series. I think it's maybe like eight episodes. Fucking spectacular. I think it's on Apple TV. What's the title again? Oh, yeah, I've seen Mrs. Davis. Okay. Yeah, it's it was one of the best things I watched last year. Okay. It's super quirky. It's really good acting in it. It's
It takes turns that you will not expect. It's just a joy to watch and the acting is excellent in it. I just I feel like it I mean it got great reviews but I don't know that a lot of people saw it but I'm telling you it's excellent and you don't have a lot of commitment because it's one and done season. It was awesome. You know one I don't think people I don't think people saw that I love was Outsider
Did you watch that? Oh yeah, the HBO one? Yeah. And also, I think you'll all find this hard to believe, but I just watched Conclave and fuck, it was. Oh, that was great. Oh yeah. The funny thing about Conclave is when they announce it and they're talking about, oh, it's like Pope stuff. I'm like, oh, it's going to be so serious and boring, but it wasn't. It was super fun. I stayed away from it. I thought, okay, fuck it. This thing's winning the war. I better go in. And I like Ray Fiennes.
And I liked Stanley Tucci. And I loved it. I just thought it was just... I agree. Have you seen The Substance? No. That is seriously fucked up. Okay. Yes, it is. It is. I mean, it starts off kind of weird and kind of weird. The ending is so fucked up. But you liked it. Yeah, I did. And I was really disappointed that Demi Moore did not win an Oscar for that because she really deserved to.
She won everything else. I mean, it starts off weird and interesting and it just ends up guar. It ends up guar. I love that, Josh. That's perfect. I haven't seen it because it hasn't come on free streaming yet. Oh, yeah. It's like a Tubi or something. Yeah, we rented it for like six bucks. Yeah. Okay. I appreciate the
I mean, I can give you tons of recommendations, just stuff that Trace and I watched, but. Yeah, drop me stuff in the, I mean, we might have, we'll probably cross paths, but I always like, I watch like one thing a night, you know, like about 10 o'clock. That's what we do too. Just if you have a list, send it to me. I mean, then we can compare notes. I actually have a list of favorite TV shows from 2024. I make a lot of lists. I'll send it to you. Yeah. I'd really appreciate that. You got it. So tonight, and I'm probably the,
a man alone on this, but today's the first Formula One race of the season, so I'm looking forward to that. I like Formula One. It's going to be a weird year. Oh, man. I wish one of you guys was over here so you could get this knife out of my back. It's in there really good, too. Let me get that for you. Get out the pole. It's twisted. All right, fellas. It was nice to see your ugly faces. Good talking to you guys. Yeah. All right.
soon. Yeah. For some of us. Only a couple of us. Yeah. Yeah. All right, guys. Bye. Peace. Stay warm.
Das ist, was ich habe mich.