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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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Now, here's the podcast, Metal Heads Podcast.
Hello, and welcome to the Metal Heads Podcast.
My name is George.
This here is Jake.
This is John.
This is the situational paradox.
This is Markisan.
And today we are joined by Justin. Hey Justin. Hello. What up everybody? He's back. I'm back. He's back. Yeah. Good to see you buddy. And there's a rumor that Will might drop in at some point as well. So we'll see about that. So welcome to our November episode. Next month as you know will be the year end episode. But we still have one more month of regular work to slog through first. So.
Since it's been like a month
Or how long has it been? When were we?
Yeah, we did last month, I think
Okay, so I'm just gonna do a quick
Update and that was the most exciting
World Series I've seen in a long time
I can't get into Guillermo del Toro's
Frankenstein very much
And you should watch Death by Lightning
On Netflix. There you go
Oh, is the Frankenstein out?
Yeah
I'm watching it. It's taken me like three nights to do it
Really?
It sounded like it was pretty cool. Interesting. I haven't been running to it yet. I plan to, but... I heard it followed the book pretty well, which... It doesn't. No, that's not true. Really? No. Ah, well, then, screw that, then. Yeah. I mean, I love all the Taro stuff, but... I guess we'll find out when we all watch it. Yeah. I'm the only one who's dipped into it so far? I thought you would have watched it for sure, Marcus, huh? No. Is it on Netflix?
or something now? Okay, yeah. I was waiting for it to come to streaming because I know it was in theaters for a little bit and I just haven't gotten to it. And it's something that Tracy and I would watch together. I think it was streaming from the get-go, but also you were right about Pluribus. I'm enjoying that. Have you guys seen Weapons yet? Yeah. I dug it. Yes. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. That's funny. It was all right. The only, yeah, or no, maybe it was you that said you didn't like it. Somebody else online, I think, that I know said they didn't like it. And so I was. It's,
I mean, it is slightly overhyped for sure. But for like, for like, um, uh, modern, uh, horror, that's not a ripoff or a remake. It's not bad. Cool. Check it out then. All right. Well, let's get into t-shirt and beer check. And we'll start with Justin. Um, well, I'm not drinking beer, um, but I am drinking whiskey.
So I think it's Hayden Basil's the name of the whiskey. Oh, yeah. Yeah. A little on the sweet side, but it's nice. Yeah, I just bought some of that. Yeah. Some blackberry seltzer and lemon bitters. Good. Nice. It's refreshing. What you wearing? I'm wearing, I finally got it after waiting like fucking three goddamn months. I'm wearing float, my new floating t-shirt.
from one of my records that I'm digging this year. Yeah. I picked it up. Yeah. Cool. Mark's on. Yeah, I'm wearing my black tusk shirt that I picked up at the Hollow Wolf Bat Show in Asheville, North Carolina. I went there to visit my friend Dan in Charlotte, but then we drove to the show. So it's got this cranky vulture on it holding a smoking urn or something like that.
I'm so cranky. I don't know. It looks cool. And they were really good live. So that was fun to see. And I am drinking Ferryman's Pumpkin Barrel Aged Imperial Stout with pumpkin, vanilla and spices. It's from Confluence Brewing. And I got this from our good friend Nick. He gifted it to me. He was out here.
Like a few months ago, his wife had a conference. And so we got to hang for half a day and he brought me a shit ton of beer. So I've been going through it. It's really good. It's got a, wow, what a pumpkin flavor to this thing. But it's good. You know, pumpkin beers for me are always kind of hit or miss. But this year, the ones that I've tried have actually been quite good. So I feel like I'm at 100% rating so far for pumpkin beers that I've tried.
Yeah. Yeah. Great. Cannibal Corpse shirt, tour shirt, not this past tour, but the tour before. I am drinking an old-fashioned. It is a blend of Old Forrester rye and Victor's rye. And to complement it, I have a PBR of Tallboy. Nice. Nice. Right. I'm cycling through Wash and I'm wearing another shirt I've probably worn in another cast. Mother of Graves.
I got a decibel and I'm drinking a three Floyds interstellar bonanza double IPA. It's five o'clock and I'm retired so I'm eating. I'm having a veggie burger with cheese and I'm wearing a little a little yellow carcass number. Yes. Nice. Jay you're eating kind of late aren't you? Yeah I miss the early bird special Jeff.
So you're gonna have to go without dinner for a couple nights to make up the costs. I'm on a fixed income. I believe it's the term. I'm gonna shave up for the home. No, I'm any good. Yeah, that's the after home, not the regular home. That's right. I'm talking about extended care and all that. Yeah, I think the word is hospice, John. No, it's not. I mean, I'm not thinking of hospice, but there's in between.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Assisted living. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. With the pole court. Yep. Heckel ball courts in the back. Mm hmm. Right. Yeah. So. So I don't have any new shirts lately other than the Bucky was the one that I had last episode. I am wearing my Sonia shirt from Decibel this year and I am drinking New Trail Brewing's Back Country Double West Coast IPA.
Had Me at West Coast. And then I'll move on to... Looks like you got a Testament hoodie on there, too, don't you? Oh, yeah. This is... Yeah, it's cold. But that'll probably come off once the beer flows more. You know, promises. With there already been some conversation about the decibel list, one comment I have about it is I either forgot or didn't know that there was a New Testament record this year. I don't remember. Did we?
No, we're talking about it today. It's on the list. Oh, is it a fairly recent release then? Yeah, it came out, I don't know, within the last couple weeks. Okay, good. I feel a little better about my lack of information. Yes, we will get to that in new releases. All right. J, admitting he didn't do his homework. Well, of course. Around here, admitting you did your homework is so lame. Only the lame people do homework.
Cool kids just beat up the teacher and go out back and smoke a cigarette. Yeah, exactly. Losers. Losers. All right. Well, let's maybe get into the news then.
But Ace freely passed away. Cause of death was revealed to be accidental blunt trauma injuries to the head due to a fall. He died on October 16th. That was unexpected. And, you know, bit of a bummer. Well, I guess I probably should sort of lead on this one because I was a huge kiss kid. I think some of the other guys were too.
But he's the first one to go. That's crazy. He's not the oldest one. He always had kind of a weird equilibrium to his walking. And so I literally think he just I think he fell down the stairs twice is what I heard. Wow. But he fell down, went to the hospital. They're like, you're OK. And then literally fell and hit his head in the same spot on his head, not in the floor. So it was definitely unexpected. I mean, he was apparently kind of like in a coma by the time they got him in the hospital.
Outpouring has been huge on this one. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And it brought some of my apparently closet kiss friends out of the closet because I have friends that I didn't know were kiss kids and stuff, and they all dressed up like them for Halloween, and people were posting tributes and stuff. But anyway, it's too bad. It's too bad. It was definitely unexpected. He would have lived, I'm sure, quite a fair amount of time.
I mean it was an accident he didn't have a heart problem or too bad too bad man yep too bad he was actually scheduled to appear here for some kind of horror fest I think yeah he had boxes of weeks or dates and all kinds of things set up you know I had a chance to see him last summer just a solo band which I mean it wasn't the best of shows but it was pretty cool to see him in the flesh because I never got to see
with KISS and so he did all the KISS stuff and it was pretty cool. Yeah I don't think I've ever seen that. His talent really shrank in the last few years I would see video things it was sort of like Paul Stanley's voice he just kind of really wasn't you know sharp in his plan anymore. I feel like as you know I didn't grow up with KISS per se but I feel like if everybody if anybody loved somebody from KISS it was it was Ace. I would have felt like he was.
Liked by many.
So I told offline, or online, but offline from this, a brief story to the fellas here.
And I'll tell the story, which was that I met him one time.
But it was because I went to the reunion tour twice.
I saw him in Chicago, and I saw him in Peoria.
And I was a huge booster of the reunion tour.
They were in their 40s, not like it was there at the very, very end.
And I got the chance to see Kiss and Makeup, which I never had as a kid. Anyway, long story short, I was standing on the parking lot, kind of on the far end of the parking lot, and the van pulled up with the band in it and went down this little ramp. And so I looked over the thing, and I saw them all get out, and those of them who had kids with them got out with their kids and stuff, and I was like, fuck me. And nobody was, like, either standing where I was standing or paying attention, so I was like, fuck it, I'm walking down that ramp. So I walked down the ramp, and I had a friend with me.
Walked down a hallway, got to a place where you clearly could not pass. And I said, "Yeah, hi, I'm here. I'm in catering." Just came out of my mouth. And the guy goes, "Okay." And he said, "Well, what's your name?" And I gave him my real name. And then he goes, "Okay, I'll be right back." And he comes back and he says, "Helmet," who's the head of catering, says he's never heard of you. And I said, "Helmet says he's never heard of me?" You know what I mean? I just totally bought into this thing. And then I turned around and started walking out and down the hallway came in his freely.
So I got to meet him and he was very nice to me and he signed I for some reason brought my dynasty CD in like thing and he signed it it's not like we had a long conversation but he was very decent to me and kind and wasn't like what the fuck are you doing down here it almost sounds like the first draft of Detroit Rock City that's right yeah love that would have been awesome if he was like aren't you Jay from catering you know what have a talk with helmet for me this is bullshit yeah
Yeah. Jay, what year was that when you saw it? That would have been 96 or 7, because this was after the Alive Worldwide, then they came back and did all these secondary cities. Okay, yeah, I saw them on Alive Worldwide. I've seen them more than my fair share, but I saw them on Alive Worldwide. Yeah, it was like the year of that. I just don't remember. I think I saw them in the summer of 96 in Chicago, and then they came back around to Peoria. Was that Psycho Circus, that tour? No, no, it was the same. It was in between? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, because I saw
that too and so i saw him a few times yeah they did um what they did was uh big huge
american tour went over europe and then came back and hit these places like peoria before the tour yeah
and then george you mean will saw them yep and obviously he was not there for that neither was peter chris
but you guys had never seen it before and i was like yeah i want to go see the see him for the fifth time
on their fifth farewell tour.
Well, as we speak, they're actually doing a thing in Vegas.
They've got some sort of Kiss Cruise landlocked thing going on or something.
Yeah.
Though I don't, it's not a big production Kiss thing.
It's just more like a convention.
Yeah, I saw them on that show with you and Will, and I saw them again at Jiffy Lube with Barb and our friend Adrian.
And then I saw them alone at Verizon once. I'm sure I've mentioned this, but they were the first concert I ever went to. First metal rock concert. 84 was the Animal Eyes tour. Oh, wow. Now I'm jealous. Me and my best friend grew up. And you know who opened for them? Queensway on the Warning tour. Queensway? Oh, man. I would have gone just for that. Yeah, it was great, dude. Anyway. Didn't Eric Seward just play with them? I would have gone, but I was born in 1984.
No, I meant didn't Eric Singer just play with them? Didn't he rejoin them for something? Yeah, he was there for the last years. I saw him with Singer, yeah. Maybe as much as a decade he might have been the last. No, I know, but I thought that he, for recently, he just played with them again, I thought. Yeah, yeah, I mean, he was there at the last show, and he's there. Okay, I don't know. That must have been something else. Maybe it was something else that they were talking about that he showed up at, so. Gotcha. Yeah.
Yeah, Justin, you missed all the craze from the 70s.
Yeah.
Actually, I'm glad you said that, John, because you know what?
I get it for people who find them distasteful, but in the moment in 77 and 78, it was...
Oh, I get their importance for sure, yeah.
But I mean, it was kind of magical in the moment.
Nobody knew what they looked like, and it was this bombastic show that was way ahead of its time as far as that goes.
And if you were a kid, they were like comic book characters too. It was everything. It was so made for 13-year-old boys. Yeah. The first I even heard of them was flipping baseball cards. Oh, yeah. Somebody flipped a Gene Simmons spitting blood card. And I was like, what the hell is that? I had all those cards. Yeah, me too. So let me ask you this. I was just thinking about it. Do you think that Kiss is responsible for, like,
the debaucherous,
like 80s hair metal,
like vibe of things.
No,
I don't think so either.
Yeah.
I agree with John.
The Van Halen is.
Oh yeah.
I was going to say cocaine,
but I guess.
Well,
that made it,
that made it even worse.
Well,
actually those,
those words are interchangeable.
Just to just,
you know,
but I think they might've inspired the second wave of black metal.
There you go.
All those guys loved them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
really did love them.
Yeah.
Just wish Gene would stuff.
It definitely gave a marketable lane for bands in the future, for sure.
Oh, yeah.
Like the Miss Korea and all, you know?
Yeah.
Sure.
If nothing else, they knew how to sell shit.
I mean, they're not the first to wear makeup, though.
I know Gene Simmons likes to say they were.
But I mean, Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel, they were all wearing makeup before that.
Yeah.
And even this guy, the guy with that song Fire, he's this British dude.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, Arthur Brown.
Yeah.
Arthur Brown.
I bring you fire. Yeah. Do you know where they got the idea for the makeup? Because, you know, wrestlers have been doing makeup. Kabuki, I think. Kabuki, yeah. But they also just decided they were willing to do anything to make it, and they wanted to make this band that looked... They wanted to be different. That didn't look like anybody else, and so it just kind of... Yeah, they deserved the credit for putting the time in early on. They really did. Yeah, they busted their balls for the first few years. Yeah.
And apparently Ace and Rush were like really good buddies on tour. They used to all hang out together all the time. And they said Ace was crazy. He was the truest, to get back to him, so I'm glad you mentioned him. He was the truest rock guy in the band. And he also wrote the weirdest, quirkiest, almost punk-like songs in some of his stuff he did. And he does a really cool cover of 2,000 Man by Rolling Stones of Dynasty. Oh, yeah. He was a real rock and roll guy.
But also, I think probably insufferable to be around. Yeah. I don't necessarily blame Gene and Paul for saying either get your shit together or we're moving on. Because they were a corporation at that point when they said that. No, you're right. I think it's ironic. And he hated that. He was like, why do you guys have briefcases? We're a rock band. But I also agree with what you said, John, which is sort of like, they were like, dude,
You know, you know, I mean, look at the stones. They gotta show up. Stones are a billion dollar band. Yeah. Yeah. I thought I'd look and Keith Richards is in that band. I mean, so Ace, if you can't pull it off, then we got problems because that guy's been pulling it off for about 7,000 years. Yeah. So, you know, Ace wrote cold gin, but ironically, Gene Simmons sang it, which is just ridiculous because the guy's never had gin in his life.
He drinks now a little bit, I think. Really? I think since he got married, I think he tried a little. Okay, well, last I heard, he was still claiming that he'd never had anything in his life. Yeah, he's for the most part straight edge. He makes a lot of claims, but yeah, I'm sure John's right. I'm sure he's not a big... I'll be honest, though. I'm glad he sang that song, because I think Ace's voice would have killed it. Gene has the right voice for that type of song. Yeah. You know, it's not a Paul song where he gets to croon a little.
Say what you want. Paul was a great singer. Paul was a great singer. He was a great singer. In his prime. He really was. Speaking of songs written for the wrong, or, you know, Paul wrote God of Thunder, but they were like, they recorded it and they were like, you can't sing this, dude. It cannot be you. This is not good. I know. I read that. Matt, do you have a question? Yeah. One thing I read, and I'd be curious to your opinions, when everybody did their solo album, I feel like a lot of people gravitated towards Aces. Oh, this is, yeah.
He had the only semi-hit on it, which was New York Groove. And it is a real solid rock record. It's more rock. Paul Stanley's is just as rock as his, but that's the weird punk vibe I'm talking about. If you listen to it, it's almost got this weird, I don't know how to explain it, but he's just, he has a stream of consciousness and he just talks about anything he wants to when he's writing a song. And it kind of works, you know? Yeah. I like his best by far.
And I think it sold the best to that. I think so, yeah. No kidding. I really like the first solo album, the Freely's Comets stuff. The first one, yeah. The first one with Rock Soldiers and Into the Night. Dolls, is that on there? Dolls is on there, yeah. That's a cool song. That's the kind of weird thing I'm talking about. Yeah, that's like, I'm a rock star and you're not kind of song. It just got weird with him as time went on.
a little bit, but his live shows and everything, they weren't great. Nah. So, but still, it sucks that he's gone. It does, and it marks the beginning of a sad era because, you know, I mean, he's the, like I said, he's the first one to go, and we're just seeing more and more bands just seem vulnerable, you know? Yeah. Age is catching up with a lot of these guys. I feel like this, yeah, I feel like this year definitely drives home the fact that as you get older, you gotta work out those hips and shit.
It's just gonna be game over. Essentially, that's what happened with Ozzy, too. He just took longer to die. He fucked himself up from falling. That ATV accent rebroke his neck, really. That was the start of the downfall for him. This is probably the worst year we've had since we started doing the podcast, I think. I mean, excluding the fact that DO dying is enough for one year.
Remember we had Bowie, Lemmy, and Glenn Frey all within like three weeks of each other. And it's like, what is going on? I'll tell you right now, it's longer ago than you think. It's six years now, I think. At least, yeah. Yeah. Because I thought that was a real strange combination of three musicians from three different worlds, all within, you know, same generation, all at the same time. You know, I didn't say this out loud because I thought I was going to be wrong. That was 10 fucking years ago. Yeah. Lemmy died 10 years ago. That's crazy.
Oh my god 2015. Yeah and Bowie was right after him. Yep. And then Glenn Frey was after him. Holy smokes. I think a deal has only been dead for like 15 years. Yeah he was the first he was the first big guy. 2010? Could it? I'll look at it. I thought it was like 2012 but maybe that was Peter Steele. Did you say 2010 Marcus? Yeah. I said 15 years so.
I guess. Yeah, that makes sense, Jay, because it's over five years. It's five years since Neil Peart died. And see, that sounds wrong. That seems like two years ago to me. Yeah, Dio died in 2010. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. So this is the first year that I've been a part of the podcast where we actually did a cast on deaths because there were so many significant ones together. Yeah, all lumped together. Yeah, that was.
So yeah, it seems to happen in clusters. So hopefully we won't get one of those anytime soon. I feel like the last one I remember for me in terms of people that I was like, what the fuck, when they died. I think probably last year before this one was whatever year I think Chris Cornell died. I feel like a lot of people died that same year too. That's right. Including that chef dude.
The Lincoln Park. I think The Lincoln Park. Chester, yeah. And then, was that the same year? Yeah, Bennington or something like that. Yeah, and then I think Chester. Chester Bennington. Yeah, because I thought there was some sort of conspiracy going on because Chris Cornell hung himself. Chester hung himself. There was all sorts of hanging. Anthony Bourdain hung himself in the same year. Was it the same year? Was that the same year that the woman from, what the fuck's her name? I can't think of her name.
from Cranberries.
Oh, yeah.
It's from Cranberries.
Oh, yeah.
That's around that time.
Right?
Because I was like, why are they all fucking killing themselves?
Because it was all like, you know.
Yeah.
Speaking of Chris Cornell, did anyone see any of Soundgarden when they played the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame?
I did watch that.
Like the performance.
10 seconds.
It was.
I'm not a huge Soundgarden fan.
I don't dislike them.
Why not?
I like some of their stuff.
Now, the guitarist during the whole metal, what was the metal show that the guy from Banger TV did? Remember the metal series, not the movies? Evolution of Metal. Evolution. And they did grunge. And he said, no, we got nothing from metal at all. We don't listen to that hair metal crap. I'm like, dude, you sound like Black Sabbath. Stop it right now. It always pissed me off. No, I saw a little bit of it. They sounded good, considering they haven't played in a while. Who was singing? I did see the list. They had two women singing.
I couldn't remember their names.
Was it Daughter?
I think so.
Daughter, yeah.
Daughter did a separate performance, though.
But I thought they were...
She did it on Black Days.
And it was like...
There was more like the folk singer.
I can't think of her name right now.
There was a folk singer, and then there was a backup singer who was in some kind of like alt-metal band or something.
That was for Black Hole.
Taylor Momsen, or she was the backup singer.
Oh, yeah.
Pretty where it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it was cool to see a control plane with them, which was nice.
So I have a sick talent of suggesting who's going to be next. And I think I have a suggestion. Have you learned? You said that every year about Ozzy and it didn't come true. Wait, wait, wait. I did some checking up and this is such a dumb thing to check up. But I went back to the first pandemic episode and I said Ozzy's got five years left at best. So I just got in under the five years. Just stop talking. So I think Richie Blackmore won't be around much longer.
Do you win something? Just, you know, pride. Embarrassment. I don't know. I mean, like a sense of shit comment of the podcast. Yeah. He gets a death certificate. Jay, he's 80, isn't he, at least? Blackmore? Yeah. He might be 84, to be honest with you. Whoa. But I just found out that I saw an interview with his wife. He's kind of private, and he had a heart attack last year and stuff, and I didn't realize, you know.
So I don't know. I'll look, John, because I am curious. Oh, he's 80 straight up. Wow. You know, Soundgarden's going to be putting out the final album. They are going to do that, aren't they? Yeah. Really? Yeah, they're working on it. I had heard that. Is he singing on it? Yes. Yeah, they're taking all the stuff that they were working on that he did, and they're finishing the music. Now, it's just the four of them. The other bassist isn't going to play on it, right?
to be on it. I have no idea. The one that was at the Hall of Fame? He played, yeah, with them at the Hall of Fame. He was the original bassist. Yeah, for the first two albums, I think. I think so, yeah. All right. Ready to move on? Yeah. Slaytanic versus the official Slayer online museum. I believe that's called a webpage, but sure. Online museum. Released the Hell on
the 40th anniversary of Hello8s. We're freaking old. Offering a day-by-day account of the four-week tour for the album in 1985. What? 40 years? And that's not even the first album. Yeah. George, that 40-year number for me is long gone. Now I'm hitting all my 50-year stuff. Yeah, yeah. But I get it. By the way, just a quick sub-art. Did you guys see that?
going to be releasing some big thing for Hell of Weights, album-wise? Yeah. Yeah. I'm just like, I thought of you right away, Jake, because I know you like that album a lot. It's one of my, could be my favorite. I think it's my favorite from them, yeah. You know, I think, and they could, Slayer doesn't get overlooked, so I'm not just making that statement, but I will say this. If you look at, like, one of the cool things about Metallica was it went Kill Em All, which was cool, and then it was like they took a huge leap, and, you know,
Ride the Lightning, and then an even huge release of Master of Puppets. I would argue the same thing was true for Slayer. They did Shona Mercy, which sounds like a sped-up 70s Priest album, and then suddenly in Haunting the Chapel, which is an EP, but they were so much fucking heavier, and then they did this big epic thing that mixed those two things together in Hell of Ways. So I think they had that same trajectory, at least talent-wise and stuff, and that was just one of my favorite records of that era, Hell of Ways. I loved it when it came out, man. Loved it so much.
And still think I still think Rick Rubin ruined their production. I prefer the production on Hello Waits. It took all the base, all the stuff off and just made it. That's weird. Rick Rubin do that to an album. Did you go look at the museum thing, George? No, I did not. I did on my phone and unfortunately on my phone, it wouldn't let me engage in some of the things that said I should be seen. But what I looked at was really cool. Awesome.
Yeah, I didn't even know about it until George put it in there. Yeah, I didn't know about it either. But it's kind of like getting a deluxe box set with a collectible hardcover book. Yeah, totally. It just happens to be virtual and free, you know. So it was pretty neat, you know, and they have articles that link to some of that, and of course there's lots of pictures, and it's pretty neat. I might check back and take a look at some more of it. It's a good way to have like an archive of something from that specific period in time.
I wonder if they'll keep going with it and do it for other records. Well, they had done on the Goodbye Tour, they did that nice... I wish it had been more detailed, but they put this episodic kind of history of the band in video, of which the earlier things were more interesting stuff. But I wish they had done something in a bigger production like that. But they do seem to be kind of dedicated to their legacy and doing things like this.
Yeah. I mean, it's pretty thorough. They did like travel routes on there. There's details about the show, like daily logistics that they had to go through. I believe it was that tour. And if it's not, it was the previous one. But they had a U-Haul trailer and they pulled it behind Tom's Camaro. Can you imagine pulling a U-Haul trailer? And that means they were riding around the country in a fucking Camaro, a two-door car. Somebody's got to climb over this.
the whole way to the next show.
That just brings back so many memories here and now.
And so much of what you couldn't live through now, John.
Lombardo lets a big nasty ripper out and, you know, everybody's like, roll down the windows.
Yeah, that was our life for how many years?
I would suggest to anybody listening, and I've brought it up from time to time, but there was a great
of the Hello8s tour. And it's only a few songs, but it's that Ultimate Revenge thing that came out on VHS. It was supposed to document the Venom Slayer Exodus show, but Venom didn't show up or something like that thing. So this Venom footage is from London. But the Slayer footage is great. You get to see them right when they were hungry and deadly.
and it's got like chemical warfare on there and hello weights and
antichrist is on there maybe one other thing i can't recall right now you can find it on youtube
that's awesome display right there best for sure
all right then so we've got a couple of uh big shows that were also announced recently
the rush 50th anniversary tour which i did not see coming since you know neil's gone
and Iron Maiden's 2026 Run For Your Lives tour. Tickets are now on sale for both of these. I did not get tickets to either. I didn't either. Let's go around the room. Who did get tickets for anything? I got tickets for Rush. I got tickets for Maiden. They're celebrating their 50th year. I'm also 50 and the captain has not seen Iron Maiden.
live so we had to go and they were like 200 bucks or something for the seated tickets
am i mistaken too that they there's some pretty good only 200 bucks some pretty good support bands on
that i mean megadeth's there make it up on anthrax on some dates which is not in my neck of the woods but i got them too i for me it was weird it's this new amphitheater that's opening in august so it was weird to go in and buy tickets for a place i've never been to
I can't view from your seat or anything like that, but I paid two and change for the tickets. I hate when they don't have a view from your seat because you could go and there could be a column in front of you. You have no idea. I could have seven people really pissed at me. Yeah. Yeah, George brought it up to me, but it's on a Tuesday. Like why on a Tuesday? Like I'm not driving because we were talking about going to the same spot we went to to see Slayer because they're playing there. But it's like,
I don't really want to drive for five hours to go see someone on a Tuesday. You know what I mean? I need, I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing. And I really want to make it a touch to me. Right. Me either. I'm not a big fan, but I think it's kind of cool because it's their final run, although apparently it's going to last three to five years. So I'm a little bit interested in that because I've never seen them live.
I wanted to get rush tickets but clusterfuck clusterfuck and I'm sure John's going to explain that yeah what what a clusterfuck it started out with what 12 shows I think total between Los Angeles Fort Worth Texas New York and Cleveland and Chicago and I think Toronto and so I actually got tickets
for Fort Worth because there was no way I was going to try to get tickets for New York. That's crazy. Where are they playing? Madison Square Garden, I believe. Oh, yeah. But it wasn't that. It was the pre-sale, and there were so many different pre-sales. And when I went in on the second pre-sale, not the first one because I don't have a Citibank credit card, I did have an Amex, but that would mean I'd have to go to Toronto.
And I wasn't gonna,
I didn't feel like going up there.
So I did the second pre-sale,
which was like three days after the first pre-sale.
And the first show I was 7,500 people behind in the waiting.
And in the second, I did for both dates.
The other one, I was like 30 some thousand people back.
Some people in New York were over a hundred thousand people ahead of them in line in the queue.
It sucked.
That was me, John.
It absolutely sucked.
And I waited a half an hour just to get in to get tickets for the first show. And everything I grabbed was gone within literally nanoseconds. So I decided to switch back on the Fort Worth. So I decided Fort Worth was the show I was going to. And I switched it to the other day. And that's when I was 30,000 people back. And I got seats for that. I got okay seats. And they were shade under 400. Yeah. And I got two of them.
Then I fell into tickets for Cleveland, which I didn't have to do anything about, but somebody had extra tickets. So I was like, I'll take them. Sure. And then I was like, okay, great. I'm going to go to two of the like 14 or 15 shows. No, wait, hold on. Rush isn't done yet. They're having another beer. We're going to announce another fucking 20 some shows. All right. I'm like, oh, I got my ticket. Wait, hold on. Hold on. Wait a second. We found some more CDs in the back closet.
The Tour is called 50-something Tour. Yeah, 50-something Shows. Now there's like 58 shows. And I'm like, they're playing DC now. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? I went to all that trouble. So yeah, I got DC tickets also. So you're coming out of retirement, John? No, I'm not coming out of retirement. No. And Jen's going with, she's never seen them. And she has a thing where she wants to see older bands that aren't, that are not on their last legs, but are kind of slowly wrapped up.
up and up. You know, they're doing their last few tours. So she's never seen them. I mean, she likes some of their stuff. So she's like, oh, we can go to Texas. Like, well, I've never hung out in Texas before. So we're going to go for a few days. We'll spend a few days in Cleveland because there's a few things we want to see. And then DC, I'm like, yeah, I'm literally metroing in and coming home right away. I'm not sticking around for anything there. Nobody rocks like Cleveland, John. Just ask Drew Carey. It was an absolute mess. And I don't like the way they did it. I know people are blaming them for the ticket prices. I don't.
What control do they have over that? I don't think they do. They don't. It's a monopoly and people just have to accept that. And somebody knew that one was going to be pulling big dollars. Or just don't go. That's what I did. Right. Well. I really want to. It's like $400 a ticket. When I got through, I was like 450,000th in line. And I got in right on that first pre-sale. I was like, this is crazy.
right on the time that it launched. And I waited like an hour and I finally got through and there's hardly any seats left and they're all in the nose. Well, those were the seats that were made available for that presale. That's the part that sucked too, because each presale is limited to a certain amount of tickets in certain spots. Right. That's right. So shit, you could go on the last presale, which is like, I don't know, the freaking M&M's presale, you know, because Mars Candy has one now too. I'm being sarcastic, obviously. And that could be on Friday.
I'm like we did early on. We're like, I got these shit ass seats all the way in the back. It's I hate the whole process. Ticket bastard. Live nation can go pound sand. This is why I don't really go to stadium shows. I'm only doing it because it's rush. It's the only band I would do that for. So yeah. Well, that's like when Deftones came around, they were playing MSG also. And obviously they're one of my favorites and I would have loved to have gotten to see them. But I'm like, I'm not spending fucking
$300 for nosebleed seats. It's not fucking happening. Not for $1 million. It's weird because I was, I don't know who I was listening to. Maybe it was Cia Tranquility, Pete Pardo. He lives up in the area. And he was saying, it's weird to see shows at MSG right now because they've been going to all the other venues, the larger venues around the city in the area. And he said, I haven't been to a show at MSG in ages. I've been going everywhere else, New Jersey, Brooklyn, all these different places. And now all of a sudden, MSG's
getting all these shows again. That's because Billy Joel finally retired. Yeah. It was one of those things where you wonder because like Brooklyn was booming with the shows. Yeah. And a lot of the places got kind of closed down. And I think it was probably people paying the city off to be like, shut this shit down so we can get them in the more expensive seats, you know? I think, yeah. And you're not the only person to say that because New York, say what you want, whether you like it or love it or hate it.
When it comes to shows, there's umpteen amount of venues up there to see stuff. And for all different sizes, which a lot of cities don't have small, medium, medium, medium, large, and enlarge like they do. I mean, I've probably seen shows in like 10 different venues up there. Yeah, I was just going to say, I saw literally one summer when I went crazy kind of going to shows and stuff, I probably saw like 10 bands in eight different venues. Yeah, all over the place.
Is the Garden the only place that can really hand a reinitiate? No. I mean in Manhattan. In Barkley. Barkley. There's also USB, which is further out by me a little bit, but you can get onto it from the train. Where do the Nets play in Brooklyn? I was going to say, isn't there a basketball team in Brooklyn? Yeah. I've driven by it, but I can't remember what it's called. Yeah. I can't think of it right off the top. How far away is the Meadowlands for all of that? That's in New Jersey.
That's Jersey, yeah. What kind of distance is that? I mean, it's still doable if you're coming from the city. It's doable, I guess. Yeah. Did they just open a new place in Newark, too? Or a newer place? Newer place. I thought they opened a new place there, too. There is one. I think it's MetLife, maybe? Stadium? You are forgetting. It shows there, but I feel like that's been around and they just renamed it. I feel like it's actually a new spot. They just corporatized it under our
I know this doesn't count for Rush or even Maiden at this point, but don't forget too, there's this cachet to playing the Garden. I mean, everybody wants the Garden on their list. And that's more for bands who have never played the Garden before, but that's a big deal. Well, you know, it's weird, Jay, you say that. Dream Theater just played their final show on the U.S. tour, and they played at Nassau Coliseum. That was a bucket list show for Mike Portnoy, because he said he grew up
up going to shows there.
That was our Madison Square Garden.
Yeah.
It was the first place I went to go see a show.
That's where I went to see the Family Values Tour with Korn.
Yeah.
But I mean, Justin, you know, everyone played there.
There's so many famous shows.
And now they can't get a show there.
Really?
And now Dream Theater would never fill that place ever in a million years.
But they played there.
No, but there is Jones Beach Amphitheater, which does hold a pretty decent home.
And that's probably the best spot that they're going to get around at least on the end. So they they played just to the lower bowl they didn't have the upper bowl didn't sell. Oh is that right. Yeah and so and I don't think they cared and people are saying yeah see nobody wanted to see him. Well it is a huge stadium you know arena. Oh yeah. I mean honestly I've gone there I've seen tool there in their heyday I've seen plenty of bands and they don't they don't fill the whole thing up. Yeah it's really happened. But it's wild to hear that. I don't have to really
he shows anyone because like the islanders definitely weren't filling everything up either.
It's just nuts.
I saw this great interview with Elvis.
I mean, it's on one of the documentary things about him that was made while he was still alive.
And it was, and he was, and when he came back and started doing the stadium tours again, he was doing the garden.
And so they pressed really, you know, pressed when he got there and they were like, Elvis, why did it take you so long to come back and everything?
And he was like, well, we couldn't get the building.
and all of the guys in the press thing just laughed. They're like, dude, you could get the building any fucking time you want. I just love that they were just like, you couldn't get the building. Fuck you. But he comes across as this lovable bumpkin that doesn't know that that's how it works. Yeah. I've seen only one show. I've seen at the arena, the smaller one, the theater at Madison Square Garden. I've seen a show there and I saw only once in the actual. I've never been to either of those.
I've been to every single venue in the New York area except for Madison Square Garden because there's not a band that I'm willing to go see that is. I know. Yeah. I do. I've seen more shows at Radio City Music Hall than I have anywhere else in the city. I was happy I got to see Opeth at the Apollo. That was like, all right, I'm happy now. I didn't go to the Apollo show. So I have obviously never been a West Coast guy. I've never seen a show there, but I do have a ticket for Iron Maiden at the
The Garden that was famously, between us, given to me by Adrian Smith's wife after the fucking show. So much appreciated. Well, I will say, if you ever get a chance to go to Radio City Music Hall, you should. Oh, I would love to. You might get ripped off on your shirt. Oh, you will, trust me. It's still worth it going, though. I mean, there's nothing that sounds like that in the U.S. No venue has that aesthetic, you know, and that aura and that history. I've walked by it plenty.
I know and you don't even notice it George it doesn't look like much yeah I mean obviously I don't know when they started doing you know radio city stuff there but um you may remember Maiden played there like three nights in a row on the world slavery tour so it goes back that far yeah I mean I saw maybe just because of where I was but I I preferred the sound on at Apollo over radio city but that's that's another famous place I mean yeah exactly it's one of those things where it's like
Like, you know,
because there used to be, you know,
the was it like the Showtime at the Apollo?
I don't know if it plays everywhere,
but it used to play, at least locally,
it used to play after SNL, like back in the day.
Yeah.
And so it was like, I always knew about it.
And then I was like there and I'm like, okay, I get it now.
I get it why this is a famous place.
It is.
Yeah.
I never got a chance to go there.
I've been to the Beacon, which is cool.
Yeah.
It's a cool spot.
Yeah.
One of I, you know, one of my favorite,
a favorite non-metal record is James Brown.
James Brown live with the Apollo. And that's, and that was like, kind of like when people didn't really quite know your warehouse and stuff, but oh, so much famous shit happened in that building, man. Oh yeah. Big time. Yeah. Where is that in Harlem or is it? Sounds right. It's, it's upper, it's upper, it's up there. I don't remember off the top of my head. It's kind of in Harlem, but it's not like really, it's not deep into Harlem. It's kind of in the, I think it's the upper East side. I don't remember. It's been right before COVID. So.
I don't remember exactly it was last time I was there so it's not in a neighborhood that I typically am in so I'm gonna say that that's probably near Harlem because I'm not usually you know what no I just because like upper west Harlem is like he kind of if you're gonna go there you're just gonna go to the park and the museums you're not gonna go anywhere else all like the fun shit is you know downtown so gotcha yeah I think that's a pretty east right all right moving on
Unfortunately, Will's not here for this, but the new creator album, Crushers of the World, is set to be released January 16th. There is growing speculation in the metal world that this will be Will's album of the month in January 2026. Stay tuned for that. They just released a documentary about them. I don't know if it's available to be watched online or anything. Oh, really? Yeah, there was like a,
They had a theater premiere and everything in Germany. I can't. I'll look it up and see what the deal is and share it with you later. But. And I think it just covers the first several albums or something like that. I can't remember. Hope so. Hate. Hate and hope. Yeah. It's great choice. I don't know. The last few. Last few albums have had some really unusual album titles like Crushers of the World, Crushers with a K.
Yeah, they're just like, I'm just like, what are you guys doing? Very Manowar. Yeah, it's almost kind of Manowar. It's kind of hokey for an old school German thrash band, you know? Super hokey. They're one of those bands, though, that like Sabaton or something, and they're not like that, but I mean, they're pretty fucking big in Europe. I mean, they, you know what I mean? Like way bigger than in America. Sure. Like, I think they all,
You know, have big houses and shit big. Hope so. Because that would be metal. I think they were the first, actually the first band I saw at Lemores, that Brooklyn. Yeah. That was the first bands, yeah. I saw them on the, they opened for, strangely opened for DRI. And I was a creator fanatic. And it was the first, that EP that came out for the first few good records, George. You'll, you can bet.
Your EP, Flag of Hate? No. I think, hold on, I'll look it up. But in any case, it was great. I was way into them at the time. It was the, hold on. I mean, it doesn't matter, but hold on. Did you guys talk about the two tracks that they released? No. I'm curious. Did you listen? I did listen to them. I thought they sounded good to me. Good. You know, solid thrash riffs.
Good atmospheric breakdowns. They're catchy. I thought they were pretty good. Yeah, I didn't know they were. Yeah, there's two on the page. Sweet. It wasn't an EP. It was Extreme Aggression. Oh, yeah. Love that album. I'd probably check them out tonight, actually. Marcus, I don't know why I didn't do that yet. Because I am curious. You don't do your homework? I like their homework.
I honestly I didn't know that they had songs out either and I just found it on Bandcamp like oh
there's two I have to surprise the creators on Bandcamp I was a little surprised myself because you know
sometimes those bands are on like Metal Blade or something bigger they don't have Bandcamp pages but yeah
they're on there all right last news item and I'm sure this one's gonna go gangbusters based on previous conversation
The New Megadeth upcoming final album. They released the first single called Tipping Point. And they just, I believe yesterday, released their second single called I Don't Care. I don't care so much about I Don't Care. Sorry, I agreed. Sorry, I. They nailed it with that title. Yeah, but Tipping Point I thought was pretty cool. I completely agree.
So I'm hoping that Dave gets to go out on a high note instead of a, you know, one of those off albums that they do. I think the better song. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, the lightning thing deserves a little comment here. Yeah. Yeah. He's he, he was one of the songwriters on a ride, the lightning. He wasn't on ride, the lightning, but. Okay. Am I the only person when they heard that was hoping a second disc was going to come out and he was going to rerecord every single song.
I mean I was like if there was a bigger you ever that could be done it'd be like
Johnny still has time I mean maybe that's maybe that's the whole thing we're like I'm just gonna tease you with one by the way he'll do in retirement a second is this new is this new information or is this something that is just being brought up right now probably in the last few weeks ago yeah yeah that's on I just assumed that's something he would have been talking about for the past you know 40 years honestly no you're right he hasn't shut her up he hasn't shut up
He really is such an angry fuck. But this is a nice bookend because you'll recall that the first Megadeth record has, albeit different lyrics, it's basically Four Horsemen, isn't it? Four Horsemen, yeah. And now he's going to call it a different... It's Mechanics, yeah. Mechanics, right. And then now he's going to kind of put the bookend. So that's, you know, that's fine. When I saw them, oh, what were the, what were they, what was the big tour they were doing that had like Lamb of God, Opeth, all those bands on it?
Was it Gigantor? I saw a few Gigantors, and on that particular one, when they played Mechanics, he's like, yeah, you're gonna play, you know how he talks like that, we're gonna play this song, but we play it a lot fucking faster than they do, and he just ripped into it, and I was like, okay, that's kind of badass, actually. Is anybody else kind of taking in that Dave's looking a little old now? Oh yeah, especially if you watch the video with Tipping Point, he's like running, and he's like,
I want to say the last maybe five to eight years he's aged you know he's he was looking well that could be why he's retiring when you're constantly seething with anger I feel like you're probably down you know what I mean I am you know what that's a legit comment dude because I read what when I read the little thing about ride the lightning he still sounds angry you know like yeah it wasn't a very graceful statement of what I was talking about it was just like
I think what are you still I'm sorry man is the winery and the millions of dollars and that's not good enough for you so really should we just be saying angry again Dave yeah you know he's a little too mad isn't that funny because you look at everybody else uh in the band like Chris Poland who had it rough early on looks way better than him you know uh Dave Ellefson looks better than him it does look like he's Dave Ellefson looks about the same age he did 10 years ago yeah he's not involved right with this last tour
I know he said he would like to at least do something with them but
yeah I think I don't care is actually a uh there's a therapist's command for him to write this song
they're like go write a song talking about he don't care about all these things that make you so angry
look you don't have to call it I'm over it we'll come up with something else yeah yeah we should have caught on with the song peace sells and he's so pissed off in that song how did we not figure it out back then what do you mean I'm not in Metallica
I've been writing all their songs. That was not only funny, but a very good imitation, George. Thank you. Very good, yeah. It's so funny, George, because you met him and said he was nice to you. He was very nice to me. He's really nice. What was the circumstance that you met him? We were at Decibel. Decibel. It wasn't like a public thing, but it was the Megadeth beer that Unibrew was doing. Yeah, he did that when I was in LA. He came and signed the beer. But this was like a
It's just in the back room thing. It wasn't a public thing. And so I just kind of got, you know, we had the access to the back room there. So we went in and we're like, John's like, I don't want to meet that guy. He's Jake. And so I got in line and I got at the end of the line. And because I was at the end of the line, I was afforded a little more leeway to talk to him. That's right. Okay. This all rings a bell now. I've got a picture. By the way, it's okay. It's not the worst beer ever. Yeah, it was all right. Unibrew is a great brewery. I thought it was
It was just a decent saison. So I think it was a saison. No, it was a Belgian thing. Um, well, what do you mean? It wasn't a saison. It might've been a saison. I pay my taxes. Hi. She was saying bye. Oh, bye. Sorry.
What the fuck is it? Alright. Alright. Well, if we're done with Dave, if we're done raking him over the coals... We're done with Dave. Fuck that guy. I still like Dave. I still like the first four hours a while. No, John, you were right. It's a Belgian saison. Yeah. We were both right. You said Belgian, Jay. I'll give you that. I did, but don't fuck with John when it comes to beer. How dare you question John? He's the beer father.
to me on beer. I've had it before. I'm a thousand years old. I know all about beer. That's Keith Richards, not me. I did go into pirate voice a little bit there, didn't I? Yeah. All right, let's move on to new releases.
A few more than usual this time because it's been productive. You got a lot on here. And I left stuff off just because I was like, nah, this is getting too long. It's like ridiculous. It's like Will. So first, yes. First off, we have an abstract illusion, The Sleeping City, their third album, Swedish prog death band. I know Marc Gasan and John are fans.
Yeah, I mean, it was my album of the month. I mean, it's my favorite progressive metal album of the year, I think so far. And it's one of my favorite records overall. And I've liked the band's Passport fine. But I think in Abstract Illusion, they weren't a go-to band for me. So I really wasn't prepared for this record. I had no idea that The Sleeping City would completely hook me like it has. For me, if I could, I would transfer all the praise.
and celebration that blood incantation generated last year for absolute elsewhere to the sleeping city because to me it's prog it's a prog metal album that like truly weaves the layers of heaviness melody atmosphere electronic blips into something that that sounds seamless and unique it's like a real dynamic integration of sounds that i hope that i would get with absolute elsewhere but personally
because I know you guys like it but personally for me I felt like I didn't get that
so but with this album they merge metal with 80s synth which really works for me because most prog metal bands I would say they gravitate towards the 70s sounds and I'm not as big a fan of that style but you put some Blade Runner in there you put some Miami Vice in my metal some Vangelis some Jan fucking Hammer and I'm guaranteed to perk up and this album
does that for me. So yeah, I love it. I'd hope really surprised. I'd hope to go back and sorry, I'd hope to go back and listen to this again today, but I didn't get a chance to because first time I just couldn't get through it. I was like, this is way too proggy. There's not enough metal. It's pretty heavy. Yeah. All right. I'll try it again. Yeah, I would say for me, like I actually enjoyed the last one. I enjoyed this one too. I'm kind of like I and I totally get why you like it, Marcus.
because I totally hear the vibes in it. And when you were talking about it, I think one of the last episodes, I'm like, yeah, I can totally get it. Because I see it's like, I think for me, it's like one of those things where I have to be in a certain headspace for certain types of music. And I'm not necessarily in the headspace of like, I have too many other things I'm thinking about right now. I don't need to visual, I don't need to have like a soundscape that's visualizing something for me. Like that's too, it's almost, there's almost too much of that for me right now. But I do appreciate this.
sounds are cool but like yeah like the 80s things it's just like to me like the 80s synths to me like for me is like i just this just makes me want to go watch like a john carpenter movie you know what i mean it doesn't make me it doesn't necessarily engage me in the music itself it's actually disengages me if that makes sense because there's so many layers to it but it is i mean they did they do a really good job with it that's funny because i for that for that vibe i love the 80s synth thing and the john carpenter thing but i don't know i didn't i don't know
I have to listen to it again. Sorry, I cut John off. I feel like for me, like when, like, again, for me, like, I have to, I visualize so much, I think, you know, for like what I do for work and all that kind of stuff that like sometimes I don't want my music to give me that feeling of having to visualize like a vibe. I just want it to kind of be there. And sometimes you don't get that if there's, if it's too layered or too thick with that type of stuff. I mean, it totally makes sense too, because you're such a big death metal guy. Like you just want it immediately.
of that kind of music.
It's the whole thing of like, again, I think it's just a matter of like, it's a headspace thing.
Like this could be one of those records where like in like a year or two from now, if I'm in a different headspace, that I'd be enjoying it a lot more than I'm enjoying it now.
You know what I mean?
I've been very, I feel like I've, I know everyone has this, they have to go through their phases of like, all right, I'm going to just like completely consume metal constantly all the time.
And then you have things happen in life and you're like, all right, well, I'm still going to consume my metal, but I also need to like use some space for other things. And sometimes it makes your, your listening habits a lot more discerning when you're, when you're not dedicating as much time to it anymore. You know? I mean, yeah. I mean, totally understand. This one just hit me right away. Cause I'm, you know, I'm very selective when I come, especially when it comes to progressive metal. I love progressive metal, but not every record hits me. This one just really spoke to me.
So it just sometimes that happens. Sometimes it doesn't happen. It makes sense with like what you like and like your vibes with certain things like it's all there. I think I could be feeling the way Justin did that when I tried to listen to it I was like I ain't got time for this right now. You know this is too much work. I need I need some you know because things are just frantic around here lately and it just may have been too busy for me and too much work. So I'll go back to it now. John please I'm sorry.
First off, Marcus, you mentioned Yawn Hammer, and you're like, yeah, Yawn Hammer, it's got that sound. Yeah, you know he's a huge fusion jazz guy from like the early 70s, right? Yeah. Not the only thing he ever did, yes. Yeah, I understand that. I'm not saying that the 70s doesn't have a place. I just don't tend to like that sound as much. Secondly, that's new. That's a newer thing in prog metal, because prog metal in the 90s was not drawing from the 70s at all. It was drawing actually from the 90s, which is,
kind of homogeneous at that time. Now, yeah, you're right. There's a lot of bands that are doing that. I just, I got a kick out of you saying that about Jan Hammer. So like, yeah, I know Miami Vice, I get it, but I always think of him doing Fusion with Jeff Beck, you know, and Mahavishnu Orchestra and everything. That's what I always think of. No, I only think of the Miami Vice soundtrack. So I had a good laugh when you said that. I called him Jen. Yeah, clearly I don't know anything about the other stuff he did. No, it's fine. And also, you know,
He does a song, George, Jay, you may have remembered it from MTV with Neil Sean. Do you guys remember that when he did the song with Yonhammer? It's just really cheesy video. I do remember. I like the album, but their last two albums, and I've been on board with them since the first album came out in 2016. I got it right when it came out. The last two are so dense, their sound. There's no let up in between the songs.
right in. And so I get what George and Justin are saying. I get what you're saying too, Mark. But for me, I have to listen to a song at a time with them because it is a lot to take in because it's dense. There's not a lot of room where it breathes. You're not getting pummeled. There's so many layers, like you said. I don't feel that because I feel like it flows well. Oh, see, I do. I think it becomes, I get inundated too much for me.
And like I said, I've been on board since day one. Well, I didn't get the EP when it came out, but because that was even, I don't think people realize they're only in their early 30s and their first EP came out in like, what, 2014? They've been around a long time. But the last two albums are more of a band now, I think, is what it is, or at least touring-wise. So it's good. And I do like the, especially on the opening track, the injection of the 80s synth is kind of cool.
Yeah, I agree. The new stuff, I agree with you there.
Also on this, I don't know if you've noticed, they've pretty much shedded the whole melodic death metal thing they had on the first EP and first album, which wasn't like in flames or at the gates type of melodic death metal, but it was really melodic stuff. And they've kind of shed that a little bit. So it's good, but it's a dense listen. I mean, I have to force myself to stop after each song just to absorb because their songs aren't short. They're all like eight, 10, 12 minutes long.
I find this fascinating because I feel like it just flows so well. I can just listen to it or I can go under the cans and then I can really separate everything that's going on. Well, of course, you should listen to it. That's a band you definitely should listen to under the cans, I think. Oh, yeah. No, I've done that multiple times, but I'm saying I can just throw it on too and I can just groove out to it as well. And I don't have that a lot with progressive metal bands. So I think that's part of the reason that I like it. So it's interesting that you guys say, oh, it's dense and I've got to.
come back to it. So Justin, I agree. I do get what you get too. I'll be listening to something and there'd be one little thing. And I hate this word trigger so much because it's so overused these days, but something will tick a box and you'll totally distract you. Like, you know, your cat, your cat will be looking out the window. Right. And then a cat goes like, like this right away and looks over there. It's something. And you're like, what are you looking at? It's like a leaf that just blew by, but their whole attention just snapped so quick. And I feel like I get
that too and I listen to music. Something will just tick me off and I'll get totally lost where I was listening to something. And so I'm with you on that. I'm with both sides. I'm with you, Marcus, too, on this. I like it, but I'm also with George and Justin on the listening experience. So I've talked enough about it. I'm sure it'll fare well on my list, too. I mean, the last one was, I think, in my top five. I want to take an aside for a second based on something that Marcus,
Heavis on set, he said, under the cans. And that reminded me that he had gotten the Heavis earbuds. And I was wondering what you think of those compared to regular Heavis. Well, that's an interesting question. So I've only listened to them a couple times, but I like them. First of all, I hate earbuds. So do I. I was like, oh, when they announced that, I was like, I don't care. I hate them, but these fit really well in my ears. Now, they give you different, what do you call those, pads.
to put in your ears. But the ones that it came with, it fit perfectly in my ears. So I like that. They're very comfortable. They have all touch on it. There's no buttons like there is on the regular heavies, the over-the-ear heavies. It's all like a touch. It's very smooth, and you just hit it, and you have to hit double tap on each side to do stuff. But it's pretty cool. It's got this little case, and it lights up and stuff to
I'm going to show you if it's on or not. Like AirPods. And how it's charged. The charge keeps really well. So it's like, you know, you can see them. So how do they feel? And more importantly, how do they sound compared? They sound really good. They're the best earbuds I've ever heard. But you'd still go for the over the ear, I bet. I would, but I will use these to travel with it because I have been taking my full cans whenever I travel, which is fine, but they take up a lot of room.
in my bag. These sound almost as good. They fit well in my ear. The battery life, I think, is even longer than the cans. Also, more importantly, one of the reasons I got them is because I game every Tuesday on Steam with my buddy Josh. Steam has... You can hook up headphones to it, but it always fails. There's always some problem with the machine. I was like, let's just use our phone.
We both have iPhones. It's free. We'll just talk on that. So I'd been using the old iPhone earplugs that plug in, you know, but I have a new iPhone. So I had to get an adapter for that stupid thing and they just sound terrible. And they're terribly uncomfortable. They're really uncomfortable. So I wanted to get something Bluetooth and I was getting AirPods. And I was like, wait, why do I own AirPods when I can just get fucking heavies, which are a little cheaper than AirPods. Plus I got a discount code for them.
because I had already bought the heavies. So yeah, I'd say, you know, it's worth it to have them if you want to and you want something to travel. I mean, look how small this is. Yeah, no, not that I think about it, you know, this would be handy for like going to the beach. I always bring my heavies to the beach, but you know, I have to be like, they're in the backpack and you know, we got to pack them in the backpack and you got to be like, hey, where's the backpack? Can I get them out of the backpack?
I got to put them on and then after a while I'm sweating I got to take them off put them back in the backpack so you know maybe some earbuds would have some occasional value. My dad got me these grooves like just like you Mark's a tiny little thing and I didn't buy the heavies because these are from my dad and at this point now I'm not going to go spend money especially the significance of these. Of course. But yeah I'm not a fan either because I actually I like tails better than wireless because I don't
I got enough shit flying around my house hitting me in the head that I don't need any additional signals hitting but then he got these for me like if you're at the gym or if you're at the airport way easier you know if you're on the metro going I'm going George I take these but I go to a show you know or going to the DC I throw that he's on and they just go right in your pocket yeah that would be much easier that's so I agree with you it's way easier even though I'm not a fan I'd rather have the big cans on my head yeah I would I would if her as
is being an earbud guy because i'm not a cans guy because i'm usually listening and doing five other things while i'm listening um there's one that i because i i was interested because i i've tried a whole bunch of different earbuds and i would try the heavies but for me again like doing what i'm doing and all that kind of stuff i can't have it be touched because i've there's so many times i'll accidentally just smack it while i'm doing something and then i'm just like fucking everything up so i have ones that i they don't necessarily they only last for maybe like two years depending on how much
use them. But there's a brand, you can get them on Amazon, but they're like a cell phone company and they're called Back Bay Audio. And I think the specific ones are called like Tune in Boston or something like that. Those ones are really great. Do they make noise canceling in those? The earbuds have noise canceling and you can turn it on or off just like you can with the regular cans. So it's pretty cool. Yeah, I can't hear anything.
You know, I haven't done that. Because you know, like you'll be, they'll just be slightly off in your canal and you want to just move it. And I go to grab them like, oh, shit. I grab them by the, they have the little thing that goes down. Yeah, that's where the microphone is. So I grabbed that part because I know I would totally do that with my sausage fingers. Yeah, I do it all the time. Yeah, but the sound is really good on them. Like I was, I was impressed, you know, and it's a really good thing.
for phone calls too. Cause we've had problems, me and Josh, just using any kind of earbuds or microphones. And I put those on and it was like night and day. So the sound quality for calls is also really good. So yeah, I would recommend them. Hey Jay, I think, I think we've got another endorsement item here for you to hawk. You know, underwater audio. It's funny that you say that dude, cause I haven't, I was in hearing this whole conversation, I'm not an earbuds guy either. And then I suddenly started
I started to think of, I was like, oh, those were earbuds. Basically, those swimming ones, which sounded better underwater. Underwater audio. Every episode for years, you did that. It just was so funny. Yeah, I miss my swimming. Wow. All right. Well, I just ordered a pair, so. I think you're going to be really happy with them. I wanted to get them, but like I said, there's sentimental value in my other pair. Plus, my first pair, one of the mics,
the speaker on one of them broke and I contacted them and mentioned it to them and I said look I'm not I'm just asking do you how do you go about this and when the guy heard that I got him as a gift from my dad and he passed me his job send you one right now it was the owner and he said it to me I was like well that's I'm gonna be loyal now for that yeah absolutely so so before we actually move on to what we're supposed to be talking about George's aside last 20 minutes has anybody picked up these shells that they keep
I have a couple actually I do I I've just been like these are all so goofy that
they're cool no well I got I didn't I don't tend to get the band ones because I like the the brand name for
heavies but exactly I got these these are great
uh oh see that's cool yeah I like that it's the band ones that's like the Mexican skulls fuck you guys man I got a bad one
But that's a subtle one. What made me think of it was the Fatal Portrait ones that just came out for King Diamond. I was like, those are really bold headphones. I think I got one for Symphony X, too, actually, because I like the logo was the Paradise Lost album cover. The band ones are cool. I like the heavies ones. That's what I like. I agree with George on his overall thinking here.
But also, I was like, why Fatal Portrait? Like, I mean, that's not a bad record, but I just thought that's a weird choice. By the way, you can also get them. You can get shells for the earbuds. They go on the case. So the top part, you can just change it out. I haven't done that. I mean, you don't have to get them. I guess it's just a cool option if you want them. Well, it's just mostly that they haven't had any that I've liked enough. King Diamond was the closest to one that I was like, ooh.
Yeah, me too. But I was like, wait, that's... Sorry, George, go ahead. No, it was just... But it was too bright and bold. I was like, no. If it was like them, maybe? Or even... Abigail. Abigail. Yeah. It just seems to me like logos would obviously... Like, if it was just Eddie from The Killers, just his face, I'd be like, I'm all over that. Yeah. I think the Catatonia one's cool. I think it just has a raven on or something. Yeah. Like, I don't... I mean, I'm not as much into Catatonia, but I like just the
Yeah, I think Dream Theater is the majesty symbol, I think. But yeah, I agree. If you get an album cover that's too busy, it's like, eh. Yeah. My thing is, I don't want to commit to one band. That's why I just want the Heavies brand. I didn't even know that they had that, so that's good to know. And they have different ones for just Heavies brand. How do you not commit to that? Well, yeah, that's a nice subtle one. It is pretty cool. That is a good one. I found a use on mine for the small band cam stickers that you get.
like when you get your shirts.
So I like, I stuck one on my, on top.
Oh, nice.
He also has stuff on his luggage, which I thought was really cool.
Yeah.
You can find it quicker.
I know.
I was like, I need to do that.
I have electrical tape on mine, a big silver thing.
So I could see it.
So I was like, what'd you put that on there for?
I said, cause every bag is black.
Yeah.
But my bag, and I have like some like little pink or green ribbon on it.
And my friends make fun of me.
I'm like, how long you been looking for your bag?
I got my bag ready. Well, that was like, I was just like, well, what am I going to do with these band cam stickers? I have no use for them. I'm like, oh, I'll put them on my luggage and then I'll be able to identify them when it comes down. Exactly. That's exactly why I do it. Yeah. Well, George, you'll have to tell me what you think when you get them. There's one thing I'm going to tell you though, because it wasn't obvious when I got them. So when you get them and you have to hook it up to Bluetooth or whatever, there's a button on the case when you open it right in front that you have to hold down. Oh, to pair it. Yeah. Because,
They have instructions. It doesn't come with instructions. You have to go online. Or maybe it had a little small guide. But it doesn't tell you that, which is really fucked up. So when you get it, hit that button in the case. And then it will pair whatever device. And actually, that works really well. You know, sometimes you try to pair devices and it takes forever. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I thought the cans went fast, too. Yeah. And there's an app that you can add your stuff to, which I have the app. I haven't done that part. So I don't know how that works. Oh, the heavies.
I installed it. So I'm actually on my second pair now.
Because my first pair I was like, I don't know.
It just didn't seem like it was as loud as it used to be.
And it turns out I think it's just my hearing.
It's not as loud as it used to be.
But I got another pair just to confirm that.
But yeah.
I don't know why I said that.
I'm old.
What's my name again?
I had the app for the first pair and I felt like the sound changed when I hooked it up to the app and so I didn't hook this up to the app this time okay interesting sound is definitely different on the heavy cans with the tail than it is when it's bluetooth I've never used it I did yeah I because sometimes I don't if I'm like on a plane I don't want to mess with anything I don't want to bluetooth anything on a plane because I'm not
First of all, I'm not paying to be able to access the internet. Fuck that. Bluetooth doesn't need the internet to connect to your phone. No, but there one flight I was on, there was an issue with it. And I was like, I'm not dealing with this. So I take it just in case, you know? Yeah. Well, I think it is louder with it plugged in, isn't it? No, for me, it was less. Really? Yeah. When I went to Bluetooth, it was louder. I was like, well, they're going to put you off in a little bag here. I don't use the cord.
I don't think I've ever used the cord. Yeah, I haven't. My old Sony's. Yeah, but any other device I use that's not Bluetooth capable, I like I have a little music player that is high res, but it's not Bluetooth, so I have to hook up with a tail to listen. Yeah, I wish I could use my headphone amplifier with heavies. I would be deaf inside of a month. That is why I still use the cord, because I
I run my amp through my other portable player. Yeah. You know, and so I can't Bluetooth it, so I have to have it. So. Yeah, they need to make a Bluetooth headphone amplifier. If anybody's looking to make some money. Shit. Don't even get me started. That would be so awesome. All right. Let me introduce you to the geniuses at Underwater Audio. Yeah. Wow. We've got a lot of albums to go through stuff. I know. We've only done one. I know. And my cat's getting it.
My cat's getting hungry, so we gotta get through a few albums before I can go to theater. All right. Well, let's move on to an album that I'm sure none of us care about. None of us had it as our album of the month. Nope. And this is Coroner's Dissonance Theory, their sixth album, but what? It's their first album in 32 years, Swiss Technical Thrash. Didn't ever think I would live to see the day when there was a new Coroner album. I managed to somehow. And yeah,
It's pretty badass. Even Justin likes it. Even me. That's funny. It falls into that kind of, you know, that type of thrash that I can definitely get into. Yeah, I only said that because you told me you were like, wow, I was surprised I like this. I was, yeah, I wasn't expecting. No, I was, I liked some of the, what was the one, did you guys do a Thunderdome with them? One of their records? We did. George did, I think, right? I don't know if it was no more.
No More Color. I don't know if it was that one, though. It was. It was No More Color. It was? Okay. We should consult the list that we just updated. I know this because I just updated the list with a ton of stuff the other day. No, there was a couple of records that I liked from back then, too. It's just a matter of I was at the point where it's like, well, if you're not putting out any new music, I'm just going to listen to other stuff where I know there's going to be new stuff coming out. You know? Of course. Because obviously I'm not a huge thrash guy, but I do
with us. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I think it's fantastic. I mean, it's progressive thrash, too. So I mean, it sounds smart and unconventional and fresh, but it's still fucking riff blast your brain. You know, it's 32 years away. Like, that can be a lot of pressure for a band to come out and put out a new album that lives up to their legacy. And because of that, I think a new record might sound overblown or pretentious.
But dissonance theory is an example of the opposite of that, I think. They delivered an intro. And I really love how it's like each song kind of has its own character. It doesn't feel like it's all just blended together, which I like too. Or it doesn't feel too jarring also. There's a nice little balance there. It's not like everything. Unlike maybe a particular track on one of the records we're going to talk about,
about that is very jarring. I don't, I got like, it's just a nice, it's a nice ride. I feel like throughout.
Yeah. Well, it sounds like effortlessly immediate and vital, even though it's been 32 years since they, they put it out, you know, it's intricate. It's got a modern sound to it that builds off what they accomplished in the past. So, you know, I think it stands shoulder to shoulder with the rest of their catalog.
And I mean, they do have that last track has that 70s prog sound to it that I don't like as much, but I can forgive that. But otherwise, like it's an amazing rejuvenation for the band. I think when I was starting to think about this, like honestly, it has to be considered one of the greatest comeback records in metal. Don't you guys think? Because holy shit. Yeah, it's definitely up there for sure. It's funny because I would definitely say this year.
They actually released another album after Grin, which was the Corner album, which was like half greatest hits kind of thing and half unreleased material. So the last full album, yeah, Grin was 32 years ago. It sounds to me like it's a combination of that and Metal Vortex and No More Color because it's got a lot going on in the album. It just, I mean, I already like them.
But I didn't, I said to George, I said, I knew I was going to like the album, but I didn't think it would be this good.
Yeah, I was absolutely looking forward to it and absolutely super skeptical going into this. And I, you know, I was scared to put this on and listen to it. And I'm listening to the first real song, you know, track two, Consequence. And I'm listening to this. I'm like, all right, all right.
And the whole like so fun, no fun, you know, I'm just like, yeah, I'm in. Like, hands down, I'm in already. This is awesome. Well, the main guy, he's a producer. He's in the studio all the time. So that probably played into it being better than it might have been had it been just a band that wasn't playing anymore or doing anything. Plus, they've been playing a lot live. So maybe that helped it out. Justin, to answer your question, George,
did have creator extreme aggression versus corner no more color as one of the thunder domes back in 2021 that's a long time ago did i do that yeah so marcuson had been updating our our doc for that and i went in and i got all the stuff that he hadn't gotten in yet so i think it's complete now marcuson yeah it should be yeah there's i looked at it it looked great but yeah so it's 20 i think i went through i don't remember how far i went back
You got to like, I think, 21. Yeah. Yeah. Because I remember I was like, I know I did this other one on there. And I, so I went back and looked and I was like, ah, that's right. Here we go. And when did we start at 2020? We decided. 20. Yeah. All the way back on episode 97. I do a spreadsheet because I just, I want to keep track of everything we do because it's just kind of neat to kind of look back. And sometimes you might like just today on the cast, Justin's like, Hey, remember this?
Well, it's going to... We do, because we wrote it down. Stay tuned for hour seven of this podcast. When we do our Thunderdome, that very concept will come up again for a reason. So stay tuned. So try to do all the top fives, and I'm trying to get all the stuff we've ever done. I started the top five. Marcus and I went back, and I started that. George says, yeah, go ahead, go for it, dude. I think I got through like the first 20 episodes.
I was like, fuck this. I was so annoyed because I had, there was no documentation. I had to go back and listen. And I was getting annoyed just listening in general, you know? And then Jay finally came on. I was like, all right, there we go. You know? Now we're getting closer to where we are. I think that's the motto of this podcast is I was getting annoyed just listening. And I'm part of it. Yeah, I was annoyed listening.
I like it Jay I like it there's a segment on I believe it's angry metal guy
your metal is old familiar with that yeah
now so now it's like your podcast is old
we're old yeah we're fucking old I've been around
I like I like all the all the negative stuff like that like in decibel what's the guy's name from Krieg
Neil he has justify your shitty taste yes I was thinking of that too
I like it because it's true. Okay. You say I listen to shit. Let me see your collection. Justify your shitty taste. I love that idea. So I like when we do that. Jay, I like your idea. I think we should get shirts that say that on the back. I'm annoyed just listening to myself right now. Jay should get a shirt that says Paradise Lost three song limit. Two. No. Paradise Lost two songs in. I'm heading to the brewery.
Hit the bar. So speaking of Jade, did you in fact go listen to the whole new album? Or did you? Well, let me guess. You didn't do your homework. No, I listened to Paradise. Well, that was from last time. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. There's something about them that just doesn't all the way smash my wheelhouse in the best kind of way. And I think it's because I think if I had been one of those guys like you guys who was like, dude, when Draconian Times came out, I was, you know, but
And I can think of a million other bands like that that I cannot blame people for. We all have bands. I say them because they're kind of a middle-of-the-road band. I'm sorry, but they are. I mean, it's sonically. And I get it, but it's just not my... Yeah, that's exactly how I feel about Kiss. If I would have been... If I would have gotten into them when I was young, I'm sure I would have freaking loved them. I think actually, Martin's not for Kiss. I think actually it's...
there too on top of that. I think that's part of the aesthetic. They had an album called Psycho Circus. It was. It was a complete Psycho Circus when they hit the scene. And like Jay and Georgia said, we all just got hung up on all the aesthetics. Playing cards, lunchboxes, shitty movies about an amusement park monster or whatever. That was an album. I remember Psycho Circus because they did a comic book on it.
Yeah. That album sucks. I think it's the only one I've listened to all the way through, to be honest with you. The first six, I think you would be surprised. I should listen to them. I would say just people say, oh, listen to Dynasty. That's that disco crap. You take it with a grain of salt. But the first six, I think you're fine. Okay. Still, it has. I was made for loving you on there. I'm not going to lie. That is a cool tune. I agree. I agree.
I'll put up Saxon, Saxon, as I like to call them. Saxon or Saxoff? Exactly, as the Paradise Lost thing, which is that I hear so much dynamic stuff in them, and I think they're great and everything, but I can't blame anybody who doesn't put it on and go, eh, it's just kind of another metal band, dude. You know what I mean? We all have bands like that, Jay. Exactly. We all have bands, every single one of us. Look, Justin and I have talked about how, I don't know where we were, and I don't know if you and I were
at that point when we were both talking about atheists and we're like what is wrong with those guys they don't like atheists like what is wrong with them yeah and then i come on here like yeah they're all right it's just so subjective it's what moves you that's what makes it great we all got so many bands so so i so any comment i make on the new paradise lost is not even fair because i can't compare it to their whole catalog like you guys do and
So big
It's all these bands
They've got a lot of records out
I mean
All these bands are putting out tons of music
Jerking back
I've tried so many times with Paradise Lost
But
Just
If you're not a fan of that gothic sound
You're just not gonna like it
It's just what it is
I know George and I
Definitely like that
90s gothic thing
So
I used to be huge into it
And now I
I find it hard to
To get into
I don't know why
My tastes change. It's very strange to me. That was me. I was loving atmospheric black metal in the 2000s. Now I'm like, if an album comes on, I'm like, eh. I love atmospheric black metal. Yeah, exactly. See, that's how it's just a little cycle. I was trying to do some goth thing, a gothic type thing that I was going to tell George about, and it's gone from my mind. But it reminded me of another point, which I wanted to share with George and everybody else, too. She doesn't even watch.
The second season of the John Cena thing. Peacemaker? Peacemaker. We'll watch the second season. I haven't seen the first season yet. I haven't watched any of it. I've watched both. There's a very key use in the second season, George, of that acoustic piano version of We're Not Gonna Take It. Oh, yeah? It fucking works. It's so good. Nice. You love that show, dude. It's on my list. I just haven't gotten to it. Yeah. Were you satisfied with the second season, Markson?
I was. Except for the last episode. Fair enough. Yeah. The rest was fucking awesome. Yeah. It was really good, surprising, fun, super heartfelt. Just I think it improved on the first season by leaps and bounds. And I love the first season, except I just I didn't like where they left it. But yeah, I love John Cena, so I don't care. I won't disagree with you on that at all. Actually, I agree. It was going along like a freight train and they were like, well, we got to end this somewhere and let's just do it here. Yeah.
Was he the one that was in that movie with Awkwafina? Sort of the running man thing? Yeah, I think that's, yeah. Yeah, it was him. He was so awesome in that. Oh, he's, there's something lovable about him. Yeah, he's lovable. He's big lovable muscles. Ooh, calm down, George. Oh, don't get me started on John Cena. Give your balls a tug. What the hell is that from? Letter Kenny. Yes, Letter Kenny.
We need some more Letterkenny. Some more Shorzy. Watch Shorzy. Yeah. I watched the first season. I haven't watched the second season yet. There's four seasons. I haven't watched the second, third, or fourth seasons yet. So I love Shorzy so much. And I've been trying to tell my buddy Dan, who loves hockey. And when I went to visit North Carolina, we actually went to a hockey game. I was like, Dan, you need to watch Shorzy. You watch Letterkenny, but you will love Shorzy because the show is more linear. It tells like a full story and the arc of an older guy who's just
trying to reclaim the glory days, you know, and it has so much heart in it. It's, it's kind of like a more like a dick and fart joke type. What's that show on? Fuck, I can't remember the soccer podcast. No, the soccer show. It's like Ted Lasso, but like raunchier. Yeah. So when we were there, I was like, Dan, I will watch some episodes with you just so you can get started with it. And we did. And we ended up watching all
four seasons while I was at his house for a week because they're only like 20 minutes long and there's only six episodes in the season so and he when I left he started watching it again so you got to watch Shorzy you guys will like it yeah and Letterkenny absolutely Letterkenny I was just I just pulled the Letterkenny impersonation like yesterday I think whenever anyone brings up LA I just think of when
When they talk about LA, like Los Angeles, LA, they're like, I'll lie. Like they have to say it like that. I have to be like, I'll lie. It came up in conversation. Can confirm. Yeah. Can confirm. God. I mean, I need to go watch Letterkenny over again from the beginning just because it's, you can't have too much Letterkenny. Give your balls a tug. Give your balls a tug.
Can confirm. Yeah. Alrighty. Well, let's finally move on to the third new release. Of which we have four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Yeah. So we better get into Evokin and their seventh album, Mendacium, New Jersey Funeral Doom Band. Yeah. I mean, I used to be,
I go through phases and I went through a massive funeral doom phase and of course Evoken was part of that along with skepticism and a few other bands um and while I'm not currently in a funeral doom phase I still dug this that was my album of the month you know and I think that's as much common as required by me I mean I dig it I love that big contractually obligated that's all you need to do but exactly I've done my part I mean I think there are
Funeral Doom death royalty to me at this point. I mean, I think everything they put out is pretty captivating and moody and it's full of layers and you can keep peeling back those layers with each listen. So, Mondasium continues that. I don't think it doesn't reach the heights of classics like Quietus or Antithesis of Light, but the thing with Evokin is that they always kind of separated themselves from other Funeral Doom acts for me because they
They have this mastery of pace control. Like they know the exact fucking moment when the gears need to shift. And it's like astonishing to me how they've been able to keep keep me riveted throughout most of their very long songs. But with Mendacium. What are you doing George? Pace control. Okay. That's your that's how you do it? Yeah. Pace control. Oh my god. Slow down. If you keep yourself off robotically just so people know when they're listening. Yeah. If you keep an
You never get in anywhere
Yeah, that would have only worked had you had yanni come in
Jay is my bitch
Whoa, I hit them both
Jay is my bitch
But I would just say like for this one
I kind of got fatigued a little bit
By some of the tracks in here
It just has a lot of access in it
I haven't really felt that as much on the other records
So I think it was trimmed down a bit
And there was like a little less spoken word
You know, it might be number six
like it was on Decimal Magazine's list for me. Don't get me started on that bullshit. But it's not going to go that high because I just feel like it just needed a little trim. But I still think it's a great record. I mean, nobody really does it like a Vulcan. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a big funeral doom guy, but I feel like if I'm in the mood for that type of thing, Vulcan's one of the bands I would go to. But I do agree.
I feel like this one for me was just a little bit too meandering which I know is kind of a trait of funeral doom but again I think it's another like we were talking about with the other one it's kind of like a headspace thing for me I'm like all right come on like where the fuck where are we going let's go hurry up yeah I'm with you guys too I like it I mean I don't really particularly care for the subgenre at all because it's just a little too slow I like Shape of Despair that's
I like the most but I like Evokin too. So I mean those types of bands are the ones that I gravitate to if I'm gonna listen to Funeral Doom and it's not many. I think when we were talking about this I went back and looked it's like okay so I have five bands with at least one album that's Funeral Doom in my whole collection that's it. I don't have much. So when I think of Evokin now I think of that graveyard across the street from the now former Atlas Brew Works.
Well, that location.
That Atlas location.
Yes, they're still around.
Yes.
Sorry.
As far as I'm concerned, they're not around because that location is not around.
And because Will is not around to perform.
He performs shows there.
Just the taproom's closed, I think.
Yeah, no, the one over by the Nats stadium's there.
And I think they opened up some.
There's one in Alexandria, too.
Yeah, but who cares?
The one in Alexandria's got a really cool pizza place attached to it, though.
So, yeah, but nothing with the same aesthetic, though, like the one. The memories. Ivy City. Are now only memories. George, be honest. What do you miss the most from going to that place? Aslaps. No. Oh, Taco Fred. Oh, the breakfast. Breakfast for dinner. Yeah, but Taco Fred, too. Taco Fred, too. Yeah, they want it spicy, just a little, and then my head blows up. Yeah. I'm friends with Taco Fred on Facebook.
He's still around. He's just not at... We saw Vokin actually at Atlus. That's why I said when I think of Evokin, I think of the graveyard across because we were looking at them and they were in the background. I think they were taking pictures in front of them. By the way, we saw Shape of Despair there too, which was one of their only US shows ever. And they played at Atlus. Thanks to Will. I really want to. Which one? Evokin. I've never seen them live. They're great. They're great.
I mean, I like him. I like the album, too. We got to meet him. Yeah, they were cool. Oh, yeah. Well, I interviewed Vince on the other podcast that I'm on, and that was really fun. That guy was great. Yeah. To me, this is like an abstract illusion. I need to get under the cans of this album to hear everything going on, because there's a lot. For it being as slow as it is, there's a lot going on. Yes. And that's all I'll say about that. Can confirm.
All right. Let's move on to our next item. Real slowly. Okay. Next up, we have Howling Giant and their third album, Crucible and Ruin, sort of a psychedelic doom band from Nashville. And I got to say, I was really into this album. I'm still really into this album. However, one of the times I was listening to it, I had a revelation while I was listening to it.
that has impacted my ability a little bit to enjoy it. Oh. And that is that the vocals are straight up ghost. Okay. It's, I was like, this dude, I was like, why does this sound familiar? It sounds like ghost. And all of a sudden you had a weird sensation of smelling incense. Yeah. Yeah. I still like it, but I was just like, okay, well, this sounds like ghost.
I haven't listened to Ghost
since maybe the first record
so I didn't even hear that at all
go back and listen to it now
and go oh yeah sounds like Ghost
the music's you know
different but the vocals are ruining it
for me exactly
because I thought it was a fun
listen I think this album is more rock
than metal but there are some songs
and sections on it that definitely lay
down the metal gauntlet. Clearly it's metal enough to get on to metal archives because some bands that we like are not listed on there. I didn't necessarily love the combination, but I know Marcus, I would appreciate this. I got the two bands I got from it was Restless Spirit with Astronoid Vocals. That's kind of how I was looking at it. Tonally, not like stylistically, just tonally. I actually thought the vocals was the best part of the record.
Oh, then you should check out this band called Ghost. I thought the playing was strong, but the vocals, they just, I thought they elevated the album above. It does. Typical stoner rock record, which was nice to hear. It was the vocal harmonies, I should say. But. That's what I liked about it. Yeah, well. Yeah. I mean, maybe people won't agree with me. I don't know, but that's what I hear. No, I have to. Yeah. Now you're going to make
Let me go listen to ghost I guess sorry no I was actually eager for a stoner rock record this year because I feel like I don't have one I mean I guess I don't know what you consider this treasure like stoner doom I don't know if you consider that like that's probably the closest I've gotten to my stoner sludgy type of stuff that I like like I want another like telekinetic yeti record like that that's my but like some stoner stuff but there has it just nothing's like landed on me and I feel like I don't know what I'm going to do
in that specific genre, it always comes down to the vocal tones for me, because obviously I'm picky with my cleans. So I just haven't landed on one. So I was excited when I heard the music, and then once the vocals kicked in, I'm like, I tried, but it wasn't clicking for me. Man, Justin, you mentioned looking for a good stoner metal album. I'm still jonesing for a Spiritual Beggars album, Spice Singing. It's been that long since I've enjoyed it. I mean, I like some of the
post-spice stuff and spiritual beggars. But that early 2000s stuff, I missed that so much. And I pretty much drifted away from the whole genre since then, or sub-genre, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, I have like one or two. I'm sorry, Matt, go ahead. Oh, I would echo what you're saying, Justin. I feel like every band can't notice I get from Ripple Music and the Italian label I can't think of right now. I'm like, please, this is going to be it. This is going to be it. You know, my album for the year.
But it definitely is still looking
Yeah, me too
But it has been light on stoner
It just happens
Treasure, you're calling it?
Yeah, I listen to that
It's got more than just stoner
But there is some stoner
Yeah, it does
That's what I'm saying
It's like the closest I feel like I have right now
In terms of like my records of the year
Oh, yeah
I'm looking at the cover
I think this is in my queue
I just have not spun it yet
Now, this year has got a lot of great Doom records, which I was surprised by. So I think, I feel like my list might have a lot of that on there this year. I need to start looking at my list. It's coming up. Yeah, it's great. You got like a month, dude. I got, I just, I'm going to be away for some time between now and when we do the episode. So I had to put my list together, start it.
And I've got only two spaces left. Yeah. Because September, October, November have been just loaded. So. And we're doing the episode later than we usually do. So. We are. Yeah. So you got a little, well, I'd say. There's no, I looked at December. Yeah. I looked at December and I was like, eh. So there's nothing there that I see that I'd be interested in. So I'm thinking I'm locking myself in at the end of it. I have to. That is a good point. I haven't heard any announcements for,
that would change anything. Now, you never know. There could be... Of course, something could slip in. Nothing I'm looking forward to. Exactly. I want to address a comment I started to make earlier and didn't get to finish was that where I was slagging on the decibel list, which is, of course, an annual tradition for people around the world. What? It's only November! I mean, they have to put a disclaimer in the front before they put the list out. By the way, did you guys notice how many albums haven't been released yet that
are on the list. Yeah, I did notice. I was like, hey, I can't listen to this. It's not out yet. Which is really funny when everyone says, it's only November. I mean, a couple of them came out. Oh, wait, did they come out with it? They came out. Yeah, this past week. Yeah. And while, you know, I'm not going to make a judgment on what they put on there, because of course it's subjective. And my slagging on them is merely humor. But I don't like most of the stuff on the list. Some of the stuff I'm
I'm like, this is absolute garbage. What is this doing on here? But, you know, subjective. So whatever. The absolute truth, though, is that at the end of the day, at least this is what the vibe I get, is that Albert kind of lives in his kind of own little metal world like we all do. And to him, for instance, that first Dead Man record was like something anybody fucking cared about except for the people in his dorm room. He doesn't know that. You know what I mean? And I'm not trying to pick on him. I'm just saying.
There are a few titles. Thank God Dead Man is back. And I was like, who the fuck is Dead Man? Was that the guy that totally queened out at the show? Yes. It's a dead guy. It's a dead guy. And yeah, it's horrible. It is. It's horrible. Dead Man's a great movie with Johnny Depp, though, Western. Dead Man Walking. That's Dead Man. No, no. Dead Man with Johnny Depp. Yeah, Dead Man. Is in black and white. It's a Western. It has a Neil Young soundtrack. Okay, I thought it was Dead Man Walking, but... No, Dead Man Walking is a different. That's what Sean
Okay, no, that's not what I'm talking about. I thought it was called something other than what it was, but I was thinking Johnny Depp. Yes. Listen, I think it's Susan. It's called dead man. Yes. You're right, John. Thank you. Yeah. I, any terrible George. I agree. That surprised me. I mean, that will be on the top of no other fucking list. I mean, it won't even be on any other list. It won't. It won't. I don't know if you guys looked at any of the comments. See, I, this year I did not comment. I used to comment before and take shots at everybody.
One big shot at everyone who complained, but this year I didn't. And one guy had made a comment, like basically saying, get over sucking off Paradise Lost. Every year they're on your list. And I'm like, do you know who's running the magazine? Yeah, exactly. Well, obviously, if not for Albert, Dead Guy would not be number one. No. Yeah. And he's welcome to do that. Yeah. I was like, but that's like, I don't think he realizes I'm not part of the general metal community that banned. Yeah.
Our lists can be very different.
Oh, yeah.
At the end of the year.
Some of the selections on there were a bit of a surprise, though, I have to admit.
Yeah, some of the ones that I didn't know I went to listen to and I was like, wow, this is really bad.
I was like, okay, well, you know, subjective, knock yourself out.
But I'm not taking much away from this list for me.
I have a few that are so my I apparently my year and less is going to be shit then because there's a few on there that I like on their list that will probably be on my list so I'll keep that I'll keep that in mind George you know no I mean Paradise Lost and Castle Rats probably going to be on my list and have you guys listened to that one of nine record no yeah I did well I listened to a little bit before it came out so there wasn't much to listen to I haven't gone back and listened to it
I actually enjoy it. It's, I mean, it's, it's Emperor vibes, but. It's pretty straightforward black metal. It's like, uh, you know, it's old school black metal. It's good. It's one of those things where I like it, but it's also always with Emperor specifically. If you sound like Emperor, all you're doing is making me think, I kind of want to go listen to Emperor right now. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's, that's, that's kind of my beef with some of these albums that are on here. You know, I've, I've had the.
about things with really crappy old school production. And you can say, yes, that's the vibe they're going for. But you know, that vibe was done 30 years ago. It's over. Right. You know, if you want to make music that you want me to listen to, do something new, do something creative. Don't just do what was done 30 years ago again. Who cares? The caveat I would give one of nine is that the production is actually like,
kind of right where it needs to be. And I would say the overall vibe is pretty consistent in it. Like, in other words, it does give you a vibe to it. I mean, I mean, their last record I talk I've talked about on the metalheads podcast. So, you know, I like the band, but I just don't if I'm going to talk about black metal, that's not going to be in the top 25 compared to the other black metal records that have come out. Yeah, one of them was Nairdolk. And that was horrible.
And then there was another one, Sheerling. That was horrible. That's the only one I had not heard of. Well, I went and listened to it. I hadn't heard of it either. And it's horrible. It's one track, I believe. Yeah, one track. And that's horrible. One track, yeah. So. Mother. Okay, can we say the name of the album? Motherfucker. I am most amen and hallelujah. I will give them the benefit of the doubt that that album title is worth being on here alone. But the music sucks. Okay.
I mean the blue dust nor does not come out yet correct correct and I'm waiting for that I was like oh I saw that and I was like wait what the tracks are out sound good though the two tracks are yeah and I will give them the benefit of the doubt because I like that and terror corpse they've had terror corpse in there and I am actually really looking forward to that because I haven't heard it I heard a little bit haggis is horrible um eternal darkness record is pretty amazing hava croon is good yeah I like that
Yes. Agreed. So. Dead heat. I was on the fence for, for a few seconds. And I was like, no, it's a metal blade thing. It's like, okay. I mean, I like it better than these so-called black metal bands they have on here, but. I'm happy to see night on there. I love them too. Yeah. No, it's good. That's one of the ones on here that I agree with. Anyway. I mean, we'll see how.
I like the Lamper Murmur. Is it any good? I like the music. It's fine. Vocals aren't so good. Okay. Yeah. I think I like some of the older stuff better in terms of the vocals, but the music's good. There is a lot going on in that record. So that's another one I'd probably have to put on the headphones just so I can hear everything that's going on. But yeah, it's fine. I don't know if it would make my list, but I have to listen to the full thing. Yeah. I was a little disappointed.
You know, some of the older stuff, again, it's an older school style, at least some of the previous albums were. And at first I was like, eh, and then I was like, ah. But whatever, I don't know, the vocals on this just don't gel with the music for me. All right, let's move on to an album where the vocals do gel with the music for me.
And that is the new Hooded Menace album, Lacrimose Monuments of Obscuration. Seventh album from this Finnish Death Tomb band. They don't make it easy with the album titles. Nah, why would you? Lacrimose. I'm sorry, every time I hear the word lacrimose, I think of that old Lemony Sniggets. You remember Lemony Sniggets? You know, the kids' books thing? There was a Lacrimose,
Lake or something like that in the series. There's a show too. Yeah. Did they do, I know they did a movie with Jim Carrey that was bad. And then is there a show that's actually good? Yeah. All right. Anyway, good album. It's a little peppier than previous Hooded Menace albums. Yeah. They're definitely moving more into a heavy metal meets death,
sound, definitely. Yep. Oh, yeah, definitely. The last three albums, they've done it a little more and a little more. Now they're really... I know he's a big fan of all that music, and he's obviously a big fan of non-metal music based on the cover that's on this album, the Duran Duran cover, Save a Prayer. Yeah. Which, I swear, I think I sent you a message, George, as soon as I heard it, I was like, wait a minute, is this Hooded Menace or Paradise Lost? Yeah.
It sounds like Paradise Lost covering. Duran Duran, which don't get me wrong. I like Duran Duran. Love Duran Duran. It was definitely jarring when you just put it on and you're not looking at the track names and all of a sudden you're like, wait. I did the same exact thing. I was like, wait a second. I know this song. Yep. And see, they usually put their covers at the end of the album. The last song. Right. That's the whole thing. The placement just totally threw me off. Totally threw me off because I'm like, okay, if it's at the end, then I don't even have to.
I always bitch about covers. I like this cover, actually. I think it's kind of cool. But I would prefer it at the end of the album. But I like the album. They're becoming more of a metal band with Death Doom thrown in, as opposed to a Death Doom band that does some metal. And there's a lot of goth in there, too. A little bit, yeah. I agree. So, yeah. Traditional metal, Death Doom, prog, goth. Yeah. I've never been a huge fan of this band. I've never been crazy
about it, but I always kind of admire the band and I thought the album was good. I like the mix. They always have that kind of, well, this album has that death doom bass. They don't hesitate to toss different things into the mix and I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah. I like it. It's cool. I think it's a good album. I do too. I was very excited when I heard this. Me too. I need to spend a little bit more time with it for me. I liked their last one was Tritonis Bell.
I really enjoyed that. I think that made my year-end list. This one doesn't feel like it's hitting me the same way. So I need more time with it, I think. Figure out if I'm gonna settle into the adjustments that they're doing in their sound or if they're maybe tipping a certain point for me where, you know, try Tony as well as far as I'm gonna go, you know? It's always nice to see you. You shall not pass.
I see a band that's been around for a while still kind of try new things. Yeah. Deliver something a bit different than what you had before. I like that. I don't need the same thing. That's funny you say it, Marcus, because we have an album coming up where that is glaringly apparent. But I'll save it for when that album comes up. Really? Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, let's move on to this next one that I may or may not pronounce correctly, but I'm going to go with
Sangwa Sugabog. And their third album, Hideous Aftermath. Yeah, you sound good. Thank you. I can pronounce it better than he can. And what I mean by that is each album has gotten a little better production wise. The music on this, I dig the music. I do not like the vocals. Just don't like them. I started to get into them.
I think on the last album that they put out. And I'm actually, I'm really liking this. Cool. Yeah. Justin, you're a fan of this band, right? Yes, I am. But honestly, this one kind of disappointed me a little bit. Sure. Music was too easy to like. Honestly, you know what? Listen, I like the band. They're fucking great live. They're one of the, they're definitely going to be probably one of the flag bearers of,
Death Metal, you know, the next 10 years when the older bands are going to stop touring. I love their stuff. And I don't dislike this. It's just, for me, it's a little bit unremarkable. It feels to me like this is that record that every band has where they're grinding and they're touring all the time and they want to keep the momentum going. So, like, we got to do a new record. Like, let's do a new record and let's get it out there so that we're still current.
And I feel like that's this record. And it was one of those things where I was really hoping that it wasn't going to be. But when I saw that it came out and I saw all of the guest people on the on the album, to me that says, we are so burnt out that we need other people to come in and help us make like a full album. Do you know what I mean? Where and that's and honestly, when I listen to it, that's kind of what I got from it. It's it's it's still great death metal. If it's good stomping
Death Metal, I feel like they lost their... Their catchiness for me was the way that they did their groove breakdowns. That's what kept me engaged with it, and I don't feel like there are any inspired ones on this one. It's not a terrible record, and it's a great record to get people into this kind of genre of music too, I think. But in terms of their output before, there's just not as much memorable stuff on this record for me.
I tried like four or five times. I'm just like, there was something that just told me, Justin, that you were going to feel this way about it. I was like, you know, cause I mean, you probably have spent more time with their earlier stuff. I got into on the last album. I saw him on a tour, really dug it. And for me, it's kind of a continuation, but I totally understand what you're saying. Yeah. Okay. I don't really, I haven't really cared for this band. Cause I just felt like they were another like death metal band riding that new caveman.
and death style, which I am not really into that much. But I think this album surprised me a little bit because they're moving away from that. You know, they still deliver that kind of neck snapping brutality, but the songwriter to me is better. It's got more variety in the tracks and they even have some industrial stuff on here. So I feel like my take is that I feel like it's more of a transitional record. And maybe that's why they had guests on too, because maybe they're
They're trying to look for some kind of a new song. So I saw it as a transitional record that can satisfy the caveman, but it also kind of makes me curious to see what they might do in the future. Well, I think what they're doing, and I think maybe that's one of the things that I enjoyed about their previous records, which maybe isn't going to be for everyone, which is, as opposed to a lot of the other caveman bands, like the, you know, Undeath and Frozen Soul and all those bands,
with them, I feel like there was a little bit of a difference because they were actually coming more from the slam side of things. They weren't coming from the worship of cannibal and bolt thrower and all that kind of shit. They were coming from the slam side. So to me, that's what made them a little bit more unique is because they had those slam elements in there. And that's what I think helped with that groove that I hooked into. And I feel like they're going away from the slam definitely more.
And then you hear it in this record. I definitely hear it. The pingy, you know, the pings, not as prevalent as the other records, which I know a lot of people did not like and drove them crazy. But it still separates them from those other bands that you mentioned to this record. So, yeah, I don't know. We'll see. I think we really need to know what they're going to do on the next record because this is not sure. I'm not sure at this point. I just feel like the vocals don't gel with the music to me.
I like death metal vocals same as the next person
and it's not that the vocals themselves are bad
it's that I feel it doesn't
it doesn't gel with the music
it doesn't groove with it to me like
other bands do
well I mean his vocals were a little bit again
on the more slammier side of death metal
so yeah
if they shift out of that maybe it won't
feel that good for some people
Because like Undeath on their last most recent album, they hit the sweet spot for me. I was like, yes, thank you. More, please. And Justin's shaking his head like, no, that sucked. I honestly really loved their first record. I thought it was so cool and unique at the time. And then I just kind of fell off from there. Yeah. Okay. So when it gets to be the point where George likes a death metal band, Justin's like, I'm out. But, you know. Interesting.
It's subjective. 2000 and late over here, buddy. What's that? I said you're 2000 and late over here. I love that. Thank you. I'm sure I am. All right. Well, let's move on to a crusty old band. Testament released their 13th album, Parabellum. And I only actually got to give this a decent listen today.
out and immediately turned it off because I thought the first song was horrible.
And in fact, the first song is horrible.
It's because for whatever reason, it sounds nothing like Testament.
I was like, you know, I give Testament props for the fact, you know, people complain about Metallica.
Oh, why don't you do something really heavy for a change and get modern, you know, and they don't.
And Testament is doing that sort of thing where they're trying to kind of keep up with the Joneses.
And they've done some really heavy stuff over the years. But I was listening to the first song on this album going, if you played this for me in 1987, I wouldn't know who the hell this was. You told me this testament, I wouldn't believe you. But then track two and through the rest of the album, it was very much more heavy testament. It wasn't like it was Old Testament. It was still pretty heavy. But Chuck sounded more like Chuck. Old Testament versus New Testament.
Yeah, and there's even a ballad on there, you know? Oh, the ballad totally threw me off. You gotta have a Chuck Billy ballad. Oh, it was so jarring for me. You know what it actually, you know what it did? It transported me back to like the 90s. Do you remember the fucking infomercials for like Monsters of Rock? Where it was all like those fucking ballad songs? I'm like, Monsters of Rock? Like, what's happening right now? That was my reaction. I mean, wasn't there a song on Practice What You Preach?
that was actually called the ballad.
I'm not sure if that probably, but that,
that's a very famous thing about that was right.
When Metallica was hitting and stuff and they,
they came after all these guys and we're like, you got, you know,
it's like flotsam and jetsam Saturday nights.
All right for fighting.
You know what I mean?
They were dumb everybody down a shade.
I don't know.
But I also just say,
I've always thought Testament was kind of a B grade band,
you know?
Yeah.
But at the same time,
They have some stuff that I really like. Me too. So take that with a grain of salt. But. You know, like I was just talking about the gathering on over on on Stairway, because, you know, it's rock music. The gathering album, by the way, not the band. And, you know, that was another instance of them just coming out. Oh, we're going to have Lombardo on drums and half of death. And we're going to put out an album.
But after I got through the first song, I was very much impressed with this album, and I understand why this is on Deciba's list.
Yeah, I think you made some interesting points there, George, which is like, I think when you have older bands who can keep the fire alive from the old days while consistently updating their sound so they can stay relevant, you know, it can be 50-50.
They could suck or it can give them a greater chance to endure. And I think Testament did a pretty good job on this record. I like the new drummer who's on here. He was really good. I thought really high octane skin work on there. So yeah, I've never been the biggest fan of Testament, but I thought this was pretty enjoyable. Yeah, I dug it too. Except for the ballad. No, I liked the ballad. I did. I liked it.
I was like, yeah,
it's so jarring in the record.
Like Justin said it like it's like,
again,
thrash, not my deal.
Right.
Really love the corner record.
Like I said, each song has,
it's like its own little personality,
but they all feel like they're related.
And it's like a, you know,
it feels cohesive,
I guess this to me,
it was just like,
again,
and I don't know Testament that much to me.
I wanted to even like have con does anyone have any context?
Like,
did they say like,
Hey,
We made this record to represent all the eras of Testament, because I don't know Testament well enough. All I know is that the shifts in all of the songs to me were like, what the fuck is going on right now? It didn't feel cohesive to me at all. Again, it's just not my jam. High noon, die soon. Whatever it was. I thought that was kind of fun. But Meant to Be was the name of the ballad, by the way. And yeah, High Noon,
was a little funny. Oh, Witch Hunt has Zitro. Witch Hunt was my favorite song on there, I think. Did he sing on it or just write? Because I swear I heard something that sounded like Zitro, but I think I thought it was Chuck. Anyway. I don't know. I like that for the most part, it still sounds like Testament. You know, some of the stuff they've done where they've tried to be really heavy.
I respected what they were trying to do, but I was like, if this doesn't sound like you, then what's the point? You know, this could just be some generic death metal band. Right. So anyway, let's move on. Okay. All right. Next we have Tombs and their sixth album, Feral Darkness. This did not make the decibel list. Just wanted to point that out.
Every album, that's really funny. Well, I mentioned this because when Justin and I were at the Slayer show in Hershey back in September, we ran into Mike Hill at the show. And we were talking to him about the new album that was... I got to watch Nick Queen out. Yeah. Yeah. Has yet to be released. And I said something about Albert and Mike was like, Albert doesn't like us. And well, that's clearly the case since
is not on their list. So I don't know what Mike did to piss off Albert, but I don't know. I mean, I don't know what everybody else thinks of this album. I like the music and I like the vocals, but I wish the vocals were not quite so buried. My perennial refrain is that the vocals are just too buried on this. That's always my problem with them, too. And I don't know why.
It's not like Mike can't do vocals. And, you know, like the older stuff did not have that problem. So I don't know why the last few albums he's doing that. I have to be honest, I didn't even know this record was coming out. So when I went to go make my list to listen to it on whatever Friday that was, I was pleasantly surprised. It does sound a little bit different to me, but I then, you know, some of the last releases, not a lot, but I think in little areas, it has some things that are, I don't know. I feel like in one song, I was almost getting
like a black and roll vibe, which is not a bad thing, obviously. But I would like to just kind of take more time to digest this album. But yeah, maybe a little surprise. It's not on Decibel. But then again, maybe not. I mean, I just I'm looking at the list for the first time tonight. You have like, who are half these people? Exactly. I don't know. I think Mike must have offended Albert somehow. I think Matt, I think you hit on it, but you kind of held back. I think this album is very different than their other stuff. I think this is their
best record well I've only listened to it a few times and so like I said I'd like to give more time and and kind of listen to some of the last stuff because I know it's been a few years since something came out but um yeah I mean all good listen it's got their trademark blend of black metal sludge post-metal but this record's like wrapped in a cocoon of evil I went back and listened to the previous stuff and the change is pretty stark on this thing sounds way more sinister
than the albums they did. If you listen to Undersullen Skies or Savage Gold, it's like they're a completely different band. I agree with that. I mean, the first three albums are way different. It's way different. Winter Hours, Path of Totality, Savage Gold. Savage Gold came out. I mean, Path of Totality was like, ooh, what? You know, I was, I was, my ears were perked. And then, and then Savage Gold came out and that blew me away. Yeah. So I love that record too. But I like this because it's fucking,
It's like they descended into the abyss. I agree with that. I just wish the vocals could hear them. I'm okay with it. I think it suits the music. I think it suits the tonal change in the band. So I really like it. I keep listening to it more and more now. So yeah, it's a different direction. I don't know if they're going to continue doing this style, but I really like this. This is like, it's way more like metal. It's ominous.
I love that shit. That's cool. It is interesting after meeting him and I'm like, and then the record was coming out and I'm like, I really want to like this record because he was a nice guy. And I, he's a very nice guy. I was able to, I was at least able to like, uh, drive around the fact that I don't listen to his music by talking about horror movies instead. And it was great. You know, like I really want to, but I really want to like this one. And he, he podcasts way more than we do, you know? So, uh, but, uh,
Yeah, I've met him a couple times. He's been on the pod once, twice if you count when we interviewed him at the decibel, but good guy. I want to like his music. I just bring those vocals up, dude. All right, we have one more new release. And I'm curious to see where this is going to go. This is the fourth album from Woad, Uncrossing the Keys. Now in the past,
This band has been pretty, uh, done pretty well on the podcast, I thought. Um, but I haven't heard much talk about this one. And I listened to it again today. The first listen, I wasn't overly impressed. The second listen today, I was like, all right, I like this. This falls into the, I like it category. What do you all think? This is the band I was referring to being different on every album. Right. Every one
of their albums is completely, not completely different, but they shift every album. Yeah. And this one sounds nothing like their first album, not even close. Right. So I only gave it one listen so far. And I was like, okay, this is basically like a heavy metal album. That's got some black metal thrown in here and there. There's not much black metal. No, it's definitely. It's yeah. Yeah. You know, it's I'm not going to call it a
traditional heavy metal on because it's not that either so i i need to listen to it more
because i like woad i have everything from them i don't i didn't get this yet but i don't know
where i stand with this i'm not opposed to change obviously it's just i don't know how i feel about it yet
yeah the music is is is more metal than like black or anything like that um the vocals haven't caught up quite yet
To hit your thing, it's a little gothic in places, to be honest with you. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I get that. They took out the pure black metal parts like John was saying, and it's got melodic black metal and, like, gothic doom on it. And so it's very different than the last. Yeah, and then throwing the whole just heavy metal aesthetic to it. Yeah, and it has that. And the songs gallop along. I really like it the more I listen to it because it sounds more focused. It's more dynamic. It almost has a post-punk
I was just saying I forgot I was actually listening to a Wode album after a little bit and you know to your point it sounds so different but and I'm sorry I'm gonna say this after everything I need to spend more time with it
That's gonna be my mantra for the night. That's legit. Unfortunately, we only have like a month. I know Jay and I like their second album, Servants of the Countercosmos. That one I liked a lot. So just that was different than the first album because that had a little bit of a black and roll to it. You know, so I just have to go back and listen. Just this last three months, it just, I can't keep up. Justin? No, I was just gonna say I feel like I'm gonna
I would need more time with it. It was one of those things where it's like, I know that I've enjoyed their previous records, but obviously I haven't clung on to them enough to actually have the reference point when I'm listening to this new one. All I know is that I put it on and I'm like, this isn't what I was expecting to hear. I'm not sure what I was expecting to hear, but I know this wasn't it. So it kind of threw me off a little bit. So yeah, I probably just need more time with them. But you hit the nail on the head. They are one of those bands that don't kind of cling to you to the next
and then you're like oh yeah whoa and then and then because they do something slightly different
every time or even vastly different i don't know i i had a and i'm a little not annoyed but i had a vision for this band
in its in service of the counter cosmos was so good i thought it just really dug that record and it's fine
they can go off and do whatever they want but i had thought that was maybe a trajectory that was going to keep going
and no they're just sort of i don't know experimental is not the word but they sure don't seem to have
kind of... No holds barred is the way they treat their music. They don't have a foundation that says it's got a... this fundamental aspect has to be there. They're confused. Well, no, I don't think they are. I think that's what's interesting about it, because we were talking about Sangua Sugarbog, right? They're a band that I feel like they're trying to find their sound. Yeah. Like, they're still developing. Wode isn't like that. I think they just decide they're going to do a style, and they just do it really confidently, and it's fucking good. Yeah. You know? I agree with that. Yeah, they're not
They're just wandering. And it is an album that made decibels list, which surprised me after listening to it. I was like, wow. Okay. It's down there, but it's there. Yeah. Cause I mean, I also feel like it's one of those cool things about black, the sub genre of black metal itself, which is a lot more moldable in terms of like spreading your like musical. Yeah. Palette, you know, whereas I feel like almost more than any other sub genre at this point, it's, it's,
It's the no-holds-barred subgenre.
It really is.
Well, we mentioned Bluedow Snored earlier.
That's a band that's their whole history.
Yeah.
It's always doing something different.
They'll do the same thing for a few albums.
And I'm a latecomer to them.
I know, George, I've talked with you about them.
You've been in them a lot longer than me.
I've only the last four albums is when I've gotten into them.
And they're just nothing like the early stuff I listen to, but just kind of cool.
It's so contradictory, though.
And that's such a fun thing. This genre that almost seems like it should be, you know, so policed and all that kind of thing. You can do whatever the fuck you want. Well, and that's what makes it interesting to me. Like, this band or Bluedouse Nord, like, I don't like everything that Bluedouse Nord has done, right? But I know they're capable of doing something I might love. And like, this new record, what I've heard so far, I'm like, I think maybe this might be right in my wheelhouse.
And so I'm always on the lookout, even if I don't respond to a record super positively, the next time out, I know maybe it's going to be for me. That's kind of exciting. You don't know what you're going to get. And that's kind of rare. There's a lot of bands that keep doing the same thing over and over. And you're not that excited. You're like, oh, this is going to be solid. I'll enjoy this. It'll be interesting to get something new. To someday understand why that is. I don't, there's got to be a
The Chartable Anthropological Reason for that I'm real curious why is it such an open-ended genre? You know Markisan to your point It seems like that only works though with bands that have a large discography Yeah See Wode is a little different because they only this is only their fourth album and now it's four different albums to some extent the first two are similar but but like with Blood House Nord what is there like 17 or 18 albums? Yeah yeah yeah
Prolific. Yeah. Prolific like that. Like Devin Townsend. You could like literally only half his catalog and still like like 10 albums. Yeah. You know. I automatically think of like Enslaved. That's another thing. Yeah. Overdue for a record, by the way. Yeah. I'm actually enjoying the break. Well, actually Enslaved is working on it. I love Enslaved. They have their own app. Yeah, I know. I downloaded it and they put videos up there and they talk about like making the records.
and stuff. And they're deep into the writing process for the new one.
You can just download it on iPhone and get their app.
That's cool.
Jay, I want new music, but I kind of like that it's slowed down a little.
No, I agree, John.
They crack out so much music.
You're right.
I hope they put out a new album next year, because then I don't have to worry about what my number one is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've got a guaranteed top ten already locked in.
I think each of their last few albums has been my number one.
We can probably expect something pretty special because they are kind of taking their time.
So we'll see.
They always go high on our lists.
They do.
They might be.
Minus Will.
I would wager that they are possibly the number one podcast darling, to be honest with you.
They're one of them.
They'd definitely be up there.
Right up there with Steel Panther.
That's the perfect way to end this.
But I wanted to say, you know, Blue Dows Nord is so prolific.
and has been around for so long that they actually have little eras. Yeah. And it's not like, oh, it's this era and then only this era and only this. It's like, you know, they've got the Memoria Vatusta albums, which are like Bathory albums, but they're spread out. It's like, we're going to do this one and then we're going to do some industrial, weird, crazy shit. 777 stuff. Well, then the 777 stuff, which is wild. And then we're going to do something completely,
Like the mushroom one. Yeah. Now they're doing this whole psychedelic thing. Yeah. Proggy, psychedelic, atmospheric stuff. And then we're going to do another Memoria of A2, do some more Bathory stuff. And then, and then the, the, the, the, the one that was. They're the king lizard and the guzzard wizard. No, no, the, there it is. The monsters in the sky, the guy that writes the books. What the fuck is that? I can't think of the name.
Cthulhu stuff.
Okay.
Is he in the ocean?
I'm like, what the hell's the name of the guy that wrote that stuff?
I still don't know his name.
Oh, Lovecraft.
Lovecraft.
Thank you.
Yeah, I was thinking, I'm like, who writes books?
They did that Cthulhu album that sounded like Cthulhu coming down to destroy everything.
The vocals were, that is the one album where I will say that the vocals being buried makes absolute sense.
Because it sounds like people screaming in a storm as the world is destroyed. It feels like you're being dragged in with them. Yeah. It's like, okay, this makes sense. I just want to know what filter Justin is using because he looks like he's in the coolest black and white movie I've ever seen. That's what I said. I said, this is, you know, welcome to... I mean, he's sepia tone. Let's get it right here. It's my lighting. You know, I have the very specific lighting. Of course. Hey, George, to your point, don't you kind of like...
I don't mind that they jump around and jump back to stuff because I get a little annoyed at bands that do one thing and then they don't go ever back to it again and go off in there whatever and that's fine but I like when bands go off and then come back and it's not that they're trying to recapture the past I think with blow it out of store it's just like fuck it we'll do whatever we want when we want to yeah and they're kind of like basically cats yeah they'll just do whatever they want when they want to yeah well I
I think it's okay John I was just saying that if you have a cat you know they won't sleep in that bed for a year I have no interest in that bed then all of a sudden you get up one morning like what the hell is this you're sleeping in that bed and then they stay there for three months and then they go somewhere else after that well you know to paraphrase Forrest Gump life is like a blue dosh note album you never know what you're gonna get okay there it is but chances are you may have heard it 12 years ago well and I think the thing with that too is because
they're so prolific and they put out all those records. It doesn't matter to me. I know I'm going to find something I'd like. If a band takes their time with it and then something comes out and you're disappointed by it or you don't respond to it and it takes another five, six years, it's harder to digest that, I think. Yeah, I'm perfectly happy living in the last four albums in my Bulletin Sword collection that I have because it's like its own world compared to the rest of the stuff.
Yeah, well, it's kind of cool. If a Blue Douse Nord album comes out that I'm not all that thrilled with, I'm like, that's okay. Maybe next year. Maybe in two months, you'll get a new. Yeah, because whatever comes next is not going to be this. Yeah, or one of the side projects. Yeah. Especially the main guy does. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that one. He did. He's had a couple of decent ones the last decade. Yeah, I can believe that's the one that's got the fox on the cover.
But then there was the one where it was the three dudes
Was it Jerusalem or something?
Oh yeah.
The Fox one too.
Yeah.
So wild.
It's awesome.
All right.
So we've been doing new releases for about four and a half hours.
Yeah.
I figured at some point Will would get here before we got out of the news.
Yeah.
But apparently not.
Yeah.
Because I announced that he might be on, he's like, bitch, I ain't coming on.
So I guess let's move on to what we're listening to.
Justin, what are you listening to? What am I listening to? Okay. Let's see. Let's see here. How do you got? I didn't make any specific notes. I'm just going to go down some of the things that I've been listening to. You're looking at your phone, aren't you? Yeah, of course I am. I have lists, bro. I always have lists. Who am I really into right now? Oh, I've been in a little bit of a gore gutsy kick recently.
I don't know how I got into conversation. I was visiting my buddy, my Sepuletora mic buddy, and Gorguts came up in a conversation. And then right as that happened, my post from Decibel came up from when we saw them. I made me think of you, John. And this band I'm liking because it gives me a little bit of the Gorguts-y vibes.
They're called Undersave. And the album is merged in Abstract Perdition. And it's pretty cool. It's not as avant-garde-y and sophisticated as some of the other Gorguts stuff. But if you like the jangly guitar and the roaring vocal aspects that you get from Gorguts, they kind of have that.
So I've been really digging that. Let me think what else there's been that I really like. Well, actually, now this is my chance to kind of pimp out my underdogs for year-end, I feel like, so I could make people listen to them. Yeah. Maybe they'll end up on people's lists, right? Sculpture, which I think one of their records a couple years ago, a few of you guys were hot on, I don't remember, but I haven't really heard anyone bring this one up.
The name of the record is Landkrieg. They're just like really solid mid-paced death
metal. I don't know how else to describe them. But they do a really good job at it. It's not anything groundbreaking, but for that style of music this year, they've kind of captured that, I think, for me. Again, the Texas death metal that we were talking about and how some bands are kind of like,
Like, you know, like, you know, like, kind of, everyone's kind of burned down on them. I am still enjoying Tribal Gaze. So they just put out a record. And I don't necessarily know if I love it as much as the last one. But I'm enjoying it. It's still got that slight crossover stompiness to it that I like in Death Metal. What else?
No one's really talked about the Ascarnium record that came out. So I'm pimping that. To me, it's like, okay, Immolation didn't put out a record this year. If you want a band that sounds like Immolation, then you should be listening to this record because they sound like Immolation. I mean, they have their own kind of vibe to it. I can't think of the guitarist team right now, but whoever the bold guitarist from, yeah, that's been an Immolation for forever.
It's like essentially it's immolation if he wasn't in the band anymore. That's kind of how I feel about it. But I really enjoy it. It's up there pretty high for me. So and then let me I think that was pretty much the newer stuff. I did. I haven't listened to the new Void Ceremony. I like it. I don't necessarily know if I like it as much as their last one.
It just came out on Friday, so I haven't really had much time with it.
Yeah, I'm just looking to see.
I think those were like the ones I wanted to talk about, but I'm curious if there's I may have like one more that I've been high on.
But yeah, I guess that's pretty much it.
I'd say for the newer stuff.
Otherwise, I've just been listening to either old stuff or.
year-end potential ones that I've already been talked about that were probably there in mid-year. I'm just assessing if they still should be there or not, you know? Cool. Yeah. All right. Well, Mark is on this. Put his headphones on just in time for his turn with what he's listening to. Yep. All right. I missed all Justin's stuff, I guess. Yep. All right. What am I listening to? All right. First thing, Danzig. Danzig.
Danzig 2, Lucifuge, and Danzig 3, How the Gods Kill. Well, duh. Because You Discover Music, which is the e-commerce platform for universal music, recently put out official pressings of the first four Danzig albums on vinyl. The only four Danzig albums. Right. And so I bought the first three. So I've been waiting for these for a long fucking time, especially How the Gods Kill, because that's my favorite. And it had not been repressed.
It's been a blast since it came out in 1992. And the original LP sells for well over $200 on Discogs. Really? I should sell that. It's great. You should. Or give it to me. There's lots of boot vinyls out there over the years. And I've been tempted to get those. But I'm glad I waited because now I have the official releases and they're awesome. Sweet. Next one is Sunken. I don't know how you pronounce it. It might be Like or Leek. L-Y-K-K-E.
on Eisenwald Records. This is melancholic, atmospheric black metal with orchestral arrangements. Really captures feelings of grief, loneliness. It's one of the most depressing albums I've heard this year, but in a good way. Then I have Semekin. I don't know how I'm going to pronounce the name of this album, but I'll try it. It's Ukuuk Ankil Mayakaj. M Theory Audio. This is Mexican Groove.
folk death that incorporates traditional instruments like flutes and pan pipes and tells stories of ancient Mayan mythology. And they've had a few records. I have one of them on vinyl. This is really good. And then I have a pupil slicer, fleshwork on prosthetic records, blistering math core mixed with progressive post-metal atmospherics. This album is a lot more aggressive than the last one shot, which I loved.
But it's filled with great textures and oddly catchy riffs throughout the whole record. But it's very aggressive, which I was surprised by, but love. I meant to listen to that. I forgot. I mean, I didn't list it clearly. But yeah, I saw that was out and I wanted to hear that. You should listen to that one because I know you like the last one. This one, there you go. This one is rips, like from start to finish.
And then this one I know Matt will probably have on his list, Yellow Eyes, Confusion Gate, Gilead Media. This band never fails to surprise me, and Confusion Gate is no exception. I think they expanded their kind of frosty black metal palette once again. They added quite a bit of post-metal ambiance, a lot of melody, which I was surprised by, and this kind of industrial folk sound that they explored on.
Last Year's Acoustic Album that they put out, Masters Murmur, which was like a complete surprise. And I think doing all that, it makes for a very different sounding Yellow Eyes album. I feel like every album, like we've been talking about with bands, it's a little bit different with Yellow Eyes, but this one, I don't know, I'm really digging this record. It's long. I think it's their longest record they've ever done, but I've been immersed in that for a couple, well, like a week at least.
And then Oral Met, The Sinking Isle on Transylvanian Recordings. It's been a really phenomenal year for Doom. And this is probably my favorite record in that subgenre. So it's a cataclysmic eruption of intense funeral doom flowing with very strong emotional and melodic currents. It's pretty epic in scope.
And I like the last record, but this one blows that one away. Also, with a little bit of doom, Cranial Structures, Moment of Collapse. This is an ultra-heavy atmospheric sludge doom from Germany. And I've been waiting to listen to this record for a while, because I think it's been like six years since the last one. But it did not disappoint me really good.
Clearblast. Really nuanced and interesting mix of post-metal and Black & Sludge with some acoustic parts in it. And this is the band's third album, and I've liked them all, but this is another band where I feel like they're still trying to find their sound. So this is an album I'll have to spin. I'm going to do Matt's words. I'll have to spin this one some more and find out where I land with it. But I do like it.
a lot. Psychonaut, World Maker on Pelagic Records. It's a really good prog metal record. It's full of, I would say, post-metal compositions, but then delicate psychedelic flourishes. It's a little less heavy than I expected, but I really like the space that's created on this album. That's not to say it isn't heavy or it doesn't have heavy parts, but they put a lot of space into it. We were talking about an abstract illusion and how,
was dense. And this band can be dense, but on this record, I feel like they really opened it up. It doesn't feel as crowded with musical elements as the previous works. And giving the songs like That Breathing Room, I think really makes the band shine on this one. So the more I listen to it, the more I really enjoy it. I know John's probably into this one too. Stygian Bow, that just came out, volume two on profound lore records.
This record really surprised me because I did not care for Volume 1. I felt like it was kind of a piecemeal record with kind of meandering the songwriting, but somehow Volume 2 is exponentially better than the debut. Maybe it's because, you know, it's a collaboration between Bell Witch and Aerial to Ruin, and maybe they needed time to work out that combined sound. Maybe they just wrote better songs. I don't know what the difference is.
But for whatever reason, it worked. Because this is a very incredible fusion of the bands. Kind of reminds me of the more emotional Tour de Force era of Bell Witch when they did Longing, that first record. I love that record. But mixed with the tender doom metal of Warning. It's tighter. I think the vocals on it are gorgeous. And there's solos on this that are just fire throughout it.
Really good record. I was surprised this one didn't make Decibels list, to be honest with you. Heteropsy, Embalming on Kaligari Records. This is the band's full-length debut after releasing a bunch of EPs. They play a vicious death doom with these cave beast vocals, lots of cool bursts of melody, moody passages, and soaring solos on it. They're from Japan, and I'd never heard of them really until this year.
Justin mentioned Astronoid a little bit earlier on Three Dot Recordings. I consider their first album metal, but since their debut, they've definitely expanded more into the rock-slash-metal-adjacent area, and I think that was a pretty good decision. They still ripped the blast beats. There's still quite a bit of heaviness on the record, but there's just a lot more focus on melodic structures, on catchiness. And I wouldn't say it goes as far as pop, but it, you know, you can sing the
songs and then last but not least falls of roros the entire catalog i've been doing a deep dive on it at night i play a lot of cassettes because i have a dual deck so i can just throw in two albums and they'll just play back to back without me having to flip them and i can do work or whatever i need to do and i still get that analog song which i like so i've been getting really into cassettes a lot pretty heavily
So I tend to play a lot of ambient records and atmospheric black metal on cassette because it's, well, it's scientifically proven that those musical genres sound better in the darkness. I have hundreds of cassettes here for you. Oh, really? Hundreds. Trying to get rid of them? Not necessarily. I've, I've, I have, I probably have at least 600 actual cassettes. Well. From, from the eighties. Like not, you know, bought,
These are actual legit old school old as fuck cassettes. That's awesome. You don't play them at all, George? I don't have a cassette player anymore. Why would I? Well, if you want to part with them, let me know. I don't. I just post pictures of them on Instagram and call it cassette porn. I just told you this. I just pulled it away. You just told me I have hundreds of cassettes for you. I said you can come over here and listen to them if you want. Oh, I got it. Okay. You just have to bring your own boombox. I know. Yeah, because, well, I mean, I do have a,
I do have like a stereo component dual cassette Sony deck somewhere here, but I don't have anything to hook it up to, you know. So. Yeah, I really did cassettes. I they're cheaper and you know, they still have a cool, like I said, that cool analog sound to them. And I like popping them at night. I play records during the day and then I play cassettes at night. And then it's like. As it gets eaten by the tape deck. Hasn't happened yet, but and I do play a lot.
But yeah, that falls of the worst. I have five of six of the falls of the worst records on vinyl, but I love the band so much that I actually recently bought all their cassettes. So I've been playing at least two of them every night for the last, I don't know, couple months or so. It's almost become ritualistic to me. So it's like a progressive atmospheric post-black metal snuggie.
I take that back I do have something that plays cassettes I bought a walk man quote unquote that like an old school walk better no it's a new school walk it's sort of like the the things that let you record your records into the computer except it's a walk man that you can put cassettes into to record into the computer only I'm like why would I do that because it sounds like shit and I'm gonna listen to it digitally instead but I did that so
I think it was so that I could put some of my old recordings on cassette into the computer. So you got all the tech, George. I have all the cassettes that you don't want to give me. I do. Right now I'm looking at GNR lies, creators, extreme aggression, Judas Priest, defenders of the faith, kicks, blow my fuse. I actually have a rage cassette. I guess the machine. No reflection.
of shadows, I think it is. Like old, like, you know. Anyway, I see a Manowar. I have cassettes and my brother has cassettes and I think they're all at my parents' house. So I'm going to have to go through them and see if there's anything worthwhile. I have bins of old Metallica and Misfits and Slayer and Megadeth and Overkill and Exodus and all of that stuff. I tend to get the more atmospheric bands because that's what I like to listen to at night. So.
I have everything that came out in the 80s. I mean, I like the 80s, too. All right. Sorry. You done? That's up. All right. Matty. Groovy. Based on the fact that I need to dive deeper with everything, my list is pretty short. Most of it's pretty much been mentioned. Feral Darkness by Tombs. Really digging that. Mastiff has a new release for all the dead dreams. I think it's a full length, but I could be wrong. It might be an EP.
I suck. Mentioned earlier the new Coroner album, Dissonance Theory, really digging that. I think watching them at MDF was probably one of my first exposures to Coroner, so it was kind of cool to hear the recorded form and, you know, like I said, really digging it. I kind of dug into that, the new Deaf Heaven album, and then, you know, when you finish an album, a lot of times you start to get served up similar things, whether there's a spanned agriculture that I kept seeing.
I really gave a lot of time to. And so they were much more aggressively, you know, black metal-ish band than I thought they would be, which I actually like, but I really struggled to get into the vocals. But, you know, still. I like the older agriculture stuff. The new one, I can't, I can't get through it. Older? Yeah. I just heard about them recently and I was like, interesting name? Don't like it.
Also, Conjurer has a new album on Self. I'm liking it so far. Need to Listen More. And then the new sounds of Suga Bug also mentioned Hades Aftermath. I also got into, I was just really, really, really, and I don't remember what kind of kicked it off, but I really got into just 80s thrash. And so I found a playlist called 80s Thrash Metal. And it's just kind of been my go-to to constantly listen to.
Like with all playlists, some of it is debatable. And I don't mean in the fact that it's good, but like, is this really from the 80s? Is this really thrash? Because then I did an 80s death metal one. There was a little bit of overlap and I'm like, listen, you need to sort your shit out. George probably has a cassette. You should go over there and listen to it. I was going to ask if it was my 80s thrash playlist because I made one. Is it Spotify? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it could be mine. Could be.
But yeah, that's it in a nutshell for me. All right. John? All right. We've talked about most of my list, so my list will be quick. I'll just run through the ones real quick that we talked about. An Abstract Illusion, Corner, Evokin, and Hood and Menace. I've spent time with all those. I got two others that have come out recently, and then I'll be done. So the first is Void Ceremony and their album,
I think is how you say it's their third album technical death band with a progressive metal take on their death metal it's wild it's a short ride it's controlled insanity it's hard to process what they're playing because they're kind of all over the place but I like them they're definitely for fans of Atheist and Cynic some latter era death gore gods if you like that stuff
You'll probably like Void Ceremony. And they seem to be picking up steam. And it's nice that the album is just a shade under 30 minutes, because I don't know if I could do more than 30 minutes of that. It's a lot. So they pack a lot. It is a lot, yeah. Did you like that last one? Yeah, I like all the three albums. I just don't go back to them enough because I feel like I get my head kind of, everything in my head just gets kind of shaken around and reset. And then I'm like, wow, I don't know what I just
just listen to so but it's cool i like it and then my last one is a band called the reticent they have an album called please that just came out and uh if you don't know anything about the reticent uh you probably don't want to listen to if you don't want to be emotionally i was invested i was wondering if this is as depressing as the last one uh yeah great his stuff is really hard to listen to it's musically it's it's
of metal and there's some kind of death metal aspects to it.
But he focuses very hard on mental health in his albums.
Like, hard.
There's a lot of spoken word.
I know people don't like spoken word.
On this album, the spoken word generally is their own separate tracks.
You can skip past them.
There's a little bit before some of the songs on a few places, but generally you can get away from that if you don't want to hear it.
But the spoken word is generally focused on whatever topic the album is. And this one focuses in on, it's kind of like on how mental illness and its relationship with suicide to how they kind of fester with each other. And it gets pretty heavy. Not in sound, in content. Jesus. Yeah. No, not Jesus. Well, maybe. Maybe. Maybe at the end.
Last album had to do with Alzheimer's. I think Suicide was on another album, Suicide of His Really Good Friend. This album, he attributes to some of the stuff he's dealt with in his life. And to see them live, which I have, is not easy because they have a video screen playing some of these scenes like he's talking about in the music. And they're playing Prog Power again. And when they played last time, which was their first time there,
There were dudes bigger than me bawling, crying, and going up to him afterwards and saying, hey, man, I had a family member that died from Alzheimer's, and your set just killed me. I loved it, but it was just so hard to sit there. And so it's really unique stuff. I know some people may not like that, and that's too much to take, but music's great. And the guitarist is in a number of different bands.
So I've seen him at Prague Powered on how many times, but he's in the band No Spoon, which is an up-and-coming Prague metal band from North Carolina. And he's in a couple other stuff. He's played with so many people. But that's it. That's all I got. We've been away for a little while, so I'm not going to go back to everything I've listened to in the last six weeks. I've spent more time with just rock music and dark ambient stuff than I have actually with metal recently. Yeah, I got that.
Time to get into the metal 'cause lists. Yeah. I've like, I put my, like I said, I put my list together because I'm not gonna have any time to work on it when I'm in California. So I need to know what I have so when I get home I can write everything up. So I'm gonna be locking in early. It's like I literally just bought the new Blood Ops North. I was like, no, no, these two songs are good. I gotta get this to see if it's gonna make my list. So I'm locking in now, early. All right.
I'm watching a lot of football, international football soon. Lock it up. I don't have a lot of stuff to add. I've been listening to a lot of old stuff too. I've been kind of a Judas Priest phase lately, which happens to me once every two years or something like that. I've been watching a lot of those Hudson Valley squares late at night, John. And then it sends me spinning off and then I'll listen to the stuff that I don't know that they talk about and also kind of revisit stuff like, you know, the, forgive me,
they'll be talking about an old white snake record and i'll go listen to that and stuff like that
the good stuff so mostly old stuff for me right now not a lot to mention uh the most dominant being the
judas priest stuff so i'm not gonna so j if i could just interject i know we've gone long enough but
jay since you mentioned uh watching stuff on youtube i've been watching a ton of stuff from sunset sound
studios okay and i just if you get a chance i will watch the one on with steve lukather there's
It's like an hour. Oh, it's so good. Okay. It's so good. I don't know if you guys are Steve Lukather fans. He's probably the best guitarist you don't realize is out there. Yeah, I'll check it out. He's from Toto. I'll send it to you. There's a guy whose name's Drew, and they're in the same studio where they did all the Eddie Van Halen stuff when he passed away. Remember I sent you all that stuff before? So it's the same actual studio room at Sunset Sound.
those kind of go by me every once in a while, just like they show up in some feed or something I have. But yeah, send it to me because I love that episodic type stuff. I love to watch that and hear the behind the scenes story. I just watched one where the woman who worked with Prince during the early days, she was one of the, I don't know if she was an engineer or she did mixing or whatever, but for like 20 minutes just talking about him in the studio, which I don't care if I don't even like the artist. I just want to hear what they're saying about,
what's going on in the studio. It's really good stuff. I have one to recommend to you too then and I just recommended it to George last night and it's called In the Family I think. It's a documentary that you can watch. I don't remember where the fuck I watched it but it's streaming. Do you know who Waddy Waktel is? Yeah. The guitar player, the long shaking hard guitar player that was on SNL
for a while and he's in Keith Richards band. Oh yeah. He was part of a kind of like wrecking crew group that is on everything in the 70s from Jackson Brown to Linda Ronstadt to everything else. And the documentary is really cool to watch. It's just one of those like you won't believe how many records these guys are on. Here, let me just tell you the title because you really I know you'll like it for sure. Well, that's that. It's called immediate family. Okay. Yeah. And it's like one of those. It's like, you know, you watch the Muscle Shoals ones and all that and stuff, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the Wrecking Crew.
Oh, the Wrecking Crew is awesome.
Yeah.
This is just the Wrecking Crew for the 70s.
So, yeah.
So there's another version of that.
I wouldn't call them the Wrecking Crew, but like all the guys from Toto.
Yeah.
They're like on, like Steve Lukather, they say, oh, he's been on like 1,500 albums.
I was watching an interview.
I was, eh, that's not accurate.
More like 2,000.
And he said that he's not even credited on a lot of the stuff he was on where he actually
wrote songs and parts of songs for huge hits.
that back in those days, he wouldn't get credit for. He says nowadays, he's just like, no, yeah, I'm not doing this unless I'm getting paid. Was he just on one episode of this thing you're talking about? Because I know I see him sitting at this like mixing desk with this guy, these videos I see that go by. No, they're sitting at a table. There's just four of them sitting there. And it's like the owner of Sunset Sound, the guy doing the interviews and then another producer that was there. And there is a link. I want to watch it. Yeah, I'll send you one of them and then you could just drill down from there.
Okay, thanks. I can always use more stuff like that. It's awesome. He tells these stories about how he worked with, you know, he and Eddie Van Halen worked with Michael Jackson on Beat It. He tells what he was working with Prince, you know, when he came in to see Van Halen and how David Lee Roth didn't like him. And it's just all kinds of cool stuff. All right, I'm going to send you that immediate family thing. What's the name of it again? It's a series. It's called The Roundtable with Drew is the name of the actual
Just go with that. Just go with the round table with Drew. Okay. Okay. That's all. Yeah. I've been, I've been like, listen, I've, uh, I was telling George the other day, like I, uh, there's this, I've been very into podcasts this year, like just informative podcast. It's funny. Cause you mentioned that band before and I'm like, Oh, I've been really, I've been a really big psychology nerd the past like year. So I'm like, Hmm, maybe that'd be interesting. So I'm gonna check that out too. But I was also listening to this other podcast. Um, it's, it's called bad gaze and it's these two guys and they go,
They're like university-trained historians. And they go back and they look at these people who were gay way back in the day. And they just did an episode on Little Richard. And it's one of those things where listening to the history of him and how much of an influence he had on rock music becoming rock music. And his influences to put him where he was.
We're all like again, it's like I don't think it's any secret that like rock music was, you know, taken from, you know, rhythm and blues. Oh, no, we stole that shit hard. Right. And so it's like one of those things where everyone kind of knows that at this point, I didn't realize how many of those people were also queer, like there was just a lot like it was like, well, what's her? I can't think of her name. The the woman that basically inspired Little Richard.
And obviously,
little Richard was,
you know,
there is a fantastic little Richard documentary.
I want to see that.
It's really,
really good.
And,
uh,
Oh,
Rosetta Tharp.
Like everyone talks about her and like,
like her playing and all that kind of stuff and how much,
how influential that was.
And she was,
you know,
she's openly bisexual,
even back in like the thirties and shit.
So it was like,
I was very interesting read on that.
And it's like,
okay.
Right.
Well,
watch the little Richard thing.
You'll love it.
And it would be also specifically as far as like queer things go. You'd love it, Justin. Secondarily, I have a recommendation for a podcast since you're doing that. And there's a great one called Cocaine and Rhinestones. And it's about essentially about George Jones and Tammy Wynette. But it also covers everything else. It's insane. And I just read the book. They turned it into a book. It was considered the best music podcast of 2022 or something like that.
Cocaine and rhinestones. It's super fun. You don't have to like George Jones to listen to it. It's just so fucking interesting. All right. Where are we now? We are at you. At me. All right. What am I listening to? Not a whole lot of metal. I have a few things on here. I'm going to try to go through this pretty quickly because you're not going to be interested. But first up, I have been super into this dude called Amigo the Devil. Cool.
of you might know this. I mentioned this on Stairway and Nick was like, oh, and so we've been bonding over Amigo the Devil. All of his albums, I call them Murder Folk. There's, you know, he's got definitely his own style, but he really touches on a lot of Nick Cave and Tom Waits type stuff. Nick Cave in terms of the murder ballads. Like if you know the murder ballads
by Nick Cave. This is like everything he does is like that.
But in some of his stuff. I like that.
And yeah. And I mean, his stuff is fucked up.
Okay. Nick Cave is red right hand, right?
Yes. Yeah.
And Amigo the Devil, his stuff is all completely fucked up shit.
It's like kind of folky. There's some banjo in there.
It's country. It's folky, whatever.
But it's all if you listen to the lyrics, it's all completely fucked up shit.
It's like fentanyl and ketamine and weird fucking shit. Okay. So, um, even if you're just a metal dude, you should check out Amigo the Devil because this is some interesting, it's like metal adjacent to be sure. I have a strange suggestion for you, George. Um, just trust me. I trust you. Um, the Leuven brothers and they have this famous thing that people use as a joke and at the cover of the record that's called Satan is Realtor.
They're an old kind of Live at the Opry kind of, but they have the weirdest fucking Christian songs. I mean, they're old standards, a lot of them, but they're all called things like Satan's Jewel Crown and stuff like that. Plus, they're the two most beautiful singers you've ever heard in your life. I'll send you some stuff. Please do. Please do. It's right up your alley to what you're listening to now, because they also do a bunch of old murder ballads and stuff, but this would be from like the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Yeah, no, like Murder Folk, they also call it...
Dark Folk and... What was it? Gothic Southern. Southern Gothic stuff. All right, I'm going to send you two records in particular. Yeah, and there's some other artists in this style that are not as good as Amigo the Devil, but they are good. I didn't list them because I haven't dug into them enough yet. Maybe next time. Yeah. All right, moving on.
and diamonds are forever is the pun play there. This is the first album from a new Daniel
Ash project. Daniel Ash was in Bauhaus. He was in Love and Rockets and a few other bands. And this is sort of a more of a Love and Rockets kind of album, but it's cool. Not metal, but I mention it because I'm listening to it.
I've been listening to a lot of Bad Religion and Pennywise because they are what they are. I'm going to leave it at that. I did pick up finally after 30, 40 years, the first two, the only two big black albums, Atomizer and Songs About Fucking. This was Steve Albini's band back in the 80s, kind of an industrial punk band. If you know Steve Albini.
Died not too long ago, but a massive producer in the 90s and beyond. And this, I said industrial punk, it's not remotely kind of punk. It's just really weird, heavy music. And you don't have to be punk to get into this at all because it's not remotely punk. Moving into the metal arena, the new Biohazard album, Divided We Fall.
I did not expect to like this as much as I did. And I was hoping that Will would be here by this point because I figure he probably would like this and I don't think anybody else here probably would. But, you know, I liked Biohazard for the first couple albums back in the day and then not so much after. But this is really good. It's just straight up angry, hardcore, post-hardcore kind of music.
And then Bloody Hammers released a new EP called The Acoustic Halloween Special, which is exactly what it says it is. It's some acoustic songs that are dark, evil, and based around Halloween. Some old folk standards they redid and a couple of new original songs that they did. I love Bloody Hammers. Nobody else here does. That's okay.
But if you like Bloody Hammers, you should check it out. It's good. And lastly, briefly mentioned already, Lamp of Murmur, The Dreaming Prince in Ecstasy, fourth album of U.S. Black Metal. As I said before, the music's amazing. The vocals for me don't quite jive with the music, but I've only given it one listen, so we'll see. And that's what I got. Yay. Cool. All right, let's move on to Metal Thunderdill.
I haven't done one of these in a while.
Metal Thunderdome.
Exactly. And I'm going to toss this over to John.
Yep, it's my turn. I'm not gonna waste much time. I'm just gonna get into this. I've always wanted to do a Thunderdomino. I was hoping no one would do this, where we would look at final albums that stand out, you know, for bands that are no longer with us, or they've just decided to call it a day. And I thought it would be cool because there were two that came to mind immediately for this. And they're within a
a year of each other. And I thought, well, this would be great because I think we all like both these bands or to some extent like these bands. And I thought it would be great. And it also afforded me the opportunity to bring an album back for a second time into the arena, but for completely different reasons. So the two albums I chose were Bolt Throwers, Those Once Loyal versus Celtic Frogs.
"Monotheist," which I consider both these to be great final albums from bands.
Sir, yes, sir!
Thank you.
And it's interesting that "Celtic Frost," which is its third time in the arena, but the second time for "Monotheist," which is the only album that's made a second time, because Matt originally chose it as a great comeback album against Surgical Steel for Carcass.
And I find it interesting that this particular album is considered one of the great comeback albums, one of the great final albums, and also could be basically the early portion of Trypticon's existence in their dysography, because it sounds almost more like Trypticon and Diskeptic Frost, at least to my ears. Anyway, I thought this would be great, you know, rolling tanks versus, you know?
Why not go there? So there's not I mean, we know these bands and we know these albums. So there's not much more to say than to pit these two against each other and see what you guys think. So thank you. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. Well, let's go to Justin and see what he thinks. Okay, so I feel like my answer is going to be obvious and who I pick. But I
I feel like I have also an argument to bring people into maybe how I'm looking at it, right? So obviously I'm way more of a bolt thrower guy. So obviously it's going to be bolt thrower for me. I understand everyone loves Celtic Frost. And listen, the amount of time that you guys have spent talking about Celtic Frost as a fan of the podcast, I assure you I have tried just to assimilate properly.
But it just doesn't
And I loved them live
When we saw them at MDF
It was great
They're just never a band
That I've clung on to
Right
Why?
But I understand
Their place in the
Pantheon of metal
And everyone loves them
And everything like that
Right
What I would say is
For this particular
Style of vote
I'm going to say
Trypticon
Is still Celtic Frost
The thing that makes Celtic Frost Celtic Frost has moved into Trypticon. Whereas Bolt Thrower, the equivalent would be Memoriam. And the elements that made Bolt Thrower, Bolt Thrower did not move into Memoriam. Because you need those guitarists and that rhythm section to make Bolt Thrower, Bolt Thrower. Which is why Memoriam is not Bolt Thrower.
Whereas I feel like plenty of Celtic Frost fans would say Trypticon is Celtic Frost. You know what I mean? Like in terms of like the quality and like what you want out of those sounds from that particular person. You know what I mean? Sure. Or the original person or persons. So, Bull Thrower, obviously, for me. And that's my argument for other people that maybe are listening. That's fair. I mean, honestly, you can't go wrong with either of these. No.
But, Markisan, please go wrong. I'm joking. I never do. But listen, I completely agree with Justin's argument, because I have a similar argument as well. Like, I love both of these albums. So when John put them head to head, for a moment, I thought, man, this is going to be a really difficult choice.
But after a moment or two of thinking about these as final albums, it became clear to me that the winner should be Bolt Thrower or Those Ones Loyal. So my pick comes down to three points. And the first is what Justin mentioned is that Monotheus really wasn't the end of Celtic Frost because Trypticon is the musical continuation of the band. In fact, Tom G. Warrior has out and out stated that Trypticon is Celtic Frost with a different name.
So we know Trypticon is going strong. There's even a promise that a new record is coming soonish, we hope. Sometime within our lifetime. So I've never felt like Celtic Frost went away. It just became a new entity. Second for me, in my humble opinion, which I believe John shares with me, Those Once Loyal is the best bolt thrower album. And that's saying a lot, considering the quality catalog of heavy metal.
cake that they've served us when they were around. So for a band to go out after delivering their strongest statement and then just dissolve into the night at the height of their death metal powers, that doesn't happen that often. Right? Most bands, they have their opus and they continue on there where they limp along and they never quite achieve that. But for me, Bolt Thrower did do that.
The Last Thing I Would Mention Is That Bolt Thrower Created A Very Unique Bombastic Sound That A Fuckload Of Bands Have Tried To Imitate But Can Never Quite Fully Capture Justin Mentioned Memoriam And That Features Bolt Thrower's Vocalist Carl Willits But They Don't Really Come Close So Bolt Thrower Has Endured As This Highly Influential Anomaly In Metal
And the strongest representation of their sound is those ones loyal to me. And that's just a fucking hell of a punctuation mark for a band's legacy. So it's hard to go up against that. Even though I love, absolutely love Monotheist, I just see that band continuing. If it was just straight up, hey, which album you like more? And I wasn't looking at final albums.
I got to go with the bolt thrower.
All right.
Well, Matt, what do you think?
I would add to the argument, too, that they have the most consistent quality discography front to back in the death metal genre, I'd say.
Are you bringing Cold Lake into this?
No, I'm just saying.
I'm just joking.
I'm joking.
They have a good discography, that's for sure. Yeah, definitely consistent. All right, Matt. I love these arguments. These are great, great, great arguments. I don't even think of them as arguments. It's just statements of fact. They are statements of fact. They are things to ponder. Can I just take this one off and just think about it, kind of process it along with all the other things? No, we're done with that. You need more time to listen, Matt. We're done with that. Damn it.
You know, I think, yes, Trypticon does sound like a continuation of Celtic Frost, but it also, granted, the sound is very similar, but, you know, we're kind of missing a very huge member of Celtic Frost that is no longer with us. And so I think for me, I am okay drawing that line in the sand and saying that, you know, this is a final album for Celtic Frost.
And then it does, I mean, when I was getting out of new metal rehab and kind of getting good metal back in my life, Those Once Loyal was probably one of the first albums that was put in front of me. And it just blew my mind. And Bolt Throw was one of those bands that I kept hearing about and seeing that logo and thinking like, I bet that's really good. And listening to it, I'd be like, this is really good. And you're right, it is. It's such an amazing framework for what is death metal.
There's just something about Celtic Frost that always pulls me in. And I think, you know, to say it, it feels a little more sinister. You know, it just has moodiness, a.k.a. bitchiness to it that, you know, really makes me gravitate towards it. And so for that reason, I am going to go with Celtic Frost monotheist, even though at the end of the day, this was definitely a hard choice.
I love how it comes down to bitchiness factor. Perfect, Matt. It's key. Key. Key. Yeah. But again, I'm going to think about this so it could be different next time. Right, right, right. All right. John. Oh, wait. No, not John. John goes last. Sorry. Jay. Boy. Yeah. Well, I'll just say this. I appreciate what both Justin and
and Marcus Unstead. But I'm going to take what Matt said and go about 100 miles farther and say that Martin Ayn was so important to Celtic Frost. Don't kid yourself and think that that was just, you know, Tom. It wasn't. Those two guys grew up together in a dark room and everything they plotted from the cover of those records to their concepts, if it's historical,
by the way Tom wrote it if it's a cult Martin wrote it just so you know that's a line that Tom actually publicly draws and and that the fact that they came back and spent so much time on monotheist and I say again Martin I mean was so important to that record and I get that you that when you listen to trypticon you kind of hear that because Tom went on and you know Tom's the singer and he uses these big fuzzy tones
and writes a lot of the music.
But the only two people who could have conjured that record were those two.
And so that was the definitive end of Celtic Frost.
I'm sorry.
It's better than anything Trypticon will ever do.
I think it's one of the best metal records of all time, up to and including the just ritual that is the second half of that record.
So that's just my chance to rant and really boost Martin Ane and just say Martin Ane is probably about as important. I had something similar in my head and I've lost it, but he's the Cliff Burton of that group. And it completely changed when Cliff left, died. And they had broken up anyway. They weren't going to do anything else together. But I'm telling you, that guy brought a huge thing to that band.
And for me, Monotheist put up against almost anything is going to win. So I'm not even going to talk about Bolt Thrower. Monotheist is monolithic. Well, props to John for coming up with these picks because, you know, again, it's showing it like that's another reasoning and it's always going to depend on the context of like where you are with that specific band because Bolt Thrower ended because the drummer died. Right. That's why they stopped. No, these are such... So it's like, it's crazy.
It's just interesting how that's the same
almost the same reasoning
for both. I mean, I know not for Celtic Frost
necessarily, but for Led Zeppelin
But it's in terms of
that particular iteration of the band
is never going to really exist because the
people were important that were in it
They're big bands because that's
what makes them good
That's why Tom changed the name when Trypticon
because we can't be Celtic Frost anymore
without him. He had to
I'll take one more minute of your time
and just say that you keep in mind these these guys grew up working at these as in these machine shops as these assistants and they had this weird dark vision and they went into this weird underground place and practiced every day and said dude wouldn't it be cool if we did this it was a 50 50 thing and they kept they drew the pictures together they came up with the concepts together they went to fucking h.r geiger's house and talked him into giving them a painting for a record that wasn't even going to exist for another five years they were a team
And they had a magic together.
People don't appreciate Martin A.N. as much as they should.
If he had seen that tour, the Monotheos tour, you would have understood that that guy was a fucking bomb, dude.
He screamed so loud in the microphone when he was doing some of the stuff that he does.
And he was dressed as a priest.
He was this dark, menacing thing.
He was shaking my body.
He was a bigger presence than Tom on that tour.
And Tom's just fucking cool. So you know what I mean? Absolutely. Okay. Sorry. Monotheist all the way. Yeah. You know, the whole Giger thing and going to see him and convincing him to let them use artwork. They weren't the first band to do that. There was another band called the Dead Kennedys that in the 80s also went to Giger and said, hello, sir. May we please use your penis landscape?
Although it was called something else, but that was the, uh, it was the PMRC word for it. Anyway, it was the penis landscape artwork from Frank and Christ, uh, the dead Kennedy's album. That was, it was basically wieners going into the woohoos, uh, you know, repeted, repeated. And it was a poster that they included in the Frank and Christ album. And that was Giger as well. So Tom was really good friends with Giger. He was from what I remember. He was, but, but, but they walked up to,
This house is two snotty kids in black t-shirts. I mean, the fact that they could recognize this kind of genius in each other, it says a lot, you know. Yeah. A Giger let them use Penis Landscape for 600 bucks. Damn. I think he gave Celtic Frost theirs for free. Yeah, I think he did. Yeah. Yeah. Let's not forget Emerson Lake and Palmer. That's right. That one too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And dancing. It's me turn. All right. So when John told me about
this, I was like, fuck. Cause you know, these, no matter what any of us says, both of these bands are absolutely phenomenal. This is definitely a Sophie's choice. Um, you know, I've, for as long as we've been doing the podcast, I've been extremely happy with the amount of people that have enjoyed and said they've enjoyed,
Bolt Thrower has always been a very underground band.
You know, I mean, they just don't get spoken about like Celtic Frost does.
You know, like a lot of bands.
I mean, Bolt Thrower is not on everybody's.
They're not on everybody's radar.
And yeah, and I've been I don't care which of these albums he had chosen.
Okay.
It could be in Battle There Is No Law, the first album, which is very raw, but it's still fucking Bolt Thrower. It doesn't matter. It's Bolt Thrower. If you invoke Bolt Thrower, I am behind you. Okay? That's all. It doesn't matter. And Bolt Thrower is extremely consistent with everything that they did. But, as you know, I am an extremely big Tom G. Warrior, Celtic Frost,
I'm a trypticon fan as well.
The last time I dressed up for Halloween, I was Tom G. Warrior.
So this was a difficult thing to consider for me, but not too difficult.
I will say that my favorite Bullthorough album is For Victory.
Again, isn't that, isn't, and he's done it, and Carl's not even on that one, right?
Is he not on for victory? I don't remember who's on what. I don't. Because there's one record that is a different. It's the Dave guy. Yeah, Dave something or other. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't matter. It's bolt thrower. You know, I'm not going to say, oh, I'm not going to choose bolt thrower because it's not for victory. I'm not going to do that. Well, again, it goes back to my argument about how like you can't. Memoriam is not substituting bolt. Right. Because no. And it was still amazing.
and consistent. Memoriam is good and I like them because of their bolt thrower-esque tendencies, but no, it's not bolt thrower. But I have to go monotheist. Just because... I don't know. Bolt thrower, like I said, is known for what it does and it's very consistent and I love that and I will never speak ill of it.
But Monotheist, as Jay says, is something truly special. And I want to believe and choose to believe that there's at least part of you that was like, I just can't do that to Jay. Absolutely. Absolutely. I could not. Let me back this up. I cannot do this to Jay. But no, I mean, when Monotheist came out, my head exploded. I was like, I didn't even hear it yet. My head exploded. I was like, what? A new album?
from Celtic Frost.
You know, and then when I heard it.
I remember saying when it came out, I remember saying this is the heaviest record ever.
Yeah.
And after my head exploded and I pieced it all back together again, then I listened to the album with that new head and it exploded again because it was monotheist.
I was just like, oh, so yeah, no, I got to go monotheist.
So that's like one, two.
Well, I guess I guess we're going to need John for this.
Yeah. All right. So this was an extremely difficult choice for me too, because I love both these albums. I will say I'm going to add to what Matt and Jay said. And I also agree that I think that there is a definitive line in the sand between Celtic Frost and Trypticon. But I'll add this one part to it. For me, that makes it a definitive line.
When Trypticon plays shows, they will play shows and say, special Celtic Frost set. Yeah. And if they were the same band or continuing in the same realm, just with a different name, they wouldn't even have to advertise that as their set for that night. For me, that's, that kind of solidifies it. But I can see where everyone comes from on that. Because we all, all approach it differently. And that's fine. They all make for good reasons for why we do stuff.
It was difficult because I love both these albums for completely different reasons. I agree with the consistency of Bolt Thrower. And I'm a newer fan. I wasn't into them when a lot of these albums came out. And this one is the one that's always hit me the hardest from their discography. But then Monotheist, you listen to it and, you know, just hearing some of the lyrics from Tom, you just, it resonates, you know, like on the song Ground.
Oh God, why have you forsaken me? When he says that, you could just heal that pain and that anger at the same time. And plus he's Tom, he's a badass. But it's just him though in Trypticon. So that's why for me, and I want to associate it with Celtic Frost because they had to right the wrongs of the previous two albums. They needed to be expunged from their history. They won't be,
because they still exist and we've already done a cold lake thunderdome
matt matt that was me because matt's first two thunder domes were the same two bands both times
i think they were this is horrible carcass and gulfing crust yeah it was rough so um so this one this one came down to a whisker for me and deciding because i love both these albums and i gotta say
I am going to do it to Jay. I'm actually going with bolt thrower because I thought you'd go the other way. It's like when I say a whisker, I mean literally a whisker. John goes both ways. Yeah. I'll be honest. I didn't expect that. When I looked at these albums, I looked at the dates, obviously. And I was like, you know, that mid 2000s, I think we forget how great.
2004 to 2006 were. When you think of all the albums that came out during that period, you've got... And they seem to all be associated with whales for some reason. But you think about it, Macedon, Najira, Opeth had Ghost Reveries. This is from my perspective. It's the top 10 from those three years when I go on Rate Your Music and look, I'm like, holy shit, this was an absolute insane period of so many great albums.
And there's so many great albums below those. But yeah, I went with both. You know what my deciding factor was? This is the honest gut truth. Both are only 40 minutes long. That really was it. That was the... And I can appreciate... For me, Monotheos is not too long, but I can completely appreciate that comment. That was my only reason. But I get it. I don't think... It's a lot to ask of the listener in places. Unless you're like me. Yeah. But if you want to ask me,
which one I rocked too harder. It was Monotheus, without question. I mean, those first opening tracks, I'm just like, man, my neck hurts. I mean, it hurts just moving it anyway. Your metal is old. My metal has got arthritis in it now. But yeah, literally, ask me this tomorrow, and I bet you I say Monotheus. I just want to say that Dave,
was on Honor Valor Pride.
So, for victory was Carl.
I was like, I didn't think it could possibly be anybody, but I had to double check because, yeah, the one album that is not Carl is Honor Valor Pride.
So I looked at this quote because I was like, I remember Tom talking about Celtic Frost and Trypticon and like the continuation.
It doesn't invalidate anybody's points, but I just thought I'd read it because I found it. It was from this Iblis Manifestations podcast that I had listened to. And he said, I formed Trypticon specifically to continue Celtic Frost's path. And of course, Trypticon have continued as Celtic Frost would have. Trypticon is basically Celtic Frost by a different name. I wasn't going to be cheap and call it Celtic Frost without Martin, but it is essentially dot, dot, dot. I'm operating exactly like Celtic Frost.
But the only thing I'll add to that is the key phrase to me there is without Martin. And it may be even that even Tom doesn't agree with me with how big his contribution was. But it just isn't. It can't be. Because... Well, like I said, it doesn't invalidate anybody's point. I just wanted to share the quote that I found. You guys made perfectly great points. It ain't a cheeseburger if it ain't got no cheese. Maybe to make it more concise, at least in my mind, is how I'm thinking about it now after everyone talks about it.
is it's the final album almost says like this is it like the legacy doesn't really continue after this and if you look in terms of continuing the legacy i think trypticon is definitely more within that spirit of continuing that whereas like the only thing you have for both rowers memoriam and it's just that's not really yeah the same you know yeah well but i think in a good way you know in a good way i'll add this last part though too and
And this isn't, it's not an argument or anything. I don't mean it in any negative way. But let's assume Martinane had lived, that they'd stayed together, and then they made that first Trypticon record, and it only was the next Celtic Frost record. It would have been different than what came out. And I wonder what it would have been. It would have probably had a lot of the same songs, but it might have had an extra element to it that we'll never know. And that's why they had to change names.
Are you insinuating saxophone, Joe?
I mean, just the way Cliff Burton and Justice for All would have been a very different record if Cliff was alive.
Yeah, there would actually be bass on it.
It would probably bring...
He would have punched Lars in the face.
Oh, I'd say it would have been different.
Lars wouldn't be in the band anymore.
He would have kicked him out of the band.
Yeah, they were talking about doing that, and then when Cliff died, things changed.
But agree, I mean, they're all valid points. It's interesting. It's all very interesting. But yeah, I mean, you can't go wrong with either of these albums. And so to me, that's a big heart emoji. Well, and that's what makes it a Thunderdome. Yeah. Well, and a great pick by John because it got us really talking about it and exploring like the depths of these records and what they mean to us. So. Every Thunderdome is absolutely going into a bolt thrower, like spiral day of just.
There you go. Yeah. Not too near not too far future. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All right. We have one more thing to do. That is our pick from the crypt. Justin, do you have a pick from the crypt? I do. I do. I don't think anyone's really. It's one of those things where I don't know.
of it because they're not around anymore. I guess it's kind of a befitting transition into this because the band isn't in existence anymore. But this one record, I just feel for the time it came out and what they were doing, I don't know, for some reason it just hits a sweet spot for me. The band is Quo Vadis and the album is Day and Tonight. It came out in like 1999.
Canadian band.
It's.
I think it's really cool listening back.
It.
It harkens a lot of.
Canadian.
Like that kind of the Canadian tech death.
You know.
Of things.
It also kind of mixes with some.
Carcassy style.
Mellow death.
But it doesn't get too.
There's not too much wankery in it.
It's nice.
There's really nice grooves. It's just a really cool mix of things during a very specific time. It's the drummer from Martyr. He's in it. It was his band. Obviously, it has a little bit of progginess in it, too. It's just a really cool, well-rounded record, but it's also simple enough where it's catchy. It's got a little bit of those catchier
I would say almost like carcass-y type of choruses that earworm you and stuff like that. It's just a great record. It's not too long and I don't hear anyone really ever talk about it. It's one of those ones I feel like people should be aware of. Yeah, I'm familiar with this and wow. Yeah. It's funny because we just did 1999 on
Stairway to 11, but this was not on my radar for that. Hunter Killer, if you want to check it, if anyone wants to sample a track, that's a good track to sample. Right on. We had Martyr's Name drop twice in the last two episodes and we hadn't heard it before in any of the episode. That's kind of wild because I talked about them last episode. That's cool. Excellent pick. Thank you. Thanks. Mark us on.
Yeah, my pick from the Crypt is Crescent Shield, The Stars of Never Seen on Cruz del Sur Records. I know them too. So yeah, this is their second record, and it was their final album, and it was my favorite U.S. power metal slash classic heavy metal record of 2009. And they played in the style and spirit of bands like Fate's Warning or Maiden with powerful vocals, epic story-like lyricism from singer Michael
I really like the debut album which was called the last of my kind but this one took the band a step further it's thrashier it's more progressive and it has this track that's nine and a half minutes that's super majestic it's called the endurance and it tells the tale of Ernest Shackleton's doomed 1914 expedition to cross the continent of Antarctica and sadly Grant passed away in
at age 39 and Crescent Shield disbanded. For a while, I held out hope that there would be a third album because the band had demoed eight recordings with Michael singing. And they even said that they wanted to re-record the music with the rest of the band and use Michael's vocal tracks from the demos, but it just hasn't happened.
And so, you know, Crescent Shield is just one of those super talented metal bands that I would have really liked to see grow and evolve over the course of many albums. But tragically, that got cut short. And now I think they're, you know, a bit lost to time. And, you know, fortunately, I have both of their albums on vinyl. So it's nice to revisit their work from time to time. But yeah, Crescent Shield, the stars have never seen.
I don't know why I thought of it I was just flipping through my vinyl I was like oh shit I haven't played this in a while threw it on so great record yeah I remember them cool Matt nice so in my thrash delvings 80s I'm not sure if you have this one on cassette George I want to take you back to 1989 and this one stood out to me a because I liked it but be the it was doing like a shuffle and so this is
kept coming up, which looked like, I mean, I just kept thinking of like Eddie, Iron Manes Eddie, like wearing a British Parliament wig. But the band is Morbid Saint. The album is Spectrum of Death. And it's a 32 minutes of blistering thrash. But I very much enjoyed. So it was a good kind of never heard of this good find for me. Yeah, no, I unfortunately don't have that on cassette. That was probably a little more difficult to find.
in 1989 on Gazette.
Understandable.
But good choice.
They didn't have Gazette manufacturing.
He said 89, not 79.
It's not Venom.
But yes, I'm aware of that, and a good pick.
Thank you.
All right, John.
All right.
So after spending so much time with our two Thunderdome albums, they inspired me to go 180 degrees away from them and listen to something else completely. And I have a running joke that I don't know if any of you remember, maybe George does, because I always have to tell him every year, but I always tell him in December. And I'm doing it earlier this year, that at the end of every year, I get so tired of everything that we listen to.
And I go back to the 80s and do my US power metal. Snuggy. Revisiting. Because I can't do it anymore. I need to go back to the basics. So I did that. And I'm going with the band. We don't really talk about much. And I feel like they kind of get, at least this album, I feel like gets forgotten. Not by us per se, but in general. It's a great fucking album. And they should have been bigger than they were. But my pick is Jag
Panzer Ample Destruction that came out in 1984. Just really good, straight up, powerful, just metal, now called U.S. Power Metal, because they kind of fall in that early sabotage Queensryche, you know, Crimson Glory, Metal Church a little bit, Fate's Morning Sanctuary type sound, and I love all that stuff. And they have got quite the singer and Harry Conklin, if you've never heard him. He's kind of like a restrained John R.
with a little bit lower register. He gets a little high, but he doesn't go crazy. I just love this album. The rest are stuff I have to spend more time with, especially since I like Justin, not Justin, Chris Broderick so much, the guitarist. Doesn't like Justin. I was going to say Justin Broderick, and I'd be like, no, we're not talking about Godflesh or Yesu. So, yeah, Jagpanzer. If you don't know it,
you might want to give it a try if you like some of those bands like Marcus I was just mentioned a little bit later US power metal band type stuff you might you might like this yeah it's cool for sure power metal selections for pick from the crypt wow well US power metal which is different because that's that's our answer to new wave of British heavy metal it's not that it's what happened in the early to mid 80s yeah it's not that sailing on a sea of cheese with the sword and gang singing and the guitar
You know, together on stage and everything, they're all copying the scorpions when they do that. And juice priests to some extent. Yeah, and except too, yeah. Well, except had their balls to the wall, so. Couldn't see them. No. Well, I had to because, you know. They're like looking over their shoulder because like, hey, my balls are on the wall. But I didn't even see him too. He must be as fast as a shark. Give your balls a tug, except. I actually, my original bowling team,
was Balls to the Wall.
Nice.
Very nice.
All right.
Mine is, I was going to go with, and it only occurs to me now that it's also a record that probably wouldn't have fought as hard for votes in John's Thunderdome, but it was what I think is a definitive statement by a band, and it was their final record.
Also has my favorite black metal singer on it.
I'm not going to choose this record, but I'll explain.
But what is I was going to say, Immortal All Shall Fall, because I just love that record, and it kind of came by my vision recently. But then I followed up on Facebook, and he recently posted, hey, do you remember when this came out? And it was I, Between Two Worlds. Oh, yeah. It's such a cool fucking record, dude. And it's got what, Ice Dale from Enslaved is on it, Dude from Gorgoroth is on it. A blip in time. Abath is on it, and I love his voice so much. He's just the definitive black
And yet it's sold in this sort of traditional metal package with the sort of black vocals. If it's a record you haven't heard and you can appreciate either of those genres, I highly suggest you check it out. It's a shame they didn't make another record. That would have been cool. It also occurs to me as I look at the cover, and I never picked up on this before, that it kind of calls to mind Abath's makeup. It does. And I never picked up on it.
because I'm an idiot.
But yeah, I between two worlds.
It's totally worth your time.
If you like any of the people I just mentioned,
call it a traditionally based black metal super group from Norway.
Hell yeah.
Yeah, it's a great record.
Yeah.
Nice.
Very nice.
All right.
So my pick is not based on the news item earlier.
That was coincidental.
It's based on earlier this week. We did a Stairway to 11 episode based in 1999, as I just mentioned. And this was one of my picks from the year of 1999. And I specifically put it on here to piss off Will, who is not here. Alas, he did text and say he wasn't going to be able to make it.
Because this is Creator
and their ninth album, Endorama.
Yeah, okay. Weird choice.
I mean, I understand Will's anger a little bit.
So this was released in 1999, as I said,
and this is probably one of Creator's most reviled albums
by hardcore fans, along with 1992's Renewal.
If you like it, though, don't say reviled, say most misunderstood.
Fair enough.
Or it's their cold lake.
I happen to like both of these albums. Or justify your shitty taste. Exactly. While Renewal was creators attempt to expand their sound into a more industrial vein, probably inspired by early 90s releases by bands like Nine Inch Nails and particularly Ministry, Endorama went into a more gothic direction. It is certainly an odd album out in the creator catalog. And I get why creator fans would not like it based on, you know,
what comes before and after. But taken as a standalone album, I've always thought that it had a lot to offer. I mean, it's still kind of heavy. And it's got some decent hooks on there, too, which is what brought me to it. So, yeah, I mean, is it typical creator? No. But is it a good album? Yeah. Just because it's not what you expect creator to be doesn't mean it's not a good album. So that's my pick.
It's creative, creative, creative, creative, creative, creative, with a K, there you go. With a K. I have to go back a step, by the way, and just say when I was talking about Abath, I forgot to mention that he's a close personal friend of Matt and I. Well, of course he is. Very tight, very tight. Wishing him a happy holidays. We'll see him. We'll see him over Christmas. Uh-huh. Yeah, at his mom's place. A lot of fun. Yeah.
With a nice ham. Honey ham, I hope. Oh. Matt's got the holiday meats. We have to divide our time between him and Matt Pike, and so that'll be Christmas Day. Yeah. Yeah. It's always hard when a family breaks up and you have to visit. It is. All right. Well, that's what I have for my pick. I was hoping Will would be here to brave his arms and be Will.
What does brew metal well say? I think that's you, Matt. Oh. Wow. I need some time to process this. Fair enough. Wow. All right. Can I suggest we bury this course? Yeah, we've under four hours, which surprises me. I thought it would actually go longer.
But here we are. So next time. Thank you, Justin, for coming to join us again. It's always a pleasure. Awesome to see you, Justin. Good seeing you. Yeah, good to see you, sir. Good to see you, buddy. Yeah, same here. And we'll be back next month with our lists. Oh, God. Oh, shit. Praise yourselves. Oh, shit. We're going to put work to be done. Bring the volleyballs. Bring the, what's a Christmas beverage? Pale. I don't know.
Spiced wine,
mulled wine,
maybe.
Oh,
there you go.
Eggnog.
Yeah.
I don't think eggnog and see how long you could last before you vomit.
Yeah.
I like that.
I like that.
Eggnog is going to be the name of my new project.
Christmas death metal.
Nice.
All right.
Well,
thank you everyone.
And we'll see you next month for our list.
Good to see y'all.
Bye boys.
Awesome cast.