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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 is the Podcast Metalheads Podcast.
Hello, and welcome to the Metalheads Podcast.
My name is George.
This here is Jay.
This is Will.
This is John.
This is the situational paradox.
This is Markisan.
And welcome to 2026.
We're bringing in a new year. And with that new year, there's going to be some changes. So this episode is going to be a little stripped down more so than usual until we come up with a solidified plan for this year. But so bear with us. We'll see what we got. How's everybody doing this year so far? We're about to get pummeled with snow. Yeah, I'm the only one not in that mess. So let's hear it. It's going to be awesome.
Can't wait. Good times. Yeah, we're supposed to get, uh, John and I are probably going to get, uh, like somewhere between 7 and 17 inches. Yeah. And then ice. Yes. And then George is getting a lot more. Yeah. Up to 27 inches. So that's like two, two wheels at least. That's crazy, dude. 27 inches. That's like, that's Tahoe weather. I was going to say the skiing, you know, resort. Hey, I live in Truckee and it dropped three,
Yeah, that's crazy, dude. I can't imagine what a mess, if you get that, what a mess it's going to be there. Oh, it's going to be horrible. All right, so we are going to jump directly to new releases. And first up, we have the sixth album from Austrian post-black band Elenda, which is called
I don't know how to pronounce that any of this stuff I did look up Alenda and it said
basically like Ellen with duh at the end so Alenda anyway I don't know what anybody else thinks but this one is
growing on me fast when I first started listening to it as I got another boring lame-ass black metal album
that's same as every other one but the more I listen to it is like okay this is not the same as
other one I've heard.
So.
Well, there's cowbell in it.
So that's interesting.
I didn't notice that, but I got to have more cowbells.
So they had a fever.
Yeah.
No, I thought it was really, it was good atmospheric post black metal.
I think they always incorporate orchestral elements in their music and they do it pretty
well on, on this record.
There's strings, pianos, a fucking cowbell.
Like I mentioned, I feel like I heard an accordion in there.
So I like the double bass drumming on this and I thought the solos are really good on it as well. So I'm with you, George. It's growing on me because the first time I listened to it, I was like, all right, this is interesting. But the more I listened to it, the more you kind of discover what the record. Yeah. So I want to give it some more spins because I feel like it will open up more of its secrets of the universe to me. So I'm definitely going back there. I've never heard of them before. I never listened to it before. So I listened to half of it today. I thought it was all right. I've heard of them. They've been around a while.
Yeah, I mean, I realized that after I looked that up. So I'll get back to it at some point. I'm glad you got the pronunciation because I was calling them a Lende. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I would have said, too. Yeah. I would almost go a Yende. But it's an actual, where are they from? Denmark? I always confuse Denmark and the Netherlands. I think it's Denmark. And it's an actual word that means,
That means something that I don't remember, but I looked it up earlier today. And so it's based on an actual word. And because it's an actual word, they had an actual pronunciation. Well, that's it. This may be obvious, but they're Danish, though. They're from wherever this was. They're Austrian. It is currently Austria. Yeah. Okay. Well, it says currently Austria. Maybe they're from. Well, maybe the word is. Maybe. Well, it says the word is a Dutch noun, meaning misery, wretchedness, great unhappy.
or severe distress.
Maybe they just moved to Austria.
So it is the Netherlands.
Yes.
And I even said they were Austrian, so that's bad on me that I didn't know.
Well, no, it says their country of origin is Austria.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, and Rate Your Music says currently, which whenever I say that makes me wonder if anyone knows anything.
But yeah, I think you're right, Marcus, and I think they're Austria.
I mean, there's bands that are from certain countries, but they use words from, you know, another language for their band or for their songs. Yeah. Album cover is kind of creepy. It is. Oh, yeah. Like the spider leg coming out of the woman's head. It's pretty wild. Yeah. And if you watch it like on, listen to it, watch it on Spotify, it animates and the little spider leg moves. Yeah. So what's so funny is I've been listening and I'm not familiar with him.
So I don't have much to say about it, but as soon as you describe the cover, I knew exactly what album you were talking about. I feel like it should be a Korn album cover. Welcome to the show, Matt. Korn 17. Yeah, welcome, Matt. I love the beard, by the way, Matt. Thank you. Are you growing it out? Probably. We're going to see where it goes. But thank you. It's a winter coat. When the spring comes, it'll start shedding. We're up to six below here.
Snuggy. Yes. I just need to braid it. All right. Next up, we have another questionable pronunciation. I'm going to go with Exul. And their first album, Sealed Into None. They're from Quebec, so they're probably jerks. And it's epic power doom. I'm just picking on Quebec. Don't mind me. There is no data. There is no data. There is only Exul. Only Exul.
That's what I was thinking too. And yeah, I'm not quite sure what to make of this one yet. I didn't get all the way through. I put all of these albums in a list because I was short on time and I just, you know, played the playlist on random. And so I got more of some, less of others. And I didn't really get into this one though. I mean, I feel exactly the way you do again, George, because I listened to this album twice.
and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think it's a pretty interesting blend of doom and power metal and there's some black metal tossed in there. I love the slow crushing tempos. It's got moody synth in it. It's got big airy guitar solos, but I'm less enthused about vocal theatrics. Wow. Yeah. Singer who goes by the name of Stargazer. He's really talented and he, but he's just like a bit over the top for me. Those ear splitting.
high notes. And there's a song where he does a weird laugh that kind of annoyed me too. So I don't know. Most of the tracks also feature gang vocals, which does not appeal to me very much. So I find this album intriguing, but it's probably not something that I'm going to keep spinning, I don't think. Intriguing and annoying. I listened to this thing like five or six times. I kept saying, everyone's saying how great it is. And I like the music. And it's got,
Yeah, so I didn't get any black metal from it personally. I got the whole Epic Doom thing, and I got the whole 80s US power metal thing going on there, and that would explain some of the vocals because, I don't know about you guys, but I got fatigued really quick. It was just too much up in the high registers all the time. And I'm like, man, this is a nice, fast tempo part of the song, and I'm kind of digging this, and then they would kind of then slow it down a little. And I'm like, and you're just still way up there, dude. I need you to come down.
just down a couple cloud levels. It's over sung. It's over sung. Yeah. Because the music is already kind of complex and interesting. It's already epic enough as it is. You don't need to. So I want to like this. I tried. I really did. I feel the same way. I really did. And everyone's just raving about it, how great it is. And if that was an instrumental album, I'd be like, holy shit, I love this thing. And I think I made a joke to George. We all have our issues.
with vocals that we like. And there's still always going to be
someone that you just don't
dig that style, even though it's a style you like.
I don't know.
There's no rational explanation
for what we like sometimes.
Sometimes there is, but sometimes there isn't.
It comes to vocals.
Because there's plenty of harsh vocalists I love,
and then I hear some caveman stuff.
I'm like, I'm out of here.
This is garbage.
I mean, there's even singers who do those
high registers that I like.
A lot, yeah.
Hello, King Diamond. Yes. You know, or Jeff Tate early in his career when he was just way up in the stratosphere. You were like, this guy's badass. Yeah. I think we kind of nailed it because the music's already doing the heavy lifting. You don't need to do it in the house. Well, not all the time, at least. Right. Yeah. So, yeah. But I imagine this is going to show up on a ton of lists because I know so many people who love this album. Yeah. Well, we'll see. Yeah, exactly. I don't know if it's going to end up on a lot of lists here. So.
What do we know? We'll see. Sometimes you listen to something and then you come back to it later. That's a story of my musical life. Yeah. In fact, I'm going to be trying that. Well, I'll come up later. Let's just say that. All right. My third questionable pronunciation of the episode, Fuath. Or I like to go. I never know how to say it. Fuath. Fuath. Matt?
What is the official pronunciation? And their album three, which unsurprisingly is their third album, Scottish Black Metal Band. When I was playing that ye olde playlist today, going through here, this was another one that stood out to me. I've liked these guys in the past. John, I think I'm pretty sure you've liked these guys in the past. It's the dude from Soar. Oh, yeah, that's why it's Scottish. Andy Marshall.
Well, then forget it. I hate these guys. I hate that guy. He sucks. Go to hell. Die. Just kidding. Just kidding. Yeah, this is the more primeval version of Soar. Because there's not as much bulky stuff in it. Yeah. Yeah, well, that's cool. Yeah, it's not raw sounding wise because the production is actually fairly good considering. My Fuath is Soar. I liked it a lot. I mean, it's got that hauntingly harsh but melodic
atmospheric black metal with those wintry cinematics it's a little icy yeah yeah i love that deep cold forest feeling that's on the record i like that seems pretty appropriate right now given that the temperature yeah i like it i like the album artwork that wants to be a dissection album cover but isn't uh it's that that specific style of black metal album cover that uh recalls necro lords uh not not well actually i think he
I think he did the dissection one as well as the emperor one
it's got a frosty look I like that I mean I think all three of the
Fouath albums have been really good
I actually just purchased the first album on cassette
because it was it was it was re-released by Cult of the Moon Records
which is a label that does these super limited tapes
like 50 or so and the label is run by the guy behind Unrequited
which is a band I really like
so I like I've been buying a lot of tapes lately
I don't know why
Don't do it. Don't do it. It seems like this is the perfect band for it too, because there's only like four or five songs on each album. So you're getting like two per side and they're all about 10 minutes long. Yeah. So it's not a ton of music. So, but it's enough that you're not feeling like, oh, great. It's not a Van Halen album where like you're flipping over real fast. Yeah. You know, I tend to get tapes of icy black metal bands. I think it sounds really good on cassette for some reason. That, that, that sound, it just works.
really well on cassette. You don't need a hi-fi system? You don't. It actually enhances it, I think. So I get a lot of black metal on cassette if it's available. It's really funny. All right. Next one. It's time for Will to wake up. Creator, Crushers of the World, their 16th album. Good pronunciation. Unleash it, Will. Unleash it. No, I'll be honest. I mean,
I love Creator. They typically don't disappoint except for like a few of those Cause for Conflict and Endorama that were not so good in the 90s.
Endorama was amazing.
No. All right. Well. But I mean, it's a solid Creator album. It's a little bit sort of, I think this album, the last album were a bit little repetitive. I think they've taken the foot off the gas just a little bit.
I'm thinking back to like Phantom Antichrist and probably my favorite creator album, which is Hordes of Chaos, which is just like just in your face the whole time. But yeah, I mean, it's creator. To me, it's great. It's not their best one, but I really liked it. In fact, just today I got the vinyl in the mail and then I realized I did not have Hordes of Chaos, which is my favorite one on vinyl. So that came along with it from Nuclear Blast.
I have a question for you will about them I have no history with creator and I listened to half of it today because I wanted to make sure at least I heard some of it I'm a little confused by them for one aspect I get they have their classic period and I looked all of it I looked up and I saw what albums are highly rated early on but it seems like the last few albums have a lot of melodic death metal on it am I hearing that because I know a lot of that on this they do so their early albums were almost
like I don't want to say proto is not the right word but they were a little bit more like heavy thrash yeah like heavy thrash almost a little bit blackened a little bit blackened here and there um terrible uncertainty and um uh what is shit uh flag of hate uh that's a song yeah pleasure to kill yeah so the early ones pleasure to kill was awesome yeah and then so they got a little bit like they kind of like found their their niche and like just almost pure thrash metal with extreme
And then like all the ones that followed after that, um, God's violence and enemy of God or something like that from kind of, um, renewal thing about, but then they kind of went like completely downhill with, uh, but most souls of the other one. Did you say that George? No, but the souls is great. Yeah. But, uh, and then they kind of went downhill and then, and then they kind of like, they've been solid ever since, uh, but some are better than others. So yes, you're right, John, this is a little bit more melodic. Okay.
They have some guest vocals on there. I'm not sure who they are. The last album, I think they had a woman singing on it for a little bit. This one they have almost like a black metal guy singing on it for a little bit. I don't know who it is. I didn't look up the credits to see who's on it. But it's Creator. It's great. I love Creator. They typically don't disappoint. I kind of see them like Slayer. Some albums are better than others, but it's not like they are just like, dare I say,
or Megadeth would just put out like complete garbage at some point and just like went mainstream or something like they kind of stuck to the roots they've experimented here and there but they're creator so you're cool that they sorry jay that's why that's one last i won't say anymore i apologize um so they're you're cool with them mixing it up just a little bit because they're still doing their thing but they're adding new stuff with yeah i would just i would just say some of it like i know we'll talk about the Megadeth too but like it's like you can you can you can write 12
just thrashy like blow your blow the doors off the room kind of songs basically yeah like you know or extreme aggression or like all the other chords of chaos um okay so yeah they can do it um but yeah i mean i don't there's no they've definitely had different periods in their time where they've changed their sound which you know i can respect that i mean i don't particularly like the record like the last one i liked was phantom antichrist and that was
Yeah, because that one was I thought that was the sweet spot but john was talking about it mixed thrash with melodic death. So it had that aggressive speed and like hooks galore like it was that was awesome. Yeah, this to me is like, it's got a lot of stadium size riffs and choruses, I guess but it sounds like a really slick nuclear blast arena band like a like an arch enemy or something. Yeah, I would say I don't want to say metal by numbers. I feel like that's a monomarthy
these days and just metal by numbers. But I could kind of see where, I don't want to say they're phoning it in because it's still great. It's just, it's not Phantom Antichrist and it's not Hordes of Chaos, which was two of my favorite albums. It didn't sound as dirty. Yeah, it's definitely not. It's polished. It's super polished. Yeah. Jay, what were you going to say? I'm sorry, I cut you off. Oh, no, that's okay. I mean, I love Creator 2. They've kind of been in this mode for like the last 10 years. So this is, first of all, there's nothing surprising here in truth. And I like
It's just, you gotta remember, A, they're 40, the band is 40 years old at this point. And so they're just kind of one of those bands that's, they're making, I think, what makes, what a bunch of guys who are approaching 60 would probably sound like. I mean, I remember when Creator came out, dude, and like, I remember really well, like, in the tape trader sections and stuff, and Metal Hammer and stuff, like, they showed up and all of a sudden they were ever
where everybody was like you gotta hear this and everybody was like this is probably the heaviest band so far like for a minute their creator was like this is the slayer killer kind of slayer so kind of i mean you know but in any case i like it just i'm just throwing that out there i i kind of made my piece with martyr and creator a little while ago some years ago and i like what they're doing now i think millil petrozza is like a super talented dude oh but i was going to mention though what is funny to me though is i thought will that i had read
some time during the production of this album, which could have been any time in the last two or three years, that it was like, this one's going to be super heavy. So I was surprised that it wasn't some just like, you know, bomb crusher. You know what kind of it is? I think he's just not, he doesn't seem as angry. Like Phantom Antichrist, Hordes of Chaos, he just seemed angry. And now we sort of like, ah, my Metamucil ran out. It's just strange because it just, they've been moving more towards this kind of more
modern sound and it's kind of cheesy you know like places sometimes loyal to the grave or crushers of the world the lyrics it's just a little cheesy to me and that's fine they can do whatever they want i think they're still good musicians it just um it doesn't have that same oomph that the old records have for me no yeah no i i i'm probably the biggest creator fan maybe jay's number two on this podcast and i 100 agree with you but to me it's still
Yeah, like, it's still good. I still love Creator. It's not as good as any other stuff. But yeah, we all have those bands where it doesn't matter what they put out, we're going to like it for something. Yeah. So you're loyal to the grave, just like that. Yeah, that's kind of how I feel about Creator, John. Like, it doesn't matter. They've done enough good stuff for me that they're not going to, like, take a huge left turn. You don't have to like everything. You don't have, yeah. And the pain came out in 85, so it is literally 40 years now as a band. And the funny thing is, we say that.
And there's still going to be a couple songs in the albums you don't like that you still like. Yeah. There just is. There's very few albums from bands that we follow like that where we say this whole thing's like the whole catalog, not the Black Album, Will, where you go four albums in and you crap on the fifth. I'm talking like 16, 17 albums. Yeah. There's always going to be a song or two you like on it. There's very few bands that put a full turn out there. It happens, but not as often. Also, this, like here's every once in a while, they'll throw it.
Destroyer on a record though like the arm off of Gods of Violence which was just years ago there's a song on there called Satan is Real and that yeah well riff it's such a cool song and so they're like that they you know when you're writing 10 12 songs every couple of years but every once in a while they still get right in the pocket like nice that's still a world ending riff to me that is such a cool riff and yeah so I'm always hopeful there'll be one or two of those on the album I mean I had to spin Pleasure to Kill right after this because it was just a little too saccharine
for me, but I'm going to go back and try to listen to it and appreciate it a little bit more. Because I do like that they've kind of changed and evolved their sound. They have not stuck to one thing. That's why I asked that. Because I felt like they've... Because we did a Thunderdome with them, didn't we? A while back? I thought one of their albums was on there. Sure. If it was, it was probably mine. I think so. And I was just like... Oh, no, George did it and it was Endorama versus something else. He did...
I did Endorama, really? No, I thought it was something else. What was the one you liked, the weirdo one? Well, that's Endorama, but... Endorama and Call of the Calls were the two really weird ones. But it was sort of like, you know, like when it was sort of like, this is way out of... I mean, I could see me being a dick like that, but... Guys, well, I consulted. Yeah, what's a spreadsheet? I've consulted the spreadsheet. It was George.
that came up with this. And what was it? Creator Extreme Aggression versus Coroner No More Color. That's what I thought. That's what I thought. Because I remember it being a good... because I liked it, what I heard. Yeah, Extreme Aggression is about us. There was a documentary about episode 120. Yeah, it wasn't a Coroner, but I remember that one a lot. They released a documentary, I think, that goes through endless pain. It's talking about the extreme early days of the... Did anybody watch that by any chance? No.
And I would if I knew about it. I'll see if I can find it. It's like it came out and it was supposed to just cover I think the first two albums and like the chaos around making them and everything. Let me see if I can find it. Well, while you're doing that, let me just throw in my two cents. I like the album. I do think that like using K for Crushers and just Crushers of the World in general is super cheese. But I did really like the album.
up until about the 80% point or so. And then I was like, okay, I'm getting fatigued because this all sounds the same. That's fair. But I liked it. I liked it up until then. Yeah. Up until then, I was like, it's good. But it just, I was like, am I listening to this? Is this stuck on repeat? It sounds the same. Well, you know, I would say Death Scream is one of the better ones. Song number nine. Yeah, that is a good one. You know, okay, so breaking news.
It's not about the first two things, not first two else, but it's called Creator, Hate, and Hope. And it says, to their fans worldwide, they are gods, but their music seems possessed by blah, blah, blah. And it's about the 40-year anniversary of the band and the history of the band. And it's got all kinds of people in it, like Chuck Billy and Scott Ian and Phil Demo and blah, blah, blah. I don't know where to find it. Okay. It's probably the most creator talk we've ever done at one specific period of time. Yeah.
Creating a lot of creator talk. That's content creation. Indeed. All right, well, let's move on to the next one then. That will not garner nearly as much discussion, I'm sure. Litchgate, their fourth album, Precipice, UK Avant Black Doom Band. I feel like Marcason mentioned these guys in the last episode or the one before that.
perhaps. No? Maybe it was John then. I don't know. Somebody mentioned it. It was on New Music Friday. Yeah. Well, anyway. I think that's what I talked about it. Yeah, this is... I don't know. I don't remember. Of all the new releases, this is probably my least favorite. I thought the music's good. I'm not a big fan of the vocals. They just don't gel with the music for me. I feel the opposite. It's funny because it's Greg Chandler from Esoteric during the vocals, but he's like more throaty and raspy on this.
And I wouldn't even know it was him. I wouldn't have guessed that if I didn't know. But yeah, it's kind of chaotic. It's discordant. A lot of shifts. There's jazz. There's like maybe organ in there. I don't even know. But I'm not really a fan of that kind of metal with all the shifts and everything. I've liked some of the earlier stuff, I recall. But hmm. Yeah, I spun it when it came out, I guess, because I had nothing else to listen to.
I was like that's all right but I haven't gone back to it yeah I just put it on here
because I thought somebody liked it and we didn't really cover it because it was like an end of the year kind of thing so all right well let's get into that Megadeth then their 17th and final album self-titled um I've given this one spin so far with a couple of rewinds um overall I like it yeah I wouldn't say
I'm jumping up and down doing cartwheels over it. But I have only listened to it once, so that could change. I think I like it better than the last few albums. I say that most of the time with them. I actually liked the I Don't Care song better in the context of the album than I did when I heard it alone. Interesting. I was like, it's passable. Tipping Point is good. I like Tipping Point.
a good kickoff track. And I Don't Care was all right. I was a little about the song, something about God. Where are you, Dave? Hey, God. Yeah, I was like, but it was okay, though. Let There Be Shred was all right. Puppet Parade. Another bad day. Middle of the road stuff.
Made to Kill, that one didn't make an impression. Obey the Call was a little different. I was okay with that. I am more. And not surprisingly, the last note, Dave does like to put in some interesting album closers. I want to mention, what was the one on Euthanasia? Victory? Oh, I think so.
Yeah, it's good. I mean, I like it. Yeah, it's a good song. But where he's sort of like recapping things and talking about stuff. Yes. And that's what this is. And it's sort of a recap for the career. Talking about, you know, coming to the end of the road and playing the last note and the last show and everything. And so I got a little bit of feels, even though it was a little cocky of a song, but I was okay with that. And then, of course, I'm sure we'll talk about more of the last song.
Ride the Lightning, Megadeth, Dave's cover of the classic Metallica song, which he apparently had some input on when it was first written. He's got credit, doesn't he? Yeah. He's credited on that. Look, two or three things on Ride the Lightning, that, maybe Call of Cthulhu, I think he's actually credited on that. Yeah, he's on that too. I can't remember. There might be one other one. He's got songs on the first two albums he's credited with. Yeah, Wolf of Horseman would be the other one.
And off the first record. The song Fuel? I think he wrote part of that one. Give me Fuel, give me Thaw, give me that which I desire. Those lyrics definitely drop. I'm sad that I know the lyrics to that, to be honest with you. That was hard to miss when it's been on the radio thousands of times, Marcus. Thank you, John. In your lifetime, I'm saying. I appreciate you making me feel better about that.
Trust me, it's easy to remember. And we were talking before the episode, it's fine. And I was saying that, you know, Dave's version of Ride the Lightning is technically competent, but to me sort of lacks the enthusiasm and raw, you know, emotion and power that Ride the Lightning had back in the day.
I do feel that listening to this song with Dave, it makes sense stylistically. Because if you listen to Metallica and you listen to Megadeth throughout the years, those are two similar in that they're heavy and vastly different in the style of writing and just the overall feel of the songs. You know, Metallica has a very much more smooth flow to their songs where Megadeth is a bit more jerky.
and rhythmically challenging perhaps and hearing chuggy chuggy and in hearing Dave sing it I'm like this makes sense for Dave even though this isn't as good as the original I could see like maybe his input to the song and how that made the song but James still kills it better
I'm not saying this is an essential element because people further on in their careers and lives can do very great things but he's competing with youthful Metallica there too which is a problem and which is a problem with any band I mean once the youth factor is gone it's it's a different show and there's just something about the youth factor in heavy metal that just makes it that brings this
like out of control edge to a lot of that early stuff even like that includes dave i mean like just look at how different the first record is to the last record you know and and that's which is interesting to me too because i i think they should go as long as they want but i feel like with dave he might have stayed at the party maybe two albums too long here to be honest with you i mean like like i mean not it's his choice and he should do what he wants to with his life but there's just that's not going to be
with energy, you know?
But again, it's still technically proficient.
The guitars and stuff sound really nice.
Not raw, but well done.
And as interpreted by him, you can see that he had a hand in writing it.
It suddenly sounds like something he wrote.
Yes, exactly.
That's what I was trying to say, and I guess failed to say,
was that it sounds like a song that Dave would have written.
Written, yeah.
And in this context.
Which I guess is kind of true about
Mechanics versus Four Horsemen 2.
You know, I think
you're sort of like, oh, well, this is what it would sound like
maybe if
if Dave had been in the band.
You could see how it would be a different band, by the way.
Metallica would have been a different band if he'd stayed there.
Yeah, like the song that this made me think of
was Jump in the Fire.
That's totally a Dave riff.
And, you know, a Megadeth
styled song.
It doesn't sound like something
that James and crew would have done. He clearly has a fingerprint
in that song.
That's interesting. So it's kind of cool he did this interpretation because now you can
kind of see it only points out those vast differences between those two bands.
Yeah, the vast difference.
The vast difference.
Anyway, what else?
What does everybody else have to say?
Anybody got something?
Go ahead, Will.
I'll go after you guys. Yeah, go ahead. So I take a little different take on his Ride the Lightning. I don't want to say cover because he helped write the song, but I was really hoping for like this, like pissed off Dave Mustaine, like you motherfuckers, I wrote this song and you made millions off it. So here I am, I'm going to do it pissed off and angry and faster and better. And then I listen to it. I'm like,
Were you on Xanax? Were you on Xanax when you wrote this? I got the same impression. The way he was talking it up, he's like, I hope you guys like my interpretation. And I'm like, it's a pretty literal note for note interpretation. Right, but it has no oomph. But it has no oomph. I'm like, yeah, it's like, okay. Like I said, you're on Xanax. I really dislike it. I was super disappointed. And I would have been better off not hearing it.
What about the rest of the album? I think you raise an interesting point, though, Will, because his name is on there, on those Metallica records, so he certainly has gotten royalty checks for those. Yeah, that's why it's not pissed off. I don't know. It just felt like I wanted to hear him, like, here's my revenge, motherfuckers. I'm going to write this. I'm going to do this song again, and I'm going to do it the way I want. Oh, wait. I guess I can do it the way he wants. I agree with you, though, Will, but see, what I would,
What I would have wanted is say
for Dave to be like, I wrote
these riffs for Metallica and give you a
brand new song that was really
pissed off. That was stuff
from Metallica. This could have been in Metallica
instead of like just
playing a song that they've already had
in their catalog. I would have liked that
better. Yeah. So I don't think
that's a good note to go off on the
Metallica thing. You should go out on your
your fucking shield, like
write a new song. Like here's some riffs from back
in the time that
That would have been a metallic if I had stayed. That would have been fucking cool to me. No, by killing is my business. I'm sure those are all on there. Yeah, or like that. Like, if you're going to go out on a Metallica song, do it better than Metallica. Yeah. I don't know. Like, this is just, like, completely phoned in and, like, I did not. So here's my theory on this song. I think this is a long game play. So on the surface, he's like, I wanted to put my touch
on this song that I helped write all those years ago. But if you listen to what he's been saying, first of all, the final tour for the final album, and he's been saying, you know, it would be great. It would be more than great. It would be freaking phenomenal if we did a Metallica Megadeth tour to end this thing. And this song is the gateway that he's hoping to get. He's like, if I do this song, we have a reason to A, if we're on tour together, play together.
at the end of the night to do this song. And this is like, this is teeing that up so that he can have that if he can get Metallica to play ball. They can't blame Lars when they don't. They can blame Lars when it doesn't happen. You know what's funny? After you just said that, I'm like, I don't know if I want to hear that either because the way Metallica now, modern Metallica sings the old song, it's like nails on a chalkboard to me. And then add Dave's version of this, I'm like, this is going to be the worst song ever. I'm like,
You're gonna have like a duet of Dave and yeah yeah! And then... What do you mean yeah? What do you mean I don't write on lightning? He was there at their 30th anniversary thing and played with them. I don't recall how well that went. I don't remember what they did. You know what I'm talking about? They did the Fillmore thing. Oh yeah. He came out and played a couple songs with them. I'm sure they were all things off the first record probably. Or the first two.
And obviously the time has passed even since then. So yeah. I think George has a good theory there. I could see him. Yeah. I don't think they'll do it though. I don't think that they're going to want to play with him. I don't either. Yeah. I wish they would. I would go see that. I mean who wouldn't? Other than Will. But I mean to have Metallica and Dave on the same stage I'd go to see that. That hasn't you know that's that's like the biggest freaking
come back, you know, show ever. Two songs and I'm out. That's all they're going to do with each other, man. I left after them. I'm kidding. We probably play them last though. So you'd have to wait for it, Matt. Yeah. I think he's kind of over it and it's not up to me to say so, but I get the impression that he's not completely as angry as he used to be. But I always was, always thought, what's, what's your problem, dude? Not only did you left, okay, or you got kicked out,
and that's terrible and everything. But then look what you did. You went and made millions of dollars in this well-respected metal band that a lot of people love. You did great, man. This is why I think that Metallica won't play ball because they're like, we're not going to give you this. You know, this Metallica doesn't need this. You need this. And here's the thing with what Jay said, too, is that, yeah, he went and started his own band. That's a well-respected metal band. And he stayed metal where Metallica did not.
So I do respect him. Risk is at the door and I have something to say about that. Okay, fine. But I will say this. I think, you know, and I guess we all probably feel this way to a certain extent, but man, Rust in Peace, you can put it up against any Metallica record, really, you know? That and Peace Sells, I think, are the two that you could, that could battle each other. And you choose. Rust in Peace is a pretty definitive statement. There's really no dead space on that record. The funny thing is, both bands,
The First Four Albums are the ones that I like the most in their whole catalogs, you know? And remind me, did Rest in Peace come out more or less the same year as the Black Album, or was it before that? No, it came out in 90. So it was one year before. One year before it. Because I was just trying to think around. It's right around Justice for All. Yeah. And Justice for All, okay. And honestly, I think it's way better than Justice for All. It came out, well, yeah, but here's the thing, it came out in 90, and then the Black Album comes out, and then they release Countdown to Extinction,
which basically it's obvious
that the Black Album influenced that sound
because it's really polished down big time.
I mean, you're just like, it's good.
I like it.
There's a couple tracks on that are great,
but Euthanasia is really good too.
Yeah, I mean, but you could hear where
they were glomming onto that sound
that Metallica had with the Black Album.
But that may or may not have been Dave.
That might have been labels pushing that.
Sure, of course. I understand that. Yeah. Yeah, Countdown was my first Megadeth album. I think Go to Hell was my first Megadeth song. Really? Go to Hell? Really off of a Black album. You got to own your dad. I still love Go to Hell, though. I didn't even know. I knew of Megadeth. I probably was seeing posters or advertisements for Rust in Peace. And so I listened. I'm like, okay, I like this. His voice is a little weird, but I like this. Countdown came out.
But for me, I never really latched on to Megadeth. But I've definitely been curious. I've been following Megadeth Curious. I've seen them live when I've had the chance. Yep, Megadeth Curious. It's the vocals for me. I've never been a Megadeth fan. I actually like his vocals now better because they're huskier than they were in their early days. They're better now than they were, without question. He kind of tried to go slightly melodic on, was it Obey the Call? Yeah. He's like, I can sort of almost sing.
Well, I just, I feel like his vocals, if you close your eyes, it fits his personality. Yeah. I think to me, that's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's not a good singer. No, Bob Dylan's not a good singer either, though, but he's freaking amazing. You know, I, I, once you've gotten used to Dave's voice, which I did 40 years ago, um, it's, it's a, it's, it's a, uh, an acquired taste and I'm okay with that.
The thing is, if you go back to those first few albums, not Rest in Peace, but the first three, those vocals match the anger on those songs. I mean, come on, Peace Sells. When he says, the joke, we always joke, what do you mean? You can't sing that like, yeah, what do you mean? That's not going to work. He has to be that nasally pissed off. And that's why James's voice works on the early Metallica albums and Dave's voice works on the early Megadeth albums.
I had to comment because it's funny. Just, I think it was yesterday, it may have been today, I'm driving the car to kids and I'm pretty sure we were listening to Ozzy's Boneyard on Sirius XM and Peace Cells comes on. And it was either that or I was listening to a new album on the Bluetooth in the car. Regardless, it was Megadeth. And I was telling the kids about Megadeth and I was like, well, this guy used to be in Metallica and then he got kicked out and all this stuff.
And then my son just deadpan goes, yeah, I don't really like his vocals. Just deadpan. I'm like, oh, okay. You know, we've had numerous people on the pod who Megadeth has come up from, you know, time to time. And I can think of at least, no, I can't remember who they were, but I'm sure at least three times we've had people say, yeah, I couldn't get into them. I never liked his voice. I mean, it's a common sentence. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And it held me back for a long time.
I couldn't get over it. I didn't get into them until post-2000. And I don't mean because of the records post-2000. I just didn't really pay any attention. It's funny. Something clicked and I got it. Were you a fan of punk at all, Jay? Because they've covered a lot of punk songs. Well, specifically Sex Pistols. I wasn't a huge punk guy. Yeah, they did also Problems. But you listen to that and you're like, okay, his vocals really matched that punky sound. And they had more of a punk vibe early on.
He kind of talks and lectures more than he sings.
Yeah, it's true. He's a talker. He's not a singer. Yeah, you're right.
I don't know if you remember this, but he also used to, and this was before I liked them, he used to cover the Democratic National Convention for MTV and stuff like that.
As they played his song, remember they used to use the beginning of Peace Cells on MTV all the time for every break-in for the news, yeah.
They did. But I also remember thinking, he's a pretty smart guy.
Like, at that time, he seemed like one of those guys in metal that was actually not like a drooling idiot, you know? And I, and not only that, I mean, now he, now he's a little, I think he's a little Christian nationalist-y thing or whatever he is. He's not, though. He, he, he was, I just read something where he was like, I believe in God, but I am not this MAGA bullshit. Yeah. Well, I'm not the MAGA thing. I, well, in any case, he was born again at some point and that, you know. Well, even, even, uh, Hey, God,
is a little bit questioning. I mean, I don't question his faith, of course. He's always questioned, though. That's always been his MO for his lyrics. But yeah, but it's not a, and this is why I was okay with the song. It was not a, hey, God, you're the best, man. I want to cuddle up with you and be like, not metal. No, it was more of a, hey, God, what the hell? Actually, it was kind of like, so this is what this is. Sorry, go ahead. Well, only this. I just wanted to say that's fair. And you know what? I feel,
a little bit about actually, George. That's a good point. I shouldn't just, just because he's talks about himself as a Christian person. I shouldn't assume he's the lamest version of that. Right. Right. You know, there's, I've never heard him talk about it that much. Right. There are people that are Christians and then there are Christian white nationalists, which is a very different beast. And he's apparently not one of those. I felt like the whole album was just a retrospective of his life. Like there's a song about him being drunk, doing drugs. There's a song about like, Hey,
God, like, I believe in you now, but where were you in the first, like, 40 years of my life? When I got kicked out of my talk. Yeah, like, when I was a complete dipshit. Like, hey, and then, you know, the song Shred is all about him picking up the guitar for the first time. Like, I feel like the whole album is just, like, very introspective. Yeah, it's an introspective. The music almost sounds like that a little bit, too. I feel like there's bits and pieces from all throughout his career. Okay, yeah, I just got interested all of a sudden. That's a really good one. It's not a bad album at all. I think we were saying this earlier. It's not.
I just don't feel like I want to go back to it that much. Yeah, I feel like it's it's it's there's a little bit too much mid-paced stuff. Yes, or slower stuff. And I want more of the mix it up like a song shred. Like I want I want peace sells again. That's what I want. Well, yeah, it's no rust in peace. But but, you know, it's still a reasonable album. If song comes on, I'm going to listen to it. I'm like, yeah, right. It's not like it's risk. I don't listen to bits and pieces, though. And I will say this. I thought the production.
was a little crisp. Sanitized. Sanitized, yeah. And I say that because one of the records that we've all, that has comes up as maybe one of his later better records is United Abominations. And that didn't sound like that at all to me. Well, that and Endgame don't have that. And those are the ones that I like. I love Endgame. Yep, exactly. Yeah, and this one sounded just a little, I know there's an awful lot of space in there that could have been filled with something.
It's just I don't know what it was. Matt, I feel like Matt had something to say. Oh, I was just... Because he doesn't talk much, so we've got to get him in. No, I don't. But I have to get my word count in tonight. Otherwise, I don't get paid. You still don't get paid. You're not getting paid. I'm going to say this out loud. As I'm thinking in my head, it probably sounds like fake news, but I feel like I've read that he got Rod and Christ kicked off of a bill once. He did. He did, yeah. And that pissed me off. Yeah.
Was it a festival thing? I remember that. It was. I'm pretty sure it was a festival in Greece, because that's why they would be on the same bill. Yeah. Which is so funny, George, because you met him and said he couldn't have been any nicer to you. And I was laughing watching you, like, thinking, oh, man, this could go south or it could be great. He was nice, yeah. You're like, he was super nice. Did you like my beer? You don't believe it, God. I don't think the album's that good, but I also don't hate it.
because I found myself putting it on and preparing myself to turn it off soon in horror. But I ended up listening to the whole thing. It was okay. It was all right. It's not embarrassment. It's a fine sendoff record. Absolutely. You can have a much worse final album than this. So then I'm in camp well with this. We all feel at that. And it makes me then say, damn it, it could have been a little better. Yeah, it could have been. It could have been a little more oomph. But it can't. It can't get any better.
This is it for him. No, no. What I'm saying is he could have... Because he's more than capable. He's got incredible musicians in the band. And I feel like he always holds back his musicians all the time. So he could be front and center. Maybe it was... You know, I will say this. The records got consistently worse after those Lomenzo brothers left. They were on United Abominations and the one after that. Those dudes were pretty good. I think one of them was the drummer and one was... Mace? No, that was the Drover brothers. Oh.
Oh, yeah. And Glennon, what? Sean? Sean, yeah. They must have brought a little something extra to the table because they were on those records we were just talking about that we liked. Yeah, we had Chris. He had Chris Broderick on guitar who's an absolute shred master. He's a great guitar player and Endgame was great and then he brings them back in. He had the guy from Angra, that guy Kiko. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Who might even be better than all those guys as a player and he...
But he pulls those guys back after a while. So Will, you don't get that stuff because it starts out, he's going to do it, and then he drops back down again. What were the albums that Chris Poland came back for? Not Chris Poland. He did. He came back, I think, was it? Who was the original basis? Oh, it was The System Has Failed. He came back for that one. And then he got busted for like Child Porn or something. Oh, was that Chris Poland? No, not Chris Poland.
Yeah, it wasn't porn. Well, his porn. Yeah, it was something weird. And then Dave was like, no. He wanked it on camera. Yeah, I forget. Whatever he did. It was his version of OnlyFans without being OnlyFans. And then he found Jesus, too. But, you know, we're circling something that's probably one of the reasons this record doesn't have the oomph that we're talking about, which is Dave's been living off of hired hands for the last however many years. He switches them out a lot. None of them can be that
because it's just a pretty mediocre paycheck for him and he doesn't let them do anything he's not going to let them do so he's not really in a band anymore i mean he's he's more like a band leader it's a vanity project yeah but he's had such great he's he's never been afraid to bring a great guitarist into the band that's just as good if not better than him because dave's a good player that's good but they always outshine him and then he starts reining him in and it's like damn it these guys are great players let them go
Let them shred Marty should have come back I mean Marty shouldn't come back because you know he was treated poorly but uh bringing Marty back he's talked about it though I know yeah but like making an appearance on the tour well he they did a thing together what a couple songs didn't they live oh yeah it was in Japan when they went to Japan but then Marty kept hinting about it a little bit I was like whoa this might be something so here's the I watched that Japanese stuff and the interesting thing
about it. Not the musical part, but they did an interview with them backstage. And I don't even think Marty was at the interviews. But everybody in the band sat on one couch and Dave sat on another couch. And it was like so illustrative of like what that band is all about. So there's two tour buses. Kind of, dude. And they would ask questions and they would all just look over to the other couch like... Can I answer this one, Dave? It was kind of a don't speak unless spoken to type deal.
And it really just seemed like, I mean, it wasn't, I'm sure he's not an abusive idiot or something, but it's just, they are very clearly hired, not well-paid hired hands. Yeah. I got, I got two more things to say about this album is one, because I do feel it's a, it's a very much a retrospective of his life. If you look at all the lyrics and all the songs and all that stuff, I just feel like it's like, here's the story of my life. And as much as that guy'd been through, I feel like he should have been more pissed off. But I mean, to his credit,
he seems like I'm at peace with it now. And when you're at peace with it, it just doesn't seem like it makes a very good metal record. Maybe that's why he's bowing out now. Yeah. And the other thing I would say is you guys probably all got the email from Decibel about buying the from Black to Black the vinyl. I bought it. So I did too. I wanted the middle fingers to move. Exactly. So on this vinyl record that their Black to Black is the record company.
I got you. I got you. I got your money. I'll be honest. I thought about
And I'm even a Megadeth fan. And I thought about it again. I was like, what am I doing? I don't want this. I want that. And it's funny because I got the email too, which is, you know, it's good marketing on Decibel's part. And I got the email and I looked at him like, I don't buy Vital anymore, but I'm going to buy that. Is it like a hologram or one piece of history? Yeah, like one of those hologram things, yeah. And like all around the outside is Vic and he's just going, eh. That's pretty cool.
I got a text from James, Disciple James, unrelated thing. But I was like, no to your question, but hell yes to buying that Megadeth thing because of the link you guys sent me. And he was like, oh, that's awesome. I'm going to let the marketing guys know that it worked. I'm surprised more people don't do that. I have the 2112 one that has the pentagrams on it. And it's pretty cool to look at.
I would have thought there would be a lot of special issue things like that. But anyway, I have to say that sounds pretty cool to me. It is. I'm surprised you don't have it. Dave won again. He got tons of talk out of us. Indeed. I want to mention one last thing is the outro to the last note. It's to me, it's like it's a Dave send off. It's also a Dave FU.
The words, if I may quote the outro, they gave me gold, they gave me a name, but every deal was signed in blood and flames. Obviously, he's ripping on the record labels and he's saying, yeah, you know, I got this life that I have now and I'm famous and well-known, but, you know, those deals were pretty crap. And then he goes on to say, so here's my last will, my final testament, my sneer.
I came. I ruled. Now I disappear. Good for him. It's cool. It's also a little cockier than I want to accept from him. To say goodbye, yeah. Maybe he's not going away all together just yet. He doesn't want to disappear. He wants to be on the Metallica tour. Right. So that's my next question is, he's committing pretty hard in the press and in his lyrics to being done. Is he really done?
Is this a kiss done? Is this an Ozzy done? What is this? A Slayer done. He's already talked about recording more stuff. Has he? It's going to happen. Yeah. I just read this and he was saying lots of exciting stuff coming down the pike or something like that that he was talking about. Well, if he does another album, he's got to call it Megadeth 2. I hear he might have been talking about working with other artists or something. Well, Jay,
I hear he's in active talks with a children's choir. We can look forward to that. It's going to be on the new Behemoth album. What? Oh, that wouldn't work. He's a Satanist. Yeah, but that's what's so strange about it. That would be the situation where it did work. You know, where they did get along. Because they're so opposite of each other. It would be like the religious ebony and ivory. It would be the Paul McCartney and... I'm a little big God.
A Little Bit Satan. Stevie Wonder. Who is it? Stevie Wonder? He did the Do It With? Yeah. Wow. All right. That's a lot about an album. That's just okay. I don't think we ever talked about an album this long. And now... We didn't really talk about the album. That's true. Yeah, we only talked about a song. We talked about the album. And so who's the poor bastard that has to follow this? Oh. The Ruins of Beverast and their seventh album.
Tempelschlaf, German Black Doom. This band intrigues me. When they first came out, I didn't think much of them. And then we saw them at MDF, or I saw them at MDF. And I was like, huh, that's not quite what I thought it was. So I went back and revisited it a couple albums ago. And I was like, wow, this is doomier than I thought. And now this is very doomy.
I've only been through this album close to twice now. It's, I like it, but it's not grabbing me a lot. And I was listening to it again today and I was like, man, these vocals remind me of somebody. And I, I think it was Peter Steele, you know, deep typo negative E type stuff. But I swear there was something else that it reminded me of. And I don't know if anybody else has.
any thoughts if anybody else listened to it? I have. Strangely enough, the name sounded familiar, so I thought, you know, I don't think I've ever spent time with this band, so I'm going to check it out. And I remember liking it, but I feel like I want to give it some more time. Yeah. I've liked previous releases when I went back and gave them a second chance. I was like, oh, this is actually pretty good. I checked it out, too. And I never got into them. I've listened to
a few of their albums. Every time they come out, I listen to it because everyone talks them up so much. And I got the Doomy part, but I got a lot of gothic stuff going on this one. And maybe that's why you're getting the Peter Steele vocals. Yeah. I actually like Googled in the AI mode. I was like, hey, I'm listening to this Ruins of Pepperast album, Temple Schlaf. And it reminds me of some other vocalist. Who am I thinking of? And it immediately came back with Peter Steele. And I was like,
Yeah, but I don't think that's quite what I'm thinking. Right. So. I mean, I feel the same way. This band doesn't really do much for me. They get a lot of praise. People are really into this band. So it always, that kind of intrigues me. Like, all right, yeah, I got to check this out. Maybe this is the time. I mean, they were pretty cool live, so it could be that. Could be a live thing. And sometimes that can help because, I mean, there have been bands that have played live and I listen to them or you guys listen to them and you're like, oh, I think I'm going to be a live thing.
I understand. That's a little bit better. And you go back to the album. That happens all the time, I think. Yeah. I don't feel it with this band. I don't know. Because it seems like it's kind of up my alley. Although I'm not super into the goth stuff. Maybe that's part of the reason I don't like this album as much. Because I don't like a lot of goth. But yeah. I might play it a couple more times just to see. But I don't think it's something that I'm going to be spinning a ton. I didn't dislike it. It didn't grab me enough, I thought. Exactly. I feel the same way. There were moments I thought
were really cool. Could be a grower. We'll see. Yeah. And after a while, I was like, I could just go back and listen to this again. So, and that's no disrespect to it. It just wasn't grabbing me. All right. Let's move on to our final new release from the far weft. I mean, this is the band weft and their first album, his first album, the splintered ore.
This is Charlie Anderson, who is a Panopticon alum, and his atmospheric folk and black metal album was album of the month for several of us in December. Not that there were a lot of options, but this is a cool album, I think. I mean, if you're in the Panopticon camp, you're going to like this. Yeah, definitely. But it's even more than that, though, I think.
There's a lot. There's a progressive element to it. I read a review. It's certainly different than Panopticon. But I mean, it's still also in the same vein. Same universe, same umbrella. Same Marvel universe. Yeah, we're all in the same universe. Well, we think we are. I read a review somebody put on Rate Your Music. And when I, because I was looking for an album and I was struggling. Unbeknownst to me, it was in the box for like a gazillion years. I didn't know it, which kind of pissed me off.
I told Marc-a-san, I was like, I can't even keep track of what we get. And I don't even put them in there. In fairness, I told John, I put a lot of stuff in the box usually. You know what it is? I look at all the titles. If nothing registers, I'm like, next, next, next. And I don't go back. So it's my fault because it would have definitely made my year-end list. I love this album. But the review I read was on Rate Your Music, somebody referred to it as having a morning rise, Opeth,
I actually put it in the box for you because I didn't really I don't really care for the
I think the musicianship is really good and it's interesting but it's just not it's not
something in my wheelhouse that I that I like but that's why I put in the box I thought maybe you'd
respond to it but maybe when I put stuff in the box I'm gonna be like hey make sure you listen to
this make sure you listen to each one of you guys you know what you said that very diplomatically so I
want to give you credit for that but that was great because it was sort of like I was sort of like this
sucks maybe John will like no I don't think it sucks I just no I don't think it sucks at all
You said it very well and I understood your intent, but I just, I like my version of it. I think subfolders just put like, you know, how, you know what music we like, like put all the death metal stuff in my folder, progressive stuff in John's folder. It doesn't work for everybody. Put all the dissonant, weird, black, gay stuff in your, a Marcosan and Matt's folder. And then anything dealing with Johnny Depp, just put right in J's. Or maybe you could just listen to everything that's
in the folder. Just preview it. Yeah. No, the funny thing is I got a write-up on it, too. And I was like, son of a bitch, I missed this one. I just, it slipped to the cracks for me. So. That's what I do. When I get stuff in the box, the promos, I try to preview everything. And there's a lot of stuff I don't like, but I'll try to think about you guys. Like, maybe they would be into this. And that's what I, and I throw it in. Oh, for sure. Do you know how many, so I don't get as much as you and George, but I do get, I get promos also. And I, and I,
I immediately go, because it's the same write-up, so I'm sure we're seeing the same PR stuff. And I go right to the bottom to see how they describe the band and who it's going to be fans of. And if I see that, I'm like, okay, I know these guys will like this, but half the time I'm like, oh, God, really? I'm not going to like this. And then other times I found gems that made my list, but there's so much that comes in that after a while you're like, I can't go through all of it.
It just happens.
It just happens.
It's true about life.
It's just too much.
I mean, it happens to me too.
Even when I get the promos and I preview it, I'm like, "Oh, I think I'm going
to like that."
And then I forget to go back and listen to the whole thing through.
Yeah.
You know, that's happened to me a few times, even though I've already saved it.
But you get overwhelmed by metal.
It's just too much.
So, I think it's a really, if you're a Panopticon fan and you like that Panopticon universe,
This is not necessarily straight on Panopticon at all. But it falls in that realm. And I think actually Austin plays drums on this, doesn't he? I think he's on it. Yeah, I think so. We're kind of at the end of new releases, right? We are at the end of new releases. I'm going to throw out, not a news item, I know we're not necessarily doing news, but it is news and it's worth mentioning.
But Herman Buchholz died from the Scorpio. Oh shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. And he was, so this is the guy would have been around for like Love Drive, Blackout, you know, really their most metal stuff. Love It First Sting. Love It First Sting. He was there in the 80s, big moment, you know, and before that too. I mean, late 70s. So too bad. I guess he had cancer. He hasn't been in the band for quite a few years. He's sort of like Herman Rarewell in that way that he was there for the biggest day.
and then took his paycheck and retired. But yeah, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, I didn't know that. That's too bad. Yeah, I think he was 70 blah blah blah years old. 70 enough. They did not detail what cancer it was, but died after a battle with cancer. Fucking cancer. Fuck cancer, am I right? Yeah. Sorry for taking a stand there. I like that. I think we've had enough.
It's time for you to leave. We've seen enough. Yeah. We're going to keep Dave and fuck cancer. Cancer can retire now. Fuck you. All right. All right. Now we are going to move on to what we are listening to.
What a great soul
Mark us on.
Oh shit.
I got a long list.
Hold on.
I got a swig.
Wet the whistle before you start.
Yeah.
Okay.
So the first thing I'm going to mention isn't even an album.
It's a 12 part enslaved documentary called Heim Vegan, which came out a few years ago,
but it wasn't widely available here in the state so i never saw it but enslaved recently put all 12 parts up on their app which i've been enjoying since they started that so i don't know if you guys have looked at the app i feel like i've mentioned it before but it has a lot of cool stuff on it is this the documentary that they were previewing it at decibel that we saw part of that never came out i think so it's long like 12 parts and you know it could be like a half hour to an hour for each part
So, but the app that they do, they created their own app. And you can get tickets on there. The band members do updates. They do playthroughs and they have other fun videos on there. Grudel showcases albums he loved. And ice fishing. He's not in the band anymore. The drummer. Oh. Yeah, he was the ice fisher. Well, so is Grudel. No, I know. But the former drummer actually does like a ride
up has like a spot in a magazine like a fishing angler magazine or something like that i know this because i may have drank some beers and talk with them behind the rainbow in la once a few years back that they went and for some political reason kidnapped the sheep that yeah yeah yeah i remember that and they got in trouble for that president or god or premier of norway or something went yeah it was so funny it was his sheep it wasn't his yeah
There was somebody, yeah, yeah. There's a picture of Grudel on the grass with the sheep or something like that. So, yeah. So, I mean, Grudel, he showcased King Diamond's Them record in a video. Like, he goes through his collection and talks about records that he likes a lot. Ice Dale talked about his favorite beers, you know, and that was pretty cool. So, I've been enjoying the content quite a bit on the app. That sounds really cool. Yeah.
It's fun. I don't know another band that has their own app. You can just download it on your phone. I'm sure there are plenty. Maybe, but I've never downloaded anybody else's app. Well, of course, why would you? No, but enslaved, yes. So before we move on from that, I just want to mention, because that reminded me of the whole ice fishing show thing. Eric Adams, the singer for Manowar, whose real name is Lou Marullo. Marullo.
I found this out a few years ago. He has his own like he's a hunter and like outdoorsman and he has his own show wildlife and wild times and it's like it's like bow hunting and outdoor stuff and it's like not man or metal at all. It's just him like talking about hunting and stuff and somebody sent me a video of this and I was like wait a minute. That's not Lou. That's Eric Adams and it just blew my mind.
Is he in a line cloth? No, no. He was all probably in camo and stuff. With a big club. Hunter camo. Yeah, he's a guide. I think he takes people upstate New York to go hunting and they pay him for it and stuff. It's wild. I only knew that because somebody did this weird expose on Manowar good many years ago and it was just like somebody was being a dick and they were just like, they'd say they're the king.
of metal, but this is what they're really like. And they just, you know, like one of them gave guitar lessons and blah, blah, blah. And Joey lives with his parents and a bunch of shit like that. So just like every other metal band in the world. Totally. And as it turned out, Joey's parents actually live with him, to be fair. But, but it was, yeah. And, but part of it was that. And I was like, well, that's kind of fucking cool. You know, the, the hunting thing. So they're just regular dudes. They're just regular dudes. And I mean, you know, Ross, the boss runs a batting cage plays, right? Yeah. I believe he owns it. If I remember right.
We interviewed him from his batting cage plays. Yeah, and the interview would go like this, and he'd say, well, what you got to realize, and then also he'd go, what do you want? How many balls do you need? You know, like he'd be talking to the customer. Yeah. So I don't remember, because I remember listening to it, but are you guys like talking, and like every like 30 seconds, you're like, clink, like that, because somebody just hit a ball in the background. Yeah, he kept having to go like do work stuff. He's like, I'm working here. Yeah. You know. He's like, I'm going to do another
I'm working.
You happen to know the name of this place?
Because I would die to take my kids to.
We go to batting cages and stuff like every week.
Oh,
it's on,
I think it's on Long Island.
Well,
I'll look it up.
Yeah.
I mean,
if you listen to the interview,
he probably pimps it.
Yeah.
Well,
you down at Eisenhower all the time.
He's interviewed.
Yeah.
Down at primetime.
All the time.
He's interviewed at it at,
on the Sam Dunn thing.
He interviews him at the batting cage. That's awesome. I love it. We're as cool as Sam done. It's called The Cage. Literally just The Cage. And it's in Queens. You know what would really make it worth the time if he had this? Do you guys remember when you would go buy something and the guy would have the coin machine on his belt and he would thumb out? Oh yeah. It'd be great if the guy gives him a five and he thumbs out like five dollars worth of quarters for the batting cages. I got the feeling it's pretty analog.
He may well be doing that. That would be just a bit. Hold on a second. And he has the apron, you know, where he puts the money in the apron. Yeah. No, John, I know what you're talking about. You're talking about the Cameron run batting cages, outdoor batting cages. Yes. So I do take the kids there. And then, but they're both the, both Evelyn William are in the, the primetime baseball like academy or whatever. So they play the travel team. Yeah. There's an indoor place over there too. Isn't there off of Eisenhower? Yeah. That's the primetime. Is that the, it's the indoor? Okay.
So what's Evelyn listening to these days? I know it's not metal. Oh my god. Nothing good. I should say. I don't want to say that. K-pop demon hunters? No, no, no, no. She's really into God. There's a Luke. She's country. She's into God. It's weird. No, country. It's either Luke Bryan or Zach Bryan. I think it's Zach. No, it's Zach. Yeah. Yeah. Hold on. I actually have this on my phone. Hold on a second. Hang on. I think I threw up in my mouth a little. Zach Bryan. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. No, he's good. He's good. I like him. Yeah, so she seems to listen to that quite a bit. She did go through like a hip-hop kind of stage because I think that's what everybody at school was listening to. She's not a Swifty. But then ironically, when she was a little kid, both my kids, shockingly, both loved Black Sabbath. And for the longest time, William's walk-up song was Iron Man until he changed it to some dumb crap, in my opinion. But today, Fairies Were Boots came on on the radio when we were driving around.
And Evelyn used to love that song. I probably have videos of Evelyn jumping around, whatever, to that song. And it came on, Jack the Stripper, Fair Reserve Boots. I'm like, you remember this song? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You still like it? Yeah. I still like it. But they've kind of deviated a little bit. They're just finding their own ways. I don't push it. So William has never really been that much into music. But they just listen to what I listen to in the car, which is usually Ozzy's Boneyard.
I put that a lot on the car. Not that you have any intention of going well, but I put an article from Decibel about the batting cage and a link to the batting cage. Well, because, you know, Albert in baseball. Yeah. No, no, I don't say I wouldn't go because, you know, we're up in New York City like, hey, kids, we're going to go to a fair, fair. Like if all I had to say is batting cage, you're like, yep, let's go. Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. That's awesome. Heavy metal batting cage.
Let's go hit some balls. Yeah. Nice. Well, are we one album in? Not even an album in? I didn't even get to the albums. Not even an album. Okay. All right. Let's get to those albums. I like how this is supposed to be the shorter cast. Oh, it will be. It will be. All right. So for music, I'm really into the Sub Rosa catalog right now because they are reuniting to play Fire in the Mountains.
That made me pretty happy. Oh, George and I saw them at MDF. Yeah, that was awesome. And then I also have a collapse. I'm trying to get to the next thing before we go to another tangent here. I'm just messing with you. Go on. I also have collapse phantom center on clouded mind records and trepanation records. So my buddy Ben and I, we interviewed Daniel and Peter from the post metal sludge band collapse on the endless metal podcast.
and I've been listening to their first record a ton on cassette because I picked that up and the second Collapse album made my top 25 last year but this is their first album and this is the first time I really kind of listened to it I didn't spin it until we scheduled the interview and I think it's just as good as the the follow-up and then I'm also listening to what's that Matt? I was gonna say I love learning about the Phantom Center oh right that was a cool part in the in the cast yeah
I'm also listening to Hearts Alive. So this is me going down the Collapse rabbit hole because Hearts Alive was the old school style metalcore slash thrash band that Daniel and Peter were in before Collapse. So I've been spinning the band's full length, which is called He Who Has the Gold Makes All the Rules and their EP The Black Sheep. And then I'm also listening to Jotun, Weaves Over Copenhagen. I'm wearing the Jotun shirt tonight. So I don't buy a lot of live records on the Jotun.
I picked this up because I'm pretty much smitten with Jotun. Kinship was my number one album in 2024 and their debut Access All Worlds landed at number two. So I'm all in on whatever they put out. But I think this is a really good live album too. It captures the band's soaring bombastic sound and the emotion shines through in John Aldara's vocals. So I'm pretty happy with that pickup. Also I have on my list,
This is French. So I gotta see here. Eminentia Tenebris. Whispers of the Undying on Antique Records. So my buddy Garrett, who I've known since college, he named this his number two album of 2025. We've been sharing lists through email since the college days. So I don't know how many years that is. A lot of years. And I had not heard of this band, even though this is their fourth record. So they're a French band.
that plays atmospheric melodic black metal with big melodies and these epic symphonic textures so their name Eminentia Tenebris means eminence of darkness in Latin and that feels like the perfect moniker for for this band because very epic black metal and the next one on my list is Nemorous what remains when hope has failed on bind ruin recordings this was my album of the month for December it's really
really dark atmospheric black metal with these rich twisting melodies there's expansive synth textures and this smoky doom like aura to it that i really like most of the vocals are raspy black but they also use death growls which works really well for me um this one probably would have made my list if i would have given it more spins and i think i probably had this promo like we were talking about earlier john i think i had the promo for this and i listened to a couple tracks
but I just didn't get back to it. Another band that probably would have made my list is Chasm, Gravitational Echoes on Northern Shadow Records. This is the band's second record and the second time they've blind dropped an LP at the end of the year. So their debut album ranked number 11 on my top 25 in 2023 but this album came out on December 21st which is the day after we recorded the year-end episode so I didn't even know about it until after my
The List was finalized, cemented, and then we did the show. So they play this sinister cosmic black metal with arresting melodic layers and this grand, dark blend of viciousness and otherworldly atmospherics. And the album echoes. It picks up where the debut left off, but it features these longer, winding compositions across three tracks. So I like the direction they're going. I also have With Paper Wings, 6,000 Days.
It's an EP from the coming Strife Records. So I did a top five metal EPs list for 2025, and this was on it. There's been a big resurgence of new bands playing old school metalcore, and some of them in the scene are really fucking good. And With Paper Wings is one of my favorites because the riffs are explosive. I love the vicious raspy vocals that are mixed with these death bellows. And then the breakdowns just make me want to punch all my windows out.
So I'm really really into this band a lot of these metalcore bands are coming out and it's old-school metalcore it's not the stuff that came after they only do like EPs I don't see a lot of full lengths that's the the culture I guess now and it's crazy how many bands are coming out in this scene the next record on my list is on fire oh star blood on avant-garde music this is actually Jay's album of the month for December and I quite like it as well
And I'm just going to read the band camp description for this one because it's wildly fantastic. Emerging from the spectral wilderness of northern Finland, following the labyrinthine voices rising from the totemect depths and guided by the fire from beyond, on phyros channels of force born of darkness, solitude, and the pursuit of transcendence. Starblood is a pilgrimage through dissolution and ascent. Seven invocations woven into forty
Minutes. During the years of its creation, through countless nights, the hungering arcane winds tore open a sealed gateway, a stairway descending toward the great white flame and the utmost gate deep within. From the shadows cast upon the shimmering subconscious black mirror emerged beguiling, ensnaring whispers, bearing messages from beyond the shroud of existence, until at last they seized both mind and mind
and flesh alike. So it's also unearthly black metal with some Celtic Frost vibes to it, which I get why Jay really liked that record. Now you know. Yeah. So, but I love that description. Sometimes you get some really colorful descriptions in the press releases and on Bandcamp. Next up on my list is a dead poem, Scars of Divine Rebellion. This is an independent release.
This is the first way under the radar gem I found this year. It's high-spirited, rollicking, kind of a pretty catchy album of doomed black metal with scorching lead guitar work. Then I've got Menace Ruin, The Color of the Grave is Green on Union Finale Records. This is more of a metal-adjacent type record that I've been playing at night, and I'd describe it as,
I guess I'd call it dark apocalyptic drone folk. It has sung female vocals. It's pretty mesmerizing. I've been enjoying that one. And then we talked about this in The Messenger. Bone Weapon, chaos marked by death of the sun. This is Dirty, Vicious, Black, and Death Sludge. And it's a concept album about two fictional tribes called the Matu and Katu who have been locked in a mystical blood war for centuries.
I got a couple more Archville King Ox who are us I can't read it the the English
translation this is in French is in desperate hours is the name of the album and it's on lay actors da la hombre productions a one-man French
melodic black metal with retro thrash and synths stirred into it it's pretty dense pretty grand in scope so I I'm gonna need a little bit more time with it but I did like
what I heard. Denominate Restoration on Dusk Tone Records. This is really good progressive death metal with intense technical precision, but it has some really great songwriting that allows breathing space for the massive soaring riffs and the atmospherics to shine. And I really like the mix of the death metal vocals and the clean vocals on this. It's really done well. And the last one on my list, my long list, is Pelican.
Ascertaining.
you could get it with a bundle with flickering resonance and i and i actually did get that so i've spun the track a bunch but it's cool that pelican made all these songs more widely available especially the jeff rickley song because this year is actually the 25th anniversary of thursday's album full collapse and that's one of my all-time favorite post-hardcore records so this release reminded me uh that i need to play some more thursday this year so i'm doing that and you can do it
it on Friday. It's okay. Nice. I can do that too. Yeah. So that's my long list. All right. Matt, what do you got? So, um, you know, excuse me. I've talked about this in the past. Post year end is one of my favorite times of the year because I make a list of stuff I can listen to and I don't have to care about whether I like it or not. Um, and that really includes so much stuff. Uh, I've got like agnostic front, chrome eggs, prints,
Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd. I went through the Bluthaus Nord catalog, still kind of going through it. To me, you know, I came in during the 777 trilogy, and honestly, that's probably still the sweet spot for me. But it's been interesting to kind of see where that sound for them started to kind of pick up. Definitely all things Tom G. Warrior has been on Spoon. But the one thing that is important from this piece of my list would be,
from our last episode where I talked about Feral Darkness, Tomb's album from last year, and Markisan You had said, where does that rank for you? And I said, I don't know. I need to do some research. I did some research. And so from bottom to top, it goes like this. Under Sullen Skies, Grand Annihilation, Winter Hours, Path of Totality, Savage Gold, and Feral Darkness. I think Savage Gold is probably the outlier, the kind of the closest contender for me.
And in the end, Feral Darkness took the top spot. Wow. I feel the same way. I feel the same way. I probably have a similar list. I haven't ranked them, but that would be pretty close. I actually listened to all these albums quite a bit. I mean, Path of Totality was my first Tombs album, and so it has a very special place in my heart. Of course. And I felt like I liked Grand Annihilation more, but Winter Hours just kind of did it for me. I don't know. That album at times sounds like a post-hardcore album, which obviously,
has a special place in my black soul. And so, um, but yeah, I digress as far as like stuff that's coming out now.
Well, I just want to say, I like that. I set you on a revelatory journey. That is pretty awesome. A wonderful journey. Markisan the revelator. Yeah. I mean, it, it, I don't know. It's, it was crazy to listen to albums that all sound the same, but sound different. You know, each one sounds like tombs, but they're a little bit different. And, um, and, and that's, that's why we do this. Yeah. It's awesome, dude.
As far as January goes, in terms of full albums that have been released, a band called Blade & Bath and their album Brutal Fantasies. Another band, Void Monuments, has an album Posthumous Implication. Thank you, Posthumous, Posthumous. Creator, Crushers of the World, as we already mentioned. Serpent Column has an album called Aion of Strife. And then I always have kind of a little bit of an industrial itch that I have.
I need to scratch. And the band or the person is Bong Ra and the album is Esoteric. The rest on my list are all upcoming, but they've released at least one track. Immolation has an album coming out. Cryptic Shift, Top of the Void. That sounds good. Yeah. Ashbringer. They have an album called Subglacial coming out in February. A group from my neck of the woods. Bossa de Nage. Oh yeah. Hidden Fires, Burn Hottest. They're probably metal adjacent at this point, but.
I have not heard that name in quite some time so it's cool to see it again they're cool yeah a band called Photorum and the album is in conjurus forms of ever-growing rot and then Gaera G-A-E-R-A-E-A we've talked about them Gaera Gaera coming out again loss I felt like they just had one out so I'm looking for it out quick yeah I love that uh Blade and Bath that was that's a good pull because I've listened to that one too yeah
And did you guys, I forgot to mention this too, did you guys listen to the new track from The Silver? I thought that was fucking awesome. Oh, I didn't know that. Holy shit, was that good? Yeah, I didn't even know. It came out like a couple days ago, and I just listened to it yesterday, so I already pre-ordered that vinyl. Nice. I'm really into that. Anyways. Check that out, yeah. And that's it for me. Alrighty then. John, what do you got? Alright, so these are all recent listens, and in a
A-Blocked Out of Bounds. I think this solidifies them as they say. People are calling them mad wizards or mad scientists of progressive death metal. I think that's probably pretty true. Hey, John, did you know that was also in the box for months?
Was it? I looked. I didn't see it in there. It's in there. Where? Oh, it was in the 2025. No, I know. I looked. I didn't see it. Oh, really? Yeah. It should be in there. Oh, I would have grabbed that in a heartbeat. I just didn't care because I was like, I saw Alkalite. It's like, oh, no, Alkalite. I was like, oh, it's a freaking live album of Bach music. Who cares? It's not, though. That's what's funny. It's like, there's like three renditions of Bach stuff that they do. There's one or two new songs that are Bach influenced
but their new songs and then they cover
or then they play a few of their own songs live
and that's where I went to hear
and I was like holy shit that's really good
so it's just different for them
and it's still them if that makes sense
sure it's just you lost me at live album
okay well that's your list this is my list
that is extremely fair I will fuck off now
no
hey John real quick is Alkaloid the band that I said
there we go
They sell my morbid angel, but they don't play more. Right, but when they do morbid angel, they do it better than morbid angel. Yes. Yes, okay, that's them. All right, that's it. That's all I gotta say about that. That's a pretty cool. So yeah, Markisan mentioned Denominate Restoration, their third album, Progressive Death Band from Finland. It's good stuff. I like it a lot. It's been a while, six years since our last album came out, and I liked that one too when that came out. Enshine, Evelation, Elevation, excuse me.
Third album Swedish Death Doom Melodic Death features Yari Lindholm is that how you say his name I think we know him from X Genesis I think a few of us like X Genesis and his solo work new album that came out tons of atmosphere to go along with that kind of Melodic Death Death Doom stuff good release I like it we mentioned Exul Sealed Into None I've listened to that album a lot I really want to like it I'll try it again a couple more times but it's just not not grabbing me 100%
I mentioned Megadeth already. Listen to that. I have to just mention it just because it is Megadeth. Weft, The Splintered Ore, we talked about that. Love that album. Would have made my list had we had it or had I noticed it was in the box. And then I always dig deep into stuff I haven't listened to before after every year end. I always go back to the 80s, it seems like, or the early 90s for stuff that I missed. And an album that I've been looking
that I just won't listen to on YouTube because YouTube sounds like crap for all these old albums. It finally got a release at the end of this year because it got a vinyl release. So there's digital out there now that sounds pretty good. And that is maybe George. You remember this? Maybe Jay. I don't know. This is back to 86. Sacred Blade of Sun and Moon Canadian band. They are a kind of heavy metal U.S. power metal prog metal band from Canada. So basically what that means
It fits in with all those
Crimson Glory, Queens Rye, all that stuff at that period
Nice
And I will say that where this might resonate a little bit
is that they were included on MetalMassacre4.com
with Trouble and Lizzie Borden
So you may have heard it
It's legit
Yeah, I mean they were on that
So that's it
It's an album I've been looking for for years
I keep hearing, oh yeah, it's one of the early 80s
broad little bands everyone's gotta be into
and I was like, well, I'm not
YouTube sounds like shit, I'm not listening on there
Do you got flack?
I got flack, man
I want flack
Yeah, yeah
Do you got flack?
I want flack
I got the flack
You like the flack?
Hook me up with the flack
Yeah, it's cool
I mean, we were just talking about that the other day
about those bands that
Yeah
Fit in that realm, trying to find new ones
Fates, Warning, Early, Early, Mid-80s, Jam, freaking awesome stuff. And I've tried other bands like Omen. I've tried to get into them. No, Omen's good. You gotta like Omen. But you gotta put time in. You do. It's not an easy list. It's just you have to invest to give them their full due. Yeah, I mean, but like Warlord's in there. I know you like Warlord. And I didn't realize that the first album is really just the EP plus a couple other songs with better production.
Oh, Deliver Us? Yeah, Deliver Us is awesome. I love that. Yeah. So I'm a big fan of that mid-80s stuff that I missed. Attacker? Do you know Attacker? No, I don't know that. Attacker Battle at Hums Deep. Check that out. Okay. Like Manila Road's another one that people talk about a lot that I never really got into. I've been working with Crystal Logic. It's really good. Yeah, I've been working through all that stuff. Oh, Manila Road? Yeah.
I asked you about the other day George if you'd listen to it one was Toxic and what was the I can't remember the other one oh Toxic World Circus and uh shit Hellstar Hellstar yeah yeah so I missed all these originally on the first go around so yeah no I got World Circus on cassette when it first came out yeah um Hellstar I didn't actually buy anything from them in the 80s but I was aware of them I knew of them I'd heard them yeah I can picture the record covers and they're like a
Nosferatu. It's funny because everyone's like, how could you miss that?
Well, you totally screwed up. No, actually to me it's like
find a buried treasure, man. Yeah.
I love going back and finding like early, mid-80s
even anything 80s
that I didn't know at the time.
It's just awesome. Well, I have one more coming up
that maybe you do know, maybe you don't know
hands down.
Oh, I went and found it online because it just also got a reissue. Yeah. Is this part of this list? I'm assuming it's part of this list, but I'm saving it for the crypt. Gotcha. The door is going to creak really loud. You hear that as I go down the steps. Okay. All right. That's it. All right. Will. I'll try to be quick.
came out with a quote unquote new album. It was just a rerecording of legacies of human frailty. Uh, which really sucks is it's a rerecording of the, the, the album just released this year and the, the 2023 album, but it's so good. And do you like it better than the original will? Cause it sounds aggressive as fuck. Yeah, I do. Um, and I may have to break some rules cause everyone else breaks rules. So I might because it is a, it
is an album that was released in 2026. That was also released in 2023. And I think they've actually. But it was an album released in 2026. Then, well, didn't they also reimagine the album? Really? You guys are going to give me shit now? No, I'm not. I'm not. You guys break all the rules. I was trying to understand what you were saying. I ain't going to give you crap for nothing. Right now, you could come out and be like, I'm putting Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath on my list. And I'd be like, you go, Will. Yes, thank you. You're going to get negative 25 points on that.
You're only allowed to list clutch. That's it. You don't get anything else to that. I try not to break any rules anymore. There are no more rules. You guys break all the rules. Come on, dude. Ozzy broke all the rules. We can break all the rules. You can be better than that, Will. Well, no comment. And then we already talked about Creator Crushes of the World and the new Megadeth.
The Ecto Void, In Unreality's Coffin, Black Metal.
Or not Black Metal, Death Metal.
Oh my God, did that come out of my mouth?
That's what happened.
I am sick, so check my temperature.
That's really good, Will.
I like that one.
Yeah, it's really sick, great, Death Metal.
I think they're from Alabama.
And then I pre-ordered the new Temple of Void, The Crawl. We may or may not have recently received a promo from the band in Relapse. I may or may not listen to it. I may have and may not have had a big smile on my face. And then the other one, Markisan. Well, I'll mention, I've been listening to, like, not recent stuff, but I've been listening to a lot of Primordial. And I was just thinking the other day, like,
Nice. Primordial was one of those bands. It's like, you know what? It may be worth spending some money and some time and taking a trip to Ireland to go see Primordial in Ireland because they put out a lot of live records. Man, they are great live. Yeah. I've never seen them live. I can attest they were freaking awesome at Prog Power. They were my favorite bands. I've never seen them. They destroyed that place. I mean, there were people who were really into it and people were like, what did I just see? Yeah.
the videos you hear them live on the live albums because they put out a bunch of live albums and it just sounds so epic and he's intense that dude he really is and yeah his banter on stage and just everything is great and i remember um like i don't know it was a couple years ago we said like what what bands would you like to see play decibel and i kind of mentioned primordial but i'm like i want to see primordial on like a not a bigger stage but like a better stage like the film was great and everything but like
I want to see the whole production. I want to see the backdrop. Sounds like you want to see
them in their hometown. Right. I kind of do.
And this may be one of those bands that I just
like I'm going to spend the money.
I want to go see them live and I may just have to go to Ireland to do it.
Ireland. Was anybody else at the MDF with me that
both Primordial and Twilight of the Gods did Double Duty?
Oh. Jay? John?
I was not there but I would have loved to have seen that.
I know at least one of you guys was there.
You may not have watched it, but you were there. Because I was not at MDF by myself. I don't know. I would have watched Parmorio if I was there. He's got another band that played like last year or two years ago. Dread Sovereign. Yes. And I had no idea he was in that band. And Sam, our good friend Sam. Sam! He's on the podcast. Yeah, Sam. He's like, you gotta go see this band. I'm like, okay. And he literally kidnapped me. And we had a special moment.
I was like, oh, this is the guy from Primordial. I'm like, boing. Yeah. Yeah. So I've been listening to Primordial. And then the last one Mark San already mentioned is Bone Weapon from Philly, their album KS Marked by Death of Sun. It's like, like deathy, doomy, blacky. But there's a guy in there. There's a guy who is the drummer and the vocalist, Fred Gabowski.
who I kind of know he was in Bloods 4 and they played at Atlas a bunch of times and we've communicated a bunch of times and he's this phenomenal artist and his his like his artist work is form terror growth it's on like Facebook and Instagram and all that stuff like he is so good he does all this death metal stuff and I thought about buying one of his originals but it was really expensive and to his credit it should be expensive it's so good
But yeah, Bone Weapon, man, that's it. I actually got that through one of the Decibel Twitter feeds or something. I'm like, oh, they're from Philly. Let me check it out. Oh, Fred's in that band. Let me check it out. Oh, wow, this is good. That's all I got to say about my what I'm listening to. All right. That brings us to Jay. Yeah. The only metal things I have worth mentioning right now have been said a couple of times, but the Creator Record I've spun a few times.
I've gone through bits of the Megadeth record, but I'll sit down to give a proper listen. And I have been listening to the possibly existent demo that, or not demo, but pre-release that Will was talking about in the box, a band we will probably be visiting with soon. And that's all the metal stuff I really got to mention right now. That's all I got to say about that. That's all I got to say. All right. I've got a few things, and most of them are actually metal.
First up, Bunsen Burner, Reverie. If you heard Bunsen, John's laughing over there. I love that name. It makes me think of Beaker and his buddy on the Muppets. But I am quoting directly from their band cave. Their band cave? To the band cave! Their band camp page here.
Bunsen burner is a collective of musicians who defy easy categorization known for their approach to music that spans genres from free jazz to extreme metal yep that sums it up um the the album cover is a white cat with uh corpse paint oh okay that's who that is yeah you guys just say i've seen that before i knew i'd seen that before i was like hey what is that and uh yeah
So it's interesting.
It's, I mean, I haven't listened to the whole thing, but I'm pretty sure it's instrumental.
So TR would approve.
But yeah, cool.
All right.
Moving on.
The next album is not metal, but it's metal adjacent.
This is the band The Damned and their album Not Like Everybody Else.
The Damned were an early UK punk band with a heavy dose of goth in there. And this is a cover album to celebrate the band's 50th anniversary. Okay. And it features covers from the Rolling Stones. The Last Time. That was a good song. Oh, nice. Pink Floyd, See Emily Play. I don't even know what that is. So I'm guessing that John does, but he just took his headphones off. So he has no idea what I'm saying, John.
C. Emily played. You know what that's from? Pink Floyd. Oh, I know that, but like what album? It's got to be old. It's the, uh, is that the first or second album? I'll look it up. Yeah, it's old. Uh, the Animals when I was young. Everybody covers that one. The Kinks, which we were just talking about on another podcast. I like the Kinks. I'm not. Wait, are you talking about the Animals, the band? The Animals, the band. Like House of the Rising Sun? Yes, them. Yeah. But when I was young. I love, I love,
That's one of my favorite songs ever. Oh, really? I love House, too. Yeah. My dad introduced me to that. I love it. But The Kinks, I'm Not Like Everybody Else, which sort of informed the album title. The Yardbirds. So, Jay's not here. A lot of these songs, actually, these artists, anyway, just came up on Stairway to 11 because we had Pink Floyd, we had The Animals, we had The Kinks, and The Yardbirds is next, Heartful of Soul, and Iggy and the Stooges, Give Me Danger.
We talked about all of these bands just the other day. Not that it's posted yet, but it probably
posed before this. So anyway.
Yeah, The Damned.
One edition. I made a mistake. It's a non-single release.
Okay.
But it's old.
Yeah. Very old.
Yeah.
All right. Let's get back to more metal.
Yeah.
Degenerate Synapse.
Battle for the Mind. First album from a Chicago Death Grind band. I'm sure Markisan's friends with all of them. Because they're in Chicago. I don't know those guys. Or gals. Whoever's in it, I don't know. I gotta make new friends. Make new friends. Next up, Malefic Throne. The Conquering Darkness. This is the first album from an FLA death metal band. Who's the singer? Oh yeah, Steve Tucker from Morbid Angel.
Nobody's going to comment on that. All right, I'm going to move on. I figured Will would be like, yeah. Wait, what's the name of the band, George? Malefic Throne. I know that band. I heard that, but I didn't know that. I didn't know the other information. I didn't either until I was listening to it going, yeah, this is pretty cool. And then I went to get the info. I was like, oh, Steve Tucker. There you go. That's cool. All right. Two more. Marianas Rest, the Berea.
Fifth Album from this finished Death Doom band. I would bet John knows this one. He nods. All right, moving on. I listen to that one. Oh, you don't? All right. It's kind of cool. I thought it was all right. It's all right. And then finally, Total Annihilation, the fourth album from a Swiss thrash band. It's called Mountains of Madness. Nothing special. It's just Total Annihilation.
It's thrashy, it's cool, I like it. That's what I got. Nice. All right, we're gonna move back to Margason, who's trying to eat and giving me an eye roll for Pick from the Crypt. Sorry, bud. Chew swallow. It's all right. It's all right. Ethiopian food. Oh, fucking mead.
All right. So my buddy Ben from Endless Metal and I, we started talking about thrash albums because we were reminiscing about old creator, just like we were talking about earlier. And so that got me thinking about speed metal I liked in the 90s. And that was a period when thrash kind of fell under the radar and other subgenres like death metal really started to emerge.
So I immediately thought about Corner, of course. A lot of their records are underrated from that time period. But then I remembered another gem from that decade that I haven't spun in a minute. And that is the debut album by Swedish band Witchery. Restless and Dead from 1998. Necropolis Records. It's blistering, blasts.
and thrash that really brings back fun old-school horror themes and the songs are really concise but they're also really dynamic and they're catchy as fuck I love the guitar tone on this record in the raspy black metal vocals by toxine I don't know if I said that right but I like that so fortunately this record was remastered and re-released by century media a few years ago because the band is still going today and their
that label. I was just checking that. I was like, man, I haven't heard of these guys in years. Yeah, they put on an album like 22, 22. I didn't, I didn't see that. Yeah. Well, me and Will had their stuff. The last two records, I think both made our list. They, um, and their latest records were good too, but they haven't done anything in a few years now. It has been a few years since 2022 is the last one. So yeah, the band's still going strong, but there are only two original members left in it. So they didn't, the members that are in there now,
I did not plan this record I'm talking about and the sound has changed a little bit so I think they still put out really quality thrash but the restless and dead really captured lightning out of the gate to me it's just a super underrated thrash record just because I'm telling you the tone on that the guitar tone and the the black metal parts of it just it's so good they were able to put those things together in a perfect way
I love that record from start to finish. Yeah, those first few were really good. Yeah. And the album cover for this one is phenomenal, too. Wait, am I making that up? Well, was it Witchery that was that? Like two really good records in the last. Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think the one you liked was either In His Infernal Majesty's Service or I Am Legion. That was like 2017 was Infernal Majesty and then Legion, I think it was after that.
Because this podcast has been around a minute. Yeah, I think it was in as far as that was the one. And then, yeah. Yeah, they're cool. I'd like to see a new record from them. Yeah, well, they're due. I mean, 2022 is not that long ago, but. Yeah, yeah. All the records are good. But this one to me is a special one and kind of forgotten, I think, in the in the allure of thrash metal. So I was happy to put that on and spin it again.
For some reason that was kind of a all-star band, but maybe I'm making that up. At least some of the guys are in other bands. Yeah, they are now. Yep. The lineup now for sure. Yes. Hmm. Yeah. All right. Cool. Good pick. Thanks. All right, Matt. My pick I previously mentioned when I was doing my what I've been listening to and I would take us back to 2011 for the
first album that I came upon for Bluto Snored, and it was the middle of the 777 trilogy, and the album is called The Desanctification. Can't go wrong there, buddy. Moody black metal that basically had me at hell low. Yeah. Minus the O. No, I think it's had me at hell. Yeah, exactly. Okay.
So Hell and Hell-O leads me to Gwar. Sorry. Did you all see Gwar doing Pink Pony Club? No. No, but by the way, that was such a great record name for a first record, but go ahead. Yeah, Hell-O. Yeah, I'm staring at the cassette right now, but yeah. Long story short, my mom sent me a video of Gwar because
She knows how cool I am. And she was like, hey, did you see this? Guar is covering Pink Pony Club. And I was like, oh, yeah. And, you know. Sorry, what is Pink Pony Club? Pink Pony Club is the massively popular song by Chapel Rowan. Who's Chapel Rowan? Pop singer. But like, more Gaga, less Taylor. If that makes any sense. Also, George, the name of your first record. I don't even know what you're talking about.
The name of your first record, George, has to be My Mom Thinks I'm Cool. Oh, yeah. Actually, it's funny you say that because, you know, I've recorded a number of songs over the years that nobody's ever heard. And I used to bother putting those into albums. And I had a two-disc album called Songs Only a Mother Could Love. And that was because, you know, she's the only one that liked them. Okay, now I feel super pathetic, but this is true.
True. It is true. And yes, Chapel Rowan, Pink Pony Club. Not a terrible song as far as pop songs go, but not in Will's Wheelhouse at all. No. Is Chapel Rowan Irish? No, but she is a red. Okay. Well, actually, I have no idea where she's from, but I mean, she's American as far as I know, but she may have some Irish ancestry in her. I thought maybe if she was Irish, then what could do with Cry Moriok?
What's the joke there, John? Are they any of the girls here with a little Irish in them? I don't know. This is Thin Lizzy, that live. Phil in it says to the crowd, are they any girls here with a little Irish in them? And then, you know, and he says, are there any girls who'd like a little more Irish in them? Yeah, you're literally asking the wrong guy about Thin Lizzy. Well, I thought you'd know the joke. Oh, no.
Even though you clearly are not cool enough to like Thin Lizzy. Not even remotely cool. Really? How can you not like Thin Lizzy? That's a band that feels like it should have been bigger, but didn't quite reach those heights. I'm a UFO. I know. I'm in that like one half of a percent. Different strokes for John, as they say. I am amidextrous. Alrighty. No judgment here.
All right.
Me?
Me, you.
Yeah, go.
All right.
So my pick of the crip, I have been on a mission to go far and deep into the crip for even albums nobody's ever heard of that would even get tagged as potential Matt creations.
Wow.
Yeah.
I mean, I've been scarred since I got called out for having a popular album in my pick from the crip.
So I've really been digging deep. Did I get that? Yeah, you did. Fuck me. Nonetheless, I'm glad I found this album because I really like it a lot. If you are a fan of early Queensryche, Fate's Warning, and Crimson Glory, George? I am. Okay. The album is from a band called Lethal. The album is Programmed in 1990. Do you remember that? I do. I do.
I played in a lot of other bands, big bands. But yeah, I was on a list on Rate Your Music. Somebody had a list of early kind of first wave prog metal bands and also U.S. power metal bands because I'm a big fan of U.S. power metal. And they had an FFO on a lot of these albums for fans of. And I was searching through them like, yeah, yeah, I know this band. I like this band, but I don't want to listen to another Dream Theater band or another
and it said for fans of early and it's just kareem's white fate's warning crimson go i
rewind went back to it listened and i'm down i love it and it just got a reissue for the first time and
it's been reissued a couple times but it got a new reissue so there's cds out and i'm not buying as
much vinyl anymore because i'm not paying 35 for a single vinyl album sorry i'm just not doing it
So I got it, George. You might dig it. The singer, Tom Malakote, I think is how you say his name, has the Jeff Tate, John Rh, Midnight vibe to him, but he does not exhaust it. Doesn't go high all the time. Way more refined in his approach. And those guys, those singers were all great early on. He's got that vibe. So that's deep in the crypt. That is deep in the crypt.
I have to actually go through paper files when you're looking. That's not on micro. Well, it might be micro fish. And for those of you who remember your old days in the library. Oh, yeah. The cobwebs on your hands there, John. Those aren't cobwebs. Micro fish. Yeah, no. Those aren't pillows. Yeah. That's Steve Martin's ass cheeks. Thank you. Yes. All right, John. Thank you. We are now.
I'm going to Will. I'm going to pull one from when I was 15 years old in high school. Wipe it off, please. Sometimes when George says stuff, I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? I don't know what he's talking about. I'm sorry. I am too worldly. I know everything. How old were you in 1990, Will? In 1990? Yeah. I was 18. 17.
Okay. So my I was pretty close to your 15. Not bad. Yeah. Okay. Uh, when I graduated high school, I was 18. So I was, so I turned 18 in 1990 at the end of the year. Oh, okay. So yeah. John was 62 back then. I was not. That's such bullshit. I was 60. Sorry, dude. I'm a year older than Will.
So anyway, when I was 15, this one of my favorite bands at the time put out this album that just blew me away. It was Overkill's Under the Influence. There is not a bad song on this. I'm going to go through it. There's nine songs. Shred, Never Say Never, Hello from the Gutter. Hello from the gutter. Brain Fade, Drunken Wisdom, End of the Line, Head First, and Overkill 3, Under the Influence. I mean, it is just... Is this something about drinking?
Yeah.
You know what the main problem with this album is, though? Not that it's a bad album in any way,
but it's the album after Years of Decay.
It's the album before Years of Decay.
No, it's not.
It is.
That's what I meant. You know what the problem with this album is?
It's the album before Years of Decay.
Really?
So Years of Decay is by far one of my...
So it was like taking over and then under the influence?
Yes.
Wow.
Feel the fire.
Feel the fire.
Taking over under the influence Years of Decay.
All right. Well, fuck me then. George, got something wrong. Oh my gosh, George. Wow. You totally missed that one, George. Too much Chapel Rowan in your brain now. Yes, man. I'm spending too much time at the Pink Pony Club. That's not the club you think it is. Yeah. His brain is the Pink Pony. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah. No, I know. I'm sorry. I don't
I don't question you being right I'm just like reviewing my life as it relates to overkill and gone as it passes by you as it passes by me yes if there's rails we're going off them so during the years of decay tour when I was still in high school um they played the Trocadero which in Philadelphia which a lot of people know down in Chinatown it's not there anymore yep um and uh there was a one of the shows I don't know how someone pulled a fire alarm but the sprinklers went off
And they had to cancel the show. Like, halfway through the show, overkill set, they had it, like, because everything got wet. Amps were, like, shorting out and everything. So they came back and played another show. And Bobby Blitz Ellsworth, and it was either him or, I don't know if it was him or the whole band, it was definitely him, came out on stage with an umbrella. And he goes, something along the lines, like, is this safe now, guys? Like, we're back. He brought my umbrella. But anyway. Yeah.
Give me something to ride on. Yeah. Anyway, I such a great album. You know, I've been on it. I was gonna say I've been on a old school overkick overkill kick lately. You know, as much as I have loved overkill since taking over was released. And as much as I've loved them enough to completely get the albums out of order. The first time I saw them was actually at Jack's. Oh, really? Yeah, I did not see
in any of their early years. It was, I don't know, early to, I don't know, it was in the 2000s somewhere, but yeah, I finally saw them at Jack's and I was like, yes! And it was awesome. You know, so a lot of times when people say like, oh, if you had a big five of thrash metal bands from like the 80s American, I guess. Oh, of course. Like, a lot of people say, you know, it's either Exodus or Testament, but part of me is like, you know, Overkill deserves some sort of be part of the conversation. I agree. Because they've never, like, they have,
They're consistent. They're kind of like Slayer. They haven't let up. They haven't gone commercial. Some of the Testament albums are sort of like, eh, you know, not the best. It's getting cheesy here and there. But I love Testament. And even Exodus has been Exodus, and they're pretty consistent, switching singers back and forth between three different dudes. But Overkill's been consistent, putting out solid stuff. Yeah, no, I would definitely... And prolific.
Like every like two or three years they're coming out of that album. Yeah, I would definitely put overkill over Testament. I got to share I just had this conversation with Ben today on text message and we were talking about thrash bands and he he wrote to me of the classic thrash bands of that era my top five favorites since 2000 his number one Slayer number two Testament number three overkill number four Sodom number five hot take John loves hot take
Bush era anthrax oh no so those last two are completely wrong i'm sorry ben that's awesome yeah mark us on you're a pretty you're a pretty big fan of the bush era anthrax right i do like i do like that yeah i don't think i would put included in my top thrash bands though now that is incorrect anything with john bush that is not armored saint sucks he's also though he's talking post-2000 and i totally agree both with overkill and sodom right he's talking post-2000
Yeah. Never been a fan of Sodom. Never probably will. Yeah. We just had this right before the cast. Sodom is poor man's creator. Destruction is poor man's creator. Fight me. Fight me. I never got Destruction. It just seemed, I don't know, I never got into them. Yeah. I feel like I don't listen to a lot of thrash these days. And I was telling Ben this. I feel like there's a thrash album that
comes out that I like, but maybe that band doesn't put out another record or the next record I don't like as much. And I'm talking about newer thrash bands. Obviously, we have the classics, but there's not a lot of newer thrash bands like since the 2000s that I like. Why would there be? You don't really gravitate towards it. I don't know. Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of bands that try and do modern thrash, and it just doesn't resonate with me. Yeah, other than, uh, what's the one that was on my list?
Whoa, whoa. Critical Defiance is the one. They've put out a few records and I like all their records. That's the one thrash band, newer thrash band I really like. And their stuff has been on my list. But yeah, it's tough. It's really the old school era that was really great with thrash. We don't get a lot of that now. Or it's just mixed with something else. You know, there's thrash elements to something. Warbringer is the one I was thinking of. Warbringer is a good thrash. But yeah, on the whole,
I'm not really keen on new thrash. You don't want any thrash in your new hole? Oh, no, absolutely. Any hole. Every hole is the goal. Wow. You should put that on a t-shirt. I think we have the title of the episode. That is an album. There's a band. Wow. A British band. Wow.
and their album every hole is the goal or is a goal wow yeah they play a lot of
there's a lot of amateur league softball in douglas the border town down there and it's a
mostly hispanic people that play there's this girl who we talk to when we go to dunkin donuts down
there to get coffee and stuff and she's always telling us yeah her team played blah blah blah and i
I finally asked her just today I was like what's your team's call your team called and she said I HT and it's an all-women's team and I was like I said I HT was that stand for it and it stands for I hit that nice and I think you're up to this record come out
I guess it doesn't matter somebody can maybe shout it out a band first rule definitely the first black
metal record I owned was by this band but then they that's very well kind of a one-man thing
um did some very interesting things later later in the career not that much later anyway Bathory
Hammerhartt. A wild left turn for a band that really introduced me to black metal and then went on to do even more interesting. And Viking metal, too. Viking metal, indeed. Yeah, that's correct. 1990. Gosh, was it that late, even? Yeah. I was sort of surprised for some reason, but The Return was definitely the first black metal rocker I ever owned. Yeah, yeah. 1984, it was like, what? Black metal, that's Venom. Right? That's it.
It doesn't need a big description. Sorry, I'm all like bonerific over Bathory. I think Georgia started a club. The Bathory Boner Club. Bonerific over Bathory. Yeah, no, I mean, so I can picture when I heard Hammer Heart. And it was a long time ago. A very long time ago.
Yeah. And 15 like well was no, no, I was. I didn't actually hear it right when it came out. But. It doesn't matter. You know, I was like Bathory. Oh, yeah. That band, the return. Yeah, that band. That's weird stuff. And Satanic. Not that I was against any of that, but. But.
Onslaught.
Power From Hell?
Yeah, I bought both those records on the same day. Oh, wow. Yeah, that goes, dude. That tracks. That is still one of my favorite albums. And if you look at when that album was released, you could put that in contention up with Scream Bloody Gore, Seven Churches for the first death metal album. When you look at when it was recorded and released, and it clearly is kind of in the death metal realm, you can make a case for that.
It was nowhere near that scene, so they came up with it on their own. Yeah. No, so it's just very interesting. I love that album with Thermonuclear Detonation of the Planet Earth and Power from Hell. Yeah, Power from Hell. I think I had somewhere, I used to have a gigantic Power from Hell poster. What was great about it is
My ex-in-laws used to stay in this little room in the basement in the old house, and there was a giant onslaught Power From Hell poster over top. With the pentagram. Yep, yep, the pentagram, the demon coming out of the pentagram and all that stuff. You can also see what drove my buying records at that time. Because I was like, well, that's right up my alley. It's got a pentagram. I'm going to buy it. I'm looking around this room because this is where I have all the heavy metal posters.
in this room and like i don't see it so i'm like where the hell did i put that but i love it i just like it always just cracked me up because they were very christian i think your ex-in-laws took it with them they may have with a grain of oh my god yeah they doused it in holy water yeah but yeah bathory hammerheart that was both came out those both came out in 85 so i must have been and looks like bathory came out first so it must been later in the year when i got when i was at
I found both of those. Yeah. Hammerheart was a, like, you know, life-altering, changing moment for me. When I heard Hammerheart, I was like, forever Bathory. Yeah. A lot of people feel that way. Yeah. Or did. They might be starting to be a little bit forgotten now by the new generation, so. I think that's accurate. Yeah, isn't that funny? I mean, like, that's happening with a few things that are really
a huge part of our lexicon or you know when you forget how many generations have come up below us now in different styles and genres and stuff and some of that stuff that we take for granted as sort of like everybody knows this nuts yeah because you don't hear it coming up and like this is an influential band for stuff nowadays exactly so we're hence hence the whole purpose of pick from the crypt not the whole purpose but what do you got judge so uh
Sorry, I'm looking something up. Yeah. So I'm not a big fan of flying. And when I went to Norway, I went from London up to I think it was Trondheim and the points further north. But I made a point because I am such a bad flyer. I have to like have music on and headphones and stuff while I'm flying.
And as I was flying from, as I was passing over Sweden on the way to Norland, as I was passing over Sweden on the way to Norway, I was listening to Odin's ride over Nordland from Blood, Fire, Death and various Hammerheart songs. That works, dude. I listened to Jethro Tull in Saxon when I was in Britain and they never sounded so good.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Like I make a point and I listened to, I remember listening to Gorgoroth and when I, as I was pulling into whatever town that is on the train, the one on the coast. Bergen? Bergen, yeah. Yeah. And it just adds something extra. It does, man. Nothing like, nothing like Nordic metal in the Nordic countries. Yeah. All right. So my pick from the crypt is,
Alas, not one that is something that nobody's ever heard of. I'm sure everybody here is familiar with this band, but is an old one and a good one. This is Moonspell's Wolfheart. Nice. Wolfheart is the band's first album from the recent year of 1995. How that got to be 30 years old, I will never understand, but Wolfheart was Moonspell before they got all polished. It was heavier,
and just kind of harder when it came out. I never really got into much
of what they did after Irreligious, their second album,
but this one still rules.
It's heavy but not extreme. It butts up against black metal
but maintains a gothic feel.
I had high hopes for these guys when I heard this,
but that never really panned out for me.
They've kind of fallen off my radar, which is weird
because they used to be really kind of ubiquitous.
And I saw them in the news recently. Just as I googled them, they've got some tickets for sale in Mexico and stuff, but their last release was 2021. Yeah. So Irreligious was more gothic, perhaps inspired at the time by Typo Negative. Not sure, but that was the last one I can say I really liked was Irreligious. But that said, and it's particularly based on stuff we've been saying,
And I really kind of want to go back and revisit their catalog to see if I feel differently now. Because what I didn't like 25 years ago, I might like now. I like their mid-period a lot. Really? Like the antidote, memorial, night eternal. See, those are ones I wasn't in any of those. And partly, I mean, probably because it didn't live up to what I thought Wolfheart was. Yeah, fair enough. So I need to go back and
You know, at this point, it would be an absolutely fresh listen to me. So I like Night Eternal. I like a lot. Yeah. Well, that's that's on my list to do. So and then I kind of fall off there after that. There's a they have a couple they have a Paradise Lost couple in there. You're kind of like, really? Yeah. Yeah. That's that butterfly effect. This is OK. It's not anything special, but it's got that kind of same trajectory. I'm not sure what I heard recently. It might have been a new album.
In which case, I'm wondering, given this point where they are in their career, are they going to try and make a callback to, you know, do something that's more like the old stuff to get people interested again? I don't know. They sort of did that. I thought they had an album where they released a bunch of older songs, but re-recorded or recorded for the first time or something like that in the mid-2000s. They did, I thought. Well, I remember seeing them, and you can tell me if this is true or not, John.
in one of the earlier Opeth shows. Yeah, they opened for them for a tour. And I remember a lot of people complaining about that lead singer with the skull on a stick. Yeah, everyone was mad about that. Yeah. Because of the skull on the stick? It was a huge, like, six foot or five foot. For some reason, he had this skull on a stick. I didn't have any problem with it, but he was weird about it. Yeah, but you know, if King Diamond had it, they would say it's the greatest stick ever. Yeah, sure.
So it just depends whose stick it is that you like. I like Will's stick, but I don't know. Yeah, I mean, if Will had that with the big skull head on it, he'd be like, yeah! No, I think Will just likes people's sticks. I like his stick. He's got a meat skull on it. Yeah. No, I've never seen Moonspell. I know. Saw him a bunch of times on that tour. Yeah, I remember people seeing him, but I never saw him. I might have seen him a few times on that tour. Would you,
Do you have a notion as to what tour that was? Give me a minute and I'll give you the details. Because I saw them on that tour, whatever it was. All right. So I actually saw them at the Fillmore in San Francisco. Really? The Fillmore. Opeth or Moonspell? Both. They both played together. What tour was that? I'm working on it, Jay. Well, no, because it bothers me to think, John, or it incites me to think we were probably at the same goddamn
I've never had this conversation though and I
I was at that show. So yeah, we're at a show. Let's put it again. Yeah. I saw like literally a year and a half ago. Oh, you said 2004. 2004. Oh, not 2024. Okay. Yeah. I saw, I saw them at Philadelphia, New York. Sounds underground. I went back up just to see them for 30 minutes at that. That was so funny to think we're both in. So I'm at DC, San Francisco. I was in Anaheim. So I saw like six shows on that tour.
But I still bought Morning Rise when it came out. Man, that's crazy. Like hardly anyone knew who they were then. Moose Bell or Opeth? Actually, I bought Orchid when it came out. That album gets reissued so much it's unreal. Candlelight. Bastards. Yeah. Is that the only one they...
No, they have the first three, I think. Those are my favorites. And then they went to Peaceville for Still Life. Then they went to Music for Nations for the next few. Then they blew up. Did you guys, just a side note, did you, I don't know if this is true, and I haven't read or listened to the interview or read the transcript, that the reason why Mike started his own label for the band, it's just unbelievably fun.
his reasoning. He's like, I didn't want that silly nuclear blast logo on the back of my albums. So I started my own record label. And then it was on there anyway. Yeah. I was like, wow, that's a really funny reason for doing it. And it benefited probably from it. I mean, he cuts out a lot of the, I mean, if you know the Steve Weiss story about him doing that, he made millions doing that.
Well, I think it was a like a an imprint or something. So it was probably still the label just had his name on it instead. What for Mike? What was Steve? I think he made no no no no Steve. Yes, I get that. No, Mike. It was I think it was just probably an imprint. Wasn't it? I don't know. I thought he actually they have their own label. Was it on a chrome or something like that? Okay. Yeah. But I thought it was still related to. I think there's.
There's probably some distribution rights or something, don't you think? Motor bowl, I guess. That's some sort of weird thing. Yeah, and it's like a circle with three little circles in the middle or something like that. Go ahead, George. No, sorry. I just would have thought it was an imprint of Nuclear Blast, but I could be wrong. I did not follow up on that. That's why I'm asking, because I haven't listened to the interview or anything or read any transcripts. In an attempt to sidestep that, Ackerfeldt founded,
Okay, let's start our own label, which means parent label, which is hilarious, you can say. But of course, at the end of the day, we still have the nuclear blast logo on the record, so it didn't matter. Yeah. What started it. Okay. It's really funny when you think about that. It's like, yeah, we're going to do this. And then he says here, it's not 100% serious, but technically we could sign on their bands.
I mean, this is the guy who plays You Suffer live. The whole band does. Still to this day, they're doing that? They make a big deal about it. It says, everybody ready. Yeah. When I saw, last time I saw Napalm Death, they played it twice, which I thought was nice. Did you miss that? Let's play it again. They're overdo for a record. Yeah, we are.
That was before the last anthrax tour
Which was a long time ago
The last record was really good too
The napalm death album?
Oh they haven't dropped the ball in about a long time
The last record I think was my favorite record they've done actually
Which is crazy
Wow six years ago
Throws of joy in the jaws of defeatism
It's been a while
That was okay I liked
Apex Predator better
That was 11 years ago
So, and the other one was six, so maybe it's coming around. Yeah, Throws was 2020, so six years. That was a five-year difference, then a six-year difference, so now it's going to be a seven-year difference, maybe. They're going around on tour again. They play all the time. They just don't. Yeah, in the next few months, I think they're coming to, I think, Baltimore. Yeah, they always play soundstage. That's a big tour, isn't it, Will? It's like four bands on that, yeah. Yeah.
With Behemoth? No. Behemoth is playing at the Fillmore Silver Spring. And I look at all those shows, and I swear to God, there's a massive global conspiracy theory that we're only going to tour on weeks that Will has the kids, and he can't go. Which is every week. Every other week, I have the kids. Don't tell Will. They're the only kids that play baseball in the winter. But you still do things with them. Yes. I have the busiest fucking kids in the world. They're right now both in basketball.
basketball. Everyone's playing high school basketball.
William's playing rec basketball for the first time ever.
Basketball.
And then, yeah.
And then he just wants to play with his buddies, but none of his buddies, well, one of his buddies on the team.
And then they're both doing winter baseball clinics.
And Evelyn has a membership now.
Well, anyway, we're doing baseball like four days a week.
Basketball.
Everyone does basketball six days a week.
Oh, yeah.
This is a treat to have you on the cast tonight.
I didn't think it was going to happen.
Yeah, the only reason it happened is because we're getting a snowstorm.
I had to take them over to their mom's house a day early because otherwise we'd be snowed in.
I couldn't get them over there.
Well, Will, what point do you start doing the podcast from Clearwater or Scottsdale?
Yeah.
Well, I'll let you know in about, I don't know, five or six years.
But I think Evelyn has a better, Evelyn has a more realistic shot playing for the Women's Professional Baseball League, the WPBL. So it's kind of like, you remember League of Their Own? Oh yeah. Yeah, so they're bringing that back. So they just had a draft. The Rockford Peach. But they're playing all the games near there.
And Evelyn is going to a national baseball tournament in Rockford this coming summer. So all my summer vacations are going to be watching my kids play in Tennessee, in New York, in Philly, in Rockford. I don't know. Whatever. All I do is travel around and watch my kids play baseball. That's it. I'm assuming there's something in Michigan.
You mentioned Michigan Uh
Yeah, I got you
Yeah, yeah, no, I'm
Eileen and I are going up there to visit her daughter at
Michigan
She's a junior up there
In ROTC doing engineering
She's like fucking ridiculously smart
Like her mom
So yeah, so
I've only been to Michigan once
I went to Kalamazoo, so I've never been to Detroit
You haven't been to real Michigan
Right, yeah. So, weirdly enough, I was messaging with Alex from Temple of Void, and I'm like, please tell me. I will be up there from like the 12th, 13th, and 14th. Please tell me you have an album release show in Detroit. And he's like, no, it's in April. Aw. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no. I'll be in Michigan in May. Yeah. So, I'm just going up there.
with Eileen to go visit her daughter. That's cool. They invited me along. I'm like, yeah, sure. I've never been up to the Detroit area or Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor is the fucking best, dude. It's blowing my mind. I want to like, if I could see you and Ann Arbor at the same time, I would just be giddy. No, I would ejaculate everywhere. I will hit you up later. You have to tell me some decent, like metal,
or food. There's no metal, but there's food. Okay. You have to let me know. Yeah, absolutely. Because I will have some time to myself because it is a mother-daughter thing and I'm just tagging along. Of course. But yeah, Ann Arbor is the best. I want to give them their time together as mother and daughter, so I may have some time to just go do whatever I want. It will. Based on the back of soda and beer cans, I'm pretty sure there's a recycling plant up there. I'm sure you can get some work in while you're there.
Michigan's on there with California. Is that 10 cents up there? 5 cents. No, it's 10 cents in Michigan. Is it 10 cents? Well, you can make double time then, Will. Oh, hell yeah, it's overtime. Woo-hoo! Anyway, we digress. Where were we? Were we done? We are now at the end of the episode. We didn't do awards and stats. Oh, shit, we didn't do that. No?
Wait, was that on the script? It wasn't. That's my fault. All right. This should have been at the beginning. John, why didn't you say something? I leave it up to the maestro. All right. I'll do it really quick. That's the name of your second record, George. That's the name of this episode. Introduce it first, I think, John. I have not been drinking all month, so my tolerance is low. All right.
So normally, we would do this at the beginning of the episode, but George completely forgot. No, this is the new podcast. It's 20 new podcast. This is new. This is the new thing. So we're going to do the stuff from the thing that John does. Yeah, but I'm super tired. Do it, John. Do it. Do it now. All right. So if you're a first time listener,
You made it this far. I pity you. But thank you. So we do stats. Why? We have no I have no reason for doing this other than I just do it and it's fun. But we've developed kind of a mythos about us that we'll get to in a second. They're called awards. And they become fun. They become fun to do. I used to spend a lot of time talking about where these albums came from and the record labels. And I feel like it's not as
interesting anymore as it used to be because i like the awards part of it more
that's where it's all at so i'll just run through this real quick and get to the
good stuff do it now so on our list we have 150 albums we had 104 individual albums
yeah we had a lot uh from 20 countries around the world mainly european but we hit five continents
not bad did not hit south america this time but everybody else and there aren't any bands that i
I don't know of an Antarctica. The penguins maybe. They're not in Antarctica right now. Are they located there? Wait. Oh, well, they're from Antarctica. Yeah. The enrichment. Oh, wait, wait. Was there one from Africa? Or Spain via what was the other place? Colombia. Greece or some. No, Brazil. I don't think we've ever had a metal album from Africa. No, we have. We have. I feel like Will has. Crescent is from Egypt. Oh, that's right. I think they've got the rains down.
in Africa. Yeah. And 51 labels. We actually had a lot of independent releases this time. Six. We haven't had many recently. But anyway, the usual suspects when it comes to the countries that show up. There's no point in mentioning them all. So we only mentioned a few. United States, obviously, we have the most albums from. But we are seeing a lot the last few years. United Kingdom, England and Scotland, Sweden, Canada, all these countries. France, we're seeing a lot.
We always have. There's no point in going over all those because we get that constantly. So let's move. And I don't really show much. We're worldly, John. Yeah, we are. And I don't really say much about the labels anymore because there's so many labels. It's unreal. It's hard to keep up with all of them. There's too many DIYs. And there's also labels. There's like two labels for one record sometimes. Exactly. And it's really hard. Did you say 51 labels? Yeah, 51. That's absurd. I mean, try to imagine doing
that in 1984. There just was no such thing. And so while we have our usual labels, they're there, but there's so many that, like, I'll look at your list, I'm like, I have never even heard of this label. So I think what you're saying is that we need to create a Metalheads podcast record label that releases albums. Yeah. Technically we can release albums if we wanted to, right? Technically I have a label. It's called Fracture Records. It doesn't matter to me, John.
But what was, do you know what number one was anyway? Was there a number one? Yeah, you know, here's what's interesting is it's not on my sheet this time. I don't have. Oh, yeah, here we go. Take it back. Apologize. Yes. Seasons of Mist this year. We had a lot of releases from that nine. So profound lore seven nuclear blast will it will a tip. We've been getting a lot of recently. They've been cranking out a lot of music. So those were our big ones and a lot of albums from them. So.
But back to the countries, we do have small awards. That's our Global Citizen, which is kind of a lame name, so it's now going to be called the New World Order. Good one. All right. So, and I'm just going to go to the two awards. There's New World Order, and then there's America Fuck Yeah. All right. Marcus, son, you're our New World Order this year. Oh, yeah. You had the most there from 11 different countries. I'm actually pretty high. Wow.
11. Okay. Yeah. Not bad. Cause the U S is always the one that we have the most from. So I don't, we don't get that. George, you got the American fuck. Yeah. This time. Did I really? I took it from Will. Yeah, I know. And that crazy. We'll only had 11 surprisingly. Wow. So yeah. All right. So let's move on. Now we get to the fun stuff. Do we like each other or do we not like each other? We don't. So we go to the podcast. Love connection.
If you remember Chuck Woolery.
So what happened next on the date?
Two and two.
I don't have a lot of these.
I'm going to go ahead and say you are correct.
Yeah.
Markisan the most.
And what this is, is where we match each other on our list.
Album for album.
The most you had was with Matt.
Four.
Oh, nice.
Hi, Matt.
Four.
Hey.
Get a room.
Four.
You know, it's funny, we're talking about the love connection and Chuck Worry, but when you look at us, we look like the Hollywood squares. And when Mark was like, hi, Matt, he's like the square above Matt. Hey, buddy. Four is really low. That's not good. It's not good. But I am not shocked that it was with Matt, because you both are on that edge. You're on the spectrum.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you guys feel like in our top 10s, Matt and I usually have like in that even the top five, we have albums in common a lot of years.
If that was your least amount, I'd be like, oh, that's that. Yeah. But for your most.
Squeezing.
We needed some time just to each go explore our own things, but we kind of came back with stuff.
Back together.
Four times.
Four times.
It's four.
But I will say, Marcus, you did not have the least amount of matches.
You're close, but you didn't. Yeah, you had two with George, Jay, and Will. Matt, you and I, we matched together nine times. That was your big one. Nice. Same for me, actually, so there's no need for me to repeat that. Your least number of matched albums is with Will. One. Wow. But it was a special one. It's because it's one. Matt makes up his bands. I never heard of these bands. He makes the shit up. I did not provide Will anything.
So like I said, Matt and I had nine together. My least, it's a big shocker with Will, too. Will, you are just one better than Markisan. You matched Jay and George five times. We mentioned that you have no love with Matt at one. Jay and George. I love him the most. You guys match each other on eight. Your least with Markisan is two. Then George, like I said, your most is with Jay.
The EMI actually ate and like I said Lisa's mark is on. Okay, welcome to the club. We're glad to have you, John. Yeah, thank you. So they get a room. I don't mind a three-way. Well, Matt and I are getting a room. We had nine. And then the Cosmic Putrefaction, the Arch Enemies, the Frenemies, Matt and Will won. Frenemies, yeah. All right, let's get to the real stuff. Get real. We all know what we want to talk about. Volleyballs. The Volleyballs.
The old Wilson right here. Here we go. Here he is, guys. Here we go. All right. Larkasun. The sigh is telling. He may have broken a record. Really? 18 volleyballs. Holy shit. Out of 25? Out of 25. Wow. Matt? You got no taste. Or you have all the taste. I think Will is going to be close to that, though.
Yeah. Matt had nine volleyballs. Reasonable. I had ten volleyballs. Will. You had 18 volleyballs. Wow. I tied with Markisan? Yes, you did. Interesting. Wow. You may have to ship that to me just because it's a tie. No, no. Will, let John finish and then I'm going to say something. You guys got your own archipelagos going on out in the ocean. All right.
Jay, 12 volleyballs. Okay. And then George, nine volleyballs. Since Markasson and Will both have 18 volleyballs, that makes them some kind of strange frenemies now. They're like, it's like the other one. Yeah, exactly. So this is interesting. So what I was going to say is that I was talking to Ben about this because he's like, do you think you're going to win the Wilson Award again? Because I won like two years in a row or something like that. Yeah. And I said, well, I think if I'm going to have any competition,
It's probably gonna come from Will because he's gonna have a lot of death metal albums on his top 25 that most of us wouldn't so I would say two things knowing that we tied as defending champion for the last two years a draw means I keep the belt and I continue my reign that's what happens in boxing you have to beat the champ to be the champ however this came up when John did the combined list and there's a decisive
tiebreaker. Because on our combined top 25 list, Will said that he had a certain number of volleyballs. I think he had like five volleyballs on the combined list. Or maybe I only had five and he had six or something like that. But I had less. I had more volleyballs on that combined list. So why don't we go to that right now? Which is, I think you're talking about the podcast Clairvoyant. Which is the most top 25.
25. Yeah. And you would be correct. You had five. Yeah. And you would be correct. Will only had six. Yeah. So yeah. So I think that's the tiebreaker. And I'm sad actually, because I would love to send this to Will. I want to mail this big ball to Will. I really do. He's got big balls. This is all Sean mailed before me. I'm so confused. I had six and he had five. In the top 25.
In our combined. Combined top 25. Yeah. So who was able to predict our top 25 combined? Yeah. We tied on the raw list, but not in the combined. Yeah. But then we'll have more volleyballs on the, or we'll have more volleyballs in the combined. Yeah. So Markisanly had five total albums where he is in the top 25. Okay. I got it. Yeah. It's our combined. Basketball, the golf.
Yeah. In other words. It blows your mind. Yeah. Hail me and hail Satan, yada, yada. We literally went from football score to golf score. Yeah. Because there has to be a tiebreaker. Yeah. And then the rest of us apparently are all clairvoyants. Matt, 14, Jay, 13, and George and I had 15 albums. Oh, shit. I was there for a while there. Yeah. You were there for a while. You had a lot. All right. So. Welcome to individuality.
Good job. There we go. The most important award. So we could move on. Will, awesome. You came for me. You came up a little short. But maybe next year you'll get this. Said no one ever. Except me. I'm the only one who could claim that. I just feel like Will's going to be looking for even more death metal. Yeah, he will. I mean. Dude, listen. I only, we only, how many did we have in,
Volleyball's on the regular list, six? Eighteen. Eighteen, so we're talking seven. That's crazy. I don't know if he can go less than that. I don't know if I can go less than that. That is wild, dude. I know. It's also kind of a weird year. There was a lot of stuff we all had diverse lists. Don't expect that next year. Yeah, it does seem like this 2025 was a year where it was a little bit all over the place with what we picked.
But one thing I appreciate about all this is that we share music a lot with each other. We have a text thread with Metalhead's new music, but we don't use it that much. I'm hardly ever on the podcast. We talk about podcasts, but this just goes to show how individual we are and how we just kind of go our own way.
groupthink here. And that's a good thing.
We're all very individuals, very groupthink. This is not like a conspiracy, like, oh, man, we need to put this album on. We just do our own thing. We don't share our lists, and it comes out the way it comes out.
I mean, listen, when we do the podcast and we talk about what we're listening to, I do write those things down and listen to albums that people are listening to if I have not heard them. And then we also do New Metal Fridays that John posts. And we put albums up there. I've been neglecting doing that for the first
a few weeks, but we put albums on there and I definitely listen to that. So we do get some cross-pollinization. Right. But you're right, though. We are. I'm not saying yes, there is cross-pollinization, but it's still very individual. It's still. It's not groupthink. It's like you like we were like. Nobody would ever accuse us. We are not corporate rock. Yeah. And Will does not stray out of the death metal sphere very often. So it's tough. You know, what's weird is I'm not.
I'm tired of death metal but I really
really really want some
good doom I love doom like
straight up doom like something like Crypt Sermon
or last year was a fucking
phenomenal year for doom yeah but
that Crypt Sermon
EP was pretty fucking awesome
it was awesome
anybody would accuse us of group think
would be to suggest that anybody would call
this a brain trust
wait wait we
have brains
this is a think tank
Well, we got one award left. The most important award. Oh. The J Awards. Oh, the J Awards. I almost forgot. Explain the J Awards in case somebody's a new listener. Yeah, so. When you stick a knife in your friend's back. The J Award is when five of us have an album on our year-end list and one person decides. It sucks. Screw those guys.
I'm not putting it on my list. I think I have a good shot at this this year. Oh, you do. You do. Yeah, you do. We have two awards this year. The first one goes to Will for Ancient Death, Ego, Disillusion. Ridiculous. He did not have that on his list. We all did. Marcasson had it at six. Matt had it at three. I had it at five. Jay had it at four. And George had it at 18. Will, Jay'd it. 0.0. So good.
Yeah. All right. We have one more, though. Markisan gets a J award this time. Do I? For Corner. Oh, yes, right. Distance Theory. How could you not have that on there? Come on. Will 2, J6, George 3, Markisan, J8 it. I mean, it was on my, I did a list of 77, so it's on my list in the top 40. No, no, no, don't rationalize it. That's the whole point. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I suck that dick. No, that's the point. I just liked other albums better. Markisan ours goes to 25. Yeah, this one goes 25. I do a bigger list. I go big. So I have attempted to go back and total the Jay Awards. Oh, I'm not sure. I've missed a couple as including missing Jay getting one.
last year, I think. So I think it's hard because my files are all screwed up. I lost, I deleted a year of our stuff once by accident. I've had just such a hassle getting it back. So anyway, as far as you know, Marcus, you've gotten four since you've joined. Okay. Matt, for some reason, who just left, which is really funny, has not had a J award yet. What? No. Get a room. I know. Yes. He's never had one. He's J-ing it.
as he's coming back. Didn't I jade King Goat or something like that? No. No, you're... No, no, this is since Marcus Unjoined. Oh, right, right, right. You're a team player, dude. Matt. Wait, Matt, there's no way you ever jade Temple of Void. I've been spending my life making it since then. I have done that. I bought about $1,000 of their merch just as an I'm sorry. But you guys are all in. I think got me a thank you in their album. Yeah. Right after that. Yeah, yeah, you did. But you guys are
amateurs when it comes to J awards this guy I've got seven I've got seven J emeritus award well you've only done it three times surprisingly oh wow okay and J and George you've done it twice it's but it remains funny it's named after him he's only done it twice well but I I did well I think it was the most painful when he instigated it yeah it was a chemist right it was chemist yeah
Are they still around? Can we just go back to this, John? How many did you have? Seven. Seven. And the next is me with four? Yeah, because you had one year. Jesus. Again, two or three, one year. Oh, that's right. I had two in one year. Wow. But you almost doubled me. Yeah, I usually always have one. Here's what's crazy, Will. You screwed things up for us this year. Because we could have had a Hall of Fame album.
put Ancient Death on your list.
How do you not like Ancient Death?
And the reason I say it is because it's a death metal op.
I know, I know.
There's even death in the name.
I just didn't resonate with me.
No, I know.
We've only had two Hall of Fame albums.
No, but hey, I stand your ground.
Wait, what does Hall of Fame consist of?
Well, that's what the J Award is all about.
Stopping something from happening.
Wait, wait, wait.
Was Ancient Death everybody's album?
It was like February.
It was like early right? Oh wait maybe March. No it wasn't mine. I don't think it was mine. Hold on let me let me check. It was a lot. I thought it was. I think so. Ancient death came out in April. Yeah it was early in the year. Spring. Yeah it came out in April so. I thought it was. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. I can't keep track of all this shit anymore. Well it would be two mold for sure is one of them. Horrendous.
And horrendous. And horrendous. Which I put in the Thunderdome. Because of that. One time. So those two. I'm looking for the image right now. Because I can't find my file. Those are the only albums we all had for album of the month. And we're on our top 25 lists. Oh and that's what. Super rare. That's why it's Hall of Fame. It definitely. We all had ancient death. Except for Will. Will had cancer. See he even jaded back then. Thanks for.
You're reminding me, asshole. I know. I know. And for the record, Will, I think that joke came up back then, too. Will. It's going to come up for the rest of his life. Will, that's called the double J. I think, Will, I think you actually said, I chose cancer instead of ancient death. And we're like, oh, boy. Yeah, yeah. Cancer chose me. Yeah, I know. You're right. So, Will Jader, that's like, he should get like four J Awards for that. Well, five. The key word is,
I know how crazy is that that's why I bring that one up will because we all had is our album of the month it's a death metal almost like he's gonna have it the funniest part that it's a death metal album and he didn't even know and one of the best of them in the last few years I would say so yeah you really took your heels in on that one yeah he did you did but you like what you like you know I'm proud of him I anybody wants to Jay a record it's in front of Jay
It blows that creator record away. So I don't understand. So there you go. There's our awards. That's awesome. We're not following the old script. We follow the new script. You know, maybe I'll see if I can find a physical manifestation of the Jay Award. Not unlike the volleyball. Oh, you should. This was fun. Oh, dude. Oh, I got it. It's super easy. You know, like where you put like the big, the, the, the little, it's like a mask, a big nose, a glass, a mark.
Yeah, and the big nose. Yeah, and the glasses and the eyebrows. I know what it is. I'll get you so. Or you just do a mold of your entire fucking head and make a cast out of a statue. I got it right here, Will. Oh, that's perfect. Who won it? Me and Will. You guys tied for number one? No, we got the Wilson Award. Yeah, because we could all get it. That's the thing. No, I think we tied for the J-Ward too, though. Yeah.
No, no, no, no. This is the J Awards. Yeah. Who won it? Will and Marcus Uncob. Oh, they were tied. Okay, it looks like I'm going to have to buy two pairs of glasses. We tied for the J Award and tied for the Wilson Award. Except not really, though. I'm sure I'm going to steal that fucking ball. Because I'm not smart enough to save things, would you both text me your address tonight?
Sure. So I can send you a J award. I have so many awards because I have the international award too. You'll have to keep these fairly nice. I need a trophy case for all this shit. Apparently Marcus owns the New World Order now too. I have no awards. Except for the American fuck yeah. Yeah. But my American fuck yeah is the fucking Matt fuck yeah.
What does that even mean? It means fuck yeah, Matt. Oh my god. So that, I know you guys can already know what Will's talking about. That's fantastic. Yes. Yeah, can you replace the mustache with a tiny burrito though? That'd be perfect. No, Markisan syndicate, if it's Groucho Marcus, you're not going to get a cigar. You'll just get a burrito. Yeah, that'd be good. The thing I like about this too is these are
available at magic tricks.com.
All right, fellas, you're getting these in the mail.
All right.
Hey, Jay, you can cut this out.
Is your last four 1978 for yourself?
Indeed, sir.
Okay.
Because I have it down as your work number.
I need to change it.
Okay.
But this, I do want to send this to somebody.
If somebody ever takes it from me because the stand is fucking really nice.
It's nice.
It's nice.
Very nice.
Yeah. And if you get it, you got to have it in the background every episode until you, until you send it to somebody else. I think I've had it in the last two episodes for sure. So I can keep it there. Awesome. Well, thanks for doing all that, John. Appreciate it. Not a problem. Yeah. You're retired, but not retired. Oh, I'm retired. You just can't help but count things.
That doesn't go away. All right. Well, here we are at just about three hours, which is short for us. Yeah. All right. And hopefully, theoretically, next episode will be a little different. Or maybe not. Might be the same fucking thing. We'll see. Same old shit or new shit.
shit. Yeah. Well, that was anti-climatic. Yeah. Who knows? Surprise this for you next time. Yeah. This is what happens when you talk about things that haven't been decided yet. Better production and a little cheesier. Yes, that's us. Coming. We're going to be polished next time. Absolutely. This is going to be so professional. Production is fine. Yeah. All right. Well, here we are. End of the first episode of
2026. And thank you all. And hoping for a really good year. Happy New Year. Stay heavy. Yeah. Nice. Good New Year. Stay cool. Later. See you next time. Stay warm. Absolutely.
I shatter the world that dragged me to pain to wheeze