Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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!
Metalhead Podcast,
Metalhead Podcast,
go!
You must listen.
You must listen.
You must listen.
Now,
here is the podcast,
Metal Heads Podcast.
Hello,
and welcome to the Metal Heads Podcast.
My name is George.
This is John.
This is the mad situation.
This is Marcusan.
We are down a couple of lads today,
but it's been so long.
We did not want to wait any longer.
Speaking of which,
sorry it's been a while.
We've had some unusual stuff happening this year.
Some unexpected,
some not so unexpected.
A couple of medical situations.
I had a bug bite that went out of control and tried to hand him in all over me,
but I survived it.
All limbs intact.
All limbs intact.
Lots of antibiotics.
Lots and lots.
You remained among the living.
Yes.
Follow me or die.
And somebody else had an issue too.
Yeah.
I had surgery.
Addominal surgery.
And I was fine. And then I had some post-op issues that hurt a lot more than the surgery.
So.
Yeah.
So.
Took me.
about a month and a half to get better.
It shouldn't have,
but I'm better,
I think.
Yeah, so based on all of that stuff, it was just really complicated trying to have everybody healthy and available and is what it is.
Plus,
let's not forget,
some of us are doing a lot of traveling,
too.
Yeah. I was on the road for two weeks.
Marcus,
I think you were away for a while.
Yeah, I was in Switzerland for two weeks, which was glorious.
So, yeah.
On top of all that, we all have stuff.
What's going on?
Matt and Will have kids,
so school starting up again.
Life happens,
man.
Yeah,
you're busy.
Sure does.
Jay might have been abducted, we don't know.
By aliens,
no, I'm saying.
Happens out there in the desert.
It's my stupid long-running joke.
Watch the skies,
Jay.
Fire in the sky.
That was in Arizona, wasn't it?
What?
I think it was.
I remember the woods a lot in that movie.
Either that or New Mexico, I can't remember.
I don't know.
Maybe it was in Maine,
I don't know.
But despite all this, we still managed to get to a few shows that maybe we'd like to talk about.
As is tradition,
John returns from Prague Power,
and he must fill us in.
Okay,
I won't spend too much time.
I did this on the other podcast and I completely forgot about it.
Marcus on literally just reminded us. Because I want to hear a little. I want to hear the highlights.
Looking at the clock like literally three hours ago.
So I put something together real quick based on what I put together for the Stairway to 11 podcast and I added a little extra. But anyway.
So yeah, this was the 25th edition of Prog Power in Atlanta.
This is my 24th.
Even though I've
I paid for 25.
I didn't go to one,
even though I had my tickets and everything.
So this was a big one because it was the last year of the promoter,
Glenn Harveston,
who had finally decided to retire.
He said, I've had enough. I'm done.
And he was shutting it down.
But Milton Mendesaw, I think that's how he says his name, Mendesaw,
he took over.
He's the day two promoter when it was day one and day two had different promoters and day three.
3 and 4.
He's taken over and he's going to carry it forward to a 3-day fest.
So,
that was a lot going on at this one.
Plus,
it was a pretty stacked lineup,
considering we still lost a bunch of bands because of whatever issues.
Everything from visas to bands backing out for whatever reasons.
But, I'll just give some highlights from it. It's a 4-day fest.
TR,
the Metalheads Butler and I went down on Tuesday.
Metalheads Butler! Metalheads Butler!
a day early and we maybe drink a lot of beer the first day.
Maybe,
John.
Yeah.
And that was actually maybe not the smartest thing for me to do,
considering my post-op issues that I was having.
I mean, it was okay for me to do it, but I even got a text message that I said,
Hey,
are you going to keep drinking today?
You don't want to have, which I never get ever.
That never happens.
It's usually like, what is wrong with you guys tonight?
It's usually that.
So she was untapped stalking you?
Yeah, she was tap-tapping.
Exactly.
But her phone, you know what it was? Her phone and her wrist were constantly dinging like every three minutes.
Anyway,
yeah, we go to this place called the Brick Store Pub down in Atlanta.
I'm pretty sure it's the name. I always get it wrong.
It's a great place. It's got a Belgian bar upstairs.
And we got there early.
And we were like, there's no way we're going to make it to when it opens at 5.
Yeah,
right. Oh, we made it all right. And we stayed up there for a while,
too.
So if you guys are ever down there in Atlanta,
Brick Store Pup.
Awesome place.
I'm sure I will be. That's a place TR met Bran from Macedon. He was there one night at the bar.
So it's a cool place.
Funny enough, I met him at a different bar in Atlanta.
So actually, if you're in Atlanta at bars, you may run into him if he's not touring.
So anyway,
so back to the fest.
So the fest was Wednesday,
Thursday,
Friday, Saturday.
Tons of good bands.
We didn't have much time to do anything because we were at the venue almost every day for the whole fest.
There was only, I think, one day.
No, actually, it wasn't because the schedule got changed.
So yeah, we were there almost the whole day.
Saw most of the bands, which is,
There's always a day at a fest. You guys know when you go to a four-day fest.
There's always a day that you're like, well, I might not see as much. I might just hang out. I might do merch shopping,
you know, whatever.
So,
not this year.
But I'll just run through the list of bands that were highlights.
And if you guys have any questions,
great.
If you're interested next year,
I can read off the list for that. If not, then we move on to the other shows. Definitely.
All right. So,
the highlight actually,
and I'm pretty sure Tierra was not a
I like this band a lot but they were actually the highlight to start because of the situation and that's the band Voyager was the main headline for the whole fest they headline day four and if anyone knows anything about that band or a prog metal band from Australia they probably shouldn't even be on stage because their lead singer is stage four cancer and was told a while back that he only had a couple months to live and that was a couple years ago so he was a
He performed.
And I had a great time.
We didn't stay for the whole thing. I think we stayed about an hour because we had to be up so early the next morning to catch our flights.
And after five days,
you're tired.
You know,
when you have that bookend day of drinking in there.
So they were great.
But he kept making jokes about his stage four cancer the whole time,
which was kind of funny in a dark, morbid way.
All right. Anyway,
they were great.
I enjoyed them.
A lot of new rest.
He still gets to perform.
He only gave him months and he's had years and he can still perform.
That's pretty amazing to get that extra time.
A lot of energy.
Yeah.
He's been graced with some more time.
No way I was not going to at least watch an hour after hour and a half set because I was like, I may not see them again.
Yeah.
And they travel the whole way from Australia.
I felt I needed to be in there for it. I just wish I could have stayed. I was just too tired.
and they performed all of ice thirst the dark saga wow place was just getting crushed he sounded so good i mean there's this joke you know he sounds like paul stanley and he came out and i was like he sounds like paul stanley still but man he's making paul stanley look like a chump blowing the roof off and you know it kind of was needed i'm not going on any diatribe about ice thirst because i
I like I stir it kind of like okay what happened happened a few years ago we could still enjoy a band that the other musicians were part of Matt Barlow being the guy Glenn was down up front the promoter literally fist pumping like crazy in his Hawaiian shirt you know that he always wears going nuts and at the I've never seen him at the end of the show you know on the the the barricades that they have that the
Security Can Stand.
They have little platforms on the other side. They can stand so people, when they're coming over, they can grab them.
One was actually up there screaming at everyone, "Come on!" and telling them to cheer.
It was... Yeah,
Matt Barlow was awesome. They were so good.
Conception,
a progmodel band from Norway,
they played twice because a band literally,
days before the fest, had to back out over visa issues that they thought they had it. One band had to back out because they didn't properly take care of their visas.
So I was like, you know, you screwed your face.
Another band did everything possible and got screwed.
So that was a shame for that second band.
But Conception and another band playing at the Fest, the two headlines for Monday and Tuesday,
or for Wednesday and Thursday,
decided to play the empty slots on the opposite days.
So Conception played the third slot on Wednesday,
and then they did their headline set on Thursday,
and vice versa for the other band. So we got an extra set at Conception. It was awesome.
And they played different songs.
And they had to literally prepare this with two days notice.
So yeah,
that was cool.
Threshold.
These are all prog bands.
Not many of the power bands.
Threshold played.
They literally missed their flight. Their flight got canceled.
And they literally got into Atlanta with like three or four hours to spare before they were supposed to be on stage.
They came out and absolutely crushed their set,
which was great.
Fires in the Distance played. They were great.
It was interesting seeing them after all the talk.
We had about the new singer.
He sounded pretty vicious on stage,
but they got a really good reception for an opening day band, which I thought was nice.
The reticent played. Everyone was depressed for the whole set.
It's hard watching them. They were monstrous, their sound. They were way heavier than the last time I saw them.
But at the end, you're just like, fuck,
man.
I don't know.
They're the opening band. You're like,
ah,
that's it. I need a hug.
I need a hug and I'm going home. I can't do this.
Sadly,
somebody yelled during their set to get off the stage because there was a video playing that was really hard to watch of a guy dying.
Basically,
they used to call them convalescent homes, but that type of a home,
you see his progression from being a fully stout man to this just skin and bones at the end. It's really hard to watch.
stuff very seriously in his life.
So if you don't like it, you don't go.
That's the way I look at it. Well, it's a little different,
I think, from the rest of the Fests, where Prog Power is really more bright and energetic, I would say.
Yeah.
Happy Hobbits.
Well, Happy Hobbits and a lot of swords and dragons for the power sort.
But they were still great, you know, and I enjoyed it, even though I had to give myself a hug afterwards.
It was great to see them.
Disappointing set in that they only played one new song.
They played everything from the first two albums, which is great.
That's awesome.
They just put on a new album.
Throw a couple more songs.
That's all.
Still,
they sounded awesome,
but I just wanted to see more.
Italian band called DGM was good.
Then TR likes them a lot. I never got into them, but I might start to look into them because they're kind of like an Italian version of Symphony X a little bit.
Kahn,
the singer from conception also had his own set.
So he performed three times in three days.
And he did Camelot's The Black Halo because he used to be the singer in Camelot. So that was,
which was cool.
This guy was the MVP of the fest.
Pretty much. Yeah.
That's a lot for a singer to do.
Yeah.
And traveling like that.
Yeah.
Redemption played,
which is a prog metal band.
And their singer now is the guy from
But Ray Alder from Fate's Warning showed up.
Because he used to be in Redemption.
And sang like 80% of the show.
It was really cool for Tom from Evergray to kind of step aside and say, hey man, let's share the stage together.
It was actually really cool.
That's a good surprise,
John.
And Ray Alder, I think, sounds better now than he ever has. Ever has.
Yeah.
And then the highlight.
A little Evergray moment.
Apparently my mom follows
our Insta feeds for the podcasts.
And I walked through the door the other day and she's like,
do you know a band ever something?
I was like,
ever gray.
And she's like, yeah.
She's like, I saw that on you.
She thinks I post all this stuff.
And so I'm like,
she's always talking about stuff. I have no clue what's going on.
And I was like, oh yeah, ever gray. Yeah, they're cool.
Thanks, Ma.
And you're like,
George Costanzo, worlds are colliding, guys.
Exactly.
I just got Everclear stuck in my head now because I said it.
Complete respect for that, though.
Yeah, yeah.
Let's watch the world die together,
Matt.
Yes, please.
Watch the world die.
I'm going to bring you out of it.
Love that song.
Love that band.
I'll put this in your mind, Marcus, on Trust Me.
You'll like this better.
Because the visuals are pretty nice too.
Maybe one of the best sets I've ever seen in my life.
Maybe.
It's up there. It's at top five for sure.
Finally got to the Gathering play.
Yes!
With the Mandalian lineup,
which was basically what?
Five original members and Annika Van Kiersberg in the vocals.
Boing!
But they were all there.
And they played a short set too.
I get to play the full set that they've been playing on this tour. So they played 11 of the 14 songs,
which was disappointing because one of the songs was Emotion 2 off of Mendelian.
But for 11 songs,
oh my goodness,
it was insane.
I mean, I literally afterwards,
and it's not recency bias either.
It was really, that's up there easily in the top three or four performances I've ever seen in my life.
I mean, I never thought I'd get to see them.
those six together,
let alone, you know,
getting to see them play that album,
you know, most of the album.
Yeah.
And that's your,
is that your favorite,
John?
From them?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's also,
it's like my second,
if it wasn't for Still Life from Opeth, that would be my favorite album.
So of all time.
So it was,
and she sounded amazing and literally,
and of course there was,
you know,
guys,
men and women,
Glued to the stage.
Watching.
I was like, oh, there's other band members?
You know, so.
No, it was great.
So it was a great fest.
I won't belabor anymore.
We did get to hang out with our friends, Julian and Lance,
who are both podcast followers
for this and for Starweight 11.
We hung out with them for almost the whole time.
Been doing that for a number of years now.
And it was great.
We had a good time with everybody and
so we start a new chapter next year
so
any questions
from the audience?
Well,
wasn't Nevermore
supposed to be there too?
They were
because of a visa issue
for the lead singer
so they said
well,
we'll be back
well guess what
they're headlining the fest next year
oh my god
so
I'll read this off. Yes,
definitely,
John.
Okay,
and I won't take too much time.
I will say,
I was not... I wasn't jacked up. I wasn't excited for this.
And I've come to the conclusion I'm going to treat this as going to a fest where I don't know much and just enjoying it for what it is. And who knows, maybe I walk out liking most of the bands, you know, and I want to buy stuff from them. I'm going to cue the trombone for you. Make sure you can drink more beer,
John.
I don't know. We'll see.
I'll get a message.
Hey,
you're not drinking enough.
What's going on?
Your shields are down.
What's wrong?
Are you tired?
More stouts,
man!
No, I'm fine. I'm good,
you know.
Order another beer.
Use the app, Luke.
Order the beer.
Who's talking to me? Then some hairy guy just comes over my shoulder. It's me, man. Order a beer.
Okay, so for the first day,
I really don't know a lot of these bands.
But anyway, the first one's called Event Horizon.
They're from the U.S.
Don't know.
Okay.
Silent Skies is the next band playing.
And that actually has Tom, the main guy from Evergray.
And I can't remember his name. And I feel bad about it because he's played at Prog Power so many times. He's from the Cleveland, Ohio area.
He's now the keyboardist within Temptation.
God, I can't remember his name.
But he's been in a boatload of bands.
He played,
I don't know how many bands that weekend at Prog Power.
That's kind of like piano rock almost,
so I was a little surprised that they were going to be there.
Metal Church must be on tour again because they're playing,
which I thought was cool.
I get it. You've got to slip some of these bands in there to fill spots sometimes.
And I like Metal Church.
Yeah,
but there's only one guy left in Metal Church now.
Yeah, it's like Metal Church V23.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Mark 23.
A band called Heat from Sweden.
I don't know them.
They're like a hard rock AOR type band.
I don't know.
And then I'll say this wrong.
If anyone knows how to say it right,
go ahead and pronounce it after me.
Iluvete.
Iluvete.
Yeah.
It's not like that really.
I saw her say it and I was like, yep,
not I'm going to try.
I always said Iluvete,
but it's not.
Yeah.
So I knew that everyone would know that.
I like that's what everyone does they're playing I might watch them it's like a folk metal that's like yeah I like them yeah yeah so I might and that's is that the band that the woman her name is is it Ann Murphy or Anna Murphy from Seller Darling that she her and a guy I believe so I think left yeah they play the hurdy-gurdy which is cool I've seen Seller Darling they're awesome I couldn't believe I mean I like the music but I couldn't believe how good they were live because that's a lot
to replicate on stage.
So that's day one.
So day two,
they announced only four of the six bands.
I was like, well, what the hell is this all about?
But we got one of them so far that came. So opening is Royal Sorrow.
Don't know him from Finland.
One of the TBAs was just announced as Triosphere from Norway.
I guess they're a band kind of like Symphony X and DGM, that kind of prog power there, the hybrid band.
That was the one CD I bought when I was in Norway.
Was it really?
Yeah. I mean, like,
15 years ago or whatever it was.
Yeah, they've been around for a little while. I don't, I, I'll check them out. It was good.
Yeah.
I think it's probably,
you know, keep me entertained at the, at the worst,
which is more than enough for me.
Next is Einer Solberg,
who's the main guy from Lephrys. He's doing a solo set.
The other Einer.
Yeah.
So,
which is wild because I've seen him there so many times playing with so many different people,
you know, so that'll be cool.
The next is a TBA.
So we don't know who this
They were supposed to be announced today,
and they had to cancel them out already.
But something came up to the point where it was agreed upon that it was best for both the Fest and for the band to do it.
And everybody's on good terms,
and the door is open for them to come back. So it was an extreme case, I guess.
This shit happened.
John,
you've confirmed there are no prog metal bands named TBA.
Well,
you know, that's a good point.
You might know somebody that I don't.
Thank you.
You never know. You never know.
That'd be awesome if that's who it was,
TBA.
We are TBA.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Good night.
I know Marcason likes this band. I've seen them before a few times.
I don't have an album by them, but they're awesome live.
Unleash the Archers is coming back.
Oh,
yeah.
They're really good live,
too.
Yeah.
They're great live. And then Windrose,
I don't know them from Italy. I think there's going to be dragons and dwarves. That's power metal.
I've heard that. Oh,
yeah.
All right.
I always do this every year on Prague Power.
Day three,
opening a band from Iceland called Power Paladin.
Power Paladin, yeah.
I've heard of them. I don't know them.
This is like the first or second Prague-y band,
ILO,
from United Kingdom.
I don't know them. I've seen the album pop up all over the place,
and they've only got two albums, so I'll check them out.
Next band from Italy called Vision Divine.
Know them.
I know them, but I don't know them.
Next is Master Plan from Germany.
That's going to be full on,
you know,
sailing on a sea of cheese, power metal singing and everything.
This is the one that caught me by surprise.
I didn't see this one coming.
Lynch Mob is playing.
What?
Yes.
For the 40th anniversary of Dawkins Back for the Attack.
Ooh.
Tempting.
Yeah.
So he must be on tour also, which makes me wonder,
is he touring with
with Metal Church.
That would be an odd pairing.
It would, but they're closer together than they are with the bands at Prog Power. True.
They're both from that period.
I like Dawkins.
I don't like the fighting that goes on between George Lynch and Todd Dawkins. I think it's just absolutely silly.
But I'll get to see George Lynch, and I know he's a great guitar player, and that'll be fine.
And then the last band would be Nevermore.
headlining the set,
or the best.
So I talk too much about it again, as usual,
but... I don't know most of those bands,
or I'm not into some of those bands,
so yeah, I'm interested in Archer's and Nevermore would be the tops for me, for sure.
Yeah,
and I listened to a little bit of each.
Like George said, that Triosphere is pretty good.
I mean, I'll check them out, and apparently their new album is very good. People are loving it. Yeah, I think it came out this year.
just recently,
like last month or two months maybe? Yeah, I feel like I've seen something about them recently.
I'll check it out.
You know,
look, I'm not a fan of the last few albums from Leprous,
but that guy,
Einer,
he's great live.
I mean, he may be not my favorite vocal style, but he always is a great performer, so I'll watch that for sure.
I bet they're better live than their albums.
Oh, I've seen Leprous a bunch of times,
but he's doing a solo set,
so.
Oh,
yeah. Yeah, it's,
Yeah,
so it's going to be a little different.
Event Horizon is kind of a prog metal rock band. I'll definitely check them out. I mean, I love the movie.
Love it. I was going to say.
I think the anniversary is this year,
actually.
Actually, I misspoke.
It's Advent Horizon,
not Event Horizon.
Oh,
you're thinking of the movie.
Yeah, well, yeah.
I mean, who?
Damn Neil coming out all bloodied up and shit.
That's so good.
You know, that thing spinning in the background,
like, what the fuck is that?
Speaking of cool movies,
you guys probably already know this. I know John knows this.
But I'm going to see The Wrath of Khan at the Lyric Theater in Baltimore and get my picture taken with William Shatner.
Nice. Because he's going to be there doing like a Q&A after the movie.
I want a height update. To be clear.
Or what? I want to know if he's like 5'5 now since he shrunk a little bit.
Well,
I was reading because it's a stupid amount of money to get your picture taken.
And you don't even get like more than like two, three seconds.
It says that they move you through really fast.
You walk up.
You stand there. You can't shake hands or anything.
You just walk up,
smile,
and go.
I mean,
the guy's like 90-something.
And that is part of the reason.
I'm hoping they don't do. They said in some places they put him behind a plastic shield. I'm like, well, then there's no point.
That's just like, whoa, look,
Kirk in a box.
Actually,
pretty fun photograph.
If he was behind the plastic shield and you were in front. George, no. Then I'd have to be like,
I am and always will be your friend.
You've got to do Star Trek 3 if that's the case.
You've got to just drop to the ground and everything and put your hand up.
Yes. He's like, you almost got Hannibal.
You can't be near me.
And then security will come up and say, you know you're the 58th guy to do this today.
Let's go. Come on, move it.
Lucky number 58.
He was just here for a Riot Fest playing with his metal band.
That's right.
I didn't go, but the captain,
my friend the captain went.
Yeah,
I saw a little bit.
And it's a novelty. It shouldn't be a tour.
Yeah,
yeah.
I mean, I think it's good for a festival like that.
That's it,
yeah.
But George,
I'm glad you left the ticket purchase in the episode.
That was a nice piece.
Well, I thought it was a good study on Obsession.
Yeah.
any podcasts.
Yeah.
But they were like, yeah, this is getting cut out.
And I'm like, no,
it's not.
I know.
I know.
As I'm listening to it, I'm like, I'm so glad he didn't cut this out.
I'm here in real time because we've all been there, right?
I mean, and we could be there again tomorrow,
depending on what's on tour.
I was balancing the rudeness of derailing it for a few minutes with the this is real aspect.
You know,
this is how it is.
Breaking news.
Exactly.
Breaking my bank.
All right.
I have one more other show.
If you don't mind,
I'll just take two seconds because George is tired of me talking about this band.
But I thought that I would never see The Gathering Play of Annika again.
And I never thought I'd get to see Rush again.
And I saw them finally in Cleveland.
Awesome show.
That's all I'm going to say.
And I'll be seeing them and you'll be seeing them.
And TR will be seeing them again later this month.
I'll be going to both shows, yes.
Yes.
It'll be my first time ever seeing Rush.
What?
Yeah.
First time ever.
I didn't know that. John needs another hug.
No.
Let's just wrap this up so I go feed my cat.
Right.
Wow.
Talk about a kick in the nuts.
I didn't know that.
Oh, yeah. Okay.
Yeah, never been.
Never been.
So I'm happy you're going to go.
There's another tour that people have been going to.
What?
Yeah.
Anybody go to that tour?
That's the Iron Maiden tour.
You in the back with the beard.
What show did you go to?
Everybody has a beard on this podcast.
Right now.
Yep.
Yeah.
Iron Maiden, Run For Your Lives,
50th anniversary tour.
Three of us have gone,
so.
Three separate shows,
three separate places.
Zero new songs.
As it should be.
Yeah,
but I'll be honest,
the opening four songs, I mean, you could have just walked
out after that and said, all right, I'm done.
I got to see the awesome part of the show.
Yeah,
there was no filler on this thing.
No.
So this was all me.
It was awesome.
And I just think they sounded great,
too.
Well, first of all, I went with the captain. He had never seen Maiden before.
And so I was like, you need to go see Maiden. Who knows how many more years we're going to have with them.
They're pretty spry.
So I think they're going to be around for longer. But you just never know.
They're getting up there. Yeah. I said the same thing. I was like, so I went with three of the guys from Michigan that I grew up with.
up with.
And two of them had never seen them either.
And so
we're watching and, you know, being blown away.
In fact,
the group text just came up again
today and they were like, I can't believe we saw Maiden.
So, you know, almost a month later and they're still still feeling the love.
But I was like, man,
well,
because I was I sold it to him as, you know, this might be the last
you get the chance to see him and we're watching him and I'm like why would you go out if you're still playing like this you know I mean okay go out on top I get it but I was like they could easily come back in two years and do this again assuming everybody's not had any accidents or you know illnesses or anything yeah I mean at my show Bruce is like you know we're gonna keep doing this he actually mentioned that during it because I think he just had the time of his life
onstage.
And I really liked how they had that big backdrop,
that screen.
And then a lot of times Bruce was interacting with it. Yeah.
He would like disappear and go on screen.
Yeah. Yeah. Or there was the stairs that went up and it looked like he was actually ascending and fighting fucking demons and shit.
So I really thought that was cool.
I didn't know how it would go. And they, of course, they worked in like puppets and Eddie and all that.
Yeah.
I,
that, this was the first,
The first show I think that I've seen for Iron Maiden in my 30-odd years of seeing Iron Maiden,
where they did not have,
during Iron Maiden,
the song,
the Eddie that pops up and comes out. It was just on the screen.
This is the only time I've ever seen them where they did not have a physical Eddie.
But that said, the stuff that did that on the screen is way better than anything they've ever done on the screen before.
And so,
you know, the times are changing,
but it was worth it.
And Bruce's voice was amazing.
Like, probably better than I've seen, heard him,
like, in the last few times I've seen him.
That's awesome.
Matt, you saw him?
Yeah, I had a group of eight.
One of them, which was my boy child,
first time he saw them.
Another was Eric,
friend of the podcast.
My boy child. His daughter.
His daughter. Yeah,
exactly.
And it,
you know, having seen them a number of times,
You really can't convey what was cool about it.
For me,
it was good because I didn't hear.
It was just nice to hear old material that sounded perfect.
It just sounded exactly like I wanted to.
A couple people with us, some family members who have just been diehard maiden people their whole lives, they just walked away like that was the best main show I've ever seen.
I was like, this is just wonderful.
This was a good evening.
We had this new amphitheater open up in Mindy
And so besides Maiden,
we got a Slayer golden ticket from Holy Wonka.
And so they came to town with, it was Hatebreed,
Suicidal,
Down,
and Slayer.
And it was part of the playing Rain and Blood in its entirety.
Wow.
What did they do for the other hour and a half?
Actually,
the funny thing is,
the first hour and a half was other stuff.
And then they played Rain and Blood.
Were they encored with it? Oh, that's cool.
I kept telling people,
like,
that album's only 30 minutes.
I know that by heart.
28 minutes.
Yeah,
exactly.
They could have really encored with that, and that would have been the greatest encore ever.
Yeah,
we're going to play an encore for you now,
the whole album.
Do a full set. People are like, what the fuck? They didn't play the album. And they come out and say, we're going to play the whole album as the encore.
That would be badass.
What was interesting is that the first concert I went to at this new amphitheater, which also included my boy Child and Eric and his family, was Guns N' N' N' N' N' N' N' N' N' N' N' N' N' N' N' N'
and roses.
It was good to see them,
but they played for three hours.
There was a lot of guitar solos. There was a lot of filler.
No new songs.
No. Yeah.
Well, there was like six new songs.
Unfortunately,
like we're all like, this must be off Chinese's democracy.
And I wouldn't look like, no, these are like legit new guns and roses songs. I just don't know about,
but to go from that to Slayer who had zero encores,
they had zero breaks.
They just played for like 90 minutes.
They did not love it.
Stop.
They did. It was just like,
there's no
There's nothing like we just played the stage setup,
you know, again with the like the background screen the stuff it does and like stacks of martial amps and upside down crosses more pyro than you can shake a stick at. I mean, it was pretty it was pretty epic.
Yeah,
so I saw them do Rain of Blood last year and it sounds like a similar set and it was amazing.
Wow.
It was the Hershey Park show.
Hershey Park, yeah.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Well, I mean,
getting back to Maiden, we should we should mention that the the set
was just from their first nine studio albums. So it's their self-titled debut through the dark,
which was 92,
I think.
So what I really liked is they played some fucking deep cuts,
man. I don't know if you guys got that as well,
but like Infinite Dreams.
Yeah. They haven't played that since 88.
I know they keep saying that, but I swear I've seen them play it.
Like, I know.
I feel like I have too. Like within the last 10 years.
Yes.
But,
Yeah, but they do say that, but I swear I've seen it.
That's awesome.
But you got some... The way it started, I thought was awesome.
But Murders in a Room Org. Yeah.
Right into... I mean, if you want spoilers,
I mean, it's gonna be hard to not hear this,
but Wrath Child and Killers, you're like, what?
And then Phantom.
Yeah,
I got that too. Gotta love Phantom.
Love it.
Yeah.
Coaster.
Nice.
For me, it was like...
The Ides of March and Murders in the Room War back-to-back.
So that was cool.
Which is funny, because that's not how it is on the album.
Yeah.
I wanted to go, I just couldn't work it out because of Prague Power.
I want to just say something real quick. Does it feel like 1985 right now?
Think of all these tours that are happening right now.
Rush,
Maiden,
Slayer.
Taking Slayer out of the equation right now.
Rush and Maiden have these massive video things going on right now.
George, it's the same thing.
You saw the Maiden thing Rush is doing.
They've never done anything like this before.
And both of those bands got put to shame.
Have you guys seen Metallica in Vegas?
I saw a couple.
I didn't see any clips, but I saw some photos.
Holy shit.
Yeah,
well.
No,
I mean, say what you want about them.
They were playing,
what, The Sphere or whatever it's called?
Holy smokes.
It looks awesome.
Yeah, I mean, I think anything at The Sphere is going to look amazing if it's,
you know,
not completely. Yeah, but to see all the early artwork to the songs and,
you know, it's all, there's movement on it. It's not just the images.
It's just like, fuck, this is cool.
All right, you got me for one night. You know, once the Black Album comes on, I'll go take a piss, get a beer,
you know, which is probably like half the show, but still,
and apparently Rush,
has got a thing they're planning there too. I'm like, oh.
Yeah.
That's a lot of money, man.
And the backdrop for Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
that was awesome.
Oh, yeah.
What did they do?
Oh, we can't tell you.
Okay, I'll go on.
I'll watch the video.
No, don't tell me.
I'll go watch the video.
It's a very sea,
you know,
captain and like crazy creatures. There's the albatross flying around and the rolling dice for the crew,
the two opposing forces.
And it was just pretty awesome.
It was beautiful.
That's so cool.
Dark and filled with beauty.
So happy to see all our older bands that had, you know, interesting artwork early on.
Now,
finally,
towards the twilight,
it is what it is.
Being able to do these cool things for their fans that,
like, Rush didn't have the greatest covers in the world,
But like any band that I was a fan of, I would just stare at these things for hours,
trying to figure out what's, I'm going to see something nobody else has seen.
We know we've all done that for the Maiden albums.
Come on, we still do it.
I know I'm going to find something on, somewhere in time, something's going to be there, I know it. Well, especially on Somewhere in Time, there's so much going on in that thing.
And then you realize,
you don't know the secret,
the dirty little secret, is they started that on Power Slave.
You have to really look close on Power Slave, there's all kinds of stuff on there.
That's right.
No, that's awesome.
I'm glad you guys got to see them.
Yeah, it was especially fun going with a captain because you get to see him for the first time,
you know,
so just kind of blown away.
Didn't know what to expect.
And then,
you know, there's really nothing like a maiden show.
So I enjoyed that.
Yeah,
absolutely.
Cool.
Let's move on to the new releases then.
The new releases,
we the new releases three.
That is my worst Monty Python rhyme,
but.
That's all I got on the spot.
So we have three new releases for you.
It's been so long that there have been like a million releases.
And I just sort of threw up my hands and said, I don't know, I guess just we're only doing three.
Let's just do these three because they're relatively recent and or notable.
So first one is the new Anthrax album.
Curse them per fecio.
I'm not sure if that's a soft or hard C.
It's their, I think, 13th album.
Porficio.
It's an Italian wizard from Hogwarts.
Curse him porficio.
That's the first thing I think of when I see that.
Yeah, apparently 13th album.
I was pretty excited for this because the last few albums with Joey have been pretty awesome, I thought.
I did not.
It did not move.
When I listened to this, it didn't move.
It was okay.
Wasn't bad.
But it just was not pumping my nards.
I mean, I feel the same way. I think it's a decent record,
but it's just mostly a collection of mediocre tracks.
But there are a couple standouts there. I really like the edge of perfection.
I think it's one of the best songs they've done it's got this kind of atmospheric black metal element to it and the the vocal parts are pretty infectious and I did not expect that from that at all so I think there's some good stuff on the record and it has a lot of variety but it isn't consistently engaging to me it's definitely not as good as for all kings in my opinion and I had high hopes just like you did George that they'd be able to come close to making something as good
as kings.
And I think they take a swing,
but they don't quite get all the ball on this one. And they had like 10 years to do it.
And whoops.
Sometimes if you wait too long,
you know, you kind of lose it.
Once they did that for all kings, like,
man, they should have just got right back into it because they were in a groove there, I thought. Yeah, I agree.
Sorry, there was something.
Oh!
I'm like sad that Jay's not here.
You were talking about black metal riffs and that reminded me that I picked up this music software Positive Grid Bias X.
It's a guitar tone program plug-in.
Jay,
I think you might recall,
picked up the Positive Grid Spark mini amplifier thing and was pimping it on here, I believe.
either that or Stairway, one of them.
It was Stairway, I think.
Okay.
And this is just a plug-in,
but you can type into a text field and say, I want a guitar tone that sounds like Johnny Ramone,
and it builds you an amp and pedal combination that sounds like that.
And most of the stuff I've put in there is pretty spot on.
So then I got a little crazy.
And I was like,
give me Mayhem's Dom de Mystery Satanus.
Okay,
okay,
give me Emperor's I Am The Black Wizards.
And holy crap,
these raw 90s black metal guitar tones sound so amazing when you tremolo pick.
You know, I've done lots of tremolo picking that just sounded weak because whatever,
I was using just didn't sound good. And I'm like, I just like sat there and played like,
you know,
tremolo fricking riffs for like an hour. Cause I was like, it sounds so cool.
Um,
real musicians probably don't have that problem,
but,
uh,
chumps like me,
uh,
we gotta,
we gotta take these wins where we get them.
Um,
so anyway,
I wanted to mention that maybe. You're a good musician,
George.
Don't, don't belittle yourself.
Anyway,
thank you.
I appreciate it.
Anyway,
sorry.
Are we done with Anthrax now?
Do you have anything to say about that?
I'm kind of in the same boat.
Okay.
It was good to have a listen through.
John?
I was going to say I haven't listened to it yet. I'm sorry.
Oh, that's okay.
I'll pay you back on that one later.
That's fine.
Actually,
I'll pay you back right now with the next album.
Oh,
shit.
The next album is Dreadnought and Wars of Spirit,
Wards of Light.
I'm not sure which number this is because I could not find... Every Dreadnought band I found online did not seem to be this one.
I could not find... They're not on Metal Archives and Wikipedia and... I actually had to go to Rate Your Music.
So six.
Thank you, Matt. I believe this is number six.
Okay.
That sounds about right.
It's number six.
Why are they not in Metal Archives?
They're a metal band.
Because metal archives,
those dudes are douchebag gatekeepers.
They don't have Exist on there either, but they have weight, and weight sounds more gent-y than Exist.
Do the math.
There's a lot of stuff that's not on there.
Yeah, a ton of stuff.
Well,
let's get rid of this douchebaggery and get it right.
Yeah, it kind of sucks, because I would feel like, you know, Dreadmott, I don't know, they kind of like have this whole black metal thing going on in their music.
You'd think that would qualify.
You know, so it qualifies enough.
Well,
apparently it doesn't for a lot of bands.
Yeah.
I spent 20 minutes typing their name in trying to find them in Metal Archives because I'm like, there's no way they're not in here.
Yeah.
There's like six bands called Dreadnought and none of them are it. Yeah.
And those bands all spell it differently too.
Yeah.
Some spell it with an A, some spell it with an O in the knot part.
Well,
anyway,
I have not listened to this.
So I know it's John and Matt's album of the month, which is why I put it on here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Go ahead, Matt.
I mean,
interestingly enough,
Dreadnought has been one of those bands that I was just waiting to have my moment with.
I've I've liked what they've done. I haven't listened to it too extensively,
not because I don't like what I'm hearing.
It's just time.
And,
you know,
there's thousands of other bands to listen to.
And for whatever reason,
I know they had one track come out a little bit earlier.
I listened to that,
fell in love with it. And then the whole album came out and I spun it and I was like,
wow.
Like it, it just blew my mind.
And honestly,
the, some of this stuff has still been in my head, even as we're talking.
Um,
but the rest is replaced by Everclear.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, watch the world die,
Santa Monica.
Um,
so I guess for me,
as someone who's not a
not aficionado,
but someone who is, I mean, I almost feel like I'm new to them.
I'm excited to go through their back catalog,
although,
you know, Marcus,
I take things into account. Like you said,
you know, it's not my album of the month, but this is definitely the best album they've ever done.
I can totally see that.
Cool.
Yeah,
no, it's,
I've been a fan going back, I think now to when Bridging Roams,
or yeah, Bridging Roams came out,
and which,
I'm on the fence which one's better between that one and the new one because those are the two I think that are their best albums but I like this version of the band better now though the last two albums they've kind of got a little leaner in their sound and it's a little more not straightforward but they had long songs on every album 14-15 minutes and they'd be like four of those now they've got six songs they're all ranging from like seven to nine minutes and I think they just
I thought have been great.
But the new albums,
it's super.
They've had this kind of prog post-metal meets avant-garde with their own version of black metal.
I don't know how you define who they are because they do all that stuff.
Probably,
I think you would agree, Marcus, I'm probably heavier on the black metal in the earlier albums.
But it's not traditional black metal.
It's folkier jazzier. This has got,
like, electronics and synth. This is, like, way different than what they've done.
Yeah, so the keyboardist and singer left.
So they had two singers,
and she left. So now the guitarist,
who was a singer, now has taken on all the synth and keyboard work.
And it's gotten synthier than before.
Not so much keyboard-y, but it's, like,
is added in that electronic element to which is giving it a whole different dynamic and yeah it's a little jazzier in spots on this album well it's it's no you can't define what they do they're all this stuff at one time um and they've added more male harsh vocals in there and i does he do any cleans also i think it's a little bit yeah but his is the last song i think there's a lot of male cars they're heavy as anything well
I think that's what struck me the most.
I was thinking more Sub Rosa,
and while they don't not remind me of Sub Rosa,
they're very aggressive at times,
which I love. I was not expecting that. And now the vocals are slightly different,
too. Now they're a little more angelic than they were before,
since she's doing all the vocals now.
But no, I do agree with you, Marcus.
It's this or Bridging Realms for me,
which is their second album, which is the one that really broke them.
But you can't go wrong with anything if you like this kind of music.
I mean, all their albums are great. Matt, you literally can start at the beginning because there's only six and work your way through and just see how they progress.
That's what I tend to do is go all the way back and kind of work my way forward.
Yeah.
Well,
like Matt said, this is easily my favorite Dreadnought album. I think it's a massive leap forward in the band's progressive metal sound.
Just the riffs are incendiary.
on this. The really good rhythms,
the vocals,
I don't know. There's something about it that just feels more immediate and captivating. And there's these beautiful melodies that are doused in this hyperlight because it has this spacey feel to it that we haven't had before.
And the way the band has just phase shifted the previous kind of like folky elements into this like galactic atmosphere,
it's stunning. And I think it's also the perfect
and they could have easily had long songs but put in this
more spacey effect and they didn't do that they decided they're going to tighten up and give you something that sounds uh more modern yeah i mean they only have one song over nine minutes which before previous albums i mean to be like you know here's one 12 10 13 another one 17 12 10 11 you know i mean yeah i mean and i think one of the defining characteristics of 2026 for me unfortunately is hearing a number of bands i've loved
suddenly alter their sound in ways that I just don't like very much,
like Wayfarer, Worm,
or Stormkeep.
The list goes on.
So it's really refreshing to me to hear a band like Dreadnought make such a big shift for the better.
Of course, that's my opinion,
but I feel they're a much better band on this record.
And I thought the previous records were fine,
but Wards of Spirit,
or Wards of Spirit,
of spirit,
wards of light.
It's like a space laser bolt of energy that gets blasted into their sound. They sound reinvigorated.
And to me, this record is probably going to be a lister. And I've never considered this band for my top 25.
I bought this on vinyl because I just kept spinning it over and over.
And we got the promo.
And I was spinning that a ton before the album even dropped.
And I did not expect that.
So that's a really good surprise.
I felt like they already were transitioning
and they still sound like Dreadnought
from the early albums
I mean,
their sound hasn't completely changed
it's just they've
they've veered into another lane a little bit here
in my opinion
but this started on the Endless
I thought their last album
they were already making that transition
the songs were getting shorter
and they were focusing a certain way
which I prefer the style of the last two albums
how they're going
and I love everything
I've got all their stuff
It's just,
I'm looking forward. Well, they're now,
are they,
they're still a four? Are they a five piece now? I can't remember.
Or they went down to four.
They,
they've changed the dynamic because of one person leaving.
It's kind of re-stacked the deck for them a little bit,
which is interesting.
Yeah. Yeah.
And just the last thing I'll say before we move on to the next one is that I love the cover art. It's by Christian Ward, who is a comic book artist.
So I thought that was cool because I don't think he's ever done,
Maybe he's done another cover-up, definitely not metal.
And you've got to open it up. That was fun for me.
Yeah, yeah. I got it on vinyl,
so it's pretty great.
Yeah, I've been slowing down on my vinyl because of space, and I'm just not paying $40 for a single LP.
It's tough,
yeah.
You can blow chunks,
but I'll show these guys.
You can sort of see.
It extends over much further on the,
what's it called, the insert.
You can see it. It's really cool, but if you're into that,
see?
See?
I'm showing them, but if you get a chance in the real world out there, not the podcast world of audio,
check it out. It's very cool.
Sweet.
Listen to it,
George, damn it.
I'll get to it. I haven't had much chance to listen to anything much lately,
though I did have a few items for the next section.
But before we get there, we still have to do Mastodon and their ninth album,
Mero Deep.
Matt is contractually obligated to mention... Everything about Mastodon?
I was going to say Leviathan.
Leviathan?
But we're still going to talk about this one instead.
Yeah.
Unless you'd feel the need to make a comparison of some kind.
So yeah.
I don't know.
So this is the first album since Tragedy Struck.
I was kind of shocked by it.
I was on vacation. A lot of people were. I was at the beach.
And I happened to have my heavies with me.
And I was like, hey,
this is out today.
Let's give this a listen.
Just for a little bit before I move on to something else.
Just to give it a little shits and giggles.
Next thing I know, I'm starting it over again.
I was like, hey, this is kind of good.
Me likey.
I mean, it inspired me when I first heard it to send a message to everybody on cast.
Which was like the same day.
It was, yeah. I think I was like literally listening to it when you sent that.
You know, it's interesting.
I feel like we talked about the first single that dropped out. We were all like, wow, this is definitely heavier than I expected.
But that was just the one song.
And that was ages before this dropped.
Right.
And then literally it hadn't even been out for 23 minutes.
And Marcus Sun's like, this album's kind of kicking ass,
man.
Yeah.
Well, the thing is, we've talked about this band a lot on cast. And we've discussed how we feel about the music post Crack the Sky,
right?
And what they've been doing, it hasn't connected with us. And then Brent Hines,
he was fired and then soon after tragically died.
us again,
because we wondered how would that loss affect the music going forward?
And I think we have our answer now.
It's a lot fucking heavier.
And it feels like there's a renewed passion for what they're playing on this record. And the songs are just so well crafted and interesting.
And I think it just rips all the way through.
Yep. I agree.
So,
and there's more experimentation on it. I mean,
they, they add a lot of 70s.
I wouldn't say a lot.
It's more like flourishes in songs.
They're more like a brief prog element, except for the last song, which is kind of off the rails.
But the prog in it is more focused, and it gives a lot of color to the songs that makes them feel vibrant,
alive,
adventurous.
So yeah,
I was shocked by how they were able to sustain it, that edge,
all the way through.
And it's great to hear this because I think the reason we talk about Masked Down so much is because we've loved those early records and we always wanted to hear something else from them because we knew they had it in them.
And here it is.
I think they are the most talked about band in this podcast.
And they are,
like,
to me, they are the whole point we talk about, the Metallica Paradox, which I realize is not a paradox,
but we're talking about a band that will never make Master of Puppets again.
because it's just not that period of time for them anymore.
And that, I think,
goes on to describe what Mastodon is.
I fully agree with this.
What's interesting, though, is that I felt like Hushed and Grimm was a good effort.
I felt like it was a little bit more of a return to form for them.
I just feel like because it was two albums that it got a little bit diluted because I think some of the good stuff got watered down by it. But I fully agree.
Listening to those
I think there might have been a second preview track right before the album came out and I just remember thinking like oh and and the reality is I will be the first to admit contractually my infinite album of the episode picked from the crypt forever in time is Leviathan it's not Leviathan I don't think we're going to get another Leviathan and I think that's the first step saying it realizing it the Leviathan support group yeah exactly which I have one there's one locally to me message me if you want to be a part of it we do
But I mean, I was fortunate enough to watch the prior current Mastodon while Brett was still alive play Leviathan in its entirety live.
And it was mind-blowing. Like, it's still there.
But that's where you get it. It's not going to come out in the other stuff.
And I realized in some of their, you know,
some of their material post-practice guy,
There are things in there that have gotten in my mind and have stuck with me and are enjoyable.
But this was one that is just definitely,
you know, when you start to hear a little bit of 70s Prague, for me, I'm like, hey,
I like this.
You know, I'm listening.
And yeah, I think it's a good, it's a good, I don't want to say a return to form, but it's just a good next step in the evolution.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it.
Yeah, I mean, I think I just missed the heaviness.
Yes, to be honest,
I think that they're really good musicians and they always try to do something unique and compelling,
but I miss that heaviness.
And it's not to say that some songs didn't have it, but I've seen a few interviews and at least one of them, the band mentioned that Brent just wasn't interested in playing heavy music anymore.
Said it himself.
Yeah.
So I think that was the push. I think you kind of hear that in Hush and Grim,
right?
because there's some really good songs in there. I think if they would have pared it down to one vinyl instead of two, it would have been a lot better.
But I think they probably had everybody just wanted to do something different.
And it just feels like they're kind of firing on all cylinders together with this one more. And it's a long record,
but it goes by. It goes by pretty quick, I think.
So yeah,
I mean, I'm excited to see what else they're going to do.
because there is a renewed life and a renewed interest for me for sure.
Well,
I'm going to take it a step further.
Yeah, heavier. But what I missed, even I missed it on Crack the Sky,
is the attitude in their riffing.
You listen to those first three albums.
I'm not even talking about the EPs yet,
but the first three full lengths.
There's piss and vinegar in those songs.
I mean,
there's a little bit of that hardcore,
without it being hardcore, but all those early bands, like early Neurosis was really influential on them. And you could hear that in some of their stuff.
And yet they still were doing their own thing.
They still,
that was a different type of prod that they were playing back then with the post-metal or the sludge metal,
whatever you want to call it.
You hear a little bit of that here and now.
It's just, they're in a different,
this almost feels like it would be a follow-up,
maybe only,
with an album in between from Crack the Sky.
I almost feel like that.
Because I feel it just,
they kind of got routine for me on those albums.
Those three albums after Crack the Sky.
The one before this I thought was pretty good. I have to go back and revisit it.
I think they got routine and they kind of had an identity crisis it felt like. It didn't feel like it was all coming together on the albums after that. I just feel like,
Some of the guys wanted to play one thing,
which was three guys.
And one guy didn't want to do that. And I'm not railing on Brett Hines. He just,
it wasn't where he wanted to be.
He was, I mean, and he was an incredible guitar player,
especially chicken picking and all that stuff he loved to do. And I was almost like, maybe you should just do that.
If you're happier doing that,
you know?
So,
I mean,
I mean, Masson wouldn't be Masson without him playing.
No,
but he's not here.
now, and so now you're getting a chance to hear what these other guys want to do.
I don't know.
I don't want another Leviathan, by the way.
We have one.
I just want them to keep expanding on that sound.
So it's kind of nice to hear that there's... First of all, I'll tell you what's nice.
They opened up with a drum solo.
He's got a little drum bit at the beginning.
Almost like, hey,
we're...
We're a little pissy again.
A little vitriol.
Yeah, I like that too.
They had that on stage.
Attitude,
you're right, John.
I think that's true.
They got a little chip coming out.
And I'm not dissing on Brent.
Maybe it's just the whole band was not functioning as well together.
Who knows?
We'll never know.
I think it's overanalyzed.
Even I do too much myself.
I'm almost like, well, do I need to go back and listen to those albums just to really make sure I feel that way?
Or is I just not into that?
You know, I don't know.
Now, I'm glad everyone liked it. I mean, literally everyone on the podcast liked it.
However,
they did such a good job of accidentally mirroring a saxophone that Will was concerned.
That's right. I had to point that out to him. I mean,
in his defense,
it does kind of sound like a different instrument.
It does kind of sound like a saxophone, but it wasn't. It was not a saxophone.
No.
He would be shocked how many albums he likes where there's saxophone on it. He doesn't even realize it.
I sent the group an image I saw on Facebook recently is for a music plugin for a children's choir.
Because I thought that Will would absolutely love that.
And by love that, I mean hate that.
And while I did not pick that one up, I did pick one up.
All right.
Cool.
Well, those are, I mean,
I didn't listen to Anthrax, but those are three albums I think that were good to choose because they're all completely different from each other. And that was my thinking.
Yeah. And we had a good discussion about them too.
So,
I mean, that's what matters. I think when we pick these new releases that we can talk about them.
Yeah. And guess what? We're going to talk about all those other albums that weren't on the new releases because things have heated up big time.
this year.
In my opinion,
I think it has.
Yeah.
And there's still a couple things coming,
you know.
October,
it's Listember,
it's Listtober,
and Listvember.
There's a lot of albums these three months.
Yeah, man, I can't believe we're getting close to the end of the year already. It's nuts.
I'm screwed because there's so many albums I really want to get,
you know, before the year end. And I'm like, I'm going to be squeezing in a ton of new stuff into my list, I'm sure.
Yeah,
literally.
Yeah, because we didn't do a mid-year,
I had no list started yet.
And a couple weeks ago, I was like, you know, I probably ought to start looking into that before next thing you know, it's December and I got nothing.
I was like, man, am I even going to pull 25?
And I'm like, I didn't even have to stop and look around. And I got 20,
like 30.
So I was like,
okay,
I'm going to be okay.
30 at midyear.
But now it's crazy.
But that's why I advocate keeping the list throughout the year and just putting stuff on there and shuffling around because it's really hard,
especially a year like this where it's going to be there's a lot on the back end.
If I did that last minute,
I think that I might die.
I advocate for procrastination because nothing builds a list like just panic.
Everybody's got to have their own method,
George, I guess.
I've got a list. They're not in order,
but I have albums set aside. Let me see what I got.
Talk amongst yourselves while I look real quick.
I mean, I put them in order, but it's a loose order. You know what I mean?
It's not going to be the final order,
but when I hear something,
I think it's probably going to go around this area.
And then later,
I sit down and really listen to them.
When we get, I guess,
probably early December is when I really,
start re-listening to everything and deciding where it's going to go.
Yeah, I even...
Go ahead, George.
You know, in a rare moment of being responsible about this,
I did take everything that was on this list and create a playlist so that I can now put this on shuffle and just listen to stuff and maybe that will help inform the order.
I've got 20 already set aside and there's still about 15 albums I'm interested in that are still coming out or that we have that we're not really saying much about just yet you know so and not everything's even announced yet because we're still in that period you know it's like a mid-October like something else could still be announced yeah but anything that comes out in December is either bad or they just you just yeah not going to
to you because what the hell are you thinking releasing something in december oh no there is something coming out uh on late this year that i'm like man we got to get the promo for this yeah i think i saw that i don't remember what it was it's um hold on i'm getting i'll tell you right now uh it's the new void sector zero that wasn't it oh i think i have the promo for that is it because i didn't see it in the box um well i haven't put
every promo in there yet but i think i got that you have that put that up because
that that's alex weber from exist it's um yes christian munzner from a bazillion bands
including alkaloid and yeah we interviewed but we interviewed we were like man well we've kept you up
long enough he goes no i'm in mexico city right now we're like what yeah he was great he was awesome
i'm pretty sure i i the the promos have been coming fast and furious so i hadn't had a chance to
go through all of them again but I'm pretty sure I have that one when you get a chance just
write yourself a note because uh it that like George said that is late you know that's the kind of album like
you're literally like oh we're doing this tomorrow this just dropped this Friday yeah it's December 11th that one comes out okay yeah I've been checked I don't get as many promos as you guys I get them but I didn't see it so
But I generally agree with you,
George.
It's like, ugh,
why December and January?
Yeah.
December's too late in January,
I forget about.
Yeah.
Although, because December's usually so lame,
it's nice if something good comes out in January,
because by January,
you're starting to look like Dave Chappelle, you know, scratching yourself,
going,
I need some music.
Yeah,
what's going on,
man?
Although the last couple of Januaries have been pretty good.
Yeah.
There's been some stuff,
so.
But yeah, there's a lot coming out.
And just this month alone,
September was awesome.
Well,
why don't we get into what we're listening to?
It's a good idea.
Hold on,
now I gotta know.
Oh yeah, I do have it.
I have it, so I will open it in the box later.
When you get a minute.
Thank you very much for that.
a folder where it's like these have to go in the box,
but I just haven't downloaded them yet. So,
okay. So I'll get you.
It's a lot of work,
man.
We're beyond grateful for all this stuff, but man, it's a lot of work.
And I don't get anything like you guys.
Yeah.
Cause there's a lot of crap.
And so I don't put that in the box.
Or as we also like to say,
not my bag, baby.
Not my bag. Exactly.
All right.
So what we're listening to, I'm first.
So,
I added a couple extra ones. We don't have everybody here.
But the first one I have is Lammoth Onward on Fiat Productions.
And I'm really loving this record.
It's a fantastically strange mix of atmospheric black metal and video game inspired blip sound effects and synth.
Chip metal?
Huh.
Yeah,
that's exactly right.
And it's got this kind of epic sweeping and emotional
feel to it that reminds me of playing old school rpgs or adventure games like final
fantasy or legend of zelda but what makes this album even cooler is that it's all about the
journey of bill the pony from lord of the rings the horse so uh and that's cool and if you've ever
read lord of the rings he has a full arc in the book so uh the other thing i just want to mention
about Fiat Productions is I love them. I have a subscription to them on Bandcamp, and I got this record on cassette.
It's like part of the subscription.
And when they send you physical editions,
they always include stickers,
and they include recipes,
and they have these funny little squish creatures like this.
And for this one,
though,
they gave me this adorable little horse terrarium,
and it looks like this.
It's hard to see,
probably,
but there's a little horse in there. It's so teeny.
And it's just like these little squishy guys.
Like, what is this thing?
And that first one I got, I was like, what the fuck? That looks like a nerd.
It's a nerd candy, you know?
Yeah.
It does, yeah. They're all like squishy gummy things.
So, I don't know. I really like the attention that that record label pays to patrons.
And they have a lot of excellent black metal,
ambient,
and dungeon synth music.
is what they specialize in.
But a lot of big smiles whenever I get that package.
The next record on my list is Iunt Castle Burner on Breathsun Boneblood Records.
And this is a shadowy collision of dark ambient dungeon synth and black metal.
And it has this kind of a hazy lull of dissent and torment to it that's interspersed with ghostly melancholy.
It's my current go-to late-night spin.
So I ordered the cassette and that's my preferred format for black metal and ambient stuff.
I almost always play that at night when I'm reading.
So I'm looking forward to getting that cassette.
Next one is "Toombs Karst"
on Road to Masochist Records.
This is spelled T-O-O-M-S.
And it's a progressive sludge metal album from Ireland. It has really thick pummeling riffs.
There's a doomy,
filth-cloud atmosphere that occasionally gets pierced by the melody,
melodic light, and I would say experimental constructs. There's a little bit of progressiveness to it,
and I was a little bit surprised by this record because I never heard of this band.
Next one is Maria,
A Caress of Autumn for All the Lost on Hypnotic Dirge Records.
This one just came out today,
but we've had the
for a couple weeks.
In general,
I'd say that Mario plays moody,
atmospheric,
blackened post-metal.
But this record is a little bit hard to boil down because it also incorporates death metal guitars and vocals in places.
There's a strong doom aura in a lot of the riffs and the melodies.
And then it has these kind of sunny,
melancholic passages.
It really sounds like this autumn breeze,
blowing over your face after leaving a funeral.
There's acoustic guitar parts.
There's hard black metal sections.
There's vocal harmonies.
George, it actually kind of reminds me of Woods of Epre.
Sometimes.
Sometimes.
I'm not saying exactly like that,
but maybe it's something you want to give a spin because I did remind me of it. I might.
Yeah, Marius is M-A-R-E-A.
Next one on my list was
also released today so i only got two spins in but my first impression is that it's an excellent
progression from their first record which was called exalt and despair and the band is selena plexia
they're a chicago band that's only been around for about five years but their first full length made my top 25
in 2023 i think it was like 13 or 14 was like right in the middle so i've really been looking forward
to this follow-up.
And they play a blackened death metal with brawny rolling riffs and shovels of sludge poured into the cracks.
And I just really love the way they accent some of the songs with these tranquil,
strummed guitar passages.
They also deploy these really big, emotive,
skyrocket solos on a few songs.
And this time around, they also added some
Female Cleans on one of the tracks, and that works really well.
Not unlike what Ancient Death did on their album,
I think it was last year.
So, Selenoplexia, to me,
is a really exciting,
incendiary young band.
I need to see them live,
because I hear they bring it on stage,
but every time they've played here, I have something else scheduled.
So, I'm hoping that they either play at the end of the year or sometime next year, because I'd like to see them live.
to catch them, especially being in my hometown,
part of my hometown.
Another surprise drop?
Well, another record that came out today that was a surprise drop is Deaf Heaven at Work in the Fields of the Bomb EP.
I think they've been selling this on vinyl at their recent shows, but it just officially dropped for streaming or download today.
Their last album Lonely People With Power was very high on my list. I thought that was phenomenal.
And this three track follow-up, it's just kind of okay.
The first track is really good. It's called Hunter.
Heavy, vicious burst of black metal. But then there's like a three minute ambient segue track. And then there's a 13 minute song.
Half of it kind of brutalizes you with black metal. And the rest of it's just kind of this like do me chug of atmospheric darkness.
and it's just really long and drawn out. So I'm not really sure why they put this out. I think they should just put out the one single and that's it. But next,
Bronze Hall,
Embers of the Dawn on Signal Rex Records.
This is Bathory-inspired ancient black metal hymns of battle and glory.
So I'd even call this black and traditional heavy metal.
Really energetic,
epic songs that make you want to hoist your bloody swords to the
And then the last one on my list is Offernet, The Ecstasy of Death.
This was my album of the month for September,
and I declared it very early on September 13th, just two days after it was released,
because it blew me the fuck away.
It's an epic conjunction of progressive black metal,
death,
and doom.
There's only four songs on it. It's 53 minutes long.
I think Offernet really weaves all the elements together so well. And the tracks,
they move and they breathe seamlessly to me.
I listened to this album a ton during my vacation in Switzerland.
And I had this massive canvas of unreal mountains all around me.
And I got completely absorbed in Offernet's record here, just winding,
transportive,
all the way through.
And that guy's mustache.
Nick Offerman.
Offerman, you mean?
I'm making a bad joke.
I see. I see.
That's really bad, George.
How much have you been drinking,
Georgie?
Zero.
I am on water.
Oh,
no.
Well,
I love the songs are progressive,
but the emphasis on heavy guitar work with really dark atmospheric accents,
really venomous, emotional growl.
and Bellows.
It's just one of the best records of the year for me.
And just the last thing I'll say is that appropriately,
the final track,
which is also the title track,
is now one of my favorite album closers ever.
I think this is how you fucking end the record.
Big words. It gives me a little impression on me every time I listen to it.
So,
yeah. And we've done, I think we did like top five
of closing songs yeah on a podcast this would have made the list if it was out when we did that so that's what i got uh and then pick from the crypt i guess i'm going right into that and my pick for pick from the crypt is cast iron hike watch it burn which was released on victory records that's my nickname 1997.
what which part cast iron hike or watch it burn watch it burn oh no it's one of many
Any.
Wash and burn.
Watch it burn.
Yeah.
Oh,
really?
Are you serious,
George?
I am.
Oh,
wow. Not so much a nickname.
Yeah, those jerks.
I kind of like it, though. That's a good one,
actually.
Yeah. Well, I had a friend who would just always,
you know,
make some variation on it. So it's not like these were like,
well, wash and burn stuck for a while because that was in burn unit because when I got burned.
Yeah, that stuck around for a little while.
But most of these just, you know, fleeting.
But you remember them because, you know, they hurt.
Oh,
I mean, we've learned something new here today on the Metalheads podcast.
Yeah.
So watch it burn the album,
not the George.
Got it. It's the only full length record recorded by this very criminally underrated band.
They have been typically labeled as
because they formed from that scene in the Boston area and they played with hardcore bands.
And I'd say that this record, it delivers a high octane energy that you could associate with hardcore that I think could easily fit if you're playing live shows.
But all the riffs on this are crushingly metal.
And the vocal performance by Jacob Brennan, it's just very different than what their contemporaries were putting out at the time.
He has this really husky
He's a funky sung vocal style that's it's full of soul and swagger but with a snarl to it he kind of reminds me of John Bush when he was in with anthrax so if you can hear that sound yeah I don't know what this guy's done past this this record but cast iron hike also features Michael Gallagher on guitar and he went on to join Isis in 1999 for their debut album Celestial and he was with the band until they disbanded which I think was like 2010
10,
something like that.
So I think Cast Iron Hike, they kind of got lumped into the hardcore scene.
And with only one album, there wasn't much reason to spend time properly categorizing them.
But to me, this is a metal record.
And maybe you could call it alt metal, I guess.
But the important thing is that it will make your body meat move.
And the last thing I'll say. Your body meat move?
Body meat.
I don't know where that came from.
Yes,
body meat.
Got it.
So it moved.
My meat moves.
Always on this podcast.
Well then.
Next year for this band is the 30th anniversary of Watch It Burn, so I've got my fingers crossed that it gets re-released on vinyl because it was only pressed once, and that was three fucking decades ago.
And that's just wrong. So I would like to have this on vinyl.
And of course it goes for astronomical prices online, if you can find it.
So that's what I got.
Alrighty,
Matt.
Sweet.
So previously mentioned,
Mastodome,
Marrowdeep,
Dreadnought, Wars of Spirit, Wars of Light. I still have them on there because they have taken up a huge chunk of my listening since we last met.
Also,
Godflesh,
Decay,
that came out on Relapse Records.
This is the 11th album from a UK industrial studio.
Sludge Band.
I've loved Godflesh my whole life.
I feel like they've gotten a little bit sludgier every album,
and this is true for this one. I feel like it is their last one. It is their last one.
Yeah.
I mean, will there be a tour?
Would I go? Yes.
Who knows?
TBD or TBA.
Maybe they're playing Prog Power.
Maybe they're playing with TBA.
Maybe they are TBA.
You will see me there.
In the flesh.
Especially if there's a Belgian beer bar.
In the Godflesh, you mean? I feel like Godflesh has played Decibel,
have they?
Because I feel like I've seen them.
Well,
one of their last albums was definitely well-received by them,
and I feel like they pushed it a lot, so that would not surprise me.
I'll have to look at that.
To the Google!
Hanging Garden,
Dream Death via Tree.
It's a big obscurity.
Interestingly enough, there is another band named Hanging Garden who had an album out this year,
which was, excuse me, I can't think of it off the top of my head, but I think it was on my top 25.
But this one is the second album from the U.S. progressive death metal band. I feel like it is a one-person project,
if I remember right.
Next up is a band called Not N-O-T-T.
The album is called As All Is Undone.
It came out on Silent Pendulum Records.
It is the third album from a
U.S.
Deathcore slash sludge group.
Yes, I used the word deathcore.
To me, it kind of reminded me of like an Allfather or a Mastiff,
you know, kind of a sludgy hardcore.
And I definitely find myself gravitating to that genre or sound.
Next up is a band called Roracle and their album Mare.
I think it's called that M-A-H-R-E. It is their seventh album.
They're kind of a post-hardcore band with some sludgy
Influence there from Switzerland.
Definitely aggressive in that realm,
if you like.
And then lastly, I'll mention Krauss and their album Scour Order.
This to me is more of a traditional Krauss album.
I would not describe it as some of their more experimental or avant-garde stuff in recent years.
Still good,
but yeah, that's it for me.
Right on.
So I was both right and wrong about Godflesh.
They have played Decibel,
but they played in L.A., so I did not see them.
Of course.
But I do feel like I've seen them somewhere.
Sure.
Anyway. Matt, do you have a pick from the crib?
Oh,
shoot. Sorry.
I mean,
you still have to say it, don't you? I do.
I do.
Can't just think it.
I finally finished Born Human.
Nice. Which was a good,
I don't know if you guys experienced this, but when I read like a metal biography,
and I should preface that,
I read at night before I go to bed.
So I'm laying in the darkness and I don't... Imprisoning me?...doing anything?
Yes.
I don't feel like doing anything other than reading,
but like, oh,
there's this band and this band and this band and this band.
And I'm like, shit, I should write this down, which I'm doing. I do that too.
And I also found myself just really on a kind of like technical death metal,
progressive death metal kick. And so when you blend these two parts together,
it gave me a huge kind of push in that realm. And so,
I ended up on this it was like a watchtower radio and it it pulled up a band called Devastation which you all probably know of I was not super familiar with them in their album Idolatry and so I don't know it totally pulled me in it totally fit it I mean they were probably a little bit more thrash and it like Idolatry is their third album they broke up in 91 they had a little reunion in 2008 to 2009
But it was just kind of that thrash sound that I fell in love with as a little kid.
And it was cool to kind of revisit that genre and definitely find something new.
Awesome.
Very cool.
Gian?
All right.
So as I said earlier,
September is like list-temper for me.
So all these albums are all probably albums you'll hear online.
I added an extra while we were talking. Marcus said since there was four of us, he added a little extra. So I did too, but it'll only take me a second to mention it.
And I feel like it's something that's worth mentioning.
We already talked about Dreadnought.
Not going to say any more about that. It's a great album.
If you're into those styles that we discussed,
it was my album of the month. It was Matt's album of the month.
That should be enough reason to listen to it.
And also add everything that Marcus added with us.
George hopefully will listen to it.
to it soon.
And if you don't, that's okay.
My next one,
Epitaph 3.
Epitaph is a death doom, broad death metal band from France.
They have really,
really long songs,
kind of like early Dreadnought.
I'm into these guys. I like them a lot just because I like how they have these unique,
crazy death doom moments. Then they get kind of real deathy fast,
and then they go into these kind of just
Not ambient, but ethereal acoustic passages and everything is super engaging, meaning you have to fully be engaged when you listen because there's so much going on.
I really like that band too,
especially the first one, Epitaph 1,
I really like. Yeah, and they're all just slightly different.
Not a lot, just a little.
Now this third one,
and I don't know why I bought their stuff,
but if,
For some reason,
certain bands, I'm like, well, I bought everything, so I got to keep buying. And other bands, I'm like, I don't care anymore. I'm not buying any physical copy.
For some reason, I like having their stuff.
And I ordered this,
and I mentioned this on the last other podcast.
And I got a message,
and I said, yeah,
going forward, the French Postal Service is not mailing anything to the States under a certain weight anymore.
It's got to be a certain amount for us to ship it.
So we can't ship your physical copy.
But don't worry.
A Girlfriend from one of the guys in the band,
she's going to be in the States for business, and she's bringing all the CDs with her, and she's going to mail them from the States for you.
And she did. She mailed my CD from somewhere in the States.
Awesome.
So thank you very much, Epitaph.
That's making me like the album even more.
So next one is Green Carnation, A Dark Poem Part 3,
The Messiah Complex,
which is the finalization of this dark poem saga that they started.
last year and the second release from this year it's a four song album three songs coming in around almost 19 minutes of their version of prog metal that they've been doing now since like they came back in 2020 and the last song is like a 17 minute full orchestra piece that is based around the whole three albums whoa so yeah it's kind of wild and you might say oh it's just stupid it's filler yeah but it's kind of cool though because
It's all based around the music of the three albums.
This is what I thought was going to be your album of the month,
but I was wrong.
No, I know.
I thought so too.
But yeah,
and Mark is on your point. Yeah,
it's different.
Yeah, so it's cool,
you know,
and it's with the full on orchestra,
which is kind of neat too.
Oh, and also if you do three albums in less than a year,
you could do something like that's kind of indulgent like that, you know, to wrap it up. I'm okay with that. That's pretty awesome.
And I think they just played all three albums in a row at a show.
And they're not long.
You know, we're talking like 40-some minutes each.
That's a good two-hour show with the three albums.
So yes,
good album.
Next one is The Ocean Solaris, their 10th album.
I wasn't sure what was going to happen with this because they basically revamped the band again.
Completely different.
Yeah,
although,
you know, the last time they did this was back, I guess, in what,
2010,
2009.
And then people have been in and out.
But there's been like 452 people in the band over the course of the career.
It's the same guy, every album, Rob Stapps,
Stapes,
whatever you say his name.
But the bassist,
this is a long-time bassist now since 2015.
And that band, that's a long time.
He remained also.
But their singer,
you know, Loa Rossetti,
was no longer in the band, which was kind of a bummer because he became kind of the face of the band in terms of,
how you hear them.
But I will say I do like the album.
It's slightly different in that they've added a lot more electronics.
It's heavier than the previous couple albums,
but then it's also more kind of... Synthe's not the right word, but it kind of goes off in that electronic world a little bit. It's cool.
I like it.
I really like the female singer in there,
actually. She's awesome.
Yeah. I mean, it's actually one of the few times I like both the male and female singer playing off each other.
I think they do a nice job of that.
And I never heard her before.
Her name is Lane Shi.
I think that's how you say her last name.
She was from China originally. Then she moved to Boston.
And she got her start in Boston in a couple bands.
I never heard of her either.
Yeah.
And now she's hooked up with the ocean.
And the male vocal is by somebody named Enrico Tiberia.
So it's the ocean. If you like them, you know what you're getting.
You're gonna have all these different musicians
and they're all great,
but it's a good album
and I'm sure it'll do
be on my list like the ocean almost always
is.
Next one
is an album I'm pretty sure that
George likes
Psy.
Oh yeah.
The new one
from Psy. I will be the first person to tell you
I am, I like Psy
but I don't know much about him. I have two
albums,
the last two
and
they fit my wheelhouse
of this kind of crazy,
progressive,
avant-garde Japanese folk metal.
There's some black metal, but I know it's not like the older albums that had way more black metal in them.
But I don't even know if those are good ways to describe this band,
because they're just wild.
It's crazy stuff.
It's enjoyable.
I love the Japanese folk added to it, just because everything else is weird.
just mix it up even more and and when i say weird i don't mean bad i mean it's just it goes in these places you don't think it's gonna go cool that they've got mike akkerfeld doing a guitar solo on one of the songs uh on the album which is nice that's i like i like sigh i'm getting i i really want to explore their stuff and i feel like i won't like everything check out hangman's hymn yes and i needed to do both versions i needed the original and then do the the revamped one that came out i think last year didn't
the 25th anniversary yeah i didn't really listen to that um yeah but i know i have to i have to go back and listen to that yeah okay so this last one i added real quick lust mord lombardo the pulse of atoms i don't know if anyone's listened to this i have yeah i'm a huge lust mord fan have been for a very long time um this is one of my gateways into dark ambient it's not the gateway but it's one of the early gateways and this is
I'm 15 years late from his first release when I got into him.
But this is the latest from Brian
Lessmore to Brian Williams, however he goes by.
And Dave Lombardo,
formerly of Slayer,
14 different times.
He's in everything. There's another band
that I just added to my Bandcamp wish list. Hold on, let me find it. Sorry to interrupt.
He's the one in his life.
Satanic planet.
Yeah.
He's all over the place. He's everywhere.
What's cool about this is that we already know he's a metal drum god. And he's a drum god in general.
He may have not invented double bass,
but he revolutionized double bass for metal.
But to hear him doing Ritual Ambient with Les Mord,
because it
It's very dark ambient, but then it gets very ritualized.
It's kind of cool to hear him playing like that.
And I think if you want to get something different,
then you should check it out. It's cool.
I mean, there's no new ground broken here for Lost Mord.
I mean, if you listen to any of his stuff, you know you're going to get from him over the course of 30 plus years.
And I'm not a big ritual ambient fan.
If it gets into that Marshall area,
then I'm out. It's just all banging.
But this is cool
because Lombardo is a great drummer
so he's giving some new flair to it
Alright,
so my pick from the Crypt
It's not a
unknown band
Jay's already accused me of making up band names like Matt
for the pick from the Crypt
No, I went with a known band
As a matter of fact, this band was already mentioned in this podcast
As a matter of fact, they were mentioned during
the new releases
I'm going to go with Macedon
But I'm going with the album Call of the Macedon.
Which is the two EPs.
Slick Leg and Life's Blood. They came out in 2001.
And the reason I went with this is because we never talk about this stuff.
We never talk about that early stuff. And this is also all the songs that were recorded with the original singer.
From the 2009 song EP.
And if you haven't heard these.
You should. Because I feel like this has been forgotten amongst Macedon fans.
Not only.
some of the older fans,
but a lot of the newer fans,
the Prog Hobbits that came in with Crack the Sky, I don't feel like they've gone back. It's too heavy,
man. It's too hard.
That's why it's cool.
If you haven't heard them,
you should listen,
because there are some bangers on this.
This is all pre-remission.
Shadows,
that move is an incredible opener.
Welcoming war, and then the clothes are called the Macedon.
It's awesome.
Now,
again,
there are two EPs.
This was released in
in 2006,
but the EP, all the music was written for 2000,
2001 is when they got the two official EP releases.
And both Brett Hines and Bill Kelleher have said they kind of view this as, or refer to this as their first album.
If you go back and listen to this Call the Mastodon,
the two EPs together now in the official release,
it feels like it's their first album.
It's kind of raw.
It's heavy.
It's aggressive.
It's a little nasty.
I don't know if I like those creatures on this album.
Yeah,
it's a little more unrefined, but that's what's great about it, that rawness to it. It's got the post-hardcore aspect to it,
which is kind of cool.
And Life's Light opens up with that clip from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest that just completely has been in my head ever since I heard it for the first time.
Yeah.
And again, it's a bigger band,
but I feel like sometimes we need to
remember some of the early pieces that get forgotten in a band's history.
I think that's great.
Because that's true. Most people aren't thinking about that record.
Even if you were going to do a rundown of all of Mass Downs stuff, that might even be forgotten.
That's nice.
And I like that those guys referred to it as their first album, even though it was two EPs.
I'm like, yeah, this is kind of cool that they're doing that.
I'd say figured out,
you know,
who they were going to be in their sound. I mean, obviously they were funded over the course of other records,
but that's the beginning.
It's super important.
Well, that early riffing they did,
it's there.
So anyway.
Nice.
I like it.
Thank you very much.
I'm glad I could help out with my pick from the crypt.
Alrighty.
Surprisingly,
I do have a few things to mention.
First up,
the first band you've never heard of, maybe you have,
Cemetery Echo.
It's their first album called Civitas Lacrimarum.
They're from Buffalo.
And the best I can call it is gothic metal,
but it's not gothic metal like synths and Sisters of Mercy.
It's more like a dark,
raw unto others.
if it was like,
you know,
kind of dirty,
dirty,
dirty goth.
It's a little poppy, a little dirty.
Yeah.
Fairly clean vocals most of the time, as I recall.
I just found it interesting because it was different.
It's like it, it, it,
you know,
pretends to be, not pretends, but attempts at some sort of goth, but it's not what you would usually expect from that.
And it's raw and mildly heavy.
So I'm going to give this a little bit more of a listen.
Next,
the fourth album from Chat Pile.
Who Loves the Sun?
So they're an Oklahoma City noise sludge band.
I really liked their second album,
Something Cool Country.
I can't remember the album title, but I really liked it.
And when it came out, I thought it was an interesting take and not something you hear all the time.
And then the album after that,
I did not care for much at all.
But that was some sort of collab with somebody else.
So I'm going to write that off as not chat.
And I think this fourth album kind of returns to the sound of the second album.
But perhaps a little cleaner with some of the vocals,
even though he just loses his freaking mind screaming at points.
I think it's maybe a wider dynamic range on this album,
perhaps.
I'm not a big fan of that band, but I guess I'll take a listen since you like it. They're a decibel darling for sure,
but I've just never really been into that band.
And you'll probably hate it.
But I don't know.
Because I didn't really care for the last one, I almost didn't put it on. And I was like, ah, you know,
hope springs eternal.
Let's see what happens.
And I put it on and I totally expected to kill it after a song or two.
And I just kept listening. I was like, yeah, all right. This is where I feel like they should have been last time.
And here's the thing, George, like you just you shouldn't write off any bands because you'd never know.
Like we haven't been into Mastodon, but we really like the new record a lot.
So it's like you got to give it a spin because you just never know when they might pull out something from the hat and just really respond to it.
And if it's a band that I liked at some point,
I always try it again.
You know,
so it's stuff that I don't never cared for that I'm like, eh,
I'm writing that off after two songs,
you know.
Next up, this one was mentioned.
Thanks,
John,
Psy,
and their 14th album,
Goka,
or however you might say that.
Japanese Avant Black Metal.
This was another beach album for me.
And I believe it was my album of the month.
It was. It was.
Yeah.
This is just so fresh to me.
You know, I've heard so much metal.
and so much metal that sounds like so much other metal or at least does not differentiate from so much other metal.
And so when I hear something like this that's just not like anything else and it's done well,
I love it.
So.
Yeah,
I couldn't agree more.
Fantastic album.
If you haven't heard it,
check it out.
Yeah.
My last album, I debated Waiting for Jay.
And I don't even know if it's officially out yet.
But it was briefly insulted earlier.
And that's the new Wayfarer album.
Riders of the Setting Sun.
Their sixth album.
Not metal at all.
Zero metal on it.
But I would also say probably my favorite album of theirs probably ever.
I mean, I might like the first one or two.
Whoa.
But because here's the thing.
I've never cared for their albums because they always,
bury the vocals.
And they even talked about that in the Decibel article about how he would bury his vocals. And I'm like,
fuck you, don't bury the vocals.
You know, that's cardinal sin.
And this,
I guess we should probably explain, this is not metal. This is a sort of gothic country folk album,
Americana stuff that,
it's metal?
No,
but it is kind of cool.
I haven't given it a full proper listen.
I've listened to about half of it by now.
And I know I want to hear more.
I agree with Marcus on it's not something you're going to reach for every day.
And in case his case, probably never again.
But but to me,
this is it's cool that somebody is doing something like this,
that it's like Nick Cave did a country album or something,
you know,
definitely sounds like listen, I listen to the whole thing because I
Like we were just saying, you never know. Like, I'm going to give it a chance.
It's just not for me.
I think the vocals aren't buried,
but they're not that great either.
But it's very different.
I mean,
people could really respond to this in a way that they didn't expect.
It's nothing like what they've done before.
I expect it to be very polarizing.
Oh, yeah.
Much like another band from Sweden has gone through.
Is this damnation or is this heritage?
I'm going to say
damnation. Really?
Because they did
even from their, there was more positives I feel from damnation
Oh, I'm sure there was. But I believe even in the
Decibel article they referenced
this as their damnation.
I was just going to ask you
is this their damnation moment where they go from
an album that everyone loved
or a heavy point.
And then all of a sudden it's like, hey,
man.
This is something they wanted to do.
But,
yeah.
You know what?
I've met those guys and talked to them because they play shows here quite a bit.
And they're the nicest fucking guys,
I think.
In metal.
Like, really engaging.
Always want to talk to their fans and just really passionate about what they do.
Because I was talking about what they would do going forward.
I really like that so I don't know I might listen to it again but it's not metal so I'd be surprised if you put it on your list I don't intend to put it on my list it could go on the other podcast list I guess it's not even really rock there is some rock elements to it though yeah so it's really funny real quick on rate your music it doesn't come out till the end of November like November 20th or towards the end
And somebody's already given it a half a star.
Really?
End of November.
Wow.
That's an early promo.
Yeah.
Huh.
I mean,
I always give bands credit for trying something different,
and this is way,
way different. I mean, obviously it has that kind of like cowboy aesthetic, that Western aesthetic that all the records have, but it really leans into that folk aspect.
I mean, it is all folk.
Yeah.
It's got quite the western album cover.
It feels like a '70s spaghetti western album cover.
Yeah.
And I give Decimal credit too. They have the whole front cover feature for it. And I mean, it's definitely not metal,
but they've been a metal band.
So it's intriguing to see what a band might do that's completely different from before.
So I enjoyed reading the article as well to hear what they said and why they wanted to do it.
But it does seem to me that this is the direction that they want to go.
I don't think they plan to return to doing heavier stuff.
I'd like to see them walk it back a little because he has this newfound confidence in his vocals.
I'd like to see them maintain some of this country western theme and style,
but maybe add back some of the metal.
maybe not the same maybe not as black metal but you know in a heavier direction and maintain these up front clean vocals with that and you know maybe like mike you throw in some harshes and once in a while too i don't know but who knows we'll see i am curious to see what the reviews are going to be for this record because you know all the metal outlets will probably review it because they've been a metal band shit sandwich so i'm i'm
I'm curious to see when it drops like what the response is I think they're gonna get blood
incantation because blue when blood incantation put out that ambient album people lost their shit they went that's it they're done they're over and they're not they just know then they came back and did like the album of the year on most critics for a lot and ironically one of the guys in blood incantation is in Wayfair
I'm going to check it out now just because what you guys are saying.
And I'm not a huge Americana fan. I like some,
but I never gravitated towards it.
I was never into any kind of American folk or bleeding bluegrass.
It's got a lot of ambiance.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'll check it out.
It reminds me of when Panopticon did the double.
Yeah.
And what it was Americana. I believe,
George, you were super high on.
Oh, yeah.
Americana one over the more traditional octagon album.
I'll be honest.
I do like bands that don't stick to the same formula every time.
Sure,
Overkill's cool.
Saxon or Saxon is cool.
But after a while, you're like, okay,
I've got like eight of these albums,
and there's still 12 more to go,
you know?
Right.
So,
I don't know.
Keep it open in mind.
Maybe you're right.
I never thought Opeth would have harsh vocals again.
And then I put the single on, I'm like, what?
You know, so.
Yeah, I mean, definitely give it a spin.
I mean.
Yeah, I'll check it out. That's worth listening. It's only 37 minutes,
too. So it's not a huge commitment.
And that's,
I'm so into Wheelhouse.
That 37,
38 to 44,
45 is just where I'd love to be now. So cool.
All right. All right. My pick from The Crypt is a band that I think will
has used in a pick for the crypt,
but different album.
So it's death metal.
Yeah.
This is gore fest and their fourth album,
soul survivor.
Um,
and at this point in their career earlier,
they're much more traditional death metal. This was more of a death and roll album.
Uh,
and,
uh,
I picked this up on CD at tower records in Ann Arbor when this came out.
Because I was,
you know,
back then it was like, you're flipping through the bins, you can't hear it because there's no internet.
Actually, there probably was internet.
But anyway,
you know, you flip through things, you pick things up, you're like,
gore fest.
Well, that's got to be metal.
And it was an impressive,
I didn't write down the year on it.
I want to say 96.
Let's see.
Archive Machine.
96.
I did look this up earlier.
I just forgot to write it down.
So,
you know, it's 30 years old.
So at that time period, yeah, Death and Roll makes sense.
I don't know.
When I got it, I just loved it.
It's heavy.
It's got harsh vocals,
but they're, you know,
they're not out of control,
harsh vocals.
So,
I don't know.
It's just an album that I've always liked.
I always go back to it.
And,
uh,
nice.
I always hope that maybe,
like, MDF will do a gore-fest reunion set at some point, but.
I should have done it this year.
30 years.
Yeah, really.
What are you thinking?
So many anniversaries. I feel like every year is, like, a huge, huge anniversary.
Well, especially this year,
because of, surprisingly,
if you go all the way back to the 70s, 76,
86,
They're all big years in some odd way.
Especially 86.
Yeah.
I can't even fathom all these 40-year-old albums.
But even next year,
like Death, Scream, Bloody Gore,
huge anniversary.
Right.
It is.
But let's be honest,
when can you have the big three out of four released now? Did Anthrax release now in 86?
Yeah,
Among the Living.
So they did. Okay, so the big four,
release albums.
And that's not even counting all the other metal bands that released albums.
That's just those four right there alone.
That's insane.
Yeah.
So.
And all considered,
you know,
to be,
if not one, a top one or two album in the band's discography,
you know?
Mm-hmm.
Man, it's crazy.
Yeah.
That is wild to think about.
All right.
So,
sometimes a week
The Reel Gets Spun and Sometimes Things Happen.
Last time, John. I gotta pee quick before we do this.
Yeah,
I gotta see. Yeah.
Quick break. Also,
just wanted to tell you I put that record in the box.
So you got it.
Now,
John,
also I put in the new Dungeon Serpent. It got a pretty good review in Decibel, and I liked the first one, so that's in there as well.
Awesome. Thank you so much for doing it. I appreciate that. You got it.
All right.
I will sing my CNC Music
and wait it out.
Dang.
Dang.
Dang.
Dang.
Dang.
And I'm going to whisper sweet nothings to Matt while he's touching himself.
Trying to remember the password and login and password for the for the box.
Yeah.
Usually I'm asking you for it.
I know.
But it happens to me.
I just get a brain cramp and I can't remember passwords that I've been using for years.
Oh,
believe me, I know my brain.
I mean, I think part of it now is just I'm so burned out from work that my brain just does not function well.
Cool.
All right. I'm going to download the Wayfair,
too.
Yeah, it's interesting.
All right. I just realized I have to go to the bathroom, too, so I'll be brought back. Okay.
I'll be fast.
I don't have to,
like, you know, go number two or anything.
That's good.
Thanks for that information.
Right, Matt?
Right?
I see you, Matt. You can wave to me.
There you are.
I can't hear you. You're muted.
Yes,
I heard your sweet nothings.
Sweet,
sweet bladder relief.
Yeah, indeed.
I'm like,
I'm just cruising around. Why no beer,
George?
Health reasons.
Nothing specific.
Just, you know, just losing weight.
And beer does not make that happen.
I mean, I had one like Tuesday,
but,
you know, just not as much.
Yeah, I mean, the beer will definitely add to the package.
Yeah.
I hadn't had one in a while, and I was like, you know what? I'm having a couple tonight.
Especially because I got all these burial beers,
which is my favorite.
Brewery.
North Carolina,
so.
Nice.
Yeah.
A lot of Tavor stuff.
Although I've cut back.
I usually only get it like twice a year now, but they're pretty big boxes.
It's like, I'm only having one beer.
One beer.
Cha-junk.
One giant beer.
But then I had this one too,
which is... Where's this from?
I can't read anything without my readers now. I'm so fucking old.
Where are my readers?
There we go.
Even with my readers, I can't read things.
Jesus Christ. I like pill bottles and stuff. This just happened this year where I have to have readers.
False Hope Brewery.
I like their beer too.
Dead Weight. This is a really good one.
Coconut Chocolate and Despair is in this.
So,
Marcus,
I don't know if you took a mental note when I said when you turn 50, all your expiration dates start hitting your body.
It is crazy true.
It's just like,
whoa,
where did that come from?
Or like, what do you mean I have to approach?
It just,
I don't know what it is. I mean,
we're all Gen Xers,
you know?
Matt, you're like a young Gen Xer.
Or you could be an old millennial, whatever you choose.
I think it's choose your own adventure.
Wait, what year were you born,
Matt?
78.
So I go, yeah, he's Gen X. He's Gen X.
He's just slid in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So 81 is the next generation because that's Tracy.
So it's like through 80s.
Yeah,
but it just depends how you raise.
You know, if you have like, you know, if like when you bump into the door, you fall down or if you bump into the door, you go, get out of my way, I'll beat your ass,
you know, kind of thing.
But yeah,
everything just all of a sudden just like, ah,
The eyes is annoying though, because
it's never happened now. I just have to have readers when anything's close and I've got
I don't know,
like nine pairs of them. Can you get them in bulk?
I did readers to the point where I had to finally get permanent.
So
I've got my focus.
Yeah, I'm sure I'll get to that point,
George.
It sucks,
but it makes your life a ton easier,
trust me.
And just so you know, you still can't read the labels on stuff because that prints so damn small.
You need a telescope to see it.
Yeah, what I do is... I mean, I can with this. I've got the 2.0 magnification, so I can... That's where I was, and then I got these.
I take a picture, and then I just blow up the picture.
I do that too, George. That's how I used to do it.
But, you know, when you're just like looking at your phone or I want to look at this, I'm not going to take a picture.
No, I mean, there's no other way
for me to read it. My readers can't read.
You can't. Oh, okay. My readers can, so I just have them in every room.
Or do you guys do this? You just take your phone and blow it up to like 10 on the camera.
You're like, oh,
oh,
that's what it says.
Yeah, I got it.
Senior print.
That's ant print they're putting on there.
Oh, geez.
Yeah.
All right.
Right then.
All right. Do it up, John.
So,
Last time,
John spun the wheel.
What did you win,
John?
I won some pain.
Pain!
So,
I won a topic for a segment called Court of Chaos.
Dum-dum-dum!
Yeah.
Dum-dum!
And then it's got to come on the bottom of the screen, you know, New York, Servant County. In the Court of Chaos,
there are two separate and individual... I really don't know the law and order.
But you don't understand the truth!
Carry on,
please.
Alright.
Is that like an outtake from A Few Good Men?
Nice.
So,
I have wrestled with this idea,
because we've had some time off.
Yeah.
I mean, I literally could have changed this like four times.
That's how much time off we have. True,
true.
But I stuck with it, and I don't know why I came up with this idea. But anyway,
The original idea,
as George has described it,
were to be having somebody present a case,
or two people presenting opposite sides of a case.
There would be a jury,
per se,
that would, you know, have to be swayed,
you know, in either direction,
and then there would be the judge or the moderator in it.
And I get that. But I wasn't grasping the concept of that.
I certainly wasn't grasping how we could do it.
Because when I got this,
we didn't have anything
where we could have opposing sides and then having everyone in a defined role.
And so I came up with a slightly different way of doing this.
And seeing as we lost two people for the podcast,
I've kind of redefined it a little more since Will and Jay had to do something.
Now,
I have stuck with the same album.
The idea is to pick something.
that can be argued in either direction.
And it could be anything in our little world of metal.
And I went with an album that is quite polarizing for fans.
And I stuck with it.
And every time I listened, I was like, why did I do this?
Because I like this album,
but I don't know if anyone else is going to like it.
And since there's only four of us,
and George brought up a good point, we may have lost somebody who could have been a supporter of the album,
and lost a person who could have treated it like the Black Album.
I'm not saying who's who.
You can do them out. But you know.
If you know,
you know. If you listen to one episode of this podcast,
you know.
Yeah.
If you listen to five minutes,
you'd know.
And that's not a knock at all. It would actually give us balance,
you know.
So anyway,
it's ended up where I'm going to talk about this album.
I'm going to kind of give just a very brief history. You can go out and,
Use Your Google Machine to get this information.
I don't need to go into that much detail,
but talk about why the album was kind of nixed.
I was going to talk about some negatives on the album,
things that I think are positives,
things I think could have made the album better, and then just kind of finish off with why I think you should like this album.
If you guys like it, great.
If you don't, that's okay,
too.
It's a polarizing album.
But I have a newfound appreciation for it.
I've spun it a lot.
in preparation for this.
It's not a perfect album. It's not even remotely close to being a great album.
But I think it's pretty good if you dig in the weeds enough with it and you spend time with it. It's definitely an album that you have to give time to because on first listen you're like, nope.
But then after a while it kind of grew on me a lot.
I will say that the reason why I like this album is because of a live album.
I listened to the songs there first before I listened to the album.
And that does sway how I feel about it.
To some degree.
All right. So let's not waste any time.
The album I went with.
And I apologize in advance.
Sorry if I made you guys suffer through this.
Is Judas Priest.
Jugulator.
From 1997.
First off.
I love that name.
Jugulator.
It's so Priest.
Let's be honest.
All right.
So this album was released October 16th,
1997. It was recorded 96-97.
What is it in terms of style?
It's heavy metal.
It's priest metal,
but it's a lot of groove metal.
And it's got a little bit of thrash, I think, thrown in there, mixed in. Not tradition. It's just a little bit.
It is the first album without Rob Halford and Judas Priest.
Right there, that's a no-go for probably 80% of Priest fans.
with their only two-album run with Tim Ripper Owens.
Does this sound like another band we know?
Iron Maiden?
Yeah.
Oh,
it's weird?
In the 90s,
too,
right?
Yeah.
That's strange.
And a two-album run?
Weird.
Well, they were such rivals,
you know. As soon as one guy lost their main singer, the other band was like, well, we gotta lose our singer,
too.
Well, you gotta go. Go do a solo career and then come back.
Very odd how that played out for both bands.
It's the first album since Painkiller, which came out in 1990.
So right off the bat,
those are strikes against this album before people have probably even listened to it.
And it did take a long time for this album to come out. I think the band, from what I've read,
were in a difficult place because it was a huge transition.
The metal scene completely transformed.
It was different.
What it was in 1990 and what it was in 96 when they started recording,
Maybe three completely different worlds in between that of what had changed.
You know, grunge had taken over.
The metal we love was underground at that point.
Now it's above ground.
You know, I can breathe.
Now that grunge has all but disappeared.
But it just was a different time.
So here's some of the things that people nixed on it right off the bat.
No, Rob Halford,
again. That was the first thing.
That's a non-starter.
A little bit too much like Pantera.
I can see that.
There's a lot of that kind of groove, that kind of guitar sound.
Down tuned,
right?
Too dark for a pre-style.
It's too heavy and aggressive.
There's no melody on it.
Okay, you're right.
Yes.
Their lyrical content,
let's be honest,
it's not that great.
Want some wine with that?
Yeah.
I mean, I would say it's fucking terrible.
Yeah.
And it's not
It's not like Priest has ever had great lyrics to begin with.
No, that is true.
So they're just amping it up.
And the new logo is kind of, eh.
You know, when I look at it, sometimes I'm like, I don't like it.
Other times I like it.
And other times I'm like, eh, it's all right.
It's got similarities to the previous one, but it's also a little different.
The truth is,
Jugulator's not a great album.
It really isn't.
But I think it's a pretty good album.
And it's got its moments.
It's got its downturns also.
There's no doubt about that.
But given the situation where they were at the time,
you know what?
I have some reasons why I like this album.
But I'm going to start with the negatives first.
And I agree with most of these.
I really do.
It is too groove metal oriented.
There's no doubt about that.
Not that I dislike groove metal,
but it's a big change from Painkiller to this in terms of that style.
You went from Fast Blast Beat
to kind of slow,
more meandering riffs.
The riffs are heavier and darker.
There's no doubt about that.
But they're not.
The punch is different.
It's a slow grind on some of these songs.
That would have been a good song title.
Slow Grind.
Well, it's also a triple A. It's a triple X rated movie,
too.
Oh,
wait.
Wrong podcast.
All right.
Lyrical Content?
No.
On a few songs,
it's cool.
All right?
But on all of them?
No.
I mean, let's be honest.
You get the gist when you have song titles like Bloodstained,
Dead Meat,
Death Row,
Decapitate,
Brain Dead.
All right.
Okay,
guys.
Enough said.
Enough said.
Again.
If it's a few songs,
that's cool.
Yeah, I like it.
That's great.
On everyone.
And I heard some songs, I think, because some songs I think are actually musically very good.
But whatever.
It's a little too mid-paced, I think, the album.
I agree with that. There's not enough up-tempo. There's no Electric Eye in this album. There's no Free Will Bernie. There's no Painkiller.
There just isn't.
Speaking of Electric Eye, sorry,
sidetrack.
Sitting in front of the TV the other day watching one of the Major League Baseball playoff games.
And Barb comes in and is like, is there a Judas Priest song, something about an
Hellion,
something with an I?
And I was like, yes.
Yes,
there's Hellion, electric I.
And she's like, yeah, I heard it on the radio.
Because for whatever reason, she has Boneyard pre-programmed in her XM as one of her channels. And so she hears things that she'll be out shopping or something and she'll frequently text me,
you know, I heard this song.
You know this song? I'm like, of course I know that song.
But anyway,
so I was trying to convince her that yes,
Electric Eye is the name of this song, and I played it for her,
and she was like, yeah!
So, go borrow.
Wait, did she like it?
Yeah, she thought it was cool.
Oh,
cool.
Anyway, sorry to interrupt once again.
That's fine.
It's never,
ever a bad thing to say.
We're holding you in contempt, George.
Yeah.
Continue,
counselor.
One more word out of you,
and you're out of here.
All right.
I'm almost done with the negatives. I'm moving on.
I mentioned this earlier, and I'll just kind of reiterate it. It is too mid-pasty, I think.
I think it kind of chugs a little too much.
Like I said, not enough of that upbeat.
It suffers from post-fear of the dark maiden-isms.
There's a lot of slow intros.
Now, they're not eight minutes long like Maiden.
You know,
every intro is like, oh,
God, I got it. You love Prague,
so do I, but let's get to the song.
They're a little shorter, but still, every song, you're kind of like, all right, really?
The album's 58 minutes long,
man.
Yeah,
I'd kill you to throw a drum solo intro like Painkiller in here somewhere,
you know?
There's also too many auto samples to start the songs.
One or two?
Okay, that's cool.
Eight?
Again,
a little too much.
You're trying a little too hard.
And I think the vocal effects are too much on the album.
I think it takes away.
Ripper Owens, whether you like it or not, he can sing. There's no doubt about that.
But sometimes I feel like they kind of see,
I don't know the right words I want to say here. His voice just feels like it's getting processed too much in certain parts. And I want to hear him. I don't want to hear a board that somebody's twisted knobs on.
So those are my negatives on this. Now I'm going to start giving you the pause.
Yeah.
Those knobs,
I don't mind you twisting,
George.
We won't go into anything.
George loves twisting knobs.
Just think of Devin Townsend.
If you know what that means, you know. All right, so I'm going to give you the positives real quick because I want to get to what you guys have to say.
All right, here's what I think is good about this album. It is heavy as fuck for a Priest album.
And that's saying something with Painkiller before that. I like that.
I like that they did that. I like that they decided,
you know what?
Let's just amp it up.
All right.
Yeah, I could have used a little more melodic aspect to it, but I love that this is heavy.
Because I'm going to go back now and listen to fucking Point of Entry and be like, this is pop rock,
you know, which it sort of was,
you know, but nonetheless.
And I think this change is gutsy. Let's be honest.
You're messing with a model.
I mean, they did this with Turbo.
They messed with the model there.
They had something good going.
And I'm sorry, I'm just going to always
I know people like it but
it just went from Screaming for Vengeance and Defenders to Turbo.
Really?
To me this was a gutsy move because you knew it was going to piss a lot of fans off.
Boy it did.
Now I'm glad they didn't try to do Painkiller 2.0.
Really?
That's kind of playing it safe. It's like oh let's just play off of what the last album was.
And I'm glad they didn't try to do one of their kind of traditional radio friendly type priest albums.
Which all started with British Steel.
Those are all great albums,
those early 80 albums,
but there's a little bit of radio friendliness to them also.
Let's be honest.
Do we need to hear You Really Got Me?
or You Got Nothing Coming?
Again?
Yeah, it's cool when you hear it, but nonetheless.
So I like that they did that. I like that the album's dark. I like that it's brutal and it's menacing.
I don't need to have Breaking the Law rehashed because to me that's just basically,
well, we don't know what to do, so we're just going to rehash our past.
So those things I kind of liked.
I don't mind Ripper Owens.
I just don't. I know I've read that people say he screams too much on the album. I just went back and listened to the remastered remix of Sad Wings of Destiny.
Holy smokes,
are there some screams on there from Rob Halford.
I was like, where did that come from? I didn't hear that the first time or the first 80 times I listened to that album.
So I don't mind him.
And to be honest,
a positive here is that he's close to Rob Halford.
It's not a huge shift.
Let's be honest, you heard Ozzy and all of a sudden you get Dio.
What happened here?
Is this the same band?
That was a huge change when that happened for them.
And same for Maiden. Let's be honest.
Paul DeAnno to,
or Paul,
God, I was,
get his name wrong,
I guess. I can't remember. You're talking about Blaze?
No,
to, and to Bruce.
I mean, that's a huge change from a fragile voice to this operatic power.
And even to Blaze then too, for that matter.
And then again, back to Bruce.
So at least Priest kept it within the vocal style.
that they'd always had.
And so he could still sing
pre-songs, and you're like, I can still hear it.
It's not like you're hearing...
And I've never been a fan of Dio singing Ozzy stuff.
I certainly would never want to hear Ozzy singing Dio stuff.
Not in a million years.
Only because I identify with the songs as they were originally sung.
That's all.
I do think there's good songs on the album.
Bloodstained is awesome, especially the live version.
When you hear the crowd singing with them, I think that's great.
Burn in Hell is a cool tune.
It's a little bit of a slow burn,
but it's different than the other slow burns on the album.
I dig Abductors.
Abductors kind of reminds me of A Touch of Evil a little bit. It doesn't sound like it off of Panko, but it has that kind of vibe to it. It's a slower paced song.
And it's kind of cool on the live album. It says, if you believe in other worldly stuff, did you believe in Abductors?
And it's like, okay, that's kind of cool.
And then there is probably the best song Priest has done post-Painkiller all the way to the last two albums.
I don't know. I'll fight anyone on this. Cathedral Spires is the best song they wrote during that period.
I think it's a great song.
And I know I'm not the only one who feels this way because that's saving grace for this album for a lot of people.
I just think it's awesome.
And it doesn't sound anything like the rest of the album. It doesn't sound anything like Priest has ever done before,
which is kind of cool.
And it's kind of proggy for Priest,
which they hadn't done since the mid, you know,
late 70s,
all the way back to them.
Other songs like Jugular, the opener,
it could be better, but I think it's a pretty good song.
I think Bull Train's all right.
There's the D and B songs,
the Dead Meat,
the Death Row,
Decapitate and Rain Dead.
I didn't notice that.
They're all Ds or Bs.
A, B, C, or D, and then J.
Yeah.
Yeah,
exactly.
Now, I will say, some of the music from those songs, I think, is kind of good,
but the lyrics are just... All right.
Okay.
And the most important thing,
and it wouldn't be a Judas Priest conversation,
let me mention Scott Travis is the drummer on this album,
just so everybody knows. You know he's been in the band for 36 years now.
Really?
Yeah.
He really has.
Time flies.
All right.
So,
real quick, what would have made the album better?
Well, first off, they should have used the original cover.
the full cover.
Has anyone seen that full cover?
Yes.
It's way better.
That might be one of their better covers.
They destroyed it by cropping it.
And it's blurred a little bit, too.
And I'm like,
the full cover, it's crisp.
It's just coming out of lava.
He's burning up and he's getting ready to just slash your throat. You're like, dude, I'm in. Let's go.
So that's the first thing.
I feel like the live version production,
had they had the production like that on the album, it would sound better.
Less processed.
It just sounds better. And I think that that really would have made it incredibly more well-received, I should say.
I almost misspoke about the album. It's not that incredible.
But I feel like songs like Bloodstained, as much as I love that song on the album, would be even better,
and I think it'd be better received.
It'd be nice if they did get rid of those vocal effects,
the lengthy intros and auto-samples. If they pared that down, I think it would have helped.
And quite frankly, the biggest
thing that would help this album is if Rob Halford would actually sing some of these songs live.
I mean,
Bruce does.
They pick up once in a while, they'll play a song from the two Blazor albums.
Like the Klansman.
Yes.
You know,
they'll do, I think they've done Sign of the Cross.
I think we saw it, Georgina. I saw Sign of the Cross.
It was awesome.
You know, and I've seen the Klansman a couple times.
They're great.
It wouldn't kill Priest to have played a couple of these songs.
It might have given the album more legitimacy by not playing it. It acted like this wasn't part of their history.
Right,
right.
And that's the part I don't like. It's got the name on it.
It's got the name on it.
At least pretend it exists.
So at least do that.
I mean, can you imagine Halford singing on Cathedral Spires?
I mean, that'd be incredible, I think.
He said, oh, I wouldn't mind doing it, but he's never done it. So anyway,
so I'll finish this off by saying, I do think if you're a Priest fan, it's worth your time to listen, at least to give it a try.
I think you'd be surprised what you might find on this album.
Again, it's not perfect by any means,
but there are some really good songs on it, I think. And if you give them a chance to develop,
you know, listening-wise, I think you'd be surprised.
It could have released Painkiller 2, like I said earlier,
but that would have been just phoning it in as far as I'm concerned.
They're not... Them trying to do something different to me is what attracted me to the album.
Like I said, I thought it was gutsy.
So the thing that's different here is that it's just different.
That's what makes this album,
I think,
It's not radio-friendly.
It just isn't.
But that's what I think makes it great.
Or not great. Makes it worth your time,
I should say.
And I will just say,
right now,
it's not demolition.
That album does stink.
All right. I went on way too long. More than I thought I would,
but... Hey, at least you did your homework.
Unlike some people. John Russ's case.
Now,
I don't expect that I'm going to sway many people.
I know,
George, I think you've said that you liked it at the time, but you don't remember as much as you might.
What do you guys got?
Mark, we'll start with you.
Oh, sure.
I mean, I did plus and minuses.
So I went through it because,
you know, I am not a huge priest fan.
So I don't really listen to priests all that often.
With the exception of Sad Wings,
which now I have to listen to the new version because you just told me about that at the beginning of this cast.
So,
you know, I listen to it and a lot of the stuff that you said I agree with. So I'll start with the positives for me.
Heavier and darker.
I loved that part of it.
I've always wanted that from Priests.
I've said this before. I know you guys don't agree.
They're too party-mobody.
for me.
And that's why I don't really respond to Priest as much.
But I like this because it felt very heavy.
I think people talk about it being the band's worst record.
But as someone who is not a big Priest fan,
honestly,
I think it's pretty much on par with everything else except Sad Wings.
So I don't really have an issue with it like other people.
people do.
However,
and those are my the positive things,
you know, I think it's unfairly judged.
I don't really see it as being that much like the worst thing they've ever done.
But for me,
I just don't like Ripper's vocals.
You know,
there's too many shrieks. There's this weird talky singing that he does.
There's quite a bit of Elaine Staley and James Hetfield imitation on those.
those songs and I don't like that as much.
I like those singers but I don't like the imitation of those singers on the record.
And that's something I don't think you mentioned,
John.
The other thing you did mention was the groove metal kind of industrial wave that happened in the late 90s.
I really wasn't into that that much and we do get that groove part on the record so I don't really respond to that.
that as much.
The lyrics are super bad.
You've mentioned that a number of times.
I don't think Rob Halford is a particularly good lyricist,
but he's a poet compared to the lyrics on this,
which were penned by Glenn Tipton,
you know, not Ripper.
And they're truly awful.
Like, here's an example.
Exterminator, you are dead.
Mutilate.
Sharpen razor takes
and made it all pixelated.
Because it's so good.
It could have been their mascot.
You know what I mean?
It could have been their Eddie. That's how good the art is in it.
I don't know what they did.
I'm happy that we get to see the full art later on. I think the Japanese version or some other version had the full art on it.
But the one that we saw did not.
It was very zoomed in on just the face and just real bad.
I don't mind revisiting this,
but I didn't enjoy it that much,
John. I'm sorry. I think you made a pretty good case both for and against what the bad parts are and what the good parts are. But honestly, I would not have revisited this if it wasn't part of this Court of Chaos segment.
And listen to it again. I don't feel like I have to go back to it anytime soon either.
But that said,
it's not terrible.
If you are a Priest fan,
like you said,
I think you can listen to this and you should appreciate it because there are some good things on it, especially it being heavier and darker.
You don't get a lot of that in Priest.
So that's my thoughts.
Excellent.
Thank you.
The situation.
So like with Judas Priest,
the concept of
It's a segment that I think is on the wheel of death about what's your camp. It's,
you know, what album by what,
like,
take a band, what album are you in? What is your favorite?
And so Judas Priest inspired that concept in my head.
And for me,
I went and did it for myself.
And strangely enough,
Painkiller is the camp I land in.
And I love that we're all in different camps,
because actually,
if I were to do a top five, I probably would go back to the camp.
back older to like a Sad Wings or Sting class.
That said,
I've never,
I liked Judas Priest.
I think they're great, but I've never been invested in them to the point of,
you know, their path affecting me a whole lot.
But I respect the fact that their path has affected others,
especially those who have more investment in them.
But listening to Jugulator to kind of,
I liked it.
It was fine.
I think in terms of switching singers,
to me it feels less abrasive than other changes that have happened.
Although the lyrical thing did jump out a few times.
It's like the elephant in the room.
Yeah,
well it reminds me, the first thing I thought of as we've been talking about is,
I don't remember the name of it, but it was that Testament album that had just had some really,
rough lyrics.
And not an incredibly Old Testament album.
That's the one with the Snake song.
Yeah.
The Snake album?
Something of the Snake.
Yeah.
The other thing that stood out to me,
and it's based on you sent the follow-up, John,
of the live tracks,
which I enjoyed listening to, but I was actually really surprised at how much the crowd was into it.
Like,
you know,
I mean... Were they or was it crowd noise?
Maybe.
But like Rob Halford is a very distinct figure. And I,
to me, I don't know,
like I say, not being invested and not,
and also not necessarily listening to it in real time. I knew things were happening, but I wasn't necessarily listening to it. And I would also reference as mentioned kind of the change from Bruce to Blaze.
It's definitely different, but I don't know if it's his mind jarring.
I did like kind of, you know, coming off of
Painkiller is definitely a heavy album opening with the drum solo as we've referenced I think when we we did our top five opening tracks of albums and to me that album was pretty blistering throughout and so to kind of go into Jugular I think that kind of carried but I guess where I would go back to the live piece I feel like you get more Rob when you watch the band live and so I was surprised as to how well people received Ripper and I know we also got a movie out of them out of the
this like changing of the guard, which I actually don't think I've seen all the way through.
Rockstar you're talking about?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I have the DVD.
I need to watch all the way through just for,
you know, culture perspective.
But all that said,
John, I think all your points are valid as in listening to it.
You know, my response is not as detailed as Marcosans,
but I think it was it's definitely something worthy of a listen.
It's worthy of liking.
And you shouldn't feel guilty for doing so.
But definitely,
you know, still not the priests that we know and love.
Yeah, talk about the change in lyrical and song titles from Turbo to this.
It really is.
And I'm not picking on Turbo like I normally do. Just it really is a 180 completely.
Yeah.
Although,
Markazon, I do agree with you. Minus two songs,
that is a party album.
I agree.
Yeah.
I have nothing wrong with party albums.
I like darker things.
So I definitely like the music on this. If it was an instrumental,
I'd probably like this album really a lot. Not that Ripper's a bad vocalist. I think he's a good vocalist.
There's too many calls back to other vocalists where he's trying to do Rob Halford, but he's also trying to do Lane Staley.
It sounds like James had
I didn't get the Lane Staley part,
but I see what you're saying.
That's why, yeah, I don't hear any of that.
But I will say,
that's why I mentioned the live versions, because I think it just comes off better when there's no vocal effects.
And kind of him screaming,
but then layering in like a little deeper Hetfield thing in there, it just sounds not great on the album.
But live, I thought it transformed.
I think it was cool that you sent the live stuff because I thought it did sound better.
You know, there was an energy to it that you just don't get on the record.
You know what else?
I don't know if you guys noticed this,
George. I don't think you had a chance to listen to it, but it sounds like both Matt and Marcus Hunt did.
I don't know if you listened to all of it.
But the drums on the album, as much as I like Scott Travis,
his bass,
though, is way up front.
You're gonna pop-pop-pop-popping,
but live, it seems to be mixed in much better.
So not muted,
but it's dropped down just a little bit, so you're not getting totally blasted like you do on the album.
And I kind of like that a little better,
personally.
Being a drummer,
too, I don't need to hear the bass constantly. But that was the times,
though.
That was what was blowing up.
So it's definitely,
it's very much a record of its time.
There's no doubt about that. Right.
All right,
so we got two in. So now, though,
we go to the Podfather.
No pressure,
especially when I didn't spend as much time with this as I would have liked to. And no, I did not get a chance to listen to the live stuff.
But what I can say is that when this came out back in the day,
I was, of course,
like pretty much probably everybody skeptical.
And I gave it a listen back then. I bought the CD.
And I was like, you know, this could be worse.
And eventually it kind of grew on me a little bit. And there's a few songs that I do like.
John mentioned both of them.
He probably mentioned all the songs.
But Burn in Hell,
not so terrible.
And of course,
Cathedral Spires.
And so at some point after its release,
I came to have a grudging respect for it and,
you know,
at least not hate it.
Um,
but then I listened to it again recently and some of that affection that I had previously mustered,
uh,
was difficult to come by just that. I was like, eh,
it's.
Where I am now, where they are now,
I don't necessarily need this.
You know?
I did want to, I did make some notes while you guys were talking about things that I wanted to follow up on, like the, throwing back to the heavy thing about how heavy it was.
It kind of makes sense.
I mean,
Painkiller was heavy,
probably the heaviest for them.
And that could have led to this,
direction,
I suppose.
But this came out during grunge.
And not only that, during the rise of black and death metal.
So they kind of had to crank up the heavy to just stay relevant with their peers of what was going on, you know.
And a lot of bands did that.
I mean, Testament did that big time when Chuck started doing harsh vocals.
They never did harsh vocals in the 80s.
But in the 90s,
suddenly demonic and stuff like that. So people were doing what they had to do to try and stay relevant and survive.
So I don't knock them for that.
So while I may have liked it back in the day,
the fact that I never felt compelled to go back again until now does kind of say something,
I think.
But also,
swiveling back the other way again for a moment,
there have been other singer changes that bothered me a lot more than this one.
I'm looking at Blaze here,
sadly.
And so,
eh,
you know, I'm taking a relatively neutral stance of, eh, could have been better,
eh,
could have been worse.
All right.
Call me the hung jury.
It's interesting because I think
when this record comes out,
it's like, well,
it's continuing Priest.
It's not exactly the same,
but it has
a lot of the elements of the old Priest with a few new
twists to it.
So it wasn't
too much of a deviation then. But of
course,
when Halford comes back,
you get all these other
records,
right? So now you're like, oh,
you know, I'd rather listen to this
and this kind of like one-off or you know with with ripper and um you know that time period when ripper was doing stuff with them so it is a little bit weird because if he would have continued on maybe we'd have a different outlook it was like hey here's the bridge and then halford comes back and that's how you identify priests with him before and after and it's kind of a blip in the middle you know what i mean
So it kind of colors the way that you view certain things.
Speed bump.
Exactly.
It's like you listen to it like you were saying, George, like, oh, this isn't too bad. It's not the priest I know,
but it's not too bad.
But now,
hindsight,
you get all these other Halford records like, I don't need this fucking thing anymore.
After Firepower.
Yeah.
Or the one before that.
It completely colors the way you see the record,
I think.
Yeah.
Which is funny,
too.
that you bring that up because they released nostradamus which is not very good it's it's just not you know and they they hung their flag on that album especially kk down like we think this is the best song i like there's like one song i like off this album i like three songs like a lot off of julia later i don't like everything but i like three songs a lot off this album that tells me that's more than i like off of turbo and more i like off of
Hey,
don't mess with my turbo.
Just saying.
Well,
it's interesting that it's interesting.
I thought,
I'm guessing we would have other views from the other two guys from Jay and Will,
but I didn't think it would be as semi-neutral.
Meaning it didn't necessarily get,
you know,
tossed off the plank.
But it's hanging by a couple
And that's quite alright.
And it's interesting how this developed from George's original idea to this, of me presenting this album and us talking about it, which I thought was cool.
Plus,
in the end, I told him,
I think it was yesterday,
it just seemed kind of a fun exercise,
even if people didn't like the album,
to just go back.
And it is a period piece. There's no doubt about it.
This album doesn't get made in the 2000s.
They'll never go down that route.
I think you guys got it right when you said it was just at that time those bands that they were competing with to stay relevant.
And let's be honest, they took a hit when Halford left. They lost their identity.
It's really interesting because it's kind of analogous to something else that happened to me recently when I was in Switzerland.
So I went up to Stilthorn and they have this
where they filmed the James Bond film on Her Majesty's Secret Service.
And they were constructing it,
but they didn't have enough money to finish it. And then the James Bond people, when they were making the movie, they wanted to use that place. So they injected a bunch of money and helped them complete it.
But the guy who starred in that movie,
Lazenby,
something like that. George Lazenby, yeah.
Only film he was ever in.
But he got nominated for a movie.
like a best actor award and stuff,
but nobody remembers.
I can barely remember his name.
And I was just there,
you know,
so you don't you just don't think of of him being Bond. And I think it's it's kind of the same with this where Halford's the guy Ripper came in and I guess he did it. But you it's kind of forgettable.
Like, I don't even think I would think about this record unless we did this particular.
segment.
And that's not to say that he didn't do a decent job on it,
just like George Lazenby,
but that's not the Bond I think of.
Big Shoes. It's not the Priest I think of.
Well,
I think part of that that plays into this is the fact that they don't play any songs from this album. Demolition, I don't want them to play anything from,
but they don't play anything.
At least Maiden plays a song or two here and there.
So you still remember those albums.
And to you, they're like, okay,
that was just during this period when Bruce was gone.
They're still made in albums.
But because Priest doesn't play these songs,
yeah, you're right. He's kind of getting erased.
So Ripper does have an argument when he says, hey, wait a second,
though.
I mean, you still had the two guitars, you still had the basses, all guys,
you know, have been there from the beginning.
Scott Travis on drums, by the way.
It's kind of silly that they kind of get erased.
He's at least this album.
That's the way I think of.
But anyway,
I thought it would be a fun exercise.
And it's you guys indulged me. So I appreciate that. Thank you.
And I agree with that, John, because it shouldn't be erased. They decided that they were going to bring this guy into the band. They made the record and they should celebrate it.
You know, it's what they wanted to do at the time.
It's something creative they wanted to do.
And you shouldn't just throw it by the wayside because people don't like it.
or,
you know,
everybody thinks of Halford as the guy.
You know, I think that doing a cast like this and remembering something like that where they did take a chance and had another singer is important because it's part of their history.
Yeah, had they not got them, they might have broken up and they may never reformed.
Exactly.
Who knows?
Yeah.
Anyway,
well,
thank you for indulging. I know it wasn't,
it was a bumpy ride, I'm sure.
So.
It wasn't bad at all.
But man, they could have made it so much better.
Could have made it so much worse.
Yeah.
Well,
lyrically, they did.
But,
you know.
Lyrically, it can't get worse.
Okay.
But man, that album cover is just so badass.
The full one,
yeah. The full one is so badass. I mean, that's my favorite cover from them.
I mean, they went from the Hellion to that, and I was like, wow, that's a big change. We did do top five covers, I think, four.
this bad, didn't we?
I don't remember.
I think we did.
We were doing covers.
We were doing covers, and I feel like we had a guest on that brought this up.
And we went out, and we were like, oh,
I didn't realize this was a full album.
Because, yeah, the Pixelate, George, like I said,
I have that same CD.
It looks terrible.
It's just horrible.
What is this?
So,
anyway.
Well, that was fun.
We survived it.
Yeah. And I think,
We ended up getting a different segment out of it.
That's not the original intent,
but it worked out because there's only four of us tonight.
So.
I mean, that's the part of the wheel.
Like you select something on the wheel and then you get to do it your way.
John.
Just like Burger King.
Speaking of the wheel.
George.
All right.
Official spin here.
The official spin is coming now.
Getting dizzy licked at me.
Kill screen.
All right.
So this is Spinner chooses a metal film or documentary for everyone to watch and review.
Spinner decides the format of the discussion.
Well,
given that this is October,
that's kind of funny, isn't it?
Kind of apropos.
Mm-hmm.
I agreed.
That's fun.
So there can be only one.
Oh, you're going to decide right now,
George. Nice.
Do we normally?
No, I guess we don't. I guess we don't. All right. Think about it and then let us know. All right. I'll hold on to it.
I wouldn't wait too long because that's something we all have to watch. It's going to take some time.
Yeah.
And it's like literally right on the edge with the next segment.
I know. That's why I was waiting with Bated Breath.
Was it going to be heavy art or kill screen?
I'm like, I don't want to do heavy art.
I'll do kill screen.
And now also each time I create the wheel, I resort it too.
So that it's not the same sort each time.
Got it.
Awesome. Well, I'm excited about this.
You say that now.
My Halloween movie is ready to go.
And this will be another one in the pile.
I kind of feel like because this is October,
I should just say it now.
Well, if you know.
You can, George.
Yeah, go for it.
Trick or treat.
With Fastway.
Trick or treat.
It's got Skippy from the show with.
What was the Skippy show with Family Ties?
I think so. I can't remember.
This was a mid-late 80s metal movie. I saw it in the theater.
It has cameos by Ozzy Osbourne,
Gene Simmons.
And it's not a good movie.
No.
But in
1880 whatever.
It'll be fun.
To have a movie that's about metal was like, it was like, I don't even care. I mean,
it's,
you know, I can look back on it now and go, it's a bit camp.
Okay. But that's okay.
That's awesome.
That'll be fun.
And it's about being a metalhead who gets shit upon in,
you know, by the jocks and the preps and all that stuff and getting your come up.
So,
John,
you've seen it? Love it.
Love it. Yeah,
I have to go back. It's been a long time. Yeah,
and I'm guessing the other guys have not,
so that'll be fun.
Yeah,
I mean, I don't even remember anything. I will tell you this.
You want to talk about an album that is polarizing for me, for a band. I love the first two Fastway albums.
This is my favorite Fastway album.
I love this album.
Oh my God, that's awesome. So yeah, make sure, we're going to talk about the
movie,
but you got to listen to the soundtrack too,
because that will feature into my discussion for sure.
So yeah.
So,
you know,
send it around everybody,
George,
but also,
you know, whatever format you want to do for it,
like, uh,
view it or just discuss it,
whatever you want to do. I think it'll probably be just a discussion,
but I'll, I'll,
I'll ponder that. And before making an official decision,
I I'm hoping that Jay's on the same page with me on this one. I'm, I'm, I'm betting that he's going to be.
I'm sure he's seen it.
When you mentioned that, all I could think of was, oh, it's Fastway.
I love it, because every time Halloween comes around,
I want to watch movies.
Wow.
Nice.
All right.
Cool.
All righty.
We did it.
We did it.
We've got three hours,
only four of us.
That's right.
We had some meandering in there, too.
A little bit. We never do that.
We did better than we normally do. Yeah.
All right. Well,
we hope that this was enjoyable or at least occupied your brain while you were doing something more important.
Enjoyable or tolerable?
Tolerable.
We hope it's a little better than a jugulator.
Well, I've got to tell you now.
We might be losing people.
Jugulator followed by Trick or Treat.
It's like, oh boy,
what's going on in that podcast?
I think it's awesome.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, tune in next time. You know what you're getting.
Yeah.
And I guess we'll see you next time then.
Take it easy. Trick or Treat. Peace.
Peace.