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Metalheads Podcast is a metal-themed podcast featuring George, Jay, Will, John, Matt and Markisan. The guys discuss metal news and new releases, perform in-depth interviews with great metal bands, and just generally have a blast arguing about that greatest of musical styles: Metal!
METALHEAD PODCAST
METALHEAD PODCAST
GO!
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You must listen.
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Now, here is the podcast, Metal Heads Podcast Go.
Hello and welcome to the Metal Heads Podcast. My name is George.
This is Jay.
This is Will Go Birds.
This is John.
This is a situational paradox.
This is Markisan.
And today we are joined once again by the guys from Scaldor. Would you guys like to introduce yourselves? Yeah, I'm Kerry. I do vocals and bass in the band. This is Brent. I play guitars. And this is Harry and I also play guitars. So we got Kerry, Harry, and Brent. Hey, Mo! All right. Well, it looks Irish to me. Welcome back. You guys were on here a few years ago to talk about your first album, Scythe of Our Errors. And now a few weeks ago, you released your second album that I am told is pronounced Sam.
Sara, congrats on the release. Thank you. Probably worth stating that it didn't sweep, but almost swept our albums of the month. Yeah, we have a couple of dicks. Thank you guys. Appreciate that. No problem. Not at all. You're free to take it out on Markesong real quick if you want. I'll take it. I do need to go back and listen to those other ones that you had on there. It was just Garvey.
There's like three garbage ones and one really good one. Yeah. So I saw that the album was released on Avant-Garde. How did you guys get hooked up with them? Yeah, we had it kind of in our minds with this release that we wanted to do more than we did with Scythe, which was pretty much self-produced, self-released outside of the recording engineer that helped us mix and master it.
So we started out by reaching out to Dan Swano, who is kind of like our one and only choice to do mixing and mastering for this record after we had everything recorded. Just stop right there and just tell me how does one reach out to Dan Swano? Yeah, exactly. Not that I'm going to. Send him an email. Send him an email. Yes. No, it's strangely that simple. I reached out to him via email and he got back to me right away.
And he was enthusiastic about it. And everything just kind of spun out from there. But fast forwarding, once everything was completed with him, we started kind of throwing darts at the label map, reached out to a dozen or so, and didn't hear anything back. We had the, you know, shoot for the moon, century media, and peace fill in the like. Avant-Garde is the first label that got back to us, actually. And they were very enthusiastic about,
the idea even before hearing our music. They liked the idea. And very quickly the conversation progressed into an agreement. The idea of what? The idea of the album? The style of music? What hooked them in? Yeah, all of the above. Really kind of name-dropping Dan was a big selling point for them. So it was really clever to have attached to ourselves.
to him in this regard.
It opened a lot of doors for us.
You get Bruce Willis first, and then you can make your movie.
Yeah. Boom. Diehard.
Success.
Yeah, I was going to ask about Swano.
I was just listening again this morning on Bandcamp, and I'm looking down.
I was like, oh, no shit.
You know, that is a big win right there.
I mean, you know, and I was like, did you get to talk to him and stuff? Because he's, I'm a big fan of his musically and, and in terms of what he does in the studio. Yeah. I mean, I guess we had a little bit of a wait just because he's a busy guy, obviously. But when it actually came down to working with him, it was, I mean, it was one of those like real moments where you're kind of just like, oh, holy shit. Like, this is what a professional is like.
He asked us to come up with just a few things that he wanted us to have ready. Just like, hey, think of an album that you like the sound of. So Stupid Us were over here like, well, we like this album and this element of this album. And he's like, no, no, no, guys, it has to just be one. Because I can't do that. I can't take the dark bass tone from this Opeth record and then mix it in with the trebles of a dissection. It doesn't work. So that was interesting, but he was very helpful.
So what album did you say? It was Celestial Will by Dodds Ritz. It was that record and Trigliff and a few others that just they still maintained a lot of that raw punch that we will never get too far away from but it also didn't sound like a steaming pile of shit. Like a black album? You said like I do not want Bob Rock. Like that's what you said, right?
Yeah, because we do devote a lot of our time to making sure that, you know, we spend a lot of time and attention on making sure that the riffs and the transitions and the constructions of our songs actually are what we want. We're pretty damn persnickety when it comes to that. So we didn't want those little nuances to be hidden behind a bunch of chainsaw noise. So we wanted it to be produced well enough to where it sounded to the listener how it sounds in our head.
but not so polished and gross that we sound like sleep token or like AI generated bullshit. So that album was one that we had picked out that really kind of split that difference. It wasn't an exact analog, but that was a good kind of starting point. And Swano just went nuts with it. And he was receptive to feedback. He was really for somebody of his profile and stature. We were really surprised by how just approachable and down to earth.
he was just talking to us like he was just some regular dude running a small studio not metal legend so it really wasn't just a surprisingly easy and pleasant experience working with him he really just it's we saw very quickly why he has achieved the level of you know that's all right I just noticed your shirt man oh that's Jay so hey
Harry, so did you guys do it like in person? Where was the album recorded? We recorded at Treppin Studios with Tony Petrucelli. He was the same guy that we worked with on... Oh, I know Tony. He was in a couple local bands. I know Tony. He is really deep in the local scene and he really just, he gets the music. He knows extreme metal as well as anybody does. So it was,
The recording process with him has always been a pleasure because he's
for one he's you know he holds us he holds us accountable to make sure that we don't
sound bad like if we are recording a part and it's not really you know really up to the level
he'll say something I mean he's never been the arbiter for you know what we do and how we sound but
he really does run things in a way that we appreciate and we've always been pleased with the results that we get from him so
So then what's next? So Tony records it and then you send it off to Dan? Yeah. Yeah. Basically that's about how it went. We did have sort of an intermediate step with bringing in one of our fellow drummers from formerly of Bain. Still is. I'm sorry? Still is in Bain. Oh, okay. Yeah. He does a ton of things, but we had, you know,
Ben, we kept up with him for a long time and we brought him in to do some of the drum parts and he of course just smashed it. He could probably play our stuff blindfolded. He's so damn annoyingly good. But once all that was tracked and ready, we sent it off to Dan, you know, after Brent did all the coordinating and wordsmithing to make sure it ran smoothly. And then, you know, we got the product back and had our holy shit moment with how it sounded and, you know, here we are.
So let me get the geographic logistics of this. You guys recorded where? Like Baltimore, Maryland, Virginia? Woodbridge. We recorded all of the strings in Woodbridge. The drums were recorded in Quebec, Canada. So the drummer from Bain, isn't Bain from Europe somewhere? Serbia. They're now expats in Canada. Okay. Drums recorded in Quebec. And then you send it off to Sweden?
He's actually in Germany, I think. His studio's in Germany now. Oh, yeah. Wow. This is an international album. I can't keep track. Yeah. On an Italian label. Yeah. An Italian label, and you guys live all in Virginia. Mm-hmm. Yeah, we still live. And the whole time they were eating Indian food, so. Yeah. Yeah, but it really is a testament to the professionalism of all these folks that were sending shit all over the place, but it never felt tedious because these, you know, everybody was just so good at what they did and communicated so well that,
We advocated for what we wanted and we really tried to do the work on the front end to make sure that we were clear on what we were going for. And everybody else, they brought the professionalism and it really wasn't as much of a, you know, because to be honest with you, I hadn't even really thought about that until right now when you all mentioned that of like all the different parts and regions involved in this album. But it didn't feel like that because people were quick with communication. It really was a pretty easy process.
It's as easy as it could be. It's kind of a testament to the fact that this
internet way of doing things is well established now that the machine works, you know, that
there are people who understand
how to do that. And because probably not easy in the first place, you know, when we were all tacking things together across the globe.
We're trying to. So that's interesting that that the machine really works now.
Plus the individuals, I'm sure I realize it's their integrity and their professionalism.
Was there anything from Swano or anybody else that they suggested that you pushed back on or you wanted to change during the process? His first cut of the mix that he gave us had some pretty radically different things. The way that he ended songs, the kind of transitions out of stuff. He put in some effects on a lot of the parts that we had or brought certain things forward or completely eliminated some of the things. His kind of rule of thumb is if we sent him parts, he wanted everything.
to be there somewhere.
But there were a lot of corrections that we had to make along the way.
Some of Harry's lead parts that were just missing altogether.
And it was all kind of by mistake, but we had to go back and point them out to him.
No, Dan Suano, you fool.
Idiot.
Do you even know metal music?
Come on, get it right.
I mean, Tony had so many individual tracks for all of those guitar parts.
The acoustic track, I don't even remember how many individual guitar tracks there were.
Tony is a saint for just dealing with my bullshit during that whole process because part of what I'm really guilty of is once I start hearing things in the quality of recording that he was doing, I would go, ooh, Tony, can I have another track because I'm having an idea.
And then I'm just me being an idiot, everything I prepared kind of went by the wayside and then I'm just kind of going nuts in the studio. But he was here for that track in particular. It ended up being like just a slew of tracks and it's all very nuanced stuff. I mean, you could play that song on two acoustic guitars and it would sound the same. But just with all the layering and textures and everything ended up being a million tracks on some of these albums.
And I'm mostly the one to blame for that, but that lent itself easily for some of that stuff getting lost once we sent the whole bundle over to Dan. But I mean, but again, he was so fast with communicating and just getting new mixes and stuff back to us. And it didn't take a whole lot of time to do all the tinkering we wanted before what we got back from him sounded really, really like what we were going for. So it's pretty awesome.
I imagine you guys actually like now looking back on it like that that happened because if you're going to continue making music it's kind of good to see all these different avenues of what can happen and you had a good experience with it you probably learned probably more than you think just from having to go back and re-listen to what he brought the first time. Oh without a doubt. Yeah. Hey Brent I'm going to put you on the spot. What's up? One you look super handsome today. Thank you.
Thank you. I grew my beard back. Yeah, I like it. But what we have not done, we've failed on our listeners because we get like thousands of new listeners every month, just letting you guys know. Oh, yeah. Tons. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, but we just don't stick around. We actually did not describe what Sculter's music is like. Nobody has any idea if you're a power metal band, if you're a death band, like a death metal band, if you're a cow punk four string quartet. Like, so just describe it.
Describe Skulder. We make melodic black metal music. It is, as Harry was mentioning earlier, we put a lot of thought into making sure it doesn't sound super gritty and dirty. You know, there's a cleanliness to it that's very intentional. We are very deliberate with all of the parts that we play and we want all of them heard. So you're saying fuck Mayhem? Fuck those guys? Fuck Dark Souls?
It's just a different flavor. I'm kidding. Obviously, we like tons of different parts of black metal and we try and bring quite a few influences into our own sound. The bands that we've been most likened to through the process of releasing this record are Dawn, Dissection, and Windier. Some of that is because we've told people to say that.
But it's true. I mean, those are certainly, if you had to distill the source of our sound into three bands, I think those would be the three most accurate, both in the way of our instrumentation, our use of acoustic guitars, and just the choice of instrument and the way that they're layered together.
Oh, yeah. I'm a big fan of Vindir. I talked about him on the Haas before.
Yeah, they're good. I like all three of those. I was thinking earlier today when I was listening to it again, because I was like, you know, this is really kind of the black metal sweet spot for me. It's not too atmospheric and muddy. It's not too overproduced and shiny. It's right there in the middle of all of it. And it is really good. And I was thinking dissection as well. And I think I probably said that last time you guys were on.
There's a reason why the Sombra Lane was a cover that we played early on when we were playing shows. That's exactly the one song that I know how to play by them. But part of it is I had the black melody that I've been listening to for a long time, but a lot of the riffs that we wrote just sort of emerged kind of organically and happened to sound like these other things. So we weren't trying to replicate anybody else's sound.
landed in this groove of, especially when reading some of the feedback from, you know, from Samson, just that it's like, yep, early 90s, second wave Scandinavian black metal. It's like, okay, that's cool. That's fine. We'll take it. But yeah, I mean, Dissection was obviously a big, we were listening to those guys a ton when we first got together because we were, we all come from very different musical backgrounds. So early on, we were bringing our own flavor to it, you know, Dissection.
and bands like that, that was kind of where some of the overlap was of, you know, these guys do stuff. It's not just chainsaw guitars. They do some interesting music to listen to. So yeah, yeah, definitely the influence is there. I haven't heard anybody talk about Dawn in forever. So kudos there. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of it also, it's just that we've always tried to have like melodicism be kind of at the forefront of what we're doing. Just because, you know,
of the day, it's just like something that you can have that, you know, sticks in your head that you remember that tends to be the kind of metal that I like the most, you know, something that like if I find myself humming along to it, I'm like, oh, this is probably good. I think like with Psalmser, the second album, I think that was kind of an intentional decision that we made was to try and Harry's talked about this before, but try and simplify the songwriting somewhat and just make it, you know, less of like, you know, oh, a squirrel, like, you know, we could write about, you know, this part.
So the songs tended to be very sporadic on the first rap period, which I think was cool. And it made for some really cool songs. But on the second one, we were very intentionally trying to bring things back to just a slightly simpler structure where we could focus on what we kind of discovered we were good at was just melody and stuff like that. Right. Well, that's interesting that the first album, it's like a learning process for you because you're trying to feel how you come from different backgrounds, trying to figure out what your sound is going to be and how you're going to match together. So how do you feel about this second album as like the
the evolution of the band from the first one.
I mean, I would say, yeah, like I said, I think it's kind of a more distilled concept of, you know, I would be surprised if we did something that sounded like this exactly for the third one.
We'll see.
But no, I just, yeah, I think that was, like I said, it was something intentional that we wanted to do.
We'd sort of figured out like, oh, so we're good at writing these catchy, memorable, you know, chorus parts and stuff like that.
So we were intentionally trying to do songs that sort of played to that this time around. Yeah, I don't know. I think Scythe is a very cool album. But yeah, I mean, it's funny to listen to and just see like, oh my God, like we sounded like so many different things, I think. Because yeah, it was definitely an exploration. Yeah, I was definitely really happy. Gary, don't look now. There's a hat trying to eat you right now. It was funny in the placement. It was like looking right at your head.
I still love the songs on Scythe. A lot of that was
a lot of the guys bearing with my mad scientist process of like, I like this part and this part.
Let me do some crazy stuff to connect them and just make this song that has tons of dynamics and goes all over the place.
But for some, sir, we definitely want to keep the dynamics because when stuff is just loud all the time, that gets very boring.
So we've always been deliberate in making sure that, you know, there's pace to it, that it backs off at certain points because, or that it's dissonant in parts so that when the melodic parts hit, it feels more earned, you know, that type of thing. So there were elements of that on site. And what we found from a lot of the feedback that we got, like Carrie said, was that those were the parts that people were like, Ooh, that was really cool. You know? So, you know, we agreed with all of that and sort of our natural process just led to us really trying to focus in on that and just really,
I have it hit a lot harder instead of being so meandering all over the place just really have a more focused approach to it because there's still lots of parts in the songs but I think it feels a lot more cohesive than Scythe does and I'm definitely really really happy with how it turned out and proud as hell of it. Yeah I felt it was though I mean I felt it was though it was like a tighter album like it was like cohesive is the is probably the best word Harry that you said like it's just
It's a nicely, perfectly packaged product that you put out that it just, it just, it just, the cohesion, the cohesion. Like, yeah, you keep saying that word. Like I keep saying that word. Cohesion. Cohesion. Yeah. Cohesion. Yeah. To
I mean, nothing you can really like pull out of the album to say like, oh, there's an example that they've grown together. But overall, you just organically sound like a tighter band that has grown together and are more intertwined. And I think that kind of goes with some of the, you know, less sporadic parts, which are still good, but in more of that cohesion. Songwriting is better and more focused. I mean, it's a better record than the first one. No sophomore slump. We agree. This is sort of our therapy session for you, by the way.
I feel better already.
Listen, I'm a therapist by trade. That's my full-time job, which is hilarious considering I play in a black metal band.
I'll sit on the other end of the table. Why the hell not?
Well, I mean, is it hilarious or does it make perfect sense? I don't know.
Yes.
One of the things I wanted to ask you guys is
there's not quite clean singing on this, but one of the songs there is
I knew that was going to come up
It's like the last two songs
It's like some low chanting kind of thing that's not screamy
Which is cool, which is cool
It's cool by me
Yeah, because they're not kids
Right, so Harry, you have what, two kids now?
Yep
So how is Pigfucker Sr. and Pigfucker Jr. doing?
I was worried somebody would remember that.
It was hard to forget.
I love them dearly. They make me
very
glad that I have an outlet
into which I can dump
a lot of my rage and
tension and general hatred
of life at times.
Yeah, that's kind of
That's why it's hilarious and makes sense. I can write some really pissed off shit now. This is awesome. Album number three. Pick up your toys! So it leads me to my next question. Are you going to have your kids singing on any of the albums? The correct answer is no. Oh man. They call it the loud music because I'm going to get CPS called on me.
all of our tracks in the car when I would go and pick them up from their various places. And my older one, he started just calling it the loud music. And to my wife's horror, he started requesting the loud music all the time. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Well done, big fucker. Yeah. Yeah, it's goddamn senior. If there's one thing you do in your life, you're doing it right now. My daughter's enough to talk, so she can't complain.
Brent, how old is she? Going on 19 months. Okay. We're still counting in months. So a year and a half. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, to both of you, I got my daughter, Evelyn, who's been on this podcast before. Many times. She was very heavily influenced by her dad and her musical taste and loved all things heavy metal. But now that she is 14, just turned 14. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jay, I'm coming for you, by the way. You're saying, well, you're saying those tastes kind of change. Yeah. Those tastes change. So live it up now when your kids when your kids are requesting a loud music. Evelyn was very much into heavy metal when she was younger and it's kind of, you know, like it's it's if I said it was petering. Yeah. If I said it was petering off, I'd probably be lying.
is probably off now. And William never really got into it, but he likes it. Like he knows Metallica, he knows all this stuff. So anyway, just, just if they're into it now, appreciate it. It's not going to last long. If he was listening to the black album, would you ground him? Dude, I would throw him outside, just own him and say, go find a new dad. Like you fucking, such a disappointment to me. Go join, you know what I would say? Go join the fucking air force. That's what I would say.
every interview and podcast you all do. Remember the last time? Every single time. Every single time. Inadvertently. Wait, sorry. Are you talking about kids singing the Black Album or all of the above? Oh, the Black Album. I remember Will starting to convulse a little when the topic of the Black Album came up last week. It's going to come up again. It's all part of the Metal Heads podcast bingo card. Listen to the last. We actually have almost a
Perfect Bingo card. There are nine squares. Yeah. Listen to the last episode because we actually talk about that because we had the metal Thunderdome that George did and he pitted the Black Album. You would have thought we got it out of our systems. Yeah, I did it just to fuck with Will. It was Black Album versus Judas Priest's Turbo. Well, we're going to talk about it later, right? Yeah, we will. But you know, it's funny. It's funny because as much as Will hates the Black Album, we probably promote it more than a lot of people. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, very true.
Because we talk about it so much.
It's still selling because of us.
Okay, here's, this is what I deal with with kids.
When I drop my 15-year-old off for school, she's asking me to turn the music down.
And I'm thinking to myself, wait a minute, you're supposed to be the young one with the loud music.
But again, I'm the guy, you know, I remember thinking like being the kid, you know, wanting to crank Angel of Death going to school.
And now I'm the grown-up dropping the child off listening to Angel of Death, yet still being chastised.
So what the fuck?
The circle is complete. She says that, Matt, do you turn it up? Yeah. She kept hitting buttons and then it was like, she gets this last one. It was Wormrot, Blockhead, fuck off. I'm like, great choice. Let's just go with this one. You know, when I was in high school, I was kind of a dick. I was an introvert, so I didn't talk much, but I would, this was the 80s, mind you, I would, I'd have a duffel bag. Would I have textbooks and shit in there? No.
I would stuff my boombox in there. And then I would get on the school bus and just fucking play Slayer and Metallica and Anthrax and shit really loud. And nobody but me on that bus wanted to hear it. But I was big enough that nobody would tell me to turn it off. That was fun. Probably very rude, but oh well. And now you're saying, kid, get off my lawn. Yeah. Yep. Wait, come back.
We've got a FedEx driver that comes to the neighborhood who just cranks the rock music when he's in the neighborhood. You can tell he's here. He's like, oh, you know, I hear some Leonard Skinner. Must be a FedEx. That's every Amazon driver in my neighborhood. Yeah. Anyway. You know what? I have a question. Unless you were getting ready to ask one well. I was, but go ahead, Jay. Well, simply this. You said you all come from different musical backgrounds. And I think the implication there was they were pretty diverse.
you can kind of sum those up for us a little bit yeah we'll start with the carry we'll start with you cool um i mean my originally i was like five years old and started uh taking classical violin lessons no did that through uh i was 18 i guess when i stopped it was like a youth um academy thing um so can you still play he played on the album yeah very briefly um yeah i should keep up with it more um but it's
It's definitely one of those riding bikes things. If I get something out and try to work on some difficult thing, I can usually get back in a day or two. But you know, if you're playing a violin with no shirt on, sometimes you accidentally hit the nipple. Yeah. The horse hair feels amazing. It's awesome. You should try it. Yeah, I guess basically that started doing public school band program with Brent. In fact, we went to the same high school.
And middle school.
Here in the local northern Virginia area, which one did you go to?
We were Clark County.
Where is that?
Very tiny.
Right outside of Winchester.
Yeah.
The little armpit up under.
Oh, you're like wet northwest Virginia?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Hey, Kerry, can you turn your camera so we can see your cat and get you out of the picture because your cat's a dog.
No problem.
So unless I don't want to, you know, cut you off there, but I'm curious to hear from the other guys, too, unless there's something else you wanted to add.
Yeah, no. Go for it.
So, Brent, we'll maybe go to you now.
Yeah, my parents were pretty rock and roll, I would say.
My dad's favorite artist of all time is Carlos Santana.
He wasn't a guitar player himself, but he really liked good guitar music. He was a big Yes fan. We saw Yes together. The first concert I ever went to in the 90s was Styx. They were one of my favorite bands, probably my favorite band growing up. And my mom was more, you know, slightly heavier stuff like Scorpions and Triumph and those sorts of things. Oh, wow. So I got a little bit of both from them.
be considered really truly heavy though. That's something that I came into myself. But it was an it felt like a natural
progression coming from that rock and roll background for me. What is it at the time for what it's worth though? I mean, you know, and you'll have to go back in time, but Scorpions were pretty fucking heavy. They were they were for sure. Yeah, we'll call it roots metal. Heavy triumph album suit. Yeah, absolutely. Allied forces got pretty heavy. I got never surrender on vinyl over there. Like one of the ones
that we put on in the house all the time i love that and uh armed forces you know it's funny
allized forces yeah literally got on youtube last night and for some reason the us festival thing
showed up oh that thing's awesome watch it again i think it's so good yeah i love true hey what was your first what was the yes concert you went to yeah what year it was uh meet and greet actually it was the i'm looking at it it was heaven and earth tour i think i'm seeing if it has a year on it
Meet and Greet. Nope. They played through Close to the Edge, though, which was awesome. So it was the Steve Howell version of the band then? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Interesting at the Meet and Greet. They told you now everyone will be happy to sign anything you have, but do not touch Mr. Howell's hands. He will not shake your hand. I've heard this. Yeah. Interesting character. I met them at when they played with
Porcupine Tree at DAR, Constitution Hall. And we hung out with them afterwards and everyone came out but him. And I was like, oh, where's Steve Howell? And we were joking. He was like, I so because that back then he looked like he was 80, you know. But I did get to hang out with Rick Wakeman, who was actually a lot of fun. Chris Squire at the time, he was still alive, was. He was he was getting there. He was pretty hammered. He was a ton of fun to hang out with.
I shook Dave Mustaine's hand. It's just ridiculous how good Steve Howe is. Oh yeah. It's disgusting. I mean insane. Like he's I don't always think of him if you do your little top five list but he should be in there you know. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I was name dropping Dave Mustaine. Come on. Is that where you like at decibel you're like well should I talk to him. Yes. Yeah. You were there. You were there. We were in like a back room green room kind of thing.
where they were doing a special beer event for his Megadeth. No, it was the upstairs venue. I know, but it was closed off from the main group at the time because it was a special event at the show. And they were doing the Tuleman beer or whatever thing. From Unibrew. Yeah, from Unibrew. And I got at the end of the line so that I could perhaps get a little more time than the people. If there's nobody behind me, then I can tell.
And he was just, they were just like signing things and sending it down the row. And I got to the end and I was just like, Hey, you know, Dave, thanks for all the music and stuff. And I was like, can I shake your hand? And he gives me that Dave Mustaine evil, like, and he just sat there and then he goes, slowly shook my hand. And I was like, I stood there the whole time. I lived through that. Like a little kid waiting to meet an idol. And I just like, as soon as he got up there, I just burst out laughing.
Yeah, John's like, I don't want to meet that fucker. I'm not getting that fucking line to meet him. This raises a story told once before here, but which was when I met Alice Cooper and they were taking pictures. I was like, can we choke each other? And he was like, yeah. Yeah, of course. He doesn't think better. He didn't even think twice. With or without clothes. I mean, literally his hands were on my throat like before I probably had the whole sentence out. Yeah, we could choke each other. Are you kidding, bro? That'd be a great picture. All right, last but not least.
So I didn't own an electric guitar or a pick for about 15 years. Playing acoustic was always just my bread and butter. It's what I loved. I liked how, you know, there is something it's going to sound really douchey, but just like you and the instrument, just like your bare hands playing an instrument. I always really enjoyed that side of it. I got into classical guitar, not that I'm any good at it, but I think it sounds awesome. And I really enjoy the bit that I can play.
where I grew up. I'm going to really ruffle Will's feathers right here.
So, but when the Black Album came out.
Oh, sorry, Will.
Will, hear me out. Hear me out.
I lived in the middle of absolute East Jesus nowhere.
So everything around there was country and just other stuff.
So at the time, I heard Sandman.
And that was the heaviest thing I'd ever heard in my life. And I was like, whoa, this is fun and awesome. So that was actually an important step in, you know, in the process of me discovering heavy music. So what ended up happening was I got into, you know, I backtracked and got into early Metallica and I was like, okay, this is way cooler. So especially with the harmonizing guitars and some of the chord voicings that they use, that actually has a really big influence on my songwriting.
And even the stuff I would write for acoustic would have that influence because they actually do musically some really interesting stuff and some of those harmonies they use. And then discovering black metal, I was it, it was like late in high school, I discovered Dean Newborg gear and I was like, what in the Satan worshipping hell am I listening to right now? Because that was just so far removed from anything I'd ever heard before. Just as far as sounding enormous and just in your face and aggressive.
And then that rabbit hole ensued thereafter. But all throughout that, I was still primarily playing acoustic guitar. So a lot of those influences still came through, but they were coming through in my acoustic playing. And that's part of the reason I think why most of the stuff I write still has this melodic side to it because I still write on an acoustic guitar because that's just it's where my hands and my brain feel most at home, even if it's really dark sounding stuff.
Really hearing how everything behaves. I think you can hear it better, you know, unamped. So that's kind of what, you know, where my background was. I had to actually learn to tremolo pick, which I'm still terrible at. Thank God I've got Brent to bail me out of those. But, um, but no, but black metal really just ended up being pretty much a perfect landing space for all these weird influences of mine growing up where I can just be as weird as I want to be. Um, I mean, and likewise,
with Carrie and Brent, because we all bring stuff to the table. But I'm always assaulting them with my weird riffs and song ideas and stuff. And it really is just a good platform for my particular flavor of weird. You know, you really just hit on a real interesting point there, though, because in the sort of philosophical sense, you would think black metal was the least welcoming place for,
I just mean as a genre for experimentation and stuff and that's not true at all it's probably the most open at this point as far as the vast amount of things that you can throw in black and get away with it yeah I agree yeah that's an interesting point yeah there's so much stuff I mean you can go from like this the super like orthodox at this point where you're you know second wave clone and you're just here's some chainsaws produced on my cell phone as shittily as I can and then you go all the way to like you know the times guard and shit like that that's just completely out
or Imperial Triumph and weird jazz stuff going on. Fanta Faxith is one of my favorites too. Those guys are insanely good. Imperial Triumph. That's where I think a lot of the artists ended up. I mean artists, individual people who I would think of as an artist. Harry, you mentioned Xanthafax. They're from Canada, right? I think so.
that they were probably the first band to ever play at atlas there was no stage no nothing they just like stood out there and they wait santa faxes played at atlas yeah i think it was the very very first show i think hasan from ripping headaches put that on i will double check that but uh i'm pretty sure that they were the first did they play right where the doors are like you had a couple shows right there no no no they played where the normal stage was oh really yeah but there was no stage they stood on the
When Caravan played there, you guys had them right where the doors were. Yeah, the first couple shows were where the big garage door is that leads from the brewery space into the taproom. But anyway, yeah, I will double check that, Harry. But yeah, I'm pretty sure they're from Canada, and I'm pretty sure they were the first band ever to play. Wow. That's wild. So? I did want to... So, Harry,
When you talk about the Black Album, how old were you when... It came out in 1991. How old were you in 1991? I would have been nine. I will give you 100% street creds for being a nine-year-old, even if it is a Black Album. You're nine fucking years old, and you're like, I like heavier music. That's awesome. This is the first time I'm ever going to say anything nice about the Black Album.
I appreciate your open-eyedness because yeah it really for better or worse I mean it was and people dunk on Slipknot a lot too but I heard their first album when I was in high school and it was just so frantic and unhinged and aggressive and sloppy as hell and in a really sort of weird that's how Matt looks his girlfriend hey but but
Like that sort of just raw unhinged energy. I was really, and that doesn't show up on any of their other stuff. Just that first album where they were just sounded like diagnosably crazy on it. And it was, I was so drawn to that because it sounded so much different than the really, like the death metal of that era was really kind of rote and kind of all sounds a lot alike. But again, stepping stone towards black metal,
where like raw and sloppy and aggressive and over the top is kind of encouraged. So I mean, I get in some trouble because if I talk about Metallica and Slipknot, as a black metal musician, it can raise some eyebrows. But for where I was in my life, when I heard those, they really did sort of lay a groundwork for me to get into the really over the top stuff. And that's, again, finding a nice, comfy, dark, cold, icy home in black metal.
Everybody's got to have a gateway. Oh, yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. They were like, your Metallica gateway was like kiss to me growing up when I was like eight or nine. Seriously. Yeah. Like a little bit of kiss now. But at the time, I was like, what the fuck? And I probably did when I was nine because I got in a lot of trouble for swearing early on. But yeah, I kept thinking about that. And then when you said how old you were, I was like, that was pretty much me when Kiss was releasing.
I like your answer better Harry because you carried it all the way to the transition years. Pretty impressive. It was almost like a debate or a prepared speech. Well done sir. I mean he kind of had to. He couldn't leave it at the black album or Will would have killed him. I thought about it. Harry is extremely tall and strong. I am not going to fuck with Harry. I'll take Harry any day. Probably Brent too but not Harry.
I think the first time I saw you guys at Atlas, I said, well, I said, that dude is tall, man. I feel short tonight. What are you, like 6'5", 6'6"? 6'8". Yeah, he's bigger than that. Sorry I took three inches off your membership. It's okay. No, it's funny because when we played with Asagram for a couple of shows and Brent and I shared a guitar so that when I was done with my practice, hands off to him.
Turns out I'm taller than Brent, and I hang my guitar a bit lower than Brent. Thank you for your sacrifice. Brent, you got rid of your background. It was very... It was distracting me. It was very Arturist, though, you know? I'll put it back. I thought of that, George. That's funny. I thought the same thing. Yeah.
I don't know. Symphonia.
It's a good band. Part of the pre-interview, I asked Carrie to send us the lyric sheet for the new album.
I have one extremely important question. Who's writing the lyrics? Are you writing them, Carrie?
Yes. Yeah.
I will say, so I know you on a level, like, you know, we were both brewers, we both worked with this. So Carrie used to be a brewer at Atlas, so did I. So we kind of know each other on that, like, knuckle dragging, like,
Like, okay, we're just a bunch of dumb brewers and stuff. I like beer. You like beer? Yeah, you like beer? You like beer? Okay, let's dock our penises. Yeah. Let's slap asses and hug. That's a typical show, you know? That's a typical show. But I will say this, and this is 100% serious. I was absolutely fucking blown away. So I'm driving. I'm not driving. I was not driving. I was in the passenger in the car. I'm heading to Ford's Theater.
Right. In downtown DC. This site of Abraham Lincoln's assassination. And my girlfriend's driving. I'm like, hey, I need I need like I printed all these things out. Like I need I need time to study. So I pull out. So yeah. So I printed all these out. I have I have them here. That's really cool. And so I'm like, OK, let me start with this one. The Crossing. Four fucking pages of lyrics. Right.
So the first thing I'm thinking is like, how does Carrie memorize all this stuff? Like, this is like the Gettysburg Address. Like, this is insane. I was sticking with the Ford's theater thing. Nicely done well. Hey, yeah, no, I learned the Gettysburg Address in sixth grade. I think Carrie can probably handle it. I know, but then this is the more important part. I'm reading this, right? And not only does most of it rhyme, which is almost, I feel like in this day and age, like, because of the harsh vocals,
stuff like no one gives a shit about rhyming but a lot of stuff still is old school
rhyming there's no it does not appear that there's any choruses there's not a lot of repeating except for
like a handful of individual lines but it's telling a story that i think is like i have to say like
this is beautifully well done poetry this this this stuff is like next level amazing to the point that
I don't know why you don't publish this and hire some super awesome graphic artist comic book artist talk to Markisan he knows a lot of these guys and like make a book about this and like you could you could do what all these other guys are doing on what's the comic book company does all the heavy metal stuff Z comics Z2 yeah Z2 like there's some really fucking amazing cool lyrics well thought out
Very poetic. Like, Homer has, he doesn't have shit on you, dude. Like, I'm being serious. Like, this is some really amazing stuff. Like, I was telling my girlfriend, she's driving, we're going to Ford's Theater, we're going to do some historical stuff. I'm like, this is some amazing, and I'm reading them to her, and I'm talking to her about it, and I'm like, and he's rhyming. Like, who rhymes in black metal? But, like, so, just, hey. Seriously, well done, dude. Like,
e eu tenho ideia de lembrança. Eu vou lembrar que você está gravando.
He ain't got anything, man. We got to call back. Thank you for saying that, Will. That song is actually one that I was... I'm happy that you noticed that because that took probably the most time of anything I've written. And I don't usually tend to try and make things rhyme like that, but just because of the subject matter, that one is kind of a Celtic mythology theme. So I was basically trying to take just a lot of imagery and then make it
construct a narrative out of it just you know invent a character take him through this whole thing um and he becomes the king right yeah basically so it's like the uh the crossing would be like the the transferring from like our worlds to the like they don't really have like the afterworld or the other world essentially yeah um so that it was really fun to write um and then just trying to i sort of i guess early on set that weird like yeah i mean i'm just let's do it like a poem like an epic
poem or something.
That's how I read it.
It's like this epic, well-done poem.
So let me ask you this.
Are you that crazy smart and you're just brewing beer or were you super high on drugs?
Why not both?
Why not?
They're not mutually exclusive.
Exactly.
Sorry, George.
I was going to say the same thing.
If Edgar Allan Poe can do it, I can do it too.
Yeah.
Calling back to the visual that Brent held up and is no longer here to see or hear.
Oh, there he is. There he is. Yes. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I burned the bolt to the fucking ground and sacrificed a goat. Sorry. I didn't see the book. It's Robert Burns' book of columns. But not Robert Frost. Oh, shit. Which is what you did, George. I did. Sorry. I saw Robert, and I just went down that wrong path. Actually, that does sort of merit just a brief segue. It was intentional. Bringing that up.
My dad and I for I mean really my dad but I was there mostly because I was tiny but it's been doing are you guys familiar with the Scottish poet Robert Burns you'd probably know him from having written like Auld Lang Syne and that's why I know it maybe but he's this big national bardic figure in Scotland he was basically living around the time of the American Revolution slightly before died super young
in his 30s.
It was all good poets did.
Yeah, did it right.
But yeah, I mean, he was kind of like a national figure in terms of just, you know, Scottish liberty.
There was obviously the whole English independence thing, you know, going on at the time.
So now there's just dinners that are held in his honor that involve like lengthy memorizations and recitations and stuff.
And he uses these very bizarre.
I can't remember what the rhyming metric is called, which is not necessarily what I was going for in The Crossing. But I did definitely take a lot of influence from his style of writing poetry to do specifically that song. I'll take a wild guess just because it's the only cadence I know, and it's always used as a punchline, but is it iambic pentameter? No, it's a really weird, peculiar thing.
I think that's a Shakespeare thing.
Yeah, I do remember this from like school and stuff.
And yeah, I cannot remember what it's called, but it was invented by another Scottish poet from maybe 20 years prior to Burns.
And he just kind of latched onto it as well and wrote a lot in that model.
Is there a more Scottish name than Robert Burns? Probably not.
I just can't imagine.
I mean, that's like the it's so Scottish.
Is that a Scottish coat of arms behind you? No, it's the Welsh flag, dumbfuck. Wow, that's a good quote. No, it's the Welsh flag, dumbfuck. Would you hear that on what metal podcast? I felt like we were all being super smart, talking about Scottish poetry, and you're like, hey, what flag is that, man? I like beer.
I like beer and burritos. Well, since we're, okay, so we're, if we're trying to be smart, we could do the referential thing. And you brought up Ford's theater. And the famous quote around that is, uh, other than that, how did you like the play Mrs. Lincoln? And it's not even the same theater because it burned down. It's not the same theater. No, I've been there too. And it's like, I don't know if it's like next door or no, no, you're, you're completely wrong, George. Usually the same theater. Yeah. It's the same theater, but it did burn down.
And they had to rebuild it or some shit. Right. But they never mentioned that once. Good. Good. I know something they don't. I have to say. What did you do to the theater, George? They don't know that I snuck in and secretly replaced every piece of that theater when they weren't looking. Yeah. Is the hard rock still down there, Will? Yeah, weirdly enough. So yes, it's still right there. Right on the corner. Yep. Yep. And on 10th and something.
in Washington, D.C.
But I was recapping the story today that I went there with my dad like 20-some years ago.
And as we were walking out, we also saw Steven Tyler from Aerosmith walking out.
And I felt really super stupid because when I saw him walking out, I'm like, is that Mick Jagger?
Nah.
That's reasonable.
Anyway, back to Skulder.
He may have been accused of that maybe one or two times in his career.
Yeah.
No, but I just saw this short little skinny guy with big lips.
I'm like, is that Mick Jagger? Anyway. And my dad was like, no, that's Steven Tyler, dumbass. That's the Danish flag, dumbass. It says, Ford's Theater, as beautiful as it is, is a complete reconstruction except for its exterior walls. Oh, okay. They never mentioned that once. They did when I was there. Okay. Well, there you go. Well, your docent sucked. Yeah. I want to get back to a couple
quick things. Your drummer left. Tommy left. He did. What is the plan for, like obviously the guy in Bane is all the way in Canada. You're the drummer that was on the album. Are you guys looking for a local drummer? Are you going to play some shows? You're going to support the album? What's the plan? That's the best case scenario is that we find somebody local enough that we can rehearse with regularly and
write with even as we're actively writing new material.
The immediate plan is that Kevin Myrdan is his stage name would be filling in for us in any live shows that we do book.
And right now we're he's the guy from Bane.
Yeah, exactly.
The only thing that we kind of have on the books right now potentially is a festival in Switzerland next year. No shit. Look at you guys. I love it. I mean, it's all still TVD, but potentially, you know, knock on wood, hopefully that that pans out. And we did already reach out to him and, you know, pending no further changes, then he'll be there for that show, that gig.
But yeah, in a perfect world, we'd have somebody local. But as it turns out, that's a little bit harder than we'd hoped. So it's tough. Yeah. Filling those shoes. Not that we have the craziest, most difficult drum parts in the world, but there aren't that many qualified extreme metal drummers that are unaccounted for in the area right now. And there's nobody that you know that is that like, hey, you know, I'm in like these three other bands or two other bands, but, you know, I'll fill in live.
Well, by the way, just to clarify, too, because I think you sort of talked about it, at least where you guys went to school, but what is the local area? Where are you guys? What would be considered northern Virginia now? So like, okay, so Carrie and I are closer to Alexandria, kind of Fairfax County. Okay, Harry is a little further south. Gotcha. You know, I had this been like 40 minutes of each other. Yeah, I had this brief moment where I'm like, why don't I just invite the guys from school to come to my house? And we can all sit here together because we're all pretty close.
And I'm like, oh, Brent's got a kid. He's got a daughter. Harry's got two kids. And if Carrie comes over, we're just going to make out. So I'm like, it's better. Just everyone just like keep separate. Well, am I glad I stayed home? I'm not coming over. Well, keep us in mind. John, John's like five minutes down the road from me. Yeah. Yeah. I saw you guys at Atlas. And I think the last time I saw you was at the Adroit Theory show in March of 2023, which the dawn of a dark day show, which I think some asshole named Will.
put together. I wasn't there. You weren't there. Yeah. I remember Harry because he's tall as fuck, but, uh, and Carrie, because, you know, apples. Who, who, um, yeah. Who was that? Do you have a fill-in or just Harry do everything, all the other parts? We had a fill-in. One of our, um, uh, friend Gabriel, who's a, an obnoxiously good guitarist. He's in Withersake and a few other bands up in the area. He offered,
to fill in. So he came and rehearsed. And Brent knew from a long way away that this was going to happen. So he involved Gabriel pretty early. And Gabriel's an awesome dude. He came over. He rehearsed the parts. The live show, we had some technical issues, which was really frustrating. But Gabriel nailed the parts. It felt weird because it just felt sort of incomplete. And it wasn't really, you know, what we were used to. But so it kind
of a weird situation just because not having brent there a lot of at least my life
performance is based very heavily on being able to hear what he's doing since a lot of our stuff is
harmony guitars and that sort of thing but uh went well overall but yeah gabriel fell down he's a
complete badass awesome guy so yeah he's a saint absolutely from the local scene yeah well i also know um one of the last
I saw you guys at the show at Atlas when you guys were the backing band. There was a death-ish black metal band from Denmark that was all women. They had a bunch of girls. You guys learned all their music and you were their backing band. In a little over a week. Eight days. That came about because just sort of on a whim we had reached out to be like,
I know that because two of their members could their bassist and their other
guitarist couldn't come because of COVID issues you know so we'd reached out to them and be like hey you
know we'll try to learn your parts if you want us to try to fill in and to our incredible surprise
they're like yeah sure so we we had never met them rehearsed with them or anything until literally an hour before we went up on the stage with them
But, I mean, they're so damn good. They played everything so tight and well that that was a really fun experience. And it was awesome of them to include us in that. It was nerve wracking trying to learn all the parts. You know, Brent and I, we split up the 10 songs of their set into five and five. Learned them in about a week and then went up and played them. So did you guys have to learn? All 10 on base. Yeah. All the bass parts. Yeah.
Wow.
Since the case
and we were chatting with them. They were like, you should be okay.
And that was it. And then we went on stage an hour or so later.
I think what blew my mind through the entire experience the most was they're just utter nonchalance.
You know, we're just like, I mean, we're just some random assholes.
And we like hit you up on the internet and said, hey, you know, we understand you're missing some members.
Do you want to help? And they were just like, sure.
We're like, okay, well, should we rehearse?
And they're like, nah.
Like, you're just going to fuck this up.
It almost sounds like she was a heavy metal dominatrix. Like, no, you're just going to do it. You're going to do it until you hear that. But anyway. But I will say this. Part of me for bringing this up, because I remember this very distinctly, is that it goes through your musicianship and your dedication to the craft. And you're like, you guys. I mean, that was pretty amazing. Like when I was talking to all three of you guys at that show at Atlas, I was like,
You guys, like, you're retelling the story. And I remember you retelling me the story, like, that night. And I was like, are you fucking kidding me? And you guys are going to pull this off? And you pulled it off. Like, it was amazing. It was, like, badass. Like, well done. Hey, another well done, guys. Like, you guys are some... It was nerve wracking. Badass. I know, but you pulled it off. Like, and you never would have known that you guys were nervous about it. It's gotta be a nice self-deprecating moment, though. And I'm... This would be my way
of thinking, so please forgive me. Or you're getting ready to go on stage and you think, you know what? It's black metal. Who's going to notice? We'll be fine. That's the very part about their music. People know how their shit goes. We can fuck around on stage, but they're established. They're popular as far as black metal goes. So we really had to do it right. And it's okay if we make mistakes on our own stage, but this was somebody else's playground. We really had to know what we were doing. It's really fucking nice of you guys to do that.
that though too,
because you have to put in all that time to learn those songs.
Well,
Carrie did it because the lead singer is hot.
Like she,
he was like,
yeah,
I'm doing this.
I remember joking with you about that that night too.
I wish I was there.
I think,
I think a big part of it too,
is that the black metal community is a really unusually tight knit group of folks.
I mean,
there really is a lot of looking out for each other and just,
going to these crazy shows.
And it's hilarious, especially at Atlas, when a few of the folks that don't know the music are at the bar and they wander in like, what the fuck am I hearing right now?
Weirdos in makeup playing this crushing music, you know, but just, you know, solidarity.
I mean, it really is a tight scene.
And that was part of the reason why, you know, we had hit them up and like, hey, you know, just if we can make your life easier, let us know.
And they said, yeah, sure.
So it was and we've kept up with them since then and it's been cool. That's cool. Yeah, it's awesome. I mean, it's just it's just, you know, it kind of goes to show the whole the ethos of the scene, you know, it's unfortunate that we caught them at the very end of their tour. The only other US show they had after that was Philly the following night, which they invited us to play with them. Yeah, I was gonna say like, didn't you guys go up there? Or you were planning? Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did. Yeah, luckily, I think if I'm recalling,
show in DC was like a Friday. And then this might've been, yeah, I think so. We, yeah, it was the next time we went to Philly to see them that we took the day off of work. That's what it was. Yeah. So, I mean, it was like a Saturday the next night anyways. We're just like, I mean, okay, you guys got plans tomorrow night. You want to go to Philly and play with Oscar again? You know, fuck it. Let's go. I want to know what you can say this offline, but did they pay you a little extra to be the backing band? And you can, you could totally. No, no. We didn't ask for it. It was never.
something that even crossed our mind again it was just it was an awesome opportunity for us
because we had heard of them and listened to their music beforehand so like for us it was awesome to share a stage with them you know and yeah for them they got a couple of folks that you know kind of rounded out their sounds so it was nah it was wasn't really anything about payment for it it was just we wanted us to put on a good show help them put on a good show and that was pretty much it
That's awesome. What I want to know is, normally a couple people in the band, sick or whatever, can't make it. Tour canceled. What was their plan if you didn't do this? Were they just going to play? They did the whole tour as a two-piece. They ran a whole tour as a two-piece. The two members that they had were, there was Obscura, the lead singer, and she writes all the songs.
and she's the lead guitarist. And then they're a drummer. So, you know, sort of Inquisition style, you know, they were able to play enough of the song to be recognizable with the two of them. Which I give them credit for doing that. I mean, because that had to be a real pain in their ass to go across the ocean with, you know, half of their band and still do pull this tour off. I mean, I think it really goes to show what they're made of. They were still willing to do it.
Yeah, it's dedication.
Yeah.
I saw that.
That happened to Anathema when they came over to the States and just Vinny and Danny were playing acoustic guitars on stage.
They had to change their whole tour.
And I got to see them on a bunch of nights on that tour.
And I was like, I'll never see this again.
It was probably almost cooler, honestly.
It was unreal how good it was.
It was crazy.
For us, it definitely makes, it was probably more comfortable for them than it would be.
Like, Scaldor couldn't work that way.
It would sound like an arm was cut off and half the music was missing. But for Ossigram, they really are the core two members of the band. Everyone else is just live musicians. So when they rehearse together, when they write together, it's just Hannah and Amber. They're the two members of the band. Everyone else are guests, essentially, for live performances. So it's probably just as if they were rehearsing together. That's cool.
When that kind of gets back to why Brent had to arrange for Gabriel to fill in for that show at Adroit Theory, because we would not be able to replicate. We wouldn't be able to play one of the guitar parts of any of our songs and have it still sound the same. We rely so heavily on both of us playing those parts that we wouldn't be able to pull it off.
And I love that about you guys. You guys are like serious to your craft. Like, hey, this is how Skulder's supposed to sound. We're not going to compromise. Yeah, it's awesome. Luckily, we've only had to ever, to the best of my recollection, cancel one show. And it was, I think, when Harry, I think you had COVID. Sure did. But yeah, I mean, that was a painful thing to do. And it was like, obviously, you're not going to find that out until like the week of the show, basically. It's just like, dude, there's no way we can ask somebody to learn all this shit in a week.
So, guys, we've asked you a bunch of questions, but is there anything that we didn't ask you that you're just dying to, like, I want to tell you guys this about the album or this about the band or, like, what message do you want to get out there? And if nothing else, where,
Facebook, Instagram,
band camp,
all that stuff.
Avant-garde,
like tell us where we can find it,
but like,
what else do you guys want to say?
Well,
I would say whenever possible,
listen to the album from start to finish with the lyrics in front of you,
because Carrie did an unbelievable job with the lyrics.
Cause Will Brent and I had a similar response that you did.
We're like,
holy shit.
Yeah.
Because we were,
I mean,
Lyrics and Metal, especially Black Metal, it's like, you know, like, death, Satan, blah, blah, blah, you know, but like, the amount of thought that Carrie put into, you know, it's like, listen to the album in its entirety, because we really did put a lot of thought into crafting the album in its entirety, and with Carrie's lyrics, you know, that's one of the real high points of the album, so, you know, go to a dark room, turn it on,
loud with the lyrics in front of you and just try to take the whole thing and all at once because that really is between the music that we wrote and the lyrics that carry wrote you know that's we really are proud as hell of just the entire thing as a body of work yeah i mean i i that's why i wanted to kind of harp on that like i literally spent some time today just reading the lyrics and i was completely blown away and i'm i'm not making this like there's a reason why i like equated it to homer and the iliad
Like there's some stuff in there. I'm like, my God, like this is, like it's taking me on a journey. Like I'm reading The Crossing. Or, um, what was the other one? I read a bunch of them. Sorry. The Sum of All Loss. And, but especially The Crossing. It's four pages of lyrics. And you're reading a story of this guy going into the afterworld and then becoming a king of the afterworld. And I'm like,
And I know Carrie on another level
As Brewer to Brewer
But I'm like, holy fuck, did Carrie really write this?
I'm like, no, Carrie couldn't write this
It had to be some AI shit
No, I'm joking with you, Carrie
I love you to death, you know that
But I was blown away
And really impressed
You guys cracked it
I know I'm harping a little bit on the lyrics
I haven't talked about the bass
Because anybody can play bass
But the guitar work. I'm joking, guys. But this is such a solid black metal album from start to finish. Lyrically, musically, everything. It is super impressive. So what inspired these lyrics, Kay? Sorry, Will. No, no, I'm done. Ask a better, more intelligent question. Well, as far as the two, I think there's two tracks on this record.
that are kind of mythology-based, which is just something that I don't know, it always fascinates me and it lends when I don't know what to write about. That's very easy. And I'll just like, so this time I was like, you know, my background is Celtic. So I thought like, you know what, let's go dive into that messy world. And man, it's weird. But yeah, the bulk of the rest of that album was just kind of me trying to relate to some personal shitty things that have happened in my life lately. My mother passed a number of years ago and just kind of trying to
So a lot of the album I feel like is fairly allegorical in terms of just trying to get through that process. Just, you know, here's what I've seen, here's what I'm doing and trying to get, you know, so it kind of takes like a catharsis, a pseudo-pictitious character because it's really just kind of my experience and then trying to write, you know, trying to relate with those things and, you know, the kind of like, here you're in the, you know, the first song on the album I think is like super depressing and then by the time you get to the end of the record, hopefully it's like there's sort of
Okay, like you can sort of get out of this and now you're on like the, you know, the silver planes and blah, blah, blah, which kind of the album art sort of does an overall like, you know, bottom to top of that whole thing. Speaking of which, we haven't talked about that. Same as last time you guys used Adam Burke. Yeah, absolutely. Another beautiful piece of work. Yeah, after I think we used him the first time, you know, it was just kind of a,
I mean the oil painting aesthetic is just something that we're very into. Having someone create an actual just beautiful piece of artwork that sort of sums up as best we can describe what the island is about. Is this something that he already had done or did he do it just for you guys? It was contracted for us, yeah. That's awesome. Wow. Yeah, we kind of gave him just, yeah, truly. We gave him an
He gave us a pencil sketch back, same as the first one. The first one's a little bit more bare bones by design for Scythe. But this one, we had a little bit more meat and potatoes that we wanted included in the imagery. The kind of spectral dark figure peering out of a cave. The way that he approached the design is completely different, I think, than at least I saw in my mind's eye when we were describing it.
on paper and what he came back with. It's cool and completely different than what my imagination was seeing with those words. But, you know, he is a true master. So we're thrilled with what he came up with. Absolutely. So I want to recap this. Dan Swano, Burke. You guys made it. This is kind of insane. We have expensive taste, you could say. How has the album
been received? Have you gotten reviews back? The various sites? So far, very nicely, yeah. There have been a number of reviews. I think, notably, No Clean Singing wrote something really nice about it. I'm a huge Islander fan, so I was pretty throbbing for that one. And a number of other sites have written generally just very nice things. I think if there's one thing that we've had kind of a fun time being annoyed about, it's
you know people commenting how much it sounds like Swedish melodic 90s era stuff but I mean at the same time like and you're like fuck you it's Norwegian it's not it's not Swedish it's a region I mean it's decidedly Swedish I will say well you're the first person to bring up lyrics of anybody that we've spoken to in interviews or even reviews are you serious are you really wait you're the very first person that's mentioned lyrics in any capacity did you so I asked Carrie for the lyrics like please send me the lyric sheet
I want to read it. It's in the press kit that the label sends out to folks, I think. But I don't. Nobody's made a point to bring them up. Maybe it's because your guitar work is so amazing. Like no one gives a shit about what you're saying. In the podcast world, probably only 67% of people can read. 66.6. To briefly polish your knob, I would say that it kind of is
It's more of a testament to the work that you put in and you all collectively put into actually listening to the music and understanding the music at a deeper level than just the surface listening that many review sites will give it a once or first pass. So thank you. Genuinely thank you for listening to it. Meaning we actually listened to it prior to today. Like we've been listening to it for a while. Which is amazing because three of us can't read and three of us are deaf.
Well, that explains why you guys like this so much. I like beer. I like beer. Nah, nah. No, it's true. Not to toot our own horn, but that's because we ask bands on that we like, and we're like, we like your record, please come and talk to us, instead of, hey, you got a new record, you want to talk about it? I mean... We should bring on somebody we don't like and just totally kick them in the nuts. Just be like, dude, your album sucks, why'd you even bother? And then we'll find out they're really cool, and we'll be like, oh, okay, I'll go back and listen to it.
I do want to bring up how this whole interview came about. John and I were at a particular location and so were Brent and Kerry. Oh yeah. That's the last time I saw you guys. Yeah. At a bar in a venue. Yes. And we're just standing there with somebody. I can't remember how it happened. Tapped on one of our shoulders. Turn like, whoa, what the fuck? And then like, I called up, who's that beautiful woman?
I think we were like up on the balcony or something. Right. And then literally within five minutes, how many people came by that we knew? It was a lot. Sam was there from Charlottesville slash Boston. Oh, Sam. It's just like every two seconds we saw someone. No, but we saw Brett and Kerry at the Opeth show at the Warner Theater. Yeah. That was a great show. It was a really good show.
show wait let me ask you guys this oh god here it comes here it comes this is the new black album for will
tribulation right yes what do you guys think about tribulation i liked them more at 2019 inferno fest in norway
okay i really like them actually i've got a couple of their records um they have i think we might have
We even talked about this. The album Children of the Night or whatever it is, where it's got the lady with the kind of Dracula batwing cape. That's a really good record, kind of black and roll type stuff. That's probably their best one. That's the one I liked. Yeah. Yeah. And all of their newer stuff, they've feels like they've refined their sound in a more clean, less blackened way. I'm not a copier. Goth rock. Almost glam sometimes. Yeah. The kind of like the cure. Yeah.
They remind me of the cure. Nothing wrong with that. They're on Will's side, though, basically. Yeah. Brett, that's interesting. You mentioned the glam part because now thinking back to that show, get a little of that. Yeah. A little? Just a little? Really? What's so funny is not name dropping, but I said to Will later on when I saw him, I don't know where, was it at the pint when I saw you and I told you? I was like, well, you know, I did talk to them for a little bit after the show. They're actually really nice guys. Oh, sure they are. Yeah.
I'm sure they are. They just remind me of The Cure. That's all I kept hearing. I was like, drink your beer. I like The Cure, so shut up. What are you going to do if Metallica opens up for Skulder? What are you going to think of this garbage Metallica band with their shitty rock and roll and then Skulder is coming on next? Really? Do you want to sit through that bullshit? Yeah, if you want to see Skulder, you will. I did, but you're going to make fun of it and it's going to suck. I just felt like you're still a bit angry about it.
I didn't make fun of it. I was just like, I'm done.
I will say I enjoyed like maybe the first three songs.
And when they played something I knew, I was like, okay, awesome.
And then, yeah, like however long their set was, I was just like, I mean, I'm not talking to a couple of them, but it was getting monotonous, you know, like.
Gary, you and I had the same exact experience.
About song four, I was like, I'm going to head out.
I need to go out and get a little air.
I could use a beer or something.
Yeah, exactly.
So I want to.
They're excellent.
Very talented.
Oh, good musicians. Yeah. Sorry, George. To get away from the lyrics. Sorry, Carrie. I wanted to talk about liminal. How did that come about? Brent, do you want to tell the story or should I? You can. So the name liminal is very deliberate. And so far, no one has really caught what that song is. But that song is.
Basically a pitch changed version of the verse part from the sum of all loss mixed with the bridge part of the crossing. Interesting. Because we wanted to do something that brought in elements of otherwise unrelated songs. Because sum of all loss is one of the more melodic ones on the album and the crossing is absolutely the heaviest and fastest. So liminal came about because it based on the
is I took some of the parts put them all into the same key and you know Brent and I sometimes
will just like stomp on a bunch of our pedals and just jam out for a while to some just weird crap and we had done this for a while like man these this is so much fun and this is cool but we don't have anywhere to put this so liminal came about because it was a way to really bring some of that back to where it started because again like we wrote some a lot of the stuff on
So combining some of these parts and then just stacking them together, that's really how it came about. And the name Liminal was very deliberate because of that. It's sort of a nod to the fact that we wanted to establish kind of a through line for the album. And those parts lended themselves well to really being emphasized together. But we didn't want to have it be where it was just clobbers you over the head with, you know, this is these
other parts, but they worked really well together and just kind of tied them together. And having this really moody, mellow acoustic track going right into just the crushing beginning of the crossing was, you know, that was another deliberate move on our part just as a song transition. So we had a lot of fun really working out the parts for how we were going to write that and record it.
There's a ton of layers. It sounds very minimalistic, but there was a huge amount of work on the back end that Brent and I did to really, because we experimented with all kinds of different things to really bring the atmosphere of that song up. And it ended up being pretty minimal. I mean, despite, I had a lot of parts in there, but they were fairly short and just meant to accent other parts of it to make it feel big and to feel like when you really turn the volume up loud on that song,
You hear a lot of the stuff in the background, but
it's one of those things where we didn't want it to be
really front and center, but if those textures and stuff weren't there,
it would feel different, you know, but you may not know why.
But, you know, the acoustic stuff has always been such an important part of our sound
that we wanted to have a track devoted to that, especially in the middle to,
you know, to both give a reprieve from the other stuff and also to introduce the
kind of crushing beginning of the crossing. So we had a lot of fun with it. Nice. Well, it came out great. Well, I appreciate it. Hey, how do you guys pick the first single, the first song that you want to get out there for the album? I don't think I've ever asked that of anyone. So the first, like on Scythe, we had control over all of that stuff because we were just doing it ourselves. So we just kind of, you know, pulled, talked amongst ourselves and we're like, yeah,
this one for this reason, this one for, you know, and then we kind of like battle it out, you know, with, you know, I recall for that one, we had different camps, but settled on whatever it was. And this one, I think, I think it was more or less the same thing, wasn't it? Yeah, people might have said maybe we want to use this one. And we were just like, you know, no, no, no, we had full creative control to decide what we wanted the single to be. We wanted something that had all of the representative samples of what people
could expect when listening to the record. The Crossing, other than being the longest track, which isn't ideal. I mean, we have like the Sum of All Loss, I think is the first track that we were so purposefully trying to make a song under five minutes that is just like the five minute banger because we suck at that. All of our songs are just so long. And even that one's five and a half minutes. We failed.
One of these days.
But they usually do clock in between six and eight minutes just by way of, you know, we have a lot to say, I suppose.
But The Crossing, we felt like it had the pace, it had the atmosphere, the aggression that we wanted to represent the album as a whole.
And since it was a bigger release on a label and all of that was going to be new to us, still is.
We just we felt like that was in some ways putting our best foot forward but as one can expect you know when you go the other thing is we didn't want the first track on the album to be the single because so many in the streaming world you look at the numbers for albums very very consistently track one track two track three it's just a bar graph that declines after you know the first track ends so we wanted to put something the penultimate track on the album where the crowd is going to be the first track.
is located six out of seven. We wanted people to listen all the way through to the album to get to that point where the single is located and then conclude the album with the cinder, the flame, the sun. So that was a big part of it as well. Very thoughtful. Yeah, no, it's a great choice. Very representative of the band. So it was a good choice, especially on a bigger label like that. Yeah, the last song is actually one of my favorites. Love it. That was one of the, I mean, it was the first. Yeah.
Several of the tracks were mostly written. Yeah, that and Parasite were the two that were kind of the most complete coming out of the Scythe recording process or close to complete. Cinder the Flame the Sun actually, which was working title GSB Forever, that one. Yeah. It was not complete. What does that stand for? We said Donut?
Gobslobbing boners.
You're up the right alley.
I feel like I know you guys well.
That didn't get completed basically until the album was in the recording phase.
That was a really late one to finish.
It just took forever.
We had the riffs for years, and then it just took so long to actually get it to something we were happy with.
But now I think we all love it.
But that was a tough one, tough nut to crack.
So some of the riffs I've had sitting around for 25 years, I wrote some of those parts for the last song eons ago, just like messing around on acoustic guitar. So, you know, for some of those chops to finally find a home on this album, that was a pretty sign-on process for me. It was pretty awesome to hear them come through.
Very cool. Yeah. Um, what's your, we should probably wrap up the interview portion pretty soon. We got a whole lot more to go to. Are you guys going to stay around for the rest of it? Or are you guys going to take off? I know Harry, well, Harry and Brent, you guys got kids. I can stick around for a while. Yeah. Okay. Um, live shows. What's the plan? I know you guys mentioned Switzerland, but, um, I know you have a issue with the drummer. What's the plan?
Yeah, I think that's kind of it. It's very difficult to schedule stuff without knowing if we can fulfill the obligation as a full four piece. I think it's not out of the question that we take shows. We are obviously a band that thrives on live performances, so I know it's something that the three of us are very hungry to do. Kind of just a matter of getting our drum situation solidified.
Hopefully you can find somebody sooner rather than later. Yeah, we hope so. But all in all, we're definitely still open to doing live shows and we'll figure it out. There are some local resources, some good guns for hire that worst case, we can tap some of those like John Rice lives in Richmond. I don't know what his rates are, but that guy's nuts. He played with Behemoth and a bunch of other Juter. Juter, yeah, some really big bands, but we've got options.
I hear that Dr. Avalanche from Sisters of Mercy is available. Oh yeah? We were going to do a Sisters of Mercy cover actually. We had a black metal version of Black Planet. So then you should know that Dr. Avalanche is a drum machine. Well, we don't listen to Sisters of Mercy. I said we were doing a cover of Sisters of Mercy. All right. Yeah. They don't have a drummer. They use a drum machine who they call Dr. Avalanche. Sick. That's very funny.
Well, then, yes, hired. I didn't know that, but yeah, he's hired, dude. That's easy. You don't even have to pay him. Yeah. Just feed him electricity. I mean, we got to pay him. Two words, Hannes Grossman. Yeah. Yeah, duh. Case closed, Mr. Bear. All right, well, now we will move on to the hallowed tradition of T-shirt and beer check.
And we will start with you guys. What are you wearing? What are you drinking? If you're drinking anything. Oh, let's see. I've got this very cool serpent shrine hoodie or our good homies from down near Norfolk. These guys, they print all their own stuff and it's fucking crazy. I'll have to just do a show off here, but they do like this foil, like antichrist situation on the sleeves and like all their,
their emblem action going on.
We've got like a church situation or something on the back.
It's a...
For things that they screen print themselves, I'm always flabbergasted.
The kind of thing that you actually unironically wear somewhere and then some like non-metal head is like, that's really cool.
Which I try to tell them at every available opportunity.
Nice.
And I'm drinking Modelo, which is not very interesting.
Still better.
I like Modelo.
Yeah.
All right.
Who wants to go next? Is it Negro or regular? Just regular. Oh. Negro is way better. Yeah, Negro is one of my jams. That beer is fantastic. I love that beer. I'll go next. I'm rocking. This is actually my Valentine's Day present for my wife. It's a Mastodon Hearts Alive. Nice. Which is a track off of Leviathan, I believe. Hence the artwork. Score, man. It's got a heart, you know. It's pretty nice. It's seasonal. And I'm drinking.
I haven't had that in a while. I hadn't either. My father-in-law left it in the fridge down here though. So it's mine. I was wearing my sour shirt and because they they're folk black metal awesomeness. They're coming out with a new album soon. I think it may have just came out last year. Yeah. So big fan
of those guys. But my lovely children saw to it that that got all a manner of horribleness across. So now my backup, I'm wearing Cell. They're a black metal man that we played with a while back. But just awesome guys, awesome music, big time fun show with them. And I was drinking Unibrew La Femme du Monde. Nice.
And I should not have many more of those because they will, they slap me silly. So one of my all time favorites. So right on. All right, Markisan. Yeah, I'm wearing a neurosis shirt. You know, when I first glanced at you when you came on, I thought it was a metalhead shirt. Just because of the same kind of color scheme. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I'm actually drinking wine, which I don't know.
I don't think I've ever done on the podcast but what's gotten into you it's an Italian red wine pay a
and so I had to drink a whole bottle night well I drank about half of it last night I'm like I gotta finish this okay so it's too bold for for Tracy to drink she can't drink wines that are that robust I like a robust red wine so yeah it's pretty good but I am drinking it in my metal heads glass metal
All right. Matt. I hate to ask. I'm wearing Jay. Sometimes I wear my friends and I am wrapping up in old fashioned. Nice. Nice. All right. John. I dug a shirt out that I'm worn in a while. Guys, remember the craft beer and metal aligned shirt 666 that we got a decibel long time ago.
I finished this a while ago, but Solace Brewing, Northern Virginia, Lucy Juicy Double IPA.
Nice.
Nice.
Oh, it's good stuff.
Yeah.
All right.
Then, Will.
I'm going to lower my camera.
Oh, look at that!
That's a decent band.
I got one of those.
I was wearing my Marine Corps Scout Sniper hoodie all day, but I had this under all day long, knowing that I was going to come here. And I have this funny story where I showed up to a brewery in D.C. and the very tall woman behind the bar was wearing a Scalder shirt. And I was like, how the fuck? What? Turns out it was. Anyway, there was a personal connection with the band.
And we had a very long and very engaging conversation. But yeah, I'm wearing my scalded shirt. And I did have a golden monkey, victory golden monkey. That funky monkey. Yeah. Victory, victory brewing company because the Eagles just completely embarrassed and annihilated the Kansas City Chiefs. I will just throw that in there one more time. Fucking go birds. Jay.
Especially old now, Will, since you don't know how to fix your camera again. We're all going to have to stare at the rest of it. It's a lot better. You don't like the tits and mouth view? Yeah. I'm just drinking ice-cold Arizona water and wearing my... This Motorhead 30th anniversary or 40th anniversary. Fuck, I don't remember. Iron Fist. Fuck yeah, man. When I got the 40th anniversary box that bullshit thing or whatever. Speaking
of Motorhead, speaking of going off the complete rails and talking about a show that you guys have been talking about, which is Severance, I was loving how John Turturro was rocking out to Ace of Spades on Severance over and over and over and over again. I was like, oh shit, nice. But anyway. Oh, interesting. I still haven't watched that. Oh, well, it doesn't really tell you anything about the story, but there is some Motorhead in there. Well, I am going to digress for a minute and just say I am watching American Primeval Will, and it's not.
often where I'm like, this is so fucking violent. You know what I mean? Which it is, but it's good. I'm enjoying it. And what I love about that, it's pretty much a true story. There's a few characters here and there. I know about them. But the whole story about the Mormons killing other Mormons. I know about that, yeah. I know about the Mormon raids and Fort Bridger was a real fort and stuff. I've done a lot of stuff about the Mormon raids. They were fucked up. I went to Fort's Theater today. I'm a history nerd.
And so when I saw that, I'm like, is this true? And then I started Googling it. I'm like, oh my God, this is a true story. And then I just like deep dived into it. That's such a great show. The story, every character, everything is great. Anyway. And it's under the banner of heaven. And it's a more modern take on Utah Mormons. And it's a murder mystery. It's really fucking good. It's got Andrew Garfield. And yeah, it was great. Yeah. I want to say that. It talks a lot about,
the Mormon violence at the founding of Utah with the Indians and attacking pioneers. In any case, American private is good. All right. You can kill other Mormons, but no caffeine and no booze. Kill them all you want. That and when you're in Utah and you're in a bar, you can't order a drink while you're standing up. You have to sit down. True story. There are signs there that say to order a drink, you got to be sitting down.
I've drank a lot of beer in Utah. I've never seen that sign once. Yeah. I have a picture of it. I'll send it to you. Yeah. The Olympics changed a lot of stuff there. Fair enough. All right. I apologize, George. We were getting to you. No worries. I'm wearing my brand new Voivod nothing face shirt. Yeah. Very nice. Very pretty. I like it. It's very purple. It's probably the only thing I have that has some purple on it. And I started off with Idiom Brewing.
Brewerings Limelight, which is very much a Rush-themed beer.
Yeah, it is.
That's definitely getting elite.
As it should be.
Yeah.
And, oh yeah.
Hoops All Canada.
Yeah.
It's a double New England IPA.
And I have moved on to Nepente Brewing's Spectral Burden double IPA.
Why is that not a band name?
It seems like Spectral's used like a thousand times right now.
Spectral Burden, yeah, it should be.
There you go.
I want to try those rush beers that they've been putting out. I haven't had any of them. I think TRs drank a whole bunch of them. That doesn't surprise me. There's a lot of them now. Yeah. Have you seen all the YouTube 40-second things they've done? Alex and Getty? They're hilarious. They're like beer scientists or something. Yeah. Those beers are strong, too. Yeah. They're not fucking around with them. Hey, real quick. Two things I learned about at the Ford Theater today is that... Did you go to the Ford Theater today? I know.
Hey, listen, have you ever been? Have you ever been there before? But the, the, the phrase limelight came from, you know, back in the day when you had theater. No, when you had a theater and you didn't have electricity, you had candles or they would take limestone and they would do something where they would like light it on fire. Yeah. And then quickly. Yeah. And then you would, um, take a mirror and take the fire and shine it onto the, whatever was going on in the theater. That's why it's called the limelight from limelight.
on fire. And the peanut gallery is peanut was like the cheapest, most common thing. If you went to a theater, everyone eat their peanuts in the balcony and throw it down onto the people downstairs. And because it's those people. Yeah. You deserve to be showered in our peanut remains. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not from Lone Star, the restaurant. Or Five Guys. Jerry's got that. Or Texas Roadhouse. No.
You remember you go to Lone Star, you eat your peanuts, and you throw the shells on the floor until somebody slipped and sued them, and you can't do it anymore. Yeah. The ground round used to do that, too. Yeah. Let's do the news. Let's do the news. First up, we have the final, final, final show. What?
For Black Sabbath and Aussie. No more Black Sabbath. And it's
the all four members
this time. Bill Ward is involved
this time. And Aussie's
going to pull a Phil Collins at this show. And Aussie's
going to be seated because he can't walk anymore.
I give it 50-50. He can do it at all.
Yeah. I actually
was like, it's in July. It's in
Birmingham, England.
And I was like, hey, Barb,
you want to go to England this summer?
Well, wait, and also, George, go back and step two. It's not just Sabbath. I mean, it's a ridiculously large lineup. Yeah. I've logged in multiple times. I got pre-so codes from both Gojira and Mastodon. I got a pre-so code. Not get on that topic. Yeah. And I logged in numerous times and there just was nothing. Yeah. I logged in. When I logged in, there was just nothing left. I noticed on Facebook that our friend Ariel did manage to get in there. Yes, I was going to talk about this.
Yeah.
I'm going to talk about this.
And it was like for two tickets, it was like $7,000.
And he was just like, fuck that.
I'll stream it online.
And I expected that.
I was like, you know, it was a morbid curiosity kind of thing where I was like, let me just, you know, get in there and see if there's even tickets available and if they are, how ridiculous it is.
And $7,000 is the ridiculous number.
I'm like, because I didn't hear ticket prices were that high.
Yeah.
When I was looking up.
Wow.
Yeah.
Or maybe you were looking at the pounds and you convert the dollars.
No, I converted.
Yeah.
And then it's like $9,500.
Well, no, no, it was only like 5,000 pounds or something.
He converted it to $7,000.
Got it.
That makes sense then.
But yeah.
I mean, the only upside to this is that they're playing with Bill Ward.
That it's going to be the actual four guys and they're going to close it out that way.
Great.
I'm all for that.
Well, and all the profits are going to charity, too. So it's being distributed. I thought her name was Sharon. Sorry. Yeah, it's like a Cure Parkinson's Children's Hospital, I think. Well, that's good. I thought it was Desperate Housewives for plastic surgery. Oh, yeah. But I mean, at least if tickets are that much money, at least it's going to. Oh, there's promo.
Don't worry. Of course.
I still I honestly I I'm still dubious about it happening. I mean, he's gone, man. I mean, have you seen any interviews with him or stuff? I mean, he can hardly. He's on he's on Ozzy's boneyard every week. Yeah. With Billy Morrison. Yeah. I mean, talking. That's right, Ozzy. That's what happened. Yeah. That's exactly the conversation with them. But don't you think Ozzy that. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. But maybe.
this, actually.
And I listen to every single one of them.
So my pessimism aside, nice that Bill Ward will be there.
That's cool.
Yeah, that's the best part of it.
Does that mean when Slayer plays with Black Sabbath that Dave Lombardo will be there?
Yeah, that would be cool.
That would be pretty sweet, though, wouldn't it?
But if Dave Lombardo came out and played a song with Black Sabbath.
Okay, well, now you're just kidding.
And of course Pantera will be there as just Pantera, not
tribute Pantera. So I guess they're going to just milk that a little more.
What? I stood up for a minute there. Did you go through the whole lineup? No. Didn't care. Didn't care, honestly. Fair enough.
You're welcome to talk about them if you want to, but I didn't care.
All right. Well, then let's move on.
I put this one on here not because I'm a big fan of Queensryche anymore but because I could relate to it and that was that Jeff Tate said that Metallica fans threw bottles at Queensryche in Helsinki in 1988. I saw that tour in 1988 in Detroit and yes the Metallica fans bombarded the shit out of Queensryche. There were bottles and lighters and anything they could possibly think of they were thrown at Queensryche and I actually felt bad.
So I just kind of thought it was funny that it came up all these years later. Was this on the Justice for All? Yeah. Operation Mindcrime slash Justice for All. Yeah. Yeah. I saw that tour. Yeah. And it's a shame too because if you're going to like something from them you might as well like Operation Mindcrime but that was a terrible choice for an opening act on that tour. Oh yeah. Metallica was just getting to this point where every angry football kid and punk in school wanted to go see them. Yeah.
to hear was somebody with a high voice like that. I'm sure they hate it. And I did like Queensryche at that time. So yeah, I liked that album. But that's a weird move. It was. Did you guys see when George put that on the list? So I looked at the interview and he gave a funny Lars Ulrich story. Did you read that one? I'll read it for you. It's pretty quick. So when pressed for a funny Lars Ulrich story, Tate said, back in the day, we all partied pretty heavy. So after the show, you unwind a
a little bit, have a few drinks, and sometimes you'd have a few too many. But he'd always come on the bus. Hey, how are you guys? How are you doing? He was usually dressed in a tennis shoes and a robe, and he would urinate on our bus. And then the next day, the tour manager would hand him a bill, and he'd pay it. And the next time he showed up, he'd do the same thing. He was like a serial urinator. We used to tease him about it. God, we come on the Metallica tour, and you piss on us. That's funny. That was the story.
Lars is incontinent. That's the takeaway. You mean he just like let fly on anywhere in the bus? Apparently. Hey, I peed on Rhapsody's tour bus. But I hit the toilet. Well, it just sounds like the legend of Lars being a douchebag just increases every year. You hear more stuff. Learn how to play drums and don't be a douche. All right, moving on. This one I'm sure Will will be a big fan of.
Forbidden has announced their 40 years of twisted evil European tour. I looked, I didn't see whether that was going to come this way or not, but we were just talking about Forbidden the other day. It'll probably come this way. Yeah. I hope so. I mean, America, because I'm assuming they haven't announced anything in America. Yeah. I imagine that, like, I feel as though sometimes European metal fans are just bigger metal fans than us.
here in America and maybe it's because we're kind of spoiled. Lars is European on the Queensryche tour bus. Yeah. That was good. That was good. Sorry, Harry. Did you rehearse that one? But yeah, I would love this. Like when I mentioned seeing Forbidden at MDF and it was just like this, this was one of my favorite bands when I was in high school and they just absolutely killed it. They sound exactly perfect.
they, to me, were the highlight of MDF. And I would love to see them in multiple dates here in the United States. But they may be more popular in Europe. So they're like, fuck it. Let's pay. Well, that's metal in general. Yeah, I know. They might come here because they also announced that they have a new record coming. Oh, nice. Do they really? Oh, I didn't see that. It was set towards the end, which they kind of buried it. And it said the next forbidden record will be completed before this record.
in August.
They don't have a record label.
I just hope it's good.
They don't want a record label.
They just want to put it out there.
Are some of you guys going to MDF this year?
No.
Dude, the lineup is actually kind of fucking great.
Isn't Trypticon playing?
Witchcraft is playing, huh?
Is Trypticon playing?
Yeah, they're doing a Celtic Faucet.
Yeah, I saw that.
I was like, I don't know.
If I'm around, I might.
Yeah, I'd have to look.
One of my kids always has a baseball tournament.
Yeah.
I never get a chance to see witchcraft, but they're also famous for not coming at the last minute. So yeah, it's a lot of book a flight and everything just for that. Yeah. Back to forbidden real quick. Uh, the metal gods back in the day gave me a prophecy of what the second forbidden album would be. I had forbidden evil on cassette back in the way back time. And I left it in my car in the back window.
It melted. And it melted. It twisted into form. It was so, I mean, it was, it wasn't even just like melted bad. It was melted in a very cool metal fucking way. Couldn't play it obviously, but it looked cool. So anywho. That's badass, man. Yeah. That's so cool. That's funny. That kind of reminds me when I was a kid, I used to have GI Joes and they had a character named Zartan who would change colors as a chameleon character. I remember him. And so,
If you put him in the light, he would turn color. So I stuck him on a lamp, like right on the bulb, and he melted onto the bulb. Oops. All right, last news item. Rivers of Nile to release their self-titled fifth album in May. Matt is far away, but pumping his fist in the air, and it looks like he's making marshmallows on the fire or something. What is he doing there? Mix another drink.
I want to drink. Okay. Fair enough. But, um, so Matt was like, I hope that they have some saxophone on there. Cause that would be very much to my liking. Oh, wait, there's my, I love my, I love my sax core. Yup. And this would be a good time to pump our sister podcast, John Sax in the City. I like it. Right on. I like it. I didn't know we were doing it, but I like it. It's great. All right.
If there are no other comments on that. Oh, I'll just, I don't know if anyone listened to it. I actually like this song better than the other stuff they've released recently. After the work, that album. So I don't know what you guys thought. I thought it was actually much better than what they've, the last few singles they released. I haven't heard. We agree. Yeah. I thought it was good. It's a house of light, right? Yeah. It has the saxophone in it, but they use it like a texture in the song. So it's not like obnoxious. Sometimes I,
I feel like saxophone can be that way. And they have an emphasis on that sung chorus. It does sound pretty polished to me. It feels like the band, at least for this song, like they're building more of like a mainstream metal crossover on this particular track. I don't know how the whole album is going to sound like, but it did sound really good to me. Well, new singer, because the other singer is not with them anymore, which is the, I think it's the bass player. Bass player. Yeah. Which I thought he did a great job filming.
And I think they, I was concerned about them working as a four piece in the sense of like someone taking over the vocal duties. Cause I feel like their vocals are very intense. Yeah. But I don't mean that vocal, I don't mean that bass players can't be intense vocalists. Apologies, Carrie, but for them, it was like, I mean, they have three albums out, four albums out. And then all of a sudden they're going to change gears. And so I saw them as a four piece and it's the guy from black crown initiate, I think is the guitarist. Isn't it the other one now? So they, they're a lot of transgressors.
in the band. Speaking of Kary and vocals, do not be afraid to step on our toes and talk about any of these things, guys. Otherwise. Yeah. Yeah, of course. And please, please let us know if you plan to incorporate saxophone into your music and then we will never have you on again. Yeah. I don't know. It sounds like, like Matt might. Yeah. I mean, he, he will like it, but he can start his own podcast. It depends on how it's used. For me, it does. No plans at this time. Thank you.
That's it. No kids singing. No saxophone. Violin, okay. Chanting, okay. But let's just stay away from the kids singing. Let's just stick to your roots. Your bloody roots. Bloody roots. Thank you, George. I mean, and I will say I am looking forward to their tour because they're doing a headlining tour and they're going to be doing it with Inter Arma, Glacial Tomb, and Holy Fawn. Wow. I like all those bands. They're on.
It's like two big tours. You see the European tour they're doing with Cynic? Yeah. Yeah. They're doing some big stuff. That's probably the tour I'm most looking forward to. I just heard something crash upstairs, so I should probably go and see what's going on, but appreciate you all enormously for having us on here. Thank you. Thanks, Harry. Thank you, guys. Good seeing you. Congratulations on the record. Seriously, Harry, thank you. Thank you.
You got two young kids. Hey, this is a lot of time you gave us. So I appreciate it. Appreciate you guys a lot. Take care. And then they were now that he's gone. Now let's talk party. All right. Move on to new releases. Sure.
All right, first up, we have the new Dream Theater album, Parasomnia, which I believe is their 16th album. That's crazy. Yeah. And I listened to it and it's all right. That's exactly what you wrote in the chat. Right, it was. It's all right. You know, the music's pretty banging. It's, you know, it's very proggy and good in that way.
I don't know about some of the vocals but you know
I don't know
as a James LaBrie fan in the past or as a guy
because I know that there's like a large group of people that have
problems with James LaBrie's vocals
I'm not a huge
fan of their vocal
style I mean sometimes it's good
sometimes it's not it just felt
a little
off to me
I don't know
Why? Because I'm not a huge Dream Theater fan like some people. But I was trying to give it a fair shake. And I liked it well enough. It's the first one. And how many years now? 2021 was the last one. No, no. 14 years? 15 years since Mike Port and I was in the band? Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's why I was definitely interested. And I've been kind of a passive Dream Theater listener.
Since, is it Images and Words? Whatever had Pull Me Under, which was kind of their main strip back in the day. And I mean, I've always liked their music. But to your point, John, I was more inquisitive now. Like, oh, Portnoy's back. I want to hear what this sounds like. And I put it on. It was a Friday morning, and I was pleasantly surprised. Yeah, they kind of dip into the train of thought sound a little bit there. Actually, more than a little bit. But they kind of harken back to that early, mid-2000s sound.
on the album, which is fine. I'm cool with it. I liked it. I mean, my heyday is, or obviously the late 80s and through the mid 90s is the stuff I like the most. And it's crazy to think, when I listened, I was like, holy shit, this is 30 plus years I've been listening to these guys. It doesn't seem like it. It went by fast. I was impressed by the album. I was a massive Dream Theater fan when I was a teenager. Probably the same type of albums you were in.
And in my 20s, you know, probably somewhere around like systematic chaos or something, I kind of checked out and I didn't really listen to as much of their stuff. But in 2021, they put out A View from the Top of the World and I listened to that all the way through. And I hadn't really listened to a Dream Theater album all the way through in like 15 years. And I enjoyed that record. It didn't make my list, but I was intrigued. I was curious about what they would do next.
And then Parasomnia was announced. And Mike Portnoy was returning. And so I listened to this one and I thought it was very good. I think I have to spin it some more. It's a lot. Yeah. I mean, they're always a lot, right? So I really have to absorb it to see how I truly feel about it. But it's nice to be able to want that again with Dream Theater. To be able to- If you like them, yeah. And then come back. Yeah. Unlike you, I actually liked the last three albums.
But yeah, Systematic Chaos, and I was huge. They were probably, besides Opeth and Porcupine True, my favorite band, but after a while, I was like, all right, I need a break. Because they were cranking out the albums. And I just needed them to slow that roll down a little bit, which they have done somewhat. Of course, COVID played a big part of that, too. Yeah, yeah. But I feel like- They would do things, too, that I hated. Like Train of Thought, they had that kind of kid rock,
Rappish stuff that was in parts of it. That's not on that album. That's Dark Eternal Night where they do that. He does that stuff. That's off of a different album. It's almost like spoken word stuff like that on Turn of Thought though. I think he does have it on there. I thought Repentance was the spoken word. I mean I haven't listened in so long but that's kind of what I remembered. I have to go back John. Yeah.
too long. That was the problem. True. I do think as far as having black metal people on your show, you probably chose the only two that are currently here that are massive Dream Theater fans. When we were getting into heavy metal and stuff like that, we're giantly into Prague, like Prague and power metal and stuff. So I have tons of opinions on Dream Theater kind of mirroring your guys. I sense a need for a side project.
With saxophone. What? Yes. Admittedly, I haven't listened to it. I've heard from people whose opinion I respect quite a bit that it's just safe. There wasn't anything that was radically different about it. But I need to earnestly listen to it and formulate my own opinion before I can speak about it. That's why I've been quiet about it. But I do respect the band a ton. That's another meet and greet that I did. Got to meet all of those guys when Mangini was in the band.
It's safe. It's safe. It's safe.
It's all right. It's crazy how certain bands get that, but whatever. That's good press no matter what it is, this way I look at it.
Well, that's the one thing I haven't heard is people say it's awesome. It's so good. You need to go listen to it. It's at least of the circles that, you know, people that like we grew up with, like Carrie said, we were huge fans and our buddies in high school were as well. And we still keep in touch with a lot of them. Nobody I've heard is saying like, go listen to it right away. It's so fantastic. But I will.
I've heard it.
But you know.
Interestingly, it's also, and perhaps this was mentioned, but Mike Portnoy's return.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's notable.
I'm automatically interested just because of that.
I thought they probably could have avoided a lot of the things that people were saying
that were negative just by having listened to Portnoy when he was like, hey man, I think
our music's getting a little tired.
Like maybe we should take like one year off or whatever and just not make a rough record
album.
They're like, all right, man.
if you can, but we're going to. And then they made like three albums that I thought sucked balls. So, I mean, I'm glad that whatever. I'm glad they had their career. They did what they needed to do, but I'm happy that Portnoy's back in any case. With that said, can I agree with you? I also wish Portnoy would have stopped joining every single band. So I saw both sides of that argument. You got a dream if you want to be Hannes Grossman. You got a dream. Ben might have needed to pay the bills, man. I don't know.
He was somewhat dictatorial at that point. He's available for Scaldor. That's cool. That would actually be kind of cool. My interest in listening to this, though, because of that, also helped me realize I kind of like band drama. Also, my safe word is dream theater. One word. It will not be used.
Nice. Well, yeah. Cool. All right. Next up. The sixth album from Mantar, post-apocalyptic depression. German sludge band. Also, only a guitar player, slinger, drummer, two-piece. I didn't really realize that until I saw them at MDF a few years back. Yeah, same thing. I was like, what?
I got to go back a step here real quick,
or George,
because I was eating,
but I just want Matt to know my safe word is don't stop.
Okay,
then.
Am I crazy?
Was that Chuck Schoeninger's first name of his band?
Mantar?
Mantis.
Mantis.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
I've liked these guys off and on over the years.
I haven't really cared for the last few albums.
I did. I didn't listen to this one in its entirety, but I did spot check it and it was reasonable enough that I think I'll go back and listen to the rest of it. I don't know if anybody else listened to it. I listened to it. I've never been into them, but I didn't dislike it or anything. It's just, it's kind of like sludge and roll a little bit. It's the white stripes of metal. Yeah. I mean, it's got a lot of rhythm to it, but it's fast paced. It's sludgy sounding and the songs are short.
Like super short for a sludge band. Yeah. I agree with you guys. I like this band's debut and I enjoyed seeing them live a few years ago, but since then they haven't really grabbed me. That first album was more doom and sludge with elements. This is more punky. I think this is mostly bouncy punk forward metal. You know, it's got a great energy. The songs gallop, you know, the drums and they really move, but that's just not a sound that I gravitate toward.
So I'm not as into it. But if you like that style, like they do it very well. Yeah, they do. Yeah. Extremely well. Okay, then. Let's move on to the next one that I know will have some things to talk about. That is the new Prenolith album, Ashen Womb, their third album, Danish death metal. Go, Will. I fucking love this album. This is, sorry, Skaldor, this may be my album of the year so far.
With a close number two, like this is, this is, um, it's, it's everything I want in a death metal album. Um, it's got hooks. I feel like it's got like memorable. It's not quite the, like Necrot's last album where it felt like it was like, this is the death metal I was chasing back in the late eighties and early nineties when I was, you know, in middle school, high school,
listening to this stuff.
But this Phrenolith album, it's up there.
It's awesome.
I love it.
Absolutely love it.
It's just memorable.
Riff after riff.
There's almost like a chorus and bridges and all that stuff in there.
Yeah, absolutely love it.
And then when I put that in there, into our chat, Marcus sounds like, go listen to the earlier ones.
I have not yet, but that's my goal.
Go listen to the earlier stuff.
No, it's cool because I love this band. Their first two records both landed in my top 10. And so they were volleyballs for me on this cast. I thought Will liked the last album. Catching it up. I don't know if I, I've definitely heard of them before. Maybe I just never listened to it, but this will be on a list. Yeah. Unless Cannibal Corpse releases 25 albums this year, it's going to be on my list. You never know.
Yeah, I mean, all three records they've released are really, really good. They've got ferocious riffs, drumming. Drumming is awesome on their records. It's powerful and creative. But what I really like about this band is that they have this kind of a dark magic atmosphere that washes over their music. It's almost like a horror movie mist. And so Ash and Womb, the new one, it's basically a merging of the two previous records.
So their debut was Desolate Endscape. And that was more of a slaughterous, throat-stabbing death metal. And then they put out Chimera, and that injected a lot more atmosphere and merc into their sound. And I really connected with that one in particular, because I like that kind of an atmosphere. So this one kind of gets back to the riff murder of the debut. But then it layers in that hazy gloom that they had on the follow-up.
So it's pretty cool. Yeah, well said, Marcus. I'm like, I feel like these guys sort of remind me of two mold. Like there's a two mold aspect to them. But it's more memorable riffs, I guess. Like it's more memorable. Like, like I keep going back to the Necrot where Necrot was sort of like, yes, this is old school death metal. You have choruses, repeating stuff. It's memorable songs. I feel like Frenolith is.
like very close to that where it's just like
two mold ish, but just more like memorable. Like I can like, I can go back and listen to the song. Oh, I know what I know exactly what the song is.
Yeah. It's more focused for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Focus is a good word. Yeah.
Focus.
I'm really happy that you're you've got connected to the with this. Oh, I love it. I love it.
All right, we got one more new release. Unfortunately, Harry's not here. You mentioned them earlier. Sayor or? Soar. Soar. Soar. Yeah. Soar. Their sixth album, Amidst the Ruins, Scottish Black Folk. I did listen to this one a little bit more and me likey. Recently announced to me by John BT as his favorite record of the year so far. Okay. Nice. Wow. Nice.
I saw them at Atlas. Yeah, they played at Atlas. Yeah. I saw that. That's how I knew how they pronounce their name. It's not Sayor. It's Soar. Soar. Yeah, but you just don't have the accent. Who are they touring with? They're touring with... Isn't that like Wayfinder? Wayfinder? Yeah. Wayfinder. Yeah, I saw that same tour. Yeah, it was good. It was intense. I'll tell you that. Why was it intense?
Was it outside or what? I thought there was no air conditioning. That's such a dad joke. I love that George has made a dad joke and he's not even a dad joke. He made the European one earlier. He's on a roll, man. You're wearing dad jeans today, then? Jeez. You're welcome. This album's getting a lot of press.
from a lot of people.
I'm a big fan of theirs.
I did not like this album as much as the last one.
I'll just say that.
Oh, really?
Last one I was like, yeah.
No, this one's a little bit too much going off the rails on the clean singing,
women singing, children singing.
Oh, my gosh.
Probably throwing some saxophones in there.
Yeah.
So you didn't even listen to it is what you're saying?
No, I listened.
Look at my bank app.
I bought it.
Oh, that is like the worst excuse. Well, it's on my band camp. I bought it. Yeah. How many of you bought that were like, oh shit, I got to listen to that still? We think about this. It's sandwiched between Skolder and Frontalith. So like you got these two great albums. You got this one in the middle that I love this band, but like, ah, just, you know, just, just didn't do it for me. I still love it.
That's well said. Well, you can just say they do a cover if nothing else matters, and that's what the problem is. Just be honest about it, all right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wow. No, I agree. I've only spun it once, but I mean, to me, it sounded, you know, like sore. I will definitely get back and listen further. Yeah, I thought it was fine. This band's never really connected with me. I expect them to because I like this style of
music where it has that balance of aggressive metal and then that kind of tranquil Celtic instrumentation. And they do a nice job of balancing it, but I just don't respond to it emotionally, I guess, their music. So I probably will spin it again just to see, but yeah, it was just fine to me.
So,
so,
Carrie,
uh,
what are your thoughts?
Cause you have a Welsh flag behind you,
but this is a Scottish band.
Do you fucking hate them and want them to die?
No,
no,
far be it.
Uh,
I mean,
I have Scottish background as well.
Um,
as do I,
as do I,
yeah,
no,
I've been a huge fan of,
uh,
of Sarah and Andy Stewart's a real cool,
real cool dude.
Um,
he used to actually,
uh,
Twitch stream like live playthroughs of songs and stuff.
He's a super personable guy, very friendly. I kind of expect that this band is at some point going to become cemented in some kind of new, I don't know what you'd call this, iteration of folk, like black and folk music, like Panopticon kind of thing. Scottish Black Raid. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I felt like this one just had a little bit more extra folk.
Oh, it's Celtic. Yeah. I haven't listened to this new one yet. I need to. And that's okay. Yeah. Part of me, just like listening to it, it just had more folk than I thought it needed. And I like the folk. That's what draws me to these guys. My great-grandmother was Scottish. And she had a fucking super heavy accent. Didn't understand a word she said, which is probably a good thing, because she probably just told me I was a little rug-wrap piece of shit. She did.
Yeah.
But yeah, I just it was a little bit more folky than I think the last one.
Oh, definitely. I agree with that. Yeah.
Like a full plus.
A little too much.
Yeah.
Through the Scottish islands.
You can't like when you go when you go to the clothing store, it's like a plus.
Like here's the plus section that they went to the folk section.
It's full highlands all the way.
At Ross.
They don't wear anything.
I don't really like it.
And it's windy too up there. Yeah. See all your kits and dibbles. Bibles and bits. Bibles and bits. All right. All right, then. Let's move on to what we are listening to.
I'm gonna put Carrie on the spot here. What are you listening to? I'm listening to your sweet voice right now, George. Thank you. Oh boy. I don't know, man. I was recently on a dark cane kick, actually.
If you guys remember Darkane? Yeah. Swedish Maladic death metal? Yeah. Sometimes it just pops in there, you know? It's like a band I forget exists a lot. So I just was going back and listening to like Expanding Senses. Really, really fucking good album. Now I want to listen to them. I don't know. Yeah. I think that's the latest kick I was on. Other than just like unspeakable silly 80s shit and folk music and stuff. What sort of unspeakable 80s things? Yeah. Yeah. Don't drop that.
Yeah, not say what band is it.
Yeah, please elaborate.
I mean, all right, I warned you.
You guys ever listen to the, or do you know the musical Chess?
Yeah, like you're talking about like.
Written by Bjorn Olvos from.
Yeah, like Murray Head, One Night in Bangkok.
Yeah, yeah, it's fucking great.
Oh, yeah, it's good stuff.
Yeah.
So I've got occasional kicks of stuff like that.
Nothing wrong with that.
Yeah, and just the usual proggy stuff that I'm jamming on, I guess.
Cool. Brent, what about you? A lot of the music listening time that I have these days, other than moments like this where I'm in my basement by myself, which doesn't happen often enough anymore. It's in the car. And usually if I'm in the car, I've got a kid in there with me as well. So you're listening to a lot of Sleepy Time Gorilla? A lot of Sleepy Time Gorilla Museum. No, I've been listening to a lot of things.
that aren't going to be horrifically offensive to a toddler's ears. So like Paul Gilbert type stuff, like vocals era, Paul Gilbert. We listened to, yes, a lot of prog stuff together. What else have I been listening to? Our album, Paramount. We listened to a cake record. Oh, nice. Valentine's Day dinner yesterday. So I love cake. You're going the distance. Is that cake?
Yes, it is. Yeah, we listened to that album. When I was on it. Short skirt and a long jacket. Yeah. My ski team in college, that was our theme song. You're going the distance. Because we would always all crash on the ski slope. No, but you can go the distance. You can finish this race. But speaking of upcoming albums, the last thing I'll mention, I redid one of my rooms in my basement in the last couple of months.
One of my guilty pleasures is the Night Flight Orchestra. Oh, you too? And I can't help myself. I just put their albums on and just get shit done. I'm really looking forward to the new album that's coming out. It's a good call. It just dropped. Yeah, that's out. Yeah, there you go. It's already out. They're playing Prog Power this year. Fuck yeah. All right, then. On to Markasson.
Okay, let's see. All right, so first one I had on my list is Owner of Fagus, Revelations from the Void, personal records. It's a really good somber doom death with melodic riffing and some experimentation on there. It was a bit of incantation worship on this, but it's done really well. And as you know, I love incantation. Sacrifice, Volume 6, Uncursed Blessings records.
This one came out on vinyl. We got the promo, but it's actually technically supposed to drop on the 21st of February, but a lot of people have already heard it. So I was surprised when we got this promo in the mail because Sacrifice hasn't released an album since 2009, and they've been around since 84. And I feel like they've kind of been a bit overlooked, in my opinion, because they've put out some pretty classic thrash records like Forward Determination.
But I actually think that volume six might be my favorite that they've done. It sounds amazing. The thrash forward songs are blistering. And Rob's vocals, they sound better than they ever have to me. But what I really like about this particular record is that Sacrifice adds some kind of unexpected variety to the mix. So there's a lot of tempo changes on here that I didn't expect out of a thrash record from them.
And then the next one is Storm Death, Chaos Will Rain on Suicide Records. Will actually might like this one. I found this one by chance and it's absolutely massive burst of thrash-fired death metal. There's a few touches of moody prog on it, but it's mostly thrash death. Mark us on, tell me the name again. It's Storm Death. And the new one's called Chaos Will Rain.
Two Words. It's not on Bandcamp. I had to listen to it on Spotify. Darn, darn, darn, darn, darn. I believe it's their second record, but I had never heard of the band before now. The next one on my list is Relics of Humanity, Absolute Dismal Domain, and it's on Willow Tip Records, a label I really like. And this is an unsettling, brutal 32 minutes of death metal.
with trench deep vocals and brutish grooves it's not the kind of death that i usually listen to
just because it's it's almost like slam you know um but there's something about the way they
create this bleak atmosphere on this one that just keeps pulling me in i'll listen to it and then i'll
just immediately play it again so that's relics of humanity and then unrequited a pathway to the moon
This is a blackened, progressive, emotional post-metal with really gorgeous instrumental passages and growled vocals. But this time around, the band also introduced cleans. And I think they work really well with unrequited style. So it took me a second to kind of get used to that, but I think I like it. And then up is Nakash. Eschaton Magix on Signal Red.
This is muscular, catchy, death metal that's bewitched by black metal. So this is a band that was recommended to me by a record shop owner in Oslo when I visited Norway years back, and I've been a fan of them ever since. Because when I went there, you know, in Norway, it's mostly black metal. There's not a lot of death metal, so that's what I requested when I went to the shop. I was like, is there any local death metal band? And this is what I got.
Next one is Alder Glade, Holocene Extinction on Orko Productions. This album has been on pretty constant rotation for me since it dropped on February 1st. It's really captivating atmospheric black metal with a hushed and shimmering forest enchantment that kind of lays over it. And it's one of my favorite albums that I've heard so far this year. And then the last one for me is Adrift, Dry Soil.
And this, I'm a massive fan of this band. And this record was my album of the month for January. Sorry, Scalder. They play really heavy progressive post-metal mixed with Sludge. And they're kind of like Cult of Luna mixed with Vow, if you can imagine that. And it's been six years since they put out their last album, Pure. So it's really nice to hear some new stuff from Adrift.
They're from Spain. And I heard about them when I was vacationing there a number of years back. And while we were there, this character sketch artist came up to Tracy and I while we were having coffee outside this tiny cafe in Madrid. And he asked to draw us and we agreed. And so we ended up talking with him for a while while he sketched. He didn't speak any English and I'm not that great with my Spanish. But somehow we were able to get to the
to communicate through the universal language of matter.
So I was wearing some metal shirt.
I don't remember what one.
And he saw that and he started talking about heavy music with me.
And he ended up recommending a few bands from Madrid that I now love.
One of them was Moho and that was his favorite.
They're a sludge metal band, Tundra, which is a killer progressive instrumental metal band.
And then Adrift was the third one he recommended, which ended up being my favorite of his suggestions. I remember this story now. Have I told this one? Yeah, yeah. So over the last couple weeks, this is why I thought of this story. Over the last couple weeks, I've been sorting my basement and I came across that sketch that the artist did of Tracy and I. So now I have to get that framed. Nice. So yeah, I really, really love
Adrift. Nice. Very cool. I lived in Madrid in the 70s. I was there when Franco died. Shit, that's right. I think you told us that. Yeah. Yeah. I was a little baby. Okay, a little more than a baby, but still. Just a tiny little George. You're our little baby, George. I was a little guy. Alrighty then. Matt? Wait.
Also mentioned the new unrequited. I dig that. Markeson, Emotional, is a great way to describe that album, as would a lot of their work. The album is called Krasno. Band is Bezna, Slovakian, kind of intense post-black metal. In Dust and Ash by the band Plague Wielder. Sacred Sounds of Solitude, Band Bloodbark. Soar, mentioned Frontalith, Dream Theater.
A Sonication by Obscura. That dropped sometime this month. Digging that. In terms of stuff that's still coming out, the band is I, Moloch. I'm sorry, the album is I, Moloch. The band is Shrine of Denial. Another one, To Lift the Veil by a band called The Socia. I had a note that they reminded me of Gojira. The band is Blood Obsession. I believe the album is called Two. That was also kind of some, I feel like it was kind of more experimental post-metal.
I already mentioned Rivers of Nile, the track they have at House of Light, the band Revocation, which I haven't spun a whole lot in recent years, but they have a track with Travis Ryan of Gallop Decapitation, so my ears repeat. Confides of Affinity, digging that. And then I thought yesterday was a, I mean, there's always a lot of good stuff coming out on, you know, New Music Friday, but yesterday was a day of me just skimming.
And I didn't actually have time to go back and listen to anything because there was just so much that piqued my interest. A couple highlights, Chaos Inception is the band. Vengeance Evangel is the album. And then the other one I would mention, the band is Decline of the Eye. Album is Wilhelm. I mentioned them because they've been on lists in prior years. And then just out of randomness, I've still been listening to a ton of latter-era Beatles.
And loving it. As one should. Right on. John. Right. I don't have much because I actually haven't listened to a lot of different music since we last got together. So I just have a few. Dream Theater we mentioned, obviously. I've listened to that quite a bit since it came out. Another one called Lunar, Tempora Mutantor, which is actually,
A Band that's also connected to the Obsidian Resurrection, which I brought up last time, the drummers in both bands. They're a prog metal, kind of Opeth-like prog death band from Sacramento. They don't sound like Opeth like they did on their early albums, but they're in that type of progressive death when they do it. And they're from Sacramento, which there aren't many bands that I know from Sacramento. My parents live near Sacramento, so I like it.
Yesterday, Reeking Aura released a little 10-minute EP, which I thought was really cool. And they have members from Grey Sky's Fallen After Birth and Scent-Aunt Horror, so I checked it out and I thought that was actually pretty good. And that's it for actual full releases of metal. I have spun the new Pelican song a lot. The song Cascading Crescent off their forthcoming album, Flickering Resonance. It is good, it is heavy, and it sounds like
Old Pelican, which is cool. So I'm looking for that. Matt, you need to go see them when they come because they're playing with Russian circles in your hood. So you should go to that. That's a cool bill. And then the band I've been listening to the most, and Will, it's a prog band. It's not a metal band, and it's got a tie to Philadelphia, but the band's not from Philadelphia. They're from Norway, but there's a radio show up there called Gagly Archives.
It's been round for
I don't know that one
Yeah well you don't listen to Prague
I think I started listening to
I listen to Opeth
Yeah you do
Okay
It's about as Prague as you can get
Yeah
Well
I'm kidding
I'm kidding
So when I was living in
Haddonfield, New Jersey
Way back when
I heard this radio station
I can't remember where
He was broadcasting out of
But he's from Philadelphia
And by the way he
Won't stop talking about the Eagles too
Just like you
Go Birds!
But he's done a regular, for you prog nerds, he's done a regular radio show for, God, 30 years now.
And it's on Saturday nights online.
And he's kept talking about this band you got to check out.
And if you don't, you're just crazy.
The band's called Wizard without an A in it.
So it's W-I-Z-R-D.
They're from Norway.
They're jazz musicians by trade.
But they've put out two just incredible kind of prog slash kind of jazz rock slash alternative rock albums. And I have not stopped spinning these two albums for three weeks. So the last one came out, Elements, would have been a very close second if I did an all-encompassing, you know, all genres of music. Would have been a close number two on my top list. It's fucking awesome. Absolutely love it.
So if you're a prog nerd and you want to check it out, wizard, W-I-Z-R-D. That's it. Yeah, I mean, it's and the cool thing is the songs. I don't most of the songs are like three or four minutes, which is like an opening, you know, part one of eight parts of a prog song normally. But so there's a few. It's like half a Scalder song. Yeah, exactly. What was the radio show called? Gagly Archives.
Spell that.
Hold on.
He spells it.
F-U-C-K.
Okay.
Okay.
G-O-O-G-L-E.
No.
It's.
I mean.
I can't hear what you're saying.
It's a G-A-G.
G-A-G.
L-I-A.
R.
So.
So Gagly Archives.
Radio.
And if you can't find it, just send me a message and I'll send it to you. Cool. Yeah. It's on. It'll be on tonight at 10. That's cool. I mean, huge progress. So definitely interested. Yeah, it's awesome. And I can't remember the radio. They do it through a site. He doesn't broadcast anymore. He used to be at some community college there. I can't remember where he broadcasts through now. Oral Moon, I think. Have you ever heard of that? No. Yeah. I got a tune in radio.
It's all different places it gets broadcast
but it's live and it's four hours long
Very cool
Every Saturday night
It's like half a Metalhead's podcast
I know
But if it's a prog show
and it's four hours that's like what eight songs
I'm loving their website
it reminds me of the old
you guys remember the Jax
nightclub website
Oh yeah
right now? I'm looking at their website. It's straight out of 2000. It's all. And he's never changed. It's that's what's awesome about it. It brings me back. It's so cool. You know, it absolutely drives me up fucking nuts right now is that Jax is stumbling distance. I'm talking stumbling, like five minutes stumbling distance from my girlfriend's house right now. And it's only still open. Guess what? I'm doing shows again. I heard. I heard that they were doing a few shows.
They are testing the waters again. I thought they like ripped it out so they could make it more restaurant. Well, yeah, I think the Afghan place ended up buying their that part of it by they did. I think what two shows now. They that's crazy. I know as the Afghan restaurant. I'm not sure where it is because I when I looked at the pictures like, OK, that doesn't look like Jack's because no, it's higher after Jack's. Yeah, right. Yeah. So the Afghan restaurant took the whole thing.
Yeah, they took the whole thing. I have a little bit of insight because the head guy for the aftercare of my son's elementary school, his family owns that new Afghan restaurant. So anyway, yeah, it's a total Afghan restaurant. I haven't talked to him this year because my son doesn't go to that aftercare anymore.
But yeah, it was full blown. Jax was no longer. Empire was no longer. It was just an Afghan restaurant. But I did see that they were trying to bring shows back. But I forget what show it was, but it wasn't anything like anybody was interested in. So if you're interested in keeping up with it, it's a site on Facebook called Friends of Copa. Like forward slash Jax, forward slash Zax, Empire Nightclub in Springfield. There's an actual group. I joined it.
Can you put that in the chat? Yeah, let me see if I can find that. Of course, it's one of those Facebook... You can do it later. Hold on, man. I'm old. It takes me a little longer to do this shit. I got you. It's done. Jeez, man. And again... Well, since we're talking about Jax, sorry to go on a tangent, I'm really curious of your all's take on the Nevermore reunion talks. That was the last episode. Yeah. I'll have to take you to that one then.
That's fine. No, no, no. We can review. I mean, it's... I'm okay with it. So I'll just... Yeah, I am too. You know, Jeff was a hugely, hugely important part of that band. And I know that Worrell brought a real unique perspective. But Jeff really was the songwriter. I mean, Worrell wrote his own melodies and lyrics, I'm sure. Obviously. I know he did. But I don't know, man. I mean, if they... They could do it right. We'll see.
I guess I'm curious what you think, Kerry. You mean Brent? Oh, I'm sorry, Brent. Both have a deep, deep love of that band for sure, but cautiously optimistic, I suppose. I'm really happy to see Jeff doing something that isn't Arch Enemy. I feel like that's a big step forward for him just musically, and it's cool to see him doing stuff with Van again. It will be interesting.
If it were me, I feel like I would probably rebrand it, but I also understand wanting to carry the torch of an existing one that has such an important name and medal for so many fans. So if they do it right, I think it could be awesome. One of my deepest regrets in life is never have been able to, or I missed it. I didn't get to see Nevermore Live. I didn't get to see that Nevermore Opeth show at Jax. It was like right, right before
Which one? Which tour? Because there was two of them. It was 2004. Ghost Revere's one. Yeah. Yeah, I was at that. The first time they opened for them in 2001. Yeah. For Blackwater Park and Dead Heart. Yeah. 14 or something, I think, when that came out. And it was just like right before. You know, we were still making power metal and stuff like that. They just weren't quite there yet. That show, though, at Jaxx was in 2005.
fucking crazy that night.
I think we have a few different selections here, but I'm curious to hear what yours is.
I think I can speak for both John and I when I say that This Godless Endeavor was my favorite of their records.
And not only that, but I think one of the best metal records of the last however many years.
But I'm close with Markisan the other one, though.
I forgot it was Jimmy Neon Black.
What was the one after dreaming on black? Dead heart enemies of reality. Yeah, dead heart enemies and then enemies and then Godless endeavor, but I'm curious to know what your favorites were. Godless for me. I like all their records, but that one is just perfect. Yeah, no, you can't complain about a single note. It's perfect. I couldn't agree more. I could but so and Brent.
Godless is definitely my favorite, but Dead Hard is what got me into the band. And there are so many tracks on that one that are just my favorite Nevermore songs. Yeah. You know, and you probably know this, but Warl Dane's solo record was really good, too, if you've never picked that up. It was solid. I like Jeff's more, but maybe that's just like me, the guitar player. And Warl's shtick was kind of falling off at that point. Like, sometimes she takes the chairs downstairs on the Obsidian Conspiracy. Just tragic.
Lyrics from him towards the end.
But I do love everything they did.
It's a worthwhile band to bring up and ask about, I think.
There's a few bands that when we have guests on, if I find out, and this is true for all of us, different bands, but if we get a Jethro Tull fan on the pod, I'd love to find out what their favorite record is.
As far as like, you guys, nevermore is a real frequent one we have that conversation about.
Speaking of Jethro Tull, have you heard Opeth's new moniker? I love it. Jethro Tull. That's sweet. I haven't heard that either. That's funny. Because they've got a, what's his name, Ian, whatever, playing for him. He's on it. Yeah, Ian Anderson. He also does spoken word on it, too. All right, who's up? Will, I think. Where are we at? What we're listening to? Yep. All right.
Most of these we already talked about. The new Prenolith album. Love it. Seor. Love it. Scaldor. Absolutely love it. I have been listening to some other stuff I will mention a little bit later. Get a little closer later. Oh, and this is the one I was trying. From Greece, by way of Spain,
I like every time that comes up. I know. I will name the name of the album is amazing. It's Revelations from the Void. The name of the band is Onirofagus. How do you pronounce it? Onirofagus. Onirofagus. Yeah, I talked about it earlier. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, I love that one. Still listening to The Pillar of Light.
And then I mentioned on the last podcast I went back and this is my mea culpa from last year, the mother of graves. That's it. I'm happy to hear you. You are listening to them. They're cool. Which one? Mother of graves. Oh, yeah, that would have been on my list. 100%. Just go back, go back and listen to the other stuff. It's all good. I know, but that costs, it costs money. Yeah. My list is straightforward and short.
things that everybody's mentioned. Straightforward and short. Yep. We know Jay. It's in stark contrast with my nose. Which just slightly off to the right and goes quite a distance out. But the soar, especially at the prompting of John BT really jumping on me and telling me, dude, get to this. I listened to the Dream Theater after I heard some interesting comments from John and Mark Son.
Scalder, of course, getting ready for the interview. Glad to have you guys on. And then just a mix of other stuff that I always listen to. And also, I'm shamelessly still digging around in old country music here and there. And also, oh, also, not listened to, but I mentioned this to you guys, and I'm going to say it again because I want people to watch it, but this Lion, the Family Stone documentary on Hulu is great.
It was so good. I want to say that. If you know anything about Sly and the Family Stone, you know, they were kind of like this great, funky Sesame Street experience, experiment in the late 60s. And the guy was a musical genius. His career ended in a tragic way. He's still alive. But it was just a very, very entertaining music doc. If you don't know who Sly and the Family Stone is, probably the most popular song was Everyday People.
I'm everyday people that song anyway maybe you don't know that but so that's a shout out for
something interesting to watch I also watched another recent um music doc which was on Mark Ball Mark Bolan from uh um T-Rex and I learned a lot about him I didn't know it was cool and it was that was a good doc too cool I know George was thinking of watching the uh the Sly yeah Sly Stone and I really would like to hear what you think about when you watch it it's
He comes off as just this sweet dreamer fairy of a guy.
Sweet. Yeah, I'll let you know.
All right, short list. Not much in the heavy category, so I'll try to keep it short.
A couple of Celtpunk bands. I've been listening to just some Dropkick Murphys, a mix of their catalog.
And an Australian Celtpunk band called The Rumjacks and their sixth album, Dead Anthems.
I mean, if you like that sort of thing, you like it, you know what it is. I went back to and revisited High Spirits Safe on the Other Side, their latest album, which is sort of a hard rock, heavy metal kind of thing. For Brent. I fucking love High Spirits. Yeah. For Brent. That's my guilty pleasure that's not heavy metal. Yeah. Kind of rock and roll. Yeah. It's good. It's catchy. And this one's for Brent. I did listen to the new Night Flight Orchestra.
the moon. I think you'll enjoy it. And then lastly, a band that started out punk and has sort of evolved into prog metal-ish punk, and that's Propagandhi. Oh, yeah. Tell me about that. Yeah, I listened to their last most recent album, which is only from 2017, Victory Lap, before Will scoffs at it. They do a cover of Technocracy from
of Conformity on there. Sorry, why would I scoff at that? I love that album. You like Victory Lap? I don't know whoever is doing stuff in your lap, but Technocracy, love that album. So Propagandhi did a cover of Technocracy. Oh, so that's what you should be, man. Yeah. No, you should enjoy it because they're cool like that.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I don't know. Is it Lady Gaga's like side project or something? No, it's like they used to be more like traditional 90s, 2000s punk. And it's a little more thrashy now. It's interesting. It's very political, but you know, you can take that from their name. But anyway, yeah, I've been listening to that and a lot of other things as well that aren't particularly metal. So there you go.
Let's move on then to the Metal Thunderdome results. Let's just keep this so freaking short. Oh, it is. It will be. This is like J and short and straight. So out in the cold one, right? So last time, like a dick, I put Metallica's Black Album against Judas Priest's Turbo just to fuck with Will and everybody else, but mostly Will.
He's not even there, is he? Fucker. There he is. Oh, God. Here it comes. Okay. Super fuckable. And on the podcast, it was a tie. You know, half and half. But on the website, we put the poll up. And while some people expected a black album sweep, it didn't quite go there. It was 80-20 black albums. You said put the poll up. I'm a little surprised by that.
It's gotta be some people who listen to the podcast who are, you know, priest devotees, you know, above and all else. So. No, it was 80-20 Metallica. Yeah, no, no. I'm surprised they even got 20. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's probably well. I bought 15 VPNs and I voted it all every time. Nice. Yeah, on Facebook, everybody pretty much went Metallica.
Yeah, cautionary tale for our guests is that no one listens to this podcast, and when they do, they have shitty taste in music.
Sorry, Kerry. Sorry, Brent.
I agree with John. Let's get right past this goddamn thing.
Yeah, all right. Let's move on to the top five.
Which, by the way, this was kind of hard.
It was actually very hard.
It was harder than I thought it was going to be when I picked it.
I was like, oh, that'll be easy. Not. Not at all. With that said, I actually feel like... Are you guys talking about sex? What are you guys talking about? No, not yet. That's the next segment. Well, that's supposed to be hard. But it is the top five metal bands that should reunite. And Carrie and Brent, did you guys make a list? And you don't have to. I didn't get my homework assignment, but I can... I expected Will to pass that on, Will. All right. Come to us last.
Yeah, we can do that. Good luck. This is harder than you think. Sorry, that is completely 100% my fault. I did not send them the script. I sent them the Zoom link. Okay. Normally, we would start with you, but because we'll screw it up, we'll come to you last. Dick. And at the very least, you'll get some ideas from us. Yeah. So we want to do all your five at the very end after we're done. Or you just don't have to do any of them. You say, fuck you guys.
We'll fuck up. Hey, hey, hey, our new album is called Papsmear and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's on Bandcamp, Facebook, whatever. Papsmear what? Let's go straight. Let's get started with Marcus. Let's do it. All right, Markisan. Number five. Yeah, I don't expect this reunion to happen and I respect the band's decision to break up, but I do think they should consider reforming. So my number five is Bolt Thrower. Oh, yeah.
So they called it quits in 2016. That was one year after the death of drummer Kitty Kearns. But they didn't want to continue on without him. He joined the band in 94. He was only 17. And he was the drummer for about 20 years. So I understand how integral he was with the band's sound and what he meant to the band personally. But, you know, Bolt Thrower made personnel changes throughout their run, including a time where they replaced Kitty.
for a couple of years. And I think it was 97 to 99. So I feel like enough time has passed that they could start again with a different drummer. And I want this reunion because Volturi was so unique. There have been lots of other bands who have tried to capture that sound, but they always fall short. And I don't know if they could come back and be as much of a death metal force as they were. Because that last record, it was once loyal.
is their best record in my opinion. But it left me wanting more. So all that said, Bolt Thrower is my number five because even if they never do reform, which they probably will not, they have a hefty catalog that I can continue to play forever. So there you go. I posted on our chat in the Land of Bad movie that I was like, man,
What the fuck? That's a bolt thrower song. And it was a bolt thrower song. Scentafath. Scentafath. Scentafath. Yeah. It was part of the soundtrack of the movie Land of Bad. It's on Netflix. Anyway, there are a whole bunch of military guys around a helicopter. A bunch of go kill a bunch of terrorists. And I was like, holy shit. Like, when has bolt thrower ever been part of a soundtrack? Oh, they sort of picked the right band for it. Yeah.
Yeah, it was awesome. Yeah, I absolutely. They got that right. Nailed it. Oh, did you watch that show? Markson, do you watch that show and nailed it? No. Yes, I've seen it. No, I've never even heard of it. The cooking show? Nailed it. No, I've never heard of it. I just said it. It already sounds annoying. Anyway, I digress. Move along. Go. These aren't the droids we're looking for. Move along. Matt? Okay, me.
I would say there's a lot of different angles we could approach this from. I am looking at things that are feasible. I'm looking at things that like if a significant member passed away, then that's kind of off the table. And like we're saying, it's difficult because my number one would have been Black Sabbath. And then come July, we have back to the beginning. So for me, that wipes that out completely. Also, Matt, don't play what you can do with a Ouija board and an amplifier. You know what I mean? Oh, don't tell me about it. Tell me about it.
My quest this year is to mention this band every episode. I did last episode. Mastodon didn't break up, dude. But Fear Factory did. And then they reformed with one member. I want the OG Soul of a New Machine demanufacture era Fear Factory together again. Reunited to feel so good. Very cool. All right. That's good. Nice. John?
Right. I did the same thing. I don't think anyone from any of these bands has passed on. I tried to avoid that because I just unless they were the the remaining members are all the prime movers, you know, but I think I came up with five that worked. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. But then it kind of fell into place. So my number five, I've actually seen someone in this band solo. A lot over the years. I'll be seeing him again.
soon. But I never saw his first band. And as far as I know, they're broken up. Not to ever come back. My number five is Strapping Young Lad. Oh, yeah. I've never seen him. You know, it's always on the table, even though they say they're not going to do it. But Devin can change his mind at any time. But that would be cool to see just them doing Strapping songs. Yeah, I would. All right.
Get big mean gene, which is now just mean gene because he's lost so much weight. Get him back there. Yeah, lean mean gene now. Exactly. Gene Hoagland. Yeah. Yeah. Is he still in testament? As far as I know, I think. Yeah, he is. Anyway, no, I don't think he is. Hold on. Because I remember Alex Skolnick posted something really quick about how nice it was to see.
Oh, weird. I will never forget the night of the Slayer Tour when he played with Testament, and then because Charlie Benate was gone, he played with Anthrax as well. Dude, that was amazing. Anyways. Yeah, he's gone now from Testament. I was drinking at the Rainbow in LA, and he was there sitting literally three feet from me the whole time. I was like, that's Gino.
He was like, dude, I'm sorry, Testament, but
Hannes Grossman's kind of like
encroaching on my territory.
I gotta be free. I gotta move around.
There's a few bands I gotta get lock up before
he gets on.
All right. Cool.
Will?
All right. So I'm going to do
three very quick honorable mentions
and then I'll get to my number
5-1-2. I'm supposed to be last. Yeah, well, I'll just do them quick. Will does what Will wants. Yeah. Motherfuckers. There's a band from Philly called Dominance that pretty much opened for every damn band that ever came to the Trocadero when I was in high school. They were one of the first bands to ever play sound drops during their
songs.
The other one would be S.O.D.
I don't know if they're officially broken out, but man, I would fucking love some more S.O.D.
And then the other third runner up would be Sepuletor's original lineup.
That would be super fun for them to go back to their roots.
Not roots.
Their real roots, because roots fucking sucked.
No blood.
And make an album.
So my actual real number five, I don't know, I think it was Markisan Bolt Thrower. Wow. Already a double in the first round. God damn. Nice. And yeah, Bolt Thrower has been on my mind after I saw the land of bad thing. Good God. What a great fucking band. And God bless Carl and all his new endeavors, but nothing's like Bolt Thrower. Right.
But yeah, I agree. Yeah, I mean, it's good. It's just it's not bull thrower. No, no, I agree. Try to do it. They're just not quite there like chainsword or something, you know, frozen soul. Yeah, they try. It's not the same. Yeah. All right. My number five is probably the least metal thing on my list, but it's roots metal and it's Hollywood vampires. You have a new album out. I don't know. Sorry, Jay. Did they break up? I don't know how I became the receiver of
These mean taunts.
Because you listed Hollywood vampires on a fucking year-end list.
And also because Will's mean.
I think it was just a mean year list, to be fair.
Will's a mean girl.
Yeah, that's the right explanation.
This will never happen in a million years.
And to be honest with you, to be fair,
all of the key players are used up enough
that it wouldn't be that great anyway.
But before Deep Purple wrapped it up,
I'd like to see Richie Blackmore go to that band and them do more or something. So never happen. Never. Not calling it a getting the band back together again because as Matt pointed out, there are dead people in the world and John Lord is one of them. What are you going to do? But Richie would be dead if Ian was in the same room as himself. He would. And I don't think his plane is up to snuff anyway, but it won't happen a million years. But it's it's I never saw Deep Purple with Richie Blackmore. I wish I could have. Yeah.
I never did either. I've seen him a few times.
I was just two years too young when Perfect Strangers came out.
And I lived four hours from St. Louis to Kansas City, so I was highly dependent on my parents to deliver things like that.
That would have been awesome to see him on that.
That would have been great. Those shows were great. There's a lot of footage.
That was my potential first show. I remember seeing the ad for it in the newspaper.
Perfect Strangers?
Perfect Strangers, yeah.
And I was like, hey, mom and dad, can I go to this? And they were like, no. And I was like, okay. And they were still on fire, too. They're both great at that time. Love that album. All right. All right, my number five. We're never going to see this one either. These guys have been broken up for, I don't know, like a week. This is like Oak Pantheon, okay?
What the hell, guys? What the hell? I have expected Markson to put that on his list, but yeah, that's a good thing. We're just on five. You're right. I wanted it in the news, but now I know why George didn't put it in the news. Well, you know, I thought about it as we were coming up to this. I was like, oh, I should have put that in the news, but I didn't. But it wasn't an intentional thing. But yeah, you know, last week, they
Apparently broke up after having put out such a wonderful album last year or the year before, whatever it was, The Absence. All their albums are cool. Yeah. And, you know, it's like, oh, let's just be awesome and break up. Well, at least they put the album out and did a few shows. Unlike some bands, they break up before the album actually drops. And then you're like, oh, look at this band I just discovered. You're like, oh, fuck, they broke up already. And they didn't play much live. So I was glad I got to see him. Two or three shows only, right? Yeah.
It wasn't much yet. Well, they were playing. They actually were playing pretty regularly after that. I think they did a show less than a week before they broke up. I believe their main reason was that Matt never went to see them. Thank you for bringing that up, George. I was trying to dodge that. But I love those guys. And obviously, you know, we've had them on the show and I know Tanner. So, you know, I wish them luck. And, you know, who knows what else they're going to be working on.
I'm sure it'll be great. Yeah. Cool. All right. All right. You guys ready now? Got something for us? We got a few. Between the two of us, we can come up with a handful at least. Yeah. Go for it, man. I mean, I would like to see Old Man's Child get back together. Well, they are. It's happening. Never mind. Next. Well, until they play, we'll keep it in a holding pattern. Yeah.
Yeah, hold that thought for a little bit. It hasn't happened yet. But yeah, they're definitely back together. Because he quit Demu because he wanted to do this. Wow. Did you guys get your wish? Because I just got mine. Me right now. In the black metal family, the one that I wrote down is Windeer, which obviously without Valfar would be very, very difficult. But even if they just had a singer and
Perhaps this is even stupid to say aloud. I feel like his vocals specifically are one that probably somebody can replicate convincingly enough that they could pull it off. I mean, they're... Might I just to that add... His brother, I think, for some shows? Yeah, exactly. I was going to say, right after he died, they did a tribute show with his brother, who sounds literally... Pretty much identical. It was crazy. Do you like rock? That was 2004 that they were doing that tribute show. It is over two decades later now.
So who knows? But that'd be cool just to say that you saw them. Do you like Vryde? I do. Yes. As well, what's the other band? Core Scorpio? I think the keyboard player, is it the keyboard player? I can't remember. Yeah, in Core. And they sound to me more like windier than Vryde does. Vryde I think is like a black and roll. Yeah, they've kind of changed, but I mean some of the earlier stuff was pretty good. Life Hunger was awesome.
I really like that album a lot. I thought it stomped, dude. But it was like, it's very black and roll. Yeah. Where I think like Core Scorpio's album with the fire and shit on the cover is more. I have that right here as well. That's a great record. I fucking love it. It's really good. I do. Really. Nice. That's a fantastic album. The one that I did write down that would be very, very cool and is also possible out of Boston. Victims of.
Actual International Terrorism, unfortunately, the band ISIS, who existed there. If you're unfamiliar with them, they're kind of a host. You guys all know them? Oh, yeah. Okay, well. I'm also a giant, yeah. Mosquito Control and shit like that. It's looking great. Well, you know, and I considered them, and I kind of said no, but only because I like them so much more at the earlier part of the career.
than the later part of the career. And Oceanic, they just couldn't, they never matched that again, in my mind. And I appreciate how they went on, but Oceanic was just, that's almost like an In Godless, This Godless Endeavor record to me. It's just perfect. Oceanic is very good. Their last record's my favorite. Yeah, Raven Radiant is really good too, yeah. Yeah, I'll buy that. I mean, it just, that record to me was such a groundbreaker.
I don't think any of the members of the band are deceased so I could be wrong and they have gotten back together once since then yeah under the name Celestial it was for yeah Caleb Schofield yeah oh yeah that Caleb Schofield they did stuff um Aaron Turner as a Zobro was a fucking awesome too um and uh or
I know not Zobra. Who did that record? Matt, you know what I'm talking about. I do. Crap. Why can't I think of it? They had a record called Zobra and it was Aaron Turner's other big band. It was the band with him and Caleb Schofield. Hold on. Fuck. Is it something old in the title? Old Man Gloom? Yeah. He's got too many bands to keep up with. OMG.
What was it? Old Man Gloom. That was a good band. So many old men. Yeah. Yeah. On this cast, too. No, that's a good call out, Isis. I can go for that. I did write down strapping as well, but then you said it. So plus one to the other. We can repeat ourselves. Yeah. Trust me. There's going to be repeats. Yeah. All right. Back to Markisan. Yeah. We're going to get a repeat right here.
because my number four is Isis. There you go. Yeah, they broke up in 2010 just to add a little bit more. They called it quits because they had, quote, done everything they wanted to do and said everything they wanted to say. So, you know, Wavering Radiant was my favorite record. I loved all of their records, but it came out just like a year before they broke up. It was 2009. So it's one of my favorite post-mobes.
records of all time.
So they went out on a high note, which I like, kind of like Bolt Thrower did, right?
But I always kind of want more, and I've hoped for it.
But Aaron Turner does not like to talk about this band very much, because he was not fond of the way it ended.
And so I don't think chances for a reunion are very good.
Why did it end, and how did it end that was so bad?
Well, they said it happened over a long period of time, and they just had a real difference of opinion on where to go musically. And he actually hates the Wavering Radian album. So he wishes it wasn't, he actually doesn't even like the last two records. He wished they would have ended before that. And so for him, it was kind of painful because they're making these records doing music that he wasn't really as into. Because you, you know,
you have to compromise when you're making those albums. So I think that was the main problem with it, is that they just couldn't come to a common accord on where to go with the band. So you'll forgive me for sort of name dropping here, and I mentioned this probably, it's been years, but I used to correspond with Aaron Turner, and I actually was looking at my phone the other day, and I still have his phone number in my contacts here. Wow. You can't see it, but there he is.
And my little claim to fame with ISIS is after Oceanic came out, I corresponded with him multiple times. And I wrote him this letter one time, an email just to say, here's what I like about your band. And I got pretty deep into it and explained how it always coming up to the edge of the cliff, but didn't usually drop off. But then when it finally did, how great it was and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he wrote me back and he said, and this was when they were making that next record, which was...
And he wrote me back and he said, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that letter. I went in and read it to the guys at practice yesterday for motivation. Nice. Oh, very cool, man. I should have got a credit for Panopticon. Yeah. Or maybe you broke up the band. I don't know. I also might have broken up the band. And also, Isis should be in your top five. Also, this is floating head, Jay. This is floating flannel, Jay. Yeah.
Outranks Floating J. This one is sort of more Vato. Yeah, I was going to say Vato, yeah. Where are we at here? Matt. Are we at me? Okay. I think it's almost every day when I get up and I'm getting ready and I'm looking at myself in the mirror, I think to myself, I want Skid Row to reunite with Sebastian Bach, and I want them to go on tour, and I want them to play only Slave to the Grind in its entirety, the album, not the song, but including the song.
I say that every day.
That's my wish.
You want to be a slave to the skid row.
A lot of money on the table.
If they did that, they'd make some money.
Oh, they would.
But they just do not like Baz.
No, they hate him.
No.
And I mean, I get that they didn't like his role in Gilmore Girls.
I did.
But that's no reason not to get back together.
Honestly.
That would get you blacklisted.
Will. John. John. All right. My number four from the obscure mid-90s prog metal band from Australia that I absolutely love that a few people have heard of, but not enough. I wish this band would get back together, and I wish it would be from this single album they released. They also released two EPs that I didn't particularly care for, but the band is Vaudeville.
It's not spelled like how vaudeville sounds, but
they're an Australian prog metal band
kind of reminiscent of
Queensryche a little bit,
but very spacey sound
with that kind of more guitar
driven prog metal from the mid 90s,
which I actually prefer more than the heavy
keyboard stuff.
Cool.
Right on.
I feel like you've talked about them before,
John.
Yeah, they were a crypt pick.
Yeah, the album to Dimension Logic is fucking awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Hey, before we move on to Will, since he clearly didn't do his homework for Carrie and Brent, after the top five, we're doing what we call Pick from the Crypt, and that is where we mention an album. It doesn't have to be obscure, but it's an opportunity. I think people should be listening too. Yeah, but personally, I like to go for stuff that's old and or obscure.
Actually, I didn't do that this time, but just an FYI. That'll also be our last segment. That's the last piece, yeah. When George says old and obscure, he's talking about his sex life. All right. Now, Will. All right. We're on number four, I guess? Yes. Barishi.
They were my number two several years ago
with their
album Old Smoke.
Fuck, they were
they reminded me a lot of
Inner Arma. Just unbelievably
awesome, but they broke up.
So, my number
four, Barishi.
Yeah, I remember that.
Alright, Jay.
Mine is a repeat
I think it was one of Will's
also rams
and it's Sepultura. Those guys are all alive. They should do it.
They're also leaving a bunch of money on the table and I know
that's not what this is all about but
I think the metal world would
embrace that shit out of that.
Also I think they're kind of getting long so I'm not
entirely sure why they don't
do it but whatever.
It just seems like it makes sense
to me.
And maybe they will at some point.
It doesn't sound like it. I mean they're Sepultura
was doing like a like so long good farewell yeah like a farewell thing and i know andreas was like trying to get them but apparently they're just like nah fuck you yeah it's strange so all right my number four i didn't expect to see this on my list i'm not like a massive fan of this band um but there's been so much talk about it the last few years and it hasn't happened and i'm like you know i would be kind of curious to see what this would sound like
And that would be System of a Down. I'm like, meh. I'd like to hear what that might sound like. Yeah, I'm not. I know Will's over the night going, what the fuck? And I'm like, yeah, I'm not like a huge fan, but I'd be curious to hear. They're touring, so. With him? Yeah, one-off festivals and stuff. Really? And what's his name? I think they've got a few dates scheduled coming up this summer. They usually just do festivals, like big festivals, and it's
Only on the west coast.
Interesting.
I'm a massive system of a downturn, so I would definitely second that.
In fact, that was one that I was like, if I could drum up a few quick bands real quick, I would definitely say I would love to see System come back and do something.
Rick Rubin has a podcast called Tetragrammaton, I think.
And he had both Surge and Darren on there.
And they're both excellent listens. If you've got two hours each of your life to dedicate to listening to these two people talk to Rick Rubin. So they weren't there together. Yeah, no separate. They weren't on there together, but they're even hearing them talk about themselves. They're all buddies, but they're buddies because they don't tour together anymore. Sorry. No, you're fine. Go ahead. Well, simply this I did for the first time in a long time. I read something that
Aaron said recently, which was, well, if we did do something, I would want it to be like this. And it was one of the first kind of like, maybe we'll make a record. I read that same article. I'm like 90% sure. Exactly. Yeah. It was in the last week or two, right? I mean, and I had the good fortune to live on the West Coast for the last 20 years. I'm in Arizona now, but I saw them, what, two years ago now or something. And all the fire was there. It was amazing. It was one of the best live shows I've ever seen. Wow.
It was so good. Get her done. I'd love that. Yeah. All right. Back to Markisan for number three. Number three for me is Lightbearer. They were a post-metal band featuring Vocus Alex CF. And he was in a band called Fall of Ephraim, which I adored. And that band released a trilogy of black and post-hardcore albums.
So when they broke up, Alex started a new band called Lightbearer, and that kind of took a similar approach thematically, and they crafted music, that total story centering on the fall of Lucifer from heaven, his disenchantment with God and his journey to become a dark leader, and it also incorporated elements from his Dark Materials trilogy. So explored all kinds of themes
of free will and atheism, feminism. And over the course of five years, they released two full-length albums, an EP, and a 22-minute song on a split. But then they broke up in 2015 before they could actually complete the whole story of Lucifer that they set out to tell. So even though we got this excellent few albums that felt full, they felt complete,
I just would like to see the band come back and tell the rest of that tale. And they kind of left the door open saying that, you know, maybe they'd find a way to come back to it. But, you know, it's 10 years later and it doesn't seem really likely that that's going to happen. I believe one of their albums was on my top 50 at 50 years and we did. It was. I remember. Would you put that band in the chat? I would love to check that out. I'm a huge fan. Yeah.
It's just a devastating thing to read
I just read that recently
Fall of Ephrapha and Lightbear
Both two of my favorite bands
I'll give you the band camp links
I'm super into that
I literally read
Watership Down for the first time
In the last three months
Did it take you three months?
I loved it
I loved it but
The ending was slightly unsatisfying
to me that has just kind of went into this sort of like and then over the next 20 years blah blah blah blah and i i mean i like there there wasn't a really great release from the tension that i was expecting but i but i enjoyed it very much so take that with a grain of salt it was much more violent than i expected it to be i didn't i thought it was just some sort of straight up children's book or something yeah i read as a kid thinking it was a children's book that's why did you see the movie i'm fucked up yeah it was the movie's also fucked up yeah movie is scary
He's terrifying. It's crazy. Shit'll mill your mind as a child. Where the hell are we here? George. Really? Again? Already? No, no, no. That was Markisan just one. Oh, it's Marcus. Oh, shit. I thought, Jay, you're talking for so long. I thought you did it. I'm sorry. I apologize. When Jay stops talking, George starts talking. We are connected like a human centipede. Yeah. Ooh. Ooh.
My number three, it's already been mentioned. Strangely enough, I think this is really based on principle. I don't know that the band is going to sound any different in their two separate entity. Well, one will sound more like Sepultura than the other, but it would be Sepultura. And again, I, for some reason, just based on the way they've talked about it over the years, I don't see this as anything that's going to happen, but they'd be probably not to. Yeah. Was that three for the Sepultura? Yeah.
honorable mention, but nevertheless. All right. My number three, I'm not going to waste any time. Already been mentioned twice. ISIS. Wow. Definitely. One of the best bands I've ever seen live. Europe, Will. Not Europe, though. We don't want to. Yeah. We've seen live. Yeah, we did. And Chris cried. Number three.
We're at number three? Yeah. Gorefest. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. They are definitely broken up. They had one of my favorite albums of all time, an album called False that came out in the early to mid-90s. I love this album so much. My Marine Corps call sign for a while was Gorefest. So you were in diplomacy.
Yes.
Somebody get garfessed up here.
We need to talk these kids on the way.
Well, you know,
United States Marines have two jobs,
kill people and blow shit up.
Yeah.
So, yeah, yeah.
And so if I did start off this podcast,
you guys did not see this,
but I did have my
sorry, I don't know.
Marine Corps Scouts. Anyway, God, they came out with such an amazing album. And I feel like it was just one album. They had some other stuff after that. Soul Survivor was kind of cool. It was okay. And then they had something 13 and was too long. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, False was such an amazing album. And I've talked about it a couple times on this podcast. I think it was my pick from the Crypt a couple times. But fuck.
Their song, The Glorious Dead, which as a Marine at that time, who was a sniper in the Marine Corps, heavy in the thick of it, all the combat stuff that was going on at the time, like, man, this was my jam. My jam to the point that this is my, I adopted this for my call sign, Gorefest. Nice. Follow that, Jay. Mine is a band that only released one album back in
But at the time it was I loved it was one of my favorite records that year. And they to be fair they kind of did some reunion shows right before the pandemic and then they kind of got shut down after that. But the record was called as heaven turns to ash and the band is called war horse. They're kind of legends in the doom community and I think it's either love you love them or hate them thing but they were really really one of the early deathy doomy sounding. Yeah I remember.
I love that record so I'd love to see them do something good so in reading their Wikipedia page I found out that I guess like the original guitars died and stuff so yes they did okay I actually slated to play at psycho Las Vegas but I think it was when it got canceled because of COVID and so they're like little reading and he kind of fell apart but wars from Massachusetts
Jorge.
All right.
So my number three, uh, I think this would be really cool to see a new album from them.
So this is a band that hasn't released anything since the eighties.
And, uh, they were, you know, considered hair metal, even though maybe slightly a little different.
Um, but they've played a mini shows between now and then, but they don't anymore because they are now officially
And I would love to see a new Twisted Sister album. Like, just to hear what they would do now. Yeah. You know, I'm an old man. Grant me my old music. I love Dee Snider. George, let me ask you this. Dee Snider did an album with Jimmy Josta as the producer. Yeah. Do you want to hear something along those lines?
Or do you want to hear Stay Hungry? I would like to hear Stay Hungry modern steroid version. The Jamie Josta thing, it wasn't terrible. It wasn't great, though, because it really, I think Jamie probably influenced it more than he should have. Yes, he absolutely did. I want to hear Stay Horny. I want to see the hybrid. I want to hear D, and I want J.J. French to take his hat out of his butt.
And I want to hear Twisted Sister going, this is us now, and being heavy. It doesn't have to be thrashy or deathy or anything. Just something with some balls. Yeah. Something halfway between you can't stop rock and roll and stay hungry. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So are they, forgive me because I literally don't know, but like, did Twisted Sister officially break up? Yeah.
They not like each other? No, they just decided to wrap it up. But, and also, by the way, you may remember who filled in after their drummer died. Mike Portnoy. Yeah. Wait, was it Hannes Grossman? No. Yeah, exactly. Hannes Grossman should fill in for Skulder. We've already been there, done that. I know, I know. Get us his phone number. I read an interview with him recently.
It would just be kind of like the Slayer thing, but Dee Snider said the offers are starting to get too big to keep saying no.
Nice.
But I don't want to see them on my show.
To play festivals.
Yeah, I don't care about that.
I mean, I've seen them.
I mean, it's probably been a while, but I've seen them a few times.
I want a new album.
Yeah, I got you.
Yeah, fair enough.
He downplays their legacy too much.
He refers to them as hair metal, and he kind of laughs at them.
He was a good fucking songwriter, dude.
Yeah, I mean, you know,
They were glam in a 70s sense. Who's he? Dee. Dee Snider. He's real self-deprecating about that band. Oh my god. I don't know why. I think about like every now and again on Ozzy's Boneyard, I hear Burn Hell. Like that fucking song was heavy as AF. Yeah. It was a heavy dude. I mean, he doesn't totally dumb plays. Just whenever I see him on like one of these metal documentaries that are like a conglomerate of things,
He sort of acts like, yeah, I was all a little silly and stuff or something. You know what I mean? I mean, it was. It was like a Ziggy Stardust fucking T-Rex, whatever, New York Dolls kind of thing. You know. But heavy. But heavy. Yeah, I mean, you cannot deny. Like, if you take away the imagery of the cover of Stay Hungry, you take away the imagery of the
the Poison Motley Crue, like the four square of dudes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, shout at the devil. It's like the four square of dudes and heavy chick makeup. Yeah. You listen to that album, Stay Hungry, it's heavy as fucking hell. Go back to Under the Blade, man, like Destroyer. Right. So, like, fuck Dee Snider and his opinion.
Even though it is his band. I don't know why he's like that. I don't get it. Yeah. Well, I mean, I kind of get it. Look at the way he looked. Look at the way he dressed. He's probably looking at the visuals more than the songs. Did you watch the documentary well? Because it's so good. Oh, it is. Wait, wait. So what documentary? It's on Netflix. It's called We Are Twisted Fucking Sister. Oh, no, no, no. I have not. Not even a fan and I loved it. Dude, they're
career was over three years after they got signed but they were a band for like 20 years before that and it's all there it's so good and they were such a punky kick-ass hard rock band it's super entertaining they had this weird history twisted sister and zebra have this weird history on long island of playing these huge shows without an album out yet yeah two three two three thousand people yeah a night all week they were selling out the palladium left and right yeah
I'm going to text you so you don't forget. All right. Send me a dick pic too. Carrie already sent me four. I'm on it. Isn't it okay if it's a picture of George? Carrie's like, what? Are you guys talking to me? What happened? What? Who's up? It's me. Sorry. It's still me. Sorry. I wasn't done yet. Sorry, Karen. This is what happens if you guys are not familiar. If you don't remember.
I might have to leave in the middle of this. We started early because you're gone by now. Well, I don't care as much about the opening bands. I really just need to see Snapcase. Okay, well, go. Do your thing. I just wanted to say that a couple years ago, my brother got me a cameo with Dee Snider for my birthday. And I was trying to find it on my phone. Oh, there it is. Hold on. Let me play this.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, George. It's me, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister. Yeah, you know me. And Jeffrey tells me you are turning 51 years old. 51 years old. 51 years old, dude. It's like a third of your life is over. Think about it. Now I know you are a true heavy metal fan to the point that you're actually making guitars with your dad, which is super freaking cool. And I'm here to tell you, my brother, the Fountain of Youth is old school heavy metal rock and roll.
So allow me, George, to wish you a happy 51st birthday from Jeffrey, your brother, in a way that only Dee Snider can. And it goes like this. Hope you have an awesome birthday. A really awesome birthday. Happy 51st birthday, George. And my brother, many, many, many, many more. Yeah. I guarantee you, nobody else on that.
Yeah, puts that kind of energy into this. Yeah. That's intense. All right, anyway, now, yeah, back to you guys. Yeah, and I think Brent said he came up with a new one. I did. While I was looking for a Crypt album, I realized that this band hasn't put out anything since 2016. I looked around, they're not officially on hiatus, but might as well be. Looks like they're down to just their guitarist, vocalist, but the band Pest of Fear, who have not released
anything since 2016 they're kind of like a what'd you call me a pest affair jesus dude
2016 called hope misery death that is so fucking good um it's like a melodic black death metal
definitely like death black yeah and it is criminally unrecognized i think by folks everywhere i know
They're from my neck of the woods. Actually, the singer is in Sunless.
Yeah. I was going to say, I think they stopped the band because the guy was going to go do Sunless, which is kind of like a Gorguts-y style. It's incredibly weird. Like progy, not arrhythmic, but a... Yeah. Just really, really fucked up chords.
It sounds a lot like Gorguts to me. Which is cool. That's fine. I like that stuff too. But yeah, I would agree with Brent. That Pesticure album is really fucking good. Agreed. I feel bad for making you guys listen to us talk about Twisted Sister for 10 minutes. Yeah. That's cool. You're thinking about the real metal. Yeah. You're laid back. Hey, we wear makeup too. Yeah. That's right.
A little disappointed you didn't show up on cast with it on. Thought about it. Ah, nice. We've had one person do that. Just all you gotta do is ask. How old are you? How old are you guys carrying bread? Oh, basically 35. Yeah, 34. Okay, you're still young. I mean, it's a couple more years. You won't have to wear a corpse paint, but no, you got a few years left. Wait, hold on. Are you fucking serious? Are you really 34 and 35? Yeah. Yeah.
He's in his 40s. He's in his early 40s. I will humbly say that I was off by about 10 years. I thought you guys were 10 years younger. Holy crap. Shoot no brother. Yeah. Oh no thank you. Negative. Look at those cataracts that keep you from seeing straight Will. Oh my god. Wait wait wait. It's fantastic. It makes me feel like it's still fully. There he is.
Oh my god, you old fuckers. Jesus Christ.
I have my glasses on.
I can't see so well.
I remember when I used to pick out the white hairs in my beard.
Yeah.
Yeah, just shape.
I've given up.
For a year or so, I've given up.
But if I were closer to the camera, you'd see them.
Okay, did you have another one or should we move on?
Actually, no, Brett, I jumped in when you were talking.
Did you have more to say about Pestaphere?
No, not necessarily. I think they are, you know, they're important to me and to Carrie, I know, because we lived together when that album came out in 2016, and we listened to it a lot. But I feel like more people should know about that album. It's very, very good. If you haven't heard it, I strongly encourage, you know, all of you guys to check it out. All four people listening as well. Hey, there's at least six or seven. Oh, there's seven or eight. Come on. Now you sound like somebody on this podcast. I didn't know they were local to me at the time.
they're opening for I think it was it was who was it 1349 and tombs or flip that and they were the opening act and I didn't I didn't realize that they were a local band and I spun that album and I mean it just immediately pulled me in I could not stop listening to it and so but I also hadn't put two and two together that the singer had kind of gone on and done some list because I'm like I want more I didn't know that either so yeah I I'm gonna try to find a picture Matt and share it with you I'm gonna do my best
But I saw a picture recently of what's the
tombs guy's name again?
Tombs?
Yeah, what's his name?
Mike
Mike
Remember, I got my picture taken with Mike
because I kind of looked like Mike
He looks like Matt now
I don't know why, but trust me
Dude looks like Matt
I'll see if I can find it
Find a picture of me and Mike too
We'll see
All right
So, Carrie?
Yeah?
Or did you
So I know there's been like tributes and stuff and it's kind of a wild one. What if Bathory did something? You got the original guys from Bathory again. Except for Quarthon. Quarthon. You know, that crossed my mind. I was like, nah, he's way too dead. Did we have like ruled out like dead people? No, okay. No, no, no, no, no, no, we didn't. In fact, Will. That'd be interesting. Like, I mean, they've done tribute stuff, but what if you just had like, hey, let's get the actual guys. Yeah. Because as best I recall, when they had a tribute thing done,
It was like a bunch of current musicians
but they weren't members that were playing
like live with Bathory at the time
What's his name? He's a filmmaker now, right?
Jonas something or other
Jonas
Didn't he read the book?
Yeah, I wrote the whole book for
whatever the
I don't know, I never saw that
He did the movie for Lords of Chaos
Dude, that's worth your time
That's a good movie
And I don't blame you if you're like, I don't want to trust me. They did that right. Long, awkward stabbing. Wait, hey, Carrie, didn't you, Brent, and like all of you guys, even with Tommy, didn't you guys all go to Norway and went to the mayhem dungeon or whatever? We did, minus Harry, but yeah. Tommy, Carrie, and I went in 2019. Yeah. That's how I know you guys are true to your craft. You're like, oh, we're going fucking there.
We're going. We did the pilgrimage. Yeah. I've been to the. I've been to the. That's amazing. I've been to the cathedral that was on the cover of Day Mysteries. And. That's also very cool. I've been to the basement myself. Didn't it burn down? No. They talked about blowing it up. That was their thing. Sorry. I'm making a joke. But. The record store that's above it did burn down. Yes. Yeah. So I just wanted to. That's an additional shout out to.
You guys are true to your craft. Oh yeah, we're going. We're mayhem. The mayhem basement. Taking a picture. We're going. Pilgrimage. It's awesome. Trondheim, Norway. Gotta go see the sites, I guess. I thought it was in Trondheim. I thought it was in... That's a record store. It's in Oslo. No, sorry. I'm talking about the cathedral. The cathedral. Nadaros Cathedral is in Trondheim, Norway. I'm sure you guys are familiar
with this term at this point, but there's a thing called blackpacking in Norway. It's just black metal fans backpacking around the country to go to the various sites. So, I mean, you can, like, start in Oslo, do the, you know, do the scenes, here's Helvetta, you know, here's the various sites. You can go see, like, you know, back, blackpack to the stave churches. This one was burned by so-and-so at this fucking whatever. Like, here's the site where it's a little morbid.
This is where fucking Bard Faust stabbed the gay dude. You can go and see the whole shabang. It's a little silly. People do it. I saw the prison in Tromso where Dickhead was. Varg. I think he was even in there when I was there because this was 2008 maybe. I don't know. Anyway. Yeah. Odd.
I guess it's kind of the same mentality well I mean to some degree like I mean on the one hand people do it for the music of course but it also just kind of like you know gives me the same vibe of people who are watching like true crime dramas you know half the time yeah there's a certain morbid fascination I guess I don't know all right my turn yep okay so this band
And has a legendary cult status because they were only together for six weeks. Weird. And they played two gigs and recorded a demo and an album titled, it's Norwegian, so I'm going to do this really bad, Damid Agsnot. And it's one of my all-time favorite Death Doom records. My number two for this top five is Thor's Hammer. I don't know if we've ever talked about this band.
But this band formed in Seattle back in the winter of 94. And they created this slow, heavy, haunting sound that featured a 17-year-old female exchange student from Norway named Runhild Gammeslater as the vocalist and lyricist. And she has one of the most brutal growls I've ever heard in metal and also a gorgeous singing voice. And she does all of that in Norwegian.
But after those six weeks together, she returned to Norway, and that was it for Thor's Hammer. So since then, the album has been re-released, and they've reunited a couple times to play together. In 2009, they played at the Supersonic Festival in Birmingham. Sorry, I don't mean to laugh. I apologize. But I see, Matt, you adjusted your hood to go with the Mike Hill photo. For a proper reflection. Sorry.
at the request of Tom G. Warrior. So there was a 2009 interview with Rock on Rollo Magazine, and the band said they might make new music in the future, but that hasn't happened. So it's kind of crazy to me that this band burned so brightly for that short, very short window, and we never got more. So I would like to see what heights they could climb in metal if they
ever got back together again but it's been a long time so i recently got the record on lonely time to be honest with you it's been a long time since they rock and roll yeah yeah all right where are we at matt yeah yes uh i already mentioned strapping on lead all right they're racking them up john uh so my next one number
is ISIS adjacent.
I don't think they've officially broken up.
They're not necessarily full on metal,
but they got enough metal on them.
And that is red sparrows.
I'd love for them to come back.
Nice.
We just talked about them on.
Two words.
Will?
The other podcast.
Yeah.
All right, Will.
Sorry.
We got number two.
C.
Nuclear assault.
Nuclear assault.
No.
No.
Sorry, guys.
Nuclear Assault.
Yeah.
Nice.
Yeah.
I would love, and I have to admit, obviously, Daniel Lilliker has a soft spot in most of our hearts, having him spend so much time with us and stuff.
But their last, they released kind of like an EP, Third World Genocide, that was not that great.
No.
But I just wish they would get back to like
something awesome. Nuclear Assault.
Didn't he just... Danny just said he's done touring now, right?
Yeah, he's done. And I would love... On my list was also
S.O.D., Brutal Truth.
I would just love to see more bands
with Danny because I love Brutal Truth.
I absolutely fucking love their early albums.
I would love to see S.O.D.
It was cool that he just did the anthrax tour. That was kind of neat. Yeah. Yeah. That was great. He's the one who came up with the name anthrax. He was like the original, original member. Yeah. And they're like, oh, you're too tall. Get the fuck out. Was that really what it was? It was tall. That's kind of what I heard. Yeah. That's bullshit. Yeah. All right. My number two is even though one of the members of this band is doing
as a solo artist and as a very close personal friend of Matt and myself, it still would be cool. And I like the solo stuff a lot, but it would still be cool if Immortal did another record or two. I'd like to see them get back together. Especially if they were kind of, they were going, you know, All Show Fall was going in such a cool direction. I think Bath's solo records have been great, up to and including the last one, which was probably my favorite. So.
And when we talked to him in our becoming of best friends, we did kind of get that vibe from him that he would be open to it. But, you know, he wasn't going to he wasn't going to like start that conversation. Did this all happen at Psycho Los Vegas? Yeah. Okay. We don't want to talk about that, Will, but yeah. No, he was just so nice to us. We went and talked to him and he literally was opened his guitar case and gave us free CDs. I still have the unopened CD on our bookshelf here. So good.
Yeah.
Sergei stole mine.
Son of a bitch.
Kinda.
George.
My number two is actually,
it's actually a metal band.
Hey.
Oh,
good job,
George.
Cathedral.
Oh,
okay.
Yeah.
Is there any depth in that group?
Is it,
is everybody still alive?
Yeah.
As far as I know.
Okay.
As long as you got lead Dorian,
that's all you need.
Yeah.
And what's the guitarist's name too?
I can't remember.
I'll remember.
I think he's written a lot of the music. But yeah, that'd be cool. It'd be cool to have a new Cathedral album. Fuck yeah. Yeah. All right, let's wrap this up a bit. Well, we still have to hear number two from Brent and Carrie. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, sorry. If they have a number two. I'm out. You're out. I'm out. I asked you. All right. We'll roll through these last five. We'll do pick from the crypt and we'll call it a day. Let's go.
Back to Markisan then.
Yeah, well, this is one that they might know because it's one of my, this band did one of my all-time favorite black metal albums.
It's a weakling.
Nice.
They broke up in 99 before their one album, Dead as Dreams, even got released in 2000.
So that album has been pretty universally heralded as one of the best black metal albums ever.
and it had a huge influence on u.s black metal in particular read dan lake's book i was just i was gonna name drop that so his usbm a revolution of identity in american black metal i see that book uh right there next to you yeah it's right here left yeah because i wanted to get the quote so cool he wrote in it hi dan he wrote it it is hard to overstate weakling's importance to the evolution of black metal into an art form worthy
of academic study.
So, I mean, this is a story.
I have a copy too.
It's just not in front of me.
Mine's dusty.
So it's a story of a band that achieved something remarkable that first time out, but they just never got to enjoy it as a band.
And they just left so much unfulfilled potential in the void.
And, you know, there's not a lot of information on this band.
The Founder of it, and the guitarist, vocalist, John Gossard, he doesn't talk about it. And Dan's book, the very beginning of the chapter, he tries to interview him, and he says, if there is anything I hate more than books about black metal, it is books about American black metal. But we do know that he left the band because he was dissatisfied with the dedication of the other members. And he went on to form a similarly short-lived funeral doom band.
which is also one of my favorite bands, Asunder. And that would be my first honorable mention, number six on this list. But yeah, I absolutely love Weakling. And like Dan said, you can't, their importance to black metal is just huge. It's one of my most played albums ever. And so after 25 years now, because that was 2000 that record came out, it would be a bucket type event for me to see the band.
and do a run of Dead is Dream shows where they perform the complete album. It would be great if they did more music, but I would just love to see that in particular, especially this year. I met a few of those guys. When I lived in San Francisco, I think there was a record store there. I mean, I know there were the records store there. Aquarius. Huh? Aquarius. Aquarius, yeah. And they used to do these. And I think they were involved in the release of the album. And they did these amazing long description.
And every record in the whole fucking shop was this handwritten description of the record. And so that was where I discovered it. And I was talking to some about it. And I was like, yeah. And they were like, yeah, he's working at the register right now. You know, one of the guys from Weakling and stuff were all involved. So anyway, so I had a good, I was actually introduced to that record by Aquarius. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I wish they were still around. Yeah. I was just looking it up to see if they weren't. And it is a shame they weren't. It was one of the coolest record stores I've ever been to. Yeah.
Matt.
My number one, I'm surprised it didn't come up.
The band is Iz Iz.
1515.
1515.
No, Isis.
I think we've talked about
bands we want to get together.
I think, and actually no, it was when we did the decibel thing,
bands we'd want to play.
I think Isis was one of mine playing.
That's a lot for Isis.
Whichever one.
But anyways, I'm blabbing. Isis, my number one. Right on. Nice. My number one, let's stick to the black metal theme, but they're not a black metal band, but they are from Norway, and it has been 25 years since their album dropped. I was fortunate enough to see them actually play one US show, and it is by far the most technical band I've ever seen play.
And that is Spiral Architect. I would kill to see those guys again. How did you ever think of that? Oh, you fucking bastard. I should have thought of that. Yeah. You can still jump on the bandwagon. You got an empty slot. Yeah. I reiterate, Spiral Architect. Literally, like, it was at Prog Power 2, and most people just didn't get it because they didn't move. They're like, they just stood there. I was like, do you realize what they're doing? Because they're playing the hardest shit you've ever heard in your life. Have you ever heard a bass player make his bass sound?
It's so good. They were insane. They came sort of close with
Terra Odeon, but it's not the same.
I hardly agree.
Will.
Mine is not going to be very obvious, but it may be
controversial.
Not sure how this fits into the whole
how we can pick this, but Slayer. I would love to just see Slayer. Okay, well, I guess I'm done then. No, you're good. That was my boner because you said Slayer. I think, I was thinking the other day, and I know we all hate this organization, but how come they're not in the fucking Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Yeah. It's because Slayer and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's because it's the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I know, you're right, and I don't give a fuck. Iron Maiden's not in it. Come on. No, you're right. Dude, did you see you just real quick, not to ramp
But do you see he was finally on there? Bad company finally got nominated. I'm like, what? Whether you like him or not, they're not in? But Paul, he must be in there for something, right? If he is, if he's in there, I don't think Free's in there. Maybe not. Back to Slayer, Will. Slayer, Will. I mean, I know Jeff Hanneman's dead, but I would love to see Slayer with Lombardo in it. Yeah. And Gary
Harry Holt, after a while, it was a little bit rough when he first started. Because you cannot, it is nearly impossible to replace Hanneman. Yeah. He was a good choice to do it, though. He was, but if you watch, if you were, if you went to some of the first Slayer shows when he first, when Holt first filled in, it was not good. It's because he headbanged a little bit too much. I mean, he's pretty sloppy. I agree. No, I mean, just,
I mean,
I mean,
Hadman was probably drunk out of his mind,
but he still played it way better than Hanman,
like way better than Holt.
Yeah.
But then I think that like the second or third time that I saw him,
like Holt,
like came around and he was,
he played better,
but I would love to see a new Slayer album,
but I want Lombardo.
I don't want Bo Staff or Dietz or anything like Lombardo.
That's it. Yeah. That's all I want. Well, the best 2000, the best post 2000 albums are the ones he came back for. So. Right. Exactly. So. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's my, that's my number one. Okay. My number one, everybody's still alive though. I think the drummer has some, whatever Tony I owe me had some blood cancer thing, but they also all fucking hate each other, but they also all don't realize, and I'm sorry, I keep making it about money, but this is people,
would freak out if these guys did a tour together. And I think they'd sell out. Anyway, Venom. I knew it was going to be Venom. Get back together with the original members. Cronus, Mantis, and Abaddon. Come out. Don't do anything from previous to At War with Satan. I'd go a lot of miles to see that. I thought about that. Having seen Venom incorporated with Mantis and Abaddon was a pretty close facsimile. And they only did stuff off the first
three records was great but there's only one cronus so yeah oh by the way recently on facebook like and i looked and it was said 36 weeks ago i liked for some reason venom posted um so they posted something from metal hammer magazine most important satanic records and of course number one was welcome to hell and that was like and i wrote under it like correct or something like that 36 weeks 36 weeks later cronus loved my answer and i was like cronus knows i'm alive
Nice.
My funny story of Kronos pissing me off, actually.
I'm interested.
I mean, it was just me at a concert and he saying stuff.
Him saying stuff.
Was he like, Skaldur sucks a dick?
No, I was like, probably so...
Well, basically, yeah.
Kind of, actually.
How rude.
Maybe a year or two after...
So the first time that I went to Inferno was with Brent and Tommy, our then drummer. So I kept going back. I wound up dating a girl from there. So I was going back every generally every year and Venom was playing headlining. Dude gets on stage and you know, they're British. So he's his his whole like opening spiel to the to the crowd is, oh, it feels good to be back in Scandinavia where they understand what black metal is.
Not like those fucking Americans
And like rock is wild
And I was like really drunk at the time
So I just like fucking lost it
Because I
I was very mad
I was extremely angry
So I just like
I was like up on some balcony
And I'm just like throwing middle fingers
And just like fucking yelling
My girlfriend's like
Okay we're leaving
Like yeah damn right we're leaving
Like fuck this
I'm not watching Venom
Like I used to like Venom
Fuck this guy
But then he comes to MDF
and plays and we should have booed him. Well, but in both instances, we're not talking about the real Venom. We're talking about the real Cronus. No, but it was Cronus. Yeah, it was Cronus. Yeah, Cronus wasn't Venom. There's also another version of Venom. Venom Incorporated, which was the other two guys. By the way, the other two guys are done with Venom Incorporated now, so the only member who was even associated with Venom in Venom Incorporated is now Tony Dolan, who replaced Cronus in the years when nobody cared about Venom. It's a whole weird...
Now there's Venom AD.
There's sure to be.
I mean.
Oh boy.
Followed by Venom X.
And Venom STD.
Right.
I do wish they'd come back.
But when I get there.
All right.
My number one's not a metal band, but it is metal adjacent.
They have been playing shows, apparently.
Watch.
No.
Oh damn.
They have been playing shows together, but they have not recorded anything together. And that is what I would like to see the Misfits do. Yeah. Is a Misfits album with like, I don't know, something resembling modern, you know, production values that doesn't sound like it was recorded in Glenn Danzig's ass. Something tells me they could do it right, George. Even though I don't care about that in terms of old Misfits material. It sounds like shit, but it sounds great.
But yeah, I would love, and I just saw something in the news the other day that he said he didn't know if he was even going to record anything ever again, and like something about not touring or whatever, fine. But still, I would love to see a Misfits album with Glenn. Yeah, I'd buy into that. Yeah, I had the good fortune to see one of those reunion shows, and the thing that impressed me about it the most out of many great things, because it was just a good show, was that they didn't have a set list.
They were just like, okay, somebody would shout something out and they'd play it. They were just prepared to play any fucking Misfit song. Nice. Or at least they made it look that way. Yeah, that's true. Maybe they were just waiting for the one they practiced. Somebody shout it out. All right. All right. Oh, Rocket from the Crypt.
from your pocket. Pick from the grip. I'm going to give mine and then I'm going to, I think I'm going to take off. Get out of here. Get out of here. Yeah. Well, this is a surprising one for me, but I picked a Trivium Ascendancy on Roadrunner Records. So I've been listening to this album because it's celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. And it, and it really reminds me that old metalcore is actually pretty great. So, you know, before that genre,
It became like mostly for, I don't know, weight crushing muscle heads. It really offered a dynamic bridge between two forms of music that I liked because at the same time that I was getting into it, hardcore, post-hardcore emo and then metal. So, you know, the sweet spot for me for metalcore was like 90s to early 2000s with like Archangel, Converge, Vision of Disorder, Earth Crisis.
But Trivium, I think, tapped into that sound perfectly a few years after that peak of it with this record. So we don't really talk that much about the style of music that much. But actually, when we were chatting about Metallica on the last cast, it got me thinking about bands and albums that put out stuff that I really liked years ago. But my interest in that style went by the wayside, or those bands went by the wayside.
So Trivia made a good comeback for me with their last record
in The Court of the Dragon. I like that record a lot. So we'll see if they can continue that. But
their early work will always have this kind of important place, like a signpost on that metal highway for me. So it's a really good record.
I saw them before Ascendancy came out. It was after Ember to Inferno. So it had to be like 2004.
Nobody knew who the hell they were. They were like an opening band for, I don't even remember who, what show it was. Um, it was at the record in Towson, Maryland and a small ass fucking room and Matt Heafy little short haired kid with, you know, fucking energy for days was just hopping up and down, slamming that guitar. And I fucking, I was like, Oh my God, these guys are amazing. And I went and bought the Ember Inferno CD from the merch booth. And,
I loved them for a couple of years until I didn't.
Yeah, yeah. And that's happened with a lot of bands. But especially on this album, I think, you know, the playing's phenomenal. I mean, the songs are incredibly memorable, thrashy. They're complex. The guitar work is phenomenal. And it's still, listen to it now, it still sounds really compelling and relevant two decades later to me. And that's pretty cool. So it's been fun to go back and revisit.
this album, but also the bands from that era who I haven't really kept up with, I guess.
Yeah.
All right. Well, I'm taking off. I'm going to go to the show.
Enjoy your show.
Awesome seeing you guys. Thanks for talking about Scalder.
Thank you so much for hosting us, man. We appreciate it.
Awesome record.
Thanks, Mark.
You guys are doing amazing.
All right, man.
Thanks, brother.
Have fun.
Sweet.
All right.
Will do.
All right.
Brent Carey, you guys want to go now or you want to go at the end again?
We can go now. All right. Do it.
Lost from the past.
Yeah, mine will be a, as we've talked about it so much, a tribute to our trip in Norway. To give a little bit of context, Carrie and I had never heard this song, but we made some fast friends with some folks at the Inferno Festival and ended up being invited back to their place just on the outskirts of Oslo.
And there were so many of us. I think it was something like 13. Just dudes all clad in black. Please let it be 13. That's perfect. Probably. It either needs to be 13 or 666 of you. I'll take you. But all these, you know, big, scary metalheads that were all cuddly teddy bears of human beings. We had too many people for the average Uber or taxi. So we called a party bus, essentially, to come pick us up.
take us outside the city. And the. The bus driver immediately knew what was up once we got in. I don't remember. What did he start playing? Like Def Leppard or something silly. But it was like that into like. Well, yeah, yeah. But then one of the guys that we were with was like, give me the ox cord, you know, type situation. And he put on Angel Witch. Angel Witch by Angel Witch. From the album.
New Wave of British heavy metal. Yeah. And that just became like the anthem of that entire trip for us. Fucking love that track. The rest of the album is just okay. And that band has kind of been popping up, having a little renaissance recently. I see them on festival bills, which, you know, good for them making a few bucks in their golden years. But yeah, that's my From the Crypt pick. Nice. Good pick. All From the Crypt.
to just tie along with that actually the group of people that we met that night turns out are also in a black metal band obviously they're in Norway and they're metalheads so we wound up hanging out with these guys I mean they were just basically throwing like an inferno after party and then like an after after party we wound up spending the night at one of the guys houses they were just super generous to us the whole night I mean we're just random Americans
And they're like, you guys don't seem like assholes. And we're like, yeah, cool. Okay. Kind of just followed along with them the whole life. They were very... Is that because they just assume that all Americans are assholes? Because most Europeans think that. Yeah. Well, and maybe that's why they were surprised. And they were like, you know, I guess you guys aren't all... I mean, because that's... I think that's generally true. Like, if you go overseas and you don't just do the normal, like, I'm an American asshole thing, which you're probably not going to do because you're not an idiot.
you're probably fine and then you'll probably just meet cool people that are like maybe I do want to be your friend in either case so it turns out these guys were in a black metal band called Natas which if you do the really creative backwards trick turns out it spells Satan but backwards whoa it's pretty obvious like they were like so we're like so what's behind your band name Natas and they're just like no I got nothing they're like
it backwards and we're like oh you fucks you thought of that way too soon um but yeah uh actually check it out they have a new single out um and they do uh it's it's like a very like marchy like methodical like pace it's it's kind of slow it's very norwegian um i actually like it i think it's cool um yeah check them out not us right on are they on band camp uh it's on youtube
for sure. I don't know if it's on Bandcamp or not. YouTube is for suckers who don't pay for music. So is Spotify? We haven't informed Will that the internet has a lot more on it yet. No, I, like, listen, I'm diehard. If I like something, I'm going to pay for your music. As far as Bandcamp, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, like, I actually paid for this. Their old stuff is on Bandcamp. I don't know if
I actually bought their albums.
What a chump.
I can't fall for anything.
Are we at Matt?
Let's talk about Crips.
I take Crips very seriously.
I think Crips are very important.
But what supersedes Crips
are contracts.
And when you have a contractual
obligation
to make an album, your pick of the crypt, which we all know is really our album of the episode. And someone mentions the band Mastodon and their album Leviathan. Thank you, Brent. That becomes my pick of the album of the episode that is living in the crypt. Thank you. You know, what's funny is I feel like every time I go and think about my pick for the crypt,
I think I already did that. Pretty sure, Matt, that's your pick of the Crypt every single time. It is. It's contractual. It's my first one. If it gets mentioned, he has to. I have to do it. It's a contract. I appreciate it and I love it because that is an amazing album. I just wish they put out another amazing album. Yeah, another amazing album. I heard they were spending the spring writing and I didn't get excited at all. You want to hear another pick from the Crypt?
Jay is my bitch.
Oh, you know what? That should have been one of our things. Like, perihelium ship.
Yeah. They're working on stuff.
Are they working on something?
Yeah, I think so.
Oh, okay.
I would love it.
But they have to bring Yanni back.
As long as they have Melitone, Yanni, and...
Yanni's not in the band anymore.
He's out there, yeah.
No, so now it counts for Will's List because we need to bring Yanni back.
Yeah.
Do you have the other Yanni one?
Yeah.
George, do you have the other Yanni quote? Jerking the penis. He's so quick on that. He's like, it was so great from the Howard Sterns. I got it right here. Of course, it's never far from my hand. Jay is my bitch. Jerking the penis. It's your turn, Will. It's John's turn, Will. Yeah. It's Will's turn, John. Thank you, George. It's Jay's turn, Jay. Staying in the 90s and the
My pick is a band out of Columbus, Ohio, which is around for a few years in the late 90s.
Columbus is gone?
No, the band is.
Sorry, that's too late for jokes. I apologize, John.
It depends on what Columbus you're talking about.
Fair enough.
Progressive kind of US power metal, neoclassical metal sound.
The band is Magna 2-9, and the album is called Chaos to Control.
It came out in 98.
Just listened to it again today.
It's a killer kind of, again, guitar-driven frog metal sound from the 90s. Remind me again why we think Matt's the one who makes up bands. Oh, no. This band, they're all pretty well-known musicians. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, the bass player, Kevin Crone, or Kevin Cowan or whatever, he plays with, I'm not a fan of hers, but Tarja, is that how you say her name? Yeah. From Nightwish? Nightwish, yeah. That's her bass player.
The singer Corey Brown's from Psycho Drama, which was another kind of semi-known band in the 90s. Also, good call out on Kevin Cronin there. Don't stop. Or wait, is that Speedwagon? That's Journey. But I have to tell you, I heard an REO Speedwagon song on the radio the other day. I apologize for this. And I was like, man, that Kevin Cronin. Awkward. He's a good singer. He was, or is, I guess. He is, yeah. I feel like we already talked about this, but Slayer.
Oh, well, you got to pick a record. Uh, anything with Lombardo still with King and Araya. You know, we were trying to figure out what Gene Hoagland was doing or is doing. I looked at his Wikipedia page and I was looking at his discography and performances and all that stuff. And he sings background on evil has no boundaries on show no mercy. Hmm. Really? She's listed as singing background vocals on there.
That's what I said.
Yeah, I feel like Slayer has never been the same.
Like the few albums they put out with.
What's the guy's name?
The drummer.
Yeah, Paul Bostoff.
They just were never the same.
He's kind of a line-of-numbers guy.
He's good, but he's just he's not creative like Dave was.
Yeah, like Dave was just Dave made Slayer.
Him and Hanneman. If I had to pick the two most important people
in Slayer, Dave Lombardo
and Jeff Hanneman.
By far. And they're gone.
Yeah, they're not. So Slayer
is my pick.
I know we're not going to get Jeff back, but
boy, wouldn't
it be great
if Slayer decided, like, okay,
we're going to put out a new album
and we're just going to
let Dave back in the band
and
I don't know if Gary Holt can write the riffs. Somebody just needs to fill in for Jeff. And I feel like Jeff is irreplaceable. I mean, you think about all the iconic songs, the most iconic songs of Slayers ever made. It's all Jeff. I mean, Carrie is like a sideshow. He's a sideshow with a gigantic ego. That's true. He kind of pisses me off.
He kind of reminds me of as much of a Slayer fan I am. He kind of reminds me of Phil Enselmo. He's like this fucking gigantic egomaniac where I'm like, I'm kind of done with you guys. The last couple interviews I read with him, he seemed a little more humble to me. But I'm sure he's still a big NASCAR World Wrestling Federation douchebag. With that, I'm going to transfer to my number one. Or not my number one, but my pick from the Crypt.
In honor of Messiah getting back together with Candlemas for a one-off performance. Sorry, are we doing our pick from the crib? Yes. Oh, sorry. Mine was Suicidal Tendencies, How I Laughed Tomorrow. Oh, yeah. That's what we were doing. Oh, my God. Anyway, Suicidal Tendencies, How I Laughed Tomorrow if I Can't Eat a Smile Today. Sir, yes, sir! Yeah. Sorry. No, not at all. I was like, I thought I already talked about this. What the hell am I talking about? Yeah, what am I talking about? Well, sweetie, do you know where to go?
you are right now okay um my number or my pick from the crypt is uh in honor of messiah doing a one-off performance with candle mass i'm gonna pick my favorite non-messiah candle mass record and suggest king of the gray islands to people it's such a good heavy um doom resurgent album it's produced heavy the riffs are huge first record with robert low i still put that on from time to time king of the gray islands by candle mass
Nice. Nice. So, much like Matt, I am contractually obligated to mention this if it's mentioned. No, I'm not. But as coincidence would have it, it was mentioned. And I'm going with Old Man's Child, born of the flickering from 1996. Okay. With an aside to the album after that, The Pagan Prosperity from 1997.
Two very different albums. Born of the Flickering, much more raw and freaking awesome. But The Pagan Prosperity has Millennium King with those freaking awesome clean vocals that just make your nipples go bing. So I'm going to talk about both of those. And yeah, supposedly Calder is working on new music. So more to come on that, I guess. Very exciting.
All right, we are here. We are at the end. My beautiful friend. This is the time where we look at our guests and say thanks for your patience, but also for sharing your time with us. Yep, very much. Our interest in you and your record is legitimate. Jay, are they your favorite guests? You know what, Will? I think I'm going to have to say they are. Until next time. Yes.
Same as for saying at the end of every episode. You guys are my favorite people we ever had on. So it would be wrong of me not to tell you that. And you are. No, you guys are actually obligated to talk to. So thanks for. Of course. Thank you, guys. This is a ton of fun. Thank you. Yeah. Carrie and Brent, obviously. Definitely awesome seeing you guys. Yeah. Like, I have a personal connection with both you guys. This was amazing. And I would say this, like, we would not have you on if you're
was not amazing. True. There's a lot of local bands in the DC area that I know very, very well where I'm like, yeah, we're not going to have them on. You've been on twice now. Yeah. And like, you guys are doing something special. You guys are, you're killing it. And I love it. I absolutely love it. And I love, I love having a personal connection with you guys. I love having the personal connection with you guys where it's not biased. Like this is like, holy shit. I, this is like,
is amazing. What they're doing is amazing.
And I know those guys. It's not that I know those guys. Oh, I'll just put them on.
But like, we, we actually don't do that very often. Like, obviously, like, you know, we're George, John, Jay, Marcus. Like, we know people in all these different cities and stuff.
Matt doesn't know anybody.
Yeah.
We bring on what we like.
That is true. Matt knows no one.
I barely know myself.
My point being is we would not have you on
if we did not feel as though
what you guys are putting out
was fucking amazing.
Though that is an idea we did bring up today
is we could bring people on
and just shit all over.
That we don't like, yeah.
Yeah.
I like that idea.
But we haven't done that yet,
so you're still good.
Yeah.
I mean, don't blame me
if your podcast tanks after that,
but like, that's a cool idea.
We can only go up.
Trust me.
No, you can't tank
what's already at the bottom of the ocean.
We all talk about us a lot worse than we actually are. Come on. But you guys are, what you guys are, and this is for, to add to us, you're a world-class band. You're a band that people will hear, and it doesn't have anything to do with locality, whatever. You're out there. You can totally play Switzerland. Yeah. So, thanks. Thanks, guys. Well, thank you guys. It really does mean a lot. It works with you. That says everything. That does obviously really mean a lot. I know you guys have been around the block. I've talked to so many people. It's, I mean, that means a ton.
that you say that.
And we really appreciate you guys taking the time to talk to us.
So thank you.
Anytime.
We'll have you on for the next one too.
Yeah.
Can't wait to hear what comes next.
Yeah.
We're looking forward to it.
Yeah.
Unless you pull a boner and then.
Yeah.
But then.
Yeah.
Will doesn't like it.
You're screwed.
So sorry.
No saxophone.
No kids singing.
Oh my God.
Make that your lead single.
No.
Unforgiven.
Here comes our saxophone and child vocals album.
Yeah.
I apologize for Will. This is like a make a wish type thing with him. We just let him be honest. Awesome. Wouldn't have it any other way. You gotta feel bad for the guy. He's got a third leg. It's tough. He has a hard time. It's rough out there. It's tough. All right, guys. I love it. Seriously. Thank you for telling you.
Thank you guys. Love you guys as well. Thank you. Bye bye. Next time. Later.
You're not too