I need new music ...

For a few weeks now I've been feeling like I want some new music, but I don't know what kind I'm after. About ten minutes ago I tried out some Disturbed for like the fifth time in my life, but I don't like 'em. Now I'm sitting with Spotify, trying to find some bands but only find boring ones ... So if anyone's got a recommendation, please share it with me. See my taste at Last.fm. My username there is Idiots-Rule.

Death Metal and Prison Break

I'm currently watching some old Prison Break. I liked that show, but I got quite annoyed from season two already, until it (then) finally ended. Now I miss it and although it was good storywise and for the viewers patience that it ended after a fourth season, I kinda wish now that there had been at least a fifth as well. So now I'm just rewatching it over and over once a year maybe.

In between watching PB episodes I'm cranking some good, old, Swedish death metal today. On the menu are firstly Dismember, my favorite, then my seconds fave Entombed. I'm also going through some Necronaut, Grave and earlier some American acts like Obituary. One American DM band I could particularly recommend is Nocturnus. A Tampa (not too surprised about that huh?) based band whose drummer, Mike Browning, was in Morbid Angel before their debut "Altars Of Madness". Now the special thing about Nocturnus is that they incorporated keyboards into their music. They were heavily influenced by sci-fi themes and their music is like Tampa death combined with the Blade Runner soundtrack, for those of you who know it. If not, then check it out - it's awesome, and check out Nocturnus as well !!

Music review: Life of Agony - River Runs Red

This here, metalheads ... is one of the most aggressive, painful and true albums ever recorded. Period. To me this album sure has meant more than a lot. Dealing with many tough subjects, I recognize much of it myself from growing up. Not only is the messages deep, but the music as well. The musical style on this album is a crossover of hardcore-punk and heavy / thrash metal. Straight New York City scene and I love music from NYC! I prefer most bands from the east coast before the west coast acts. That's simply because the music's darker, have better messages than just "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll", and the music is also usually better overall in my opinion. Life of Agony's debut ain't no exception.

Starting off as young teens around '89 in Brooklyn, Life of Agony were made up of Keith Caputo (vox), Joey Z (guitar), Alan Robert (bass) and Eric Chan (drums). They were, as I've understood it all, very active in the underground / demo scene. I've heard some of their demos and they're very raw, energetic and with lots of feeling. These demos were VERY influenced by hardcore-punk as well, much more than the actual debut album, which also only includes a few tracks from these demos. But this wasn't how I discovered the band anyway.

Some years ago, 2008 I imagine, I searched through YouTube for some kick-ass metal from the early 90's (the late 90's was too much nu metal crap) and I stumbled upon these guys. It was the music video for "This Time" that I first saw and my first reactions were, 1. the music is heavy, groovy and really good. 2. the singer looks like Chris Cornell?? Well, I don't know if I'd say that today, but that was what I was thinking back then at least. Also, my love for the band has grown from "really good" to "totally awesome" over these past three years. Anyway, I was hooked with that video, bought the album off a Swedish auction site for maybe three or four bucks and played it many times over and over. This album could be viewed as a concept album. It's about a dude and a week of his life, so the album has these "day-tracks" in which he gets home, learns that he's failing school, his girlfriend's dumped him, etc. I think that's kinda cool. It sure gives the album a whole nuther athmosphere than if the tracks just flowed on.

I didn't realize it at the time due to not listening to them, but Life of Agony, on this album at least, sounds quite a lot like early Type O Negative here. This album is in fact also produced by TON's keyboardist Josh Silver, so that makes it even sound like a TON album productionwise. I also discovered later that Sal Abruscato, the drummer for this album and Eric Chan's replacement, was in TON before LOA and played drums on their first three albums. His last TON album was their break-through, platinum-selling album "Bloody Kisses", on which Keith Caputo apparently did some backing vocals. Sal's depart from TON is said to have been because he didn't want to tour so intensely or something, so he joined LOA and recorded this album in the same year (1993).

Musically this album is mostly mid- to up-tempo with groovy riffs and some hardcore parts here and there. Occassionally some of the songs have calmer parts, like the breakdown in the middle of "Bad Seed", which just is simply beautiful and touching. I ain't too much into hardcore-punk so I can't really compare too much with other bands, but think of their style as a mix between Cro-Mags* (which I like and know pretty good), Pantera, Type O Negative*, and thrash acts like Metallica and Anthrax* (*all NYC bands, afterall). Keith's singing style on this album is unique to how he sang on later albums. Here it sounds like a mix of Glenn Danzig and Chris Cornell to me. "Method Of Groove" is probably the most hardcore-influenced tune on the record. Joey Z and Alan Robert shares singing duties during the verses while Keith takes the chorus, and during the verse it sounds very much like the way they sing in hardcore-punk bands. The album's closer "The Stain Remains" probably is the album's most beautiful yet still angry piece. It's this album's equivalent to a ballad.

To round off this, for now at least since I most likely will come back to this album many times over, I just wanna say that I totally LOVE this album. I can't explain how fucking awesome it is, but then again, others might not think the same. It's a world where people all have, or at least should have, their own opinions. I hate these wankers on YouTube who can't accept other people's opinions. If someone says, "this song is my favorite of Megadeth", which is HIS / HER opinion, then someone else often comes and like "dumbass, not that one, it's this one!". Does that change the first person's opinion? Hell no! I just hate those people, thinking their opinions are what matters in the world. I have my personal favorite, you have yours. Both opinions are right. So here: from this album my favorite track is "The Stain Remains". My opinion. You have a different one? Good for you. Share it if you want, BUT it won't change my opinion. I say one thing, I stick to that thing. That is the key to not fall for group pressure and it has worked for me since my early teens. I don't smoke, do drugs, slice my wrists or drink any kind of alcohol at all. I ain't a believer in any religion. I ain't on the left or the right side in politics because someone told me "that is better". This because I chose my own way, stayed true to myself. So I hope all of you out there do the same, and Life of Agony certainly has helped me to get here.

Thank you guys, for your therapy and music. I appreciate it. Ladies and gentlemen, Life of Agony! Horns up!

Final rating: 98/101

I love Pantera.

Right now I'm having a real fucking fetisch for Pantera and bands that to me are reminiscent to them - Machine Head, Exhorder and some new bands I found such as Infernoise, Lowdown and Throwdown.

None of these beats Pantera of course, though I reaaaally like Exhorder and their "Slaughter In The Vatican" album. Pantera seems to be one of those bands that has some of the most loyal fans in the world, while on the other hand, they also have the most loyal haters as well. Personally I've always thought that Pantera was awesome. Not the best band in the world, but they sure was one of the highlights during the 90's and the rape of grunge that followed. Not to forget is also that Pantera "fought" for metal in the 90's by playing it and keeping it alive, so it could be popular in the 21st century again. Then we got all of these real shitty metalcore bands (I only like very few of them) but that doesn't really matter.

Many of their fans say that "The Great Southern Trendkill" is their fave album. I personally have never really gotten into it. I started off with their "debut", "Cowboys From Hell", which got me for it's cool cover when I saw it in the record store many years ago. In time however, I've grown to prefer "Vulgar Display Of Power" and lately even the quite disliked "Reinventing The Steel". Me and a buddy of mine did this stage rigging about 7-8 months ago at a place in my town. The guys who worked in the firm that we helped rigged played some Rage Against The Machine (whose first album is known for this ...) to check the sound. Later they also checked the sound by playing the very "Reinventing The Steel" album. It was first then, about 4-5 years after I heard the album for the first time, that I realised how fucking heavy and ass-kicking it really is. Since then it's my fave Pantera album along with "V.D.O.P.".

So now ... I live in a collective and have two smaller rooms, making it a bedroom and a living room. It has its disadvantages by being pretty small (although I have room for my stuff and so), but it also has its advantages. For instance, I live in one of the corners of the house on the top floor, separated from all the others rooms. Since I live in the corner, I only have "neighbors" behind two of the walls. Behind one there is a to-become bathroom and behind the other there is a kitchen and a stairway down. There are also no one living beneath me, so that means that I can crank my music very loudly without disturbing my neighbors. THAT is fucking nice! And right now, I'm about to crank some fucking metal, at 0:25 AM. Crank on, metalheads!!

To all emos out there ... shove this in your fucking cunts !!!

Ozzy Osbourne - The Godfather of Heavy Metal ... and ME.

I remember as a kid I heard my folks, especially my dad, playing Black Sabbath tunes. Iron Man and all those classics. When Grand Theft Auto: Vice City came out around 2002 I became a official metalhead. I always liked the 80's heavy metal my folks played in the 90's as I grew up, but playing that game I listened a lot to that V-Rock radio station. I loved that wanna-be DJ Lazlow and still do today when I hear him in GTA games. But becoming a metalhead was a new way of getting away from things. I had a quite rough childhood, at least by Swedish standards, but the metal was and still is my therapy. But to the thing - I heard Ozzy's "Bark At The Moon" in the game, got hooked and looked up more. I then heard this song "Hellraiser" (co-written with the almighty Lemmy) and it was like my mind melted. I played that fucking song like twenty times in a row each time, I couldn't stop listening to it! That big arena chorus, heavy riff, groovy bass and dark athmosphere ... I love it!!

This was the one song that I consider making me a metalhead. It showed me all the great things about metal and why it's the best music in the world. Ozzy overall was also the first metal star I came to love, although I said Iron Maiden during the time 'cause they had a cool logo and mascot. But Ozzy was fucking better. Anyway, I thought I'd share this, to me at least, classic heavy metal masterpiece. Here you go:

Oh and btw, I LOVE Zakk Wylde. He's great. Fuck all of you who don't like him for the group pressure on the internet.

At home, sick .... with Joan Jett

I catched some fucking shit last friday when me and my girlfriend (fiancee) went to her place over the weekend. Since saturday it has only become worse for each day as well ... Now I think I've got fever and my nose and throat are soaked in snot. But anyway, I just woke up and thought I'd start the day with some Joan Jett. For you who don't know her - she was one of the members in the legendary all-girl punk band The Runaways, back in the day (70's) that is. Lita Ford was also a member of the band and both of them went on to successful solo careers in the 80's. I think Joan is a true rock 'n' roll woman, one of the most true out there. She's never reaaally sold (her music) out. She did go on to produce a few albums with fancy production, keyboards and shit, but the music really still was that same rock 'n' roll.

I am a fan of music like Motörhead, The Almighty, Circus of Power, AC/DC, etc. and I think Joan is right there with 'em. They all play(/ed) ballsy rock / metal and didn't care about selling ten million albums of their debut only. They stuck to their sound - what got them famous - what they are. Anyway, back to Joan. I have a buddy - Jonte, who has a real hard-on for Joan. About 30% or so of all that he says are about her. He also daily watches her videos on YouTube. I like that dude, good lad.

So here, share the day with me and crank some Joan Jett!