When Megadeth released Endgame in 2009, I was noticeably effected. This was Megadeth like we hadn’t really heard them since (arguably) Youthanasia, and for more fans, much earlier than that. It was a refreshed band with excellent writing and guitar work that matched the Marty Friedman days. The songs were well written, catchy and the record was tightly edited and honed down to perfect vinyl length. Honestly, Endgame was a record that I don’t think anyone but the most idealistic of Megadeth fans could even have been expecting. And though at the time I joked that we should make sure that Mustaine wasn’t stockpiling fertilizer, (I still hold firm to that belief) the record has aged pretty well. That, of course, means that there are some expectations for Th1rt3en. Expectations that this record, for example, will not suck. Continue reading
Well, everyone else under the sun has been releasing their Top 10 lists, and for those of you faithful readers out there I’m sure you’re also interested in what I’m going to say about the best records of 2009. First, let me say that for the first half of this year I was not indeed Angry Metal Guy—but instead, I was just a normal guy buying my metal and hoping that it was going to be fucking awesome. Now I’m a bitter critic. As a bitter critic I hear a lot more, but this year has still been characterized by some of the biggest bands on the scene for me. Mainly, Amorphis, who in my opinion have released the finest album of the year, if not the finest album of their very distinguished career. But, let me get to that later. There have been some great records this year, but there has been a lot of mediocre shit. Think of this list as being two-tiered—top 10 and then top 20. The top 10 are the records that I think were really awesome, elite albums, the second 10 are records that I think are great and worth your time and effort. Note that I haven’t heard certain albums that I’d like to hear due to that whole poverty not being offset by stealing music thing. With this, I hope to launch AngryMetalGuy.com into the new year on a new note: one where bands suck less.
#1: Amorphis // Skyforger — Amorphis is cooler than your favorite band. Honestly, they just fucking are. They have somehow managed to keep themselves excellent and relevant after all these years by producing some of the finest mainstream metal that the world has ever scene. Not only that, but their new vocalist has brought a life and energy to this band that after Tuonela I, frankly, had never expected to see again. Honestly, more power to these guys. They are a truly fantastic band on a roll. I look forward to new material from them in the future. #2: Obscura // Cosmogenesis — Yeah, sure, everyone can say that it sounds like a bit of a blend of a Cynic/Necrophagist rip-off, but I honestly don’t give a shit. These guys are fucking phenomenal musicians who make really convincing and awesome metal and I have listened to this record way more than I was anticipating when I first got it. I am especially moved by the bass on this album which is just seriously awesome—a trait that many metal bands just, frankly, suck at. This album is balls-to-the-wall and awesome. #3: Fleshgod Apocalypse // Oracles — Seriously some of the best tech death metal I’ve ever heard. What I love about this album is how good it is at being deliciously melodic and really subtle about it. Honestly, these guys are so much better than your average tech death metal band. I have trouble seeing why they haven’t gone over better, but I know that there’s another one of those ripoff memes out there about these guys. Anyway, this album totally ripped my goddamn face off and I totally loved it. They need a real drummer, though. #4: Guilt Machine // On This Perfect Day — I’m going to be listening to this album for years. Partially it’s just that the vocals of this record keep drawing me back, but it really is one of the few albums that really drew me back over and over again this year. Super awesome melodies, amazing vocals and just perfectly composed. I might not be a huge fan of Ayreon, but I’m never going to insult the Dutch mastermind behind all these projects because Guilt Machine is an epic masterpiece of progressive rock/metal. #5: Megadeth // Endgame — Oh man. This record is not a record I ever expected to end up on my top 10 list. It was so much fucking better than I expected and I hate myself for saying that because Dave Mustaine is the planet’s biggest douchebag. But man, this record is great. Easily among the best records for the year. Though, it’s getting close. #6: Riverside // Anno Domini High Definition — Polish prog that really does something me. It’s a good blending of progressive metal and modern rock and has some amazing stuff in it. I love the sort of Opeth-y parts, of course, but everything about this record screams “listen to me again and again and again!”… and I did. #7: The 11th Hour // Burden of Grief — Great fucking Dutch/Swedish doom. Honestly this is one of those records that I wish would’ve gotten more play as I think it’s actually on the up side of bands that have gotten a ton of play this year (mainly Ahab) from the underground metal guys, but I honestly think that this is the best doom to be released this year. The vocals are fantastic, the writing is amazing and all-in-all I’m pleased with this album. #8: Indukti // Idmen — More excellent Polish prog that totally kicked my ass. This band is really fucking interesting and the songs on this album are well-crafted, fun to listen to and just all-in-all worth a spin or two. I think it will definitely be one of the albums that stands out for me from 2009 because it was something I’d never heard before and I was really, really impressed with it. Well, shit, I still am impressed! #9: Ghost Brigade // Isolation Songs — Another album that I had to get on my own, but wow was it worth it. This record is basically like Katatonia meets.. well, sludge. They do all of those things that Sólstafir, Hanging Garden, etc., are trying to do, but they do them with tact, grace and a smart pop sense that those bands totally fucking lack.
#10: Scar Symmetry // Dark Matter Dimensions — I’m almost embarrassed to write this. This album totally jumped out and kicked my ass. Honestly, the new vocalists make them great and the new material is fantastic. The songs are very, very good and the catchiness kept drawing me back. I feel like a sucker because this stuff is so fucking commercial I can hardly help myself. If death metal could be gummy pop, it would be Scar Symmetry. But man… Oh man.
Honorable Mentions:
Fejd // Storm
Claws // Absorbed in the Nether Void
Black Sun Aeon // Darkness Walks Beside Me
Be’lakor // Stone’s Reach Cobalt // Gin Ulcerate // Everything is Fire Marduk // Wormwood Havok // Burn Gorod // Process of a New Decline The Chasm // Farseeing the Paranormal Abysm
The Norwegian journalist who Mustaine is all pissed off at has posted all 25 minutes of their interview online and I’d like you to watch the first few minutes of it, up to the part where he starts talking about Metallica. Pay close attention to what he’s saying about 9/11 being an inside job and all that. I know already I’m going to take a shit-ton of heat for this post, but I gotta say it.
OK, I took a lot of heat when I wrote my Megadeth Endgame review for calling out Dave Mustaine on his ridiculous lyrics, despite holding out that, indeed, the record was very, very good. There were a lot of people who defended him in different ways, saying that Dave Mustaine has always been writing about this kind of stuff and so forth. They particularly gave me shit for saying that Mustaine had gone of the deep end on the right side of the political spectrum. Well, I would like to correct people who fought against me on this point. For those who aren’t aware, Mustaine got pissed off at a journalist recently for basically turning a 25 minute interview into a 5 minute clip about Dave’s gripes about the whole Metallica fiasco. You know, the whole “I got kicked out of the band for assaulting my bandmate ’cause he kicked my dog” story. Some of us (myself included) absolutely don’t give a shit. Who. Fucking. Cares. Right? I mean, dude hasn’t been in Metallica since… Well, as far as the majority of fans are concerned, ever. He wasn’t even on Kill ‘Em All and the majority of fans don’t have anything older than that anyway. So who cares!
So the whole interview of Dave Mustaine v. Norwegian Journalist was released, and I decided to watch it since I do a metal blog. You know, what’s El Crazy Mustaine up to these days? See, here’s thing thing. I can’t interview the guy myself because Roadrunner has decided that my blog (despite the fact that it is now getting thousands of views a week and outshining itself all the time) isn’t good enough to get onto their promo list and therefore I can’t interview Mustaine myself. This is a big access game and unfortunately, I don’t have that access. So, as much as I’d like to interview this guy and actually delve into his political beliefs, I won’t be allowed to. It’s a big game of access and apparently AngryMetalGuy.com isn’t cool enough for the Roadrunner folks. Which is too bad, since it sounds like Mustaine really, really wants to talk about this shit. But rant aside, that means that I’m just going to have to spout back what I heard here, and this is great.
First, to prove my point. Dave starts talking about “the endgame document” and 9/11 conspiracies on the Internet. Making use of a common logical fallacy, he says “Alex Jones … puts forward really hard theories to rebutt.” OK, two things: first, just because you can’t disprove something doesn’t mean that it’s a fact. By Mustaine’s logic, the whole piece from this video where he’s talking about his former drummer thinking that Jesus was an alien should totally work. Now this idea is patently absurd to Dave, but he’s using the exact same logic to reach his own conclusions. I can’t disprove that God exists, but does that mean that God exists? Not really. It just means I can’t disprove it, for a variety of reasons. But I also can’t disprove that Jesus wasn’t an alien, does that mean that Jesus was an alien? Well, it must! I can’t disprove it! Secondly, “Alex Jones,” I thought to myself, “why do I know Alex Jones?” Well, Alex Jones runs PrisonPlanet.com and InfoWars.com, both are highly commercial endeavors that also allow him to pedal his conspiratorial wares. If you’ve ever done any research on the great American conspiracy theories, such as about the Bilderberg Group, you’ll know who he is. Here’s what a cursory investigation (i.e., reading his Wikipedia page) turns up on Alex Jones:
Alex Jones (born Alexander Emerich Jones, February 11, 1974) is a right-wing,[1][2][3] conservative[4][5][6][7] American talk radio host and filmmaker. Jones, however, views himself as a libertarian, not a right-winger,[8] and calls himself a paleoconservative.[9] In a promotional biography he is described as an “aggressive constitutionalist.”[10][11] His syndicated news/talk show The Alex Jones Show, based out of Austin, Texas, airs via the Genesis Communication Network over 60 AM, FM, and shortwave radio stations across the United States and on the Internet.[12] His websites include Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com.[13]
Mainstream news sources have referred to him as a conspiracy theorist.[14][15][16][17][18] Journalist Michelle Goldberg has stated in The New Republic that Jones represents “an old strain of American conservatism–isolationist, anti-Wall Street, paranoid about elite conspiracies–that last flowered during the John Birch Society’s heyday.”[19]
A right-wing conservative dude who spends a lot of time pushing out ideas about the Amero and things of that sort. He basically believes that we don’t have a valid government and that our government, and well, actually the coming WORLD GOVERNMENT is going to insert chips into each and every one of us, and control us with our money. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s an end of days kind of conspiratorial orgy that roots back to conservative Christian concepts of the Number of the Beast being a barcode and number that we’re all going to have and so on and so forth.
As for the Endgame document that “mysteriously disappeared,” according to Mr. Mustaine, it took me about 3 minutes to “find” it again (I’m sure he’ll be happy to know). It didn’t actually disappear, it’s available through Wikipedia and through the ALCU’s website (http://www.aclum.org/ice/documents/endgame.pdf) and it is listed by the ALCU as a concern in regards to immigrants. In fact, the Orwellianally named Operation Endgame (which is a terribly scary name, one must admit), is not at all about rounding up American citizens and putting them in camps, it is in fact about rounding up immigrants and kicking their asses out of the United States. Now whether or not you think that this is a fascist policy it a) doesn’t appear to actually be happening, b) doesn’t actually relate to American citizens and c) doesn’t support that we’re all going to be fitted with RFID chips and told to suck the government line. Nor does it seem that everyone is going to be ordered to report to camps any time soon, either, despite the scare tactics of certain organizations.
Mustaine then goes on to cite the movie Zeitgeist which has captured the imaginations of many young people with Internet access in the States, but is probably the most ridiculously poorly reasoned and thought out films ever made. The sourcing is terrible. They use pretty much no one of consequence or with any standing anywhere in the film, they combine three completely different trains of thought and try to tie them together into a whole and they push that simultaneously as the government is trying to control you monetarily through the Federal Reserve, the bankers are trying to set up a One World Government or New World Order which is going to enslave everyone in the world. At the same time that this is happening, other groups are working together to work out a never-ending War on Terror which can be used to scale back on civil liberties (an actual concern for any civil rights-minded individual like myself), but in doing that, they’re just working towards sending people to camps for some unknown reason (because really, there’s no good reason given here—every crime and ill-deed has a motivation, what’s the motivation here?)1
There is, of course, inherent populist appeal in the discussions of money, the Federal Reserve and not allowing the government to control us with money, I admit. And these things have long been a part of the American collective unconscious, so to speak. The Green Backers, for example, were deeply afraid of bankers2 and were highly populistic. And, as mentioned before, The John Birch Society, one time a mainstay in right wing circles in the US, were ostracized by the conservative movement because they were pushing this concept of elite conspiracies against the masses—something that appeals to the common working man who feels like he’s getting screwed by a system but doesn’t know where to put the blame. But the problem is that these things are unprovable and sometimes just patently false. Instead, Alex Jones and other conservatives of this nature, rely on dubious evidence and hearsay to show that we’re headed for DOOM. There are, of course, many endgames in this for a guy like Jones.. but the most obvious of them would be money.
The point here is that what Dave Mustaine is saying is crazy and he totally gets a pass for it. Not only that, but it’s absolutely tied to a right wing tradition of conspiratorial views and attitudes, that spawned the militia movement in the 90s and included individuals like Timothy McVeigh, who bombed the Oklahoma City building. Just because it is now being picked up by left wing social libertarians doesn’t mean that it’s not still founded in right wing, conservative Christian dogma about the end of days and the Antichrist and all that kind of stuff. It is also a very smart way to undermine the legitimacy of a President, as well. If you can convince people that the President isn’t really a representative of the people, than it’s not so difficult to convince them that it revolt is the right thing to do. Of course, I’m not saying that Dave Mustaine himself is interested in destabilizing a government or anything like that. No, I just think that Mr. Mustaine wants to believe. But that he’s so brazen about it in interviews and stuff just really amazes me.
Anyway, people of Roadrunner Records: let me interview Dave Mustaine! Please, please, please let me interview Dave Mustaine!
On a personal aside, the only motivation that I can come up with, total control and unending access to resources, implies to me that those in charge would much rather have a society of selfishly motivated individuals who are willing to spend themselves into debt and live indebted to companies, thereby increasing their profits forever, i.e., the system we already have. It would seem to me that this is a system that would give these people a lot more control than shipping off Americans to camps, where they do not spend any money, consume products or do anything that a good American citizen “should” be doing, in order to keep the American economy strong and prosperous. ↩
Which is also quite anti-Semitic if you think about it, since they are often referred to as “moneylenders” borrowing the Biblical name which associates them with Jews and all of those negative connotations. ↩
Evile – Infected Nations Rating: 3.0/5.0 – Pretty good, but certainly nothing revolutionary Label:Earache Website(s):evile.co.uk | myspace.com/evileuk Release Date(s): Out Now in the EU and US
Thrash revival has been a big deal of late. I mean, thrash is the biggest thing since.. well, thrash, in the metal scene right now. Bands from all over the world, particularly in the underground, are donning tight jeans, jean jackets, Kreator and Exodus patches and looking for the next big thrash prodigy. Earache is not the only label releasing thrash revival stuff, it’s coming from everywhere (Candlelight has been particularly prolific with the thrash revival). Evile is on that bandwagon, whether they like it or not, but they have a different take on it. That is: they sound a lot more like the mature Bay Area.
Infected Nations is a pretty solid album, with excellent riffing in the classic thrash style that so many of us grew up. With riffs that bring to mind …and Justice for All and The American Way (by the ever-overlooked Sacred Reich), UK metallers Evile have really brought back a sound of thrash metal that has been missing in the revival. While bands like have been ripping it up in the old school style of Slayer, Kreator, Destruction and bands of this sort, Evile sounds a lot more like late-80s/early 90s thrash than that. The introduction to the title track should be a dead give-away for most listeners: beautifully harmonized clean guitars that fade in and lead to a kick ass thrash triplets.
And the whole record is chock-full of kick ass riffs and headbanging monstrosities that bring a guy back to being 9 and discovering Metallica. There is definitely a certain charm in this and many have lauded praises on the band for “carrying the revival” on their shoulders and stuff like that. And yeah, Evile is good at what they do! They really are.. but where’s the progress that we’re supposed to be finding in new metal bands? Why are we always looking back instead of forward. Bands like Evile and Havok are almost evidence for a metal scene that doesn’t have anywhere new to go and a generation of metalheads that are disappointed with the state of modern metal: so they’re imitating what’s already been done.
Of course, why stop them? Metallica quit making good music years ago and even Megadeth has only just regained its glory with a good album: but Evile has put out its second critically acclaimed record in a row and somehow manages to keep a 20 year old sound fresh, for the most part.
Of course, there are some things I’d change about this album. I like the faster, heavier and techy-er parts, but I find a lot of the mid-paced riffs to be a little bit mind-numbing and I tend to lose myself in them. Another issue that I have is the vocals, which are classic thrash and also very, very monotonous. Matt Drake (rhythm guitar / vocals) does his best classic James Hetfield/Chuck Billy impression over every track and after a while it just feels like droning. There are way better thrash vocalists out there, and I strongly suggest that Drake work on varying his vocals a little.
Honestly, Infected Nations is a good album, but it’s not a whole lot better than that considering everything. The production is fantastic, the song-writing is pretty good, but it’s missing out on the originality that I’m always hoping for. Maybe it’s just me, but I like to see bands that use their thrash metal roots for new things. Even looking at a band like Dragonforce or Luna Mortis that obviously have thrash metal influences, but are able to blend them into other styles to make them new and interesting gives a road-map to thrash influenced bands, because I have trouble imagining how a lot of these bands are going to survive the trend.
Megadeth – Endgame Rating: 4.5/5.0 – An excellent and pleasant surprise, but someone make sure this man isn’t stockpiling fertilizer! Label: Roadrunner Preview the Album:myspace.com/megadeth Release Dates: EU: 14.09.2009 | USA: 09.15.2009
Megadeth became the coolest thing since Metallica the year that I turned 9. The band’s big mainstream breakthrough Countdown to Extinction was a classic record in many respects, because it took thrash metal that hadn’t been produced by Bob Rock and turned it into a mainstream thing. I still love that record and it’s follow up Youthanasia but I have a long-standing dislike for Dave Mustaine as a person, musician and I’m sure that those of you who know me or have read this blog know how I feel about Megadeth‘s discography. If you don’t, I’ll clarify: Megadeth stinks. All-in-all, I think that the band’s discog is totally spotty, the writing has always been mediocre, I think that Friedman was an overrated player and I’m surprised that Megadeth didn’t go away for good after Mustaine’s wrist injury fiasco.
So I must say that I am incredibly surprised to tell you that Endgame was posted online on the Megadeth myspace, and it has accomplished two amazing feats: first, it has justified Roadrunner picking up the band, which I thought was a total mistake at the time; and secondly, it seriously impressed me. Gone are the annoying stoppy riffs and sloppy solos that have marred the band in this post-Friedman period. Now, the riffing is great, the solos are outstanding and the drums are full on excellent (and if I could hear the bass, I’d suspect it’s awesome, too).
Not only that, but the tracks are stand-out, memorable and heavy (with a couple of notable exceptions). “Dialectic Chaos” is an excellent lead-in, which rolls into the unrelenting “This Day We Fight,” and the record doesn’t let up after this awesome build up. Tracks like “1,320′” and “Headcrusher” (which is the weakest track on this album, in my opinion, I’m actually really surprised they released it as a single) will thrill the classic fan, while fans of later Megadeth (say the Youthanasia and Countdown to Extinction era, like myself) will also dig on tracks like “How the Story Ends” and “The Hardest Part of Letting Go…”. This record has it all.
And really, it’s not just that the songs are good, but they’re way more polished and smart than they used to be, as well. Sure, the band tried to wander into commercial territory (because, G-d forbid Mustaine not imitate Metallica), but Mustaine could never produce the kind of catchy, smart choruses that show up in “The Right to Go Insane”. Unfortunately I don’t have access to the writing credits and stuff, but I wonder if much of this improvement has to do with the involvement of Chris Broderick (ex-Jag Panzer). Broderick’s solos are stellar, and a lot of the improvements sound like things one would expect to find on a modern power metal record, and not only that but there are a few places where keyboards show up. I might be wrong, but the sound is just way fuller and balls-to-the-walls than I was expecting—and Broderick is the change that shows.
It’s good to see a classic band be able to pull out the chops when it matters most. United Abominations was widely considered to be a success, but I still thought it was a lackluster album. Endgame doesn’t disappoint. In fact, the only thing about Endgame that disappoints is Dave Mustaine’s continued wanderings into “wing nut” territory. Endgame wanders into the political conspiracy theorist end of things that make me worry about Mustaine and whether or not he, too, has been watching those 9/11 truth videos and has succumbed to the “New World Order is going to implant chips into us in order to develop a worldwide monetary system thereby controlling mankind with CREDIT!” side of his (relatively) new-found faith. The whole lyrical clusterfuck that shows up on the title track is impressively nutty, going so far as to include reference to this whole “concentration camp” kerfuffle that has the lunatic fringe of the right wing having cows. Though, granted, this isn’t entirely new territory for him, but I’m worried that he might think that health care reform is just an excuse to “pull the plug on granny.”
But honestly, aside from his ridiculous lyrics and his “I’m getting older” vocal performance, Megadeth hasn’t sounded this confident since Rust in Peace, and I think that this is a better album (but I know that I’m probably alone in that). But my argument goes like this: the songwriting is more mature, more confident and the playing is just way better. Megadeth has gone forward instead of backwards, or stagnating and managed a feat I never expected of them: they produced a pretty kick ass record.
OK, *that's* cool. Too bad about the shitty bands, then RT @Metal_Mark: Metallica will be playing Ride The Lightning in it's entirety! WOW!” - 6 hours ago
When Megadeth released Endgame in 2009, I was noticeably effected. This was Megadeth like we hadn’t really heard them since (arguably) Youthanasia, and for more fans, much earlier than that. It was a refreshed band with excellent writing and guitar work that matched the Marty Friedman days. The songs were well written, catchy and the record was tightly edited and honed down to perfect vinyl length. Honestly, Endgame was a record that I don’t think anyone but the most idealistic of Megadeth fans could even have been expecting. And though at the time I joked that we should make sure that Mustaine wasn’t stockpiling fertilizer, (I still hold firm to that belief) the record has aged pretty well. That, of course, means that there are some expectations for Th1rt3en. Expectations that this record, for example, will not suck. Continue reading
Thrash revival has been a big deal of late. I mean, thrash is the biggest thing since.. well, thrash, in the metal scene right now. Bands from all over the world, particularly in the underground, are donning tight jeans, jean jackets, Kreator and Exodus patches and looking for the next big thrash prodigy. Earache is not the only label releasing thrash revival stuff, it’s coming from everywhere (Candlelight has been particularly prolific with the thrash revival). Evile is on that bandwagon, whether they like it or not, but they have a different take on it. That is: they sound a lot more like the mature Bay Area.
with a good album: but Evile has put out its second critically acclaimed record in a row and somehow manages to keep a 20 year old sound fresh, for the most part.
Megadeth became the coolest thing since Metallica the year that I turned 9. The band’s big mainstream breakthrough Countdown to Extinction was a classic record in many respects, because it took thrash metal that hadn’t been produced by Bob Rock and turned it into a mainstream thing. I still love that record and it’s follow up Youthanasia but I have a long-standing dislike for Dave Mustaine as a person, musician and I’m sure that those of you who know me or have read this blog know how I feel about Megadeth‘s discography. If you don’t, I’ll clarify: Megadeth stinks. All-in-all, I think that the band’s discog is totally spotty, the writing has always been mediocre, I think that Friedman was an overrated player and I’m surprised that Megadeth didn’t go away for good after Mustaine’s wrist injury fiasco.
conspiracy theorist end of things that make me worry about Mustaine and whether or not he, too, has been watching those 9/11 truth videos and has succumbed to the “New World Order is going to implant chips into us in order to develop a worldwide monetary system thereby controlling mankind with CREDIT!” side of his (relatively) new-found faith. The whole lyrical clusterfuck that shows up on the title track is impressively nutty, going so far as to include reference to this whole “concentration camp” kerfuffle that has the lunatic fringe of the right wing having cows. Though, granted, this isn’t entirely new territory for him, but I’m worried that he might think that health care reform is just an excuse to “pull the plug on granny.”
