Faith No More

Interview with Mike Fleishmann of Vision of Disorder

Interview with Mike Fleishmann of Vision of Disorder

Deep inside we knew we were still due something. From Bliss to Devastation kept on resurfacing from the depths of our dusty, imaginary shelves lost somewhere in our memory. The years following Vision of Disorder’s (VOD) split in 2002 saw them being held responsible (together with a bunch of other bands) for the birth and growth of nü metal; a genre which overstayed its welcome far longer than it took it to express itself in a constructive manner. If it wasn’t all bad, that was probably because the seeds had been sown by bands like Faith No More, Tool and Rage against the Machine… and Vision of Disorder.

Leprous – Bilateral Review

Leprous – Bilateral Review

Progressive music is a vast category filled with all sorts of various constellations of bands from Dream Theater to Symphony X to Rush to Opeth to Death to Pink Floyd to Pain of Salvation to Coheed & Cambria (arguably) and so forth. It can be very difficult to keep all that shit in order and, frankly, to find good progressive bands because it’s such a huge category. Despite the fact that progressive music should be the biggest, best and most original music in the world it suffers from some serious problems. The first is a tendency towards living in the past (för svenskar: bakÃ¥tsträvande) and the second is unoriginality, oddly enough. So finding a progressive band that is excellent, modern and original is still a hard thing to do. But you’ll never guess who has some angry (but good) news.

Powerwolf – Blood of the Saints Review

Powerwolf – Blood of the Saints Review

German power metal/freak show act Powerwolf have been perplexing me since their 2005 debut. All corpse painted up and evil looking, they look like a black metal band but actually play sub-par power metal with traditional metal elements and coat the whole thing with cheesy theatrics and goofball pomp. I attempted to get into what they were doing on several occasions due to the buzz they were receiving but aside from a few scattered tracks, it was rough going. To me they always seemed generic and silly, though I appreciated their zest and zeal for entertaining. With this back-history, I naturally chose to approach their fourth album, Blood of the Saints with muted expectations. As usual, Steel Druhm is proven wise indeed. Blood of the Saints is arguably Powerwolf’s best release thus far and packs several amusing and respectable songs, albeit, still laden with cheese and cheap theatrics. However, as a whole, its still the same Powerwolf product and that can’t lead too far down the road to the land of 5.0. For every decent song, there’s an equally painful one and a few are just laughable. While I know they don’t take themselves too seriously, sometimes silly is too silly and that’s the case here more often than not.

Angry Metal Guy’s Best Heavy Metal Songs of All Time 30-21

Angry Metal Guy’s Best Heavy Metal Songs of All Time 30-21

Closer and closer we draw to the best heavy metal song of all time, but indeed there is much in between and none of it has been come to lightly. I actually have spent a lot of time mulling over this list since its creation and I am pleased, thus far I can’t think of anything major that I’ve left out, which must mean that they are not indeed ‘top songs’ at all. But let me get to one note of concern that people have raised. They say that one of the reasons that a list like Gibson’s travesty is valid is because “it’s hard to know if these songs can stand the test of time!” I just want to take a minute to call bullshit.

The Haunted – Unseen Review

The Haunted – Unseen Review

I’m sure most know the history of The Haunted and how they formed from the ashes of the legendary At The Gates. Despite my love for At The Gates, I never fully understood the stellar press and support The Haunted received and always felt they were one of the most overrated bands on the planet. Eventually they started to drift toward a more metalcore style and I lost the limited interest I had in them. Now they’re back with album seven Unseen and they’ve left their thrash days in the dust, probably for good. Instead, they deliver a strange, directionless mess of experimentation, emo angst, nu-metal and alt-rock. It’s clear they’re writing only for themselves and could care less what their fans expect or hope for at this point. While that’s admirable from an artistic perspective, when the results are this tedious and uninspiring, it’s both tragic and cringe-inducing. No matter how brave and creative they want to be, at the end of the day they should still be striving to write good music and they seem to have forgotten that here.