Liberteer is an extremely interesting new grindcore project in two ways: (1) Its debut album has the longest and most straightforward, “You Don’t Say”-worthy name I’ve ever seen in grindcore so far. (2) Its groovy grindcore with symphonic and Americana elements thrown in!
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.
Enigmatic and uncomfortably cheerful, gregarious and ambitious Happy Metal Guy managed to catch up with Mirai Kawashima from the Japanese avant-garde black metal band Sigh. He bombarded him with positivity, amusing anecdotes and uncomfortable questions about steel phalli until Mr. Kawashima relented; answering the questions and talking about… flowers? This fucking blog gets weirder and weirder every day.
For anyone who has regularly read my site, it is pretty obvious that I am a big Orphaned Land fan. So it is no exaggeration to say I was pretty stoked to do an interview with the band’s vocalist, lyricist and gigantic personality, Kobi Farhi. We had a chance to talk about several different things, ranging from the cultural approach to metal in Orphaned Land to working with Steven Wilson (from Porcupine Tree). For the first time I am going to offer the audio of this interview edited down with some clips from the record, as well as typing out the “transcript” as it were. The transcript, of course, will have the full text and the audio is a bit more edited down so as to cut out the BS.
One of the most promising bands that I’ve ever encountered in my time in the underground has been Luna Mortis. Within the scene that they were surrounded by, it was basically taken for granted that if someone from the scene was going to take off it would be them (at the time called The Ottoman Empire). To no one’s surprise they got bigger, got better management, got a better band together and continued developing. To no one’s surprise they started getting good press and good reviews and making contacts. To, I think, a lot of people’s surprise they ended up getting signed by Century Media. Not that they didn’t deserve it, but just to think that a group of local kids were getting picked up by the label that had shepherded so many of us into the extreme metal scene was pretty astounding.
To say that The 11th Hour’s Ed Warby has done a couple of things in his musical career would be a pretty major understatement. From his early days in legendary Dutch death metallers Gorefest to his current band Hail of Bullets and exceptional doom metal project The 11th Hour, to being prog legend Arjen Lucassen’s […]
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.
