“For all the heady emotions that metal might evoke—rage, introspection, euphoria, lamentation—sometimes your brain cells just need to fucking die. For those days, may I suggest Mutilated by Zombies? Messier than a six-year-old hopped up on Capri Sun and meaner than your local DMV representative, their third album Scripts of Anguish will take whatever petty emotion you happen to be feeling and make tapioca out of it (and your functioning grey matter). I hope you like it chunky.” Brains!!
“Though buried deep underground, the metal scene has been a constant fixture in Australia for decades. While no genre is shirked, death metal seems to be the one that spawns in numbers comparable to the infinite variety of Tim-Tams that clog our biscuit aisles. And it’s not the couth, be-speckled type of tech-death either. No, it’s the putrid, knuckle-dragging variety – foul, angry music that is violence committed in red and black. This hostile predilection is a curious thing, it seemingly runs counter to our laidback, “she’ll be right” attitude.” No Serenity now!
“A dear friend of mine winces at the thought of lasagna with mozzarella cheese. Hailing from Northern Italy, this man knows his cooking like I know ill-timed Plato references (ask my girlfriend, who I thought would appreciate it because she’s a few months more ancient than me), but is an utter purist in this regard. Here in North America, people from all over the world take their regional or national cuisine and update it, making it bigger and arguably better. Some experiments fail, but it’s the mastery of your influences and the will to proceed and get it completely wrong in the creative phase that allows for greatness instead of mere imitation.” Create death creatively!
“I, like a lot of you, I’m sure, have an uncanny, savant-like memory of where I was and, more often than not, what mischief I was up to when I first heard a particularly evocative album. I remember, clearly, being 17 and hearing Rust In Peace for the first time and how I sat open mouthed as “Tornado of Souls” bombarded me with the sonic equivalent of Gamma rays, cursed forevermore to Hulk out whenever a sweet thrash riff graced my ears. Categorically, I will never forget first hearing Bolt Thrower’s “World Eater” whilst I sat in my friend’s room, dispatching copious amounts of cheap beer.” Beer, bros, brutality.
