Album Review – Skeletonwitch / Serpents Unleashed (2013)

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The ‘Witch returns with 31 minutes of pure destruction.

Rating4

Serpents_UnleashedThe first time I saw or listened to Skeletonwitch was back in 2011 when they were one of the opening acts for Arch Enemy here in Toronto (the other opening acts were DevilDriver and Chthonic, just so you can imagine how awesome that night was), and since then I’ve become really interested in their brutal music. Now this band from Ohio is back with another extremely heavy album, Serpents Unleashed, which is already being considered by many the best Thrash/Death Metal album of 2013 (you can listen to the entire album here) . And after listening to it, I kind of agree with that.

The opening track (and also the title-track) Serpents Unleashed is Hell on Earth! What a ferocious and intense massacre! Moreover, I like the fact they usually add many Black Metal elements to their music without sounding like a Black Metal band, which is already clear from the very beginning of the song. Beneath Dead Leaves keeps up with the devastation with its insane drums, pretty good riffs and crazy solos, while I Am of Death (Hell Has Arrived) is heavy, fast and has all the elements the fans of the band love in it. I saw the video for it a while ago and I have to say that it wouldn’t have been so great with a different song; it’s the best song of the album in my opinion.

The next tracks are From a Cloudless Sky, which has a nice intro and captivating riffs, and I can imagine how crazy the circle pits are going to be when it’s played live;  Burned from Bone, another fast tempo song with some more Black Metal elements (especially the riffs); and Unending, Everliving, a song that starts slowly if compared to the previous tracks, but then resumes the accelerated speed of the album.

SkeletonwitchThe second half of the album begins with Blade on the Flesh, Blood on My Hands, an intense song full of non-stop drums and riffs and a good chorus. It’s definitely another recommended track for some good mosh pits if played live. Then comes This Evil Embrace, which reminds me a little of some old Slayer songs, with a chorus that is pure Black Metal and the best guitar solo of the whole album. The worst song of Serpents Unleashed is Unwept: despite not actually being a bad song, it sounds too generic for me and lacks some creativity. The following track has the coolest name of all, Born of the Light That Does Not Shine, and delivers some more musical brutality for the delight of all Skeletonwitch fans. The album ends with its longest song More Cruel Than Weak (the only one with over 4 minutes), which provides us some high quality riffs and drums, and of course, a lot of violence.

The lyrics are gruesome as usual, but I guess you’re not expecting them to start singing about butterflies and unicorns, right? And finally, the album has an astonishing front cover: it looks like they hired a very talented Gothic artist from the 15th century to paint it! I love when the album art is not some generic computer-based image and adds a lot to the whole concept of the album, like what happens with Serpents Unleashed.

In summary, the ‘Witch proves again why they’re considered one of the best bands of the Thrash/Death Metal scene, with Chance Garnette doing an exceptional job with his unique guttural vocals. That guy sings like the most evil and hideous witch in the history of mankind, something that became a trademark in Skeletonwitch’s music. One might say the songs are too short, but remember that’s how Slayer has always released their albums, and all songs in Serpents Unleashed are as heavy as they can be. It’s just a matter of quality over quantity.

One final interesting fact about Serpents Unleash is that the band is even selling a pretty cool cassette tape version of it, just when we thought those types of media were long gone. Well, a lot of people thought heavy music was dead and gone years ago, but as you can see with bands like Skeletonwitch pulverizing everything, they were fuckin’ wrong.

Best moments of the album: Serpents Unleashed, I Am of Death (Hell Has Arrived) and This Evil Embrace.

Worst moments of the album: Unending, Everliving and Unwept.

Released in 2013 Prosthetic Records

Track listing
1. Serpents Unleashed 2:11
2. Beneath Dead Leaves 3:07
3. I Am of Death (Hell Has Arrived) 2:47
4. From a Cloudless Sky 2:48
5. Burned from Bone 2:39
6. Unending, Everliving 3:03
7. Blade on the Flesh, Blood on My Hands 2:26
8. This Evil Embrace 3:39
9. Unwept 2:25
10. Born of the Light That Does Not Shine 2:18
11. More Cruel Than Weak 4:18

Band members
Chance Garnette – lead vocals
Nate “N8 Feet Under” Garnette – guitars
Scott “Scunty D.” Hedrick – guitars
Evan “Loosh” Linger – bass
Dustin Boltjes – drums

App Review – Heavy Metal Encyclopedia

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Excellent app if you are searching for more information about a specific Heavy Metal band, album or genre, or even browsing for something completely new.

Rating3

unnamedAs I’ve already mentioned a couple of times here and many other times in real life, if you really love Heavy Metal you MUST ignore MTV, Much Music or any other music channel available in Canada or anywhere else. What we see on TV is not real music, and not even close to what Heavy Metal really is, despite one or another band that reaches stardom like Iron Maiden or Metallica. But then again, what they show on TV from those bands is usually their worst material.

When I was a kid/teenager, I used to “hunt” for some new bands and musicians at a special place in São Paulo (Brazil) called Galeria do Rock, where I discovered bands such as Grave Digger, Running Wild, Stratovarius, Cannibal Corpse, Children of Bodom, Axel Rudi Pell, among many others. However, nowadays that place seems a bit useless with all the apps and information we can get with our computers and smartphones. That’s why I want to focus today on a not-so-new free app created to increase your knowledge of heavy music, called Heavy Metal Encyclopedia or simply HME.

screen568x568The name says everything: it’s an online encyclopedia specifically designed for Heavy Metal and Hard Rock, which means you will not find any crap like Lady Gaga or Backstreet Boys there. There are several different types of search and filters you can apply when using the app, for instance you can filter by the year the albums were launched, or by music genre such as Viking Metal, Metalcore, Classical and Brutal Death Metal.  My favorite filter is by country, mainly because I believe this is the most fun when searching for something unique or completely out of the mainstream. Did you know Andorra has 3 Metal bands? What about Uruguay with 98 bands, South Korea with 175 or Oman with only one band called Arabia, which surprisingly plays Black Metal?

Or maybe you want to be a little bit more conservative and start with an already famous band. Let’s get for example our friends from the Big 4, Anthrax: with the HME app, you can read about their history, check all their discography including classic albums like Among the Living or their most recent release Worship Music, as well as check some info from many related bands like Exodus, Kreator, Sodom, Slayer, Nuclear Assault etc. And if you have the Spotify app installed in your smartphone or tablet, you can also listen to many Anthrax tunes or music from almost all of the other bands available.

screen568x568 (1)I’m not sure how often new information is added to this app, or if anything new is being added there anymore. For example, I couldn’t find some of the 2013 releases like Trivium’s Vengeance Falls or Helloween’s Straight Out of Hell. Maybe the app has been abandoned, who knows. One more thing, I just don’t understand why bands like Queen, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Steel Panther and Aerosmith are not available in the app. One might say it’s due to their music style, but why then others such as Motley Crüe, Poison and Deep Purple are there?

Finally, it’s also possible to share the info you discovered/found through Facebook, Twitter, AirDrop, message or email, and you can even use it together with the other app I reviewed here, Songza, to expand your horizons in the world of Heavy Metal by browsing for unconventional bands on HME and then searching for that band’s material on Songza. The options are limitless, unless of course the app is no longer active/being updated, then we can limit everything until 2011/12.

Get the free HME app
App Store | Google Play

Album Review – Cradle of Filth / Cruelty and the Beast (1998)

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This is how any band in the world should record a concept album.

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410309-300Today is my birthday and I was thinking about which classic album that has helped define my musical taste should be reviewed. I could go for one of my favorite albums of all time, which would be Iron Maiden’s Powerslave, Judas Priest’s Painkiller or Slayer’s Reign in Blood, but instead I chose something more complex and unconventional: Cradle of Filth’s Cruelty and the Beast, a unique concept album dedicated to the legend of the serial killer Elizabeth Báthory, the “Blood Countess” from Hungary who tortured and murdered hundreds of young women in the 16th and 17th centuries, and who many believe used to bath in the blood of her victims to rejuvenate her skin like if she was a vampire. The story itself is inspiring enough for a really dark Heavy Metal album, and no other band rather than Cradle of Filth would have been capable of creating such a masterpiece.

I love the intro Once Upon Atrocity, not only because I’m totally fond of obscure intros like this one, but also because the thrilling transition to the amazing Thirteen Autumns and a Widow is beyond perfect. And what can I say about this song? Despite being probably too heavy and heinous for most of our society, it’s a mesmerizing chef d’oeuvre that no other band is capable of doing (not even the current Cradle of Filth is anymore).The drums and keyboards are terrific, providing the song a unique atmosphere. Then comes one of the band’s most famous tracks, Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids, which is not as fast as the first song, but it’s also excellent and has some very good riffs.

Cradle+of+Filth+Cruelty+and+the+BeastBeneath the Howling Stars was the first song I’ve listened to ever from Cradle of Filth, and until today it makes my day a lot better when I listen to it. From its horror movie-like intro in the keyboards to the chorus, it’s a perfect fit for the soundtrack to apocalypse. I know Dani cannot reach the same high-pitched notes anymore, but it’s still great to listen to this song and I hope the band adds it back to their future setlists. The next track, Venus in Fear, is an instrumental song that is not recommended at all to listen to with your parents or your little sister, while Desire in Violent Overture is another musical typhoon from this Extreme Metal band from England.

The Twisted Nails of Faith is one of my least favorite ones, which doesn’t mean it’s not a furious track (it’s not just as brilliant as the others), followed by what can be considered an “Extreme Metal Opera” called Bathory Aria: this 11-minute insanity starts in a melancholic way with Benighted Like Usher, evolves into a storm with A Murder of Ravens in Fugue, and finally ends with a poem-like part called Eyes That Witnessed Madness. I REALLY would like to see them playing this live one day, that would be a dream come true. The album ends with another instrumental song, Portrait of the Dead Countess (this one you can listen to with anyone around you, no problem), and the fast and heavy track Lustmord and Wargasm. And if you’re still alive after this infernal tsunami, it means you enjoyed it and you’re ready to listen to everything again and again.

All musicians in this album are awesome (including the guest musicians) despite none of them being with the band anymore except for Dani Filth, the mastermind behind Cradle of Filth. Well, he’s the main reason why Cruelty and the Beast is so good, because without him it would be just a regular album. Although Dani’s trademark voice was not as high as in their previous albums, he was singing like a demon, adding a lot of violence and despair to the musicality of the whole album. Not only that, the lyrics in Cruelty and the Beast are also as creative, evil and wonderful as always, this time even better due to the whole storyline involving Countess Bathory as the main character, and the front cover and the rest of the album art are the perfect finishing touch for it.

Cradle_Of_Filth-Cruelty_y_The_Beast_(Limited_Edition)-Frontal

Koch Records’ 2001 two-disc edition front cover

If you’re lucky enough to find the Koch Records’ 2001 two-disc edition bonus disc, you’ll be amazed by their superb covers of Iron Maiden, Venom and Sodom, bands with a high influence on Cradle of Filth’s music. The only bad thing about this bonus disc is the mix version for The Twisted Nails of Faith: I don’t like when a Heavy Metal song are mixed into some generic electronic song, and this one is not different from that.

Anyway, if you love Extreme Metal and a good story, you must listen to Cruelty and the Beast. Cradle of Filth might not be the best Heavy Metal band in the world, but this album helped redefine extreme music for sure and destroyed all the remaining boundaries between music and art for good.

Best moments of the album: Everything in this album is gold, but if I had to choose only a couple of songs they would be Thirteen Autumns and a Widow, Beneath the Howling Stars and Bathory Aria.

Worst moments of the album: None, unless I can choose a song from the Koch Records’ 2001 two-disc edition bonus disc, then I would say Twisting Further Nails (The Cruci-Fiction Mix).

Released in 1998 Music for Nations

Track listing
1. Once Upon Atrocity (Instrumental) 1:43
2. Thirteen Autumns and a Widow 7:14
3. Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids 7:18
4. Beneath the Howling Stars 7:42
5. Venus in Fear (Instrumental) 2:20
6. Desire in Violent Overture 4:16
7. The Twisted Nails of Faith 6:50
8. Bathory Aria (Benighted Like Usher/A Murder of Ravens in Fugue/Eyes That Witnessed Madness) 11:02
9. Portrait of the Dead Countess (Instrumental) 2:52
10. Lustmord and Wargasm (The Lick of Carnivorous Winds) 7:30

Koch Records’ 2001 two-disc edition bonus disc
1. Lustmord And Wargasm (The Relicking of Cadaverous Wounds) 7:58
2. Black Metal (Venom cover) 3:27
3. Hallowed Be Thy Name (Iron Maiden cover) 7:10
4. Sodomy & Lust (Sodom cover) 4:47
5. Twisting Further Nails (The Cruci-Fiction Mix) 5:33

Band members
Dani Filth – lead vocals
Stuart Anstis – guitars
Gian Pyres – guitars
Robin Graves – bass
Lecter – keyboards
Nicholas Barker – drums

Guest musicians
Sarah Jezebel Deva – backing vocals
Danielle Cneajna Cottington – backing vocals
Ingrid Pitt – Lady Bathory’s narration on ‘The Twisted Nails of Faith’ and Bathory Aria’s ‘Eyes That Witnessed Madness’

The Walking Dead Review – Episode 407: Dead Weight

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Now the Governor we were all waiting for is back for real!

***WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS***

If you haven’t seen Dead Weight yet, I suggest you scroll down to the end of this post first and watch the entire episode before reading the rest of the text.

twd_407_01This post is going to be as fast as the Governor when killing people due to the amount of work that is, well, killing me. Last night we learned a few lessons while watching episode 7 of season 4 from The Walking Dead, most of them taught by our “friend” the Governor, who simply deceived all of us last week with that “I’m Brian and I’m a good person” character. It took him only 5 minutes this week to throw all that garbage away and get back to what he really is: a violent and gruesome man who will kill absolutely anyone that stands on his way or tries to fool him. And it’s amazing to see him back in action like that.

The first lesson was to avoid at all costs playing golf with a crazy man you abandoned to death in the past. In fact, you shouldn’t do anything with that guy, because he will kill you for sure. That was the last lesson learned by Martinez, right before becoming an afternoon snack for a bunch of starving zombies inside a pit. Why the hell did he think the Governor was going to accept all his new rules and become one of his henchmen? Did he really think he could have more power than the Governor? That was a really stupid decision, but at least he died having some fun, playing golf after drinking some beers. Goodbye, Martinez! You were a great guy, especially for having the honor of being killed by two of the most badass characters in recent history: the Governor and Chev Chelios (if you know what I mean).

The second lesson was that there’s no such thing as a safe camp in The Walking Dead. Just forget about it. If you join some campers, you’re either going to be killed by other humans or devoured by zombies, and we had both examples during last night’s episode: first with the mysterious death of all people in that other camp, and then by Meghan almost being eaten by a walker that appeared from out of nowhere. Even the prison is not really safe, as we were able to bear witness in the past few episodes. In my opinion, moving on from place to place is the best you can do to survive because this way you might face some trouble, but at least you won’t be waiting for all the trouble to come to you.

The next lesson is so basic that we almost have an example in every single episode: extremely good people cannot survive a zombie apocalypse. It doesn’t matter what they do or who they are, if they are too good they will either die or get someone they love killed. Last night we saw Mitch’s brother, Pete, trying to be some kind of Good Samaritan, and then ending his days on earth as an underwater zombie. Of course people have to protect their families and friends, but that doesn’t mean they have to be good, right? I hope Michonne sees that as soon as possible, because her current “happy version” won’t be useful at all when the Governor attacks. I have a feeling she won’t do it, she seems too happy now, and because she’s chilling out so much the Governor will have his vengeance against her before she notices his presence.

twd_407_02And the final lesson was that, despite all the violence and madness, there’s still time for love in The Walking Dead, although we know the ending is never good for both parts. We saw the Governor and Andrea, Rick and Lori, Glenn and Maggie, and now we have the Governor and Lilly (doesnt’she look a lot like Maggie?) and, surprise, Tara and Alisha (it’s interesting to see a lesbian couple in the show now). As Martinez said a few moments before being hit in the head with a golf club by the Governor, he wasn’t ready to get married or have a family again in that world, and normally when one of the characters says something like that it’s because it’s true. We all know those couples are not going to last much longer, and that the pain they’ll suffer for losing someone they really love is a billion times worse than anything else. We saw what happens when the ones you love become zombies, when they reached that cabin in the woods last night, right?

In summary, the Governor has a new family, a new camp, new soldiers, even an expanded new version of his “aquarium” for walkers, and his thirst for revenge is back in full swing. Besides, he has a fuckin’awesome tank now, like in the comics, so it’s time for things to get as awful as they can be for Rick and his crew! Let’s get ready to say goodbye to some of our favorite characters next Sunday during the mid-season finale.

Oh, I almost forgot about the last and most important lesson: Cogeco sucks here in Toronto. I pay them to watch just TWO HOURS of TV per week, and guess what? It wasn’t working last night during the entire episode of The Walking Dead and later during Talking Dead. Great job, Cogeco!

Dead Weight (FULL EPISODE)

Concert Review – Slayer (Kool Haus,Toronto, ON, 11/21/2013)

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Is it a tornado? Is it a tsunami? No, it’s motherfuckin’ OLD SCHOOL SLAYER NIGHT in Toronto!

OPENING ACTS: 4ARM and Gojira

Yesterday night was one of those things that will be forever in our minds, hearts, aching necks and torn muscles. I must admit I was really tired after a full day at work, and driving from Oakville to Toronto when it’s raining it’s not fun at all, but what happened at the Kool Haus last night was worth every minute spent in traffic downtown.

Before I start, I have to say something amazing I saw lat night, which was the huge number of parents with their small kids at the concert. There was this father with his son, who was pretty excited for the concert, so I asked him how old his boy was and he said “he’s 11 now”. That’s about when I started listening to Slayer! That made me sleep better this night (even with my neck killing me), knowing the future of mankind doesn’t look so bad while we still have headbanging kids like that.

The first band of the night was 4ARM, from Melbourne, which means we have another good Metal band from Australia now. It was a decent concert that I liked a lot, even though I knew nothing about their career. Quick question: why do over 50% of the metalheads today, including band members, look so much like Jesus Christ even when singing about Jesus being a lie is their favorite topic? Anyway, that was a good warm-up for the rest of the night and a good chance to enjoy some beers while listening to some fuckin’ heavy tunes.

Then came Gojira, or Godzilla in Japanese, which by the way was the original name of the band. If you like to bang your head non-stop like a mutherfucker, you must listen to this neck-breaking French band: they are far from being the fastest band in the world, but they’re as heavy as an obese elephant and perfect for having a beer and smashing your neck. I don’t know a lot about the band; however, songs like L’Enfant Sauvage and The Heaviest Matter of the Universe sounded excellent for live concerts. Merci beaucoup, Gojira, for such a nice performance!

And it was so funny between Gojira and Slayer, when the DJ was playing some AC/DC songs and some guys (including myself) started singing “Aaaaaaaa… SLAYER! Aaaaaaaa… SLAYER!”, instead of “thunder” in Thunderstruck. There are things that only Slayer fans can do.

SLAYER

IMG_1445Whoever is responsible for the management of the venue can definitely change its name to “Kool Hell” or “Slaughter Haus” from now on. I think any Slayer concert should be used for human population control, especially if it’s an OLD SCHOOL SLAYER NIGHT like last night in Toronto. The mosh pits were insane; it was like Hell on Earth! In fact, the entire venue was a mosh pit.

Talking about the concert itself and the band, and I know it doesn’t matter what or how I say it here, I’ll never be able to describe in words the perfection of the show. I’ve seen Slayer live a lot of times (how the hell am I still alive?), and they’ve never disappointed me. Slayer always delivers a brutally awesome performance on stage, no matter where they are. When the intro to the classic Hell Awaits started and the white sheet that was covering the stage went down, there they were: Tom, Kerry, Gary and Paul, all ready for some fuckin’ Thrash Metal, and the fans answered the best way possible with a crazy mosh pit.

After that it was a sequence of old classics to make all diehard fans go crazy: the fast Antichrist and Necrophiliac, the cool Mandatory Suicide and Captor of Sin, and then we had the havoc anthem War Ensemble. There’s nothing I can say about this song except HOLY FUCKIN’ SHIT! And when I thought I could have a break and breathe for a few seconds, they come with an avalanche of classics including some of my all-time favorite Slayer songs such as At Dawn They Sleep, Die by the Sword and Spirit in Black. Do you want to rest now? No, you don’t, because the next song is Seasons in the Abyss, which was sung out loud by all fans at the venue in a celebration of Thrash Metal.

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R.I.P. Jeff Hanneman!

Although we all love Jeff Hanneman (RIP) and respect that amazing punk attitude he brought to Slayer, we have to admit Gary Holt is a beast and a perfect fit for Slayer. I don’t want him to leave/end Exodus, no way, but the Thrash Metal riff master adds so much value to Slayer that it’s impossible to think of anyone else that could replace him now. And as a tribute to one of the most underrated guitar masters of all time, Kerry and Tom decided to add the magnificent Strike of the Beast to their entire tour. Holy shit, that was brutal and unforgettable! And just when things didn’t seem they could get more awesome, Slayer provides us another annihilating sequence with Dead Skin Mask (also sung by everybody there), one of the most violent songs in the world and one of my favorites Raining Blood, and the fuckin’ old school Black Magic. Was it the end (of the world)? No, there was still time for the encore, the famous one with the Heineken/Jeff Hanneman flag on the back with the obscure South of Heaven and my top Thrash Metal track of all, the slashing anthem Angel of Death. Although in my opinion Dave Lombardo shouldn’t have left Slayer, I feel really good with the monster Paul Bostaph on drums, and what he did in Angel of Death just confirmed my feelings.

Finally, it’s always a pleasure to see Tom Araya and Kerry King playing live. The first is always so serene and enjoys so much having a good time with the fans (he even  demanded the security guys to bring back one fan that was supposedly doing something wrong and was about to be expelled), while the other is an unstoppable shredding machine with his pretty evil guitar.

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I swear I tried hard to find a Metallica T-shirt, but there was none. The Kool Haus in Toronto was a huge SLAYER NATION (the T-shirt I got yesterday!) last night, with no room for pussies. Well, there were many girls there, but they were not pussies at all (although they do have one): they were slamming in the pit with no mercy of the poor (or lucky?) guys close to them. Next time someone tells me Metallica is heavier than Slayer, I’m going to slap that stupid idiot in the face.

I didn’t see a single person that was just “OK” when that Armageddon came to an end. Quite the contrary, everybody was exhausted, sweating like a pig, but with an immense smile on their faces. I unfortunately hit a guy’s nose with the back of my head, and it might have hurt a lot on him (I feel so sorry for that guy). I also got a kind of a bruised eye, but nothing compared to a guy with a full black eye I saw when the show was over. My neck and the rest of the body hurt like if I was smashed by a steamroller, but hey, that’s FUCKIN’ SLAYER! No ballads, no acoustic shit, just pure fuckin’ Heavy Metal. Was it raining in Toronto when the show was over? Yes, but who cares? Inside the venue it was RAINING BLOOD, and I can’t wait to see my Thrash Metal heroes live again.

Slayer Setlist Kool Haus, Toronto, ON, Canada, North American Tour 2013

Band members

Tom Araya – lead vocals, bass guitar
Kerry King – guitars
Gary Holt – guitars
Paul Bostaph – drums

Album Review – Fight / War of Words (1993)

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An amazing Heavy Metal album from a totally awesome band that unfortunately doesn’t exist anymore.

Rating3

Fight_-_War_of_WordsWhen the Metal God Rob Halford (the best Heavy Metal singer of all time) left Judas Priest back in 1992, no one knew what was going to happen to him or to the band. Fortunately for most of his fans all around the world, he formed the amazing band Fight in 1993 and recorded one of the most underrated Metal albums of the 90’s, War of Words.

How can someone not get completely addicted to an album that starts with two masterpieces such as Into the Pit and Nailed to the Gun? These two songs are more than perfect, with the Metal God reaching his famous powerful screams and the rest of the band simply kickin’ some serious ass. In my opinion, they’re better than almost anything Halford or even the Priest have produced since then, except for Resurrection (which might be a good topic for a future post).

After this incredible start, War of Words keeps delivering some excellent material: Life in Black is a very nice slow and heavy tune, while Immortal Sin is another instant classic with its great riff and chorus; the title-track, War of Words, has another great performance by Halford, while Laid to Rest can be considered the darkest track of the whole album. Then we have one of the least memorable tracks, For All Eternity, which is not bad but becomes boring after two minutes, and the hit single Little Crazy that made even people that knew nothing about Halford or didn’t enjoy Metal at all sing along with our Metal God.

fightThe last part of the album is a little weird if compared to anything Halford had previously recorded in his career, with a sonority that reminds me of some more modern Thrash Metal (something that didn’t even exist in the beginning of the 90’s). If you listen to the songs Contortion, Kill It and Vicious today, you’ll think they’re from a brand new band, not from a group from the 90’s which had one of the most iconic classic Metal singers of all time. My favorite one from these three tracks is undoubtedly Kill It, especially due to its pretty simple but cool chorus. Reality, A New Beginning closes the album, and I personally don’t understand what the band wanted with this song. It is extremely boring compared to the rest of the songs.

Maybe the front cover is the weakest part of the album, because even a 5-year old kid can do something better using only pen and paper, but in this case I don’t care about it due to the high quality of the music. And of course, great songs can only come from real musicians: Halford is the Metal God, there’s nothing else any mere mortal like me can say about him; Russ Parrish (or if you prefer, Satchel from Steel Panther) is a very talented guitar player, as well as Brian Tilse, and they both produced awesome riffs and solos in this album; Jay Jay also delivers some great bass lines;  and Scott Travis, the drummer that has been giving more speed and power to all Priest songs since joining the band in Painkiller, does an amazing job here too.

In summary, if you have never listened to War of Words, you have no idea of what an amazing Metal album you’re missing. Fight might be a long-gone band today, but the music they produced during their short life was pure fuckin’ Metal.

Best moments of the album: Into the Pit, Nailed to the Gun, Immortal Sin and Laid to Rest.

Worst moments of the album: For All Eternity and Reality, A New Beginning.

Released in 1993 Epic Records

Track listing
1. Into the Pit 4:13
2. Nailed to the Gun 3:38
3. Life in Black 4:34
4. Immortal Sin 4:39
5. War of Words 4:29
6. Laid to Rest 4:40
7. For All Eternity 4:42
8. Little Crazy 3:49
9. Contortion 4:35
10. Kill It 3:30
11. Vicious 3:11
12. Reality, A New Beginning (includes hidden track “Jesus Saves”) 13:18

Band members
Rob Halford – vocals
Brian Tilse – guitars
Russ Parrish – guitars
Jay Jay – bass
Scott Travis – drums

The Walking Dead Review – Episode 406: Live Bait

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The Governor is back, although more human than anyone was expecting.

***WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS***

If you haven’t seen Live Bait yet, I suggest you scroll down to the end of this post first and watch the entire episode before reading the rest of the text.

twd406_01I’m absolutely sure that every fan of The Walking Dead (including myself) was waiting for a massacre this week, with the Governor and his “evil” army back. However, we were all surprised with an episode showing a very human person, abandoned by his henchmen, lost in his thoughts and wandering around as “live bait” for any walker crossing his path. Was that going to be the end of the Governor? Was he going to live the rest of his life and die in such a melancholic way? Well, as DevilDriver says in one of their best songs, “not all who wander are lost.”

The story went back to when the Governor slaughtered almost all his army after that failed attempt to take over the prison and ran away with the only two survivors, one being his right hand Martinez. We were all left thinking about what happened to them, and when they would come back for revenge, but instead we saw the governor being forsaken and starting a completely different journey in his life. He was about to give up (even with his pretty cool new “Snake Plissken” look), when the vision of a young girl made him reconsider his almost-suicidal thoughts.

Does anyone doubt the first thing that came to his mind was his daughter Penny? At least this time it wasn’t a ghost like when Rick was seeing Lori, but a real girl called Megan who had been hiding for a long time inside an apartment building with her mother Lilly, her aunt Tara and her grandpa Don. Again we were expecting him to go wild and kill everybody, but that didn’t happen. We saw a man asking for shelter and offering his help to the family, and I was really impressed with how open to a guy with an eye-patch, a huge beard and a gun those two women were. It was probably the Governor’s charm striking again! Or should I say “Brian Heriot”, the name he randomly picked from that spray-painted wall full of names? Why choosing a different name, and why talking about his time as the Governor of Woodbury in the 3rd person? Was that a sign he was ashamed of his past and willing to start a brand new life?

This was the beginning of a story that in my opinion will be great to show everybody that no one is born a villain; it’s our society that creates them. While Rick’s group is killing innocents, casting away people that were once considered an important part of the family, and teaching children how to use machine guns and knives, we saw a man looking at a child as before the apocalypse, in other words, just like a real child and not like a soldier. Don’t you think this makes him less evil and more human than most of the members of Rick’s team, especially than Rick himself? By the way, the Governor and Rick have so much in common: they seem to be strong, wise and focused leaders, when in fact they’re nothing but regular people doing something they don’t really want to do, and that due to all the stress and external pressure they can explode at any moment, just like what happened to the Governor twice during this episode when he killed an old man/walker with an oxygen tank and when he brutally assaulted three walkers with his bare hands to protect that little girl.

twd406_02Talking about the action, although it was a more emotional episode than the previous one, there were some awesome moments of violence and tension. The Governor risking his life going to that “zombie nursing home” to grab some oxygen tanks, and as I mentioned before, saving Tara from the zombie Don smashing his head with one of the tanks and saving Megan in the zombie pit was some good action, and the beginning of a strong relationship between him and his new friends. Moreover, he simply burned his old picture with his original family, which in my opinion means that inside his head those people were his family now. He said he will do whatever he needs to keep Megan safe and well, so we can stay assured our good old Governor is back in action for real, especially when we see Martinez out of the zombie pit to “confirm” that the old life the Governor had will never abandon him.

“Nobody ever mentioned just how boring the end of the world was going to be,” Lilly said. Well, not anymore. Now you have the Governor by your side (literally), you’re about to be on the road with a bunch of mercenaries killing zombies, and you’ll probably cross the path of sheriff Rick Grimes. Nothing can be more exciting than this.

Live Bait (FULL EPISODE)

App Review – Songza

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A very useful app for music lovers to enjoy anywhere, anytime.

Rating4

songzaSongza is one of those things/apps that make me believe there’s still hope in a world full of all types of useless garbage. In my opinion, any app that doesn’t add some value to your real life, or even worse, that provides the user a very fake or biased impression of life, should be banished from the planet. Fortunately, Songza is a very simple idea that can make your day a lot better, no matter what you’re doing: it’s a totally free music streaming service that recommends various playlists based on time of day, mood or activity, and you can also browse for playlists that contain specific artists, bands, music style or genre etc. Their slogan is “Good music makes good times”, and I agree 100% with them.

According to their website, Songza’s playlists are made by an expert team of music critics, DJs, musicians, and musicologists. However, there are many playlists created by users, which can be a lot more interesting as we music fans know what our friends want to listen to, right?

Songza (1)I’ve already created a playlist called Workout of the Beast, which includes 66 Heavy Metal songs from bands like Slayer, Cradle of Filth, Exodus, Arch Enemy, Primal Fear, among others, to be used as a soundtrack for those days at the gym when you need some extra energy in your workout. If you have some free time, give it a try and let me know if you enjoyed it (and if it helped you achieve that one more rep at the gym).

My favorite playlists so far are the ones below, which I’ve been listening non-stop for the past few weeks:

Reign in Blood

Death Metal

Hard Rock, Hard Bod

Hair Metal

Thrash Metal Shred

Today’s Titans of Metal

songza_articleOf course there’s a lot of crap in Songza (it’s not an exclusive heavy music app), and sometimes even the playlists you select might have one or two “surprises” that would make you want to shut Songza down and never open it again. Besides, there’s a limit of how many times you can skip the songs from a playlist if you’re not a premium user. I don’t consider these to be huge issues with this app, especially due to its strengths: there are no listening limits, it’s a light app that works well in any device, you can use it in your mobile devices, laptop or desktop, and you can have some fun creating your own playlists for the other users to enjoy (you cannot listen to your own playlists, though).

Another important detail is that as you keep “liking” or “unliking” the songs from different playlists, Songza will start recommending you different options, enhancing your experience with the app and making it a very useful tool in any moment of your real life. Just watch out to not select by mistake any playlists that might contain some disgusting shit like Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga, and you’ll enjoy Songza as much as I do.

Get the free Songza app
App Store | Google Play | Windows Store | BlackBerry World | SONOS | Amazon Appstore for Android

Book Review – The Bloody Reign of Slayer

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The heaviest band in the world deserved a better biography than this.

Rating5

the bloody reign of slayerNext week I’ll see one of my favorite bands of all time, Slayer, kickin’ ass again live here in Toronto, and in order to get ready to it how about reading their biography, called The Bloody Reign of Slayer? I have the Brazilian Portuguese version of it (“O Reino Sangrento do Slayer”), which has an “extra” introductory chapter from a guy called Tor Tauil (from the Brazilian horror punk band Zumbis do Espaço) who says something that cannot be more true: if you don’t have any of the Slayer albums, you don’t deserve to live. However, the book is not that good.

The English version of the book, published by Omnibus Press, has 320 pages and is basically divided by album: each chapter is dedicated to the years of the band following the release of their albums, for example, chapter SOUTH OF HEAVEN goes from 1988 to 1989 and chapter DIVINE INTERVENTION goes from 1995 to 1997. It goes like this until 2008 and makes some predictions about the future of the band; there’s nothing about World Painted Blood or the death of Jeff Hanneman, of course. Moreover, each chapter focus more on the songs or the meaning of the songs from each album, which is something we can get in any album review, instead of trying to show us a different angle of the band that no one knows about.

Bloody_Reign_Slayer_BackThe first chapter is about the beginnings of the band, explaining where each member was born, how their lives were before forming Slayer, their musical influences etc. It’s good information for any Heavy Metal fan, although nothing really special or unique is told unless you had no idea Tom Araya was born in Chile and Dave Lombardo in Cuba. By the way, that’s the main issue I found with the book, the fact that it has a lot of information and details about the albums and tours, but it lacks depth in terms of the “secrets” of the band.

Many other bands and musicians are mentioned by the author Joel McIver in different chapters, especially the guys from Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and all other Thrash Metal bands that started together with Slayer, as well as new band members like Paul Bostaph, but again, they’re just part of the whole story and there’s nothing that can be considered “above and beyond” regarding the details provided. Jeff Hanneman (RIP) was the most obscure member of Slayer, so why not dedicating an entire chapter to his unconventional life? Of course the author didn’t know Jeff was going to die in 2013, but everyone knew he was not a regular musician and his personal life could add a lot more value to the book.

Reino_Sangrento_Slayer_Brazil

O Reino Sangrento do Slayer (Brazilian Portuguese version)

There are also some interesting pictures in the middle of the book and some funny quotes from each band member, and maybe these are the best moments of it. I cannot say that I wouldn’t recommend The Bloody Reign of Slayer, it’s just that if you’re a long-time fan of the band there won’t be much that you don’t know already about Tom, Kerry, Jeff and Dave in the book.

Anyway, if you’re still interested in knowing a little more about Slayer, you can find the book at Amazon.ca, or at Chapters.Indigo.ca in a Trade Paperback version or the Kobo Edition (eBook). The price is not bad, between 10 and 15 Canadian dollars, so I would say it’s worth the investment if you have some extra money and especially if you already have all Slayer albums, because their music is definitely a billion times more exciting than anything in this  good but not marvellous biography.

Album Review – Cannibal Corpse / Vile (1996)

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Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Mr. George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher.

Rating3

VilecannibalcorpseThe year of 1996 was excellent for heavy music fans, with bands like Sepultura, Slayer, Pantera, In Flames and Stratovarius launching some unique albums, and of course we also had the ferocious Vile from Death Metal icons Cannibal Corpse, this time with a fresh new singer, George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher. Although some old diehard fans didn’t enjoy the change, in my opinion Chris Barnes always sounded like a desperate gorilla choking on his own vomit screaming for help, while Corpsegrinder added more dynamism and creativity to the band’s music.

Devoured By Vermin opens this musical massacre at a very high level, showing what to expect from the rest of the album. This quickly became my top Cannibal Corpse song of all time, even better than their most acclaimed classic Hammer Smashed Face, and even after listening to what was going to be the original version before Barnes left I still prefer the official one the band re-recorded with Corpsegrinder on vocals.

cannibalcorpse1996promophoto1The following three songs keep on “destroying” our necks and bodies: Mummified in Barbed Wire, Perverse Suffering and Disfigured, especially this last one, are perfect for any circle-pits or for a heavy workout at the gym after a stressful day at school or work. With Bloodlands the band seems to give a break to all the insanity with a heavy but slow song, just to get back as fast and destructible as possible with the amazing Puncture Wound Massacre and the instrumental Relentless Beating. The album continues with another great song for a horror movie soundtrack, Absolute Hatred, the violent Eaten from Inside (which has some awesome riffs and solos), and the short but complex Orgasm Through Torture (what a beautiful name). The last song, Monolith, is nice but sounds too generic compared to the rest of the album. Nothing that makes Vile less amazing, though.

There’s not much to say about the totally brutal and gruesome lyrics, or about the insanely evil front cover (if you’re a pussy, go for the censored version of it). Those are trademarks of one of the heaviest bands on Earth and make the final material even better. The guitar players do an excellent job and I’ve already said what I think about Corpsegrinder, but let me focus on Paul Mazurkiewicz and Alex Webster. Paul is not a simple drummer, he’s a ruthless human jackhammer, while Alex is a beast that makes anyone completely forget about Cliff Burton after listening to his demented and unmatched bass lines.

You can say whatever you want about the band with Barnes or Corpsegrinder on vocals, as each fan of the band has their own reasons to prefer this or that guttural style, but one thing is certain: Cannibal Corpse’s Vile kicks some serious fuckin’ ass and is mandatory in the collection of anyone who appreciates some brutal and extremely technical high-quality Death Metal.

Best moments of the album: Devoured By Vermin, Disfigured and Puncture Wound Massacre.

Worst moments of the album: Bloodlands and Monolith.

Released in 1996 Metal Blade Records

Track listing
1. Devoured by Vermin 3:13
2. Mummified in Barbed Wire 3:09
3. Perverse Suffering 4:14
4. Disfigured 3:48
5. Bloodlands 4:20
6. Puncture Wound Massacre 1:41
7. Relentless Beating 2:14
8. Absolute Hatred 3:05
9. Eaten from Inside 3:43
10. Orgasm Through Torture 3:41
11. Monolith 4:24

Band members
George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher – vocals
Rob Barrett – guitar
Jack Owen – guitar
Alex Webster – bass
Paul Mazurkiewicz – drums