Monday, February 20, 2012

Brand New Heavies

Angel Witch – Dead Sea Scrolls

3 Inches of Blood – Leather Lord

Bangers, a couple of new releases are hitting the racks at the end of March and both promise to be excellent. First up is the new album, As Above, So Below, from the long dormant NWOBHM band, Angel Witch. Lead vocalist/guitarist Kevin Heybourne is still at the helm and still sounds great. Check out the first single, “Dead Sea Scrolls” for a taste of the intricate, classic Metal. Fantastic!



Canadian masters 3 Inches of Blood will unleash their 5th album, Long Live Heavy Metal, on March 27 and if the lead single, “Leather Lord” is any indication, it should be killer. Check out the song below with its “Painkiller-esque” chorus. Hailz!


Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Far Beyond Pathetic


Metallica – Beyond Magnetic


Warner Brothers Records 2012

Muthas, following the colossal turd that was Lulu, Metallica rushed out this 4 track EP of material left over from the Death Magnetic sessions. One can envision Lars and James freaking out over the shitty sales figures for Lulu and desperately scrambling to release anything to try and salvage some of the goodwill they built up with Death Magnetic and the Big Four concerts. Mission not accomplished.

Several things become readily apparent upon listening to the EP. First, James can no longer sing with any power and his voice is reedy and thin. In fact, he sounds horribly screechy and whiny on all four tracks. Second, Lars’s drumming is still terrible and simplistic. Plonk, plonk, plonk. How did this dipshit ever manage the drumming on …And Justice For All? Baffling. Third, the band is completely out of lyrical ideas. Does anyone really give two fucks about substance abuse as a theme? We all know that you are a degenerate drunk James, but I don’t need to hear about it ALL THE FUCKING TIME! In fact, you were more interesting and creative when drunk, so crack a bottle of Jack and have a toot and get creative again.

“Hate Is A Train” blatantly rips off the riff from “Fuel,” and as a result sounds like a leftover from Reload. Vomitous. “Just A Bullet Away” has the most unintentionally hilarious lyrics with the line “Suck on the barrel, Suck on the barrel.” It’s a shame really because musically, this is quite a good track with a nice grooving riff. “Hell And Back” is probably the least annoying track, but it's still marred by James's pathetic vocals. The EP mercifully concludes with the terrible “Rebel of Babylon,” which is yet another shitty track about alcoholism. If I want a song about Babylon, I will listen to the godly “Gates of Babylon.”

On the positive side, the EP is only 4 tracks and Kirk plays some nice riffs and solos. Also, it’s only $5, but I could have paid somebody $5 to punch me in the face and the experience would have been more pleasurable.

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The Bottom Line: Save your money. For the record, Death Magnetic was the least organic-sounding album that we've ever heard here at The Metal Blog of Metal. Zero flow. Too bad really, because there were many choice riffs that could have grown into something. Beyond Magnetic is the same shit. Blargh.