Not funny anymore: Laibach

Yesterday I attended a gig with former Yugoslavian industrial synth rock pioneers Laibach at Rockefeller (Oslo). With Laibach being an obvious main influence on contemporary industrial rockers as Nine Inch Nails and Rammstein, I was a bit surprised about how utterly outdated the band both sounded and appeared on stage.

I'm no Laibach fan, in fact the only two songs I know of are two covers, "Life is Life" and "In the Army now", and they played them both.

In brief, this band is industrial music's Spinal Tap. Wasted time and money, but a bit fun after all. But I'm not sure that the band wants to be that kind of "fun". This band ought to stop now.

Unfortunate band names Part I: Blood Tsunami

Norwegian thrashers Blood Tsunami delivers classic mighty and melodic thrash/speed metal, but they could, after all, have had some luck when choosing their band name. Little did they know that the word "Tsunami" all of a sudden would be in the same uncool category as "AIDS" or "Ebola".

With former members of such fine bands like Hellride (uh, they weren't actually that good), The Retardos, Datsun, The Abusers and Death Mission, the band sounds like a mix between Slayer, Kreator, Testament and At The Gates

The band has posted 3 free demo mp3's at the Norwegian site for unsigned band Urort . How about a new name for the band? Who wants to wear a T-shirt with "Blood Tsuanmi" all over the chest?

Top 10 Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics

Mike From Hobarth Presents The Top 10 Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics:

"It has been about one year since the release of the original Top Ten Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics, and it is just as popular as ever. Despite the endless cascade of praise, criticism, and death threats ... I’ve been reluctant to compile another list. But, alas, the demand is just too high. And so is the volume of totally pathetic source material. So, with some help from the Ruthless Forum Black Metal Horde, I proudly present: (The Other) Top Ten Most Ridiculous Black Metal Pics"

You better check out these silly Black Metal photos. Funny as Hell. Both lists are of course dominated by infamous Norwegian black metallers, such as Immortal ("Undisputed Champions of Ridiculous BM Pics"), Fenriz (Darkthrone), Dimmu Borgir, Vrangsinn's Ass (Carpathian Forest), Gorgoroth and Maniac of Mayhem. The grand prize goes to Høst (Vox in Taake) for his hilarious "cock's out" pic.

When you're done laughing your ass off, also check out Peter Beste's Norwegian Black Metal Pics.

JR Ewing and Turbonegro: kings of Øyafestivalen

Yesterday Øyafestivalen was jolly nice, except that the rain kept pouring down. Musical highlights included an as always intense set from hardcore/emo enthusiasts JR Ewing, who almost exclusively played songs from the new album Maelstrom. I guess that's the drawback with these 40 minutes festival jobs.

The same goes for Kings of DeathPunk Turbonegro, who of course drew thousands of turbojugends from all over the world. The band waited until the encore to play old favorites, like "I Got Erection". It was pretty darn obvious that their old classic songs rocks the socks off the songs from the more mediocre album Party Animals.

Other highlights included surprisingly groovy and sonic Velvet Undergroundish noise from Serena Maneesh, heavy sXe metalcore from Purified In Blood, indie lo-fi screamo bashers Rumble in Rhodos and Mike Patton approved jazzy crossover old school rock from Kaadas Cloroform.


Bands who sucked included hyped and overrated swedes Moneybrother, also the reunited Dinosaur Jr sounded awful, even though I kinda like their songs, with way too much guitars (I thought I'd never say that!)

Arch Enemy, Dark Tranquillity & Trivium to play Rockefeller

Rockefeller announced an exciting triple metal line up today;

• Arch Enemy
• Dark Tranquillity
• Trivium

The triple metal treat takes place on the 13th of october, only two days before Korn play Oslo Spectrum.

Dark Tranquillity is a great live band, and I'm very excited to see Trivium also known as "the future of metal". As for Arch Enemy, I'm no huge fan, but I'm pretty sure they also kan kick some serious arse live.

Celtic Frost steps out of the dark

Celtic Frost frontman Tom Gabriel Fischer posted the following message on his official blog on the 9th of August:

"The experience of darkness within my mind, incited by the events sustained while others smile. The cycles around me, the events, my obscurantist. How consummate these depths can be. Mine.

The day we step outside after 13 years. The album we have waited to make for a lifetime. The strongest we have ever been. Ever! While I wish nothing so much than to walk out of this place, this life, this existence, to never return. Once again, so little can incite so much within; so pathetically trite, though to me so abysmal. And my strength is the most uncontrolled of all.

I haven't been able to sleep in what seems like forever. It told them today, as a joke, that I can see the future.

It will probably perservere."

The first Celtic Frost album in 13 years, entitled "Dark Matter Manifest" is scheduled for release early 2006.

I can't wait to hear what the heck the Frost's are up to, their (and Hellhammer's) influence on Norwegian black metal can not be overrated.

AdSense = NonSense?

A Google / AdSense ad at metal maniacs definitely made me look twice today. The ad said "No More Heavy Metal" and I thought that it perhaps was a PMRC-ad or something. But of course, after reading the text "Lightweight Aluminum Pallets Last So Long, they Pay for Themselves!" the subject made perfectly sense. This is an ad about "RHINO® aluminum pallets" for the company RHINO. Oh well. But what's the ad doing at Metal Maniacs?

If I was marketing manager at RHINO I would re-consider this ad placement and perhaps throw in a couple of filters or different keywords or whatever, after participating an anger management program sponsored by Google.

Or perhaps in this case, AdSense should make more sense. AdSense is without doubt a great ad program, but it's not perfect... marketers might wanna know that.

PS. The spell checker provided by Blogger (as you might know, Blogger's owned by Google) might wanna ad the words "AdSense" and "Google" to it's library.

Trivium - The Future of Metal?

Rising Floridian stars Trivium is being hailed as the Future of Metal and are "...gonna be the next Metallica" according to the bands 19 year old frontman, vocalist & guitarist Matt Heafy. Trivium sure as hell is worth paying attention to, having "...garnered celebrity fans in the form of such heavy metal luminaries as Machine Head, Chimaira, Slipknot and Danzig..." (August 2005 edition of Metal Hammer).

In brief; Yes, Triviums latest album Ascendancy (Roadrunner 2005) is a masterpiece. End of discussion. Combining haevy metal, trash and power metal with hardcore, the band will of course be labelled as metalcore by some. I couldn't care less if the band is metalcore or not, their music is truly awesome. Tim Pigeon's (as always) excellent review in Metal Review speaks for itself:

"...Trivium play modern American metal, in the vein of Shadows Fall and God Forbid’s Gone Forever album, with an accessible bent. At the heart of their sound is a blazing thrash attack spearheaded by wunderkind guitarist & vocalist Matt Heafy. He just turned 19, but he shreds like a grizzly veteran. Between Heafy and Corey Beaulieu, the listener is spoiled by a wealth of vicious riffs and slick solos...

Trivium can flat-out play metal, no question about it. If Ascendancy came out four or five years ago, they would be on top of the modern metal scene. I can’t fault them for being young, as they mesh enough influences from times of yore to be accused of just jumping on the bandwagon. As long as they can maintain the path for another couple albums, they’ll be the Metallica for this decade – that accessible metal band with enough chops and songwriting skill to appeal to a wide swath of the metal populace..."

There you have it. Just go get the album, will you?

PS: Only one half-ass review of Ascendancy in Norwegian press yet, Panorama. Big surprise? I think not.

Mastodon: Real fresh Norwegian water

US progressive metal heroes Mastodon has played Norway 5 times during the last year, as special guests for Slayer/Slipknot and Iron Maiden, as well as headlining their own european tour. This summer, Mastodon kicked arse at Ekstremsportveko [extreme sports festival] at Voss on the 23rd of June, which made quite an impression on the band:

"...We just came from Norway, we did an extreme sports festival there where people were jumping out of planes, parachuting, hang gliding, base jumping, doing all that kind of shit. It was fucking amazing. There was kayaking and white water rafting down the mountain. It was beautiful. The water was light blue - you could drink it, it was so good. Real fresh water..." mastodon guitarist Bill Kelliher tells Terrorizer.

A lot can be said about Norway, but at least the water's good. Voss is, as you may know, the name of an exclusive (and extremely expensive) Norwegian table water brand. Mastodon's fascination for water is well doccumented on their latest masterpice Leviathan, conceptually based on Moby Dick.

Blacfoot reunited - cranks it up to 11

US Southern Rock legends Blackfoot is back - reunited. And it aint just sex, drugs and rock and roll.. According to Blabbermout, they

"...were forced to pull the plug on their comeback concert in Glasgow on Sunday night (July 31) after residents complained about the noise... Glasgow City Council said last night that it served a noise prohibition noise order on the Renfrew Ferry after it received a number of complaints about excessive noise. "The sound levels from the sound check may have breached the guidelines set in the notice," a spokesman said. "

Earlier this year, Blackfoot's drummer Jakson Spires passed away. "Today the world became a darker place" Blackofot says in a statement on their website. Jakson Spires, founding member of Blackfoot, wrote or co-wrote nearly every Blackfoot song recorded from 1969 until 1986, including two of the band's biggest hits, "Highway Song" and "Fly Away".

Caught in the maelstrom of JR Ewing

Oslo's alternative hardcore/screamo outfit JR Ewing are back with their finest offering yet.

Imagine a blend of legendary Swedish hardcore-punk-crossover Refused (also known as the second most anticipated reunion in history), ...And You Will Know us by the Trail of Dead, Janes Addiction and the Blood Brothers. Add a slight touch of the 70's grand rock symphonic arrangements. There you are.

JR Ewing sounds like a million $'s - rock solid, heavy as hell and yet crystal clear. Indeed, they have kept their dynamic and progressive screamo roots, but they have also accomplished to be so much more. Some fans might label the band as "sell-out", naturally as the album is released in Norway on Columbia/Sony/BMG and the guitars are a bit less distorted. Add the fact that singer/shouter Andreas Tylden now mainly sings instead of the screamo vocals previously know as his trademark. No wonder the kids are not alright with this. For the rest of us, this is just magnificent ambiguous and well crafted epic hardcore.

Maelstrom has got it's well deserving raving reviews in Norwegian papers, and this time the reviewers have got it all right. These 35 minutes of soothing torture might very well end up being the Album Of The Year. At least so far, we're still in august.

Check it out for yourself or be a humongusfongusamongus.