Pre-emptive Strike

My 21st birthday rapidly approacheth. As such, I have made an educated guess that I will be incapacitated for approximately a week thereafter. So this one post will have to last you a while, which is unfortunate because it obviously sucks.  I would post flyers for upcoming shows, but my computer is acting infuriatingly slow, so you will be content to read about whatever Metal-esque thing pops into my head.

For starters, the ridiculously talented Savage Wizdom are currently in the process of creating a new album. They were cool enough to give me a sneak peek of the new material, and I have to say, it totally rocks. It still has the traditional Power Metal vibe of their previous album, No Time For Mercy, but has been refined to be a little heavier. As soon as I aquire a functional camera, I can present you, dear reader, with video evidence of their musical prowess. The closest comparison I can make, musically speaking, is to Helloween: It's basically traditional Heavy Metal, but faster and somewhat Thrash-y. On the down side, all this time in the studio means less time on the stage. They are making themselves scarce for concerts, but rumors abound about a possible show at El Rey Theater in the near future. As soon as these rumors are confirmed or denied, I'll update it.


HN-88 have just released their new album as well, which is available for download. You have to pay for it this time, because their first album, This Is Not The End, was something they just handed out  to everyone for free. They were trying to spread the love of music or something. Damn dirty hippies.
Xmortis has a new bassist, Soul To Rest has broken up, and Grinkai is M.I.A. Therefore, I have nothing interesting to tell you. I have writers block like a beast. However, in my own defense, I know I'm not the only one. Let's just blame it on the paparazzi and call it a day.

Band Review: HN-88

I have a secret love for Pop- Punk. Laugh all you want, but I am still a badass Metalhead, despite my adoration for cutesy music. Besides, HN-88 are actually pretty freaking boss. Never mind that their name is random numbers and letters in the vein of Blink 182 or Sum 41. These guys write songs with the same subject matter as Metal... the Apocalypse, drug use, murder, sex,  and (if you count Metalcore as "Metal"), a combination of the latter two. Despite the intense themes, they sound catchy and upbeat. This is the kind of music that reduces a rocker girl such as myself into little more than just another coquettish, high-pitched groupie. It's not my fault they're dreamy. Stop yelling at me.

...Wait, ok, maybe they're not that dreamy. Was I really sloshed at the last show or was the stage lighting deceptively flattering? I guess we'll never know. But despite their delightfully hilarious physical appearance, they sound really good. Besides, now with this picture in my grasp, I have some leverage for future blackmail purposes. And another item in my "Stuff To Look At High" folder.

In all seriousness, these guys are great if you have nostalgia for the 90's and old-school MTV. Back in my day, this is the kind of stuff that rocker dudes would play to impress their girlfriends. And as a chick, I have to admit, this makes us go wild. Metal will always be my favorite genre... Nay, my favorite THING EVER....  But the hottest guys in it are the fictional band Dethklok. Even other Metalheads admit, we're kind of nasty. But HN-88 is totally adorable, despite all the evidence to the contrary, I.E that cheesy photo that I insisted on posting here because it's funny.

See? They're cute, they're talented, AND they make girls laugh. These stupid assholes are basically my kryptonite. I honestly think they deserve five stars, but I resent them for interfering with my Metalhead image, so I'll only give them four.

...Ah, fuck it. Here's the other one. Those guys earned it. Those bastards...

Visit them on their very own website!

Band Review: Futilitarian

 I've noticed that New Mexico has an obsession, almost bordering on a fetish, with Outer Space. Mayhaps it's just because we have Roswell? I don't know. Either way, our Metal scene was prototype Alien-core before Rings Of Saturn was a big deal. From the celestial tech-death of Fields Of Elysium to the  astronaut rappers of State Of The Mingo, we're all a bunch of space cadets here. Hell, we even have a venue called Launchpad. We have a serious problem. That being said, I am head over heels for Futilitarian.

Futilitarian incorporates an obscene amount of guitar in an otherwise ambient instrumental style. The result is something like Post-Metal, but more mosh-able. The style is primarily heavy and sounds like planets crashing together. The guitars are melodic and melancholy, featuring tragic sounding riffs which segue off into angry blasts. Similarly,  the drums run the spectrum from caveman-esque primal rhythms to ridiculously fast explosions of energy.

Although Futilitarian oscillates between atmoshperic and extreme, the transitions are seamless. It's like watching the world explode, recoiling in horror, then realizing "Eh, they deserved it."  If you don't believe me, EP: To Earth is available for free download. The music may be free, but remember that Metalheads need money at least as much as everyone else. Therefore, you must check them out live in concert should the opportunity present itself. Behold:

Beefy. If for some reason you can't attend these concerts, you really should download their album.It sounds like a Lovecraftian apocalypse of the Elder Gods, set to autotune.  Here's the track list:

1. Escape Pod To Earth
2. Ocean: Axis
3. (Planetary) Magnitude
4. Retrieving Nihilism
5. Abstract Universe
6. Black Dwarf Star
 
Need I say it? Five stars outta five.

A Blessing With A Curse

I was kind of bummed out because my posts are half-assed and lame, so I was worried about what to write today. Then I realized I could just post more flyers and call it a day.

Tonight W21 is hosting the annual Get Awesome Fest, aptly titled because it's FREE and features tons of bands from different genres. I don't recognize any Metal bands in the line up. However, I know that HN-88 is a flashback to 90's Pop-Punk, and that we Santa Fe girls go wild for them. Think what Green Day or Sum 41 would be like if they had more personality. State Of The Mingo is outta-this-world Hip Hop. If you've never experienced  an astronaut rapping, this is kind of a must-see. My favorite album of theirs is the fabulously titled Revenge Of The Synth. These Charming Cobras are ridiculously catchy Punk, somewhat Surf-Rock in their style. Mono Stereo is still a mystery to me. They are "Indie",whatever the fuck that means. And I don't know anything about the remaining bands either. Hey, it's a free show, what's the worst that can happen?

If you're in stupid Albuqurque this Sunday, check out the awesome Punk show at the Gasworks. I don't know any of these bands except for Domestic Violence, self-proclaimed Super Punk Rock, which sounds about right. Their reverbnation doesn't quite do them justice, as their stage presence is, quite frankly, phenomenal. For lack of a better description, I would compare them to Rancid but with a hot chick as the lead singer. That's not even mentioning the other 3 bands who are playing, and it's only $5. This is an all-ages show, so don't fuck it up by getting swilly at the venue. You can drink yourself to sleep when it's over.

Another Gasworks show, eh? This one is on Sunday, July 1st. This Is Hell has shared the stage with the likes of Unearth and Within The Ruins, so they are obviously a force to be reckoned with.The Greenery describe themselves as "sexy dudes making sketchy music." Yeah, that's accurate enough. Ecophagy is a bunch of teenagers wreaking havoc on your sense of hearing. I usually don't like chaotic Hardcore, but I have to admit that these dudes are pretty awesome.  Xerxes is kind of mysterious.

This one is on my 21st birthday, so it's my gift to myself. Only $4 to see A.P.D?! That's nothing short of scandalous.  Not to mention four other amazing Punk bands. That's less than a dollar per act. Take, for instance, Doomed To Exist. They've been described as everything from Grimecore to Crust to Thrash. Regardless of the genre, they are fucking amazing. Duke City Bombers are pretty crazy. They're basically old school "Oi! Oi! Oi!" Punk rock. There are approximately infinity Punk bands called Intoxicated, so I'm not sure which one this actually is. Bad Engrish is yet another Colorado Punk band. And unlike most shows, this one will most likely involve heavy drinking. See you there, my loves.  

Shakespeare And Metal: Part II

Last night I watched a rerun of Metalocalypse when Nathan Explosion had to read the complete works of Shakespeare, and then I was reminded of one of my many projects that I initiated and subsequently abandoned. So, at long last, here is the second installment of my speculations on the connexion betwixt Shakespeare and Metal.

Last time, I had Othello on my mind. Now, I'm thinking about Hamlet. The titular character is a hesher and a half. As countless Metal documentaries and fans are forever reminding us, Metal is all about the underdogs. Our first introduction to Hamlet in Act I, Scene II shows him insulting his enemy Claudius. His very first line in the entire play is "A little more than kin, and less than kind." From Twisted Sister to Arch Enemy, Metal exemplefies the rebellion against such foes. Whether it's bitchy authority figures, corrupt governments, or society as a whole, everyone has oppressors who are too close for comfort.

This rebellion takes a more humorous and less sinister tone in Act II, during which Hamlet verbally kicks Polonius' ass. Seriously, try to read this dialogue (the good stuff starts at line 170) and not think of Beavis And Butthead dissing a lame music video. Hamlet ruthlessly mocks Polonius' old age, his ignorance, and even insults his daughter's sexuality. However, this scene  is more than mere comic relief. Polonius, in an uncharacteristic moment of wisdom, asserts that "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't." Even more than rebellion, unison in entropy is the pinnacle of Metal art. From the music itself to the bedlam state of a mosh-pit, Metal is all about turning your insanity into something artistic and meaningful.
 Uh... Sorry guys, but it turns out that Hamlet isn't exactly light reading, so I could only get through two acts today before the process got tedious. I'm sure that there's more similarities between the play and Metal, but I'm gonna take the easy way out and just remind you that everyone dies at the end. Ja, datz brootalz.

Cheer Up, Emo Kid

I missed the Gaza show, due to the clusterfuck that passes as "Public Transportation" in New Mexico. Being stranded in the sketchy side of one of the most Meth-saturated cities in the country is pretty Metal, but it's also pretty fucked up. So I cut my losses and drank an ungodly amount of Absinthe while listening to their stuff on Myspace. However, I am severely dissappointed that I didn't get their autographs. I saved my  June '11 edition of Terrorizer Magazine, in which they had a kick ass review, solely for this purpose. It was then that I realized, this has been a pretty false year for us Metalheads.

Flattus Maximus is dead, for starters. Not to mention that May 16 was the anniversary of Ronnie James Dio's death. And when heshers weren't busy dropping like flies, bands were busy  breaking up. In my neck of the woods, we just lost Suspended, the ONLY all female Metal-band in the Albuqurque/Santa Fe area. Fields Of Elysium lost their drummer. This Days Light lost their vocalist. Grinkai decided to take a break from live concerts. Both Cassovita and Futilitarian converted to The Dark Side (Instru-Metal), and The Cast Aside apparently quit before they even started. What the fuck?

Meanwhile, legendary icons of the genre have seriously gone downhill. If you haven't listened to Iron Maiden's The Final Frontier, don't bother. It will break your heart. Same is to be said of Queensryche with thier immensely dissappointing Dedicated To Chaos. Final Frontier somehow manages to be simultaneously predictable and dissonant, whereas Dedicated To Chaos sounds like a "5 Gum: Stimulate your senses" commercial. It is a far cry from the beefy, heavy origins from which the bands had begun. How the mighty have fallen.

I missed many amazing concerts, and yet others were dissappointments. The local scene is in a retarded Catch 22 when the bands don't want to perform for a small or tepid audience, and the fans don't show much support because they think that bands don't want to play. The situation was worsened when we lost venues. Little Wing and The Compound are now defunct, leaving Metalheads under 21 in a really picarious position. And on the offchance that we get the opportunity to see a phenomenal act perform for cheap in an all ages venue... The goddamn train comes only once and an hour late. That is so false that it hurts.

I'm bumming myself out now. I'll look on the bright side, i.e stare at these Death Metal panties. By the way, my birthday is on the 25th. These would make a most excellent gift. Honest.

Ahh, that's better.

We Came As Romans: A Very Bitchy Band Review

I'm going to be brutally honest and admit that I am the Paula Abdul of Metalheads. That I refer to this simple fact as "brutally honest" is a testament to it's validity. Sometimes it is in the best interest of the artists to provide some constructive criticism, and not meaningless praise. And sometimes it's just fun to be a bitch to a band that you despise. And after hours of plunging the unknown, fathomless depths of the internet, I finally found some Metal that I dislike. Even Metalcore is a guilty pleasure, so this took a pretty long time. Here are my not-so-nice thoughts on We Came As Romans.

First of all, I'm going to re-inforce my previous assertion that I'm too nice, by saying that I don't even hate them that much. I enjoy Owl City, for whom I accidentally mistook WCAR when they played on the radio. My immediate reaction was "When did they decide to keep the auto-tune but replace the rest with screams?" And, for better or for worse, the screams are actually pretty damn good. However, you can still make out the lyrics, so they're not good enough. Even if they were, their brutality is instantly neutralized by the high pitched auto-tune singing that is annoyingly catchy. They leave me in a wierd, Purgatory-esque no-mans-land between Pop and Metal that keeps me perplexed. I think that I might even like it despite myself. BUT THERE'S NO WAY TO BE SURE.

Okay, so I guess the music is tolerable if you need some background noise while you do mindless manual labor. But bands aren't just about the sound; they have lyrics, music videos, album covers, etc. Let's start with the song titles. They are so mind-numbingly pretentious that it actually makes me angry. "Roads That Never End And Views That Never Cease"? Ugh. I wrote better lines when I was going through my Emo phase in Middle School. The rest of the song titles sound like propoganda jingles for the Green Party, or at least some corny Earth-Day theme song. "Planting A Seed," "Understanding What We've Grown To Be", "To Move On Is To Grow", so on and so forth. I tried to muscle my way through some music videos, but I could only survive two of them. I realized I would rather give myself a battery-acid manicure than endure any more of thier corny shenanigans. At least then I wouldn't be bored.

Ok. Let me spare you the torment of actually watching the music videos, and just let you know that they basically look like the most garden-variety homecoming dance you've ever seen. The audience doesn't even headbang. They just fist-pump. And the band members have the most annoying facial hair that looks like it's been drawn on with eyeliner.

OUCH. Pot calling the kettle black. Ok, I'm not all that invested in my hatred, so I won't even bother talking about the awful lyrics and album art. That would require some effort on my part. Besides, at the end of the day, at least it's not Ke$ha. Two stars outta five.