So back when I first started contributing regularly to this site, I promised Vince and Axl that I’d write at least two of these a month. I have (clearly) failed miserably as of late, and am now going to try to make up for lost time by spamming the shit out of you guys about bands that roughly fifteen of you will care about and everyone else will be mad isn’t a Devin Townsend side project. (Kidding! Sort of.) Seriously though, the following bands are absolutely killing it, and have awesome new releases that you’d do well to investigate if you’re into dirty, doomy, and/or crusty death & black metal. You know. Ugly shit.

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In country music, the surname “Williams” has become almost a talisman — the mark of a dynasty, and a legacy unto itself. The father, the son, and now the grandson have all blazed their own trails through (and beyond) pure country, telling three very different stories but sharing a musical heritage (and in Hank I and Hank III’s case, an uncanny resemblance). It’s a blessing and a curse that the Williams clan’s youngest scion, one Shelton Hank Williams III, has labored under since the first day he drew breath. When your granddad’s regarded as one of the most important country artists of all time and your daddy’s a whiskey-bent and hellbound multiplatinum outlaw called Bocephus, it takes a lot of balls to pick up a guitar, say “fuck it,” and start writing something entirely different.

Luckily, if there’s one thing Hank III has got in abundance, it’s cojones, and if you’re wondering why you’re on a metal site reading references to the man who wrote “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” here’s your answer: we’re talking about his grandson, the man who single-handedly put the “dick” back in Dixie and does his damnedest to keep the raw, rebellious soul of outlaw country alive. Couple redneck royalty with a youth spent pounding the drums for handcore bands and an enduring penchant for thrash and doom, it’s no wonder that he has set up camp at the crossroads of country and heavy metal. These two seemingly disparate genres have quite a bit more in common that meets the eye, and Hank III’s eclectic repertoire is a product of the creative bent and fuck-you can-do attitude that personifies the best of both. He’s been doing things his way since the early nineties — collaborating with the Melvins and Willie Nelson, playing in Superjoint Ritual and Arson Anthem, recording his own tunes with Assjack and under his own name — and decades later, is showing no signs of slowing down.

With four (!) new albums to promote and an array of tour dates coming up quick, ol’ Hank’s got a lot on his mind, and he was more than happy to let me pick his brain.

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In regards to the title: It would be super adorable if I went ahead and started writing about Deathevokation now, right? Sorry, not this time — even though The Chalice of Ages ruled!

I am, however, here to talk about death metal, and nothing but. The following three bands hail from various corners of the globe and follow the same dusty blueprints laid down by the masters. Lend them your ears.

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So what have we got here? Three new favorites: two recently discovered and one that’s finally grown on me. Something new, something kind of new, and something really old. Two “temples” and some South American madness. Varying shades of blasphemy. Loud, ugly, and evil as fuck. Check ‘em out.

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Welcome to 2012! No matter if you’re inclined to believe the predictions of a certain ancient civilization or subscribe the nonsensical ravings of yet another evangelical Christian idiot (or are just, like, paying attention to the amount of holy-shit-we’re-fucked that’s been going around), all signs seem to point pretty clearly towards Armageddon. Maybe fire won’t rain down from the sky at midnight on the dot next December 31st, but the end times are nearing. As for every major event, you need a soundtrack, right? Something to drown out the screams of the damned, and distract you from the radiation sickness slowly spreading through your bloodstream. As some of you may remember, I’m a little nuclear-obsessed (and so are lots of your favorite bands), so don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.

Here are a few of my favorite ditties for celebrating the end of the world as we know it…and whatever comes next. Unsurprisingly, war metal does a damn good job of chronicling the horror, but crust, grind, and black metal take their turn doing the toxic waltz, too. Apocalypse now. Click to read more…

Pallbearer
Sorrow and Extinction
Label – Profound Lore
Release date – February 21, 2012

There are a few albums slated for release this year that I have been actively salivating over (Pilgrim’s Misery Wizard, that new full-length that Revenge have been teasing us with for what seems like ages, Drudkh’s new one, and the new Ride For Revenge LP that technically came out in 2011 but hasn’t shown up in my mailbox yet, so I’m counting it), but none quite so much as this one. Pallbearer are one hell of a special band, as many of us already knew and even more have recently discovered. On the strength of a simple three-song demo, this Arkansas collective took the world of doom by storm, racking up praise from fans and media goons alike. Their cover of Billie Holiday’s “Gloomy Sunday” (itself an interpretation of Hungarian composer Rezso Seress’ suicide song) was one of the most desolate things I’d ever heard this side of Warning, and the other pair of songs showed a startling amount of maturity and untouchable quality; this demo sounded better than 90% of proper albums released in 2010. Fans of the cleaner, more traditional elements of the doomed pantheon caught on quick, and the buzz around Pallbearer grew louder. Sporadic live gigs and rumors of recording kept anticipation high, until finally, it was announced that their debut offering would come courtesy of Profound Lore — and  then, the wait began. Luckily, one of the perks of this whole music writing game is getting to listen to records early (before they leak, even) which is why I only had to endure a few agonizing months of impatience before finding a download link to this creation in my email inbox… and brother, it was worth the wait.

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When I was first making this list, I had a hard time thinking of that many new albums I’d actually listened to in 2011. But once I actually got home and went through my iTunes/most recent pile of vinyl scores/the mid-year list I wrote, I realized that it’s actually been a damn good year. A few early favorites were supplanted by more recent discoveries and sneaky year-end releases (sorry, Aksumite; hello, Wrathprayer!). Two of my enduring picks came courtesy of the always-excellent Gilead Media, who could use a hand right now and richly deserve your support.

Most of the albums I really loved fall beneath the “black metal” umbrella (11/15), but there are a couple monuments of death and a few doomed souls thrown in there as well. Hell, I would have just written down Beherit’s Live at the Devil’s Studio 1990 fifteen times if I thought I could get away with it.

So, here’s my list! I decided to leave the descriptions a bit vague this year to pique curiosity and inspire further exploration. Spoiler alert: Opeth’s not on it, and I still think that Burzum re-recording was a terrible idea. No, I’m still not sold on the Sonne Adam record (Armed with Hammers was better, and  the production on Transformation was far too clean), and if you’re going to leave pouty comments saying that “I’ve never heard of any of these bands, jeez!”, I recommend you direct your browser to Metal Archives and start typing.

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Okay, so I’m not a punk, and never claimed to be. My punk cred is spotty at best (though I do have sweet Amebix neck tattoos!), and my knowledge is far from encyclopedic. However, I do love the fuck out of crust punk, d-beat, fastcore, powerviolence, 80’s hardcore, and grindcore, so you’re going to have to deal with me writing about it within the context of this series, because a) there are tons and tons of badass female musicians within those scenes, and b) duh, this shit rules! Of course, lumping all those disparate genres together is a little lazy on my part, but you’ve gotta admit that punk and grind go together like peanut butter and chocolate (or whips and chains).

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Our pals at Invisible Oranges just posted “Contrary Pulse,” a track off the upcoming Leviathan album, and boy, is it creepy. It’s not like Wrest (Jef Whitehead) has ever been much for kittens and rainbows (after all, this is the man that brought you such delightful USBM gems as “Fucking Your Ghost in Chains of Ice” and “Requiem for a Turd World”), but with this, his hitherto unexpected new effort, he’s really upped the ante. True Traitor, True Whore (Profound Lore) is genuinely nasty. You’ll feel dirty listening to it, and not in a sexy way.

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I suppose “occult rock” is a handy enough term for it, anyway; it’s easier than stringing together “70’s-influenced psychedelic doom rock” to describe the aural spells these wicked women weave. The Devil is bigger than ever (bigger than the Beatles!) and the chorus of converts singing his praises has grown louder with every Ghost album downloaded or pig’s blood-smeared Impiety shirt sold. Rock’n’roll has always been the Devil’s music. Bluesmen gave it its desolate soul, but in the late 60’s, Coven draped it in black velvet, lit the candles, and sacrificed it, fanning the flames straight back down to Lucifer. In the ensuing decades since Jinx Dawson and her merry men first married black magic with heavy psych, plenty more women have ventured down the left-hand path.  The following bands aren’t truly metal, but they flirt with enough occult references and genre staples to warrant a free pass. Any band/musician who can tour with Electric Wizard, call half of Watain their BFFS, rock the stage at Roadburn (or, you know, essentially introduce the concept of Satanism to American rock music way before even Black Sabbath or Pentagram were beckoning us forward) the way they have already boasts enough cred to put half the crowd at MDF to shame.

So here you have it, a handful of my favorite feminine purveyors of occult rock – most of them are vocalists, but a couple of them play other instruments as well. I definitely want to hear from you guys on this one, as this particular sound occupies a place very near to my metal heart. The thought of including Chelsea Wolfe and Zola Jesus (recent discoveries that I am unabashedly loving) crossed my mind but they seem a too close to the gothy end of the spectrum to warrant inclusion (good call/bad call? Wolfe’s Burzum cover was pretty neat).

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Ahhh, it’s that time of year again. The now infamous Hottest Chicks in Metal — er, Hard Rock – issue has hit the stands, and legions of people who would otherwise be hard-pressed to remember the last time they even read an issue of Revolver are up in arms over its sexist, dehumanizing, and overall mad weak (Evanescence? Really?) content. In all the uproar, judgements, and debate about womens’ place within the world of heavy metal, though, it seems like a lot of people have forgotten the most important point: the women who are actually out there in the trenches laying down riffs, holding down the low end, wrangling the mic, and hailing Satan. In the interest of steering the conversation back towards the actual music, my next few posts are going to highlight some of the baddest bitches in the game — in doom, in black metal, in death metal, in occult rock, in grind, etc. There are so many crucial female bands and musicians who have made indelible marks upon this genre that it’d take a lot more than the sliver of time your attentions spans allow for me to write about ‘em all, so here are just a few of my favorites. This week, it’s all about the heavy…

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A headline like “Tori Amos Issues Challenge to Metal Bands” is hard to ignore.  So I went over to Spinner.com to read this interview with Ms Amos, and this is what she had to say:

“Well, look, sometimes you don’t know how music affects people. I embrace that because I don’t think that just because I talk about emotional stuff that it’s not mother—er stuff. I’ll stand next to the hardest f—ing heavy metal band on any stage in the world and take them down, alone, by myself. Gauntlet laid down, see who steps up. See who steps up! I’ll take them down at 48. And they know I will. Because emotion has power that the metal guys know is just you can’t touch it. Insanity can’t touch the soul. It’s going to win every f—ing time.”

Before we get too riled up, it’d be smart to remember that homegirl has a new album to promote, and will spout any number of ridiculous soundbites to sell some plastic. Also, the offending paragraph showed up at the end of the interview, and feels like an offhand remark. Metal news sites went apeshit over it, though, so here we are. I sincerely doubt that Ms. Amos really intends to stand onstage next to Iron Maiden (or Manowar!) and “blow them off the stage.” Unless she’s got about sixteen Orange amps to blast her whispery, piano-driven poem-songs through and 4/5 of Vader providing backup, she ain’t gonna have much luck.

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(I am well aware that that is a shit title, but I’ve been hanging out with my grandma all day and she’s really excited about the Emmys, so it’s the best I could dredge up with visions of Mad Men buzzing through my skull. Also, I’m still wicked jet-lagged, so suck it).

RVA’s weed-obsessed death metallers Cannabis Corpse have just returned home from a triumphant month-long tour that took the four of them, our intrepid driver Michal, and yours truly on a whiskey-soaked, high-spirited adventure through Europe, the UK, and Russia. I started writing a full-on tour diary early on (check out the first installment here) but quickly realized that it was going to be nearly impossible to find the time or appropriate technological accoutrements to continue; the WiFi situation got pretty dire, and honestly, it gets boring after awhile to read a laundry list of “Italy ruled! France ruled! Austria ruled!” etc. I believe we did 28 dates total (give or take a few – I may still be hungover from London) and every show was a good one; some were amazing, others were more low-key, but it was a fantastic experience overall. There were tons of highlights – swimming in the Mediterranean, finding an old Russian tank and walking through a lit-up Red Square at night, drinking craft beer on a mountaintop in Austria, watching Mayhem from the side of the stage at a French festival, the mind-blowing food in Italy, absinthe lemonade in the Czech Republic, seeing old friends and reuniting with old ones, and partying in about four different time zones, to say the least. Essentially, this tour RULED, and there are now a few hundred heshers stalking the streets of Vienna, London, Moscow, Helsinki, and tons of other places sporting Cannabis Corpse shirts, so mission accomplished there!

One of the coolest things about this trip was being able to meet and hang out with metalheads from all over Europe and bond over a mutual love of brutality, blastbeats, and bongs. Of the many bands that shared the stage with the ‘Corpse, there were a certain handful that really stood out and made an impression on me, either through sheer musical might or by virtue of the awesomeness of the members themselves. There were plenty of utterly crap bands too, of course, but the odds were weighed heavily in the favor of high-calibre heavy metal. My perch behind the merch table generally afforded me the best seat in the house, and the following five bands were the ones that made me appreciate it most!

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Richmond, VA stoners ov death Cannabis Corpse are currently burning their way through the European continent, with planned raids on Russia and the UK coming up quick, and yours truly is along for the ride to hustle merch and document the madness. Full disclosure: I work with the band and their label, but I’m doing this tour diary not as a sneaky promotional trick, but because I’m in fucking Europe with a bunch of awesome death metal dudes and wanted to write about the experience. So here goes.

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Nine times out of ten, when faced with the option to listen to a band I enjoy’s brand-spankin’ new album or to their shitty old demos from six years ago, I’ll go with the latter.  Don’t get me wrong — metal in 2011 is a many-headed, constantly evolving beast whose progress is fascinating to observe; I’m into tons of newer bands, and love discovering killer new releases. However, at the end of the day, when I’ve finally got a few minutes to myself, I’m going to be listening to Necros Christos’ Black Mass Desecration demo from 2003 or my battered old Celtic Frost records, not whatever new jam is buzzing its way through the blogosphere that week (no matter how awesome it may prove itself to be). There’s no place like home.

I also spent a helluva lot of time listening to my friends’/boyfriend’s bands, so color me a bit biased (though honestly, what writer isn’t?).

These basic truths about my listening habits make compiling year-end lists an absolute shitshow, so I suppose Axl’s asking me to haul one out mid-year will serve as a good trial run for the inevitable horrors ahead.

That being said, here are the albums I’ve been listening to the most. I’ve already written about a few of them, so no big surprises await. Read ‘em and weep.

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photo by Maciej Mutwil

Chris Reifert is a man who likes to work slowly. His doom-drenched, depraved death metallic music is murderously slow. The long, long, long-awaited reunion of his band Autopsy took over a decade. Their ensuing brand-new full-length album, Macabre Eternal, materialized tantalizingly slowly.

He apparently also takes his damn time when it comes to answering interviews from keyboard jockeys like yours truly. His answers were worth the wait, though – and how could I possibly be irked at the man behind “Charred Remains?”

Check it out:

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With a cadre of screaming car alarms, vividly argumentative neighbors, and the ever-pervasive rise and fall of reggaeton blasting down the block as a sonic backdrop, I settle in to give as much of my attention as possible to an album that, after years of waiting, has finally arrived on my doorstep. I’ve been a devotee to Ireland’s Wreck of the Hesperus’ particular breed of funereal filth since I first heard their 2006 opus The Sunken Threshold, and while their ensuing slew of demos, EPs, and splits (including an absolutely colossal outing with doomed countrymen Mourning Beloveth) have all hit the spot, I wanted more.  Now, thanks to Aesthetic Death (and the lads’ finally getting off their arses and recording!), Light Rotting Out has arrived, slick with afterbirth and writhing in the sunlight.

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