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This week’s list of releases covers a lot of ground, between the sludge punk of Black Tusk, Noctem’s blackened thrash, a heavier side of Russian Circles, East of the Wall, Carnifex, Hammers of Misfortune and much more. Check it all out by clicking below.
Hammers Of Misfortune’s upcoming album 17th Street (listen here) totally blew me away on the very first listen. It was one of those virginal experiences in which I knew nothing about the band, no expectations, just maximum jamming. As precious as an unpolluted music encounter is, I’ve already skewed your HoM relationship by telling you that 17th Street is awesome, so jeez, this might be the time to break it to you that HoM are hipsters. Like, super-hipsters, hipsters so hipster that the term hipster doesn’t even capture them; let’s brand them hipsterers. More on that in a second.
Do prog metal bands have a propensity for Noun Preposition Noun band names the way scene bands do for Verb the Noun band names? Someone should really look into that. Are “as” and “of” even prepositions, or are they conjunctions? With a certain big player out of the way (no spoiler!), what will the next season of Breaking Bad be about? Big questions.
Any way you slice it, today is a good day for prog metal fans. Because those of you reading this for Animals as Leaders will click through the jump with your pants already down before even hearing their new track, let’s cover Hammers of Misfortune first in the hopes of gaining them a few new fans; the Bay Area-based prog metal greats have a new track called “The Day the City Died” over at Noisecreep. My personal favorite track from their new album 17th Street is “The Grain,” which you can stream here. “The Grain” is an absolutely captivating song, and truth be told I was a little disappointed upon listening to the full album that the rest of the tracks weren’t as good… but it’s still a really solid listen and “The Day the City Died” is the second best the album has to offer.
Now, new Animals as Leaders:
For those eagerly awaiting the results of our Catstacking contest, we’ll be announcing the winner in another day or two, so be patient. In the meantime we’ll dole out that Six Feet Under DVD we offered up two weeks ago. The winning caption to the photo at right:
This week we’ve got a copy of Return to Earth’s Automata and a copy of Hammers of Misfortune’s Church of Broken Glass, once again from Metal Blade. So do what ya’ll do best: come up with the funniest caption to the below photo and drop it in the comments. Remember to use a real email address (or post it with your comment if you’re using FB Connect).
After listening to Psycho’s female blowtorch, Penny Torture, and Ava Inferi’s haunting distaff elemental, Carmen Susana Simões, I realized it’s time we just chill and admit that women are all-around better at this metal-singing thing.
Is this mad exaggeration? It feels like that when I’m away from an MPEG player, but then I listen to those two radically different bands, to Psycho’s primal-scream old school death or Ava Inferi’s doomed-out, gothy whatsit, and it feels I’m not over-reaching, I’m underselling.
And it’s not just two superior releases (Ava Inferi’s Onyx and Psycho’s Pain Addict Pigs). It’s just become impossible to ignore the fact that females are not only doing equal or better work in the same genre jobs as male counterparts, they’re also making metal records that go places no male on Earth — none, nada, zip-ol-lina — could go. That 2011’s best metal so far — Subrosa’s No Help for the Mighty Ones — is an almost all-femme effort of relentless pan-genre awesomeness only adds arsenic and new lace to my argumentative cake.
All of which may have the reader thinking, “You do realize, you silly person, that you’ve just written off the work of one half the human race.”
To which I say, “Yeah, well, I guess I’m pimping a little irony here, since that’s business as usual with women and the metal press. But irony aside, please bear with me.”
Now that we’ve gotten the epic story that is last week’s winner out of the way, let’s move on to this week’s contest, shall we? Don’t worry; if you were really hoping to win that Slayer Vinyl Conflict box set you can still do so over at Metal Insider. They’re even including a B.C. Rich Kerry King Beast V in their contest, so theirs is like 10x more eBayable than ours.
This week we’re giving away two packages from Metal Blade Records, each consisting of three Hammers of Misfortune CDs: The August Engine, The Bastard, and The Locust Years. To win, just come up with the funniest caption to the below photo [sent in by reader Kyle Church], and remember to use a real email address (or post it with your comment if you’re using FB Connect)!
Ludicra’s “De-Cancellation Tour” — waged in the face of Mayhem dropping off the bill and guitarist John Cobbett’s hospitalization — may have ended, but Cobbett’s (also of Hammers of Misfortune) outrageous medical bills certainly haven’t been forgotten. Neither has Ludicra’s excellent release The Tenant. And since we know all too well how hospital stays can cost a small fortune here in America – and since it’s the least we can do to help pay back Cobbett for giving us such great music — we’d like to draw attention to a fundraiser organized by Umlaut and Sensory Abuse.
Umlaut and Sensory Abuse are offering a limited edition Ludicra print with the proceeds going to help John Cobbett with his existing medical expenses. Sensory Abuse’s iconic live shot was taken at the final show of Ludicra’s U.S. Tour at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco on May 8th. This is a limited edition of 66 hand-numbered prints, each of which measures 19″x13″ and is printed on heavy, canvas-like paper stock. For delivery within the U.S. the print will cost $20 (shipping included). For International Orders please add an additional $5. The prints will be appropriately sent in a black mailing tube. Every little bit helps, and with only 66 copies available they’re sure to go fast; order here.
-VN
Poor John Cobbett. Ludicra just put out an excellent new album, The Tenant, but the guy has still suffered from some crummy luck, to put it mildly. First, Mayhem canceled the tour Ludicra was supposed to play support on; then they decided “Fuck Mayhem, let’s do it on our own,” and announced a “De-Cancellation” tour.
And then Cobbett’s appendix burst.
And then the doctors at San Francisco General Hospital misdiagnosed Cobbett, gave him a clean bill of health, and sent him home.
Which is how he ended up in the Olympia ER, which is where he remains as of this writing (see photo above). And because this is America, where decent health insurance is unafuckingffordable, John needs help paying all the medical bills.
According to a statement from the band, there are multiple ways you can help John out:
