Thorriors of the world rejoice and once more cast off your deodorant. Sweaty eminence Valient Himself and his minions from Burlatia (located inside the planet Venus, in case you’re not up on your interstellar geography) have returned to get feral on the collective ass of the human race.

Not hip to Valient Thorr? Allow me to share the recipe. Start with five guys who look like they escaped the Dawn of Man exhibit at your local museum. Pulverize classic guitar rock (Ted Nugent, AC/DC, MC5), push tempos into the red and sprinkle with Anthrax-style choruses. Of course, it’s not Valient Thorr until you add the secret sauce, which is delivering this balls-out gumbo with the recklessness of genuine article punk and enough perspiration to submerge North Americans in an ocean of their malodorous secretions.

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Skeletonwitch has been a welcome anomaly these past few years. Amidst a resurgence of thrash and 80s throwback nostalgia, the band managed to stand head and shoulders above most emerging, like-minded acts, no doubt many thanks to their inclusion of equal parts thrash, N.W.O.B.H.M. melody, black metal vocals and Nordic nods in the quintet’s riffing and tempos. Breathing the Fire, their new Prosthetic Records release, further codifies these styles and influences, and confirms The ‘Witch’s music as both original and refreshing.

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Recording the first album without a previous vocalist is usually a curse on a band’s sound, cred, and whatever dork-speak you want to talk about the guys that spout, “Well, their first X number of records where good at least” (where X equals how awesome you are at liking metal, hardcore, and the heavier side of the musical spectrum), right? With co-vocalist Jamie Hooper sidelined by recurring throat problems and now out of the picture, high-pitcher Cam Pipes is the sole vocalist this time around (aside from guitarist Justin Hagberg’s backup growls). That results in lending 3 Inches of Blood an even more traditional sound on Here Waits Thy Doom, the band’s Century Media debut after a brief few years on Roadrunner. The group no longer has any original members… but their heart (and metal) is still in the right place.

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We’ve all been cringing at Courtney Love’s latest desecration of her dead husband for a quick buck. Thankfully, the Hole frontwoman and executor of Kurt Cobain’s estate isn’t standing in the way of an absolutely awesome reissue of Bleach, Nirvana’s classic grunge/sludge debut. First released twenty years ago on Sub Pop, the album has been remastered for the label under the direction of bassist Krist Novoselic and original producer Jack Endino.

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[In which the Early Man guitarist/vocalist shares his thoughts on the world, music, and the usual assortment of drunken adventures/misadventures. Enjoy. -Ed.]

Hello everyone, welcome to WHIPLASH! With this column I plan to give you weekly updates and a behind the scenes look into everything that is going on in the world of Early Man, whether it be drinking, touring, recording, drinking, shredding, drinking, etc., if it’s happening I’ll be writing about it. What I won’t be doing with this column is writing 9 page essays about the “current state of the metal scene” or “my take on the new Metallica record” or any other boring crap like that. Don’t you get enough of that horseshit already? WHO FUCKING CARES! If you want to see what’s actually going on out here in the real world with a working touring metal band, well…it’s your lucky day. And just to make this all that much more interesting I’m going to take your questions and answer them right here on a regular basis via video response. Ain’t technology grand? Just remember, no question is a stupid question, I’ll take them all. Any topic, any subject, fire away. You can send them to: whiplash@metalsucks.net.

Before I take off I’ll use this opportunity to bring you up to speed with what’s been going on over the past 6 months with the band.

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