MetalSucks

[We're huge fans of The Haunted's Peter Dolving's MySpace rants; the dude is intelligent, funny, and generally spot on (if you need confirmation of this just look at comments below anything about him on Blabbermouth, and just assume the usual Blabbermouth maxim: that whatever people are saying, the opposite is true). His band happens to be fucking awesome too. So we figured, hey, why not see if he's up for porting his rants to MetalSucks? Through a little bit of luck and some good connections (you know who you are -- thanks, dude!) we are thrilled to present to you the one and only Peter Dolving himself. God bless. We hope to make this a regular feature. -Ed.]

Fuck. My Lawnmower Of Death broke down.

I feel devastated. It’s an english lawnmower, ’cause the english are without question masters of grass. Now why the devastation one might ask. Awright, here’s the deal – I’ve been on tour the last five summers and this year since the Björler twins are doing their little At The Gates outing – it’s me, and my garden.

Nothing comes between us.

I have a really small house, but a huge garden folks. When me and the family, with my now ex-wife (yeah I had to get that in there…) moved in three years ago, the yard was a mess. Littered, no, covered by car tires, scrap metal, twigs, tons of twigs, branches, garbage and old construction debris. I spent weeks, months inbetween tourdates clearing the place up, dragging and burning shit night after night. It drove my exwife crazy, her being a citygirl and all. She’d tell me I was running away. I tried to explain what I saw was there, but you know… “You just don’t spend your time outside all day long, digging around in muck and come in smelling all smoke and soot, we’re your family come insiiiiiide…”).

Well, now I’m divorced, the place looks beautiful and my kids fucking love it. They love it because they’ve been and are a part of making it, creating it as it unfolds. Poetry in fucking motion. Not everyone gets that part of life. But dude, don’t fucking expect beauty to come dropping in your lap. That, little buddy – will not happen.

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While everyone is all in a tizzy about the At the Gates reunion, the brothers Bjorler — with our favorite vocalist/ranter Peter Dolving — have also been working on new music for their other band. By now The Haunted have no doubt finished recording the follow-up to 2006’s excellent The Dead Eye; the album is tentatively called Versus and is due in late September via Century Media.

There’s some fan-filmed live footage of the band performing a new song at a festival in Sweden in June. Sounds to me like The Haunted are continuing to travel down the more moody, groove-based trail they set upon with The Dead Eye, which if you ask me is a good thing. Unfortunately the dick-hole who uploaded the video won’t allow embeds, so you’ll have to watch it here.

Also of consequence is that with a new Haunted album comes more philosophical Internet rants from Peter Dolving. Yay!

-VN

The Haunted are busy working on their new record at PUK studios in Denmark with producer Tue Madsen, and somewhere, in the woods outside of Gothenburg, frontman Peter Dolving is coming out of hibernation to resume his fantastic blog rants.

Just last night we were chatting with the dudes at Nonelouder about how The Haunted’s last album The Dead Eye (also produced by Madsen) was our favorite one yet — but we didn’t mention Dolving’s maniacal journal entries, which include nuggets such as this:

“How I’m feeling? Mutherfucker, I’m fucked. The shit I dream at night you wouldn’t believe. When I wake up I feel like I’m dead, I literally have minor hallucinations for the first halfhour until I’ve drugged myself with enough caffeine and sugar to murder an elephant.”

The Blabberbrat punters seem to ridicule Dolving into oblivion — but I, for one, think his writing is absolutely amazing. His rants on the world, politics, culture, life, psychology and um, oh yeah, music, are all right on the money.

Who thinks we take a stab at giving this guy a shot at a guest column on MetalSucks? If ever there was a match made in heaven. Plus, dude’s gonna have plenty of time on his hands this summer, whatwith the rest of the band members being busy with that At the Gates reunion and all…

-VN

Gotta please the metalheads too, right? Rock Band, the full-band cousin of Guitar Hero, will continue releasing downloadable weekly upgrade packs featuring new songs for the game. In addition to plenty of predictable releases, this one caught our eye: the week of March 4th will see the release of the “Thrash Three Pack,” featuring “Blinded by Fear” by At The Gates “Thrasher” by Evile “Shadow World” by The Haunted.

We’re shocked too. Sure, a few enterprising headbangers will be psyched to hear this news, and At the Gates are pretty legendary in a certain segment of the metal community, but I can’t see this being a big seller to a crowd that would rather sing “S.O.S.” by The Police for the 169th time. In any case it’s pretty damn cool, and I hope my richer friends who have Rock Band will spring for the Thrash Three Pack. After all, I’ve always wished I had long hair, lots of tattoos, was awesome at guitar, played in front of thousands of people… oh yeah, it’s just a video game.

-VN

It wouldn’t be considered a stretch to call At the Gates one of the most influential bands on metal today. Without At the Gates (and Dark Tranquillity), there would be no In Flames, The Haunted or Soilwork. And without any of those bands, there would be no Killswitch Engage and Shadows Fall, and without those bands there wouldn’t be any of the hundreds of mis-labeled metalcore bands that dominate today’s metal charts. Well, maybe the latter part is a good thing. In any case, they were pretty fuckin’ influential and they’ve just announced that they will be reuniting to tour the 2008 European Summer festival circuit.

Dates at Ruis Rock in Finland, the legendary Wacken Open Air in Germany, and Bloodstock in the UK have been confirmed so far, which leads us to speculate that Axl and I may be blessed with a Download 2008 appearance when we make the trip next summer. A Carcass reunion and At the Gates reunion at the same show? Ya don’t say.

At the Gates consists of Tomas Lindberg (Disfear, The Crown, Lockup) on vocals, Anders Björler (The Haunted) and Martin Larsson on guitar, Jonas Björler (The Haunted) on bass, and Adrian Erlandsson (Brujeria, Cradle of Filth) on drums. I was just listening to Slaughter of the Soul on my iPod on my way to work today; swear to God.

-VN