MetalSucks

Here’s how Keelhaul drummer Will Scharf introduced himself and the band via e-mail: “I understand you’re doing research on senility, bad potty habits, and coping with walkers and Metamucil. We are the perfect subjects.” Old and incontinent Scharf may be, but he’s also hilarious, and a motherfucker of a drummer. There’s heavy jams and scrumptious fills a-plenty on Keelhaul’s new album Triumphant Return to Obscurity, out August 4th on Hydra Head, the Cleveland math- metallers’ first release in six years. It offers the kind of ultra-tight, largely instrumental ass-whuppin’ that just doesn’t come around that often anymore. Scads of Keelhaul’s contemporaries have blown up while they’ve triumphantly returned to waiting tables and running soundboards in their hometown, time and time again. The self-effacing Scharf doesn’t seem too bitter about it though. While it probably doesn’t take much to please a guy that describes corndogs as the “greatest invention ever,” I discovered that Scharf has a pretty healthy perspective about Keelhaul’s lot.

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I forgot my earplugs last night when Vince and I hit up The Faceless show here in NYC last night. This was kind of a terrifying realization. I am finally at a point where I honestly feel like metal shows are almost too loud. It’s not that I hate the music – I obviously love the music – I’d just still like to be able to hear it in ten or twenty years (I plan on dying shortly thereafter, so that’s really as far as I need to make it.). Luckily, my man Vince had an extra pair for me, but guess what? When I got home, my ears were still ringing. My point being: it seems inevitable that I will someday suffer from hearing loss in some capacity.

D.X. Ferris recently wrote an article on just this topic for The Cleveland Scene, which includes interviews with such metal luminaries as Keelhaul and Soulless. Here’s an excerpt:

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