Deathcore wins

I've never been a massive fan of slapping a genre label on bands. In days of yore, calling a band like Iron Maiden 'heavy metal' or Rush 'prog rock' made sense but in the era of 'screamo crunk', how the fuck do you decide who's what? Take Throwdown, for example; initially a hardcore band, now much more MOR metal, so I assume that makes them post-hardcore conformo-metal, or something?

My reason for this bitch is that I recently got hold of the latest album from German outfit Anima and as I tucked into the standard overblown press release waffle, the 'deathcore' label jumped out and nutted me in the balls. Deathcore is one of the genres that gets a regular kicking left, right and centre so I automatically thought "oh great". Then I started thinking (which wasn't easy) I like Whitechapel, think the most recent Annotations Of An Autopsy album is excellent and as both bands have had the deathcore shit flung in their direction, I reached a conclusion: I like deathcore. Derogatory as the tag has been, it fucking works for me, alright??

Anima's Enter The Killzone is no different to anything you'd expect from this much-maligned genre. Down-tuned guitars, grunting vocals, massively predictable breaks, backdrops of horror, screams, and general pain, etc. And to be honest, I love it. Have a look at their MySpace as this album is so heavy it'll make your bowels collapse. Although I'm sure some of you will be too damn kvlt to admit it.

Whilst we're on the subject of deathcore, I suggest any Americans reading this get in touch with Annotations Of An Autopsy. The lads' Facebook page is currently asking if anyone with space can put them up on their American tour in return for a couple of tickets to a gig. Although the prospect of waking up with Steve 'Fuck Me That's Going To Ruin Your Vocal Chords' Reagan and the boys kipping in your living room is a touch intimidating, it's got to be worth doing to support these champions of British heaviness.

And on that note, I'm off. I like deathcore so fuck you.

M

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The more things change...

...The more they stay the same. Apologies to those of you were expecting some kind of radically different Metal Harmony after my hiatus last week but did Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel overnight? Huh? Did he ballbags. So continue to watch this space. It'll be worth it. Probably.

I had a trawl through the plethora of bands that follow me on Twitter this week in desperate search for some quality relatively unknown metal and found my search as useful as fucking a corpse in the hope of starting a family. There is a real wealth of shit out there. Don't get me wrong; A Day To Remember are a decent pop-metal band, nothing wrong there, but there's no need for 68,000 new bands to sound exactly the fucking same as them. It's indescribably boring. I did stumble across Lead Farmer though and if you like truly garage death grind, check them out

I'm also well into the new album from Valkyrja this week, entitled Contaminated. It's pure black metal and deserves to be played at a granny-bothering volume if only for the insane kick drum. Full review on Metal as Fuck in the next few days so check it out, unless you're either a total pussy or a devout Christian.

Bullet For My Valentine also gave us a taster of new album Fever this week, with a free download of Begging For Mercy. All in all, not bad. Matt Tuck's voice is still a bit weedy and the drumming's hardly something you'd drop your trousers and play with your danglers over but despite me being one of the few that didn't hate Scream Aim Fire, this is a marked improvement.

Remember how I was bitching about not being able to go to Rammstein and having to sell my tickets to Machine Head? Here's the punchline; I won four tickets to the forthcoming Hammerfest 2 festival, which includes the likes of Napalm Death, Devildriver, and many more stalwarts of savagery...but I'm unable to go. Now listen up kids; the primary problem here is money so here's my thinking: you all send me £50 (or equivalent if you're reading this outside the UK) so I can go to numerous events, and I write super lovely reviews for you all to enjoy. Anyone? No? Ungrateful bastards.

Onto shit I shall be attending though, as Download 2010 pulled a real 12-incher out of the bag this week with Rage Against The Machine and Aerosmith (with whom organiser Andy Copping assures us Steven Tyler will perform), as well as other crowd pleasers in the shape of Lamb Of God...which reminds me! The Lamb Of God gig was excellent but I was so nailed I could do about as effective a review as Helen Keller could a 100m-sprint.

Anyway, Lamb Of God, Five Finger Death Punch (not sure why so many people hate this lot) and Stone Sour, which pleases Hot Chick no end. All this being said, in order to ensure not all of my posts are about Download and Sonisphere between now and the summer, future updates on these titanic festivals will be limited to:

Download - 5FDP, Aerosmith, Stone Sour

Sonisphere - no announcement

Download wins

See what I've done there? Informative and opinionated, cunning stunt that I am.

In other news, some mob known as "Irons Maident" or something have virtually completed their new album. Can't think of anyone who cares, to be honest...

Kisses and bum sex,

M

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It all started so well...

February has managed to transform from being an epically good month gig-wise to being a bit of a shitter. Events have conspired against me and the devil has once again shat in my coffee. Firstly, I was unable to attend last night's Rammstein madness, and due to a combination of poor timing and imminent bankruptcy, I've had to flog my tickets to Machine Head. So only Lamb Of God remains ahead this month but I'm expecting nothing less than crippling metal perfection there, plus Between The Buried and Me is a new live band for me and they're promising to be insane.

Also slightly disappointing is the fact that despite crowd surfing my fat carcass continually across the heads of many poor bastards and generally wreaking havoc I still failed to get into DevilDriver's Another Night In London video. This being said it's a great bit of celluloid and if you were at the HMV Forum gigs in London in October, it brings back some pleasantly warming memories.

Anyway, enough of this grizzling. There are people in the world much less fortunate than I with their gig attendance, including folks who have actually paid to see Hollywood Undead.

2010 also marks the return of the most important band in my life; Leatherface. As you may recall from Not A Day Goes By (July 3rd 2009), I fucking love this lot so new album The Stormy Petrel, released on February 22nd through Big Ugly Fish, is a boner-inducing prospect. Look out for my review in the coming weeks.

So with no Rammstein to report, I feel a bit naked in terms of content today. However, there are lots of exciting things on the horizon - new sexy Metal Harmony site, new brutal metal reviews for MetalasFuck, new unsigned Canadian carnage, so watch this space as I'm going to be after photos, demos and general shit from all you lot in the not too distant future.

Metal Harmony is on the rise mother fuckers.

M

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The month of pure awesome

My second Monday blog post in as many weeks. This is due to a monumentally hungover MADman on Friday, resulting in an emergence from bed early afternoon and a margarita pizza for 'breakfast'. You get the idea.

What a week it was though. Download 2010 officially confirmed AC/DC as headliners, plus Megadeth, Bullet For My Valentine, Deftones, Motorhead - okay, so it's not going as mind-boggling as the initial Sonisphere shout but it's something for us to get our teeth into. I dutifully purchased tickets for me and Hot Chick; cannot fucking wait.

February kicks off today and I've been looking forward to it in a massive way for a few key reasons:

Feb 4th - Rammstein

Feb 13th - Lamb of God (with Job For A Cowboy, August Burns Red, Between The Buried And Me)

Feb 18th - Machine Head (with Hatebreed, Bleeding Through, Man Must Die)

Fair enough I'm going to be broke well before the end of the month but to be honest, it's going to be worth it. I've never seen Rammstein live but find myself eagerly anticipating the pyro-tastic Teutonic oiled man fest. Perhaps that says a little something about me.

For any seriously metal metallers tucking into a bit of Metal Harmony, I've been absolutely blown away by the second album from Scandinavian octet Eluveitie over the last couple of weeks. I can only really describe them as blackened folk death metal and would strongly recommend listening to Everything Remains (As It Never Was) for a truly exceptional audio experience, combining traditional instrumental folk songs with brutal blasting arse-clenchingly heavy guitar. I won't go into too much detail but the review'll be going up on MetalasFuck in a few days...

Canadian's Aeternam have also impressed me with their debut album Disciples Of The Unseen. There's a thrash vibe with black-as-hell undertones, with the occasional melodic vocal and interlude you'd expect to be playing in a Turkish bazaar. If you're planning a virginal sacrifice in your basement, this is a good choice of album to play in the background.

Whilst I have you attention, go to Annotation Of An Autopsy's MySpace (in the list) as they're streaming the new album II: The Reign Of Darkness in it's entirety. Listen to it. It will make you cry.

As a final point, thanks to Sea Of Treachery for covering Paramore's Misery Business. The original is a guilty pleasure of mine but this version is fucking insane. As always, link in the list. Fuck I'm good to you.

Tune in next time to find out if I get forcefully fisted by burly Germans in arseless chaps at Rammstein.

M

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