Get to the chopper

I’m a bit of a Tim Lambesis fan, primarily because Austrian Death Machine is one of my favourite side projects of all time, but also because As I Lay Dying are a fine example of modern metal. It was therefore with great happiness that I received AILD’s forthcoming Decas album a couple of days back, and into my ears at a savage volume it went.

Decas is being released to celebrate AILD’s tenth year in the metal world and features three new tracks, a few covers and some remixes. The cover of Judas Priest’s Electric Eye is good shit but my personal highlight is their thrash cover of Descendants Coffee Mug. I love the original and this is a worthy reworking. Not sure about the weird dancey remix stuff though; when the Benjamin Weinman (of Dillinger Escape Plan fame) remix of Wrath Upon Ourselves came on it’s such a horrible bastard noise that I thought my MP3 player had packed up.

The new Whitechapel EP is in too and it’s a curious beast. It’s eight tracks that again, has a Weinman remix which I am not looking forward too, a cover of Pantera’s Strength Beyond Strength and an acoustic version of End of Flesh. Yes, and acoustic Whitechapel track. To be honest, it sounds pretty terrible, doesn’t it? I can’t really see how the kings of deathcore (a title I have assigned, before everyone gets pissy and cries about how Job for a Cowboy are better) would work at all without brutal downtuned 8-strings and savage drums. Watch this space for a full run down…

In other news, everyone’s favourite nice-assed midget John Bon Jovi has opened a restaurant called Soul Kitchen in New Jersey, which promotes healthy eating to families on a low income. The premise is, if you can’t afford to pay for the meal, you work in the restaurant as a volunteer to settle the tab. What a thoroughly bloody good bloke.

Fare the well

M

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Poo jokes

I'm confused about The Browning. I understand that that may read as though I'm struggling to pass fecal matter but I am in fact referring to new UK outfit The Browning's album Burn This World. There's been a lot of talk about this mob and most of the PR material from Earache talks about them being a trailblazing new band. I am inclined to agree but I can't decide if I love it or hate it.

There's been an influx of dancey trancey housey metal over the last few months which may have caused a large percentage of people to vomit but I'm actually not averse to it. It probably stems from my teens years, during which my misfit bunch of mates and I would head to nightclubs and fail to pull women of any standard to a backdrop of Lisa Pin-Up and The Tidy Boys. I have no shame in admitting that I'm still a massive fan of early 90's rave music and a bit of mid-90s hard house, which brings us full circle.

I mentioned The Bunny The Bear a few weeks back, who may be a bit of a teenage girl's wet dream band but their album is good fun. The Browning take this poppy vibe and make it a lot darker. There's been a lot of 'dubstep' references banded around but in my mind, there's only one moment that could be considered dubstep on Burn This World (Ashamed); the rest of the time it has a more trancey feel which can get a bit repetitive and bloody irritating as the album progresses. Although Time Will Tell starts off like a Scooter track, which is hilarious.

However, it's still got some big metal riffs and the token harsh vocals, so don't go all "it's not metal" on me or I will be forced to sodomise your pets. Thing is, if you actually listen to dubstep and deathcore/metalcore there isn't a gulf of difference between them; both have that slow, building dugga-dugga-dug rhthym and massive drops, and although I'm not suggesting pop starlet Katie B is likely to be touring with Whitechapel in the immediate future, there are definite similarities in the structure of the music.

I would recommend strongly listening to Burn This World before you decide it's a pile of browning.

M
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Something new...

The sound is well out of synch, apologies for that. but you get the general idea.