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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Top Ten of epicness

You can't beat a good cover version. A band takes a classic song, redoes it, and occasionally makes it something spectacular - Pantera's cover of Black Sabbath's Planet Caravan is one of the greatest things I've ever heard, and Type O Negative's version of Summer Breeze by Seals and Crofts (or The Isley Brothers) is one of the most exquisitely depressing covers known to man. But today I'm celebrating those covers song that are completely inappropriate, mindless and fucking funny.

Props to brit metallers and thoroughly decent chaps Sa-Da-Ko for inspiring this list with this their most recent and retarded outing; a cover of DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Boom Shake The Room. Brilliant.

10. Snuff - Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads

Punk legends Snuff Oi-up the 1970s comedy show theme tune. Try and listen to the last few half-beat bars without donning bovver boots, downing a bottle of Newcastle Brown and smashing it on your head

9. Lagwagon - Bad Moon Rising

Basically exactly the same as the Creedance Clearwater Revival original, with the exception of a cripplingly fast chorus that back in the day made this budding teenage drummer's balls tighten.

8. The Bezerker - All The Things She Said

Technically, T.A.T.U's original was all about a video of them dressed as schoolgirls and lezzing up in the rain. Pretty much a winning idea. Until The Bezerker added impossibly fast double kick and substituted vulnerable, questionably-legal teenagers with a PVC'd dominatrix couple.

7. Lawnmower Deth - Kids In America

If Kim Wilde's original wasn't awesome enough, the British legends give it a comedy metal makeover. Indescribably awesome.

6. Ten Masked Men - Cry Me A River

Internet legends Ten Masked Men have metalled up everything from Christina Aguilera to Eiffel 65 but their cover of Justin Timberlake's whinging opus about losing tragic psychopath Britney Spears is a stroke of genius.

5. Austrian Death Machine - T2 Theme

As I Lay Dying's Tim Lambesis drops a bit of a bollock here as technically, this theme is from the end of the first Terminator but nevertheless, adding chugging riffs and soaring fretwork to one of the most seminal pieces of music from 20th century cinema (well, I think so anyway) is a stroke of genius

4. Me First & The Gimme Gimmes - Mandy

With a massive back catalogue to choose from, the punk supergroup could have a top ten of their own but in my mind, punking up Manilow is always a winner.

3. NOFX - Vincent

Don Maclean's tribute to earless Absinthe mentaller Vincent Van Gogh gets the SoCal treatment. Fat Mike's nasal squawk and Erik Sandin's trademark drumming takes a somber, down beat song and makes it a pit-swelling anthem

2. Turisas - Rasputin

Take Boney-M, add folk metal, et voila. I almost pissed myself when I first saw this live as it's such a perfectly retarded song to cover. However, Turisas do it so well you'd think they themselves had penned this tribute to Russia's greatest love machine.

1. Hi-Standard - California Dreamin'

Without doubt, my favourite stupid cover of all time. Nothing pays tribute to the mid-1960s anthem more than this double-quick version by a group of Japanese punks. It's a moment of pure genius and a hands down winner.

Ah, that was fun. Time to go and pull a moonie at the pope.

Ciao

M

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Hello darkness, my old friend

Thank fuck October's nearly here. I love summer, I really do - drinking in the sunshine, barbeques, walking around in just your underwear - but due to the wealth of festivals, summer is a fucking terrible gig season. Much as I'd love to be at everything from Bloodstock to Wacken, my financially spasticated self has to select one, and only one, event to attend.

But lo, the long days have fucked off and the darkness prevails. And in a couple of weeks, it all kicks off with Throwdown and Chimaira, which will provide my mate Si-KO and I with a much needed outlet for controlled vio-lence. And then the flood gates open to a whole host of awesome nights out.

Exciting times.

Anyway, my clearly superior but bankrupting social calendar aside, good things are happening in the world of metal. I've got my hands on a copy of the new Austrian Death Machine album, Double Brutal, which no doubt the Red Wizard and I will be quoting and pissing ourselves about in the imminent future. I'd also like to formally recommend Hail Of Bullets to any of you lovely fuckers who dwell on the borders of metal and hardcore. Their latest outing, Warsaw Rising, is some pretty intense listening.

In addition, for lovers of the harder side of life, Molotov Solution's The Harbinger has vocals somewhere in between everyone's favourite animal-loving veggie Barney Greenway and German eye-linered anger merchant Andreas Dorner from Caliban. The album can be streamed free, link is on my "Cool Shit" list. Listening to this on my walk to work made me want to start a fight with a bus so be ready for a fucking war.

On to the old school. In rather predictable news, KISS are shortlisted for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame...I assumed they'd already be there but I guess I'm thick as a fat bird's heel skin. The shortlist also includes the Red Hot Chili Peppers - I know Hot Chick's gonna shit fire when I say this but "what the fuck???". Good band, don't get me wrong, but on a par with KISS? Un-feckin-likely.

AC/DC fans be aware - their launching a new site (link in the usual spot) for some kind of announcement on September 29th. Any guesses? I'm fucked if I know. Maybe Brian Johnson's getting a hip replaced.

Oh, and for those of you who didn't know, my first column has gone live on MetalasFuck, so go and read it or so help me God I'll have you gang banged by Rammstein. I'm also moonlighting on BornInBlood.com, so there's also a link to my review of Fleshkraft's debut album First Harvest.

I must dash; have to GET TO THE CHOPPER! (get it?)

M
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