Rubbish bands

Over time, bands change. Their sound changes, their image changes. It might be slight and almost unnoticeable in some instances (AC/DC) but in others, it means a band goes from being something special to being a big pile of fetid shit. You can probably see what's coming next...
5. Throwdown

I should apologise to Throwdown. As a band they're the constant focus of my 'you fucked up' rage following the release of Deathless in 2009, and regular readers will be getting thoroughly bored of my beration but I promise this will be the last time.

The band that released Haymaker and the seminal hardcore/metal crossover anthem Holy Roller and a host of other mayhem-inducing numbers got beyond lazy with Deathless. Being constantly criticised by the elitists for being a Pantera-wannabe band, they decided that they should release an album that sounds like a shit Pantera effort. Despite a couple of decent songs - This Continuum is worth a listen - its just not Throwdown. The hardcore edge had gone and it felt like they were going for unit-shifting as opposed to having any kind for artistic credibility.

4. Black Stone Cherry

Black Stone Cherry are still a great rock band but there's no shying away from the fact that they peaked with their self titled debut in 2006. They have gone from being a truly exciting proposition to a middle of the road rock band who have aged blistering fast. Despite writing the odd song about shagging, the 20-somethings from Edmonton, Kentucky have reached plodding speed far too early in their career. Production values have increased tenfold, tour slots are constantly there but it seems the flame has died out. I really, really hope I'm proved wrong with their next release.

3. Feeder

No one has ever said they're a metal band so don't start. The first band I ever saw live, Feeder were an edgy indie rock outfit with distorted guitars and shouty vocals. My intro to the Welsh trio came in the shape of Woman in Town which is almost certainly still their best song, and in my early teen years, my old mucker Mearz and I played the Polythene album constantly. But then it all went wrong. The edge was well and truly smoothed and Feeder are now known for the fucking abysmal ditty Buck Rogers. If they'd have stopped at Just a Day I'd have been a happy man.

2. Manic Street Preachers

Memories of head banging with my mate Roshan to You Love Us in my bedroom aged about 10 are distant at best. I'm not suggesting James Dean Bradfield et al should still be topless and wearing a balaclava - no one wants to see a part naked fat Welshman - but where did it all go wrong? I point blank refuse to accept the existence of any Manic Street Preachers activity post-Holy Bible. Everything Must Go stayed true to the title, and everything went; interesting songs, punk attitude...I surely can't be on my own in thinking Design For Life is a hideously played bag o' shite? And Australia? Feeble. What happened to If White America Told The Truth For One Day It's World Would Fall Apart? Motorcycle Emptiness? Bastards.

1. Linkin Park

When it came out, Hybrid Theory was a monster album. I fucking love it, but more down the fact that it reminds me of being 18, being in my first year at university and being regularly pissed. A small tangent; a girl at my university and I listened to Hybrid Theory together a lot. In fact, she was so much into the nu metal scene that she managed to get back stage at Korn and ended up getting genital warts off of one of their roadies. True story.

Anyway, Hybrid Theory was, at the time, a new sound. It sounded angry, it joined Limp Bizkit in telling up and coming metallers that you could wear baseball caps and massive trousers, and it was front-to-back singalong classics. However, the warning bells started to ring when almost every song on the album was released as a single, then they released the whole of Hybrid Theory again as a remix album, and then it collapsed. There is no denying that nowadays, the band are total fucking shit.

There are other offenders but these are the big hitters. If you have any to add, I'd be intrigued.

Time to go and celebrate the beautiful 28-degree sunshine in London by sitting in an office staring at a computer.

M
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I'm not gay. Much.

I'm an enormous wimp. I'm absolutely terrified of the latest HIM album. I just can't listen to it.

HIM are one of my all-time favourite bands. I've seen them live shit loads of times, I spent about 6 months continuously listening to nothing other than Razorblade Romance and Love Metal, I'm convinced that I'll have The Sacrament played at my funeral and Hot Chick firmly believes I'm fully gay for Ville Valo. But all in the garden is rosy. I dutifully bought Venus Doom on release day in 2007 and was uninspired. It felt over-produced, weak, and didn't have any tunes with the raw passion of Razorblade Kiss or the seminal Buried Alive By Love.

So following on from this mild disappointment, I've been avoiding the latest album, Screamworks: Love In Theory & Practice since it's release as I don't want it to be the album that seals HIM's fate as a band passed their best. The couple of tracks I have heard are good but haven't erected me trouserly. However, as this week saw me celebrating the day of my birth, Bro Dude procured Screamworks... for me and insisted I give it a listen.

I haven't yet. I'm just too scared. After the recent abomination that was Throwdown's Deathless, I'm not sure my delicate psyche can take another blow.

Anyway, my mate Melvin has been preaching the gospel about US duo Cobalt for ages now. The band haven't been on my radar but he swears that Gin is one of the best black metal albums of 2009. It's a bold claim Melv (Behemoth's Evangelion might have a shot at that title) but I shall be digesting it with a critical ear imminently.

To finish on a tangent, well done to everyone in the UK who voted in the general election. It looks as if the bloody Tories are going to get in but nevertheless, if you went out and put your "x" in a box for any political party, good on you.

Right, I'm off to deposit last night's ale excess into David Cameron's pricey loafers.

Snogs,

M
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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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Hardcore and prescription medicine

So Monday finally arrived and after a substantial drought in the land of giggage, I once again got to feel the sweaty embrace of other men in the wondrous pit at Daath/Throwdown/Unearth/Chimaira at London's Electric Ballroom. My hardcore ally Si-KO couldn't make it so there I was, all by myself, drinking snakebite and black and trying to avoid the world's drunkest man from emptying the contents of his pint glass and stomach into my hoody.

Daath opened proceedings with the room at about 40% capacity yet lead singer Sean Zatorsky, who looks like something between Jesus and a heroin tramp, managed to get a pretty noticeable pit going within a couple of songs, as well as gesticulating that their guitarist was a total wanker during one extended solo. Their hardcore-mit-death style set an awesome pace for the evening and with the aid of the ol' snakey 'n' blacks I felt my head start to nod.

Since hearing Venom and Tears and Haymaker, and catching a bit of their live set at Download 2008, I've been keen on a bit of Throwdown so thought this would be a good time to chug a couple of pints and get involved in the pit. Down to the front I went with pockets rammed with t-shirt, phone, MP3, travel card, hoody round my waste, and shoes adequately secured after the Rise Against incident ("The pits", March 10th 2009). I cannot remember a single song they played apart from Holy Roller as to be honest, I was too busy going retard-fuck-spazzingly mental. The pit wasn't as mad as something like Machine Head but it was well executed, concentrated bursts of violence. Dave Peters and I made eye contact long enough for my hand gestures and shouts of "CIRCLE PIT" to get a the big man's approval, and so the bedlam continued. A burst of songs from Vendetta and new album Deathless were complimented by Peters' constant crowd surfing and encouraging those underneath him to help out with some of the singing (well, shouting). And then it ended and I realised I was beyond knackered. Too old for this shit.

Standing at the bar afterwards, a couple of lads came up to me and said "mate, you were going mental at the front!" - yes, yes I was kids. For I have done this sort of thing before. They then pointed out I had blood on my face; a quick check for injuries revealed it wasn't mine. Yummy.

Whilst surviving the pit for Throwdown's whole set was awesome, I was a wee bit worse for wear on the other side so decided to have a little rest for Unearth, who played an absolutely punishing few numbers, taking songs from The Oncoming Storm and even further back, whilst frontman Trevor Phipps managed to keep the insane bastards still in the pit going fucking ballistic, encouraging them to get over the top (much to the annoyance of the security guards). Drummer Derek Kerswill's kick was so brutal that I regularly felt I was going to shit my pants and being as this wasn't a GG Allin gig, I thought that may have been frowned upon.

I was talking to Alexander Milas from Metal Hammer in the beautiful smoking area when I realised I was rapidly approaching the threshold of "better fuck off or you're not getting home sunshine" so had to duck out after Chimaira had only played four songs. Which frankly sucked, as the room was off the chizz-ain. With Darude's 90s trance number Sandstorm playing erroneously over the PA just before Fuck Your Power Trip kicked in, shoes, spit, blood, bodies, everything was flying all over the shop and vocalist Mark Hunter was genuinely humbled by the scene.

On the plus side, Chimaira are playing with Whitechapel and Trivium in March so at least I'll be able to catch a full set then.

All I can say is "fuck me". The absolute fury of these bands on stage created one of the most volatile, high-intensity rooms I've ever been in. But despite this, and with the exception of one guy getting chinned by a complete cunt in the pit, there was no hint of anything nasty outside the circle. A fucking top show by fucking top bands. Good work; carry on.

So the floodgates have opened. Tomorrow is Malefice, Behemoth, Suicide Silence, Trigger the Bloodshed and the mighty godlike DevilDriver. The one problem is that due to my hardcore mental pit monkey slam gnarliness, I've fucked my back up big time. Sleep for the last two nights has been aided by beer and Diazepam, which go together like razor blades and aspirin, so happy days. But once Dez and the boys get going, I'm not sure there's going to be anything that'll fix me afterwards.

I'm off to do some calisthenics. Either that or my next post will probably from my wheelchair.