My Chemical Romance’s latest effort isn’t so much an album release as a well orchestrated apocalyptic art event. With the advent of listening parties the band last night offered fans worldwide an exclusive preview of the album as hosted by the elusive Dr. Death Defying.

Apparently this is the bands departure from concept albums, but you tell me, fans are ‘killjoys’, areas are ‘zones’, enemies are ‘draculoids.’ Now personally I don’t care about this, they are great at what they do and this whole new world is utterly engrossing, so why change? Though this is still a concept album, it’s a massive leap from their previous sound with everything bright, poppy, and dripping electro from its very core.

Within the first three songs two singles are showcased. The world has already heard ‘Na Na Na’ and is undoubtedly sick of having it infused in their brains, but ‘Sing’ is relatively new and I’m sure it will sneak its way into the charts. Structured like a 30 Seconds To Mars song it seems a bit too epic for such an early place on the album, but it does have some more traditional My Chem breakdowns thrown in.

As much as I hate to say the album is insidiously pop-based, it is. Don’t fear yet though ‘Planetary (Go)’ will have everyone dancing to what is basically a rock song and the lyrical prowess that always made them great is still present “truth is not acceptable, fame is now injectable, process the progress.”

What made My Chem unique were the classic rock riffs from Ray Toro and the chugging punk sound that Frank Iero brought. It’s still very much audible on certain songs but otherwise it all seems to have been run through a synthesizer.

This album will gather the band a brand new assortment of young rock fans and the older ‘killjoys’ will stick with them out of loyalty and no doubt carry with them a sense of ‘I heard them first’ superiority (I know I will) and there is no reason why this shouldn’t bring them new fans, it’s a good album. In terms of their back catalogue it’s a great follow-up to ‘The Black Parade’ and if that was their first album I would be applauding them on creating a genre defining album, or something to that affect, but when you compare this with ‘Bullets’ or ‘Three Cheers’ it seems like their aggression just sort of wilted and died and then the bleakness of ‘The Black Parade’ made sure it had a proper send off. Having said all that ‘Party Poison’ is more along the lines of what I was expecting, being a fast paced, punky, guitar number and this is where the album gets good with ‘Save Yourself I’ll Hold Them Back’ bringing back the misfits-esque normality of the group. Gerard gets his wail back, the very camp My Chem swear of ‘motherfucker’ hits our ears, and we can all revel in some classic 80’s rock riffs. The band hasn’t gone anywhere it’s just a struggle to find them.

The whole concept of the album was originally Gerard’s next comic idea and it would have been a fantastic read there’s no doubt about it, but I’m fucking glad he sacrificed it for the band. Having scrapped an entire albums worth of songs, which I think we all desperately want to hear, the band were clearly in need of some new energy and one thing this album has in spades is energy. Our host for this evening Dr. Death Defying makes this whole thing exactly what it is, an experience. He acts as radio DJ for WKIL a fake radio station operating out of Battery City. He is so convincing me and probably everyone else listening wishes he was a real person and not a creation. Hearing his classic radio voice brings a smile to my face and his lair is pretty damn cool too. More bands need to embrace the concept album and the listening party. It truly is a phenomenon and My Chem is ahead of the curve on this one.

Getting back to the music after some reports from the zones ‘DESTROYA’ hits you in the face and is reminiscent of the experimental sound of early Lostprophets songs like ‘Shinobi Vs Dragon Ninja.’ It wouldn’t sound out of place on the soundtrack for a game like Tekken. As a fan more used to this aggressive sound it’s good to see they still have it on an album that has a lot of ballads. The ballads aren’t bad by any means they are just in too large a quantity. Album closer ‘Vampire Money’ is fucking spot-on and may be the best song on the album, it makes you forget about ‘Na Na Na’ and remember the good old days. It’s fast and vicious with a ‘Wipe Out’ style surf-pop beat throughout. The album isn’t their best and starts off slow, but by the end it will leave you fist pumping and after a few listens you will realise it’s actually not that bad.

Judging by this latest video from Seattle sound stalwarts Soundgarden (for new top choon ‘Black Rain’) it seems the Downtuned staff aren’t the only ones wasting time watching Metalocalypse all day. Featuring something of a return to their ‘Badmotorfinger’ sound and heavier Sabbathy roots, this isn’t bad at all, but it remains to be seen if the reformed band can compete in the modern market – whaddaya think?

This is what being metal as fuck is all about. You may have a terrible job holding a sign for a pizza place. But that does not stop you from ROCKING THE FUCK OUT.

When life give you lemons CRUSH THE LEMONS IN A FIST OF METAL AND BANG FOR SATAN! FUCK LEMONADE! ROOOAAGGGHHH!

One day, long after man has departed for the stars, we’ll gert tired of posting up stupid Slayer cut n’ pastes…but not today I’m afraid.

Christopher Lee. Spy. Royalty. Sith Lord. Evil Wizard. Dracula. Bond Villain. Very Tall.

And Now. A man with a concept symphonic metal album.

Yes, Christoper Lee, a man who has done more interesting things than the entire population of Dorset combined, is now working on a concept album about the life of the first Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne.

Utterly batshit crazy, but also, rather cool for an 87 year old. (Which must piss off Dio, beating him as the oldest dude in Metal)

Lee is no stranger to metal, working with the likes of bare chested irony proof metal gods Manowar and Tolkien obsessed overblowers Rhapsody (Of Fire).

You can check out samples of the songs here. I’m not convinced by the music, sounding like the soundtrack to a bad RPG game rather than the bombastic pomp that Lee’s voice deserves, but hey, Dracula made a fucking metal album.

Lo-fi mash up stupidity featuring a cookie obsessed muppet and some teutonic oiled up noise makers. Try not to laught.

Google is all powerful! It knows who you are, where you live and what you watch when you’re jerking off. Luckily there’s still a way for rock n’ roll to stick it to the man – even a man that will happily make naked ladies appear on your screen whenever you like – form a band even the big G can’t track down! DT ignores the spellcheck and checks ‘em out:

1: The Band.

The masters of post-modern irony. It’s fairly obvious these days that Bob Dylan is an alien time traveller, which explains how, despite dying before the spread of the internet, Richard Manuel managed to utterly confound the combined powers of Google and..erm..Ask Jeeves..with this name, which returns just about every MySpace page on the planet. Good work alien Bob!.

2: !!!

Sacramento, California, has it’s fair share of funk/dance/post-punk ensembles, all dying to get talked about. Unfortunately !!! seem to have chosen their name based on the sound their maternal grandmother made upon finding porn in their bedroom.

3: MP3

A brilliant name unfortunately hoovered up for use by some bloody politicians -Members of Parliament… and there’s three of them..do you see what they did there? Do you get it? How we laughed at the DT office as we spent 3 straight hours trying to find a website almost as elusive as D.A.D’s  (before realising we could find them on wiki. Strangely, they recently changed the name to MP4, which made sense with the extra member, but must have halved the number of hits these guys were getting.

4: Torrent.

It seems like a great name doesn’t it? It’s fresh and modern sounding, with a bit of an edge, some meaning behind the name. Until one of your fans wants to know more, and is faced with 248,000,000 results, most of them for knocked off copies of The Wedding Crashers. Not helped by that terribly familiar logo..

5: James.

Luckily no one in their right mind would bother searching for the baldy Manchester egomaniacs, but try googling them – or indeed their hit Sit Down – and see what you get: More adverts for beanbags and office furniture than you can shake a lazy Madchester shoegazer at.

6: Sunn0)))))))

A bit of an anomaly here, as the titans of drone doom can actually be googled. What they can’t be however, is downloaded. Go to BT or Kazaa or whatever –try typing that name in. It can’t be done! So underground they refuse to believe anyone would be able to share their music – probably because they record it on wax cylinders.

7: 404 Forbidden

A band so difficult to find, that after an hour of looking for a picture, I though “ah fuck ‘em” and instead used an image of Bay Area Thrashers Forbidden (Partially because I vaguely resemble singer russ)! 404 encapsulate the frustrations of legions of garage band users, as evidenced by similarly named associates 403 and 405. Face it Casio-centric noisecore-ists everywhere, you’d be better off with a moog.

8: A!

Proof positive that the Aaron A. Aardvark trick may mean you’re first on the shelves in HMV, but when the entire music marketing game changes overnight, you’re fucked. It also doesn’t help that A! are fucking awful.

Any more? Send ‘em in and undermine their undergroundness!

Legendary punk drummer Chuck Biscuits passed away this week after a long running battle against virulent throat cancer aged 44. Chuck’s career spanned punk, metal and hard rock, with his distinctive, driving style appearing on albums by D.O.A, Black Flag and Circle Jerks among many others. Most recently he played with Social Distortion, but he will undoubtedly be best remembered for his work with Glenn Danzig, John Christ and Eerie Von on the first four Danzig Albums.

Chuck passed away quietly surrounded by close family who thanked fans for their support.

UPDATE 3/10/09

It’s apparently a hoax. He’s not dead. More info as we get it.

Downtuned returns from the UK’s only proper, longhaired, denim and leather outdoor metal festival with a T Shirt suntan, a beer belly and guts clogged with food served out of caravans.

We saw some music too!

First up – Friday’s bands -

First of all – I’d like to say a big fuck you to the organisers for charging £5 for a program with the band times on it. Sure, they gave away a program with little interviews, but to find out when a band was playing one had to shell out £5 of beer money to buy a poxy little laminate. Bad form.

First band we catch are American thrash revivalists Municipal Waste. Even in the middle of the day they bring a drunken dive bar party atmosphere to a midlands field. They debut some new material – which sounds a lot like their old material, and considering their old material is beer fueled precision party thrash it goes down a storm. Great work.

Sodom bring their muscular brand of kraut thrash to the main stage next. While lacking the speed of Municipal Waste, they have a history and back catalogue that makes entertaining a filled of boozed up metalheads second nature. From newer material like ‘Napalm In The Morning’ to old school classics like ‘The Saw Is The Law’ they provide a perfect soundtrack to replacing body fluids with alcohol.

Saxon kick the evening off – and as playing metal festivals has become their job now – anything short of a perfect set would be unacceptable. But, as always, Saxon deliver the goods. Biff does seem a little miffed not to be headlining – but although a top bill mainstay on the continent, they have plenty to prove in their homeland. And with that in mind – they do. Pumping out song after anthemic song, they leave the crowd wanting a Saxon headline next year. Point proved.

Arch Enemy should set the stage alight with their set. Now being one of the biggest bands in metal they should bring a perfect evenings entertainment with them. They should be ace. But they’re not. Gossow stalks around the stage and trades off delivering a decent vocal performance for posing. And not well. Looking more arrogant than entertaining she fails miserably. And Amott spends far too much time on widdle-wank-ego-massaging guitar solos than playing, y’know – songs. A massive let down.

After the disappointment of Arch Enemy I wasn’t expecting much from Carcass – sure – they’re one of the most innovative bands in metal – inventing goregrind and melodic death, and at he height of their powers I would be very, very excited. But it’s been a decade since they’ve been a touring band, and reviews of their recent appearances have been less than brilliant. But they absolutely destroyed. The songs are note perfect, Jeff Walker still has the same voice he did on Swansong and Bill Steer looks like a 14 year old playing his first gig, such is the excitement. Erlandson taking over from Ken Owen is a fine choice – he can replicate the sound with no problems. And bringing Ken himself on for a little drum solo was a sweet touch (Ken having suffered a brain haemorrhage a few years ago)  There’s life in Carcass yet – and maybe, please, another album!

Saturday review to come!

Arnocorps are not so much a band as a high concept performance art-piece, self-help tape, and a shot of pure happiness rolled into a sold musical unit. Their long-awaited follow up to their 2005 album ‘The Greatest Band Of All Time’ – ‘The Ballsy EP’ has finally been released and is nothing short of spectacular.

Musically – Arnocorps sit in a magic mid-point between punk and metal. A place long sought after by similar bands as being even slightly off target, this results in a deformed hybrid rejected by both the punks and the metalheads, but when found, results in a high energy sound. It takes the speed and fun elements of punk and couples it with the crushing riffage of metal. Not only do they have such a perfectly poised place, straddling genres, but they also have Holzfeuer on vocals – who sounds exactly like Arnold Schwarzenegger channeling late era Black Flag Rollins.

If you hadn’t guessed – Arnocorps take their inspiration from the Schwarzenegger back catalogue . The album featuring songs based on Red Heat – The first three Terminator movies and weirdly – Kindergarten Cop. You Lack Discipline as it is called – is one of those songs that just puts a massive, sloppy grin on your face when listening as well as motivating you to get down the gym and do a thousand one handed push ups.

And that’s the thing that really sets it apart – the whole EP is so upbeat, positive, take on the world with nothing but your fists and a cigar that with Arnocorps blasting in your ears you believe you can do those push ups. Hell – a thousand? – That’s for girly men! I’ll do a goddamn million!

In a world where misery and self loathing are the norms for alternative music, having a singer encourage you to yell…

‘I’m ballsy, I’m a stud, I don’t take shit from anyone!’

…at the top of your lungs makes me wish every band were as goddamn heroic and downright fun as Arnocorps. Five stars, Ten out of ten, whatever – just get it!

Ahhh…metal. A much derided, mocked and generally-laughed-at genre. And with good reason. It’s ludicrous. It’s juvenile. It’s bloody silly. But it’s also, in my opinion, the most fun you can have with music. It’s great. But playing devil’s advocate or celebrating the spandex is another post for another day. Today we shall be looking at the worst things that have happened to metal, the genre, the musicians and the bands. In it’s long history, metal has seen its fair share of stupidity and tragedy. Let’s take a look at the worst things that have happened to metal…

1. Chuck Schuldiner Dies Of Brain Cancer

Quite honestly the best guitarist / vocalist in the history of Death Metal and one of the best in straight up metal – Chuck Schuldiener was the driving force behind one of the founding bands of Death Metal – Death. Beginning as a Death Metal band, Chuck brought in elements of jazz, prog and classic heavy metal to further albums reaching the pinnacle of Death Metal perfection with Symbolic and the Sound of Perseverance He was widely regarded as one of the nicest guys in the genre and not only a great musician but a true fan of metal, putting out the Metal Crusade newsletter with his girlfriend. Tragically Chuck contracted brain cancer in 1999 and eventually died in 2001, leaving a legacy of great music and a great big hole in Death metal that has yet to be filled.

2. Bodycount Release Their First Album

There are worse albums. There are FAR worse albums. In fact I think Ice T is kinda cool. But this is a symbolic choice. This represents the birth of nu-metal, the awful bastard child of metal and hip hop that blends the worst elements of both and became a blight on the musical landscape for over a decade. Bands that took inspiration from this album like Korn, Coal Chamber and Linkin Park somehow managed to take this album as a blueprint and build something far worse.

3. Ozzy Does Reality TV
Ozzy was widely regarded as the prince of darkness, a legend in heavy metal, a member of the band that invented the genre. A dude so frickin METAL he has bitten the heads off two different living creatures and pissed all over the goddamned Alamo. That all changed on March 5^th 2002 when he whored himself out to MTV. He instantly went from from revered metal god to shuffling, slurring idiot, cleaning up after a pack of yappy, ugly mutts. (I mean the dogs, not his kids.) It also inflicted Kelly Osbourne – a spoiled, post-accident Veruca Salt – on the world. Along with Jack Osbourne, who amazingly has less redeeming features than his sister.

4. Fred Durst’s Appearance On A Soulfly Album
Max Cavalera – we thought you were cool. Every Sepultura album was awesome. Even Roots, which even managed to get away with having ‘tribal influences’. But the first Soulfly album managed to piss upon everything that made Sepultura great. Bringing in fat, balding frat – that twat Fred Durst from possibly the worst band ever – Limp Bizkit – to provide rap vocals and back up squealing on mediocre track ‘Bleed’ was a serious misstep that caused a thousand face-palms in metal fans everywhere.

5. The Black Metal Murders

The early nineties in Norway was a scary place to be into metal. Suicide and murder was rife. If you believe the press. In actuality there were two murders – Thorns stabbed a dude in a park, and Varg Virkernes stabbed Euronymous. Dead from Mayhem shot himself. Crazy shit. However these stupid acts were turned into a media frenzy, blowing Black Metal into the mainstream and inspiring copycat dumbness the world over. Instead of being a fun little sub genre of metal, Black Metal became a kvlt ov evil with idiots trying to apply the most ornate corpse-paint and have the most monochrome album covers.

6. Metallica – St Anger / Some Kind of Monster

Metallica’s first three album’s are untouchable. Amazing examples of a young band pushing at he boundaries of metal and creating a legacy that would last for years to come. A legacy that got pissed all over by this monstrosity. Even through the 90s, Metallica weren’t that bad. You just had to forget that they were once the coolest band in metal and just imagine them as a cool rock band and – hey – they’re pretty alright. But then – St Anger. Trying to cash in on the re-emergence of metal headed up by Maiden and Priest, they record a ‘raw’ album. Full of unbelievably bad songs, shite lyrics (’I'm madly in anger with you’) and a snare that sounds like someone hitting a bin with a brush. And to add insult to injury, they release ‘Some Kind Of Monster’ – that shows the band, people thought to be the very baddest of badass – in therapy. THERAPY. That’s one wet, piss-smelling legacy right there guys. No wonder Jason left.

7. Lars Ulrich Vs. Napster

Metallica again. They are idiots after all. 2000 started as a pretty cool year for music on the internet. Thanks to Napster you could find and download whatever you wanted. Free. Took a while, but the system was efficient and easy. Thanks to Napster I discovered countless bands and had my eyes opened to entirely new genres. Enter Metallica. Apparently they got wind that shit song ‘I Disappear’ for shittier movie Mission Impossible 2 had been leaked on Napster and instead of thinking ‘hmmm…free publicity’ decided to shut it down. The outlaws of the music industry had become ‘the man’, showing how utterly out of touch they had become. Also, the world got to see how big a cock-end Lars Ulrich really is.

8. Dimebag Darrel Gets Shot On Stage

WTF? That was my reaction. I can sort of deal with metal heroes dying from natural causes, but this was just a major tragedy. Completely random, weird and horrid. On December 8th 2004 a mentally unstable former marine named Nathan Gale stormed the stage in a crappy club in Columbus, Ohio and shot Damageplan, and former Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrel dead. This robbed the metal world of one of it’s greatest guitarists and according to reports, one of its nicest guys. Although Damageplan was nothing special, Pantera’s back catalogue is nothing short of genius. Riffs, solos, acoustic bits – everything was brilliant. A dark day for metal, and music in general.

That’s eight… are there more?

Get to the comments!

This Week: Iron Maiden!

1: Despite being a professional pilot in his spare time, Iron Maiden’s diminutive frontman Bruce Dickinson actually suffers from a crippling fear of heights. “I just don’t like looking down, that’s why I never grew taller” said the pint-sized air raid siren.

2: Maiden’s legendary manager Rod Smallwood is actually the proud owner of a small wood. After buying several hundred acres of the New Forest in 2001, Rod had every single pony driven out or shot. “I’ve never trusted their long faces” Said the grumpy impresario.

3: The South American leg of Maiden’s mammoth 1980’s ‘Somewhere In Time’ took a turn for the worse when the band stopped at a roadside stall to buy some Strawberries. Unfortunately they ended up blowing the next month’s tour budget when an accounting error left the band not realising that Ecuador’s exchange rate is the wrong way round, meaning each punnet cost nearly £30,000!

4: Maiden sticksman Nicko McBrain once won the world Pumpkin carving championship in Aurora, Illinois. “I used to practice on tour, the Rock N’ Roll lifestyle was never my thing” Explained the flat-conked percussionist.

5: Ex-Maiden singer Paul DiAnno was a bit of a dick.

6: When vestigial, deformed third Maiden guitarist Janick Gers is out in native Hammersmith, he likes nothing better than to start a bit of a ruck. “Every time I’m near the Apollo it all kicks off” claimed the horse-haired 6th member.

7: Iron Maiden’s resident 4-string tickler Steve Harris came up with the band’s name when he fell in love with a robotic woman called Maria. “She was so beautiful, I just had to help the workers of Metropolis rise up against their wealthy overlords” said the West Ham low frequency genius.

8: Maiden guitarist Dave Murray maintains his famous figure thanks to an exclusive sponsorship deal with Ginster’s pies and Panda Pops cola. “I sell the spare pies at market each Sunday to pay for guitars and spandex” bellowed the moon-faced axeman.

9: Maiden mascot Eddie the Head, was originally made from Steve Harris’ Gran’s actual head. “Lets face it, she wasn’t using it-she’d been dead for 8 months” chortled the wicked bass player from his Transylvanian home.

10: Iron Maiden traditionally get the names for their albums from the tickets inside fortune cookies.

11: Leather lunged former singer Blaze Bailey originally trained as a bus driver, and was discovered by the band when they took the N9 to Piccadilly Circus for a night out at Stringfellows. “He was bellowing out of tune to ‘Kid’s In America’” explained Steve Harris; “I knew we had to recruit him, but that may be down to the large amount of PCP I’d consumed”.

Iron Maiden’s latest release “Your co-workers take pleasure in your great sense of creativity.” is due out at some point probably.

A metal logo I can read? Whatever next?

Dyscarnate are like an angry rhino on pro plus. Brutal, but very, very focused. This young Horsham four piece are one of the best things I’ve heard in a while. Not just demos, but from signed bands. It’s incredibly professional for a first release and, luckily, they totally have the talent to back up the glossy packaging.

It reminds me of Vader in a way, not musically, its far closer to American Death Metal in that respect – think Origin, Dying Foetus, Suffocation, Skinless etc – but the fact that it’s absolutely no nonsense head down intensity. No stupid samples or acoustic shit to taint the brutality of this release. It doesn’t let up. Not even a solo gets in the way of the lightning fast riffing and barrage of  double bass drumming.

No song outstays its welcome, things move along at a pace. Opening track Fuelling The Ignorance kicks along, the dual vocals hardly ever let up, and when they do, an absolutely MAHOUSIVE groove kicks in which fits nicely with the technicality on display. …And We March On displays the band’s ability to write catchy riffs along with complexity. Rape The Fallen has a more thrashy vibe than the rest of the album which works very well, kicking the pace up (as if it could really get any quicker) Assimilation Of Indifference begins slow but soon goes on to display amazingly technical drumming and pace. Album closer Opposites Detract is filled with stop – start circle headbanging brilliance that is sure to break some necks live.

One thing that really made the album stand out was no lazy reliance on simple snare blast beats. Sure, the blasts are there, but only when they work. The drums actually complement the riffing, rather than just being there. Also, we have to remember that this is the first demo of a relatively new band. It sounds like this should be on Metal Blade and the Dyscarnate guys are on tour with Cannibal Corpse. Really. It’s that good.

There is no real innovation on this album, no new ideas or taking Death Metal in strange new directions. What is happening here is an attempt at the perfection of death metal. And it gets damn close.

Dyscarnate on MySpace

Urrrrrghhh. Ruuuughhhh. Repeat.

“Umm, yeah, this song is called RAGUGGGELLWUGH!!!” Says the tubby funster fronting opening act Fleshrot. Ah, yes, the calling card of  bloody boring brutal death metal – a lack of any personality. Yeah, the songs have some cool blasts, and I’m sure the solos are all fine, but a muddy sound and no real tightness produce something that rarely can distract from the fact that the Purple Turtle smells like cthulhus arsehole. A big meh to them.

Blastbeat Frenzy.

Second up are old school grinders Hovadah. A power trio in the strictest sense, they blast out some quality slabs of grinding fun and occasionally throw in some truly groovy riffs – but it’s mostly about the blastbeat. As I have a pretty low attention span (oooh look…porn) constant blasting bores me a bit and I’m soon back to wondering how a pub can really smell this bad. But if you want tight no frills quality grind – Hovadah are your boys.

Rather good, this lot.

Dyscarnate plug in and destroy. Tight and polished catchy death with dual vocals, the band blow the cobwebs (and yes, the smell) clean out of the venue. These guys could be the great British hope of death metal. They certainly have the songs. If they could grow some personality and get a bit more interaction with the crowd going, they could be playing venues double the size of this place, and killing the shit out of everything around.

Pervs.

Welsh Death Metal institution Desecration are a strange beast, trading on their ‘pervert’ notoriety is an odd way to rise through the musical ranks. And being an institution and ‘old school’ is no excuse for playing a pretty damn sloppy set. Desecration most definitely have the tunes and the experience to be much better than this. Yeah, it may be a small venue without a huge crowd, but it could be far better. And with that – the shit smell is back.