Things I Said on May 12

2016: Upcoming metal album (June 8, according to Metal Storm website): Eximperituserqethhzebibšiptugakkathšulweliarzaxułum – Prajecyrujučy Sinhuliarnaje Wypramieńwańnie Daktryny Absaliutnaha J Usiopahłynaĺnaha Zła Skroź Šaścihrannuju Pryzmu Sîn-Ahhī-Erība Na Hipierpawierchniu Zadyjakaĺnaha Kaŭčęha Zasna. Any good?? Encyclopaedia Metallum Metal Archives info: “Country of origin: Belarus; Location: Minsk; Genre: Technical Death Metal; Lyrical themes: Sumerian/Babylonian Mysticism, Occultism, Annihilation, Death; Current…

Things I Said on March 13

2012: Amusing email just came in from Expedia: “Want to get out of Austin? See our last-minute fares.” (SXSW week — Excellent timing!) 2016: So judging from the New York Times Sunday magazine’s annual music issue, I guess no metal songs “tell us where music is going.” (Nor any Latin ones unless Pitbull counts or…

Metal and Hard Rock Reviews, 2006-’08

Well, at least the rough drafts (notes? I Love Music posts?) seem to originate from the mid ’00s, as do almost all the releases themselves. Rhapsody apparently didn’t technically publish the blurbs until quite a few years later, and I can no longer precisely remember why. Air Conditioning, Dead Rails  These noise hipsters from Allentown,…

Francophone Lands Licks, 2003

Post-script: Bertrand Cantant was eventually convicted of “murder with indirect intent,” and spent less than four years in prison. Three years after his 2007 release, his ex-wife committed suicide with him in the house. In 2012, he appeared on an Amadou and Miriam album. A solo set he released in 2017 charted at #13 in…

Confusingly Named Background Gloom Licks, 2003

RAPTURE, Songs for the Withering The Rapture that Williamsburgers don’t know are a heavy-hearted quintet of Helsinki codeine-metal fops who quote Emily Brontë and Sophocles on their lyric sheet and gorgeously balance light croons with heavy grumbles about cold years and hangings and maggots (“our only friends”) and “bad dreams, hollow sleep of dark rooms,…

G.G. Allin review, 1987

Snark, pure and simple (okay, paired with a pinch of one-upmanship I suppose), prodded by my annoyance of at an early example of the tiresome hipster schtick of pretending to like (or actually liking, who cares) music by a mentally ill person — in this case, a presumably dangerous and smelly one. In retrospect, I…

Neo-Prog Licks, 2003

NIGHTFIST, The Epic For a CD recorded for $600 and containing barely 26 minutes of music, this one sure seems long, though the title suggests that’s exactly how these five recent high school graduates from Menlo Park, California, want it. “Rabid fans of Yes, Queen, Dream Theater, Grateful Dead, and Metallica,” reportedly not at all…

Outsider Proto-Punk Reissue Licks, 2003

MICHAEL YONKERS BAND, Microminiature Love St. Paul, Minnesota, 1968. Techie-teen leader of Michael and the Mumbles tires of twanging surf ditties at prom and VFW crowds, so he saws down his Fender and slashes open his speakers and lets his ominous baritone vibrato’s pomped-up medieval-castle Procol Harum poetry fall into black holes of Link Wray-reverbed…

Monster Records Metal Reissue Licks, 2004

TRUTH AND JANEY, ERUPTS! In April 1976, an unpretentious numskull trio from some Iowa cowtown recorded this ballroom concert (longest endurance tests 9:05, 8:12, 7:21, 6:51), not issued on double vinyl till the early ’90s, and not on CD till now. To read their backstory, you need their 1,000-pressing 1976 studio LP, No Rest for the…

The Offspring profile, 1995

I dunno, maybe I gave the subjects of my only Spin cover story ever short shrift in my top 150 albums of 1994/’95 list. The singles on Smash are swell. But beyond that, I just get irritated. Maybe I’ll be able to hear pop-punk again after another decade or two, when I’m in my 70s…