Author Archives: Guido

Getting into: Malevolent Creation

I’ve always liked to discover new music. Writing reviews for Dose of Metal gave me the opportunity to discover songs, bands or even styles I’ve never paid attention to before, and then grew to love.

Shining is a good example of that. A while ago I surfed the internet for some stories about Black Metal. I’ve always been interested in this genre, and the incidents surrounding it, but never quite got into the music. So while I was reading something about Strid, one of just a few Black Metal bands I enjoyed, I was drawn into stories about Shining (a band heavily influenced by Strid). I shared those here. A Swedish Progressive Black/Doom Metal act, that I’ve never heard of before. Today, a year-or-so later, Shining are one of my favorite artists. I even managed to get fellow DoM writer Mark into them.

And now I want to dedicate a new column to the journey of getting into a band. They could be anyone: A band whose name I’ve heard of before, a band someone suggested to me (feel free to contact me about that) or just a random band I found on Metal Archives.

I want to start with Malevolent Creation. I have heard their name before, and even remember reading interviews with singer Brett Hoffmann (and later befriending him on Facebook apparently). I just never listened to any of their songs. Just today I’ve been listening to The Evil Amidst’s debut album Lords Of The Nine, and really had a great time listening to it. The Evil Amidst’s guitarist and drummer are also members of Malevolent Creation, so it only makes sense to try to get into them now.

I checked Malevolent Creation’s Metal-Archives entry to decide which album I should listen to. I chose their top-rated album Retribution. I will try to get a hold of the album, and then write down my thoughts over the course of a couple of days. After a certain amount of time (about, but not necessarily, a week), I will write a final post. In that final post I will let you know if I got into the band or not.

Let the games begin.

Ozzy is old!

Today marks Ozzy Osbourne’s 63rd birthday. I could make a few jokes about how he already looked, moved and talked like an 80-year-old ten years ago. But it’s his birthday and I want to congratulate him on that and wish him well.

With the Black Sabbath reunion coming closer, Ozzy’s still got a lot of planned for the next couple of years. Let’s hope he doesn’t break his hip or something. Old people break their hips all the time, don’t they?

“SHAAAAROOON! It’s my fucking birthday and I mumble mumble the fucking mumble mumble mumble and I want a fucking cake!”

Happy Birthday Ozzy!

Saturday overdose: Cult of Luna

Just a couple of days ago, I started listening to Cult of Luna’s masterpiece Salvation again. For those who haven’t heard it yet, it’s killer! Get it, blast it, overdose on it.

To get you into the right mood for the weekend, we’ve got two Cult of Luna songs for you right now: ‘Vague Illusions’ and ‘Leave Me Here.’ The second of the two was a single in 2004, even though it was cut down from over 7 minutes to just over 4 minutes.

Some people don’t seem to have the patience to listen to a song that’s over 7 minutes long, but we are fucking metalheads. We’re used to lenghty songs. With ‘Vague Illusions,’ you get a song that’s over 10 minutes long. So you now have a soundtrack for the next 17 minutes to listen to while you read our site.

Cult of Luna – Vague Illusions

Cult of Luna – Leave Me Here

Dan Nelson vs. Anthrax, round 2

We all thought Nelsonthrax drama was over. Dan was out, Belladonna was in, Anthrax finally released Worship Music and Nelson started working on his new band BlackGates. Whenever Ian or Benante were asked in interviews about Nelson, they had nothing but bad things to say about him though. I guess Dan Nelson took notice of that, because he is now suing the band for $2.65 million.

A former lead singer of the band Anthrax filed suit yesterday over the fallout from his 2009 ouster from the popular “thrash” combo founded in New York City.

Dan Nelson says drummer Charlie Benante, bassist Frank Bello and guitarist Scott Ian falsely stated in “numerous interviews” that he had “abruptly resigned” after getting sick, forcing a cancelation of a tour.

The $2.65 million suit also alleges that Benante last month told the rock-news site Blabbermouth.net that Nelson “was a bully.”

The Long Island native says his ex-bandmates’ “intentional defamation” has caused him a loss of income and damaged his reputation.

The Manhattan federal court filing further charges that Nelson co-wrote the tunes on the band’s latest album, “Worship Music,” but hasn’t gotten his fair share of the profits.

Read more: New York Post

As usually, we don’t know all details of the story but, with this suit, there is a good chance we will get to know the details sometime in the future.

I can only say the following. Scott Ian and Charlie Benante did talk a whole lot of shit about Dan Nelson in the press. This is speculation, but maybe the band tried to turn Nelson into the bad guy, the only one responsible for this mess, to save face and get back some of their integrity.

I’ve personally been in steady contact with Dan for quite some time, even though that sadly died down in the past couple of months. I can only say good things about him. He’s been extremely nice to me and shared a lot with me. Be it stories or music. So I can’t share the “Nelson is a monster” view, unless you’re referring to his vocal abilities, with which he shits all over Belladonna.

I can only say this: I can understand why Nelson filed suit, and I hope everyone involved can finally sort this out and put it to rest. This has not just been damaging Nelson’s reputation, but also Anthrax’s.

New Rammstein video about my country

Simo reported it last sunday, and here it is. Rammstein’s new video for ‘Mein Land’ (‘My country’). ‘Mein Land’ is part of Rammstein’s greatest hits compilation Made in Germany, you can view the setlist and album artworks after the jump.

As for the video, Rammstein proved again that they don’t take themselves too seriously and have a great sense of humor. Now that’s something we Germans aren’t associated with often. Lyrically the song is highly socially critical, with lyrics such as “expelling, forgetting, now I can stay in my country” the band obviously touches topics we Germans are sadly associated with more often.

As for the music, make up your own mind by watching the video above.