Author Archives: Mark
Weekly Dose of Metal: The Agonist
This week’s dose of Metal is The Agonist. I don’t think they’re particularly amazing or groundbreaking, but they have a few catchy tunes and the chick is hot (wahey).
Normally, I post a picture above and then embed a streamed sample of a song below, but this time you get the entire official video above. Why? Well, I guess a video of a hot chick is hotter than a picture of a hot chick, right? Actually, to be honest, it’s mostly just because I’m lazy, but pretend I didn’t just say that.
You can watch the video for ‘business suits and combat boots’, taken from the band’s 2007 debut, Once Only Imagined, above.
10 years of Iowa, cue re-release
Ten years ago, and hey – jokes aside, when Slipknot released Iowa, they really did acheive something fairly big. Without the promotion of Britney Spears, and nearly without a single clean melody in earshot, the band still catapulted a heavy fucking Metal album to the top of the charts. They may have been (and perhaps unfairly) associated with the Nu-Metal movement of the time, but Slipknot have always been way more ‘Metal’ than they have ‘Nu’.
Still, that doesn’t mean the band can’t milk even more cash out of the fans, right?
It has been announced that, “in celebration” (in other words -$$£££) of the tenth anniversary since the release of Iowa, the album will be re-released as part of a special pack.
According to Blabbermouth, the pack will include the original Iowa album, a remix of ‘My Plague’ as an added bonus track, the full live audio from the Disasterpieces DVD, and the DVD of “Goat”, a new film directed by M. Shawn Crahan featuring never-before-seen interviews and footage showing the madness that surrounded the Iowa era, plus four music videos. In other words, another shitty pretentious video from the Clown that you’ll never watch. Great.
I’ll personally be buying the new 10th anniversary re-release, as my copy of Iowa has disc rot as a result of too much masturbation.
Esoteric reveal new album and tour details
This news is actually a little old. Two weeks old to be exact. The reason being, needs me to explain an journey of epic proportions that has led me washed ashore following abduction by pirates and being anal probed by aliens. If it wasn’t for these events, I definitely would have posted the news two weeks ago, when it was still “new”, I promise.
As previously announced, Esoteric’s forthcoming album is entitled Paragon of Dissonance and will be out on November 11th (November 15th in the US). Here are the cover artwork and tracklisting of the British doomsters’ sixth full-length:
CD 1:
1. Abandonment
2. Loss of Will
3. Cipher
4. Non Being
CD 2:
1. Aberration
2. Disconsolate
3. Torrent of Ills
Esoteric are also set to tour in October, with dates in Ukraine and the UK having been announced so far. For all the dates (Which I’m too lazy to type out), check out the band’s Facebook page. I guarantee it’s more interesting than that ugly chick you keep stalking (and P.S. That’s my mom, so seriously, stop it sicko!).
A whole Load of shite
‘What are the worst Metal albums of all time?’ It’s a question that has been on the tips of Metal fans’ lips for a long time, but ask no more, as the prodigal Metal messiahs, Yahoo (yes, Yahoo – they really know their Metal), have counted down the top 10 worst Metal albums of all time.
So who’s in the list? for it to be a realistic interpretation of ten terrible Metal albums, it should in theory be full of a bunch of no names, that are so bad, no one has actually heard of them. But where would the fun in that be?
Nope, as you’d expect, it’s full of albums by Black Sabbath, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Guns and Roses and other well known acts. The top spot is taken by not just one album, but three. Load, Reload, and St Anger all collectively take the number one position.
Should I be surprised? I guess not. But look, I’m not a fan of any of those albums, but the second you start telling me that they’re the worst Metal albums ever, well I just lose all interest in your opinion. Take Iron Maiden‘s Fear of the Dark which is number 5 in the list. Are you honestly telling me that tracks like ‘Fear of the Dark’ and ‘Wasting Love’ are worse than Korn‘s entire discography? Unlikely.
So to sum up, yes Guns N’ Roses, Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Black Sabbath have all released some “questionable” albums in their time, I’d still rather listen to them at “their worst” than listen to Revoker, Bullet for my Valentine, Korn, Within Temptation or any of the shite that was failed to be mentioned. But hey, what do I know?
Check out the full list after the jump.
Cult of Luna post an album update
Exciting shit right here, yo’.
“The past weekend was spent recording two songs in Umeå. A small pre-production to get the feel of how the actual recording process will work later.
Anders T are recording synthezisers from his studio in Gothenburg as we speak. Then there’s mix and evaluation on how to proceed.”
For more second-hand news (a bit like second-hand smoke, only cooler and less cancerous), stay tuned as I am one bored-ass mofo this morning.
