Category Archives: News
Death Thrash… dead?
Death Thrash is a strange genre. It mixes Death Metal and Thrash Metal (duh), two very popular genres, but somehow nobody gives a crap about it. Sure, The Haunted were successful enough, but which other Death Thrash band can you name?
A genre that mixes two successful genres should have produced some amazing bands, right? I mean, it even sounds good on paper. Mixing Thrash with Death Metal just makes too much sense. Except The Haunted, no band of that style really got off the ground, but it produced some rough diamonds.
The band that I’ve always associated with Death Thrash, even more so than The Haunted, is Hatesphere. Not necessarily because I rate them higher (even though I do), but because they were the first band that introduced me to the style. I’ve seen them open for Chimaira and Dark Tranquillity in 2005, and they easily blew both of the following bands away. Why? Jacob Bredahl.
Jacob “Dr. J” Bredahl (pictured above) used to front Hatesphere from 2001 until 2007. He’s probably the most charismatic frontman I’ve ever witnessed live, and he sings with an intensity unmatched. He just seems to put everything into his vocals. Everytime, on every song.
I’ve been following Bredahl’s work since then. Be it with Hatesphere, Allhelluja or, most recently, The Kandidate (formerly called The Downward Candidate).
The Kandidate has just released the follow-up to their debut album, Until We Are Outnumbered, earlier this year, called Facing the Imminent Prospect of Death on Napalm Records. While The Kandidate doesn’t have the same effect on me than Hatesphere has had, it’s a band that I’d like to see more successful. But there obviously isn’t a big market for Death Thrash, or is there?
Back to Hatesphere. After Bredahl, and everyone else in the band, was fired by guitarist Peter “Pepe” Lyse Hansen, the band welcomed a completely different line-up. This line-up produced the flop To The Nines in 2009. At that time, I’ve lost interest in the band completely.
After dropping even more bandmembers, they’ve finally found a worthy replacement for Jacob Bredahl in Esben “Esse” Elnegaard Kjaer Hansen. Worthy because he sounds just like Bredahl, which he proved on The Great Bludgeoning (released in 2011 on Napalm Records).
I’ve actually just found out about The Great Bludgeoning a couple of weeks ago, which proves to me that there isn’t just no market for Death Thrash, there’s also barely any coverage of the scene. The album does come close to earlier material, and picks the band up from the ground after the boring To The Nines.
So with The Kandidate and Hatesphere, there are at least two great Death Thrash bands out there, that need more attention. Even as someone who really likes three bands of the scene (including The Haunted), I can’t even name a fourth one. I could name a few that could come close to being labelled Death Thrash (Tenet, Necroid, Untimely Demise, Maze of Torment, etc.), but they all seem to lean more to one of the two genres, rather than combining both.
Does that mean that Death Thrash is dead? Or does it just mean that I’m not informed enough? Was Death Thrash ever really alive to begin with? Or were there just a few bands who gave their best playing the best of both worlds?
I could name a factor for the commercial failure of the genre, with Metalcore’s rise, a genre that comes close to Death Thrash but without the more extreme parts. Further dissecting the if’s and when’s would take too long though. I’ll just leave you with the latest music video by The Kandidate, and a song from Hatesphere’s new album after the jump. Enjoy what’s left.
Image credit: Lykke Nielsen
Down don’t have time for a full album, and we don’t have the patience
I’m 26. What that means is that I’m still relatively young, but I’m not really young anymore. People who are my age can relate, and people who are older can probably remember. It’s a weird period of life, because you’re definitely not old, but you’re still way older than teenagers.
I talked to a girl the other day, and found out she was born in ’92. I couldn’t believe how mature she looked considering 1992, to me, feels like 10 years ago. But it’s not 10 years ago, is it? So am I turning into an old man? The same old man who doesn’t understand the new generation, and remembers how good it was in his day? The same old man I used to laugh at as a kid? Probably.
Here’s why: When I was a kid, CDs were relatively new to me, but my favorite band releasing an album meant I’d have to go to the store and find it. The search itself was part of the fun — Browsing through the letters, desperately finding the artwork I saw on TV, that was a quest, man. Then I’d get the album but I couldn’t listen to it until I got home. I mean, sure, I had a portable CD player (that was so high tech in those days), but I didn’t want to risk damaging the CD (it was a Sony Walkman, but for some reason I didn’t trust it with new discs) so I just waited until I got home.
So I get home and play the first song while I’m reading the booklet. Man, those were the days, right? I even touched on this subject in my interview with Megadeth’s Dave Ellefson.
But those days are over. Because today, people want things NOW. Not tomorrow, not when they get to the store, right now. This very instant. Doesn’t matter if they’re on their tablet taking a shit, or at work streaming porn on their smartphones. They want it all, and they want it right now. And without going into an obvious Queen pun, I have to mention that they expect it to be free, also. The world has changed, and even though I was down with technology since I was young, I still feel like a dinosaur.
How does this relate to Down and Mr. Anselmo? Read on to find out, although let’s not pretend like this bullshit rant is going anywhere.
Ex Deo: Of Romans and Canadians
What do Ancient Rome and Canada have in common? Ex Deo. Ex Deo is the brainchild of Maurizio Iacono, otherwise known as the frontman of Kataklysm from Canada.
In 2008, Iacono had decided to start the side project, which he would use to honor his Italian heritage. A year later, Ex Deo had released their debut album, Romulus, which had also featured the entire band of Kataklysm – with Jean-François Dagenais playing lead guitar, Stéphane Barbe switching from bass to rhythm guitar and Max Duhamel playing the drums – including occasional Kataklysm live bassist François Mongrain, and former Blackguard keyboarder Jonathan Lefrancois-Leduc.
Following the release of Romulus, Ex Deo started mainly touring Europe, including a tour with Paganfest, which had also featured Korpiklaani, Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, Unleashed, Alestorm and Blackguard. I’ve personally seen them on that very tour myself, and can savely say that it’s well worth catching them live.
After that touring circle, the band members went back to Kataklysm, to record and release their 10th studio album Heaven’s Venom in 2010. 2 years later, Kataklysm started touring Germany in support of their new DVD, The Iron Will: 20 Years Determined. That’s where I’ve caught them live just 6 weeks ago.
After the gig, I’ve got to share drinks and chat with Maurizio Iacono, Jean-François Dagenais and Stéphane Barbe. I don’t remember how I’ve gotten home later that night, but I do remember that Iacono had told me about Ex Deo’s upcoming 2nd album, and the already released music video for ‘I, Caligvla.’ Curious (and still a bit drunk), I’ve decided to stumble to my computer and check out said song (video posted above). And I was blown away.
‘I, Caligvla’ takes everything Ex Deo had done on their debut album and kicks it up a notch. More melodic, more brutal, more symphonic, more epic. On August 29th, the band released the follow-up to Romulus, Caligvla via Napalm Records. The opener isn’t the only epic monster of a song on the album, but it’s by far my favorite. But check out the album yourself and let me know which is your favorite. There surely are enough great choices to pick from.
Dave Mustaine was fueled by hatred
If you ever wondered what made Dave Mustaine so creative during Megadeth‘s first years, wonder no more. Chris Poland comes with the answer. Hint: It’s very predictable.
You really have to give Dave credit. Dave wrote a lot of the material. It came from his… He was fueled by hate for Metallica, so that added that extra angst to what we were doing. It was perfect timing and like you said, the chemistry was right.
This is why I’ve always said Dave being kicked out of Metallica was the best thing to ever happen to us. We got two great bands out of it. Can you imagine Dave practicing guitar?
“MUST. BE. FASTER. THAN. KIRK!!!”
More from the same interview here.
Marilyn Manson is so controversial!!!!!!!
Marilyn Manson, Madonna, Eminem, these are some names that used to be controversial back in the 90s (or earlier), but now they’re middle aged and don’t really ‘shock’ anymore, only embarrass themselves.
It’s a sad thing when these semi-havebeens (a word I just invented) still try hard to ‘shock’ the world with their oh so controversial crap, but all they do is make everyone point and laugh. It’s 2012, guys, let it go.
Case in point — Marilyn Manson. Yes, if we were in 1999, chances are some news station somewhere in America would talk about how controversial he is and how parents are gonna boycott his album. Unfortunately it’s not 1999, and people either don’t know who he is, don’t care, or both. So all the bad press he was complaining about to Michael Moore a decade ago is gone. Shouldn’t he be happy about it?
I guess not, cause this is what happened yesterday:
“I just went through the LAX security line with Marilyn Manson. He had “FUCK” scrawled in large letters across the bottom half of his face, with what appeared to be a grease pencil. As we each removed our boots in the security line, he kindly explained that it was not directed at me or anyone else in the airport, but rather at the paparazzi, so that they couldn’t sell any photos of him that they took. He was really apologetic about it, and covered his mouth around young children while apologizing to their parents for exposing their child to profanity.”
Read full thing here.
Well if he was apologetic about it, that makes it okay, right? Check out some photos for yourself: eins, zwei, drei
The plan worked though, because the plan was to make the headlines again and get some oh so shocking photos of himself out there. And it kinda happened, only no one cares. It’s not like he looks like a middle aged dude who passed out at a frat party or anything.
Then he tweeted about it, as you do…
Re-LAX.If you are close enough to read this… twitter.com/marilynmanson/…
— Marilyn Manson (@marilynmanson) August 11, 2012
Keep it classy, Brian.
Source: Blabbermouth
