Hear the new Mastodon album right here!

Mastodon, besides being one of those weird Japanese mech robots from Power Rangers, is also one of the best modern Metal bands to come out of the noughties. Well, at least that’s what all the Metal magazines have been telling me for the past 6 odd years. And Metal magazines are always right (just look at those 5/5 Limp Bizkit and Korn album reviews from 1999 for proof).

Here at Dose of Metal though, despite my digs above (which should be taken in jest), we can offer you, exclusively, a stream of the entire new album, The Hunter. And when I say “exclusively”, I mean we’ve just embedded the Youtube stream which the band themselves uploaded (and I in turn stole from Blabbermouth anyways). We’re still fucking awesome though!

Listen to the entire album above. It has pretty accompanying imagery. And if you’re thinking “wow this album kicks ass”, you can pre-order the album here. It comes out September 27 in North America.

Papa Roach who?

Maybe I’m just old, bitter and forgetful, but I was quite happy in having completely forgetting about Papa Roach. They say ‘ignorance is bliss’, after all. But what did I find upon browsing the latest Metal headlines today? I discovered that not only do the band still exist, but that they’re still writing music and wanting to “evolve” allegedly. Bleh, I’d give a buck to the first person to pass me a bucket.

So what’s in the Papa Roach news today? Well, Amy Harris recently conducted an interview with frontman Jacoby Shaddix (also known as Cody Dick, because, I don’t know, he likes dick? Maybe?). Apparently the band released a new album last year, which was half new songs and half live tracks. I’m going to speculate that the band couldn’t quite find the energy to actually write an entire new album, so just gave up half way and slapped some live tracks on, so they could sell it asap. Despite this laziness, the band are also working on new music, which will apparently see them “evolving” again (read: “Selling out”). Read an excerpt from the chat below.

“The jams, the music is sick. We want to separate ourselves from the pack again. When we came out in ’99 and 2000, we were like part of an underground movement and then that was really cool. Then that movement kind of fell apart and there weren’t many bands still out there doing it. So we evolved and separated ourselves again and evolved into more of a rock band. Now we have been lumped into all these rock bands and we are like, “Cool we like that. We like that sense of community in rock.” But I want to evolve it into something more even of our own sound[…] I wouldn’t necessarily say that is the move to make it creatively original. I just think the music we have been listening to, we have been listening to everything from honkytonk country music to electronic music to heavy metal to punk rock. I don’t want to make an average white-guy rock record. I want to make a fucking record that inspires people to fuck, fight, love, forgive. An inspiring album that makes people want to move, makes people want to do something.”

If you managed to read all that, congratulations, you’re infinitely more sad than me. But anyways, there you go, Jacoby Shaddix is going to inspire you. I hope you’re all prepared for this event of the millennium when Papa Roach come out with another album.

Kirk Hammett thinks you’re rich too

The thing about being in Metallica is, sometimes you probably forget not everyone in the world is worth 200 zillion dollars. We all remember Hetfield casually talking about traveling in a private jet, as if everyone reading that could relate, right?

Well, seems like he’s not the only guitarist in Metallica who assumes everyone else is loaded, too. Kirk just released his own guitar straps, and guess what — they can cost up to $550 each.

Kirk, that is more money than most of your fans spend on their guitars. Hell, Dave probably can’t afford that, what makes you think your fans do?

That’s the strap in the photo above, which I stole got off his site, and in all fairness, the $550 one is the most expensive model. The prices range from $150 to $200 for the other three models, but that’s still a lot in my opinion.

I can’t comment on how great they are, but judging from the photos, they seem like they’re pretty well made. But again, I’ve seen guitar/amp combos cheaper than those straps, kids who want to grow up and play guitar like Kirk (a dying breed, btw, everyone just wants a Macbook to do dubstep nowadays) will most likely not afford them. Professional musicians who can afford it probably don’t care for the Hammett signature.

But hey, good luck with your business venture, and feel free to ship me a few if you want a review. I’ve already reviewed Jaymz’ picks some time ago, and that was all out of my own pocket. Throw in an autographed CD, and I’ll review the shit out of them, say they were handcrafted by God himself. [/shameless whore]

Lars gets interviewed by Howard Stern

Lars was on Howard Stern a few days ago, but for some reason I’m posting about it now. Deal with it.

Here it is, in six parts:

Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5:
Part 6:

Staind frontman disappoints (not again!)

Jay Nanda of the San Antonio Metal Music Examiner recently conducted an interview with Staind frontman Aaron Lewis. The interview brings to light some of the details in regards to the recording of the band’s latest record, and the internal friction between members.

While all of us here at Dose of Metal were hoping that these break-up rumors meant the end for Staind, Aaron seems to have sadly squashed this rumor.

“I don’t know. I know that when I’m done with this touring cycle, which will be a year from now, that my focus will turn and be completely on putting out my next solo record. And when I’m done with that solo record is how it will go. There’s certainly no reason to break the band up, and I don’t think there’d ever be a reason for the band to break up.”

Source: Blabbermouth

In hope that Aaron will read this post, I have compiled a list of reasons as to why Staind should consider breaking up. For the 10 reasons, just make the jump.