RAWR!
The end of the world through song, every week by Toby McCasker. Email: [email protected] , Twitter: twitter.com/jane_tobes
Bit of bitching and moaning over this F!*K the Politics show coming up at The Espy on August 13th. See, the booker’s got both metal bands and hardcore bands on for the same night, hence the name of the game. It’s nothing new, of course, and this kind of initiative, while well-intentioned, rarely ever works out simply because no-one wants to sit through shit they can’t stand for 30 minutes at a time to see shit they dig. I’d encourage you to get along and open your mind, but… you won’t, probably, and I’m not your dad or anything. It’s my birthday that night, send me a young Thai girl instead.
MOTORHEAD GUITARIST PASSES AWAY
At the time of writing nothing official’s been released, but reports are currently circulating out of the UK that long-serving Motörhead guitarist, Michael ‘Wurzel’ Burston, has passed away at age 61 from ventricular fibrillation caused by cardiomyopathy. I might tell girls as much, but I’m not really a doctor. Sounds like something went awry with Mike’s ticker, though. He’d been with the band since 1984 and was a great old soul, full of great fuck-everything quotes like this blinder from 1991: “I’m not sure why we sound like we do. Maybe it’s because I hate my guitar and play it accordingly. But there’s always something to be said for banging a chord that hits you in the back of the head.” Amen.
MASTODON’S NEW ARTWORK…
…for The Hunter is bangin’. I can’t even look at it without my prostate expanding. Noice.
PERIPHERY SANS GUITARIST
What the crap is going on here? I just had a good old natter with Misha Mansoor last week and life was peachy. Now all of a sudden, guitarist Alex Bois has left the Periphery fold. Concerned about the impending Aussie tour? Don’t be: “In regards to all of our upcoming shows and tours, worry not! We will have special guest artists filling in for Alex, so our touring plans will not be changing whatsoever.”
NEUROSIS REISSUE SOVEREIGN EP
The Neurosis camp have been busy reissuing some of their formative works like Souls At Zero and Enemy of the Sun via their own Neurot Recordings imprint, and next up is Sovereign. This bad-boy goes back over a decade, originally popping up in 2000 as the debut release for the band’s new label. The reissue’s gonna include an unreleased fifth track with Misgiven added in as a closer, which is a whole lot of feedback and argh. Aaron Turner has also redesigned the artwork. Hot damn. It’s out (again) on September 12th.
DYING FETUS REPEAT HISTORY
Right now, metalhammer.co.uk are streaming Dying Fetus‘ cover of Napalm Death‘s Unchallenged Hate. Go listen to it, it’s beer-ootal. It’s one of seven classic covers the Fetus are putting together for their History Repeats… mini-album due for July 19th. They’re also hitting up Dehumanized‘s Fade Into Obscurity, Broken Hope‘sGorehog, Bolt Thrower‘s Unleashed Upon Mankind, Pestilence‘s Twisted Truth, and Cannibal Corpse‘s Born in a Casket. They’ll also be slapping an all-new original track, Rohypnol, in the middle there for all you girls.
MIKAEL ON HERITAGE
I begged, I pleaded, and the other day Roadrunner gave me a quick listen to Opeth‘s September-bound new release, Heritage. I think it’s fair to say that it’s going to make a lot of heads spin. Mikael Åkerfeldt spoke about it at length to Radio Metal: “It’s different. For me, it kind of makes sense, because I’ve been doing this for such a long time. So it’s not a massive departure for me and for the guys in the band. But for fans, if they are, for example, into My Arms, Your Hearse, it might be a bit different. But I’m hoping that a lot of people are ready for this type of album from us. The music is all over the place.”
Understatement of the millennium. Interestingly, Heritage also features a lot of keys – but keyboardist Per Wiberg is no longer in the band. Hmmm: “He was fired. But he was going to leave anyways because he wasn’t happy with us. It’s not like we weren’t friends but I don’t think he felt comfortable playing keyboards with this style of music. He’s more into blues/rock and things like that. He’s got a few projects that he’s been working on over the years.”
GET A DISC UP YA
TesseracT – One [Century|2011]
I just scored this beauty the other day and it was one of the best decisions of the year so far. UK djentlemen TesseracT have been around for ages, but this is the first time they’ve gone on LP record and it’s chunky as smeg. Highly recommend that you hook into this ahead of their arrival with Periphery later in the month.
DEATHQUOTE
“It’s going to be called 13. I started playing guitar at 13 and this is our 13th record and I was born on the 13th. As soon as I said I was going to call it 13 I started noticing 13 everywhere. They never used to have 13th floors in hotels but now they have them again.”
– The name of Megadeth‘s new album is, surprisingly, going to be 13.
FEEDBACK
Question: where the fuck is Pig Destroyers new album?? Seems like I been waiting for this for a loooooong time. Kill.
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Jam
You and me both, my son. Word is they just parted ways with drummer Brian Harvey (yeah I know, wtf) and replaced him with Misery Index sticksman Adam Jarvis. Could throw a spanner in the works, although Relapse still insist that their newie’s due out in “early 2012.”
