Mattowarrior's Metal Madness

Carcass - Surgical Steel- rating: 4 out of 5 mutilated and eviscerated corpses Even though it's a few weeks out, I decided to post this review because its still a relevant album that was recently released. And what album is this? Carcass's long awaited new album, Surgical Steel. When news of an official Carcass reunion album were announced, mouths were agape and heads were ready to bang. It had been five years since official reunion, but questions remained about whether or not there would be any attempt from the band to put themselves fully on the map again with a new album. There were also the questions about what the musical content would be, would it be a return to the classic grind of the first three albums, or would it be more in line with the later more melodic strains of 1993's Heartwork? We all got the answer in mid September, when the band released their first album since 1996's Swansong. The album is (likely) a comeback album far more than say, the new ...

Decided to post a lot of the reviews I did for other publications and sites such as amazon, etc on this blog site. It will be to tide people over to the new reviews and interviews I will be posting here soon. Here are some short reviews of various albums over the years: John Arch - A Twist of Fate- 2003. Well, where to start? Its the return of one of my favorite singers of all time, John Arch. On the first three (my favorite) Fates Warning albums, he showed an awesome display of melody, and genius wordplay lyrically. I was awaiting something else from him for the six years I've been a Fates Warning fan. Finally the day arrives when I read on a website that he is returning to the music scene in a project from Dream Theater and Fates Warning members. I was 100 times more excited than when I heard about the OSI project. Now, on to the Ep: One glaring thing I noticed is : Its way too short! I mean, he was out of the music scene for 16 years, and now he only has 30 minutes to give us...

I'd like to happily announce the relaunch of this blog, and am actively welcoming/seeking content from other writers/bloggers as well. I will also partner with some other content producers to get this blog to be the main hub of metal info in the area! Coming soon: Reviews of new releases including the new Carcass album, and new interviews!

Its been asked by friends and others why I don't listen to a lot of modern albums. For awhile, I looked at it as just a sign of being jaded after hearing literally thousands of albums, having been a long time veteran of the Metal scene, etc. But as I dug deeper and deeper into self-analysis on this subject, something became clear. I found that the problem I have with a lot of modern Metal isn't neccesarily because of stylistic permutations or lack of songwriting skills (though sometimes this is a culprit), its been because the production on a lot of modern albums are lacking. What does "lacking" mean? Well its not some "necro black metal" trend of production or anything of that matter. As a matter of fact, I am a big fan of the mid-nineties Black Metal scene, and did not like some of the commercial derivations of that, including bands like Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir. Emeperor, Mayhem, or Satyricon may have sounded raw but their production had dynamics t...

About a year ago, the whole current debacle with Queensryche started with the band splitting in two camps: Geoff Tate with hired musicians, and Michael Wilton, Scott Rockenfield, Eddie Jackson and newcome Todd Latorre. I had done a review of the band's latest album "Dedicated to Chaos" previously, and reading articles through the recent years and seeing live clips, etc, it actually came as no surprise to a lot of people. The (alleged) knife wielding of Tate, the spitting on the drummer (though spitting on band members doesn't always have malicious intent, just ask Mike Portnoy!) as well as all the allegations in the press by Tate vs the rest of the band did come as a shock however. The remaining band's legal depositions came out in public, and me being the music nerd I am, read all of them. All of what transpired really stood out to me as being extremely similar to what had happened with Pink Floyd in the 1980's. Roger Waters had claimed to write all ...

In this video I go into the marketing phenonmenon known as "Ozzy Osbbourne"

In this blog I will be going over Ozzy's career and how PR and other factors contributed to the perception that he is the "metal godfather" that he is, when many of his lyrics and songs were written by outside sources! (It's not a bash on Ozzy per se, as I do like and enjoy much of his material, just want to shatter a few misconceptions regarding the artist and how he is portrayed in the media and seen by the general public. Coming soon!