Mattowarrior's Metal Madness

Manowar are a band that in recent years, have had an unprecedented amount of bad luck and bad will encumber their status of being the “Kings of Metal”. Lawsuits, albums recorded and then outright scrapped, the death of longtime drummer Scott Columbus, re-recordings of some of their classic albums, and..well we’ll leave the other recent big event alone because there’s been plenty of talk of that controversial (as well as devastating) subject. The band has encountered controversy after controversy in recent years, and in many ways, been denigrated to be a running joke in the metal community.   Any regular reader of this blog is probably familiar with many of my takes on the various controversies, and how I view much of their recent trajectory (that is, not so favorably). That said, when it comes to the music, the question on many fan’s minds is what they would do next. After announcing their final tour, they have now decided to release a series of EPs to mark their “fina...

Evestus is an Electronic/Industrial/Rock Band from Estonia who has just released their new EP, Post 18 Depression. I found them to be an intriguing example of a modern band playing a classic sound that exudes atmosphere, attitude, and angst. Here is my recent interview with mainman Ott Evestus, covering a variety of topics: How/When did Evestus start? What was the original impetus for the project? I used to play drums in a few bands and then do vocals in a metal band for some years until I started experimenting with computer music. My first album came out in 2005 called “Destiny In Life” and it's absolutely horrible glitchcore/samplecore experimental piece of work mainly consisting of samples from movies and cartoons.. I decided to call this project after my last name which is Evestus and .. well.. despite this horrible creation I got signed to Canadas Dtrash records and just kept going. I've come quite along way since then haha! Who are your influenc...

“Battered and Blue”, the new song by IDEK, has appeared, and it definitely represents an evolution in their sound. The band has been reviewed on these pages before, and it’s remarkable how much they’ve evolved in a few short years, if this song is any indication.  The song starts out with some soft, somewhat dissonant guitars and goes to a heavier, somewhat odd timed flourish that almost reminds me of current Prog-Metal superstars such as Leprous.  I found the vocals much to my liking, for some reason, the singing (the normal melodious singing that is) reminded me of singers such as Voivod’s Denis Bélanger, which, being a big Voivod fan as I am, is a welcome treat.  The song continues with the surreal sense of foreboding, with some extreme vocals in the background (though done in a very way, not too overpowering). The song also features a cool midsection with some jazzy instrumentation with horns continuing the winding melody from the rest of the song....

Lana Laws in her bio, describes herself as: " A transgender multi-instrumentalist and innovator, Lana Laws has gone from relative obscurity to national identity in only a few short years. The creative mind behind progressive metal project, ‘Kalasin’, Lana uses her talents for singing, keyboards, guitar, and bass to create symphonic metal compositions that flow with definitive grandeur.  " So does the music live up to the hype? Let's find out for ourselves! The first song, "The Chasing of Perfidious Mists" reminded me of bands ranging from Stratovarius to  Reinxeed or Sonata Arctica to the mighty X Japan, if only for the regal piano melodies that become more prevalent later in the song. I noticed early on that this is a (mostly) instrumental project, which to some may not seem appealing, but being a musician myself and someone into instrumental projects/songs, I definitely can appreciate.  The second song is "The Mutilation of Heritage...

Warmask is an upcoming act from Baltimore, Maryland who states they are influenced by bands ranging from Motorhead, Black Sabbath, and The Melvins, to Corrosion Of Conformity, and Clutch, and more.  Including musicians like bassist Louis Strachan from the legendary Doom Metallers Iron Man, their new self-titled EP has just been released in February. The album begins with the ultra heavy “The Art of Hypocrisy”, sounding almost indeed something like if Motorhead, Clutch, and Black Sabbath collaborated on a song.  The riff’s Children of the Grave like feel propels the song to a grungy climax, complete with wah solos. The vocals are an interesting aspect of the band, as others have said, the first thing I thought was Ian Astbury of the cult meets maybe King Buzzo.  I’ve got to admit the rougher strains of the voice may be done a bit more convincing than the crooning parts, which mysteriously don’t really appear on the rest of the album (would've been interest...

Are we alone in the universe? That's the question that BlackEternal definitely answers on their new album, Encounters, and of course the answer is, definitely NO! Encounters features a heavy influence of various strains of extreme metal including symphonic black metal and death metal. I caught up with BlackEternal's mainman Nightmare for an intriguing interview recently:  Tell me about the formation of BlackEternal - BlackEternal started as an idea that came to me when I was in my teens in the mid 90’s. I’ve been a metal head all my life, So I always knew I wanted to play black metal, I knew I wanted to write songs and play instruments. I started writing music and composing and it just went on from there. Originally BlackEternal was a 4-piece band in the late 90’s we were playing a thrash / black metal style at local underground shows for a few years before we went out separate ways. Now BlackEternal is 2 members. Myself and BloodBath. Pic: Nightmare and B...

S lang is a band/project that does a rare thing for me. Immediately in the first 5 seconds of listening to the first song on their newest album, Garden City, the song Red River, I dug them/him immensely. The song starts out like an awesome hybrid of Joe Satriani if he played for Deep Purple (he actually did for a Japanese tour) and features tasty organ licks and great shred guitars. Speaking of Japanese, if an Anime company called up Slang to use this song as a theme song for an anime film it wouldn’t surprise me, a very anthemic and catchy track. The second song, is a far funkier track that almost reminds one of a mid-eighties action movie where the camera is craning down on the city in the beginning. That’s not a knock though, as the ensuing jazzy guitar makes the song shine.  This is the eighth solo album by Slang, a guitarist/musician hailing from Winnipeg Canada who is eclectic to say the least. The album continues with songs like Heartland which feature some s...