I want you to / Know your quarry"
Showing posts with label metal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label metal. Show all posts
Saturday, 8 May 2010
Monday, 21 December 2009
Fuck Killing In The Name, what are we sending to Number One next Christmas?
OK, so we got Rage Against The Machine to the top of the Christmas singles chart - but let's not get complacent. If we're to silence the critics who are citing the tradition of novelty festive number ones, and painting Zack De La Rocha as a kind of politically-conscious Mr Blobby, we have to make sure this isn't a one-off. We have to prove that this was not just one in the eye for Simon Cowell or a neat illustration of the potential of grassroots marketing through social media, but evidence of a real alternative that can do what the fuck it likes - with nothing more than 79p and impeccable taste. That's why Manflet is already making suggestions for Christmas Number One 2010:Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
Appeals to the same generation that backed Killing In The Name: old enough to remember when the seasonal chart-topper was less of a shoe-in (if no less shit) than during the Xmas Factor era, but young enough to care what happens next year; with plenty of free time to spend on Facebook and, because we usually illegally download our music, loads of spare cash to waste on tracks we already own. And as with De La Rocha's, um, rage, Kurt Cobain lends a voice to our frustration with the music industry, his refrain "here we are now / entertain us" throwing down the gauntlet to whatever chump Cowell is fast-tracking to fame at the time.
Radiohead - Creep
Ticks all the same boxes as Nirvana, but with the added bonus that the songwriter is still around to enter into intelligent debate. And just like RATM, Radiohead are likely to lend the campaign some gravitas by dedicating proceeds to some charity that you and I are too selfish to donate to. Plus, can you imagine what fun the YouTube mentals could have making video clips of Simon Cowell mouth along to the lyrics "I'm a creep / I'm a weirdo"? LOL!
Peaches - Jump On Santa's Sleigh (Fuck The Pain Away)
Get this: we get Peaches to re-record her filthcore electroclassic with radio friendly lyrics about reindeers and snowmen and shit. She ditches the merkin and shaves her armpits and we market her as Lady Gaga's older, less edgy sister. Next, we book her on Wogan's Radio 2 show for a chat and a live performance. Take it away Peaches: FUCK THE PAIN AWAY FUCK THE PAIN AWAY FUCK THE PAIN AWAY...
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
Do my balls look big in this (pair of jeans)?
I've had the title of this post earmarked since Manflet began (yeah, it's that good), but a weird thing happened when I sat down to write it. No, I didn't pass out from the pressure on my groin - quite the opposite in fact. Because, disappointingly, the jeans that had originally inspired the idea didn't seem that tight anymore. I'm pretty sure that my junk hasn't shrunk (I'm still the full inch that my wife assures me is more than adequate), and my waist definitely hasn't. And I haven't washed my jeans the wrong way - judging by the look and smell of them, they haven't been washed at all.
So if my jeans haven't changed, and I haven't (physically), then what has? I think, in terms of tight trousers, I've simply broadened my horizons - or narrowed my seams, if you prefer. My latest pair of jeans may even qualify as "jeggings"- leggings either made of denim or made to look like denim (for a fuller description consult that beacon of enlightenment, the Daily Mail, which can tell you if you're too old to wear them - but not if you're too male). Whatever you call them, they're OBSCENE. You can see everything - in front, my "Cyril Sneer" (Nicholas Downes, 2007); round back, my buttcheeks and, because they're low slung (my jeans, not my cheeks), even my asscrack.
Sounds horrible, doesn't it? So what's the appeal? Put simply, tight jeans make me feel like a rock star. And not in a Russell-Brand-comedy-is-the-new-rock-n'-roll-oh-so-hedonistic kind of way. No, like Iron Maiden circa 1982: ludicrous, slightly androgynous (girly from the back, all man in the front), and with my NWOBHMs on show. I'm rebuilding a collection of metal t-shirts, and now I just need some giant white high top trainers to complete the look. Because I like the attention - even if it just consists of a Big Mo-alike on the bus wondering aloud "I wanna know how he gets into them" (*shudders*).
But I want to know what the Manflet readership† thinks:
When it comes to men's jeans, how tight is too tight?
†That would be you, Gadsby.
So if my jeans haven't changed, and I haven't (physically), then what has? I think, in terms of tight trousers, I've simply broadened my horizons - or narrowed my seams, if you prefer. My latest pair of jeans may even qualify as "jeggings"- leggings either made of denim or made to look like denim (for a fuller description consult that beacon of enlightenment, the Daily Mail, which can tell you if you're too old to wear them - but not if you're too male). Whatever you call them, they're OBSCENE. You can see everything - in front, my "Cyril Sneer" (Nicholas Downes, 2007); round back, my buttcheeks and, because they're low slung (my jeans, not my cheeks), even my asscrack.
Sounds horrible, doesn't it? So what's the appeal? Put simply, tight jeans make me feel like a rock star. And not in a Russell-Brand-comedy-is-the-new-rock-n'-roll-oh-so-hedonistic kind of way. No, like Iron Maiden circa 1982: ludicrous, slightly androgynous (girly from the back, all man in the front), and with my NWOBHMs on show. I'm rebuilding a collection of metal t-shirts, and now I just need some giant white high top trainers to complete the look. Because I like the attention - even if it just consists of a Big Mo-alike on the bus wondering aloud "I wanna know how he gets into them" (*shudders*).
But I want to know what the Manflet readership† thinks:
When it comes to men's jeans, how tight is too tight?
†That would be you, Gadsby.
Thursday, 3 September 2009
The Manflet Metal Round Up... 2009 so far
If I’d known when I was sullen teen just how socially acceptable metal was going to become, the narrow minded little misanthrope that I was probably would have hated it. But thankfully in the early 90s metal couldn’t have been less popular which makes it all the more remarkable that it’s now the most popular music form in the world.
Still, you wouldn’t know that this was the case given the confused looks you get from most people if you mention a band other than Metallica, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath etc. So, with Manflet being a veritable fountain of knowledge on so many subjects, I thought I would put together a list of my favourite metal albums of 2009 so far, so that the curious can dip their toes into the otherwise confusing maelstrom that is the genre, the poorly educated can add a few obscurities to their shallow library of metal knowledge and the disagreeable twats can tell me I’ve got it completely wrong.
1.Kreator – Hor
des of Chaos
Who would have thought that one of the best thrash albums ever would be released in 2009 by Kreator of all the bands in the world. Kreator were somewhere very near the top of the pile of the German thrash scene in the 80s but following the world’s betrayal of metal in the 90s they went quite crap. 2001’s Violent Revolution was promising but Christ alive, dead, then alive again, Hordes of Chaos is truly jaw dropping. It’s catchy as hell, despite using the minimum of melody and the vocals sound like Reign in Blood era Tom Araya but seriously pissed off. I can’t believe this album isn’t part of a really cool dream from which I’ll wake up and feel slightly depressed at how dull reality really can be at times.
2.Heaven & Hell - The Devil You Know
You might think you haven't heard of these, but technically you have as it's pretty much the Black Sabbath line-up from the 1980 and 1981 and 1992 albums Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules and Dehumanizer respectively with tiny metal god Ronnie James Dio (beloved of Jack Black) on vox. It’s a fact that few are willing to admit, but Ronnie is a better singer than Ozzy by miles even though he’s miniature and ancient – imagine if Bilbo had given in to the dark whims of the One Ring and you get the picture.
3.Crystal Vip
er - Metal Nation
What do you mean you've never heard of them? So what if they have less than 2000 listeners on Last.fm? Crystal Viper play metal truer than Manowar at Sunday Mass. Armoured skeletons on album cover - check, orchestral intro - check, song about Zombies - check and they're Polish and have a girl singer who occasionally goes by the name Leatherwitch. If Robert E Howard, author of the Conan the Barbarian stories, was alive today, Polish and into metal he would be in Crystal Viper.
4.My Dying Brid
e - For Lies I Sire
You haven't heard of these either? Okay, well I think you can guess from the band name what they're going to sound like. Now add violins and some keyboards and there you go. Probably too miserable for most, but they were/are one of my favourite bands ever so you'll have to live with it. I often refer to them as the Morissey of Doom/Death metal but to be honest that’s doing them disfavour as at their most morose they make Morrisey look like High School Musical.
5.The Gather
ing – The West Pole
Some less open-minded metal fans will decry me for including this release on a list titled ‘metal’, but I’m not doing some wanky post-metal roundup list because post- genres are just stupid. Anyway, this is like um... Okay there’s probably a whole book, nay a whole library to be written on the subject of whether music writing can ever come close to capturing the actual sounds of the music it tries to describe, especially in the case of bands who do their best to avoid categorisation. Put it this way, if you like moody, powerful, beautiful music with rich female vocals you might like this, if you don’t it’s because the descriptive terms I used are highly ambiguous and prone to idiosyncratic interpretation.
6.Madder Mortem – Eight Ways
Okay, I know
you’re going to listen to this for ten seconds and say it sounds like Evanescence and call me a 16 year old emo faux goth but it totally doesn’t and I’m totally not. In a long tradition of metal bands that bring jazz-like influences into their music (well as far back as Atheist anyway) Madder Mortem do it in a distinctively Norwegian style, i.e. really fucking well with a disconcerting undercurrent of weirdness. By the way don’t be put off by the jazz thing, I’m not talking New Orleans or anything, more that it’s unpredictable and has some weird time signatures and stuff.
7.Revolting
– Dreadful Pleasures
I couldn’t decide whether to include this or Denial’s ‘Catacombs of the Grotesque’ (oh the stress) as my favourite new old school style death metal album, this won simply because I happened to have listened to it more, such are the whims of fate. To be fair if you’re not a death metal fan you’ll fail to hear the sublime Entombed/Dismember/Grave/Carnage isms, you’ll just hear a god awful racket with a man bellowing in a Cookie Monster voice over the top. If you do like death metal you should love this because it’s just sooo death metal, no prog, no jaz, no posts, no acoustic passages, no keyboards, no singing etc.
8.Believer
– Gabriel
Another thrash album makes the list and a bunch of Christians at that (James is not alone), who’d have thought it? It’s very easy to describe this as ‘progressive’ because it’s full of weird breaks and random passages of non-metal type sounds. But when it’s being less weird and very metal it’s a bloody heavy little bugger.
9.Wolf - R
avenous
Ah the Swedes, they just have a knack for making really good classic metal (see Grand Magus’ ‘Iron Will’ for further evidence). Maybe it’s because they don’t take themselves as seriously as the British that they feel comfortable playing this stuff or maybe it’s because they take themselves so seriously that the perfect replication of 80s metal has been transformed into an aesthetic pursuit that must be mastered. Anyway, there are bits of Maiden, Priest, Helloween and Running Wild (I had to mention a slightly obscure one) in here and some seriously catchy choruses, which lest face it is a must in the trad metal stakes.
10.Candl
emass – Death Magic Doom
Back when doom metal was a dirt term Candlemass were being miserable and epic, and they continue to do so today and it’s made all the more epic because Rob Lowe of Solitude Aeturnus sings for them (did I lose you there?). 'Death Magic Doom' is also one of the best album titles ever and the song 'The Bleeding Baroness' is probably the catchiest thing they've ever written.
11.Amo
rphis – Skyforger
You thought I was going to stop at 10, eh, what do you think this is the Manflet RnB roundup, jeez. Anyway I absolutely love Amorphis and have done since I heard a track on an obscure metal compilation in 1992. So even though this album is not that different from their last two, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a slice of pure genius, it just means it’s yet another slice of pure genius. As far as I’m concerned Amorphis are the last word in epic-ness. The (relatively) new singer does death growls and proper singing to perfection and the music is both heavy and melodic. As with all Amorphis albums the lyrics are based on the Finnish national myth cycle the Kalevala which makes for some interesting if not strictly intelligible song subjects.
Anyway that's it for now, tune back in in December for more. Actually come back before then December is ages away...
Still, you wouldn’t know that this was the case given the confused looks you get from most people if you mention a band other than Metallica, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath etc. So, with Manflet being a veritable fountain of knowledge on so many subjects, I thought I would put together a list of my favourite metal albums of 2009 so far, so that the curious can dip their toes into the otherwise confusing maelstrom that is the genre, the poorly educated can add a few obscurities to their shallow library of metal knowledge and the disagreeable twats can tell me I’ve got it completely wrong.
1.Kreator – Hor
des of Chaos Who would have thought that one of the best thrash albums ever would be released in 2009 by Kreator of all the bands in the world. Kreator were somewhere very near the top of the pile of the German thrash scene in the 80s but following the world’s betrayal of metal in the 90s they went quite crap. 2001’s Violent Revolution was promising but Christ alive, dead, then alive again, Hordes of Chaos is truly jaw dropping. It’s catchy as hell, despite using the minimum of melody and the vocals sound like Reign in Blood era Tom Araya but seriously pissed off. I can’t believe this album isn’t part of a really cool dream from which I’ll wake up and feel slightly depressed at how dull reality really can be at times.
2.Heaven & Hell - The Devil You Know
You might think you haven't heard of these, but technically you have as it's pretty much the Black Sabbath line-up from the 1980 and 1981 and 1992 albums Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules and Dehumanizer respectively with tiny metal god Ronnie James Dio (beloved of Jack Black) on vox. It’s a fact that few are willing to admit, but Ronnie is a better singer than Ozzy by miles even though he’s miniature and ancient – imagine if Bilbo had given in to the dark whims of the One Ring and you get the picture.
3.Crystal Vip
er - Metal Nation What do you mean you've never heard of them? So what if they have less than 2000 listeners on Last.fm? Crystal Viper play metal truer than Manowar at Sunday Mass. Armoured skeletons on album cover - check, orchestral intro - check, song about Zombies - check and they're Polish and have a girl singer who occasionally goes by the name Leatherwitch. If Robert E Howard, author of the Conan the Barbarian stories, was alive today, Polish and into metal he would be in Crystal Viper.
4.My Dying Brid
e - For Lies I Sire You haven't heard of these either? Okay, well I think you can guess from the band name what they're going to sound like. Now add violins and some keyboards and there you go. Probably too miserable for most, but they were/are one of my favourite bands ever so you'll have to live with it. I often refer to them as the Morissey of Doom/Death metal but to be honest that’s doing them disfavour as at their most morose they make Morrisey look like High School Musical.
5.The Gather
ing – The West Pole Some less open-minded metal fans will decry me for including this release on a list titled ‘metal’, but I’m not doing some wanky post-metal roundup list because post- genres are just stupid. Anyway, this is like um... Okay there’s probably a whole book, nay a whole library to be written on the subject of whether music writing can ever come close to capturing the actual sounds of the music it tries to describe, especially in the case of bands who do their best to avoid categorisation. Put it this way, if you like moody, powerful, beautiful music with rich female vocals you might like this, if you don’t it’s because the descriptive terms I used are highly ambiguous and prone to idiosyncratic interpretation.
6.Madder Mortem – Eight Ways
Okay, I know
you’re going to listen to this for ten seconds and say it sounds like Evanescence and call me a 16 year old emo faux goth but it totally doesn’t and I’m totally not. In a long tradition of metal bands that bring jazz-like influences into their music (well as far back as Atheist anyway) Madder Mortem do it in a distinctively Norwegian style, i.e. really fucking well with a disconcerting undercurrent of weirdness. By the way don’t be put off by the jazz thing, I’m not talking New Orleans or anything, more that it’s unpredictable and has some weird time signatures and stuff.7.Revolting
– Dreadful Pleasures I couldn’t decide whether to include this or Denial’s ‘Catacombs of the Grotesque’ (oh the stress) as my favourite new old school style death metal album, this won simply because I happened to have listened to it more, such are the whims of fate. To be fair if you’re not a death metal fan you’ll fail to hear the sublime Entombed/Dismember/Grave/Carnage isms, you’ll just hear a god awful racket with a man bellowing in a Cookie Monster voice over the top. If you do like death metal you should love this because it’s just sooo death metal, no prog, no jaz, no posts, no acoustic passages, no keyboards, no singing etc.
8.Believer
– Gabriel Another thrash album makes the list and a bunch of Christians at that (James is not alone), who’d have thought it? It’s very easy to describe this as ‘progressive’ because it’s full of weird breaks and random passages of non-metal type sounds. But when it’s being less weird and very metal it’s a bloody heavy little bugger.
9.Wolf - R
avenous Ah the Swedes, they just have a knack for making really good classic metal (see Grand Magus’ ‘Iron Will’ for further evidence). Maybe it’s because they don’t take themselves as seriously as the British that they feel comfortable playing this stuff or maybe it’s because they take themselves so seriously that the perfect replication of 80s metal has been transformed into an aesthetic pursuit that must be mastered. Anyway, there are bits of Maiden, Priest, Helloween and Running Wild (I had to mention a slightly obscure one) in here and some seriously catchy choruses, which lest face it is a must in the trad metal stakes.
10.Candl
emass – Death Magic DoomBack when doom metal was a dirt term Candlemass were being miserable and epic, and they continue to do so today and it’s made all the more epic because Rob Lowe of Solitude Aeturnus sings for them (did I lose you there?). 'Death Magic Doom' is also one of the best album titles ever and the song 'The Bleeding Baroness' is probably the catchiest thing they've ever written.
11.Amo
rphis – Skyforger You thought I was going to stop at 10, eh, what do you think this is the Manflet RnB roundup, jeez. Anyway I absolutely love Amorphis and have done since I heard a track on an obscure metal compilation in 1992. So even though this album is not that different from their last two, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a slice of pure genius, it just means it’s yet another slice of pure genius. As far as I’m concerned Amorphis are the last word in epic-ness. The (relatively) new singer does death growls and proper singing to perfection and the music is both heavy and melodic. As with all Amorphis albums the lyrics are based on the Finnish national myth cycle the Kalevala which makes for some interesting if not strictly intelligible song subjects.
Anyway that's it for now, tune back in in December for more. Actually come back before then December is ages away...
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Highway to... Heaven?
Life was tough as a teenage Christian metal fan. That is, a Christian who was also a fan of metal, not a fan of Christian metal - although they must've had it really hard, as the scene at the time pretty much consisted of Stryper, four gay ponies in spandex wasp outfits.
Not that I cared what anyone else thought of me (anyone who's seen my photo album can attest to that), especially not small-minded middle-class baptists. They could tut-tut all they liked at my Sunday best - Faith No More and Pantera t-shirts (a favourite all-over print featured both the words "Cowboys from Hell" and, tucked away on the side, subversive messages like "Sex"). But, like every good metal fan, I just loved to be hated.
But I did worry about what God thought. Say, when I settled down to pray, having spent the last hour screaming along to Nine Inch Nails: "God is dead /and no-one cares /if there is a Hell /I'll see you there". I used to wonder, if this really is the devil's music, and I have to give it up for Him, well... what if I can't? And so I've spent half my life convinced that I'm going to Hell, and not reveling in it the way a Slayer fan should.
Today's metal fans needn't worry - they can have their crucifix-shaped cake and eat it (although they should worry about indulging in such sacrilegious foodstuffs). Some of the best bands are God-botherers - Underoath, As I Lay Dying, Norma Jean - and they're as aggressive and uncompromising as the Satanists. In a scene still dominated by people who aren't keen on organised religion, being badge-wearing born-agains is the ultimate rebellion. A niche within a niche that defies all expectations, and guarantees that even your fellow Kerrang! readers will hate you? A metaller's dream.
Texan metalcore outfit Oh, Sleeper are leading the charge. Their debut "When I Am God" became my new favourite album long before I learned of its spritual undertones. (This might sound stoopid, given its title, but the use of religious imagery in metal is usually blasphemous.) The sing/scream style of Micah (good biblical name) Kinard gives voice to an inner turmoil, a spiritual struggle within, and makes the fairly hymn-book lyrics sound totally badass: "So when Hell is at the gates /who will stand and meet the waves /and take the fight to their graves /to end the dark campaign?" They're clever too - just check out Kinard's explanation of the broken pentagram symbol that adorns the cover of their new concept album "Son of the Morning" here. Smart.
Not so smart is Brian "Head" Welch. He dropped out of nu metal goons Korn to do a whole shitload of crystal meth, and then dropped the drugs for God. His music is a straight splicing of his former band and Marilyn Manson, his lyrics the worst kind of "walk in my shoes" testimonial, and his only real gift to the world is this unintentionally hilarious interview (taster: "So in my head I was like, 'OK, I'm going to accept Christ in front of everybody right now and I'm gonna go home and snort drugs until I don't wanna do 'em anymore'... ")
Both Welch and Oh, Sleeper headlined Tomfest 2009, the only festival I seriously considered this year. But I only found out about it the day before it started, and flights to Washington state, US, were on the pricey side. The line-up featured over 130 of the brightest and best underground metal acts (and "Head"), and they were all Christians. No doubt it would've been hard to get a drink and I would've had to take my own laughing gas, but even so, I'm sure it would've kicked Ozzfest and the Warped tours asses (but without using the a-word).
So does that mean you can now worship both God and heavy metal? Hell yeah!
† \m/ †
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