Metal Cruise: The end of an era

As though we needed further proof that metal is either dead or on life support, today I received news of a disaster of grand proportions. What am I talking about you ask? I'm talking about the 70000 Tons Of Metal cruise. Proving to everyone that metal is an aging art form (okay maybe calling it an "art form" is a stretch), as are its practitioners and fans. Featuring such hot metal acts as Sodom, Amon Amarth, Raven and Trouble, the cruise is being described as such:

Imagine starting the year in style. In January 2011, 40 Heavy Metal bands and 2,000 fans will go to the Caribbean to take over the luxury cruise ship "Majesty of the Seas" for a 5 day and 4 night trip of a lifetime.

Make no mistake, this is not one of the cruises where you share the ship with regular cruise guests... This is 100% Heavy Metal! Tons of onboard live shows on several in and outdoor stages, open mic nights, bars that never close, a fun-and-sun-filled day on the beautiful island of Cozumel

Can you imagine being stuck on a ship full of fat, aging metal fans? Notice that the ship will be going to Cozumel, Mexico. So I think you can expect that members of Mexican thrash trio Toxodeth will be working as short order cooks. Can you imagine the quality of the performances that will take place on the "open mic nights"? Perhaps members of Raven will do their latest slam poetry...who knows, perhaps members of Sodom will showcase their new hilarious ventriloquist act, which features a masked puppet modeled after their numerous album covers.



Look, I don't fault these guys for trying to cash in just a bit. I don't fault them for trying to get a free vacation, particularly when their idiototic fans are willing to play along. Why not? I do, however, reserve the right to shake my head in disbelief in a manner that would have made an 11 year old version of me proud. A godamned cruise? Seriously? Metal bands aren't even supposed to be exposed to sunlight (much like Gremlins)...aside from that one time that Kreator showed off their sweet beach bods. There was also the seldom-talked about incident that Mayhem fans refer to as the "belly shirt we shall not speak of".





Yes, perhaps I'm in denial. Perhaps I'd like to keep the world as I saw it in earlier times. Metal seemed cool to me when I was young due in great part to its mystique. It was dark, unknown and potentially dangerous. I was 11 then...so perhaps it's time I just grow the hell up, sign up and go on the cruise with my old lady. Who knows, I may even enjoy Raven's poetry slam.

Kreator's Barbarian Revolution

A new video is out for the title track of KREATOR's new album, and it's got swords, guitars, mountains of skulls, a barbarian warrior, a corrupted king, and more. For those in the know, there are visual references to several Frank Frazetta paintings, and for that, I love the video. (The song is good too...while I haven't yet heard the album, it received a thumbs up from Atanamar.)

However the video also features tons of dudes wearing naught but loincloths. While that same image is something present in all the greatest Frazetta and Vallejo paintings, and all the best 1980's barbarian flicks, it's difficult to take seriously in 2009. The image of a bronzed muscled barbarian warrior is just too real. Or maybe too gay.

Either way, I'd like to pose the question: do barbarian warriors have a place in these postmodern times?

As the first step towards addressing this question, allow me to theorize that the rise of the viking in the current zeitgeist owes itself to this very decline in barbarian warrior acceptance. For evidence of the current viking mania, see

1) Amon Amarth
2) Enslaved
3) a bunch of other Viking metal bands I don't listen to
4) The killer relaunch of Marvel's THOR (yes, comic books are metal)
5) and the recent Viking specials on PBS (yes, PBS is metal).

Vikings are so hot right now, because we can no longer handle the near nakedness of barbarian warriors. Vikings have many of the cool attributes of barbarian warriors (insatiable thirst for battle, women, and mead; swords, horned helmets; bad teeth) and none of the bad ones (loincloths, shaved and oiled chests).

The obesity epidemic of the Western world might also have something to do with this. Heavy metal bands can grow beards, purchase tunics, helms, and mead horns (they probably sell these things at the Scandinavian branch of Hot Topic) and look like a viking. It's been done, and it works. However, their bellies are now too large to convincingly do the barbarian thing a la Manowar. You can hide a belly (yes, beer guts are metal) inside that artificially war-torn ("distressed?") tunic, but a barbarian's garb hides absolutely nothing. The result? Tons of Viking metal bands, and precious few barbarian metal bands.

In conclusion, I believe that barbarians can once again capture our collective imaginations, but not until the world undergoes some subtle changes. First of all, we need to get totally ripped. Go on ebay right now, sell yr rare black metal vinyl, and purchase a Bowflex. Second, the current administration must aggressively push a pro-barbarian agenda abroad, into Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. This is a delicate geo-political tango, indeed.

I think KREATOR has taken a few steps in the right direction. Are you ready to embrace barbarians again? Recommended reading: Robert E. Howard and John Norman. Recommended viewing: Deathstalker II, The Warrior and the Sorceress.

KREATOR tours this spring with EXODUS to support the new album.

Moving Sale - Everything must go... into storage.

Ah!! It's good to be back! This is my first post since 9/24/08. As some of you may know my life has been a total pile of dog shit since. As we have said many times before, MI staffers are reluctant to reveal too much our personal lives, but I'm gonna make an exception and tell you that my wife fucking left me. The details aren't important, but what matters here is that we are selling our place and I have to move out. I'm selling a lot of my stuff, but not all. I have no idea what shithole in Bed-Stuy I'm gonna end up into, so I'm moving what I'm not selling into storage. As I'm packing, I'll share with you a few things I run into that may be of interest to our readers. Today: some awesome T-shirts.

Crappy art by Stevo

It's no secret I love Impetigo. You can read about my obsession on this post from last year. This sweet Impetigo T-shirt was given to me as a gift by Richard C. of Wild Rags himself, outside the Eagles Auditorium in Milwaukee, WI on July 30th, 1993. It serves as the only piece of hard evidence and proof that I was present during Impetigo's good bye show later that evening. I also wore this T-shirt proudly as we visited Jeffrey Dahmer's place the next day. I was wearing an Impetigo shirt as I stood in front of apartment 213.





This is one of my favorite T-shirts ever. It's pretty bizarre. I traded this shirt with this guy I knew named Brian. I can't remember what I gave him for it, but I know he got ripped off. This shirt is the cat's pajamas! I've only worn this tee a handful of times, since acquiring it in '92. It's spent most of the last 10 years in a plastic bag as demonstrated by its wrinkled appearance. The art is not by Stevo, as Impetigo shirts usually displayed, but it's just as shitty. It looks like it was hand done, not silk screened and the back glows in the dark. That's fucking right bitches, I have an Impetigo shirt that glows in the motherfucking dark. That's how I roll, son!




Kreator 1993 Coma of Souls tour T-shirt. I think the sleeves were removed a few years after that. Not much to say about this one, really. Just that, as you can see, this shirt has been washed a shitload of times and it's so wide it can only be worn by George Costanza.





I don't know WTF I was thinking. Why did I cut the sleeves off on all these T-shirts? I weighed 117lbs up until 1999. My arms were the size of toothpicks, yet I felt my tiny guns needed to be displayed?



This is my favorite T-shirt of this bunch. If I remember correctly, I got this classic tee at a comic book store in Miami. My friend Camilo was waiting just outside in his white Grand Am. I grabbed the thing off the rack and bailed. I wore it at least twice a week since the summer of 1991 until 1998 or so. I'm wearing it in half of our band photos during that time. Many of the scars on the tee are pretty fucking metal, too. A few of the rips came in the pit and all the small holes at the bottom are from the spikes on my belt. The big chunk missing from the bottom happened after a patch I had sown to cover another hole, ripped off during a show in Dee-troit.

Once again, the sleeves were removed at some point. This time, the sleeves ripped and I've had this safety pin holding the thing together for years. I actually still wear this thing once in a while. I usually wear a Harmony Corruption long sleeve under it.

There's a whole box of these things. Every one of them filled with memories and stories.

Alright, like I said, it's good to be back and I hope to get back in the groove and start posting regularly again. Thanks to all the fans that cared enough to realize I hadn't been around. You all need to get a life. Stay metal.

Hey Krauts: Speak English or Die!

Post by guest Metal Inquisition staffer SkullKrusher

God bless German bands in the 80's. Really. God bless
their riffs, (although often a bit thin for my taste),
God bless their infinite arsenal of bullet belts and
leather pants,God bless their snare drums that sound
like a spoon hitting a pillow, and may the Almighty
bless their sad attempt at sounding evil with their
almost non-existing knowledge of the English
language. Now, English is my second (or third,
depending on who you ask)language and I'm a
far from being a master of Slayer's mother tongue,
but I know my limitations. Yes, I know it was I who
coined the term "Welcome to the Hell", but let's
forget about that for now, ok?

Maybe Destruction, Sodom and Kreator should have pitched in for an
English tutor, before writing lyrics for their early records. I mean,
come on! Sodom's Tom Angelripper actually pronounced the word
"bible" as "beebel." That's just sad. I could find hundreds of examples
of bad English in all these liner notes, but let's just look at one
album: Kreator's 1985 masterpiece (no sarcasm here, this record is
fucking awesome), Endless Pain.



Please follow me in a journey through the past…a past full of evil,
bad grammar and shit that just doesn't make any sense.
"In your heart is hate terror is
freezin' your bones"
What is "hate terror" exactly? Whatever it is, I guess it's cold, because
its "freezin" my bones.
"The voice of Hell sound is so nice"
Yeah, I heard Hell has a lovely singing voice!

"You'll burst down their heads and spread hellish heat"

What other way is there to spread "hellish heat" if not by
"bursting" heads?

"And the're ain't no God who helps
us when we die"
No comment.
"I'll eat your intensities no
matter if you pray or please"
Yummy, intensities are damn good with soy sauce! Pray?
Please? What?

"Casting a spell Lord of all hells
ripping the angels God has fell"
God has "fell"? Dammit, I always wanted to have "fell", but my mom
always said it was too expensive! What is "fell"?

"Locked up doors, don't get out,
thebeast makes death like a game.
He burst heads thrash all down"

Hell yeah, Mille, let's "thrash all down"!! What's this obsession
with bursting heads?

"Fear no god. Now you are dead. Your flesh is
dot rot"

"Dot rot"…did he mean dot com? Maybe they were ahead of their time.

"Flashlight is taking all the flash
from your face
Torture feels like the fastest black race
Dying everyday it is the same
Laughing about the corpses in this game"

This just doesn't make ANY sense. A flashlight? A "fast black race"?
Like Jesse Owens? Laughing at what? I don't get it, but I'm sure it's
pretty fucking evil. As evil as the outfits that they wore to the beach
in the picture up top. Pure evil. 

Nothing Says "Happy Valentine's Day" Like a Kreator Thong

Guys, did you forget valentine's day again? Don't worry, Metal Inquisition staffers have scoured the internet to find the ideal gift for that special someone in your life. What else could express your love like a Kreator thong? Check it out here. Kreator not your style? What about some some nice Suffocation booty shorts?