Bands to watch out for: Biohazard

There are so many bands these days that it can be hard to hear all of them. You don't have all day to order demos from the back of Metal Maniacs, ask Johnny Z what new stuff he has at Rock N Roll Heaven, or browse Napster/PureVolume/YouTube/Twitter/iTunes/MySpace/AOL keyword Thrash, so you need someone to help you sort through the crap and find the best new artists. That's why we're starting a new feature here at Metal Inquisition called Bands To Watch Out For, in which we highlight the best new artists that we think you'll like.

Our first installment is about a hungry young band from Brooklyn called Biohazard. I've seen them at L'Amours a few times, and the Twitterscape can't get enough of them- we think they're going to be big.

Sound
More and more bands these days are combining influences from a lot of styles. For example, Mordred plays a hybrid of thrash, funk, and rap, drawing influence from anything from K-9 Posse to Armored Saint, or Dave Mustaine's new solo album that is equal parts ska, industrial, and rockabilly (with a DJ). Like Mordred, it's really hard to pin down Biohazard's sound.

Most people in New York City ride the subway a lot I think. It seems kinda scary and dirty to me, but I guess if you are from Brooklyn and wear knit hats then you probably look working class and people don't mess with you, so it's probably OK for Biohazard to use it as their main form of transportation.

I had never thought of putting rap lyrics over Agnostic Front riffs, but basically that's what Biohazard does. It kind of reminds me of what a lot of old school hardcore bands like Fury of V, E-Town Concrete, or Comin' Correct were doing back in the early 00's, only not as authentic.

I think the singer collects novelty headwear or something.

I mean I'm sorry, but I don't really buy the tough guy act from a bunch of dudes from Brooklyn!! What happened, someone splashed mud on your new fixie?? LOL! Go cry about it on Bike Snob NYC, don't write a hardcore song about it!

Seems like these guys have a really strong sense of community, like they really want to keep it real and stay connected to their people. For example here the singer is kicking it with some infantile retard from the neighborhood and giving him a tutorial on wiggerish arm movements. Wish I had a mentor like that when I was a kid so I could have been listening to Cold Front and Dmize instead of LFO and Mest :(

I don't listen to a lot of rap, but I think these guys do because a lot of their songs are about how they are from the streets and are really physically intimidating/have been through hard times but are now tougher than ever because they survived it. I know how that feels because I have no idea how I got through my last semester of school- I had 13 credits and was working like three shifts a week checking people's ID at the fitness center at school (I have work-study financial aid). The only thing that kept me going was listening to "Tales From The Hardside" on my Zune and repeating to myself "I can do this! I can do this!"

I found this interview with them on YouTube, they seem really intent on talking about how bad the neighborhood they live in is. They could probably find something affordable in a nicer place if they would just spend a few minutes on Craigslist. My friend says that Jersey City has some cool bars and isn't as lame as it sounds, it seems kind of far out to me though. Also, if they lived somewhere nicer then they probably wouldn't be as inspired by all the urban discipline they see every day so maybe it's better for them to stay in Canarsie, I don't know.

It's really life-affirming stuff to hear about how these guys survive against the gritty backdrop of Brooklyn and channel all their pain into their band- super inspiring for me. I have some friends who are going to school in New York and they are dealing with a lot of the same things; rent is really expensive in Williamsburg now and they can barely get by on their student loans/allowance. A lot of them even had to get jobs. They do a couple iPod DJ gigs a month for extra cash, which sucks because they have a lot of homework and it's easy to fall behind on it, then next thing you know you get an angry phone call from your mom because she looked online at your grades and you have a B- in "History of Sex."

I think the guy with the missing teeth is the one from the cafeteria. I'm going to ask my mom about Pratt's dental insurance, maybe he can get them fixed.

Anyway, it doesn't really say exactly what the guys in Biohazard do for a living in their lyrics but from the looks of them I imagine they probably drive Pepsi delivery trucks in Queens, work at gas stations, or just do like random manual labor because they can't read. I could swear I saw one of them working in the cafeteria when I went to visit my friend at Pratt, but I didn't want to ask if it was him because he looked really mad (he was the one at the sundae bar and got kind of pissy when I asked him for double sprinkles [but he didn't charge me extra, he probably could tell I was cool because I was wearing a Suicide Silence shirt]).

This looks like a Saturday Night Live sketch. Is that Andy Samberg in a wig?

Image/Branding
They seem like cool guys who like to have fun, but I feel like they're trying a little hard to do the whole Municipal Waste/Toxic Holocaust thing. I mean they're definitely good at it, but the thing is that they take it a little too far. In order for it to be funny, it has to be a little bit believable, you know? We talked about this in my "Entertainment Business" class the other day: If all you do is combine every ridiculous cliche from crossover fashion into your characters, it's too much. You have to use some restraint or you just end up looking like a cartoon. Overkill, Toxik, and Xentrix are much better at doing the retro-thrash thing without going over the top.

The singer seems kind of confused. He looks like David Vincent meets Ashton Kutcher circa 2002. The whole trucker hat thing is kind of played out and it doesn't really make any sense when coupled with the leather vest, I think he should just choose one look to focus on. I don't know what he is going for but I'm not really into hipster metal.

Also, it's sort of hard to understand them when they talk. They all sound like Rocky or something, or like they just got back from the dentist and their tongues are all swollen and numb. I don't know if maybe if they all met in some kind of support group for people with traumatic brain injuries but it seems like they should see if their parents' insurance covers speech therapy (I asked my mom and she said it should, she is a claims processor for Aetna).

I don't know who the black guys in this video are but it's cool that Biohazard earned their respect, I guess if you are from Brooklyn and stuff people will treat you like a badass.

In this video Bobby from Biohazard is interviewing the singer for some band called The Madballs. I'm not familiar with them but they seem lame, the guy is wearing a hat that says "DMS" on it, which I guess is his fraternity or whatever. You're in Europe, dummy, nobody knows about your stupid frat!

I've been thinking about getting a tattoo (if my parents say it's OK). I want to make sure that my first one is something I'm really happy about. The singer for Biohazard was on Miami Ink and he got this one. I think he's going to regret it- why would a skull be saying "for the win"?? It doesn't even make sense LOL!

What's next?
I feel like kids now are really open-minded so I see big things for Biohazard. It's not like before where a kid would only listen to one kind of music. For example, I have really eclectic tastes. One minute you will find me listening to Exhorder and the next I will be playing Pantera. I think a lot of other kinds are the same, so they will probably really like how Biohazard is like half rap, half power groove. I'm not really into their whole "hipster metal" image with the ironic hats/crunk parts and stuff, but whatever, the music is good so I can look past it.

Biohazard's singer is yet another dude from Brooklyn who thinks it's cool to drink cheap beer, how original. I'm so over hipster metal! Go listen to Mastodon you jerk!!

If you are into bands who aren't afraid to cross genre boundaries like Mucky Pup, Dance Hall Crashers, and Violent Playground, you will probably really like Biohazard! Definitely pick up their tape if you see it at Camelot, I am pretty sure they still have a few copies left at the Everett Mall.

Retroview: Pantera discography

Pantera is, without a doubt, one of the finest bands ever to set foot on planet Earth. I can't speak for other parts of the galaxy, maybe one of the guys from Nocturnus can shed some light on that, but I do know that if you want to experience POWER GROOVE here on the third rock from the sun, you must jam some fucking Pantera.

Dimebag RIP
First, let me address the tragic death of Dimebag Darrel. As you will see from the rest of this post, I am a huge Pantera fan, but I have to be real on this one. Damageplan fucking sucked and you can totally see why someone felt like Dime deserved to be shot for defecating on the corpse of Pantera by starting that band. I mean I can totally imagine myself saying "He should be shot!!"

The glam years: Not on the exam

The beginning: The glam years
Many internet metal nerds would probably spend a lot of time making fun of Pantera's early records which as most of you surely know are unbelievably gay. I am not going to do that because their other records are so fucking sweet and I would rather focus on them. Enough said on that subject.

Fuck yeah dude, look at how much of a badass Phil is. He's all, "You talkin' to me?!" And Rex is all, "Yeah, that's right, what are you gonna do about it?"

Cowboys From Hell (1990)
There are certainly a fair amount of people who think this is the best Pantera album, but I think they are "I only like the demo" types who try too hard to be different. It is definitely totally fucking awesome but it also has some real stinkers like "Cemetary Gates" that keep it from rising to the top. Oh and "Psycho Holiday," ugh, what a fucking turd. That said, the mosh parts in "Primal Concrete Sledge" and "Domination" are ungodly brutal and most definitely the prototype for countless awesome 90s mosh bands like Earth Crisis and Abnegation (for better or worse). Also, the title track might be the best song ever written, I'm not sure. It's either that or "Wake Me Up" by Wham! A lot of people seem to think this record was a big Exhorder rip off, which I guess it sort of is, but the songwriting is so much better that it's not an issue as far as I'm concerned.

The less extreme version of Phil's undercut, popular on females at the time. I'm still not sure what the benefit of shaving the upper neck is.

Vulgar Display of Power (1992)
Now this is where things get REALLY good!! This is when Pantera created a NEW GENERATION OF POWER GROOVE! Also, Phil had one of those haircuts where it's long on top but shaved all around the sides. If you saw Prong, White Zombie, or Tool in the early 90s, you saw lots of these haircuts. Anyhow, from beginning to end, this record fucking shreds. Well, except for "This Love" which was a total puss move. "Hollow" was also gay, slow, and far too long, but the mosh riff at the end is super brutal so it makes up for the rest of the song. But "Mouth For War," "Rise," and "Live In A Hole" are fucking classics. Lots of lame football types liked "Walk," which is a good song and I like it too, but they kind of ruined it for me. But overall, this must be considered their finest release and the definitive Pantera album.

Apparently there is a car called the Pantera. I don't really know anything about that, but this looks like a sweet place to get high and listen to Pantera (probably somewhere in Snohomish County, Washington)

Far Beyond Driven (1994)
When this album came out, I wasn't really ready for it. I think this is where Phil started to come unglued so there are lots of weird, longer songs on here that are obviously the product of an insane junkie. They drag the average down, but this one also has some of Pantera's finest songs such as "I'm Broken," "Shattered," and of course "Strength Beyond Strength" which is definitely one of the very most underrated Pantera tracks. Overall, this album is kind of a mixed bag: Half face-ripping awesomeness, half weird crap that makes you race for the fast-forward button on your AM/FM cassette Walkman. Lots of people I went to high school with would listen to this album while sitting on a rock in the woods and smoking pot and wearing a Starter jacket. In retrospect, I should have joined them instead of writing zines in my parents' basement.

I wonder what the 8 year olds that manufacture these in Bangladesh think they are? They're probably too busy getting flogged by the Blue Grape plant manager to think about it.

The Great Southern Trendkill (1996)
This is another hit and miss record. It has some of their very best songs like "The Underground In America," "Floods," "Suicide Note Pt 2" and "Sandblasted Skin," but some seriously shitty shit that just goes on forever and sounds like the dull ramblings of a self-centered junkie. Which I guess it is. Why is it that drunks and junkies always think that they are so interesting? They just go on and on about whatever trivial bullshit is in their brain, writing what seems to be an endless stream of books, songs, and movies about it. Someone should tell them how gay it is (although I did like the last VOD album a lot). It's certainly not interesting, novel, shocking or noteworthy in any other way. It just reminds me of my parents.

By the way, I was recently watching the Cowboys From Hell VHS, and was startled at how unintimidating Phil was. At the time it seemed like he was such a bad looking dude, but looking at him now he just looks like some surly, white-trash guy that you would see at 7-11 stocking up on Mountain Dew before he goes off to his roofing job. His physique is definitely not impressive at all, which isn't how I remembered it.

Phil's "Look how trve I am" phase was cringeworthy

Reinventing the Steel (2000)
This is sad. With a band as great as Pantera, you would hope that they could go out on a high note, but it didn't work out that way. I tried so hard to like this album, but it's just not that good. They probably phoned this one in, and it shows. Basically it feels like the blueprint for Hell Yeah to me: flimsy, hackneyed riffs and NO POWER GROOVE whatsoever. Disappointing, but what can you do? Just put Vulgar Display in the tape player instead of this.

Waking The Cadaver: When wigger slam goes TOO FAR

There's no time for love, just time for hate!!

You know what I love? Fucking Fury of V. Back in the mid 90s, when mesh shorts, Tommy Hilfiger tank tops, and visors were the order of the day, Fury fucking held it down. Nobody fucked with those guys!! And if they did, they caught a Jersey-style beatdown! Those were the days, my friends. But you know what I don't love? When Jersey shore wiggers play crappy slam metal. And that brings us to Waking The Cadaver, a budget wigger slam band from somewhere on the Jersey shore. There many things wrong with WTC, but you can boil it down to three main issue:

1. They are the wrong kind of wiggers
When Japanese people or Europeans try to be wiggers, it's cute. It's kind of a novelty, like dressing your cat up in a funny costume or women's sports. With chavs or that weird jumpstyle dancing, you can excuse it because they're Euros, which means that they might as well be infantile retards so you can't really hold it against them. The problem here is that WTC are real life, authentic American wiggers, and nobody wants more of those.

Big pants waste precious fabric
(I stole that line from some 90s punk comp)

2. They are popular with Myspace homos
Perhaps because of their hardcore origins, WTC became an interweb phenomenon among suburban 17 year olds with girl jeans and Myspace haircuts. The results? Well... you can see below- it's not pretty:

Like Job For A Cowboy, Despised Icon, and whatever other atrocious bands are playing this wretched style, this is reason enough to hate WTC.


Note the abundance of wiggerish arm movements at around :35

3. Absence of quality control
The fact that there is a wigger slam band that I do not like should be the first sign of trouble. As MI readers know, my standards for slam metal are not exactly high. For example, I love Artery Eruption, although when I played them for Lucho Metales, he said "Dude... come on. We could do that in my garage in like 45 minutes." And he was right. Yet WTC is below even my laughably low standards for wigger slam metal.

Let's begin with the name of their album: "Perverse Recollections Of A Necromangler." Necromangler?? Again, if they were Japs or Euros, it would be fine (for example, Blunt Force Trauma's song "Fight In Anus" is great). But they don't have ESL as an excuse.

Cypress Hill sticker on guitar = not OK

The lyrics are pretty much what you would expect from the Einsteins that invented the word "Necromangler":

Countless nights getting twisted
extreme illicit substance inhalation.
Fuck...I'm craving some penetration
because hoes, let me tell you,
i do it unprotected like its my occupation,
and guaranteed
your puckering up your lips for a spraying.

Now keep in mind I am a huge Meatshits fan, so it's not like I am particularly demanding or looking for anything intellectual. But this is on another level of subhuman stupidity, something like what you would expect from Insane Clown Posse. For example, I think this verse from "What Is A Juggalo?" could be WTC lyrics:

What is a Juggalo?
He just dont care.
He might try to put a weave in his nut hair.
Cuz he could give a fuck less what a bitch thinks,
He tell her that her butt stinks, and all that.

WTC or random shitty hardcore band on Back Ta Basics? You be the judge.

As for their songwriting skills, rather than think of something witty myself, I will plagiarize some review from Encyclopedia Metallum instead:

I'm serious, the only riffs on the album are so mindlessly simplistic, the arbitrary blastbeats are the only thing that seperates them from being breakdowns themselves! If that's not enough, the only thing more "brootal" than the breakdowns is the breakdowns WITHIN the breakdowns. And the meta-breakdowns. And the resulting breakdowns whenever the band decides to cool off after "breaking it down".

Meta-breakdowns!! That is what we call solid gold.