Where would Chris Barnes buy a used Porsche?

If you ever asked yourself this question (and who among us hasn't), this video will give you the answer you've been looking for:



(video via Mr Gene Hoglan's Balls)

Terrorizer shill for "The Secret History of Death Metal"

What is your favorite once-good European metal magazine named after an overrated grindcore band?? If you answered Metal Hammer, that was my first thought as well, but our good friends at Terrorizer also publish a magazine that used to be good. In a desperate attempt to survive in te dying print publishing business, they are releasing a "Secret History of Death Metal" special issue or something like that. For some reason, we wanted to know more, so we hit up deputy editor James Hoare (lol, what a last name). Thanks to James, and be sure to head over to Terrorizer's site and pick one of these things up!

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that Terrorizer currently owns 50% of Metal Inquisition (the other 50% is held by a variety of business entities including Century Media and Red Flag Media).

It is my understanding that you are trying to drum up interest/pre-orders for Terrorizer's new "Secret History of Death Metal" special issue or something. Please give us more information on your product and/or service.
“This really is shameless and if it’s any consolation, I feel like a whore. Terrorizer’s Secret History Of… Death Metal is an absolute beast of a one-off, prestige issue that as far as humanly possible makes the best stab at documenting the story of death metal, across the world and across the various subgenres. I’ve got me some mad loves for Albert Mudrian’s ‘Choosing Death’ [check out our interview with him here] and Daniel Ekeroth’s ‘Swedish Death Metal’, and it’s a testament to this bad boy’s journalistic prowess that when I read some of the features on more over-covered topics (Florida, Sweden etc), I wasn’t bored in the slightest. Get this down you, it’s not boring.


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I tried so, so hard to come up with a better example of "highly average death metal" but I just couldn't

What *is* the secret history of death metal?? In your answer, please explain how the following bands fit in: Jungle Rot, Benediction, Mortification, Malevolent Creation, and Vengeance Rising.
The theme here is charmingly mediocre death metal, of which I have a strange, yet completely arbitrary, tolerance of. For example, I’d take a bullet for Benediction and I talk about Jungle Rot a surprisingly amount, but I think Mortification are a sad and joyless Geocities homepage of a band. You’ll be delighted to learn that a surprising volume of dull and derivative c-list bands are involved, because their perspective on the genre and its story is usually a lot more interesting than Morbid Angel’s – there’s a whole section on the Netherlands and if that doesn’t scream mediocrity (one half-way interesting Pestilence album aside) than nothing does.

The secret history of death metal probably, definitely involves Nazi U-Boats hollowing out the Earth’s core to win the trust of the lizard people.


I have not seen this issue, but I assume there is a chapter on wigger slam. What are the contents of this chapter? What is your personal opinion on slam metal?
The UK tends to be a lot more homogenised in its trends, it’s a small country and since we stopped fighting wars to preserve our ancient right to drink tea on a pile of a far away nation’s indigenous dead, dumb kids can be relied upon to largely guzzle from the same fetid trough of bullshit. The wigger slam you’re talking about travels about as well as Christian metalcore does, so mostly the proud saplings that will one day become English oak are all rubbing one out to shriek-shriek windmilling deathcore (which was big in the States about five years ago), swaggering rocky hardcore (which was big in the States about five years ago) or Hollywood Undead (which was big in the States about five minutes ago).

The super elitist and incestuous underground UKDM scene, however, fucking love their slamz and every other band is worshipping at the jism-flecked alter of Devourment – which is ironic, given as derivatively ripping off American bands is one of the reasons why they think deathcore sucks. In conclusion, slamz are br00tz and make me shake my b00ty.

"I’d take a bullet for Benediction and I talk about Jungle Rot a surprising amount, but I think Mortification are a sad and joyless Geocities homepage of a band"

Check out Ingested, they're possibly the closest thing we have to proper US-style New Era cap wigger slam and ran the whole gauntlet from being a sportswear clad underground anomaly to being liked by scene kids and therefore hated by the people who liked them five minutes ago because they deigned to be successful. That's a little microcosm of scene politics right there.


Terrorizer has featured a nearly endless stream of washed up/horrible/generic black metal bands on the cover lately (much to my dismay, since I am forced to write about them). Why the sudden interest in death metal? Black metal or death metal: which is better and why?
Turgid middle-of-the-road black metal always has a slight edge over turgid middle-of-the-road death metal in that turgid middle-of-the-road black metal bands can usually be relied upon to look interesting and if good death metal bands still think standing in front of a chain-link fence in sweats is totally rad, what hope is there for the turgid middle-of-the-road ones? Satyricon especially, their current Armani model look is super krieg. The bottom line is the cover’s got to look good, otherwise nobody will buy it and read your venomous, mean-spirited column.


One of the best parts of death metal history is all the compilations like At Death's Door, Corporate Death, Grindcrusher, and Death Is Just The Beginning (see Retroview: Classic 90s generic death metal compilations for more). Which is your favorite and least favorite of these? What in God's fucking name were Relapse thinking when they greenlighted the Convulse album?? (Please choose a non-committal, boring answer to avoid offending any advertisers)
Oh wow, these things are all equal in my eyes – terrible ‘Warhammer’ supplement cover art, three good bands and eight tracks of Central European filler, or in shorthand, Morgoth. That was a simpler age wasn’t it? I think the ‘Death… Is Just The Beginning’ series were the best, because at that point Nuclear Blast had enough of a roster to do these things entirely in house and unlike Earache and Roadrunner who at least made an effort to single out the bands they thought were interesting, Nuclear Blast dropped a stick dynamite into the lake and signed whatever floated to the surface. As a result 'Death... Is Just The Beginning' is a perfect storm of bands you'd never hear from again (Napalm Death side-project Defecation, Paul Speckmann's thrash outfit Abomination, Toxic Shock), bands who went on to be a whole new kind of awful (disco-disco-techno-disco Atrocity and Hypocrisy) and bands who just continued along the same path for the next fifteen or twenty years (Dismember, Benediction, Sinister, Master, Macabre etc).

Relapse had Amorphis too didn’t they? Someone over there clearly got Moomin fever in the early ‘90s. That non-committal and boring enough for you? I was actually listening to this album a few nights ago and I genuinely cannot think of anything to say about it other than the intro sounds like 'Duke Nukem' incidental music.

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I thought Morgoth were pretty good back in the day... but then again, I also liked Bif Naked :(

Another part of death metal history I miss is PIT Magazine, which I read religiously along with Terrorizer (back when Terrorizer was still good). PIT was sweet because it looked like they made it with Microsoft Publisher and I think it was the first time I heard about bands like Dismembered Fetus, Dying Fetus, Cephalic Carnage (back when they were still good), and Internal Bleeding. On the other hand, they also wrote about Jungle Rot far too often. Do you remember PIT? What other magazines did you like back in the day?
I was reading Metal Maniacs long before I was reading Terrorizer, there was a newsagents by the train station in the shitty town where I went to university and they always had a few import titles – so I always picked up Metal Maniacs (for the billion pages of size 3 type), Alternative Press (to see what homegrown cat Aids had made its way to the US and was being rebranded as the New Wave Of XYZ) and Hardcore Ink (because at this point in my life I lived for Undying, this point in my life was very, very boring). I compulsively read everything.

James enjoys novelty headwear and decades-old thrash bands who are adored for no apparent reason

You also ran a two-part "History of Metalcore" feature recently. I was thrilled to see you mention Above All and Unborn, two of my favorite 90s UK metalcore bands. From what I can tell you are more of a d-beat/grindcore kind of guy, so what is your take on metalcore? Which member of Winds of Plague would you choose to have anal with and do you think (s)he would enjoy it??
I stayed out of that whole thing because it was still a little bit too close for me, I only broke edge and eBayed my Eighteen Visions t-shirt four years ago. I even liked Eighteen Visions more then they became Stone Temple Hatebreed and the world's definitely a sadder place without them. I've sort of returned to hardcore recently through d-beat and I'm utterly surprised to discover that I still have a lot of time for some good, solid chug, which is nice because people who lose touch with their musical indescretions turn into exactly the same sort of people who beat their chests and carp on about 'deathcore faggotry'.

"I was actually listening to the Convulse album a few nights ago and I genuinely cannot think of anything to say about it other than the intro sounds like 'Duke Nukem' incidental music."

I saw Winds Of Plague supporting Shai Hulud the first time they were over in the UK, and then I had the misfortune to see them again, as well as Born Of Osiris, on the Summer Slaughter tour last year. I can really see no redeeming feature to this band, except for the fact that I'm not listening to them right now – they can have a flapjack for that. Symphonic deathcore has a high enough percentage of absolute wackness without them having their own Bleeding Through.”

Finally, the other day I was trying to think of metal songs about farting but couldn't come up with any. Can you think of one??
Decapitated 'Human's Dust'

Buy "The Secret History of Death Metal"
Follow James on Twitter

Where is the double bass on the drums: Vintage Roadrunner hate mail

Some posts just write themselves, like yesterday's on Stuff You Will Hate about BOSS' Crabcore pedal. Such is also the case with this collection of "interesting" letters received by Roadrunner about 5 years ago and passed on to us by a secret source that we will simply call "Green Rage." Please thank him/her and enjoy this rare treat!

Click on any of the images to see a full-size version that you can actually read.


This fucking dipshit is an asshole of the highest order, but what's much worse is that he's not funny. In this letter he pretends to think there is a defect with the CD they sent him FOR FREE and says the singer for Cradle of Filth sounds like a girl. Here is how I would probably react: Har har, real funny, you sure taught me a lesson about how lame I am for sending free stuff to people like you. You couldn't just silently throw it away like everyone else who doesn't like it, you had to rub it in my face. Your time is clearly priceless, other than the hours you spent writing this letter and patting yourself on the back for being so clever. How about this you motherfucker, I know where your fucking kids go to school and they get out in 10 minutes- think you can get there faster than I can? Why aren't you laughing anymore??



In this letter, some gimp/mongo begs Roadrunner to send him a Slipknot CD out of pity for his disability. True to form for someone who is asking for a handout, he is not only asking for a favor but has very specific demands regarding how the favor should be done: "CDS LPS ONLY NO SINGLES. IF 2 VERSIONS SEND EXPLICIT LYRIC VERSION. IF ONLY ONE VERSION SEND IT." It's kind of like when I told Olga Kurylenko she should pity-fuck me after the ATM ate my debit card, then said "MISSIONARY/REVERSE COWGIRL ONLY NO HANDJOBS. IF 2 ORIFICES USE BUTTHOLE. IF ONLY ONE ORIFICE USE IT."


If you ever did a zine, traded tapes, or otherwise corresponded with Euros by mail in the 80s/90s, this letter will sound all too familiar. Some German weirdo is pitching them on the idea of opening some Roadrunner stores in Europe. But that's not all! He adds that "When a Roadrunner Band is on Tour or the Roadrunner Roadrage Tour is across Europe this Band or Bands make a Autographbreak on the Local Roadrunner Store so Fans can get closer to their Idols." It sounds to me like he has fully considered this idea and I cannot imagine why Roadrunner did not jump at the chance to immediately engage him as VP Retail Development, Roadrunner Europe. Then he could give the gimp from above a job and kill two birds with one stone!


Now this letter is refreshing! He's not being a dickbag whiner, asking for free shit, or an annoying Euro, he's just a Roadrunner fan who is understandably concerned about the direction the label started taking around this time (1995ish). As a diehard Fear Factory and Machine Head devotee, he simply asks "Where is the REALLY heavy stuff? Where is the death metal? Where is the double bass on the drums??" And isn't that what we are all trying to find out during our time here on this planet?? Where *is* the double bass on the drums?


Hoo boy... this reminds me of the insane bullshit that covers the label of Dr. Bronner's soap. The scary part is the complete lack of awareness at play. Any time someone seems to lack a fundamental understanding of reality, it's unnerving because you never know what the fuck they'll do next. They operate on what seems to be their own bizarre logic system that has little or no relationship to the way the world actually works. When Z-level, local metal bands send their godawful demo to Roadrunner it's certainly kind of pathetic, but at least it makes sense: they are in a metal band, and Roadrunner puts out metal records. I always wonder what possesses some weirdo like this fruit to contact a label like Roadrunner, and how they might react if rejected. I imagine this guy is the heir to some insane fortune that his father made selling essence of honeysuckle in the 1920s or whatever, so he doesn't have to work. Instead, he spends his days wandering around, sniffing bicycle seats and park benches. When he gets the news that Roadrunner signed Billy Talent instead of him, he flips out and some poor girl waiting for the bus ends up in a dumpster behind 7-11, fragments of a shattered Dresden Dolls CD jammed into her skull.

Putting out the Disincarnate album alone is enough to atone for Roadrunner's sins of allowing Methods of Mayhem and the nu-Misfits to enter a recording studio

Conclusion
Working in the music industry might sound glamorous, but there's more to the job than the cool stuff you read about in No Glam Fags or The Wild Rag. For every "ZOMG all my dreams are coming true" moment like the time you get to help Donald Tardy wash his 1992 Chevy Luv while he tells you stories about Scott Burns' farts, there's decidedly unglamorous stuff like taking Tom Araya to 8AM Sunday mass with his daughters. We think that getting letters like this make it all worthwhile though, and welcome any other informants like "Green Rage" to share with us!

We don't know anybody at Roadrunner, but if you do, please pass this on to them and ask them to get in touch! There are few labels who have contributed more to metal than they have and we would love to work with them in one way or another. For starters, let's bro down with Mike from Killswitch and talk to him about the rad Devastation "Idolatry" longsleeve he wore when I saw Overcast in 1998.

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A quick detour through bummer-ville

The best song from Left With Nothing's criminally underrated EP- check out a live version here. They were a rare combo of fun but also super intense and emotional, like Seattle's other ex-Trial/Undertow/Himsa regretcore band Everything Went Black, and I had a lot of fun at their shows.

Sorry to end on such a serious note, but we would like to express our sadness for the recent loss of Brian Redman, formerly of RR band 3 Inches of Blood. I knew him from the Seattle hardcore scene, where he played in Trial and the really-fucking-great-but-unknown Left With Nothing, one of my favorite Seattle hardcore bands. He was funny, friendly, and had a motherfucking INTEGRITY tattoo on his chest- you really can't fuck with that! I wasn't BFFs with him, but many of my Washington friends were and he is dearly missed.

The worst death metal song of all time: Six Feet Under "Amerika The Brutal"

I know what you are thinking after reading the title: "Dude, have you ever heard Cianide?!" Don't get me wrong, Cianide definitely fucking suck. They are wizard-level masters of being jaw-droppingly terrible. In fact, sometimes I can't sleep because I'm just curled up in the fetal position in the corner of my room, holding myself and rocking back and forth because of the scars carved deep into my soul from just the few moments I've spent listening to their seemingly endless stream of recordings. The reason I am going into so much detail about fucking Cianide is because I want you to understand that I know exactly how wretched they are. Only then will you believe me when I say that, hands down, "Amerika The Brutal" by Six Feet Under is the worst death metal song of all time! Let's look at exactly what makes it so awful...

Please watch this video in full before reading any further. And yes, this WILL be on the test.

Chris Barnes is stangry
I think I have mentioned it on here before, but I'm a huge fan of Loveline (only the radio show, the TV show was awful). One of the hosts, Adam Carolla, came up with the term "stangry," which describes someone who is simultaneously stupid and angry. I really can't think of a better term for Chris Barnes, as his whole post-Cannibal career has that kind of directionless, inarticulate anger directed at SOMEONE who is responsible for, well, all the bad stuff in the world. He reminds me of an old, half-blind moose who gets shot in the leg by a bowhunter and just runs around smashing into stuff, bellowing at the top of his lungs and lashing out at whatever is around him in an attempt to get back at whoever made him feel this pain and rage.

Here are the lyrics to the Old Skull song "Homeless":
People that don't have homes
I look in their eyes...
I see sadness
They don't have enough money to pay the rent
Because they don't have good enough jobs.
Why don't they have good enough jobs?
BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE A GOOD ENOUGH EDUCATION!
WHY DON'T THEY HAVE A GOOD ENOUGH EDUCATION?
BECAUSE OF WAR DEBT!

Least sophisticated lyrics of all time: Six Feet Under or Old Skull?
I am not a fan of affected, figurative writing (unless we're talking about Hipster Runoff), especially when it comes to the lyrics. Please just get to the fucking point, I am a busy man and I don't want to spend time deciphering "coded messages in slowed down songs," to borrow a phrase. That includes the post-Dillinger Escape Plan school of "long witty/sardonic song titles." And don't get me started on Discordance Axis' song titles. That said, even a meat-and-potatoes writer like me must add a certain amount of style to his/her work or it just gets weird. Unless you're The Dwarves, who come off as (extremely creepy, fucked up) geniuses when they have song titles like "Let's Fuck," you can't get away with just stating the facts... which is exactly what SFU does, in the least interesting way possible.

I have discovered a new disease: Chris Barnes' Syndrome, in which you turn into a treant shortly after starting a terrible band.

If you watched the Old Skull video above, you will notice two things 1) their music so loose and noisy that it inadvertently sounds like Nuclear Death and 2) the absurdly simplistic lyrics make Discharge sound like James Joyce. But I can forgive them: as you may have also noticed, they were 12 years old when they recorded that song.

Like Old Skull, Chris Barnes' approach to writing lyrics seems to be "make an angry statement of fact regarding my opinion on a social or political issue." The problem is that he is 42 years old, so he can't use, well, actually being a child as an excuse. A couple highlights from this song:

Listen it's a fucking joke and they make you believe it on the TV
That's how they deceive you-
I watch and I listen and I question their reasons
You know what, I don't fuckin believe em

I worked in print shops for years when I was younger, and this reminds of the kind of thing that I'd hear at work there. Printing basically attracts the same people as framing, roofing, carpet laying, and other bottom-of-the-barrel trades: lots of alcoholic felons who have a chip on their shoulder and want to tell you all about it. You'd be standing there doing some mind-numbing bullshit like punching holes in booklets for 9 hours, and one of these guys would come over to you, lean in as though he was about to tell you something really important and say, "Those fuckin' politicians, man, they're all a bunch of fuckin' liars! I don't believe a goddamn word out of their mouths, they're just in it for the money, man!!" It's really uncomfortable, because what do you say?? I would usually just shrug, nod and say something non-committal like "Well I guess they're not getting your vote, are they?" and hope the guy would go wander off and rant at some other unfortunate motherfucker.

I'm not afraid to speak my own mind
I don't use the first amendment to hide behind
I'm guaranteed that freedom, I'm born with that right

First of all, in one breath he says he's not going to "hide behind" the First Amendment, then in the next line he reminds us that he is actually guaranteed freedom. There's always the possibility that he's got some kind of overthought-yet-insane Constitutionalist position, but I'm going to chalk it up to stangriness again. It has that "you're not the boss of me/you can't tell me what to do/you don't know me/you're not my real dad" vibe that's a sure sign of stangry.

Fart jokes: Never not funny!

If Terrence & Phillip made a death metal video, it would be this
I'm willing to bet Barnes has seen more than a little South Park in his day. What stoner doesn't take a few industrial-strength bong rips then stare at Comedy Central for hours on end while they shovel Doritos into their mouth and laugh way too hard at marginally-funny jokes? Based on the Video Toaster 2.0-level animation and 6th grade art direction, I'd say Barnes is a big fan of the Terrence & Phillip movie, although I'm not sure that he understands it's a joke in which the central premise involves how laughably awful the movie is.

This is seriously a picture of Chris Barnes with his riced-out Lancer Evo. I don't really even know what to say about this... there are so many levels of meaning in this image that academics will probably spend decades unraveling it and filling volume after volume of cultural studies journals with vain attempts at articulating the postmodern implications. It's like a white trash Horn of Plenty!

He was probably too baked to catch that part, and just nudges one of his bandmates out of his weed stupor, points at the TV and says, "Dude... we should our next video like that. I love cartoons, man!!" then they high-five and start laughing uncontrollably. After a minute, Barnes pauses for a second to ask "Wait... why are we laughing??" The other guy gets all serious for a second, then cracks up and says "Dude I don't even remember!!" and they laugh for another 10 minutes.

Here are couple of the best moments where SFU uses images and sounds to beat you over the head with his stangry political opinions. They start out pretty much dumb and straightforward, but by the end of the video it gets real fucking weird:

Racism is wrong! If you're an identical twin, don't hit random black people on the street with your purse!

Corporations have twisted the political system to serve their own corrupt interests! Also, there is a doll in a bikini that rides really high on her hips like they would wear in a ZZ Top video!

America is a country of greedy, shallow materialists whose avariciousness is exceeded only by their lack of self-awareness!

Uncle Sam is really a zombie! A zombie who wants your money!

Uh... I'll be honest, I'm not sure what this part is all about... probably something really deep though, let me get back to you!

OK, this is towards the end of the video. At this point they were probably just high as fuck and turning knobs on the computer to see what it would do. They thought this part looked "trippy" so they put it in the video.

You could literally grab just about every frame in the video and it would be so full of subhuman stupidity that you would probably faint in horror... so if you watch the full video, please make sure you are seated!

Like Pokemon, Chris Barnes is going down the natural path for his species and will soon evolve into his ultimate form. Protip: If you're a stangry stoner for too long, you turn into The Dude! Just ask my stepdad.

Kids, don't smoke pot!
I'm not really into the "scared straight" approach when it comes to talking to kids about drugs, but if you are, just have them watch this video. Then press "stop" on the VCR and turn to face the classroom authoritatively, arms crossed. After an uncomfortable moment of silence in which everybody reflects on the horrors they just witnessed, say "This is your brain on drugs. Any questions??"

It turns out that Bad Dudes was right after all.

Metal video potpourri

From time to time, I have been known to fall into what I lovingly refer to as an "internet wormhole." Such an event usually starts out innocently enough, I'll remember a certain historical event, or perhaps a building or person that I'd like to look up on the interweb. Somehow, five hours later, I find myself still in front of my computer, reading about a related subject in greater detail than anyone in the world really needs to. Drunk with (sometimes useless) knowledge, I stumble outside to realize it's no longer light out. The hours have passed, and all I have to show for it is that I now know way too much about how Manuel Noriega was taken down as Panama's leader. I will also know why architect Philip Johnson was passed up for the Museum Tower project, and yet chose to live in the building after it was finished. Did I need this information? Did I really need to know the entire history about the venerable Jackson Dinky guitar? No.

Sometimes, however, the internet wormholes I fall into have even less redeemable value than the ones having to do with Central American history, or slammin' six or seven string instruments. Yes, sometimes, I merely spend hours watching endless amounts of stupid videos on YouTube, and end up with nothing to show for it. It's for this very reason that I've decided to share some of my recent finds with you today. These may not be the funniest videos you've ever seen, but I feel that in sharing them with you, I have given my life greater meaning...so this is an entirely selfish affair. Dig in, please, so I'll feel better about the time I wasted online.


Evil Black Metal Teens
(Please note the crappy guitars being held as evidence)








Report about death metal. Serious Stuff. This video is from the era before Chris Barnes made EVERYONE laugh, back when he only made almost everyone laugh by his stupidity and Skeletor-like face.





King Diamond shares his thoughts about theology with the world. Perhaps the most evil thing about this video, however, are the tacky curtains behind Kind Diamond. Also highly evil is his mustache.





Overkill gives a very in-depth interview, and band members share their numerous theories about life and music. How on earth is it that most of us, as young men and women, took interviews like this seriously? I know I certainly did. It never occurred to me back then that some dudes from New Jersey who worked third shift at machine shops may not have all the answers. Shocking.

Precious Metal: A Winner Is You

A while ago, we ran a contest to win a copy of Decibel's new homage to Word's edit menu, "Precious Metal." At long last, we have a winner- reader John Daly, who posted the following review of the book- keep in mind that he has not yet actually read the book:

I have read this book, as Decibel "Hall of Fame" entries. I'm not digging through the moldy magazines in my bathroom just to win new copies of the same articles. But I wouldn't mind robbing the prize from someone who wants it, so here's a review off the top of my head:

Is it too late to change the title? "Precious Metal"???

Picking "Heaven and Hell" as the first Black Sabbath album enshrined was the smart move, like siding with Barzini was the smart move for Tessio. We all know how well that worked out.

"Lightning to the Nations" crushed me the first time I heard it. Crushed me with disapointment, that is. However, as I get closer to 40, I find myself enjoying Diamond Head more than Metallica.

"Reign in Blood" gets a pass for the pointing goat guy on the cover, although it's not as good as "Show No Mercy" or "Haunting the Chapel". One of many album covers that benefited from being shrunk down to cassette size.

"Scum". Is it possible to put only one side of an album in the Hall of Fame?

Repulsion, Morbid Angel, Obituary, and Entombed could have been combined into one "history of Death Metal" article, making room for Carnivore's "Retaliation", Sodom's "Persecution Mania", Holy Terror's "Mind Wars" and C.O.C's "Animosity". Now it's too late, Chris Witchhunter is dead.

If I was going to honor Carcass, "Necroticism" would the last place pick- their "Dimension Hatross"; a middle of the road record that doesn't have the balls to be gay.

A friend made me a copy of that Paradise Lost album years ago. I still haven't listened to it.

Cannibal Corpse? I know it's an extreme metal magazine, but I think the guys at Decibel listen to too much death metal. What's next- an Incantation Hall of Fame?

"Take as Needed for Pain"- I'm 100% behind this. Some guy screaming about kill your mother while the band bangs on their instruments. This is what my middle school classmates thought I listened to when I wore an Iron Maiden shirt.

I assume Darkthrone made the cut because it was easy to get the interviews. Even so, "A Blaze in the Northern Sky" was the proper choice.

I saw Kyuss accidentally in the early 1990s. Now I use that information on record store clerks.

Speaking of record store clerks, one of them tried to play me Meshuggah once. I got out of there fast.

I read a good Monster Magnet interview about banging groupies. I'm not sure it was in Decibel, though. It reminds me of Kurt Brecht's "Whore Stories" book at the D.R.I. merch table. If only that book had served as the template for D.R.I.'s post-hardcore lyrical direction. Instead we got "Gun Control".

The singer for At The Gates gave the "metalhead nod" once. I like him. He seems like the kind of harmless 90s dude who would play bass for Snapcase or something.

A friend once planned on driving two hours by himself to see Opeth. Fearing for his mental health, I accompanied him to make sure nothing happened.

"NOLA" On paper it sounds great. A grunge band with the singer for Pantera and the guy who ruined C.O.C.

OK- I can't lie- I like this record.

"Nightside Eclipse"- once again, Decibel picks the catalog entry that I would have chosen last. Maybe it's me.

I've never listened to Dillinger Escape Plan or Botch. I know DEP is a real band, but "Botch" seems like a name you would make up if you were making fun of 90s hardcore.

A coworker played me "Jane Doe" and it wasn't as bad as expected. When I saw them, however, they succumbed to the failings common to artists of their generation.

Nitro's Hall of Fame status is undisputed, but I wonder what the guy who wrote the "100 Greatest Metal Guitarists" book thinks of them. I'm not going to read his book until he accepts that Yngwie Malmsteen's music is heavy metal. Questions about quality aside, if "I am a Viking" isn't metal, then what is?

Meat Shits- I'm pretty sure this is a mistake. Chad Smith's band is called the Meat Bats.

John, please send us your address and we will have the folks at Da Capo send you a copy pronto!

Riff salad cookoff 2K9

I'm not sure why, but for some reason metal fans (and especially metal musicians) fetishize technique like Mortiis slurping on a stinky toe. It's as though a band is only as good as the number of notes they play per second. This isn't a new phenomenon, but as the bar gets raised higher and higher, it leads to what we like to call "riff salad," or albums that might as well be a collection of blindingly fast, yet incredibly boring, riffs thrown into a Salad Shooter and spit out the other end, topped with a sprinkling of Willowtip logos. With that in mind, we decided to have a cookoff at our Mid-Atlantic Innovation Center to find out who has the best recipe for riff salad (or worst, as the case may be)! We will rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 Unique Leader logos, with 10 being the ultimate in riff salad.

They got access to the Nocturnus cloning machine and made two copies of the douchelord in the middle.

Deeds of Flesh
Let's start with the inventors of this wretched genre. Once upon a time, Deeds were a great band. I loved the first EP and "Trading Pieces." The drummer for Odious Sanction gave me a cassette dub of it in 1997 and it not-so-gradually melted my 19 year old brain. Those records were super technical, yet also really catchy, with good songwriting. But then came "Inbreeding The Anthropophagi" or whatever the fuck it's called, I'm not looking it up. They traded their once-sick riffs for non-stop tremolo picking and double bass. I looked at the sky and said, to borrow a phrase, "Sir, have I wronged you in some way??" Whatever the case may have been, Deeds had officially jumped the shark and created the dull, lifeless genre known as riff salad. Subsequent albums just got worse and worse. You can just feel the energy leave the room when you put on "Path of the Weakening," and "Reduced to Ashes" reduced me to napping.
Verdict: 9/10 Unique Leader logos

Invisible oranges? Check. Fat guy with a goatee and shaved head? Check. If it looks like a duck...

Origin
When the self-titled Origin record came out back in 1999, it ripped my face completely off my skull. I still listen to it pretty regularly, largely for the unique drumming and strange song structures. It sort of sounds like if you took a death metal band and threw them down the stairs while they were playing- in a good way. I especially like "Vomit You Out." Sadly, though, all their other records are the most boring of boring shit that ever bored! It's just one long blast with the tweedly sweep picking or whatever over it, which is a real shame considering how groundbreaking and original their first record was. Although all copies of their newer records should be buried in a landfill like all those unsold copies of "ET" for Atari 2600, the self-titled one is so excellent that I am going to give them a relatively modest riff salad ranking. Also, it's Valentine's Day and I think I have a Valentine, so I'm feeling nice.
Verdict: 7/10 Unique Leader logos

This reminds me of those displays of high school senior photos that you see at the mall where the kid is holding his baseball mitt or whatever.

Dragonforce
I'm switching it up a bit here but venturing outside the world of death metal. But just because these guys don't have "tion" or "ment" in their name doesn't mean they aren't riff salad! Their songs are as Salad Shooter as it gets, only the kids like them because they are all about castles and white pride. Also, they were in Guitar Hero- but so what? Kim Wilde is in Singstar and you don't see the kids on her jock. In any case, I like a little fantasy metal here and there: sometimes after a rough day at work I'll draw a bubble bath, light some candles and relax while I bust Rhapsody on the Bose Wave CD player. But let's be honest, this shit sucks. This band is a dumb cartoon and they play too many fucking notes. The last part is the real problem, because I like plenty of bands that are dumb cartoons (Cynic, for example).
Verdict: 6/10 Unique Leader logos

This is from when Decrepit Birth was the most ass-ripping brutal death metal band on the face of the earth. What happened?! Why did you succumb to the siren song of Florideath?!

Decrepit Birth
Are you seeing a trend here?? Once great band loses focus, gets too far up their own asses and turns into riff salad? Decrepit Birth is perhaps the most tragic case of them all. "And Time Begins" is, without question, a game-changing classic that is without equal. I think I speak for everybody when I say that I felt like I got raped by a profoundly retarded baboon with AIDS when I heard that record (in a good way!). It still stands as the most over-the-top execution of the Suffocation formula, or more precisely the early Deeds of Flesh formula. But then they listened to Cynic and Atheist too much and turned into riff salad on their second album!!! Rather than try to use my own crude language to describe the feelings of betrayal that tore my heart into pieces, I will capture my anguish with the lyrics to "Stabbed In The Back" by Youth of Today:

We were brothers you and me loyal to our hardcore brutal death metal scene
our thought our aims our goals were true
then something happened to you you changed
stabbed in the back
I remember all the things that you said
shit you said
I guess it was just a bunch of lies
fucking lies
stabbed us all in the back
right in the back
don't you dare look me in the eyes
all we stood for, all our dreams you've forgotten what they mean
I tell you this my thoughts are real and I'll never change the way I feel

Verdict: 7/10 Unique Leader logos

Every riff salad band looks like this! What is it with the fucking goatees?! The Nazi-looking dude in the bomber jacket obviously dies his- Hitler would be disgusted.

The guy in the jacket sort of reminds me of Gene Hoglan's Balls! I'm sure he will disagree, though. He would never wear that.

Odious Mortem
Gene Hoglan's Balls loves this band. Maybe I would have too when I was 14 and just wanted to hear bands play as fast as they could with no regard for songwriting or dynamics. But I'm not 14 anymore so listening to the singer go "Grrrr grrrr!!" and the rest of the band go "Skronk skronk blast blast!!" just makes me want to run to the catchy grooves of Cock and Ball Torture or Dead. As these bands go, they're pretty good, but that's like saying it's better than a sharp stick in the eye, you know? Plus they're on Willowtip, which means they're not as ignorant as I'd like them to be. I'm pretty sure that dude grew up on hardcore so he's too smart to put out good death metal. If he was a real metaller he'd sign Gorevent and Disconformity. He's probably too busy jamming Abnegation and Green Rage for that, though.
Verdict: 8/10 Unique Leader logos

wat

Cryptopsy
The first two Cryptopsy records are fucking classics of brutal, yet super catchy and all around awesome death metal. They sound just as good today as they did 15 years ago or whenever the fuck they came out. Then they got rid of Lord Worm and started to practice their instruments too much or something, and became an extremely boring, overly technical riff salad band that forgot how to write songs. If only that was the end of the story, though! Now they are a pseudo-deathcore band so shitty that even I, the man with absolutely no standards, can't tolerate listening to them for more than a single second before I claw at the nearest sharp object and jam it in my eardrums. They managed to make it into an even bigger shit sandwich by putting on retarded Lacuna Coil-style latex JNCOs with excessive buckles and straps. Dudes, you're in your fucking mid 30s!! You can't do that shit! So yeah, their new crap makes me yearn for their riff salad days!
Verdict: 7/10 Unique Leader logos

Erik Rutan and John Tardy apparently go to the same barber/wig store

Hate Eternal
They may not have invented riff salad, but they definitely fucking perfected it!! Holy shit this band is boring!!! The most interesting thing this band ever recorded is the explosion at the beginning of "Conquering The Throne." Actually I really like that one instrumental song "The Faceless Ones," because it sounds like they took a few minutes to think about writing an actual song, rather than just firing up the Salad Shooter. I honestly have no idea how you could keep a band like this together for 12 fucking years. I can see how it would be kind of fun to spend a weekend with your friends goofing around and playing some crazy riff salad just to get it out of your system, but make a career out of it?! I'd rather be toiling away in the salt mines of Blue Grape with Guav and Buske, dreaming about how we'll make it big when we bring back Cabal 315!! Anyway, Hate Eternal wins our riff salad cookoff! Yay them! They get a gold star.
Verdict: 10/10 Unique Leader logos

Relapse roundup winter 09

I think I posted this before, but I'm too lazy to look through 400+ posts to find it. But when I was like 14, I got the "Corporate Death" compilation that Relapse put out and pretty much loved every song. That's how starved for metal I was back then, I was thrilled to listen to fucking Exit-13 and Convulse! Oh and I thought the pictures of their "headquarters" and boardroom were real (seriously, I did).

Of course, now I'm far too jaded to get excited about anything new (unless it's Forever The Sickest Kids or Gut doing rap songs). I'd rather just sit in my room and listen to Life of Agony and think about how bitter I am at the world. In any case, Relapse has always been kind to me since my zine days back in the mid 90s, so I thought we would give you the lowdown on some of their new releases. More to come in a future post, I can only review so much crap at once!


Mumakil - Behold the Failure
I don't like grind, so I didn't listen to this album for more than about 45 seconds. If you are into grind I'm sure you will like this, it sounds like Nasum with pretty sick drumming that reminds me of the first Origin record. But since I really couldn't care less about the music, I'll base my judgment on how the members of the band look.

He's even playing an ESP! Page Hamilton should sue him for exploiting his likeness. He's trying to rock back and forth like in the video for "Unsung."

The guitarist looks like Page Hamilton circa 1992. I love Helmet, and I always thought it was cool that they dressed like dorks while everybody else was rocking either grunge gear or JNCOs and chain wallets. That said, this guy needs to get with the program and ditch the Dockers shorts (and the braided leather belt that comes free with them).

Look at his stubby, sausage-like fingers, ick.

Unfortunately the Page Hamilton clone is paired with a gross beardo on vocals. Whenever I see guys like this I always assume the band sounds like Isis, Drowningman, or Hara Kiri-style "beardeath" (thanks for that term, Mo). In any of those cases, DO NOT WANT. I imagine this guy going on tour, gorging himself at Arby's and just destroying the bathroom at the house they stay at after the show. Look, you can't help it if you're born thick, but do you have to make matters worse by growing a disgusting neck beard??

Mumakil MySpace
Verdict: 6/10 bloody axes



Inevitable End - The Severed Inception
The cover made me think this band would sound like Damageplan, with some goatteed, shaven-headed fat guy singing with a terminal case of Robb Flynn's Disease. Or, since they're on Relapse, perhaps Tommy Victor's Disease.

I don't know the name for the terrible disease the singer suffers from, but he needs a doctor pronto!

Anyhow, I also only listened to this one for literally 10 seconds, but I think I got a pretty good idea of what to expect. Basically this is the sort of thing that would have given me a giant boner in 1999 or 2000 when I was super into Atheist, Cynic, (later) Broken Hope, Oppressor, Origin, Dillinger Escape Plan, and pretty much any other over-the-top-guitar-masturbation shredding technical death metal. Back then there weren't a ton of these bands around, so when they did come along it was pretty awesome. The exact opposite is true now, of course. Every 16 year old can shred his balls off, with the YouTube videos to prove it (it took me seriously like 4 seconds to find that, there are zillions more just like it).

Much like the athletes of today would wipe the floor with the guys from even 20 years ago, it's hilarious how amateurish and shitty the bands I grew up on sound today. I mean we thought Morbid Angel were amazing virtuosos, and even a B-level band that I've never heard of like Inevitable End can play rings around those guys without even trying. Of course, that doesn't mean I want to listen to them, but you know what I mean. Try listening to, say, Rottrevore these days. They seriously sound like something from a 10th grade talent show.

Anyhow, if you're into non-stop, balls-out shredding deathcore, you'll jizz over this for sure. I'll be jamming some Obituary if you need me.

Inevitable End MySpace
Verdict: 7/10 bloody axes


16 - Bridges to Burn
Now this is more like it!! There are few bands that I love more than 16 (along with their sister bands Despise You and Crom). I could write a review of it, but instead I'll just copy and paste an email I got from Gene Hoglan's Balls in which he mentioned it:

most porn stars don't make much, especially if you're a dude, but a top billing star like riley mason had to be making at least 5-10K a film. granted, that's still not that much money for sucking off and fucking random strangers, but i'm sure it's a lot more than she would have made had she stayed in north carolina, gone to community college, and worked at forever 21 in the local mall.

i have not seen adrenna lynn's butthole, but i would like to. the idea of tattooing your butthole is kind of brilliant. i don't even understand how it's possible, but i want to see it and i applaud her for going all out and making a real statement of individuality instead of just getting a shamrock on her pelvis.

i wasn't too into the new 16 album when i first heard it, but the more i listen to it the more i'm feeling it. there are few bands that can make the phrase "life sucks" sound so meaningful. i've also been listening to a lot of crowbar. there's nothing like overweight dirtbags telling you they've given you all they have to give over heavy as fuck riffs to help get you through those cold winter days.

you should definitely try to come out to REDACTED whenever you can. you're more than welcomed to crash at my place (i have a couch that folds out into a full-sized bed). we'll bro down like it's nobody's biz. we can watch the danzig home video, pound brews, chug some red bulls, blast some push-ups, and oogle hot babes. also, if you're not doing anything super bowl weekend REDACTED and i are driving out to REDACTED to watch the game. i think REDACTED might even be coming out. even if you don't care about football, it's worth it just for the spectacle. i was there when the steelers won the super bowl in '06 and it was fucking pandemonium.

Anyway, that's about all there is to say about 16. This record fucking rules. It's out now, and if you don't buy it you're a poser that's too happy. If you liked their old shit, this is just like it only with better production. There's nothing better to listen to when you're feeling old, bitter, broken-down and spiteful, which for me is pretty much 100% of the time!


Verdict: 9/10 bloody axes

Some bands are so bad they're horrible

Needless to say, things that are so bad they're good are a staple of the Metal Inquisition playbook. That said, sometimes it can be too much of an, uh, bad thing. That's when something is so bad it's horrible:

An ordinarily awful work can be So Bad Its Good, becoming popular and genuinely liked because of its unintentional comedy value. Others are far worse. These don't attract proper fandoms and aren't enjoyed, as such, but draw some attention out of a perverse sense of fascination. Prolonged exposure can cause wooziness and weakening of the grasp on reality.

Here are some our favorite examples of metal that's so bad it's just bad...



Gang Green
If you were a teenager who liked metal in the late 80s or early 90s, it is very likely you spent a lot of time digging through the bargain bin at your local music retailer, hoping to find some $2 tape that had somehow been undiscovered by the masses and, like junk bonds in the late 70s, was undervalued by the market. And if you're like me, you probably saw the same familiar faces again and again: RDP, Dead Brain Cells, and Gang Green's "Older... Budweiser." It is perhaps the epitome of "so bad it's horrible" in that it combines excruciatingly dull, derivative thrash metal riffs with the tiresome, juvenile rebelliousness of punk and tops it off with a generous helping of moronic 80s beer humor that wouldn't even make the cut for a Tankard b-side. Basically it's the crossover equivalent for those singing bass things. It's not charmingly offensive like, say The Mentors. You don't love to hate it like Mordred. It's not so retarded it's awesome, it's just fucking stupid, and when you press "play" on this tape, you will immediately be looking for "stop."

This song is seriously called "Solitary Solitude." Really!

Meliah Rage
Somebody mentioned Meliah Rage in the comments the other day, and what better occasion to bring them up than in a post about bands that are so bad they're horrible? Because Meliah Rage aren't just bad, they're fucking awful, and not in any kind of endearing, fun way like, say Nitro, Def Leppard or Accept. Listening to their records is about as much fun as taking a standardized test, except unlike the GMAT there's no reward for suffering through it. The riffs drag on for what seems like forever. They're never heavy enough to be heavy or melodic enough to melodic. Never fast, never slow, just plodding and dull to the point where you want to stab yourself in the brain with a machete. It's like that feeling of rage, disgust, and irritation you get when you're trying to explain to a woman how to use a piece of electronic equipment: "It's not on. Press the big green button that says 'POWER' on it. No, that's the remote for the DVD player. Here, I'll just do it for you." As many people will point out, Sully from Godsmack played drums in this band for a while. It shouldn't surprise you, though, that I love Godsmack, so I don't hold it against them. You probably will, though.

Annihilator
I wrote quite extensively about Annihilator in my February post entitled "I have disliked Annihilator for 18 years." There is no need for me to repeat it here, but if you are interested in things that I don't like (and who isn't??), give it a read! They still suck, so the post is as relevant today as it ever was.



Uncle Slam
You would think that I would love a band with "slam" in their name, but you couldn't be more wrong. Much like the recent US financial crisis showed that the financial system had run amok and needed oversight, Uncle Slam showed that the thrash metal scene was in dire need of quality control. This band was most generic of generic thrash; they ripped off the rip offs and copied the copycats. The only interesting thing I can say about this band is that there is absolutely nothing remarkable or unique about them relative to the incredible flood of awful thrash bands in the late 80s. Punny name? Check. Chopaholic riffs? Check. Shallow sociopolitical lyrics? Check. I could go on forever- there's even an Ed Repka oil painting on the cover like so, so many other 80s thrash records that are completely indistinguishable from each other. Like Mortal Sin, Beowulf, Agony Column, Hirax, Acrophet, Laaz Rockit and Holy Terror, there is absolutely no reason to ever listen to this band again for the rest of eternity, unless you love misery.



Origin
I will end this post with something a little more controversial. I loved the Origin's self-titled debut when it came out. It was totally fresh and unique, mostly because of the unpredictable, distinctive drumming. I still listen to it pretty often, and it still sounds great to me. So, you can imagine how upset I was when I heard their second album and they decided to change things up a bit and become a bland, reptitive, brutal death metal band that was nearly as dull as Hate Eternal, Nile and Vital Remains. OK, that was a little harsh- Vital Remains have the distinction of being the single least interesting death metal band to ever play a note of music. But you get the point. I think they could save themselves a lot of time by just setting a drum machine to play a blast beat at 250bpm for 35 minutes while someone plays random, tremolo-picked notes at the same time. Scratch that, just have a computer play the guitar part too. It would pretty much sound the same as their actual records but they wouldn't have to go to all the hassle of "writing songs." Because I still love their first album, though, I included a video above of one of their good songs- but don't be fooled! This band is now awful!!

Cock-smashing brutality: The best death metal song intros

When I'm not thinking of ways to meet Lauren Conrad or the girls from 90210, I enjoy studying the intricacies of death metal songwriting. The best songs aren't just a bunch of mindless double bass and monotonous blast beats, they're finely crafted opuses that are painstakingly assembled riff by slamming riff, like a brutal ship-in-a-bottle. Perhaps the most important part of such a masterpiece is the intro, and with that in mind, I present several of our favorites...



Cannibal Corpse - Hammer Smashed Face
When we're talking about the best death metal intros of all time, you would be out of your hammer-smashed skull not to put this song at the top of the list. Cannibal Corpse is, without a doubt, one of the most generic, dullest death metal bands, yet this song is the perfect marriage of catchy hooks and cock-smashing brutality! I'll be honest, it's been a long time since I paid much attention to them, but what fucking happened?! Chris Barnes is writing song after ass-rapingly awful song about pot, wearing Jncos and Star Trek shirts, and Corpsegrinder would rather be playing WoW... I mean, I understand that as people get older they lose touch with the trends, and that's fine... but christ, these guys take irrelevant fossils to a whole new level. If there is a god, Chris Barnes will get hit by a meteor and spare the worl of another Six Feet Under performance.



Suffocation - Human Waste
As soon as the song starts, you hear the Hellraiser sample, and you're all "Oh shit, son, this is spooky as fuck... What's coming next?!" The hair on your arms stands up, because you know the song is going to be some super brutal brutality, and it doesn't disappoint!! The intro riff on this song is without a doubt the sickest thing ever recorded at the time, considering that this song is from their 1990 demo (I didn't hear it until 92 or whatever, though, on "Corporate Death"). The rest of the song is pretty slammin' too, but the first minute or so is really what will knock your dick in the dirt with pit riffment. Every time I hear this song, I put on a Trump Plaza shirt and some sweat pants and jump around my room pretending I'm Frank Mullen.



Obituary - The End Complete
Before wigger slam existed, I listened to Obituary when I needed a dose of groove in my death metal. Obituary are a great band because they always emphasized good songwriting over speed or brutality for their own sake, and this is a great example. Aside from having an awesome intro, it also has a super sweet outro- it starts AND finishes strong, like good porn. I am pretty sure I've posted about this video before, but the best part is Alan West's Rollins Band and Red Hot Chili Peppers shirts. There's nothing funnier than when fans are disappointed by how un-brutal a band is, like when you see Glen Benton taking out the trash or whatever. But that sort of thing is Lucho Metales' speciality, so I'll leave it to him to go into more detail.



Devourment - Babykiller
If there is such a thing as a flagship single for wigger slam, it is definitely this song- especially the original version on 1.3.8. The sorely-missed Wayne Knupp's incredible vocal performance started a whole generation of cricket vocals, and it all started with the cock-smashingly brutal intro to this awesome song. It's nearly 5 minutes long, but I can listen to it the whole way through anytime it comes on my iPod. This song showed the death metal world that traditional musical concepts like melody, dynamics, structure, and lyrics were outdated assumptions, that the only thing that really matters is pit riffment. If you think about it, it was very avant garde and postmodern! Hopefully some grad school egghead will write a paper about this song called something like "Operationalizing pit riffment: Contradictions and paradoxes in Texas slam metal."

More marriages of awesome hooks and cock-smashing brutality?
As always, please tell us what we missed. There aren't a ton of great death metal intros on the level of these, but surely the list is longer that this post.

When awesome bands make shitty records

Many years ago I interviewed Brian Baker, who you may know from such bands as Minor Threat, The Meatmen, Bad Religion, and Dag Nasty. I asked him how it happened that even though Dag Nasty was such a great band, they wrote some absolutely fucking terrible songs. His answer was, "Hey, you can't win 'em all," which I thought was pretty insightful. Nobody bats 1.000, and even the best bands go wrong from time to time. Here are some examples of just that...

There is a clear, positive correlation between the passage of time and Suicidal Tendencies being shitty. Note the inflection points at the release of extra shitty albums.

Suicidal Tendencies - The Art of Rebellion
OK, to be fair this is more of an example of shark jumping than an aberration or outlier. Any way you slice it, though, this record fucking sucks like crazy. I mean I liked "Lights Camera Revolution" when it came out, but this was a dealbreaker. Even though it was kind of gay and crappy too, it had some great songs like "You Can't Bring Me Down" and "Lost Again." Then Mike Muir got too far up his own ass and tried to be an artist or whatever. I don't mean to be the "I only like the demo/first album" guy, because those people are the worst, but Suicidal is really the perfect example of a band that just gets worse with every album.

What is this shit?! Where did the NOT! banner and bermuda shorts go?! In the words of Discharge, "why why why why why"?

Anthrax - The Sound of White Noise
Remember the part in Lords of Chaos where one of the Norwegian BM dorks is talking about how he saw a picture of some band "wearing jogging suits and riding skateboards" and got very angry and confused? I'm pretty sure he was talking about Anthrax, and I can only imagine how difficult it would be for some Scandinavian hick to understand the nuances of five Jews from Queens imitating Iron Maiden, Agnostic Front, and Public Enemy all at once (by the way, my father is from Norway, so I have a bit of Scandinavian hayseed in my veins). But that's why we loved Anthrax: their whimsical, fun loving brand of thrash made you forget your troubles and whisked you away to a magical land where the streets were paved with mosh riffs.

In any case, a lot of people thought Persistence of Time was the beginning of the end for Anthrax, but I disagree. I thought PoT was pretty great. TSOWN is when Anthrax officially began their shockingly rapid descent into a state that would make being a laughingstock positively dignified by comparison. Why did they get rid of Joey and start writing lame, boring songs about fucking ski lodges or whatever? What happened to the jogging suits and skateboards? Why not just urinate on the sodomized corpse of everything your once-great band stood for?! Arggghhh!

At this point they were barely even phoning it in.

S.O.D. - Bigger Than The Devil
Obviously I am a big SOD fan. When I discovered them in 1991 or so, it was as though I was Christopher Columbus, piercing the fog to reveal the pristine shores of a whole new world before me, full of riches the likes of which even the most avaricious man could only dream of! Also, it was the closest thing to wigger slam that existed back then, so needless to say I was happier than a pig in shit.

Apparently they blew their load with "Speak English or Die," though, because SOD became one of the most absolutely wretched bands to ever disgrace the planet quite shortly after releasing it. They turned into basically the thrash metal version of Weird Al, even sinking so low as to write cringeworthy novelty/parody songs like "Seasoning The Obese" and "Celtic Frosted Flakes" on their 1998 album "Bigger Than The Devil." It's not just bad, it's awful on a level rarely approached by mere mortals. You have to scour YouTube for clips of John Cena rapping aggressively at Brock Lesnar before you come close to these levels of douchebaggery.

I am about to show you something so horrible that I must warn you before you go any further. Do not scroll down if you have a heart condition, are prone to fainting, or if you are eating. It is a spectacle so hideous that even the dark and twisted mind of HP Lovecraft could not have spawned it; even the slimy tentacles of Cthulu cannot inspire revulsion such as the following video can. With that warning in hand, click at your own risk! Recoil in horror at the atrocities that are birthed upon the world when Billy Milano listens to The Offspring too much!!



What other awesome bands made a shitty record?
As always, it is now your turn. There are many more great bands who put out crap, please help us list every single one of them!