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

Guest appearances on Invisible Oranges and Something Awful; No Fun Club appears

Invisible Oranges "Now That's What I Call Slam" mixtape
Cosmo Lee and the gang at Invisible Oranges have a very literate, smart take on metal that's as rare as it is considered. Naturally, you must be thinking "What the fuck are YOU doing on that site, then?!" I am as puzzled as you are, but I was super stoked to put together a selection of crushing slamz for them that you can download over at IO (including the cover that you see above). In Cosmo's words:

If John Waters blogged about metal, the result would be Metal Inquisition. The site is mean as hell, yet culturally astute. It trawls society's backwaters and exposes insecurities for public ridicule. Blogger Sergeant D is especially adept at this. The man has some of the strangest tastes I've ever seen. He'll champion old-school powerviolence, then turn around and stick up for crunkcore and "wigger slam" metal (his term). He actually likes that stuff.

I have been a huge John Waters fan since I was about 9 years old, so it would be hard to come up with a more flattering comparison than that- I'm blushing!

As usual, I turn to Guttermouth to articulate my feelings

Predictably, the No Fun Club showed to rain on the parade and get butthurt because I used the word "wigger." You can read the comments and see for yourself, but I foolishly made the mistake of attempting to extend the olive branch to them, forgetting the most fundamental characteristic of the NFC: Nothing you do will ever, ever be good enough for them. They sit atop their throne of Adbusters back issues, clipping coupons for Howard Zinn bobbleheads and passing judgment on mouthbreathing savages like me who "just don't get it." I tried to explain that when I make wigger jokes, the humor is based on the fact that it's a fucking completely retarded term, so perhaps we were on the same page after all. But it was all in vain: as expected, they weren't having it. Every word I typed was more proof of what a Neanderthal I am, because you just can't win with these dickholes.

If you are in the No Fun Club, I think we will never be on the same page. You hate fun, and I love it. We are natural enemies, like Mordred and non-funky beats. So get fucked, and instead of reading my posts, spend that time with a select group of your brightest friends circle-jerking to Kent McClard/Aaron Turner* slashfic stories or whatever it is that you do while I'm listening to Infernal Revulsion and texting your sister.

Read more / download "Now That's What I Call Slam" at Invisible Oranges

* No offense meant to Aaron Turner, he seems like a chill dude and was super cool the few times I've interacted with him- it's not his fault beardos like the records he puts out.

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Something Awful "Garbage Day: Stuff You Will Hate"
On a happier note, this guest post on Something Awful's Garbage Day with Andrew Miller was legitimately an honor. Something Awful is a legendary site that's up there with a select few like 4chan and Hipster Runoff in terms of retarded internet humor made by really smart people, and I've been a huge fan for a solid decade. We sent each other links to some shitty songs on YouTube, then made fun of them. Pretty simple but pretty great. MI readers will especially appreciate Andrew's comment on the amazingly wigged-out new video from Despised Icon, featuring a "Deez Nuts" shirt and 40-tipping, among other things:

What "I'm on a Boat" did to Autotuned R&B, the "Day of Mourning" video does unintentionally to tough-guy deathcore. Given that it's more of a farce than most parodies, someone involved in its production must have realized it was fucking hilarious. I can imagine the director's instructions: "Yes, wear the 'Deez Nuts' shirt, the contrast between the tragic graveside scenes and the whimsical slogan will be poignant!" And "I'm going to play some nü-metal during the performance scenes, and I want you to gesture and altogether behave as though that's the music that's really accompanying the video. I'll change the soundtrack in post-production. The effect will be transcendent! What? Oh no, you can evade any rap-metal stigma, as long as you wear your baseball caps with the bills facing forward." Then I can see him stuffing a towel in his mouth and grinding his teeth through the threads as he tries to stave off hysterics.

It's a testament to SA's advanced-level technique that Andrew was one of the few people to realize that the only kind of music I genuinely hate is indie rock. He sent me videos from Jay Reatard, Yacht, and a few others that had my blood boiling in seconds- no easy task! His only misstep was giving me a song from Fight Fair, who are one of my favorite bands. But hey, nobody bats 1000. Passion Pit made me want to smash my own fingers with a ballpeen hammer out of sheer beard-induced rage:

This is music for beardos with pot bellies and a live-in girlfriend. To borrow a line from Henry Rollins, starting a band like this is like breaking into your parents' liquor cabinet and drinking the light beer. Why are these fucking assholes smiling so much? Does it feel THAT GOOD to prance around in a sweater and glasses? Did they just see a life-affirming independent film about how amazing poor people and retards are? Maybe they're thinking about all the cool stuff they just bought off Etsy, or how much better they feel about themselves now that they've switched to Fair Trade Coffee, I don't know.

Thanks to Andrew and the gang at SA, you're welcome on MI any time!

Read more at Something Awful

Warbringer's balls don't smell, and they like Sacred Reich

I recently made fun of Municipal Waste in Terrorizer for banging my ex and having smelly balls, among other things (read it here). I also called them phonies who tried too hard, along with other neo-thrash bands like Toxic Holocaust and Warbringer. It turns out that I may have painted with a brush that was a bit too broad (would hardly be the first time). Several people who I respect emailed or IMd me and said, "Bro, you fucked up, bro. Warbringer are the real deal, they're legit bros, bro," so I started to think I had made a mistake. I was still skeptical, though- I rarely make a false poser-accusation. I figured a good way to find out would be to go directly to the source and run them through a battery of tests.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that Century Media owns a controlling stake in Metal Inquisition, with Decibel/Red Flag Media's shares rounding out the mix.

They were game, so we asked Warbringer to watch the following videos and rate each one as follows:

• Is the band True or False, and why? Think about all the dimensions of their personal brands: the music itself, their image, what you think they do for a day job, what their fans are like, and if the people in the band are fat. Say a little bit about your thoughts on each video (a few sentences/a paragraph).
• Choose two finalists from the pool, one band who is The Truest and one who is The Most False and say a little bit about why you chose them.

Here is what they had to say:



Forced Entry "Bludgeon"
Hell yeah! This rules! Sweet headbanging rhythms and nice lil solo near the beginning. There's a lot of random stuff going on in this video... it has a guy grabbing a rifle and getting ready to shoot something out the window, then someone jumps into a swimming pool with a guitar and more random havoc intercut with relentless live and rehearsal performances. Forced Entry are an underrated band, probably due to being overshadowed by the Seattle grunge bands. Seattle actually had a lot of good metal bands around that time like these guys, Metal Church, Bitter End, Sanctuary, Panic and more. Definitely true!



Nitro "Freight Train"
Not only does Michael Angelo Batio's guitar have 4 necks, but it descends apparently from the realms of the beyond into his hands for ultimate ridiculous shred. Jim Gillette apparently used to shatter glass with his falsettos too. Also he has a palm tree growing from his head, which he displays proudly here. This had got to be some of the biggest hair of any hair band - can it be real? And this guy eventually hooked up with Lita Ford and is now some hulked-up MMA guy. This wins due to complete over-the-top factor, being more over-the-top than just about anything ever.



Burn Halo "Dirty Girl"
This is the new band from 18 Visions' singer. I hadn't heard of this band, and don't really know 18 Visions either, but looking at the video this is quite a departure from what I know of that. This seems pretty manufactured, and pretty uninteresting. It's kind of along the lines of corporate cock rock aiming to get some radio play. The guys in the band all make "look at me" faces the whole time. At least there are some babes in the video, I guess. False.



Prong "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck"
This song is a classic for its time. I could imagine some gothy looking stripper dancing to this song, it would work I think. Don't know what to say about Tommy Victor's mesh shirt and pleather pants thing, hard to say why that would be. But here all is well, and pretty badass. At around 30 seconds- "Catch the ball next week with Alice in Chains at its new time at midnight!"



A Day To Remember "Downfall of Us All"
Can't say I like this at all. I had never heard of happy hardcore in this context before. Judging by this I don't think it's such a great idea either. The mosh parts don't seem like such a juxtaposition because even those parts sound happy and uplifting somehow. The whole thing sounds like they could easily be singing about Jesus, and that I just can't get behind. False.



Sacred Reich "Independent"
Ok now we are talkin! This song is pretty badass. We toured with these guys a little bit in Europe this summer and they were all rad dudes. The video is pretty much a lot of shots of them, playing metal and being badasses, and all these motivational messages that flash across the screen. This is fine though, as one of them near the beginning just says "YOU RULE!". Allrighhht!



Hollywood Undead "No. 5"
This video was directed by Jonas Akerlund, the original drummer for Bathory, eh? That is a fucking bummer. Well, regardless, this is a good example of white dudes totally sucking at being rappers. Oh well, at least we can get a fucking robot to sing the chorus for us! Robots are pitch-perfect! Marvel at its digitized sheen! False.



Emmure "Sound Wave Superior"
Whoa, this is fucking gay! I had never heard this band before, but if this is widely hated, it must be because many people have functioning ears. The wiggerness doesnt help get them out of the suck sector either. And whoa... now the singer (maybe its just the hoodie that makes him look chunky?) is in bed with all these hot chicks, and he looks really out of place. Also the whole song is a chugging breakdown. The whole song! Is falling asleep brutal? False!!



Wasted Youth "Good Day For A Hanging"
Classic old-school L.A. punk/hardcore. I definitely know the name. This features the guitarist in Velver Revolver and the drummer from Queens of the Stone Age but there are no sonic connections between those bands. Wasted Youth is better than either I think. Lots of moshing and playing drums on rooftops, playing a backyard party and badassery like that. I give a hearty thumbs up.



Blessed By A Broken Heart "Mic Skillz 2"
This is clearly a joke, very silly stuff here. "Go ninja, go ninja, go!' So while I can't really give it a stamp of trueness it is one of the more entertaining videos on here to watch. The video is just going for the over-the top angle and the song itself is ridiculous part after ridiculous part, so I guess it at least succeeds at being ridiculous. Shredding is good though!



Evildead "Annilhilation of Civilization"
Fucking awesome thrash! These guys were from L.A. and underrated. Guitarist Juan Garcia is alone true as he's been in so many good bands like Abattoir and Agent Steel and is still always playing around. The band is dressed like a fucking metal band, with the exception of the neon colored red hot chili peppers shirt. But that is ok. Then there is starving children, all kinds of creatures being brutally murdered, AIDS, and all kinds of horrible stuff. Then at the end there's some politicians. Those bastards! Look what they've done! True!



Winds of Plague "The Impaler"
This is probably a little more wigger than Emmure, it looks like a rap video basically. The music is a little better though, as once in a while the guitars are doing some not-chugging. Then it shifts from being in the club to being on a field of skulls, which is a clear improvement. Unfortunately then they decide to break it down for reals at this time, and that is a clear not-improvement. Pretty false I'd say.

The verdicts
For truest I would have to give it to Evildead, just for having probably the coolest song on here. Riffs and headbanging will always prevail.

For lamest it would be a split tie between Emmure, for trying so very hard to look tough, or Hollywood Undead, who rap about myspace and other such things.

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Closing thoughts from Sergeant D
It's too bad they don't like any new bands like A Day to Remember, but the fact that they even know who fucking Bitter End are makes them OK in my book! And if they are into Dumt then I will erect a shrine in their honor.

Metal Inquisition guest appearances on X Stuck In The Past X and Hipster Runoff

Metal Inquisition made two appearances on the internets over the weekend. We are thrilled to be part of two of the finest blogs on the planet and contribute to the blogosphere/memescape. One thing I did not think about was the non-compete clause in our contract with Red Flag Media, the parent corporation that owns Metal Inquisition and Decibel. I am a little scared that we will be receiving a threatening phone call from their legal counsel, but oh well... what's done is done, fuck it!

I am Carles. I am a tatbro. I work in a conservative office environment.
Hipster Runoff makes me giggle like a schoolgirl and it is fair to say that HRO is my biggest influence as a writer/blogger/personal brand. If you are an HRO fan you probably noticed that I stole his idea for "Bands To Watch" when I wrote about Corn and Biohazard, and it is likely that I will steal more ideas from HRO in the future. Needless to say, I was beyond thrilled to see my photo on HRO in this post:

Do u think that I can get sued 4 ‘discrimination’ if the IAMCARLES brand doesn’t provide long sleeve products for ‘bros with tat sleeves who need to work in conservative office environments?

Worried abt my brand–might not be ‘universal’ enough.

http://www.iamcarles.com

Read more at Hipster Runoff

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All she wants to do is mosh
One of my other favorite blogs is X Stuck In The Past X, which is about the strange and wonderful world of 90s hardcore. We were honored to contribute a guest post in which we shared 5 Things I Miss About 90s Hardcore. For example:

2. Backpacks, JNCOs, sweater vests, and other fashion disasters
Sometimes you don't realize how absurd something is until you try to articulate it. For example, a while ago I was trying to explain 90s hardcore fashion to this 23 year-old hipster girl I was dating and the ridiculousness of it all hit me harder than the xbreakdownsx on the Green Rage 7". She listens to electro and Animal Collective so it was a bit hard for her to grasp: "I don't get it," she said, "Why did you guys wear Tommy Hilfiger? I thought you were like punk or whatever. My dad wears that stuff." I did not have a good answer for her, nor could I explain why Kurt Catalyst wore a backpack while onstage singing for Birthright (Catalyst records deserves a while thread of its own; that label's quality control practices are so atrocious it makes Back Ta Basics look like Rick Rubin's hit factory).

Read more at X Stuck In The Past X

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!

Win a copy of Decibel's Precious Metal book

What is your favorite item in the Edit menu? You could ask a million people this question and get a million answers. You'd hear everything from Find to Redo to my personal favorite, Select All. But I know if you asked Decibel Magazine's Editor-In-Chief, Albert Mudrian, his answer would be a combo: Copy and Paste. He likes it so much that he made a whole book by compiling 25 of Decibel's finest Hall of Fame stories by copying and pasting them into one file, then printing it all on the cheapest brownish-grey newsprint that money can buy!

If you're too cheap to click here and purchase a copy from Amazon, continue reading for details on how to win a free copy- and this could be your last chance, since it's burning up the charts at #18,047 on Amazon!

You can also read our 2008 interview with Albert here.

Albert hard at work "writing" Precious Metal

The Press Release
Here is the ham-fisted copy from the back cover that goes into more detail about this 250-page tribute to repurposed content. As you can see, beardos, hipsters, and dinosaur rockers alike will all be delighted- I know I have been waiting with baited breath to hear the real story behind the fucking Diamond Head LP!!

Precious Metal gathers pieces from Decibel's most popular feature, the monthly “Hall of Fame” which documents the making of landmark metal albums via candid, hilarious, and fascinating interviews with every participating band member.

Decibel's editor-in-chief, Albert Mudrian, has selected and expanded the best of these features, creating a definitive collection of stories behind the greatest extreme metal albums of all time.

Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell * Diamond Head's Lightning to the Nations * Slayer's Reign in Blood * Napalm Death's Scum * Repulsion's Horrified * Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness * Obituary's Cause of Death * Entombed's Left Hand Path * Paradise Lost's Gothic * Carcass' Necroticism- Descanting the Insalubrious * Cannibal Corpse's Tomb of the Mutilated * Eyehategod's Take as Needed for Pain * Darkthrone's Transylvanian Hunger * Kyuss's Welcome to Sky Valley * Meshuggah's Destroy Erase Improve * Monster Magnet's Dopes to Infinity * At the Gates' Slaughter of the Soul * Opeth's Orchid * Down's NOLA * Emperor's In the Nightside Eclipse * Sleep's Jerusalem * The Dillinger Escape Plan's Calculating Infinity * Botch's We Are the Romans * Converge's Jane Doe * Nitro's OFR * Meat Shits' Ecstacy of Death

The contest
As you know, Metal Inquisition is first and foremost the viral marketing division of Red Flag Media, the company who publishes Decibel and acquired this blog via hostile takeover earlier in 2009. Therefore, it was only natural that we would promote Precious Metal with the following gimmicky contest:

Da Capo Press and Decibel will give away one or more copies of book to the best review(s) posted in the comments of this post.

Of course, you will be writing a review of a book you haven't read, just like when I used to write reviews of records I hadn't listened to for the magazine I used to work for (I will let you guess which one that might be; unfortunately it was not Decibel). Since it can't be accurate, it should at least be entertaining. We will select the winner next Wednesday: we'll post the winning entry/entries and you can email us your address if it's yours.

Go!

Metal Inquisition slams Decibel

Our friends at Decibel might be hipster metal posers, but they were at least smart enough to include a 6-page feature on slam metal in the latest issue in a futile effort to salvage whatever shred of credibility remains after stroking Mastodon's dick at every possible opportunity. Better yet, they interviewed me for the feature! I play the role of the expert on wigger slam, and wrote a sidebar entitled "The Essentials of Slam" or something.

Thanks to Albert, Panko, and the rest of the Decibel crew for including us! Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy at your local Chris Barnes & Noble!

More info here