I strongly support your band's decision to alienate its core fanbase

Once a band has a good thing going, they usually like to throw it all away by changing their style up for reasons that only God knows. Rather than get angry about it, I applaud bands who flush their hard-won credibility and support down the toilet. Why? Because it's funny. It's funny to see the nerd rage from their fans, and it's funny to watch the band members get defensive or flustered when they realize that everybody hates what they've done.

In this post I will share a few of my favorite moments in which bands have dramatically changed their style for the worse. I will explore each of these self-clownings along three dimensions:

• Why they changed: I will take a guess at what the practice room discussions were in which they decided it was a good idea
• Fan reaction: Exactly how did fans react to the betrayal?
• How badly it fucked them: On a scale of 0-10, how badly did it impair the band's ability to receive income in the future?

In all seriousness, I cannot fathom what could have a) possessed them to think this is a good idea or b) convinced Century Media to release this. I'm really not joking here! If I was the dude at CM who was responsible for the bottom line on the Cryptopsy account, when I heard the demos I think my feedback would be something like: "Dudes, I totally respect that you want to do something different and that's awesome but I have a fucking mortgage to pay. Putting clean vocals on a Cryptopsy record is basically taking food directly out of my family's mouth so that you can 'explore the boundaries of extreme metal' or whatever bullshit you just said to me. If you want to experiment, do it on your own dime. Now get the fuck out of my office and go write 'None So Vile Part 2'!"

Cryptopsy
Why they changed
(Translated from French)
Guy 1: I'm bored with death metal. Remember when we got that metalcore guy to sing on our last couple records, and everybody hated it because they want to hear sick-ass death metal not a poor man's Suicide Silence? We should do something even more zany than that for the next record.
Guy 2: Totally! Don't forget that we also made a decision at that one band meeting to write boring songs with 5,000 nondescript riffs in them instead of catchy, simple shit that you couldn't stop listening to like on our first few albums.
Guy 1: Yeah, yeah, I remember, quit nagging me about it. Anyhow, I've been listening to a lot of Diecast and Poison The Well lately, we should totally do that thing where they have half-assed death metal vocals, then the guy starts singing and when you hear it you're all "Dude, that's so beautiful!!" and a single tear rolls down your cheek. Oh, and let's wear leather pants with buckles on them in the video.
Guy 2: Pass the poutine, please.

Fan reaction
"Wat"

How badly it fucked them
8.5/10. Perhaps someone from Century Media can chime in and tell us exactly how far their sales have plummeted, but I have to guess that their transition to "shitty Killswitch Engage" was pretty much a death blow. The only reason I didn't give them a 10 is that Flo will always be able to sell instructionals to shut-ins who would rather practice their double flamadiddles than deal with the terrifying prospect of leaving the house.


Pantera
Why they changed
Phil: Fuckin' a dudes, I'm fuckin' high as fuck man... Let's do some new shit, I ain't down with these fuckin' powederpuff jams. I was just sittin' here feeling the fuckin' high, and I saw something... I saw the fuckin' universe!! I looked into the middle of the sun, and it told me that the four of us were put on this Earth for one thing: To create the NEW GENERATION OF POWER GROOVE!
Everybody else: Right on bro, power groove, hell yeah! But hey, can we just play "Strutter" one more time before we reinvent the steel??

Fan reaction
"Duuuuude, what the fuck man?! Quit yelling and shit! It makes my fuckin' head hurt! Why are you all aggro and shit, I thought Pantera was a rock band? Quit screaming, man, my chick is gettin' freaked out! Fuck this, I'm putting in my Vinnie Vincent tape to get her in the mood again." *Rides away on his Mongoose, plastic comb stuck in the back pocket of his size 28 jeans*

How badly it fucked them
0/10: They timed their makeover perfectly, coinciding with the death of glam and the mainstreaming of angsty "hard rock." You can think of the revamped Pantera as the angry, brutish brother of Alice In Chains in many ways. Both got high way too much, but in addition to having a strong self-detructive streak, Pantera enjoyed turning his anger on others.

This is a double dose of painful; it manages to be horribly embarrassing like you're watching your uncle's shitty cover band in which he wears a Harley-Davidson do-rag at the same time as a high school battle of the bands where they're playing a Fender Squire through a Peavey Bandit. Amazing job, guys! Hipster Runoff has nothing on Metallica in the post-ironic humor department.

Metallica
Why they changed:
Needless to say, volume upon volume has been written about the several dramatic shifts in Metallica's style. What could I possibly add, especially since I have always thought they were pretty terrible? Perhaps because I am an outsider, I believe I have a fresh perspective. I'm thinking that it went a little like this:
*establishing shot of a calendar that says 1989 on it*
James: OK guys, how do we follow up "Garage Days?" It's way better than any of our real albums, and it's all fucking covers, WTF. I don't know where we go from here. *sighs, throws up hands in frustration*
Kirk: Since we're obviously out of ideas and rich, why don't we just have fun with it and make the lamest fucking "hard rock" record we can, just for a joke??
James: Ha ha ha, I love it! Yeah, and I'll adopt this Southern redneck persona even though I'm from Bakersfield. It will be hilarious! Then after a year or something we'll reveal that it was all a put-on, everybody will have a good laugh, and we'll get tons of press.
Kirk: No, no, let's do it Andy Kaufman-style and never let on! We'll play it straight, and people will always be guessing whether it's a joke or we're really that fucking stupid. It will be way funnier that way!!
Lars: Totally! Also, we should make my snare so tight, ringy, and absurdly loud in the mix that it sounds like someone is banging on the side of a battleship with a ball peen hammer in time to the music!
James: Dude, come on. Let's not get carried away. We can't go too far over the top or it will be too obvious that it's a joke!
*shot of the pages on a calendar peeling off and blowing away in the wind until it says 2003*
James: LOL, guys, I can't fucking believe nobody's gotten the joke yet!! We need to do something so ridiculous that nobody can possibly miss it and everybody will catch on to the joke. Lars, what was that idea you had for a snare sound a few years back??

Fan reaction
Many fans were ready to tar and feather them after the black album, and brought out their torches & pitchforks when they heard "Load." By the time "St. Anger" came out, most people kind of realized it was just a tired joke that had run its course, and maybe chuckled a little bit when they saw the video where they played Disturbed riffs in the prison yard. "Death Magnetic" was met with about the same reaction as someone wearing an Austin Powers Halloween costume in 2009: "Dude, you should probably go home and change. It's gonna be a long night if you don't."

How badly it fucked them
0/10, seemingly. Despite that they are perhaps the most hated band in all of metal, I still see 14 year-olds with bowl cuts, acne and bad posture wearing "Ride The Lightning" shirts as they follow their parents around the mall looking surly just like they did in 1989. Like Led Zepplin and Bob Marley, they have a mystifying ability to move merch to every new generation of shitbag loser teenagers, so what the fuck do I know about how much Metallica sucks?

Argh, I don't even know what to say about this... I hadn't watched it in a long time since Lucho uploaded it. I don't even think it's funny anymore, they just sound like legit morons that would deliver potato chips to bodegas or something and yap about their band endlessly: "Yeah man, we're playing at L'Amours, opening for DBC and Lawnmower Deth. You should come check it out bro, we'll blow your mind bro!"

Anthrax
Why they changed
*The band is sitting in the living room at Charlie's parents' home in Queens*
Joey: It's just not the same anymore. Ever since our practice space burned down, I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. The insurance forms say that the damage was only a few hundred dollars, but I feel like my youthful enthusiasm and whimsical, carefree outlook on life also went up in flames that night. *halfheartedly flips through a Judge Dredd comic, dejected*
Scott: I know, man. The other day I tried to put on my Adidas warmup suit and do borderline-racist rap poses in the mirror, and I just wasn't feeling it. And when someone told me that Billy Milano was actually a pretty smart, funny guy who was just "playing a character" in SOD, I couldn't even bring myself to shout "NOT!". I kinda feel like it might be time for Anthrax to break up...
Charlie: Snap out of it, guys!! *bursts into the room* We're not going to let this tragedy get the best of us! Let's channel our pain into writing a new record. It will be moody and repetitive, much slower, less fun and catchy than anything we've done so far. Also, we'll take the title from the name of a famous painting or something to sound deep, and the songs will be punishingly long to send the message that we have a lot to say!
Scott: Perfect. That will show everybody that we've grown up and we're not just the class clowns of Thrash High! We'll finally be seen as mature, legitimate musicians and get the respect we deserve from both fans and critics alike. Man, this is going to be great.
Charlie: Then once we find a guy with the least possible charisma, stage presence, and distinctive voice, we'll fire Joey and replace him!
Joey: Guys, I'm right here... I can hear everything you're saying.
Scott/Charlie: Shut up, Joey. Go play with your Transformers and make a new "injun" hat.

Fan reaction
If you ask 100 different people about Anthrax's lineup changes, you will get 100 different answers. Some popular ones: "They would be better if Scott Ian sang," "They would be better if they kept Neil Turban," and "Cry for the Indians."

How badly it fucked them
5/10. Not too badly, actually. I mean don't get me wrong, Anthrax has been fucking horrible for over 20 years, but their first couple albums are so, so good that you can look past the new stuff, brushing it off as though it's just a phase they're going through (although if that phase was a person it would be old enough to drink). In any case, what it comes down to is that nobody will buy their new albums, but people will still go see them in hopes that they'll play the old, good songs. It's not unlike those washed up old bands like Cutting Crew or whatever that only play county fairs and riverboat casinos. Only unlike Cutting Crew, Anthrax used to put the NYHC logo on their merch.

Hasta next time...?
What did y'all think of this concept? There is certainly no shortage of content for future installments: Slayer, Celtic Frost, Sepultura, and Carcass to name but a few. Should we do more?

Guest post: Where's the love for awesome hardcore bands that turned into shitty metal bands?

This is the first of what we hope will be many guest columns from MI readers, in this case from frequent commenter and MI Twitter follower Snoopz. Naturally it isn't as good as something we would write ourselves, but you can't have everything, can you? If you're interested in writing something, please send it to our email or send a direct message on Twitter- the more the merrier!

This is my shot at a guest column for Metal Inquisition and it’s gonna be about hardcore bands that “went metal” in the 80’s and early 90’s, and, well, how that was totally fuckin awesome! Now right now, people who were hardcore fans in the 80’s, their heads are exploding, because what I just said is the equivalent of a teenager today telling me, a 30 year old, that it must have been awesome to be around in the 90’s to see the emergence of Slipknot and Sevendust. I’d say, “no, I went to Tattoo the Earth Tour and it sucked” and we would just not see eye to eye. Well I don’t connect well with older hardcore fans, record collectors, and so forth. I see them as the No Fun Club. Like, if my favorite Cro-Mags album is the wrong one, forget it, I’m not even worth talking to. No accounting for personal taste with these hardcore puritans, there are good albums and bad albums and, a consensus has been reached on the matter, and I should shut up.

School of Violence, Junkyard, and Broken Bones?! It's like a who's-who of forgettable crap all in one image!

The records I’m going to mention today, by Warzone, Token Entry, and DYS, are universally hated despite musical innovation and adventurous lyrics. What the fuck? I’ll get into this right now. I’m pretty positive most Metal Inquisition readers have a general awareness of hardcore music, but I should clarify that records I’m talking about don’t sound like the metalcore bands that were all spawned by At The Gates’ Slaughter of the Soul. In fact death metal is not really a factor. Think crossover, cheese metal, funk metal, thrash.


Here is a photo of my room around 2000. I was heavily involved in some hardcore archeology at the time, digging up albums from ten years earlier. Note all the tapes. Guess what? They were cheaper than Cds. And what tapes was I finding the most in used bins? The “sellout” metal albums by punk and hardcore bands that nobody wanted. Now you are getting an idea about why I know so much about this shit.

Warzone - Self-titled
Warzone was a NYHC band, had a killer 7 inch and two great, well-produced full lengths, and then the 1989 S/T album dropped, ruining everything in a lot of people’s eyes. When I was first listening to Warzone in the mid-90’s (they were reunited and playing often) I did not even know that the album existed. I found it hard to believe, when told by friends, that some “awful” Warzone record was out there with bullet holes on the cover. I searched for years. Nothing. Finally in the early 00’s I met a friend who had received the record as a birthday present. A gag gift of course. Amazingly his copy was a promo sent to a radio station and contained a press release for Caroline Records that was, I admit, rather funny, describing their logo as “the iron cross of unity.” My heart sank when I saw that the program director of the station had written on the release, in pen, “despite their best intentions, this is a lame band.”

Almost as awesome as the old Lion's Den picture where they're on the train tracks

The record rocks, good luck finding it on mediafire. Sure it has a thin sound, the guitars sound like a series of samples for a RUN DMC record all strung together, but this whole record moves at a mid-tempo groove that will fuck you up.


Token Entry - "The Weight of the World"
On to Token Entry, a melodic straight edge band from the late 80’s who dropped Weight of the World in 1990, a kind of hard rock funk metal record that is near and dear to my heart. Here are the words of AMG “The vocalist looks ready for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the guitarist is black, the bass player was kidnapped from a hairy metal band, and the drummer looks like seventy percent of the male actors in Los Angeles.” Too much for most hardcore fans I’m sure. A photo of a band not looking right on the back of the record is enough for most fans to dismiss the album as “sellout” before putting it on the turntable. It’s like, if the record’s cover is in full color, it’s a deal-breaker. Oh well, their loss, this release is real fun and was recently re-issued.

DYS - Self-titled
Last and the best. DYS, self-titled LP. Fuck man, it kills me to see people on Amazon.com saying the discography CD is good only if you program your CD player to play the tracks from Brotherhood alone. 1984, this record is not influenced by thrash, it’s really just longer hardcore songs, with some higher-pitched vocal. In the words of the guitar player, "the most technically proficient and cleanest sounding record in the history of Hardcore." This shit is all muscle, so look out. Lyrics?

A demon trapped within all men
Has won the battle here
And those who set the demon free
Now have cause to fear
Gone the days of loneliness
Trapped within his brain
He steps forth into darkness
And remembers all the pain

Damn, you should listen to that stuff when working out.

Conclusion
Again, I’ll tell you all, I wasn’t there when all these records dropped, but I’ve been listening to this kind of shit for years and have got pretty much 100% negative feedback from people learning about my musical tastes. I dig Mucky Pup, and M.O.D., two bands recently dismissed here at Metal Inquisition. I don’t know why I got to go against the grain. A few years ago I saw a review in the thrash zine HeartattaCK lamenting that the cover of a new 7” featured cover art in the style of the Suicidal Tendencies Join the Army record cover. “I hope that this style of art does not come back,” said the reviewer. I wondered, “what the fuck kind of crappy album covers does this person like? Blurry photos with typewriter font lower-case text?” That is the antithesis of cool. Crossover rules.

Life of Agony has the method of groove to grab your attention

There are few bands I listen to more often than Life of Agony. They've been there through thick and thin, like an old baseball glove or a girl who you call to fuck and borrow money from every time you're single. With that in mind, it's high time Metal Inquisition sings their praises, album by album!
River Runs Red
Theme: "I wanna mosh."

When I wrote that theme, I sang it like Twisted Sister's "I Wanna Rock" and thought of how great many 80s songs about dancing would be if you changed them to being about moshing: "All She Wants To Do Is Mosh," "My Girl Wants to Mosh All The Time," and so forth.

Anyway, I like to think of this album as the gay version of Carnivore. It has brutal mosh parts, but also lots of "wah wah, I hate my daddy" parts. I used to hate this album because of the unusual vocals. I just wanted to hear Bulldoze and Dmize, but now that I am an old, lonely man full of little else but despair, hopelessness, and shattered dreams, the vocals sound pretty good to me.

Unwilling to change for society, Keith is gonna be who he wants to be! He is the underground, the underground- yeah!

The songs seem to be broadly divided into two sets: songs about how they will mosh all over you if you step to them and their crew, and songs about crying. On the mosh tip you have tracks like "Method of Groove" in which they make sure you know that their method of groove will grab your attention. Then there is "Respect," which informs the audience that someone or another has a thing to learn about respect. I am not sure who it is supposed to be targeted at, I like to think that it's about a jerky cop who kicked me out of the Safeway parking lot in 1995 when all I wanted to do was skate with my bros. He definitely has a thing or two to learn about respect!!

There is also plenty of crying. For example, "Bad Seed," in which Keith passive-aggressively suggests that he is going to kill himself:

So please don't keep on asking
If there's something wrong
'Cause you know damn well if I was fine
I would've never ever written this song

It reminds me of this Scott Baio movie from the 80s called "The Truth About Alex" where he finds out his best friend is gay and is going to kill himself. He tells his little brother melodramatically, "You can have all my records... I won't need them where I'm going!" Then he drives his Camaro off a cliff. I feel like Keith Caputo is also crying out for attention in songs like "Bad Seed" and "My Eyes." I like feeling sorry for myself too, though, so I'm cool with that.

Ugly
Theme: "I wanna cry."

On this album, Keith abandons the songs about moshing and talks a lot about how he misses his mommy. I don't get along all that well with my mom, but I am a sensitive pussy, so this is my favorite LOA album. Every time I get my heart broken by some 23 year-old hipster girl (usually two or three times a month), I put this album on, curl up into a ball and hold myself while I rock back and forth in the corner and cry myself to sleep.

Buru Buru Dog and Keith Caputo both like to sit in the corner and quiver while they cry

I also like to put on "I Regret" and "Lost At 22" when I look back on my life. I wish that I could say that it has been one spectacularly disappointing choice after the next, but I'm such a loser that my failures aren't even spectacular. I'm not even interesting enough to be a trainwreck, I'm just slowing puttering down the road to fizzling out. Eventually I will just sigh deeply and crumple into dust as my soul escapes through my mouth... probably around the age of 34. When I think about this, I put on "I Regret" and fill page after page of my diary by scrawling "SHED MY SKIN AND START AGAIN!!!" over and over. It's what Keith would want me to do, I think.

My favorite LOA song, though, is "Coffee Break." Just like Keith says in the chorus, "No one understands me." In fact I am sure I am going to die alone because of this. All I want to do is listen to BrokeNCYDE, watch Bridget Jones and snuggle with a nice girl, but I am more convinced it will never happen every time I listen to this song. Keith is the only one who really gets me, I think.

Soul Searching Sun
Theme: "I wanna rock... while I cry."

On this album, LOA decided that they wanted to be a rock band. Basically this record sounds like Creed, which is cool with me because I like Creed, although it does represent quite a change from the old days in which they sang the praises of moshers who were unwilling to change for society. I half expect him to ask the audience if they can take him higher.

An incredibly pussed-out version of "Let's Pretend" in which Keith wears a windbreaker with the hood up the entire time

For example, "Angry Tree" reminds me of that one Belly song about the tree or whatever. It's hella 90s, I don't remember the name but I liked it a lot. The singer was hot as I recall, although if I went back and watched it now, I would probably vomit because she's probably wearing Doc Martens or something, not to mention what must be a giant bush lurking beneath her striped tights. And odds are their is someone with a Dr. Seuss novelty hat in the video somewhere. Mucky Pup proved that much. Writing songs about trees is definitely a relic of the 90s.

Nuclear Death was much better at writing metal songs about trees. For example, "The Corpse Tree" from their 1992 7" "For Our Dead"

Keith wants you to think that he is done being a crybaby on this album, but I beg to differ. For example, in "Hope" he says "This song is meant to uplift you, not to tear you apart." Really Keith?? I don't believe you! I think you want to bum us out so we will listen to you play acoustic Bob Marley covers!! (In case you haven't heard it, LOA actually did an acoustic cover of "Redemption Song") You're not fooling me! Not cool bro, save that sensitive shit for Cyco Miko.

Conclusion
Life of Agony has a song for every mood and every time of your life! Lifting weights, tending to a broken heart, crushing despair, whatever- Keith and Joey Z have you covered! By the way, is Joey Z related to Johnny Z from Megaforce?? I hope not, because I feel like Joey Z would never have signed Overkill. Anyway, don't be an "I only like the demo" guy and tell me that "River Runs Red" is the only good album, because they all jam for their own reasons!

Metal Archeology: Artifacts from a lifetime devoted to metal (Part 4)

Archeologists from UNC Chapel Hill uncover my oversized copy of Convicted. Thanks, dudes! I've been looking for that!

Yeah, I know it was my brother Lucho who started the Archeology posts (part1, part2, part3), but to be fair, most of the digs were done in OUR mom's basement, so in a way, they are my posts, too. Anyway, last time I was there I dug through old Metal Hammer magazines and Blue Grape backpatches to find a small box of tapes. Let me share some of my finds...



Ordered off some local rag in the late 80's in Toledo, Ohio, this was the very first demo tape we ever owned. Undertaker were a terrible thrashy band with horrible production, a terrible cover and a song called "Sesame Street Mosh". What a treasure!



I've talked about Impetigo a lot on past posts. They are still one of my top 10 favorite bands of all times. I was SO amped when I got this in the mail from Mark! He told me he took the tape to practice specially to get it signed for me. I'm not sure if that was true or not, but I was the KING of the metal scene that day and this tape was my crown. A really lame, lame crown.



This find goes back to the 80's. I hope you find this as funny as I do. Back in the day, in South America, it was hard to get original tapes, so dubbed tapes were the norm. This guy in my class, Eduardo, went to Miami for the summer and brought back a bunch of metal tapes. Of course, I dubbed them all, walked to a near by pharmacy and photocopied all the covers. One of the tapes he brought back the summer of 1988 was Maiden's "Seventh Son." Not sure why I felt the need to use color pencils and a black ball-point in a sad attempt at make the cover look "real", but I'm glad I did. I was 13, what an idiot!



There's plenty more junk where these came from, so stay tuned and watch out for the next "Metal Archeology: Artifacts from a lifetime devoted to metal" post!

Metal Archeology: Artifacts of a lifetime devoted to metal (Part 1)

Just as archeology draws upon the fields of history, anthropology, linguistics and paleontology, metal archeology draws from other sources...mostly old Wild Rags catalogs. How else can you perform accurate carbon dating on my Gammacide 12"?

Just as archeologists carefully dig through piles of rubble in search of artifacts that can give us further information about previous societies, I too have chosen to dig through my own personal rubble in search of answers and artifacts. After what has been nearly a lifelong commitment to metal (in one way or another), I have accumulated assorted artifacts which bring back memories of the past. I have discussed my homemade Morbid Angel shirt, my autographed Obituary drumsticks, my guitar pick collection and other items from my past in previous posts. I shall now continue in that direction, aiming to dig deep into my past (a sometimes embarrassing past) in order to make sense of just who I was at the time. Part archeology dig, part psychotherapy session, I hope this series of ongoing posts will prove to be both insightful and therapeutic to our devoted readers. I shall call this new science: Metal Archeology. Let's get started.


The autographed Impetigo Picture

What an insanely fashionable bunch. "Violate caskets"? Uh...okay.
Notice Stevo's variation on the "holding a grapefuit" pose...apparently the grapefruit he's holding is super heavy.

While at my brother's home only weeks ago I saw a small pile of metal rubble which, to a metal archeologist like me, seemed like an unmistakable sign that amazing finds could lay within its depths. I asked permission to go through the pile, and was quickly rewarded with the item you see above, a picture of Impetigo signed by Mark, and dedicated to my brother. As quickly as I found the picture, the memories began pouring in.

It was a very different time back then. The early 90s (for those of us involved in underground metal culture) was a time largely spent "doing mail", as we called it then. At the risk of sounding like a grandpa, there was no email then, or inexpensive ways to call long distance. As a result of this, all communication was done via mail, and if you were involved in a band, distro, zine or booking shows, you ended up doing significant amounts of mail. In the early 90s, it was primarily my brother who would spend entire Saturdays "doing mail." I did my fair amount of writing, mostly trading death metal videos with other weirdos like Pat from Hellwitch. Doing mail on Saturday, meant going through the envelopes and packages that had arrived all week, and fulfilling orders, answering letters and the like. Out of the suburban basement that we shared at our parents house, we ran what I guess you could call a label, and a distro, as well as a video 'zine, a band, and several awful side projects. We also began to book shows at some point, and did a weekly radio for nearly a decade. These were mostly my brother's projects, in which I played a secondary role. All these projects combined meant a substantial amount of mail was constantly pouring in, filled with all kinds of demos for trade, free shirts, and the occasional box of free CD's and 7" records from Wild Rags (as a result of me being in what today would be referred to as their street team.)

I would often find myself on Saturdays dubbing hours and hours worth of concert footage in order to trade a video with some dude in Ecuador, or Greece. My video list was extensive, and had a few choice pieces that were consistently requested by all kinds of people who sent me their video lists on an almost weekly basis.

When people say that a certain musical scene felt more tightly knit at an earlier time, I usually cringe...but in retrospect it may have been true. We didn't know any of the people we wrote to, so perhaps "tight" is not the right way to put it, but the sheer amount of time and effort that you had to invest into any project always ended up consuming a substantial amount of your days. In case you're wondering, all of our efforts (however awful they were) mostly revolved around the underground death metal and the noise/grindcore scenes of the day. Few, if any, of these bands had any vinyl out, and certainly no CDs. The only acceptable format was cassette. In the case of noise bands, all the official releases were dubbed onto TDK 60 minute tapes, along with cheap, photocopied covers.

See, like any real metal fans back then, we concentrated our efforts primarily around unsigned bands whose demos we would get in the mail. Along with the demos, flier trading was common and popular. As such, we would often send individuals as many as a hundred fliers for our radio show, which they would then send out in each package and letter they sent out to other people all over the world. It was this way that bands from Turkey and Sweden would end up sending us their records and tapes so they could be played in a station they would never hear. If anyone was heavily into trading back then, you'll probably remember that the band Phantasm easily had the most fliers in circulation. Those guys must have all worked at Kinkos or something.

It was in this climate that my brother and I would often befriend (if only by mail) members of bands that we loved, such as Impetigo. I'm not sure how the correspondence with Impetigo began, perhaps my brother can clarify, but I'm sure it was something like us buying their VHS video through the mail, or them sending us music to be played on the radio show. Either way, Mark from Impetigo's letters and packages became a fixture in our mailbox. I distinctly remember him being the first person I knew who asked for his stamps back whenever you wrote him. At first, I didn't understand why he would want his stamps back, but quickly realized that he was coating them with a thin film of Elmer's glue or soap, making the ink of the post office's rubber stamp come off with water, thus making them usable once again. My brother and I quickly adapted the trick ourselves, making our budget for stamps and postage suddenly become much lower. As a result of this latest trick, our small basement bathroom sink was usually filled with water, in which stamps were left to soak in order to be reused. I distinctly remember our hand towel (which hung under our Order From Chaos poster) being used for endless rows of stamps that were left to dry by the sink.

It was in one of these exchanges of mail with Mark from Impetigo that he sent the picture to my brother.

The picture hung above my brother's desk for many years, the desk where he would sit for hours on Saturday mornings and afternoons to "do mail."

Prong: Not as good as I remembered

I was a big Prong fan back in the day. I loved their massive riffs, tight drumming, and clever song titles. Problem is, I lost all their records years ago, but thanks to the wonders of Rapidshit, I downloaded all of them the other day in an hour or two. With baited breath, clammy palms, and legs all atremble, I cued them up one after the other. "Wow," I thought, "this band is kind of shitty. What a bummer." Here are my thoughts in more detail:

Primitive Origins & Force Fed
I never liked early Prong. While popular with the "I only like the demo" crowd, these two records are pretty boring crossover/thrash. Nothing to see here, move along.
1/5 bloody axes


Beg To Differ
This is where things get interesting in that it's where Prong broke away from the crossover formula and started to do their own thing. The problem is that their only thing wasn't very good. I remembered this record as being full of super awesome, brutal thrash riffs, pounding drums, and dynamic, syncopated rhythms... but playing it again, it's pretty much limp, dull songs that just go on and on and on. There are some interesting moments where they kind of do an industrial Voivod sort of thing ("Lost And Found"), and there are definitely some crucial riffs here and there (chorus of "Beg To Differ"). Overall, though, it's just not worth wading through the boring parts to get at the good stuff. "Reign In Blood" suffers from the same problem. As someone noted in the comments, it's "Angel of Death," a bunch of filler, then "Raining Blood." But those two songs are so fucking awesome it kind of makes the filler worth it, unlike "Beg To Differ." It does have a sweet cover, though.
2/5 bloody axes


Prove You Wrong
Problem #1: using a gay photograph for the cover instead of Pushead artwork. Never a good sign. There isn't a whole lot to say about this album other than that it's more of the same. Long, fairly dull songs with a few good parts here and there. I think I saw them around this time with Pantera and Trouble, they were pretty much at the height of their popularity as I recall. You could definitely buy a XL Prong hockey jersey from the Blue Grape ads in the back of Metal Maniacs and Thrasher for $65. I am not sure how many they actually sold, but one can only hope (for the sake of humanity) that the answer is zero.
2/5 bloody axes


Cleansing
This is where Prong started to be really, really awful. First of all, most of the songs on here are over 4:00 long. Maybe it's because I had been listening to bands like Capitalist Casualties and No Comment for a few years at this point, but four minutes seems like a goddamn eternity to me. One of the songs is 6:11! Excessively long songs are one of the surest signs that a band has fallen in love with itself and has completely jumped the shark, and this is no exception. The other, far more cringeworthy thing about Cleansing is that it has some "witty" song titles that are the definition of facepalm-inducing: "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck" and "Whose Fist Is This Anyway?" The first one is just stupid, and you can imagine it as the soundtrack for countless UFC highlight reels until the end of time. It doesn't really make any sense, it's just generally stupid and aggressive like the a-holes with undercuts and Doc Martins that were everywhere at commercial metal shows in the 90s. The second is just as meaningless but orders of magnitude dumber because it is a reference to the incredibly annoying improv show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" that my friend's gay brother used to watch all the time in 7th grade. I am aware that Tommy Victor isn't really Mensa material, but this song is one part douchey and 1 millions parts retarded in a way that I hadn't previously been able to conceive of (kind of like Crazytown only without being awesome). I can just imagine him sitting in his Lower East Side flophouse in 1992, watching Comedy Central and being like "Dude, 'Whose Fist Is This Anyway?'! That shit is fucking badass, dude- the guys are going to flip out when I drop this shit on them at practice tomorrow. I better bring a VHS of the show, though, just in case they don't have cable. Plus that fat guy with glasses had some clever lines in this episode that I think they'll really enjoy... Where does he come up with all this material?!" I can't go on anymore, this is making my blood boil.

0/5 bloody axes

Rude Awakening
OK, so they definitely got a little better on this record. There are several good choruses and hooks, although much of this album was crappy groove metal, as was the fashion at the time. That said, it does have their best song on it, "Proud Division," which is a legitimately sweet piece of pure power groove that would make Phil Anselmo himself weak in the knees. It even has the kind of vaguely racist lyrics that bands like Pantera and Carnivore pioneered (OK, Carnivore's lyrics were pretty much explicitly racist... but nobody knew if it was sincere or just to piss people off). Other than that, there are many, many unfortunate and awful moments on this record, especially when he either whispers or raps the lyrics. Look, I get it: you're from New York, you're down with "urban culture." You don't have to prove it by rapping over your tired thrash riffs. Seriously, I believe you. Please put down the guitar.
3/5 bloody axes (just for "Proud Division")


Rise of The Scorpio
So Prong broke up for a long time, Tommy Victor played guitar in Danzig and wore mesh half-shirts on stage. Then they got back together in 2003 and recorded a new album. You think I listened to this?? Are you crazy? Just look at the horrible cover, it looks like something out of a community college graphic design course. Apparently they have an even newer record, but I didn't want to waste electrons Googling for information about it.
-1 zillion / 5 bloody axes