Friends

The more the fairyer. Line up to blow me.

I recently achieved my first 1,000 likes on the Facebook page. I enjoyed some minor feelings of accomplishment and success, only to immediately have them overwhelmed with major feelings of disdain and disgust. This is heavy metal elitism. How many of you actually deserve to be here? I know for a fact that there are a solid number of false, open-minded poseurs stinking up that list of people with long hair they only had to grow, and t-shirts they only had to buy. What you shriveled little dicksnots know about true metal I could write on the back of my hand. You listen to Testament, but you know not why. You respect the devil, but you fail to honor him. You headbang and mosh at shows, but only because you think it's fun. I'll have you know that moshing is serious business. If you want to smile, take it to Warped Tour. So how many poseurs do I think are sneaking around in that true metal army of 1,000 strong? I know for a fact that it's at this point at least 999. Where did I come up with such a figure? Simple. Everyone must be a poseur except for me. Or maybe you're not? We'll see about that. The only reason my Facebook page likes have reached such a level, is because I'm making this way too easy for you pusscakes.

It's time to turn up the difficulty level on you grabasses and seriously weed out the wimps. You're no longer allowed to have friends, because you and I both know they are less metal than you or I, and will only encourage false metal behavior.

Several days ago, I was lurking on Facebook, so I could scope out regrettable drunken photographs of some skanky broads that would never talk to me. Then, I notice on the side-panel a notification that it was the birthday of some cross-eyed, weird faced dude I vaguely recall from my college years. He had 21 friends at the time. Yeah, on Facebook. Hahaha! What a douche. I immediately turned that number to 20 hard as I could. For your birthday, I got you more loneliness. Happy birthday.

Don't worry, the animosity will help to make him metal. Or just suicidal...

Once I unfriended his lame ass, I figured I should go through the several hundred people in my Facebook friends and see who was really worth keeping. This chick dyed her hair green. Goodbye. This guy bought "The Sound of Perseverance" remastered. Sayonara, scumbag. Once I started, I couldn't stop. None of these cretins could even hold a candle to my true metal standard. By the time I was finished, I deleted my personal Facebook account, and proceeded to hurl my laptop into traffic. After realizing I needed it to update the blog, I ran back onto the freeway and retrieved it. My LCD screen is now pulverized beyond use, but I don't need it, because I'm just assuming you peons are going to bitch and moan after I'm done writing this per your usual sprinkling of fairy dust. Grow a sack and shut up.


So seriously consider this for a moment. Think about your absolute, very best buds in the whole world. Why do you hang out with them? Is it because they're fun to be around, they're kind, generous, caring and because they will always have your back, through thick and thin, no matter what? Doubtful. They might tell you something to this effect, or their actions may lead you to believe such, but if you really had a tough time when you needed them most, I guarantee your "friends" would bail on you in a heartbeat. This is a dog eat dog world, and it's every man for himself. I got on the horn with my very absolute best pal, Tyranneous and put his true metal kinship to the test:

Brenocide: Hey Ty, I crashed my car because the Accept track I was listening to was too brutal not to. You understand right?
Tyranneous: Yeah, I guess.
Brenocide: Awesome! So I'm going to have to borrow your car for the rest of the summer, maybe year.
Tyranneous: Gee Bren, I don't think...
Brenocide: Fucking Judas. *hang up*


Keep in mind here that Tyranneous has to keep writing for my page. I just know better than to like him anymore.

Perhaps you have good chums that you share not much more than a common love for metal with. Lord knows you can build things far more powerful than friendship based solely on the true heavy metal genre; like HATE. As the purest of elitists in nature, I hate every other metal fan I come across. They just do it all wrong, and pass it off like it's okay. Upon meeting a fellow "metalhead" I proceed to size up his brutality with a quick interview about what he listens to, and who he's seen live recently and enjoyed. Something shitty always always slips in through the cracks, and I'm left to continue my journey searching for the man just as metal as I.

It says on your resume you've attended six Children of Bodom tours yet only saw Slayer once. 
Mind explaining?

Brenocide: So that's what I listen to, how about you?
Twinkle-toed poseur queef: *Wipes the tears from his face after being intimidated by such a true metal playlist* Well um, I um, like listening to, uh Dragonforce...
Brenocide: What's your highest score in Guitar Hero?
TTPQ: Oh! I one time got over...
Brenocide: Just kidding, don't give a shit. Kill yourself.

Upon failing the interview, you are met with the legendary, elite heavy metal technique, passed down for generations, and originating from the Guardians of Asgard, known throughout the lands as the "Crossed Arms of Disapproval". Many a sub-standard opening act has been met with the fabled crossed arms, and if a metalhead does it to you during conversation, it means that you wreak of poseur. To be on the receiving end of a metalhead's crossed arms is the greatest shame this side of the universe. You never want to be there.

Artistic rendition of the "Crossed Arms of Disapproval". 

If however, the guy has nothing but great bands to mention, or gives you some half-assed answer about how he listens to all kinds of metal, don't be afraid to keep pressing him. You'll reveal him as a poseur soon enough. It's merely a matter of time. A great strategy would be to have him name just 10-15 bands off the top of his head, of all different genres. Play it off like you just want some new music to listen to, and "really want his suggestions". You're his "friend", remember? He should be happy to help. Before you know it, he name drops "Dimmu Borgir", and you got the bastard dead to rights.

Although you must never establish a personal connection with one of these wannabes, they do serve their own purpose as potential companions. Think of a group of hot women at a bar or in the mall. Is it just me, or do they always like to bring along their fat, disgusting troll of a "friend"? You and I both know those broads only brought that behemoth along to amplify just how sexy they look in comparison to the she-beast. Similarly, when you as a metalhead allow poseurs to accompany you, it shows everybody how much more truly metal you are than them in comparison. I find it puts a lot of emphasis on how metal you are when everybody around you is not so metal. I do it all the time. (Then again, I don't have much choice.)

The more pals you have, the more you increase your chances that one of them will listen to In Flames.

Despite the concept of keeping people around to prove how much more metal you are, I can't stress enough how superior of an option it is just to stand alone. (You will seize the day...) To prove how much better a time somebody could have without having anyone else to experience it with, I spent an entire day doing things by myself where I would usually have company along with me ruining the experience.

1. Going to the movies. 
Usually when you go to the movies with your guy friends, there's always this sort of awkward situation when it comes to sitting together. Especially when the theater isn't crowded. If you sit one or two chairs away from your friends, they might be insulted, or get the impression you think they smell bad. If you sit right next to them, you're gayer than flip-flops. There's really no winning in this situation. If you're going in the movie by yourself, you can avoid that seating standoff altogether. As an added bonus, you don't have that chuckle headed douche friend with you who won't shut the hell up about how unrealistic the guns sound, how the car shouldn't have exploded from a scientific standpoint, or how there's supposed to be no sound in space. If I wanted to hear how a real gun was supposed to sound, I would buy one and shoot you with it. Needless to say, I was happy to completely hate the movie Thor all by myself.

2. Restaurants
When you eat out by yourself, you earn the pity of your server, which in turn actually means sufficient dining service for a change. He/she continuously checks back to refill your drink, makes sure you're okay, and on some occasions, will actually sit down with you to take your order. They pay special attention to you, because you have nobody there to distract you long enough for the staff to leave you alone to tend to other guests. The only potential drawback here is that if you drink too much, you have to drive yourself home. I call this a potential drawback because I have a hard time calling anyone who can't drive better drunk than sober a "metalhead". Even after all the great service, I can leave without tipping anyway, because I have nobody who can judge me for it.

3. Metal Shows
You might as well be baby-sitting. Like I explained before, you can't surround yourself in this world with anybody but poseurs, and where poseurs fail hardest is at a metal show. They do anything and everything wrong, from bringing their beer into the crowd, to recording the event with their cell phone, to standing on the pit's rim protecting girls. As the only true metal patron, these morons are now your responsibility, and it makes you look like just as much of a jackass spending what should be an amazing night trying to corral these chuckle heads. Finally when the nightmare is over, you're left outside waiting for an hour and a half, because they had the brilliant idea to buy a t-shirt at the ass end of a show. Why put yourself through this shit? Leave the dead weight at home, make the drive out yourself, focus on the live music, the circle pits, and the oblivious babes you get to fondle in the crowd.

Alright, who's the genius that brought Baseball Hats McFalse over here?

I believe that as metalheads there are few of us and we're far in between in the world. Especially over here in the States. We're not a dying breed by any means, but I think because of our existences as outsiders and being the type to go against the grain, we have formed these ham-fisted ideologies about brotherhood and bonding with one another. In our own loneliness and need to make a connection with someone else involved in our greatest passion, we have dropped certain barriers, failed to ask the right questions, and as such accepted the wrong types of people with open arms. Let me put all this into perspective for you: the members of Shadows Fall started out as metal fans. It's true that we need to band together to face a common enemy, but I'm telling you that our greatest foes are within our midst, weakening us from the inside out. They work diligently to blur the lines between true metal and false metal, by being fans of both sides, using their metal musician skills to make false metal bands, wearing false band shirts to true shows and vice versa. 

I implore you, for the good of our genre to trust no one. Especially not me. Your most viable option as a  representative of all things true metal is to be yourself, by yourself, and stay away from me. Now I'm quoting Pantera. Calm yourself, I'm only trying to emphasize just how dangerous of a game this is we're playing here. Keep those arms crossed, that brow furrowed and that face scowled. Never drop your guard, and never allow yourself to be weakened by the less metal influences that refer to themselves as your "friends".

Friends: Still not metal.

True Metal Redemption would lie in erasing your Facebook account, but you very much still possibly need it to receive future updates from the That's Not Metal page. I also have a Twitter. Hearing about how the tards at Taco Bell stiffed me of the avocado sauce on my chicken burrito may better assist you in the fight against all things false metal. If my friends were really my friends, they would have helped me burn that place to the ground. 

Ditch your fake fairy friends and stay metal forever.

- Brenocide \,,/ 

Stop reading TNM because Elitism got too hard?

You never said goodbye...

"Responsible" Parenting

Not pictured here.

So, a month or so ago, I decided to go to the Big 4. Now, I just bought a general admission ticket (because I felt like being there for a moment in metal history, instead of sitting home doing nothing at all like most of you will inevitably decide to do), but being the super epic force of trv metal royalty that I so unquestionably am, the Trv Metal Gods bestowed upon me not one, but two VIP guest passes for free. This basically means I got to hang out in the nice VIP section with sofas and busty bartenders and cut to the front row if I felt like it.

So, Anthrax was good but not great, Megadeth played well but were kinda stiff on stage, and Slayer… Slayer actually kicked ass. I thought they were done after the first time I saw them, but they’re still reigning. Anyway, so Metallica’s about to go on in 10, and naturally my friend and I pull out our weed, lighters, pipes, etc, and get ready to watch Metallica the way they’re supposed to be watched: under the influence of a mind-altering substance. Well, we had smoked about three bowls before, out of nowhere, I feel an unnecessarily hard tap on my shoulder. I turn around to see a middle aged man in a white t-shirt and beige baseball cap, giving me the frown of disapproval and demanding that either I put away my weed or relocate to a less perfect spot. Why? Because his kids were there and he didn’t want them to know about drugs yet.

HEY YOU PUNKS! Quit exposing my kids to reality! 

Naturally, he was immediately struck down with a bolt of blazing gold by the Trv Metal Gods for such shameless insolence.

I mean, really? These people are allowed to exist? This idiot took his children with him to The Big 4 show, brought them into the VIP section where the sound waves are likely to make them go prematurely deaf, and then tries to get all uppity with me and my friend for smoking pot? Does this guy realize who he paid to see? Am I the only one that’s not too retarded to see the fractures in this guy’s shattered logic? It’s not like we were lighting up at a Jonas Brothers concert, this is the Big 4. Not just Metallica, but Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. Those bands have a world famous affinity for binge drinking, amphetamines, cocaine and more, and this insult to crack babies everywhere is giving us shit for smoking cannabis?

Um, excuse me, but I’m not the one who brought my spawn to a Slayer show. It’s not like anything I’m doing besmirches the once proud, family-friendly names of Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer or Anthrax. What could you possibly have expected when you showed up? That everyone else at the show sold out their hopes and dreams just like you, and that we’re all too afraid of what our Trace Adkins loving wives are going to say or do to take a hit?

Kill yourself.

How he could bring himself to look a 21 year old Southern California dweller in the eyes and tell them to stop smoking weed for his kids’ sake, and not only keep a straight face but speak with real conviction, is completely beyond me. This is unacceptable. Heavy Metal would not exist if it weren’t for the 420 friendly. I dare someone to try and suggest that Black Sabbath’s audience was ever primarily sober, middle aged, white picket fence married couples, and not stoners. As for your kids, I couldn’t give a half-ounce of shit if they become tweakers and rob you and your bitch wife at screwdriver-point for meth money at 4:20 AM in ten years. Nobody gives a rat’s nutsack about your children or their well being, except you. That being said, here’s an idea: if you don’t want your 9 year old children to be corrupted by the evils of the modern world, how about you don’t take them to a goddamn metal show. Slayer’s lyrical content is exclusively about Satan and Murder. Oh yeah, immortalizing Jeffrey Dahmer and glorifying all that is evil and unholy in the world, that’s all fine and dandy, but two young men smoking a natural growing cash crop so that they can get the most out of their first time seeing the most successful metal band in the world? Let’s not get TOO crazy.

WORSE THAN MURDER.

If you are metal and have children, good for you. But if you ever, EVER walk up to me and tell me to put out my weed because you don’t want your ugly progeny asking you about it, I will put you through an entire spectrum of agony you could never begin to conceive, and you will probably die, slowly, painfully, and as a disfigured ruin of your former self too hideous for anyone to love. Mark my words.

Note: I will have it be known that I completely share Slayer's enthusiasm for all that is evil and unholy, as well as any other metal band that likes to preach the ever-glorious word of Satan. I'm just a little bewildered as to how smoking herb could be considered a more serious offense by anyone.

-Xandemic

Mattasacre Dislikes Reality

One of the more common reasons I hear from Hardcore kids as to why they prefer Hardcore as a genre as opposed to Metal is that they would rather to listen to music that is “real” rather than music based on “a bunch of fairies and dragon slaying and stuff LOL.” I guess the fact that these people would rather deal with reality than fantasy explains why they enjoy such dull and monotonous music.

Ever heard the saying reality bites? There is a reason why that is. It’s because day to day existence is a tortuous cavalcade of crap and boredom, and if you're not bored out of you're skull, you're under constant pressure to please some suited asshat in a place you don't even like, working to become something you never wanted to be in the first place. I’m not sure about any of you, but the reason why I love Heavy Metal so much is that it helps me forget about the cavernous cesspit that is life. At its very worst, it at least gives me a vent for all my frustration so I don’t wind up on top of that clock tower again...

People that only want “real” stuff in their music are the kind of people who sit up till 2AM in the morning watching CNN and bore all their workmates to death trying to incited heated discussions about tax file number legislation. In other words, they are simply tedious company. I personally don’t watch the news. You want to know why? Because it’s always the same.

Seriously, if someone was cryogenically frozen in 1991 and thawed out tomorrow, I can imagine what their first conversation would be like:

FrozenDude: “Oh, wow I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. I can’t imagine how the world has changed in that time. Tell me doctor, how did the Gulf War end? Is there peace in the Middle East now?

DoctorDude: “Nah, shit’s still going down.”

FrozenDude: “Oh, ok... well, what about the economy? Surely the standard of living has improved and people earn more?”

DoctorDude: “Not really, everyone’s still scared of inflation and debt is at record highs.”

FrozenDude: “Well, what has changed in the twenty years I’ve been frozen?”

DoctorDude: “Hey, check out this video, it’s called Nyan Cat! Isn’t it funny?”

FrozenDude: “Yeah, you can just go ahead and put me back in the freezer now...”

I suppose keeping up with the news and ingesting every piece of bland, yawn inducing, buzz killing literature like it was God’s sweat, helps make these Hardcoredians feels superior. However, for all that book lernin’, it’s rather odd that most Hardcore bands can’t come up with a message any deeper than “I am angry at you...Grrrrrr.”

Let’s try a little visual association. I’m going to show you two images that could typically sum up Fantasy and Reality and let you decide for yourself which situation is more metal.

I hope this line hurries up, I have racquetball practice in an hour

FOR GLORY!

If you agree with me, then there seems to be only one available course of action to regain your Metal pride. You need to drop everything you’re doing right now, and go out into the wilderness and swing a sword around.

If you disagree with me, please comment below. I’d love to hear about how metal your day to day reality is, and seeing as this is the internet, I’m obviously going to believe everything you say 100%.

Mattasacre

P.S. I won’t making any submissions for a little while (at the rate at which I write, most of you won’t even notice anyway) as I need to take some time to sort some shit in my life out. Most definitely not metal.

Judas Priest with James Durbin

I went to my parents' house last night after an evening of metal. As usual during the middle of the week, they were watching American Idol. Having watched the entire season, they were eagerly awaiting to discover this year's winner and next year's do nothing, be nothing.

Some 16-year-old country singer Scotty something (it doesn't really matter because he, like 90% of the winners, will be forgotten like last night's quickie with a lonely fat chick) took home the grand prize: American Idol winner, privy to an (un)exclusive recording contract. He hugged everyone in the building except Jack Black, which gave my father reason to inform me that the aforementioned Black performed a duet with some ginger named Casey (I don't care if I spelled his name right) earlier in the programming and due to the wonders of Digital Video Recording, he promptly re-started and commenced to fast forward to show me the performance that I really didn't care about.


Then I saw this:

This cannot be unseen. I really don't have anything else to say. Seriously. Why does Halford need to perform a duet with cast-off season 10 Idol contestant and (I use this next quote loosely) "metal" personality, James Durbin? Does Priest really need to remain relevant to a younger audience roughly one month before their final World Tour? This is probably the type of "extravaganza" one might expect at an upcoming show.

Awful Metal Video: Singing in the Rain Edition

If theres' one thing that metalcore bands have in common, it's... n-no... well alright... their chuggy riffs and At the Gates melodies too. Right, and the scream the verse, croon the chorus bullshit. Yeah okay, and the tight pants, girly hairdos. Dude, shut up! That's wicked homophobic, I'm not saying that. Look, will you let me finish? What I wanted to say was that all metalcore bands love performing music videos in the rain. More accurately, all metalcore music video directors have a savage, fully-engorged purple hard on for rain machines, slow motion effects, and blue video filters. Feeling blue? I make it rain here on TNM. Prepare to get good and wet scenester kids. On today's edition of Awful Metal Video we're singing in the rain!

UMBRELLAS ARE FOR POSEURS: 

We kick off our puddle-splashing fun with an appropriate "let's go!", screamed like the little girl that Bullet for My Valentine frontman, Matthew Tuck is. Or maybe that's Michael Paget? I can't really tell the difference. They're both short, wiry, pasty and look like 14 year-old Juggalettes. This is baggy cargo shorts metal at its very best. So anyway, BFMV are in full form here with a pristine example of a rain video. It's blue, and everything is wet. The best part about rain videos is that the band and all of their favorite musical gear gets absolutely drenched. I had a conversation once with a former guitar luthier about how you should always keep your guitar in its case to avoid damage from humidity and the like. I wonder how bad a music video like this would make that guy start weeping? I mean, we gotta have a warped neck in here somewhere. I'm not even going to start talking about the electronics and amplifiers. I mean, amplifiers? Are those really necessary?  Do we have to destroy those just so we can have them sitting there in the background while the band lip syncs? What I can guarantee is that all the camera equipment is covered and safe. It's like one artform screwing another. Anyway, like all of my favorite music videos, this one has a plot. I can't really tell why this chick is so incredibly DTF. Maybe she just read my blog? I have that effect on women. You're welcome, fellas. 

He's not so down though, despite the fact that's she's pretty smoking for a stock model. He drives off and just leaves her there in the middle of the video. This music video teaches us a valuable lesson about relationship: Ladies, when a man acts like he needs a break from your needy obnoxiousness, it's an obvious sign that he is definitely cheating on you with some blonde slag. Set him on fire just in case. Speaking of which, at the end of the video when the crazy black-haired broad fools them with that gasoline trick, we all know that even if she dumped out the whole tank and filled it with a hose, there would be enough gas mixed in with the water to light the place the hell up anyway. Funny joke. But say there was no gasoline. I'm pretty sure water and gasoline smell a little different right? On a final note; where are all the super horny metal skanks when I'm driving my truck?

Do I ever feel like drowning? Not even a little bit. Have you ever got caught under a pool float you smug asshole? It sucks. Put your artsy emo crap aside and lets get serious here. I hate the idea of drowning so much that I wouldn't even jump into a pool with a curtain so you can slow-motion capture it for an Asking Alexandria music video. By the way, this entire music video is a chick jumping into a pool with a curtain. Save for rainy performance shots, that's it. Oh, and at the end, vocalist Danny Warsnop jumps in after her to save her when she's in really no apparent danger whatsoever. Probably because he's had one too many Mike's Hards again.

Wait for it. Waaaiiit for it... Wait... Okay, no here it comes... okay no... not yet. For the love of... Look, the name of the video is Storm to Pass. Look at those clouds. This shit has to go down eventually, and by shit I mean rain. This is like the biggest cocktease of a rain video ever. Even those kinky mistresses who are into denial play are gonna let you blow your top eventually, (on their command of course). That's what makes the final product so much better, right? Right? Don't look at me like you don't know exactly what I'm talking about. Anyway, what makes everything worse is that I have to look at these mongrels in Atreyu before they bring on the rain machine. Japanese headbands, curly mustaches, fedora for fat head over there, and I don't know why, but vocalist Alex Varkatzas has the face of a 43-year-old dad with the haircut of a high school freshman. After an exhausting 3 minutes and 10 seconds, I finally confirm this is another rain video, and get to share it all here with you. That's really all I have to say about it. The things I do for you people.

We'll wrap up this edition of Awful Metal Video with the music video for "Confined" by grammy-nominated Timmy and the Christcore Club. Keep replaying the 29th second of the video over and over if you want to enjoy the only part really worth watching. The whole point of this song and video is that there is no point in anything  (except loving God I guess...) and you should never bother doing anything because it's meaningless. Why draw chalk drawings on the parking lot? What's the point? It's just gonna rain and be washed away anyway. Our existences are pitiful and our chalk drawings are futile. 

Next time on Awful Metal Video, we interview Alexi Laiho about his favorite abandoned warehouse to play in.


TRUE METAL REDEMPTION EDIT:

New Trivium Music Worse than Old Trivium Music. I know right?

I hate the Florida metalcore band Trivium like it's my job. It kind of is my job, but that's not really the point. They are 16-year-old girl wearing a hoodie metal to a tee. One thing I'll admit though, is that I never had anything against the band member's musical prowess. Matt Heafy knows how to play a guitar, has always had his own unique-ish style of playing, and it always sort of depressed me that he used his powers for evil, or in this case, using his respectable metal chops to play butt rock music, instead of something that any of us could admit enjoying. 

So we know that Trivium had been working hard, (or whatever you call it) on their latest album in the studio, and it's at this point that I'd like to make a confession. When I take into consideration bands like Trivium, Bullet for My Valentine, Avenged Sevenfold, Killswitch Engage, Newtallica, and the like, I fully recognize their abilities as hard rock musicians, misled they may be, and for a reason I can't explain, I always hold out this tiny speck of hope that they might figure out what heavy metal is supposed to sound like and release an album that doesn't suck complete fart clouds musically. Alas, that never really happens, and with each album they release, that speck of hope gets a lot less brighter.

The Jeep Wrangler drivers called. They want their haircut back.

The members of Trivium just dropped a squat and shat all over what little ray of hope they ever could have had here in the metal community where we recognize what music is respectable. This sucks. This actually sucks worse than anything I've heard from Trivium before. There isn't a chalk board or series of chalk boards large enough to write out a proper formula that could properly define the magnitude of how much this song "In Waves" infinitely blows monkey wang. If you played riffs like this in Guitar Center people would laugh at you. The guitar solos are whammy-bar or wah pedal dependent and incredibly uninspiring. The chorus is yelling two words over and over again. At least I think that's the chorus? Is that the verse? Or is the cliche clean-crooning the chorus? I don't even...

I hate this song more the longer I listen to it. It actually sucks in waves. Disrespect this band hard, or don't bother coming back. 

Q & A IV: The True Rapture

Is it really that time again? No? Well I don't give a shit. The concept of time-keeping; days, nights, hours or weeks is all but lost on me. It was the biggest issue everyone had with me in my last job. Four hours late they said? Blow me on your knees. Brenocide is always on time for Brenocide. I don't care what time it is in your pathetic queef of a time zone you're reading this blog in, you're running on That's Not Metal time now. If it takes longer than your lunch break to finish this article, boohoo. If your boss even breathes a word of defiance against your true metal education, it is your civic duty as a true-blooded metal head to stomp his ass into mush and break that clipboard against his squirrely little face. The human body can survive days to weeks without food or water. Your kids can wait at school until tomorrow for you to go pick them up. This is your time. This is my time. This is our time. It's time for Q&A, and since the time I started writing this was 7:27 on May 21st, 2011, that means I single-handedly fended off that pussy Christian rapture everyone was puckering their little buttholes about for the last week. Suck it Lord. You can't stop the metal.  

What are your views on the Fender guitar company?
- Røbert Sjöström

You mean the corporation that bought and turned a legendary metal axe company like Jackson into a sniveling Chinese-made dicksnot of its former self? Oh we're just peachy. Fenders are kind of a mixed bag. I mean, if I look at Iron Maiden playing live, I have to check twice to see and make sure if I'm actually watching Iron Maiden performing live, or if it's just the annual get-together of the Fender Guitar Fan Club on stage.

Iron Maiden: Brought to you in part by Fender and Bengay.

Then we have everything else against Fender, like how its instruments kind of suck. When you have all these prominent big names playing Fender guitars like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Geddy Lee, Ynwie Malmsteen, and... John Mayer... you can get away with making an inferior product based off its guaranteed commercial success. Millions of weird necked middle-aged guys with dirty finger nails that smell like cheese and tobacco buy guitars like Fender and Gibson because they're the only names they know, and they were the only guitars that got played back in their heyday. Everybody is under the delusion that the American Les Paul or Stratocaster is the pinnacle of guitar sound perfection, and I fully realize this, because whenever I see some kid writing his half-assed review on his $200 Dean, the first thing he points out is how it sounds better than his dad's/uncle's/brother's Strat or Les Paul. Maybe your piece of shit cheapy guitar doesn't sound beautiful after all? Maybe all Gibsons and Fenders just sound like garbage, and get sold based on name recognition rather than sound or quality. I'll finish up this point by saying that due to the fact that Green Day and John Mayer play Fenders, it's not a guitar known for its metal anyway, so just steer clear and go for something less hip and better equipped for metal playing. Then again, Alexi Laiho plays an ESP, so I guess we just can't win. 

What's your opinion on the whole 'djent' thing?

- Jonathan Webster

How to palm-mute. Happy djent playing.

For those of you who don't know, the word "djent" is an onomatopoeia for a heavily palm-muted distorted guitar chord, and a name for this fangled new musical genre that someone came up with on their own. I guess this was considered a fitting label for "bands that sound like Meshuggah sounds." Because heavily palm-muted distorted guitar chords don't happen anywhere in heavy metal music except in djent, right? Toss my salad with bacon bits. 

The djent riff is low tuned, super muted and super chunky. It's also easier to play than my dick, repetitive as shit and used to the point of exhaustion in long, drawn out boring music. I don't consider 'djent' really a fitting onomatopoeia for the genre. A sound more fitting to describe it would be to put my cheeks in my palms and blow fart noises in short, quick bursts. To get myself a bit more familiar with the 'genre' I set out to listen to a couple of bands considered djent to provide a more well rounded opinion. I listened to Periphery and subsequently gave up. Here's a sample of flagship djent band Meshuggah with their thought provoking, progressive, mind-bending, non-repetitive musical mastery: 

I especially like the part where the guitar goes: JUNDALAJUNDALAJUNDALAJUNDALAJUNDALAJUNDALAJUNDALAJUNDALA... 

Yes, I think Meshuggah really sucks. Yes, you can blow me doing a handstand. 

What's your opinion of "metal" A Capella groups like Van Canto?

- Jane French 

You know, when I started watching this video, I thought this could be pretty awesome. Then the guy leans forward, stares intensely into the camera, brings the microphone to his lips, and starts chanting "RIDDLY DIDDLY RIDDLY DIDDLY..." Any and all coolness factor goes right down the proverbial toilet.  After I got done laughing harder than I've had in weeks, I came to the conclusion that this kind of the thing is the silliest shit ever, and there's no place for A Capella in the world of metal. We're sort of leaning towards the realm of irony when considering such a concept, and if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. There's nothing metal about being ironic.

Would you rather listen to Hip-Hop/Rap or Metalcore?

- Matt Ryan

Holy shit, Matt. Thanks for the balls. Now we're getting somewhere. Everyone's got to ask me all these soft pillow talk bitch conversational questions like "what's my opinion of this" or "do I like this or that", but not Matt. Matt brings the heat. Backing me into a corner with a hardass rhetorical question: If I had a gun in my mouth, and was given the option to either listen to a hip-hop album, listen to a metalcore album, or have my face shot off, what would I choose? Well, after strongly considering the upside to eating bullets in this situation, I would definitely choose listening to hip hop. Surprised? You shouldn't be. Metalcore is the worst music ever made, even on its best day. I'm not talking quality hip-hop either. I would rather jam with Kanye West albums all day, rather than put up with a single It Dies Today track. As close to metal as metalcore may be at times, it's not metal. It's the worst possible music anyone could listen to. Ever.

When did you first get into metal?

- Devin Udall 

I was always into metal, I just didn't know it yet. Since my very conception I have been on the neverending quest to listen to badder, bolder, more awesome, more epic music. First starting out, there was no high-speed internet. If you wanted to check your e-mail, you didn't get phone calls, and it took half an hour to download a picture. The only real outlets I had for hard rock were MTV and The Radio. Both extremely unmetal pieces of media, and as such, so was the music I thought was enjoyable. Like most little kids, I was big into pro-wrestling (WWF, WCW), but in my lust for all things more brutal and badder, I wanted a wrestling program that was as well. I got into ECW, a pay-per-view wrestling show that featured more blood, broken glass and barbed wire than the other guys. A lot of the prominent ECW wrestlers came out to heavy metal entrance music, (Rob Van Dam came out to Pantera's "Walk", Sandman came out to Metallica's "Enter Sandman".) I thought their entrance music was the baddest thing I ever heard and I needed more in anyway I could get it. So with what little strength my 28k modem could muster, I spent my adolescent years surfing the slowest web ever to look into what sort of music I was hearing on ECW, and the rest as you know, is history.

 Sort of odd looking back on it and realizing that ECW is what first introduced me to heavy metal music... 

On second thought, maybe not.

Have a question for me? Like the TNM Facebook Page and ask in the appropriate thread! \,,/

Worshiping Dimebag

Disclaimer: I am not even going to bother bringing up Damageplan, Rebel Meets Rebel or anything else Dimebag was affiliated with, because nobody cares about any of those bands. I’m also choosing to ignore Pantera’s poseur past and conveniently drastic stylistic shift because we all have moments we’re not proud of, some of us just happen to have ones that span half a decade. I don’t feel Kreator is any less metal because they happened to release Renewal when nobody cared about thrash anyway, so it would be hypocritical of me to treat Pantera any differently. Oh, and if you don’t like it you can blow me.

Let’s get one thing straight right now: Dimebag Darrell Abbott was a very good guitarist, but was he the best guitarist ever by any possible stretch of the imagination? HELL THE SHIT NO. The man wrote some killer solos, and his riffs were catchy as herpes, but anyone who claims he was better than Wintersun’s Jari Maenpaa, or Necrophagist’s Muhammad Suicmez is either a compulsive liar or completely retarded. Either way, they should kill themselves and get the hell outta my genre with such nonsensical babble.

However, mindless Dimebag hysteria aside, he was a great guy and metal as Wolverine’s adamantium-plated skeleton. Wanna know what’s not metal at all? Capitalizing on the death of a fallen guitar hero. Ever wonder why so many unwashed, ugly, earbiting retards clad in month-old wifebeaters are still obsessed with him? Because Dean Guitars and Rockabilia.com and Revolver Magazine have realized how lucrative his unnecessary martyrdom is to them, and because Phil Anselmo needs more heroin money.

Here’s some food for thought:

And by “Keepin’ On,” we mean giving us more money. Suckers.

By a show of hands, how many of you own a Dimebag memorial shirt? You’re all morons. Are you sitting down? Because I’m about to drop a bomb on your fragile little egos: Dimebag never loved you. As a matter of fact, you guys weren’t even friends. Shit, 90% of you probably had never even heard of him until he got murdered. I actually liked Pantera before the man died, and I sure as shit wouldn’t get a shirt with his face and some phrase he liked to mumble when he got really trashed plastered on it, because I never met the guy, never even got to see him play live. You know how I show my appreciation for what he created? I wear this:

Or at least I used to, before you assholes made it UNMETAL.

Yeah, that’s right. A Pantera shirt. A shirt of the band he was in. That he wrote all the riffs for. The band that catapulted him to the heavy metal limelight. Why? Because when I listen to Dime play, I’m also listening to three other musicians do what they do. I don’t see why Dime should get 100% of the respect for something he only contributed 25% to creating. I’d like to think it’s because my IQ is higher than 6, but maybe I’m being a little harsh.
…NAHH.

Think about it for a half second here: If he were alive and you walked up to him with a picture of his face and the words “Getcha Pull” silkscreened onto your shirt, you’d seriously creep him out. Now, alternately, if you walked up to him with an official Far Beyond Driven shirt, he’d probably think “Oh, this guy likes my tunes! Cool! I wonder if he smokes weed…” And then you’d totally blaze it with Dimebag Darrell who is alive because it’s an alternate universe where people actually use their brains instead of the one we live in where people kill their favorite guitarist of all time because his guitar was manipulating their thoughts and inadvertently make the death of someone’s brother, son and loved one into a cash cow for magazines, guitar manufacturers, and any other corporate cash vacuum. AMERICA!

But hey, speaking of which, let’s take a look at the other ¾ of Pantera. Surely they would never let Dimebag’s death become such a travesty, right? I mean, he was their brother, man. Quite literally in Vinnie’s case. There’s no way they’d let that happen to such a good friend. Well, I’d call you incorrect and naive, but those words might be lost on you, because you’re a freaking dumbass that can’t tell the difference between a conjunction and a junction. You see, they would and are letting it happen like that, because they’re in on it too. Oh yeah. Would anyone give two shits about Hellyeah if Vinnie wasn’t blood relation to your dead idol? No. If it weren’t for Dime’s death, Hellyeah would be some dudes from Mudvayne, Pantera’s nothing special drummer and some other guys that don’t even matter in this reality, trying to convince you that they are in some way cowboys, and that cowboys are in some way metal (which are both bald faced LIES). What are Phil and Rex even doing? Down? I don’t care enough to check, because they are to me who they are to you and everyone else that recognizes their names: the other guys in Pantera. Fortunately for them, that’s enough starpower to pay the bills and stay relevant in metal for the rest of their lives. So they’re going with it.

Kinda like finding out Santa isn’t real, huh kids?

Lastly, I think I should leave you with this: If there were no Pantera, there would be no KoRn. Not just Korn mind you, but a very large slab of shitty American radio metal excrement in general. Pantera proved that you didn’t need amazing riffs to be a badass (or at least successful) metal band; you just needed soul and power. Unfortunately, as is the case in all metal phenomena, a bunch of prepubescent, suburbanite losers took that standard of composition and wrote a bunch of lame, shitty riffs, thought they were the next Motorhead and had their garbage marketed “to fans of Pantera.”

I’m not here to try and bash Pantera, or Dime, not even Phil, Rex or Vinnie. I’m here to explain how goddamn stupid you are for buying into it. That guy you claim to love so much is rolling in his grave as his corpse makes corporate America rich off your allowance money.

I hope you’re happy, cockpuppet.

-Xandemic

Hard Rock

This guest Violation post is brought to you by Disinformasiya, editor and second-in-command of Heavy Blog is Heavy. If you aren't familiar with HBIH, it is a fellow metal blog "dedicated to heavy music and all of its friends, featuring metal news, reviews, and other nincompoopery", as opposed to my blog, which exclusively focuses on the latter. You can visit www.heavyblogisheavy.com, "Like" them on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.

Enjoy!


Newsflash: hard rock is not metal.

Well duh - but seriously, just sit your fat ass down and listen, because clearly some of you need telling.

Wikipedia terms hard rock as "a loosely defined genre of rock music", which I guess is accurate in so far as it makes your mother's panties loosely defined. Hard rockers are so manly. They so bad. Just look at them, with they long hair and they soul patch beards. Your grampy woulda bust a vein if your momma had gone off on the back of some Stephen Tyler ape-a-like's motorcycle, which is why she had to marry your dad.

Truth is though, this was actually a much better outcome, because what I shall now only refer to as 'butt rock' is such bullshit that it's even less metal than Justin Bieber in a dress riding a unicorn. It gave her the opportunity to spawn you, and despite your questionable progeny, you are undoubtedly way more metal than Saul Hudson's retarded top hat.

Let me explain: as is well documented around on That's Not Metal, there is nothing less metal than being a try-hard (as well as its subsidiary categories 'poseur' and 'sycophant'). Jussy B has never tried to pass himself off as anything other than an insipid, sugary buttmunch, and so credit where credit's due; but hard rock, with all its tattoos and flowing locks, is NOT metal, no matter how badly it wants to be - and it does want to be (who or what wouldn't?), trust me.

Case and point: Mr. William Bruce Rose, singer, songwriter, high grandmaster of douchebaggery and bane of my ever-loving existence. "Oh hey, you like, like, heavy music, right? You must love those funny Guns N' Roses guys, they're so bad!" No. Just...no. This insipid dicksneeze has an ego the size of Yellowstone and a destructive capability to match (and by 'destructive' I mean 'the ability to piss off rooms of literally thousands of people"). He probably thinks he has every right to act the big man and throw a wobbly if he doesn't get his way, and that this is an acceptable way to act. Well I got news for you, asshat: getting sand in your vagina over the size of your rider is about as metal as a butterfly fart. Yes, truly metal men like Bill Robinson get angry, but at real things like THE MAN and THE POLICE taking his weed. Would you see him losing his rag over a bunch of grapes?

Axl Rose: From grungy thrash kid to guido mob boss. -Brenocide

Let's compare and contrast with the legend that is Henry Rollins. This man is so disdainful of vapid prima donnas like this that he posts notes such as this backstage at his shows:

In fact, he's pretty disdainful in general. He hates shitty rave music. He hates shitty drugs. He hates pathetic drivel, and he HATES BUTT ROCK. Check it:

So we've determined that these two men are polar opposites. One is metal; one is not. But this isn't about Axl Rose. This isn't even about Henry Rollins. This is about the whole damn package, and you can bet there's more to it than poorly aping the characteristics of metal.

Mattassacre has quite rightly called sex out as being completely False. The opposite sex serve only to distract us from the pure joy that is metal.

So how many times have you seen some so called 'rock star' with a ton of bitches on his arm? What, you think they're gonna play scrabble? No; they're going to bang, right after the show, leaving the oft-bearded roadie to strike their stage and tuck their beloved guitar in for the night. What's more, they play this 'bad-boy' butt rock in order to get these women; this is the end goal - NOT the creation of awesome tunes. The feck is that all about?!

When you are tr00, you pursue only metal. If the behemoth attractiveness of your mighty facial folicles and the pure animal magnetism of your manly aroma are somehow not impregnating every woman within a fifteen foot radius, then so what? Unimportant. Do not - repeat, NOT - compromise your integrity and write "I Would Do Anything For Love". I, for one, will NOT do that...

- Disinformasiya


Let it be known that I actually fucking love Meatloaf. - Brenocide

IWRESTLEDABEARONCE Make Musical Shift to "Still Ironic"

Hey. Hey guys. 
Hey guys you 
Hey guys you know what
Hey guys you know what would
Hey guys you know what would be funny? 
If we
If we put on corpse paint and
We pretend to
We pretend to be black metal...

Holy shit it's super fucking genius. Because nobody in the universe of metal comedy ever in a billion and a half years conceived the original, cutting edge scheme to put on corpse paint and act grim and frost-bitten for the sake of irony. No, that has literally never happened. Now I understand what everybody means when they say that deathcore scenesters IWRESTLEDABEARONCE should be classified as "Avant Garde Metal". It's because they're just so cutting edge, and ground breaking. We're not just talking about putting random jazz parts in deathcore songs. Oh no. We're also talking about how brilliant the band can be at trolling the internet: 

"We were sick of getting lumped in with 'scene' and 'whatever-core' bands, so we decided to embrace our roots and just go straight black metal on the new album," says guitarist Steven Bradley. "I'd say 90 percent of the new record is straight-up black metal, so we had to change our image to match... Because, of course, that's just as important, if not more so, than the music." 

Quoted from guitarist Steven Bradley, metalcore hipster guitarist extraordinaire . If you guys are going to start taking the words of the guy who coined the term "metal just got gay" anything close to serious, go lay down in traffic until you're done figuring out how they might not be. There is an upside to all of this obvious TRV metal mockery however, and that's the necro, grim and frostbitten photo shoot the band did with irony-loving band photographer Jeremy Saffer has some decent cleavage shots of vocalist Krysta Cameron's small perfect teacup-sized breasts, which can be seen here.

TEE-HEE, there's like, an upside-down cross in the logo and you can't even read it! uber necro FTW! omg lol ;) 

So are IWABO really becoming a TRV KVLT black metal band? No. They're not. I fully and easily recognize this fact, because unlike some metal fans and bloggers, I am not legally retarded. The irony I'm smelling is thicker than if I were to take a drive through Portland, Oregon and accidentally leave the air on. It smells like vegan "chicken" nuggets. At the very most, if IWABO made some black metal tracks for their upcoming album, they're going to be parodies, and they're going to suck.

Irony is the weapon of hipsters. If you think this is cute or funny, die on a railroad. 

Dio didn't think America was Metal either.

So today was the anniversary of the death of Ronnie James Dio, which I wasn't aware of until somebody reminded me only a few hours ago. I thought today felt especially shitty and unmetal, more so than usual. Nothing really went right for me and my motivation to do anything today was all but non-existent. The balance of the universe was just totally off all day. My heart still hangs heavy for the unsurmountable loss to the metal community, and I think the best way for me to remember the forefather of truly epic heavy metal would be to gloat about how he more or less agreed with my last violation in a 2006 interview:

Straight from the man himself. Dear all 50 states, you still have to blow me.

America

As you should all know at this point, I attended an Amon Amarth show in Boston last week. I know you can't wait until I shut up about that band for the rest of my life, and I promise, after this post I'm going to take like a month-long hiatus from mentioning the greatest name in melodic death metal since also Amon Amarth, but their mention is required to make an excellent point. That point, as you gathered from the title, is that America sucks, and is the worst place you can ever live as a metalhead. I used to think it was the middle east, but I'll take Melechesh and Iraqi Metallica over actual Metallica any day of the week. Considering myself an official metal representative of these United States of America, I declare my country as the least metal place on Earth. Period. Blood. 

So the show was at this place called the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, MA. Amon Amarth played out to a sold out capacity crowd of 120 people, and I spend 90% of the show stepping on everybody's feet and getting yelled at by the staff for standing too close to the bar when there was nowhere else to stand except on other people's feet. I had a really great time, and got to get really close to the band. In fact, the best thing about the venue, is that you were always close to the band; whether you were on the floor, on the balcony, at the bar, or taking a dump. Johan and the gang were consistently 15 feet away. I thought this was a pretty awesome experience, until I was reminded of this piece of footage: 

There was literally one moment in time when I left the bathroom and I overheard some douchey bar patron in a different section of the venue hollering "all your songs sound the same!" What's wrong with this picture? Is it: A) Amon Amarth are playing quietly enough that I can hear this chode open his homo Boston face. B) This is a place where you're able to sit and enjoy a drink while the greatest melodic death metal act in history is playing several yards away. C) All of the above. Back in their home continent of Europe, Amon Amarth are given the massive stage/sea of faces treatment at epic festivals such as Summer Breeze, Wacken Open Air, and Metal Camp. Yet here I was, peering over 50-some-odd Red Sox hats to watch them perform on a 3-foot-tall stage, in what was more-or-less a glorified dive bar. What's going on here? Simple: This is America. We don't give a shit about death metal bands, whose growling and double-bass pedals are way too extreme and underground to be appreciated by anymore than 50-200 people at a time. This is a country where the awesome and true metal are all but forsaken, and the musical stars we worship and cater to are determined by reality TV game shows, or grew up somewhere on the Disney Channel. 

A Metal Show in America

A Metal Show in Europe

But let's not be too hasty. Aren't there metal festivals in America, too? Of course there are.

Besides the fact that prominent European metal acts travel tens of thousands of miles to be typically restricted to playing in bars and basements, most of, if not all of our "metal" bands suck ass too. Even if they were once flawlessly amazing in the 80's or 90's, a capitalist society based completely off monetary gain and commercial success guarantees that over the years, an American metal band will compromise their sound so that the brain dead majority will enjoy them and start buying their albums. In a recent Q&A with Wintersun's Jari Maenpaa in an open Metal Camp chatroom, Jari revealed that he was living off Finland's Social Security system, and is basically being paid by the government to shuffle his feet around a studio, and never finish his god damn album. Similarly, in countries like Sweden and Norway, bands can actually receive government aid in the form of cold hard cash just for being artists. That is not, nor will it ever be, the case in America. We won't ever use tax payer money to assist our poor and starving, hipster they may be. If bands don't sell merch or records, they don't eat. American musicians have to suck, or else the American population, who exists solely in the realm of everything one-dimensional and void of culture and intelligence, will never buy it. We like our movies to be full of explosions and we like our burgers to be finished in 48 seconds. Thinking is not an appreciated past-time here by any spectrum.

Then you have modern American bands like Between the Buried and Me, or The Dillinger Escape Plan and all the douchetarded fans that go along with them. If it's not some simple to digest I-hate-my-parents hard rock radio mosh bullshit like Lamb of God, then its some pot-induced groovetarded sludgey proggy Relapse Records neckbeard math metal with funky time signatures, over-stated tempo shifts, and fuzzily distorted guitars and basses played through Orange brand amplifiers. As much as I admittedly enjoy listening to some bands of the latter persuasion, (definitely not the two aforementioned) every garage-level jam band thinks they can make it in metal now. So now instead of like 5-10 great prog metal acts, we have 42,000 shitty ones. Thanks again, America. The land of the free, and the home of the unintellectual, or the pseudo-intellectual. Pick your poison, lads.  

The face of modern American Metal. Treason never looked so enticing a concept. 

Don't anyone of you ever approach me about my opinion of Between the Buried and Me again. Just don't. Why even ask me? It's like asking the pope what he thinks about sodomy just to get him riled up. It's not cute, it's just retarded. You love to watch me fume and ragegasm about the latest carabiner keychain band, like you're going to get anything from me except an extremely negative response. I'm  not here to surprise you. I'm here to state the obvious in hopes that some of you dumber kids might see it for what it is. If I really wanted to surprise you, I would have written a violation about long hair, or crossing your arms at bands that suck. I cross my arms at Between the Buried and Me hard as I can cross 'em. Don't ask me questions when you already know the answer, just because you like hearing me agree with you. 

I digress. To add to the flames of the U.S's metal inferiority from the rest of the world, we just need to turn our attention to our begrudged ally across the Atlantic, Old Blighty. Where was metal invented? England. Where did Led Zeppelin come from? England. Black Sabbath? England. Judas Priest? England. Motorhead? England. Iron Maiden? England. Saxon? England. Venom? England. Bring Me The Horizon? Wait, I guess you guys suck now too. Anyway, mostly all of heavy metal's major historical landmarks and beginnings took place on that pompous little island. Then there's Accept from Germany. We just can't win. Sure, we might have formally brought the world thrash and death metal with the likes of The Big 4 and Death. But before we managed that, we had to commercially ruin heavy metal's sound with the likes of Los Angeles glam pioneers Van Halen, and we've been doing it ever since with other forms of commercialized butt rock. I also want to point out in regards to thrash and death metal, that there would be no thrash if it weren't for the likes of NWOBHM and punk music, and there certainly would be no death metal without the likes of Venom. England can officially take credit for everything good in music. Screw you, England. 

Then there's this eye-rolling fiasco of a "musical era" that's been not-so-formally referred to as the New Wave of American Heavy Metal, which none of us realized existed or had a name until we saw Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. Isn't that shit just super cute? We took NWOBHM and made it NWOAHM. How clever! See, I've always been able to pronounce NWOBHM as "new-ah-bim", but the closest thing I got for this new fangled acronym is saying something along the lines of "Now I wanna ham". Strangely fitting considering the country of its origin... 

DOWN WITH THAT CAPITALIST MONEY LOVING GEORGE W!!
Now show your support and buy your official Lamb of God t-shirt at our merch stand for $35. K, thanks.

Some of the more prominent acts credited for the New Wave of American Heavy Metal, (according to Wikipedia) are Lamb of God, Disturbed, Trivium, and Avenged Sevenfold. (As well as BTBAM and DEP. Go figure.) I'm sure Creed should fit on that list, considering the criteria, but I saw Devil Driver on there somewhere, so I'll just go with that. Lamb of God of course, is the flagship band for "metal fans" in baseball hats and baggy t-shirts who like their hardcore music with guitar solos and want to disrespect either society in general, or just their mother. Trivium and Avenged Sevenfold are probably the two worst things to happen to metal music since cancer, and I'm not even really sure how Disturbed made it to the list. If you ask me, I feel like Drowning Pool is totally getting snubbed on this one. Give credit where credit is due, Wiki writers.  

I'm looking over my playlist, and it's increasingly apparent to me that it's overrun by acts based in Europe as opposed to the States. Ensiferum, Eluveitie, Turisas, Korpiklaani, Einherjer, I don't know what the hell any of those names means in English. (Don't take this as an invitation to educate me.) All I know is that they are way better than the bands who's names I can easily pronounce in my own language. 

True Metal Redemption for living in America requires that you move to Norway or Sweden, file a claim with the local government that you sitting around with your thumb up your ass in a studio for half a decade is considered an "art form" and revel at their ability to give away free bags of money to lazy people like you who don't deserve it despite an increasingly harsh economic climate. Then grow depressed from a lack of motivation due to being offered such easy money and kill yourself.

I can guarantee you that there is going to be a wave of patriotards who are going to bring the butthurt big time because I just shit all over their favorite country. It is of course their favorite, because neither them or their families could ever afford to travel elsewhere. Most of these undereducated grabasses are going to assume that I don't actually live in the U.S.A and attack me from the assumed and incorrect angle that I'm a foreigner, despite I just pointed out that I went to a show in Boston. Either that, or they're going to bring up big-time American metal bands to debate me. Go for it. For every prominent, influential American metal act you can mention to me, I have at the top of my head, a European act way more prominent, way more influential, and way better at music. America sucks and it isn't metal. All 50 states can consecutively blow me.