In Case You Were Wondering, Drowning Pool Are Still Just As False As Ever

Better watch out for these guys! They might have quietly slid into a brief hiatus of complete irrelevance for the fourteen fucking years since Bodies was released, but by gum, they're on the comeback trail. Cutting your pizza into a pentagram? That's the sort of bleeding-edge thinking that the metal world sorely needs in today's 'practically-sliced-pizza' world.

We will not conform to your socially constructed views of how to cut a pizza. We go our own way. I'll bet the last time you had a pizza it was cut into 8 evenly sized portions, you fucking sheep. The fact that it's chest-slappingly retarded and poseur as hell is beside the point. It's all about the message.

The most ironic part about this shit is that Drowning Pool are definitely the pepperoni pizza of heavy music. They are generic and inoffensive, they are a crowd pleaser, they are the pizza you get somebody when you're not sure what pizza they like, and they are featured in literally every movie since the dawn of the human race.

I could go on, but I've got a schnitzel frying up and I need to go and carve a fucking goat's head into it.

-Jimmolation.

Why Australian Metal Is A Complete Joke, And Why It’s Your Fault

If you read TNM then you’ve probably get yourself pegged as one of those fandangled ‘genuine’ metal types. You acknowledge the fact that metal, despite being the only true art form, has a fan base that is nothing short of mindbogglingly false. Some of the shit people in this community get away with while still possessing the sheer fucking audacity to decree that they are ‘metal fans’ is enough to send my blood pressure skyrocketing so high that the tip of my Johnson shoots off with violent force and your girlfriend chokes to death on it.

But not you. You’re a true metalhead. You haven’t cut your hair or paid for a record since 2004. You are an island of kvlt solidarity adrift in a sea of ear-gauging poseurdom. You, as one of the last of the trve metal warriors, stands proud and tall like a wise old oak tree resisting all the forces that threaten to topple true metal as we know it today, like the fact that the 80’s have been over for two and a half decades and no one gives a shit about thrash metal anymore.

But it’s not easy. Your parents are threatening to kick you out of their basement, your favorite band broke up (don’t worry, they’ll probably get back together in 15 years and release an album so butt-chaffingly awful you’ll forget why you ever liked them), you haven’t had sex since the Bush administration (see what I did there?) because the entire female race unanimously decided 30 years ago that not showering for four days at a time is not a sign of sexual prowess and there’s only one radio station in your whole STATE that plays anything even approximating passable metal.

But y’know what? You don’t even fucking know how good you got it, buddy.

You would not last one single agonizing Amity Affliction-filled minute in the Australian ‘metal’ scene. Life as a metalhead is so tough in this country that it’s easy to forget that everything around you is plotting your imminent demise.

Go to sleep. I’ll be right here.

The following is a list of Australian bands that I could possibly be coaxed into admitting are metal after eight to fifteen beers:

• 4Arm
• Portal

That list took me four days to finalize, after heavy consultation with the only other actual metal fan in the entirety of Australia (my roommate, but he actually seems to think that Solution 45 made a positive contribution to metal, so his input was ultimately discarded).

Yes, I have heard of King Parrot. All you need to know about King Parrot is that they, as a band, made the conscious decision to star in a four minute long video for a two minute long song. King Parrot are a Hardcore band that wears corpse paint occasionally. If you think King Parrot are a death metal band, congratulations on being part of the problem.

Every year in Australia we have ONE festival that even comes close to being something a metal fan might want to think about attending. It’s called Soundwave, and it fucking blows. Here’s a poster with the lineup for the one that happened this year. I hope you’ve got your binoculars handy, meatbags, because you’re gonna have to look real fucking hard to find a true metal band among this pile of unsophisticated gutter trash.

More like ‘FalseWave’. Hahaha fucking nailed it.

It truly is a testament to my metal cred that I have never once attended Soundwave, because even Australia’s only ‘metal’ festival, even the only drop of water in the Sahara that is the Australian metal scene, is not even fucking close to good enough for me to bother with. I would rather have no metal at all than endure the unfettered garbage that is Australia’s best effort at an ‘alternative music’ festival.

But how did we get here? How many wrong turns does a culture have to make to wind up as the embodiment of everything not metal?

This is a question that has kept me up at night for quite literally decades, and the best answer that I came up with as that, on the whole, Australia doesn’t really have anything to complain about.

We have socialized medicine, a pretty decent minimum wage, some of the best weather and most revered natural wonders on the planet. We have no reason to be perturbed enough to write a true metal record. The reason the Australian metal scene blows so fucking hard is because this country pretty much kicks the shit out of everyone else by every observable metric. If every other country on the planet wasn’t so fucking shitty, maybe we would, as a nation, be able to band together and produce a half decent metal record. Our overall positive outlook and genuinely happy lifestyle is the envy of most other developed nations where anyone of sound mind would consider living.

And I’m not having a bar of it.

In my unyielding effort to make Australia the most metal island nation on Earth, I am officially lending all of my (considerable) metal cred to declaring Tony Abbott, our prime minister, the most metal political representative in the history of the world. Since his election he has done absolutely nothing but try and ruin everything we’ve got going on here.

Politics is boring, so I’m not going to waste your time laying out the whole political climate here in Australia for you (I’m sure you’re totally flat out eagerly fingering your barn hole in anticipation of the forthcoming Five Finger Death Punch album, you poseur worms), but I will tell you that Tony Abbott, our prime minister, has made it legal to imprison and mentally torture children indefinitely.

Not a death metal album cover.

Holy fucking shit. This guy is operating on a whole other level.

But I digress. Your average Australian metal fan (or should I say the average person in Australia who claims to be a fan of metal) usually turns up in a fucking Ramones T-Shirt. These people are not metal fans. They are the adult version of the weird smelling, overwhelmingly awkward dude you knew in high school who realized that dressing and acting like a stereotypical 80’s metal warrior was a great way to act like you were being a fucking sperg on purpose. If you didn’t know anyone like this at your high school, it was you.

People who like metal in Australia don’t actually like metal. They like being different because it justifies the fact that they are unemployed and can’t get laid. No one in this country knows or cares who Jari Mäenpää is (I may have added extra umlauts because umlauts are undisputedly the most metal of vowel modifiers). [Edit: I did not add extra umlauts, fuck you. (Edit Edit: if you don’t know what umlauts are, kill yourself)]

Basically what I’m saying is that every country that is not Australia and produces metal needs to lift their fucking game as a society. The fact that people in this country actually think that Northlane are a good band is frankly nothing short of embarrassing.

-Jimmolation.

Review: Stagwounder - Invisible Radiance

 

Invisible Radiance: Stagwounder’s first release available for streaming here.

This band is advertised as blackened doom metal and it manages to be the worst of both worlds. Turning this on is like paying to sleep with a woman who is promised to be an exotic beauty and amazing lover, only to find that she has a weird face and her “pleasure”, while inventive, makes you fall asleep. When it’s all said and done you did get to sleep with her. But what was the point?

Stagwounder sound like a generic black metal band that occasionally play a slow part. Unfortunately they aren’t even good as far as generic black metal bands go. The pace they set due to their doom tag means they never quite hit a speed that would satisfy a black metal fan. If you treat them as a doom metal band they fare even worse. They lack the heaviness that defines the genre. Doom metal without a punch is not Doom Metal worth listening to.

At their best Stagwounder sounds like they are imitating Skeletonwitch. Albeit a Skeletonwitch that does not seem to be capable of technical riffing and are extremely boring, though they don’t seem to be able to sound like that for more than a few seconds before they descend back into what may be the most lackluster metal I’ve ever been subjected to without being outright bad. Worse still they can’t even manage to do it on every song. Literally. If I hadn’t been walking the entirety of this album, I would have fallen asleep.

Hopefully if this band sticks around they can manage to either focus on one of their genres or, as unlikely as it may be, find a balance between them that is worth listening to. Until then, I wouldn’t say it’s bad. It’s just not worth the time.

Sagecutioner

 

Picking Up Broads at a Metal Show? Good Luck With That.

Let me set the scene for you. You’re at a metal concert, doesn’t really matter which one or what kind. You’re drinking, hanging with friends, pissing on the pabst chuggers, it’s a good time. But then, something catches your eye. Something magical. That’s right, you just spotted yourself a metal woman.

 In the dead of night... Love Bites...

You casually look at her from a distance. Holy crap, you think, imagine the music and sex we’d make together. You look away, hastily yet discreetly composing yourself. Then you prepare to make your move towards her.

WOAH woah woah woah, dude, what do you think you’re doing? What are you gonna do, finally go score? With her? Dude, I get what you’re shooting for, but that just ain’t happening. What do I mean? What, do I have to fuckin’ spell it out for you? …Fine.

First of all, lets draw a comparison between you and her. It’s a widely known fact that metal women typically range from a 6 to a 9, any number below that, you add 5 just for the virtue of them being metal, and having a fully functional vagina…presumably.

Now this one? lets say at the very least, she’s an 8. You? You haven’t shaved since last week, your pants haven’t been washed since the bicentennial, you’re sporting a fucking Pantera shirt, and you have a god damned smile on your face from gawking at this woman. So lets grade you right here and now.

Sorry, ladies. He's single.

-Short, scraggly ass beard
-Nasty ass pants on the verge of total decay
-Wearing a Pantera shirt, the sacred emblem of douchebag mallcore brats
-and you’re happy like a fucking disney character for seeing a pair of X chromosomes

All in all, that puts you at about a 3, adding in your inherent ugliness. You're seriously looking as metal as a Wal-Mart greeter. Why don’t you get a modifier like the ladies do? Because you frikkin’ aren’t one. Look, I know that you think that’s unfair, and it is. But the fact is that of all metalheads, there’s about 25% women, and you’d call them a goddess if it meant getting a chance to tap that. In a perfect world, we’d all be a bunch of stunningly dashing rouges, and there’d be about 10% more metal women, because we don’t want them having fucking equality, now do we?

So back on the subject at hand. What does she have? Spiked bracers, a black bullet belt, a leather vest you’d need a chainsaw to cut through, a Moonsorrow shirt, and the piece de resistance, a single, tiny facial piercing to let you know she’s ready for pain, or to dole some out herself. That’s right, this one’s out for blood, and you’re but a paper tiger in the way of a full metal storm. You got no chance, buddy… You bet your ass she’s out of your league. What’s that, another one?

Why do you ignore me, angel, why can't I go with you?

Ah, I see you’ve spotted a more tamer category. Yeah, the only paraphernalia she’s got on is an Overkill shirt and a conservative amount of tattoos, she could be in your league. That is, if she didn’t already have a boyfriend. How do I know she already has a boyfriend? That’s like asking me how I know you have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.

 Listen carefully. Woman, Overkill Shirt, Metal show. How fucking available could she possibly be!? That shirt might as well be a wedding band, except it actually means something. She could just be here on her own? Maybe. If she was the last single metal woman on earth. So, what will you do, risk the chance of having your ass kicked by her likely much more metal boyfriend? …Wise choice.

What smells like vapid self pity?

I know what you’re thinking, looking past me, near the bar/chairs/seating area, You’re eyeing up those chicks that are just glancing around, sipping their drinks and talking to each other. Yeah, that’s a fool’s errand. No, I’m not saying it’s unfeasible to pick any one of them up, it’s just going to be an empty experience. They’re not here for metal, they’re here to talk with their other ditzy friends amidst loud, blaring music. But there’s a more damning  piece of info right here. Take a close look. Closer… Closer… No, not at their tits.

That’s right, they’re not wearing any merch. They’re not metal women, and if they are, they aren’t nearly as passionate as you or I. They are what I like to call trophies. No, they aren’t all the time with a boyfriend, they’re just pre wrapped to be trophy girls for the more douchebag-like metalheads. In essence, they’re poseurs. They’re just here to look hot, occasionally glance up from their phones, and drink over priced, watered down beer. The only reason we don’t kick them out of the place is because they usually have a decent rack and keep to themselves. Down that path is a sperm laden bed full of lies. Fine for a night, just not the broad you’re looking for.

You’re going to give it a shot anyways? Admirable. Ol’ Righty needs a break once in a while. but I wouldn’t bother. Why? No reason. I’m not stopping you. It’ll give me time to finish my drink. See you in a minute.

…

… another Molson. Thanks.

…

Let me guess. They just stared at you until you left? Well, that’s because they’re not really here for the show, or to hang out with metalheads. This is what they do when they have fights with their parents, or want an excuse to drink more than half a can. And it’s not just because you’re so clearly and obviously a 3, Panterashirt McPubebeard. Gaze unto me, your silver steeled god. Savatage shirt, flowing golden rock locks, steel toed murder boots, and a patch vest that even the most seasoned true metal veteran is envious of. Watch this.

…

Yes, they all walked away as they saw me coming. I literally project an aura of sheer fucking metal, and they were compelled to extricate themselves from the premises. Even you are above them. What am I saying, you ask? That it’s un-metal to pick up women at a metal show? I’d be hesitant to say yes, but it’s not about it being about metal. It’s just not practical, kiddo. This is an environment where you’re either unworthy of the women, the ones on your relative level are already hitched with their Overkill shirts, or are so uninterested in social interaction it borders on hilarity.

Seriously, kid. Go back home and hit up the internet. You’d have an infinitely easier time that way. Where do you find a metal woman online? You don’t. You’re not gonna get one. simple as that. Just get a regular girl, man. You’re not gonna have any luck converting her, but at least you’re not trying to hunt down a spiky skeletal unicorn. Seriously, dude. preserve your sanity. Head home. Yeah, I’ll see you later.

…And one less competition to deal with.

…

…Hey, nice Moonsorrow shirt. That album kicks ass.

Elitist News - The Eternal Sunshine Of The Okilly Dokilly-less Mind

Why does this exist? When I first looked at this I was disgusted with their gimmick. Specifically at man tits over there on the right. You care enough to buy Ned Flander's clothes but you still think you can rock the beard? YOU CAN'T. But what is truly TERRIBLE about this band is their fucking music. A Ned Flanders themed band could be funny if the musicians played the right kind of music. Anthrax does that comedy shit all the time. Thrash metal Ned Flanders in the vein of Anthrax or GWAR would be great. But GWAR this is not. Instead what we have is a bunch of Korn sound effects on top of shitty musicianship. And the garnish on top of this SHIT SANDWICH is that their vocalist has a truly terrible screaming voice. Head Ned screams like a teenage boy and fights with Jacob Bannon and Brent Hinds over cans of tuna that Brenocide continues to leave out in his darkest moments. Thankfully all they have out currently is a demo. Hopefully it stays that way.

Sagecutioner