After 5 years operating under the title "That's Not Metal" unabashed, I found myself in a position where the best way to move forward was to change our title and domain completely. Someone else now owns legal trademark to the name "That's Not Metal", which is something I never thought I would have to concern myself with. The metal community as I know and love it has always been so grass roots, so DIY. I always felt like principle and the underground honor system alone would be enough to protect my brand, but I found out the hard way that just isn't the case. Lesson learned, kids: trademark your shit. With that said, I no longer hold ill will toward the individuals who now operate as TNM, the best thing for me to do now isn't to dwell on it or continue on the war path I've been on regarding this incident. What's best for me, and you the readers, is to just pick myself up and move forward.
So I would like to formerly introduce you to the new site. This is Metal Snob. Same writers, same elitism, just a different title. If you don't like it, tough titties. The name doesn't matter, and this one is short, to the point, and conveys our message and who we are. With the new brand, we still plan to deliver you the best in quality internet elitism and closed-minded metal fandom as you've always come to expect from us. We'll be posting more news, reviews, interviews and editorials than ever before. We also plan to shift the focus off our typical vitriol to bring you more underground acts that successfully meet our near-impossible standard for metal listening. Violations will still be a thing, and I plan to keep all of the old posts from the original TNM for you to read and comment on.
With that said, there's a lot of house-keeping that still needs to be done. The domain change means that every single hyperlink to anything "thatsnotmetal.com" related is now totally dead. That means we're pretty much starting fresh as far as exposure is concerned. I will need to contact every blog out there good enough to feature us in their blog roll of the change. I will also have to go through my more prominent posts to repair any links there within to my past posts, so you all can have a more reliable experience reading here. It's very tempting to just scrap all the old shit altogether and start fresh to save myself this headache, but there's a lot of good material there that me and my contributors worked hours on, and still should be given a read if you're willing to dig through the catacombs of our archive.
I appreciate your patience as the site goes through these changes. It's a work in progress, and it might not ever be 100% what it once was as far as working links are concerned, but we plan to start working on waves of newer, better, more original content for you to enjoy instead. Where TNM dwelled in a pit of obscurity, we plan for Metal Snob to rise above, and become the go to true metal elitist and comedy site that will stand on its own in an already densely saturated metal blogosphere.
If you need to contact me directly for questions or interviews regarding what's happening or what's going on. You can also e-mail me at the following:
brenocide[at]thatsnotmetal.com
We still own the TNM domain for another year so all the old e-mails will work fine if you need to contact Sage or myself. I'm working on figuring out how to route thatsnotmetal.com to Metal Snob, but so far it's proving to be tougher than I first thought.
Thanks for all the years of readership, and the continued support as we go through this difficult transition. Stay true,
"This is the way your career ends, Lord of Doubts, not with a bang but with a whimper"
Into the Occult is the final Release from Russian doom band, Lord of Doubts. I don't know why a career that is composed of two albums and an EP is a reason to make a fuss, but maybe this band is something special. They took the time to make their email look like a professional advertisement so they at least they have that going for them. After seeing the relatively professional way they had put everything together I had high hopes, especially after the treat I received from Exterminas. Those hopes were in vain, for in the vast wasteland that is Bandcamp doom metal, all hope withers and dies.
At first it sounded like perfectly serviceable doom metal. Not something I would seek out but I wouldn't skip it on shuffle either. And then the vocalist opened his mouth. This guy going by the name of Art has no business recording his voice. The singing itself isn't horrible because he has the good sense to do a kind of droning chant instead of actually singing. The problem is nothing about it stands out. He has the most generic emotionless voice I have ever heard in metal, and to top it off I'm absolutely sure that the reason he chose to do this emotionless chanting is because he has no real singing ability. Art, your guitar work is perfectly serviceable, in fact the instrumental tracks are the highlight of this album and are very well put together, so why did you insist on ruining your music with your voice? Maybe if you could have kept your moth shut you would have made something of your final album, but as it is, I don't think this is good enough to retire on.
As good as the instrumental passages are I would not suggest buying this. Art could have done his band a load of good by shutting his mouth and making the whole thing instrumental, but since this is the last thing they are ever going to release I guess the best thing to say is good riddance. At least Lord of Doubts can't hurt themselves anymore. You can grab the album here. There are a couple of free tracks to download if you want them. Otherwise, just let this band fall into obscurity where it belongs.
You'd be surprised to find just how many pop stars and mainstream celebrities out there are avid lovers of artists who -- um-- also perform pop music and are totally mainstream! Let's take a look at some of our absolute favorites:
Here we have Lady Gaga and Baby Metal looking cute as buttons together as they bond over music that appeals to masses of simple-minded boring people. Oh look, and if you'll notice, Lady Gaga is wearing a t-shirt of a band that's sold 60 million albums+ worldwide! Nothing unusual or worth fucking mentioning here whatsoever! Did you click on the page though? You're here reading this right? Oh, well that's great! Thanks for stopping by! Click on all the other things on this page too. All of it. Click it. Click all the things you can see on the page to look at and visit and read, that would be fucking awesome.
What mindless gallery of celebrities would be complete without post-teen heartthrob Justin Bieber wearing a t-shirt of a musical group that is of similar fame, popularity, and exactly as mass appealing and easy to digest as his music is? Even if you were exactly dumb fuck enough to get mad at this, how could you be mad at that face? If you want to share this with all your friends on Facebook, they would like it and it would reaffirm how good you should feel about yourself! Also, refreshing the page a bunch of times would be good too!
Skip ahead to 1:17! I don't have to tell you the music industry is really competitive, but its heartwarming to hear that Demi Lovato takes time out of her busy schedule to appreciate above ground, widely adored pop music such as herself! Hey, you know you can also check this gallery out and click all around on the other stuff on your phone and your tablet while you're at it. We don't mind, we'll wait! Read all the other stuff and share it all, do it.
What is it exactly that upsets you about this picture? Is it that Megan Fox is a woman or that she's famous? You know what's really making us angry? That you're not sharing this on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr. Do that! Didn't you see the caps-locked words and exclamation points in the title? We were told that those would help us.
Could you have ever even guessed in a million years that Mark McGrath from Sugar Ray was a total fucking idiot with bad taste in entry level 80's rock we all stopped being impressed by when we were 16? I know, we were blown away too! Not as blown away as you'll be by CLICKING HERE!
Whoa! Somebody call the Fashion Police!!Here's a pic snapped of Chris Brown spotted wearing a custom leather jacket featuring artists as widely recognized as he is and anybody with a baseline understanding of music knows about. Look at him now! Look at this now! <----(Click here to find out)
I'm really just gonna take this opportunity to say that I hate Amy Poehler anyway.
Hailey Baldwin is another famous person who is young, a female, and wearing the shirt of a band that was relevant enough in pop culture to be featured prominently on an episode of Viva La Bam. We can't stand for that shit. Somebody get Metal Injection on the phone, FUCKING STAT! There are CLICKS IN THEM THERE HILLS. Beverly Hills that is! Not familiar with Metal Injection? That's okay, you can navigate yourself to it somehow. But ugh, it would be such a hassle to go to the URL bar up there and click on it, type the name in, end up at Google because you typed the name in wrong, go looking around on the Google search page for that shit. I mean, imagine if you were trying to do that all from your phone. Here, you know what, out of the goodness of my heart, I'll give you a direct link to Metal Injection right here. Go ahead, it's fine. Enjoy Metal Injection.
What's that? What's wrong? It wasn't Metal Injection? Nope. You're back here. That's right. Look at Kim Kardashian wearing a t-shirt of fellow reality stars. You can't escape. You're stuck. Point is, even if you somehow managed to make it to Metal Injection, or Metal Sucks, all you're going to find is celebrities wearing celebrity shirts. That's what important in the metal news world, didn't you know? Don't you know anything? This isn't the metal blogosphere you once knew. Your community is dead. This is now the inescapable Silent Hill of rich people wearing rich people.
There's no hope here. Only despair.
Don't forget to share on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Tumblr/StumbleUpon/Reddit/Pinterest/Digg/YouTube/Kik/Myspace!!
Let's say you're on social media talking some shit...
I mean, of course you are. You are -- or at least you're trying to be -- a true Metal elitist right? Any limp little Nancy could spend their time listening to good Metal music. Just sitting around chilling to Xasthur or some shit. Oh wow, good for you. Round of golf claps for the happy listener over here, everyone. Maybe you should buy some Bose speakers so you can just sit back, relax and really enjoy yourself. Immerse yourself in the lovely sound, you complacent, satisfied fucking priss.
Fuck that noise. Literally. What makes me a true Metal warrior is the fact that I spend countless hours listening to, forming an opinion, and then complaining about shitty fake Metal. Someone's gotta do it. The sort of complacency and indifference to improper thinking that you open-minded pusscakes keep preaching is how the Holocaust happened. These scene queens aren't going to go around Hitlering up my genre with goofy trends unabashed. Not on my fucking watch.
What's the point in trying to listen to good Metal anymore anyway? They stopped making it in like 1998. I've heard it all and now I've got work to do.
"But Brenocide's here is a post where you mention liking something produced after that..." Oh yeah? You dweebs always go around telling everyone my blog is "satire" and not to take it seriously. So let's just say I was fucking kidding when I said that. The only bits of satire on this blog were the moments when I ever hinted at being anything except the greatest Metal fan that ever lived. Joke's on you, fart pie.
Not that I would care to know, but if anybody these days is producing Metal music that can qualify as even somewhat listenable, it's because of true Metal foot soldiers like myself, tirelessly discouraging musical bullshit with everflowing internet venom. You're welcome. But I digress. Let's get back to you on social media fighting the good fight like you're supposed to. Inevitably, you're gonna get some push back from the sorry sucks that don't understand everything they like or do is dumb and bad. High chance, you're going to get something very similar to this statement tossed your way among the carnage:
This degenerate numpty wrote this a couple months ago in response to my takedown of Neill Jameson's pro vinyl post. It wasn't because I was trashing Krieg that she said this, but it's the exact kind of shit you would see someone say if I was trashing Krieg. To make this more relevant, I'll do it now: Fuck Krieg. There we go. Anyway, Jameson's post was a short tirade that I thought was a poorly thought-out, open-ended take down of Metal Sucks' Vince Neilstein'santi-vinyl post; which was itself a poorly-thought out piece in support of streaming music. Long story short, the only smart person involved was me. Just like always.
Teal here shared her baseless non-thoughts during an enormous back-patting circle jerk of Jameson's internet pals getting together and stroking each other over how I disagreed with their favorite underground howler. I challenged Neill's position with research and facts. They challenged my position with how I'm a "non musician". Because in order for you to understand the basic arithmetic behind how badly record companies fuck metal artists, you have to be the metal artist getting fucked. Makes sense.
Anyway, eye-roll worthy comebacks like these are just one of many types of what I like to call the "Performers On Stage Envy Rebuttal"
Or P.O.S.E.R for short.
This out loud assumption is a silencing technique used by music fans (and sometimes artists) to try and devalue your opinion as an informed, free-thinking listener and individual with a negative stance on any form of media. People who support the artist or are the artist immediately assume that because you are sharing a negative opinion regarding said artist, you are inherently envious of their perceived "success" in the artform. We can also classify this as "haters gonna hate logic". It only works if everyone involved is a complete fucking moron. Speaking of complete fucking morons, anybody remember Sonic Syndicate? (Me neither!)
To refresh our memories, here's a gem several years ago from The Unguided vocalist Richard Sjunnesson directed towards me when I made fun of his former band forgetting butthurt over us trolling them at a show: "But by all means, let them have their little sexist hate society in peace. They won’t achieve anything worth mentioning in the duration of a lifetime anyway. At least our achievements and hard work took us all around the world, while they were busy jerking off to their 2-channel tape recorders in their mom’s basement. I can understand their jealousy, as we got handpicked by their favourite band to tour with them."
Oh yeah, so jelly over here, I'm practically a doughnut. Your band is factually the worst music in the history of the artform. You actually managed to make something like Atreyu even worse:
I'd say that's an achievement worth mentioning. Just like the Holocaust was. There that is again! See how this all ties together nicely in the end? Jealousy has never once had anything to do with how much I consistently hated your haircuts throughout the years, Richard. The same will always be true of your overdone 2004-era metalcore music. More like The Ungood, am I right fellas?
So let's look at just a few out of many pointed reasons why the POSER is a weak argument made only by complete wastes of space and air, and you should have no issues overcoming such frail objections to your sturdy, elite musical opinion:
