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| 4 | Tour Diary: The Shackeltons 3:07 pm |
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There isn’t a band with such a dark and sad history as Soilent Green. Be it wrecks, severe injury, or death, it’s like they’re stuck in twisted game of whack-a-mole with some higher power. Over the years they’ve faced these issues, regrouped themselves, and continued to blast out great albums. This latest album, according to the band, is a great catharsis for everything they’ve gone through. I can’t stress to you enough how amazing this album is.
Inevitable Collapse… is a gritty metal album from deep in the bowels of the bayou. The songs assault you with sheer chaos then switch gears into meaty, heavily low-end slow downs. Then right when you’ve been lulled they throw you right back into it. With solid lyrics and completely badass artwork, this album has worked its way into my top 10. If you’re familiar with previous albums, you’ll find this one to be more raw and angry, with a little more Louisiana in the mix. If you have heard them before but weren’t impressed, this is definitely the album that will change your mind.
Soilent Green
Soilent Green on Amazon
My Brightest Diamond, the baby of Shara Worden, is following up last year’s Tear It Down with A Thousand Shark’s Teeth, out June 17.
The fine folks at Asthmatic Kitty have given interested music snobs the option to pre-order the album. And they’ve sweetened the deal by throwing in a free online EP containing some alternate takes from the album.
Here’s Inside A Boy, the album’s first single:
It’s common knowledge that Microsoft is kissing the rear of Universal and other majors by giving them $1 for each Zune sold. Very generous, eh?
Well, they just got a little more generous. And this time, it doesn’t involve one monolithic company pandering to other monolithic companies. Microsoft is going to start paying some indie labels.
I wonder if it’s because Tony Brummel yelled at Bill Gates. We all remember how well that worked out for him when he did it to Steve Jobs.
The Seattle post-hardcore juggernauts These Arms Are Snakes have left their home of Jade Tree Records to join the ever-growing family of Suicide Squeeze. This news has of course been confirmed in the only suitable manner today by the changing of details of a profile on myspace. This signing is great news for Suicide Squeeze, but bad news for Jade Tree as These Arms Are Snakes were the flagship of the label, which now puts a question into play: with no heavy selling band is Jade Tree about to go into a hibernation of low activity or sadly is another great label about to bite the dust? (more…)
Vince over at Metalsucks recently interviewed Burton C. Bell, Ascension of Watchers and ex-Fear Factory Frontman. In the interview Burton discusses his time in Fear Factory, how he’s not into metal (like it’s strange for a whole band to not have the same musical interests) and his long spiritual journey leading to start Ascension Of Watchers.
And I was kind of getting frustrated that people assumed that I was all about metal… and say all you want, but that’s not me. Don’t like it, sorry, some of it’s alright.
It’s a gut feeling in a way, but your heart really speaks to you through your dreams and your soul speaks to you through your dreams, and it’s trying to tell you something.
I said, you know what, I’m gonna go on my journey. I left LA and I traveled out to Pennsylvania, met with John [Bechdel], and basically stayed in his studio. I was already friends with John cause he had worked with Fear Factory already, so he let me stay at his house, he and his family were very warm. They have a lot of property, about 15 acres in the woods. It was a great place to be for someone who wants to get away and isolate themselves. In some ways the woods were a cloister for me, a sanctuary, and that’s where the music really flowered.
Learn more about Burton, and the role of the subconsious here.
Nearly a month after an abrupt breakup, Victory released the following Dead To Fall video. I’ve had mixed feelings with the guys in DTF. I don’t find dick/fart/porn/drug jokes all that funny, which is what they seemed to enjoy over the last couple of years. However, this video is super fun to watch. There’s some good camera work, really making the party look chaotic. But what makes it so funny is that the lyrics are outrageous anyway. Hearing the lyrics and seeing the visuals make the video hilarious.
Funeral For A Friend is currently in the studio, and they are nice and humble about their upcoming endeavor.
I really want to tell you how awesome the tunes are but I wont because it always sounds a bit naff when you read bands gushing about how their album is going to “change the world/blow your head off/make you wet yourself etc”. It’s a bit like a fart really. Rather than going “this is going to be the best fart ever!!” before dropping one I think it’s better just to say nothing, let that bad boy go and watch on in smug satisfaction as your wonderful creation is unleashed, enveloping the senses of those in it’s path.
Granted, it’s good to know they’re not taking themselves too seriously. But how can you when you’re in a band like Funeral For A Friend?
And now a tour diary written by my friend Mark Redding of The Shackeltons. Enjoy.
Here is the scoop on The Shackeltons’ first ever national tour. At 6am on April 2 we set out for a 7,000 mile drive across America in our Honda minivan (with our new little 4’x6’ trailer). (more…)
If you were to look at the artwork on Behind The Suit and Tie, you’d probably think that this movie will crucify the money hungry labels, or maybe promotion agencies, or maybe even fests and venues for having an insane cut of the merch sales.
I was stoked that I’d finally see how in ‘the business’ everyone seems to make money but the bands. The trailer turned out to be four minutes of three interviews where people complained about illegal downloading, and how it has destroyed sales and the livelihood of the bands. Consider their logic that - at a show - more people sang along with a band’s songs than the amount of CDs sold in that region, meaning the fans had to be illegally swapping. Brilliant.
Does this mean that behind closed doors the metal industry people spend the day blaming slumping sales, a lack of any creative online media program, growing irrelevance, spending loads of cash for hyped up advertisement that doesn’t work, and charging the same amount of money for either a real or digital CD on the kids who illegally download music? Possibly so. If it is, prepare to sleep through a 90-minute bitch fest that will do nothing more than further reinforce that labels take no responsibility for their destiny.
Paste Magazine has a cute little tour diary feature on its site, and they’ve enlisted the help of the soon-to-be-Ole-Miss-alumni Colour Revolt to fill it up. The band gives you a glimpse into its glamorous lifestyle (as is evident from the picture above). My favorite tour moment thus far:
And we saw two endangered bears boofing [at the San Diego Zoo]. The female didn’t seem too into it, but what can you do when you’re the last of your species? It’s called “captive breeding,” and God bless it.
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