HEAR ME TALK

I made what I think was my sixth appearance on the WNYC radio show Soundcheck today, participating in their every-Tuesday "Soundcheck Smackdown," where two critics debate the merits of something or other. I've previously been on to discuss the merits of Metallica when Death Magnetic came out, take the anti-Bruce Springsteen position when his last studio album was released, take the anti-White Stripes position upon their breakup, and defend Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven." I was also there once in a non-Smackdown context, when my book Marooned came out.

Today I was there to defend Pearl Jam in a deathmatch with Nirvana (defended by the awesome writer Jeanne Fury), since Ten and Nevermind are both turning 20 this year. I have never liked Nirvana, not ever; when they first got big, I was deep into Napalm Death, Slayer and the Rollins Band, and Nirvana just seemed like whiny bitches compared to any one of those three acts. I was never a big Pearl Jam booster, but they at least had good songs (and guitar solos), and when I dug deep into their catalog in preparation for this debate, I discovered a whole bunch of really solid material. I also came to the conclusion that "Black" is their "Free Bird," and that's a good thing.

Anyway, here's a link to the audio. Somewhere around the 15-minute mark, Vernon Reid(!) calls in to castigate us for not discussing Soundgarden instead. I can't say he's wrong, even if ultimately my favorite Seattle band will always be Tad.

CULTS

I don't like this song very much. It's catchy; it's sticking in my head. But this kind of shimmery pop doesn't work as a soundtrack to any life experiences I'd enjoy having, and as a lifelong wearer of headphones, that's the primary way I judge music's worth. But I've always been fascinated by Jonestown; I've read a couple of books about Jim Jones, and have considered writing a novel with a Jones-like character at its center. So the video fascinates me, too. It's got a seriously creepy, haunting power, and/but the fact that a major label (Sony) released it says something—about the amorality of corporations or the history-destroying power of irony, I'm not sure which. (Hundreds of people killed in a coerced mass suicide—what an awesome backdrop for our video!) Could Slayer or Cannibal Corpse have gotten away with exploiting tragedy in this way? I don't think so. But when you're a conventionally pretty white girl (and/or white boy) making indie pop, there are no aesthetic or moral boundaries, I guess. Must be nice.
Anyway, here's the video.

Go Outside, by Cults from Boing Boing on Vimeo.

METAL MAYHEM

Mom, nachos, and $1,000 box sets: On the road with Lamb of God

When and how did Lamb of God become a metal institution? They still seem like a new band, even though they've been around for more than 15 years. Their first album, a self-titled disc from when they were still called Burn the Priest, came out in 1999. New American Gospel, their debut under their current name, arrived a year later.

Since then, it's been a ten-year rocket ride: multiple Ozzfest slots, support for Megadeth and Slayer, and a Grammy nomination for the song "Redneck" in 2007. They spent most of 2009 opening for Metallica, which singer Randy Blythe says was a bid for "prestige...[and] maybe we'll pick up some fans, because a 50-year-old guy isn't gonna be aware of the Lamb of God show at House of Blues. But he'll check out a Metallica show."

One Metallica gig was particularly special for Blythe: When the band played New York, he brought his mom. "She was right in between the barricade [and the stage], standing by our techs," he recalls. "She'd never been to New York City, so I flew her and my wife up early, and she got to cruise around the city for a day or two. I'm probably never gonna play Madison Square Garden again, so I had to have Mom there."

But bigger stages haven't changed the band. "We do what we're gonna do," says Blythe. "Whether we're playing with Eyehategod or Brutal Truth or playing with Metallica." That relentless individualism has been a major factor in Lamb of God's popularity. The group's breakthrough albums, 2003's As the Palaces Burn and 2004's Ashes of the Wake, were stridently political. This earned them a diehard following and praise from critics, who always fall all over themselves to point out any sign of unexpected intelligence in metal.

But Lamb of God made a sharp left turn on 2006's Sacrament. "I had been writing politically oriented stuff since the Burn the Priest days, because I come from a punk-rock background," says Blythe. "Palaces and Ashes were fairly highly politicized records during the Bush regime, [but] there's only so many ways you can say 'fuck Bush.' It's beating a dead horse after a certain time. We tried to step away on Ashes, but it didn't work. We were still too pissed off. But after we did that, we were like, All right, we need to try something different. We're trying to write each record to be different. Why write the same record over and over?"

The band's most recent album, 2008's Wrath, lives up to its title. Musically, they plow the same crushing groove they've spent a decade and a half perfecting, driven by Chris Adler's astonishing drumming. Lyrically, they mix politics with introspection and general pissed-offness. It's the perfect formula for starting furious mosh pits, but Lamb of God haven't been able to do that for quite a while. The Metallica shows were in arenas, and they're now occupying a main-stage slot on this year's Rockstar Mayhem Festival alongside co-headliners Korn and Rob Zombie.

"When we were main support for Ozzy, there were a lot of 55-year-old dudes eating hot dogs and nachos, looking at us like we were space aliens and going, 'Where's Ozzy?'" recalls Blythe. "If you look up past the seats onto the lawn, which is where our fans are, they're up there destroying shit. That's what our fans do. They're like the bad kids in the back of the school bus."

With arena shows and platinum albums on their résumé, Lamb of God have crossed the divide that separates newbies from legacy acts. They even got a box set: Hourglass, a three-disc compilation of album tracks, demos, and a few rarities, came out in June. The most deluxe version of the set—one that retails for $1,000—includes a banner, a custom guitar, and the band's entire catalog on vinyl, all packed in a coffin-shaped guitar case.

"We were on tour when it came out," says Blythe. "We were doing an in-store and they had it, so we were like, Oh, so that's what it looks like. We all kinda pored over it. Then in Luxembourg, a girl who works for Sony bought us five of them. The band is always the last to get anything."

[From the Cleveland Scene.]

RECIDIVISM

Cosmo Lee at Invisible Oranges is asking his readers which band or bands they've seen the most often. For me, the leaders are Iron Maiden, Einstürzende Neubauten and Cecil Taylor in a three-way tie. I've seen each four times, with my fifth Maiden concert coming up on 7/12.

Right behind them are the groups or artists I've seen three times each: Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, Borbetomagus, Clutch, Fishbone, the Flying Luttenbachers, High On Fire, Isis, Machine Head, Motörhead, the Rollins Band, Slayer, Slipknot and Social Distortion.

Then there are those I've (only) seen twice: AC/DC, Black Sabbath (once with Ozzy, once with Dio), Butthole Surfers, Ornette Coleman, Dio (as a solo act), Exodus, Ice-T, Jane's Addiction, Judas Priest, Megadeth, Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Orthrelm, Pantera, Iggy Pop (once solo, once with the Stooges), Radiohead, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Sword, and Rob Zombie.

I'm probably forgetting some, too—bands I saw open for several different headliners, or other unmemorable circumstances. If you're reading this, are you a recidivist? Do you see the same bands over and over? Are you always happy you went?

BANDS ARE NOT JUKEBOXES

Today at my MSN metal blog, I condemn the practice of bands (e.g. Slayer, Megadeth, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Nine Inch Nails, Eyehategod, Unsane) playing entire albums live. It's fucking boring, and it's demeaning to the bands (who are reduced to being living jukeboxes) and the audience (who are rewarded for mindless nostalgia). Putting together a great set is an art form unto itself—balancing old and new, setting a pace that starts strong, offers a slight slowdown in the middle so the audience can relax/catch its breath, then bringing the energy level back up for a thunderous conclusion and a kick-ass, explosive encore. It might seem similar, but that's really a totally different thing from sequencing an album (or a CD), especially an album from 20 years ago, when albums actually had sides that demanded mini-sequencing of their own. Frankly, I'd be more impressed by seeing The Rock-afire Explosion playing a whole album by a band. Anyway, there's more if you want more.

THIS WEEK IN CLEVELAND

Thrash Landing
Kreator return to their primitive roots

Just as America had its Big Four thrash bands — Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer — Germany had a trio of homegrown powerhouses in the '80s. Starting in the middle of the decade, Sodom, Destruction and Kreator shaped a uniquely German thrash sound — punkier and more primitive than its slick American counterpart.

Kreator's debut album, 1985's Endless Pain, was recorded in 10 days, and it sounds like it. A grinding trio disc that combines the crude, hammering rhythms and caveman riffs of Venom with the lyrical nihilism of Motörhead, it's not their best effort — in fact, it barely hints at what they'd achieve only a year later — but it rocketed them out of obscurity.

When 1986's Pleasure to Kill was released, Kreator's reputation was secure. Songs like the title track, "Riot of Violence" and "Death Is Your Savior" proved that Europe had its own thrash thing going on. Indeed, it could be said that Kreator paved the way for death metal with frontman Mille Petrozza's guttural, barking vocals and the band's punishing sound. The brutality continued on Terrible Certainty and Extreme Aggression, and the group made some breakthroughs outside the recording studio — when the Berlin Wall came down, Kreator was the first metal band to perform in East Germany (a show later documented on At the Pulse of Kapitulation, a mid-'90s home video that was reissued as a CD/DVD set in 2008).

The 1990s weren't nearly as kind to Kreator, creatively or commercially. Beginning with 1990's Coma of Souls, they started to experiment, incorporating industrial elements and writing longer, more musically ambitious songs, with mixed results. Fans weren't pleased, and the band's profile dipped substantially. Even Petrozza's longtime partner, drummer Jürgen "Ventor" Reil, grew disgusted and left just before 1995's aptly titled Cause for Conflict, though he returned on 1997's Outcast.

Finally, in 2001, the group got back on track. Violent Revolution kicked off with "Reconquering the Throne," and the album lived up to that title's promise, delivering one reinvigorated blast of raw, crushing thrash after another. Reviews were rapturous, and the tour that followed saw fans returning in droves. Kreator then released their first live album, Live Kreation, which featured performances so strong, they even rehabilitated songs from the reviled Cause for Conflict, Outcast and Endorama.

Enemy of God, from 2005, was another collection of killer modern thrash. Since that album's release to another chorus of critical hosannas, Kreator hasn't slackened the pace. For the past five years, they've been touring the globe, only taking some time out to record another album, Hordes of Chaos, released in early 2009. Much shorter than its two predecessors, each of which offered 12 tracks and nearly an hour of music, Chaos features only 10 songs and gets the job done in less than 40 minutes — another sign that Kreator have come full circle and gone back to their primitivist thrash roots.

They promoted the album with one of the most hilarious videos ever, for the title track. The "Hordes of Chaos" clip cuts back and forth between Kreator playing the song atop a heap of bodies and the adventures of a head-choppin', limb-severin' barbarian who seems to own nothing but fur underwear, a big-ass sword and a generous supply of baby oil. "Jörn Heitmann came up with the concept," says Petrozza. "I think he wanted to visualize the Hordes of Chaos and use images from [painter Frank] Frazetta, Conan the Barbarian, etc. I think the results look amazing! There was a lot of waiting around on the set, so no exciting stories to tell, unfortunately."

In 2008, Petrozza told Metal Edge magazine, "No offense to bands that do anniversaries all the time — there's bands that celebrate the 10th anniversary, the 15th anniversary — but we're not into that. We focus on the present and the future of the band, not what we've achieved in the past, and I don't see a reason why I should have a special celebration. I think that's kinda lame, to be honest."

But for the band's 25th-anniversary tour, Kreator asked fans to vote for songs to be played live — and thousands responded. "The surprising thing is that our taste is not that far off from what our fans like," says Petrozza. "[But] there will be some songs in the set that we haven't played in a long time."

And even as they honor their past, Kreator are once again in transition. In May 2009, their label SPV declared the European equivalent of bankruptcy and shut down its U.S. division. Recently Petrozza announced, "We have just signed a worldwide deal with Nuclear Blast, the strongest metal label in the world!"

Petrozza's enthusiasm for the music is at the core of his being. He's had more success with Kreator over the past 25 years than Steve "Lipps" Kudlow and Robb Reiner had with Anvil, but he shares their attitude that metal is something you do out of love. Asked about his near 30-year relationship with drummer Reil, who had to skip a recent leg of tour dates due to medical problems, he says simply, "It's great! We both love metal! We are living our dream!"

HIGH ON FIRE POLISHES ITS METAL WEAPONRY

[From the SF Weekly.]

Oakland's (and possibly Earth's) heaviest band, High on Fire, is ready for its close-up. The trio's fifth studio album, Snakes for the Divine, is its first for the E1 label after several years on highly regarded metal imprint Relapse. The musicians also worked with a real producer for the first time in years.

On Snakes, the band's sound was shaped by Greg Fidelmann, who has worked on such high-profile metal discs as Metallica's Death Magnetic and Slayer's World Painted Blood. "He's actually a producer producer," says guitarist and vocalist Matt Pike, contrasting Fidelmann with Steve Albini and Jack Endino, who worked on 2005's Blessed Black Wings and 2007's Death Is This Communion respectively. "Greg's a lot more hands-on."

The result is High on Fire's cleanest, most accessible album to date. Of course, the members keep their trademarks. Pike's vocals are a hoarse roar somewhere between Motörhead's Lemmy and the Melvins' Buzz Osborne with throat polyps, and the rhythm section of bassist Jeff Matz and drummer Des Kensel thunders like an avalanche. But each instrument occupies its own space, with room for subtle ornamentation. And Pike's guitar, one of the fiercest and most punishing axes in modern metal, has moments of surprising clarity. Indeed, from the album's first few moments, it's obvious this is a new stage in High on Fire's evolution — even if the title track begins with a high-pitched, buzzing riff that's naggingly similar to AC/DC's "Thunderstruck."

Pike laughs and owns up to the borrowing. "Not intentionally, but yeah, I kinda lifted a little bit of that," he says. "I thought it was so cool, and it's such a fun thing to play."

For the rest of its eight-minute running time, the song is a vintage High on Fire gallop, riffs landing like body blows from a 9-foot-tall steroid abuser. The album is jammed with the band's longest and most punishing songs (five pass the six-minute mark, and two run more than eight minutes). It also offers greater variation from the High on Fire crew. "How Dark We Pray" and "Bastard Samurai" are slower than anything the band has recorded since its 2000 debut, The Art of Self-Defense. "Every now and then it's good to slow down some," Pike acknowledges. "Jeff and I had a really wide span of tempos."

Pike is busy preparing for the band's first headlining U.S. tour in several years. "The way our management and booking agents are, they want us opening constantly," he says genially. Indeed, the group has been the first act of choice on Megadeth's 2008 Gigantour outing and on the recent Dethklok and Mastodon co-headlining tour, but Pike would like the chance to play for an hour straight for a change.

He'd also like to play fresh material this time out. "I'm two-thirds of the way through learning all of 'em so I can play and sing 'em live," he says of the new songs. "We're still working out the quirks. But by the time March rolls around, I'm pretty confident everybody will have their end of things in order."