NO ESCAPE FROM BRILLIANCE

I liked the Dillinger Escape Plan at first; they were sort of exhilaratingly berserk and ultra-precise at once, and that was still new enough to my ears to be interesting. But Calculating Infinity was ultimately just kind of exhausting to push through, and the EP with Patton was even more so. I barely remember what Miss Machine sounded like. I gotta tell you, though, I'm listening to Ire Works right now and it's really, really fucking good. Some of it sounds like their old stuff, but there are a couple of instrumentals that sound like Fantomas, and a couple of goddamn glitchtronica tracks (and no, I don't think it's just the stream fucking up). It's like their old stuff, but produced by Squarepusher. I swear, trying to put together a Top Ten for this year is gonna be a fucking nightmare. And I never thought I would find myself crawling back to a band I pretty much entirely shrugged off two records ago.

RETURN OF THE WIZARD

Electric Wizard are releasing a new album, Witchcult Today (doesn't that sound like a newspaper, like Women's Wear Daily for Satanists?), in November. I just got an advance from the publicist today.

I love Electric Wizard, but within the metal community my views are weird, even heretical. See, the Dopethrone album, which may have the greatest album cover in metal history



is musically kinda drab. It's big 'n' loud, but all the songs are the same - long, sludgy doom avalanches, with nothing to liven things up but the (very) occasional sampled bit of movie dialogue. Their second album - and Dopethrone's predecessor - Come My Fanatics... was much better. And in the early 2000s, the band underwent near-total upheaval. Guitarist/vocalist Jus Osborn is the only original member left at this point, and the group's gone from a power trio to a two-guitar quartet. Their 2004 album We Live (which may or may not even have had a U.S. release - the version I've got is on UK label Rise Above) was the debut for that version of the group, and I thought it was fucking great. Witchcult Today also features the two-guitar lineup, and it's fucking thunderous. Highly, highly recommended. Hope they tour the U.S. behind it.

METAL EDGE UPDATE

The Metal Edge website has been re-launched.

The first thing I put up was a longish interview with Henry Rollins, an abridged version of which will run in an upcoming issue of the mag. Enjoy!

THIS WEEK IN THE SCENE

Circle has been stalking the edges of Finland's rock scene since 1991. But the group doesn't compare itself to better-known Finnish rock bands like HIM, Lordi, and Finntroll. "The difference is that we regard ourselves as amateurs and draw influence from avant-garde and experimental music," explains bassist and group leader Jussi Lehtisalo. "In Finland, we are a 15-year-old relic that the older people don't remember and the younger people don't know -- except for a fistful of enthusiastic fans. Nowadays we are maybe best received in the U.K. and U.S.A., for which we are very grateful. I think this is a very good era for Circle." [Read the rest here.]

TODAY ON PTW

Cloak/Dagger hate your shitty Myspace band

...After releasing a 7” and some demo tapes (compiled by their new label, Jade Tree, into the online-only Piñata Breaks, Demo Takes), Cloak/Dagger are about to release their full-length debut, We Are. Not one of its 14 tracks touches the three-minute mark, but they’re exhausting nonetheless; it’s easy to picture band members’ fingertips flying off, severed by speeding guitar strings. The rhythms have thunder and swing, and Mazzola’s vocals never devolve into mommy-didn’t-hug-me screamo bullshit; instead, they burst forth like the last shout of a man who’s had all he’s gonna take from that asshole in the next cubicle, right before the shooting starts. [Read the whole piece here.]