Author: Craig Hayes
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Year-in-review 2015: Craig Hayes
As another year draws to a close, we metalheads tend to take time to reflect on what the year in metal meant to us, and prepare our various lists of what was great, what sucked, and everything in between. This year we decided to get a little more up close and personal with Team Hellbound,…
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Full Metal Parenting #10: Money
A lot of metal fans will tell you that the genre has taken them on journeys to dark, unexpected, and wholly beautiful places, leading them to question nature, reality, and the meaning of existence. Well, welcome to parenthood! It’s pretty much the same, and often twice as loud. Parenting is livin’ after midnight by default…
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Crusty Culprits: CRUST PUNK FROM BANDCAMP, Part Two
Welcome to part two of this Crusty Culprits feature. The point of the lengthy list below is to highlight a bunch of steel-edged punk rock that I’ve been enjoying in recent times. I stumbled on most of the bands featured here while exploring Bandcamp, and the majority of them are crust punk groups, because that’s…
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Iron Maiden – The Book of Souls
Whenever any of us listen to music, we bring the sum of our knowledge and experiences along for the ride. Those elements are called the beholder’s share, and they obviously shape our understanding and opinion of what we hear. I’m going to provide you with my opinion about Iron Maiden’s latest and sixteenth album,The Book…
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Crusty Culprits: Crust Punk from Bandcamp, Part One
I’ve loved heavyweight crust punk since I first heard bands like Discharge, Hellbastard, and Amebix adding metal to their respective visions of punk rock in the early 1980s. To this day, nothing satisfies my musical appetite more than some filthy battle-vested punk with a snarling metal accent. In recent years, Bandcamp has proven to be…
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Full Metal Parenting #9: Tom Campagna interview
We often take a reflective viewpoint here at Full Metal Parenting. Matt and I frequently talk about what we’ve learnt about parenting over the years. We talk about our successes, failures and/or frustrations. And we try to present some words of encouragement gleaned from all the experiences parenting can offer. We want to keep things…
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FULL METAL PARENTING #7: DRUGS AND BOOZE
This month’s Full Metal Parenting is all about drugs and alcohol, and I’ll tell you right at the start that the hardest substance I indulge in these days is an extra strong cup of Camellia sinensis. For me, cups of tea are about as debauched as it gets nowadays, and I’m well aware that doesn’t…
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Blakkr Nið – Drones, Dirges, and Dark Ambient Sounds
Bands like Earth, Boris, Sunn O))), Corrupted and Nadja have all used low frequencies and overdriven instrumentation on uber-slow songs to bring drone front and centre for a metal audience. However, as a form of musical expression, drone existed for aeons before any of those bands arrived. Drone is there in the core vibrations of…
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Full Metal Parenting #5: Anger
One of the first things my Full Metal Parenting co-conspirator, Matt, and I ever discussed, was the fact we’d both spent time in anger management classes. I can’t remember who brought the subject up first, but we shared a similar realisation that darkness was clouding our lives. Neither of us had been violent towards our…
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Full Metal Parenting #4: Interview with Jonathan Dick
In a few short years, Steel for Brains has become one of the most respected websites in this global metal community that we call home. Steel for Brains’ founder Jonathan Dick is regarded as one of the best interviewers out there, and he’s spoken to a lengthy list of metal’s legends and fascinating figures across…