FOR THE LOVE OF METAL
A tasty little 7″ slab o’ wax hot off the presses over at Chez Relapse, this split release features (what I assume to be) three new songs from Virginia grinders Agoraphobic Nosebleed and a handful of tracks from Toronto’s The Endless Blockade (perhaps that city’s best kept secret this side of Moe Panzer’s Deli up at Bathurst and Wilson – nah, actually way better than that).
Although I am writing this on the 30th, by the time I post this it will be July 31th and Hellbound will be on the final day of its second month. Hurrah! Not the most monumental achievement ever, but it feels like a major hurdle for me to have managed to update this website each weekday with new, fresh metal content for the past two months.
The Great Cessation is well-deserving of the focus and effort it asks of its listeners.
German power metal band Edguy returns with their second live album. Recorded live in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2006 in front of 5,000 Edguy maniacs on the Rocket Ride tour, this fourteen track two cd set displays the full impact of this band.
Fitting eleven tracks into 52 minutes, Leeches of Lore is quite the mixed bag. It goes from fast-paced neo-thrash/NWOBHM riffing to heavy rock a la Big Business to mellow proggy noodling and Johnny Cash-era country
music—and that’s just within the first three songs!
While previous efforts have been mired in attempts at being grandiose, Endgame strips away pretense…for the most-part. Omitting a few questionable moments, it still rages closer to the band’s early-’90s output than they have in years. No, it’s not an outright thrash metal masterpiece but Endgame still assures us that the important aspects of Megadeth’s personality remain intact, acting as a Jack Of All Trades by referencing high points in the band’s career.
“Metal is hard,” says Freeman. “It’s difficult, rigorous music but it’s not treated as such. These are guys who are on the level as symphony players on their respective instruments. These are guys who went into their bedrooms at age 10 and didn’t come out until age 20, but because they have long hair and they sing about decapitating virgins or whatever, it’s not treated with the respect the effort put into it would seem to demand.”
Laina Dawes speaks to music writer and recent Metal Edge editor Phil Freeman about his newly released book.
Endless echo contains a brand of energetic, melodic thrash that is just a complete aggressive metal listen; tracks like “No exit,” “My Haven” and “Spiritual shift” are both very fast and very intense. Rage is the best word to describe the reaction I had after listening to this CD. It got me all fired up.
Here is the playlist for Sunday night’s version of Hellbound Radio. The show was hosted by Albert Mansour, Kevin Stewart-Panko and Sean Palmerston.
It takes just a few seconds for In the Constellation of the Black Widow to erupt into a blistering frenzy, and the bombastic chaos drives through to the end with few interruptions. The U.K. duo has produced a hurricane of sound, with a whole spectrum of throat-wrenching vocal eviscerations, thundering blasts, grinding riffs, and lightning-speed leads.