Ken!

1. Us

Well, let’s start with the big one. We’ll be there. Yes, your favourite people in the whole wide world (shut up, we are) are going to set up camp, drink a few bottles of gin & go for a naked jog about the campsite. Probably the best thing you’ll see all weekend.

2. Forbidden

14 years ago, Forbidden dropped Green in our laps. Now, Brown might have been a more appropriate title so it was a pleasant surprise when 2010′s Omega Wave pissed on it from a considerable height. They could have done a Grave, chucked together some recycled riffs with less variation than the output of a particularly unambitious Breville sandwich maker. Bish, bash, bosh, 3/5, on with the groupies. Instead, Steve Smyth bringing an extra string to the mix & big Russ remembering he could shatter scrota with his highs, they reminded the world that a good reunion album doesn’t have to play it safe.

3. Primordial

Having just put out the best album of their career, we’ve got high hopes that Nemtheanga (Alan to his mates) & pals will make their UK open air debut one to remember. As long as we get Coffin Ships & Lain With The Wolf, I will do a celebratory jig.

4. Morbid Angel

This is going to go one of two ways. Either (and I’ll admit this is the less likely option), Evil D & chum(p)s will storm the stage to Immortal Rites before ripping everyone a new hole to piss from with Rapture. A blinding set of classics causes us to forget their recent effort & as they close with Where The Slime Live, everyone joins in a chant of “We forgive you!”. The other possibility is that they play the hour-long extended mix of Radikult as Vincent wipes his sweaty ringpiece on original vinyl pressings of Altars before stamping on them & kicking them into the crowd. There’s definitely no chance they will wobble from side to side with cold dead eyes & play an utterly pedestrian set featuring a couple tracks off the new album & a few hits. It just couldn’t happen….

5. Wintersun

The ironically titled Time has now been in production for longer than recorded history but their appearance at festivals around Europe hopefully means that Jari is approaching his majestic vision. That or his mum is sick of the smell of week old feces emanating from the basement. Mopped clean & shoved on stage, there’s exactly one new song in their current setlist so at this rate, we can expect Time in 2041. Unless the builders next-door start work again.

Check back soon for the imaginatively titled Five More Reasons Why You Should Be At Bloodstock which may or may not contain nude pictures of Dripback.

The original version was one of the ballsiest rock anthems of it’s time, with lyrics such as ‘the fighting has begun’ and ‘death is just a heartbeat away’, and with Gary Moore’s epic, strong voice belting them out. Then, lo and behold, these finnish lads have to go and make it a softy anthem with Tony Kakko’s pussy vocals and the excessive amount of keyboards Sonata Arctica seem to have been putting into their recent albums. This is supposed to be a battle song, not a whingey poem. Gary and Phil must be spinning in their graves.

9. Throwdown – Becoming (Pantera)

Now Throwdown, just because you are a heavily noisy groove metal band does NOT give you the ability to do a good Pantera cover. You are not Pantera and you never will be. You would be more suited to doing limb-swinging hardcore than groove metal.

8. Six Feet Under – Jailbreak (Thin Lizzy)

7. Fightstar – Breaking The Law (Judas Priest)

Ok, an ex-member of the talentless excuse for a ‘band’, Busted, forming what he claims to be a ‘metal band’ but are actually just a sad attempt at alternative/nu-metal turning one of metal’s true anthems into a nu-metal/screamo song? In the words of Priest themselves – ‘ALL! GUNS! ALL GUNS BLAZING!’

6. Amon Amarth – Aerials (System Of A Down)

Now, shitty bands destroying classic metal tracks is one thing – but killer bands like Amon Amarth covering god-awful nu-metal tracks by SOAD is really taking the piss. You disappoint me, Johan Hegg. Make this the last time!

5. Norther – The Final Countdown (Europe)

Why, oh why did we have to have a good old fist-in-the-air 80s rock anthem turned into a gallopy finnish folk metal song? There was just no need! Maybe the guilt of ruining this classic is what caused Petri Lindroos to quit the band and join Ensiferum. And fucking rightly so!

4. DevilDriver – Wasted Years (Iron Maiden)

A song which a lot of Maiden worshippers (including myself) would describe as the greatest song Maiden ever done has been butchered into a growly mess by Dez ‘Please love me, i was in Coal Chamber’ Fafara and his bunch of Pantera wannabes. At least Thunderstone didn’t tamper with it in any way, shape or formwhen they covered it, you stud-faced wretch!

3. Wednesday 13 – Rock N Roll All Nite (Kiss)

Time to face the truth, little goth girlies – the Murderdolls are NOT a glam metal band! Just because Wednesday 13 is heavily influenced by glam metal (or so he claims) does NOT change the fact that he is a talentless image-based poser who spends more time worrying about how many different shades of red and black he has to wear on stage, and this less than average attempt to hide it proves it very clearly.

2. Killswitch Engage – Holy Diver (Dio)

The fact that there are mongoloids out there who thought that this was a Killswitch original is almost as blasphemous as the desecration of the late Ronnie James Dio’s signature classic. The addition of screamo vocals, the loss of the guitar solos and the cheesy attempt at an 80s-style vid make this one of the biggest pieces of infamy in metal history. We can only pray that when this band die, the spirit of Ronnie Dio will cast them out of metal valhalla and into the deep, dark, fiery AIDS pit.

And the ‘winner’ is…………………

1. Children Of Bodom – Pretty much every cover they have ever done!

The finnish sellouts known as Children Of Bodom have been known for throwing one or two completely pish cover song on each of their albums. But when they go and release an entire album of these shitty covers, you have to ask yourself “Did Alexi Laiho spend enough time in rehab?”. On this monstrosity of an album entitled Skeletons In The Closet not only have they completely desecrated a whole bunch of classics including Suicidal Tendencies’ War Inside My Head, Trust/Anthrax’s Antisocial and Bed Of Nails by Alice Cooper, but they even had the balls (and i say that loosely) to cover some of the most ridiculous choices of songs any metal band could ever think of, including Oops…I Did It Again by Britney “Big fat pig legs” Spears and She Is Beautiful by Andrew W.K.. And to think, these guys were actually serious about their music at one point. God help us all!

Haar's Top 10 Albums Of 2010

10. Grand Magus – Hammer Of The North

Easily the best true metal/Doom band around at the moment – this band can do no wrong! Perhaps not quite as amazing as Iron Will, but essential none-the-less. I was initially a bit annoyed when Grand Magus abandoned their doom roots but with their last two releases they’ve blown any doubts I might have harboured right out the water!

9. Grave Miasma – Realm Of Evoked Doom

Along with Diamanthian and Cruciamentum, one of the best old school DM bands to come out of the UK for ages. Realm Of Evoked Doom is both an EP and a reissue so I’m kind of cheating here. I couldn’t care less though as this is an essential release for all old school DM fans. It manages to conjure up some serious occult atmosphere, sounding like it was recorded in a subterranean cave. You’ll find no pig squeels or gravity blasts here, just good old evil sounding DM!

8. Castevet – Mounds Of Ash

Oooohhh I’ve chosen a trendy album! Like the excellent Krallice this is likely to be denounced by the true black metal warriors out there. Oh well, they’re missing out. The hardcore/post-hardcore influence is immediately apparent but really works in this case. In fact the sound is not a million miles away from Krallice in places but it has a thicker, heavier sound. Well worth a listen if you don’t mind a bit of cross-genre pollination.

7. Ghast – Terrible Cemetery

I was really looking forward to this EP after their masterful first album. Did it live up to expectations? Ohhhh aye! Another two tracker, it continues where the first album left off. The thing that really sets Ghast apart is that they sound like they’re about to fall apart at any second – everything is pushed to the limits. The drums, guitar and bass are all in time but you get the feeling they could implode at any moment. Combine this with some seriously tormented vocals and you’ve got a winner!

6. Abigor – Time Is The Sulphur In The Veins Of The Saint…

Following on from where Fractal Possession left off, these Austrians have unleashed another technical black metal masterpiece. The only real difference between this release and its predecessor is that the two songs are seriously lengthy affairs, both clocking in around the twenty minute mark. Hallelujah indeed!

5. Watain – Lawless Darkness

It seems that a lot of folk were disappointed by this release. I really don’t know where they are coming from. Sure, there are quite a few 80s hard rock influences coming through at points but when the riffs are that good, how can you complain?

4. A Forest of Stars – Opportunistic Thieves Of Spring

One of the odder UKBM bands you’re likely to hear. They dress in Victorian garb, drink tea and play a superb brand of post black metal. Their songs are almost always lengthy with long ambient passages and unpredictable structures. The use of keyboards is tasteful, never dominating the guitars and the use of violin adds that little something extra.

3. Burial – Dissidence

UKBM seems to be going from strength to strength and Burial is yet another band that provides further evidence of this. However, unlike the Winterfylleths and Wodensthrones of this world you’ll not find any heathen elements here. This is straight up death/black metal – brutal and relentless!

2. Nightbringer – Apocalypse Sun

Bit of a grower this one! I didn’t really rate this until a drunken, early morning listening session in Manchester. It’s a very intense listening experience with the blasts and tremolo picking rarely letting up but it never becomes monotonous. It’s definitely got that UGBM feel and just gets better and better with each listen.

1. Deathspell Omega – Paracletus

DsO are one of those rare bands that are consistently good….almost annoyingly good! After Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice I reckon this is their best effort to date. It’s got the dissonance and density that you’d expect from their second phase but at the same time it has some of the most memorable melodies you’re likely to hear. My favourite of the year.

Ten doesn’t seem quite enough for this year so I’d also like to plug The Mercian Sphere by Winterfylleth, Hooded Menace’s Never Cross the Dead and A Great Work Of Ages by Stargazer – both stunning albums!

Colonel Blast's Top 10 Albums Of 2010

Colonel Blast‘s “What on earth was all that shouting about” List. It’s been pretty hard coming up with 10 albums that were released in 2010 that really audially sucked us off big time. Diascorium tried to suck us all off but we flat out refused, between Paul Priest’s owly beak, Bernards carefully constructed tramp chic and Gareths “sideburns on a childs face” look there wasn’t an option we were willing to test with our mighty girth, we considered David Bond for a minute due to his wonderfully conditioned hair and pantene advert looks, but he wasn’t up for offering it up from behind so we weren’t given the option to pretend he was a woman. It doesn’t matter how good that hair looks, it’s still his face that it surrounds.

Anyway, in no particular order although the number one was on everybody’s list…

10 – Everything Everything – Man Alive

9 – Deathspell Omega – Paracletus

8 – Black Breath – Heavy Breathing

7 – Brain Drill – Quantum Catastrophe

6 – Daughters – Daughters

5 – Ion Dissonance – Cursed

4 – Rotting Christ – Aealo

3 – Impending Doom – There Will Be Violence

2 – Periphery – Periphery

1 – Dillinger Escape Plan – Option Paralysis

So there you have it, another list for you to look at and disagree with. Fuck off.

Lich King's Top 9 Albums Of 2010

Coming up with this list revealed a sad thing about me- I didn’t even listen to ten albums this year. I didn’t even check out the new Iron Maiden… after Dance of Death I didn’t have the heart to pop back in on my erstwhile favorite metal band and hear what they’re not doing. I tend to be pretty monogamous to the classics and down on what’s happening these days in metal, so it’s rare for me to even try something new. Couple that with my legendarily limited range of taste- I only like so much- and you’ve got a recipe for the most absent metal fan out there.

That said, Ewen’s a lovely chap and he’s asked me to list my top 10, so I guess I’ll put the nine albums I did hear in order.

9. Bonded By Blood – Exiled to Earth

No disrespect is intended to our friends in BBB by putting them last- I’ve always been (almost coldly) up front with them on that their style of music isn’t really to my taste. They’re beginning to go a more technical progressive speed route, and I’m over here in ExodusWorshipsburg. I admire what they’ve done, though, coming out with a thrash metal concept album about an alien occupation of earth. It’s cool stuff, and an example of the kind of nonlinear thinking we need as a subgenre.

8. Vindicator – The Antique Witcheries

I’m pals with these guys but I’ll be honest, there’s a much better album hiding here under a number of problems. The vocalist is clearly phoning it in, maybe after too many takes and a diminished urge to sound engaged. The sound is almost too clean and the crunch suffers for it. It’s a step away from the destructive sound on their split with Metal Witch, but it’s still a better album than what you’ll hear from most bands on the covers of metal magazines these days. Here’s hoping their next effort reflects what I know they’re capable of.

7. Razormaze – Miseries

The new wave of thrash metal is rightly criticized for being awash with clueless and styleless Slayer clones, wherein riffs and thrash costumes abound but originality is a hard thing to discover. Razormaze have one of the most distinct sounds in modern thrash. It’s best described as “what if you turned up the metal, speed and aggression in Skid Row’s Slave to the Grind?” I realize that doesn’t really tell you that much, but hey, listen for yourself… Miseries is a free download. razormaze.bandcamp.com

6. Witchaven – Terrorstorm

The only band with blackened influence that I can stand, Witchaven are the kings of the midtempo riff and this album’s got a lot to headbang to. Shortly into Dawn of the Unholy there’s a monstrous moment that will get any room banging. I take issue with a lot of what makes Witchaven Witchaven- most notably their insistence that using a photo of a murdered child as an album cover isn’t for shock value, it’s to educate you as to what’s going on in the world. Rolling my eyes that hard sours the experience a bit but ehh. The metal’s good.

5. Violator – Annihilation Process

There’s a feeling in music that I once heard described as “the ‘OH SHIT’ effect.” The song starts and the energy grabs you and takes you with it, almost against your will, and you exclaim “OH SHIT” from the sensation of all that desperate anxiety. Violator’s one of the best bands to evoke the OH SHIT effect since Vio-Lence, and the first minute of Poisoned by Ignorance hits you hard. Overall, though, the feeling is the same as their superior album Chemical Assault and the songwriting hasn’t developed. Each song seems tailored to evoke the same emotion- and very well- but an album needs at least a bit of diversity.

4. Lich King – World Gone Dead

That’s right, I put our album in my own top ten list and I placed it fourth. Eat me.

3. Overkill – Ironbound

This album would be first for me if not for a number of little confusions- why that acoustic bridge in the otherwise stellar Ironbound, why this lyrical theme, why that riff and so on. I’d be lying if I said these choices weren’t completely in keeping with Overkill’s writing style, but that’s why I’ve never quite understood them to the level I’d like. At any rate, this album’s incredibly strong and that’s why you’re seeing it at the top of so many top 10 lists this month.

2. Exodus – Exhibit B: The Human Condition

Exodus takes a lot of shit these days from the thrash body politic. The majority of it is aimed squarely at vocalist and professional scapegoat Rob Dukes, but it all comes down to the pissy sense of betrayal fans feel when a band doesn’t sound like it used to. Whine whine whine. The album isn’t exactly what I’d want from them but what a work ethic- they’re not displaying the tired feeling they did around Force of Habit, this is 1.3 hours of dense songwriting they were obviously very engaged in… in fact, most of the songs could stand to end about three minutes before they do. They’re almost showing too much passion for the songwriting. It doesn’t always pay off but it’s heavy, it’s worthwhile, it’s Exodus, it’s good.

1. Heathen – The Evolution of Chaos

Heathen makes the kind of riffs I want to hear more of. Barring the squidgy this-is-a-Thomas-Kinkade-level-of-corniness feeling I get during the spoken word segment of A Hero’s Welcome, the album is thick with my kind of metal. Heavy and speedy riffs, coexisting in harmony, the way nature intended.

Groan - Wizards, Sleepy Ones

With the end of the year rapidly approaching, we thought we’d catch up with some of our favourite bands & find out what they’d been listening to. First up are old school riff addicts, Groan – http://www.myspace.com/groanuk. We let them fight it out over who they wanted in their top 10. Appearing from a cloud of smoke, they returned with this list of doom, doom & a bit more doom. So here it is, in no specific order:

Cathedral – The Guessing Game

The Riff Wizard – I know this album hasn’t gone down so well but I love it. Cathedral have done something new and I think they did it very well. Loving the use of the mellotron.
Forest-Dwelling Fuzz Creature – Witness Funeral of Dreams played live and it will all become clear.

The Jim Jones Revue – Burning Your House Down

Mazzereth – Full on maxed out Rock and Roll. It stinks of Little Richard’s stinky best rock and roll moments.

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats – Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats

Mazz – The sounds of something that is not of this world. Almost like some evil twisted fucker just decided to get into his time machine and ruin some hot chicks from the 1960′s.
FDFC - I love everything about this band.

Dopefight – Buds

Mazz – Sweet lady riff has just entered the room, please light one up and lap up the thunder.

Chrome Hoof – Crush Depth

FDFC – I’ve loved Mr. Bungle for years. This is like Mr. Bungle but from outer space. Something a bit different. Lasers, basslines and dancing.

Witchsorrow - Witchsorrow

Mazz – Wither before this doom of doom. If thee do not wither before this doom then thee are dead already.

Ghost – Opus Eponymous

FDFC – Believe the hype, embrace the pseudo-Satanism. This is clearly the bassist’s band – listen to how he guides each song from hook to catchy hook.

Heaven & Hell – Neon Nights : 30 Years of Heaven & Hell

TRW – Amazing live album. Perfect set, the band are on form. And of course, who doesn’t love Dio?

Place Of Skulls – As A Dog Returns

Thor’s Hammer – Mix The Obsessed with Led Zeps lighter moments and you have this monumental album. Victor Griffin is a beast.

Cough – Ritual Abuse

TH – Such utter filth! You can almost smell the blood of a tortured virgin.

So there you have it. Groan’s top 10. Now we’ll leave you with the video for The Martyr King, taken from the very sexy Sleeping Wizard album.

Get Damned With Leave The Hall

Get Damned Or Die Trying : Leave The Hall’s Guide To Damnation Festival

1 day, 3 stages, 25 bands. It’s safe to say things are going to get pretty hectic but don’t worry, we’ve got you sorted. We’re going to give you a handy list of the bands you really shouldn’t miss out on.

Alcest

Alcest

At the risk of being called a big gay poofter, I’ll come out & say it. Alcest make beautiful music. They purport to be a one-man progressive, post-black metal band but really they are the second coming of Enya. That said, as a middle class child of the mid-eighties, I fucking love Enya. Now, Neige might be a sometimes girly-voiced, French type but he also happens to be one of those insanely talent multi-instrumentalist. As an end result, they divide opinions pretty heavily & I fully expect a few Anaal Nathrakh fans popping in to call him a brie-eating wankstain.

Diascorium & Colonel Blast Opening Terrorizer Stage

Colonel Blast & Diascorium

Colonel Blast & Diascorium battled it out for days over the opening slot of the Terrorizer stage. Things ended with them taking 3/4 of the vote between them & only a handful separating the two. Instead of making them fight to the death for the slot, as that would get messy, the Special Olympics approach was taken & everyone won. Well, everyone in Colonel Blast & Diascorium anyway but that’s fine with us. The former are quite happy to tear our faces off with their hyper-brutal modern death metal whilst the latter’s blackened death approach sound like Fenriz fucking Suffocation.

Neither band is content with settling into the pre-defined genre boundaries that many are happy to limit themselves to. The end result is a couple of insanely talented British bands that give us all hope that metal isn’t completely fucked by short sightedness, genre Nazis & Lamb of Cunting God.

Esoteric & The Ocean

Esoteric & The Ocean

On a purely note to cash basis, Esoteric might look like a bad deal. Their sludgey funeral doom mixed with Mithras-esque spacey progressive death metal has a hypnotic quality that can leave even the most cast iron of bowels emptying it’s load. Their 35 minute set will probably mean they manage to play 2/3 of a track but there’ll need to be a long enough gap between them & The Ocean to get the sea of poo cleaned up.

The Ocean have been pretty busy this year. As they’ve consolidated from a sprawling collective to a 6 piece they’ve got heavier by a degree of tons. They’ve put out 2 albums of crushing, progressive sludge & when not in the the studio, they’ve been off on tour or getting €6000+ nicked off them in Spain. Currently harassing the UK with Dillinger Escape Plan, their Damnation set should be pretty magical as long as their current run of shitty luck ends.

The UK Thrash Scene

UK Thrash Scene

With Mutant opening the Jägermeister stage & a triple bill of Lawnmower Deth, SSS & Sabbat kicking off at 4:35, you’ve got your new & old school thrashist urges catered for.

Sabbat are on top form at the moment & they’ve been playing Blood for the Blood God lately which is the best thing ever to be put onto the beloved format of flexidisc. There’s also the brilliant Lawnmower Deth who got back together in 08 to support some sort of Welsh turd pride act. Their recent Download appearances went down like a confused granny on a stairwell & it’ll be great to see them on a smaller, more dive-able stage.

Oh & there’s Mutant who put out one of the best EPs of 2009. Now they really need to pull their finger out & give us the best album of 2010! Last but not least,  we’ve got crossover monsters SSS who have an excellent song about moustaches.

Earthtone Fucking 9

earthtone9

That’s all I need to say. These guys have been MIA for years & there’s no way I’m missing their long awaited reunion. arc’tan’gent is among my favourite albums of all time & if they don’t play a ton off it, I might go have a cry in the corner.

Anyway, that’s who we are looking forward to. If you’ve not got your tickets yet, why the fuck not?! Go buy them now here & we’ll see you on Saturday! I’ll most likely be the fat guy who should put his t-shirt back on & stop pushing children in the pit.

The Truth Is In Here

4. What The Hell Happened To The New Wintersun Album?

The Mystery

Wintersun’s 2004 eponymous debut album was a progressive-technical-power-melodic-black-epic-folk-shred masterpiece and rightly won legions of die hard fans worldwide. Naturally there was incredible pressure to follow it up with something of equal majesty, something that would take an already incredible blueprint and multiply it thousand fold until it created a black hole of pure, supermassive genius. All was going well as mastermind Jari Maenpaa went to Sonic Pump studios in Helsinki to begin the recording sessions for the second album, tentatively (and ironically) called Time.

Once, maybe twice a year came an update, like the mad ramblings of a maniac ensconced on a private island constructed from his own shit. Initially they were positive, talking about slight delays but mentioning that it would be a concept album that would take up the entire possible run time of a CD. Then came the broken computer issue, where files were lost. Then came the revelation that no computer existed that could hold the genius of the songs he was creating. Eventually, he got so sick of posting weird, mystical updates about delays that, rather than creating one about how he was defeated at chess by an evil wizard who forced him to hand over what recordings he had, he just said ‘fuck it, it’ll be ready when it’s ready’, possibly while stroking his enormous cornflake-encrusted beard and doing a little jig. Since then there has been nothing, though fans still wait.

It could be that it will surface soon, but the truth is far more terrifying…

The Truth

It will never come out, at least not for another 10 years. It is quite clear that the album is now stuck in limbo, with no release that can possibly live up to expectation after so long. From our investigations, we conclude that when it surfaces it will be called Finnish Democracy and Jari Maenpaa will resurface looking hideously bizarre; with braided hair, lycra cycling shorts and a strange, cat-like face following botched cosmetic surgery. He will then begin a hate/hate relationship with his fans, no-showing most gigs that he has booked, and just taking a musical shit on the rest, before literally disappearing up his own anus.

3. How Come Dave Mustaine’s Hair Hasn’t Aged At All In Almost 30 Years?

The Mystery

One of the most enduring mysteries of all time was surely deserving of our investigation. For decade after decade the Megadeth mastermind has straddled the hair world with his mighty strawberry blonde mane, undiminished by years of alcohol and heroin abuse and unbowed by advancing age. Some people believe he is lucky, that he has been blessed with a hugely powerful head of hair, or that he uses a unique blend of shampoos and conditioners in order to maintain that volumised masterpiece. The truth however, is far more chilling…

The Truth

It is a little known fact that Dave Mustaine is a firm believer in stem cell technology, and has carried out some covert work into genetics in an underground facility in Nevada. Driven by an obsession with having the most beautiful hair in thrash and after many years of painstaking research and countless experiments on tramps, Dave now has a bank of clone hair donors stored in his private cryogenic facility.

Of course, this sort of technology does not come cheap, and as such Mustaine was forced to go to extraordinary measures to pay for this hair-maintaining research, releasing a series of ever more bizarrely mainstream albums throughout the 90s in the hope they would bring in the money that he was pouring into his cloning work. Only now can we reveal that the profits from Breadline made his hair 8% more luxurious.

2. What Happened To The Drummer From Def Leppard’s Arm?

The Mystery

Def Leppard are arguably more famous for their one-armed drummer than for their incredible, diamond-selling party tunes. Which is wrong, but understandable… Having lost his arm in a car accident on New Years Eve 1984, he made an incredible comeback, using a heavily modified kit to produce the outrageously electronic drumbeats that made Hysteria so ridiculously catchy. A remarkable tale, no doubt, but the untold story that accompanies it is far, far more terrifying…

The Truth

This answer is stranger than fiction. It is widely known that attempts to re-attach Rick Allen’s arm failed in 1985 after the arm refused to heal properly. What people don’t know is that the arm made a conscious decision to remain alone, having become increasingly disillusioned with the more restrained direction Def Lep’s music had been taking since High and Dry. It evaded being captured and incinerated as medical waste, instead travelling from town to town and subsisting on the modest income that it brought in as a member of a number of Yorkshire jazz combos.

Stranger than that, however, is what happened next. Fate had something far more bizarre in store for both the arm and for music in general. Feeling jaded with the life of a jobbing jazz drumming arm, and wanting to try his hand at technical death metal, Allen’s appendage made the move across the Atlantic, heading through Canada and making ends meet giving handjobs to lonely Ice Road Truckers. Eventually the arm grew weary of being alone and in 1991 made his way to a Montreal hospital. Inside was a young amputee called Florent, whose burgeoning dreams of being the drummer in a sell-out deathcore crew were shattered by a tragic industrial accident. Feeling a common bond with the young amputee, the arm offered itself up as a graft, choosing to utilise the new host as the key to his drumming future. For the next 16 years, Rick Allen’s arm was none other than Flo Mounier, controlling his Canadian host through sheer will of drumming power.

Sadly, in 2008, Flo Mounier underwent a psychological intervention, regaining full control of body and mind from the powerful limb, and was now even more determined to play piss poor breakdowns and incorporate the singing choruses he’d subconsciously been writing while Rick Allen’s arm wrote None So Vile. The result was The Unspoken King and a black day for metal.

1. How Come Metallica Haven’t Released A Good Album Since 1988?

The Mystery

It’s common knowledge that Metallica are a joke now. Many people put this down to a lack of desire or hunger after so much early success, that the band that released Load/Reload and St. Anger were simply too pampered and ingrained in the mainstream to ever recapture the early creative fire that made them the biggest name in metal during the mid 80’s. People say their association with Bob Rock meant they dispensed of the progressive elements that were so key to their sound, and some say that they never truly recovered from the death of Cliff Burton.

The truth, however, is far more horrifying…

The Truth

The truth is, Cliff wasn’t the only one that died on that September night in Sweden when Metallica’s tour bus crashed. In fact, the entire band perished in the incident.

In a blind panic, the band’s management and record label hatched a plan. A dastardly plan inspired by the one that the Beatles had used 20 years earlier when Paul McCartney had died in a car accident – they would replace the band members with doppelgangers and continue. With such a hot musical property on their hands, the label executives just HAD to wring some more money out of it before the truth came out.

In the short term this appeared to work; even the fact that they couldn’t find a suitable Cliff Burton lookalike and had to make do with that bloke from Flotsam & Jetsam had been swallowed hook, line and sinker by the fans, press and public. They also had a load of unreleased material from prior album recording sessions that they arranged and released as …And Justice For All – though as these were rough demos the production was poor. Again, this potentially fatal flaw was successfully passed off with a paper-thin excuse – blame Flemming Rasmussen. Everything was going to plan.

Then, after the ‘band’ had finished touring …And Justice For All (miming, of course), they faced the problem of coming up with yet more material to satisfy their ever growing fanbase. There were only a handful of riffs and song segments left, so they hired the hottest producer of the moment to sew what little they had into a coherent body of work. Again, they struck lucky, and ‘Metallica’s self-titled album was a smash, as critics and morons wanked over the boring, one-dimensional, one paced tunes within.

The shady cabal’s luck was to run out, however. Even with 5 years to write and record new material, the doppelgangers (and an increasingly confused Jason Newsted) could only produce Load and Reload. Even with all the industry songwriting help that the record label provided, they could only produce tracks like Fuel and Mama Said. Even worse was the discovery that, even after years of vocal training, Hetfield’s doppelganger was only capable of crooning ‘Whoaaaa-Yeaaaahh’ a lot and had a bad habit of adding a slurred ‘eeeaaahhhh’ noise on to the end of each word he sang. The resulting albums were a disaster, as was the poor decision to let Fred Durst write 2003’s St. Anger.

When ‘Metallica’ tried to recapture their thrash sound with Death Magnetic, it was the last embarrassing nail in a once great bands coffin. The sound of 3 eager but ultimately talentless lookalikes (and that guy from Suicidal Tendencies) attempting to copy the best work of one of the most exceptional, yet tragically short lived bands in existence was only ever going to end in disaster. Hopefully, now the truth is revealed, they will put this ridiculous charade to bed once and for all.

I hope you appreciate the suffering and sacrifice that went in to researching this article. I may never be the same again.

10. Disturbed – Voices

Nu metal was the most underground, rebellious music of all time. It made everyone convinced that they were an outsider, rallying against the oppression of modern society. Nu-metal albums sold by the million, and everyone that bought one knew that they were no longer a loser. Oh no, now they were empowered and fired on by this new, awesome soundtrack to their lives, they would strike back at the jocks and bullies (who ironically were the only other ones that bought this fucking drivel) and reclaim their pride. This utter bullshit is best documented here, where a creepy little paedo has murder fantasies about his cooler, more popular colleagues then goes to a Disturbed concert and gets all his frustrations out in his wife-beater. These events pretty much sum up the losers that listen to Disturbed. My advice – if you feel like everything’s getting you down, just kill yourself and don’t encourage bands like this.

9. Coal Chamber – Loco

Oh my god! A scary milkman! Move over Eddie, look out Vic Rattlehead! Somehow managing to be worse than White Zombie and Korn put together, Coal Chamber are proud testament to the never give up attitude that allowed people since time immemorial to really stretch and reach lower than ever before in the search for dirty, dirty money. In recent years you may have undergone a ‘renaissance’ and pulled the wool over some weak-minded groove-metal peoples eyes Mr. Fafara, but I will never forget this and never ever forgive you.

PS Devil Driver are shite.

8. Dope – Everything Sucks

Dope, yeah? They’re crazy, right? They have to play in a cage cos they’re just so alternative and out there. They play a gig and there’s a freak show and circus and stuff there, yeah? They’re well dangerous and subversive. They’re named after drugs, cos they take drugs and they don’t care who knows about it. Then there’s like skateboards, ramps and flames and people just being really EXTREME, cos that implies Dope are extreme. To the max. And they got mad bitches. Silver ones.

Yes I do want fries with that, former members of Dope, and i’ll take the last remaining morsels of your hopes and dreams to go in a dignity milkshake.

7. Deadsy – The Key To Gramercy Park

This band look kind of like The Cartoons, but it’s a shame they’re not as metal. They have zany nu-metal names like Alec Püre and Phillips Exeter Blue I – that one is Cher’s son – and Creature. Now I’m not saying that nepotism got them where they are, but it certainly wasn’t musical skills or hard work. It’s almost like you could see the baton being passed from Nu-Metal to Emo stylings right in this video, as the Deadsy crew eschew dreadlocks and spiked hair in favour of a more relaxed and informal barnet. An interesting little nugget of sociology on display there. They do manage to make the guitars sound like farts though, which is pretty fucking cool.

6. Dry Kill Logic – Riot At The Bat Rack

While most Nu-Metal artistes stuck to covering 80’s pop songs in order to sell records, Dry Kill Logic trod a different, unique path. They covered ‘Take Me Out To The Ball Game’ and incredibly, against all the odds, sold a phenomenal 0 records. Proving that Nu-Metal and sports go together like baseball and Human Growth Hormone, the video for Riot At The Bat Rack is a truly inspired concept, featuring the vocalist arguing with an umpire and the lads looking super tough by walking about with baseball bats – something that 5 Finger Death Punch ‘borrowed’ recently. In fact, this could be off one of 5 Finger Death Punch’s albums. It’s really that fucking bad.

5. Vanilla Ice – Too Cold

Rob Van Winkle had an idea. He saw that Nu-Metal was blowing up in ’98, he saw people covering cheesy old nostalgia pop songs in an aggressive style and getting huge overnight, but there was one problem. Rob was worried that too many of the profits from these covers go to the original writer via royalties. Luckily for him, Rob was Vanilla Ice, and decided to give his own classic tune ‘Ice Ice Baby’ the Nu-Metal treatment, remembering that he’d been fucked by royalties before and so conveniently left out that Queen and David Bowie bassline that he stole – which some say was the key to the song – and replaced it with some down-tuned riffing and some additional turntable scratching. He had done it! Surely with this infallible masterplan he couldn’t fail to match or even surpass his former glories. The result? A bag of fucking bollocks and fewer record sales than Hitler Goes Funk.

4. Methods Of Mayhem – Get Naked

Tommy Lee, not content with inflicting Motley Crue on the world and riding high after the release of his home-made smash-hit porno decided that a career in Nu-Metal beckoned, and so he combined his love of piss-poor music and fucking to create ‘Get Naked’, a thoughtful and hugely cerebral piece of art that should appeal to anyone with an IQ in single figures. He is naked in the video (apart from a fruity little hat) as he raps that ‘he ain’t leaving ‘til you sleepin on a cum stain’. A direct threat that I could probably sue him over, and may well do after having to listen to this box of foreskin. It also features Lil’ Kim and Fred Durst, so in many ways it’s like my very own Desert Island Concentration Camp selections placed right before my eyes, singing about their huge penises or how they love riding huge penises. Still, it somehow manages to be worse than the sum of its hugely cunty parts.

3. Sugarcoma – Crazy

Hey Mr. Marketing Man, what have you got there? Ah it’s a nu-metal band featuring girls, covering a Britney Spears song? Wow, talk about a money-spinner! Can I hear it?

*2 and a half minutes later*

Ah, now, Mr Marketing Man, the mistake you’ve made there is to get a band with no redeeming features to create one of the most lifeless, atrocious, soul-destroying pieces of music of ALL FUCKING TIME. This is like bobsleighing down a course that’s been covered in sandpaper, using your bollocks as a sled. The vocals are diarrhoea, the guitars are diarrhoea and the drums are diarrhoea. It’s just a big glass of diarrhoea. Plus it means I have to leave Kittie off this list.

2. H-Blockx – The Power

This one has it all. None of it good. Fuck me, it’s a total disaster. Like a massive car crash, you just have to keep staring, even when the horrors you see before you will fucking ruin your life forever. It’s a ‘hard-rocking’, ‘ballsy’ cover of an old pop song, the oldest trick in the Nu-Metal book, only this one has a white German man that looks like an extra from Grease rapping about being the “lyrical Jesse James”. Jesus prolapsed. It features all the stuff that adolescent idiots love – pneumatic slags gyrating their plastic bodies around, souped-up cars, and – I assume this what the kids are down with – the singer huffing some oxygen that he borrowed from his gran’s care home to look cool. This has literally no redeeming features.

1. Machine Head – From This Day

Generic metal fan say – “Dude, Machine Head are the best metal band out there. The Blackening was sooo rad dude! Through The Ashes Of Empires was killer, bro!”

No. This is your precious Machine Head. Fucking sell-out pussies who jumped on the first bandwagon that came past, which happened to be Rap Metal. Which is a shame, as a Rob Flynn Reggae album would have been much funnier. Image-wise, they’ve decided to ditch jeans and a t-shirt and gone the whole hog with zany nu-metal hair, Jonathan Davis’ tracksuit cast-offs and… hang on… no, it can’t be… they’re wearing PVC gimp suits. That tears it.

No amount of half-baked groove thrash ‘comebacks’ can erase this mighty musical skidmark. To think that this man used to be in both Forbidden AND Vio-Lence. Even if Machine Head’s next album was some sort of godly, majestic mix of Slaughter Of The Soul, Necroticism and Individual Thought Patterns, the massive drag factor of this video would still leave their credibility deeper in the red than an Irish bank. Absolutely vile.

10. Hammerfall – By Any Means Necessary

This is by no means a good song. It is in fact the foetus of a song, lacking any serious development or progression. That said, it is more metal than Optimus Prime’s left bollock & it’s brain-dead chorus will be stuck in your head for the next decade. As if Oscar Dronjak’s red leather trousers, waistcoat & silly face aren’t enough, we also get Joacim Cans blowing up a whole town just for our amusement.

9. Nitro – Freight Train

Michael Angelo Batio’s status as one of the greatest shredders in the world could have carried Nitro alone but paired with Jim Gillette’s ball-shattering vocals, the end result is entirely unique & massively hilarious. 4 stage hands lost their lives constructing Gillette’s majestic perm (possibly) but the highlight of the video has to be at the 2:17 mark where Batio summons the greatest guitar known to mankind before launching into 40 seconds of fretboard gymnastics.

8. Loudness – You Shook Me

Japan’s biggest contribution to the world of heavy metal meets one of America’s greatest vocalist for this slice of late eighties Power Rangers inspiring magic. Low budget special effects include Akira Takasaki’s earthquake-generating solo destroying a scale model of the Hollywood sign.

7. Lionsheart – Can’t Believe

Leave The Hall’s favourite frontman of all time, Steve Grimmett, channels Coverdale in a ballad of epic proportions. Smoke, guitarists in the rafters & cheese-tastic vocal harmonies make this video a forgotten classic, even if the band don’t seem to know the words. Only Grimmett could pull this off.

6. Accept – Balls To The Wall

One of the definitive heavy metal anthems, Accept‘s signature tune has an undeniably brilliant video. An army of metallers headbang their way through a wall & Udo Dirkschneider rides a wrecking ball through a church. What more could you ask for?

5. Savatage – Hall of the Mountain King

Jon Oliva & company hassle a midget in a cave in this video. It’s alright though because the midget turns out to be a thieving, little bastard. What does he get for his troubles? A copy of Savatage‘s latest album on cassette.  An allegorical tale, this video taught me that it’s ok to steal from the elderly.

4. Manowar – Return of the Warlord

A day in the life of Manowar. Taking your hogs out for ride, picking up prostitutes, playing below-average guitar solos & then spraying the crowd with champagne. Say what you will about them, they are almost certainly more metal than you.

3. Candlemass – Bewitched

Even if you hate Candlemass, and you are a cunt if you do, there’s a good chance you’ll have seen this. It crops up pretty regularly in lists of the worst metal videos of all time. These lists are almost certainly composed by morons in Trivium t-shirts.

2. Judas Priest – Hot Rockin’

If there were ever a song for getting pumped in the gym (or bum), this is it. Priest managed to pull a massive crowd for this video shoot of over 5 people. Note, at 31 seconds, when bassist Ian Hill fucks his line. An incident far less embarrassing than that of drummer Dave Holland who in 2004 fucked something else; a special child.

1. Grim Reaper – Fear No Evil

Here at Leave the Hall, we’ve got a bit of a Grimmett fetish & after watching this video, you will too. In it, he invades Death’s castle using some sort of post-Apocalyptic Mad Max meets Braveheart style tank. After freeing some slaves by breaking their chains with his bare hands, he murders a werewolf with a massive stone slab. Death promptly shits a brick & fucks right off. Grimmett 1 – Death 0.

Gaahl's Undeniable Dress Sense

Gaahl’s Fashion Fix

Satan! Oh, wait, no. Fashion! Yes, that’s right. Today I, black metal renaissance man, shall be talking you through some of heavy metal fashion disasters. My partner & I were sat in front of the TV last night watching my new Stryper DVD when I got thinking, metal is a rather unfashionable genre. I know not everyone can be quite as fabulous as myself but here are my big 5 no-nos.

5. Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath - Sabotage

Oh dear, where to start? Ozzy appears to be wearing some sort of kaftan & platform boots, Bill Ward’s red tights & leathers combo, Geezer’s blue spotted suit jacket & high waist band or the Mexican day-worker they got in to replace Iommi for the photo. Nothing about this picture is right. It looks like the aftermath of an explosion at Boy George’s fancy dress party. Oh how Elton & I laughed that night.

4. Cold Lake era Celtic Frost

Cold Lake era Celtic Frost

Tom may have made the eye-liner & black wool hat look his own but luckily this monstrosity never took off. I’m all for accessorising but white fingerless gloves  don’t do anything for you! As for Curt’s choice of red suspenders & a hand down his jeans, I really don’t know. He wouldn’t look out of place in my favourite film of all time, Backdoor Bum Boys 9: Pool Party Poop Pushers, but playing bass for the Frost, no. Stick to slimming blacks, boys!

3. Adam Dutkiewicz

Adam Dutkiewicz

Previous outfits have included capes & pirate hats but this one takes the unfashionable biscuit! Denim hotpants look fantastic on my Filipino pool boy, Pepe. If, however, you are as unfortunate looking as Adam, I’d recommend sticking to jeans, or possibly a burka. His on stage frolics just scream musical theatre to me. I may give my good friend Andrew (Lloyd-Webber. [ed]) a call & see if we can’t have him play the Phantom.

2. Dez Fafara

Dez Fafara through the ages

Corpse paint is the coolest thing since flavoured lubricant but taking it a step further & getting shitstains tattooed on your chin is not. I know Dez hasn’t been know for his fashion choices as demonstrated on the left but this buff man-bear on the right is just silly. Dez’s primary concern should be to lose some weight so that he can fit into a nice pair of tight black jeans, Chelsea boots, a fitted suit jacket & open shirt. He also needs to get rid of all that beastly body hair, I shall put him in touch with my waxer this instant!

1. Michael Amott

Michael Amott-tage

What decade is this, Mr Amott?! What do you need all those wallet chains for?! Call the fashion police immediately! Back to 2001 with you! Black is not a good colour for someone as pale as Michael. What he should do is break things up with a floral patterned shirt, some black hair dye & a nail-studded leather gauntlet. Combining this with some assless leather chaps & a pair of brown loafers will give him a more sophisticated, mature look.

* Disclaimer: This may or may not have been written by Gaahl. This is, however, exactly how it would have gone if he did.

What Take That could have been

Welcome to Part 2 of the definitive(ish) list of the greatest heavy metal concept albums. This is the business end, it’s the big one. Here we get into the real heavy hitters of conceptual conceptualising; the beard-stroking, lute-playing minstrels of our time.

You may read Part 1 here

4. Opeth – Still Life

It was a tough decision for me to limit myself to just one Opeth album, with My Arms, Your Hearse narrowly missing out as their entry on the list and 2005′s Ghost Reveries being partially conceptual as well. However, Still Life was where Opeth reached the high watermark of pretentiousness, though not boasting …Hearse’s ‘last lyric is name of next song’ japery, it does have a story that is better realised and presented in a way that is beautifully, intrinsically linked with the music. The tale tells of a man banished from a town for his religious beliefs, leaving behind the love of his life for 15 years, only to make a concealed return to try and find her. Naturally she’s a creepy nun by this point but nonetheless is murdered by the religious loony locals for simply meeting up with our protagonist. There seems to be a distinct lack of good-old Christian values in this here village. Our hero decides to go down fighting the slack-jawed yokels, but is eventually overpowered and hung, but not before he sees her ghost waiting for him in death as he stands ready on the gallows. This uplifting tale is backed by some of Opeth’s greatest songs – the delicate acoustics of Benighted and Face of Melinda are elevated to true masterpiece level by the story, while Godhead’s Lament is quite possibly my favourite Opeth song (Though this is massively open to change on an almost hourly basis). Even weighed against the exceeding level of genius that comprises Opeth’s career, Still Life manages to stand out as one of their finest moments.

3. Edge Of Sanity – Crimson

One man band and all round musical lunatic Dan Swano really outdid himself with Crimson. Seriously. According to the internets, some shops thought that this one track behemoth was a CD single and sold it for £3. Lucky for him, yet of no financial compensation, the music is so good it will actually make you take a shit in your pants; 40 unbroken minutes of crazy sci-fi storytelling set to a soundtrack of sexual death metal, prog. rock and acoustic tomfoolery that has more musical twists and turns than the human mind can safely navigate. The story apparently tells of a future where humankind can no longer conceive, until the King and Queen do that is, leaving everyone feeling pretty chuffed when their daughter is born. Sure, the Queen dies in childbirth, but that’s a small price to pay for restarting the planet’s population, right? Wrong, as no-one else concieves, ever, and then the King dies too. So they have some fuck-off wars, with a new King coming in who everyone hates. So yet again they do a war until the last-born Princess takes over. Which is great, until they realise she’s a mental and get rid of her too. I prefer to call it ‘Regicide – The Musical’. Of course only 17% of this intriguing storyline is legible due to the prominence of death growls, so we fall back on the music, which is as good as progressive death metal can possibly be – not overly technical but sprawling, epic, brutal and even catchy. It’s 2112 for crackheads.

2. King Diamond – Abigail

Abigail is an awesome story, taking in all the classic plot devices – a possessed baby, a haunted house, immaculate demon conception, pushing a pregnant woman down the stairs… And it features a cast of characters that all have 3 syllable names, allowing King Diamond to scream their names in a ridiculously high-pitched manner. The music would have to step up in a massive way to match up to this potent recipe, and thanks to the majesty of Andy LaRocque, Mikkey Dee and the former ‘Fate Members, it does in the most convincing way possible, producing what can only be described as some of the most bangin’, off-the-hook, wiggedy-wack and brap-tacular metal riffs and solos ever seen. Somehow they actually manage to fit more riffs per song than even Mercyful Fate themselves did, which is pretty fucking impressive. The album weaves the story so effectively and the vocals really bring out the personalities and feelings of the characters, with KD switching between his high, very high and dog whistle registers at ease. Standout tracks like The Family Ghost just dominate your face with genius and make you wonder why this isn’t rated (by me) as the greatest concept album of all time.

It might be because I still have no fucking idea why 18 becomes 9…

Or maybe it’s because of…

1. Queensryche – Operation Mindcrime

Yes. This is definitely the greatest concept album of all time, and now I think about it, it’s probably my number one album of all time too. It’s easy to look at (and indeed listen to) Queensryche now and forget how good they once were. Or laugh. In fact if only we could forget the last 20 years of their career it would be perfection and we’d probably be rating albums out of Tates. I could write a million words on Operation Mindcrime (and may very well do in future) but all you need to know is it’s a story of a junkie with a skinjob for a hairdo (yeah, he looked pretty cool), a nun (what is it about nun’s and concept albums) and a man called Dr X, who, apparently, is the man with the cure. Only the cure he offers is more heroin, assassinations and some hot nun-on-smackhead action. This would obviously be incredible as some sort of story or book, but when you add in some of the finest progressive yet perfectly streamlined heavy metal in the history of all life itself, topped off with Geoff Tate’s trouser-straining, orgasm-donating vocals, you have literally the greatest thing ever. I would normally pity you if you don’t own a great album, but instead I will look upon you, non-Mindcrime-owning heathen, with murderous rage and vomitous loathing, for Mindcrime… is sublime.

Numbers 8-5

Warrel Dane's audition for the Gary Busey biopic was a strong one.

Hello. Here is my take on the 8 greatest concept albums of all time, or at least the ones I have A) Heard and B) Remembered for the purpose of writing this piece. WASP’s Crimson Idol, Iced Earth’s Framing Armageddon double album and others were unlucky to miss out on merit, I totally forgot about Orphaned Land until writing this little intro, had massive reservations about Priest’s Nostradamus, wasn’t sure if Painkiller was really a concept album and generally made a right bollocks of the whole thing. With your expectations now suitably dampened, I present numbers 8-5 on this countdown to conceptual glory…

8. Hail Of Bullets – …Of Frost and War

I reviewed this behemoth last year, and as such it was fresh in my mind as I struggled to think of concept albums for this list, sneaking cheekily in at number 8. My mental deficiencies aside, however, this is still a crushing album that deals with the Eastern Front of World War 2, and you can’t get a much bigger concept to get your teeth into than that. In fact Hail of Bullets are something of a ‘concept band’, having also released the conspicuously similar Warsaw Rising EP in 2009. There isn’t a ‘story’ to decipher as with most concept albums, instead the songs are tied in chronological order, taking us on a violent, marauding journey across the battlefields and sieges of eastern Europe and back. That feeling that you‘ve been on a journey is exactly what you want from a concept album, and …Of Frost and War leaves you exhausted, shell shocked and sporting a full chest of service medals after every ball-aching listen.

7. Iron Maiden – Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

Iron Maiden are a grandiose band, a band who embrace big ideas and aren’t afraid to push the boat out regarding structure and song lengths, but strangely they only have one concept album to their name in 15 releases (though I still haven’t heard The Final Frontier) – 1988’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. Lyrically the album deals with a related variety of mystic questions, good and evil, clairvoyance etc. but there is no real storyline per-se other than the supposedly magical powers that the seventh son of a seventh son will inherit. This lack of total commitment to the ‘concept album concept’ may even have been a factor in the departure of Bruce Dickinson, who felt they hadn’t embraced the possibilities as well as Queensryche had done the same year with Operation Mindcrime. Nevertheless, for all its failings regarding conceptual cohesiveness, Seventh Son… contains some of Maiden’s most memorable songs – Can I Play With Madness and The Evil That Men Do saw Maiden reach their commercial peak and elsewhere, Infinite Dreams is an underrated masterpiece. Only The Good Die Young sounds like The Trooper part 2, with a chorus that is quite possibly dangerously addictive – like some sort of musical super-heroin, and the title track is epic Maiden in excelsis. Seventh Son… is a better album than most on here, but as a concept album it falls short of the mark, hence its lowly position.

6. Fates Warning – Parallels

Fate’s Warning are one of the pioneering kings of progressive metal, and though this album did not feature as much crushing technicality and epic musical masturbation as their early work with John Arch on vocals, the arrival of the less histrionic Ray Alder infused the bad with a new-found commerciality that made an album like Parallels possible. It is centered around a loose concept of songs covering a dying connection with a wife, girlfriend or whoever you choose to personally project the songs upon. Tracks like Life In Still Water, Eye To Eye and the epic The Eleventh Hour see Jim Matheos conjouring particularly heartfelt portraits of a loveless relationship, conveying a real feeling of desperation and growing isolation and in We Only Say Goodbye, Parallels also contains one of the greatest power ballads of all time, a monumental song that distils everything about the album into one highly-palatble 5 minute portion. Parallels could be seen as the progenitor of the genre I hereby christen ‘Michael Bolton Metal’, continued today by Evergrey and others, possibly the definitive example of music that contains enough heart-wringing emotion juice to drown a cat yet still packs a punch. It is best enjoyed with a large whiskey when you’ve been dumped… Just remember to hide the razorblades before you press play.

5. Nevermore – Dreaming Neon Black

This gets promoted up the list on the strength of the concept, supposedly being based on the very real disappearance of Warrell Dane’s girlfriend, but being adapted into a more general tale of a mans descent into madness following his girlfriends death. This conceptual framework allows Nevermore to develop their music in a way they hadn’t done on their previous albums, with a great deal more instrumental melancholy and gloom setting the scene for Dane’s twisted lyrics and tortured vocals. Nevermore have never produced anything like it since, with that darkness only occasionally resurfacing in recent years, but I feel their music is all the better for its presence. I Am The Dog, The Fault Of The Flesh and Poison Godmachine (where Warrel again breaks out his Refuge Denied-era high notes) are as forboding, threatening and heavy as anything the band has ever done, and they didn’t need the extra chunk of the 7th string they utilised in later years to achieve it. When you add the agonised The Lotus Eaters, the perilously-close-to-insane sound of All Play Dead and the brooding, angry Deconstruction into the mix it elevates the album so far above the pitiful beige skid mark that is music today that when Dreaming Neon Black takes a shit it will fall, meteor-like, at incredible speed, mercilessly destroying Snow Patrol et al as it penetrates deep into the earths crust. This is Nevermore’s best album.

Part 2 of the List is right this way

Nautical Montage is Montacular

5. Mastodon – Leviathan

After the absolutely brilliant debut, Remission, Mastodon invested in a book & dropped this whale-shaped bomb on the heavy metal scene. It’s probably a good thing that they picked Herman Melville’s epic Moby Dick. Whilst we are all still waiting for that elusive prog metal concept album based on Dr Seuss One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Melville’s imagery allows the lumbering doom & sludge structures developed on their previous releases to take on a whole new level of mental.

4. Ahab – Call of the Wretched Sea

In a serious attempt to come up with the most obscure genre name ever, Ahab are currently the world’s only purveyor of nautical funeral doom metal. Whilst Mastodon may have done it first, Ahab’s interpretation of Moby Dick takes things to outrageously heavy places. Their low tempo, distorted, downtuned sound induces a trance-like state. Combine that with bass levels that tread dangerously close to the brown chord & you are on course for a messy listening session. Bring a change of pants or, better still, get the whole experience by listening to it in the bath.

3. Savatage – The Wake of Magellan

Savatage have (almost all) survived some terrible challenges in their long career & their 10th studio album is definitely their magnum opus. A soaring rock opera which mixes 2 real life events with the fictional account of a sailor who, tired of the word, decides to sail out to sea & die alone. The lyrics combined with the liner notes tell a complex & epic tale which is narrated for the most part by Zak Stevens’ voice, more suited to musical theatre that progressive metal. Chris Caffery & Al Pitrelli’s guitar work is excellent but it’s Jon Oliva’s keyboard arrangements that make this album stand out as a career high-point for one of the most creative & painfully underrated metal bands ever.

2. While Heaven Wept – Vast Oceans Lachrymose

Classifying this album might be more challenging than drowning a fully grown spaniel in a toilet bowl but While Heaven Wept’s unique brand of progressive doom power rock is something special. What they attempt on Vast Oceans Lachrymose would cripple lesser musicians but the symphonic multi-tracked genius on their 3rd album blows away all the competition. Introduction of the new vocalist, Rain Irving, appears to have been the missing shot of steroids that finally allowed them to create this melodic masterpiece of superhuman quality. Epic 16 minute monstrosities & 0utrageous operatic vocals are the order of the day. Dive headfirst into this album, it will swallow you whole.

1. Alestorm – Captain Morgan’s Revenge

Scotland’s finest purveyors of nautical nonsense

Nope. I can’t do it. I was going to write a cheeky wee sentence about them, then we could all have a laugh at their expense but I can’t do it. I got halfway through my first sentence:  “Scotland’s finest purveyors of nautical nonsense” & I had to stop. A proper review of this album reads as follows: Hahahaha Failstorm.

They are shit, end of story. On to the real number one.

1. Running Wild – Port Royal

Rock ‘n’ Rolf’s band made the transition to pirate overlords with their 87 album Under Jolly Roger but their follow-up, Port Royal cemented their crown as king of the seas. The title track, Raging Fire & Blown to Kingdom Come are all speed metal anthems in their own right but it is with Conquistadores that the ‘Wild boys peak. Galloping bass lines Steve Harris would be proud of & a chorus as infectious as ebola make for a tasty combo of Germanic genius. Overcoming an extremely weak production, you’ll definitely need to turn this one all the way up to 11 but other than a single mis-step with Final Gates, a rather pointless instrumental track, you are faced with a classic. Next time someone tells you Swashbuckle are the best pirate metal band, remind them that Running Wild are the true lions of the sea, then run them through with your rusty dagger.

Even Rocky Had A Montage

1. Cormorant – Metazoa

If there is any justice in the world, Cormorant are set to be the biggest thing out of the Bay Area since 1983. Metazoa is a blinding mix of melodic death metal, hard rock, black metal & about 100 other genres. I really can’t recommend this album highly enough.

2. Megadeth – Endgame

Mustaine & co. are back on top. Endgame built on the last 2 ‘deth albums & shocked the world with this masterpiece of thrash domination, undoubtedly driven by the arrival of Broderick & his big sack o’ riffs. Mustaine had finally found someone to trade solos with that rivalled the might of Friedman.

3. Ravage – The End of Tomorrow

Heavy metal the way Priest used to make. Epic vocals, catchy hooks, insane shredding. It might not be anything new but it’s done so well that you don’t even care.

4. Ahab – The Divinity of Oceans

Nautical doom metal that often sails close to the shores of more extreme genres. Riffs the size of Moby Dick, melodic interludes & you’ve got an album ***BAD JOKE ALERT*** more epic that a Faith No More single.

5. Hospital of Death – Surge, Kill, Steal

H.O.D.’s bastard mix of heavy metal & early Exodus-style thrash along with their debut Beer Bitches Blood put them on the map but this album takes that map & shits all over it. Highlight track The King of Sweden is a soaring ode to the greatness of a certain Mr Malmsteen that features the line “Lots of twats play Fender Strats but he is the exception, he makes it cool because he rules & gives us all erections!” Nuff’ Said.

6. Immortal – All Shall Fall

Black metal’s second biggest band silenced 7 years of rumours & negativity by releasing All Shall Fall, an unrelenting modern classic with all the hallmarks of Immortal’s frost-ridden soundscapes.

7. Skeletonwitch – Breathing The Fire

Athens, Ohio’s finest sons released their 3rd album, Breathing The Fire cementing their reputation as blackened thrash’s kings last year. Maiden riffs, sweeps & some healthy palm muting mixed with Garnette’s growl for a perfect soundtrack to a beer-fuelled thrash-down.

8. Cauldron – Chained To The Night

See Number 3. All the same reasons apply.

9. W.A.S.P. – Babylon

I only gave this album 3.5 Grimmetts earlier in the year but it’s grown on me like that mould on the end of my dick. Blackie Lawless knows how to write a catchy tune that burrows into your brain stem & stays there for the next decade.

10. Gama Bomb – Tales From The Grave In Space

Free downloads don’t come much more awesome than this thrashtastic collection. It’s like if you chucked some B-Movies, comic books, Nuclear Assault & fuckload of beer into a blender & recorded the sound it made as it blended. Get it here!

Just Missing Out:

Shining – VI: Klagospalmer
Nile – Those Whom The Gods Detest
Swallow The Sun – New Moon
Saxon – Into The Labyrinth
Kreator – Hordes of Chaos
Heaven & Hell – The Devil You Know

We need a montage

1. Megadeth – Endgame

This had to be the number one. It’s just very important to have Megadeth existing and putting out some proper music again. I still think that they can improve on this, but for the time being, enjoy Mustaine sneering and thoroughly thrashing his tits off once more.

2. Exivious – Exivious

Just an incredible album, all instrumental featuring the half of Cynic that weren’t on Death’s Human album and the drummer from Textures. For me Exivious comes across even stronger than Cynic’s Traced in Air (which was itself amazing), with the mandatory shit load of crazy time changes and jazz club vibe. Some 5 Finger Death Punch fans might call it meandering wank but they’re ignorant, inbred cunts so fuck them. If this had been the follow up to Focus and they’d added some robot vocals into the mixer then the entire world may very well have exploded, unable to contain the jazz metal mastery and tsunami of critical acclaim.

3. While Heaven Wept – Vast Oceans Lachrymose

This majestic behemoth of an album came out of nowhere and blew me away. While Heaven Wept meld powerful doom riffs to progressive structures and soaring vocals that would make Fates Warning cry sweet tears of jizz and Dream Theater vomit as their grasp of atmospherics is shown to be pitiful in comparison. It’s like a giant (possibly some sort of mutant Joey DiMaio created by mad Manowar worshipping scientists in the heart of Germany) striding across the world saying “This is heavy metal, what the fuck are you going to do about it?” and the answer, of course, is rock out to epic power ballads (Vessel) and 15 minute undulating progressive monstrosities like The Furthest Shore. Yes, some of the melodies are as cheesy as the cheesiest cheese warehouse on a hot summer’s day but I just can’t stop listening to it!

4. Augury – Fragmentary Evidence

This one I’d been looking forward to for quite some time, and happily Augury have moved on a great deal from where they left off with 2004’s Concealed, losing the female clean vocals and upping the prog-factor to new levels. The result is a brilliant Technical Death Metal album that is underpinned by the fretless bass (an instrument that appears in 3 albums of this top 10 because it’s fuckin’ sweet) prowess of Dominic ‘Forest’ Lapointe, who also amply filled the mighty Steve DiGiorgio’s shoes in fellow Montreal-eans Quo Vadis. Fragmentary Evidence is heavy, technical, interesting, complicated and with great songs. Yes.

5. Novembers Doom – Into Nights Requiem Infernal

This band keeps getting heavier! The Death/Doom maestros continue to evolve in the opposite direction of EVERY other doom band that ever lived and, rather than turn into HIM are instead morphing into some sort of Doom Amon Amarth. The album is as bristling with humongous riffs as it is sorrowful passages, and there is a real confidence in the dynamics that showcases just how on top of their game Novembers Doom are at the moment.

6. Obscura – Cosmogenesis

Ah the new Necrophagist album. Oh no, wait, they are still playing to the worlds scene kids on their 68th US tour, as they have been for the last FIVE FUCKING YEARS. Well they can consider their throne well and truly usurped by Obscura’s Cosmogenesis, featuring two of the members that made Necrophagist’s Epitaph so awesome in 2004. You snooze you lose. The requisite neo-classical solos are there, dizzying passages of technicality and… hang on… some extremely melodic interludes that elevate this above the massed tech-death hordes.

7. Insomnium – Across the Dark

Insomnium evolve again, moving further away from the outright Gothenburg worship of old to what verges on Amorphis-channelling on this, their fourth album. There’s something in that Finnish water. A much more introspective album than anything that has gone before it, with only occasional bursts of melodeath being tastefully scattered across the frosty landscape they conjour. With this they have managed to be both less accessible and more accessible at the same time. My brain hurts.

8. Nile – Those Whom the Gods Detest

Worthy of a place in the top 10 for re-affirming my faith in them after the disappointing Ithyphallic, they are back up there at the pinnacle of death metal where they belong. Crushing, frenzied yet classy.

9. Dying Fetus – Descend Into Depravity

Dying Fetus give everyone another lesson in violence with this album, not re-inventing the wheel but just adding more spikes on to it and driving very fast over your face. The album is more fluent than their last couple of releases, and the production is meatier than Pavarotti eating a meat pie. This transforms songs like Atrocious By Nature and Shepherds Commandment into the musical manifestation of Charles Bronson – Fucking nuggets and not to be messed with.

10. Cauldron – Chained to the Nite

This sneaks into the top 10 just for the sheer number of listens I managed to give this album during the summer. Classic (in the sense that these songs could all have been released 30 years ago) metal all the way, with sing alongs a-plenty and enough denim and leather to equip the next 14,672 Saxon conventions.

Just missing out:

Amorphis – Skyforger
Suffocation – Blood Oath
Skeletonwitch – Breathing The Fire
Immortal – All Shall Fall
Alice in Chains – Black Gives Way To Blue
Katatonia – Night Is the New Day