On my way down to California last weekend I was scrolling through my iPod to find something to jam on to help kill the time while driving. I came across this band I uploaded a few months ago called “Archspire.” I figured “What the Hell, I may as well see what these guys are all about.” After listening to them for one minute, I found myself unprepared and enamored by the sheer speed and brutality that possessed my eardrums. The album brought to mind bands like Spawn of Possession, The Faceless, Necrophagist and other technical death metal bands. After snapping out of my metal trance, I realized I was pushing the van more than 80 miles per hour and hadn’t even noticed because of the music.

Vancouver, B.C. natives, the technical death metal band Archspire released “All Shall Align” on Trendkill Recordings in April of this year. The 7 track album reaches new heights of speed and technicality while still maintaining a sense of melody, even through intense instrumentation. Each member of this band holds an amazing amount of skill, which shines through on each of the album’s tracks.

The album opens up with “Deathless Ringing,” my favorite track on the record. The riffs reminded me of Origin – lots of blast beating and fast riffing. Over the brutal riffing, vocalist Oli Peter’s delivers a mid-range growl with back up high screeches from bassist Jaron Evil which gives a truly wicked sound. The song doesn’t stick to this formula though, but goes into parts that seem almost to soothe the ears. During the buildup to the solo, the guitars take a break from constant riffing, and Jaron fills in those spots with smooth bass lines. The guitar solo isn’t sporadic, but is definitely insane in its own way. The melody of the solo is super catchy and really gives the listener a nice break from the intensity of the music. After that, it takes you right back to the amount of brutal vibes this band gives off.

The next track, “Archspire,” features excellent use of bells and cymbals, really showing that drummer Spencer Prewett can do more than fast double bass and blasting. Obviously his forte is slamming the skins hard and fast like a rabbit in heat, but it is refreshing to hear the diversity that he shows. Also featured on this track is a clean and ambient guitar part, giving the song an eerie vibe. The listener is then growled back to the music by the thundering bass.

Through the rest of the album, each instrument is very present in the mix which is surprising as usually the bass is the unsung hero in these types of bands. Instead, at times, the bass is almost the driving factor of the riff, which in a genre that is dominated by the talent of the guitarists and drummers, it is nice to hear the bass spearheading the charge. “All Shall Align” keeps you listening to every track because you never really know what will come next. Whether it is dazzling drum parts, driving bass, or laser fast guitar riffs, it keeps your eardrums entertained.

The album ends with the title track “All Shall Align,” an instrumental, which utilizes orchestral sounds to give an epic end to the CD. It reminded me of Dimmu Borgir, as it’s a cleaner sounding black metal influenced track.

A complaint people may have with this album is that there are no “short” tracks. They aren’t extreme epic 12 minute long songs, but you won’t find any 2 minute thrash tracks. Each song is fast, but they like to take the listener to different places and it takes time to build up to get to where they’re going. Sometimes the places are a little too awkward, as some of the guitar effects seemed a little odd to me.

A fair warning: this album is intense. I can’t imagine it would be ideal if you are trying to smoke a bowl and relax. You may find yourself wide-eyed and unsure how to handle yourself.

Overall, I am extremely excited for whatever this band does next. Since they are just across the Washington border, I hope they will come down and play a show or two. If they do, you can definitely catch me in the pit.

4.5/5.

Until next time, HORNS

John “The Jabroni” Intern

Hello again my fellow horn-raising, fist-pumping, poseur-smashing metalheads of the Northwest. Kevin here, and I’m about to drop some viral knowledge bombs on yer candy asses. Anyone who knows me is surely aware of my addiction to YouTube. It seems as though every group of friends has a guy like me, someone who is always seeking the most screwed up, hilarious, offensive or just downright strange content uploaded from throughout the world. Babies getting kicked? Love it. Ghost-riding the whip vids gone wrong? Even better.

I can even recall the week that Ian and I found out about YouTube. We were both working in ‘upper management” at the student-run college radio statio KGRG, and our friend told us about this fantastical website where you can stream videos of anything you want. Needless to say, that week wasn’t such a productive one around the KGRG offices. By the end of the week, IT had blocked YouTube. Bummer.

But I digress.

Another cool thing I’m all about is old school video gaming. I know, I know, Halo and all those new-fangled video games are lightyears better than Super Mario Brothers and Excitebike, but I have terrible hand eye coordination when it comes to fast-paced shooters, so I usually tend to go for the NES or SNES systems, personally.

This is what you get when you combine three of my favorite things – YouTube, old school video games, and the obvious one, METAL. Check out these completely fan-created 8-bit versions of a couple Metal Shop classics.

Wouldn’t you just love to see Little Mac punching out King Hippo while Raining Blood is blasting in the background!?!

Or how about blasting some fools to oblvion with “Domination” ripping your 8-bit ears apart?

I love these things so much that it’s a new goal of mine to learn how to program one. I will start with Nasum.

Last Tuesday, we were fortunate enough to attend the annual Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival. With a lineup as stacked as this years, we saw no reason not to speak with each and every band. And that’s exactly what we did! When we weren’t out in the pit, or filming side stage, we were in the backstage/press area, chatting it up with a crap load of our favorite Metal Shop bands.

First things first, we were able to speak with the man, the myth, the living legend, Mr. Dave Mustaine of the almighty Megadeth. Here’s the full video interview

Here’s our conversation with Jamey Jasta, frontman of Kingdom of Sorrow and Hatebreed. Also, check out his new solo project, “Jasta.” Their debut full length is out later this month on E1 records.

Last but not least, we spoke with Robb Flynn, vocalist/guitarist for the legendary Machine Head. Make sure you watch the whole thing, as there is a brutal skull bite hidden toward the end…

We will be updating this soon with video interviews from Suicide Silence, All Shall Perish, In Flames, Trivium and more!

As I walked into KISW’s studio last week, Ian gave me one of the best gifts I could have asked for all summer.

“Hey dude, I just got the new Decapitated! You should do a review of it.”

I was immediately stoked as I have been asking for this album since I started interning there. I was curious how Decapitated would sound since the departure of their vocalist, Adrian “Covan” Kowanek, original bassist Marcin “Martin” Rygiel, and the tragic death of Witold “Vitek” Kiełtyka, the band’s drummer, co-founder, and brother of the guitarist Wacław “Vogg” Kiełtyka. The task was daunting as I knew I would constantly be thinking about their previous releases.

Carnival Is Forever starts off by instantly stunning the listener into death metal bliss. No lame bull$#17 intro, just fast and in your @$$ death metal. The first track, “The Knife” makes it evident that like previous releases, it will be very riff heavy. The new vocalist, Rafał Piotrowski, has a mid to higher range growl giving a unique twist to the typical guttural death metal vocalist. Drummer Kerim “Krimh” Lechner keeps up with the fast, technical riffs while not being too flashy and taking away from the riff or vocals. The guitar tone is clear and articulate, making the individual picked notes easy to discern, not mashed and lost in the mix. This track also features Vogg’s signature solo style: eerie, fast, and melodic. The solo goes to some unexpected but satisfying places.

The next track, “United” keeps up the pace with being extremely fast and in your face. It has what I like to call a “mechanical” sound. The track features guitar start and stop parts, with the distorted bass playing between, almost giving a Fear Factory feel to it.

By the title track “Carnival Is Forever” something changes – it starts off with clean guitar. This was a change from their previous album, Organic Hallucinosis which featured almost no clean guitar parts. The riff itself gives off a very dark and foreboding sense, which lasts about a minute. After this clean part, the song gets insanely heavy. The guitar riff stays slow and chuggy, while the drums do machine-gun fast double bass, creating an excellent juxtaposition to induce headbanging.

“Homo Sum” brings the album right back up to almost super-sonic metal speed, but also features cool slow Meshugah-like leads, giving off a creepy and twisted vibe.

The album continued to surprise me in new ways I didn’t expect. On track “404” they make a screeching type of noise that adds a new dynamic to the song. This track also features melodic build up parts, making it one of the most interesting and diverse tracks on the album, and includes an awesome drum break which shows how Krimh shreds on the skins.

“A View From A Hole” starts off with another clean guitar intro, much like the title track. But instead of going into a slow chug riff, it keeps the pace and has more of an ambient vibe to it. Then it hits into your riff heavy death metal with spots of dark ambience.

“Pest” I think shows the band off at its best. It has fast death metal riffing, start and stop parts with distorted bass filling the gaps, sour-sounding notes, individually picked ambient sounding guitar parts, floyd rose squeals, and groovy breakdowns. This track to me is what Decapitated is all about.

The album ends with “Silence”, an echo-ey clean guitar instrumental. The track hits notes that sound depressing and dark. This track was the exact opposite of how it started; it’s slow, clean, and part finger-picked. After it ended, I was happy and thought that Vitek would be proud. I then immediately hit play again on my CD player to hear the ensuing carnage and metal pleasure.

My complaints are fairly limited, but one complaint I had with the album is sometimes the bass wasn’t as pronounced and present as I would have liked it to be. You could hear it, but really the only time it stuck out was during select parts. Also, if you aren’t a fan of long songs then this album may not be for you. Each track is longer then 4 minutes, so for all you ADD metal heads, you may not be as into this album.

Overall, this album is something the band should be proud of. “Carnival Is Forever” is sure to be one of the best death metal releases of the summer. If you were a fan of the last album, this album will not disappoint.

4/5

Until next review, HORNS

- John the Intern

“Carnival Is Forever” will be released on July 12th via Nuclear Blast Records.

June 27th, 2011 proved to be an awesome day for metal here in the Northwest, as the Children of Bodom, Devin Townsend Project, Septic Flesh, Obscura tour rolled in to brutalize the Showbox at the Market.

Obscura opened the show, and damn near stole it! They blazed through some older tracks before playing the title track from their latest record, Omnivium, out now on Relapse Records. You’ll notice that there’s a bit of a lack of “audience participation” but I think that’s because people were busy collecting their jaws up off the floor. Here’s the video:

Up next were Septic Flesh from Athens, Greece. These guys definitely killed it! They combined a great stage set-up, spooky ethereal samples and face slamming riffs that left me feeling refreshed on the epic death/slam sound. Here’s the first song from their set:

Up next were the Devin Townsend Project, or as Devin put it, “the turd in the punchbowl” for the evening. Haters are gonna hate, but as far as I see it, the man is damn near impossible not to like. Despite being the odd band out on the bill, Devin and company brought the heavy in one of the most entertaining sets I’ve witnessed all year long. Check out our full interview with Heavy Dev himself to find out more about his two latest records, “Deconstruction” and “Ghost” out now on InsideOut media. Here are a couple songs from The Devin Townsend Project that night:

Last but not least were Children Of Bodom. Unfortunately the camera froze up during their set so we have no video footage, but below is a photo of their set list taken earlier in the night. As you can see, they played mostly newer material, with a few old school jammers peppered in here and there. I know Kevin will disagree with me here, but as far as this blog and reviewing this show goes, I couldn’t help but feel a little let down by my dudes in Bodom. Don’t get me wrong, musically COB was on point. They did everything right, they whipped up the crowd, Alexei killed the riffage, and Janne Wirman made setting that keyboard on fire look as easy as breathing air (I even saw him yawn once). They played being Children of Bodom to a T. But as new song went into new song after new song, I couldn’t help but feeling that COB has reached their musical plateau. For being some of the most talented musicians in metal, they are wayyyy too good at sounding the exact same, record after record. Or maybe it’s just me.

Thanks for checking out our blog, keep coming back for new videos, reviews, and other surprises! See you on Metal Shop this Saturday night at 11pm!

-Ian

Just yesterday we experienced the first official day of summer, so it’s only fitting that we start previewing some of the major shows going on in the next couple months. There are certainly a ton of amazing tours coming through the Seattle area – Mayhem Festival, Summer Slaughter, The “Hell On Earth” tour, etc – but right now I want to put something local on your radar.

Over the weekend of July 22nd – 24th, Uncle Sam’s in Spanaway will be presenting the first ever NXNW metal fest, a three day non-stop dose of blast beats, beer, and solid local metal. As you may know, South By Southwest, aka SXSW is one of the biggest yearly music industry schmooze fests/showcases for up-and-coming talent. So it might not be as grand in scale as Austin, TX, but NXNW brings you a crapload of up and coming music, and you don’t have to sit through any boring, overrated indie rock bands.

In couple next few weeks, we will have free tickets to give away to a few callers, but you might want to jump on securing your ticket before we do so, as the lineup is friggin’ packed.

Here are the bands confirmed so far
Super Happy Story Time Land
Keeping Secrets
Monsters Scare You
The Day I ate the moon (CA)
We were dreamers
From deeper seas
They Charge Like Warriors
Athena
Crutches
Prepare The Bride
I Delilah
Ellis Armor
Vessels
Crowd War
Grizzly
Thief River Falls
Plague ships
It was written in the sky
Dead Pilots (slc)
Dismember the dream
Doom of babylon
Jean Grey (PDX)
The fool (PDX)
Helles
SIN
Goratorium
Black Heart Blight
Curse of the North
Devils Of Loudun
Charlie Drown
Deathbed Confessions
Osama Bin Rockin
Tatarus
RHEMA
Corpus Mortem
Blood and thunder
Seize the sun
The Scarlett Escape
This is Treason
Princess
Shatter The Sky
A Solemn Goodbye
I Defy
A City Screams in Terror
Ground level Vertigo

The first of many record reviews to come over here at the Metal Shop blog.
Meet Travis the Virus. He’s the unofficial official Metal Shop “man on the streets,” a no-nonsense dude who’s a walking encyclopedia of all things metal. He originally posted this review over here at the Travirus blog. Here’s what he thinks about the long-awaited return of Morbid Angel. Please keep in mind, all reviews are strictly opinions of the reviewer, and may not particularly represent the opinions of KISW or Metal Shop as a whole.

Morbid Angel
Illud Divinum Insanus
Season of Mist
1.5 out of 5 Skulls

I don’t think I ever wanted to like an album as much as I wanted to like Illud Divinum Insanus. This is, after all, Morbid Angel’s first album in roughly 8 years, and the first since Domination to feature David Vincent on bass/lead vocals. I was disappointed that Pete Sandoval had to sit this one out due to health problems, and to be honest I could give less than a s*** about whoever besides Trey Azagthoth plays guitar on the album, since I’m pretty sure Erik Rutan won’t be rejoining. And I’m always skeptical whenever any band talks about “experimenting” on an upcoming release. But what was there to worry about? Morbid Angel have experimented in one way or another on nearly every album, and Tim Yeung has a very impressive track record. It’s not like the band would ever turn their backs on what Morbid Angel was at its very core, right?

Well, I usually love being the bearer of bad news, but this is the most masochistic review I have ever had to write, because Morbid Angel are one of my all time favorite bands, a big influence on my own music, and Illud… is the worst thing they have ever done. I have loved everything else they’ve ever released, even Gateways to Annihilation, but if this is the best they can do in between 8 years of touring and lineup changes, I am not impressed.

Of the 11 tracks on Illud…, only four of them are what I would consider good. “Existo Vulgore” is classic Morbid Angel, like Covenant by way of Heretic. “Blades for Baal” and “Nevermore” are what you would expect from the band at this point. They’re good songs, but a little stock sounding. While “I Am Morbid” may come off as a little corny to some, with its self referencing and pseudo “live” intro, it has a really good groove to it. This is the kind of out of the box playing I can get behind. It’s the most straight forward song Morbid Angel has ever done, and it’s definitely the most overtly personal,like a mission statement without all the “Sumerian Gods” metaphors. The rest of the songs are somewhere between so-so and just plain bad.

The intro track is very lacking as far as Morbid Angel instrumentals go. The beat is dull, and the strings and horns sound really fake. Seriously, the keyboards on some of Blessed Are the Sick’s tracks sounded more convincing. I know that lots of bands use synthesized instruments rather than hire real players when they want horns or strings, but this is Morbid Angel! They can afford to hire a f*****g string section! And besides, after hearing Dimmu Borgir kick so much ass with a full orchestra on Abrahadabra last year, it’s tough to settle for anything less. Speaking of less, I’m suspecting that Tim Yeung was instructed to not deviate from the original demo tracks, because for most of the record his beats just sound kind of half assed. Even when he’s playing closer to what I’ve heard him do in Hate Eternal and Divine Heresy, I can’t help but think how much more interesting the drums would be if Sandoval were playing them. S***, there’s a lot of the record that just sounds like a drum machine! Which brings me to the worst aspect of Illud…: the “industrial” influences…

Let me preface the following by saying that I don’t hate industrial, nor do I think its’ elements have no place in metal. Godflesh, Ministry, Prong, Neurosis and Fear Factory have all shown how Industrial’s heavy beats, samples, loops and dissonant guitar noise can be used to augment metal into brutal, cybernetic music. But Morbid Angel should never have tried to do this, because they suck at it!

Let’s look at the three songs on the album I hate, starting with “Too Extreme!” (how does a band go from titles like “Lord of All Fevers and Plagues” to “Too Extreme!”?). This is the second track on the album, right after the instrumental intro, so I guess the band thought that this song would be THE killer cut to signal their triumphant return, and I can’t for the life of me imagine why. It sounds more like a remix of a Morbid Angel song than their actual work. The guitar riffs are very simplistic (some of them only seem to have 1 chord!), and I don’t know if Azagthoth is using a whammy pedal or what, but it does not sound good at all. I’m not convinced the drums are real on this track. Oh, and there’s no guitar solo. You have to wait until the record has been playing for 12 minutes!

Next we have “Destructos vs. the Earth/Attack”, which sounds like the title of a s***y anime. I’m not opposed to hearing a sci-fi song on a death metal album, but I’m wondering when Azagthoth stopped worshipping Mozart and Hendrix and decided that Rammstien were worth emulating. The chorus is so bad it wouldn’t make the cut on a KMFDM record. It doesn’t even sound like Morbid Angel until the end, when there’s 15 seconds of silence followed by 28 seconds of relentless sonic assault. I get it. The song is about aliens destroying the earth, and the last part represents the fury of their extinction level death ray, very clever. But after listening to nearly 7 minutes of the worst Morbid Angel song I ever heard I just can’t be bothered to give a s***!

Actually, “Destructos…” was the worst Morbid Angel I’ve ever heard, until I got to the song “Radikult” (Radikult? What am I listening to, f****g Soulfly?), which sounds more like Marilyn Manson or Powerman 5000 than I think is acceptable from any band that dares to call itself extreme, let alone “too extreme”. Not only are the drum effects dangerously close to hand claps, but Vincent needs to stick to growling and the occasional spoken word segment, because when he tries to ape Raymond Watts he sounds like an idiot. This is a Morbid Angel record; I should not be hearing anything even remotely resembling handclaps! And these 3 songs are not only awful, they’re between 6 and 8 minutes each, meaning a third of this record sounds like the audio smegma I just described.

I’m not against bands trying new stuff, but I gotta call bulls*** when failed experiments are released on official albums as part of a bands’ catalogue instead of being put down like the mistakes they are, or relegated to an artistic side project. Trey Azagthoth can go on and on about shifting paradigms until The Ancient Ones return to Earth, but no matter how I alter my own absolute reality, Illud Divinum Insanus just plain blows.

I may not be Jeetz, but my friends, I believe it is safe to say I’m blogging under the influence right now. You see, I am getting ready for this Friday’s Orange Goblin show at Studio Seven the right way. Recently, I’ve been jamming the new Orange Goblin 5-disc box set recently released on Rise Above/Metal Blade. Heady, heavy stuff. But why stop there? To bask in the pure decadence of Orange Goblin, I decided to make a toast. I headed over to The Highline, a bar right down the street from my apartment on Capitol Hill, and ordered myself a cocktail. Yeah, yeah, call me a sissy if you may, but this isn’t just ay cocktail. The righteous staff at The Highline dubbed this special cocktail the “Orange Goblin,” after the seminal UK-based stoner rock group. Other cocktails include the Crowbar, the Electric Wizard and the St. Vitus. Now that’s my kind of cocktail!

So, you might ask…what exactly would one include in an Orange Goblin?
Here’s the mix, straight from the menu board:
Vanilla-orange-infused bourbon
Luxardo cherry liqueur
Navan liqueur

Orange Goblin plays Friday, June 10th at Studio Seven with The Gates Of Slumber, Naam, Brokaw and Witchburn.

Tonight on Metal Shop, Seattle blackened death metallers Book Of Black Earth will be up in the studio debuting tracks off their new album, “The Cold Testament,” which is being released this Tuesday on Prosthetic Records. They will also be taking phone calls and playing songs they picked out from the metal shop library.

Never heard of ‘em? Well, my friend, you’re in luck. Here’s a video I shot of Book Of Black Earth performing one of their new songs, “I See Demons” at last year’s Capitol Hill Block Party.

Earlier today, the organizers of the Rockstar Energy Uproar Tour announced the lineup for this year’s edition of the “counterpart” of the Rockstar Mayhem Festival.

Headliners confirmed so far:

Avenged Sevenfold
Three Days Grace
Seether
Bullet For My Valentine
Escape The Fate

Second Stage:

Sevendust
Black Tide
Art Of Dying
The Black Cloud Collective

Our friends at Metal Underground reported:

“When we started hearing from our fans they wanted to see us back on Uproar this year, we thought, last year was a blast so let’s do it again. The fans are crazy and the bands kick ass,” says Avenged Sevenfold’s frontman M. Shadows. “We’re spending the first half of summer playing some big European festivals so we’re going to be ready to get back home and play America’s top rock festival.”