Oct 052017
 

 

(This is Wil Cifer’s review of the new album by GWAR, whch will be released by Metal Blade Records on October 20.)

Their blood-drenched, cum-soaked live shows overshadowed the fact these guys had some good songs and made pretty killer albums up to, say, This Toilet Earth. They also used to be one of my favorite bands in high school, so the nostalgia runs deep. It also makes me proceed with caution knowing that they are carrying on without their lead singer Oderus Unrungus, whose human form Dave Brockie passed away in 2014. His voice fluctuated from a gruff punk-like bellow that could have come off of a Fear record to more of a growl or a croon.

I became more willing to give them a new shot when I learned that Blothar, the new singer, is the old Beefcake the Mighty taking on a new mantel. So they promoted from within. I can deal with this better than if it was some new guy they just brought in. The new sound has to grow on me even though he handled the vocals on the song “Nice Place to Park“. So his voice is not totally alien. It holds a Blackie Lawless-like edge. The songs on the new album typically carry a more straight-ahead metal feel in the vein of mid-’80s thrash, with songs like “Viking Death Machine” touching on their punk roots. Continue reading »

Oct 302013
 

(Our man DGR do know how to write a fuckin’ show review, and this is his latest.)

I apologize for dragging ass as long as I did with the review on this one. I had hoped that some good quality video would be out by the time I wrote this, but as time continued on, it became more evident that this would likely be a text-only review. Flash back to October 19th, the day after my birthday. This show would be my personal celebration. I was going to go see one of the most ridiculous shows out there and I was going to drunkenly enjoy every second of it — that there might be some good music happening that night would only be a bonus.

This being a Saturday show, I knew that the crowd would be huge, and that prophecy was fulfilled pretty quickly when I showed up a full twenty-five minutes before doors, and for the first time ever, wound up waiting in line around the block. Other times I’ve been to shows, I’m usually within the first fifty or so people and then the crowd forms about ten minutes before doors. Not so in this case, and that’ll learn me for when/if Gwar come around again.

They’ve played Sacramento before, with Cancer Bats and Devildriver, but I sadly wound up missing that show due to work and I was determined not to do so this time, subjecting myself to weeks of graveyard shifts in order to insure that I had that Saturday evening off. It was an exciting as hell evening in a packed as hell venue, with one of the most energetic crowds I have seen in this city in some time. Continue reading »

Aug 012013
 

Collected here is news about three new tours that surfaced yesterday.

MADNESS AT THE CORE OF TIME TOUR

GWAR is the headliner of this tour, and the rest of the line-up consists of Whitechapel, Iron Reagan, and A Band of Orcs. It’s tough to find a unifying theme for the selection of these bands, other than the fact that the line-up is book-ended by inhuman creatures. But I’ve found that some of the best shows are those in which the combination of bands makes you scratch your head. One band might pull you in, and you might then discover another band you like.

In this case, Whitechapel have kicked my ass every time I’ve seen them and I’m also interested in seeing Iron Reagan and A Band of Orcs (HAIL GZOROTH!). I’ve never gotten into GWAR, though I can’t say I’ve ever given them much of a chance. Maybe that will be my new discovery on this tour. Here’s the schedule: Continue reading »

Jun 142012
 

Of course you’ve heard of the forthcoming summer blockbuster movie I Spill Your Guts, directed by James Balsamo and headed your way from Acid Bath Productions, though not to a theater near you.

No?  You haven’t?  Seriously?

Huh.  Well, it includes appearances by Frank Mullen (Suffocation), Oderus Urungus (GWAR), Skeletonwitch, and Andrew W.K.

Still not ringing any bells?  Okay.  Well, the soundtrack will include music from 40 bands, including Suffocation, Ghoul, Cannibis Corpse, and Immersed.

Still clueless?  Well, don’t worry.  The movie looks clueless, too.  But the soundtrack might be cool.  Check out a recently released (revised) official trailer for the movie after the jump, which includes some nice metal, along with a few more tasteful posters. Continue reading »

Apr 242012
 

(BadWolf provides this report of a show at Headliner’s in Toledo, Ohio, on March 23, 2012, featuring Legacy of Disorder, Ghoul, Municipal Waste, an GWAR.  All photos were taken by Nicholas Vechery.)

Every large metal show in Toledo rolls through Headliners—bands like The Black Dahlia Murder or Between the Buried and Me play the small drive-friendly stage. Bands like GWAR, however, play the big stage, which looks like a whole lot of nothing, just a big concrete floor splaying out in front of a stage with a few industrial beams holding the roof up. In other words, spartan. The place practically begs to be coated in fake blood.

I’ve seen some of the best and worst shows of my life here: one side of the equation, I saw Lamb of God, Trivium, and Machine Head here in 2007 with a little-known band called Gojira opening for them; on the other hand I saw The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus here. (Don’t ask. It’s a shitty story. I punched a 12 year old boy.) I rank this show in the middle of the pack overall—two winners, one check, and one dud.

I arrived before Vechery, Vokillist, and d00shc00gr to interview Municipal Waste. I tried to interview GWAR and failed to penetrate a layer of bureaucracy—yes, such things exist in the world of metal. I accept this failure as an even trade for a rarer sight: a team GWAR staff meeting.

Opinions on the band aside, I have never seen such professionalism backstage. The band’s Tour Manager showed zero-tolerance for bullshit on the part of local staff and the band alike while displaying absolute reverence for the security team. Continue reading »

Sep 302010
 

Another month has passed. The fall season is approaching — unless you live in Los Angeles, which is pretending that it’s Phoenix in August. Fuck is up with that? It’s like that town has been placed in a cosmic microwave and the user likes his burritos very well done.

On the other hand, we’ve had way too many grey, chilly days in Seattle this September, which is traditionally one of the best months of the year. The weather gods have clearly dropped acid over the last 30 days and forgotten which end is up. But eventually they will get themselves straight, remember which season is approaching, and get ready to just blast the fuck out of our whole country with a vicious winter. Won’t that be fun?

No, it won’t be fun. It will suck like a new-born piglet at dinner time. But one pleasant constant will remain true — there will be new metal, regardless of how foul the weather becomes. And that brings us to another monthly installment of  METAL IN THE FORGE, a forge being the old name for a place where a blacksmith heats metal and works it into the shape of something useful.

And that’s what we’re interested in — new metal that will be useful in scrambling our brains, or uplifting us to a place where it really doesn’t matter what the fucking weather is doing.

What we do in this series of posts is update the list of forthcoming new albums we first posted on January 1. (All the other updates can be found via the “Forthcoming Albums” category link on the right side of our pages.) Below is a list of still more projected new releases we didn’t know about at the time of our previous updates, or updated info about some of the previously noted releases.

Once again, we’ve cobbled together news blurbs from other sites, or from press releases, about bands whose past work we’ve liked, or who look interesting for other reasons. Perhaps needless to say, these are bands that mostly fit the profile of music we cover on this site — the kind that would like to tear your head off.

So, after the jump, in alphabetical order, you’ll find our list of cut-and-pasted items from various sources since our last update about forthcoming new releases. Continue reading »

Sep 152010
 

This is the second post of the day, which we don’t do very often. As the title says, this is mainly a sappy thank-you post.  Of course it is, because “sappy” is my middle name. Well, it comes right after my other middle names, i.e., “wordy” and “half-assed.”

For many months after we started this blog, no one posted any comments on what we wrote.  Okay, to be honest, for many months no one read what we wrote.  But even after the reading started, our words were greeted by silence.  Figuratively, the sound of crickets.

Not all bad, because I’ve missed the sound of crickets ever since moving to Seattle from Texas years ago. I don’t miss the appearance of crickets, just the sound of them, on warm nights, when you can’t see them. Kind of a dreamy, hypnotic sound. The sound of nature around us, undisturbed.

Where was I?  Oh yeah: No one posted any comments at NCS for a long time.  But now that has changed, and it’s been an exhilarating change for us.  We look forward every day to seeing what readers write, even when someone calls us retarded, and we feel kinda empty on the days when none come.  That’s mainly because the comments are usually better than the posts we write.

Yesterday was a classic example, certainly one of the best comment days ever.  We did a half-baked riff on band names and got a slew of comments that were smart and funny and creative and educational and took the discussion off in unexpected directions, which is part of what’s so much fun about the comments we’re getting.

And did I say the comments are educational?  They’re really educational!  Of course, when, like us, you start in a state of embarrassing ignorance, it may not take much to be educational in our eyes, but still. After the jump, I’ll tell you the things I learned yesterday, and one thing in particular that drew me back to an album I haven’t listened to in a while, and it was just a perfect end to a beautiful Indian summer day in Seattle.

But first: Thank you to the people who commented yesterday — to Dan, and ElvisShotJFK, and Brian, and Andy, and byrd36 — and to everyone else who has taken the time to add something to this site since we started.  And we don’t mean to slight those who simply read and don’t write (which is mainly what I do on other sites).  We are sappily grateful to all of you, too. But if you usually don’t write and are are tempted to write something someday, don’t worry — we won’t bite! (more sappiness, plus some music, after the jump . . .) Continue reading »