POSITIVE METAL ATTITUDE

 IQ Subtraction  10 Responses »
Jul 022010
 


Yesterday, for reasons unknown to me, our beloved bloggers at MetalSucks decided to have a “Be Nice Day” at their site and swore off their usual “dickishness” (their word, not ours). As part of that resolution, they suggested in one post (here) that readers take their favorite metal band names and spruce them up by removing references to death and negativity and turning them into names that would mesh with a Positive Mental Attitude.

I spent way too much time playing that game and making a few contributions. So did hundreds of other MS readers. My reactions to the best ones I saw ranged from subdued chuckles to coffee-through-the-nose eruptions of laughter.

For those of you who don’t read MetalSucks, or for those who do but don’t take time to wade through the comment section, I’ve collected here what I thought were the best band-name metamorphoses. Chuckle or erupt or yawn, as you see fit.

Nicemystium

Type O Positive

Cattle Appreciation

Goatherd

Bunnies in the Throne Room

Help the Client

3 Inches of Love

(lots more after the jump . . .)

Continue reading »

LMFAO: “SCIENTISTS TO STUDY THE ‘MODERN MIRACLE’ OF OZZY OSBOURNE’S SURVIVAL”

 IQ Subtraction, Metal News  3 Responses »
Jul 012010
 

I don’t really have time right now to embellish this story with my own snarky comments, but it really doesn’t need much embellishment — it’s fucking hysterical all by itself.

In a nutshell, over-the-hill fruitcake Ozzy Osbourne is paying a research lab to map his genome. The lab he’s using specializes in identifying and interpreting the genetic code of particular individuals in order to find links to disease. Usually, fat cats pay them to do this because they’ve got concerns over their health.  But in Ozzy’s case, after decades of substance abuse, he’s trying to find out why he’s still alive, not what could kill him.

It’s kind of like donating your body to science, except while you’re still alive. And in Ozzy’s case, what kind of scientific advancement can we expect from the mapping of his genetic code? How to drink a fifth of vodka every day without turning your liver into Swiss cheese? Who knows? I guess we’ll find out.

Now, without further ado, here’s the gut-busting piece that reporter Georgina Gustin wrote for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (which we saw in today’s Seattle Times at this location). Your own snarky comments will be welcome.

ST. LOUIS — He is famous for many things. For his eerie scream. For his “Satan worship.” For biting the head off a dove. And a bat.

But Ozzy Osbourne mostly has become famous for indulging in decades of near-legendary substance abuse — the kind that would vanquish most — and surviving.

Scientists now may find out why.  (more hilarity after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

SEMARGL UPDATE

 Album Reviews, IQ Subtraction  1 Response »
May 272010
 

Well, fuck, we knew we’d feel guilty about having some fun at the expense of Ukrainian metal band Semargl in our post a few days ago about their latest video, and sure enough: The band was nice enough to leave a comment on our MySpace page complimenting our post.

Gotta hand it to ’em for having a sense of humor about themselves (and about us). And the truth is, we’ve had that song “Credo Revolution” stuck in our heads for days — so much so that we started listening to samples from three other tracks off the band’s new album that are streaming on their MySpace page.

It’s a mix of divergent styles — some death metal, some groove-oriented power metal, some hard rock (as on “Credo Flaming Rain” — with guest vocals supplied by Nera (Darzamat), who’s pictured above with the band). This is definitely not the kind of thing we usually listen to here at NCS — but confession is good for the soul, and we confess that we’ve now ordered Ordo Bellictum Satanas.

Not sayin’ you should, just sayin’ we did.  We’ll probably feel guilty about that too.

SEMARGL (The Pop Fringe of Black Metal)

 IQ Subtraction  4 Responses »
May 252010
 

We don’t spend much time on this site poking fun at metal bands. It’s not that we’re morally opposed to the practice. In fact, we have fun reading other sites that do exactly that on a daily basis. It’s just not our style.

But once in a blue moon, we just can’t resist. Like today. We’ll probably feel guilty about it later.

So, the band that caught our baleful eye today is a Ukrainian outfit called Semargl. Try saying that out loud. Even the name is kinda funny, though it’s probably drawn from some ancient demonology text, or at least H.P. Lovecraft.  [Update: Based on a little more research (see the comment at the end of this post), Semargl appears to have been a Slavic pagan deity, depicted as a winged lion or winged dog.]

In addition to the demonic (but funny-sounding) name, the band has got the corpse-painted aspect of a grymm black metal outfit, plus Latinate album titles like Ordo Bellictum Satanas that inspire thoughts of satanic recipe books for the cooking of your fellow man in the fiery depths of Hades.

And to carry the theme further, the band’s web site includes a creed called Satanosophy that proclaims principles such as “Our message is: God should be destroyed” and “Our superiority is Satanic Infernal fire” (in addition to photos of a naked chick who looks like she’s meditating about Satanosophy).

So, with that lead-in, you probably think you’ve got a pretty good idea about Semargl’s music — but you’d probably be wrong. What we’ve got here, at least on the strength of the band’s new video for a song called “Credo Revolution”, is pop music with black-metal trappings, corpse-paint with plenty of tits and ass, tremolo picking and electro dance beats (courtesy of Jonny Maudling from Bal-Sagoth).

We’re still trying to wrap our minds around that concept — but it seems to be working out quite nicely for Semargl.  And we can guarantee that even if you’re having an unbelievably sucky day, this video (and the song) will put a smile on your face — or your money back! (more after the jump, including that video . . .) Continue reading »

FUNNY SHIT (and we do mean that literally)

 IQ Subtraction, Metal News  4 Responses »
May 122010
 

The May/June issue of Revolver magazine arrived in our mailbox over the weekend. What we enjoyed the most was not the cover story about the 2010 “Revolver Golden Gods” awards show (which was largely irrelevant to what we care about in the current extreme metal scene). What we enjoyed the most was Revolver’s verbatim report of a conversation that took place at a dive bar in New York City between Adam Dutkiewicz and Mike D’Antonio of Killswitch Engage and frontman Mikael Stanne of Sweden’s Dark Tranquillity.

As you may know, KSE and DT toured together earlier this year. When Dutkiewicz and D’Antonio formed KSE back in 1999, one thing that united them was their love of Swedish melodic death metal, and Dark Tranquillity in particular. As they got to know Stanne better while touring, they discovered they had more in common than elements of their music. Like a mutual attraction to the Travel Channel (?) and (wait for it) . . . eating competitions.

And green shit.

So after this threesome did some Jack Daniels shots at that dive bar, the conversation eventually turned to the subject of eating competitions, and Revolver was there to record what they said. We thought it was pretty fucking funny.

Granted, our standards of humor here at NCS are pretty low. For example, as you’ll see, we laugh at anything that involves shit. Still, we thought you might find the conversation funny, too. After all, if you’re reading this site, your standards are also pretty low, by definition. So, after the jump, we’ll give you the best excerpts of that Dutkiewicz-D’Antonio-Stanne dialogue from Revolver. Continue reading »

OH SHIT!

 IQ Subtraction  2 Responses »
May 022010
 


For those of you out there who don’t read Metal Sucks, or just haven’t gone by that site in the last few days, you may not have seen the following video. Usually, this isn’t the kind of thing we put up here at NCS, but this is just so fucking funny we can’t resist the need to share.

It’s a video ad for a company called Cold Steel that makes swords, and the subject of the ad is the biggest sword they make, called “The Two-Handed Great Sword.” Yep, you read that correctly. It’s an ad for a big fucking sword. And the ad consists of a bunch of mainly pot-bellied dudes hacking the shit out of all sorts of things — pig’s heads and carcasses, a cow head, blocks of ice and concrete, a pair of cowboy boots with meat inside to stiffen em up (?!?), bamboo, you name it. And all the action is set to some generic hard rock and metal instrumentals.

But what really makes this such a laff-til-you-pee experience are the occasional enthusiastic sales pitches by the dorkiest-looking meat-bag in the video. You can tell he’s the head honcho because he wears a tie while whacking away at all those objects that are just crying out to be severed.  Now, you might have a hard time figuring out the point of spending money on a big fucking sword, but that’s just because you haven’t heard all the excellent reasons this dude will give you. You’ll never think about home protection products the same way again. And who needs to buy meat at a grocery store? Just buy your own sides of beef and butcher ’em yourself!

You can purchase a Two-Handed Great Sword here for $549.99, plus tax and shipping. Or not.

WE’LL SEE YOUR FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE — AND RAISE YOU A DANKO JONES AND A HEAVENLY

 IQ Subtraction  4 Responses »
Apr 082010
 

We don’t know of any poker games that allow you to raise your own bet without an intervening raise by another player, but here at NCS we make up our own fucking rules as we go along.

So this game began when our friends at Reign in Blonde posted a ridiculous album cover by Kivimetsan Druidi (here). Which prompted us to raise with the ridiculous album cover above by the non-metal band Florence and the Machine.

Now, if you keep your eyes open, you’ll see ridiculous new album covers every week. So this game conceivably could go on, well, forever.  Who knows, maybe it will. But we’re at least going to continue the game for one more day by raising our own raise, not once but twice, courtesy of a Canadian rock trio called Danko Jones and a French “power metal” band called Heavenly.

The new Danko Jones album, scheduled for a May release, is called Below the Belt. Danko Jones recently opened for Guns N’ Roses and Sebastian Bach at a tour of hockey arenas across Canada. Which pretty much guarantees their music blows large hairy balls.

Heavenly’s latest album (December 2009) is called Carpe Diem. Their music’s not our style either. But we’re grateful to both bands, because their album covers allow us to keep this ridiculous-album-cover game going for one more day.  (to see these covers, you’ll have to click past the jump . . .) Continue reading »

WE’LL SEE YOUR KIVIMETSAN DRUIDI AND RAISE YOU A FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE

 IQ Subtraction  No Responses »
Apr 022010
 

This morning, our she-friends at Reign in Blonde posted the Kivimetsan Druidi album cover above with a one-word review of the cover: “SRSLY”

By coincidence, when going to the log-in page for our MySpace home this morning, this lovely photo greeted our eyes (along with all sorts of other promotional crap foisted on us by MySpace):

Maybe she brought the flowers to get the duck in the right mood, but it looks like she’s starting to lose her patience. Feel free to insert your own funny photo caption.

Don’t know what you would have done, but we couldn’t resist clicking on this thing to see what the hell it was about.  Could it be a new PETA ad? Nah. Turns out, this is the front-woman (the one in the dress) for a non-metal band called Florence and the Machine. And here’s the cover of their new album, which we think gives that Kivimetsan Druidi cover a run for its money.  (you’ll have to click past the jump to see it . . .) Continue reading »

GUNS N’ ARSES

 IQ Subtraction, Metal News  No Responses »
Mar 182010
 

Recently, a friend of ours who regularly visits this site gently criticized us for almost never posting a negative album review. He wondered if we’d ever heard an extreme metal album we didn’t like.

The answer to that question is “Fuck, yes!” We just (usually) choose not to spend our limited time verbally peeing all over hard-working bands because their music doesn’t favorably impress us or because their dreams exceed their talent. We get more satisfaction from supporting bands we think are deserving and from suggesting music we think our readers might find worth their time.

Maybe that’s a bad decision. Maybe we should spend more time warning people off craptastic metal. After all, that is what music critics generally do — they praise the good and they criticize the bad.

Except we’re not really music critics. We’re just a bunch of goof-offs who happen to really love extreme metal. We write about it because we dig it, and so it just comes naturally to talk about what rules instead of what sucks. Besides, you can find lots of sites whose writers just can’t wait to tell you what sucks.

There have been times when we’ve had misgivings about this, when we think our credibility could be enhanced by mixing in more scathing commentary along with the panting adulation.

We’re certainly capable of it, but so far we’ve chosen to reserve our invective for select company — not for the struggling bands who are doing their best to create new music because they love it (even if it’s bad), but for the the self-important, the self-indulgent, the overly dramatic. In a word, for the Axl Rose‘s of the metal music world. (more after the jump, if you’ve got the stomach for it . . .) Continue reading »

WHAT THE FUCK?!?

 IQ Subtraction, Metal News  No Responses »
Feb 152010
 

We apologize in advance for the following post. It’s the latest bizarro episode in the long-running soap opera that Gorgoroth has become. We can’t think of why it would have any redeeming value for you. But the story is just so fucking ridiculous that we couldn’t resist.

The immediate controversy concerns the release by Swedish label Regain Records of a live performance by black-metal legends Gorgoroth and a resulting lawsuit brought against Regain by former Gorgoroth members Gaahl and King ov Hell. Over the last week, Gaahl and King, on the one hand, and Regain, on the other, have engaged in a MySpace exchange over the resolution of that legal case — and someone is either lying or deeply confused.

Just in case you might not find this as funny as we do, we’ll give you the Cliff Notes version of the exchange first — but to appreciate the full, whacked-out hilarity you would need to read the details supplied after the jump.  Cliff Notes version:

Gaahl/King opening salvo: Fuck you Regain Records!

Rejoinder by Regain: No, fuck you, you corpse-painted morons!

Reply by Gaahl/King: I beg to differ — fuck you, you pencil-necked bean-counters!

Now, the details . . . (after the jump) Continue reading »

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