John's top 10 metal albums

While you're all waiting for us to release something else (soon, I hope) here's my 'top 10 metal albums' in no particular order:

Slayer - Reign In Blood

It's a classic and always will be, although the mix on the original vynil is much better (I feel) than the re-issue with the two extra tracks. The remix of Criminally Insane is not a patch on the original version and the thunder and rain at the end should fade out dammit!

Anata - Under a Stone with no Inscription

Currently getting a lot of play at the moment, this death metal album has it all; blast beats, brutal vocals and technical playing that doesn't wander off up it's own backside and sticks to making you mosh.

Morbid Angel - Abominations of Desolation

Not Morbid Angel's first album per se but their first demo that wasn't actually released. I love it for the production - it's raw and edgy. All the song ideas are well executed and it's much more brutal than Blessed are the Sick in my opinion.

Machine Head - Davidian

Wow. That's the only way that I can describe the impact Davidian had on my as I was growing up. I learned pretty much all the songs off it and we're toying with the idea of doing a cover of the song Davidian in the near future. And the album still impresses me to this day.

Mastodon - Leviathan

This album opened my eyes to the fact that there is still good metal being made (forged?). All that I was hearing up until this point was 'emo' and 'screamcore' stuff which just isn't that good for the most part, so this album and 'March of the Fire Ants' off the previous album opened my eyes and made me actually go back into metal and look for good acts again like I used to.

Death - Individual Thought Patterns

I've gone back to liking this album more after I got the MP3s of it as the mastering on the vinyl version is awful; really tinny and weak, but the CD/MP3s show it off properly. It's just amazing that the bassist plays a fretless bass on this album; that and the drumming take a great album into an awe inspiring one. It's a shame Chuck isn't with us any more to do more stuff like this.

Tool - AEnema

Technically perfect. Tool have and always will push the boundaries of what metal is and should be. However I wish they'd do a little more 'metal' and a little less 'art' every once in a while.

Entombed - Wolverine Blues

As with Davidian, this album pretty much defined the early '90s for me. Raw aggression and brutal delivery. It also shows that you need to pay more attention to the bass production and mixing if you want to achieve such brutality rather than just layering and layering guitars.

Megadeth - Rust in Peace

Whether or not you like Dave Mustaine's personality or not, this album is just totally fantastic. I've always said that the difference between a good band and a great band is the drummer and on this album Nick Menza nailed it. Marty Friedman provides the light shade against the dark of Mustaine's songs and solos so it has that perfect balance again of being technically wonderful but brutal in it's own special way.

To intentionally mis-quote Manowar: if you don't own this album , you're no friend of mine!

Slayer - Decade of Aggression

No list of the best albums in metal would be complete without this album. It's raw, it's brutal, true, there are mistakes but that's what makes it totally fantastic. It's as close as you're going to get without being there. I'm so very glad that Lombardo is back in Slayer as his playing gives them what they've been missing for the past few years. It's hard to describe, but he has a groove and a musicallity to his drumming that just fits.

Quiet? Us?

OK, first off, thanks to those who've listened to our demo on our sound click page; I hope you liked. I also hope that you appreciate that it's just a demo and not a finished version, so it has no vocals and the sound is a little crappy as it was a bit rushed.

Secondly, both Paul and I have been exceptionally busy with 'real life' stuff recently, so we're itching to get back into doing stuff. So what we're going to do is get the drum tracks for the other songs we've got planned done, then do all the guitars in one go, do the bass, then do the vocals.

We've got a number of ideas planned for vocals; both Paul and I are probably going to have a go at them and see where that takes us. Also John Heaton from my other band The Messiah Riot is going to come and do some more melodic vocals, just to see how that fits in with what we're doing. Basically the vocals are all up in the air at the moment as we haven't really thought much about it although the lyrics for the first song are done.

Basically, the next thing you'll see from us is another one or two demo songs in the style of the one we've released, then you'll see a couple of 'vocal-less' demos and then we'll release the versions with the vocals done.

I'm not going to promise when stuff is going to be done by as we never hit any of the deadlines that I say we're going to hit, so we might as well not bother in the first place!

At long last!

I told you didn't I? I said we'd have something ready soon. I promised that we'd get something ready for you to listen to and we finally, finally have.

So, go to our soundclick page and download the first demo from us. It's a beta demo of our first song. Paul and I recorded the drums the other week as I've said and the guitars were just done with an FX pedal into the computer.

Sounds good though! The next plan is to re-do the guitars and bass as the guitars sound a bit too friendly and then do the vocals. Oh yeah!

In the meantime, have a listen and tell us what you think.

Progress!

The drums have finally been recorded. Well, they were recorded a while ago (3rd of Feb) but they've finally, actually, really been recorded. For one song!

Well, it's a start.

I'm going to get a version together and get the demo version posted up there for everyone to have a listen to just to prove that we aren't making it up. Paul did a couple of good versions, so it's now just a case of choosing the best one. I had a brave attempt at the drums on 'Strange Town' but I'm not sure that's going to see the light of day without some heavy editing!

So... yeah. It's about bloody time!

It's been a while

Yeah, so there's been a delay in... well... everything really!

So to summarise: we still haven't done anything. But we're scheduled to record the drums tomorrow night. However, we're making no promises as there are still a whole raft of unforseen things that might crop up and stop us from recording.

Mutant Zombies are the current favorite to hold us up, so we'll see.

If we get the drums done, then we'll release something shortly afterwards, even if it's not 100% complete just to prove that something has actually happened! Then it's a case of getting some time to record the guitars and vocals.

At this rate, the demo should be completed by 2008!

New National Holiday

As proposed here, Atheism Day; a "special day in the year that folks feel compelled to challenge/question their beliefs in the supernatural".

Sounds like a fantastic idea and one that I'm very keen to support.

Ahahahaha!!

From this news story at blabbermouth.net:

Lars Ulrich discusses going into the studio for the next Metallica album:

"I certainly, without being disrespectful to the fine work that 'St. Anger' was, look forward to paying a little more attention to the sonics this time ... I certainly look forward to spending a few more minutes on the drum sound"

Yeah, that way you might have noticed that someone swapped your snare drum for a biscuit tin like they did on St. Anger.