Archive for the ‘Ron's Furnace of Limitless Hate’ Category

SPRING BREAK!!! WOOOOOOOOO!!!

Right? Well not so much for me. In a time usually reserved for all out partying and getting st00pid (traditionally), I am instead sitting here writing on the Greatest Metal Podcast of all Time’s blog. In other years I would fly back to Nicaragua during this precious week, but alas, my economic situation is such that I can’t really afford a plane ticket right now, so I’ll be staying in the US this time.

Back in the homeland, I would probably be waking up right now with a slight hangover to the sound of my sister’s dogs running about the house. Instead, I woke up about 2 hours ago to the sound of my alarm clock. I don’t really have any friends in this here country, so most of this week will be spent being by my lonesome, deep in the Wordless Chamber. I do have a few things I want to do that haven’t been possible in regular school time; like record this song I’ve been playing in my head for a while now, catch up on my biking/gym sessions, finish putting together my RGEM and look harder for an internship.

As far as Metalscape goes, I have no idea if Zach will ever come back on. Last episode was pretty awesome content-wise, but it also showed that he’s really not into it at all anymore. Remember giddy ol’ Zach excited about telling us about some new freeware software that organizes your .mp3s? Yeah that’s gone to shit. So I’ll be doing MSRs in the meantime. Join me tomorrow night, Sunday, if you want to get in on the action.

So how will you be spending your Spring Break?

It seems Meshuggah are bent on really making me hate them. Not content with releasing a shit, shit album, they had to go on and make their first ever live DVD from material recorded during their tour for their shit, shit album. And now to top it all off, they’ve made a deal with Hot Topic it seems, where the only place you can get the fucking DVD is at their stores. As an alternative, the DVD is also available online, at hotmotherfuckingtopic.com.

That’s just fantastic Meshuggah. How about this stunt for your next release, ready? Ok so the first thing you do is shit out a retarded album in like 2 weeks, call it “LaLwZeN” and then you get Nuclear Blast to get a hold of Disney or something, so you guys can have a spot in a Hannah Montana episode. Next thing you know, you’ll be making your own Disney musical! And why stop there? After that maybe one of you guys can have a role in the next Twilight movie! Next you can try releasing a sex tape! That’s when you land your very own reality show on MTV “Shuggah!”, get pregnant/on drugs/divorced to keep you in the spotlight and you’re set for life. What about the music you say? Don’t worry, Nuclear Blast will simply keep releasing “LaLwZeN” with a different cover art every six months and that will keep all your 16 year old girl fans happy.

Oh yeah, Arsis is doing the same thing too.

“Everything Remains as the same garbage we’ve been churning out after halfway our first album (as it never should have been)” is now streaming at Eluveitie’s Myspace. Yeah you got me, that’s not the real title of the Swiss “New Wave of Folk Metal” band’s new album, but that’s what it essentially is. Just when you thought that the by now rotting carcass of what was once the dead horse that is Eluveitie’s particular brand of “new wave” folk metal could not possibly be beaten any further, these guys prove you otherwise.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a new video for their track “Thousandfold”:

Here’s a serious question: Who is the more ridiculous band, Eluveitie or Van Canto? Is it Eluveitie because they think they can pass the crap they’re doing as “folk metal” or Van Canto, who have one drummer and 4 or 6 dudes doing guitar riffs with their voices? That’s a tough one. Thanks to forum member qqq for the heads up.

That’s the opener of Divinity’s new album, “The Singularity”. It’s also the only song I like from the record. Why do any of the other songs not sound anything like this? Fuckers.

Help me out in school by completing this survey. It’s a short 6 multiple choice questions thing, won’t take too much of your precious time. If you’ve already seen this on Facebook then don’t do it again because you’ll be corrupting my data and in the process become an asshole. Thanks.
LINK TO SURVEY \m/

What the fuck?

Is there no good metal music coming out anymore or is it just me? If you’ve listened to most of the more recent shows, you are already familiar with this sentiment of mine. A couple of years ago it would seem that every few months a band that I liked would release a new album, and it was good. I even enjoyed going on random metal hunts for new bands and would find myself pleasantly surprised with what I would unearth (Uaral, Sikth).

But now all of that seems gone. All of my favorite metal bands have already gone to shit (Symphony X, what happened guys?). Some are even into their second shit installment (Sonata Arctica, Porcupine Tree), and some are so far beyond shit that they have lost every sense of what good music sounds like, but keep going at it anyway (Dream Theater). Then you got the uncomfortable middle ground where bands release new albums that even though aren’t complete garbage, they’re nothing particularly interesting or fresh either (Devin Townsend, Behemoth, Ensiferum). Now I understand it is the natural way of things for bands to lower the quality of their musical output over time, so I guess the first part of this paragraph is perfectly justifiable, and I should instead focus my energies on finding new bands that tickle my fancy. But that’s the other part of the problem; There are no worthwhile new bands either.

So I repeat the question. Is it just me, or is metal music going to shit? I wanna know you guys’ opinions so post in the comments. And if you have some good suggestions for bands to check out, please do so. Otherwise I’m just gonna sit here and enjoy some old Adagio while I wait for metal to completely die.

I saw this referenced by a post about a “Juggalo” festival MetalSucks.

I mean, I know that for some reason that defies life, Insane Clown Posse are still around, making “music”. And I know that they have a particularly rabidly moronic fanbase that call themselves “Juggalos” (much in the same way as the Slipknot “Maggot”). But the fact that they have their own 3 day long festival to celebrate their extreme retardation is something that escapes the boundaries of what you may call “reality”. Holy shit.

There are simply no words. See for yourself:

What the shit is Periphery? It’s one of those bands that me, Ron, is the only person in the whole of Metalscape-dom likes (or knows for that matter). The other more popular example is Meshuggah.

A few years ago this band started as a bunch of (awesome) tidbits of songs by this dude, Misha Mansoor, more popularly known across the internets as “Bulb”. I came to know about him in my early years of partaking in the Search for the Ultimate PODxt Guitar Tone. While I was struggling with recording anything that resembled a real guitar this guy was producing audio that rivaled (and in some cases surpassed) professionally recorded bands. His Soundclick page remains to this day one of my favorite online spots to go for a good/original/metal/random music listening experience. As I’m sure was the case for a lot of other people out there, since his stuff was (and still is) incredibly popular among budding guitarists/amateur producers/metal musicians.

He eventually got a band running, Periphery; and a few years and a lot of line-up changes later, he’s finally inked a deal with Sumerian Records. They’re currently on the Thrash and Burn tour across the US and they’ll be recording their debut afterward (or something like that). You can check out some of their songs and awesome studio diaries over at their MySpace.

I love the guy’s music. While the Meshuggah influence is definitely palpable, he manages to forge a sound all his own. Great riffing, interesting melodies, intelligent songwriting and terrific drumming. It actually reminds me a lot of Sikth; a heavier, faster and more elegant sounding Sikth. Yes, instrumentally this band is awesome. Then the fucking vocals come in and shit on everything.

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