Category — Albums

Since I’ve sort of been reporting on what’s been up with Metallica lately, here is some more news…

Drummer Lars Ulrich revealed last night at the band’s small sold-out performance at The Wiltern in Los Angeles, CA, that the band will release it’s new album in September and a full scale tour will take place following the release in October.

Last night the band didn’t play any new songs, but did offer up a lot of old classics. Tickets for the sold-out show were priced at $200 and $500, with proceeds going to benefit Flea’s (of The Red Hot Chili Peppers) Music Conservatory in Los Angeles. Flea joined the band on bass for the song “Fight Fire With Fire” from the bands classic “Ride The Lightning” album. The concert was rumored to have netted around $300,000 for the conservatory.

Metallica is slated to headline Los Angeles radio-station Kroq’s annual “Weenie Roast” on May 17th followed by the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, TN on June 13th.

It seems obvious that the new Metallica will most likely suck. You can always hope though…

-Set List from the bands May 14th show in Los Angeles-

“The Ecstasy of Gold”
“Fuel”
“For Whom the Bell Tolls”
“Sanitarium”
“…And Justice For All”
“Sad But True”
“Disposable Heroes”
“One”
“Master of Puppets”
“Battery”
“Last Caress/Green Hell” (Misfits cover)
“No Remorse”
“Enter Sandman”
“Fight Fire with Fire”
“Seek and Destroy”

Source.

I mentioned this in my post about Metallica the other day. Many music sites and publications have been running stories on “Dave Grohl’s Open Letter to Metallica” or similar headlines. It turns out this wasn’t really true, as Dave himself has personally stated via FooFighters.com…

“Just wanted to write a quick note to clear up this whole “Open letter to Metallica” fiasco……For the record, I never “wrote” anything to Metallica. I was asked by a journalist, at the end of a long interview (abut the Foo Fighters) to give a quick message to Metallica in the studio. So, I rattled that quote off the top of my head. No biggie, right? Somehow it became my “open letter” to the band, and now it’s been picked up by everyone from Blabbermouth.com to Rolling Stone (as if anyone really cares!). Now, it’s true that I’ve been a loyal fan of this band for 25 years, and I can’t wait to hear the new shit, but an “open letter” to the band?!!?? Nah. Not my style. I’d rather just text ‘em……”

Turns out it’s just the media trying to drum up, (get it?) some controversy. Oh well…no Foo Fighters vs. Metallica feud yet…

To continue on the theme of popular metal bands, (see yesterday’s post about Metallica), it appears Slipknot will be gearing up to record a new album.

According to band frontman Corey Taylor, the album “Is going to rip your face off.”

“Declining to give an album title or song names, Taylor describes Slipknot’s forthcoming set — which is being recorded in the band’s home state of Iowa — as a “very dark” cross between “Vol. 3″ and 2001’s “Iowa.” “It has so much power in it and yet there are so many great spots for melody,” he explains. “It’s a controlled chaos that hits you right out of the gate.”

“Lyrically, “Instead of bitching about what went wrong in my life, I’m bitching about what’s wrong in life, period,” Taylor says, noting that his vocals are much more melodic than before. “I got to the point where I was tired of pretending that I couldn’t sing every time I made a Slipknot album, so this time I’m going all out.”

However, a lot of people will be looking forward to drummer Joey Jordison’s work on this album. He has come to be known for ridiculously fast blast beats, crazy tom fills and basically all out double bass explosions.  These trademarks of his drumming I am pretty certain will be featured on this new album as well. Last time the band worked with Rick Rubin, and while a producer hasn’t been announced yet, I’m hoping they go with someone a little less played out with more of a metal sound.

Source/More Info.

After reading a story on Stereogum concerning Dave Grohl, (of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame) writing Metallica an open later chastising them, (Dave Grohl’s open letter to Metallica), ironic isn’t it? I thought I’d check out their website and see what’s up.

Apparently, Metallica launched a website called www.missionmetallica.com, a place where drummer Lars says “people can kind of tune in every day, watch clips, contests, get updates for what’s going on with the record and kind of watch the last couple of months of song titles, album titles, final mixes.” The website also contained a trailer for the new album but the site was taken down, the trailer is still available on YouTube. I just hope Lars can lay down some drum tracks this time that don’t include his super pongy snare drum from St Anger.

The YouTube clips essentially show a few sound bytes/snippets of new songs being worked on and/or recorded in the studio. If you’ve ever seen the bands “Spinal-Tap-for-real” documentary “Some Kind of Monster” it kind of looks like that. Let us also hope Rick Rubin (the Michael Bay of music), succeeds in helping the band reclaim their early sound. I hate to be pessimistic, but I kinda doubt it.

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Russian Circles new album “Station” contains a lot of elements you’d expect from the band, which is one of the reasons why its a good record.  The album starts off with the track “Campaign” which begins with a mathy riff set over an ambient droning guitar, and sounds almost too pretty for the band. The song increases its build with many layers of delayed, ambient guitars and eventually gives way to…well…another mathy riff, before Turncrantz cymbal and snare rim hits lead the band into a soft groove followed by a heavy tribal section.

The expectation is one of the best things about this album, just when you think a song is going to get loud and punishing it keeps you guessing and waiting. Turncrantz drumming helps the anticipation build a lot, everything that made the percussion on the first album great is displayed here again…solid grooves, fast fills, cymbal flourishes and heavy tribal tom beats.

I am really enjoying this album, I feel that the band has all evolved as players. The production on this album, once again is great, everything can be heard clearly, when the guitars kick in they are intense, the snare, bass drum and tom sounds are all crystal clear and the bass guitar is punchy as well. I think the band has managed to trump themselves, as I may like this one more than their first album “Enter”.

Rashied Ali has been one of my favorite drummers for a while. He played with John Coltrane and comes from an avant-garde jazz background. His playing, (a lot of it at least), is very improvisatory and complicated. Not complicated in the sense where he is just spinning his wheels, but complicated in the sense of being extremely exploratory, daring and fluid.

A record I highly recommend checking out is “Duo Exchange”, released in 1973 on the Blue Note jazz record label, it stands as a powerful statement on avant-jazz, improvisational drumming. Its just Rashied Ali and a horn player; Frank Lowe, 2 tracks, around 20 minutes each. The music featured on this album may be hard to listen to for some, but the fruits of your listening are worth it as it shifts from intenese driving sections to slow, moody sections with oddly placed accents coming from Ali.

Ali is all over his kit on this album, with amazing tom tom sections being the highlight of the drum sound. Even if you aren’t into jazz or the somewhat abrasive sound of this record, if you’re into drumming there is a lot you can pick up here. When I first heard this record, there were so many drum tricks, fills and accents I’d never heard before. Great album and an amazing drummer.

So apparently the Melvins new album “Nude With Boots” leaked. I don’t want to post a full review of an album thats not out yet, but just some thoughts.

The album has been completed obviously, but additional mastering may occur later on which could effect the sound. Anyway, upon my first listen I think the album is great and even better than the band’s last record (A) Senile Animal. The production is a lot dryer and the guitar sound is a little more solid. The overall sound is similar to the bands last record yet with an obvious 70’s classic rock influence, mainly in the from of the guitar riffs, there’s also some older-style Melvins heaviness.

Once again both Dale Crover and Coady Willis are playing double drums. The drum sound this time around is much more direct and it seems both drummers are playing more of the parts together. They tend to deviate a little, a lot of times for added percussion flourishes , but mainly they both rock out and do a lot of fills together at the same time.

I’m already liking this record more overall than (A) Senile Animal, and thats saying a lot, since that was also a great record.

*(Photo copyright - Kevin Willis 2006).