October playlists update and pre-Halloween show reminder

So it seems the only thing I post is playlists these days... I swear, it's just temporary. Plus I have a specific recipe from Vegan Pie in the Sky I would like to endorse before I forget. But in the meantime, here are some more Kill Eat Exploit the Weak Playlists.

Actually, before I get to them, I want to invite you all to join us next week for one of our favourite shows of the year – our Halloween special! This year, in addition to highlighting some of our own Halloween favourites, we're offering a few crowd-sourced selections. And by crowd, I mean, contributors to the Hamilton-based metal webzine Hellbound.ca. Hellbound is putting together its own Halloween playlist again this year and this coming week we will be previewing some of the selections chosen by Hellbound's staffers as well as our own picks.

October 8

ARTIST	ALBUM	TRACK
Hey Clown	EP	Side Arm
Desmire	Sleepless Waters (single)	Sleepless Waters
Orange Goblin	Back From The Abyss	Bloodzilla
Laika	Laika	Escalation of Terror
Necroholocaust	Holocaustic Goat Metal	Side 1 (excerpt)
Witch Mountain	Mobile of Angels	Can't Settle
White Empress	Rise of the Empress	A Prisoner Unleashed
Audrey Horne	Pure Heavy	Wolf in my Heart
A Breach of Silence	The Darkest Road	Vultures
Castle Freak	Still Rotting	Sickening Corpses
Couch Slut	My Life as a Woman	Little Girl Things
Winterfylleth	The Divination of Antiquity	The Divination of Antiquity
Amon Amarth	Twilight of the Thunder God	Guardians of Asgaard
DRED	DRED EP	No Panache
Cowards	Shooting Blanks & Pills	Last Card
Varga	Return of the Metal	Three Section Staff
Mortals	Cursed to See the Future	View From a Tower
Lutharo		No Escape
Profaner	Signs of Nine	Symbol of Supremacy
Mares of Thrace	demo	Dead French Mathematicians

October 15

ARTIST	ALBUM	TRACK
King Diamond	Abigail	The Family Ghost
Jess and the Ancient Ones	Castaneda	Castaneda
Castle	Under Siege	Powersigns
Immortal Bird	Akrasia	The Pseudoscientist
Old Witch	Come Mourning Come	This Land Has Been Cursed
Yautja	Songs of Descent	Tar and Blindness
Greber	Kiln Hardened Psalms	Fredericton
Eluveitie	Origins	King
Cold Blue Mountain	Old Blood	Strongest Will
Menace Ruine	Venus Armata	Torture of Fire
Ancient VVisdom	Sacrificial	Worm Ridden Skull
My Brother The Wind	Once There Was A Time When Time and Space Were One	Once There Was A Time When Time and Space Were One
Caudal	Ascension	451s2
Shooting Guns	Wolfcop Soundtrack	Railbender
SPECTRAL HAZE	I.E.V.: Transmutated Nebula Remains	Descent Through the Intravoidal
Planning For Burial / Liar In Wait	Split 7"	Paper Houses (Liar in Wait)
Baptists	Bloodmines	Closed Ports
Occultation	Silence In The Ancestral House	Laughter In The Halls Of Madness
Blut Aus Nord	Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry	Tellus Mater
October 31	Bury the Hatchet	Tear Ya Down
Revocation	Deathless	A Debt Owed to the Grave
Today Is the Day	Animal Mother	Sick of Your Mouth
Pig Destroyer	Mass & Volume EP	Volume

October 22

ARTIST	ALBUM	TRACK
Cryptopsy	Blasphemy Made Flesh	Defenestration
Profaner	Signs of Nine	Waylaid by Evil
Killitorous		Godking
Lutharo		No Escape
Arch Enemy	War Eternal	You Will Know My Name
Kreator	Phantom Antichrist	From Flood Into Fire
Starkill		This is Our Battle This Is Our Day
Huntress	Starbound Beast	Blood Sisters
System of a Down	Toxicity	Toxicity
DRED	DRED	No Panache
Varga	Enter the Metal	Gamera
Axminister	Pleasure of my Hate	Satan's Spouse
Woccon	Solace in Decay	Giving Up The Ghost
Eyeswithoutaface	Warguts	Beautiful and Cruel
Respire	Demonstration	Nihil
Animal Ethics	Human Riots	Lungs
Pain	Pain	On Your Knees Again
Secret Discovery	Question of Time	Colour My Life
Sentenced	Down	Noose
Atrocity	Willenskraft	Love Is Dead
Idol of Fear	All Sights Affixed, Ablaze	All Sights Affixed, Ablaze
Dark Breakfast		A Swarm of Burning Crystals

interviewing Schizoid (digital hardcore meets true black metal)

I first encountered Schizoid in the early Kill Eat Exploit the Weak days on CKMS. Between his solo work, digital hardcore collaborations and time fronting black metal band Dead of Winter, Schizoid and I crossed paths many times. I reviewed numerous recordings, interviewed him, had both Schizoid and Dead of Winter perform live on the radio, and even presented a conference paper on D-Trash Records at an international popular music studies conference outside Nashville, Tennessee.

Now Schizoid has a new record out - The Next Extreme - and we had a chance to catch up a bit. The resulting Q&A is up at hellbound.ca.

Mares of Thrace + Hellbound Summer Metal Meltdown (May metal update)

The ever-awesome Mares of Thrace are currently on a tour that brings them to Hamilton next Wednesday, May 9. Be there (as in This Ain't Hollywood)! I had the chance to interview guitarist/vocalist Thérèse Lanz recently, and you can read the resulting article here, or in the paper edition of this week's View. Lanz had more to say than the feature could contain, so I'll try to post some extra entertaining quotables here in the next week or so.

In other scimetalvegan news... Hellbound is once again taking to CMFU's airwaves this summer, filling in for Soundtrack to the Apocalypse. The first edition of the Hellbound Summer Metal Meltdown begins this Saturday night at 10:30 pm, with me at the helm. You can listen via the old fashioned FM frequencies or tune in online.

...and again with the Devin Townsend

Look at this concert list, every show a headlining date by the infamous Canadian musical mastermind Devin Townsend!

Dec 09 London, ON – London Music Hall
Dec 10 Toronto, ON – Opera House
Dec 11 St. Catharines, ON – L3 Nightclub
Dec 13 Kingston, ON – Mansion House
Dec 14 Montreal, QC – Foufounes Electriques
Dec 15 Ottawa, ON – Mavericks

I'm still trying to figure out how I can squeeze multiple Devin Townsend concerts into my weekend. It's a rare treat, at least for me, to have the chance to see the man perform several days in a row.

I haven't quite worked out those details yet, but I did manage to pull together some more interview material to get myself (and hopefully other people too) into the Hevy Devy spirit:

http://www.hellbound.ca/2011/12/devin-townsend-talks-seriousness-humour-and-interesting-art/.

November(+) recap and round-up

I usually tweet what I've been writing for other venues, but I may have missed an item or two this month... With that in mind, along with a nod to the non-twitter folks, a month-end review of reviews (and other stuff) seems in order.

This is a modest list, but probably the last of my reviewing for 2011. It's all year-end coverage from here on in! (and check the latest Exclaim in print for the beginnings of it)

My exclaim.ca contributions, ranging from late October throughout November:

• Opeth and Katatonia live in Guelph (quick summary: I loved the performances but not the audience)
  
• My Dying Bride The Barghest O'Whitby (a good fix, but not a full meal)
• Vallenfyre A Fragile King (part of my recent death metal appreciation bonanza - I also very highly recommend The Tomb Awaits by Entrails)
• Cradle of Filth Evermore Darkly (my experience of the visual component was delayed - fun stuff, British humour, solid live performance, but not an absolute must-have)

And for hellbound.ca:

• It's Kvlt to Eat Your Vegetables (a much delayed report of a group cooking effort inspired by Vegan Black Metal Chef)
  

Stay tuned for December liveliness, what with that aforementioned year-end coverage and other festive nonsense.

scimetalvegan and friends meet vegan black metal chef

As the weather gets cold and autumnal (I'm ignoring the fact that, despite the rain, it was actually kind of warm in Hamilton today), it's nice to recall warm summer evenings spent dining and drinking in the back yard with friends.

Keeping that in mind, here (at Hellbound) is a four-month late report on my vegan black metal cooking adventure with Adam Wills and Mark Coatsworth.

(and the recipe, in case you're inclined to view or try it yourself)

more post-MDF fun

Wooeee! Hellbound.ca's MDF day 1 recap is up now. Check it out. (more to come)

Don't forget to read our 2nd birthday celebratory staff interviews while you're there, especially the one with Kieran, the oldest son of Hellbound overlord, Sean.

... and, in my last post, I totally forgot to mention my favourite Maryland Deathfest purchases!

I'm cheap, on a tight budget, and get totally overwhelmed when there's too much selection. With multiple vendors, official merch tents, and scores upon scores of clothes, patches, pins, cds, vinyl, and even cassettes, the shopping-oriented part of my poor brain had a minor short circuit at the fest. Despite that I came out with a souvenir MDF shirt, a couple Kylesa records I hadn't gotten around to picking up before, and - I am excited to add - a Cemetary shirt plus a double Morgion album from Relapse. After being soothed by Solinari earlier this morning I'm now peacefully dooming out to Among Majestic Ruin.

stronger than metal (I am not) and happy birthday, hellbound!

Monday evening I arrived home from Maryland Deathfest: four nights and two afternoons of live metal bombardment, sandwiched by two days of first class heavy metal roadtripping. It was an amazing time with awesome people. I, however, am now a lump of aching, viral-infested quasi-human flesh. Was it worth it? Of course! Will I again sit in a vehicle (admittedly, a comfy one) for sevenish hours each way and stand on concrete for four days - all in the name of metal? Don't doubt it! (that's assuming I survive the recovery process...)

My initial review of the four-day MDFest is already up at exclaim.ca. And stay tuned for Hellbound's MDF coverage of the performances, to which I will contribute, starting this Friday. For now, I'll just say that I was delighted to be provided with free water and to a selection of vegan/veg food to eat while I was there: veggie burgers, veggie penne, hummus and chips, fruit salad, all provided by the on-site food tent, plus veggie and fruit kebabs offered by the Hollywood Diner just outside the gates. I'd also like to throw some heavy metal horns of thanks to the hotel staff who greeted us warmly every time we made our way through the front doors, and to one man in particular, who made sure to say goodbye at the end of his shift and give us a cheery 'see you next year'.

We Hellbounders will have our say about the music, plus some live photography courtesy of Albert Mansour. But I know Kevin Stewart-Panko was engaged in some people-watching as well so I expect some amusing quips on more than just the bands. If you're looking for more insight into the festival experience, check out the four part MDF round up already in process at Toronto in Metal - as told by a chick. Alexx and her dude Kevin generously chauffeured me and Heavy Metal Adam to Baltimore, and I look forward to her entertaining commentary, photos, and links to live fest video clips.

And speaking of Hellbound.ca, we're two years old today! I'm thrilled to have been a part of things for the past two years and look forward to many many more. Celebrate with us on the site or, if you like, by tuning in to hear some of us hosting Hellbound's Summer Metal Meltdown on McMaster's CFMU this Saturday night at 10:30pm.

p.s. my review of the new epic My Dying Bride - Evinta, is also now up at exclaim.ca.

march metal continued

A reissue:

Woods of Ypres - Woods IV: The Green Album

A new release:

TesseracT - One

And a page full of Hellbound playlists.

Next up: Agalloch live in London, Ontario!

Catch today's Heavy TO line-up announcement? As much as I love Megadeth, Opeth, and Auf der Maur, and enjoy most of the other bands on the list, it's not much different from last year's Heavy MTL line-up. (my socks have not been rocked)

winter metal on Hellbound (free stuff included)

I try to enjoy winter. I do. But I don't like being cold. And last week's warm spell gave me a yearning for spring. I'm ready for the seasons to change – and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on this one.

I can't do much about the weather, but I can pass along a little good news: Hellbound.ca is holding another contest! The Hellbound folks can't do much about the weather either, but we can at least give someone's music collection a late-winter metal boost. Read and post to enter. Spread the word and enter some more.

And...

You may have noticed a fair bit of activity in the Motörhead camp lately, including a couple of local shows (Kitchener and Toronto) this weekend. Hellbound has been featuring a ton of Motörhead-related content this month in celebration. My part in the coverage went up last week – some thoughts on a book of artwork by Motörhead artist Joe Petagno.

hellbound's year-end wrap up and metal news (updated)

Now up on Hellbound.ca...

New feature: recent news in metal.

And, counting down... I'm sorry to say I haven't heard everything on this list, but I like what I've heard. (stay tuned for more to come!)

The first five entries in Hellbound's top 20 of 2010.

Top 15 to 11.

Bottom half of the top 10.

Plus, the Hellbound writers' individual top 10s (mine included).

Hellbounders' retrospective: memorable metal events of 2010.

a personal warm and fuzzy (hellbound appreciation)

This past weekend, Hellbound.ca, the metal webzine I contribute to (though not nearly as much as I'd like) won a Hamilton Music Award! We (I claim some small part of the "we" even though the kudos belong to other people) were nominated in the local online publication/website of the year award. And we won!

Check it out!

killing joke: music, technoscience, politics (and more)

Killing Joke's new album, Absolute Dissent, is out today. As I listen to it one more time to turn my thoughts into review words on the page (for exclaim!), I decided to surf over to Hellbound.ca and Kyle Harcott's interview with Killing Joke frontman Jaz Coleman.

Not everyone likes politics mixed up with their music, and you may not necessarily agree with Coleman's strong opinions on things like world government and technoscientific development. But if you're in the mood for an interesting and stimulating read (about and shooting off of the work of a tremendously significant band), I highly recommend it.

new year goodies from hellbound

If your holiday goodie bag didn't satisfy your metal cravings, Hellbound's got the solution: enough free music to feed your ears for days straight (longer if you give them a nap break).

The metal zine's latest contest promises

"nearly 50 CDs from bands on the AFM, Century Media, E1 Records Canada, Ibex Moon, Metal Blade, Nuclear Blast, Prosthetic, Relapse, Roadrunner, Season Of Mist, Sensory and Sonic Unyon labels. This includes autographed CDs from AUGURY, BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, JOB FOR A COWBOY, PORCUPINE TREE, SACRIFICE, TESTAMENT and VOIVOD, a Prosthetic Records t-shirt (either L or XL), a CRADLE OF FILTH picture disc 7″ and some more stuff TBA (we’re not gonna list everything until it arrives)."

And all you have to do is list your five favourite metal albums of 2009. For the especially ravenous, you can earn a few more entries by spreading the word and subscribing to the latest Hellbound updates (see the contest page for full details).

And while you're at it, check out Hellbound's latest feature - the return of Kevi-Metal's Rimshots. Rimshots is one more tie leading back to Adrian Bromley's sorely-missed Unrestrained! magazine and a welcome addition to the Hellbound line-up.

Hellbound is seven months old now, and for me, the webzine's emergence and growth definitely qualify among the most memorable developments of 2009.

heavy hitters from 1999

I submitted my music picks for 2009 weeks ago already (see this post for exclaim! year in review info, and then check out hellbound.ca's special year end coverage with a Canadian twist and submit your own top Canadian picks to win a Canadian metal prize pack). I'm not even going to try to play the 'best of the decade' game, but since the year is almost expired, it's about time for my twist on the typical year end lists - a rundown oft what I was into ten years ago.

If you caught last year's 'best of' post you might recall that this is a KEEW tradition, first devised for a new year's eve radio special many years past. This will be my third new year's away from CKMS but here are some of the records I'd be mining for tracks if I was still on the air.

KEEW's best of 1999 (in no particular order):

Nevermore - Dreaming Neon Black

Opeth - Still Life

In Flames - Colony

Tristania - Beyond the Veil

Cradle of Filth - From the Cradle to Enslave

Anathema - Judgement

Rapture - Futile

Immortal - At the Heart of Winter

Agalloch - Pale Folklore

Moonspell - The Butterfly Effect

Hypocrisy - Hypocrisy

Iced Earth - Something Wicked This Way Comes

Cathedral - Caravan Beyond Redemption

Amorphis - Tuonela

Lacrimas Profundere - Memorandum

My Dying Bride - The Light at the End of the WorldSolus - Universal Bloodshed

Odyssey - Odyssey

Katatonia - Tonight's Decision

Sevendust - Home

Pain - Rebirth

Skunk Anansie - Post Orgasmic Chill

Korn - Issues

Disclaimers: If I screwed up any of these release dates, so be it. These are all worth mentioning whatever year they were released in. But it's also entirely possible I forgot something good too. What can I say? Memory's not my strong point. You'll also note that I start veering away from the metal canon toward the end of the list. I'm not a purist. I like what I like.

review backlog and honorable mentions

My house is full of CDs. I don't have an epic collection, but it's large and grows at a rate that exceeds my control. If you're the kind of person who reads Philip K. Dick, think of the CDs in my house as related to kipple and you'll get a sense of what I'm talking about. Books are almost as bad, but that's another tale. Part of the kipple factor is that I'm rapidly running out of shelf space. On top of that, of the CDs that come to me for review, I can only squeeze in the time to deal with a small fraction in writing before they're already old news.

Consider this post dedicated to the records that I wanted to review but couldn't find time for when they first came my way.

• Antediluvian - Under Wing of Asael: This brutal (Canadian) monstrosity just entered my life this year, but I gather the demo's a little older than that. Antediluvian performs a kind of blackened doom/grind that could probably annihilate any keyboard or vocal melody that wandered within 100 feet.
• Diablo Swing Orchestra - Sing Along Songs for the Damned & Delirious: Starting out like a cross between the Stray Cats and The Triplets of Belleville, this collection of tracks is as odd as the band name and record title suggest. I can't compare it to DSO's first album (never heard it), and I wouldn't call it exactly enjoyable, but there's a lot of entertainment value here.
• Emilie Autumn - Opheliac: This is one of my favourites of the honorable mentions. The Baroque intro sets a gothic mood but things get a lot messier (in the best of ways) as the record sinks into a nearly sinister electro-groove. Emilie Autumn channels something along the lines of a Kate Bush/Tori Amos/Hanin Elias/Courtney Love techno fusion. At first I thought it was neat, then cheesy, then I realized I was completely won over.
• Epica - Design Your Universe: Epica's always been hit and miss for me, as in I mostly can't get into what they're doing but they usually come up with one or two songs that draw me in. Design Your Universe keeps up that pattern (check out "Martyr of the Free Word"), but there's a little more oomph to this record that I can't quite put my finger on and the uncertainty keeps luring me back to try to figure it out.
• Gwynbleidd - Nostalgia: There's a late-90s Opeth-ish lilt to Nostalgia, a kind of folk-inflected progressive death metal with a few blackened nuances that almost seems to pick up where the Swedes left off to follow a different path. And it works (I'd rather listen to Nostalgia than Watershed).
• Leaves' Eyes - Njord: I could like Njord, but the signature "beauty & the beast" thing Leaves' Eyes banks on isn't enough to carry a record on its own, and its pleasures are overshadowed by unfortunate musical choices - like an out of place cover of Simon & Garfunkle's "Scarborough Fair" and the new metal cheese of "My Destiny" that sounds like LE and Lacuna Coil have been hanging out in the same wrong places.
• Secrets of the Moon - Privilegivm: I missed out on seeing these guys open for Moonspell in Toronto this fall and I regret the unfortunate timing. Privilegivm feels like complex late 80s thrash that fell into a frozen pit of black metal and came out a stronger, more ferocious beast.
• Skitliv - Skandinavisk Misantropi: It's hard to describe Skitliv because inconsistency is one of Skandinavisk Misantropi's strengths. If there's any structure holding it all together, it's a kind of blackened psychedelic doom, but things get more ambient and eerie from there on in. If you're a Maniac (Mayhem) follower or a fan of his sidekicks on this record (including folks from Current 93 and Shining) perhaps that's not too surprising.
• Wodensthrone - Loss: Pagan metal, clan mythology, and a little Old English make Wodensthrone's Loss a dramatic onslaught of primal power. Some of the record's raw edges are smoothed over by melody and synth textures but the result is more weathered than polished. A haunting but visceral blackened vocal track and a persistent rhythmic battery keep the unsettling momentum going with just the right mix of history and present.

And here are a few recent entries that did make the final review cut:

Katatonia - Night is the New Day

Sacrifice concert review (note: the original text referred to my one-ear deafness from standing next to the right hand monitors. oh well. click here for a few more rough photos from the show.)

Drudkh - Forgotten Legends

Paradise Lost - Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us (the Hellbound version)

Semen Datura - Einsamkeit
Sopor Aeternus - Es reiten die Toten so schnell

These Are They - Who Linger

trouble interview plus exclaim's best of the year

Bruce Franklin from Trouble and I engaged in a very conversational interview last week. We talked about downtime, the current line-up, playing live... read it at Hellbound if you're interested.

I still remember the first time I heard Trouble back in the early 90s (a friend included them on the 'best of the year' tape mix he made for himself). I was immediately hooked. Soon after I was digging through the record stacks at Dr. Disc and found myself a copy of the Psalm 9/self-titled album, which I still proudly possess. According to Bruce, my introduction to Trouble was fairly typical:

"I think a lot of people actually picked up on us around the same time you did because that was our first major label release and that’s actually our biggest selling record and we toured for a year straight then. So I think a whole lot of people got turned onto us on that record, and did what you did and went back and found some of the older stuff. It’s just cool, that’s happened with me with old bands."

You can find the rest of the interview with Bruce Franklin here: Trouble: Nowhere Near Endtime.

Plus Bruce shared his recent music playlist.

Speaking of best of the year mixes, I've submitted my selections to Hellbound, so keep your eyes open for Hellbound's special end of the year features coming up in the next week or two. In the meantime, you can check out Exclaim's year-end picks, which have been out for a while. A couple of my choices made it to the Aggressive Tendencies top ten, including Katatonia's Night is the New Day.

the devin townsend project

A few weeks ago I interviewed Devin Townsend, getting him to talk (it wasn't hard) about his new four-album opus under the name Devin Townsend Project. Two albums are out, two more to fall in May, and they'll end up covering pretty much the full spectrum of musical intensity and volume (or so, I gather).

The interview is split up in two parts, with the main chunk posted at Exclaim, alongside my review of the Addicted album (the December print issue has a longer review, but no interview).

Part two, a little more business-oriented, just went up at Hellbound.ca.

Happy reading.

remembering the "Energizer" Adrian Bromley

Over at Hellbound Sean Palmerston has posted a wonderful tribute to Adrian Bromley, who died a year ago today.

I had an eerie moment reading the intro - somehow we both met Adrian in 1995 while backstage at Molson Amphitheatre for a Fear Factory interview, yet it was some time yet before Sean and I met each other, and many more years before we both ended up writing for the same publications, eventually culminating with Adrian's unparalleled Unrestrained!. The man definitely had a way of bringing people together.

Tonight I raise a glass (or a few) to Adrian, memories, and metal.

free stuff from Relapse and Hellbound

Hellbound.ca is running a contest from now until Dec 15th. If you drop by the website you can enter to win one of 3 prize packs with new Dying Fetus, Baroness, Black Anvil and Revocation CDs and a limited edition art print of the full artwork for the new Baroness CD.
Enter here: http://www.hellbound.ca/2009/11/contest-relapse-records/.

And while you're there, read some of the recent stuff posted on the site:

• a cool multi-part video interview with Sacrifice
• a report on Calgary’s Noctis Festival
• my Paradise Lost review
• and lots more