just a quick post to say how awesome Heavy MTL was

Cryptopsy at Heavy MTL

With no Heavy TO this year, Heavy Metal Adam and I decided it was time to head back to Montreal for Heavy MTL. It's been a busy summer and I wasn't totally sold on a whirlwind trip in between work shifts, but by the time the fest was drawing close I was all excitement and no misgivings. Now, after it's all over for another year, I'm so glad we went!

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.

winter 2010 metal reviews, part one

I went to my first concert of the year this week - Devin Townsend Project and Cynic, along with Scale the Summit, opening for Between the Buried and Me. I snagged my spot on the guest list because of DTP - it's been years since I've seen Hevy Devy live and after being sucked intoAddicted addiction, I couldn't resist the chance to see him again. Cynic was an added draw - I was never a huge Cynic fan, probably hadn't listened to them in years, but I remember them standing out in the early 90s metal scene and I wanted to hear what they're up to now. Well, I loved it, and now I can't figure out why I wasn't paying more attention earlier. Scale the Summit was a pleasant surprise - much more enticing live than they sound on myspace. And Between the Buried and Me, though they weren't hitting the right spot for me, clearly put on a good show (if you can forgive a rather lame turn of phrase). If my informal reflections have caught your interest, check out the official BTBAM concert review at Exclaim!.

One of my favourite new releases of the year is the new Ihsahn record, but I can't get over how Alice in Chains-ish it feels to me: Ihsahn - After - reviewed for Exclaim!.

The Sigh I was less impressed with, a disappointing development but in line with my disappointment after seeing them live on their last NA tour. Maybe I've just lost touch with what they're up to? Or maybe they've lost touch with ears like mine?: Sigh - Scenes from Hell review.

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.

keew still kickin' (in spirit, if not through the ether)

It's approaching the one-year mark since Kill Eat Exploit the Weak went off the air. Which means it's time for a few reminders that we're still alive in some dimension!

Recently Coral, formerly of Coral-FM, sent me the print version of an on-air interview she conducted with the bitter sidekick and me last July. So one year later, here's a little context and back story for the curious.

I haven't done anything about getting back on the air yet, but I still haven't ruled it out. For now (as you know if you've been reading recent posts), I'm putting in my volunteer time at the Burlington Humane Society. So far I've been cleaning cat cages and providing clean litter, food, water and a little attention for the cats. Next week I start my training to work at the reception desk, which is cool since I want to learn more about how the organization works.

On the music front, you can still read my reviews and/or interviews in Unrestrained! and Exclaim! (and in a much more informal context, here). Or check out the odd concert photo here.

I'm still keeping up with Niagara Action for Animals as well. Here are a few NAfA updates/events:

• Liberty Over Violence demonstration about the horrors of factory farming: Saturday July 12, 3pm - 4:30pm at the SE corner of Bloor and Spadina.
• NAfA Yard Sale: Saturday July 19, 9am - 1pm at 36 Thorndale in St. Catharines.
• Party for the Paws: Proceeds to SNIP (Spay/Neuter), Friday August 8 at Club Richelieu in Welland.

And if you're in Toronto tonight, stop by the Savage Garden for some live digital hardcore with Schizoid and Combat Exhaustion.