Ten New Year's Resolutions Every Metalhead Should Have

10) Read More Lyrics

Pick an album that you haven't been able to stop listening to for the past week, and delve into those lyrics like it's a short story. Whether you read while listening to the album or in complete silence, I can guarantee that paying attention to the script of a song will increase your appreciation for just how difficult it is to be a songwriter.  Plus, how fun is it to know all the words to your favorite metal anthems and shout them at a concert?

9) Discover At Least One New Band A Week


With so much new music on the Internet, it is so easy to get overwhelmed.  But you can get immensely creative with ways to discover a new band.  Make a "Wheel-O-Genres," and whatever genre it lands on, Google it and listen to a band you've never heard before, whether small or large!  Go on YouTube to your favorite song, and lose yourself in a wormhole of suggested picks.  Or make friends and get their suggestions!  The world is a treasure box of music, you just have to navigate your own unique path.



8) Pick Up An Instrument....


Whether you got your inspiration from a heavy metal god or playing too many hours of Guitar Hero, every metalhead has a musical inspiration.  Playing an instrument is such a fun way to re-create your favorite tunes and to make you feel like a rock star in your own home.  If you are questioning whether you want to make a serious monetary investment in an instrument, start at Guitar Center and just fuck around with a cool-looking guitar!

 7) ....And Jam With a Friend!



Just because you pick up an instrument doesn't mean you have any obligation to start a band.  Even if you can't write a song for shit, getting together with other metalheads and jamming out to "Crystal Mountain" or "Nuke the Cross" is one of the most fulfilling hobbies in the world.  Jamming gives you more opportunities to learn about all the social and technical mechanics that make up a live performance without the pressure of having a rock star career crisis.


6) Embrace the World of Tangible Music

MP3s are super practical and should be embraced by everyone who wants to keep up the pace with this modern music era.  Having said that, being able to listen to music on a tangible medium gives a whole new dimension to your adventure into a band's body of work.  Vinyls, CDs, and even cassettes (which are making a surprising comeback) give you as a listener the opportunity to see bands as creators of a wholesome experience filled with vivid artwork and photos and variations (gold/white splatter vinyl anyone?) that reinforce the band's vision for themselves and their audience.



5) Write A Review

There's a world out there full of opinions, and you want yours to be heard on a platform more meaningful than a Facebook post.  If this sounds like you, try writing a review for one of the thousands of heavy metal blogs out in the cyber world.  Online magazines never run short of content to be covered, and you don't have to be Shakespeare to commit to writing one thorough and exciting review.  Record labels, bands, and promotion companies are always searching for reviews they can use to build good press, and you can be a part of that with just a couple clicks of your mouse.





4) Chat With a Musician...They're People Too!



Have you ever seen a band you really love just hanging out at their merch table, but you've been too nervous to talk to them? This is my challenge to you: go over and talk to them as casually as if they were your own group of friends.  They may be legendary in your eyes, but to them they're just regular joes trying to make a living.  They will be happy to meet a down-to-earth person like yourself, and you will be more than happy that you mustered the courage to talk to some of your heroes.

3) Mosh It Out!















Admit it: there's been at least one time where you've stood on the edge of a mosh pit and started rocking back and forth trying to nudge yourself to go in.  This is your quest: conquer that fear!  Whether you're only brave enough for one go-around or you find yourself running faster than the Tasmanian Devil, you will be eternally proud of yourself that you made the leap.  You will also have a badass story to tell your non-brutal friends.


2) Be More Open-Minded, Be Less of a Dick



It's time for me to temporarily jump on my soapbox.  If you consider yourself an "old timer," stop telling young metalheads that they don't know anything because they couldn't see Exodus at Ruthie's Inn back in '86.  If you are a youth carrying the torch for generations of metal to come, don't disrespect the legacy of heavy metal bands that came before you. Old timers, share your knowledge with the passionate youth and help foster the legacy of heavy metal.  Kids, stop using the Internet to argue about what genre is or is not most "br00tal." Transfer your dickish energy into doing one of the other nine things on this list.

1) Hail Satan.



Start the new  year right, metalheads!  Let's make every year more brutal than the next!

Top 10 Death Metal Manes

Just because the days of hair metal are long gone doesn't mean we don't appreciate the luscious locks of the extreme.

10) Jeff Becerra - Possessed
It is clear this old school frontman is possessed with much more than just musical talent!

9) Tomas Lindberg - At the Gates
We may live in a "world of lies," but Tomas's savage ginger locks certainly don't lie about their radiant ferocity.

8) Jo Bench - Bolt Thrower
This chick carries more than the legacy of one of the greatest death metal bands ever on her shoulders.  Her raven black head of hair is probably just short enough to manage with her busy schedule but still long enough to get the perfect headbang.

7) Pickles the Drummer - Metalocalypse
If you don't agree with this pick, it simply means you is dildos.

6) David Vincent - Morbid Angel
Because who else makes sideburns look metal as fuck?  Also, pictures of David from back in the 80s is bound to make any Peter Steele fans swoon.

5) Chuck Schuldiner - Death
They say that inside Crystal Mountain, evil takes it form.  Well inside Chuck Schuldiner's scalp, beautiful locks take its form, swooshing around as elegantly as his fingers on the guitar. RIP.

4) Terrance Hobbs - Suffocation
His hair is so legendary, it became a trademark part of the most highly demanded shirt from the band's recent headlining Carnival of Death tour!

3) Jeff Walker - Carcass
It's scary how closely correlated the life cycles of Carcass's career and Jeff Walker's hair are.  Between Symphonies of Sickness and Jeff's rad dreads, both were unabashedly down-and-dirty; outwardly gritty in style and form.  Fast forward to Surgical Steel and Walker's sharply sophisticated man, they are both precise and deadly as ever.

2) Jon Tardy - Obituary
If Tardy ever gets his hair "chopped in half," the death metal world would collapse.

1) Ross Dolan - Immolation
Nothing gets as "close to a world below" than this New Yorker's veil of inexplicably infinite and gorgeous locks.  It puts the majesty in "Majesty and Decay."  I could make Immolation puns for a long time, but do yourself a favor and go look at more pictures of this man's inexplicable hair.  Then you will fully grasp why Ross Dolan eternally claims the title of best death metal hair of all time.

10 Terrifying Metal Album Covers, Pt. 2

I am so relieved that Part 1 of this has been so well-received by you readers.  Here is Part 2 of my 10  Terrifying Metal Album Covers article!

"Terror takes many forms in heavy metal album covers.  The ten albums you see below manifest in the frightening forms of animated monsters from your darkest nightmares, the gritty aftermath of a death (or multiple), or profound existential fears of loneliness and vastness of time and space.  Many of these you will have never seen on a 'scary albums' list before, so have an open mind when viewing this article, and succumb to the darkness within these masterpieces."

5) Carcass: Reek of Putrefaction

Even the greatest surgeon with the most durable of stomachs would turn his head upon the sight of Carcass's debut album Reek of Putrefaction. Gone are the days of seventh grade "About Me" magazine collages.  You get to know everything about Carcass's mission as a band as you try to hold back your nausea looking at corpses of every race, age, and cause of death imaginable.  Heads vomiting limbs, an infant head with no eyes, and a decayed eye. Also, did you happen to notice the deformed head in the middle spewing out what looks like vital organs? It's like "I Spy" for unimaginably sick motherf***ers like us!

4) Black Sabbath: Black Sabbath

Long gone were the days of malted milkshakes at the sock hop by the time Black Sabbath released their iconic debut album.  Though this is probably one of the most colorful albums on this list, Black Sabbath has everything but a welcoming presence.  Despite all the warm colors surrounding the Mapledurham Watermill in Oxfordshire, this front cover inhabits a cold, eerie state of being.  It doesn't help that a creepy old crone (who resembles Ozzy almost identically) stands front-and-center, searing her black eyes into your whimpering soul.  Behold, the black magic of the godfathers of heavy metal: managing to create a timelessly haunting piece that continues to fascinate every metalhead on the planet.  It may not be the goriest work on this list, but the work of the musicians who truly know what the genre encompasses cannot be ignored.   

3) Brujeria: Matando Gueros

This picture is as real as your horrified expression right now.  This is the head of Mario Rios (according to Wikipedia, trust accordingly), but he is better known to Brujeria and their fans as Coco Loco, who became the band's official mascot following the release of their debut album Matando Gueros.  Why the head was decapitated and by who is still unknown, but when this picture first appeared on the Mexican sensationalist magazine "Alarma!" it raised a lot of heads (no pun intended) and the issues of poverty and rising crime rates in Mexico became problems that at least the United States grew to become more concentrated on.  The head reminds of something you would find on Carcass's Reek of Putrefaction (see pick #5), but unlike the medley of vulgarity in Carcass's work, the artwork forces you to stare at this half-decaying head until the chills running up your spine make you too uncomfortable to look anymore.

2) Cannibal Corpse: Butchered at Birth

Truly, what would be a list of terrifying album covers without at least ONE Cannibal Corpse record?  This album defined the band musically as much as it did artistically.  If you are not creeped out by that web of infant corpses and skeletons in the background or by the sadistic ghouls that make Ed Gein look like Mr. Rogers, there is something seriously wrong with you.  For me the most terrifying part of this cover is  gazing upon the face of a fair maiden and then quickly progressing in a linear fashion from wholesome flesh to this wretched, formless bag of bones.  The cover may be as sickening and gruesome as its music ("Meat Hook Sodomy" anyone?), but it has still held up as one of the most iconic heavy metal albums in history.

1) Mayhem: Dawn of the Black Hearts

Visions of morbid reality always beat out monsters of fantasy. Which is why this ghastly iconic black metal cover tops off the list.  The early days of Norwegian black metal were truly defined by the grim and blasphemous crimes that occurred on a regular basis: church burnings and murders of innocents were rather commonplace in this otherwise seemingly peaceful country.  Here Dead is pictured soaking in blood and brain matter of sheer irony, as the viewer witnesses the aftermath of Per Yngve Ohlin's suicide.  Any normal human being would have called the cops, fainted, or both.  What did his bandmates do instead? They used the incident as a marketing point for Dawn of the Black Hearts and wearing fragments of his skull like Audrey Hepburn wears Tiffany's necklaces.  Nothing---not even the courteous note written by Dead prior to his demise ("Sorry for the mess")---could lessen the impact that this album cover has on its viewers.  I bet Mayhem really did cook his brains and use it in a stew.  That's a cool Halloween story anyway.

10 Terrifying Metal Album Covers, Pt. 1

Terror takes many forms in heavy metal album covers.  The ten albums you see below you manifest in the frightening forms of animated monsters from your darkest nightmares,  the gritty aftermath of a death (or multiple), or profound existential fears of loneliness and vastness of time and space,  Many of these you will have never seen on a "scary" list before, so have an open mind when viewing this article, and succumb to the darkness within these masterpieces.

10) Vio-Lence: Eternal Nightmare

What metalhead hasn't had a dark and twisted dream about either falling or being eaten alive, two of the most common dream sequences to have in general?  Now combine them both, plus make the thing that's eating you have infinite sets of mouths and razor-sharp teeth? Hell no, that's fucking terrifying.  At this point, this kid is probably just trying to reach down for his bed so he can at least hide under the covers while falling into his eternal nightmare.

9) Opeth: Damnation

DOLLS. Movies like Chucky, Dolly Dearest, and most recently Annabelle have gotten me and millions of people around the world convinced that dolls are just porcelain figures filled with nope.   The cover is just as haunting as its music, but what makes this cover even creepier is the fact that Mikael Akerfeldt dedicated this album to his grandmother who died in a car accident while Damnation was being recorded.  What was probably meant to be a touching tribute ended up being a work passively but powerfully touching upon the universal fear of dying.  It still confounds me that something that was once held 60 years ago as a delightful little treasure perfect for a long-lasting collection is now interpreted as little more than a porcelain harbinger of death.

8) Death: Leprosy

Choosing between Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy has to be the toughest decision I've made in writing this list.  This poor guy just reeks of impending doom and limb loss with Ed Repka's horrifying illustrations of a timelessly terrifying disease.  As if leprosy wasn't debilitating enough, the ostracized colony under a blood red sky is a habitat that none of us want to envision being a part of.  Repka's artistic tendencies to make catastrophic backgrounds pale in comparison to the sinister vastness created here.  Try staring at this cover while listening to "Open Casket" and "Pull the Plug," and the combination will have chilling effects on you, I promise.

7) Deicide: Once Upon The Cross

Religion has been at the forefront of heavy metal controversy since the birth of the godfathers of Black Sabbath.  Sometimes it's at subtle as a rumor about playing a record like Ride the Lightning backwards and picking up fragments of a satanic phrase.  Sometimes, it's Deicide, who help themselves to a bowl of "Fuck Your God" for breakfast and a heaping plate of "Kill the Christian" for dinner.  Contrary to most savage and sloppy death metal blood works, every blood splotch is perfectly placed forcing you to imagine all the exact places in which Christ's torturers wanted him to experience the utmost anguish, as if His demise was by that of an ordinary serial killer.  If Dexter had killed Jesus, we know what it would look like.  Compared to the rest of Deicide's covers, it is rather quiet but still as agitating and violent in imagery and in purpose.

6) Obituary: Cause of Death

Just because this album art is probably one of the most classic pieces of death metal artwork ever doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't lose its hellish aura.  You can thank H.P. Lovecraft and the remastering skills of Michael Whelan for all the nightmares you will have after staring deep into the blood red eye of that looming leviathan.  Turn away, and you encounter a grotesquely twisted tree of anguish leaning helplessly on a pyramid of human skulls.  Rabid fans of Lovecraft will recognize this artwork from his collection Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre, and death metal fans continue to be bewitched by the fantastical terrors that could only come from the darkest of minds.

A Metal Maiden Exclusive: How to Seek and Destroy in a Mosh Pit

TIPS AND TRICKS FOR THE ULTIMATE FEMALE MOSHING EXPERIENCE

These guidelines were designed for female moshers BY female moshers.  They are meant to enlighten you on how to thrive in a pit rather than survive it.  Even if you are not gung-ho for skanking or walls of death, you are going to have to know how to deal with the beasts who live to mosh.  Don't let a pit of running, screaming bodies ruin your concert experience; it's all meant to be fun, so you might as well learn to entertain yourself in the midst of the chaos.  Horns up, and lets get INTO THE PIT!

1) DRESS TO KILL
Before you even step one foot out of the house, take a good long look at yourself.  Ladies, are you planning on wearing your Steve Madden heels and Sephora makeup to go see Decapitated?  Last I checked, that band doesn't play beauty pageants.  Whether you mosh or not, you will sweat, you will be exhausted, and you will be a clumsy nuisance to everyone around you.  And yes, I have seen a woman attempt to mosh in heels.  I would be willing to bet money that she broke something besides those shoes.  Also, it's best to come in minimal jewelry, and don't bring your goddamn purse.  Heavy metal shows are not red carpets.  Nobody is going to do anything about your clutch except accidentally knock it out of your French-manicured hands and crush it.  Come with the absolute minimum you need; it will be a refreshing change for you, and a considerate action to everyone on the general admission floor.

2) MIND OVER MATTER
As the lovely Sandra Araya, wife of metal legend Tom Araya and former badass mosh queen, responded in my questionnaire: "Do not enter [the pit] with 'I'm a woman' mentality."  Embodying this feminine mindset comes with associations of fragility and vulnerability, which will only come to pass if you allow it. When you step into the human vortex that is a pit, you have as much opportunity to be pushed, kicked, and punched as the guys in front of and behind you.  But you will only become roadkill if you allow yourself to be.  All are equal in the eye of the mosh pit.  Paying attention to the most cardinal of rules, such as keeping your elbows up and going with the flow of the pit, will have you speeding around the pit whether you're 100 or 300 lbs.

Three years of moshing later, I STILL get scared gazing over the sheer sizes of the men who brutalize every limb of every stranger they touch.  But be assured that most men are generally aware of when there is a woman in a pit and, while they most definitely will not skate around you, they try hard to be aware and respectful rather than patronizing about your presence in the pit.  In a survey of fifty male moshers from ages 18-45, 90% of respondents say they slightly inhibit their behavior when they see a female in the pit.  The other 10% insisted that "if she is badass enough to be at a death metal concert and in a death metal pit, she can take a couple good hits."  In case you were curious, 100% of the survey takers are extremely impressed at a woman who is daring enough to throw down.

3) KNOW YOUR LIMITS
Now that we have discussed that gender is NOT a limit, let's talk about what SHOULD be your limits.  Tabby of San Francisco knows a thing or two about what scares people, as she is owner and director of ScareCo Haunted Attractions.  However, what scares her is a wall of death: "would I ever do one? HELL NO."  And that is ok.  There will be noone at the venue's doors waiting to laugh at you and shame you for backing out of a wall of death.  I remember holding my boyfriend's hand before a Vektor wall of death before promptly running the opposite direction as soon as the frontman yelled, "GO!"  If your inner id---the center of all your impulsive actions---is telling you to run away, odds are you should listen to it.  You paid for a breathtaking concert experience, not for broken bones.  On the flip side, if you feel your heart racing during Morbid Angel as you fantasize about stage diving for the very first time to "Lord of All Fever And Plague," you should just GO FOR IT. That little example was based on a recent true story of mine, and I'm so glad I did it.

There are also many fun and exciting ways to make the most out of your heavy metal concert experience.  If you are a female and reading this article while blasting Toxic Holocaust or Septic Flesh, you are already a one in a million lady. But whether you are a beer-drinking bystander or dancing the toxic waltz, there is no denying that the mosh pit is a significant part of your experience as a metalhead.  Whether your instincts tell you to flee or fight, I hope this article empowered you like the metal queen you probably are.  And if you are a male and reading this, watch out because I haven't moshed in a long time, and this lady is ready to represent!

Enter "Into The Aquatic Sector" with Madrost!

The pursuit for this generation's metal leaders has been an arduous one to say the least.  With the ever-expanding realms of the internet exposing us to infinite amounts of bands, finding a metal band who will stand the test of time seems to be harder than the classic "needle in a haystack" game.  Look no further, as I have gone to great lengths to bring you the shiny needle in the form of Madrost's sophomore release Into the Aquatic Sector.

What separates this album and this band from all the other local and unsigned acts you have seen is Madrost's ability to compose intuitive and original pieces that ignore genre by infusing brute force with technical mastery.  For those of you who are not familiar with the band, you may want to check out the first release Maleficent just to truly appreciate the lengths to which the band has gone to mature their songwriting and production skills.

"Frozen Beneath the Snow" leads the full-fledged metal assault with riffs that are sophisticated in structure but ruthless in execution.  But the undying ferocity that Madrost is so well-know for is highlighted best in the song "Operation Xenomorphic Protocol."  There are some intimidatingly abysmal melodies that join themselves with a beautifully organized structure. In other words, the song is very reminiscent of one of the brilliant hybrid works of Sound of Perseverance.

Aquatic Sector is an album driven by purpose---a well-formulated yet savage conjuration of "Subterranean Nightmares.".  The combination of a sound concept, masterful technical skills, and feral power make this album a force to be reckoned with.

But it's one thing to headbang in your room to the album.  It's a whole other thing to see this shit played live.  And you will get your first chance this Saturday, Sept 5!  Come party with Madrost, Dr. Know, myself, and all the best local metalheads around at the Airliner bar!  Here are links to the band's social media so you can get connected with the band!

https://www.facebook.com/madrost

Why Decapitated is the "Tankard" of Polish Death Metal

Recently I got the opportunity to review Decapitated's upcoming release Blood Mantra.  You can read the review below!  I decided to make a blurb before the blurb because I think Decapitated is in an interesting position, caught between a rock and a hard place. That rock would be Vader and the hard place Behemoth.

http://sdmetal.com/review/album-review-decapitated-blood-mantra/

These would often be considered by avid fans of blackened death metal, as we know call it, to be the Big 3 of Polish Death Metal,  But most every group of these Big 3 or 4 have a black sheep.  My favorite example to use is the Teutonic 3 and Tankard.  While Sodom, Destruction, and Kreator have all created their own distinct sounds, fanbases, and legacies over the last 20 years, Tankard is often forced into this group.  Other than the fact that Tankard is from Germany, the band has little to nothing in common with any of the aforementioned bands.  This does not necessarily make Tankard a shitty band; but aesthetically and musically Tankard is nothing like these bands and thus it feels uncomfortable to try to force them into the "big leagues."  Don't believe me?  Just compare "Phantom Antichrist" to "A Girl Called Cerveza."   Or better yet, let's just compare covers, shall we?











Again, let me rephrase that Tankard is not a horrible band by any means.  The band is still worshipped by the hardcore thrash community and by all means should be.  But if we are talking about overall growth in legacy and musicianship, the Teutonic Three have risen to greater levels.

Behemoth has had the most fortunate luck of not only staking their claim as a major pioneer of the ever-popular "blackened death" subgenre but also of conjuring the means to make their statement as a band effective in literally every metal-worshipping part of the world.  To me, the band would most clearly represent the "Kreator" of Polish death metal.  Vader's sound and songwriting skills have been taking on new life with every release.  Much like Sodom, Vader successfully delved into new ways to write rhythms and riffs that ended up working in the band's favor, thus creating for themselves distinct old-school and new-school versions of themselves.  With all that being said, how could I possibly try to compare Decapitated to Tankard?

Both of these bands started incredibly strong, with rabid old school sounds that thrived in an era where metalheads first sought the most extreme kinds of styles.  Both of these bands thought since they did it once, let's do it for the rest of our lives.  With consistency, a consequence of both bands has arisen: they appear to be riding the coattails of the bands who are making risky changes and succeeding at them.