MOTD - Someone demanded Snow, so here's some old school heavy metal!

Mp3 Of The Day



Band/Artist: Snow
Song: Don't Want Any More
Album: Snow EP
Style: Heavy Metal
country/location: Los Angeles, California, US
release: 1981

So I'm interrupting the Idaho series for a very special post. A buddy of mine yesterday was complaining how everywhere there was snow, except for where he was. He was demanding snow! Who am I to deny him snow? So here is a band called Snow! :-D

Even better, an old school metal band from the early early 80s featuring musicians who would later play in Quiet Riot! I'll admit, I've had these guys on my computer for awhile, but didn't actually get around to listening to them. Much to my surprise they're quite good, with some songs being amazing! This track is one of the kick ass ones. Even for it's time, it's a pretty heavy song. The drums have a little bit of a double bass drum kick though it's subtle (production makes it hard to hear it). The distortion has an awesome crunch with the main riff being a powerful, catchy and edgy one. The singer has an excellent rock voice, though not particularly recognizable. He does some falsetto jumps that are perfectly placed. The chorus is edgy but catchy. It's an awesome hard rock/metal anthem. Hopefully this will satisfy the demands for Snow hehe, I know it works beautifully for me! (I'll be listening to these guys a bunch now, thank you!)

Snow - Don't Want Any More

MOTD - XEX: A Bizarre but Unique Band from Idaho

Mp3 Of The Day



Band/Artist: XEX
Song: Tell Us Why
Album: Triad
Style: Progressive Thrash/Heavy Metal
country/location: Boise, Idaho
release: 2006

So I have this long playlist for the MOTD. I try to keep to it but a lot (A HUGE AMOUNT) of the time something will come up that I'll have to post or some requests something that I agree needs to be post. And then time flies by at a rapid pace and it's at least five months later than I was planning on post. This is a case of that! I was going to do a little tribute to the small Idaho metal scene (since I had gone there for a week). The scene is very small, so small that I had to order two of these bands when I got home and the other two were semi-legal downloads. None of these bands are going to change the metal world, but they've got some awesome quirks (and I figure someone will find them interesting)! Also, the point of the MOTD is to introduce people to unknown bands, so here are some r

In any event, I present to you XEX! This Boise based band is a varied and somewhat unique band (in parts), which makes them a fun and interesting band to listen to. The progressive tag is very true to them, for they go all over the place. Some songs are very generic semi-thrash metal songs that are decent but nothing special, some are full on progressive metal epics, and some are just, well, bizarre! This song is one of the latter, going from a full on (awesome) thrash riff to the verse, which can best be describe as, well, polka? If someone told me that they had a tuba in place of a bass, I think I'd believe them. This then goes morphs back into the thrash riff. It's a bizarre song that when I first heard it I was kinda confused. While incredibly bizarre, it's a really well composed song. The different sections work well together and each aspect fits into the overall piece. XEX is a serious band that has a small but powerful sense of humor!

XEX - Tell Us Why

MOTD - Lamented Souls - Epic Doom from the clean voice of Dimmu Borgir

Mp3 Of The Day



Band/Artist: Lamented Souls
Song: Essence Of Wounds
Album: The Origins of Misery
Style: (epic) Doom Metal
country/location: Oslo, Norway
release: recorded in 1997, released 2004

So I went to see Dimmu Burger Borgir on Friday and much to my elitist surprise, I really enjoyed them. As Amy put it best, they're the glam of black metal! In talking about the show, I remembered that ICS Vortex (Simen Hestnæs), the guy who does the amazing clean vocals for Dimmu, had been in a doom metal project back in the 90s. I had also remembered that one song from that project was an amazing epic doom metal song that kicks so much ass (bad grammar? blah!). So I've decided that you all have to hear this song!

This song is so grand and epic, which is only enhanced by Vortex's (Vortice?) amazing cords. It's a doomy song with some really awesome atmosphere and mood setting. The melodies here are strangely simple and dare I say catchy but at the same not singalongable. The main riff is a descending dark (minor? maybe?) melody that sounds like a staircase to despair and/or hell. It's so simple but so effective, especially when Vortex sings along with it in a powerful (reverbed) way. I've been trying to sing along with it but the rhythm throws me off and I can't seem to figure out what note the melody starts on. There are some classic epic doom chords to help move the song along. The song is so epic and awesome. It's too bad that this project doesn't have much more than a couple demos and this compilation of their work. Anyways, check out this incredible track!

Lamented Souls - Essence Of Wounds

MOTD - Earth: Early drone with a touch of Nirvana

Mp3 Of The Day



Band/Artist: Earth
Song: Divine and Bright
Album: Demo 1990, Sunn Amps And Smashed Guitars (Live) reissue
Style: early Drone Doom Metal
country/location: Olympia, Washington, US
release: 1990/2001 sorta

There was in fact another show that was unfortunately canceled this week. I was really looking forward to it as well for it would've been three days of metal, but three very different days. One day would've been death metal, the second day would be drone doom metal (with a country tinge), and the third day would be power metal. Unfortunately I only got the power metal (which was awesome btw).

Many of you can probably guess what the second day band was, but for those who don't know, Earth was the band that unfortunately bailed out. This Olympia, Washington based band has long been considered to be the pioneers of the style known as drone doom metal. They took the slow, brooding nature of doom metal and made it even slower and more drawn out. This song is from their 1990 demo which saw them slowly (har har) evolving their sound and style. It's not quite the extraordinary drones that you might associate with the subgenre, in fact there's an almost grunge feel to the distortion and song structure. This might be explained a little bit by the certain novelty of the track. It features the iconic vocals of Kurt Cobain (whether you're a fan of him/Nirvana or not, his voice is pretty recognizable minus all the imitators). Cobain uses his croning like voice over the distorted guitars with sudden bursts of a scream. It might be his influence that gives this song that grungy feel. The need to drone is definitely there, but they had yet to make it a truely droning sound. In any event, the track is an interesting track to listen to. (and you can show off to your friends that you have a drone doom metal track featuring Cobain hehe)

Earth - Divine and Bright

MOTD - Neuraxis: Technical, Melodic and Canadian. An awesome combination!

Mp3 Of The Day



Band/Artist: Neuraxis
Song: A Curative Struggle
Album: Live Progression
Style: Technical Melodic Death Metal
country/location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
release: 2007

First of all, I have no idea what the rate this song titles mean and no I'm not on drugs. Just felt like writing something random hehe.

Second of all, this is another band that was supposed to play Sunday night and I was really looking forward to seeing but obviously didn't play. Neuraxis is a Canadian band who produces a technical yet melodic form of death metal. The riffs are incredibly fast, skillful and well constructed, drawing on many influences ranging from thrash to black metal and even going to some progressive themes. The song starts off with a very black influenced passage with fast blast beats and fills then morphing into a groovy highly melodic riff. Then they go into a lighter more progressive section that has little distortion before going back into the full extreme of metal. The vocalist also utilizes a variety of styles, but is most comfortable with a mid ranged growl. This recording is also taken from a performance they did in Quebec City, which fully shows off their skill at riff making as well as keeping things catchy. (since they're in a french speaking area, the inbetween song chatting with the audience is in french, which is amusing cus the songs and song titles are in english hehe) This song has been a favorite of mine for while, though I can't say whether this is their "best song." It's a kick ass piece of extreme metal. I look forward to seeing them finally when they return to the area in November!

Neuraxis - A Curative Struggle

MOTD - Animals Killing People: the only Vegan (and PETA approved) Brutal Death Metal Band

Mp3 Of The Day



Band/Artist: Animals Killing People
Song: Coat Of Human Skin
Album: Human Hunting Season EP
Style: Brutal Death Metal
country/location: New York City, NY, US
release: 2004

So two nights ago my buddy and I went to Tufts to go see a free metal show featuring a bunch of amazing bands. Unfortunately the college transformer blew* (not sure how or why or what) and the entire campus was without power. As a result the show was canceled. (though we had fun hanging out with some of the guys from Composted who I'll post later on) So in honor of the show that didn't happen, I present to you a couple of the bands! Today I share with you the one band I was really really looking forward to seeing!

You can probably guess by the band name that this brutal death band is a bit different than the usual gore themed bands. They're probably one of the few, if not only, brutal death bands to have a pro-animals agenda! Well, specifically animals killing people, opposed to people killing animals. The band members are vegan and acEach song starts off with a sample of some humans being eaten or killed by various animals. This one features a poor helpless human getting caught in a blizzard (I think) and then getting eaten alive by hundreds of rats. It's quite terrifying and kinda hilarious at the same time. Musically, they're have all the typical brutal death aspects, incredibly inhuman (ha) gargling vocals, fast blast-beating ringing drums, low-end heavily distorted riffs. The thing that I really like about these guys is that the riffs they have are more than just random chaos. They are kinda melodic, headbangable in parts, while being kinda technical and extremely brutal. This is pure brutal death metal man! Yeah, they sound like every other band, but I really like these guys. A friend of mine and I were talking about how there weren't any really good vegan-ish bands. (she's vegan too!) This band was the one band that came to mind as the exception. (though I found another band that I'll post later on as well) Really bummed that they didn't play!

Animals Killing People - Coat Of Human Skin

*if it was a Transformers battle that caused the power outage, that would've made up for the disappointment!

MOTD - Machine Head: Usually an overrated band, but for one song a hero...

Mp3 Of The Day



Band/Artist: Machine Head
Song: Imperium
Album: Through The Ashes Of Empires
Style: Half-Thrash/Groove Metal
country/location: Oakland, California, US
release: 2004

So I had something else that I was going to post, but my internet is so awful right now that I can't upload anything. And I really want to post something, so I'm posting this band! A metal buddy requested someone upload this one song and I happened to have it (while I'm not a huge fan of Machine Head, I was curious to their popularity). Initially I was posting it as a random song by a band I really didn't like all that much, but after listening to it, I'm finding myself liking it more than I was expecting. I still think Machine Head is quite overrated, but this song has some awesome moments.

Machine Head is very angry music. Rob Flynn seems to have a lot of anger management issues that he lets out in his music. He's also an angry tough guy who wants you to go fuck yourselves. That's the one part about Machine Head that I'll never really like. There are a couple moments where he goes into a cleaner style (mainly for the really catchy mini-chorus), but for the most part it's a tough guy half-growl that sounds really obnoxious. The guitars are aggressive and adversarial (for competition! for fun! sorry random Star Trek quote, points to those who know it). Some of the riffs are really thrash-based, while most of them are groovy, headbanging, "catchy" riffs. There are parts that almost have a bit of a nu-metal tinge to them (considering their history, it makes sense) with others that have some Gothenburg melodic death influences. Supposedly there's a tremolo section, but I can't hear it. As I said before, I'm far from loving this band, however this song is pretty awesome in parts. Also, I can't wait to see if this gets any reactions from people hehe.

Machine Head - Imperium

FIRST POST!! LOL!!!

More to come soon!

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I am a snake