#80s era megadeth

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

[stinkman007]

EVERYONE SAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE WORLD'S FINEST GINGER ROCKSTAR <3

🎉🎉🎉🎉 WE LOVE YOU DAVE !!!!!!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[crushed-to-deth]

2000s dave is so cool

[strings-of-barbedwire]

In my self proclaimed reputation era right now

[freakinfriends]

music taste headcanons for each member of spiral?

@spreadeaglebeag1e/

Hey there! Maybe one day I'll attempt to make a playlist even though I'm sure it won't be thorough enough but I'm too lazy.

So other than what's already been established in canon on the long gone Daria site. Which is that Jesse and Trent got their start doing angst-driven power pop and Weird Al covers. (Which is totally never something I'd have thought they'd be into myself tbh but I kind of love it.) And that their musical influences are: "Jane's Addiction, Morrissey, The Doors (the band, not the movie, which sucked), Cocteau Twins, Zappa, NIN, Nirvana, Gregorian Chants, thunder, the Banana Splits." (Again. Weird choices but I'm into it.)

Trent: Anything alternative. Doesn't matter what kind of alternative. Mostly 80s/90s bands. Punk, industrial, grunge, rock. Other than the above bands some other examples include: Alice In Chains, The Prodigy, Korn, Soundgarden, Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Primus, The Stooges

Jesse: Jesse and Trent have a lot of overlap. They basically share one brain cell. Jesse is more likely to include classic rock and sappy 80s hair ballads like 'More Than Words' by Extreme. (Also the Banana Splits on that list was 10000% Jesse and nobody convince me otherwise. He also wants to know how they found singing chipmunks for Alvin and the Chipmunks and how many they had to audition. It takes them a really long time to try and convince him that they didn't actually record singing chipmunks.) Also he really likes bands that have cool music videos.

Band Examples: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Slaughter, Sisters of Mercy, The Cure, Prince, Pearl Jam, Van Halen, Whitesnake, The Misfits (Both the actual band and the Jem version.), early No Doubt

Max: Max tends to listen to the really loud and aggressive stuff. Thrash metal, punk, industrial, nu metal. Some examples include: Alien Ant Farm, Anthrax, Linkin Park, Ministry, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, NOFX, KMFDM, Rage Against the Machine, Def Leppard, Guns N Roses, AC/DC

Nick: Nick is said to have a side gig as a DJ. So he is the one member of the group who has to stay up to date on a lot of Top 100 radio hits and the kind of music the rest of the band probably would refer to as sellout music. He pretends he doesn't like it but actually doesn't think it's all bad. Max catches him humming Mmmbop a few times and gets pretty mad about it. (It doesn't fit the era but I feel like if there was a Spiral in modern times, the rest of the guys would still have the same music taste even though it's outdated and Nick would be a Swiftie on the down low especially given his ex was also big on writing folksy breakup songs.)

[fuckyeahvanhalen86-95]

"Bill & Ted Face the Music" was one of my favorite movies that I saw during lockdown. I saw many better films too, but there was something about the eternal optimism and good nature of William S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) and Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves) that made them feel like the kind of heroes we needed during a pandemic, one of the weirdest and most uncertain situations many of us have ever experienced.

Stuck at home for far longer than natural, it was comforting to hang out with old screen pals in lieu of our real-life friends. This may be why the era of COVID-19 also saw the unlikely phenomenon of people binge-watching old episodes of "Columbo." Perhaps there isn't too much difference between Bill and Ted and Peter Falk's shambling detective. The movies and the show are set in sunny California; the stakes are low; and the protagonists are unassuming, friendly, and most importantly of all, kind. 

Aside from the cozy factor, the third installment of the "Bill & Ted" franchise also came as a surprise because it wasn't sh**e. Released almost 30 years after "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey," it was remarkably consistent in tone and spirit to the original movies, obviously a labor of love for everyone involved. Unlike the embarrassing spectacle of watching Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in their mid-50s reprising their roles as Lloyd and Harry in "Dumb and Dumber To," Winter and Reeves slipped back into their old characters with ease, making it seem totally believable that these were the same dudes who once rocked out in their garage as Wyld Stallyns and dreamed of jamming with Eddie Van Halen. If only they could have persuaded the legendary guitar hero to appear in the movie...

EDDIE VAN HALEN'S INFLUENCE ON BILL & TED

A few years before everyone was rocking out to "Bohemian Rhapsody" in their cars and shouting things like "Schwing!" and "Party on!" you had the air guitar from "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure." Unlike the ironic knowingness of "Wayne's World," there was an innocent exuberance to the gesture, which Bill and Ted used as an expression of happiness, agreement, or triumph.

While Bill and Ted may have been the ones who helped spread the air guitar into popular culture beyond rock music, they were by no means the inventors. The history of the air guitar can be traced as far back as the 1860s when pretending to play an invisible instrument was regarded as a sign of mental illness, while Joe Cocker miming the opening notes of a tune onstage at Woodstock in 1969 is regarded as the "formative moment" of the gesture.

Skip forward another 20 years and the boys' use of the air guitar is clearly inspired by their taste in music. As Southern Californian lads growing up in the '80s, we're talking AC/DC, ZZ Top, Kiss, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Frank Zappa, and, of course, Van Halen. Alex Winter explained (via Rolling Stone):

"The image that Eddie had runs through all of our movies. Bill and Ted are supposed to be into hard rock. But were these sunny, optimistic California guys. And that's really embodied by Eddie Van Halen. We talk about Iron Maiden a lot, but I think we would have come up listening to Van Halen and the positivity that was infused in the music. [...] ​​And I always thought of Eddie's incredible physicality with the air guitar stuff, and just the way these guys would have seen him and how that would have impacted them."

EDDIE VAN HALEN WAS APPROACHED FOR ALL THREE BILL & TED MOVIES

It's always a thing of pure joy watching a musician with absolute mastery of their instrument, both fully in command while also completely surrendering themselves to it. If you watch a video of Eddie Van Halen performing his epic solo of "Eruption," you'll see the motion that Bill and Ted mimic so often in the movies: Yanking the fret skywards, fingers flying along the fret as if wrangling a powerful beast, perhaps a Wyld Stallyn. Yet for all his virtuosity, Eddie Van Halen was a modest, laidback character in contrast to David Lee Roth, the extroverted, pouting, poodle-permed frontman of the band.

Van Halen was so important to the vibe of the "Bill & Ted" trilogy that attempts were made to cast him in all three films, most notably as Rufus, the duo's time-traveling guide. Unfortunately, the sleeper hit original didn't have the budget for a rock star of Van Halen's status at the time. Alex Winter remembered (via Rolling Stone):

"We tried to get Van Halen into each one of the movies. [Laughs]. We asked him, but he said no. A very 'Spinal Tap' moment. [Laughs]. He was a famously private person and he wasn't, you know, the front man. He was extremely charismatic and he was always very genteel, but he always turned us down."

After Van Halen's death in 2020, screenwriter Ed Solomon revealed that the guitarist had once again been approached to play a part in "Bill & Ted Face the Music," but his representatives turned them down without revealing why. Solomon surmised that Van Halen's battle with throat cancer may have been the reason. It is sad that Bill and Ted never got to play alongside their hero; but with Van Halen's influence on the three movies, they still pay a fitting tribute to the legend.

[wolverineblues]

18, 30, 38 for metal asks

18. Biggest Douchebag in Metal?

LMAO where to even start. varg might take the cake but like the list is long. phil anselmo, nergal from behemoth to an extent, that dude from vektor, literally anyone in nsbm

30. Most Attractive person in Metal?

i like men a lot so its a tough choice but uhhh rn i'd have to say Mark Osegueda of Death Angel 😩 also: Troy Sanders of Mastodon, James McBain of Hellripper, Chase Mason of Gatecreeper, Chuck Schuldiner, Bill Steer from Carcass (esp in the 80s/90s), Qurothon of Bathory, Frank Bello of Anthrax, Alex Skolnick of Testament, then on that note. late 80s/90s Testament And Sepultura. also specifically Rust In Peace era Megadeth as for women. uh. Gina Gleason of Baroness, Jo Bench of Bolt Thrower, Wata from Boris, Kris Esfandiari of King Woman, Stella Leung of Potion, Kristin Hayter of Lingua Ignota if that counts as metal? definitely metal-adjacent then im sure there’s more that didn’t come to mind

38. Fast or Heavy?

i'd prefer if things are both at the same time but it usually just depends on the mood. though i'd say i tend to lean more towards heaviness. sludge-y stuff is some of my favorites for a reason

[joecial-distancing]

Assorted 1k1 albums update

Too many since last time I was writing these to be worth listing every single one, plus I took a short hiatus during Spring, but I’m noticing my retention has been a lot worse since I stopped blurbing.

Broadly, I’m noticing it was very clearly a british person curating this list, the most forgettable entries on here tend to be 80s-era brit/synth pop.

Santana Abraxas (1970): Santana Extremely Good!

Sufjan Stevens Illinois (2005): I think I like the idea of his states project more than I really care for the music itself

Serge Gainsbourg Histoire De Melody Nelson (1971): Miserable headphones listen, his voice is so loud in the mix I can’t enjoy the music. Admittedly I might feel different if I understood French and could tell what he was saying lol

Queens of the Stone Age Queens of the Stone Age (1998): Most dad rock is cute/enjoyable every once in a while, this was boring as hell though

Megadeth Rust in Peace (1990): I have a soft spot for certain types/eras of metal, this is not one of my preferred ones though

Def Leppard Pyromania (1983): Now *this* is perfectly good dad rock!

David Bowie Station To Station (1976): Bowie’s one of the figures I’m most interested in getting my head around through this project. So far, this is my favorite thing from him I’ve heard, the title track is excellent!

REM Automatic for the People (1992): Another thing I’m trying to keep tabs on as I go through this is stringing together influence points toward things I knew before going in. For some reason as I listen to REM, I keep thinking of They Might Be Giants, which is weird because the music isn’t exactly similar. Something in the attitude? I dunno.

The Who Who’s Next (1971): There’s a couple albums like this on here where my brain lights up when it hears the recognizable stuff, and then doesn’t retain the rest of the music. Baba O’Riley is indeed really good, but I’m struggling to take an honest accounting of “ok is it genuinely so much better than the rest of the album or are you just really familiar with this”

like “do you think these songs are good or bad based on radio exposure, or did the ones you liked get radio exposure because they were the good shit?” I don’t trust the second one as an explanation even if it feels true.

Pink Floyd The Dark Side Of The Moon (1973): Really good bathtub listening. Definitely dragged/went slow more than I like. I’ve heard this one describes as like an album constructed for audiophiles/people who care a lot about precise mixing, which feels true.

Kanye West The College Dropout (2004): I liked this a lot! Kanye really has a gravity about him, where I feel like I interpret a lot of the generator’s other rap/hip-hop selections in context of what they mean in context of things before/after KW

Earth Wind & Fire That’s The Way Of The World (1975)

Burning Spear Marcus Garvey (1975): One thing I’m learning through this project is I should probably be putting more reggae into my rotation. It tends to be slower than I usually go for, but otherwise checks a lot of my boxes

2pac Me Against The World (1995): 2pac’s another Huge name who’s a blind spot for me. I really need to revisit this one; I mentioned in the public enemy blurb that I basically can’t retain lyrics unless I’m literally reading them along to the music, and I wasn’t able to do that when I was playing this.

Sonic Youth Dirty (1992)

Notorious BIG Ready To Die (1994): Didn’t like this as much as 2pac & public enemy, in terms of 90s rap

Tori Amos Little Earthquakes (1992): This one really grew on me! Very pleasant first listen, and then I found myself coming back to it a lot afterward.

Alanis Morissette Jagged Little Pill (1995): Haha god damn I like Alanis. So many choices she makes on here that should be obnoxious on paper, but just end up being extremely charming *“HOWWwOWWowwW apprOAHpriaTe”* absolutely delightful

Alice Cooper Billion Dollar Babies (1973): I have some experience with Alice Cooper here & there. This album was fine, but my favorite thing from him was his Muppet Show appearance

The Chemical Brothers Dig Your Own Hole (1997)

Belle & Sebastian If You’re Feeling Sinister (1996) I think people I know like B&S? I don’t think I did.

Randy Newman Good Old Boys (1974): I don’t think he’s country, but he’s something adjacent. I liked this, found it pleasant

The Rolling Stones Let it Bleed (1969): Hell yeah I love The Departed

Fleetwood Mac Rumours (1977): What the fuck every single song on this is super well-known. Major touchpoint filled in that I had no idea I was even missing

Os Mutantes Os Mutantes (1968): Wish I liked this more, the thing they’re up to seems interesting

Deep Purple Deep Purple In Rock (1970): Oh my god I loved this. I knew by reputation that Deep Purple’s one of the bands that built the bridge from hard rock to heavy metal, and something about that boundary creates stuff I like way more than straight metal.

Yes The Yes Album (1971): Yes’s good songs are some of my favorite stuff out there, but the individual albums have a lot of songs that just don’t work for me.

Steely Dan Countdown To Ecstasy (1973): I find Steely Dan to be technically boring, but perfectly serviceable cooking & doing the dishes music

REM Document (1987): Moreso than Automatic For The People, this really cemented for me that I love REM. Lotta earworms

Nirvana Nevermind (1991): The first songs on this are tremendous, some of the strongest things to open an album. Didn’t really retain the rest (see: the who, earlier)

Lana Del Rey Chemtrails Over the Country Club (2021)

Black Sabbath Vol 4 (1971): Similar to Deep Purple, lots of fun! The arrangements are fast, energetic, interesting. Noticing I’m tending to like a lot of 70s metal, then something happens 80s-00s that loses me really hard.

ABBA The Visitors (1981): Influence Alert: Marina and the Diamonds totally bites a whole bunch of influence from ABBA, it’s so obvious after sitting with an ABBA album all the way through (having previously basically only known them from the mama mia soundtrack *killed by brick through the window*). I liked a few songs off this one, looking forward to hearing more from the generator

The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin (1999): Lol I had people in the 00s recommend flaming lips to me. This was so boring!

Bob Marley & The Wailers Exodus (1977): See previous re: reggae. often a lot for me when it’s an entire album, but I like it in general!

David Bowie Heroes (1977): With a couple Bowies under my belt by this point, he’s kind of a mixed bag for me; there’s usually a couple songs per album I’ll like a lot, and the rest leaves me really cold. That said, I still haven’t heard anything from ziggy stardust era, so there might be missing context or something still.

Paul Simon Paul Simon (1972): Bleh

Björk Medúlla (2004): Felt really bad that I did not like this. might revisit, could just be it wasn’t good music for taking a bath.

Throbbing Gristle D.O.A. the Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle (1978): Same complaint as Björk, this seemed like something I should like a lot, and instead it annoyed me.

Hole Celebrity Skin (1998): Damn I went in kind of expecting not to like it, and it turned out to be really good! *Trampled to death by approx. 1,000,000 foaming Gen X men*

Eminem The Marshall Mathers LP (2000): Way more misses than hits, but still a fun time capsule of what the fuck everyone I knew in middle school was blithering about at the time

David Bowie Blackstar (2016): I feel like I need to read some production history to get the hang of this one

George Michael Faith (1987): haha oh my god he’s so fucking sleazy on this, I love it

Beatles White Album (1968): Overall pretty good! Hard to set aside the charles manson mystique around it

The White Stripes Elephant (2003): Big nostalgia album! Seven Nation Army owns bones, the rest of this is pretty good still

Scott Walker Scott 2 (1968): He has such a good voice! I don’t even like genre he’s doing and I was swept away!

Rush Moving Pictures (1981): I’ve given Rush an honest try before, they just never clicked for me. Decent, but...something’s missing

Steely Dan Aja (1977):

Bob Dylan Blonde On Blonde (1966): Bob Dylan might be another case of I Gotta Sit Down With The Lyrics, bc on first listen I just found him kind of grating.

Duran Duran Rio (1982): Lmao I love this album. Title song’s whatever, but Hungry Like the Wolf makes me smile so fucking much

Fred Neil Fred Neil (1966): Rare example of pure country music I found pretty engaging the whole album

The Killers Hot Fuss (2004): Unlike with The Who and Nirvana, I am very sure the popular songs off this one are the actual good ones lol. Mr Brightside and Somebody Told Me are A-OK, the rest may be safely left in the past

Can Tago Mago (1971): One of my all-time favorite albums. Halleluhwah alone could carry it really far

Dead Kennedys Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables (1980): This one really knocked me on my ass, clearly a big influence point for a whole bunch of bands I like a ton.

Metallica Master of Puppets (1986): This is the fucking thing with 80s metal, man! If each of these songs were like 50% shorter, this would’ve been really solid, but as is they’re not interesting enough to justify how long they make you spend with them.

Aretha Franklin Lady Soul (1968): I like Never Loved A Man more than this one, but Aretha Franklin all-time excellent

Gary Numan The Pleasure Principle (1979): Really stripped-down, deliberately no-personality. Pretty interesting experience!

Flamin’ Groovies Teenage Head (1971): Ohhhhh shit these are the Louie Louie guys! Fun mix of rock, blues, etc. Seems kind of Of The Time in terms of baseline late-60s/early-70s bands.

Shuggie Otis Inspiration Information (1974): Nice soul/jazzy, which usually starts to bore me after a whole album, but was kind of nice to have on while I was writing the rest of these entries.

[thisaintascenereviews]

Hazzerd - Delirium Canadian thrash band Hazzerd is a band that I’ve heard of, but I’ve never listened to, at least until now. I decided to check out their newest album, 2020′s Delirium. This is their sophomore album, and I tend to perk my ears up at bands with more than one album, unless their debut is getting a lot of buzz, only because most debut albums aren’t great, although a lot of them do show a lot of potential. I’m not familiar with this band, or their debut album, but if I can go by this record, it seems like it might have been rough around the edges thrash with some potential. That’s how a lot of burgeoning thrash bands seem to start off with, but they get better with time. These guys have some buzz, but nothing outside the thrash scene. They’re not in the same league as bands like Power Trip or Municipal Waste, bands that are known outside of the thrash scene because they transcend it. There are a lot of bands within the scene that are very prolific, whether they’re newer bands or classic bands, but they don’t have the same name recognition outside the thrash scene at large. There are a handful of bands that could potential become the next Power Trip or Municipal Waste, but are Hazzerd one of them? I didn’t know what to expect going into this album, but I was slightly surprised by what I found, both in a good and bad way. This album is solid, and if you’re a thrash fan, especially not a picky one, you’re going to enjoy this. These guys take the Bay Area sound from the 1980s, emulating bands like Exodus, Testament, Megadeth, Slayer, and Metallica, and they make it somewhat modern. There’s a difference between bands that copy that sound, and bands that understand what that sound is all about, so they ultimately sound as though they’re a forgotten band from that era. That’s how Power Trip sounds to me, especially 2017′s Nightmare Logic, but Delirium doesn’t hit that for me at all, and if anything, it sounds like they’re just trying to copy that classic Bay Area sound. It works fine, and like I said, if you’re not picky, you’ll enjoy this. The instrumentation is really solid, including a lot of riffs and solos (which is why almost everyone listens to thrash), the vocals have that 80s sound to them, and their vocalist has that 80s bite to his style that works pretty well. It’s just that they don’t do anything super unique with their sound, or at the very least, they don’t take those classic elements and make it all their own. A lot of bands just want to copy that sound just because it’s cool, and there’s nothing wrong with that to an extent, but they don’t go above and beyond. The other major problem I have with this record is that it’s tonally strange. What I mean by that is that its tone is very confusing; this album doesn’t really know what it wants to be, both musically and lyrically. The first song that opens up this record is a very politically charged song about religion, ultimately about how religion is a fraud and most people use it as a crutch to do heinous things, or to justify said heinous things, but they don’t add anything or say anything new to that subject matter. The same issue I have with this record is almost the same issue I have with Havok’s V, which I just reviewed (although I have that issue with Havok in general). Havok has this issue of writing very politically and socially charged lyrics that they think are more profound than they really are, and they come off very preachy and obnoxious, instead of saying something interesting and poignant. Hazzerd doesn’t come off like they know more than you, or they are saying that no one’s ever heard before (even though everyone has), it’s just that they’re not adding anything unique to a certain point or idea. A lot of the songs on this record follow that formula, at least being more politically charged, but towards the two-thirds mark, there’s a song called “Dead In The Shed” that takes a note from the Municipal Waste playbook and the song is really stupid, fun, and off the wall, so my question is, why isn’t the whole album like this? it’s easily the best song on the album, both lyrically and musically (there’s a kickass solo in the song, and the riff that runs through it is great), because they just let loose. The song is silly, but in the best way possible. It sounds just like Municipal Waste, but a bit more technical, which is honestly very cool, so I’d love to hear more of that. The overall tone is just very uneven, and it takes me out of the album every time I hear it, but what doesn’t help is that the album is also 49 minutes long. That’s not a horrible length on its own, but an hour-long thrash album is a bit much. I’ve talked about in another review, which I believe was my Warbringer one, but I like my thrash short, sweet, and to the point. This album isn’t that. A lot of the songs run together, and it just feels very bloated, especially when the last song called “The End” is just a three-minute acoustic instrumental. It sounds cool, but did we need a three-minute version of this? It could have been a minute long, and it would have been a nice way to close out the album. The thing is, the album itself is really good, so my issues with this album aren’t huge, but they’re enough to where I just haven’t been going back to this much. I like it when I hear it, but I’ve got other stuff that I’ve been coming back to more, so why would I come back to this? Now if they make more songs like “Dead In The Shed,” or they turned into a straightup crossover band on their next album, I’m all in. I’d love to hear a whole album of songs like that.

[your-local-rockstar-simp]

Hi. I rarely ask questions like that, but I don't have any cool rock friend to talk to. Anyways I wanna know your opinion on the 'war' that began in early 80s about thrash metal and glam metal(It was also called 'The Big Four vs The Big Hair' lol) I heard people talking about it but Im quite confused. In general the problem was when some of these bands tried to pass themselves off as 'metal.' That is, trying to pretend they were something they were not. Bon Jovi was labeled as 'metal' but they had more in common with Garth Brooks, musically speaking, than they did with Iron Maiden or Metallica. I think if some of these bands had just labeled themselves as what they were- mainstream rock n roll, instead of trying to pass themselves off as metal. And just adding here that some boys from Megadeth wore shirts of Nikki Sixx with title 'no posers'. Wtf??

hey thanks for messaging!

Ya I mean I feel like this is always sorta of complicated because it really just depends I feel on the albums. I feel like a lot of bands with their albums went through different eras. For example, KISS with their 1982 album creatures of the Night, and even 1983 Lick it Up, I would label that more as metal (definitely Creatures) however some of their later stuff like Crazy Nights seems more pop/glam metal-esque. This goes for the 70's album too. Comparing something like Love Gun, or Hotter than Hell to Dynasty, or Destroyer (which was actually seen as more of a poppier album to fans at the time) The same goes for Ozzy Osbourne. Albums like Diary of a Madman, Blizzard of Oz, and No Rest for the Wicked would definitely fit a lot more into heavy metal while albums like The Ultimate Sin and honestly even Bark at the Moon would definitely fit more like a glam metal album. So for me, I really don't think you can define a band by just one genre. Now obv a band probably wouldn't make the leap from glam metal to country, however, I feel like it is the sound that can change a band between metal, and classic rock.

OOOOHHH YES! I remember those Nikki shirts. I mean I don't know the story, but I think that Motley Crue at the time was seen as being like Heavy Metal or something (which they are definitely not, I would classify them into glam metal a lot more) and I guess since Megadeth truly was a metal/ thrash metal band if guess it was just a big WTF. LOL.

I didn't actually really know about the war between the two tho, so thank you!

And I honestly, I really enjoyed being able to discuss this! It makes me mad when these bands are labelled as a genre which they are quite honestly, very far from!

Feel free if you have any more questions if you liked this, I enjoy being able to have the conversations with you all!

Thank you!

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Megadeth (Feb/1987/Burrn!)

David Ellefson, Dave Mustaine & Chris Poland

[stinkman007]

♠️♠️♠️♠️♠️♠️♠️

♠️♠️♠️♠️♠️♠️♠️

[maximuswolf]

Having trouble finding thrash metal bands that are actually similar to Metallica and Megadeth

Having trouble finding thrash metal bands that are *actually* similar to Metallica and Megadeth I've found it challenging to find other bands (either modern or from the 80's / 90s) that have the same approach to thrash metal as the Metallica or Megadeth, probably the most well-known of thrash metal groups. I am trying to find a very specific mix of qualities that both those groups in their heyday at least managed to exemplify:Rhythm Guitar riffs that are catchy and hook-oriented. Not just blasting chaos riffage, but creating fun riffs like on "Master of Puppets," and "Blackened" and "Killing Is My Business"No screamo / hardcore / gutteral growling vocals. Intelligible lyrics that are sung more or less in a melody.Groove-oriented drum parts. Minimal double-kick-drum pounding or repetitive punk-style 1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2 beats.Technically impressive guitar solos that are central to the presentation of the songs.Admittedly I've got a very narrow criteria for what I'm looking for, but there must be a few more groups out there who fit this bill. Pantera is probably the closest and I also think some White Zombie songs qualify. But Pantera gets a little to hardcore-ish after Cowboys from Hell and White Zombie are just kind of their own thing. I like Slayer but they're also a bit too much into the hyper-chaos sound barrage zone for me too often. I know we should support innovative bands but this time around I'm looking for some clones of these 1980s-era thrash legends. Submitted April 23, 2024 at 03:15PM by thatnameagain https://ift.tt/ZtNu6CL via /r/Music

[tassri]

Hi, this is the niche rant website, right? I need somewhere to scream into the void about how utterly baffling the new Apocalyptica single is. For the record, I'm a huge metal fan, but far from an expert on either Apocalyptica or Metallica, so everything I'm about to say is like... 25% verified.

Brief history, experimental Finnish metal band Apocalyptica started in 1996 as a gimmick. An extremely well done gimmick in which they covered Metallica songs using 4 cellos. This pretty unambiguously ruled, and they really took off as a result.

Over their next few albums, they gradually switched from Metallica (and occasional other artists) covers to their own original works. They started attracting huge names in metal and hard rock to do guest vocals (Till Lindemann, Corey Taylor, they had a massive radio hit with Adam Gontier of 3 Days Grace fame) and really became a staple of mainstream hard rock music. It was around this time I personally started losing interest, although their 2010 album rules, especially the song they did with Joseph Duplantier of Gojira. Still, it felt like they drifted pretty far from their original vision. No hard feelings, it rules to see some classical musicians make it huge in metal and I recognize I've been a metalhead too long and the elitism creeps in if I'm not careful.

And now the year is 2024. They haven't released a Metallica cover in 8 years since they rereleased their first album with some bonus tracks. Pretty sure the last cover they did before that was Until it Sleeps in 2000. And Spotify is telling me they have a single! With two Metallica songs! Which two you ask?

The Unforgiven II and The Four Horseman with Robert fucking Trujillo.

Let's start with The Unforgiven II. This is a weird choice, but not totally out there. They covered The Unforgiven, it's kind of an obvious choice given it has such a heavy melodic component, and it's wildly popular as the "4th track" (historically significant for Metallica) on The Black Album, the album that brought Metallica massive mainstream success. That album is also considered one of the last "great" albums before their precipitous decline. Which is why The Unforgiven II, from 1997's Reload, isn't really considered... Great? It's ok? Kind of unnecessary? It has the agonizing line, "Because I'm Unforgiven too" in it and I'm not even kidding. But whatever, new Metallica gets a lot of hate but some people love it, maybe someone in Apocalyptica is a hardcore Reload fan.

And then there's The Four Horseman, from Metallica's first album, Kill 'Em All. Great song, but pretty notable as the song that no member of Metallica has the rights to? Ex-Metallica member and notorious shitheel Dave Mustaine wrote that one, and felt sufficiently possessive of it to rerelease it with a different title/lyrics in Megadeth's first album.

And then there's the guest musician. Robert Trujillo has been the bassist of Metallica since 2003. The lineup of Metallica has stayed remarkably stable over their 40 (!) year career since the 80s, with the exception of their bassist. Some fans (unfairly, imo) attribute their decline to the death of their bassist Cliff Burton in a 1986 tour bus accident, and 1992-2003 is easily Metallica's weakest era, culminating in the widely reviled St Anger album. So Robert Trujillo had massive shoes to fill, partially with the pressure to be the impetus that brought Metallica "back". His first album with them, Death Magnetic, was appreciated as a step in the right direction. Can you hear the bass in that album? No, not really, thanks to Rick Rubin butchering it in post, but that's fine. I know next to nothing about Robert Trujillo, but from what I can tell he's pretty widely accepted as a force for good in Metallica's muddy history. He's released 3 full studio albums with Metallica, and an experimental shock horror project known as Lulu in which Metallica and Lou Reed explored an alternate universe in which listening to music did not inspire joy, but rather abject despair.

It's honestly pretty rad for a member of Metallica to do a song with Apocalyptica. And it's not even Lars! But specifically a song, arguably not even owned by Metallica, with the one current member of Metallica who was not there when it was recorded. They could have chosen any song out of the 3 albums and 1 war crime that Robert Trujillo contributed to! He helped write The Unforgiven III!!!!

So we have a single that's Apocalyptica seemingly nodding to their roots, with two songs that come from drastically different eras of Metallica, with a huge guest star that comes from neither era on genuinely the strangest song they could have chosen for him.

Anyways, that was the whirlwind of bewilderment I encountered this morning on being told there are new Apocalyptica covers of Metallica, and I promise they are not the two you would guess.

Pretty sure the next song they're doing is To Live is to Die with no lyrics and James Hettfield on drums.

[seashellsoldier]

The Doomsday Clock at 75 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (2022)

If the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists isn’t apart of your newsfeed, please add it (https://thebulletin.org/). It’s 100 seconds to midnight (https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/) at the time of this review at the beginning of 2023, and with the way the world is heading, precious seconds could disappear from this infamous metaphoric timepiece (or it could just be completely irrelevant once that first nuclear missile is sent skyward by some powermad despot and his sycophant generals). Insanity has no limits.

I was a kid of the ‘70s and ‘80s with duck & cover drills still performed in elementary school, a ball-bearing plant in town rumored to be on the Soviet hit list (not to mention all the steel mills and iron works some twenty miles away in Gary, Indiana and East Chicago), television and films frantic about the Cold War going suddenly hot (then suddenly silent), and metal music embracing the themes within nuclear annihilation so lovingly (from Black Sabbath to Iron Maiden to Metallica to Evildead to Megadeth to W.A.S.P. to Living Death to Toxik to Sacrifice to Nuclear Assault to Terrorizer and onward. The long-lived band Satan recently released a phenomenal song titled “The Doomsday Clock” about someone sent back in time to avert apocalypse, only to ultimately fail: “We can’t stop the Doomsday Clock, it’s too late!”). Maybe it is.

As a young infantryman in the early ‘90s, they still taught us—in the event of a nuclear explosion one could visibly see—to lay prone on the ground, helmet towards the blast. Comfort in the face of incineration takes tragicomic forms. The SCIENCE of all this is much more frightening now, and those at the Bulletin, based out of the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, know the science intimately and are nonpartisan, but “religiously pro-science”. It truly won’t take much to turn the entire world upside down, and we have enough to contend with as it is. The subject-matter experts at the Bulletin know this all too well, since the existential crises of climate change, disruptive technologies, and weaponized disinformation have also worked their way into the Bulletin’s portentous equations.

This might be the most conversation-stirring coffee-table book you’ll ever have. The iconic logo alone incites curiosity. Within, science and social policy, graphic design, satirical comics, fine art, and pop culture all combine to convey the messaging and advocacy of the Bulletin over the past 75 years. It has been a hard fight, and that fight is far from over in this “post-truth” era. Will humanity make it another 25 years? There are some 13,000 nuclear missiles around the globe right now. Time will tell, and the peremptory clock keeps us aware of the dangers we impose upon ourselves and the biosystems of the Earth we depend on.  

This book was published by the super-chic Hat & Beard Press (https://hatandbeard.com/) out of Los Angeles, so support independent artsy publishers like them if and when you’re able.