CUT THE CRAP: The Rebound
Artist: Van Halen
Album: Van Halen III
Aftermath: Over 10 years later, we’re still waiting on a new Van Halen album. Frontman of the album Gary Cherone disappears off the face the earth. David Lee Roth returns for a nostalgia tour that ignores 15 years of the band’s catalog.

In 1986, Van Halen pulled a magic trick with 5150, their first album after switching original frontman David Lee Roth for Sammy Hagar. Now, I’m no “Van Hagar” apologist, but 5150 pointed to a more synth oriented future that continued in the same direction as Roth’s last album with the group, 1984. It’s not an all-time classic, but it’s a respectable bundle of music with nearly all of the best Van Hagar singles. Van Halen maintained a level of success throughout the ’80s.

What happened after that? Dwindling returns on their investment, as guitarist Eddie Van Halen struggled to maintain creative energy and sought respectability past being one of best guitarists ever by being increasingly pretentious and elaborate about his music and its arrangements. Also: troubles with substance abuse and in-fighting in the band. Cut to 1996, and the band dumps Hagar. They reunite with Roth for a quick fling then dump him.

By this point, you have to understand, Van Halen thinks it’s done with those blonde-haired party boys. They’re always handsome and funny at first, but then they just become obnoxious and annoying. Van Halen needs someone different. Someone stable, who can provide lead vocals for longer than six years. And so the band is at a party, and across the room Extreme is there. They get to talking; they get to flirting. Extreme’s lead singer reminds Van Halen a little of Hagar, but maybe more willing to commit. He was in Extreme for 10 years! Van Halen takes Gary Cherone by the hand, and they head into Van Halen’s studio.

The result of that coupling is Van Halen III. This album is a rebound, mis-matched parties masturbating each other messily. Gary Cherone gets a band, Van Halen gets a guy who can probably sing Hagar’s songs (and presumably the guy who so sings like Hagar can sing like Hagar singing like Roth, right?). But Van Halen had some shit to work out within themselves before they could get back into the swing of things. No songs here are memorable.

Most of the blame has to fall into Eddie Van Halen’s lap. His bid to be known as more than a guy who played great guitar on “Everybody Wants Some” and other songs about doin’ it translates here into cluttered tracks filled with multiple layers of guitar, multi-part structures, and no identifiable riffs or hooks. The best comparison is a lead guitarist who strikes out to go solo, feels like he was underrated in the context of a group, and spills every idea he has into every song. So, you get “Dirty Water Dog,” a song built around some skillful finger picking that almost sounds like a Cherone wailing over some nondescript guitar solo. The songs of Van Halen III are barely discernible from one another, aside from the acoustic guitar showcase that opens it and the Eddie-sung closer.

I suspect Hagar couldn’t make much of these songs, but Cherone doesn’t help. He really, really sounds like Hagar. Except he sounds like Hagar on the chorus of “Dreams,” that soaring, epic “Hiiiigher and hiiiiiiigher!” part, but hoarser. His ad-libbed “Yeah yeah!”s and “Come on!”s sound like desperate cries for more energy from this clinical set. The gonzo fun of Roth and Hagar’s powerful vocals are greatly missing, leaving mostly the latter’s worst features and an off-putting brand of seriousness. It’s a difficult balance to take things seriously and write lyrics like “If I cannot kiss you from afar/Press against your lips, taste the sweetness/Of your breath.”

In essence, the entire band feels out of its element. It was the ’90s, so maybe Eddie felt self-conscious that no one was doing the guitar heroics thing in the post-grunge landscape. It’s a match that sounds like it could work, and indeed it’s easy to imagine this band playing the old songs. In reality, though, everyone involved seems like they’re forcing themselves to make the changes work. It was probably an inevitable growing pain that this album was Cherone’s only contribution to the band’s catalog.

After a mess like this, the only place to go was to clean up and either become something new or reunite with David Lee Roth, whose first love bond with the group was so pure everyone knew it was right.

Other rebounds:
Red Hot Chili Peppers – One Hot Minute

How much do we love Avenged Sevenfold? A few weeks ago, Third World Timmy sent me a link to a preview of this video. A preview, of a music video. Oh man – THE ANTICIPATION! Well, the wait is over – hopefully this lives up to Tim’s dreams. Or, should I say. . . NIGHTMARES? Muahahahahahahahahahahahaha! (Avenged Sevenfold’s new album Nightmare is out now.)

Ronnie James Dio died yesterday. He was arguably the greatest heavy metal singer of all time, and we are all sincerely bummed here at Assault.it. Dio succumbed to stomach cancer at approximately 7:45am on May 16, as confirmed by his wife Wendy via an official statement. (Rumors of his demise lit up the internet as early as Saturday night, but were slightly exaggerated.) If you don’t know Dio’s work, you’re missing out on something truly special – he was key in transforming Black Sabbath from a lumbering gloom factory to a rampaging power metal act on seminal discs Heaven & Hell and The Mob Rules, played big roles in Rainbow and Elf, and is probably remembered best for the group that bore his surname and released Holy Diver, a hands-down classic of the genre. (We recently took a few moments to re-evalute the disc and found it aging very, very well. Read it here.)

My own personal Dio experience began with my dad telling me about Rainbow (my dad is a huuuge Ritchie Blackmore fan) at an early age, but I didn’t take it seriously because I was totally into Ace of Base at the time. I didn’t really think about Dio again until Tenacious D started talking about him all the time, at which point I started to investigate, beginning with his first two Black Sabbath records. Heaven & Hell, in particular, is one of the greatest metal records of all time, and one that sent me scrambling to hear more of this man’s work. (I’m still not a Rainbow fan, but that could change.)

Dio was special for a number of reasons. First, he was just a tiny little dude with a huge voice, and he took no shit from anybody. Ozzy Osbourne, supposedly one of the craziest guys of all time, used to slam Dio for being short and, I guess, a better singer and all-around frontman, and Dio responded by popularizing the use of devil horns – something he took from his crazy grandmother’s “evil eye” superstitions and transformed into possibly the most iconic hand gesture in all of rock. Partially he did this because it was so obviously cool, but also because Ozzy was known for throwing up a peace sign. Dio out-eviled Ozzy Osbourne – always remember that.

Also special: Dio could fit into almost any musical landscape, provided it involved big riffs and hokey fantasy lyrics. A lot of his stuff gets pretty goofy, but in the best way possible – it’s hard to listen to “Rainbow In The Dark” without cracking a huge grin, but it’s also hard not to jump around and tear your room apart in a fit of D&D-infused power-glee. Dio brought his voice and attitude to a number of bands, and only stopped rocking near the very end – listen to the last Heaven & Hell disc (the Dio-ized incarnation of Black Sabbath, rocking a legally-OK name), which was released last year, and marvel at the way he didn’t lose an ounce of his power or vocal agility even as time ravaged his tiny body.

But time ravages us all, and eventually we must come to the clearing at the end of the path. Dio got there, and I hope there was some really cool shit waiting for him – a rainbow in the dark, some neon knights, a clean tiger. Who knows? It’s a sadder world without Dio, but I bet even Jesus is throwing the horns today.

(Sometimes, a record comes along that unites two [or more] of the Assault.it staffers in such critical fervor that a standard single-writer review can’t possibly do the subject justice. And so we employ the most powerful weapon at our disposal: THE TAG TEAM REVIEW! This episode of TAG TEAM features Tim and Oswald getting all pumped up over Godsmack’s new record, The Oracle.)

TIM I like music that’s tough. Not that the funky beats of indie rock don’t appeal to me, but when I’m rolling down the south side for a White Sox game or to hit up Reggie’s rock club for a show, I can’t be seen listening to. . .that. I don’t want to get robbed, or beat up, or laughed at. (I like Paramore too, but you won’t see me listening to that kind of stuff in my car either.) Godsmack is tough. Tough, and heavy--really heavy. That’s all I’ve ever asked for in metal bands. I don’t need you to screech or growl or melt my face with silly stringy guitar solos--just be heavy, and mostly make me look and feel tough when I listen to you.

Even if I’m just vaccuuming my place, if I have the windows down and some high school riff-raff spy me from the street level hardcore-vaccuuming to Godsmack, I don’t want them to giggle to themselves and throw rocks at my window, or laugh at me like I used to laugh at my friend’s “favorite Chicagoan” neighbor. (The one that used to ride his exercise bike indoors in full-on racer gear directly in front of the window for everyone to see--that guy wasn’t tough.) Listening to Godsmack’s new album makes you feel tough because they didn’t go down the same road that countless other soundalikes have. (See Q101′s playlist during the daytime. . .Seether, Breaking Benjamin, Sick Puppies, and on and on.)

OSWALD Godsmack are definitely tough, I’ll give them that. And after ten years of making fun of them for biting Alice In Chains so hard that Layne Staley felt it from his underground opium den (aka “grave“), I’m willing to give them even more than that: they’re actually fucking good. As I get older, the number one thing I look for in new music is variety and experimentation -- I want bands that are doing something new and unique, that are transporting me somewhere else with their sound. Godsmack don’t do any of that, though, and that’s why I’ve responded so strongly to The Oracle. After a long day of listening to bands that are trying to rape my ears with the new and the crazy, it’s actually kinda refreshing to pop open a crisp, cold Budweiser and hear a band that just cranks it up to 11 and settles into a hard-rockin’ groove. If Bob Lefsetz were to catch a Godsmack concert, he’d probably describe them as “smokin.’” And then he’d go back to his tiny apartment in Santa Monica and write a 1000-word diatribe about how they reminded him of when he used to go see Deep Purple at the Coliseum in 1974 and they’d blow his fucking face off with their stoned virtuosity.

The riffs on The Oracle just keep coming -- it’s like a freight train loaded with bareknuckle blooze guitar, headed straight for your tender cranium. The disc starts strong with “Cryin’ Like A Bitch,” a song that first reminds me of every time I ever cried like a bitch, and then forces me to drink my own salty tears at (metaphorical) fist-point. Every time I hear that song, I feel like somebody jammed a hypodermic needle filled with testosterone straight into my nuts. I actually strut for three or four days afterward, wobbling like my huge balls are throwing me off balance. And the rest of the CD has pretty much the same vibe, although it gets pretty dark at parts. And that’s when the band channels Alice In Chains the most, but I don’t hate it -- now that Jerry Cantrell has officially shit all over AIC’s legacy by getting the band back together with a new, utterly generic Staley soundalike, we need a new Alice In Chains. And Godsmack could show those guys how it’s REALLY done -- there’s no drugged-out self-loathing to be found here, just brick-hard cock-rock that swings with the grungy swagger of Led Zeppelin cutting their coke with Valium.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eXIOK2vOhM

The Oracle is a true marvel of craftsmanship, in my opinion -- none of these songs are catchy enough to become all-time favorites, but the disc overall is almost frighteningly consistent. I can listen to it from start to finish without paying attention and still get all the information I need to process and appreciate it. That’s kind of a back-handed compliment, but this is hard-rock, right? Everything should be communicated directly to my face like the backhand of Allah. If you do pay attention, there’s a notable lack of lyrical insight present, but the principle themes are communicated semi-powerfully by a witchy Massachusetts vibe that makes me feel like Nathaniel Hawthorne came back from the dead as a badass zombie and started writing songs about voodoo and whiskey. Obviously that can’t be a bad thing, right?

TIM If there’s one song that stands out on this album to me it’s probably the caboose track, “The Oracle.” It vaguely reminds me of the track we used to loop at a haunted house I worked at called Voodoo--you could play that song all night long and not get sick of it and still feel creepy as fuck following teenagers around in full facepaint and a scary costume. “The Oracle” differs in that, if you were racing your car around suburban midwestern towns, the only way you’d slow down would be if a rival high school’s quarterback cut you off in his piece-of-shit Ford Mustang.

Without the 2cc injection of testosterone sauce squirted right into your sack by the last two minutes of non-stop guitar riffs, you’d probably just mosey your way down the road to your girlfriend’s house (where you’d cry [like a bitch] to her about how much you hate jocks. Thankfully us skinny twerps have tough soundtracks that at least make us sound tough. No doubt half of the songs on The Oracle will be featured in this year’s Vin Diesel or Rob Zombie movie. Although, they’re hard to tell apart besides “The Oracle.” This is definitely one of those albums you can listen to from start to finish on shuffle, over and over again, without discerning between whether or not you have made it through the entire disc yet.

TAG-TEAM GRADE: A-

When we last left this feature, I had just reviewed The Offspring’s Americana. I mentioned, of course, that Americana was only only one of two I bought at the Circuit City that day. The other was Korn’s Follow the Leader, which was another side of the male teenage angst on the radio at the time. More aggressive and tortured, less inclined to novelty songs. Indeed, Korn were generally lumped in with the Nu Metal crowd that included Limp Bizkit and Rage Against the Machine, but were really a whole different animal. The way they melded rap and rock had less to do with vocalization and more with their ability to find a groove. In a lot of ways, this album would in hindsight be the peak of that approach to making music; subsequent albums would see the band trying to get “heavier,” an eventual creative dead-end. But here, things are fairly sunny. Not sonically, just in terms of quality. “Freak on a Leash,” for example, is an utterly unique song. All groove and angst, it uses the band’s DJ scratches and melodic weaknesses to create a kind of sinister vibe that carries the song. It doesn’t even matter what the song is specifically about; once the central elements to the song are in place, there’s no stopping its hypnotic groove.

It wasn’t always that way, though. As a teen, I hung onto every word of Jon Davis’s angry, dissatisfied lyrics. Now, I find that it’s easier to enjoy the band if you take the words on a more subliminal level as just part of the sound. I’ve remarked elsewhere in the past that Marilyn Manson’s lyrics are kind of a “How to piss off old people Madlibs;” Jon Davis’s writing style is “Madlibs for basic teenage male angst.” You get dead bodies, cursing, a couple words that I still can’t make out, “FUCK” every minute or two. Like I said, the stuff that sticks out enhances the song in terms of its mood; to get bogged down in specific meaning gets frustrating. Only “Justin,” about a fan who died of cancer (and gets 12 tracks of silence in tribute before the music begins) and “Got the Life” really get a clear message across without sounding like a bunch of complaints strung together.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRGrNDV2mKc

In some ways, my feelings for this album haven’t changed; only my enthusiasm has. At the risk of any kind of credibility in anything at all, ever, I remember at one point I argued with a Led Zeppelin fan about which of the two was the greatest band of all time. By no measure of time or sanity can I even come up with my side of that argument anymore, but I’d still say Follow the Leader holds up alright on its own terms. The first four songs, from “It’s On” through “Dead Bodies Everywhere” are perfect in their expression of a strong sense of outsider angst. I don’t feel it like I did back then, but I think that if I did, I’d still appreciate this in the same way. These guys had a sound that was pretty much its own. Davis’ voice, in particular, is helpful to this effort. The growls, scat singing, cookie monster vocals, and yelping all add multiple textures to every song.

As for the rest? I listened to “Children of the Korn,” featuring Ice Cube, optimistically. I’d hoped that my education in the ways of hip-hop would let me say “Holy crap, time has informed me of a long lost gem!” But, alas, it was not to be. It’s a boring song, going too far into the hip-hop territory, where the band’s metal roots don’t mix all that well. Cube’s verse is incredibly generic, like he was drawn into the same world of “anti-authoritarian, whatever the authority” attitude of teenagers. Even worse is the Fred Durst guest spot, “All in the Family,” where Davis and Durst trade weak barbs over simple rhymes. (Durst calls Davis “corny” twice -- get it? ‘Cause he’s in the band KORN.) It’s meant to be fun, but the two carry themselves with such dour boredom that it comes off as sad posing. At the very least, it ends with Davis wanting to suck off and buttfuck Durst (I am not making that up! I don’t recommend searching for the song, but that’s how it ends!), which is almost nearly clever. It’s more of an odd moment than anything redeeming, though.

After that the album rights itself for the rest of its duration, relying less on hooks or attempted shock value and more on murky atmosphere. It all runs together, but Korn make good mood music if your mood is bad and your dissatisfaction with the world is of the unspecific kind. “Reclaim My Place” is at least a good pump-up song, still antagonistic but less negative and mopey than most Korn. They also get bonus points for “Seed,” a sweet (by Korn standards) song about fatherhood that at the very least is not a re-write of “Forever Young.” Things wind down well enough, with Tre Hardson (from the Pharcyde) showing up on the unremarkable “Cameltosis” before the last listed song. Things top off with a bonus track: a cover of “Earache My Eye” featuring Cheech Marin. It’s a curve-ball on an album that’s mostly predictable after the first couple songs. It’s not as funny as the band seems to think it is, but hey, it’s better to end on a surprise than a bore.

Would I Do It Again? I’d still download “Freak on a Leash.” The rest if someone was selling it for $2.

P.S. About hidden tracks: they’re really quaint at this point, aren’t they? Is there a greater relic of the CD era than the exercise of listing X number of songs, then padding the album with ten minutes of silence followed by a throwaway? Who out there listened to a CD, in order, and just turned the damned thing off the second the last song ended? “Oh shit! There’s a bunch of silence after that last song! The CD pressing plant must’ve made a mista-… WOOAAAAH!”

If you’re a socially angry, post-college, generally aggro dude like myself, there’s probably nothing that gets you higher than a band like Rise Against that includes scathing political commentary in their music. The straight forward Hatebreed-inspired hardcore of Monument to Thieves’ new self-titled album nails this particular style, with heavy guitars and rampaging vocals broken up with samples from popular network news channels and interviews with telling clips about some of the social issues ringing true to many people whether it’s gay marriage rights (something we feel so strongly about we designed a t-shirt about it)  and even the health care debate.

This disc brings back memories of flying through my old neighborhood in the suburbs trying to piss off the neighborhood with some loud Slipknot or Poison the Well. What sets the band apart from the rest of the screamo-style heavy metal I grew up with is themes that are relatable, on a personal level, to many of the people that I used to piss off. Despite sticking to a heavy metal formula set in stone by acts like Hatebreed and countless others long before them, Monument To Thieves manage to make you drive a bit faster and head bang a bit harder.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=btTQODMAQSk

Songs like “How Far Can We Fall” and “Just Like Me” are my personal favorites, and will no doubt be the biggest mosh-pit starters on the album. But overall this is one of those albums you have to listen to all the way through, rather than cherry-picking singles, if you really want to enjoy the material to its fullest.

Monument To Thieves:

• MySpace
• Last.FM
• No Sleep Records

The Action Blast is undoubtedly one of the coolest new bands in Chicago. They played their first show in December and formed shortly before that, but their sound is fully-formed and exceptionally confident. We were lucky enough to score an interview with the band’s guitarist, Kevin Singleton, and he explained who the band is, what they do, and why they’ll never compromise or water down the intensity of their rock attack.

Assault.it: Since there isn’t very much info about the band online (besides I’ve recently learned that Anthony was in Inept and that you all have a connection to them in some way or another) can  we get a basic introduction about everyone in the band, who they played with before, how you all met each other, and how The Action Blast formed?

Kevin: Me and Anthony formed Inept. I was actually the first original member of a previous band to Inept that fell apart. We needed a new singer and found Anthony, and Inept formed. Dan was also the last drummer for Inept for about 4 months. Eric (Guitar) and Joel (Bass) were in some local bands here and there in Chicago as well.

You mentioned honest rock music on your tumblr studio blog, how would you classify yourselves into a genre of music, and who influences your style of music most?

We are a rock band. Some of our songs are aggressive, some are a bit upbeat; we are just first and foremost a rock band, though. We are seriously just all about rocking and having a good time. We write our music for ourselves and we’re not trying to follow any trends or be anything besides our band.

I noticed some of your songs had funny names – like “Sports Center” – while you were tracking them in the studio. Besides music, where else do you find inspiration?

Yeah. “Where We build A Life” was called “Devastator.” “Let This Go” was called “Boom Da Boom.” We have a few other songs with weird names like “Thunderdome” and “Gunslinger.” We don’t take anything too seriously; we are just dudes who love having a good time and hanging with people and such. We like sports, video games, and the norm. We’re just dudes who happen to be in a rock band.

On Assault.it we’re all about spreading the love around, are there any local acts right now that you’re following closely that you’d like to someday play with?

All the bands we follow we ususally play with. With our old bands we pretty much played with everyone in Chicago, and now it’s just all about rebuilding and such. Our current local favorites are Made Avail, On The Front, Seven Day Sonnet, and our singer Anthony is really digging this new band Trainwreck Symphony. I’d also like to give a shoutout to my boys in Artifex Pereo, they are our best friends on earth and their band is amazing.

Being that we’re all from Chicago, it’s important to us at Assault.it that you like a baseball team. Sox or Cubs?

Well, it’s funny – three of us are diehard Sox fans, and one of us is a Cubs fan. He gets roasted about it all the time.

What are the plans on releasing the full length album in its entirety?

We have big plans for the future and a full length is for sure one of them.

What separates The Action Blast from the majority of the bands out there now?

We are just trying to do our own thing, not mock anyone else. We have a bunch of newer music coming out that goes into a few different areas. We are also very hungry, excited, and are not slowing down for anyone. This is our band, our terms, our lives. Hopefully people can find the sincerity in how we are approaching this band lyrically. This is real life, no sugarcoated BS. This is who we are.

If you had to choose a career path of another band that you’d like to model yourselves after who would it be and why?

It would probably be a band like Metallica. They toured and toured and toured till the end of time. That is what we want to do. If we can play 400 shows in 365 days we’ll do it.

Ever cover any other bands live or have any plans to do so in the future? If so, what songs?

Nope. Probably won’t, either. If we had to do a cover, though, I always wanted to do “Kiss From A Rose” by Seal.

I was lucky enough to see your live show in December. What’s different about your live show that makes it worth seeing?

Our show in December was our first show ever. We were very blessed to play with Lucky Boys Confusion for our first show. What you can expect from us is the fact that we live up to our name. We want to be 30 straight minutes of energy. We leave everything we have on the stage and we’ve only played five shows now. It’s just going to get more and more and more intense.

Was there ever a time that you hit a crossroads and decided that you wanted to make music your life? Can you describe that moment?

I was 15 years old and I wanted a guitar. Since that moment I first got my guitar, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

From concept to realization, can you walk us through your song writing process?

Well, so far the writing has been myself writing the music at home. All the songs so far I wrote for this project aside from one of the riffs Anthony brought to the table. The songs were mostly too aggressive for my older band, so I took the music home and worked on the songs for myself. I present the music to the band and everyone puts in their part. Then Anthony comes in last and lays his vocal ideas over the music.

What’s the hardest part about being an opening band?

The hardest part about being an opening band is that sometimes people don’t pay attention to you, or don’t think you are worth their time. Just remember all those headliners that you see were all opening bands at one time too. Everyone starts somewhere.

To date what’s the best show you’ve ever played either with TAB or when you were all in other bands?

The best show we’ve ever played with Tab so far was probably this Saturday at Beat Kitchen, it was our first headline show and we were very stoked about it. The first show was great too, I can honestly say that so far every show we’ve played has been a great time.

When you’re not working on music what do you like to do?

Watching some TV, playing games, hanging with friends. Normal stuff, go catch new bands, book shows, keep working.

Zombies or vampires? (Pre-Twilight vampires)

Vampires. When I think of the word “vampire,” I never think of Twilight. I think of The Lost Boys or Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Spike and Angel were bad ass.

Is there any band you wouldn’t play with? Be honest.

No. We’d love to get our music out to everyone. Although I don’t think playing with Kenny G would go over so well.

If you were going to play a dream tour with 4 bands (including yourselves) who would it be?

Rise Against, Story of the year, Thrice, and Deftones. That would be one of my favorite shows ever.

If you were a force to be reckoned with in the industry, with a huge loyal following of fans, what would be one thing you’d to to mobilize the troops and change the world?

I think I would just keep everything the same, and just tell everyone of our fans to check out smaller bands. We’re all about helping as many people as possible.

Some bands – in fact, a lot of bands – don’t party anymore because of contracts with labels or their moral beliefs. Do you party?

We party. However I do not drink. The other guys do but there is no drug use.  Although I don’t think you need that kind of stuff to have a good time. We can get down all night and get rowdy until the break of dawn without that kind of stuff.

What are your deal breakers when it comes to compromising your song writing, music style, and or beliefs as it pertains to music?

We write our songs for ourselves, we don’t write songs that other people think we should write. Our music style will always be what we want. It has to be done our way. Nobody else’s opinion counts aside from our own. One thing this band has is artistic integrity.

With the evolution of the web, and the removal of “the gatekeepers,” how has that changed the way you market yourselves as a band?

We don’t really care about the internet right now. We’re using real personal connection to get out there. We like to go to shows, meet new people, and really go out there and show people that this band is more than an internet-based band. We want to really get to know our fans and have them be a part of something. I feel that the whole internet thing has really made things impersonal and we would really like to change that.

Do you ever think you’ll sign to a record label, and if so, do you have any in mind that you think would be a good fit?

We would love to sign to a label. We don’t have a specific one in mind, we just want to be given a fair chance of showing our music to the masses. So if any labels are looking for a band that is willing to tour forever, and write honest rock music, we are your band! We’d like to be on a major label because we feel that radio play and promo is crucial for a band like us. However we’ll take anything that can help us advance our musical career.

One of my favorite things about your live show is getting the crowd involved, specifically at your show at Beat Kitchen on the 23rd Anthony had everyone turn to the right and left and introduce themselves and make friends. Who was the best friend you’ve ever met at a show?

That’s something Anthony has been doing for years. We’ve actually had a couple meet at a show and get married – how rad is that? I can honestly say that via shows I personally have met some amazing people. Other amazing bands, and one of my best friends I’ve met via my music is this dude Justin Roelfs. If it wasn’t for music I probably would not know that dude. Same with a few of my current and past band members. I owe my life to music and am thankful for it every day.

More Action Blast:

• MySpace
• Tumblr
• Twitter

Metallica have been redefining heavy metal since 1984. That’s the year they dropped Ride The Lightning, and it’s the demarcation point between their past as pizza-faced thrash enthusiasts and their future as peerless masters of the form. Where their first record (Kill ‘Em All, a brutal classic in its own right) played by the rules established by the band’s NWOBHM heroes, Ride The Lightning creates its own parameters. It starts with some gently strummed classical guitar and ends in a flurry of riffs almost robotic in their tightness and precision; it declares, in no uncertain terms, that there’s a new sheriff in town. And he thinks deep thoughts.

People like to toss around the term “game changer” so much that it’s almost meaningless, but Ride The Lightning fits the bill. The baroque riffs that open “Fight Fire With Fire” would not have felt natural on Kill ‘Em All; had James Hetfield suggested this sort of gesture at any previous point in the band’s history, Lars Ulrich probably would’ve kicked his ass for even considering it an option. But this is a new Metallica, and that defiantly melodic passage announces the band’s new, more sophisticated phase of existence. The title track follows, and it’s a veritable monolith; the guitars squiggle and pummel in equal measure, effectively doubling the band’s arsenal. Speed is no longer the sole objective. This is a group that wants to write honest-to-blog songs, with real messages!

That vein continues with “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” by far the best thrash song ever named after an Ernest Hemmingway novel. Metallica have become obnoxiously humorless and hypocritical in their old age, and that trend began all the way  back here with their second album. If separating classic albums from the negative connotations retroactively superimposed on them by their creators’ later shittiness was a course offered by any major university, though, Ride The Lighting would be the basis of a thousand smartasses’ theses, and understanding that is key to understanding any page of Metallica’s back catalog. The themes on early Metallica records are hamfisted and delivered with the subtlety of, um, Metallica album art, but the band really meant well at the time and I find it hard to fault them simply for being overly earnest. These were serious dudes, and their fixation on war, nuclear holocaust, and suicide is evidence not necessarily of pretentiousness but, rather, seriously good intentions gone somewhat wrong.

“Fade To Black,” one of Metallica’s signature songs, finds Hetfield attempting lyrical introspection but arriving at self-pity; luckily the track features the band’s most complex, sensitive, and flat-out beautiful arrangements to date. It’s kind of a downer to be sure, but the mood is rescued with the one-two punch of “Trapped Under Ice” and “Escape,” both featuring the kind of rapid, shiny riffs that made sixteen year-olds the world over wish Kirk Hammett would sneak into their rooms at night like some kind of demented tooth fairy and slip fiery leads under their pillows. That man, by the way, is in fine form throughout here, proving himself a more-than-adequate replacement for the still-recently booted Dave Mustaine. (Mustaine actually shares a writing credit on the title track, something that undoubtedly brings him more pleasure than Megadeth’s astronomical record sales in the late eighties.)

The album ends with another one-two punch, this time of a much more blood-chilling variety. “Creeping Death,” the album’s undisputed masterpiece, is a classic in every sense; the guitars churn and chop like an ocean of pure electricity breaking on cement shores. This description will only sound hyperbolic to non-believers and the uninitiated; everybody else knows exactly what I’m talking about. But, for the doubters and haters, consider this: Metallica can take the fucking bible and make it rock. Suck on that for a few minutes. Tastes good, doesn’t it? The “two” in this punch is “Call of the Ktulu,” the group’s first great instrumental, wherein the same bone-crushing riff is repeated ad nauseum until it creates its own wondrous logic and the only possible reaction is to soak up the awesomeness in a borderline-catatonic state, sort of wanting someone to wipe away the drool but not really because this is the best thrash-induced coma you’ve ever experienced and any disturbance would ruin the mood. And when I say “mood,” I mean “the violent death of all sentient thought.”

Metallica is the band parents warn their kids about because, let’s face it, once you hear these guys your parents can basically take a flying fuck. They don’t know shit. Metallica knows it all, and they begin explaining it here, the first of what I consider the holy trinity of thrash. Folks like to talk about Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer like the four belong to the same wicked coven but that’s misleading; Metallica wrote the book of thrash with this, Master Of Puppets, and …And Justice For All, and those other three bands were just kind of trying to keep up. This is the real shit that you need if you want to be nuts; this is murder music, and you’re the poor sap getting killed. Metallica would make better records, but they’d never be this much fun. Ride The Lightning is music for anybody that inexplicably considers themselves a “metal intellectual;” such a thing does not exist, but for eight radical songs these guys almost make you wish that it did.

(Here at AssaultBLOG, we love heavy  metal. Black Friday is our bi-weekly celebration of classics in the genre. Recommendations are welcome, so send crazy shit to oswald@assultinc.com.)

A Facebook friend of ours turned us on to this video by the UK band Architects from their album Hollow Crown. (link opens in iTunes) It definitely appeals to me more aesthetically than the other video I posted this week by HIM. It’s full on, face-melting heavy metal. Just the way I like it.

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Want to hear more Architects?

• Architects Official MySpace
• Architects album, Hollow Crown on iTunes
• Architects on Wikipedia

Just caught wind of this band from Jamey of Hatebreed on Twitter. Thy Will Be Done “Earth’s Final Embrace” video from their debut album, “Was And Is To Come”. The band is released their follow up to ‘Was And Is To Come’, “In Ancient Of Days” on June 30th, 2009 via Stillborn Records.

When I first suggested the idea of doing this column, I had in mind records like Metallica’s Master Of Puppets and Slayer’s Reign In Blood. But when I asked Third World Timmy for suggestions, the first word out of his mouth was “Dio.” And suddenly I realized, I’ve loved Dio for “Holy Diver” and “Rainbow In The Dark,” plus his first two records with Black Sabbath, but I’ve never even heard his most popular full length record. Frankly, I expected a trainwreck; the cover art is amazing in the way that suggests really awful power metal, and Mr. Dio has a tendency to get carried away with the swords-and-sorcerers bullshit when Tony Iommi lets him off the leash. But Holy Diver is actually an amazing pop metal record; I’ve listened to it probably twenty-five times in the past week and I’m not tired of it, at all. So my little experiment that started (mostly) as a joke became revelatory and inspiring. Consider me a confirmed Dio evangelist, with the next five hundred words my opportunity to preach the true metal gospel.

Holy Diver builds its power cumulatively – there are a few great tracks, most notably the two mentioned above, but the set’s chief success is its mind-blowing consistency. Vivian Campbell (who would later go on to shred as Steve Clark’s replacement in Def Leppard) is the secret weapon, accenting chunky riffs with nimble fills; his style reminds me of Mick Mars’s famous statement that he “makes the music,” while the rest of Motley Crue provides rhythm. Campbell makes the music here. He can play fast, he can play slow, and his solos always go somewhere unexpected and fun. Even on filler tracks like “Straight Through The Heart” and “Invisible,” Campbell is showcasing some truly amazing shit.

This is not to downplay, obviously, the role of Ronnie James. Dude has a set of pipes, and he’s out to destroy on this record. You can practically hear his personal legacy inflating with every syllable. He really means everything he’s saying, which is somewhat remarkable because everything he’s saying is total bullshit. For instance: “Rainbow In The Dark.” This is my 3rd favorite pop-metal song of all time (right behind “Youth Gone Wild” and “Looks That Kill”), I’ve listened to it a couple hundred times over the years, and have actually made it a prerequisite that Tim play it at his parties before I will commit to attending. But I have no idea what it’s about. I suspect it’s about nothing; probably Dio just dreams up stuff that sounds vaguely mystical and weird, and then he turns it into solid gold with his passionate delivery. See also the famous line in “Holy Diver”: “You can see his stripes / But you know he’s clean / Oh, don’t you see what I mean?” Actually, Ron, I don’t. But it sounds so absurdly right-on that I’m willing to buy.

Every great album must have a secretly great track that nobody ever calls out for it’s awesomeness. That track is “Caught In The Middle.” The lyrics are generic self-empowerment hogwash, but Campbell’s power chords sell it like nothing else here. The melody is bright and poppy, with cool hints of melancholy at the end of each line. Most of the other album tracks are kind of nondescript, which is not to say “bad,” but “definitely not ‘Rainbow In The Dark.’” But that’s kind of like saying the Statue of David isn’t the Sistine Chapel. The deep cuts here aren’t as interesting or cool as the singles, but they still display a consistent level of craft that’s pretty rare to see spread so thickly across an entire disc. There’s nothing here I would skip, and at a pleasantly quick 42 minutes, Holy Diver is a record you can listen to a few times in a row without getting itchy ears.

What was it like to hear this in 1983, when it was released? I have no idea. I assume it felt really special and surprising, like your weird uncle slipping you a surprise fifty for Christmas. Because who is Ronnie James Dio, if not the weird uncle that periodically shocks us with random displays of awesomeness? Holy Diver is a heavy metal classic, and stands tall with Dio’s other notable achievements (including Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell and his appearance in the Tenacious D movie). I may have started listening as a joke, but I’m dead serious when I tell you to grab a copy if you don’t have one on the shelf yet. Within three spins you’ll have a new favorite record.

(Here at AssaultBLOG, we love heavy  metal. Black Friday is our weekly celebration of classics in the genre. Recommendations are welcome, so send crazy shit to oswald@assultinc.com.)

Ever since the first time I saw Thrice live at the Fireside Bowl in Chicago when I was 16 I knew they’d be big. It’s been awhile since I connected as much with them (musically) on anything they’ve released, but I remain a loyal fan nonetheless. Here’s their new video I stumbled across on MySpace:

Drawing inspiration from first person self-viewing cameras, Your Demise has stumbled upon one of the most interesting thrasher metal videos I’ve ever seen. The combination of the violent live concert with fast-paced editing makes for a real interesting video. The song is off of their incredible debut album IGNORANCE NEVER DIES. Check it out:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQlJVCZERiM

Thanks to Graham for this one. Want to send me a video or give me a heads up on a band. Sent me a tweet!

Atreyu - Congregation of the Damned Album Art (Link opens in iTunes)

Based on the title and cover art alone, you might guess this is a new Slayer release. Unfortunately, you’d be wrong – Congregation Of The Damned (Opens in iTunes) is the fifth release from California’s Atreyu, and it’s another predictable-but-pleasing collection of shouty metalcore.

When we describe metal albums as “punishing,” that’s typically a compliment. But with Congregation of the Damned, the punishment comes in the form of the sugary choruses and symphonic twaddle that keep popping up, over and over again, to ruin what are otherwise pretty fierce tracks. The record begins with “Stop! Before It’s Too Late And We’ve Destroyed It All,” and the track showcases both the best and worst of Atreyu: lightning-quick guitar noodles and double-kick drums propel the track forward, but it races straight into its brick wall of a chrous. This pattern is broken only when the boys decide to slow it down and make sweet ear-love to you, and that’s when shit really gets awkward: album closer “Wait For You” is a ballad that would embarrass Aerosmith, while “Lonely” and “So wrong” are the kind of emo whiners that keep bands like Atreyu firmly in the Hot Topic ghetto.

Which is a shame, because there are moments of real brilliance here: “You Were King, Now You’re Unconscious” is the record’s centerpiece, and opens like “Raining Blood” with some cacophonous noise and a white-hot riff. But (and there’s always a “but” with this band) they get lost early into the five-minute runtime with another generically gruff chorus. And the title track has some nifty gang vox, but they’re in service of a lyrical conceit that doesn’t deserve to drive an entire record. Indeed, throughout the proceedings it seems as if lead singer Alex Varkatazas is on the verge of singing something worthwile that might connect the obvious themes running amok here, but that moment never comes; these are deep thoughts only half-thunk. So the boys fare much better when they drop the social commentary and just shred, as on “Ravenous,” the best track in a surprisingly strong back-half run of viciousness. This is the kind of stuff Atreyu should make their priority: it’s music for snorting coke in Sunset Strip bathrooms, and along with the powerful “Black Days Begin,” it offers some of the only real fun on the disc.

For forty-eight minutes, Atreyu stand at the cusp of brutality but consistently pull back just when it’s time to push forward: these guys stare at the void rather than driving straight into it. When they finally learn to trust their metal instincts and knock off the mainstream-baiting pop choruses, they might serve up some music worthy of their admittedly cool visual imagery.

The amount of enjoyment you get out of any Rammstein record depends primarily on your ability to ignore certain factors that define their sound. First, there’s the whole foreign-language thing: the lyrics are almost exclusively in the band’s native German. But that shouldn’t be a deal breaker – most heavy metal lyrics beg to be ignored anyway. Then there’s the creepy cabaret element that functions as a backdrop to all of their tunes. The band can pulverize with some truly explosive riffage, but, even at their most forceful, everything is accented with dance floor-ready keyboards. And finally, you gotta decide how you’re really gonna process this shit. A very German sense of sick humor fills the nooks and crannies of Liebe Ist Für Alle Da, and at points it can overwhelm what are otherwise quite striking compositions. So the question is: do you come to Rammstein to fulfill your basic headbanging needs, or do you view them primarily as a curiosity (albeit, an incredibly melodic and powerful one)?

I personally go both ways. I was introduced to Rammstein, along with pretty much every other casual metal fan, when their breakthrough hit “Du Hast” infiltrated MTV and radio in 1997. Since then, I’ve kept very loose tabs on the band – I got a lot of mileage out of Sehnsucht upon its initial surge of American popularity (especially after David Lynch used their music prominently in his film Lost Highway; a David Lynch connection is a very cool thing for any creepy-ass metal band to have), but the language issue – along with the fickle tastes of adolescence – prevented the kind of emotional connection from which true fandom is forged. So as they released new records over the years, I’ve taken note but mostly kept my distance. And that’s not going to change with Liebe Ist Für Alle Da. It’s a generally pleasing experience, and I can’t say I’ve been truly bored while listening to it the last few days, but there’s just too much pure novelty-for-the-sake-of-weirdness in the band’s attack for me to ever make them part of my regular listening diet.

For instance: the guys have included an English language track called “Pussy” on this record and it is, hands down, the worst thing I’ve heard all year. It’s sophomoric in all the wrong ways and the chorus (“You have a pussy / I have a dick / So what’s the problem? / Let’s do it quick”) just begs to be translated into any other language. I much prefer the amiably goofy French romp “Frühling In Paris,” which starts with some surprisingly gentle finger-picked guitar and a truly dulcet melody before exploding into the kind of sweeping chorus that tends to bust charts internationally. Since I’d rather assume these guys are joking around (and succeeding) than have them prove me wrong by dropping the language barrier, incomprehensibility accounts for much of the charm when the record really gets its odd mojo working.

“Rammlied,” for instance, kicks the record off with a swell of pure atmospheric synth cheese that any band without a sense of humor would never indulge in; lead singer Till Lindemann starts intoning weird shit that sounds extremely grave until he barks the band’s name and the big guitars kick in. (About those guitars, BTW: They often are so processed and manipulated that any sense of organic instrumentation is lost, and this is probably my favorite aspect of the record. The shinier and dancier this stuff is, the easier Lindemann’s constipated vocal approach goes down.) That pretty much sets the pattern for the rest of Liebe Ist Für Alle Da – they set the stage with absurdly gorgeous atmospherics and then offset all that beauty with huge riffs. It’s a good formula, as formulas go, but it’s only truly effective for about fifteen minutes at a time. Rammstein have cultivated a unique flavor that tastes best in bite-sized nuggets. I recommend that instead of purchasing the entire record, you hit the iTunes store and select any three songs at random (with the exception of “Pussy,” unless you’re into that kind of thing) and savor those for the cool, exotic rush they initially deliver.

Liebe Ist Für Alle Da is an accomplished and well-made record, especially for a band closing in on the second decade of their career, but it feels too lightweight to satisfy a real urge for heavy metal carnage and too off-handedly pervy for mass consumption. It’ll probably sell like hotcakes overseas, but with America experiencing a metal renaissance at the moment (spearheaded by truly innovative bands like Mastodon), I can’t imagine too many people stateside embracing the extremely foreign brand of schlock Rammstein continues to peddle.

One of these Tuesday mornings I’m hoping that when I take a quick peak at the top songs in the “Rock” category on iTunes there will really be something is not only rock, but also good. I’m not one to complain and not do anything about it so I’ve taken it upon myself to hopefully bring you a few new songs that aren’t Daughtry, Creed, or John Mayer-esque in sound.

iTunes Top 10 singles in Rock at the time of this blog post. Meh

The Swellers – Fire Away

The Swellers remind me of a cooler, less emo version of what Saves the Day used to be back when I was in high school. Drawing from their experience touring with Less Than Jake, Set Your Goals, and Four Year Strong, The Swellers finally seemed to have made their break as they’re now opening up for Paramore. They sound kinda like somewhere between punk rock and Lit–if you can imagine what that’s like.

AFI – Medicate

AFI was one of my favorite bands growing up. (All the way back to their All Hallows Eve and hardcore screaming days) They seem to have grown up quite a bit and still manage to turn out solid albums despite being around for over 18 years now.

Thousand Foot Krutch – Fire It Up

I honestly can’t remember how I found these guys, but all I can say is they’re good, and this song is good. If you’re like me and kinda feel like a pussie when you listen to pop punk, this should help.

Brand New – You Stole

My first Brand New show was in the back of a bowling alley at the Fireside Bowl off of Fullerton in Chicago back when they were still having rock and roll shows there. They were OPENING for Thrice, and now they’re filling up the Aragon Ballroom. Our resident music critic, Oswald Hobbes reviewed their new album Daisy just recently. Check that out if you haven’t.

Weezer – (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To

The first album I ever owned was “The Blue Album” by Weezer cause my mom wouldn’t let me get the Offspring cd cause it had a parental advisory sticker. In retrospect, it wasn’t that bad of a decision. Feel free to disagree, but there’s no way Five for Fighting should be ahead of Weezer… on a rock chart… ever.

Wolfmother – New Moon Rising

Everytime I listen to Wolfmother I feel like I stepped in a time machine. A time machine of awesome. This single off their new album definitely deserves to be in the top ten. Maybe just one spot above Daughtry.

Dagoba – The Things Within

So I just found out about these guys, and posted  their music video. I don’t know how I missed them because this song is over three years old now, but I guess that’s what I get for “going away to art school” as they say.

VersaEmerge – Past Praying For

I’m not doing this because all the bands on this list are fronted by dudes–I swear. VersaEmerge is a relatively new band, and another band on the Fueled by Ramen bill along with The Swellers. If you’re kind of into Evanescence but a bit less dreary, and quite a bit more upbeat–check this song out.

Oh, Sleeper – Son of the Morning

If Dustin Kensrue of Thrice decided to start making serious rock again like he used to, except draw from a bit more heavy bands like Killswitch Engage and Poison The Well, then Oh, Sleeper would be somewhat close to the result. A bit scream-o and a bit Fear Factory, this one will give you a nice kick in the ass in the morning, and it’s been proven to have more caffeine than that powdery instant coffee from Starbucks.

Taking Dawn – Time to Burn

For those of you that remember the band The Union Underground (What happened to them anyways?) you’ll do just fine with Taking Dawn. A little bit Axel Rose, a little bit Atreyu. Definitely worth the one dollar download.

Now I’m no Oswald Hobbes, but I do tend to be somewhat particular about what I think is good rock music, so if you completely disagree and think I don’t know what I’m talking about… that’s fine. Post some rock songs in the comments or send me a tweet and point me in the right direction.

Lead me to the promised land o’ internet trolls.

Friend of mine sent me this, and I must say it’s been awhile since I’ve been able to enjoy some real heavy death metal, but I sincerely enjoyed this song/video by Dagoba called, “The Things Within”.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbZCZ8Hp9iY

This particular song is off of Dagoba’s, “What Hell Is About” album that they released in 2006. I like the song so much I think I’ll make it my alarm clock.

From the Broken, tough Chicago metal at it's finest.

It’s been awhile since we’ve recognized a local band that we’re excited about, and mostly that’s because there really hasn’t been any that have caught my attention–that is until recently when I got a chance to listen to some From the Broken.

Like many of the other bands we find on Twitter and Myspace, From the Broken is just getting started and is currently touring locally in and around the Chicago area. They’ve got a 3 song EP out now featuring:

• Today’s The Day
• One Time Hero
• World’s End

You can listen to (like I have many times) on their Myspace page. If you’d like to contact the band directly, I’ve found their Twitter page to be the best way. Their next show is July 26th at the Walter Payton Roundhouse in Aurora.