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Favorite Metal Albums – 3 Inches of Blood – Fire Up the Blades

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3IOB-BLADES-COVERIntro tracks are part and parcel of heavy metal. They set a crazy tone for what you’re about to hear, and sometimes they actually fit the mood of the album. 3 Inches of Blood have a perfect intro for their album “Fire up the Blades” with Through the Horned Gate. If electric guitars and distortion existed in the middle ages, this is what you play to amp up the soldiers before battle. The slow build and introduction of heavy snare adds tension, like you’re about to engage in epic combat, possibly with an axe, against an hordish onslaught of… hordes.
And then Night Marauders kicks you square in the teeth with Jamie Hoopers screamy intro. This song runs in high gear the entire time, a good indicator that this album won’t let up until you pop the headphones off. The drum work is complex, mixing in triplets of double kick along with standard patterns. The guitars are split into the left and right channel, so you can get a better sense of their interplay, with Cam Pipes leading the harmonizing during verses.
Now your brain is revved up and running at 100 mph, so you figure they’ll drop a slower metal track. Sucks to be you; Goat Riders Horde is ready to launch you into the stratosphere. The crazy guitar intro with a little cymbal splash just really sets you up to kick even more ass. Pretty sure one time seeing 3 Inches of Blood live, a buddy who hadn’t seen them before yelled to me “HOLY SHIT THAT GUY SINGS HIGH.” Then Goat Riders Horde came on and he yelled “HOLY SHIT HE SINGS EVEN HIGHER!” Oh and the transitions, the ones that sound like shifting gears after solos, it’s like you needed to go a little faster and they were the kick in the ass you needed all along. I do feel impervious to fire and steel while listening to this song.
The “slow” song on the album is Great Hall of Feasting, featuring the great line “clean the blood stain from your blade before coming in.” It’s still rife with double kick, but heavy guitar syncopation gives it a unique feel. Also I think there’s cowbell up in there. If you’re trying to plan a workout around this album, this is the “take it easy” portion where you end up still putting up a PR of some sort.
Then there’s Assassins Of the Light, starting with what sounds like a beer cracking. These guys are from B.C. so I assume it’s a Kokanee. It could be a Molson, maybe a Rainier, I don’t judge. The guitarmonies play incredibly well, filling out the sound while not imposing that wall of noise lesser bands seem to think is important.

The album brings a fantastic, high speed power metal that holds up to multiple listenings. Just look at all the blades up on the cover. You know it’s going to be some great heavy metal.

Key Tracks: Night Marauders, Goat Riders Horde, Demons Blade, Assassins of the Light

Favorite Metal Albums – Iron Maiden – Number of the Beast

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Iron_Maiden_-_The_Number_Of_The_Beast When you get your first denim vest, The Number of the Beast should come with it. Iron Maiden stand tall as metal gods, shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and other bands that defined the genre. Listen to any of Steve Harris’s bass lines. First of all, you can hear the bass in the mix, which seems untoward in most metal nowadays, but secondly, there is a complexity that fills out the melodies perfectly. Every member of Iron Maiden is front and present in every track (unless it’s an instrumental and then you’re getting nit picky) and that’s what heavy metal is supposed to be.

Invaders leads the album with a swift boot to the solar plexus, letting you get a feel for the gallop rhythms and fantastic guitar work yet to come. The song has a complexity that seems to step away from NWoBHM contemporaries, and the album drops you into the mix without an overly dramatic intro. Like I said earlier, the bass line has a complexity during the verses that fills the melody much more similarly to what you hear in bop era jazz. And as much as I love a big instrumental intro- The Hellion is guitarmony incarnate- it’s fun to see a band floor it right off the bat.

Children of the Damned has the brooding and ominous intro that is part & parcel of many metal ballads. You can hear similar work in later songs like Afraid to Shoot Strangers. Early verses are very minimal, opting for distortion free finger plucking on the guitars and building, in my mind, the sense that you’ve wandered into the wrong town in Nebraska. No offense to Nebraska. I think that’s where Children of the Corn takes place. The choruses drop into the same heavy riffs that are part & parcel of heavy metal and act as a fantastic bridge to the midpoint tempo change. If this song were a movie, this is the break between act two and three, when the horror movie really turns crazy.

I don’t know how many songs can be built on a television series and do it well. I don’t see Full House getting a heavy metal treatment anytime soon, though hearing like Corpsegrinder yell “Whatever happened to predictability” would be a special treat. And yet Iron Maiden’s “The Prisoner” builds on an exchange from early in the British drama and translates it into a song that sets the feeling of fleeing tormentors. Using quick snare hits and cymbal splashes to set a frantic runner’s pace to the song, you really feel like you’re on the run, killing to eat.

Starting a song with a bible reference is difficult. Especially since the title track for The Number of the Beast came out over 30 years ago and set the bar so high. The lead up to Bruce’s patented falsetto has a bit of an echo, like they’re in a big old creepy temple. Once the scream hits, the song jumps into gear. I’m sure it helps I’ve seen it live and the big fire pots that go off are just amazing as a transitional device as well. Bruce’s scream puts him shoulder to shoulder with the metal gods like Halford, and for him to bring such talent in his debut with Iron Maiden is awesome. Number of the Beast is one of those songs that transcends time. Secret chants were phrased! The guitar work in all of these tracks is fantastic, but I feel like Number of the Beast does a great job of highlighting every member’s immense skill, making it the ideal first track for a budding metalhead.

You don’t expect a band from such a widespread imperial power to write about the horrors of colonization. I mean, I guess you can, but I didn’t really peg heavy metal to be big in social justice when I started listening. Run to the Hills, identifying the struggle of Native Americans against invading British and colonial encroachment, plays the plight of Native Americans in the first half, then the perspective of colonists in the second. Since then they’ve made points against exploitation in action and in song, but it is still interesting to see how broad a well of source material  they have. The intro drums and guitarmonies are fantastic, dropping into their gallop rhythm soon and, again, setting the feel of fight or flight that comes for those facing invading and exploiting hordes. The vocal harmonies in the chorus, coupled with the face melting solo, make for a song that’s solid all the way through.

Number of the Beast, as a whole, manages to set a wide range of feelings in 41 short minutes, showing off the band’s tremendous range as musicians. Delving from frenetic flight or flight emotion to the foreboding fear of execution to the nervousness of losing your v-card to a broad on 22 Acacia Avenue, they hit all the right notes with aplomb. Here’s another way to look at how awesome this album is. 37.5% of Number of the Beast is on most karaoke lists in the US. How many bands outside of like… uh… Katy Perry can make a similar claim?

Key Tracks: All of them (there are only 8)

Favorite Metal Albums – 3 Inches of Blood – Advance and Vanquish

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The first time I heard 3 Inches of Blood, I was hanging out with some friends in college. We called these kids scenesters at the time, but I guess they were a modern equivalent to hipsters. They liked girljeans and were fellas. Anyway, they listened to a lot of hardcore punk and screamo and stuff like Gorilla Biscuits & the lesser known Gayrilla Biscuits. So when they told me they found a band I might like, I was a little hesitant. Then I heard the opening to Deadly Sinners and I realized they were actually being good friends.

Hailing from the frozen tundra of Vancouver, BC, 3 Inches of Blood bring some of the biggest, fastest, and loudest power metal/heavy metal/priest-era metal you can find. Cam Pipes has one of the best names for a metal vocalist, and he delivers high octane and high octave chops that hearken back to the days when metal gods roamed the earth.
And Advance and Vanquish is probably my favorite album out there. Its opening track, Fear on the Bridge, is part of a multi-song epic, Upon the Boiling Sea, and the sound of a cannon being lit and fired is a solid way to drop you into imagery of pirates sinking Spanish brigs and looting their booty. Haha booty lootin.

As great as Fear on the Bridge is, I feel like the true intro track/single is Deadly Sinners. The intro is huge, dropping you into driving drums, dueling guitars and a great growl of “C’mooooooooooon” by original secondary singer Jamie Hooper. Also enemies of metal, your death is our reward. Pipes’ falsetto just ties everything together, setting the tone for an album full of face-melting metal.

The album does merge a bit of hardcore punk with the metal themes that will take hold in future albums. Dominion of Deceit seems to walk the line between the two genres with a deft skill. Though really the guitar harmony and double kick helps reinforce the metal awesomeness of 3 Inches of Blood.

I often refer to how quickly a song can get me going the speed limit on a bicycle. Usually it involves trying to pace the snare hits, since if I go for the bass drum I’ll have a heart attack within a block. Advance and Vanquish regularly gets me pacing and/or passing traffic, like some sort of heavy metal bicycling dbag.

Key tracks: Deadly Sinners, Destroy the Orcs, Wykydtron, Revenge is Vulture

Favorite Metal Albums – Prelude

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Hey so people make all these comprehensive “These are the best things ever” lists and I always take issue with their absolutist stance. That’s why I’m saying these albums are my favorites. Even though they’re really the best metal albums ever.

I chose these albums based on very simple criteria. Can I listen to the album without getting the urge to skip a track. Usually I skip the ballads, so these albums are fast all day everyday, or the ballads are unique. Also, are these albums that I can listen to semi-regularly without getting tired of them. That one is tough, as some great metal albums are a bit older and thus I’ve heard them a hell of a lot more than the more recent albums in the mix.

This list can change, obviously, but these are the albums that I love as of now. For the next couple weeks, I’ll put up a dissertation on each album and why they are the best of the best. So for now just post comments telling me I’m lame.

3 Inches of Blood – Advance And Vanquish
Iron Maiden – Number of the Beast
Metallica – Kill Em All
3 Inches of Blood – Fire Up the Blades
Iron Maiden – Seventh Son of a Seventh Son
Hibria – The Skull Collectors
Dethklok – The Dethalbum

Hey look at that, seven albums. That seems like a solid portent right there.

Google Music Timeline – Interesting Yet Somewhat Misguided

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The other day I caught an article at like Gizmodo or the Verge or something talking about Google’s music timeline. It’s a pretty interesting chart, showing how much of a given year/decade’s zeitgeist was made up of specific musical genres.

Or at least that’s what I thought until I got to the FAQ section for the page. According to our data mining overlords, this table merely represents musical distribution among their users’ Google Play Music accounts. So now if someone has mistagged their music, and then other people also follow suit, you can have Willie Nelson releasing a metal album in the 1960s and it would show up in this dumb thing.

I really hoped this was the result of them mining through periodical information, which is vast, and building out trends based on record sales, news clippings, plus maybe Google Play Music data. In that case, you have some reinforcing of acts, and maybe Jazz doesn’t take up all of the 1950s. Maybe Proto-metal (Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, etc.) has overlaps with rock and blues, as it should.

Instead you have a Sinatra album as a definitive Jazz album. I know people are kind of pickled mush heads, but Sinatra was a big band/standards singer. My grandparents and their friends spent a lot of time imparting that on me.

Their metal chunk is just sad. Granted, I’m not the average person, but having the representative titles be one Zep album and then 90’s/early 2000’s nu-metal is ridiculous. No New Wave of British Heavy Metal at all, no 80’s hair extravaganza bands, hell I’d accept a Def Leppard album in there.

Oh also Less Than Jake is in the Reggae/Ska section. No mention of the Skatalites, the Specials, Desmond Dekker, Toots & the Maytals, or any other important band in the formation of the genre. Further reinforcing that this is less of a musical genre research tool and more of what the average person thinks of for these various genres. And it turns out the average person is misguided.

What’s really unfortunate about this whole tool is that, since people think of Google as the de facto authority on knowledge, at some point this may be used as a reference tool. It paints a very different picture of how music fit into culture, and paints a very limited picture of the genres themselves.

http://research.google.com/bigpicture/music/#

30 Shredders in One Solo

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Yesterday a buddy shared this video with me, of a guitarist playing one solo in the “voice” of 30 different metal/prog guitarists. It’s an hour long, but most of that is the guy explaining the different techniques. But the first few minutes is great on its own. I enjoyed playing it, guessing which each shredder was, then going back and verifying. The only ones I got were Kirk Hammett, Dave Mustaine, and a bit of Randy Rhoads.

Cascadia Cup 2011

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This weekend marked the fifth annual Cascadia Cup in lovely Bellingham, Washington. This year’s theme was Spring Break, which was oddly fitting given that we didn’t get to the Cup until early October. But thankfully we won the weather gods’ favor, and it was phenomenally beautiful the whole weekend.

Location 1 – Fairhaven Park
The past few years have started at Fairhaven park and for good reason. It’s a big, open park, and pretty low traffic, even on a Saturday. The day started off with some mild bike frisbee while we waited for more participants to show up. After it felt like we had a good crew, we started with the games.

Slow Ride (take it easy)

First up was the slow race. Competitors have about 100 yards to bike, and the last person to cross the finish line without putting their foot down, track standing, or riding laterally/backwards, that person is the winner. Not only did we have our regular combatants, but two tandem bicycles showed up for the race. It was a hard fought battle, but Andrew came out the victor. He beat Victor. As winner, he received The Year of Living Biblically, a book from A.J. Jacobs.

Slow Ride 2: The Slowening

Okay so riding slowly is difficult enough. Balancing is rough and falling over is easy. So to up the ante, contestants wore blindfolds for this ride. The tandem riders made a valiant effort, but still fell over after about 10 yards. But they didn’t crash or hurt themselves. Once again, past champion Andrew won, earning itty bitty green glasses.

After some deliberation and sitting around, we headed to…

Boulevard Park

This was the first year hitting up Boulevard. It’s usually pretty nuts there but we won out with it being early October. There was a big pile of grass available for one fun Spring Breaky race.

Wet T-Shirt Contest

Wet t-shirt contests are a staple of spring break, so it got slightly tweaked for Cascadia’s unique slant. Teams of three relayed a t-shirt they dunked in a bucket, then wrung out into a cup. It was like some sort of Double Dare physical challenge but with hipsters and space suits. So completely fantastic! And again, Andrew’s team won. They got water wings. It was epic. There was a second run of the race, but things kind of fell apart, mostly because the destination cups were disappearing.

And with that event we hopped back on our bikes to the next destination.

The Hub

The Hub was a hangout/snack break, with performances from a few of our hosts. I got distracted by a few people, but it sounded like there was a demonstration on applying three tablespoons of sunblock to a cardboard lady. It was fancy.

So with full bellies, we rolled out to…

That funky ass trucker training area on Cornwall that smells like a hobo’s butt

Yeah, it was stank. But it was a big slab of asphalt so the next few rounds worked out. Also it smelled bad. And some weird dude in a white truck eyeballed us for a while.

Foot Down

Foot down is yet another fun and difficult balance bike event. This time you have a set area in which you can bike, that slowly constricts with time, as you ride, you have to slow down, but you can’t put your foot down. There was a practice and a regulation match and I can’t remember which one counted but I know some kids got Play-Doh. And now I feel like a jerk for not remembering names.

Musical Bikes

This is like aggro foot-down in that you still have to stay on your bike, but you have to stop when the music stops. This one is a lot tougher since you’re at the mercy of Shawn, the master of music. I am pretty sure Jen, a former Cascadia Cup champ, won.

23 Skidoo (Skid battle)

23 Skidoo is the first dangerous event of the day. Judges and supervisors drop a plastic paint lid on a starting position, and competitors ride up, and jam on their rear brake as their rear wheel lands on the lid. The rear wheel locks up and you get a solid skid, dragging the lid with you. Competitors are judged on distance, style, and grace. And then people fall over. It was fun, only a couple people ate it hard. I tried to post pictures.

Once that was done, I had to haul home to clear our my camera’s memory card. And then it was off to:

Cornwall Park

We were starting to run out of daylight, and clouds were rolling in, but by now everyone didn’t really mind. Oh and there were mosquitoes to really drive home the Spring Break feel.

Panty Race

This one has few pictures, because I didn’t want to get kicked off the Flickr. Teams of two line up on opposite sides of a field. They bike past each other, strip down to their undies, bike back, put on their teammates’ clothes, then bike to the middle for a high five. Victor’s team won, and so they got remarkably loose nightgowns as victors. Victor was the Victor. Can’t go wrong with that.

Clown Bike – Version 2

There are two sources of injuries at Cascadia Cup: Clown Bike and Bike Tag. Clown Bike mostly because you try to cram all your friends on a bmx bike and roll down a hill. What that means is you and 7 friends get concussions falling off a bike. It’s fun, but we’re getting old, so we had to adjust it. This year Clown Bike was a two person per bike slalom and seemed a lot less dangerous but still pretty dangerous. And again, I can’t remember who won. If you kids remember, post that ish up on here and I’ll update the post.

Bike Tag

This is where things get difficult for crowning a victor. Bike tag involves three ribbons on a competitor, one on each handlebar, one on your saddle. There are two winners, the one who caught the most ribbons, and the one who lasts the longest. We ended up with a pretty solid injury here, which was really unfortunate. One of the contestants got headbutted and split their eyebrow open, and then had to hit up the hospital for potential stitches. The first year personal safety was emphasized was the first year someone had to go to the hospital. It was a bummer.

PIÑATA

Okay so I couldn’t get pictures of this really at all. It was wicked dark out. A car shaped piñata was ready for destruction, and competitors got to bike past and try to tag it with a broom handle. It was fun to watch, and there were plenty of prizes.

Once the dust settled and the points were totaled, it was time to announce the champion. This year’s Cascadia Cup champ was Andrew, the winner of the first year’s Cup. It was a great day to bike and an even better time to hang out with new friends.

Cascadia Cup 2011 – A Flickr Set (I’m working on getting the Flickr WordPress plugin working, eventually there will be pictures here)

[flickr-gallery mode="photoset" photoset="72157627855488046"]

Red Fang – Wires

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There’s a new music video from stoner metal masters Red Fang, for their song Wires. It’s pretty awesome to see what kind of stuff these guys come up with for videos. Prehistoric Dog was amazing, and Wires just keeps it up. It’s up on Monster’s website and doesn’t have an embed link so give it a view. Red Fang – Wires Video. And while I’ve got you here, check out Prehistoric Dog.