RIP Oderus Urungus

Everyone has those random sleepless nights; you're just not tired for some reason. Last night was one of those nights for me. Despite being in my warm, cozy bed, I wasn't tired at all. So while rotating between reddit, twitter, and my rss feed with Marduk playing in the background, one of my fellow twitter buddies retweeted that dreaded blabbermouth post that you may have seen. This was about 11pm PST or something like that, it was around midnight at least. Blabbermouth did an excellent job of not jumping to any conclusions by carefully wording their article using terms such as "sources claim" and "reportedly" and other indefinite words, obviously in hopes that this was all just some sort of sick hoax or stupid rumor. I was part of the crowd that wanted to hear/see more evidence before having a meltdown. 

Then I started to notice high-profile people tweeting "RIP" related stuff. Earache Records, Relapse, Dez Fafara, Broken Hope, and a few other twitter accounts belonging to musicians/labels/etc. were all saying "RIP Dave". Well shit, if this was all a hoax, why would so many people be setting themselves up for embarrassment by falling for a stupid rumor? Dez said one of the members called him and told him...okay....then I went to Instagram and, not even 3 minutes before that, Randy Blythe made the post you've probably all seen by now. 1. I know he is personal friends with the entire band. 2. He would NOT take the time to write such a deep and touching post about this if it wasn't a hoax. I heard on facebook people such as his family and girlfriend were confirming it. There was just too much evidence supporting the reality of this and next to no evidence that it was a rumor. Dave was active on twitter, but all day yesterday, his account was pretty silent, which was all the more I needed to believe it without an official statement from the band (in this case, it was their manager). 

GWAR in general is one of the most notable and best bands to exist. And anyone that has seen them live can agree that there is not a SINGLE show on this Earth that can ever come close to a GWAR show. It's a one-of-a-kind, once in a lifetime experience that is truly unforgettable. I saw GWAR once, it was in 2011 with Every Time I Die and Warbeast. I'm not a fan of Every Time I Die at all, and Warbeast is alright, but GWAR put on one of the SINGLE best live shows I have EVER experienced in my life. Everything from the theatrics to the Dillinger Escape Plan-worthy craziness of the crowd, it was one of the best nights of my life. Because it was at the Showbox SoDo, there was a barricade in front of the stage, so one of the two times I crowdsurfed to the front, once I was on my feet on the other side of the barricade, just as I was about to run off to the side, Oderus and I made eye contact for a split second. This followed with him spraying my face with...whatever the hell it was (I'm pretty sure it's not fake blood, it tasted weird though) until my hair and face were soaked. I almost puked due to it being at the same time as I was trying to catch my breath. 

Man, that was fun! I'm glad he was around! He did a lot of crazy shit and was one of the single best, most creative, and most humble musicians ever. Not to mention his songwriting. Unpopular opinion: GWAR's most recent album is my favorite, one of the best of 2013. Really wish I could have seen them again, but that one show is enough for me to never forget. Rest in Peace Dave. 

Mari Leaving Eluveitie

It really bothers me how few zines and sites are bothering to even mention the departure of Eluveitie violinist/vocalist Meri Tadic. Also, why the hell would she leave a band that she had such a key role in? Considering the unique vocal contributions she's made on Helvetios and Everything Remains, I can't imagine it being easy at all to find a replacement. After missing them numerous times, I finally got to see them live at the end of 2012 when they headlined a very successful tour with Wintersun (their first ever tour of the states) and Varg (the German band, not the Norsk guy), where they played their (at the time) new album, Helvetios, all the way through....and then playing two or three of their really famous songs from previous records (I was upset they didn't play Thousandfold, which surprised me). But the one thing I noticed about their performance was the amount of focus that was put on Meri Tadic.

If you've listened to the album, you know what I'm talking about when I say that she was a big part of the album's sound. Because these folk metal bands like to have these drawn-out, atmospheric interludes during their performance, Eluveitie pretty much had Meri lead all of them. During every interlude or whatever you want to call them (there were several all throughout their set, one of them had to be AT LEAST five minutes long), the whole band would exit the stage (sometimes the guy with the beard playing the bagpipes would stay) except for Meri. All of the lights would go out except for the ones pointed at the spot where she was standing. And during these interludes, she would just stand there and belt out these ridiculous and amazing celtic-style melodies and chants. It was one of the most unforgettable things I've ever seen at a metal show.

So now that her role in the band has become much more important and unique.......she just leaves?? Her reason for leaving must have been very, very big and made her really feel cornered. I know that neither Meri or the band explicitly stated the actual reason for her leaving, but when you look at how much those fuckers tour, it seems like a very possible reason for someone to feel forced to leave. A lot of members quietly leave bands (it was hard to do that with Eluveitie considering how famous they are) due to tour exhaustion. A lot of members of Soilwork ended up leaving purely because they physically couldn't handle the amount of touring that they had to do (that band tours A LOT by the way). So I can't think of any other reason she would choose to leave other than tour exhaustion.

In case you don't know what I mean, I have included two tour shirts. The first one is the Everything Remains World Tour shirt, which has every concert from 1/11/2010-1/23/2012....that's over two years of straight touring...and then the Helvetios World Tour (second shirt) starts not even a week after the Everything Remains Tour ENDS. So that's not even a break! The only reason they're two different tours is because a new album was released! The shirt actually only shows the first half of the Helvetios World Tour 1/27/2012-10/21/2012). But actually, the tour continues on until the final date in their home country on 9/28/2013.

So the Everything Remains World Tour goes from 1/11/2010-1/23/2012 and the Helvetios World Tour goes from 1/27/2012-9/28/2013. During that time, the band never took a break lasting more than 1.5 weeks, with the exception of four separate 1 month-long breaks. I don't really consider 1-2 weeks off from touring as time off from touring in the case of Eluveitie because someone that tours as much as them is going to require more than a week to recover and recharge. So basically, with the exception of those 4 breaks, Eluveitie have been touring constantly from January 2010-September 2013. Um...that's drawing pretty damn close to FOUR YEARS of straight touring. Look at me and tell me that you wouldn't feel tired after that.

Reasons aside, Mari was a very big part of Eluveitie and will be missed dearly by a lot of people, myself included. I didn't know she released a solo album, so I'm going to be checking that out in a few days. I also plan on posting a few reviews before the end of the year since fall quarter just ended. 

+Crinn

Where am I?

Where have I been for the past month?? I have been getting all of my school shit done so that I can graduate high school next week on June 7th!! Rest assured, I have still been very active on listening to music, jamming new shit by Ghost, Suffocation, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Napalm Death, Queens of the Stone Age, Dark Tranquillity, Boris, and many others. I've been to a ton of shows lately including Boris (the Japanese drone/progressive rock trio with the chick guitarist), The Decibel Magazine Tour which is probably the most brutal and insane tour of 2013 (sorry Summer Slaughter, you failed on the brutality factor this time) with Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death, Immolation, and Cretin...Kvelertak with Cancer Bats, Black Tusk, and Crop, and maybe one or two other shows. This summer, I have already got my tickets for The Summer Slaughter Tour and, yes, Black Sabbath!

Once graduation is over and I've found a job, I will be reviewing like mad. Yes, some of the "new" albums I will be reviewing will not be as new as they were before (duh), so you can just suck it if that bothers you. Other than that, I'm excited to be getting back into writing and will be posting a review of my favorite search engine which has majorly revamped their site and given it a complete makeover. In other words, it's a lot better and I will be discussing that and providing super-awesome screenshots.

LTH: Monthly Black Metal Column

Salutations readers! For those of you that don't already know, I'm a writer for the new heavy metal webzine Louder Than Hell. Although I do write album reviews, I also have been conducting band interviews which have included Horseback, Gloryhammer, Dying Fetus, and most recently, the mighty Exhumed! As well as that, the awesome guys that run the site have given me the unique privilege of having my own monthly column. The column, titled "Within the Abyss", is about all things black metal. In each post, I may write about a specific era in black metal, a certain black metal subgenre, a particular country's black metal scene, or even a specific band in the genre. If you've been reading my reviews for awhile now, you will strongly recognize my writing style and my way of explaining shit. The first post in this series was just posted a couple days ago and can be read by clicking the link below (if the link does not work, you can simply copy the address and paste it into your browser's address bar):

http://louderthanhell.net/bands/united-states/column/news/2013/04/12/173657/within-the-abyss-black-metal-history/

On another note, as I mentioned before, I got to interview one of my favorite bands, Exhumed, last Saturday when they played with Psychonaut Deathtrip, Lord of War, Admirion, Rings of Saturn, Jungle Rot, and Suffocation. I will have that and a written report on the show with some photos up on Louder Than Hell very soon.

If you don't give a crap about what I have to say about black metal, you can click the Louder Than Hell link in the right-hand column under the "Partners in Crime" section to visit the site.

Android App

Ok, the Blogger app for Android is officially AWESOME!! The UI is much better and yeah..now I can be one of those uber blogger nerds! Will I be making mobile posts regularly? Probably not. I'll be posting an "Upcoming Reviews" post tomorrow to help me get started on writing since I haven't done it in a while.

Update

I've started to get emails asking if I'm putting my blogging on hold or if I'm now inactive. Why haven't I been posting like mad lately? It's a little thing called High School and wanting to GRADUATE. Hopefully, when winter break starts next week, I won't be so fucking busy and I'll actually have time to write. Like everyone else, I will be posting a "Top albums of 2012" list towards the end of the month. The list will be longer than other years because this is probably one of the best years the metal genre has ever seen.

New Partner in Crime: Louder Than Hell

This is actually pretty big. I was recruited to be a part of the team for Louder Than Hell, which seems to basically be a heavy metal webzine with other stuff. I'm going to be writing reviews, interviews, live reports, editorials, and just about anything having to do with black metal. The website will be officially launched for public view sometime in January. I will be adding them to the list of "Partners in Crime" in the right-hand column so that you can go to the site whenever you want. For now, click the link below to view the website "teaser".

http://www.louderthanhell.net/

Upcoming Reviews

Finally, now that I've gotten all of these big school projects out of the way, I have much more time to spend on writing. As well as that, with all of these Thanksgiving and winter breaks happening, I'll have even MORE time to do what I love to do. So here's a list of stuff that I would like to review during that time:

Diskreet (technical death)
Soreption (technical death)
For Today (metalcore)
Ensiferum (folk metal)
Swallow the Sun (melodic death)
Goatwhore (thrash black)
Destruction (thrash metal)
Absvrdist (grindcore)
Putridity (brutal death)
Wedard (depressive black metal)
Enthroned (black metal)
Mayan (progressive death)
As I Lay Dying (metalcore)
Insomnium (melodic death)
Final Thoughts (depressive black metal)
Bilskirnir (depressive black metal)
Beherit (black metal)
Thunderbolt (black metal)
Suicidal Euphoria (depressive black metal)

Google+

I feel like I'm being forced to give-in to this online social networking thing more and more each day. I just created a Google+ account and hooked it up to my blog. So if you're one of the 3 or so people that are actually on Google+ you should "follow" me or whatever you guys like to do. First Twitter, now this..damn...oh, I also have a big surprise for you guys starting in early January ;) so stay tuned. Once I'm on winter break, I'm going to start posting a shitload of more album reviews (goddamnit school). After that, I'm going to do what all of the other webzines/bloggers are doing out there and put together my personal "best albums of 2012" list. I can tell you already, I've known that the #1 album was going to be #1 when I listened to it for the first time.

Music Banter

Those of you that either know me in person or have had extensive 1-on-1 conversations with me know that I'm a big fan of online public forums. Of course, I'm NOT a fan of forums where everyone including the administrators beat you down to a pulp in response to everything you post..those ones are just annoying and not worth my time. I'm a member of plenty of forums including Spirit of Metal, Metal Injection, and others. The most recent one that I just signed up for today and am taking a personal liking to is Music Banter (if you can't see very well, if you click on those two words, it'll take you to the site). Unlike most of the forums I'm a member of, this is not a metal-oriented forum; it's about ALL music as well as metal. Come to find that there aren't any asshole metal elitists on here and that there ARE, in fact, metalheads and music fans alike that actually know shit about what they listen to. Anyway, you can find me there under the pseudonym that I have on just about every site I'm on. Contact me, chat, and yeah. Since it's already bedtime for everyone east of me, I'm expecting to actually get responses to the posts I made and the threads I created on there. See ya there. More reviews to come.

Peace.

Twitter!

Since I'm rarely on Facebook since I hate it, follow me on TWITTER, why? Because I'm actually on it a lot and you can talk to me (personally) AAND watch me rant about random shit at the same time!! I'm going to be adding a widget on the right column where you can follow my profile pretty soon. More reviews on the way.

Eluveitie/Wintersun Tour

WINTERSUN IS COMING!! WINTERSUN IS COMING!! WINTERSUN IS MOTHER FUCKING COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As much as Eluveitie loves touring, I actually have yet to see them...until December 2nd!! Honestly, I'm surprised that Wintersun isn't going on their own headlining USA tour. But what the hell, they'll still be there. I don't know much about Varg. Soooo just like the show I saw last night (Morbid Angel, Dark Funeral, Grave), I have seen NONE of these bands live before.

New Partner in Crime

Announcement:
I will now be working as one of the reviewers for the metal webzine Teeth of the Divine! Here's the thing: when I write reviews for them, I can't post the whole review on here like I do with other sites, I will be posting a clip from the review followed by a link to the full review on the Teeth of the Divine website. So far, the people on there seem to not be total assholes and know what they're talking about.
You can find their website by clicking on their link in the right-hand column under "Partners in Crime".

New Partner in Crime: Fearless Records

Looks like I have a new "partner in crime". I have just joined the street team of the awesome record label Fearless Records. They have a wide variety of genres on their repitoire including pop punk, screamo, metalcore, and rock. Some of their most notable bands (some of which I've written reviews on) include Alesana, The Word Alive, Every Avenue, blessthefall, A Skylit Drive, and Go Radio.

New Music

I always think of myself as being on-track with almost all of the legendary and/or amazing extreme metal bands out there. Well, there are two bands that I've heard about WAY too much, and I literally JUST got them three days ago and HOLY SHIT! WHY DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG TO GET AROUND TO LISTENING TO THESE BANDS!!! The first one is the Canadian technical death band Neuraxis, and the second one is the ultimate legendary brutal death group Disgorge from the USA. Expect plenty of positive reviews on both of these bands in the future!!

Vacation Notice

I'm leaving to go camping somewhere in the Olympic National Forest or whatever it's called until the 21st. Also, I won't be here at all on the 22nd because that's Summer Slaughter (yay!). So I won't be making any new posts until about the 24th or so.

Please refer back to the most recent "upcoming reviews" post for any info on upcoming reviews. I will make a quick note on some new music I have obtained over the past few weeks. I've been getting into sludge metal (not Black Label Society OR Down), especially atmospheric sludge. I was introduced to the hardcore punk band Trash Talk whom I LOVE now. I got the newest releases by Tankard, Bonded by Blood, Abandon all Ships, and Taproot as well as a CD by the legendary Sarcofago.

I'm currently working on a We Came as Romans album review and will hopefully finish it by the end of today if I'm not too tired.

Vacation thing

Hey guys,
I think I should mention that I will be leaving on vacation for about a week or so this Sunday. And obviously, I'm going to a place in Canada where there will be no internet and no phone (I doubt that there will be any fucking computers for that matter...). So yeah, I will try to post a shitload of reviews this week so that you can have something to keep you busy when your friends are all at work and you're stuck at home. Or, you could just go outside and enjoy the nice weather like I will be doing, as well as possibly putting some color on my neon-white skin (I live in western Washington, guys, we only get about two or three months of sun). Soooo yeah...just thought I'd let y'all know. Any emails or comments will not be read until I am back.

+Crinn.

New Pathology! New Pathology!!!!!!

The amazing cover of the new Pathology record has been released, along with the album's release date (late september). Being done by the same artist (Par Olofsson), it looks like the thing the guy is standing on is the tail of the worm thing on the cover of Spawn of Possession's Incurso. Considering the fact that I've already reviewed all of Pathology's other albums, it should be obvious that I will in fact be eagerly reviewing this album. On another note, I apologize for the late postings of some of the new album reviews (Nile, Periphery, Relics of Humanity, etc.) because I STILL haven't received my copies in the mail yet (hopefully that will happen today along with that shirt I got last month). BUT, of course, since I have no patience whatsoever when it comes to Nile, I downloaded a high-quality torrent of their new album. But, I don't feel guilty about it because I already pre-ordered the damn thing. So I will most likely be posting a review on the new Nile album today. Click the image for the full size:

Upcoming Reviews

That's right, MORE REVIEWS ON THE WAY!!! Here are the one's I've been eager to write about:

Pathology (brutal death)
Job for a Cowboy (death metal)
The Agonist (melodic death)
Loculus (brutal death)
Vomit the Soul (brutal death)
Putridity (brutal death)
Marduk (black metal)
Aborted (brutal death)
Abominable Putridity (brutal death)
Forgive Me (depressive black metal)
Chelsea Grin (deathcore)
Kings of the City (rap/rock)
Overkill (thrash metal)

Band Wallpaper Regular Updates

Hi, if you've been a follower of my site, you know that at the beginning of each week and/or weekend, I do an "Upcoming Reviews" post. Now, I will post periodic updates on the best and most recent band wallpapers that I've made. I've started to have bands come to me and ask me to "make" artwork for them, so I'm going to start making this band wallpaper hobby more of a thing. Of course, since I RARELY actually MAKE the artwork and the logos, I always do it for free (so that means ANYONE can request that I make a wallpaper for ANY BAND!)....p.s: THE REVIEW WRITING WILL NOT CEASE TO EXIST! THE INSTANT SCHOOL ENDS, I WILL START WRITING AGAIN!