Counting down the best Heavy Metal and Movie Soundtrack music of 2009

Now that 2009 is quickly becoming a fleeting memory, all the major media outlets are scrambling to remind the public of what it SHOULD be remembering as the best and worst of the year. Nine times out of ten, these lists are ham-fisted, shameless plugs for that which was the most popular, what is most likely to win awards, with smatterings of unknown indie releases simply to prove that the “experts” aren’t the nose-upturned snobs we know they are.

Whatever happened to culling lists because they were fun? Why not make a list of things that you genuinely like, without any kind of ulterior (or advertising-linked) motive? Ham-fisted concoctions like those you see in mainstream magazines only continue to act as ego-stroking that spoon-feeds us until we become so reliant on those “experts” to tell us what is “good” and what is not. And we ultimately forget that the “experts” are merely people with opinions…just like us.

This is why I agonize over making “best of” lists, because it only serves to express my own personal opinion. If you read any list you find online, you will undoubtedly see a string of comments of both praise and complaint – praising the writer for including some of the reader’s favorites (which was actually a coincidence), or chastising the writer for “forgetting” to include certain things or flat-out telling him/her that he/she is wrong in his/her choices and rankings.

So, with all of that weighty nonsense in mind, I have decided to offer up, to help close out the year properly, a list of 20 heavy metal and movie soundtrack/score albums (respectively) that I felt were great – be they fun, sophisticated, throat-crushing, or just straight-up earworm-y. If you don’t agree with the choices, I applaud you for not being a clone of me.

Read my Examiner feature on the best Movie Soundtracks of 2009 here!

And check out my Examiner feature on the best Heavy Metal releases of 2009 here!


Jolly day!

The new TESTAMENT! My chat with Pomo Indian and heavy metal legend, Chuck Billy!

Testament is a band that truly needs no introduction. Since the mid-1980s, the Bay Area quintet has been the unyielding flag-bearer for highly-skilled, innovative and monstrously heavy thrash metal. With a catalogue featuring ten studio albums (including the 2001 collection of re-recordings, First Strike, Still Deadly), five live albums, a string of DVDs and a host of “best of” collections, it is impossible to deny the legacy of the band.

In early 2010, Testament is hitting the road with metal titans Megadeth and Slayer for what has been dubbed The American Carnage Tour. Before heading out, we managed to score some time with Testament’s imposing front man, the charismatic Chuck Billy. Read on, as we discuss the excitement of the tour, the importance of loyalty, and the value of family. [Feature can be found here!]

Discussing the ongoing relevance of PANTERA with Revolver Magazine's Jon Wiederhorn

It has been five years since the tragic passing of Pantera guitarist and chief songwriter Darrell Abbott AKA Dimebag Darrell. Every year since his death, metal and guitar-centric magazines pay tribute to his life and accomplishments with old interview clips, new interviews with surviving members of Pantera, and even anecdotes from fans.

This year, however, Revolver Magazine has taken things a step further and devoted an entire section of its latest issue to discussing the magical, perfect storm that went into the creation of Pantera’s 1992 breakthrough album, Vulgar Display of Power. Spearheaded by senior writer Jon Wiederhorn (whose additional credits include talent coordinator and panelist for AOL Noisecreep's "Creep Show' Podcast, Noisecreep writer, freelancer for Inked and Guitar World, former editor in chief of MTV's Headbanger's Ball Blog, and ex- associate editor at Rolling Stone), the magazine painstakingly compiled new interviews with everyone imaginable who had anything to do with the inception of the album to paint a living memorial to one of heavy metal’s iconic guitar personalities.

Read on as we sit down with Wiederhorn and discuss what it was that made Dimebag and Pantera such revolutionary entities. [Feature can be found here!]

My 'Dethly Encounter with yet another awesome musician

As you know by know, I've been using this blog to share my run-ins (mostly intentional, and unfortunately, not in-person but via phone) with some of my favorite musicians.

This time, I'd like to share with you a bit of a Cinderella story of sorts. Once upon a time there was an incredibly creative power/thrash metal band from Colorado called Jag Panzer. The band made some great albums, my favorite being the MacBeth-imbued conceptual piece, Thane to the Throne. Jag Panzer contained an amazing array of gifted musicians, and one that shined just a bit more brightly than his peers - led guitarist Chris Broderick.

The guy's work was just insane, and if you have ever gotten a chance to see the band's official DVD, The Era of Kings and Conflict, you may have seen a glimpse of Broderick' spiderlike phalanges. Fast-forward a few years, and we find CB in the court of King Mustaine and his motley band of thrashoholics. Megadeth's new album, Endgame, will be the first studio album on which Broderick's has appeared since 2004!!!

Anywho, check the link HERE for my exclusive interview with Chris.

I truly hope you all enjoy it!

You guys deal with Michael Jackson, I'll concern myself with Midnight

With so many celebrity deaths bombarding the public conscience over the past couple weeks, one would think that the wave had finally ended. But just this morning, I awoke to find the following blog entry from legendary progressive/power metal band Crimson Glory in my email bin:

"On July 8, 2009, founding member and original frontman Midnight passed away at 3:30am surrounded by his family. The band is deeply saddened by the passing of their friend and brother. An official statement will be forthcoming later today or tomorrow."

Those three little sentences shook me to the core; not only because I am a fan of CG and Midnight’s later work, but because I had also been recently emailing back and forth with the man about conducting an interview to be featured here at Examiner. I’m having a REALLY difficult time writing this, because I now have to discuss one of metal’s unspoken great singers in the past tense.

I've done a rather extensive eulogy/tribute to Midnight, and felt it more appropriate to place it in a public forum, so even people who were not aware of him can now get at least a glimpse of his creativity here.

RIGOR MORTIS Is Setting In! Texas' Beloved Thrash Metal Band Is Back!!!

As excited as I was to do the Iron Maiden interview, I was even more stoked to sit down with three of the four founding members of Texas' Rigor Mortis. As an adolescent, I thought the band was among the better thrash bands of the era, largely because of guitarist Mike Scaccia's unique picking technique. Unfortunately, the masses didn't really pick up on it until he left the band to join Ministry.

But regardless of all that, I had a great time with Casey Orr, Bruce Corbitt, and Harden Harrison.

Here's a taste of all the formaldehyde-y goodness:

Is Scaccia still as fast as he used to be? How did his guitar style develop? Was it originally an accident, a joke, or was it something that he really worked at? I don’t think the term “speed metal” has any relevancy without Scaccia’s work on those Rigor Mortis albums.

CASEY: Mike’s a mother***er, ain’t he? Yeah, I’d say he’s every bit as fast as he ever was. He’s a freak of nature. He doesn’t play the guitar; it just bends to his will! I used to say that trying to keep up with him felt like running down a steep set of stairs too fast, knowing you’re going to trip and end up at the bottom in a broken heap!

BRUCE: I met him when he was 16 and he was already able to do that unique picking style at that time. He told me back then that after he first started playing guitar, that for some reason he was just always able to do that. So it was just something he tried, and it came natural for him. People have said his picking style is sort of like a bumble bee. He is just as fast as he used to be, maybe just a slight adjustment with how he does it as he gets older.

HARDEN: Yeah, he’s fast as ever. It’s an inborn nervous twitch type of thing, but he also worked very hard at mastering the guitar and practiced more than anyone I’ve ever known...or even heard of.

Read the whole massive monstrosity here!

Put them in the IRON MAIDEN! Excellent!!!!

As excited as I was to do the Gary Hoey interview, I was even MORE chuffed to get an opportunity to speak with a member of the band that almost wholly inspired me to pick up a musical instrument, IRON MAIDEN. Last week, I had a great phone conversation with drummer Nicko McBrain. And although the conversation was cut short, due to a restrictive schedule, I managed to get some great stuff out of him.

Here's a teaser:

Iron Maiden is a band that needs no introduction. The band’s name is legendary, and their concerts border on religious experiences. This week, the Flight 666 documentary movie hits stores (and recurrent airplay on VH1 television). Through the film, we see these legends as men – jovial, emotional, and philosophical. But rarely, do we ever get the opportunity to interact with these fables of the flesh.

Examiner was fortunate enough to be able to spend some time with the jolliest of all these hallowed beings, drummer Nicko McBrain to discuss some of the background and internal nuances of the movie. Read on, as we talk with Nicko about Flight 666, the dangers of golf, pizza etiquette, and Anvil!

Was there an extensive group discussion about participating in this movie, or was it an executive decision from Rod Smallwood [manager] saying that you had to do it?

No, no, no, Lord almighty. There were many, many discussions. It kicked off one night after a show in Europe. We were talking amongst the band – we do talk to each other, contrary to popular belief. Bruce came up with the idea about getting our own jet airliner and touring around the world.

We discussed the places we’ve never been to, places we wanted to go to, how much money it costs to tour these places, and how cost-prohibitive these places were. And Bruce said, “Well, we’ll have our own magic carpet!” Then we started thinking that that might be a great idea; we could get a 747! And Bruce said that he was thinking more along the lines of a 757, because he wasn’t rated for the 747. Then we pitched it to Rod, and discussed the logistics of where we wanted to go. And originally, the idea for taking the 757 was so we could take all our gear, have Bruce pilot it, and bring all of our family along. Then someone said, “Well, we have to take all the journalists of the world with us, too, because this is an historic event!”

“Hhhhhmmmm,” said Rod, “why don’t we document this here bloody trip. It is historic, after all. Nobody’s ever done this before - customize a 757 and whatnot. Even better, we should have a documentary crew 24/7 for the duration of the tour!” Boy, that’s when it went down like a fountain in a 2-man submarine, believe me. There was a bit of rumbling, a bit of grumbling, some trepidation…my lord, trepidation! So yeah, it wasn’t a matter of “yeah, let’s all do it.”

Read the whole interview here!

Seeing Red: An interview with Russian folk metal band KALEVALA!

I recently did an interview with the Russian folk metal band KALEVALA for my gig at Examiner.com. I don't normally plug my other stuff here, but I think this band really needs to get noticed. Here is my lead-in to help get you in the mood:

It may seem an obvious notion, but MySpace truly does offer a world of music at one’s fingertips. Anyone can log on and search for new music by style, looking through Top Friends of other bands, or simply wait for those pesky Friend Requests to pile up in one’s in-box. Many bands abuse this capability and use MySpace simply as press release fodder (like having x-amount of MySpace friends means anything to the industry). However, there are those honest bands who use the tools simply to promote their music and put it out there for anyone to enjoy.

It was here that I stumbled upon a genre of music that I previously was unaware of, that of Russian folk metal. About a month ago, I received a Friend Request from the Moscow-based band Kalevala, most likely due my “Friendship” with bands like Korpiklaani and Moonsorrow. But rather than delete this message, I became curious, largely due to the name; why would a Russian band name itself after a collection of Finnish folklore? So I went to the page and checked them out. A week later, I had the CD, courtesy of Napalm Records European mail order (it is not available stateside, unfortunately).

I was enthralled with the music so much, I decided to research music in the area and was surprised to find an entire scene of great folk music in the Russian vicinity; bands like Tenochtitlan, Arkona, Pagan Reign and several others, some of whom have been releasing music for ten years. Until this point, my only exposure to Russian hard rock / metal was limited to Autograph and Gorky Park. Unfortunately, this phenomenon was not covered in Sam Dunn’s documentary Global Metal, and shame on him for overlooking it. Regardless, my eyes have been opened to a new wellspring of fantastic music, and all started because of a band called Kalevala.

You can read the interview here!

Thanks for checking it out!