The Devil's Demons

We’re at Oktoberfest!

Price — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 11:00:48 +0000

Vincent and I are in Munich for the 3rd of 3 nights of insane boozing at the biggest excuse in history to get shitfaced, Oktoberfest. We are drinking our faces off, singing awful songs, like so:

Also, there are lots of boobs at Oktoberfest. Seriously, just Google image search Oktoberfest.

Here’s a nice list of the best boobs in horror movie history.

Zombiecon 2011 (NYC)

Price — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:00:08 +0000

Apologies for being so NYC centric on this blog. But then again, it’s not my fault you don’t live in the greatest and most evil city in the world!

Time to start the flurry of Halloween events happening. October can’t get here soon enough.

The annual Zombiecon NYC will be upon us soon. Get your makeup ready and practice your foot-dragging.

Morbid Angel Have Advanced

Vincent — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:01:45 +0000

There is a theory discussed in certain critical circles concerning “advancement.” Specifically the advancement of geniuses. The full title of this theory is Advanced Genius Theory, and it was developed by Jason Hartley, Britt Bergman, and a few other friends (along with contributions from the always entertaining Chuck Klosterman). The crux of the idea is that if an artist has established him or herself as a genius though his or her oeuvre over many years, then suddenly becomes “kooky,” “out of touch,” and “loses it,” what has actually happened is that the artist has advanced past the audience’s understanding. To quote Bergman:

“It … comes down to [the point that] there’s a certain level of genius that is so great that it should always be trusted, no matter what the appearance is.”

The typical example used when discussing advancement is Lou Reed. This is a metal site so I won’t spend time justifying Lou Reed’s career or artistic contributions. However, certain recent decisions could easily be applied to further establish the case for his advancement.

Berman sums up Bob Dylan’s late stage advancement and the impact it had upon his fans thusly:

“Eventually he (Dylan) didn’t want to obscure himself anymore, and that’s what the advanced do. That’s why it’s so scary, when all of a sudden they’re not catering to their fans, it’s really disappointing to the fans because they’ve come to connect with the artist. When the artist themselves breaks the connection, its doubly painful.”

For the uninitiated, there are 5 basic tenets for establishing eligibility for Advancement (from Wikipedia):

You must have done great work for more than 15 years.

You must have alienated your original fans.

You must be completely unironic.

You must be unpredictable.

You must “lose it”. Spectacularly.

which brings us to Morbid Angel…

Up until 2 months ago, few artists associated with death metal had enjoyed such universal critical and popular acclaim. Simply wearing a Morbid Angel shirt indicated that you knew what you were talking about when it came to important, credible, seminal death metal. There is no arguing that the first four Morbid Angel albums are genre defining metal masterpieces. Each of the first four: Altars of Madness, Blessed are the Sick, Covenant, and Domination are consistently heavy and brutal, complex and beautiful, and most importantly, each one was a game changer. Each album is completely different from its predecessor. Their following two albums: Formulas Fatal to the Flesh and Gateways to Annihilation, while lacking the significance of their forebears, are punishing and crushing in ways that bands 11 years later are still mimicking. Heretic, the final album before the return of David Vincent, is undoubtedly the weakest of their catalog, yet it is still great.

Upon the realease of Illud Divinum Insanus, the general consensus was that they’d completely lost it. Among the thousands of complaints was that there were too many “hard techno” influences, that there was too much “nu metal” influence, that they’d fallen flat on their face, that the album was total shit. There were two popularly held opinions that evoked the majority of hatred:

That there were 4 traditional death metal songs on the album lumped in with 7 other songs containing questionable stylistic influences (hard techno, nu metal, pop-metal, industrial), as well as drum machines, crowd choruses, spanish verses, latin verses, and chanting.

and

That some of the previously mentioned other songs had ridiculous, cringe-inducing titles such as “Too Extreme!”, “Destructos Vs. the Earth / Attack”, and “Radikult.”

Let us first consider why some listeners found the other (meaning the 7 previously mentioned other songs) songs themselves so bad. Is it because “Too Extreme!” and “Radikult” reminded them of music that they may have listened to and enjoyed in 1997? I suspect that it is. If you were listening to heavy metal in 1997 and enjoying it, I assure you it wasn’t to Skeletonwitch or Doomriders, it was to many bands that we today find embarrassing and only admit to having enjoyed in private company. Morbid Angel does not give a fuck, nor have they ever. Your emotional baggage from having been a Coal Chamber fan is of no relevance or importance to their art. Consider that Morbid Angel released their slowest, grooviest, most grinding album (Domination) just when everyone expected them to release their fastest. That album is today considered by many to be their best. The segue from the songs “Domination” to “Where the Slime Live” is monumental and 16 years later inspires absolute chaos when played live. In 10 more years “10 More Dead” may do the same.

Please also consider why it is that listeners find song titles like “Too Extreme!” and “Radikult” ridiculous. Is it because of things like The X-Games? Doritos? The movie Rad? Pootchie from The Simpsons? Undoubtedly. Though it is undeniably true that in the 90′s and in much of the 00′s advertisers were doing their best to label anything and everything as “extreme” or “radical” to describe a product’s marketable coolness, that has no literal bearing on what the words themselves mean. Admittedly, it is difficult for me to even say the words “extreme” or “radical” without an eye roll, but Morbid Angel are not and have never been interested in anyone else’s views or associations with popular culture. When they were playing Immortal Rites in storage bins in North Carolina in 1987 they certainly did not give a damn what else was happening in the world at large, so when Morbid Angel says they are “Too Extreme!” they mean it in the most literal sense. When they say they “tear it up as radicals” they mean it literally. They ARE radical and extreme, and they are far more of both than anyone churning out run-of-the-mill death metal in 2011 (Do I even need to list?). For Morbid Angel, standard death metal is a genre they defined 24 years ago, and anyone still turning that crank is only pandering to an audience that is afraid to embrace chance.

Morbid Angel have always done what they’ve wanted to do and they will always do what they want to do regardless of what associations you may draw between their music and popular culture. Whether that culture that is the current “retro metal” one or if it is the “alt-metal” one of 1997 is irrelevant to them.

If you despise Illud Divinum Insanus, perhaps you should try listening to it again without your jean jacket or ironic outfit on. Perhaps you should send your Wolves in the Throne Room fanatical roommate out of the room and then blast 10 More Dead as loudly as you fucking can. Embrace the heaviness and brilliance of a band that has advanced beyond you, and next time try to listen with some open ears. Otherwise you’ll be listening to the same, rote, Black Sabbath mirroring bands for the rest of your life.

You can learn more about Advanced Genius Theory here, here, and here.

Send More Paramedics

Vincent — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 20:58:08 +0000

I really fucking miss this band. A lot. My Halloween season has begun

Halloween Drinking Part 1: Hobgoblin Beer

Price — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:29:37 +0000

Here at the Devil’s Demons, if there’s one thing we really love, it’s the sauce (apologies for sounding like a broken record). Daddy’s cough medicine. Old faithfuls. The whole lot.

Anywho, while we really enjoy drinking any day of the week, we get REALLY excited for the drinking we get to do around Halloween. There are so many activities that lend themselves to drinking:

Watching movies at home
Watching movies in a theater
Attending Halloween parties
Halloween-themed (or metal in general) concerts
At work

So I would like to start dedicating more time on the blog to writing about some of our favorite booze to consume during the season. I’ll rate the booze in 3 categories: packaging, taste, and brutality.

Let’s start with an obvious but proven choice, Hobgoblin’s legendary Ruby Beer, brewed by Wychwood Brewery.

We got our fill of Hobgoblin at Bloodstock this year, at which Hobgoblin was pretty much the official beer. They even had their mascot there!

Go play around on the brewery’s website, it’s pretty slick and will tell you all kinds of facts about their beers, as well as some cool extras.

Packaging: 4.5 out of 5

The Hobgoblin itself is worthy of a 4. A hobgoblin is an obvious Halloween creature. I give the extra .5 point here because of Wychwood’s other brews (check out the site for the other brands).

Taste: 4 out of 5

Damn fine beer, we got drunk as shit off of it, and it was pretty delicious.

Brutality: 4 out of 5

Shit was stronger than the other weak-ass beers at the festival. American strength = American brutality.

Nasty cold weather in NYC = Halloween is almost here!

Price — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 01:12:05 +0000

That’s right. No more annoying heat. No more tourists. The city is ours once again, and soon there will be more than enough evil to keep everyone busy!

Expect more frequent posts in the near future as the spirit starts seeping back in. And all our favorite things once again become relevant.

Also, if you’re in NYC, there are auditions on September 19th and 20th for the Nightmare haunted house.

Learn to Swim

Vincent — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:52:46 +0000

Bloodstock 2011 Report

Price — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:55:53 +0000

Hop on over to Invisible Oranges, my favorite metal blog, to read my report on Bloodstock 2011. It was a hell of a time.

Bloodstock is over, and we survived

Price — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 12:51:19 +0000

Somehow, someway, we did indeed survive.

I plan on writing an in-depth review of the festival later (these things take a bit of time to digest), but here is a summary of things that came out it:

We saw a ton of amazing bands that we had already loved, but more importantly learned of a bunch of new ones
We drank stupid amounts of beer
We got jealous of everyone’s patch jackets so we decided that we would make our own. We bought 13 patches a piece.
We saw lots of people dressed in silly outfits.
We saw lots of actual blood.
We smelled like manure

For first-time multi-day festival goers, we were in for a lot of surprises. However, we can honestly say that the experience was magical, and we’re already planning next years’ fests (that’s plural, hopefully).

WE’RE ON TO BLOODSTOCK

Price — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 09:11:20 +0000

I’m currently on a train that just left London, Vincent should be landing in Birmingham at any moment.

In case you didn’t know, we’re going to Bloodstock, an annual shitshow of metal in the middle of bumfuck UK.

There is no way this can end well. Will keep you posted.