If you live in LA and listen to metal, or if you’re not in LA (like us) but like blogs with kick-ass names and listen to metal, you’re in luck.  City of Devils is a blog dedicated to the metal scene in Los Angeles, and it’s got some fucking great articles. This may be old news, but I’ve just recently discovered it (since we’re about as geographically far from LA as possible), and it’s got hundreds of small bands profiled I’d never heard of.

Diiiig it.

[City of Devils]

I picked this puppy up in Kyoto. It resides over my bed and keeps the evil spirts in the room.

This is part 2 of my piece about going to Japan last week. Like I said, there are literally hundreds of photos of beautiful scenery, towering skyscrapers, drunken antics and general Japanery, but most of these photos are simply ones I thought relevant to this site. If you’d like to see the rest, just ask.

Onward…

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Well, well, well. It’s been a long time. I have the usual gamut of excuses for neglecting this site, our baby, our lil’ poop. Most of them have to deal with an awful 3 month series at work in which all I wanted to do was get home, nurse a bottle of wine and cry a good bit. On top of that I was planning for a trip I’d been thinking about for most of my adult life: a trip to Japan. Price can attest that for the last 10 years it’s been rare to speak to me for any extended period of time about a vacation where I haven’t said “God, I’d really love to go to Japan.” Well fuck me I finally made it and it was incredible. It was honestly everything I was hoping it would be, and I cannot recommend it enough. A week after my return it’s still hard to believe I actually went and had such an amazing time. I spent 6 months planning and saving up the necessary amount of funds for me to waste my way through the country, and it paid off wonderfully.

Join me, won’t you?  If you have a bit of time on a lazy sunday, allow me to show you some of the awesomeness that was the other side of the world.  I tried to keep it satanic.

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This site is way too well-researched and cleverly written to not be huge. Do us all a favor and spread the word.

Metal Cakes

This is a great post on how to keep you keep your blackest-of-the-black t-shirts staying their darkest. It’s written to metal fans, but anyone who likes death/horror/blood/sacrifice/murder undoubtedly has at least 400 black t-shirts in their drawer, so it’s applicable to you as well. Here’s an excerpt:

3) NEVER USE FABRIC SOFTENER ON METAL SHIRTS. “Softener” on a metal shirt? Are you kidding? Does the Snuggle bear really look like he knows the difference between Iron Maiden and Iron Angel? Not only should true metalheads welcome and relish Unsoftness, but fabric softener works by expanding the fibers of the fabric, thereby subjecting your battle armor to undue wear and tear. There’s time for that later.

See? Useful and hilarious.

Heavy Metal Laundry Tips

[via MetalSucks]

Remember when metal bands had amazing cover art? I know Cannibal Corpse and Black Dahlia Murder do. I know Disturbed doesn’t. It used to be that 50% of the fun of discovering an amazing band’s album was staring at the blood curdlingly incredible artwork on the front of the cd (or album if you were lucky) as you took your first trip through sonic hell. The fact that you’d blindly spent $15 on the thing made it all that much more exciting when it didn’t suck.

Now I know I’m not the only online whiner to bring this up in the last 10 years. I’m sure there are 4,000 posts exactly like this one being posted RIGHT NOW. And there are plenty of bands who still put effort into their album art even though none of you shits actually purchase their records, AND these bands still tour their asses off and try to make ends meet. The problem with most of these bands is that I think they suck. They have all the right ingredients: shredded vocals, two speedy guitarists, At The Gates riffs, At The Gates vocals and blastbeats, but honestly most of them sound like little more than the sum of their parts. And guess what? After hearing 6 million bands like that over the last 5 years Vincent doesn’t want to hear any more.

He really just wants to hear more that sound like this one:

http://www.myspace.com/inferimetal

I found out about this band yesterday and they still sound exciting, brutal, and evil. That’s right, one whole day later and I still think they’re fantastic. Every style they touch upon is executed incredibly well.

And holy crap look at the album art. Well done, gentlemen; you made an awesome cover and put some awesome music behind it.

I promise. The last week was slow; Price and I have been in a post-Halloween slump, but we’ll pick back up this week and begin being amusing again. Topics may include: Vikings, death metal, spontaneous bleeding, Satan, vikings, and/or athletic wear.

So yes, I mentioned in a post a few days ago that I had seen GWAR live. The place was the Fillmore East (the artist formerly known as Irving Plaza) in New York City. The time was somewhere between 4 and 7 beers. The band:  GWAR, the most well-known costumed, blood-slinging, celebrity lampooning, innards releasing, huge penis costume wearing offensive band of all time.

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No, silly goose. Not in stores. It’s available in this infernal system of tubes called The Internet. I’m aware that almost everyone on the planet thinks Cradle of Filth are goofballs, and while I generally agree, I’ve still got a soft spot for them in my groin. They always put on a great show, they release albums faster (sometimes too fast) than any other metal band I know, and they’re truly into all the ridiculous shit they espouse.

The new album is called Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder, and it has the most juvenile cover art I’ve seen since the decoration of my 8th grade spanish notebook. I’ve chosen to post the limited edition cover above to spare your eyes. I will say that from what I’ve heard it’s their best since Damnation and a Day.

If you do go find it on the webnets, do what you can to support them when they tour.  The new album comes out in stores on October 25th.  Crank it.

Humongous tusked creature in your band name? You’re halfway home. Play eardrum-crushing, heart-pounding stoner metal?  Have a skeleton on your debut album cover?  OK you can dub yourselves Halloween Metal worthy.

Wooly Mammoth‘s music could either serve as the soundtrack for a teeny slasher flick, or as a pre-fight anthems.  I know that Vincent and I put several 12 oz. aluminum units out of their misery while rocking to W.M., typically to their most kickass song, Black Spider Red Spider.

“Black Spider Red Spider” can be provide quite the experiment if you have the clout. When you listen to this song for the first time, I recommend having at least a 12 pack of Coors Light on hand. Repeat the song at least 12 times, sipping the beer throughout the song and then slamming the rest at the end. I guarantee you by the end of the set, you’ll have the courage and strength to do something great.  Or something very stupid.  Or something greatly stupid.  Keep children at a distance when listening to this song.  They will get hurt.

Sadly, I believe these guys have gone by the wayside and are no longer active.  Maybe the spooks can call them out of their cave this season to produce some more evil tunes.