Where Strides the Behemoth?
The News Review:
- Where Strides the Behemoth?
- Music | projo.com | The Providence Journal
- Voxtrot Steps Into the Spotlight; Nothing Ugly About Bettye LaVette
- Where is the love?
- Film Calendar
Where Strides the Behemoth?
Twin Cities Planet – Feb 11, 2007
However what became clear during the show and what remains evident to those who keep their ears at attention is to the difficulty of pigeon-holing Mastodon according to any number of the oft-deployed sub-genre categories (e. thrash death metal grindcore sludge). Indeed the band incorporates and acknowledges the influence of metal pioneers like Judas Priest Motorhead and Rush but there are also more ?progressive? elements to be found such as their penchant for capricious time-signature changes (math metal) and folk-tale lyrics that describe encounters with fantastical characters (ogres dwarves in songs like ?Sleeping Giant? and a ?Colony of Birchmen?). In fact what?s most remarkable and perhaps the source of the surrounding excitement is the band?s unabashed return to certain basic building blocks of metal music that had for a long time been deemed extinct. Not only does their music include frequent melodic strains in between pummeling weighty guitar riffs. Mastodon also seems dead set on resuscitating and affirming what was once a staple feature of the genre but now consigned to metal?s endangered species list: the sprawling virtuosic guitar solo… It had seemed for a while that metal musicians had taken the head-long plunge into the oppressive sonic trademarks that created a din of despair while forgetting what drew many to the genre in the first place: having fun. Then out of the forest strides Mastodon reminding us of metal?s sine qua non: its relentless and extraordinary intensity a relishing of energy and vitality that?s immediately recognizable but uncontainable impossible to pinpoint musically. Above all Mastodon has returned to help remind us that metal is music to be felt a groove instantly understood in your gut; it is tactile music and that?s where its pleasure lies. The question remained however how would Mastodon?s epic sound evocative of yesterday?s stadium rock and amphitheater sell-out performances translate to a relatively intimate venue like First Avenue? Would the rolling drum frenzies and thunderous guitar flurries sound any less imposing if visually anchored in four modest individuals as they summoned their powers in ripped blue jeans and stained T-shirts? r is it only possible to enjoy songs like ?The Wolf is Loose? and ?Crystal Skull? at a safe distance where the beast remains safely in its cage? f course not! After unassumingly taking the stage to the recorded acoustic guitar strumming of ?This Mortal Soil? the amps kicked in and the beast was set free tusks and all. The battle ensued as both audience and musicians wrestled with the monster they had come to hear as it rumbled through material from Blood Mountain but also older gems like ?March of the Fire Ants? ?Iron Tusk? and ?Blood and Thunder. ? When all was said and done both beast and crowd appeared sated left to gnaw on the marrow of an extended mostly instrumental encore performance combining old and new material. As for the whereabouts of the allusive behemoth the band?s roaming patterns are predicted to continue throughout the Midwest before heading south and then overseas to Western Europe and finally coming to rest in the backwoods of New Zealand in late April.
Music | projo.com | The Providence Journal
Providence Journal – Feb 11, 2007
Speed-metal can be summed up in so many ways: guitar riffs that erupt like machine-gun fire drumbeats on nonstop blast singing that spews like the devil’s own breath. r you can spell all this out with six simple letters:S-L-A-Y-E-R. A yell of “Slayer!” is a siren call to heavy-metal maniacs a heads-up that it’s time to start moshing or get out of the way. Slayer is the speed-metal band that’s never slowed down. Metallica? They enlisted a touchy-feely therapist to help the band finish its St… Go see the emergency med guy that’s here. ’”Evil incarnate? Some might see Slayer as evil incarnate like a bunch of Lucifers with guitar picks and drumsticks. The band has sung of Satan and Nazi Germany and never met a theme of death and destruction that it didn’t like. So of course there’s been some fallout: The Christ Illusion album was pulled from stores in India after protests from Christian groups. Back in the United States promotional bus-bench ads for Christ Illusion in Fullerton Calif. were yanked by city officials who found them in bad taste. And what does Araya say to the parents who don’t like their kids listening to songs such as “Altar of Sacrifice”?“I don’t think they should be too concerned as long as they’re paying attention to what their kids are listening to” says Araya who has children of his own.
Voxtrot Steps Into the Spotlight; Nothing Ugly About Bettye LaVette
Washington Post – Feb 11, 2007
See for yourself when she comes to Strathmore on March 17. – For My Chemical Romance the key color is black. They’re the new princes of darkness a neo-Gothic band whose latest bestseller "The Black Parade" is a wonderfully bombastic concept album about death. The band formerly known for emo has turned to the classic-rock canon for inspiration paying particular mind to the department of heavy metal: There are shades of Alice Cooper Iron Maiden and especially Queen throughout "The Black Parade. " It’s all so perfectly miserable. The band as theatrical as ever is coming to Merriweather Post Pavilion on April 27. The run on black nail polish begins now… – For My Chemical Romance the key color is black. They’re the new princes of darkness a neo-Gothic band whose latest bestseller "The Black Parade" is a wonderfully bombastic concept album about death. The band formerly known for emo has turned to the classic-rock canon for inspiration paying particular mind to the department of heavy metal: There are shades of Alice Cooper Iron Maiden and especially Queen throughout "The Black Parade. " It’s all so perfectly miserable. The band as theatrical as ever is coming to Merriweather Post Pavilion on April 27. The run on black nail polish begins now. – ne thing I’m not looking forward to in the early part of 2007? Taylor Hicks twitching spasmodically and repeatedly yelping "Soul Patrol!" when he comes to Rams Head Live in Baltimore on April 17.
Where is the love?
The Age – Feb 11, 2007
But hold on – it’s 2007 and musical romance is a trickybusiness in the 21st century. What song could this young romanticpossibly put on an iPod send as a ringtone or illegally downloadthat says it all in three minutes?Taking a cursory glance at the Australian Recording IndustryAssociation (ARIA) Top 50 it seems love and romance aren’t exactlyleaping out of stereo speakers. The current number-one single isheavy-metal ballad Lips of an Angel by new US band Hinder. Singer Austin Winkler rasps his way through a song filled withyearning emotion but the song is actually about infidelity with achorus that goes “girl you make it hard to be faithful with thelips of an angel” and so the effect is hardly Hallmark cardmaterial. Then there’s the latest single by pop-emo pin-up boys Panic atthe Disco which has the severely unromantic title of Lying Is theMost Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes ff. Leadsinger Brendon Urie offsets his pallid beauty (the kind that likethat of My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way sends teenage girls toemo heaven in 2007) with vicious jilted lines such as “I’ve gotmore wit a better kiss a hotter touch a better f— than anyboy you’ll ever meet. So the chorus of “testosterone boys and harlequin girls willyou dance to this beat and hold a lover close” seems more likecynical rhetoric than a heartfelt question… Nick Cave’s work was no short cut to romance when he was smeared inblood and baying like a hound as the lead singer of the BirthdayParty but he is now such a fan of the love song that he presenteda lecture on the genre for the Vienna Poetry Festival in 1999. Cavebelieves that these days the singles chart just does not want toknow what love is. “Within the world of modern pop music a world that dealsostensibly with the love song but in actuality does little morethat hurl dollops of warm custard-coloured baby-vomit down the airwaves true sorrow is not welcome” he said in Vienna. According to Cave for love songs to transcend the typical “moonin june” platitudes they must contain as much pain and heartacheas they do pleasure. He cites Kylie Minogue’s Better the Devil YouKnow as an example of love’s true torment hidden under threeminutes of synthetic pop sugar coating. “The idea presented within this song dark and sinister and sad- that all love relationships are by nature abusive and that thisabuse be it physical or psychological is welcomed and encouraged- shows how even the most innocuous of love songs has the potentialto hide terrible human truths. It’s for this reason that the tragic tales of teenage devotionfrom various ’60s girl groups have stood the test of time.
Film Calendar
Washington Post – Feb 11, 2007
4 — "The Rape of Europa" is based on the book of the same name with the subtitle "The Fate of Europe’s Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War"; the documentary will be introduced and discussed by the book’s author Lynn Nicholas. At the National Gallery. 5 — Wagner in Film a series of movies that have used the music of Richard Wagner begins at the Goethe-Institut Washington. n offer will be such classics as the Bugs Bunny cartoon "What’s pera Doc?" "The Scarlett Express" "The Uninvited" "Humoresque" and "Apocalypse Now. " Mondays through March 26. 9 — "300" is the live-action version of Frank Miller’s graphic novel (remember when they used to be called comic books?) about the Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas and his Spartan troops fought the Persian forces of King Xerxes. 9 — "The Ex" stars Zach Braff as an underachiever whose slacker ways are put to the test when his high-powered wife (Amanda Peet) gets pregnant and decides to step off the career fast track… 27 — " Balls of Fury" a comedy directed by Ben Garant of "Reno: 911!" takes us to a world we’d never contemplated: an underground ping-pong tournaments where an FBI agent (Dan Fogler) is on the trail of a murderer played by — who else? — Christopher Walken. 27 — "The Condemned" mixes "Rollerball" with reality TV in this actioner about an American (wrestling pro "Stone Cold" Steve Austin) who’s sprung from a Central American prison only to find himself an involuntary gladiator for Internet viewers. 27 — "Death at a Funeral" a farce starring Matthew Macfadyen ("Pride and Prejudice") Peter Dinklage and Ewen Bremner centers around a family funeral and the threatened revelation of an embarrassing family secret. 27 — "Fracture" a cat-and-mouse drama stars Ryan Gosling ("Half Nelson") as a young district attorney bedeviled by a manipulative man (Anthony Hopkins) who beats an attempted murder charge on a technicality. 27 — "The Hip Hop Project" a documentary follows homeless-teen-turned-activist Chris "Kazi" Rolle as he inspires other New York City youth to use hip-hop music and group therapy as positive outlets. 27 — "Jindabyne" an Australian psychodrama inspired by a Raymond Carver short story examines issues of guilt and honesty when a husband (Gabriel Byrne) hides crucial information about a murdered woman from his wife (Laura Linney). 27 — "Pathfinder" an action adventure examines the cultural transformation of a Viking (Karl Urban) after he is captured by a Native American tribe during a Norse raid.
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