Music week

The News Review:

- Music week
- The 411 Music Top Five 12.09.08: Top 5 Stupidest Band Names
- Getting Angry About Prostate Cancer
- Medusa – En Raga Sül
- Dir En Grey: UROBOROS – CD Review
- Monster metal
- Remembering Damageplan’s & Pantera’s “Dimebag” Darrell

Music week
Creative Loafing Sarasota FL 
Acula The Long Island hardcore band swerves perilously close to death-metal conventions but not thematically: The first song on their MySpace page is called "Beer Pong Massacre. (Whistle Stop Grill Safety Harbor) After Death I think if you asked these guys a black metal band from Tampa what happens after death they just might man up and say "We go straight to hell. " Interestingly the vocalist does more of a talk-sing thing than the guttural screams. Laura Reed sings coy and sexy sort of like Corrine Bailey Rae (but more organic) while her band lays down sensuous grooves and arrangements behind her. (Crowbar Ybor City) Sparky's Flaw The "acoustic-driven pop-rock" quintet hails from Charlottesville Va.

The 411 Music Top Five 12.09.08: Top 5 Stupidest Band Names
411mania.com TX 
This week the 411Music writing staff tosses their Top Five groups who they think have the worst names. Do you agree that these notable names never should have been? Limp Bizkit Panic At the Disco Stone Temple Pilots just name a few. This genre is completely bankrupt in ideas and musicianship. We get it: you love Satan hate God and think you’re modern day pagan Viking warriors or whatever. Stealing names from Tolkein Norse mythology and adding Latin suffixes doesn’t count as groundbreakingly clever either.

Getting Angry About Prostate Cancer
New York Times Blogs NY 
Spending time with my wife and family helps; so does writing in my journal. But in scanning my large collection of CDs a few months ago I noticed a few heavy-metal albums I hadn’t listened to in a long time. It struck me as the right music for my mood and the result has been my own unorthodox form of music therapy. I’ve learned that heavy-metal music leaches away my fury the way a poultice draws poison from a wound. I crave heavy bands like Slayer and Meshuggah Pantera and Sepultera Isis and Neurosis. Prostate cancer seems especially suited for heavy-metal music therapy. According to Dan Nelson?s book ?All Known Metal Bands? I could let my ears pound and bleed to such disease-specific headbangers as Cancer and Metastasis Scars of Chaos and Scars of Suffering and Surgikill Incision.
Related from Alternativemonster: What is the role of hormones in prostate cancer?

Medusa – En Raga Sül
Punknews.org 
By all counts the album should be derivative and tired. But the beauty of this genre-less genre is that the bands aren’t necessarily defined sonically. Are they hardcore bands playing in a metal scene? Metal bands playing in a hardcore scene? Sure there are only so many combinations of riffs to play in the world but there are millions of ways to play them. Medusa then takes their idea of a heavy metal riff and then just pounds the shit out of it for two minutes straight in a repetitive thundering way. And I’ve got to admit it’s pretty awesome. These short bursts of songs are what keeps the album fresh and listenable. Head nods to the Misfits like “Snakebite” change the pace and tone while “Body Count” builds over a thundering two chord riff with spoken shouting instead of the standard screech.

Dir En Grey: UROBOROS – CD Review
FEARnet.com PA 
From the rounded tones of a ’90s Tokyo pop crooner to a full-throated demonic roar that rivals the Cookie-Monster-on-crank raging of Cannibal Corpse’s George Fisher Kyo’s voice will challenge and amaze you with its versatility and audacity. While his madman technique is seldom subtle he has a skill for nailing the emotional tone of a song in an instant then flipping it around just as quickly – and besides who wants subtlety when you’re in the mood for spine-ripping metal?Already legendary in their homeland Dir En Grey have made significant waves in the Western world in the past couple of years – a remarkable accomplishment considering nearly all of their lyrics are sung in Japanese. It’s a testament to their distinct character and of course the earth-shaking power of their metal. After great success in European metal festivals they crossed the Atlantic to take on US gigs like South by Southwest and Korn’s Family Values Tour eventually headlining their own North American shows last year (in support of their previous album Marrow of a Bone) accompanied by Deftones. The band also scored stateside with their bizarre often horrific videos and won the Headbanger’s Ball “Video of the Year” award in 2006 for the surreal “Saku” (from Withering to Death). The band’s seventh album Uroboros is their most complex and experimental work to date. It’s also among their heaviest despite Kyo’s declaration that he wanted to put more emphasis on melodic elements and a more elegant style rather than the expected full-on noise explosions.

Monster metal
Edmonton Sun  Canada 
The ferocious version of Creeping Death confirmed it. Later promised thoughts of going “off to never never land” as we all know Metallica’s most famous song that isn’t a ballad also dwells on the subject of death. Again we’re faced with the essential truth of good heavy metal music so often misunderstood. These bands don’t glorify death. They don’t celebrate devils they don’t welcome doom they don’t advocate evil. Well most of them don’t anyway. They’re laughing in the face of death they’re spiting Satan.

Remembering Damageplan’s & Pantera’s “Dimebag” Darrell
Southtown Star IL 
8 2004 night in Ohio when Damageplan guitarist and metal legend "Dimebag" Darrell was tragically shot to death on stage. Known to many more as one-fourth of mega-successful.