MY TRIBUTE TO RONNIE JAMES DIO

As you will all know by now, Ronnie James Dio passed away on May 16th after a brief but intense battle with stomach cancer. The greatest rock singer of his (or any other) generation has left the mortal realm and the lives of his family, friends and millions of fans around the world will never be quite the same again. Those are the facts and there’s nothing that any of us can do to change them. And as much as I dislike the vicarious grief that people so often indulge in when famous people die, on this occasion I am more than willing to let everyone shed their tears and tell their stories without me sneering from the sidelines. It’s always immensely sad and emotionally draining when people you care about die. I lost my father last year, also to cancer, and I’m still struggling with his absence on a daily basis. These are yawning chasms that can never be filled and they force you to stare your own mortality in the face. It’s fucking hard and painful. That’s life and that’s death. We deal with it and we move on as best we can.

Of course, I can’t claim that I knew Ronnie particularly well on a personal level, but the power of music should never be underestimated. People love to wheel out the cliché that music is “the soundtrack to your life”, but as much as that sounds like twinkly-eyed bullshit, it really is true, unless you’re one of those freaks that doesn’t find music to be one of life’s greatest joys. Ronnie James Dio and his wonderful, life-affirming music had a massive impact on my life and I cherish the one occasion that I met him as one of the greatest moments of my life as a music fan. I was also lucky enough to interview him over the phone on several occasions, and he was never anything less than an absolute gentleman, a genuinely fascinating and inspiring figure and, perhaps most importantly, a fucking awesome bloke.

When I met him, backstage at Wacken Open Air a few years ago, it was in my capacity as a writer for Kerrang and I had to ask him a bunch of pre-prepared questions for some banal little sidebar piece that was, amazingly, just about the only way that I could get Ronnie some coverage in the magazine. I was cringing inwardly as I sat down and got ready to ask him what his most embarrassing moment had been, what he would choose for his last meal and, ironically it seems now, which song he would have played at his funeral (he chose ‘A Salty Dog’ by Procol Harum, which is a beautiful song...give it a listen!), rather than ask all the questions I really wanted to ask; about his glorious career, his huge creative achievements and where that amazing, soul-stirring voice came from. Speaking from bitter experience, I know that a lot of big rock stars are used to this kind of frivolous idiocy from the British music press. We often like to kid ourselves that our readers aren’t really interested in the music itself, and would rather see a picture of our favourite bands sitting in a bathtub full of baked beans. Utter bullshit, of course, but bullshit perpetuated by people who care more about looking clever than displaying any sort of passion for anything, as they foist their own self-absorbed cynicism onto everyone else. It’s horrendously tiresome, but that’s showbiz.

Anyway, I don’t get to pick and choose what I do most of the time, so I got started with my daft questions and, much to my surprise, Ronnie James Dio immediately got into the spirit of the thing, answering everything and putting plenty of thought into his replies, chuckling at some of the more moronic questions but answering them all the same, keeping eye contact with me the whole time and sticking with it until I had everything I needed. We carried on chatting for a few minutes after I’d switched my dictaphone off, and he asked me about my family and my life and seemed genuinely interested. The encounter ended with his assistant taking this picture of Dio and I together – DIO & DOM - followed by a handshake and friendly farewell.

I stopped grinning about a week later. It’s easy to get jaded when you speak with well known musicians all the time, but moments like that stay with you forever. I wasn’t a music journalist for those 30-odd minutes. I was a fan, surfing on a wave of adrenaline and happiness. That’s what Ronnie James Dio meant to me, and I know that thousands of people feel the same way. I’ve spoken to loads of people this week and many of them have their own stories, either about meeting Dio (without exception, everyone genuinely found him to be a lovely, charming and genuine man) or about the immense importance and power of his music. When it comes to heavy metal, Ronnie was not just one of our greatest singers, he was also one of the most significant creative forces that the genre has ever seen. Even if you just list the really obvious stone-cold classic albums that he was involved in – Rainbow Rising, Heaven And Hell and Holy Diver – it’s hard to think of anyone who has such a rich and seminal CV. But there’s so much more great music in Ronnie’s catalogue...I’ve been listening to it all on rotation ever since I heard about his death, and it’s amazing how many great songs there are. Albums like The Last In Line, Dream Evil, Master Of The Moon, Dehumanizer, Long Live Rock & Roll...they’re rammed with brilliant moments, all elegantly transported along on the wings of Ronnie’s commanding but beautiful voice. How fucking awesome was The Devil You Know? Easily one of the best things Ronnie ever recorded, it was rightly hailed as a new masterpiece by everyone sensible when it came out last year. It’s horrible to think that it represents Ronnie’s last creative endeavour, but even so, what a way to go out! Even the records that we’re not really supposed to like that much – Angry Machines, anyone? – are way better than the reviews they received would suggest. The man was an enormous fucking talent and I don’t care whether you were a huge Dio fan or just someone with a passing interest in rock and metal that quite liked Holy Diver and that Tenacious D movie...Ronnie James Dio left his mark on the world and nothing can erase it. I recently wrote a small tribute to my dad when I was designing the artwork for my band’s forthcoming album, and I wrote that “he did what he loved and loved what he did and left a lot of beautiful things behind”. I think the same applies to Ronnie. As terrible as it is to lose him so prematurely, his legacy is vast. He left a lot of kick-arse music behind and we will play it, as loud as possible and as often as possible, until we all cash in our chips too.

The sad truth is that, assuming we all survive for the next 20 to 30 years, we’re going to have to watch most of our heroes pass away and, as much as it pains me to admit it, there don’t seem to be too many artists and musicians of comparable calibre to take their place. There’s plenty of amazing new music, of course, but where is the next Dio, the next Ozzy, the next Lemmy? Who is going to replace Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Metallica when they’re gone? We can safely ignore the internet morons that sneer at and disrespect these musical giants. I was originally going to write a blog chastising the snivelling cuntsores that had been slagging Ozzy off on the Metal Hammer site, but what’s the point? If you can’t be mature or smart enough to acknowledge the massive contribution that people like Ozzy and Ronnie have made to our world and the music we love, then your opinion is utterly irrelevant and I’d quite like my oxygen back, please. I’m no nostalgia junkie, but there’s no denying that these names, these legends, are the bedrock upon which our entire culture is constructed. You don’t have to love their music and you don’t have to treat them with blind reverence, but you do have to salute them for their achievements and their passion. Anything else would be fucking stupid.

The mainstream media will never understand heavy metal. Just look at the clumsy obituaries that Ronnie has received from certain quarters this week, most of which focus primarily on his status as “the guy that invented the Devil’s horns”, with obligatory references to Denzil the Dragon and Spinal Tap and how silly heavy metal is etc etc...oh fuck off, you ignorant, patronising twats. Metal fans are fully aware that their music can be preposterous, over-the-top, bombastic and daft. That’s one of the main reasons we like it so much. But don’t pretend that it doesn’t have substance...that it doesn’t mean anything. Because it means a lot more to me and my metal brothers and sisters than the bland, banal indie rock and sterile pop tripe that mainstream magazines exist to exalt mean to anyone. In the event of a nuclear holocaust, who do you think will crawl from the smoking rubble? It won’t be Pete fucking Doherty. It won’t be Justin ‘The Singing Wankstain’ Bieber. It will be some guy in a Venom shirt, clutching a half-drained bottle of Merrydown and shouting ‘Slayer!’ at the top of his voice. Heavy metal fans are the most devoted and passionate fans in the world and I defy anyone to prove otherwise. This music will never die. Ronnie James Dio’s music will never die. Every time we crank up Neon Knights or Stand Up And Shout and raise a glass to our fallen hero, his legend will grow.
Rest in peace, Ronnie. Thanks for everything. We’re missing you terribly but we will continue to rock in your honour, now and forever. Horns up!

Dom Lawson, May 2010

BITING THE BULLET

It’s strange how people always remember the negative things we music journalists write, rather than (in my case, at least) the overwhelmingly positive stuff that we spend most of our time penning in order to celebrate and support our favourite music. I’ve never had more responses to a review than I did to the one I wrote for the last Bullet For My Valentine album, Scream Aim Fire, back in 2008. I’ve lost count of the amount of handshakes and pints I received as a result of my entirely honest response to what I thought was a rather poor and contrived record by a band that really didn’t deserve to be as widely praised as they had been over the years. I also received a fair few insults and several accusations that I am not the cheerful heterosexual I claim to be. And I saw that coming. There is no escaping the fuckwits. They’re everywhere. You get used to it after a while, to be honest, but the thing that does genuinely bother me (albeit only a tiny bit, until I get to the pub) is when people accuse me of having some weird ulterior motive for giving a record a bad review. Seriously. Fuck off.

I had – and still have – absolutely no problem with Bullet For My Valentine on a personal level. I have spoken with Matt Tuck on the phone a couple of times and always found him to be bright and friendly. And, as I said in the review, I wish them all the best as they become ever more popular and, hopefully, convert loads of really young kids to the ways of heavy music. I’m not a total cunt, despite what you might infer from these blogs, and my somewhat damning review of SAF was not designed to do any damage to Bullet’s inexorable rise. In fact, my principal aim was to inject some balance and objectivity to the UK rock press’s rather obsequious and cynical approach to writing about them. From the moment it became plain that BFMV were going to be extremely popular, not least due to their powerful management company and the huge amount of money that was being invested in promoting them and ensuring that they got great tours, the UK rock press rolled over like a daft puppy and started dribbling. Reviews were, almost across the board, ridiculously enthusiastic and gushing, as if BFMV were somehow the greatest new metal band to emerge from the UK since Iron Maiden...which, incredibly, was the PR pitch I was given when a copy Scream Aim Fire plopped onto my doormat. Now, if the album had been – in my opinion, naturally - as fantastic as the accompanying press release had described – and, let’s face it, virtually all press releases are basically one long cry of “Ooh, this is the best thing ever!” – then I would have said so and praised the band accordingly. But it wasn’t. It was a glossy and expensive-sounding effort, but musically it was weak and clichéd, lyrically it was abysmal and vocally, Matt Tuck was clearly struggling. Aside from that, if BFMV were plainly hedging their bets and writing songs that always began as bombastic modern thrash tunes but then, without exception, morphed into bland, poppy emo-friendly choruses. That’s the main reason why there is very little crossover between the band’s crowd and, say, a Slayer crowd or a Lamb Of God crowd.

Bullet’s audience is a predominantly young one, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Thank Satan there are bands like BFMV to draw kids in before Justin Bieber or N Dubz get their retarded claws into them. But when a band as successful as Bullet are being sold as the undisputed kings of modern day British heavy metal, the flaws in the music itself needed to be addressed. So that’s what I did. Of course, once Metal Hammer published the review, both the band and their management reportedly had huge hissy fits and threw their toys out of the steel-plated pram. It was all a bit undignified and petulant, but not entirely unexpected. The thing is, learning to handle criticism is something that all bands have to do at some point. I spotted Bullet’s drummer whining on Facebook recently about how Metal Hammer used to be “better in the old days”, i.e. when Bullet received no criticism whatsoever. Yeah, it would be nice if we just wrote positive things about everything all the time, wouldn’t it? Actually, no. It would be stupid, childish and pointless. The relationship between bands and magazines is two-way and meant to be mutually beneficial, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to agree with everything we say in our reviews and nor does it mean that popular bands should always expect an easy ride and lots of frothing adulation. That’s not how I roll as a journalist...or as a musician, come to that. I fully expect that a substantial majority of people will think my band’s album (Botheration by Oaf...it’s out on June 21st, folks!) is rubbish. Boo hoo. Not bothered. I try to be honest about what I think of new records, and musicians should try to take negative feedback on the chin. It’s all part of growing up.

One of the more dispiriting things about writing for a music magazine is that a lot of people seem to have trouble grasping how the whole reviewing process works. It is often assumed that there is some weird agenda or pre-meditated party line that we all have to follow, wherein certain bands get good reviews and others don’t. That’s bollocks. Of course, there are times when magazines will ensure that an album gets a positive review because, and this is the important bit, the general consensus among critics and fans alike seems to be that the record in question is an absolute belter. No one wants to be the magazine to get it wrong – remember Kerrang’s 2K review of Machine Head’s Through The Ashes Of Empires? – and so a bit of common sense never goes amiss. That said, the vast majority of albums are dished out to reviewers who are then respected and trusted enough to come up with their own subjective verdict. No one tells me what scores to give albums. I might have the occasional discussion about a score with the editorial team, but essentially I am left to make the final decision, and quite right too. With Scream Aim Fire, I genuinely felt that it was a poor record and one that it was very hard to believe in as a metal fan. We’ve all had a good chuckle at Matt Tuck’s golf jumper on YouTube (and if you haven’t, just search for ‘jeff killed john’) and it’s quite easy to be cynical about his band’s peculiar musical evolution, particularly when he makes statements like the recent one about Bullet being “a hard rock band with metal influences”, which is plainly bullshit (you don’t wear cut-off Metallica shirts, throw the horns and stick your tongue out in every photo shoot you’ve ever done if you’re a “hard rock band”...that’s the visual language and aesthetic of metal, and Matt Tuck knows it). But if we can set aside those doubts, Bullet have as much right to be regarded as a big and important metal band as anyone else.

The “it’s not metulz” brigade should really shut the fuck up and jump in front of a bus at this point, because although there are thousands of bands that I’d rather listen to than BFMV, they are undeniably a metal band. It might not be the kind of metal I particularly like, and it lacks the darkness and intensity that I get from most of my favourite bands, but it’s still metal. And, judging by the new album, Fever, the band’s sound is evolving in the right direction. I can certainly live without big ballads like Bittersweet Memories, which could easily fit onto any big budget pop-punk or mainstream emo album, but the heavy tracks – most notably Your Betrayal, Fever, Begging For Mercy and Pleasure And Pain – are plainly better than anything the band have produced before. Matt Tuck’s vocals are much stronger this time round too, and although the songs still conform to a fairly predictable formula and seldom do anything surprising, they do have a bit more punch and vigour about them. I’d give it a qualified thumbs-up if I was in any position to review it, but for some bizarre reason no one sent me a copy of the album and I had to listen to it on MySpace. Can’t think why.

Amusingly, the rock press has again fallen at the band’s feet and given them insanely positive reviews across the board for Fever. I don’t think it’s deserved in the slightest, but then a similar situation will arise when Iron Maiden release their new album later this year. In truth, no one wants to be the reviewer to put the boot in, even in the unlikely event that Maiden release a stinker. The same was true with Death Magnetic...a decent but basically unremarkable Metallica album that received no end of vociferous praise. The rock press don’t necessarily have the balls to lay into big bands and give them a verbal dressing down because the implications go far beyond upsetting a few fans and making the band do a big cry. There are political considerations too, and although that’s a shame – i.e. why should my honesty be compromised because a major label is threatening to withdraw advertising revenue? – it’s also the way of the world. But regardless of all that, there should always still be room for dissenting voices. I’m not a fan of Bullet For My Valentine, but I am a music journalist and a devoted metalhead and I have as much right to voice my doubts about the band and their music as anyone. Disagree with me, by all means, but don’t be a fucking twat about it, eh? Many thanks.

Dom Lawson 29/4/2010

SHUSH NOW, YOU WHINY TWATS!

Dear Morons Of The Internet,

I hope you’re happy and well and didn’t swallow your tongue during the night while dreaming about hitting yourself in the genitals with a plank of wood with nails sticking out of it. That just wouldn’t do, would it? The rest of us, slightly less stupid people on the internet, would feel so terribly sorry for you. Tears would be shed, I’m sure. Anyway, like I say, I hope you’re happy and well and the tongue-swallowing thing didn’t happen. All the best to you!

Meanwhile, it’s time for me to write another blog. Strangely, this one is about exactly the same thing as one of the previous ones I wrote. It’s funny how things turn out, isn’t it? I thought that the previous blog about this subject was pretty straightforward and easy to understand, but apparently not. I received all manner of abuse from the inarticulate, the ignorant and the irredeemably dim, including one actual threat of physical violence! Hard to believe, I know, but one must take the rough with the smooth, don’t you think? Live by the pen and die by the pen, and all that sort of bollocks.

(At this point, I feel I ought to point out that if you ARE one the “Morons Of The Internet” that I’m referring to, it would probably be sensible to stop reading this now. I know you may find this confusing, but I’m not actually aiming this blog at you. It does seem like I am, doesn’t it? It’s a little trick I use to justify what follows, to be honest. I’m not really aiming it at you, principally because I know exactly how you’re going to react and I’m not remotely interested in your opinions. Because, you know, you’re a moron! In fact, I’m aiming this blog at all the sane, rational and open-minded people that are capable of recognising things like sarcasm, irony and hyperbole, and who will probably agree with me anyway...or, at least, understand that the point I’m making is a valid one and that I’m merely writing it in an aggressive and over-the-top way for comic effect. I think all that stuff is a bit beyond you, to be fair, so if you stop reading now you’ll avoid getting all cross and hurting yourself when you bang your head against your laptop. It’s okay to be cross, of course. Even middle-aged millionaire Fred Durst gets a bit irate every now and then and has to break someone’s face (which seems a bit extreme, if you ask me, but he knows best), so you’re by no means alone in your desperate, impotent rage. Feel free to keep reading if you want to, though, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I will be calling you a cunt at least once before the end of this. Just so you know. Oh, and by the way, if you’re the person that instructed me to “GO SUCK A COCK YOU FAG” recently, could you please tap your Caps Lock key before you make your next sexually-orientated suggestion? I don’t mind the implication that I’m a practising homosexual, but I really don’t like being shouted at. Thanks.)

Anyway, where were we? Oh, I know. Download. Yes. There was an another announcement last night, as you may well know. Another bunch of bands were added to the bill, some of which I was really pleased about and some that I wasn’t bothered about at all. That, my moronic friends, is the way the festival cookie crumbles. And, being a sentient being with a decent amount of common sense, I was able to take this new information and process it using only my brain, ending up with the fairly satisfying conclusion that I will probably have a really splendid time at Download this year, even though the bill does not precisely mirror my own personal wish list of bands. Sadly, it seems that many of you were not quite so willing or able to take the announcement on the proverbial chin. So, for your benefit, I’ve prepared a little list of facts that might help you to cope with any future announcements. You might want to read them a few times, just to make sure that you understand them. Or just read them once and write an immediate and staggeringly cretinous response that basically amounts to a violent dirty protest by a brain damaged chimpanzee. It’s entirely up to you which one of these approaches you wish to take. Now, here’s the list of facts that I mentioned earlier...

1. THE WORLD IS NOT DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY TO MAKE YOU HAPPY

I know. It’s a fucking choker, isn’t it? Imagine my disappointment when I found out! I was livid. I even wrote a stern letter to my MP, demanding that everything in the entire world should be reorganised for my convenience and gratification, but I guess they must have mislaid it because I never got a reply. Honestly, it’s enough to make you spit! Still, I got used to the idea eventually. It’s called growing up and not being a total fuckwit. Not everything in life is perfect. Not everything that happens to you will be positive. That’s just the way it is, as Bruce Hornsby memorably sang. Whatever happened to Bruce Hornsby? He probably got run over by a bus. Or crushed by a falling piano. That would be fucking ironic, wouldn’t it? Poor old Bruce. Anyway, the point is that the world is not designed specifically to make you happy. Your parents may have given you that impression when you were a toddler, and Christ knows I try to do the same for my kids, but there will come a time when things start to happen that will piss you off. You’ll lose things. Electrical equipment will stop working. TV shows that you like will be cancelled and replaced with more banal crap about sexy vampires. Your football team will lose against a non-league club in the FA Cup. Your girlfriend/boyfriend will decide that you’re a prick and cop off with someone else instead. In front of you. While laughing and giving you the finger (but not in a good way). You will become slightly chubby. People you love will die, you will become addicted to some terrible drug and everything you have ever believed in will crumble before your eyes, leaving you in a harrowing and miserable vortex of despair and misery that will eventually cause you to abandon all hope and start listening to All-Time Low. And, as if that wasn’t punishment enough, the Download organisers will put a bill together that doesn’t give you an instant boner and make you dance around your padded cell singing ‘Walking On Sunshine’. That’s just the way it is. And some things will never change. Poor old Bruce.

2. OTHER FESTIVALS ARE AVAILABLE

I know it’s hard to accept. You’ve only ever heard of one festival and you go every year, expecting the bill to be an accurate representation of your CD collection and the beer to be free and that you will be transported from one end of the site to the other on the shoulders of people you’ve never met before...and they’re all chanting your name and offering you sexual favours and as much Hog Roast as you can eat without getting worms. That’s pretty much what Download 2009 was like for me, to be honest, so I know where you’re coming from. But what you might not realise is that there are some other festivals taking place this summer. That’s shocked you, hasn’t it? Well, it’s true. I’ve checked. In the UK alone there are several other rock/metal festivals which may or may not cater for your needs and/or send you into a blind and pitiful fit of anger. Sonisphere. Bloodstock. High Voltage. That other one in Hyde Park. Stevie Wonder’s playing, apparently. Furthermore, there are literally several festivals taking place in Europe, some of which are exclusively metal-orientated, which means that if you are genuinely allergic to listening to anything other than Slayer or Pantera, then you may be able to last the weekend without feeling outraged or threatening a music journalist with a kicking. Personally, I’m hoping to attend the very marvellous Hole In The Sky festival in Bergen, Norway. It looks awesome. However, I will definitely not be attending Glastonbury, despite the fact that Willie Nelson is on. The rest of the bill looks rubbish, but rather than going online and leaving a stream of illiterate insults on the Glastonbury forum, I have decided to exercise free will and put the whole sorry incident down to experience. After all, there’s always Download. I rather like the look of the line-up. How do you feel about it? Actually, don’t answer that. You fuckwit.

3. SKINDRED WERE THE BEST BAND ON AT HAMMERFEST THIS YEAR.

They just were. I’d love to be able to tell you that it was Iced Earth, Devildriver or Akercocke, all of whom were brilliant, but I guarantee that if you took a straw poll of everyone who attended Hammerfest this year, Skindred would be overwhelmingly voted the band of the weekend. They’re not a metal band in the traditional sense of the term, of course, and there’s no reason at all why anyone should be obliged to like them, but the fact remains that they tore the place apart and made a large room full of people very happy indeed. You can squint, dribble and bark “It’s not metulz!” at me all you like. But I’m right. Just saying, like.

4. BEING NEGATIVE ABOUT EVERYTHING IS NOT AWESOME!

It’s just dull, really. It makes you seem dull. It makes you seem extraordinarily self-absorbed and misguided and ignorant and petulant and spoilt. It makes going onto the Metal Hammer website to see what people are saying about the music we write about a tiresome experience, rather than a joyous one. It makes everyone’s lives a little less enjoyable and a bit more stressful. And, perhaps more importantly, it achieves absolutely fuck all. There are plenty of bands I don’t like, festival line-ups that don’t appeal to me, TV shows that irritate me, celebrities that I’d like to hit with a bat, alcoholic drinks that make me do sicky burps and people – lots and lots of people – that I find mind-rapingly stupid and pointless, but other than occasionally writing a moderately amusing blog about such things, as a cheap substitute for proper therapy, I really have no desire to spend any more of my life focusing on any of it than I already have to. Maybe it’s something you learn when you get older and pull your once beautiful face out of your own arse. I’m not sure. But there are few things more likely to spoil your own life than the sound of your own whining, moaning, self-important, flatulent voice, droning on and on and on about how everything’s shit and how everyone else is a wanker and WAH WAH WAH MUMMY DOESN’T LOVE ME AND I’VE GOT A CRAP MOBILE PHONE AND SMALL SEXUAL ORGANS AND A DAFT HAIRCUT AND TWILIGHT ON DVD AND WAH WAH WAH I’M SO DESPERATE TO BE COOL PLEASE LOVE ME MUMMY PLEASE LOVE ME MUMMY WAH WAH WAH DO YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT? WAH WAH WAH!!!!!

Seriously. Chill the fuck out. You don’t like the Download line-up. Big fucking deal. It’s still going to sell out and we’re all going to have a brilliant time. Stay at home. Enjoy some re-runs of Two Pints Of Lager. Eat some cheese. Slit your own throat. Whatever. Just stop fucking moaning. You cunts.

Lots of love,

Dom “Sucking A Cock And Really Rather Enjoying It” Lawson

AN ALL-TIME LOW FOR ROCK 'N' ROLL...HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Rock ‘n’ roll is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? That joyful, celebratory, life-affirming racket that we fill our ears with every day…it’s one of the few things that stops us all from hurling ourselves in front of a passing bus. And although most of us have neither the cash nor the freedom to truly indulge in the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, it’s still something to which we can intermittently aspire, whether via the medium of a balls-out, drunken Friday night or a brainless, debauched, oh-shit-the-neighbours-called-the-police house party. Failing that, we can always live vicariously through a handful of bands that genuinely walk it like they talk it; the true rock ‘n’ rollers that live life at full throttle, with a semi-drained bottle of Wild Turkey in one fist, a massive bag of illegal drugs in the other and a pair of swivel-eyed groupies doing something unspeakable in the general vicinity of the groin area down below. People like Lemmy. People like KISS. People like Motley fucking Crue. Bands that make an ear-smashing stiff-dick din and put on a show that makes your eyes spin, before buggering off to the dressing room to snort a huge line of tits and throw a tour bus out of the window. Yeah. Rock ‘n’ roll, baby! Living the dream, 24 goddamn 7, with a puke-encrusted t-shirt and shoes that are ACTUALLY ON FIRE RIGHT NOW AND I DON’T EVEN CARE THAT I MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO WALK AGAIN DUE TO SEVERE THIRD DEGREE BURNS!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

So yeah, rock ‘n’ roll is awesome, and it’s always good to hear about new bands that are upholding those wild and crazy traditions. On the other hand, there are few things more depressing and dispiriting than reading interviews with some of the latest generation of mainstream rock bands that are currently being fawned over by certain other publications that you may know and/or love. In a newly published interview that you can read in all its hideous, shameful glory this week, pop-punk fucknuggets All-Time Low have decided to announce that they’re “the Motley Crue of our generation”. Once the mind stops boggling, it’s worth taking a closer look at the interview, because in fairness to these simpering tools, they do seem to be dimly aware of the fact that they are far about as far removed from Nikki Sixx and his drug-munching comrades as it is humanly possible to be. All of which makes this one of the more disingenuous and ultimately meaningless non-stories to hit the internet in recent times. And that’s no mean feat.

But let’s look a little deeper into the mind-blowingly vacuous and creatively dead world of All-Time Low. I’m going to have a little peek at one of their videos on YouTube right now, just for you and in the name of journalistic integrity, research and all that other bollocks. Bear with me a second…

…right, this song is called Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don’t). It’s really not very good. Something inside me died about 40 seconds in, to be honest. To be fair, it’s probably not aimed at devilishly handsome but slightly overweight 37-year-old music journalists with functioning brains, but by Christ, if this is what gets the blood racing for teenagers these days, I’m absolutely delighted to be a couple of decades ahead and just that little bit closer to death. No wonder these pointless cockwads “always break stuff” when they’re drunk on half a shandy and a packet of Maltesers. It’s probably a necessary exercise in catharsis, as it slowly dawns on them that their band makes McFly sound like Behemoth and that their haircuts look like comedy wigs from a provincial theatre costume cupboard. Like far too many so-called rock bands these days, All-Time Low have no edge whatsoever. They have the slick, over-produced, sing-along tunes, without a doubt, but their music has no balls, no bite and nothing that anyone with healthy sexual organs could possibly describe as charisma. The self-consciously wacky videos, the goofy interviews in which they admit to “stealing parking cones”, the general air of smug, major label complacency…it’s all symptomatic of a generation of bands that have absolutely no fucking clue what rock ‘n’ roll is all about. There’s no hunger here. No energy. No irresistible urge to howl into the void and grab life by the knackers. It’s just safe, tame, painfully polite, utterly joyless and the exact opposite of everything that rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to represent. Lady Gaga is more rock ‘n’ roll than these twats, because at least she has the decency to be a mentalist with a penis.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some amazing mainstream rock bands out there, and some brilliant punk bands and even some great bands that skilfully cross over from pop to punk or vice versa, but when bands like All-Time Low are being promoted as an exciting part of the rock ‘n’ roll world – our world, lest we forget – then we really are in trouble. Can you imagine being on the road with these bell-ends? After a couple of hours of forced wackiness and enough hairspray to suffocate a rhinoceros, you’d be desperate to set fire to them as they slept. Twice.

“We have more fun than most bands in the world,” says drummer Rian Dawson.

You really don’t. Now fuck off. You’re getting on my nerves.

Lots of love,

Dom Lawson xxx

HAPPY NEW YEAR...OR WHATEVER!

HAPPY NEW HEAVY METAL YEAR, FOLKS!

Here we are again, then. Another shiny new 12 months of breathing in, breathing out and trying to avoid being flattened by oncoming vehicles and large, horned mammals. I hope and trust you had a tolerable festive period and didn’t kill yourself by choking on turkey or by discovering, as I did to some considerable cost, that drinking red wine all day and then having a Sambuca/Bloody Mary drinking competition is the fastest way to ensure that Boxing Day is a whole world of horrible hell and PLEASE GOD KILL ME NOW I BLAME THE CHRISTIANS AAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH! Meanwhile, I also hope that Santa brought you some nice socks and a DVD or two and whatever else it is that keeps you on the right side of thoroughly miserable in your squalid and vile part of the world. I’m a benevolent kind of guy, let’s face it. But enough of the cheery stuff. It’s pretty much beyond dispute that 2009 was a fantastic year for metal (and music in general, I’d say) but a pretty horrific, shit-stained disgrace of a year in every other respect. Or maybe that’s just me. Either way, I’m writing this, not you, so shut the fuck up and observe my New Year’s Resolutions, none of which will be kept or taken remotely serious because I’m writing them FOR COMIC EFFECT. Do try to keep up.

THREE NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

1. I WILL TRY, EVER SO HARD, TO STOP SAYING NASTY THINGS ABOUT METALLICA. It’s not like I don’t absolutely love everything they did from the No Life Till Leather demo up to and (possibly) including the Black Album. Metallica are, as we all know, one of the greatest heavy metal bands of all time, the undisputed kings of the thrash metal era and one of the only genuinely heavy bands to ever truly conquer the mainstream. For all that, I doff my hat to them many times and at high speed. Yes, I realise I look ridiculous, but at least I’m not Danish. The struggle for me, however, is to fall into line with everyone else and smother my critical judgement in nostalgia and sentiment, rather than face up to the fact that (a) Metallica haven’t made a classic album for nearly 20 years and (b) they’re really not that brilliant live anymore. I did enjoy them at the O2 Arena last year, but my enjoyment was primarily based on the fact that it’s always good to hear those songs being played at ear-mangling volume and seeing thousands of people singing along and punching the air in a euphoric manner. Fun is a good thing. Of course it is. But, and here’s the clincher, I’m lucky enough to have seen Metallica several times “back in the day”, when Lars could still play the drums properly and the band were tighter than an emo kid’s drainpipes. They were so much better back then and played every last riff with utmost conviction and belief. As entertaining as Metallica are these days, they are pretty damn sloppy and sound more like a bunch of middle-aged musos having a jolly good time, rather than a bone-crunching, Devil-worshipping, whisky-stinking heavy metal band at the height of their powers. Megadeth, Slayer and maybe even Anthrax (if they can get their shit together and stop making tits of themselves) will blow them off the stage at Sonisphere in the summer. I’ll bet my knackers on it. But, you know, I won’t say anything nasty about Metallica this year, and nor will any other writers at British rock and metal magazines, all of whom will dish out the customary full marks and bang on about how they’ve just seen the greatest gig of their lives. You disingenuous twats.

2. I WILL DRINK A LOT LESS AND GET SOME EXERCISE. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Oh, I crack myself up. I really do. I might give it a go, though. I do get quite envious of all the people I know that seem to have the time and money to go to “the gym” (whatever that means) and posture and preen while sweating profusely and haemorrhaging money left, right and sweetly narcissistic centre. It’s also undeniably true that our Wii Fit Plus balance board has started to emit little gasps every time I get on it to attempt another heroic bout of ski jumping. It even said “One at a time, please!” last week, in that irritating, child-like, quasi-Japanese voice that the creators of the Wii think will help to encourage you to lose more weight and stop thrusting fistfuls of Quality Street down your neck for six to eight weeks after Christmas. Not me, though. I’m on a high caffeine, low joy diet, as always. Fuck you, Nintendo.

3. I WILL TRY NOT TO CRY WHEN OPETH PLAY AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL.

Well, you know it is. You get into a band at the very beginning of their career and then you watch them evolve and grow into something truly special and meaningful…one of those bands that you know you’ll always listen to and love, and that you will want to play to everyone you know (even my mum has an Opeth CD by this point). And then you watch as that band starts to pick up a lot more press and sell a lot more records, and then finally they release an album that introduces them to a much bigger (and worldwide) audience…and then they’re not really just /your/ band anymore, but they still mean a whole lot. And then, because you’re a very lucky boy and have somehow managed to wangle a job as a music journalist despite arguably being better suited to mopping the floor in Burger King, you get to know the band on a personal level, conducting numerous interviews over a ten year period and spending loads of time with them at various venues and festivals around Europe and in the US…and let’s not forget that you also nick loads of their booze and get sexually assaulted by their singer in a coach park in New Jersey…and, well, like I said at the start, you know how it is. I fucking love Opeth and I’m so proud to see them celebrate their 20^th anniversary in style. The gigs are going to rule…they’re playing Blackwater Park from beginning to end, in case you didn’t already know…and I am going to be a very pissed and very emotional wreck by the end of it all. My boys. Wonderful.

THREE NEW YEAR’S PREDICTIONS

1. THE SOUNDGARDEN REUNION WON’T SUCK BALLS.

It can’t. It’s simply unthinkable, and here’s why: there are many things that can and often do go wrong when supposedly legendary bands return after a long hiatus, mesmerised by the delicious allure of the promoter’s chequebook, but nothing can ever…EVER…detract from the overwhelming brilliance and ball-grabbing awesomeness of Kim Thayil’s beard. Never mind the fact that Kim Thayil is one of the greatest guitarists of all time or that Soundgarden were always a million times better and more interesting than Nirvana or that Jesus Christ Pose (along with the vast majority of the band’s catalogue, to be fair) still sounds utterly fresh a full 19 years after it was first released or that the four band members are generally believed to hate each other (which nearly always results in great music with lashings of electrifying edge) or that anything, no matter how tired, feeble or half-arsed, could ever be as appalling as that last Chris Cornell solo album (Dear Chris…that was fucking shit…reform Soundgarden or kill yourself…lots of love, everyone in the world xxx)…no, it’s all about Kim Thayil’s beard, and when you factor in the popular notion that he has been living in the wilderness for the last decade or so, living off fried cactus and wrestling coyotes while whacked off his grunge gourd on mescaline and Mountain Dew, the thought of the great man hitting the stage again and letting rip with those monumental riffs, that vast facial growth flapping gently amid the dry ice as vultures circle overheard…well, it’s pretty fucking exciting, don’t you think?

2. MEGADETH WILL TRIUMPH AT THE BIG FOUR SHOWS.

No, I’m not remotely predictable am I? As much as I hate the phrase “it’s a no-brainer”, this really is a no-brainer. Slayer are always good value for money, Anthrax will probably be hugely entertaining, assuming that they don’t absent-mindedly call John Bush a cunt on the way to the airport, and you can read my views on the ongoing Metallica debacle further up this page, but does Dave Mustaine ever fail to deliver the goods? No, he does not, particularly in recent times when he seems to be one of the only metal legends of his generation to truly understand what it means to honour a legacy and do things properly, performing with musicians who can really cut it, night after night, and making records that simultaneously fit perfectly with the modern era while providing plenty of old school money shots for the ageing faithful. If you don’t own a copy of Endgame yet, get to it. It was the finest metal album released in 2009 and one of the finest of the decade. Any other opinion is idiotic. And you can put that fact in your fact pipe and smoke it. Factually. Now fack off.

3. IRON MAIDEN WILL RULE ALL. AGAIN.

So predictable it actually makes my eyes ache, the inevitably glorious return of Iron Maiden, with a new studio album and yet more pant-shreddingly amazing live shows, is one of those banker phenomena that make the slow, knee-bruising crawl through another year’s worth of crushing disappointments, mild irritations and narrowly-escaped beatings just that teensy bit more bearable. A Matter Of Life And Death was one of the greatest albums that the band have ever made, and there’s nothing to suggest that they are not capable of topping it this time round. This might even be the last Maiden album, terrifyingly enough, so it’s hard to imagine Steve or Bruce or any of the band allowing a single second of it to be substandard. I’ve already got through three pairs of underpants today, just from thinking about the Sonisphere show, so I should be swimming in my own man-milk by the time summer arrives. And I can’t swim a stroke. What a way to go.

Arguably the band that most precisely encapsulates what Metal Hammer stands for as a magazine, Iron Maiden have been the soundtrack to most of my life and 2010 will be no different. I’ll see some of you at the shows, I imagine, and you’d better be singing your fucking hearts out. Either that or buying me a pint. Firm but fair. That’s my policy. Happy New Year, fuckers. Horns up!

STORMCORPORATION EP

We can rant and rave all day about how metal bands need to be brutal and technically adept, but the fact remains that the difference between truly great bands and the merely mediocre is nearly always the ability to write memorable tunes. In that regard, Stormcorporation are already several large paces ahead of most other aspirational British metal bands. The five songs on their debut EP are absolutely bulging with melodies that lodge themselves somewhere in the skull and refuse to be shifted. But it’s the combination of that melodic intelligence with an overall sound that brilliantly straddles the divide between state-of-the-art metallic crunch and old school heroics, with a substantial dose of progressive dexterity thrown in, that makes songs like A Quiet Belief In Angels and Stand Up And Be Counted so thoroughly likeable and impressive. This is unashamedly modern metal that thinks big and wears its ambition as a badge of honour, but with more than enough brains and brawn to dispel cynicism from the metal die-hard contingent. And yes, Stormcorporation are, whisper it, “a female-fronted metal band”, but vocalist G-Storm side-steps the usual stereotypes, oozes genuine, dizzying charisma and sings with disarming power and enthralling authority, particularly on EP highlight Megatronix; a classic metal anthem emboldened with myriad twists, turns and tangential leaps. It’s only on the mid-paced introspection of Serious Damage that this Preston-based quintet sound anything less than remarkable; a sturdy but traditional ballad, it proves that the band have versatility and depth, but lacks the electrifying urgency displayed elsewhere. Nonetheless, this is a debut effort that sounds like the work of a band that already know precisely what they’re doing. And what they’re doing is pretty fucking awesome. Ones to watch in 2010, without a doubt.

Check them out HERE!

JOHN LAWSON 1932-2009

Being a writer and all-round opinionated bore, words don’t often fail me, but I’m finding it extremely hard to describe how I feel this morning. Last Friday night, my father passed away after what we are, I suppose, obliged to refer to as “a long battle with cancer”. He slipped away in the night, at home and in bed with my mum (just as it should be), and he leaves a yawning chasm behind, not just for me but for my entire family and anyone who ever knew him.

I know almost everyone thinks that their parents are infallible, but my dad really was a wonderful human being. He was a kind, generous, gentle and fiercely intelligent man who never knowingly said or did anything that caused pain or sadness to another living being. Most remarkable of all, he seldom spoke unless he had something to say. God knows, the world could use a few more people like that.

In some respects I didn’t have a huge amount in common with my dad. I didn’t share his religious faith, his political views, his taste in music or his calamitous dress sense, but those things are utterly trivial when you love someone as much I loved him. The important thing is that I always knew that my dad loved me and was proud of me, despite my many faults, and that he knew that I felt the same way towards him. And I admired him immensely. I’m lucky enough to do what I love for a living, and my dad was the same. An insanely talented artist, he designed stained glass windows for a living and leaves behind an astonishing legacy of beautiful creations that, with luck, will survive for many hundreds of years. I can only hope that I will be able to make such a lasting and worthwhile mark on the world. I also hope that I can become a little bit more like my dad along the way.

I miss him terribly and will carry his memory in my heart forever, as will my mum and my two sisters, Rebecca and Helena. We all love you, Dad.

IN DEFENSE OF FILE-SHARING

He may be the only drummer of his generation to become less skilful over the last 25 years, but we really should thank Lars Ulrich for kick-starting the debate about peer-to-peer file-sharing and illegal downloading. As easy as it was to take the piss out of a rich man bleating about being denied further piles of cash gleaned from the sale of overpriced CDs, Ulrich did have a point and, to be fair to him, the Napster debacle occurred at a time when the true implications of technology’s impact on the sale and distribution of music were something of an unknown quantity. Cut the Danish buffoon some slack, I say. The debate’s still going on and it’s one that we should continue to observe, not least because the outcome is going to affect those of us that buy music far more than those that make it, regardless of what high profile pop stars might tell you.

Let’s cut the crap. If you know how to download music illegally, then the chances are that you have done so on numerous occasions. I know I have and I make absolutely no apologies for it. We now live in a culture of “try before you buy”, and just because there are plenty of unscrupulous folks out there with no intention of ever getting their wallets out to buy a new CD, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we are all amoral scum feasting on the rotting, fly-plagued corpse of artistic endeavour. I am not a thief. I just choose to use the technology available to check new tunes out before I part with my hard-earned cash for the gleaming circular artefact itself. As the wonderful Stephen Fry recently pointed out, those adverts you see at the beginning of DVDs that pompously state that “You wouldn’t steal a handbag!” are disingenuous twaddle. The act of downloading tunes for free is not morally equivalent to mugging someone. In fact, and this is where the anti-share mob fall down every time, file-sharing is basically a victimless crime, if only because of one simple fact: if you take away the ability to get music for free, record sales are not suddenly going to rise. Most people that share music and download illegally are doing so because they can and that’s never going to change, but neither is it evidence that some terrible act of immoral deviance is being committed. Instead, it’s like raiding your mum’s fridge when she’s not looking. Given the opportunity you’ll have the pork pies, cans of Sprite and Frubes away, but if your mum put a padlock on the fridge tomorrow, would you head to the supermarket to buy the stuff instead? Would you bollocks. People belong to one of two groups: those who download music and then make a judgement as to whether they like it enough to buy the real thing and those who wouldn’t pay money for the music anyway. Artists, whether new and aspiring or established and successful, are not losing royalties from either of these two groups. Threatening to criminalise people for taking advantage of technology and getting a sneak preview of music that they would otherwise not hear at all is a ridiculous way to behave. Flogging hooky DVDs and CDs on a market stall and making a profit from someone else’s hard work is stealing. Downloading the new Devildriver album and giving it a test drive before you spend a tenner on the album itself is not.

But maybe I’m viewing this through rose-tinted spectacles of STEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL, because the metal world is patently different from most other areas of the music industry. Metal fans are loyal to their favourite bands and there is a long-established culture of wanting to support the bands (and complete one’s collection, natch) by making a point of buying the finished album. These days, arguably because of the downloading phenomenon, record labels are wising up and ensuring that fans have a decent additional incentive for buying the CDs by generally including a bonus DVD, extra music and/or aesthetically pleasing packaging. Frankly, after years of overcharging us all for music, it’s the least they can do. You may have enjoyed the irony of record labels complaining about “stealing” when it has been common practise for albums to be serially re-released in a cynical and blatant attempt to squeeze a few more quid out of us and exploit the devotion to their favourite bands that metal fans wear as a badge of honour. The record industry is struggling, but at least metal labels seem aware that this relationship is a two-way thing. And I guarantee that the average metal fan is far more likely to splash the cash on a new album than fans from most other genres. Yes, there will always be a minority of wankers that don’t care enough about music to keep that part of the bargain, but that’s life. People nick stuff. Boo hoo.

Things have changed a lot over the last few years. Bands now make most of their money from touring and selling merchandise. Albums are sold to promote tours, rather than the other way round. And surely that’s a good thing. After all, if rock ‘n’ roll and heavy metal are about anything it’s live performance and the establishment and maintenance of a relationship between performer and audience. Also, as much as I respect Lily Allen’s concern for the plight of struggling new artists, thanks to MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Spotify and any number of other ingenious internet devices, it has never been easier to promote yourself and enable people to hear your music. Just look at Job For A Cowboy’s startling rise from total obscurity to worldwide renown. All it took was a MySpace page, a lot of word-of-mouth publicity and, whisper it, the widespread sharing of their tunes, from which they received absolutely bugger all in monetary terms…but the long term effects are more than obvious.

If you think that cracking down on people that share files is going to benefit new bands and artists, you’re mental. It will have the opposite effect. Less people will hear the music, not more, and less people will buy the CDs as a result. The horse has already bolted, Elton. We can no more go back in time to the pre-download age than we can return to an era when it was socially acceptable to wear giant comedy glasses. Established stars should be putting pressure on record companies to invest more money in new talent instead of squandering money on banal, manufactured pop bands and the endless recycling of the Elvis, Beatles and Michael twatting Jackson back catalogues, not targeting internet-savvy teenagers as they enter a mind-boggling world of freely-available musical riches that will, in most cases, turn them into devout music fans for the rest of their lives. I don’t think it’s okay to steal music and deny royalties to the people that make it, but I do think that the air is a lot thinner up there on that high horse and it does funny things to the brain. Maybe that’s why Lars Ulrich’s drumming went downhill. Just a thought.

...AND DEATH METAL FOR ALL

VIVE LE DEATH METAL REVOLUTION! OR NOT! WHICHEVER!

Last weekend I went to a rather splendid gig. No, I didn’t spend any time standing in a field watching Machine Head wipe the floor with Fatty Durst and his mates. Neither did I shed a tear while the horribly overrated Trent Reznor forgot to play his greatest hits. And, sadly, I didn’t get to see Linkin Park doing whatever it is that they do that people seem to like so much. Seriously, what the fuck is all that about?

Anyway, no, I didn’t go to Sonisphere. Instead, I went to see Annotations Of An Autopsy headline a show upstairs at The Garage in Highbury, North London. Contrary to popular belief, it’s the kind of thing that a dwindling band of us music journalist types genuinely like to do every now and then, often in preference to hanging around backstage at some dreadful corporate event, missing all the bands and wanking each other off in a frenzy of self-congratulation and mutual hatred. Yeah, I actually like going to “little” gigs. And this was, despite the increasing stature of the headliners, a pretty low-key affair, attended by considerably less than 100 people and, thanks to Sonisphere and appalling weather, generating barely a blip on the rock ‘n’ roll calendar. Nonetheless, I dragged my lardy carcass up to the Big Smoke because, and this is the main reason I’m writing this, this gig was a particularly brilliant example of how the British death metal scene is currently in an insanely rude state of health. Aside from Annotations Of An Autopsy, the bill also featured Trigger The Bloodshed, Viatrophy, Dyscarnate and the charmingly-named Fleshrot. Every single one of these bands is bringing something fresh and new – with varying degrees of originality, but that’s beside the point – to a scene that has, for many years, preferred to revel in its own obscurity and lack of ambition. But unless you’re a total dimbo, you can not fail to have noticed that the last few years have seen a massive explosion in interest in death metal and its attendant subgenres – from grindcore to, dare I say it without sniggering, deathcore – and, in the States at least, this kind of music has never been anywhere near as popular.

Now at this point I’m sure that two or three of you – the spottier ones that have had less physical contact with members of the opposite sex, I imagine – will be spitting your cornflakes across the room in abject horror at the suggestion that bands like Annotations Of An Autopsy and Trigger The Bloodshed can be in any way regarded as a credible part of the UK death metal scene. Well, tough shit. They are part of it and, at this moment in time, they’re doing a lot more to propagate its reputation here and around the world than any number of dogged underground stalwarts bands. Not that there’s anything wrong with the underground scene in this country, of course. There are literally hundreds of great extreme metal bands in the UK and there is a very close-knit and self-contained community of death metal die-hards that are quite content to exist away from mainstream eyes and the interference of bigger labels. That’s totally cool and I have utmost respect for anyone who would prefer their death metal to be unsullied by notions of success or popularity (and I’m not being sarcastic, believe it or not). But what I find completely objectionable and worthy of nothing but contempt and scorn is the kind of attitudes that you can easily unearth on any extreme or death metal online forum, particularly when the subject of the “new breed” of death metal bands is raised. To give you an example, there is a rather brilliant death metal band called Ingested. They’ve just released their debut album, Surpassing The Boundaries Of Human Suffering, through Siege Of Amida Records. It’s fantastic. Ridiculously brutal and deeply unpleasant on every level. But some of the moronic drivel I’ve seen written about the band, purely because they’re signed to a label that people might have actually heard of and because their album sounds like it was recorded in a studio, rather than piece together using bits of shit and twigs in someone’s shed, is enough to make me clobber the cat with the nearest shoe. Doubtless the same sneering, elitist claptrap emerges whenever a band like Annotations Of An Autopsy or The Boy Will Drown or Ignominious Incarceration (all excellent bands, by the way) dare to make music that aims for and reaches a slightly bigger audience than one you could fit in your stinking front room – and isn’t it time you tidied up and hoovered the carpet, you filthy hippie? – and then have the audacity to refer to it as death metal. Oh, what utter bastards! How dare they dilute the purity of our sacred scene! That’s not death metal! It’s got breakdowns and they’ve got short hair and their fans wear girls’ jeans and they’ve got a MySpace site and MUMMY I’VE WET THE BED AGAIN!!!!!

I’ll level with you. Purists bore the piss out of me. Listen to what you like and shut the fuck up. No one’s interested in whether you think a new band are “true” death metal or myopic and unmotivated enough to languish forever in a non-scene populated by autistic bell-ends that only ever talk amongst themselves. That wasn’t good enough for Morbid Angel or Obituary or Suffocation or Malevolent Creation or Carcass or Pestilence or any of the great death metal bands from the genre’s first and second waves. It’s not a proud achievement to aim at. It’s a deliberate choice and one you make knowing full well that its purpose is to create division and to limit the number of people that can enjoy what you do. Fair enough. It’s a bit weird, but it’s your choice. But unless you have a mental age of 11, there’s no reason why anyone should have to do anything they don’t want to do in music. The whole point of the fucking thing is to enable people to express themselves however they see fit. If you think that Annotations Of An Autopsy are a deathcore band – whatever the toasted shitnut that means - then good for you, but your opinion is no more valid than anyone else’s merely because you’ve appointed yourself guardian of some mythical code of ethics. I’ve been listening to death metal since the mid ‘80s and although I cherish the old school stuff with the same love and devotion that I regard Maiden and Megadeth records, I’m still perfectly happy to see death metal evolve and change and morph into something else, something new, and maybe even something that I don’t particularly like or understand. God knows, there are some shitty bands around at the moment, but there are also a lot of fucking fantastic ones too, just as that show in Highbury demonstrated. If you play extreme metal and you put your heart and soul into it, you can no more “sell out” than I could put on a frock and do a convincing impression of Kate Moss. Even if I sucked my gut in.

The moral of the story is this: don’t be a whiny bitch. There should be room for everyone: underground and overground, long-haired and Toni & Guy-approved, grizzled purist and clueless newcomer, old school and new school…just don’t waste your time, and the time of other more fragrant, sexually active people, trying to undermine the efforts of other hard-working and passionate musicians by filling online forums and comments pages with mindless vitriol and unqualified remarks about how death metal is being spoiled by kids with daft haircuts. Purism and elitism and that whole we-were-here-first-and-we-know-best attitude are, at best, idiotic and laughable. When the next Annotations Of An Autopsy album comes out, I’ll be first in the queue, because they’re a kick-arse death metal band with great songs. If you don’t like them, or any other new school band for that matter, don’t listen to them. No one’s forcing you. And if you don’t agree with me, so what? What kind of fucked-up world must we live in if we can’t disagree about things without resorting to childish insults? You fucking poser. Fuck you and good night.

SWEET LORD, SOME PEOPLE ARE STUPID

I don’t know…what a strange day! You try to have a laugh and entertain a few people, maybe provoke a little good-natured debate and generate a bit of excitement about some new music…and what happens? A lot of drooling idiots totally miss the point and start kicking off. I probably shouldn’t have bothered to read the comments on my blog (although the vast majority of them were pretty encouraging and clearly written by people with functioning brains) and I definitely shouldn’t have clicked on the links people sent me to various threads on forums, apparently inspired by reactions to my Megadeth Vs Metallica piece…but, you know, my ego gets in the way and it’s hard not to have sneaky peak and then, as if by magic, I find myself confronted with vast amounts of dim-witted crap written by morons who (a) didn’t understand anything that I’d written, (b) didn’t recognise that it was supposed to be FUNNY…I’m not know for my subtlety, so that really threw me…and (c) seemed to think that I was trying to bully people into agreeing with me, rather than expressing a subjective opinion for no other reason than because I can and because, I hope, I can do it in a mildly amusing manner. Personally, I thought it was pretty entertaining stuff, and whether you prefer Megadeth to Metallica or vice versa, it was a bit of a giggle and vaguely thought-provoking and, perhaps, a teensy bit controversial. But ultimately it was absolutely blindingly obvious that I wasn’t expecting anyone to take it remotely seriously. I do prefer Megadeth to Metallica (marginally, as it happens), so that bit was sincere, but the rest of it? It was a comically extravagant rant, designed to elicit chuckles. Nothing more. If I’d written a piece about how Metallica are better than Megadeth, no one would have cared. That’s the orthodox view, the status quo. There’s no laughs to be had there. If I’d actually slagged Metallica off, I could understand people calling me a twat. And I am a twat, so it’s not like I’m not expecting it. But I didn’t. I love Metallica. I’m listening to them right now, in fact. Ride The Lightning. I know all the words and everything.

Of course, I don’t actually care if a bunch of dribbling mongos think I’m an idiot for preferring one band to another. Neither do I care that some people have no sense of humour and are thus incapable of spotting a joke when it’s blasted into their eyeballs from point blank range. But I do find it rather depressing that so many imbeciles are permitted to use the internet. Shouldn’t there be a rule against that? Couldn’t there be some sort of intelligence/humour test that people have to take before they’re allowed broadband? Couldn’t all the hopelessly humourless twattery that makes me want to go on a remorseless and deranged killing spree just be automatically deleted by some super-sophisticated robot? Because, really, I seldom meet people that stupid in real life. I don’t see why I should have to put up with them on here. It rather spoils things, don’t you think?

So you disagree with me. So what? I’m not your dad. Stop having a strop and chill out. This is heavy metal. We’re all friends here. Except you. You smell of piss.

Anyway, the good thing is that most people seemed to dig it. And they discussed it on Norwegian radio! Mental. What a crazy world we live in. Dio bless you all. Night night!

MEGADETH ARE BETTER THAN METALLICA

Yeah, that’s right. You heard. Megadeth are better than Metallica. Always have been, always will be. It’s not a matter of opinion. It’s a fact. A big, shiny, copper-plated fact that I’m about to shove right up the arse of your consciousness, while shrieking the chorus from Train Of Consequences through my nose. I might even dye my hair ginger to emphasise the point. Yeah, that’s right. Megadeth are better than Metallica. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Just read it and shut up, you idiot.

1. CLASSIC ALBUMS

Let’s do this using the powers of maths. Ignoring live albums and compilations (which I’ll get back to later on), Metallica have released a grand total of nine studio albums. The first four are, I think we can all agree, absolutely fucking awesome. Anyone who wants to argue the toss about that little nugget of truth can quietly leave the room with the sound of shame and hatred ringing in their ears of cloth. Die. We don’t need you. It gets a little bit trickier when we reach Metallica, the Black Album, but since it’s mainly really good and has Enter Sandman on it, I’ll happily ignore the fact that it was overproduced and nowhere near as good as the first four albums and accept that it’s a classic. So far, so awesome. What’s next? Load. Fucking rubbish. Reload. Also fucking rubbish. There are a handful of good songs in there somewhere, of course, but overall we’re talking a pair of crippled turkeys with cancerous beaks. So that leaves us with St. Anger. I gave it a good review at the time. I’m genuinely sorry about that. I got a bit carried away and was only allowed to hear it twice before I wrote the review. I’d like to retrospectively withdraw a K. Thanks. St. Anger is probably not as bad as people make out…yeah, like suddenly you’re all fucking experts on snare drum sounds, for fuck’s sake….but it’s obviously not that brilliant either. Finally, there’s Death Magnetic. Ooh, you could have surfed to Hawaii on the wave of relief that appeared when people heard it for the first time, couldn’t you? And yes, it’s very obviously the best thing they’ve done since (at the very least) the self-titled album, but is it a classic? Is it balls. A few really good tracks and a lot of clumsy waffle. That instrumental thing goes on for about a week and even though I’ve heard it 25 times, I still couldn’t whistle a single riff from it. It’s hardly Seek And Destroy, is it? Exactly. So no, Death Magnetic is not a classic. Shush now. So, that’s a grand total of FIVE classic albums for Metallica. Jolly well done. That’s five more than Limp Bizkit, for a start.

Okay, so let’s have a little look at the Megadeth back catalogue. Again, they got off to a pretty heroic start. Killing Is My Business, Peace Sells, So Far So Good, Rust In Peace…every single one, a stone-cold classic. In fact, Killing Is My Business is easily the best of the debuts made by thrash metal’s Big Four. I love Kill ‘Em All more than I love most of my family, but it’s a lot less groundbreaking and only really hinted at what Metallica were capable of. The same goes for Fistful Of Metal and Show No Mercy. Killing Is My Business, on the other hand, ripped my pre-teen face off and used it as chamois leather on Mustaine’s offal-splattered muscle car (I may have imagined that last bit). After Rust In Peace, of course, Megadeth made Countdown To Extinction. I realise that there will be lots of people who think that Countdown was “too commercial” and “not thrash” and “lots of other stuff that only morons ever mention”. All these people are fools and should be killed. Meanwhile, Countdown To Extinction is a masterpiece. Agreed? Good. So, moving on to slightly more contentious records, what about Youthanasia? I didn’t like it that much at the time, but now I love it. Even so, it’s not quite on a par with the first five Megadeth records, so because I’m being fair (and because I know what happens at the end) I’ll discount it as a true classic. Cryptic Writings? Well, I really like it…perhaps a bit more than I should…and it has got Trust on it…but…but…no, you’re right. Not a classic. Risk? Fuck off. The World Needs A Hero? When did you last listen to it? The case rests. The System Has Failed? A false dawn, if you ask me. It sounded like a super-gnarly Megadeth album and had some amazing riffs and solos on it, but ultimately the songs just weren’t there. So that leaves United Abominations. I gave it 9/10 in Metal Hammer and I stand by that score. It’s a superb record; the perfect blend of Countdown-style shiny crunch and Youthanasia-style songy-songsville behaviour. It even has some proper, balls-out thrash bits, and Mustaine’s voice has never sounded better. So there you have it…even before I tell you that Endgame is the best Megadeth album since (at the very least) Countdown To Extinction, we’ve already reached the not-entirely-surprising conclusion that Megadeth have released SIX classic studio albums. That’s a win, bitches. A big, fat ginger win.

And don’t get me started on S&M and Garage Inc. Yeah, lots of fun for all the family, but they were a rich band’s indulgences during a fallow creative period. Great for the can’t-see-past-the-logo obsessive fans, but not all that amazing in the cold light of day. A day, incidentally, that has already revealed that Megadeth made more classic albums. Did you miss that bit? Never mind. Take it as read.

2. MUSICIANSHIP

Dave Mustaine is a better guitarist than either James Hetfield or Kirk Hammett. He can do everything that either of them can do, but better. Can you imagine Kirk Hammett playing the main riff from Tornado Of Souls? He’d break his fingers and choke on his drugs. And don’t think for a minute that I’m only considering Mustaine’s skills in this watertight argument of mine. Oh no. Looking back through the history of Megadeth, it’s pretty obvious that every last significant member of the band has been a stone-cold face-ripper with chops the size of Brazil. Chris Poland? Shredmaster. Marty Friedman? Shredmaster plus. Nick Menza? Jimmy DeGrasso? The Drover brothers? Monstrous talents, each and every one. Of course, I’m not saying that Metallica are crappy musicians. Hetfield is one of the best rhythm guitar players ever. Obviously. Kirk is probably a bit underrated, all told. Cliff Burton…well, anyone with balls big enough to criticise Cliff Burton in front of me had better be wearing a goddamn gumshield. Rob Trujillo is an amazing bass player too. I even liked the thwackety-thwackety stuff he did in Suicidal Tendencies and Infectious Grooves. But pound for pound? Megadeth’s records are tighter, more precise and more technical on every level. Even at their peak, the current line-up of Metallica would not be physically capable of playing Holy Wars…The Punishment Due and making it sound as good as it does on Rust In Peace. Not a chance. And you know it’s true. And if you don’t, write your own blog. Pillock.

3. LYRICS

Regardless of what people might say when they’re lost in the moment, pissed up on booze and seconds away from windmilling like crazed bitches from Hell City, lyrics are important. What a band says may not be quite as important as how they sound when they say it, or how many totally awesome widdly guitar solos they have in each song, but the impact of great lyrics is not to be underestimated. Both Metallica and Megadeth scored pretty highly early on. Despite their often clumsy and primitive way with words, both bands started off their careers singing about the things that mattered to them and, as time went on, they matured and evolved, becoming pretty damn good lyricists (and I’m thinking primarily of Mustaine and Hetfield here) along the way. Personally, I always preferred Mustaine’s lyrics (surprise!) but I’ve raucously bellowed along to both bands often enough to be able to say that the lyrics on those ‘80s (and in some cases ‘90s) albums really resonated with me. So I call a tie, up to that point at least. Sadly, Metallica lost the plot in spectacular fashion during the ‘90s. I don’t care why. Whatever happened, by the time they arrived at St. Anger they were utterly incapable, either individually or collectively, of writing decent lyrics. Listen to that album, with its hopelessly compromised self-help manual buzzwords and awkwardly confessional cut ‘n’ paste sloganeering, and if you don’t cringe at least once, you are a robot and I’m telling Harrison Ford. And yes, I know he’s a robot too. OR IS HE???? It doesn’t matter because even if he was writing lyrics blindfold, with a turd, at the bottom of the sea, Indiana Jones would do a much better job than some of the guff on St. Anger and, it pains me to say it, Death Magnetic too. Have you actually listened to the lyrics on that album? No, thought not. Too busy having a crafty wank and celebrating Metallica’s return to the world of music that doesn’t suck, I’ll bet. Not to worry. I’ll summarise for you. “Boo hoo! I’m rich and messed up! And I’m overly familiar with a rather large number of clichés!” I think the hook in Broken, Beat & Scarred rather says it all: “What don’t kill you make you more strong!” Bad grammar and massive cliché alert!! Anyway, James, try telling that to Stephen Hawking.

Meanwhile, Mustaine’s lyrics remain as sharp and snotty as ever. I still don’t agree with his politics or his religious views, but the man writes lyrics that (a) suit the music perfectly, (b) make sense out of context, so that when you read them on the CD booklet, you don’t feel sorry for the poor sod that wrote them. On the new album, he sings about dangerous motor sports, political corruption, medieval torture devices and battles from Lord Of The Rings. Dave Mustaine is awesome. James Hetfield is also awesome, but sometimes his lyrics suck.

4. REINVENTION

On the one and only time that Megadeth tried to reinvent themselves, it went horribly wrong. You’ve probably either never heard Risk or, like me, you’ve blanked it from your mind as if it was an unfortunate incident involving genitals and cutlery that occurred during a tentative masturbatory exploration in the distant past. That’s YOU, incidentally. Not me. I’m a good Christian boy. Anyway, the point is that Risk is largely hideous and Megadeth were never supposed to be a poppy band with dance-style remixes and radio-friendly choruses (even though they frequently do the latter perfectly well in a 100% metal context). The great thing is that Mustaine knew that Risk was a mistake and has since acknowledged the fact. The whole reason his band survived at all was that he realised that everything was going tits up and that other people were interfering in his vision of what Megadeth should be. He told everyone else to fuck off, grabbed the reins and has been fully in charge ever since. That’ll explain the increasingly brilliant records and complete lack of reality TV-style documentary films. Metallica, on the other hand, went a bit peculiar after the Black Album made them inordinately rich and famous. Lars and Kirk started hoovering up mountains of cocaine and suddenly decided that they it would be a good idea to start playing country rock tunes, ripping off Corrosion Of Conformity and pretending to be gay. Then they thought it would be awesome to record a live album with an orchestra. Then they thought it would be awesome to make an album with songs written by committee and with no guitar solos. They were wrong about all these things and James Hetfield knew it, but for the most part he was too busy necking vodka and cudgelling bears to death in the woods to do anything about it. Dave Mustaine has had his fair share of problems too, but he never started wearing eyeliner or putting spunk on his album covers.

5. ALBUM COVERS

Speaking of which, many of Megadeth’s album covers were created by Ed Repka. He rules. Mustaine doesn’t like him very much anymore, but the point still stands. Even the recent Megadeth album covers are okay. Metallica, it seems almost unnecessary to point out, have only had one decent album cover since …And Justice For All, and that was for an album that sounds like it was recorded inside Bob Rock’s arse and no one will admit to liking it. I don’t know what the new Megadeth album will have on its cover, but I’m willing to bet at least one of my testicles that it will be better than a coffin-cum-fanny combination.

6. LIVE

I went to see Metallica for the first time in 1988 at the Hammersmith Odeon, on the …And Justice For All world tour. Danzig were supporting. It was fucking brilliant and I wasn’t even drinking heavily. Happy days. I saw them again at Wembley Arena in May 1990. Warrior Soul were supporting. It was fucking brilliant and I was drinking heavily. Happy days again. No complaints about Metallica’s live prowess back in those days whatsoever. I only saw Megadeth once when I was younger and I really can’t remember much about it, other than the fact that the venue was in London, I had an absolutely amazing time and I drank my own bodyweight in poor-quality lager. So far, so equal. In recent years, I’ve seen Metallica so many times that I’ve lost the ability to distinguish one show from another in my battered memory, but although I really, really enjoyed them at the 02 Arena recently and thoroughly enjoyed hearing Master Of Puppets all the way through at Download (whenever that was), I just don’t think they’re as good as they used to be. Everyone knows that Lars isn’t the greatest drummer in the world, but at least he used to be able to play the songs at the right tempo. These days, the faster songs are often a little bit painful to listen to. As with their recent albums, the Metallica of today sound looser and more like a garage band than they ever did in their thrash heyday. Back then, they seemed well-drilled and precise. Now, they’re still brilliant but they never quite match up to my memory of Hammersmith or Wembley. Megadeth, in stark contrast, seem to be even better now than they were 20 years ago. The last time I saw them, at Brixton Academy in 2008, they were so fantastic that I actually did a small wee in my pants. Chris Broderick is, without a doubt, the best lead guitarist that Mustaine has ever recruited and the rhythm section were similarly flawless. The whole thing was jaw-dropping from start to finish. And while Metallica insist on wheeling out the occasional songs from their rubbish ‘90s albums, Megadeth seem to know precisely what the kids want. And that’s Tornado Of Fuckin’ Souls. I’ll keep going to see both bands for as long as they continue touring, but as far as who I’m more likely to get stupidly excited about, there’s simply no contest.

7. THRASH

Dave Mustaine invented thrash. Fact. All the best songs on Kill ‘Em All were his. Listen to Killing Is My Business and you’ll hear the real birth of thrash/speed metal. Listen to Kill ‘Em All and you’ll hear the bit just before the birth of thrash metal…the bit where heavy metal bands sped up a bit and took more speed to assist with the speeding up thing. It was all Mustaine’s idea. Seriously. That’s why Megadeth are still a thrash metal band. Because that’s what he does. I’m not sure that Metallica are entirely sure what they are these days. Either way, Dave Mustaine invented thrash. Factimundo. Don’t agree? Too bad. Dave Mustaine invented thrash.

8. THERAPY

There’s nothing wrong with a bit of therapy. I had some once. Sorted me right out. Well, mainly. I still kill stray dogs, but otherwise I’m fine. The thing is, though, that I’m not in a heavy metal band with a huge worldwide fan base. Not entirely sure what went wrong there, to be honest. I feel a bit cheated. Still, fame and fortune has its drawbacks too, doesn’t it? For instance, you might be so incalculably wealthy and dazzled by the bright lights of stardom that you decide that it would be a totally rad idea to film the recording of your new album, including every last bit of excruciatingly personal behind-the-scenes minutiae, and then turn it into a major motion picture! Well, we’ve all done it! Or, rather, we fucking well haven’t. I’ve seen Some Kind Of Monster now. I put it off for about two years because I found the whole idea a bit traumatic, but in the end I sat through the whole thing and found it moderately enjoyable. The problem is that I don’t feel I’ve gained anything as a fan of Metallica by learning that they employed a therapist to help them “work through” their interpersonal problems. After years of touring and being forced to spend time with each other, it makes perfect sense that Metallica might have one or two issues to thrash out behind closed doors but why, in the name of Jesus H. Corbett and all his equally non-existent disciples, would you want to show the whole world? It’s nothing to be ashamed of, the therapy thing, but surely it wouldn’t hurt to maintain a teensy bit of mystique and arcane charm. I already knew that James Hetfield was a tormented soul, that Lars Ulrich was a gobby pain in the arse and that I wouldn’t pick Kirk Hammett for my pub quiz team any time soon, but to have it rammed down my spasm-plagued gullet in such an unapologetic manner just seems a little bit too much.

Now as you probably know, Dave Mustaine is a long way from being blameless in the old drug-munching psycho department. Sacked from Metallica for being a rowdy drunk with poor table manners, he spent the next decade shoving half of South America up his nose and half of Afghanistan into his veins, while swimming in a vast pool of chilled Jim Beam. He might be a hero of mine, but he really was a fucking nutter and deeply objectionable with it. The last time I interviewed him, he also mentioned that he’d once dabbled extensively in the occult. Personally, I think all notions of paranormal activity and occult are a load of sweaty knackers, but I don’t doubt Mustaine’s sincerity. Neither do I doubt his claims that he spent a lot of money and a lot of time trying to exorcise his demons, real or otherwise, and that he must have visited more than a few therapists in his time. But thanks to the fact that there has never been a Megadeth movie recounting a difficult period in the band’s career, with all the tantrums and smashed tiaras that would surely have ensued, I don’t have any mental images of Dave sitting on a black leather couch, whimpering through a veil of snot, or shrieking dementedly at his band mates in an attempt to vent 20 years of inner turmoil. Instead, I always think of Dave Mustaine as that fucking awesome ginger dude from one of my favourite metal bands of all time. He dealt with his problems and then shut the fuck up about them. Another win for Dave, then, yeah? Yeah.

9. HAIR

Dave Mustaine still has long hair. So does everyone else in his band. That is all.

10. ENDGAME

Like everyone else, I was a little bit thrilled when I heard Death Magnetic for the first time. Even though I really didn’t mind St. Anger (I still say that Sweet Amber is awesome and All Within My Hands is brilliantly bonkers), it was obviously time for Metallica to either make a kick-arse metal album or bugger off already. They just about managed the former, I think, and even with a little bit of hindsight the album stands up as the best thing they’ve done in 20 years. However, the amount of critical froth that I had to wade through to get to a review that told the truth about Death Magnetic was somewhat staggering. There are at least five great songs on that album, but it’s no classic. Instead, I firmly believe that the vast majority of the cheers and fanfares heralding its release were inspired by an overwhelming sense of relief that Metallica had finally made a strong album again. Totally understandable. I would be a miserable, mean-spirited bastard to deny anyone their little happy-skippy dance to commemorate such a long-awaited moment. However, when you compare Death Magnetic to the new Megadeth album, it vanishes in a puff of Danish hot air. There is simply no comparison. Endgame fucking rips, from start to finish. It is remorselessly metal from start to finish, and not in an old-guys-giving-it-a-jolly-good-go kind of way, but in a state-of-the-art, teach-those-youngsters-a-thing-or-two, come-and-have-a-go-if-you-think-you’re-metal-enough-even-though-you-don’t-stand-a-chance kind of way. The band are on blazing form, whether its Mustaine and Broderick’s magnificent six-string mastery or the pinpoint grind ‘n’ thud of James Lomenzo and Shawn Drover, and every single song crackles with pure energy and real, chest-out-and-fuck-right-off attitude. Cosy obsolescence? No, sir! Metal up your ass? Yes please, and one for the horse! Endgame is a fucking fantastic heavy metal record…a thrash metal record, goddamnit…and it wipes the floor with just about everything else I’ve heard this year. It’s almost certainly the best thing Megadeth have done since Rust In Peace, and by my reckoning that makes it the second best Megadeth album ever. I’m getting slightly aroused just thinking about it. When all is said done, it’s a clincher. Even if you totally disagree with everything else I’ve said, you will soon succumb to the undeniable truth that Endgame is better than Death Magnetic and that, therefore, Megadeth in 2009 are better than Metallica in 2009. You can’t argue with science. And I am a scientist, aren’t I? You can tell by the way I sometimes wear glasses when I watch telly and I occasionally seem a bit awkward in social situations. I’m the heavy metal Johnny Ball. I’m King Diamond in a lab coat. I’ve just written three and a half thousand words of this rubbish. That’s how much I like Megadeth. Good day to you.