THAT'S NOT METAL

Heavy Metal Degree: At least it's not Philosophy

2013-05-21T15:55:00.000-07:00

There's been sufficient buzz in the poseursphere recently about U.K-based academy, New College Nottingham offering a Heavy Metal Degree as one of their available majors to study. I've had multiple requests from readers to mercilessly tear into the concept of getting a degree in something like Heavy Metal, and I was originally tempted to do only such. My first reaction to such a notion, like everyone else's was "that's fucking dumb", and it is fucking dumb. What's the subject matter? What bands and genres will the professors consider relevant to metal music? Is NWOBHM even going to be it's own course? Why not offer Black Metal as it's own doctoral program? What sort of musical methods are they going to teach? Etc, etc. Judging only from the photograph of these cartoon characters they use to represent typical students in this field, my inner-elitist boils instantly to seething temperatures; my foot quivers at the ready for an ass to kick:

My original thought was that there's nobody in the entire world who "gets it" less than some silly turd paying tuition to be taught all about heavy metal in a formal setting. Rest assured everyone, you don't have to pay a red cent just to end up another misinformed poseur. Just ask all my anonymous commentators. With that said, I still find myself pretty torn on the whole subject. On the other side of the coin, the genre of Heavy Metal as a focus of study; especially if taught properly, is no less completely retarded than many of the other musical majors that will leave you jobless and up to your nose ring in debt for the rest of your stupid life. Think about it; Music Therapy is just one such major offered at many music academies around my country. A major where one can learn, appreciate, and study how to produce yoga balls music that can relax a fart out of someone.

...now breathe in deep, unlcench your sphincter, and release your chi...

Hell, in the universe of realistic expectations, most recently earned music degrees are hanging up on the wall of some entitled Generation Y dipshit who didn't realize he/she had to actually work for a living. And it doesn't stop at music; there's a multitude of other completely useless and wasteful degrees one can acquire in all sorts of subjects: Art History, Latin, Film, Cultural Studies, Photography, Religion... I mean, when's the last time you hired a fucking philosopher?

Not since you could pay him with a marble statue.

The biggest argument everyone has against this Heavy Metal degree is that it's a 'waste of time', or so thinks the Campaign for Real Education. Yet if we were to go and pull all the available college majors that can reasonably be considered a 'waste of time', then the best and brightest academies and universities of the world would shut down overnight. Tuition payments from the naive hipsters of the world trying to make a career out of fun, cool, statistically unrealistic jobs are what's keeping the campus' grass so offensively green. So with all the dumb bullshit you can waste your time and money doing in college, why shouldn't someone be able to major in heavy metal music? Heavy metal as a genre is an intriguing cultural phenomenon. A form of music that has managed to garner a world-wide fanbase of millions upon millions of people, without having any proper support or acceptance from mainstream media. It has a dense, colorful history, with a seemingly endless number of subgenres, variations and technical methods of playing. It honestly has just as much right to be included in a music school's curriculum as jazz or classical, if not more so. Especially jazz. Skippity boo bop, fuck you.

I am however, not optimistic about what the qualifications of this Liam Maloy are -- the man who put the controversial course load together -- for teaching such a subject. If I were to go based on first impressions alone, things aren't weighing too heavily in his favor:

Nottingham's self-appointed Master of Metal Mayhem

So to sum it all up, I'm not really too strongly opposed to the concept of someone teaching heavy metal in schools. But I'm completely against what's going to be the inevitably piss-poor implementation of any such degree. Especially with Dr. Fauxhawk up there with his Rock n' Roll clown shirt at the helm of all this. I feel bad for any derpwad dim enough to think this stooge has the answer to your future career blowing up the stage as the next metal shredding all star. Or thinking that he has any real insight into the history and happenings of the genre. It sounds more like all he has to offer is some collegiate advice about the music industry, which he believes in regards to metal is "growing" and "crying out for this degree". Anyone of us who listens to metal music that doesn't involve wearing fingerless gloves, knows that is some next-level horse shit. In the case of quality metal music, the less "industry", the better.

Do you want to learn about metal? Listen to it. Aurally assault yourself with every associated album you can get your grubby mitts on from 1968 to present. Buy a guitar, look up tabs, check out lessons on YouTube if you can't afford real ones. You don't need some overpaid, chalky-fingered twat in a sweater to explain it to you at 8:30 in the morning. If, however, you live in the Nottingham area, and you had your eye on that degree in Philosophy or Yoga Farts, you might as well waste two of those years learning about something cooler. Even if that something is the extensive cultural impact Slipknot had at the dawn of the new millennium.

So feel free to sound off and tell me what you think about schools offering heavy metal degrees in the comments below. Or share some ideas for course names if you were to set up your own curriculum in the study of Metalology:

Also, special thanks to Ronnie Lopez for his recent generous donation! If you want to help keep TNM alive and ad-free, please consider a small donation. It's greatly appreciated!

Jeff Hanneman of Fucking Slayer is Fucking Dead right now Holy Fuck

2013-05-02T16:36:00.002-07:00

He's dead. He has fucking died.

He was breathing just yesterday and today as of this writing he is not. He is gonna have worms eating his eyes, and all of that by next week. Seriously. He is an ex-Slayer member way more than Dave Lombardo could ever hope to be.

A spider bite almost killed him two years ago, but not satisfied with almost being killed, Jeff Hanneman, guitarist of Slayer, is now thoroughly killed. Totally and completely actually killed due to liver failure. His band writes:

"Slayer is devastated to inform that their bandmate and brother, Jeff Hanneman, passed away at about 11AM this morning near his Southern California home. Hanneman was in an area hospital when he suffered liver failure. He is survived by his wife Kathy, his sister Kathy and his brothers Michael and Larry, and will be sorely missed. Our Brother Jeff Hanneman, May He Rest In Peace (1964 – 2013)"

While I won't speculate that his liver failure was directly caused by decades of binge drinking... it was probably caused by decades of binge drinking. I know that might be hurtful to imply if that isn't the case, but the guy has a fucking Heineken logo on his signature guitar. Figure it out.

If it turns out to be true, Jeff Hanneman drinking himself to death is not metal. But Jeff Hanneman drinking himself to death is also, pretty metal. RIP brother.

"Stop Letting The Music Industry Pick Your Music For You"... Unless That Music Industry is Pantera

2013-04-26T13:45:00.001-07:00

I was judging everyone's white people problems on my Facebook newsfeed this morning when I stumbled upon the gem you see above, shared by some scrawny limbed chump in my "Friends" list from the Official Pantera Facebook page. Unfriended. Eat a wood screw salad you repugnant spermwad.

While it's pretty audacious for whomever is in charge of Pantera's page to post probably one of the most hypocritical things ever written since the U.S Constitution, I'm going to direct this to the greasy-haired internet schmuck who actually took the 14 minutes in Photoshop to create this thing; without utilizing a fraction of any of those minutes to consider how his statement makes absolutely 0 fucking sense to anyone. Anyone, of course, except for the 25,xxx people who "liked" this post at the time of this writing. That's right, 25,000+ Pantera Fans agree with an online statement of how "underground" Pantera is on a single post. Just sit and let that digest for a little while.

First, let's talk about the "music industry". The music industry consists of all the companies and individuals that make money by creating and selling music. An excellent example of such a company is Atco, a record label owned by the Warner Music Group. Ringing any bells yet? Atco was the record label that released Vulgar Display of Power, inarguably Pantera's most widely popular and best selling album. After last year's re-release of the album, its total sales increased to 2,177,000 making Pantera a double-platinum act based off one record alone.

The 2012 rerelease of VDoP sold 9,000 copies in its first week. If those were all purchased on iTunes, that's $90,000 dollars generated by the name Pantera in just one week. Even more if you consider the price of buying it on CD at a store. If you're a reader of this site, you probably don't even see half of that sort of money in a goddamn year. I don't know why anyone would go through life without realizing that all the ex-members of the band Pantera without bullet holes in their faces are fucking rich.

Here are some satellite photos of Vinnie Paul Abbot's home. These are only attainable by such means, as all unauthorized people on the premises are shot on site in an effort to protect Pantera's status as a group of DIY-underground bad asses:

In-ground pool sized to fit exactly one Vinnie Paul.

Pantera is such an undeniably mainstream act, it hurts my prostate. MTV, Vh1, FM radio, and magazines are (or were) all major cogs in the music industry machine, and have been giving Pantera more than a fair share of exposure and lauding for decades. The members enjoyed an impossible amount of fame and even impossibly fatter wallets because of it all. Serious money was made on Pantera. To think that Pantera and the music industry are parallel entities by any means is to not think at all.

I understand the point you're trying to convey because I was in middle school once myself. Popular music acts get way more recognition than the "music that deserves it". It's true that Justin Bieber sold way more in his fart of a musical career than Pantera ever did or ever will in all the time they were active and not murdered. But that's because Bieber is way more widely accepted by a much broader audience with more money to spend on him and his Vanilla Ice haircut. It's like you're comparing Budweiser to Flying Dog IPA. Just because a lot more people enjoy and buy Budweiser doesn't mean that Flying Dog is a truer, grass roots, underground beer that defies all traditions of the beer industry. Millions of dollars are made selling that shit thanks to a niche of people who prefer it over the bigger name stuff. It's still money. It's still business. The scale is irrelevant. If you want to listen to good metal that wasn't made for money so you can make some ham-fisted point like the one you attempted, it's all over the place. Get Googling, dipshit. Bands like Pantera are the last place to look.

Working on another big update. This one was just some random inspiration of the day. Now go out there and tell some Pantera fans they love pop music.

- Brenocide \,,/

Dear Carlos,

2013-03-23T17:18:00.004-07:00

If he was anywhere near as metal as you for reading my blog, then this is how your bro would have have wanted it, Carlos.

Much love brother. Sorry for your loss.

- Brenocide \,,/

POSEUR MAIL SATURDAY: Time Travel Edition

2013-03-23T15:34:00.002-07:00

I've been reading the blog comments on and off for some months now, and have managed to surmise that most of you, or all of you require some serious life/internet advice:

BEFORE COMMENTING ON ANYTHING, CHECK THE FUCKING DATE IT WAS POSTED.

If I found out that I wrote a response to something that was written one, two, or even three years ago, I'd be fucking humiliated. I would feel like absolute human waste. I'd be crying in the shower in shame. I'd feel like fucking killing myself for being so inexcusably retarded. You know why? Because it's an accident. It's a goddamn mistake if you ever share your opinion on something someone else did YEARS ago. I wouldn't even touch an internet post or article that was getting up there in months. It's like if you were going to interview Mike Tyson and you asked about Holyfield's ear. Sorry, sports analogy... It's like if you interviewed Dave Mustaine about getting kicked out of... I dunno, the beard club. Get with the fucking program already. Get in the fucking loop.

R.I.P

I figured you were stupid enough for thinking Soilwork was a good band, but does it really go this far beyond that? It's gotten so bad, that if you disagree with me on this website, I just automatically assume you have a learning disability. You guys are time bandits. Time vampires. You're all a waste of my time and you seem to have no problem wasting your own time reading this shit and writing to me. So if you're so deeply involved in the process and progress of time, why not figure out what year it is? Twats.

The neighbors just got a new fridge and left the box on the side of the street. Not about to let perfectly good shelter go to waste, I have appropriated it for my own purposes. So let's all pile in to my cardboard imagination machine and travel through time together. Just don't try to grab my wang while you're in there, like the last guy who I got to agree to this.

Let's begin our journey, shall we? Let's set our first coordinates to DECEMBER 9th, 2010:

HOOOLY SHIIIIIIII--

How about you do some research? The reason why the metal artists are so talented is because their genre is so underground and nobody really listens to it and when people do listen to it, they are stolen from (generally). With this, they have to be talented in order to get people to come to their concerts and buy their music so they can make money.

It's difficult to make money in such an underground scene.

- newenglandsun, written on 3/8/13 in response to PAYING FOR MUSIC, written 12/9/10

You got it sunny. Researched. Hrmm. See, I can't seem to find anything in looking up heavy metal about how the reason it's so good is specifically because Ritchie Blackmore and his various counterparts were broke back in the day. While the greats of true metal history were probably as penniless as the rest of us when they first started writing music, I'm sure that wasn't really their primary motive in the creation of the most perfect artform ever. Fuck you. Drink CLR you ignorant nobody little snot stain for thinking money would even be close to the driving force behind any good metal song ever written.

Also, here's a video of nobody really listening to this band. You stupid fucking clown. How's that for "research"? Garbage bag.

Yeah that's right, garbage bag. You're a garbage bag. Anybody who steps to me on this blog is not a douchebag, or a scumbag, or even a shitbag. No, you're worse. You're a garbage bag. Because a garbage bag has all those things thrown into it. You are the receptacle that holds within; all the stank, used, discarded scumbags, douchebags, diapers, and tampons. You are just a big bag of tampons left there crusting in the "newenglandsun".

Speaking of which, the fact that you're from New England makes me gag. Get the fuck out of my region, pusswad. Everyday I live here sucks just a little bit more because I know a big sack full of fairy dust like you hangs around this place. It's already bad enough I have to know about the state of Connecticut. Everyone should feel free to head on over and leave some words of wisdom on newenglandsuns' little Pokemon blog.

You, my dear, are a moron. Deathcore is as metal as any other form of heavy music.
- Joey Murray Pelly, written on 2/25/13 in response to Deathcore, written 4/11/11

Eew, Joey what the fuck? Don't call me "dear". What are you some kind of hom--oh, you're some chick. You're some chick that looks like this:

Want to know how I know that? Because you posted with your full name and linked your Google+ account when you commented on my vindictive psycho blog. Listen up "dear", when you want to talk shit on the internet, that's not really recommended. This isn't your high school or your hometown. This is the internet. The internet that everybody uses. Turn on the news and you'll find out the grim sort of shit that some people that are part of everybody do to other people. Some people are fucking crazy. This isn't a threat, just some advice you direly need about posting on the web; outside of not commenting on shit that's years old, of course. You just don't want to let some of these people know exactly how to get in direct touch with you. Moron.

Deathcore is not metal on top of how much it sucks. I might describe this fact to you in greater detail with a hand-written letter that I can send express to your personal home address.

Humorous post indeed. One point I disagree with, however, is that these pants aren't being sold as much these days (I should take into account that I live in NY, and that the Hot Topic's here sell 'Lil Wayne T-shirts). Hot Topic has become quite..."eclectic." I hate to say it, but it's true (at least here). But rarely do I find these goth pants, and, yes, I've been looking.
- Drew, written on 3/1/13 in response to Those Big Hot Topic Pants, written 1/11/11

Oh you disagree? That's great. See, it's funny you mention New York. I just went there recently and I didn't see what the big deal was. There were no planes flying into buildings or anything. I even asked some random Manhattan dude where I could see such a spectacle and he just asked me if I was some kind of fucking mongoloid.

No, no, no. This can't be the right place, see? Turn this boat the fuck around.

How about you do this for me Drew: go to any trendy clothing store and take a snapshot of the clothes they have available. Wait two complete fucking years. After waiting, go back to the same store and try to see if there's any sort of noticeable difference. I rest my case.

Hahaha yeah using a zebra stripe gel handled hairbrush is mad metal bahaha I love it when people own themselves this hard. I don't even Need to go further but as the person above me noted: dreads are much more metal than your golden curls or flowing mane or whatever. Also, if you don't have dreads, you don't have a mane. You can pretend but you know the truth: you're a Barbie doll in a black shirt and unless you're standing in a Norwegian snowstorm playing guitar, that's what you look like. I've never met anyone with dreads that smell either, so if all you seem to see is people with dirty dreads or pantene pro-v using losers, then you're doing it wrong. Maybe when you get out of highschool/ stop having so much to prove, you'll get over your hilarious attitude of ignorance and arrogance. But hey, if you don't have the balls to grow dreads, at least you can cry about it over the Internet. You sure value respecting your father too for a metalhead. Haha what a poser.

- Yorick, written on 2/21/13 in response to DREADLOCKS, written 12/7/10

A "Barbie Doll in a black shirt".

You know, I always knew people with dreadlocks were just as lazy as they were dirty, but I didn't realize that their apathy and slothfulness extended to their internet responses as well as their shower. That took you two years and an extra little handful of granola to even get back to me, after all. In the time that has passed since I actually wrote that fucking thing, I could have grown my own head of long, trashy dreadlocks, then promptly killed myself for looking like such a turd-headed loser.

I have to say, I have a hard time taking your word for it in reference to you "never meeting anyone with dreads that smells". Odor adaptation is a thing, you know. If you reek like refuse all the time, and keep the company of other people that smell like dog shit as well, you don't notice anymore. Your brain has probably adopted so well to the smell of rooms filled with pot smoke, bean bags, and body odor, that you probably forgot what fresh, non-corrupted air is really like. Here's an experiment for you to try when you're able: the next time you take a shit; wipe your ass (if you know how) and before you discard the used toilet paper, bring it up to your face and smell it. If it doesn't smell like anything, then we know I'm right about you.

"If you don't have dreads, you don't have a mane." said this guy to this lion.

Wanna know how I know you smell bad? It's because your comment betrays you. It reveals so well in the first sentence how lazy and apathetic you really are regarding anything. It's easy for me to imagine how you wouldn't mind missing a couple baths, considering how often you've definitely missed a couple crucial days of schooling. Your reading comprehension stinks more than you do. I "owned" myself, did I? Here's the part of the post I wrote where I talk about how "mad metal" zebra-striped hairbrushes are:

Please, it's not womanly. I don't care if you use your girlfriend's zebra-striped, gel handled brush. Just comb your goddamn hair. If you think it's too much for you to handle, cut it off, and make your father happy for the first time in his entire life. Your other alternative is to look as hard rock and true metal as Bob Marley. Hey, there's an idea...

Anyone who doesn't spend all their Taco Bell paychecks on psychedelic drugs and Grateful Dead albums would know I wasn't referring to the "zebra-striped brush" in a positive light in the above paragraph. What I was trying to very simply convey is that combing your long hair and avoiding dreadlocks is so important that you should just use whatever is available to you. Girly hand brushes are available to those of us who have been, or are currently involved in adult sexual relationships. Using soap might help you get yourself in one someday, Yorick.

Your comment would have made sense if I said something more like this:

Hey fellow High School faggots. Brush your long ass hair specifically with a zebra-striped, gel handled brush or else you're an unmetal fucking faggot. On another note, dreadlocks are also gay and you're gay if you don't listen to your dad and dads are fucking awesome. Also Slayer.

Looking back, that's probably what I should have actually said. All joking aside, there's a lot of things I didn't say in my Dreadlocks post, or any of these posts. Two years can drastically change a person's viewpoint on a lot of different things, and there are things that made my blood boil back in 2010 that are either no longer culturally relevant (AKA defeated by true metal), or just don't bother me anymore.

Dreadlocks, however, are not one of those things. They are a violation I didn't get much into, but they are probably one of the worst out of the bunch. You see, not only do they look retarded, but dreadlocks are a classic case of cultural appropriation. If you're seriously some fucking white kid and you have dreadlocks, your poseurdom goes way beyond my jurisdiction. You're just all around as fake a human being as anyone could ever be, and you should be ashamed of yourself. I hope you get deservedly jumped in the streets someday.

If you ever bother to go outside.

John Laux of Warbringer Interviewed by THIS GUY:

2013-01-31T19:08:00.003-08:00

Don't binge on grape drink, kids. That shit is carb-heavy. You'll end up falling asleep in it chin-first and then interviews with metal artists will never look the same.

FIXED

2013-01-31T17:06:00.003-08:00

Black Metal Peanut Butter

2013-01-21T15:16:00.001-08:00

God knows where the hell you found that picture, Carl, but thanks for thinking I'm even remotely quotable.

Newer, bigger, better article is in progess, as they always are. In the meantime, remember that Almond butter may want to be peanut butter, but we in the peanut butter elite fully recognize it as a false nut-based cream spread for poseurs and wannabes.

- Brenocide \,,/

How To Be A Brutal Metal Vocalist by Sam Meador of Xanthochroid

2013-01-17T16:37:00.001-08:00

I'm surprised he even brought up Pop Filters. Those are like, the basics.

Like Xanthochroid on Facebook if you like music that's good:
http://www.facebook.com/xanthochroidmetal

This is the only good music video ever. Trivium is still stupid.

2013-01-16T21:09:00.000-08:00

This is the only music video I have watched and enjoyed. It's a couple years old and hasn't been seen by anybody except us. I want these guys to be signed immediately. In other news, I'm working on something substantial again, but it's gonna keep being like this. You're gonna go a while without much of anything except some crappy blurbs about shit that doesn't matter. You want news updates? Here's one: Girls still don't want to fuck you.

No, but seriously, as if Trivium couldn't figure out a way to be more false, they decided to have David Draiman of Disturbed produce their new album:

Draiman, seen here, contemplating just how badly he wants to get down with Heafy's sickness.

Out of all the bands that teeter on the fence between metal music and radio butt riffs, Trivium is only second to Avenged Sevenfold in finding new ways to prove themselves on the wrong side of that fence. I mean, at this point, I think it's safe to say that they're totally on the wrong side of that fence. They're on the wrong side, and they've drilled holes just big enough to fit their pale little peckers through, and they're just fucking wagging them at us. They're wagging their flaccid wieners at us and giggling with jolly fervor as we just have to look on from a distance. Look on from a distance, all pissed off and listening to our Sweet Savage records, doing our best to ignore them. Some of you even go over for a taste.

Still don't think Trivium unmetal? That picture was taken from Paolo Gregoletto's smarty phone and uploaded onto his Instagram feed. And here you were thinking only a seasoned Photoshop wizard could apply such a cracker jack black n' white filter. If snapping shots of David Draiman's cue ball with your iPhone, while the hippest of Heafys noodles away on his vintage-style Gibson just a foot away from rock radio's favorite chin-tusked man baby isn't unmetal, I don't know what is. This coming from the blowhard that started a web page all about that specifically. How much more do we need to drive home that you need to stop listening to Trivium if you don't want to suck? Did they break up yet? Then a lot more.

Confirmed for Poseur

2013-01-11T10:11:00.000-08:00

Hansi Kursch of Blind Guardian confirmed for poseur:

D.D Verni of Overkill confirmed for poseur:

David Davidson of Revocation confirmed for poseur:

James Malone of Arsis confirmed for poseur:

Varg Vikernes of Burzum confirmed for poseur:

Paul Masvidal of Cynic and Death To All confirmed for poseur:

Charlie Benante of Anthrax confirmed for poseur:

Barney Greenway of Napalm Death confirmed for poseur:

And of course:

Confirm more poseurs in the comments below:

EDIT: Baldies don't count.

Underoath calls it quits: Doing the world a favor 15 years too late

2013-01-09T09:35:00.000-08:00

In a stroke of pure luck, perhaps even a sign of awakening from the metal gods, the Christian rock band Underoath decided to call it quits in 2013. That’s right, 2013 will be free of one less shitty group of jackoff’s.

Apparently, they announced this news to their Twitter and Facebook followers in October. I wouldn’t know because Tyranneous doesn't do Twitter. Also, I don’t give two shits about Underoath anyway and when I don’t hear anything about them I just assume they locked themselves in a monastery somewhere far away.

So let’s read what the band had to say about this glorious announcement, because fairness is what we’re all about, right?

“It’s sad to say that we feel like it’s time to close this chapter, but we have never seen things more clearly,” frontman Spencer Chamberlain said. “We love all of you and hope to see you again soon.”

Spencer Chamberlain telling his fans how much he loves them at some event somewhere.

“This couldn’t be a more bittersweet moment for us,” keyboardist Chris Dudley said. “We have accomplished more, met more friends, seen more places and have just done more than we could have ever imagined, and we really wanted to just go out on the highest note possible. That’s why we have put together a group of great friends and musicians for what will be our final tour ever.”

Reading this press release from October makes me want to vomit. I wasn’t aware that the business was all about friendship and circle jerks. I also wasn’t aware that friends charged friends for albums and general admission ticket prices. It’s sad for me to say that I can’t make any more jokes at your expense. Wait, I still can? Cool.

They speak of their time in the biz as though they were on a mystical adventure. As though they were on …

Underoath, you're not Bilbo Baggins. It was not some journey or adventure. It was a well calculated career of screaming.

You see, I didn’t realize that Underoath accomplished anything. Unless they mean they slightly deepened their pockets with their fellow Christian’s hard earned cash and a pedestal from which to preach the word of their god. It sounds like they just kind of forced themselves on us, like good Christians, raping our brains with words and messages that we didn’t want in the first place.

Speaking of rape and Christians, did you know that Chris Dudley is a youth pastor? Me neither until today. But I'm not implying anything. Blame the church for automatically connecting those dots.

Oh, hey Chris Dudley, it's cool that you help kids and stuff.

Taking Forever to Produce Material (ha!)

2013-01-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

If you hadn't seen them already (scroll down, mongoloid), I poked some fun at myself and my silence/lack of updates by posting a pair of bullshit "studio update" videos that showed some footage of my fat, faceless ass sitting in a chair doing little more than nothing while the world waited. I did this all in an attempt to open a conversation about metal artists and their surprisingly common inability to satisfy fans with new content or news regarding new content. Did you guys get the joke? Did you? No? Of course you didn't. None of you ever fucking get it. A good chunk of you delete your Facebooks, clear out your iPods and break up with your girlfriends based off my stupid advice. You're a bunch of retards, all according to plan.

I'm glad you're dumb. Leave the smarts to the false. You're here to learn about metal, or rather, continue along with your very basic understanding of metal. Metal being a tried and true musical formula that has been dumbed down over generations into something simple to write and produce in a short time. As metal elitists, we only really like one riff anyway. It might be arranged a little differently, but it's all the same shit. It's sort of like pizza. There's an art to it, but at it's core, it's just dough and sauce and cheese, and really any jerkoff can just make pizza. You can put as many unusual toppings on this pizza as you want, in the form of say; synth or folk instrumentals, perhaps. It can be phenomenal, it can be so-so, it can be an abomination. Yet pizza is pizza and it's hard to really fuck up; since pizza in concept alone is just so great and better than any other food. As much as I hate bad metal, just as I do bad pizza, even the worst pizza is still better than the best tofu dish. Fuck tofu. If you like tofu, leave.

Little Ceasers and Dimmu Borgir. Two perfect examples of shitty pizza.

So when I'm told over the phone that my pizza is going to be ready for me to pick up and eat in 20 minutes, but instead it takes the guys in the kitchen eight years to get me only half of my fucking pie, forgive me for getting a little annoyed.

You're just making pizza here, so what's the fucking hold-up?

Before I really get too far into this and give the wrong impression; (cause I just care so much what you twats think,) I would like to make it boldly clear that I actually did end up really enjoying Wintersun's highly-anticipated album, Time I. Not anywhere near as much as this fucking guy, but I did love the album. Yeah, it's overproduced. Yeah, it's way too short. Yeah, there weren't enough solos. Yeah, it's full of Chinese restaurant music. Yeah, it's not as raw and metal as the first album. Yet all that aside, I thought it was very much the inspiring musical journey through wind chimes and space and winter, just as band leader, Jari Mäenpää had envisioned it to be. It is indeed a phenomenal listen, and if you didn't like it at least a little bit, then you're wrong. You must be a Daath fan or something. How's that going for you? What's that even feel like, anyway?

With all that aside, the question still remains; after all the setbacks, after all the cancelled tour dates, after all the technical difficulties, after all the new equipment and frustrated record execs, was Time I truly worth the 8 years we as Wintersun fans desperately waited for it?

Not even remotely. If I had known what the end result was going to be, I would've stopped waiting. I would have stopped following its progress so closely. I got caught up in the hype just like everyone else who's retarded enough to still maintain a generally positive attitude about music. I promise it will be the last time I'm optimistic about anything. First mistake. Last mistake. No more mistaaak*cough-ahem*... It's true, Time I was a really good album, but dozens of really good metal albums are produced all the time. I know, because I keep downloading them all illegally.

I tried to convince myself for weeks that Time I was a god-level masterpiece of musical orgasms, because that's what I was expecting after almost a decade of tireless waiting. It's what I desperately wanted it to be. When it came time to face the facts however, I was left to realize that Time was only at it's best, a good album. One that will sit unremarkably among my collection of other metal albums that are also pretty good. Other decent metal albums, mind you, that were released by their respected artists in a timely god damn fashion.

If you are a popular, active metal act, it seems to be a pretty general consensus that a new album is expected of you every 2 or 3 years. Look up your favorite bigger name metal bands, and you'll notice that they release albums in a relatively short, consistent time frame that doesn't fall too far outside of this. (Disregarding the occasional hiatus.) For the sake of example, let's compare the discography of Wintersun to say, a different metal act that I also think is pretty okay:

Since forming in the mid-90's Suidakra has released a total of ten studio albums. Ten! Some of which were even recorded and produced only a year after the one that came before. Granted, I will admit that Suidakra is on relative terms, a much busier band than the norm. I expect most bands require sufficient time between albums to tour and promote themselves, so setting anyone else to such a strict standard would be unreasonable. I also can't say that all Suidakra albums are of the finest quality, nor am I saying that Suidakra makes better music than Wintersun in general. Suidakra, however, knows their craft, have perfected it over the years, and are proof that a band can release new and decent metal music at practically a yearly rate. A multitude of other bands prove to us that decent metal albums can be produced at, traditionally, a biyearly rate. So what gives? Why do the core members of bands like Wintersun, Necrophagist, and even Guns N' Roses have such a hard time getting their new material released in a timely fashion, and on the release dates they kept promising us; only to keep failing to deliver time and again? The answer, really, is simple:

A lack of trying.

I can tell you from personal experience that the reason I took so long to write new material for you guys to read is because I just didn't give that much of a shit. People kept asking about it, I got waves of support from readers, I have continued to receive the donations. I knew for a fact that there were still a handful of die hard TNM fanboys who would check my page every single day, in desperate hopes of some newer posts. I realized all of this. I realized there should have been a sense of urgency on my part to produce something to entertain you guys. I realized it would not only benefit you, but me as well; especially if I were to consider a career in writing. Regularly updating this page is the best way for me to make a name for myself, after all. Even if the complete substance of my character is just swearing. I considered all of these facts, yet I elected to masturbate instead. Day after day, when I could have been engaging the world-wide audience I spent years of my life building, I instead spent hours and hours toiling away on internet porn sites, trying to find something else that would help trick my body into coming with my chubby-handed grip.

What else can you do with a PC that can't mix tracks anyway?

Do you really want to know why it took 8 years for Time I to be released? Because Jari spent most of it waxing his carrot. I read all of his news updates. Every one. I knew of Jari's supposed woes. How his computer wasn't powerful enough, how he was low on funds, how Nuclear Blast could only do so much for him, how he had to cancel tours to focus on his album, and then had to cancel focusing on his album to play shows again. I heard it all. After all, he only addressed the internet maybe a couple of times during those long, seemingly endless years. Once to tell us that his computer wasn't good enough to mix all his tracks, and then once again to tell us that the software wasn't good enough to mix all his tracks on his new, better computer. I wasn't fucking buying it. I know lame excuses when I hear them. Being a fellow lazy person, I am myself a master in the craft of bullshit.

The fact of the matter seems that Jari simply wasn't trying hard enough. He didn't care enough. He didn't want it bad enough. The idea of thousands of happier music fans and sharing his artistic vision with the world wasn't enough of a motivation for him to do what was necessary to get this album released only a couple years after he started working on it. I sense this to be true, having ridden on a similar wavelength of leisureliness myself. The main difference being here, of course, that Jari had a lot more people depending on him; so therefore deserves a whole lot more scrutiny. Who reads metal blogs anyway? Loser.

Perhaps I'm missing part of the story, because believe me; picking apart Jari's broken English over the years was always a treat. I'm not completely against believing that he truly endured six long years of suffering, setbacks, disappointment and fruitless labor. (Just ask me what marriage was like...) However, he just wasn't providing enough evidence to me or the rest of world as to what his real problems were. If Jari truly cared about putting out his album in a reasonable amount of time, he would have realized the ridiculously simple solutions to all of the non-problems he kept claiming he was having. Let's review what they were, shall we? To the best of my memory anyway. Sufficient research is for pussies:

Problem 1: My computer can't mix all these tracks.
Solution: Less tracks.

The general consensus among listeners is that Time I's songs are overlayered with too much synthesized symphony and sound effects, and not enough genuine metal. So therefore, Jari's album would have ultimately benefited if he just compromised from the get go and decided to cut a lot of that excess out. Not only would Time have been released much earlier, it might have actually sounded better too. If he thought that a song with less symphonic background noise, or a lack of 40 voice-over echoes would have left something to be desired, then he should have just recorded more fucking solos like he's actually known for being good at:

Tracks for drums, guitars, and bass were completely recorded in Sonic Pump Studios as early as 2007. Jari was already sitting comfortably on the parts of metal everybody actually cares about for years before he took on the 5 year project of getting his twinkly keyboard fairy dust just right. I also think it should be a good rule of thumb that if you have a fairly modern computer, and you are loading each song with so many tracks that you're crashing it, then newsflash: you're mixing too many fucking tracks.

Problem 1a: My computer can't mix all these tracks.
Solution: Then get off your ass and ask someone else about their fucking computer.

Let's say Time I is perfect the way it is, and it just had to incorporate all of these tracks in every single song. This is incorrect, but fine. I understand in such a hypothetical case, Jari would need a better computer. What I don't understand, is why you had to stick with using your own? You mean to tell me that in all of Finland there isn't even one other studio with better equipment, a more experienced studio tech, and (drum roll please) a better computer with better software that's perfectly capable of mixing all your music for you? Can you smell the bullshit from here? We all know that Jari finished recording all of his tracks years before Time was released. His only major problem was mixing it all together. So why did he choose to suffer by himself? Is it because he couldn't afford to pay someone else to do it for him? I'd give him that, but my next solution will royally void that possibility. The only possible conclusion I can draw, is that he just didn't give that much of a fuck. He's probably an awkward guy, who wanted to record this all in his own apartment and by himself, because he was worried what other people in other studios would say about his music and his mixing abilities. He decided to let us all suffer and wait instead of swallowing his pride. He wasn't experiencing technical difficulties so much as he was experiencing a social disorder.

Flash drive. 16GB. $10. Now put your music tracks on this, go outside, and make some fucking friends.

Problem 2: I don't have enough money.
Solution: You play premium Steve Vai Ibanez guitars. Sell one.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I can't tell you how many times I sold a beloved instrument of mine (or my body) just to make due. There's just no way to express the American dream better than that: your loftiest hopes and dreams, crushed by your endless debt and lofty life expenses. Perhaps such a concept is so second nature to me due to the country I live in, that I must be experiencing difficulty understanding how a Finnish man would never consider it a viable option. The words for selling your own belongings might not even be translatable into the Finnish language, for all I know. After all, Jari revealed in an interview that he has spent all of these years completely jobless, living on Social Security. This only further proves his lack of shit-giving to me. Not only did it take him six long years of feet-shuffling to finally produce Time, he literally had 0 other major obligations while he was doing it.

"I'm broke!" cried the man holding the Ferrari of musical instruments.

With such a cushy government system, why should anyone be bothered to sell their expensive toys? Your mouth is practically guaranteed to be fed, your health care is free and the roof over your head will always be paid for. But I'll tell you why: because you're telling the world that you 'need a better computer', that you 'don't have enough money' for, and you say this all with a straight face while you're standing in front of a collection of guitars that have an MSRP somewhere around $3,000. Fucking sell one. I'm not asking you to give up your whole collection, just one. I guarantee you that the $2,000-3,000 you get for selling only one of your guitars (maybe even more if you signed it and put it on eBay) would have been more than sufficient to afford the proper equipment and software required to mix your tracks without issue. If not a guitar, then I'm sure you've also got amps to spare, dude. I mean, being all techy and shit, I built myself a six-core, 16 GB PC with a decent graphics and sound card last year for a little over $700. I would have gladly built one for you too, if you shipped me that fucking Telecaster of yours. Don't bother pleading with Nuclear Blast next time for some hipster iMac bullshit. Just shoot me an e-mail, buddy. We'll work something out.

Problem 3: There's construction going on outside and it's too noisy to record and mix.
Solution: Relocate your forever-sitting ass.

"We are the Sons of Winter and -BBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--"

This excuse blew up my laziness radar harder than all others. "Sorry guys, I can't record anything because it's too noisy outside. Guess I'll just have to crack a beer and wait this one out!" Give me a break. Give me a break. Break me off a piece of that dog shit I smell. You mean to tell me there was nowhere else on Earth you could have worked on this? A major construction project takes what, 6-8 months? Sometimes even a couple years? In all that time it never occurred to you to just move your project and the necessary equipment to someplace other than this one lonely cave you've been recording Time in? Don't make me throw another flash drive picture at you.

Problem 4: I've never recorded a symphonic album, or used computer software like this before.
Solution: GET HELP. Ask Devin Townsend for it like you said you would that one time.

The original Wintersun album was recorded by Jari on nothing more than a modest 16-track mixer. That album was raw, nasty, vicious, gritty and pure musical tits as a result, but as an ever-growing artist, Jari wanted more. He wanted to create an epic, symphonic metal album like so many artists before him, but on an even grander scale. Something never before accomplished in this dimension of music. He had no way however, to afford a real orchestra, so he decided to embark on the multiple year endeavor of teaching himself how to do it all digitally. The ultimate result is he that he got himself in way over his head, and the final product turned out a little too sloppy, with way too many tracks overpowering the most important elements in his music.

Devin Townsend is the master mixer of the metalsphere, or at least when he wants to be. He actually makes an artform out of 'way too many tracks' in each song, with his signature 'wall-of-sound' approach to music. It's overproduced, but done so intentionally in a way that sort of works. He's even overcome the clearly overwhelming obstacle of acquiring a computer that can do it all. If there is one guy ever, who could have helped you, Jari, complete this album with the proper know-how and proper equipment, it was the guy you were seen interviewing in this video right here, not asking for help:

He's human, and he's assisted with many well-known musical acts in the production of their albums. He's sitting right there. Say something. Anything. Jari. plz.

But who knows? Maybe after the end of the video, or before the video, Jari was all "hey help me" and then Devin was all "fuck you pay me right" and Jari was all "but I'm broke" and Devin was all "so sell some stuff right" and Jari was all "ERRWHATHUH??" I can't say for sure whether or not Jari reached out to Townsend for help, but it would make sense to me if he never bothered trying. Judging from this exchange and all other exchanges I've seen Jari in, he just comes off like sort of a socially awkward fellow. The type of guy that would sit in his apartment and struggle to teach himself how recording with computers works for half a decade without asking anyone else for their input. If you thought Time I sounded overlayered, it was probably because it was recorded by a guy trying his best to figure out how to do all that major computery shit with no prior experience. It already sounds like a way better album just knowing that. It's like when you see some kid's CGI project for his art school on YouTube and you say "hey that's pretty good for a student!" Yet if you ever saw something like it in a Hollywood setting, you would be like "fucking looks fake as fuck, fuck this shit."

Problem 5: All the stress, pressure, and overall frustration has given me writers block.
Solution: Yeah? Well... you... oh fuck. Shit oh fuck.

I think I forgot where I was going with all this. What's the point I'm trying to even make? What's the point of any of this? People need to get off my fucking back about posting this thing. Look, forget all that shit I just talked Jari. Overall, I still liked your album and thought you kicked everybody in the dick musically when I saw you shred faces in Boston last December. You seem like a nice guy. This is stupid. Why am I giving you such a hard time? Is it because I'm some jealous fat faggot who can't play guitar well and I have maybe nine fanboys on the internet who always agree with me when I sound this mad? No, that can't be it...

So your album took forever, so you don't have great excuses about it -- so what? It could have been worse. Your album could have gotten delayed for a legitimate reason. Like say you sliced open your guitar playing hand with a broken glass, because you got all white-girl-drunk and couldn't handle your appletinis like some Skrillex-headed shit I know.

Michael Keene; pictured here with busted hand, as well as fat lip I gave him for that hair cut.

Fuck you Michael Keene. Your band is loved by kids who wear baseball hats and lip rings. Nobody gives a shit about your ironic guitar color. But I guess since I'm feeling all worn out -- and therefore mysteriously positive -- I'll tell you that I did really like that Devin Townsend album you put out last year. It was almost better than Epicloud. Actually fuck that, I take that back. It's not even close:

Better luck next time, wannabe. You'll never hold a candle to the erupting volcano that is Devin Townsend with his overflowing streams of metal magma. I mean, with tunes like this you can't help but understand why MetalSucks is all about this guy.

Listen, musicians experience some setbacks during the recording process, and regardless of my impatience as a listener, I should be more accepting of the fact that shit happens. Especially since that's what my therapist and ex-wife keep telling me. Most of the time, we should try to cut them a little slack. They're human, and they have problems too. With that said, however, I think everybody experiences setbacks in life. Yet instead of leaping over these hurdles like most motivated individuals would, musicians love to lazily trip over them. Trip over them, turn limply toward the world and cry "look, I've fallen, and I can't get up!"

You see, musicians are just lazy by nature. It's not like all that long hair is just for show. They don't know what real work is like. As metal performers you have one job to do, and that's to write and play metal music. Your job is not hard. Preparing meals at a break neck pace for entitled lard creatures in a hot kitchen is hard. Mopping up bathrooms at the Amtrak station is hard. Checking out tampons and Doritos for 9 hours straight at Walmart is hard. Taking the fall after your boss was caught embezzling money from his company and going to prison is hard. Fixing cars is hard. Picking corn for pennies because you're in the country illegally and don't have a choice is hard. Performing open-heart surgery is probably hard, too.

Do you know what's not hard? Sitting in a chair in some airconditioned studio, noodling on a guitar the exact same music you and everybody else in your genre has been sitting in a chair noodling out for decades. For every studio artist that's "working" with his guitar, there are 10 million dudes "playing" with their guitar. Playing with their guitar, up in their bedrooms, because that shit is actually fucking FUN. I don't feel bad for any of you. Shut your smelly cigarette holes.

So that extra JUN DIDDLY at the end of your palm-muted riff sounds a little different from everybody else's riff. That's good. Call it original, and then call it a fucking day. Play a solo; I heard those sweep arpeggios are popular these days. Find a guy to play some blast beats behind it, I bet that will sound good too. Put out a Craigslist ad for cookie monster impressions. VOCAL TRACKS COMPLETE. Record over 8 songs of this shit at 4-8 minutes a pop, have your art school drop-out buddy mix it for you and pay him in weed. Done. Now call it music and go see if you can trick anyone into buying it. Maybe some label will sign you, just for being such a safe musical bet.

While I'm at this, do you know what else isn't as hard as the average job? Touring. Your life is a road trip with your best friends, and if you starve and suffer the whole time, it's because you didn't save up the money to do it right. You know, like the musicians who know well enough to have real jobs that suck on the side. If you miss your friends and family, that means you weren't metal enough to be completely rejected by them, and you should stop trying to play metal anyway. Clearly you're not callous and mean enough to make it any good.

My final thoughts on all this: The invention of broadband internet has made it inexcusable to be completely silent about the status of your album. Inexcusable. If my bitchy coworkers can let me know via smartphone how good their dessert looks every night their boyfriends treat them to Denny's, then I see no reason you guys can't throw a "drums are almost done" update on your Twitter or Facebook. Seriously. Here's Finntroll recording their new album from start to finish in just a couple of toughish weeks; like how long it's supposed to be:

And then:

See? Some serious focus and effort over the course of a couple weeks, and then you don't have to worry for another couple years before doing it all again. Produced in such a short time, and I guarantee this album is going to be exactly as bad as any Finntroll album is supposed to be. Way to go, boys. So what say you, Muhammed Suiçmez? As much shit as I just gave our friend Jari up there, at least he had an excuse-laden update to show to us every couple years. Your silence is simply deafening, and the last I think anyone heard about your new album is how it's being "you know wrapped up you know" in a video interview you did in 2010. Ever since then, stupid metal blogs like mine have been writing about how we're never going to hear your stupid album. What's the fucking problem here? Did you die? Were you intent on completely reinventing wanky tech death or something? If so, the solution probably lies in more fretless bass solos. Trust me on this.

Well, I guess that wraps up this article, kids. Knowing what my comments are going to look like before I get them, I am fully prepared to be asked: "Well Brenocide, if writing a great metal album is so easy, why don't you do it (fatty, fag, etc)?" The answer is all too simple, my friends. It's because women like Hitomi J-Cup exist in this world, leaving me utterly powerless from having to wank on something besides a guitar.

Speaking of white sauce, anybody up for some Domino's?

I'll even bring it over.

- Brenocide \,,/

That's Not Metal "Studio Update" #2: NSFW

2012-11-19T14:51:00.000-08:00

This is the manliest video ever created, based on specific requests from a certain one of my viewers. It's also NSFW, unless that is of course you work in a bear bar. Either way, I'm positive the grand majority of internet dwelling metalheads will definitely enjoy it:

UPDATE: That's Not Metal in the "Studio"

2012-10-29T15:04:00.001-07:00

Admittedly, the new article was a greater project than I first imagined. So far, it's over 2500 words, and I don't even feel halfway through. It will be my densest article yet. Or rather, the densest most content-heavy blog post ever produced in the history of man. Currently, I have a computer with only 8 gigs of RAM and a 64-bit operating system, and with almost 14,000 characters to process, I am running into constant setbacks. I have called Intel about a 128-bit processor, and they're working on it, but I don't have the right plug-ins for Google Chrome and Blogger to utilize it's power, so I have to wait for that to be sorted out as well. Hang tight though, my friends! The new article will definitely, definitely be out next month. Or next year. Give me 4 more years. And 6 months. The official Nuclear Blast release date is in 20 minutes. You might get half of it.

Sex [Redux]

2012-05-29T06:09:00.000-07:00

A select few of you may remember the article I wrote about sex once upon a time. Yes, I did actually write regularly this blog once, and that one article was probably the only thing of any significance I ever contributed. Some of you laughed, some cried, some masturbated furiously in protest. I even raised the ire of Brenocide himself who is well known for his voracious carnal appetite and affinity for wenches and mead.

Well, hide your prophylactics and wipe your search history folks, because I have returned to whip this dead horse a little more and re-explore the topic of sex.

Let us also re-explore unnecessarily gratuitous sexual imagery

Before we begin, I want to stress to you that this is in no way an inclination that I may have possibly been incorrect in some of my assumptions and arguments in the last article. I was right then and I am even more right now. I decided it was necessary to revisit this topic for a number of reasons:

#1 Like any good intellectual, I am constantly reassessing and reimagining my ideas and theories. Do you think that Nietzsche birthed a full philosophy on his first try? Of course not, he had to struggle with a myriad of intellectual pitfalls and inconsistencies in order to create a more rounded mindset. My work is no different. Except with more creampies.

#2 I have subsequently discovered that not everyone is disgusted by the human body and all of its oozing liquids and strange odours. I’ll admit, I forgot that Misanthropy and Metal Elitism are more or less mutually exclusive and that there are some headbangers out there that actually like a select few human beings. I’m willing to let this slide and make some concessions on your part and offer you some advice from the perspective of someone who has observed humanity like a swollen pus-filled zit. Besides, this puts me on a whole new level of elitism anyway.

#3 Dick jokes are easy to write and I’ve more or less ~~ran out of ideas~~ stopped giving a fuck.

The first and biggest change of viewpoint from my last article is this: The act of sex itself is not inherently false. It is rather, the motivation and emotions leading to the act of coitus that can often make it false. Last time, I was working on the assumption that the only way any of you were going to get any action was by getting on your hands and knees and begging for it like the shrivelled little disappointments you are. That you were scrawny little beings governed by lust and desperation, whose resolve stood as strong as Lars Ulrich's little piggle dick. Apparently some of you took offence to that.

You can surely see how weak, cowardly and downright unmetal behaviour like that is. Letting another individual control your sex life is a sign of weakness. It’s saying that you have no ability to command and conquer, that you are completely unable to be satisfied unless they allow you to be satisfied. You are completely powerless over your own body. That’s about as weak and unmetal as it gets.

In a genre where, let’s be honest, the percentage of pasty, socially awkward males vastly outweighs the number of females, I made the assumption that said display of inadequacy would be the norm when it came to human courting behaviour. For women, this can actually be a positive. With hordes of men attempting to force strained and awkward small talk with them, they live in a lucrative buyer’s market where they can pick and choose only the most majestic and beardy suitors.

Real men. Men like Brian Blessed.

So, for argument’s sake, I’m going to highlight a few situations where it is perfectly acceptable for a metalhead to get in touch with their sexuality and VIOLENTY CLIMAX.

They want you real bad: This is a purely hypothetical realm for some of you, but in situations where you are the one being relentlessly pursued, it is okay for you to throw the dog a bone as it were. As you’re the one that is being coveted to the extent where you can smell the sour-milk pheromones from across the room, it puts you in a position of power. A position that allows you to assert your dominance over another individual (not in any way that will get you arrested though). Again, we find ourselves in a situation where it may be more likely that women have the balance of power tipped in their favour. Well shit, I’m an equal opportunities kind of guy ladies, if you’re put in a position where you can dominate your man, then fucking dominate him. They sell strap-on dildos don’t they? Make him get on all fours and eat from a doggy dish. Force him to call you mistress and step on his face. If he’s gonna plead and beg for sex like a little bitch, then treat him like a little bitch. Remember, metal is a competition and everyone should be out to prove themselves a champion, regardless of gender. I’m not saying that every act of consensual sex should be S&M play, but for humour’s sake, I’m going to ignore the touchy-feely crap.

Although, Rob Halford seemed to be into it and you should always imitate your role models.

Masturbation: One of the biggest points I need to make is that you should in no way feel ashamed of your body or your desires. Unless, you are in any way inadequate, then you should probably kill yourself. The point is that becoming aroused is a perfectly natural bodily function that simply cannot be avoided, no different than sweating or having murderous thoughts. Rubbing one out should be thought of no differently than wiping your ass as in fulfilling a bodily function. So for the most part, being a first class wanker is ok. The only real thing to worry about is practising in moderation kids, and not the same kind of bullshit moderation you’re supposed to practice around drugs and alcohol, where your only real risk is dying. With the internet the way it is today, it is far too easy to get access to porn and we all know that too much porn makes you lose taste for the low class of people willing to fuck you. It may start out straight laced and fairly innocent, but soon enough you find yourself only able to get half hard to gaping anus porn and nipple insertion.

Hiring a prostitute: Many people find the act and trade of prostitution to be an abhorrent practice, degrading to both parties that partake in it. However, this is the world’s oldest profession for a reason and a natural extension of the idea that sexual satisfaction is simply fulfilling a biological urge. They saw a need and they filled it. It’s a business venture, plain and simple. Besides, there are enough corporate whores in the world that have to figuratively lick ass for a living, why should everyone get so up in arms when someone chooses to do it literally? Alternatively, I suppose you could do what some douche from the other 90% of the population does when they want instant sexual gratification with another human. Namely, going to some obnoxious club with terrible music (metal or otherwise) and lying through your teeth for the small chance of obtaining a phone number and spending the next 3 months navigating through the tedious process of human relations. Yeah, I'm sure you'll be glad you wasted all that time, effort and money so you can achieve a full 3 minutes of coitus before she gets freaked out and leaves after you produce a rubber fist from under your bed. You definitely won't regret that you didn't splurge that $135 on that Portuguese hooker with no gag reflex.

Well, I don't have anything funny or clever to end on, so I'm just gonna wrap it up here. Besides, I'm sure you all are busting to leave a bunch of nitpicky and hilarious comments. I'd love to stick around and read them, but I have to go do something less painful, like push rusty nails covered in lemon juice through my eye sockets.

- Mattassacre

Soft Cotton, Slim-Fit, Fruity Pebbles Band Shirts

2012-05-26T22:31:00.003-07:00

You all look like you caught Rainbow the Clown in a money shot sort of mood.

Way back in the summer of 2010, Shane Blay, lead chirpy riff player for Texas Christian douchecore outfit, Oh, Sleeper wrote an "eye-opening accounting" of how you don't actually make any fucking money when you're a touring musician. (Gasp!) He got so in-depth breaking down the costs and profits of touring in a van, that you'd think he wrote this under the impression that most of us didn't already realize performing metal made zero fiscal sense whatsoever. Regardless, I still think it's really worth a read. Especially for those of you young hopefuls, still out there with your B.C Rich guitars, playing your hearts out in the basements of the world, thinking you're ever going to amount to shit.

While there were a lot of noteworthy price points to consider in Blay's comment, which was originally posted during a debate about the subject on a Metal Sucks article; there was one particular cost and explanation of said cost for the members of Oh, Sleeper, that stuck out to me like a sore butt:

"Merchandise is bough(t), printed, and shipped on the band(')s dollar. We print most (of) our shirts on American Apparel. They obviously offer the best fitting shirts, and kids are smart about looking good now(a)days. They won(')t sell unless you have slim fitting, soft shirts. The demand for better quality shirts from bands is higher (than it has ever been) in (the) last few years.

American Apparel shirts are very pricey to print. usually $7.50 a shirt. More for v-necks, 3/4 sleeve shirts, etc."

Alright fellas. Let's not say it all at once.

Two years is a long time, and I hope since that writing, Oh, Sleeper has made a big enough name for themselves to maintain a profitable enough line of v-neck shirts. (I'd be devastated otherwise.) So what's the point I'm trying to make here? Well, I focus so much on Oh, Sleeper's choice of merchandise not only because it solidly defines so well the pussy-face attitude of the current false metal scene, (gasp, you wouldn't catch me dead in one of those non-slim fitting, non-soft, non-American Apparel t-shirts!) but it also brings to light a very clear Violation in terms of heavy metal attire. I'm not exactly sure why I failed to bring it up sooner. I don't think you can draw a harder line in the sand between them and us, than by taking a good look at their merch in comparison to our merch.

First we'll take a look at the fake metal scenester's preference in color scheme:

Have you ever sat back and relaxed while you watched your pregnant wife or girlfriend painstakingly paint your future baby's room? It's always these light, soft, warm colors of green, pink, blue or yellow that are meant to look peaceful and promote harmony or some shit. As if that little ball of screaming, wriggling, shitting nerves she'll force out of her cunt is going to recognize or appreciate any of that fucking crap. For the first 3 years it will be too dumb to even know if it was aborted or not, and she's already trying to paint its room a color to its liking. Women...

Hey babe, I think you missed a spot.
Also, I hope you plan on picking all this shit up.

Fake metal bands love to apply the same sort of cutesy, baby room color splash to their own merchandise. The color palette of an Emmure t-shirt also looks as if it were picked out by an overpaid, middle-aged, new mother with too much god damn money and time on her hands. Indeed, practically every shirt that a chug-chug riffing buttcore band prints these days, always looks like the same gag-inducing mess of bright blues, greens, yellows, purples and pinks. To add insult to injury, these offensive colors are often times, printed onto t-shirts that are not black. And therefore, not fucking metal. Soft colors for soft music.

Besides the gummy bear vomit coloration of every band shirt, here are some other key attributes you should look out for when properly identifying a poseur's favorite garb:

1. Inconsistent Band Logos

A band's logo is its most sacred emblem. It can define a band's genre and style with nothing more than a glance. The band logo is something pure, something that a band must be forever associated with, and there can only be one. How else would we as fans know what to draw on our notebooks, instead of paying attention to our overpaid, know-nothing professors? Overkill has had the same exact logo for 32 years and it will always look as brutal on the bathroom stall as it did yesterday. As we all know by now, however, scenesters hold nothing sacred. The holiest of musical genres is nothing more than their plaything, to be desecrated and fouled by their false ideals and musical atrocities. Band logos mean nothing to them, and they allow themselves to be as creative as they want in how the band's name is written on every different piece of merch. If only they could be this creative when it came to writing their shitty, cookie-cutter music...

2. Cartoony Artwork

Even if the picture on the band shirt happens to feature brutal imagery in concept (sharks, zombies, skulls, general monstrosities), these attempts at brutality are instantaneously voided when drawn to look like as if they belong in another ADHD-fueled episode of Adventure Time. Core kids, regardless of age or education, will always have the brains of children. The strength of this fact is only highlighted more by their preference for t-shirt images that belong in coloring books. Grow up and get a fucking job.

3. This Has Nothing to Do with Your Music

After seeing this image, I listened to all of Attack Attack!'s albums in their entirety to see if I could find the song about an alien fighting a pack of wolves, because a song like that just has to be worth listening to. What I got instead was a whole lot of dick hurt feelings about a nameless ex-girlfriend (per usual), and a bunch of house music mixed with "metal" meant for people with hair in their eyes. I almost lost all hope in music and killed myself there on the spot. I took the 12-gauge out of my mouth, only when I realized how much some Norwegian high-schooler would really appreciate reading this article about how much I hate the stuff that other people wear.

With all wars, knowing your enemy is crucial to your victory. The neverending battle against fake metal is certainly no exception. The good news for us is that it's not difficult to understand scene kids. They are about as one-dimensional as a person can get. The way their merchandise is designed may seem so bizarre, so unusual, so plain wrong and depraved, that good metalheads such as you and I might not ever want to understand it. Want to or not, the explanation all comes down to one simple concept: Irony. Yes, there's that word again. Literally every action a scenester takes in his or her life is done to be as ironic as possible. They are all fully conscious of the fact that their clothing, accessories, hair, music and overall demeanor is all completely fucking backwards and retarded. However, they think it's cool and edgy to dress themselves like they have down syndrome, and as we all know, being cool is the only thing that matters.

For example, regardless of how weak their music sounds to people with good taste, The Devil Wears Prada is convinced that their music is actually dark and heavy in some form or another. I know, it's totally batshit, but they're also devout Christians with tattoos, so they aren't the type to listen to reason. Heavy, dark music has always been associated with dark imagery, as any perusal through a worthy collection of metal album covers will reveal to you. In order to maintain their scenester allegiance to all things ironic, The Devil Wears Prada sells band shirts covered in neon-pink, cartoony images that have nothing to do with their music's subject matter. They do it solely because it's the opposite of what's expected from a band of their type. "Hey guys, we're a metal band, right? Wouldn't it be so fucking hilarious if we put out a t-shirt of a bright yellow cartoon monster vomiting neon pink tentacles and crying seafoam green?!" This is, without a doubt, the exact thought process of every metalcore band who prints a shirt like this.

Disclaimer: Civilized society frowns upon the act of hitting women, and so too will a jury of your peers. :(

The major paradox here is that baby blue band shirts with pink writing and cartoon characters are now the generally accepted norm for fake metal bands. Since it has become the expectation of their genre, it isn't ironic anymore, and therefore not cool. Due to the fact that scenesters have broken reality in such a way that irony itself is no longer ironic, there is literally nothing they can do to be cool kids anymore. This will cause their entire musical genre and following to deteriorate from the inside out. We have already won, my brothers. Our enemy being solely responsible for their own miserable defeat. I just can't wait until they all finally realize it, so all the bands similar to Like Moths to Flames stop selling albums and break up.

So, with the candy-coated color scheme explained, now all that's left to consider is the cut and fabric of these t-shirts. As Shane Blay pointed out at the beginning of this post, if you're a band trying to sell merch, your stuff "wont sell unless you have slim fitting, soft shirts." Really? It won't? How about we ask Iron Maiden if they've had any luck selling some of their heavy cotton, regular fitting t-shirts lately?

Now sold in soft, extra soft, baby soft, and Miss May I fan!

Call it speculation, but there must be some major reason that all scene kids require of their favorite bands to only print t-shirts on the lightest, airiest, snuggliest, pillowy-softest cotton, ordered direct from American Apparel for top dollar. This is a wild guess, but is it safe to jump to the conclusion that you're just a bunch of pussies? Now, when I say a "bunch of pussies" I'm not talking about all of you. I'm only talking about just one of you. You yourself are a bunch of pussies. What should be a typical human epidermis, is instead replaced with this weak organic tissue stretched thin over your whole body, that can only be best described as a million tiny vaginas, raw and irritated as if fresh from a heavy period flow. The only way of relieving said irritation, is the numbing feeling provided by a tattoo needle drawing Japanese fish and flowers all over your skinny ass. You also need to wear fabrics that are as soft as possible, so as not to further irritate your freakish vaginal shell.

How exactly could a person's skin get so sensitive and frail? Perhaps it was from robbing your body of the precious protein it required, by making it suffer through a strictly vegan diet? Maybe all this exposure to weak music has taken a physical toll on your form, transforming you into a weak-skinned person? I guess we'll never really know for sure. This much I definitely can tell you: If you turn your nose up at regular, stiff cotton band shirts, in favor of cuddly, cushiony, fluffy, mushy, over-sized infant pajama t-shirts, then you're a little bitch.

If a fake metal band shirt isn't colored like a fruit roll-up or girl panties soft, then it will almost always be slim-fit. A slim-fitting t-shirt is definitely a necessity if your entire audience is comprised of either lanky, spaghetti-armed, 90-lb weaklings, or shameless attention whores whose curves have to be shown off for personal validation.

Cute blouse, queef.

Instead of having straight sides and room for your body to breathe and flow with man-sweat, slim-fit shirts are specially stitched to tightly cling to every nook, corner and cranny of your torso. This cut is ideal for pencil-necked cunts who are too ashamed of how a proper band shirt looks like a giant pancho on them, hanging loosely off of their weak, meager frames. Slim-fit attire simply has no place within the brutal realm of us true metal masters. Our t-shirts require room for our potentially Manowar-sized moshing muscles, or (more likely) our savage beer guts. My beer gut alone would tear any slim-fit shirt asunder, regardless of its sizing, leaving it in tatters strewn across the ground. As if Hulkamania just freshly ran wild on it. Whether or not aforementioned gut was more attributed to a love of cake and a lack of regular exercise, rather than straight beer drinking, should not undermine its manliness or metalocity.

With that said, let us speak of how a band shirt should be:

First and foremost, no metal dude worth his iron would ever give two lily-shits about the comfort and softness of his band shirt. Even if manufacturers were to start using a fabric woven with reinforced concrete; so long as our favorite bands were featured on the shirts, we would still fucking wear them. Shit, I think we'd be way more likely to wear them... All kidding aside, a proper band tee is made of 100% stiff, black cotton. The stiffer the better, as these shirts are a means to protect us from the elements and our fellow moshers. Should your shirt naturally soften and fade over time from washing and wearing, so be it. At least your fabric's softness is the result of your own valiant efforts and illustrious lifestyle. It wasn't specially prepared that way beforehand, specifically for comfort-craving, entitled little cunts with too much of their parent's money to blow on "looking good now days". (sic)

Let it be known that every band shall print their logos and artwork on a t-shirt of the purest color black. Not pre-faded black, not gray, not white, BLACK. Just like how you take your coffee if you're not a pussy. The more a band shirt is void of bright colors, the better. Band tees printed on t-shirts of colors other than black are an abomination. A black t-shirt is God; you shall have no other false color t-shirts before it. This divine truth applies to all, regardless of a band's supposed metalocity. No tolerance, no exceptions.

The band name on your merch shall be written in your predetermined, official logo. You shall not write your band name in a generic running blood/slime font, hardcore-style jersey font, nor make it look like the title of a shitty B horror flick, nor write it in a whacky, swirly cursive type. If any of that describes how your band logo actually looks, fuck you, break up. Otherwise, the logo will appear on your t-shirts how it always has been and always will be; the same one logo you print on your albums, have featured in magazines, and share on your web page and social networking profiles.

Logo consistency seems pretty minor, but I believe is key to your band's successful self-promotion. If I wore a green t-shirt with a cursive lower-case "s" on it, nobody would jump to the conclusion right away that it was a special kind of Superman shirt. I don't tell you this just because I have a stick up my ass about everything (guilty). I say it for your band's own benefit. If you use the same logo at all times, it will make your merch that much more easily recognizable. If I saw five dudes walking down a hall, side-by-side, all wearing different Bring Me The Horizon shirts, it would be really difficult for me to tell at first. They'd have to be close enough to see the whites of their eyes/purple of their highlights before I could even confirm it. I hard press you to have the same issue looking at five dudes all wearing Saxon shirts. Also, the Saxon fans probably won't be holding hands. No guarantee for the BMTH buddies...

Moral of the story, if a guy sees one Brymir shirt, he's gonna know it right away when he spots another one. This means it is more likely he will become curious about the band, check them out, and potentially become a fan himself. From there, he may buy his own shirt, with that same exact logo, and the cycle could repeat with someone new. Gas money for touring is precious, so you might as well do everything you possibly can as a band to try and make it for yourself.

Finally, all original artwork featured on your band shirts must be prepared by exceptionally talented artists, using darker shades of colors, and look either incredibly badass, gory, or both. True metal is a brutal, serious genre, only to be represented by imagery that is equally brutal and to be taken as seriously. If your band shirt features artwork of a dragon, that dragon should look majestic and fierce. The light of its fire breath should shimmer against its scaly armor as the village folk desperately flee, or a champion stands against it defiantly. What you shouldn't do, is have it be a neon green, cartoon dragon wearing shutter shades and a flat-brimmed cap, holding a PBR in its claws and giving the peace sign.

If you put that on a band shirt, I will bow and arrow you in the fucking mouth.

No compromises.

So, my fellow defenders of the faith; let us celebrate our toughness and acceptance of heavy black cotton, epic band shirt imagery, and defiance in the face of modern day fashion! These things are staples of our true metalocity, and a major contrast that sets us apart from all things false and scenester. It was well overdue for a mention on this blog, and I'm happy to finally address it properly. Raise your horns in protest, brothers! Let the regular-fitting sleeves of your dark black t-shirts dangle freely from beneath your raised arms! Praise be to our aegis of Anvil and Gildan variety, and cross our arms in disapproval at the hipster cloth of American Apparel and others like it. The poseurs shall destroy themselves, caught in a paradox of their own ironic tendencies, and we are to rejoice at their defeat.

There will be cake and beer at my place.

- Brenocide \,,/

Poseur Mail Part 2: All Reading Comprehension Shall Perish

2012-04-05T13:33:00.003-07:00

Ben Orum playing for a bunch of Disturbed fans in 2011 who didn't know music could get this heavy.

Here's a funny story for you.

So I wrote this obnoxious post a couple weeks ago; as I am known to sometimes do. The subject of said post was in regards to a one Andrew Baird, full-time drummer of San Francisco tech death outfit, Fallujah. There's a chance you might not be familiar with Baird or his band, as they're not exactly a top-tier metal act. They seem to have a decent following, and they're big enough to have albums and cool-looking t-shirts for you to buy, but they're still up-and-comers and they still struggle a lot. You'd expect any band this size to struggle, of course, but the lives that make up Fallujah legitimately suck. You see, Baird has been undergoing chemotherapy treatments for the testicular cancer he was diagnosed with a couple months ago. An incredibly unfortunate and shocking circumstance for a guy that looks like he's barely out of the womb and keeps himself in great shape.

So fast forward to the Summer Slaughter Tour contest. There were ten small time metal/core bands gunning for the chance to play as openers for this year's roster. Every band and all of their members were pleading desperately with their fans to go vote as soon and often as possible. Andrew, however, decided to take things one step further in his appeal. On the American Cancer Society Facebook page, Baird spilled his guts out. He spoke of his personal health and of how he desperately dreamed to play a tour like this one. I'll say that again; opening for fucking Cannibal Corpse was this guy's biggest dream. He definitely tried like hell to put himself out there with the point that because of his suffering, him and his band certainly deserved a good chance to make his wildest dreams come true.

As I'm sure you have figured, all hell broke loose.

It seemed like people couldn't line up fast enough to tell Baird and Fallujah how little of a flying fuck they gave about him and his problems to enhance their callous tough metal guy internet personas. (Good thing I don't know anybody like that.) I stood back and watched people's reactions in mind-numbing awe. This massive retard mob mentality of kicking this guy who couldn't be much more down, and for probably the silliest goddamn reason on the planet. People got extremely riled up over the idea that this dude's serious illness could possibly be corrupting the outcome of their little death metal contest.

So I reacted to all of this controversy, the only way I know how to react to anything: like a sarcastic douchebag. The feedback I got for doing just that was mixed, the same exact way it always is. I'm not sure why I haven't shared this fact with you dudes until now, but I can easily organize every single one of my blog commentators into four major groups. They are as follows:

1. People who get it, and respond positively:
"Dude, this is funny."
2. People who get it, and respond negatively:
"You are gay."
3. People who don't get it and respond positively:
"Don't worry Brenocide, I don't have any friends."
4. People who don't get it and respond negatively:

My first thought when reading the above comment was as follows: "I'm back, baby." Reaching musicians who are supposed to maintain a level of integrity and professionalism so as not to be reached, with my basic internet assclownery always produces sufficient lulz for me and my stupid chums. (All the one times it has happened.) Yet in this particular case, after those initial feelings of trollish success wore off, I was just left with this bad taste in my mouth; wondering how the guitarist of All Shall Perish could really be this dim of a fucking person.

Let's get one thing out of the way first; this may or may not be Ben Orum, guitar player from California deathcore giants, All Shall Perish. I need to at least acknowledge the possibility this could be a hoax. As one of my fellow metal brethren quickly pointed out to me with the following post, anybody in all of the internet could say they're a guitarist of reasonable fame, and then link to their band's official website as some ham-fisted attempt at validation:

If you click on his name, it takes you to the Van Halen website. It's gotta be him.

So there's insufficient evidence that this could truly be Orum, and I could be about to make an ass of myself. To the possibility that this isn't real, however, I say this: If this were all a hoax, I feel it's an elaborate enough one to be validated with my belief. Frankly, if you could pretend to be anybody on the internet, why Ben Orum? Where would you even get the idea to pretend to be him in order to spite me? I think All Shall Perish was brought up maybe one time on this blog, and I doubt even in a negative context. I didn't even know Mr. Orum's name until this guy introduced himself as such. It's completely out of the blue, and as someone who's seen a lot of smug, negative feedback in his day, this seems like a completely sincere piece of it. So from here on out, I'm going to give this poster the benefit of the doubt, and act as if I was truly responded to by Ben Orum, guitarist of All Shall Perish for the remainder of this post.

Then again, I sincerely believe that everyone who posts under the name "Anonymous" is just Richard Sjunnesson again, with nothing better to do, so this won't be too hard for me.

As a man of comedy, (whether I'm good at it or not) I feel strongly about the fact that if you start explaining the joke to everybody, then it's no longer really funny. I try to avoid, whenever possible, clarifying that of which is already perfectly clear to those of us with a working mental capacity. There is no legitimate reason, as far as I can see, that would make me have to point out how it is extremely obvious I am on Baird's side in that article.

I realize you're probably a very busy man, Mr. Orum, what with your band doing a country-wide tour at the time of this writing, and you being a father and husband to boot. I should feel honored that you took the time to comment on my no-name blog, and in a warped way, I sort of am. I am eternally grateful that you graced me with some of your precious time, even if it was just to tell me of your disapproval. So I can't help but feel greedy by asking for even more of it. Maybe just five measly minutes, perhaps, whenever you have a moment to yourself. This time however, I implore you to try reading the fucking post, before opening your down-syndrome stricken, neck-bearded face.

What's the first thing you see? How about me calling Walter White from Breaking Bad, arguably the baddest ass everyman anti-hero character in modern television, a faggot? In what realm of thinking could anyone look at that and consider it a sincere remark? But who knows, maybe you don't watch television... That's fine and all, but even if it were the case, anyone with a pair of brain cells to rub together would have no issue determining that my post was a satirical representation of one of Baird's attackers. All one has to do is carefully read some specific parts of the piece a little more carefully, and my intentions are clear. Certain sections, such as, but not limited to; the title, the introduction, the body, and the conclusion.

Come on, Orum. I expect better of you. I know you are capable of at least some basic cognitive skills. Jug-jug music though ASP may be, it still requires some pattern of rhythm. Otherwise, how would kids know which part of the song to bring the mosh to? Also, I can't argue that you don't understand good comedy. I mean, just look at this video of you riding around Wal-Mart in an electric shopping cart, sniffing panties:

One thing Rush Limbaugh seems to be getting here, that I'm not, (besides piles of money, as you so astutely pointed out) is the courtesy of being listened to before having an opinion formed about him. Granted, you don't have to hear out Mr. Limbaugh for very long before you understand what message he's trying to convey to everybody. I prefer to take a more subtle approach in the circumstance when I'm sharing my opinion on current events. I don't really expect to be successful where your English teachers have clearly failed you over the years, Orum, but you should look deeper at the words I was writing in that post. Don't just take it all at face value, but try and find evidence of some underlying message being delivered here. I bet you were one of those students, that when asked to write an analysis on Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, you talk about how the author was referring to "their backpacks and boots and stuff". But hey, at least you wrote something right? "D" for "Diploma", baby!

But perhaps I'm being too harsh in regards to your reading comprehension. After all, Andrew is your "good friend". Maybe you were so fed up with everyone's wave of cruelty towards him that you just saw my comments as more of the same, without thinking too much of it. So you rushed in here, heated over everything as it were, and started going off half-cocked because of it. You were just trying to stand up for your really close buddy, and I can't help but to completely respect that.

Actually, how about we take a look at how "good" of a friend you really are...

Remember when I said that the lives that make up Fallujah legitimately suck? I wasn't just talking about their drummer being diagnosed with cancer. No, that wasn't enough of a hardship for them to endure. Apparently not too long ago, the band's van ran over some black ice while touring through Wyoming, and the resulting accident left it completely totaled. Their band transport was destroyed and their lives as active musicians went with it.

Singer and graphic designer, Alex Hoffman's recollection of the accident.

As you can tell by the above advertisement, the band is (as of this writing) holding a fundraiser on Kickstarter, so that they can afford a new means of transportation. Their expectation for the total cost of a running set of wheels and trailer to get them on their way? $2,500. That's it. That's all they need to get their lives as artists back on track. Despite their previous experience with doing so, they find themselves in a situation where they must appeal to the better nature of internet music fans to help them out. If they could do it on their own, I'd imagine they'd never try to ask. Depending on how much money you're willing to donate, the band is offering a variety of good-will tokens for your charity, from a 30-minute session of graphic arts tutoring with Alex Hoffman, to being taken out for dinner by the entire band if you live in the Bay Area.

So where's Baird's good friend Ben Orum in all of this? I checked the Facebook, Myspace, and official web page of All Shall Perish, and I didn't find a single mention of Fallujah's fundraiser whatsoever. Fallujah are facing possibly their greatest time of need as musicians and what would All Shall Perish rather talk to people about?

The new Facebook timeline feature works kind of whacky, so if ASP did happen to mention it in some fleeting status update, it's possible it's just not showing up for me. However, there's no reason the band can't permalink to the fundraiser on their official page or Myspace somewhere for everybody to see it, in order to better help their "good friends" as best they can. Do you know how I know?

Because I'm going to do it.

After I actually donate to their cause myself, in my right sidebar I am going to embed a Kickstarter widget to Fallujah's fundraiser until either the deadline is up or they reach their goal. I have never met Andrew Baird in my life. He lives on the opposite coast of me. I don't know him, I don't know what he likes, what kind of person he is; I barely know about what kind of music he plays. What I do know, is that I am a better friend to him than Ben Orum will ever be. Not only did I publicly go out of my way to raise awareness about his cancer and call out everybody for being a bunch of flapping labias for getting on his case about it, I'm also going to dedicate a space of my personal web page to help raise money for his band, so they can go back on tour as soon as possible.

Fallujah might not want or need my help, but they are going to get it. All because I need to prove a point; that point being that Ben Orum is a fairweather, unaccommodating, pathetic sorry excuse for a "good" friend if I ever saw one. After I donated to the cause, I looked to see if Ben Orum's name would at least be in the list of backers with a fairly generous donation. Much to my surprise, it fucking wasn't. The next time Andrew Baird catches Ben Orum in his hood again, he should put Orum in a rear naked choke hold with the "MMA skills" some dude threatened me he knew how to do, until Orum makes a face like this:

6/2/12 EDIT:

I was corrected by several sources that the photograph I used before at the end of this article was not, in fact, Ben Orum, but a completely different, former member of All Shall Perish. Realizing my mistake, I immediately found another photograph to use of Ben Orum on the internet. I apologize about any confusion, and hope this clears everything up. Thank you.
- Brenocide

Poseur Mail Part 1: Stretched Wide Butthurt

2012-03-31T01:59:00.006-07:00

Stop mommy! I think you're stretching it.

It's safe to say that I missed a tremendous amount of things about writing for TNM during my extended absence. (Web groupies, etc.) Yet during those several quiet months of inactivity, there was but one thing that I longed to do more than anything else: Answer my hate mail. For the entirety of my hiatus, my fingers did nothing but itch furiously for the chance to type out some swift internet justice once again. It has indeed been a long time coming, but I am happy to announce, my fellow Defenders of the Faith, that time has arrived. Six months of unchecked, unspent, wildcat-level aggression pent up in my psyche, left to boil and fester; about to be unleashed in an atom bomb of face-melting, butt-hurt creating mayhem. For those of you who know, you already backed the fuck up and battened down the hatches. For those of you who don't: This is Poseur Mail Saturday. Nobody gets out alive.

So before we really kick things off, I'd like to ease the tension a bit with a simple multiple choice question. Just keep in mind that there's only one wrong answer:

Tell me, what exactly about the following comment makes the most sense to be upset about:

"Nice gauges, faggot."

Is it:

a.) The use of the word "faggot" in this example is incredibly homophobic and crude.
b.) The comment is ridiculing a person for their own personal sense of self expression.
c.) THERE NOT CALLED "GAUGES" DUMASS THERE CALLED "STRETCHED EARS", IF UR GUNNA MAKE FUN OF SOME1 U SHOULD DO THE RESERCH IF U DONT WANNA LOOK RETARDED.

Reflect on those potential answers for a moment. In the meantime, I'm going to talk to you about something that happened during my absence regarding a post I wrote back in 2010...

So I'm fully aware of the fact, that even though there may be a time I am not actively updating this blog, that doesn't necessarily mean it goes anywhere. If I don't fail to re-register the domain, every word I have ever written and subsequently published for TNM is left permanently etched somewhere on the massive face of the internet. Unless I were to take steps to delete or edit said words, they maintain a constant presence in the world-wide-web; left there to be read, shared, and even commented on at any given time. When I look at it from such a perspective, it amazes me. To think, so long as I pay Google to host it, and so long as Google's Blogger remains an active service, the things I write here shall forever remain. There is one serious drawback to this however, and that's the fact that I'm left to defend every fucking word I've ever written since I started.

Maybe it's just me, but when I want to write a comment on someone's web page, I first check and make sure that the subject is still fucking relevant. A lot of things can change in an entire year. People's opinions can be shifted, new facts can come to light, the subject at hand may no longer apply whatsoever. The date of every article I ever published hovers above said article in massive, bold, black print. It is literally the first thing you're going to read, even before the title. I couldn't hope to understand the mindset of these oblivious foreskin rubbers, who think it's well within their internet rights to write replies to a post that was written December of 2010, in November of 2011. There's like an unwritten statute of limitations on this shit. I don't feel liable for something I said two or three days ago, let alone one complete orbit around the fucking sun.

Granted, everything I said in my Gauges Violation still applies and will forever remain true... but that's beside the point.

Although I think it's starting to grow on me.

Now like I said, it's been a little while. I have completely forgotten, if I had ever known, where the source of this backlash originated. I'm going to assume that one of you trollish types saw it fit to drop a link to my article smack dab in the middle of some body modification, or A Day To Remember fan forum, to purposely initiate a severely negative response. If this be the case, to whomever responsible, I find your actions and your intentions to be highly commendable. Better late than never when it comes to internet venom, I suppose. Regardless of it being well past its date of prime potency, that shit will always sting.

Speaking of late venom, here's some members of said Amazonian tribe putting me in my place a year after-the-fact for knocking on their Grandpa Scare-Wear. I think it's time to give them a bitter aftertaste of their own late-to-the-game medicine.

See if you can spot the pattern:

Wow. What's it called again? I think I misheard you cuntards the first seven times. (We'll get to lucky number seven in a moment.) If all you parrots had the exact same shit to say, you think maybe your little scenester village could have agreed on sending just one intermediary to tell me what for? Better yet, could any of you idiot savants of body jewelry be bothered to look at the last comment before you, just to make sure that literally the exact same thing you were about to spend a good chunk of your precious mirror photo-taking time saying to me, wasn't already said four times prior?

So yeah, I'll fess up: color me ignorant in regards to the complex world of digging ugly holes all around a person's face. I guess if I'm not a total expert, I have no right whatsoever to speak on a subject. The brash audacity of me to be calling it the wrong thing this entire time! I mean, where the fuck would I even come up with such terminology? Where would I get such an idea? I must have just completely made it up on my own:

Courtesy of www.howtostretchyourears.com.
But don't go there, they don't know what they're talking about.

But you know what? I'm going to take this obnoxious semantics debate a step further. It's not called ear stretching. No it's not. You are fucking wrong. Even if it's "technically correct" by creepy, handsy, tattoo artist standards, I refuse to accept that term, or ever use it. Focus the big holes in your ears put there by nature for listening, as opposed to the ones put there by you for creeping out old people, and walk away with this piece of mind:

I will never let you attention-seeking, parent shaming, teenage-brained, products of a misused condom have the word "stretching". That is not your fucking word. I stand before all of you as the last known defender of the English language. Perhaps I misuse her with my sub-par grammatical skills, and admittedly limited vocabulary. At least I'm not some sadistic rapist bent on destroying what little innocence she has left. Now for a reason that's seemingly unrelated, take a look at this child making a silly face:

Remember it well, because this is what your defeat looks like.

What is "technically" happening to his ears right now? Give up? They're being stretched. He is grasping his ears with his fingers, pulling them outward, and the natural elasticity of the human ear is allowing him to stretch them temporarily into a different shape. I don't know about you, but I don't see any tunnels or hockey pucks. I also don't hear any fucking Motionless In White playing. Score one for me. You are not allowed to call it "ear stretching", because that is too general a term to be used for something that is an obnoxiously specific act.

Also, let's just admit this much: wrong or not, "gauging" actually sounds cooler. It's like I'm almost helping you misfits out here. Who gives a shit if it's technically the "wrong terminology"? Haven't you dipshits ever heard of a "misnomer"? Misnomers are not only incredibly common, but generally accepted by every member of society who people want to be around. Try and figure out what that feels like for once. Believe it or not, I have heard people call the Australian marsupial a koala "bear", without feeling the insane urge to mastur-hate all over their faces for it. If I can accomplish as much in that regard, you can let it slide when someone calls them "gauges".

Either that, or we can just all agree to call it what it really is: Making yourself look douchetarded.

Thanks Chad, after we're finished with this koi covered in flowers, remind me to schedule that appointment with you to get my ears douchetarded next Tuesday! No, don't worry, I don't have work. LOL!

So I think what you really meant to say sweetheart, is that you have not one, not two, not three, but zero respectable jobs. You sell Blood on The Dancefloor t-shirts, you assist an organization that sells religious propaganda to people, and in your spare time, you brainwash little kids with the holy word of "the Lord". You're perfect for the latter job, I must admit. You've got this young, hip, and edgy image going with your gauges and crayon colored hair, so you can appeal to the rebellious nature of America's youth and make them think you're on their side. Meanwhile, you nonchalantly feed them lies. That's quite the résumé. I should also let you guys know that Amanda was nice enough to link me to her Tumblr when leaving this comment. I'm not going to tell you outright to go say hello and give her your regards. That would be rude of me. While casually looking through the blog she invited me to check out, I stumbled upon the fact that she'll be getting married this May at the perfectly capable and ready age of 19 in front of her face-palming father. Congratulations, Amanda!

To getting divorced in two years!

The fact that you have three not-really-respectable jobs with minimal pay (if any), does very little to convince me that the way you made yourself look isn't a factor in terms of your "success". Also, it's going to do you a lot of good to find out sooner rather than later: that's not how discrimination laws work. Once you get your hands on the employee handbook of an organization other than Hot Topic, you'll find out that we're not talking about age, race, color, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religion, national origin or disability, which are all protected by law, but something completely unrelated, known as dress code. While it probably requires some form of mental disability to consider getting it done, it's still an accessory you made the sound choice to get on your own. That's not on corporate America to deal with, that's on you. If you don't adhere to a dress code, it is within the rights of every company in America to fire you, or not hire you in the first place. Deal with it.

Now there's an inspirational quote for the ages:

"If you work hard you can still acheive anything. that is of course if you dont come into contact with narror minded pricks"

- Anonymous

A thing of pure beauty, Anon, if I do say so myself. Almost as gripping as your rebuttal to how I stated that "stretched ears" only came from "Africa". What was your first example of an ear gauging custom that took place outside of Africa, again? Oh, that's right, it was Egypt. I'm embarrassed to admit that I forgot which world continent Egypt was part of. If you could go check on a world map for me in your spare time and refresh my memory, it would be greatly appreciated.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, and it seems to me like that's happening a lot in this particular case, but I believe I began my article with the phrase "Straight out of the Amazon..." It's already apparent that I'm a bit rusty when it comes to my grade school geography, but could you remind me again which part of Africa the Amazon is located?

Never mind, I found it.

All jabs aside, I think this has been all-in-all, a valuable learning experience for me. No matter how you look at it, it really is just my own personal opinion to detest ear gauging. In the future, I know now it's best to keep these hurtful things to myself. Especially if I don't have a concrete understanding of the terminology and the cultural significance behind it all. Before today, I used to believe that mutilating your ears in such a fashion would most certainly be career suicide. However, young Amanda and Anonymous have proven the exact opposite to be true. Indeed, gauges or no gauges, if you work hard enough and walk the straight and narrow, you can be anything you want to be in life. Even if that anything is a manager at Hot Topic or Home Depot.

Shoot for the stars, kids.

Tune in next time for Part 2: All Reading Comprehension Shall Perish. Coming soon!

News that Matters: Paint Norwegian Planes with Euronymous

2012-03-24T07:35:00.002-07:00

Thanks to Patrik Asplund for bringing this to my attention:

If your hearts were broken over the outcome of The Summer Slaughter Tour vote, then fear not. By some miracle, your worth as a democratic metal fan have remained in tact. You can still make a difference in the world, by bringing black metal to Norwegian skies.

An airline in Norway, mysteriously named Norwegian Air Shuttle, is holding a vote online for people to choose their favorite popular Norwegian individual of cultural or historical importance. The person who gets the most votes will have their image immortalized on the tails of the airplanes to celebrate the company's 10th anniversary. Here's the company's description of the contest if you'd like more information:

"Her kan du blant annet stemme på en av kandidatene som en lokal nominasjonskomite bestående av: Fabian Stang (ordfører), Hans Edvardsen (Bymiljøetaten) og Lars Emil Hansen (Oslo Museum) har nominert. Komitemedlemmene er håndplukket basert på deres lokalkunnskap og engasjement. Se nedover på siden for flere nominerte kandidater. De fem kandidatene med flest stemmer etter at nominasjonsfasen er over, går videre til det endelige valget. Du kan avgi én stemme hver dag i hele nominasjonsfasen som varer frem til 28. mars kl. 23.59."

The late Øystein Aarseth, or as we all knew him, Euronymous of Mayhem, somehow made it onto the polls. The article I read about this on Gun Shy Assassin was posted two days ago, and at the time of that writing, Aarseth was in a bleak 23rd. At the time of this writing, he made it all the way to 5th place. The progress is staggering, and I want this to happen so bad now that I can taste the goat's blood.

To cast your vote, click here. The website isn't in English, obviously, and I know how you guys have a hard enough time as it is reading and writing in your own fucking language. However it shouldn't be too hard to figure out for those of you that aren't retarded. (Click the heart, mongoloid.)

Spread the word like hellfire. We already got him to 5th in two days, so there's no reason we can't make this happen. You can vote through March 28th.

Edit:

Look to the skies, Norway. FUCK YOU.

Internet Tough Guys Put Fallujah Pussy with Cancer in His Place

2012-03-23T16:29:00.005-07:00

FAGGOT.

So recently there's been a pretty big stir in heavy metal land about some sniveling, frail little cunt hair who will only be referred to as the drummer from Fallujah from here on out, because he's too much of a fart-stain pea-dick shit smear to deserve a man's fucking name. Andrew Baird is a name reserved only for a real, man's man, with manly intentions and who partakes commonly in manly activities. An "Andrew Baird" is the kind of guy with severe five o'clock shadow, shopping for groceries at 6 PM right after he got out of work so he can feed his middle class income family their mediocre dinner. Specially prepared by his unappreciative wife. Not you. You are the fucking drummer from Fallujah.

So why exactly does the drummer from Fallujah deserve this blood-soaked tsunami of hate crashing upon him with unrelenting force? Let me tell you, but sit down first bro, because you're gonna be so pissed:

He has cancer.

I know, FUCK HIM, right?

To give you a little more backstory on this atrocity, the promoters of the Summer Slaughter 2012 Tour decided to do something a little different this year. (Or maybe they always do this, I don't keep up with shit. It took me 5 months to write anything.) They held a contest where metal fans voted for one of several different up-and-coming metal acts, to give them the chance to perform live on stage with such widely respected, big name death metal groups as -- Periphery? Well anyway, the band that garnered the most votes would obviously be the one chosen as the opening act for the tour.

Pictured from left to right: Fallujah guy, Fallujah dude, Fallujah other guy, Alex Hoffman, Fallujah drummer.

Let's be honest, here... My buddy and I could grab some down-tuned guitars, make some phone calls, and probably easily find ourselves opening with a 15-minute set for most of the bands on this year's roster. But what the fuck, right? Let's make a game show out of music! The list for the bands to vote for, went as follows:

I DECIDE ... ! ... to not go.

Before you all feverishly rush over to the Summer Slaughter facebook page to cast your vote for Battlecross like you were already supposed to; I regret to inform you that the polls for potential openers have since closed, and a winner was already chosen. Whether or not Battlecross will be featured on a future contest to find a proper headlining act for the tour... who can say? So before the contest's conclusion, each band was dutifully reminding their fans to cast their votes, as anyone would expect of them. Self-promotion is key in making it as a metal band, after all. Opening for a tour this big would almost -- maybe -- not really -- guarantee you $100 in merch sales each night you play; which you can then give a good chunk of to your band manager, the venue for merch fees, take out the $50 cost to order the shirts you sold, and leave you with... well, whatever money you saved up and brought with you beforehand to pay for gas, because you just love playing metal that much.

Getting your name out there is important, but at what such cost? We all know there are lines you can cross when promoting your band to music listeners. The drummer of Fallujah drew that line hard in the sand, then leaped over it at an inhuman velocity that allowed him to successfully orbit the entire planet just so he could cross it twice over again. An amazing feat when considering the fact he's probably dying. These are the words, straight from this slimy motherfucker's mouth, followed by some very deserved thrashing:

Anyone who crosses you took a wrong turn, Ed.

Fallujah drummer's fatal flaw in writing this desperate plea to his fans, was essentially that he attempted to appeal to everyone's better nature. What he failed to realize, and had to find out the hard way, is that metal fans totally lack a better nature. We forsook it years ago when we heard our first Venom album. Either that, or the album of a subsequent poseur band trying to be as evil as Venom. Sympathy is a concept far beyond our realm of understanding. The only way you, as a drummer, could help your band win this contest and land this gig is if you play blast beats that are louder and faster than the next band. Period. Trying to sway our opinion in any other fashion whatsoever makes you nothing short of an incredible fagadouche.

I don't give a fuck if your mother and you cried when you heard the news. I couldn't give a handful of teenage tits if you're sick, scared, and you're not sure if you're going to live long enough to see another chance like this. Me and the rest of the internet are going to hawk an enormous, collective loog all over you and your sad, sickly balls for pulling this shit. It's also extremely easy for us to do, since clearly not a single one of us has a right fucking clue what you and your loved ones must be going through right now. Death metal music is the only thing in the universe that matters. Oh, and also the outcome of this contest, I guess.

Needless to say, the backlash was immense. Fallujah fans and haters alike just simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to look like cold hard badasses in front of all the other internet commandos, by telling this guy they didn't give a shit about his cancer, and also that he was a cunt for even bringing it up. A grand majority thought he was just making it up just to get on the tour. In the first minute and a half of this video, for example, our loyal metal true blood Cover Killer Nation tells it like it is:

I don't know "exactly what the fuck happened" either, Cover Killer. You see folks, indifference is the deadliest weapon in a metalhead's arsenal, (second only to air guitar) simply because it is the most deceptive. Metalheads will always act like we're indifferent, misinformed, or don't give a shit about the bands we don't like, but therein lies the greatest paradox: we always seem to be putting a fair amount of effort into telling you we don't care. I often get comments about how nobody gives a shit about what I think, but if that was true, why the fuck are you writing to me about it? In this case, not "giving a crap" about Baird and his cancer problem is best seen in recording a vlog about the issue.

So after the wave of web hate, the band quickly pulled down poor Andy's modest appeal from Facebook, most likely sickened themselves by the fact that their drummer was such a savage rapist of metal morality:

Testicular what again? Fortitude?

Despite their feeble attempt to repair the irreparable damage done to their reputation, Fallujah is still being mocked world wide as a bunch of pity party throwing pussies to every metal fan who still cares about the integrity of their genre, and ultimately ended up losing the contest anyway. Was it really worth it guys? What in satan's name the drummer was thinking trying to get people on Fallujah's side with this promotion of his sickness is well beyond me. I mean, after all, this is just cancer we're talking about. It's not like it ever killed anybody, or affected people who matter.

Listen, I'm all for getting your name out there, and even appealing to the masses to help your band out in particularly tough times. However, there's appropriate and inappropriate ways to go about it all. Hopefully Fallujah as a whole and its individual members learned a lot from this experience. There are indeed totally respectable ways to promote your metal band and come out on top in any future contests such as these...

Working off the novelty of a chick singer is only one of very many.

Brenocide Returns

2012-03-22T19:42:00.000-07:00

This is you.

I suppose if I was a glasses-wearing, chubby faced, curly headed Hispanic guy standing there, trying to enjoy an afternoon of live metal, only to find myself surrounded by the sweaty, mouth breathing, butt metal loving troglodytes that are pictured above; I myself would face extreme difficulty not strongly observing some of these winners instead of the performing stage act, while contemplating discussing with their mothers the option of a well overdue abortion. I mean, just look at these pathetic human accidents. Vaginal contact or earning a livable salary is already well out of the question.

As you are all well aware; that kid was me. I might not be a Mexican with an afro, but the rage, the discomfort, the scornful look and maybe the admitted fatness; that's all me up there. I was continuously finding myself, night after night, rendered incapable of enjoying the live metal performances I spent so much of my hard-earned money on. I was so preoccupied with harshly judging you fuck-faced human losers surrounding me. Not to mention unsuccessful in ignoring the sour, oniony body odor your unwashed bodies emitted, as you clapped feverishly with Down syndrome-like glee at the music being played just for you.

Yaay! My favorite song from Dystopia, yaaay!

This is sincerely how I feel about every single metal show attendee that isn't me. I'm done looking at you fucking retards. I used to delightfully pay for tickets with the sole intention of laughing at a room full of you dweebs, but the joke isn't funny anymore. You're just beyond redemption of any means. There is only great sadness in that. It's like you all walk into the venue with this intricate plan to do everything wrong, and execute it masterfully. Some of the names you kids proudly adorn on your t-shirts are not only musically sub-par, they bring the hard rock genre to a level of unmetal butt fuckery so severe that I wouldn't even sully my precious cornhole wiping myself with the black cotton they were printed on.

My silence over the last several months was directly correlated to my frustration. I think I found myself being recommended Septic Flesh's latest album one too many times and I just couldn't see the point in trying anymore. By the way, in regards to my extended absence, I have never heard a greater gaggle of baby butt rash having little dick sniffers sob and moan so hard in my entire fucking life. The whole lot of you are just a group of pathetic, suckling piglets, blind and frail; with all of your moist, quivering lips, puckering hopelessly in longing for the massive, sopping wet, rocking tits of Brenocide's unparalleled true metal genius. (No, I'm not talking about my hairy man-cans, it's just a metaphor.) I can't say I necessarily blame any of you for wanting more of me so direly. In terms of raw trutality among all things on the internet (AKA: your universe), I truly reign supreme. Of course you want more of what I have to offer, and you want it all the time. However, all of your incessant pleading, moaning and queefing falls upon deaf ears. Ears that have been specially deafened by years of listening to heavy metal music that is insurmountably better than the heavy metal music that you listen to. The aural assault on my unprotected ear canal was strictly intentional, rendering me totally incapable of listening to the people who are less metal than I am and that I don't give a shit about. (See: everyone.) I give such an insignificant microcosm of a shit at this point, that the fact that I only have to read your comments, and not literally listen to them -- thus voiding my entire explanation of why I haven't been considering any of your opinions -- doesn't even fucking matter to me. I will write posts when I am damn good and ready to write posts, and nothing you poseurs say or do will change that fact. You can either deal with that, or keep reading Metal Sucks and pretending to be entertained.

I will admit that you have all suffered the greatest amount of time in between writings since I started this blog. An entire five months. Holy twinkle toed tap dancing Christ shit. The brash audacity of me to make you wannabes have to go without for so long. Don't you twats have anything better to do with your time? Is porn already illegal or something? Judging from the entirety of my comments section, I'll assume most of you probably have the reading comprehension of a fourth grader. We're talking like an inner-city fourth grade, too. If you can even tie your shoes at this point, it would statistically be a miracle. So it more than likely took you longer to read my last violation than it takes someone to listen to the average death metal album. Yet Dying Fetus gets two to three damn years and nobody says a peep. Oh great; pig squeals, and blast beats. Great work and thanks for that Fetus, see you in a couple years, buds. In the mean time I'll go buy one of your t-shirts so I can walk around pretending to be hard. Fuck you. If any of you mindless drones want me to write posts faster than I'm willing to write them, you can blow me...

Alright, fair enough.

So where was I? Right -- I would go to these shows just to watch the bands perform and then I would leave. That was it. I would barely talk to anyone, I wouldn't look at anyone, I wouldn't even mosh anymore. My rage was always real, I would take it too far, and then one of you cunts would run and tattle; selfishly ruining the quiet night of the 6-7 bouncers it would take to physically remove me from the place.

Hope you brought backup, Dumbo.

Let me tell you, I'm not afraid to admit that the last several months have been incredibly therapeutic. Believe it or not, I actually managed to fall in love with my favorite musical genre again, all because I made the effort to ignore its fans. Doctors marveled as my blood pressure dropped to much healthier levels. My back pain vanished somehow, as if almost magically. My overall quality of life vastly improved after I stopped concerning myself with you mortal wastes of time and the heavy metal laws you so commonly violate. Indeed, the world of Violations and even That's Not Metal felt well behind me, and this was a fact I was happy to accept. Brenocide it seemed, had cleaned his blade of the blood of poseurs, and mounted it for good. Never to grasp its leather-bound hilt again...

Left: Brenocide while he was writing TNM.
Right: Brenocide after he stopped writing TNM.

However...

Metal... she is a cruel mistress. Even though in my day to day life I had neglected to heed her call, in my nightmares she haunted me. The cries of true metal warriors pleading for the valiant return of their champion and savior were pushed to the back of my mind, where they resided to silently suffer. Choosing to ignore them didn't make them any less real. To make matters worse, my newfound outgoing, positive demeanor only left me more open for unwanted friendly advances from my fellow music listeners (if I dare call you such). Each of you with your own suggestions in how I should add increasingly shittier music to my playlist. It was as if in my new found happiness, I had brought on an even greater form of turmoil upon myself. It was at this point that I realized no matter how I approached life, I was doomed to be unhappy. If I'm going to be miserable anyway, I might as well be miserable while writing reviews of fake metal albums I know I'm going to hate. So fine. I'll start writing for the delight of you ingrateful sperm smears once again.

I hope you queefs are happy.

- Brenocide \,,/

P.S,
Victoria, feel free to e-mail meeting places, scantily clad photos and any future sex-craved pleading to brenocide@thatsnotmetal.com

Thanks

Maintaining Your Metal Health

2011-10-15T23:40:00.000-07:00

Hello all you mouth-breathing, bottom-feeders.

I come to you today bearing grave news. I’m afraid to say that most of you are sick, terminally ill in fact. Simply by going about your daily business you have most likely exposed yourself and have been infected by the brain cell killer, the most deadly disease to afflict the Metal community. I speak, of course, about Shitty Musical Taste, or SMT as it’s more commonly known.

Unfortunately for those infected, there is no known cure for SMT, and they are forced to suffer for the remainder of their lives enjoying and listening to shitty music.

This Public Service announcement is designed to raise awareness and prevent the spread of this terrible disease. If you suffer from SMT, please do your part to stop the spread of your shitty taste. Don’t discuss your favourite bands when conversation turns towards music. Keep your shit taste quarantined by avoiding voicing your opinions on Youtube videos, blogs, forums and other various forms of internet media, as sharing your opinion with anonymous partners can be unsafe and solicit the spread of SMT. If a friend or a loved one suffers from SMT, please do the humane thing and smother them in their sleep as demonstrated below.

Figure A: apply excessive pressure to figure B.

Of course, this is but one of many ailments that afflict members of the metal community, but it remains the only one that has no cure. Fortunately for you, there have been many great strides in the field of Metal Medical Science as of late, and there is a cure for practically any pox, pestilence, virus, illness, disease or mild discomfort that could unbang those heads which are born to bang.

No, I’m not a doctor, what are you? A pussy? I’ll tell you what I have, a degree in Metalology, and that more than qualifies me to school you sandy queefs in how to take care of yourself the metal way. Follow my patented procedures and you’ll cure yourself in no time at all, 100% guaranteed*.

*Individual results may vary. TNM takes no responsibility if you or anyone around you comes into harm by taking the following advice.

Head Colds/Generic Symptoms- Most people will tell you that the Common Cold has no cure and the only thing you can do about it is wait it out, of course these people are idiots and have no idea how the human body actually functions, so you’d best not listen to them. Those of us who are actually educated know that colds are actually caused by microscopic poseurs, which are mistakenly labelled “bacteria” by science. These tiny poseurs are spread through contact with life size poseurs and can be very damaging to the true metal immune system, what happens is that these little guys get into your system and start messing with stuff by whining that the other microorganism’s are being too rowdy in the nasal pit and that they should respect other’s opinion’s. This naturally sends the true metal immune system haywire; it doesn’t know how to deal with such concentrated falseness in such a sensitive area and as such clogs itself with mucus to shut the little fuckers up. What you need to do to get rid of these little guys is pretty much the same as you would for any poseur anywhere, figure out a way to eject them from the venue, don’t waste your precious time lying around in bed, sniffing eucalyptus like some fucking hippy, get proactive and kick that cold’s ass. In the case of head colds, it’s really quite simple, you just need to shake those little fuckers loose with a world class round of headbanging (Dark Angel’s “Darkness Descends” is most effective to achieve this) the microposeurs will be ejected in a shower of snot and metal glory, and you can get back to the business of being metal.

Physical Injuries/ Broken Bones- Medical Science has made many great strides in its capacity to heal physical injuries in recent years. This once again demonstrates just how weak and unmetal the entire field of study is. Why, why I ask you, would any self-respecting metal warrior want to limp around in a cast like some weak pussy looking for sympathy from complete strangers? Physical wounds should be a sign of pride for anyone, evidence of your past glories in the pit, trophies to show each with their own mystical tale attached; “oh, this shattered knuckle? Yeah I got that in the pit. Some stupid little kid was practicing his karate moves when I roundhoused him. Ripped his head clean from his body. They’re still looking for the skull.” Don’t heal your wounds, preserve them. The more gruesome the better. That searing pain you’re feeling? That’s good for you; it proves you’re a man. Puts hair on your chest. Can’t take it? Well perhaps it’s time you took up flower arranging and baking with the rest of the little girls. Next...

Terminal Cancer- It’s no secret that cancer is a ravenous motherfucker and for many people is the ultimate test of the human spirit and their will and determination to survive. This is no different for metalheads. Once it progresses to a certain level, there is little that can be done to halt the vicious onslaught of cancer from taking your life... or so they say. There is a rumour, (it’s nothing more than a rumour mind you, and not even metal medical science has been able to verify this) that there is a cure from even the most hopeless case of cancer. However, the task involved is so arduous, so mind fuckingly impossible to achieve that only the most glorious of metal brethren, the one’s fit to ride with Oden, would even dare attempt it.

First, one must make the three day long journey on foot through swamps of misery and lakes of fire to arrive in the Grim and Frostbitten Kingdom. Then, one must scale the sheer 5 mile high cliff-face fighting tooth and nail for every inch gained to reach the place of legend... The Castle Keep of Tony Iommi. You can’t relax once you get into the castle though; there you’ll have to carefully avoid the man-eating trolls, the surly guitar techs and the impatient tour managers to ascend to the highest room of the tallest tower, which is guarded by none other than The Ghost of Ronnie James Dio. If you successfully answer his three riddles, you’ll be granted access to the most holy location in all metaldom... the Inner Sanctum of Tony Iommi. There, you must silently creep up to his slumbering form and extract a single drop of sweat. It is said that Tony Iommi’s sweat is endowed with the power of the God’s, and that a single drop has the ability to heal any ailment and even progress Medical Science by a hundred years.

Of course, there are many who believe the entire trip would be in vain, as the fact that Tony Iommi sweats at all is widely believed to be an urban myth, but none of those people have ever been courageous enough to go up there and prove it, so you never know...

Beholdeth the miracle child born devoid of sweat glands.

Achage in the Rectal Region- Please describe your symptoms in the comment section below and I’ll be happy to assign treatments on an individual basis...

Hails

Mattassacre

Being Happy

2011-10-15T03:17:00.000-07:00

The following takes place on my 7AM train commute:

Happy Harry: “La la lalalalala I’m so happy and cheery in the mornings that I just want to shout it out to the world in an incredibly loud and annoying voice. Oh boy, I certainly can’t wait to meet up with all of my good chums so that we can skip and laugh and play merrily and make grand memories together because life is just so peachy. I can’t understand why everyone isn’t as happy as me all the time. La la lalalalalalaaaa”

Me: “Hey, can you keep it down? It’s 7 in the morning and I can hear you over my earphones.”

Happy Harry: “Uh oh, looks like someone’s not a morning person. Well Grumpy Gus, you just need to turn that frown upside down! Don’t you know that if you smile the whole world smiles with you? Now come on, let’s see that winning smile I know you’re hiding from the world. I just bet that if you wore some brighter colours, you’d be a bit perkier.”

Me: ...

--------------------------------------

9PM News: Police are still baffled by this astonishing case of a man having his head literally shoved up his own rectum...

Less smiles and sunshine and more of this.

Most people that know me wouldn’t exactly say that I have a sunny disposition, and for the most part that’s something I’m proud of. I actively cultivate an air of negativity in my life.

Why?

Well, firstly because being grim and morbid is metal as fuck.

Secondly, what the fuck is there to be so happy about anyways? Life’s nothing more than an endless series of commitments that demand all of your time, money and abilities so you can have the privilege of gulping down oxygen, paying taxes, electing brain-dead, suit wearing monkeys to lead you and eventually dying and being forgotten.

And thirdly and most importantly, happy people aren’t Metal.

Now, hold on to your seats folks, cos I’m about to go all Yoda on you. Happiness leads to optimism. Optimism leads to inclusiveness. Inclusiveness leads to complacency. Complacency leads to open mindedness and as we all know, open mindedness is the worst sin any so-called metalhead can commit.

This presents something of a conundrum. It’s human nature to desire to be happy and content with ourselves and our surroundings and we’re naturally drawn to those that exude good vibes because they’re usually just fun to be around. But alas, this is not meant to be, for invariably you will find that any happy people will at some point prove themselves to be unmetal. No matter how much true metal they listen to, it’s just a matter of time until they reveal themselves as what they truly are. Usually it’s in one of two forms, complacency for the shitty musical taste of others and intolerance for the thick headed elitist attitude of pricks like me. They just don’t get it. They’re just too chill and easygoing because they’re too happy to be able to uphold the high standards of an elitist, and as such easily lapse into falseness. They seem to think it somehow isn’t necessary to constantly berate and one-up your metal peers. They see metal as a community of like-minded brothers and sisters in what is actually a brutal struggle for supremacy with no room for friends or any retarded niceties.

That’s not to say there isn’t any room for positivity in heavy metal, it’s some of the most uplifting and powerful music ever made, but its music created in adversity and the constant struggle to triumph over that adversity. It’s based on the indisputable truth that everything and everyone is out to fuck you over and the only way you’ll make it is by constantly kicking life’s ass. Not with some happy go lucky smiles and sunshine care bears bullshit.

Perhaps “happy” isn’t the best word to use here, “optimists” or “nice guys” may be more appropriate, but I think you all get the kind of people I’m on about.

“But what am I to do if I encounter one of these insufferable cretins?” I hear you ask, (or at least I would if most of you held English skills above that of the third grade), well, the answer really is quite simple. As Metal elitists, it’s your job to ensure you bring a little misery into everyone’s day, granted, this is usually in the form of berating someone’s inferior taste in music, but we can make an exception in this case. All these nitwits need is a simple dose of reality. Let’s face it, no one is really happy, we all hate our lives to some degree and anyone who seems happy has probably just lied to themselves enough to convince them they are in fact happy with earning 50 grand a year, and that they’re glad they stopped smoking pot and playing guitar in order to go to business school. Fortunately, this makes it rather easy to shatter their fragile emotional state and break them down to the level of a helpless infant.

If you encounter one of these people in public and they attempt to cheer you up by interacting with you, just turn them into the bad guy by aggressively stipulating that you have every right to be miserable because you’ve recently lost your mother due to her being run over by a school bus full of handicapped orphans on their way to clean a bunch of baby seals that had also been orphaned by a large oil spill (or something along these lines to shock the smile off their face). If your next door neighbour is one of these people, bleach their grass so it all dies and they have to wake up each morning to the sight of a grey and lifeless lawn. If you’re unfortunate enough to work with one of these people, release a deadly strain of Ebola in their office and buy them a crappy gift when you’re their Secret Santa. Basically anything you can think of to get the message across that overzealous happiness will not be tolerated. Of course, there is an exception in the form of people who are serving you. When I order a coffee or something, I don’t want the person behind the counter to be some slouchy, grumpy fuck, that’s just plain rude; I’d much rather some chirpy, happy go lucky person take my order, because serving me should be a pleasure. Besides, they already have to deal with the general public, so you just know they’re the most miserable creatures on the planet on the inside, it’s commendable that there’re able to suck it up and slap a fake smile on their face when they give me my expresso.

I’m sure all this relates to being Metal... somehow.

Stick it up your ass sunshine.

Mattassacre

(i.e. not Brenocide)

Poseur Mail Saturday: It's actually Sunday. Who cares? Fuck you.

2011-10-09T00:55:00.000-07:00

Verbal abuse will always hurt. Especially in your butt.

Is it that time again? I think it's that time again. That brief moment where time stands still and I decide to turn my attention to see what the poseurs have to say about this blog. Then you get see what I have to say back to them. Simple, right? Try to pay attention here, this isn't fucking rocket science. It's Rock It science, ya bitch:

Joseph said...
I would like to propose a question to the author, and anyone else that would like to answer my question.
Why would you attend a concert if your intentions were to stand there emotionless, inactive, looking bored for 3 hours until the headliner plays?
This is where there is a major flaw in this article. I understand the main point "Play good music, or stop playing music all together", "Everyone is a poser but me"
The flaw in your 'logic' if we can call it that is this: you take absolutely no consideration for the fact of local bands, and the local scene. People that go to every show they can and have fun. A band doesn't necessarily have to be good to be loved.
It my opinion it is people like you that make the scene a bad place. The jackasses that stand there with their arms crossed the whole time and that "who just farted" face plastered on for hours at a time. Get over yourself.
People go out to alleviate stress and simply have fun. Who are you to judge someone for getting excited over the fact that a band is excited to play?
Why do you care if someone is screaming and jumping around.
Do what makes you happy.
Yours truly,
Someone that isn't a cunt.

That's actually a really excellent question, Joseph! "Why would I attend a concert if my intentions were to stand there emotionless, inactive looking bored for 3 hours until the headliner plays?" I completely agree. Why would anybody do that? I definitely don't have those intentions when I attend a live performance whatsoever. Believe me, I would prefer to have a good time, really. It just happens to turn out that I usually end up standing there for 3 hours until the headliner plays, completely unentertained, as no fault of my own whatsoever. You know who's fault it is? The band that sounds like musical tampons stinking up the stage, dumbass. Look man, I go to a show to hop around like a fruitcake fucktard and girly scream just like anybody else, and I plan to do exactly that when the band that I know for a fact is awesome takes the stage. Either that, or I will be pleasantly surprised by a band opening for them that I was not aware was awesome, and enjoy myself at that time. Don't bleed your anus all over my new linoleum floor just because I don't indiscriminately grab my pants and start yodeling with orgasmic delight the moment a warm body steps on the stage and starts fingering an instrument. Music that sucks will always be music that sucks. It doesn't matter if it's live or local. In fact, it's usually worse that way, because now I have fewer degrees of separation between myself and a musical act that sucks all sorts of mangy monkey meat.

Joseph, seen here when someone, anyone starts playing guitar near him.

So my "logic" (if I have the absolute audacity to dare call it such) is "flawed", huh? Well let's take your logic for a spin, Schrodinger. "A band doesn't necessarily have to be good to be loved." If I could make up an even dumber statement, I would. Alas, I can't. I don't know if anybody can. That probably takes the cake for the stupidest thing ever seriously said in the history of human speech. So let me get this straight; you love music even though you know for a fact that it blows? That's awesome dude. You keep doing that. I'm going to be over here with the rest of the people who have a fully functional brain.

You see, it's one thing to think shitty music is good, but to know it's shitty music, and still like it anyway? Well, that's just beyond all comprehension to me and everyone smarter than you. So what if it's fucking local? Do you know what bands came from my area? Shadows Fall, All That Remains, and Killswitch Engage. Should I love those bands just because my algebra teacher failed one of them? You want me to go jam to some fucking ATR just because their members used to write shitty music or masturbate within a 10-mile radius of me? Why should we be forced as music lovers to hold some unwritten allegiance to our "local scene"? It doesn't really matter to me whether it's a bunch of guys in a garage next door to me or in a garage in Australia. If they're playing music that sucks, fuck them. "It my opinion it is" that I shouldn't get over myself, but you should get yourself over a bridge. Better luck next time, Joey.

Anonymous said...
Fuck your shit, Wolves in the Throne Room kick ass live. Their fans are annoying as hell though, I'll give you that.

Yes, you are. You really, really are. At least you're honest with yourself.

toometalforyoursorryass said...

Hahaha! Stupid little cunt kids thinking you're elite. What a joke. You phonies sit there listening to your shitty black metal, but you have no clue what you're talking about. This is just another one of those phony wannabe elitist blogs filled with retarded articles about scene kids and metalcore. Haha, You idiots are not elitists, you're pussies. To achieve true elite status you must DO something for the metal community, not just sit there and talk bullshit about crap you know absolutely nothing about. Come back when you're a real elitist, kid.

So elitism is reserved only for those who "DO", (not just "do" with lowercase letters, which are only for pussies,) but "DO" something for the "metal community". Awesome advice fella, save for the part where you mention what you've done lately for anybody's community. You must have just forgotten to say, because it clearly sounds like you know what you're talking about. By the way, what's with you vag farts and your obsession with the concept of the "community" and the "scene"? What am I, in some fucking neighborhood I need to contribute to? Are we in a metal condominium? Am I supposed to look at the community board to find out what you need me to do exactly? Will there be a brutal town hall meeting? How many hours of true metal community service do I need to complete to achieve true metal status? Do I need to pick up trv trash on the kvlt highway? Do I need to attend metal assemblies at the high schools to teach metal kids about moshing safety? Should I go to a metal nursing home and read Heavy Metal in Baghdad to the old folks?

toometalforyoursorryass DOing his part, like a true elitist.

Obviously, I have nothing but questions for a hardened elitist such as yourself, good sir. I clearly have a lot to learn, and would appreciate your continued contribution to this page! My first question, after we get what good you are out of the way, would probably be why you would consider bands I have openly made comments about enjoying such as Dio, Manowar, Saxon, Judas Priest, Kreator, Sodom, Nile, Iron Maiden, Death, Amon Amarth, Accept and Blind Guardian to be "shitty black metal"? My next question would then be about where you get off wasting a perfectly good human's life worth of oxygen? There's a pillow up in your bedroom, bucko. Put your face in it and wait.

breniside said...

hey im brenoside im very gay and i have no life i made this shit blog cuz im jealos on other bands cuz they have succes and money and talent and i will never have that so im just gonna hate ob shit. lol i hate deathcmetal and metalcore but i dunno why lol i think cuz im jealos on the bands and the fans cuz theyhave a life and i dont. i only listen to shitty gay ass black metal cuz i think its 'trooo metaalzz omg vikingf wizard medeieval satan!!!1111!!' but actully it sucks lol its just stupid gay shit an like mediaval crap lol sofuck me and stop reading my shittyass blog ok bye ps im very gay

To be fair, I guess I do say that a lot.

And for this next bit, I get to weed through a flood of comments that Richard Sjunnesson formerly of Sonic Syndicate probably posted on my blog while disguised as his non-existent fans. Long story short, Sjunnesson sent a bunch of his teeny bopper fans my way because he has the professionalism and integrity of a baby carrot, and is continuing his tirade against me and the blog despite months and months after I forgot he was still a thing. I don't really feel like bothering with the guy anymore, because at this point, I have more fans and I am more highly recognized in the music world than he is, but his cunthurt fans are still totally free game.

Sjunnesson wanted to see what it looked like to be surrounded by friends who understood him.

Anonymous said...

I don't know who this guy to define a band taht exist aout mroe than 10years so
you 15year old-boy do what they did from 2000 then u can critize them.

This is nonsense
You judge them because of this one event
anyway you said:, "I couldn't really give less of a shit."
and
"I'm not still bragging about it. I'm not dwelling on it. I'm not even really all that proud of what I did to them. I've moved past it to bigger and better things."
then why are you cite Sonic Syndicate with THE SAME THING ALL OVER AND OVER taht "what a 'buttcore' band because they wrote a song about a disaster "
yes they wrote, at least they are creative
If U looked up some of their lyrics u would realize taht they CAN write good music
but anyway u don't care cuz u listen to one genre (what i sumamrized up reading ur post)and anything that IS REALLY metal (okay I know they have many melodic songs and that's more metal than the new album)you say oh taht's sucks because u don't like it

and the second mistake.
"He decided that getting rid of the screamo vocals for a more mainstream sound "didn't fly with this crow" and he moved on to different things. Probably because he can't sing anything but screamo, and didn't have a choice"
If u can ever put a one minute power to read his blog's first entry then u realize that's not what he decide to do in WRTN and tahts why he quit
read out twice what you are writing before posting them

I know this is asking a lot, really I do. But do you maybe, I dunno, want to try saying all of that all over again except with a little less... what's the word I'm looking for here... derp? I want you to focus really hard on your last sentence there, my anonymous friend. Even though it looks like you translated it through Google or something, it's still really great fucking advice. You should put "one minute power to" proof-read your comments. Afterwards, you can go WRTN all you want, or whatever.

I also love how everyone assumes just because I still have strict standards in my musical preference that there's no way I couldn't be a child. I guess 15-year-olds look really young and immature when you deal with them all the time at the age of 17. (Those fucking sophomores...) It's like when you become an adult, you're just supposed to give up on life and automatically pretend to enjoy everything, so you can avoid conflict and make everything easier for yourself. I don't need to pretend to love everything just to feel better about my life. That's what alcohol is for.

Anonymous said...

this is actually pretty hilarious, part sad, but hilarous none the less. We have a kid, obsessed whit generes, so obsessed that he makes a blog about it to tell people they what is and is not metal. Calling people wannabe metalheads and posers but fails to see the irony in what hes doing.

Meanwhile hes critizing someones knowledge of the english language when he knows that person comes from a part of the world where english aint their primary languge while the only words he seems to have in his own vocabulary is "butthurt" and "retard".

Critizing someones music is fine but when cant do it without start making fun of the creators name cuz your to ignorant to understand, that just shows how you lack valid and intelligent arguments to back your opinion up. Or how you would put it "seems like someone is to butthurt to think straight"

I don't think you're a wannabe or a poseur, Anonymous. I just think you're retarded and butthurt.

With that said, I have absolutely no issue breaking down for you specifically why Sonic Syndicate is a terrible band. Making fun of the way he talks, looks and his queefy name is just a whole lot funnier. Seriously, you have to take my typical readership into consideration here when I'm discussing bands that aren't very good at making music. I don't really need to break down and explain why they sound shitty to the guys that read my blog. Most of them have ears that work.

Blueflame said...

WHAT THE FUCK.
This is the most idiotic piece of bullshit that I have read in my entire life.
Honestly, this band's music saved my life. And Richard happens to be my hero, even though he left Sonic Syndicate.
You can't just listen to only one song by a band and then judge them. You have to listen to ALL of their music, old and new, to make complete judgements about them. You can't judge them based on that one song for fucks sake.

So you can shut the fuck up about my favourite band in the world and stick your ignorant head up your filthy ass.

Really? I have to listen to every second of Sonic Syndicate's discography before I get to form an opinion about them? Well Blueflame, you got me there. I guess no matter what I say, I have no clue how fucking terrible Sonic Syndicate can truly get. Do you really want to open up your favorite band to that much criticism? If that's the case, I absolutely accept your challenge. Send me your e-mail address, enough cash for a 1-Liter of Jameson Irish Whiskey through PayPal, and I will sit down and listen to every fucking Sonic Syndicate song ever. Then, I will write you a track by track review and send it to you. If I walk out of that situation a fan, I will gladly refund your money. Send enough for two, just in case. Screw it, just send me all your money. You're spending it on nothing but shitty albums anyway.

Sjunnesson, pictured here with the fan that's threatening to kill me.

Anonymous said...

This gave me quite the laugh. You are such a person one loves to hate, just simply such a genre freak and hater that a person like me.. Yes I am mentally unstable.. would love to vandalize your body with my tools of choice. Why? Not because I am a fanboy or anything, just because you do not appreciate life, nor do you deserve it. One day I will find you and that day will be the day when a different shade of blue brings out the best in you..

Honestly, I have to admit. When I read this, a shiver went down my spine.

Then I farted.

You want to vandalize my body with your tools of choice, eh? Are you going to gag-ball me, strap me to a table and give me a harsh handie I won't soon forget? When you said "shade of blue" did you really mean "white"? Seriously, I'm very flattered, but I'm just going through some shit right now. A relationship, even if it would be strictly sexual, just isn't for me at this time and place in my life. I might consider it if you were really hot, so if you wanted to send me some nude pics to prove that, definitely feel free to. You seem pretty up front about getting naughty with me, but maybe we can just spend some time to getting to know each other first? I mean, I don't even know your name or anything. Let's just take things slow, talk a bit and see where things go from there? I'm saying all this on the preconceived notion that you are indeed a female, as it's totally out of the question for anyone with a pair of testicles to listen to the single most pussy metalcore band ever. I'm just taking that whole "fanboy" thing as a figure of speech...

Call me!

- Brenocide \,,/