Even In the Future, Nothing Works

It's late.

But I'm not as tired as a normal person should be at this hour. Probably this fucking Mountain Dew, also known as Cancercola, that I recently imbibed. I don't know, it tastes so lovely, has the most caffeine of any mass marketed (non-energy drink) soda in stores (which is always a plus), but what the fuck is glycerol ester of rosin? Well it's in it. I just put whatever that is in my body.

Anyway, I figured I'd write a strictly review-style post, wherein I shall discuss some of the recent things I've been spinning on the Victrola (no, not really). Since I refuse to review anything I don't know I'll have a palate for (to some extent), I refuse to comment on the new Emmure LP that just farted into stores. I haven't heard it (besides the myspace releases), but I'm sure it's a soulless, odoriferous mess of retarded diarrhea.

Well, I guess that counts as a comment. Sorry, I couldn't resist but let you know how much I wish they all decided to be polka musicians instead. Now that might be brutal.

Behemoth - Evangelion

Those of you not familiar with Behemoth, start becoming so. Honestly, if you listen to metal at all, and have not heard anything by these Polish wizards of Satan and make-up you're really missing out. On Evangelion, they seem to have (to some extent) embraced a more American vision of the direction and progression of death metal, and more specifically, the Metal Blade vision of said direction. Some could hate this, in theory, but they don't really matter. Instead, let's focus on how awesome this album is for people. Using sometimes 3 vocalists chanting at once, blisteringly fast guitar work, and the skills and hands one of my favorite bassists in death metal, they mold a dark portrait of reality out of Satanic Playdough, right in your fucking inner ear. Please listen to this, it is utterly perfect, likely going to be the death metal release of 2009, thanks to Cannibal Corpse failing at Evisercation Plague. Favorite Track: Transmigrating Beyond Realms ov Amenti. 9/10.

As Tall As Lions - You Can't Take It With You

This is not metal, hardcore, or anything most you probably would like. But you never know, and I can't help but talk about it. So sit the fuck down, stop jerking it for four seconds, and understand: this is the best indie band out right now, hands down. Actually The Dear Hunter is. Shit. Well, whatever. Their first big release, a self-titled LP from 2006, really turned heads, harking back to bands like The Police, krautrock (Can!), 80's alternative/shoegaze, with the modern Empiric sound with which Thom Yorke and Radiohead has blessed us. Overall, it was heart-wrenching, bittersweet, brilliant modern music LP, and best of all, it all felt like a coherent whole without flailing into silly conceptuality. This album really turns the Can up, and the pop-rock down, which is a neutral move for me, though I know people will be missing that first album, because they just don't think hard enough. This release is not as good, for different reasons however. The songs on the self-titled are simply to memorable, too perfect, especially together, as they are. But this album has some incredible gems, like Circles, Sixes and Sevens, and Duermete. I hear a little Unforgettable Fire sort of ambience too? Ah, that's so refreshing. Favorite Track: Duermete. 8/10.

Thrice - Beggars

I'm not going to ramble on this one. Simply amazing, can't wait to actually buy the CD itself. But until then, I'll hold off on a review. Just know: it's basically beautiful, hopefully will go down as their best record ever. Thank God they said goodbye to pop punk.

Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky - The Grand Partition and the Abrogation of Idolatry (*breathe*)

This mouthful is actually pretty good. Surprisingly from the name, they are not a crappy deathcore band, they are grindy till the cows slam dance home. (Kind of a funny site, and much funnier with this band being playing in the back ground). But honestly, all genre-names and that bullshit aside, this band is worth a listen, and stop fucking judging bands on their stupid names.

There's also the new Oh, Sleeper, but I'm too tired. Goodnight lovers, keep deciding to rejoice in internetish splendor.

Degothify Yourself!!! (A 4-Step Program)

Sooner or later, the day will come when you wake up and Xwaiting_for_you_to_bleedX doesn’t seem like such a gem of an online tag on the message boards of vampirefreaks.com. Within the following 24 to 48 hours you’ll likely notice that you’re no longer really that interested in vampires or the living dead; simultaneously, you’ll come to the conclusion that it’s a little skeevy to describe yourself as “polyamorous” if you haven’t actually gotten laid since last summer. When that day comes you’ll turn to your music collection for comfort. It’s the natural progression of things. You’ll have a lot of questions: “Isn’t detox painful? Will I be institutionalized for cutting myself, sitting in the basement with no lights on and eating all my eyeliner? Is David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust overstaying his/her/its welcome as my personal messiah? Should having an identical iPod playlist to Bam Margera’s jukebox define me as a person? Do I have to stop shopping at Hot Topic?” Rest easy, o’ child of the night! We here at Instead Of Clothes have put together an emergency degothification kit that will make your exit from the subculture quick, simple, and – for the first time in your lugubrious life – painless.

Step One: Otep – Smash The Control Machine

Some of you are wondering, “Can I believe in vampires and still make the team?” The answer is no, you can’t. Sorry. But you can listen to Otep, a crusty, political, metal outfit from the over hyped and overwhelming city of Los Angeles. I personally don’t like this band, but you face painting, androgynous saps can probably appreciate the female vocals, and sweeping violin and piano chops featured on the new record. Despite lead songstress Otep Shamaya’s lacking of testicles, she beams with social angst and displays a dedication and willingness to wear her ovaries on the outside as she shrieks and sings through tunes desperate for societal change; thus, proving she can certainly hang with the guys. Although not one of my personal favorites, this is a good place to start for you. The musical ability is there, and shines through in the catchy, fist-pumping anthems with plenty of things to say on Smash The Control Machine. Death metal guys will still call you “fag” when they see you, but that’s just their way of being friendly. Meanwhile, you’ll rest secure in the knowledge that your female vocalist of choice has a message with substance, instead of yammering on about Wicca all the fucking time.

Step Two: Disturbed – Indestructible

You probably already own this one. See how EASY this is? What I want you to notice here is tempo, even on the song about how you should commit suicide and go to hell to be with that girl named Devon again (whoever the hell she is…thanks to the vague lyrics of David Draiman). Can you feel that beat? Well can you? Ok then, good work my little undead minions.

Step Three: Six Feet Under – Commandment

This is largely a cosmetic choice, but then again, you like cosmetics, don’t you? Let’s break it down, shall we? Reference to death in the band name? Check. Torture, serial killer, apocalyptic and horror-themed song material? Check. Fractured skull and rotten human remains album art? Check. A band full of guys so good at what they do, they may potentially practice what they preach (gulp)…check, check and check. Wash your face, cook your steak extra rare, put this in the good ole’ Sony, and rock the fuck out.

Step Four: A Life Once Lost – Hunter

Now wasn’t that easy? You had some semi-gothy crust metal, some tolerable nu-metal, some very proper death metal, and now check you out. You’re digging some of my favorite hometown heroes who tear up ESP’s like Judd Nelson tears up his pink slips in The Breakfast Club. You are making moves my friend. What’s that we hear beyond the gnarled, craggy vocals, eardrum bursting blast beats, and teeth-grinding breakdowns? Those, my pale friend, are called shredding leads. You will learn to love them.

You’ve laid a solid foundation to get you outta that funk you’ve been in, apparently left over from the Middle Ages. And let’s be frank, The Crow really wasn’t THAT great of a movie. My work is done. Now it is up to you to take your life back from the underworld. Over the course of the following days/weeks, you’ll need to let go of your makeup collection, stop wearing fishnet arm warmers (which is the biggest oxymoron ever, I needn’t point out the irony here), replace your welding goggles with regular sunglasses, decide on a non-fluorescent hair color (preferably the one you were born with), grow a beard, and consider smiling a little more. That I can’t make you do, you need to do it for yourself. Life is all about change. Time for you to embrace life instead of cutting yourself, pumping your body full of basement-made narcotics, and wondering what your best friend’s blood tastes like.

Your homework is to study your lyrics well, buy clothes that aren’t black, find a show, get your butt to the moshpit, kick someone’s ass, let someone else kick your ass, make friends with those people, climb on stage and throw yourself off, allowing your new found scene to catch and embrace you and have fun.

Welcome home.

Davey Bx

The Waterfall of What-If's

I'd like to welcome my new cowriter, Dave. I hope he can write a whole lot more for me, seeing as how he's hilarious, incredibly insightful, and full of cheez-its and candy and stuff. Just poke him...just do it. And no I don't fucking mean Facebook poke. You fucking asshole. Not that I have anything against Facebook poke, I'm just saying, you know what I meant the first time.

By the way, I definitely second the Agoraphobic review, astounding stuff. If you like being aurally sexed. Hard.

I was thinking I'd make this short and sweet, and a bit more Satanic, and review the new Behemoth release. But instead I want to be confusing and philosophical.

Sometime life hates us. Like a cloudy day. I don't mind rain. Sometimes, it can be quite exquisite. But I desperately hate cloudy days. They literally alter my mood completely for the worse, without relief. For instance, right now, outside my window is a cloudy day, staring me right in the fucking face, telling me repeatedly in a great, booming wave-of-a-voice, "Let me destroy you with my thunderous pillows." Letmedestroyyouwithmythunderouspillows. The next big scene grind band.

But anyway, my point is sometimes it's hard to feel good. You feel guilty about something, you are having a fight with a close friend/family member, work sucks, it's motherfucking cloudy, whatever.

Life is all too precious to spend deep within our own regret, sunken, fragile, but we can't help it. If you can help it, I feel sorry for you. Living a life without sorrow, loss, nothingness, the lowest lows supplemented by the highest highs, is not a life I would care for. It what makes us essentially human, alive. Every breath another waterfall of what-if's.

This is stuff of which good art is begotten. And in fact, art is nothing but the waterfall hitting the page, the ear, the eyes. It's the love making of personal tragedy with sensory input. That's hot.

The music I don't have a palate for is basically music from complacent, boring, privileged, uninspired, underwhelmed people. Of course, it has to sound good. Let's face it, I just don't like how country music sounds. It has nothing to do with how inspired they are. They could be as inspired as I feel all of my favorite bands are, and I still won't enjoy it. Oh well.

But generally speaking, the music has to have some water under the bridge, some history beneath all the notes and rests, something that proves it wasn't created with robots. Take Behold... The Arctopus. I dislike them, more or less, because they are all cyborgs, and write tons of meaningless notes that go absolutely nowhere. They can tell me they wrote the song "You Will be Reincarnated As an Imperial Attack Spaceturtle" with a particular sense of humanity of emotional drive in mind, but the music they ended up writing because of that feeling didn't succeed as a catalyst of that same feeling in the unknowing listener, like myself. And moreover, this is exactly my general problem with prog rock (though I like plenty of prog bands that I feel are exceptions).

This was basically (to me) a much better worded version of my last post, about how emo music isn't emo and most good music actually is "emo" to say the least.

But this needed to be said once and for all. The problem with expression is that everyone thinks they're right. But being right is exactly the wrong way to approach one's own artistic creation. Being right is not essentially human. We are very often wrong, about everything. I might be wrong about all of this bullshit. But why be frightened of what you are. Make music, and do it from the heart, and shut the fuck up when someone calls it stupid, because let's face it, that guy is probably not nearly as talented or interesting as you. Flourish, be wrong, fuck up, learn, fuck up again, really learn that time, understand a year is a long time, and a life is a large collection of years, and things are going to change, but never too much. The clouds are going away outside. Be merry, friends.

Make love.

iTunes Last Played:

As Tall As Lions, All Else Failed, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, The Meters, Mew, Weather Report, Have Heart, The Half of It, Behemoth, Ruiner, Pig Destroyer, Hot Water Music, Gorilla Biscuits, The Sword, Freddie Hubbard, Defeater, Dead Swans, Bold, Sigur Ros, Shai Hulud, Saosin, Radiohead, At the Gates, Thrice, United Nations

In Review - Agoraphobic Nosebleed

First, I suppose an introduction is in order…

I’m Cousin Dave. Most people refer to me as Davey B. I will be a contributing writer to this blog from here on out. Nothing really qualifies me for reviews, opinion articles, or any piece of freelance writing. I have zero literary background, I don’t read for pleasure, and certainly cannot be expected to write ANYTHING with any kind of journalistic integrity. That said, I like aggressive things, including my music. The heavier, the faster, the most in your face, the more I enjoy it. I am not a typical trust-fund-fan-boy scenester either. As much as my music needs to have some massive cahones swinging between two muscular, Viking-esque legs, it needs to be original, unique, and truly speak to me with ambition and heart; none of that soulless emo-metalcore crap that all the kids love nowadays. I like lyrical content, the songs really need to mean something. I like things that are raw, witty, emotional. If your record has nothing to say except “I want people to buy this and our merch and maybe get played on K-ROQ”, then I can’t be bothered with your record. The band as a unit needs to be multi-talented, with plenty of raunchy chops from guitars, bass, and drums alike. A band is one, singular entity; no single instrument should be outdone or outshined (anyone who listens to metal knows that the bass gets mixed out of 80% of songs or is completely inaudible and I think it should be heard just as much as the 115mph fret board-fingering assaults and blast beats adorning most songs). If you have a really amazing guitar player, but mixing your bass player out completely on the sound board and your drummer is rubbish, then what do you REALLY have? You have a fucking PR nightmare, that’s what; your guitar wizard emits his own heavenly rainbow out from betwangst his buttcheeks and signs autographs at Ozzfest while the rest of the band spoons and cries on the tour bus. Music should be like a pot of stew; lots of ingredients that taste alright by themselves, but mix it up together and it’s like a giant flavor party in your mouth. Heavy music should be like a party in my ears, but quite frankly, most newer bands don’t deliver. They also certainly do not stay true to their roots. I’m a firm believer in paying credit where it’s due. Exhibit A…I hear plenty of bands on Stillborn, Thorp, and Facedown trying to revitalize an almost completely dead straight edge hardcore scene that sing about their tattoos and how drugs and cigarettes piss them off, but probably never heard a Judge song or bought a Minor Threat record in their lives.

Yes I am straight edge…but that’s beside the point.

Favorite bands: Dark Day Dawning, All Else Failed, Blacklisted, (yes, I see a Philadelphia theme too), Converge, Blood For Blood, Iron Maiden, Boysetsfire, The Red Chord, Agnostic Front, Minor Threat, Only Living Witness, Dropkick Murphys, Pig Destroyer, blah blah blah

I love: white pizza, hockey, pickup trucks, hippos, ping pong, oriental art, seafood, Frisbee, piercings and bulldogs.

I hate: Atreyu and other bands that wear makeup, sing about nothing but breakups and romance and have girl haircuts, loose socks, spiders, stepping in gum, little kids that don’t cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze, and pubic hair.

Now that most of you are on board with me the person, how I feel about the state of things and what I generally look for in records, time for my first review ever.

Drum roll.

I was able to get a hold of a friend’s spanking new copy of the latest Agoraphobic Nosebleed record titled, Agorapocalypse. I feel I should start off by saying that aside from the Poacher Diaries split with Converge, I never much cared for this band. It was very generic grind with drum machines and programming set at 2000bpm that I’m less than unenthusiastic about. They also seemed very gimmicky with violent and catchy song titles that seemed to take more time and effort writing than the actual songs themselves, with records containing 40 or 50 noisy, frenetic, messy tracks lasting no less than one minute. Honestly it all just made my head hurt and I never really “got it”. Let’s face it, the first billion or so songs they wrote (at least to me) sounded like one big joke and nothing to take too seriously. Everything sounded relatively the same and bored me to death. Therefore, I’ve listened to, but never actually bought any of their records.

However, on the newly released Agorapocalypse, we see something that’s never seen the light of day on any ANb record to date: song structure! Upon listening I couldn’t believe it. What happened to the spastic drum machines? I mean they’re still there, but the tempos on most songs have been slowed to make it potentially plausible that the drumming was done by ACTUAL human arms and not computer-generated. The songs actually last more than 37 seconds and Scott Hull certainly shines on this release. Also, I was surprised at the addition of a 3rd vocalist…I’m by no means a proclaimed expert on ANb, but I swore there was never a girl in the band. Despite seeming like another gimmick, the three vocalists actually ebb and flow together quite nicely. As much as I figured I’d probably want to rip this record when listening through, I honestly cannot think of any harsh criticism. This is by far the most structured, lucid, intelligent, and most mature and well thought out Agoraphobic Nosebleed record to date. Again, they are by no means my favorite band, but aside from their other releases that run-on and sound similar, I feel this record will be played multiple times in my CD player. Overall, I would grant an 8 outta 10 with stand out tracks being Question of Integrity and Dick to Mouth Resuscitation. Well played ANb…well played.

Hookers and blow.

Davey Bx

Oh Lord, No More Swastikas

Welcome back.

I'm not sure about strings...the invisible ones that bind people. You know. Those. Things we all have in common, and yet those things are the most transient and mutable. Things change so quickly that it's almost a blur. Since I've been involved in listen to music my tastes have taken two drastic changes. One when I was 14, and heard Charles Mingus' Fables of Faubus, and knew I'd never stop loving jazz. And again when I was 17, and heard Mastodon's Blood and Thunder, and probably thought, "why the fuck does this vocalist sound like a dying orangutan reciting the Declaration of Independence?" But eventually I saw the beauty of it and that was all I needed. I was hooked. The strings had been strung, and punches thrown, the anchors away.

I find that if I don't take some time out of my day to listen to something musical, something with melody, something with no foreseeable melodic qualities at all (so basically all grind and The Acacia Strain), something that dies, something that breathes and yet is still dead, something alive but barely breathing (but nothing alive in the fullest sense), I might go mad. I need it. Hard.

People are quick to call a lot of different sorts of music "emo." Nobody even knows what that means. I'm emo. I am. And if you're not, I don't know why the fuck you listen to music at all, or you at least listen to JUST Lil Wayne or something equally soulless.

Let's reveal what the fuck it is I'm rambling about this time.

Emo stands for emotional. This much I want to make clear.

The first "emo" bands were basically hardcore bands from around the mid to late 80s early 90s (when rock was starting to merge with hardcore with bands like Fugazi and Quicksand). Why these bands were emo is simply because of the intensity of their live shows. It had more or less nothing to do with the music. There were and are emotional hardcore bands (the first one arguably being Rites of Spring), which was a genre name given based on lyrics, though (early on at least) I doubt most of them considered themselves more than just a hardcore band.

Emo today is different. Emo today means bands like Cute Is What We Aim For, or something whatever the fuck it is. Four Letter Lie, A Skylit Drive, or something. Fuck. It's just all very bad music, but I don't hate it for the singers, like most. Although A Skylit Drive is pretty gay singer-wise. I mean, c'mon dude. But mostly it's the LACK of emotion in these bands that strikes me. What the fuck is it their even singing about most of the time? Why name a song with a sentence? Moreover, a sentence that has absolutely nothing to do with the lyrics. Or the music, if that makes sense. And just generally, the music isn't very pleasing.

Why it's called emo anyway is because people don't think hard enough about music. Genres and what to appropriately call something is so vitally important. It just is. You need to know what to call something. And calling most of that poo poo emo is a shame really. But at this point, the word "emo" has been so slaughtered due to it's usual reference that applying correctly to anything non-"emo" would cause an uproar from everybody.

Ever listen to Coltrane's Meditations? Ravel's Pavane? ANYTHING EVER from Converge? These is emotional, beautiful, haunting, necessary music. No one would call this stuff emo, due to the obvious confusion with Cute Is What We Aim For (of course, wouldn't want that).

But using my (correct) definition of emo, I'm certainly the biggest emo-bitch ever.

But that's what this new sort of music is about to me. I've only discovered metal and hardcore music a few years ago but it's literally all I listen to nowadays. I just, I just can't get enough. I don't know, it's scary. Fuck. I just crave the emotionality, as it were. If I go more than 3 or 4 hours with hearing someone scream about something I go nuts. And for so long, I had no idea I would like this sort of music, although there were plenty of cues. Before I liked jazz my favorite bands were 311, Deftones, Tool, Thursday and the like. At least the latter three have inspired TONS of amazing metal and hardcore today (Thursday more something called "post-hardcore", but I won't go into that...wiki it). 311 inspires surfers and bros to smoke weed. As much as I still have a soft spot for it, I can't identify with it like I used to.

So maybe I was destined to love it, but whatever the reason, it makes my blood warm. It makes my skin yearn. My tongue taste. My thirst quench.

If you don't have a palate for the heaviness, the screaming (a common complaint), the dissonance, whatever, I understand all that. It takes time to like some of this stuff, even for me, being the biggest whore for it ever. But know that it is some of the most powerful stuff you'll ever hear. Even if it's about necrophagia or something. Necrophagist...brutal.

I'll end this with something I plan to do every few posts or so, give a short list of some new stuff that I'm finding particularly lovely lately.

And Hell Followed With - A deathcore/grind band that released a whole LP on their own wallets pushing themselves and their music at local shows for the longest time, and now finally got themselves onto Earache. Can't wait to hear more of this band. It's brutal, not breakdown-raping, and even has some of that hardcore punk/grind influence (instead of just having loads of stupid breakdowns). It's ear bruising to say the least. Their first LP Domain is online, and I think nowhere else unless you know them personally. Seed it!

Dead Swans - their new (first?) LP Sleepwalkers is what I listened to as I wrote this, and it's absolutely amazing. A hardcore band from the UK (which is a bit odd), they combine the standard straight edgey sound of bands like Death Before Dishonor, but (like Have Heart, another AMAZING band) introduce the melodic qualities seen in modern post-hardcore/indie. This combination is one of favorites, and I hope to see more bands explore it, because these guys and Have Heart just kill me every time they massage my eardrums.

Reign Supreme - not much to say here, a good standard hardcore release with Testing the Limits of Infinite. Check this, and everything else from Deathwish Inc, out. Deathwish hardcore is almost always a clear indication of quality.

Goatwhore - METAL. This (probably Satanic) blackened death metal band released Carving Out the Eyes of God at some point earlier this year, and sadly I missed it, because it's brilliant. It's got a thrash/hardcore (dare I say) infusion going on that I just can't resist, and still manages to be so ridiculously heavy and overpowering.

That is all lovers. Make me proud. Grow. Don't undo, don't go blindly, just grow. Bye now.

Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Symphony

I want to start by reviewing the new Winds of Plague album. If you aren't already familiar with this group, check out Decimate the Weak (2008, Century Media), which was their first major metal label debut. It's good, though definitely a tad corny, especially for someone like me who hates most "deathcore", which as I will explain, is the worst name ever for anything. Ever.

The new album came out today, called The Great Stone War (2009, Century Media). And let's just say they turned the creativity way down, the corniness way up, and the vocalist from Terror way...present...on the record. I guess I kind of fucked the parallelism up there.

Dammit...

Overall it's a nice record, particularly if you already like them, and particularly particularly on the fifth track "Battle Scars", which is really really good. I mean, it made me sweat. I must have lost a few pounds. Plus it's the only track on the LP which is remotely brutal. Sadly.

The album is a concept about some sort of global war which basically causes some sort of cataclysmic armageddon. And two things become clear: 1. really, really listen to the first LP I mentioned, and if it were to have a concept, it would be a similar one. End of the world, war, death, comeback, redemption, blah blah blah blah blah toast blah blah; 2. they came up with the concept before writing MOST of the music (I can't say for sure about all of it), because a lot of it is arbitrary keyboard orchestral samples through breakdowns, arbitrary intros to tunes where Johnny Plague is just talking; each song seems to fit its lyrical purpose, without creating anything interesting on its own, like Decimate the Weak did.

But more simply, where are the technical guitar parts, the solos, the brutality, the stuff that puts the "death" in "deathcore." Sorry guys, still love you though, but don't ever do a track with Scott from Terror again. It just doesn't fit. Plus, he usually writes music that means something, as opposed to hackneyed overused concepts with even more hackneyed overused breakdowns. 5/10. Favorite track: Battle Scars.

But let me explain something. It seems I've let my guard down, and actually expressed an opinion, as opposed to my first, purposefully confusing, post. That's right, you've been had, I actually don't love you.

Oh, fuck who am I kidding.

I promise, no more lying. Although I still insist I'm a nudist.

God I love the internet.

Anyway, listen.

Metal is full of little subgenres and stupid people. It's sad that people can't just settle down and like what they like and let that be that. But no, some fucking bitch has to hardcore dance to Black Dahlia Murder in the middle of a crowd of people and almost hit me in the nuts. By the way, if you're reading this, said bitch, please know that...that I really don't like you.

I find it hard to be mean.

Why did that chick hardcore dance to an American black/melodic death metal band? Because the media, stupid people she probably also almost hit in the nuts at the Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza concert, and Burt and Ernie told her that makes sense. They're metalcore. Go ahead, almost hit some guy in the nuts. It's okay, he understands.

Sigh.

My point is:

Don't do what I tell you to do. I'm dumb. You're dumb. The only thing that we both know for sure is that music is sad, precious, usurping, relentless, punishing, spanglish, and altogether necessary. It's necessary to have your ears open, you're mind equally as open, you're heart even more open, and you're brain stem working properly. I could keep going to hypothalamus, but I forget what that does. I think long term memory? Maybe it has to do with the anus. I mean, what part of the brain makes me so obsessed with asses? It's gotta be that fucking hypothalamus. God. Motherfucker.

I'm done, I'm just tired now. And the new Thrice record is too amazingly distracting for me to keep going. I'm too tired of the bullshit, even Thrice gets bullshit for making amazing records.

Let's all get together. Peace to the world, and become one.

A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird and Dave Lombardo

Are one.

Fuck yeah.

Goodnight beautiful.

The Metaphysics of Everything

I don't want you to worry too much, I'm not a nudist. And even if I were, it couldn't be that bad...actually just for the sake of argument, let's pretend I am a nudist.

Hello, World. My name is Zach, and I am a nudist.

Since I'm a nudist, I think it's important to address a fundamental question: what do you, my friend, Zachary, have to share with us, besides your penis?

Ah.

Well.

I'm really nothing too important, but I want exude importance anyway, sort of like a hypocrite only this is the internet. I love intellectualism, poetry, coffee, refrigeration, silly string, anything that has meaning beyond its facade, the encasing. The clothing.

To say the least, the only thing that should matter are these hidden types of things. It's a metaphysics of everything. A dusting off, just to know in a few weeks, the dust will come back, to ruin your fucking day.

By now, I've basically given it away, I want to use this internets as a way to discuss my feelings about music, which is something I love to an almost unhealthy, illegal, heartless, ungodly, mispellingsful extent. It's pretty awesome, being the first one to think of writing a blog about music.

I hate sarcasm, but more importantly, I hate knowing that I'm not really being original. So let's clarify.

I hope to give you, dearest reader, a little glimpse into my world, the nothingness of underground music, metal, hardcore, independent rock, or whatever I think "underground" means. Actually it means "beneath the surface of the Earth" (Merrian Webster Online, p. 11,225,772,441). So I'll just use that meaning. It has to have been recorded in the Earth's Crust. Then I'll talk about it.

Those of you who are reading this (and those who aren't...I'm not racist), who do know something about modern heavy metal music already, may be curious as to know what of it I like. See, metal is a horrible horrible genre for nice people. If you like something, there will always be some dude who thinks you're a pussy for liking it. And if you're really nice, you won't have the scrotal tissue to respond, "Hey, why don't you remove that giant stick from your asshole which is obviously making you grumpy." I know I wouldn't.

So if you're wondering about my bias, how I feel about the "scenes", "emo", Job for a Cowboy, deathcore, et cetera et cetera, just wait. Just, just stop. I'm sure I don't care. It's music. Listen to it, and shut the fuck up. Not even sneezing.

But seriously you'll know the answer to all that at some point regardless. I tend to be loquacious. And kind of annoying.

But see, that doesn't matter. Rejoice.

I love you.

iTunes Last Played:

Converge, Between the Buried and Me, The Black Dahlia Murder, And Hell Followed With, Have Heart, Despised Icon, Terror, Veil of Maya, that weird Winds of Plague, xAFBx, Loyal to the Grave split, Black My Heart, Stick to Your Guns, Blood for Blood, Mastodon, Protest the Hero, Oh, Sleeper, August Burns Red. Thank you.