We here at Team Decibel can’t get enough of Guitar Hero: World Tour. When we heard RedOctane and Activision were bringing a Metallica version of the game we got pretty fuckin’ excited. We’ve paddled our plastic guitar-controller to death trying to perfect “Trapped Under Ice” in GT: World Tour, but our collective head explodes when we contemplate paddling/faux-drumming through songs like “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Master of Puppets,” and “Hit the Lights.”
Initial reports are 28 Metallica songs will be playable. (more…)
OK, so Rick Rubin is nominated for Producer of the Year. For a fifth time. Good to see Rubin getting his much-deserved accolades and recognition. But you have to wonder for fucking what? He’s this high-profile, all-important sage of a producer. We’ll give him that. But what did he touch that had any redeeming value in 2008? Death Magnetic. Please. That’s like nominating Katrina for flooding New Orleans and FEMA for the pitiful planning leading up and dreadful response to Katrina. Yeah.
He DESTROYED, or at least approved the OBLITERATION of, Metallica’s sack-of-shit sounding Death Magnetic (clicky here) album. Well, he did WIN a Grammy for vomiting and then pissing (clicky here) on Stadium Arcadium by Red Hot Chili Peppers.
He’ll probably WIN a Grammy for Death Magnetic, too. Or for those wallpaper-thick albums by Jakob Dylan and Weezer. Hell, why nominate Rubin? Just give him the damned awards. This shit’s old-boy network anyway, right?
Viktoriya Yermolyeva is a Ukrainian piano prodigy. She’s won a ton of accolades and competitions. 99% of which we’ve never heard of. But they sure sound impressive. Like 1st Prize at “Filippo Trevisan” International for Piano Interpretation. Like 1st Prize at 35th International Competition “Vincenzo Bellini.” Or 1st Prize at 4th Sigismund Thalberg International Piano Prize. But the reason the 30-year old is garnering attention outside the Classical sphere is her faithful and downright impressive renditions of Metallica songs.
In the video for “Battery” above, Yermolyeva’s hands move so fast it’s almost as if she’s faking it. But she’s not. Want further proof? Check out videos for “Orion,” “Fade to Black,” or this version of Opeth’s “Porcelain Heart.” The chick’s rad.
You’ve had almost five days to soak up Death Magnetic. To understand it. To feel it. To hear where Metallica ‘08 is coming from. But there’s one major problem with Death Magnetic. The production. Few address it strangely enough. Well, this guy was vocal, but the big boys at Rolling Stone said, “…Death Magnetic manages to sound huge, polished and tough.” Baloney! Blabbermouth’s Don Kaye almost touches upon it.
The production is garbage. It’s a sophomoric attempt to sound and ultimately convey heavy. A metal record should be loud, abrasive, and offensive. We’ll give Metallica and every other metal artiste that. The production and subsequent mastering of said production, however, should not (digitally) distort to such an extent that it sounds (even at low volume) like Metallica through blown speakers on a set of dollar store headphones.
To prove the point, we fed Decibot three samples of “The Day That Never Comes.”
Sample #1 is a wav extract from the Death Magnetic CD.
Sample #2 is a wav extract record label Warner Bros. Records sent to radio.
Sample #3 is a wav file clipped from radio.
Remember, Decibot isn’t an audio engineer or Grammy Award-winning studio guru, but it knows how to compute and print out a sound file. Those peaks, the first ones circled in red by Decibot, represent what basically is audio terrorism. In fact, those aren’t peaks at all. Those are plateaus! There’s almost no dynamic range. Death Magnetic is loud for loud’s sake, which isn’t a good reason at all. And that’s precisely why, despite having a solid set of songs, Metallica’s return-to-form album is the audio equivalent of torture. Trust us, we’ve had to endure Masonna and Merzbow.
Metallica’s James Hetfield doesn’t like people on his land KTVU reports. The 45-year old singer/guitarist bought land in Marin county in 1999. His aim was to build a 14,000-square-foot home, as well as a 6,000-square-foot studio. To date, only the 6,000-square-foot studio is finished. Hetfield ordered construction of a barbed-wire fence, which cuts across a popular trail used by hikers and cyclists, in reponse to vandalism on his property.
People, generally hikers and so on, think Hetfield is uncool, while his position on the matter if vandalism wasn’t an issue there’d be no need to enclose his property.
Our thinking on the matter is mixed. Hetfield has every right to do whatever he pleases on his large estate. Even cut off a trail that’s not owned by local, state, or federal governments. But, it’d be awfully kind of the frontman to find a suitable solution where nature seekers can eat all the Trail Mix they want and get their rocks off at the same time.
Think Hetfield is an ass or is just in blocking the trail on his property?
Ok, Ok. We’ve been on Metallica’s nuts lately. For no good reason really. They’re just really big and swing hard. Anyway, we can’t ignore the former thrash titans covering Iron Maiden’s “Remember Tomorrow” as commissioned by UK rag Kerrang!
Nor can we, in good inverted faith, ignore comparing it to Opeth’s version from the Dwell Records Iron Maiden tribute.
Metallica didn’t reveal today the track listing for their upcoming album Death Magnetic. Apparently, the track listing was accidentally leaked by a sheet music site. The site (unattributed, of course) then pulled the listing from its site, but not before legions of Metalli-nerds and news junkies found out. Whee! We admit the Death Magnetic’s track listing doesn’t appear to be too bad.
1. “That Was Just Your Life”
2. “The End Of The Line”
3. “Broken, Beat & Scarred”
4. “The Day That Never Comes”
5. “All Nightmare Long”
6. “Cyanide”
7. “The Unforgiven III”
8. “The Judas Kiss”
9. “Suicide & Redemption”
10. “My Apocalypse”
Then again, we’ve been duped before. Despite debuting at #1 on the Billboard charts in 2003, St. Anger, Metallica’s worst album to date, was supposedly a return to form and (gasp!) cool. The Pushead cover, the initial reviews (Rolling Stone gave it a 4/5 stars! Liars!), and the fact that it was the first Metallica album in six years all signaled something.
Well, as much as we’d like to be giddy and join Metallica’s 18,000 subscription-only fan-sites, consider us slightly gun shy. “The Unforgiven III”? We never saw that one coming. Wink, wink.
Are you going to buy it? Click here to see your options. Death Magnetic, knobbed by Rick Rubin, will be out in September.
Move over Mortification and Solid State Records. There’s a new spiritual deal in town. Enter Brother Cesare Bonizzi, a Capuchin monk from Bergamo, Italy. Inspired by a Metallica concert, the 62-year ‘preacher singer’ has formed Fratello Metallo (aka Metal Brother).
What’s so damned cool about Bonizzi, however, isn’t that he dons a friars habit or could out-yell Aaron Turner or has a super metal beard (more so than this guy), but that he’s not into metal to convert people to his faith.
