Darkest Hour

The Eternal Return

Victory/June 23, 2009

Every other year we here in Bearland are graced with a new Darkest Hour release to beat our metal ear drums. An elite click of four friends from back in the Snellville days became a DH bandwhore, we love(d) the group, love(d) their show, and for the most part, can all agree that the band probably makes just about the best metal out there, consistently. In Darkest Hour’s sixth foray into metal history they release ‘The Eternal Return’, which is an alleged ‘return’ to their roots of rocking riffs, that are undeniably bad to the ass. Let’s see where my feelings lie on these matters, shall we?

Alright, you can count me in as one of the bigger fans of this band, I’ve liked loved everything this band has done, and to fully realize ‘Return’ we must venture into the past of  the D to the H. The last cd ‘Deliver Us’ was a technical brain basher that contains probably some of the most mind boggling guitar doodling that I’ve ever heard. Yes there was a tad bit of singing on the disc, but that didn’t bother me much, the song that had the singing in it blew up at the end and kicked mucho asso. 2005’s ‘Undoing Ruin’ is considered by me to quite possibly be the peak of the DH career, it’s not my favorite of their catalogue, but it is in the runner-up spot. It is their catchiest record to date and has some seriously solid tunes. Sound the Surrender and Convalescence are timeless songs that will never get old. 04’s ‘Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation’ is easily the thrashiest cd to come out in the 2000’s, if you disagree, ask the Bear that eats people, he’s a musical genius. Hidden Hands is not the easiest cd to listen to, but if you like fast guitars and drums, this is the fastest. It’s seriously, bizzaro thrash. It also has the solo to end all solo’s.  Then of course there’s the pup that started it all: 2001’s So Sedated So Secure, my personal favorite metal album of all time. This disc is riddled with glorious riffs that are beyond significant to each song, you hear the riff and you know exactly which song it is. SSSS is one of those 5/5 records that stands in the halls of metal rockdom and will live forever. It’s a Wolf Necessity to be exact.

It’s 2009 and Darkest Hour have a new guitarist, and a new record, and I’m not sure if I like it as much as I’ve liked everything previous from these duders. All the reviews on the interweb love this disc and I think I’m the only person out there that can’t find where this cd belongs in his box of treasures, or if it even needs to be in the treasure chest at all. This cd is simply put, boring to me. Aside from the initial single ‘No God’, nothing on this cd grabs me. ‘Tides is cool and so is ‘Into the Grey, but honestly, I couldn’t think of a riff from either of those songs in my head right now, and I can do that with like every Darkest Hour song from the previous five records. Two to three weeks into a new DH release and I’m all over it, but right now I find myself listening to other new things out there that are, sadly, better. This cd is somewhat of a return to  SSSS, but no song on this record has a signature to it. Every song sounds nearly the same to me, nothing really stands out as making each song its own. It lacks style and creativity. Don’t get me wrong, it’s metal, it’s heavy, and it’s loud, but that doesn’t make a cd good. That’s just what this cd is for me, it’s good, but Darkest Hour has always been great, and good isn’t good enough for me from my favorite metal band. [2.5/5]

Live Action Pac-Man:

King of Kongs:

I don’t really think any of the 90s grunge bands can compare to Alice In Chains.  Sure, there were some good ones, but for my money, AIC was the cream of the crop. Sooo many good records and good tunes. It was a big time shame when Layne died all those years ago, and I was kinda surprised when I first heard a a few years back that they were planning on returning as AIC with a new singer. Fast forward to now..they’ve just released the video for the first song from their new record (which is titled ‘Black Gives Way To Blue’ and due out in September) and so therefore I’ve heard the ‘new’ AIC today for the first time. I must admit that I’m kinda impressed. New dude sounds a fair amount like Layne and the band doesn’t seem to have skipped a beat. It’s 1997 all over again!  The song is a bit too lengthy but it has a cool groove to it and I find myself digging it in a retro sorta way. I can’t find a postable version of the vid yet, but here’s the song..’A Looking In View’. What you do guys think?

This is Switzerland.
According to very persistent emails that keep showing up in my spam folder for some reason, I have won the Swiss lottery and those folks over there have been feverishly trying to get a hold of me to give me my winnings. Pretty awesome eh? Be jealous.

The previous Pantera post got me thinking…

The first track or cluster of tracks on an album are very important. First impressions are huge, even in the music world, and a weak album opener can be pretty damning for the rest of the cd. I’m sure you’ve all had experiences with records you were stoked about hearing only to pop it in the cd player only to find the first track/few tracks totally sucked. Conversely, I know there are tons of records out there that have songs that come out swinging and really prepare you for the rest of the album.
That said, I’m curious what albums really do it for you in terms of starting things off with a bang. If you wanna be all High Fidelity about it, I suppose I’d be okay with everyone just listing albums with a killer first song, but lots of records have that.. I’m more interested in clusters of tunes. I mentioned that songs 1-5 on ‘Vulgar Display..’ were all classics. Similarly, Metallica’s black album began with 4 of 5 songs that ultimately became singles and just plain classic tracks.
Soo what’s your take? What records, rock or otherwise, begin with a collection of 3,4,5, etc songs that destroys the competition in your mind? Please share with the class.

Pantera -- Vulgar Display Of Power
Atlantic Records/WEA
Released Feb 25, 1992

I was driving around the other day when I realized that during the lifespan of the Bear Necessities feature, I’d yet to feature anything close to a metal cd. I thought it to be kinda weird considering how big a fan I am of the genre soo I’ve decided to right that wrong now.

Man, Pantera. What can I even really say about them? They were the shit, plain and simple. Metallica may be my favorite metal band and my initial gateway drug into the heavy scene, but Pantera was one of the very first bands I came across and to this day still they still rank pretty highly on the awesome-meter.  Pantera, back in the mid 90s at least, was everwhere. I think that may be because they’re one of those bands that most metal dudes and dudettes are able to agree on. You couldn’t really walk into any random record store and flip through their poster or tshirt collection without coming across at least 1 Pantera item in there amongst the Metallica, AC/DC, and Sabbath stuff and I suppose that was a testament to the rather legendary status they were able to carve out for themselves..and heck, they deserved it.
Vulgar.. was the first Pantera record I was exposed to way back in the day and man it kicked my ass.  The first five tracks alone are ridiculous in their ferocity and have become total metal classics.  ‘Mouth For War’?  ‘A New Level’? ‘Walk’? ‘Fucking Hostile’? ‘This Love’? My goodness, some rock bands don’t have that many kickass songs in their whole career much less as the first 5 tracks on one single record.  (Did any of you dudes out ever ever watch old school ECW? Ya always knew when ‘Walk’ hit that RVD was coming out to kick someone in the face..) I used to love driving around with my discman and it’s car cassette adapter and BLASTING this record. It’s such an aggressive album and always made me feel like such a badass.  I mean, I drove a huge gray Cutlass, I had a chain wallet, and wore XL band shirts and baggy pants..it was hard for me to NOT feel like a badass all the time anyway, but listening to this cd only made me badassier.
Good times.

I don’t really wanna discount the band’s other stuff either, because all of their records (aside from Reinventing the Steel..which kiinda wasn’t that good) are rad too. They always had a sound of their own..with Dimebag’s unique guitar tone and crazy Phil’s ‘I’m gonna beat your ass’ lyrics and attitude..and man I just really liked them. I was lucky enough to see them once, albeit at Ozzfest, but it was super cool anyway.
I bought a Static-X basketball jersey at that Ozzfest I think.  That was 40 bucks I never got back. Oh well. Their first album was good…soooo eff you, naysayer. I digress.
Pantera. Vulgar Display Of Power. A metal classic. It’s a cryin’ shame the band will never be able to make a return to the music world; Dime’s tragic death put any of those possibilities to rest for good (literally I suppose). I’ve never cared for any of the post-Pantera musical projects, so for me, the band has to and will continue to live on through their old stuff and it’s just as awesome today as it was in the peak of the band’s popularity. Who else out there loves them some Pantera?

Well somehow, it’s July again already and thaaat means it’s time for fireworks and the 4th of July! Wee! I won’t be around this weekend to post, so I figured I’d leave you with some killer America tunes to get you all patriotic and stuff!
Enjoy your weekend, I’ll catch you on the flip side!

It’s always great when I have new Andrew WK things to post about because the guy is so darn likable and awesome.
He’s got that Destroy Build Destroy show over on Cartoon Network, which is one of the many new live action shows airing on the channel, and they’ve enlisted him to make a music video promoting all these shows.
Thissss is that music video…

I saw an ad for this dino arena show thingy in the paper the other day and I kiiinda think it would be sweet to go to.
Has anyone in BearLand been to this? If so, how was it?

iwrestledabearonce

It’s All Happening

Century Media/June 2, 2009

iwrestledabearonce is a funny little band from Shreveport, Louisiana, a place I once lived matter of factly. I’d heard of these fellas (and one lady) a little over a year back from the Bear himself, and back then I was pretty turned off by their techno interludes and wacky keyboard bridges and solos. I first heard of their latest release ‘It’s All Happening’ a couple weeks back right here on BEARSEATPEOPLE.COM!! with the video for ‘You Ain’t No Family’, and what a hootin’ hollerin’ time it was. I immediately enjoyed the brutality of the metal that these musicians created. I was also shocked that such a voice could spawn from a female, I always thought it was a two singer thing goin on (She’s hot too, btw). At the end of the song the metal breaks out into a country-western themed boot scootin’ boogie kinda thing, a horse neigh’s and explosive breakdowns ensue. iwrestledabearonce is thrash meets metal meets speed metal meets techno electronica meets the best thing you’ve heard. It’s not metal all throughout (thankfully almost), the cd dramatically  slows down at times to explore singer Krysta Cameron’s more melodic side accompanied by metallic techno keyboard rhythms. ‘It’s All Happening’ is a fresh approach at the metal scene that pleased me greatly. It’s perfect for techno blasting in your boosted  Toyota Scion at 3 am. [3.5/5]