The very lovely, rockin’ Dea at Mystic Metal talked to Esh of Cauldron Black Ram recently.

You can see this killer interview HERE.

Note that the photographs are by one of my former photographers, Max Hale. Max is one of the few rock photographers in Australia who does not spend hours in photoshop post-gig, preferring to “get it right” the first time.

Enjoy! And thanks to Dea for her time!

Past posts you might dig:

1. Cauldron Black Ram Official Website Launched
2. Metal Dad Australia talks to ANOTHER HELL
3. Gallery: Cauldron Black Ram (and others) at Evil Invaders III

You know those obnoxious people who listen to their iPods way too loudly on public transport? I think I’ve become one of them. I can tell, because of the repeated looks I get from people when they sit near me. Watching children’s reactions is quite enjoyable, too, because I’m never listening to anything most of them have ever heard before.

Like this week’s offering: AURA NOIR. As anybody who follows me on Twitter knows, Aura Noir is one of those bands that passed me by. I still haven’t listened to their discography, which a mate brought over.

Anybody who is already into the band is boxing my ears at this point and screaming obscenities. Because AURA NOIR’s version of black thrash is quite simply awesome.

As the technical, running axe work fills my environment, a fat man sits in front of me reading sports. To my left, a nerdy dude is reading about disease management. Every unremarkable person is bored, or reading, or tired and unimpressed looking. Hey you guys, in my ears is HAIL SATAAAAAANNNNNNN.

Out to Die makes the usual unremarkable ugliness of regular humanity even less remarkable. Even more regular.

After the next stop, this train is express to town. Language cannot express my disappointment at this. I’m only halfway through this damn thing.

Actually it is this track that features some unexpected drum fills. Track four: The Grin from the Gallows. I was kinda hoping it would expand into a drum solo, but it didn’t.

Listening to Out to Die at my local semi-rural train stop is also instructive. Why is this album not the soundtrack to the morning morass of enslaved soulless working class? Even though, from this train stop, the commuters would tell me that they’re middle class. Sorry honey, you’re enslaved just like the factory workers in Salisbury.

But anyway. This album is imbued with evil overtones, as black thrash should be. It’s hard to describe the typical nature of these riffs. Riffs that create midtones and undertones, setting the overall scene and tonality of the remainder, but also driving the tracks forward. The rhythm section supports it, but the guitars drive it.

Guitar-driven music. Thrash.

AURA NOIR do this so much differently to bands like Goatwhore. It’s professional but less polished. In the common eye, but underground. On a major label but with the sensibilities of those fabulous, kvlt, underground bands that you wish would produce music more often, would play live more frequently.

Fuck, look at me, waxing lyrical. Out to Die does this. It excites me more every time I hear it.

As far as being a commuter album, it’s not one of those releases you can really listen to just in the train and during the walk to work. You are far better off listening to this thing before your journey, during your journey, and on your way into work. You don’t want to miss even one piece of it. My train journey is roughly 20 mins to half an hour, depending on the driver. This album is over half an hour in length. Make sure you give yourself enough time to indulge.

And besides, it will give you the strength to face whatever shithole you work in. Cos let’s face it: all work is shit.

By contrast, great metal just gets better.

Just a note for the shufflers among you, this stands out. The sheer pace and energy in Out to Die will shock the shit out of you, especially if you have a lot of rock or doom or stoner stuff on your mp3 player.

Standout track? For me, third to last: Priest’s Hellish Fiend.

Go get this album when it’s out. More especially if you’re a SODOM fan. You will love it.

AURA NOIR’s OUT TO DIE IS IN STORES THIS MONTH: 23rd in Europe/World; 27th in the USA.

Past posts you might dig:

1. [commuter review] SIGH – In Somnophobia (Candlelight)
2. The Commuter Review
3. BrooklynVegan streams new AURA NOIR single, “Out to Die”

I had the absolute privilege of being interviewed by the fantastic Natalie at Canada Arts Connect recently. The article is now up! Please go have a read, love to hear what you think.

Here’s a snippet:

You’ve become a passionate supporter of fellow female metal writers online, especially on Twitter. What do you hope to bring to the conversation about women and heavy metal? What do you think are the most important issues facing women who participate in the metal scene in any capacity?

I hate to disappoint you, but it’s entirely unintentional. I support cool, intelligent people — gender is totally out of my focus. If you rock, we’re on; if you suck, we’re off.

I have never been a supporter of feminist ideologies, feminist ideologues or gender-based discussions in general. I have always, ever since I was a tiny kid, lived with the attitude that anybody can do anything and the only thing that stops them is their personal perspective. You want to do something? Make it happen. No excuse on Earth will justify you missing out on something, except the fact that you didn’t try.

In fact, at university, surrounded by feminists and girls getting everything, and boys getting nothing, I became a passionate supporter of men’s rights. Why should we have a special room with free cups of coffee simply because we’re chicks? It’s the totally wrong way to look at life. Having said that, I have become more sympathetic to the sisterhood; I think that’s something that has come with age.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE.

Past posts you might dig:

1. Girls Don’t Like Metal

Almost Home: My Life Story by Damien Echols

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have long known the story of the West Memphis Three. One of my friends was deeply into the cause, and, some years ago, ran a film night at Adelaide’s Mercury Cinemas, to raise money to help their legal battles. She did a fantastic job; but more to the point, that was the first time I had ever seen anything much about the story.

This book is a simple, passionate, peaceful autobiography by Damien Echols, writing about his version of events. It details his life up to the point where he was arrested, and after that only covers the aspects of his life that he wished to bring to the world. As he pointed out in the book, the story of the WM3 had already been more than ably covered by other books and documentaries.

The beauty of this novel lies in its simplicity. It reads like a letter, which in many ways is how it was written. You come to know Damien very personally, and as far as much autobiography goes, is devoid of ego. It is rare to read a text like this, and I suspect it has something to do with his perspective on the world after devoting himself to studies such as Buddhism, Zen, and many other philosophies. I won’t go into the detail, but it was this section of the work in which much of the story really drew me in. I’m a sucker for that stuff.

Downside? As always, the errors, man, the textual, unnecessary errors!! Fuuck me drunk, I fear I will never read another beautifully edited book in my life. I hope I’m wrong.

View all my reviews

Past posts you might dig:

1. BOOK REVIEW: Glorious Times: A pictorial of the death metal scene, by Alan Moses
2. BOOK REVIEW: No Regrets, by Ace Frehley
3. BOOK REVIEW: Day Watch – Sergei Lukyanenko (Miramax Books)

Oh, SIGH. The creepiest of the weird offensive Japanese black metal. Thou art amazing on the train.

Cover art. As amazing as the music.

Years ago, long after I first got into this band, I recall taking a copy of Ghastly Funeral Theatre to work and asking a Malaysian girl who spoke Japanese to translate some of it for me.

She refused to touch it. She looked at it once and then tremblingly stated, “No! Is too evil!”

I was well impressed.

Since those days, Sigh have produced some crazy soundscapes. They’re the sort of band that really ought to be billed on Future Music Festival for the sheer intellectualism with which they approach definitions of music, and of listener affect.

The only band that really comes close is Gnaw Their Tongues. And they are fucking amazing for this sort of shit, just in a slightly different way, coming from different roots.

I say all this after spending two train trips and the surreal walk to, and into, work, with Sigh’s latest, In Somnophobia, blasting in my ears.

Picture sitting on the train with intensely layered sounds playing all around you. Some of them you can’t quite touch. Some are from the circus. Some are from horrific movies. Some are sexy, hook-filled montage soundtracks. Some are evil, gothic, operatic soundtracks that occur in strange physical theatres. The remainder would not be out of place in an Argento film.

All of it painted with a brush redolent of the Sigh you know and love. Indeed, some of the piano pieces will be familiar to the Sigh fan.

I sat amongst tens of regular jackoffs, drifting to all sorts of places with this release. I wandered with the commuter crowds into my work building, mesmerized and unwilling to remove my headphones. The trip home after work was twice as exciting as usual.

If half the commuters had turned into pink elephants and started slaughtering each other, I was listening to the perfect accompaniment.

I’m still not done with this album. There is so much to it that it will take me months and months to feel all of its pieces.

True to form, this release is best through headphones. It loses a vast amount of its ouvre on a stereo. Seriously.

It’s just not short enough for a commute album, though. It’s long enough, and engaging enough, to do you for a couple of days. Or commutes and lunch. Maybe a week if you only listen to it on the train, and set to “constant absorption”.

But be warned that your brain will be playing with it after you’ve put it away and started work, so you’ll be ineffective for at least the duration of your first coffee of the day. Tell your colleagues you’re tired. They’ll believe you! They believed me!

This album is fantastic. Highly recommended – especially for the manic end of your working week.

To quote a sample from track 10: “we are… No longer the same.”

SIGH’S IN SOMNIPHOBIA IS IN STORES IN MARCH 2012.

Past posts you might dig:

1. The Commuter Review
2. [RELEASE REVIEW] Corpus Christii – Luciferian Frequencies (Candlelight Records)
3. BOOK REVIEW: No Regrets, by Ace Frehley

Glorious Times: A pictorial of the death metal scene by Alan Moses

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is book is a conversational look at the life and times of the early death metal scene. It contains recollections of people, gigs, events, bands, and publications. It’s at times in-depth, at times fucking hilarious.

The pictorial aspect is grand, too. Mostly live shots from shows back in the day.

My biggest criticism is that the publishers took submissions and pretty well published them as-is. The book is rife with spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors that truly disrupt the reading experience. It also paints a picture of metalheads as unschooled, which is unfair.

Even a hard-arse like me got over the errors, however, and just enjoyed the read. So much information is contained here, and in the most perfect way possible: personal story. In stories chosen by the bands themselves. It’s truly their story, in their own words.

I loved the fact that this book, when I read it on commuter trains, sparked off conversation with non-metalheads who were curious. That alone is fantastic.

All metalheads, especially fans of thrash and death metal, need to read this book. I bought my copy from Missing Link Records in Melbourne. It was the only copy in the country! Wow!

View all my reviews

Past posts you might dig:

1. Release review: Holy Moses – Agony of Death (SPV/Riot)
2. [Book Review] RealmShift, by Alan Baxter (independent)
3. BOOK REVIEW: No Regrets, by Ace Frehley

It has become that time of my life again where I am a public transport commuter. Rather than waste the time, I’ve decided to write a new column.

In The Commuter Review, I will bring to you reviews of new metal releases that have accompanied me on train trips to and/or from work.

Except, this column has particular requirements in addition to your average review.

Such as, can the album be listened to in one average train trip (typically, for me, half an hour)? Is it an album you’d shove onto shuffle amongst a pile of other albums? Is it good enough at helping you forget the hundreds of regular jackoffs amongst which you have to travel?

And so on.

The first one you can expect is of SIGH’s forthcoming release, In Somniphobia. Mainly because the promo material states that it’s best through headphones. Perfect!

What do you think? Oh, and if you have an album you want me to review for the column, drop a comment and let me know!

Past posts you might dig:

1. Release review: Paindivision – One Path (Riot Entertainment)
2. Release Review: AS I LAY DYING – This is Who We Are DVD (Metal Blade/Riot)
3. [Release Review] DAWN OF RETRIBUTION – The Plan to End Humanity (independent)

In the last week, my music collection is the most organised it’s ever been. And I’ve only now realised how important this is.

For years (actually, nearly all my adult life, to be exact), I have existed in a sea of hardcopy music: music I’ve bought, music I’ve got in promo format. While my jewel-case CD collection has, for the most part, been 75% in order, I’ve never known exactly what I have.

Now, I have all of my hardcopy music in order. That is, in artist order, and in release-date order (god bless Encyclopaedia Metallum!). This week, I separated all my jewel-case and box-set CDs from my promo CDs, put my tapes in order, and so on.

The hard work was in cataloguing every single release in a spreadsheet, which I then swiftly turned into a functional database in FileMaker. Only after every item was appropriately catalogued did I put them on my shelves. Pre-existing databases didn’t work for me, as good as they are. So I built one. I have the skills, so why not do the damn thing the way I want it?

What this exercise taught me is that I have almost an equal number of jewel-case CDs and promos; and while the CDs fill something like five and a half shelves, the promos (of course, being caseless) all fit on one shelf. All 300+ of them. The second thing that this exercise taught me is that I have releases I never knew I had, that I have multiples of many releases, and in some cases have multiple promos of releases.

My catalogue is organised by artist, then by title, then by format. I didn’t bother putting genres, or release dates, or labels into it, because if I want to find something, I’m going to want to find it by artist or by title. I’m not enough of a geek to go the distance with the remainder.

The best thing about all of this is that now I know what I actually have!! I won’t go and buy things I wasn’t sure whether I had or not, thus ending up with multiple copies in some cases. And the wankiest (read: coolest) thing about it is that now I know exactly how many discs I actually have. It’s not bad, really, considering how many releases I wish I had. It’s over 700.

What about you? How does your music collection look?

Past posts you might dig:

1. SPUNC: A national organisation with a local focus