Planet of the Wolves

Planet of the Wolves

1. Mastodon, "The Wolf is Loose"
2. Guitar Wolf, "Planet of the Wolves"
3. Ozzy Osbourne, "Bark at the Moon"
4. X, "Hungry Wolf"
5. The Cramps, "I Was a Teenage Werewolf"
6. High on Fire, "Speedwolf"
7. Motörhead featuring Michael Palin, "The Wolf"
8. Misery Index, "Fed to the Wolves"
9. Metallica, "Of Wolf and Man"
10. Converge, "Lonewolves"
11. The Dillinger Escape Plan, "Sunshine the Werewolf"
12. Hole, "Hungry Like the Wolf"
13. Ramones, "Howling At The Moon (Sha-La-La)"
14. Local H, "Wolf Like Me"
15. Amon Amarth, "Father of the Wolf"
16. Rancid, "The Wolf"
17. The Hu Band, "Wolf Totem"
18. Megadeth, "She-Wolf"
19.  Queens of the Stone Age, "Someone's in the Wolf"
20. Danzig, "Killer Wolf"

For KIP.

Amon Amarth, "Father of the Wolf"

Amon Amarth have an awesome Best of live album in them. Their records are always good, often great (especially 2006's With Oden on Our Side), but they're best experienced in the flesh, with filler-free setlists and best of all, the most smashing Viking metal flair you'll ever see. "Father of the Wolf", my pick for Father's Day 2015, is a great example of their power--a cinematic, riff-heavy death metal fest with a singable chorus. Raise your index and pinky before your hand turns into a paw.

The Ten Best Metal Records of 2013, So Far

In alphabetical order:

1. Amon Amarth, Deceiver of the Gods

Not many bands can stay relevant by making the same album over and over again. But as long as the Vikings in Amon Amarth are owning death metal's most energizing riffs and sea shantey choruses, they'll be one of rare those bands.



2. ASG, Blood Drive

The riffs have slowed down, the melodies soar, and yet the sun-baked stoner metal tones that made Win Us Over a keeper radiate through. This year's gateway metal album to beat.



3. The Dillinger Escape Plan, One of Us is the Killer

Like the Red Hot Chili Peppers or the Replacements, DEP's one consistency was that they were becoming more streamlined and produced with every album. Until this year--One of Us is the Killer is a heavy dose of ferocity that both reaches back to and expands on their early sonic furies. You know, from when mathcore was a punchline.



4. Intronaut, Habitual Levitations

"Nimble," "catchy" and "addictive" aren't words usually used to describe prog-rock. Unless someone is doing it better than everyone else.



5. Kvelertak, Meir

Nobody wants to feel the pressure of following up a monster debut, but Kvelertak sound like they love it. Your friends who tell you about DIIV saving punk and Liturgy saving metal are missing out.



6. Nails, Abandon All Life

Wow! Where did these guys come from? Did someone make a bet that they could make Pig Destroyer sound like the Foo Fighters in 17 minutes? Collect.



7. Ramming Speed, Doomed To Destroy, Destined To Die

It takes a lot for me to tolerate neo-thrash. Even the best bands, like Municipal Waste and Skeletonwitch, are hard to listen to when there's already the Big Four and Testament. But Ramming Speed fused it with just enough death metal to make me wonder why no one thought of this before, between headbangs.



8. Shining, One One One

I don't know what made a Swedish avant-jazz band decide that they could save industrial metal, but I hope they keep doing it. No wonder NIN is back this year.



9. Soilwork, The Living Infinite

Outside of Natural Born Chaos, I assumed that Soilwork was a perfectly honorable background metal band. I had no interest in picking up a double album from them, until a friend planted it in my dropbox. Who knew that a 2-CD death metal set, much less one from Soilwork, could rock this hard? Their countrymen in In Flames and Arch Enemy haven't put out anything this potent in ages.



10. Queens of the Stone Age, Like Clockwork

In which Josh Homme forfeits his title as rock's coolest man to out himself as an emotional wreck. The bravest twist yet in one of modern rock's most indispensable careers.

Judas Priest, "Painkiller"

The sharpest point that I ever heard in the Priest vs. Maiden debate is that Judas Priest are more of a guitarist's band, whereas Iron Maiden are more of a bassist's band. Regardless of which side you fall on, this makes perfect sense. For all of their bombast, Maiden's solos are relatively succinct, and songwriter Steve Harris's basslines are right up there with Bruce Dickinson in the mix. Judas Priest practically founded metal's now-ubiquitous twin axe attack. It's no surprise that Lemmy prefers Iron Maiden, or that Kerry King champions Priest.



Nowhere are those lightning guitars better heard than in the title track to Painkiller. "Painkiller" doesn't just sound heavy for 1990, or for guys pushing 40. Listening today, in 2013, "Painkiller" is downright brutal, far nastier than any of the power metal it supposedly inspired. Drummer Scott Travis, making his first-ever appearance on a Priest record, wastes no time in implementing blast beats into the Priest formula, and it works shockingly well. Tipton and Downing's solos are so frenetic that even guitar wizard Chuck Schuldiner tried something completely different when he covered "Painkiller" on Death's final album. Rob Halford's frequency-pushing vocals are at an all-time high, perhaps acknowledging that he can go further now to complement his band's flourishing energy. Your parents might have even tolerated "Living After Midnight," but there was no way that they were getting down to this.

You'll hear about how Painkiller was Judas Priest's comeback, a response to two lackluster albums (Turbo and Ram it Down) and a sharply-delivered boot to a world of Poisons and Warrants.
But 1990 was an incredible year for metal. Painkiller was up against Rust in Peace, Seasons in the Abyss and Cowboys from Hell, all Album of the Decade candidates. More than a nail in the glam metal coffin, Painkiller was a gauntlet to the thrash and death metal legions, and an example of how Judas Priest could make a melody sound even meaner than a death growl. Listen to what Amon Amarth did with a similar main riff 18 years later--it completely rocks, but it still doesn't sting the same way.



To paraphrase Ornette Coleman, this is the shape of metal to come.

Ten Metal Bands to See Before You Die: Amon Amarth

They come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow. The hammer of the gods will drive their ships to new lands, To fight the horde, singing and crying, "Valhalla, I am coming."



OK, so they're not real Vikings. That's like complaining that Robin Hood wasn't as merry the character that Errol Flynn played. The sensation of an Amon Amarth show is like being part of a flatlands-conquering Viking ship, except faster and probably a whole lot jollier. Real Vikings never drank beer out of their helmets, or urged the crowd into a singalong chant for their roadie Steve. And they certainly never rocked any riff-heavy, gargle-free Swedish death metal, or whipped their heads around in a headbanging circle that Dethklok's animators lifted for Metalocalypse. In the tradition of David Bowie pretending to be an alien, Amon Amarth join the great artists who created a new identity and brought it to life for the fans.

The last time I saw Amon Amarth, I remember hirsute frontman Johan Hegg (my first choice for the next Thor reboot) barging out to center stage and bellowing, "What a show we have for you tonight!" It's a statement that you've heard scores of times, but never before at a metal show. Then again, there aren't many metal shows that provide Amon Amarth's level of entertainment. When Amon Amarth pass their songwriting prime (and from the first sample of the upcoming Deceiver of the Gods, that day is still a long way off), one gets the feeling that their shows will still blow minds. On they sweep with threshing oar.

Rage Days

Andrew W.K., whom sometimes seems like the happiest person in the universe, recently tweeted "Sometimes the angriest music makes us feel the happiest." (His previous post was "PARTY TIP: Start your day with a big dose of Pantera.") To metalheads, generally the best-tempered fan base in all of music, those insights are no surprise, but fans of less extreme music tend to be shocked by this.

AG doesn't listen to a lot of metal or punk, but she told me that sometimes she has "rage days," something that I don't understand the point of having if you don't listen to a lot of punk and metal.



Rage Days

1. Metallica, "Battery"
2. Converge, "Dark Horse"
3. Nine Inch Nails, "Wish"
4. Black Sabbath, "War Pigs"
5. Faith No More, "Falling to Pieces"
6. The Stooges, "Search and Destroy"
7. Sepultura, "Refuse/Resist"
8. Slayer, "Angel of Death"
9. Lamb of God "Now You've Got Something to Die For"
10. Minor Threat, "Filler"
11. Suicidal Tendencies, "You Can't Bring Me Down"
12. Nirvana, "Heart-Shaped Box"
13. Mastodon, "Blood and Thunder"
14. Marilyn Manson, "The Fight Song"
15. Rage Against the Machine, "Killing in the Name"
16. Stiff Little Fingers, "Suspect Device"
17. Pantera, "Fucking Hostile"
18. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, "Stagger Lee"

As with any good introductory mix, I've included a few standards--I can't imagine anyone disliking "War Pigs," "Search and Destroy" or "Heart-Shaped Box." But I've also been making gateway metal mixes long enough to know that everyone who hears "Falling to Pieces" seems to enjoy it, or that most people in the 2000s seem to get into modern metal through Mastodon and Lamb of God. Maybe after this, AG will be ready for Goatwhore.

One thing I learned from putting together a specifically rage-based mix is how happy a lot of the best metal bands are. Even at their most belligerant, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, AC/DC, Van Halen, High on Fire, Motörhead, Ozzy and Amon Amarth are too gleeful to follow up songs like "Angel of Death" or "Dark Horse." Thus instead we get Metallica at their fiercest, Pantera at their most hostile and topping it all off, Nick Cave, to show that some of metal's most raging tracks can even hold up against "Stagger Lee."

Metal Baby Names

I'm a big fan of writer Margaret Eby and her new book, Rock and Roll Baby Names: Over 2,000 Music-Inspired Names, from Alison to Ziggy. Any nerd for names, music and/or good writing will be engrossed, and I'm sure that I will be picking up many more copies when my friends start having kids. In honor of Margaret's book, particularly the chapter that starts on page 137, here are 20 of my favorites.

 

1. Trey Azagthoth (Morbid Angel) 
2. Balsac the Jaws of Death (GWAR)  
3. Beefcake the Mighty (GWAR)
4. Igor Cavalera (Sepultura)
5. Glenn Danzig
6. Techno Destructo (GWAR)
7. King Diamond
8. Johan Hegg (Amon Amarth)
9. Jizmak Da Gusha (GWAR)
10. Nils Frykdahl (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum)
11. Lemmy Kilmister (Motörhead) 
12. Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity, Down) 
13. Sleazy P. Martini (GWAR)     
14. Flattus Maximus (GWAR) 
15. Duff McKagan (Guns N' Roses)
16. Ozzy Osbourne
17. Axl Rose (Guns N' Roses)
18. Oderus Urungus (GWAR)
19. Wolfgang Van Halen (Van Halen) 
20. Kaizer Von Loopy (Hanzel und Gretyl)