(book) Greg Prato – ‘Survival Of The Fittest: Heavy Metal In The 1990’s’

This almost six hundred pages behemoth was a pleasure to read at most times, although there are couple of to me boring themes in there through couple of chapters. As the title says, the book revolves around alleged death of metal due to grunge explosion early in the nineties, which was not true at all and it is explained in this book why that’s not true and I totally agree with that. There is an interesting divide of parts in this book, like a live show of some sorts, parts being: Load In, Soundcheck, Opener, Headliner, Encore, After Party and Load Out. Something that every musician knows about if he toured and played live gigs. Foreword is written by none other than Rex Brown, bass player of legendary Pantera. The concept of chapters is that metal, let’s call them celebrities namely for example Phil Anselmo, Joe Elliot, Devin Townsend, Dez Fafara, Dani Filth, Kirk Windstein, John Christ and many others talk about nu metal, industrial metal, vocalists leaving legendary bands and returning back, their own albums and how they were conceived in idea and recording and there are lots of anecdotes in this book, like in great documentary movie which is what makes me love this book. But, there are also couple of too long chapters like on prog metal or nu metal that are not my personal tastes so it was quite boring for me to read them, but I did it. So, this is good book full of information and anecdotes especially for us who grew up with these bands and albums in the nineties.

3,5/5

(review) TULUS – ‘Fandens kall’ (Soulseller Records)

Norwegian black metal veterans Tulus are back with their new opus, first one in three years. eighth in all. I remember how they blew me away with their debut album ‘Pure Black Energy’ back in the day. Members of Tulus also play in Sarke and Khold among other bands and projects. This opus offers ten songs of what is somewhat called True Norwegian Black Metal, but I would say with lots of prog and inventive elements thrown into songwriting. Aggression and old school atmosphere is still here, but there are couple of songs, like excellent ‘Sjelesmerte’ which involves changes in tempo, slowed down, and those eerie female vocals melodies are superb, courtesy of Lena Fløitmoen who also sings female vocals for Sarke. All lyrics are in Norwegian and that is another plus although I do not speak it and not understand besides my German and English but I manage to get context of the lyrics. One of my favorites is also ‘Bloddråpesvermer’ with that bass line melody, thrown in acoustic guitars and melancholic piano ending. If you are into old school Norwegian black metal, and you haven’t listened to three decades of these legends, now is the time for you to correct that mistake.

9/10

(news-new single/video) Spain’ s Velkhanos released new single and video!

VELKHANOS the Spanish Melodic Death/Black metal band has just released  the new single/video ‘Gunpowder’.

‘Gunpowder‘ is the first single of the upcoming album ‘The Vampire Of Alva Pt.1 – Gunpowder’.

Their first album ‘The Wrath’ was released in 2020.

The band will play in April at Ressurreicao Do Metal Festival in Portugal.

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