JAPANESE BOOTY

Warming up for this forthcoming weekend live house action, here you go with some good stuff from the land of the rising sun.

ONMYOZA-Inyo Shugyoku (2006)

Guess you may already know them... the most successful female fronted band around here. Yet you don't see much of their stuff around, nor you get to stumble upon their CD at the shop so often - outside Japan, I mean. Almond-eyed female singers sound pretty much all the same, but ONMYOZA is a bit of an exception, since she's the prototype of them all. She's not bad at all and has a nice power. Yet on the long run her limited excursion range may result a bit tedious. This double CD is certainly a good selection of their repertoire. A perfect start for those who still ignore them, as well as a good end! You'll get what I mean!

ANIMETAL-Complete Last Live (1999)

You could take them as a joke, were it not for the awesome musicianship of the players and for the stratospheric voice of virtuoso EIZO SAKAMOTO, singer of world famous Osaka originated Anthem. And I do love his scream, one of the best - if not THE best voice in Japan. Animetal is a parodistic band, covering virtually all the most known anime soundtracks Japan-born. Those of you who got blessed by the first or second invasion of Japanese animation on TV in Europe, will certainly recognize & enjoy their themes (I still got many on 45' vinyl). But those of you who are in metal since those days (a long while ago!) will also recognise a mountain of other references... Helloween, Maiden, Metallica, AC/DC. You lucky bastards won't probably understand a shit of the Japanese singing, so most of the tracks may not sound so booring to you, as they often do with me! But just in case, be carefull to ABSOLUTELY check out track 08 (Mazinga Z), 09 (Guitar solo - I'd like to see more things like this one!) and track 14 (This is Animetal). You'll get hell of a fun!

GERMAN BOOTY

I love European metal. German in particular.
And I was just enjoying to the new CANNON-Metal Style out and around these days (German band I strangerly didn't know before, despite their previous releases), when I recalled THUNDERHEAD! Fu*king enjoyable metal. No extra shit, no virtuosism... just groovy sound, clichè-packed-but-funny lyrics, cool & screamy vocals and a-uhh rythms! In an era ruled by Helloween, it wan't easy to cut out a space for themselves, but they managed not to take compromises and mantained their style all the way through! Encyclpaedia Metallum epitomizes better than I could do (even if too shortly) their staus:

"After an unsuccessful audition with Victory (Ger), American vocalist Ted Bullet met ex-Viva (Ger) guitarist Henrik Wolter and ex-Talon (Ger) bassist Ole Hempleman in a Hanover bar, and with the addition of drummer Alex Scotti to complete this German- based band, recorded a demo that quickly prompted a contract with Intercord. Behind The Eight Ball was recorded when the band had hardly played a live date, but was a reasonable debut in a basic metal style similar to the Almighty's early work, and sold well on the German market as the group played with Victory and Uriah Heep in the USA and in the UK and Europe with Motörhead. Busted At The Border and Crime Pays followed in the traditional metal footsteps of the debut, although Thunderhead became a more cohesive band as a result of their live work, with more power metal overtones to their heavily guitar-based sound. They maintained their level of success in Germany, undoubtedly helped by their frontman's English vocals and outrageous onstage demeanour, but they remained a minor act in global terms."

The two bricks I'm piling here are those I like at most: Killing with Style (1993), Were You Told The Truth About Hell (1995)! The sound is pretty American-like... but you'll feel that EXTRA kick & riffing that distinguish European metal from Whitesnake and other a-like sounding bands. Crush Course in Life, Thank you for Making me Suffer, Killing with Style... all are awesome heabanger tracks! Enjoy! Talking too much...!? Shit, happens...!

ROCKIN' again!

Port's up and running again... with brand new HUGE dock. But something got lost and privateers need new passes to cross the gates. Call the Cpt. once inside.
Have fun!

Die Hard BOOTY

Mac rules, dudes!
All hell breaking loose on my hard disc... nonetheless the machine is still kicking for now! So, beaming you what I was getting ready before the storm:

CENTURY MEDIA 'Covering 20 Years Of Extremes' (2008)

To celebrate their anniversary, together with a successful yard sale/party at the Dortmund office in June with exclusive live shows by ANGEL DUST and TURISAS, Century Media released this very special 2CD compilation on September 15 in Europe and on October 14 in North America featuring 32 exclusive covers from acts within the label's repertoire. Response from the musicians was overwhelming and the result... well, check the track-list yourself:

CD 1 (67:36)

01. ARCH ENEMY covering DREAM EVIL's "The Book Of Heavy Metal"
02. DARK TRANQUILLITY covering SENTENCED's "Broken"
03. HEAVEN SHALL BURN covering TIAMAT's "Whatever That Hurts"
04. SHADOWS FALL covering ONLY LIVING WITNESS's "December"
05. BRAND NEW SIN covering ICED EARTH's "Watching Over Me"
06. WOLF covering MOONSPELL's "Alma Mater"
07. MERCENARY covering ARCH ENEMY's "Burning Angel"
08. GOD FORBID covering MERAUDER's "Master Killer"
09. WARBRINGER covering UNLEASHED's "Execute Them All"
10. GRAVE covering ASPHYX's "Vermin"
11. ARCHITECTS covering STAMPIN' GROUND's "Officer Down"
12. NAPALM DEATH covering DESPAIR's "Outconditioned"
13. KRISIUN covering DEMOLITION HAMMER's "Human Dissection"
14. CRYPTOPSY covering STRAPPING YOUNG LAD's "Oh My Fucking God"
15. MAROON covering SAMAEL's "Baphomet's Throne"
16. WATCH THEM DIE covering BLOODBATH's "Breeding Death"

CD 2 (66:47 min)

01. FIREWIND covering NEVERMORE's "Believe In Nothing"
02. DREAM EVIL covering ARCH ENEMY's "Let The Killing Begin"
03. FEAR MY THOUGHTS covering HEAVEN SHALL BURN's "The Weapon They Fear"
04. THE AGONIST covering DARK TRANQUILLITY's "Monochromatic Stains"
05. THE FORSAKEN covering GRAVE's "You'll Never See"
06. DEVIAN covering MORGOTH's "Isolated"
07. HEAVEN SHALL BURN covering MERAUDER's "Downfall Of Christ"
08. ABORTED covering TURMOIL's "Playing Dead"
09. TERROR covering SUBZERO's "Boxed In"
10. NAPALM DEATH covering HELLHAMMER's "Messiah"
11. ASPHYX covering CELTIC FROST's "Os Abysmi Vel Daath"
12. ZIMMERS HOLE covering OLD MAN'S CHILD's "Doommaker"
13. FU MANCHU covering PENANCE's "Words To Live By"
14. MANNTIS (feat. IN THIS MOMENT) covering LACUNA COIL's "Heaven's A Lie"
15. KIVIMETSÄN DRUIDI covering THE GATHERING's "Leaves"
16. INTRONAUT covering EYEHATEGOD's "Dixie Whiskey"

Port Troubles...

Sailors...

Port server will be down for a while.

This morning the machine failed and... it's still in reanimation. Trying to understand what happened.

Library is safe, of course, but I don't have a spare engine to run it right now... Nor the money to get the new one I'd like.

Will keep you informed.

ELECTRIC BOOTY

Wowowow! Australian old farts AC/DC's new album is among us!
But, hei! What goes around, comes around: we don't take shit from anybody and we don't want glories that don't belong to us! New AC/DC is brought you by that fast-ass of DARK LORD. We usually don't post things already going around... but this is too huge. So we are happy to... let's say... amplify it! Love'em or hate'em: they're always the same! 15 tracks, dudes!! Shake your leg!

EPIC BOOTY

«Single column!» Get ready your speaker for some epic stuff, dudes!
That's right. Despite I usually need nitro-injected tunes to keep myself alive, I couldn't do without the pindaric and LSD-like shivers and fantasy leaps that epic metal vibes give me. And I'll tell you, there are bands with huge balls out there. Following you will find some very nice epic treasures... all from Italy, one of the last places on earth where you would have looked for it, don't you?

WOTAN-Epos (2007)

It's from last year. The band is not very prolific (2 albums only in the long time span of their existence), but what you get is worth the wait. The singer's got the numbers for the task, together with a very unusual vibrato-voice (I like it quite a bit). Not very high-pitched, as it may call for - if we want. All mid tempo tracks, except for one, that will kick your ass less epically, leaving some very nice scar. A bounch of very interesting sounds & effects inside will unleash your imagination and in no time you will be catapulted to a Conan the Barbarian-like world... while stomping your feet, air-drumming, and banging your dick-head! Just kidding! Lovely!

HOLY MARTYR-Hellenic Warior Spirit (2008)

Clearly inspired to 300 movie, it is a bit less grabbing than Wotan's one (more than mid-tempo it's a realy heavy-ass tempo), but lyrics and pathos are worked out in very fine concept. The singer hasn't all that epic scream - if we have to be honest - but that doesn't turn out as a diminishing point: after all not-epic metalheads may not like that acute and chorus-like singing typical of the thread. Musicianship is up to the task with very brilliant moments (The Lions of Sparta, H'Tan H'Epi Tas). Yet, on the whole, the "seriousness" of the concept behind, without a single real shake to the bag, may get you bored a bit.

DARK QUARTERER-Symbols (2008)

Dont underestimate the power of the dark side! These are fu*cking killer dudes who eat any musician in the thread (and outside) in a single bite! Creators of the epic-progressive, if you don't know them already, prepare yourself for the trip of your life into serious epic music. Sound and perfection fanatics, they deliver you abounch of tunes so rich and subtle that it may take months for you to unfold, digest and appreciate all they've put inside. The singer & bassist Gianni Nepi, has got a quite unique voice: apparently it doesn't stand out at all, at first listen. Then little by little it start carving deep cuts in your ears, swinging between high-pitched screams and that freaky incredible epic acute singing needed. Check out the following live performance, from previous albums material...



Have fun!