Tag: 2001

Extreme Metal Gym Playlist

Posted on by Mike

Gym playlists.  Man, some people out there really seem to not have the balls to delve into nastier shit than they’re accustomed to in order to really raise those adrenaline levels.  I guess they don’t really want to train with fury after all.  Pussies.  This goes back to my first true post on here, titled: “…if I had my own gym”.  I bitched that the so-called metalheads in my gym cried like little girls upon hearing my heavy-as-fuck Spotify playlist, which contained several tracks by Pantera (the super heavy shit from the mid-90’s), Strapping Young Lad, Nevermore and Meshuggah.  The remarks came flying: “What is this crap?”  “Yeah I know I’m a Stripping Young Lad but this sucks!”, “Do you have any Metallica??”

Sure, there are gyms out there that understand that Disturbed is NOT the definition of music that makes you want to fight someone of even deadlift the house.  But they’re few and far between.  Also, I’ve come across plenty of playlists on Bodybuilding.com and, while some have come close, I came across a lot of shit.  When I think of real weightlifting music Bring Me The Horizon and Miss May I are clearly, badass bands to train to.  Right?  Right?  Excuse me while I puke out my flank steak dinner and my creatine powder.

So here are my ten picks, in no particular order, for heavy-as-fuck, balls to the wall, rage fueling, gym music.

  1. Nails – You Will Never Be One Of Us, 2016ywnboou

I’m starting with this one because I need to get something off my chest real quick: I’m so fucking mad at these guys!  Just as this album is getting more critical acclaim and attention than any other album sounding remotely like this the band, without warning, goes on hiatus?!?!  What the fuck is this shit??  And why now???  Did Todd Jones decide he couldn’t handle the sudden popularity??  Did it go against his hardcore ethos??  Good thing I never went to This Is Hardcore in the beginning of the month because I would’ve been really pissed off!

Now that that’s out of the way…this is most likely my album of the year.  In just over twenty-one minutes, this album is literally all killer no filler…at all.  This is just straight up RAGE from start to finish.  The production is rough, the vocals are ridden with the type of slobbering anger that says Todd Jones wants to hurt you so bad.  This is true Meathead music.  It’s totally amped up my workouts since it came out two months ago and will most likely continue to do so.

Key Tracks: You Will Never Be One Of Us, Savage Intolerance, Parasite, They Come Crawling Back

2. Pantera – The Great Southern Trendkill, 1996 tgstk

Yeah…this one…not Cowboys, not Vulgar…this one.  Why?  Listen to the opening seconds of the title track alone.  That’s why.  The Great Southern Trendkill is literally the most violent and intense Pantera release in their entire recording career.  It just wreaks of every negative emotion you DIDN’T expect from Pantera.  I guess it kind of, sort of, also helps that Phil Anselmo was secretly doing heroin during this time.  That shit always brings down the mood!  Featuring the late Seth Putnam of Anal Cunt on backing screams on certain tracks.

Key Tracks: The Great Southern Trendkill, War Nerve, Suicide Note Pt.2, Sandblasted Skin

3. Strapping Young Lad – Alien, 2005

alien

Ever wanted to hear what a bipolar person sounds like when they stop taking their meds just to make their most intense album ever?  Here’s your chance!  But it ain’t pretty.  Which is why I love it!  Devin Townsend knew that Strapping’s 2003 comeback record was clearly stale, minus two tracks.  So what did he do?  He risked his mental health and let the crazies out to play on more time.  I cannot listen to this record when I am driving because there were many times when this record came out that I went into massive road rage, probably came close to INTENTIONALLY running over people and driving into a wall.

Key tracks: Skeksis, Shitstorm, Love?, We Ride

4. Nevermore – This Godless Endeavor, 2005

tge

Without question the heaviest album Nevermore ever did.  I don’t know if it was because of the permanent addition of Steve Smyth as a second guitarist, but whatever it was, it worked.  Usually known for a more diverse musical formula on previous albums, much of that is non-existent here.  Like…compared to the albums before it or after…This Godless Endeavor is musically pitch black.  I can totally see myself bench pressing to Jeff Loomis and Steve Smyth’s dueling leads on “Psalm Of Lydia”.

Key Tracks: Born, My Acid Words, Bittersweet Feast, Psalm Of Lydia

5 and 6.  Crowbar – Crowbar, 1993/Sonic Excess In It’s Purest Form, 2001

Crowbar

I decided I had to put in two albums here.  Crowbar are the ultimate go-to band for intense weight training.  It’s unforgivingly brutal, fast enough, slow enough, sludgy enough and add Kirk Windstein’s increasing raspy vocals on being down and out and all I want to do is eat lots of food and deadlift.

Speaking of food, on their Phil Anselmo-produced, self titled album is a song called “Existence Is Punishment”.  If you ever watched Beavis and Butthead in the 90’s you probably saw them making fun of that song’s video, leaving Beavis to basically say that the band makes you want to eat and get fat.  Oh..and that they’re always taking a dump.  Also featured here the most badass cover of Led Zeppelin’s “No Quarter” that you’ll ever here.

Key Tracks: “High Rate Extinction”, “Existence is Punishment”, “All I Had (I Gave)”, “No Quarter” (Led Zeppelin)

seiipf

Probably the fattest, sludgiest and – believe it or not – most groundbreaking album or their career.  Featuring future Goatwhore guitarist Sammy Duet, Sonic Excess In It’s Purest Form truly lived up to it’s name.  But not just because it’s heavy, or you might as well consider every heavy album to be groundbreaking.  But because the songwriting here is so thought out.  Everything was perfectly arranged.  “The Lasting Dose”, the album’s most popular track – and the one where the moshpits always reach new heights – probably wouldn’t sound as amazing it does if it wasn’t well written.  This one always has me banging my head while training – I could give two shits if anyone’s looking at me.

Key Tracks: The Lasting Does, To Build A Mountain, Failure To Delay Gratification, Empty Room

7. Behemoth – The Satanist, 2014

behemoth-the-satanist-artwork

First off: Nergal is GOD.  I knew I loved Behemoth they day I heard their 2004 album, Demigod, in my college radio station, where I found myself playing it to death for a while.  It was the perfect mix of death metal with black metal themed lyrics, a new style the band were experimenting with.

But here, literally a decade later, the band is beginning to change.  Oh yeah, the brutality of their previous albums is still here, but the music itself feels fresh, much looser, much more off the cuff.  I remember hearing Nergal screaming with passion on the track “Messe Noire:: “I believe in SATAN!!!!”, me yelling to my car stereo with excitement “Oh yes you do!!!”.

Key Tracks: Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel, Messe Noire, Amen, O Father, O Satan, O Sun

8. Meshuggah – obZen, 2008

obZen

This was band’s second album using eight string guitars, but after 2005’s weird, and heavily drum sampled Catch 33, the heaviest band to ever come out of Sweden were back with fury.  Back when everyone and their mother was still on Myspace, I heard “Bleed” on the band’s music player…and nearly fell off my chair.  The slow tempo, mixed with Tomas Haake’s double bass rolls, those bowel inducing, low tuned eight strings locked in just perfectly, Jens Kidman’s newly developed screaming…it was as if the band was reborn!  Meshuggah were already one of my top five gym bands but obZen is a modern day Extreme Metal masterpiece.

Key Tracks: Combustion, Electric Red, Bleed, Dancers To A Discordant System

9. Morbid Angel – Domination, 1995

domination

The one album that causes the most drama between fans.  You either love Domination or the thought of it makes your stomach turn, and that even goes for the members of the band.  Between the production style and the change in David Vincent’s lyrical themes and vocal approach, this is either the band’s most brutal album or the biggest pile of shit they ever recorded.  Me?  I fucking love it!  It’s virtually unrelenting, minus “Hatework”, which I could do without.  I personally think the clarity in production makes Trey and Erik’s guitars that much more brutal.

Key Tracks: Dominate, Where The Slime Lives, Eyes To See Ears To Hear, Dawn Of The Angry

10. Black Label Society – Live Alcohol Fueled Brutality + 5, 2001

bls live

Right off the bat, fuck the “plus 5” on the second disc, it doesn’t matter.  I almost didn’t use this album but first off, Zakk Wylde is GOD.  Second, this live album is endlessly loud, violent, and brutal.  This was recorded on that infamous 2ooo tour were Zakk’s famous “grail” Les Paul was stolen, not to be seen again for a good three years.  This is another album I’ll bang my head to and sing out loud in the gym regardless of who’s watching me.  Fuck them, they’re all listening to the shitty dance music playing through the speakers or some watered down “rock” through their earbuds.

Key Tracks: Low Down, Lost My Better Half, Bored To Tears, No More Tears (Ozzy Cover)

Practicing Riffs

Posted on by Mike

So I just uploaded two videos of myself practicing some riffs including my own original riffs.  I plan on recording some music in the next few weeks if all goes right.  I’ve said in the past that I’m retired for band life.  I don’t miss it AT ALL but I imagine that if I ever did go into that again then I’d start a raw metal band, kind of crusty and VERY offensive.

 

 

The pickups on the Destroyer sound way better than I figured they would have.  I had a wiring issue when I first played it; turned out it the top pot needed to be replaced, which was great because I really didn’t want to replace the pickups if I didn’t have to.

Final Thoughts

Speaking of offensive…so how about Phil Anselmo’s remarks at Dimebash, eh?  I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon and throw my two cents in because believe me when I tell you I’d come off as a hypocrite – and no, I’m not a white supremacist.  It’s funny that as soon as he said it was a joke made over white wine he was instantly called out because apparently he and Rita Haney were drinking alright – but not white wine.  In fact there was no white wine there at all.  But that’s not even the point because even though Phil gave a public apology as of this writing, chances are he’ll probably do it again.  The point is, for all those bands calling him out like what he did was so controversial, you obviously are all clueless to the fact that he’s done that shit before.  Hey here’s the proof for you’re viewing pleasure if you didn’t think it was bad enough that he said what he said during a show that was meant to honor his fallen bandmate  – skip to the 1:57 mark for the fun parts because White Power!  Right Phil??

Discovering True Anger In Metal; My First Powerlifting Meet

Posted on by Mike

Discovering True Anger In Metal

I bought my first Megadeth CD, Cryptic Writings, in 1998 when I was fourteen, almost a year after it was originally released.  I tried so hard to like it, I really did.  Fuck, I was anticipating a lot more from the guy who fired from Metallica AND named his band MEGADETH.  Come on! But I couldn’t.  It was way too fucking tame, even songs like “She-Wolf”, “The Disintegrators”, and even “FFF” were watered down compared to what I was expecting.  So I wrote ’em off like I did Metallica…especially after Risk!  That’ll just put you to fucking sleep!  At that time THE bands everybody my age listened to were the bands of the day like most kids do anyway, the bands in this case being Marilyn Manson (when he actually had balls), Korn (this was months before they became dead to me), OLD Metallica, Shit-vana (because it was some unspoken requirement to put that dead, talentless sack of shit on a pedestal), maybe one or two more that I can’t remember right now.

But over time I eventually discovered FAR BETTER songs from Megadeth thanks to WSOU like “Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?” and “Sweating Bullets”.  Amazing.  It was near the end of my junior year in high school in 2001 when VH1 premiered their Behind The Music on the band.  Upon watching it my interest in the band was renewed before I even got to the fucking ten minute mark.  The intensity of everything from the way Mustaine alone grew up to the music being more badass than any riff Hetfield EVER came up with for Metallica to their beyond fucked up life style.  Then came the news that their next album, The World Needs A Hero, was to be heavier and a lot less radio friendly than the last two piles of shit.  And it was.  So over time I found myself buying most of the classics from their glory days.

Then near the end of 2001 I heard the news that Mustaine had remixed and remastered the band’s 1985 debut album, Killing Is My Business…And Business Is Good!, including a forward written by Scott Ian (because he’s only THE biggest metal fan on earth), as well as brand new artwork.  Remember this?

killing original

So badass.  Not!  So, the weekend it was released I went over to Sam Goody (remember that place?) and bought it.  After a funny ride home from a cab driver telling me about all the girls he’s fucked I wasted no time and popped that shit right in my radio.  The piano intro to “Last Rites/Loved To Deth” was crystal clear thanks to this new mix.  I loved how it seemed to tell a story before the main riff kicked in.  Holy shit this is intense!  Listen to those double bass drums!!  The morbidity of the song as he says “If I can’t have you then no one will!”.  That crazy, frenzied solo – is he using his Bill Lawrence pickups as frets to hit higher notes???  Someone call 911 – he just RAPED his B.C. Rich Bich…and it was good!

So this set the tone!  The entire album from here on in was pure balls to the wall, heavy as FUCK, ridiculously technical, jazzy time changes thanks to Chris Poland, whose solos run circles around most metal guitarists.  Kirk who?!  This was pure drug-feuled ANGER!!  Dave Mustaine was fired from what was to be THE biggest band in the world and he desperately had something to prove.  He was out for BLOOD.  The peak of the album?  “Looking Down The Cross”.  This song completely summarizes the album as a whole.  It’s well arranged, twists and turns at the right spots, Mustaine’s shockingly intelligent lyrics, the second of his two solos on the song is so panic stricken that it perfectly painted the mood of the entire song!  The final track was “Mechanix”.  For those of you who are new to this shit or live under a rock this is basically “The Four Horsemen” with a faster tempo, no slow interlude, and alternate lyrics about a horny gas attendant.  Mustaine wrote the song before he joined Metallica and gave it to them along with “Jump In The Fire”, but when they fired him James and Lar$ changed the lyrics and added the two slower parts and made it the song you know on Kill ‘Em All.  It was fun hearing this version of it, way more straight forward, way more badass.

I don’t know if I should thank Dave Mustaine’s thirst for revenge, drummer Gar Samuelson for introducing Mustaine and bassist David Ellefson to speedballs or both.  But I’ll tell you what…Killing Is My Business… was absolutely BRUTAL in the year predating Slayer’s Reign In Blood.  And with Mustaine’s amazing remix technique the newfound clarity amplifies that brutality times ten.  THIS was what I needed so bad in a time when everyone around me was listening to THE lamest, shittiest music you could find on radio in early 2002.  I was truly alone in this aspect but I didn’t care.  When my friends were listening to either Mudvayne or shitty emo bands like Weezer I was deafening my ears with Killing… for a long time.

My First Powerlifting Meet

REvPS

So after lots of thinking I finally decided to sign up for my first ever powerlifting meet, figuring that if I don’t do it now I might not ever.  So as of earlier this afternoon I will be competing in Revolution Powerlifting Syndicate’s Jersey Rumble at the Ramada Inn in Newark, NJ on Saturday, May 21st.  I’ll be part of the Amateur Open in the 198lb weight class in the Raw Modern Division.  The Open begins between 2:30 – 3:00 but I have to be there at noon to be given the rules, warm up, etc.  I’m going to see how I like it, regardless of how I do – which won’t be great.  If I like it I’ll do it again.  I imagine that if so I’d do one more meet later in the year, either in New Jersey again or somewhere in New York, most likely upstate somewhere.  If things go well maybe I’ll join USAPL, which is an affiliate of the International Powerlifting Federation.  If you’re reading this and plan on going to this feel free to drop me a line.