Ghost: What's The Point?

[Original article 'disappeared down the memory hole' by a certain website. Resurrected and revised for my own blog].

As a metal veteran that's been into the scene for two decades, you see many things come and many things go. Notably, one of the most memorable ones was (to my ears and eyes) the downfall of 'proper metal' that was brought by the late 90s wave of nu metal and pop metal bands; a time of which I wondered what the hell was happening to the scene. Fad bands appear, and disappear; some bands mature and outgrow a fad to transcend their roots – Deftones being the best example.
Recently, there's been a resurgence of what I call 'proper metal' – thrash metal, death metal has become more prominent, the reanimated corpses of hair metal, and five minute wonders that capture the imagination that are instantly disposable such as The Darkness for example. To be cynical, most of this is fuelled by the fickle minded pop culture powered by soundtracks heard on console games such as Grand Theft Guitar Hero, raiding charity shops to look like they fell from 1974; a culture sporting silly beards, dodgy flares, and paying money for old technology like music centres, film cameras and record players – because looking like you came from the past is apparently the new future. Over the past few years, visually and audibly – we have fell into a deep romanticism with wanting to emulate the past, spearheaded by the likes of watching Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. In fact, yours truly would give one of his gentleman vegetables to own a 1979 Ford Granada 2.8 Ghia just so I can fulfil my childhood wet dreams of cruising around looking like an extra from The Professionals.

Which brings me neatly onto a band that has jumped on a retro 1970s emulating Zeitgeist – the band in particular is Ghost, a band hailing from Sweden with strange quasi-satanic imagery and a sound that is a bland blend of 1970s rocks clichés.

Ghost, are a source of never-ending bemusement. I first heard of this band from a few friends who I know, and these guys are strictly of the 'kvlt' school who often question some of the bands that I hold so dear – even being as quirky to have a dislike of most forms of thrash metal, disliking the current neo-trash metal renaissance doing the rounds, and even picking holes with certain black and death metal bands and declaring them to be sell outs. In fact, the mention of one highly popular black metal band sends one of them into an incandescent rage when you point out that they once liked them – to reply with the aloof answer of “Well, we've all grown out of listening to them – why haven't you?”.
Yet, these very same people turn into shrieking teenage school girls when you mention Ghost. They have what I can only describe as a pathological adoration for them, and have seen them numerous times with other bands and have also seen them at festival appearances; declaring them to be the best thing since sliced bread or the invention of the wheel. Being a man who is willing enough to give anything the benefit of the doubt (who is often wrongly declared as rigidly liking nothing but black metal and trad goth/post punk/darkwave exclusively) I have decided to give them a listen. Hell, I even sat through Bring Me The Horizon which amongst my friends is universally hated!

So, what is exactly wrong with them? Well, musically they are pretty decent and can pen some nice riffs and melodies which obviously work well for what appears to a 'vast majority' of people out there. Personally, I'm not so sure. They're not an awful sounding band per se, far from it. There is a certain element amongst their song writing that just doesn't appear to work. Take the song 'Guleh/Zombie Queen' for example; it comprises of a simplistic chorus that is almost nursery rhyme like in structure with a style that appears to be stolen single handedly from a lysergic session of overdosing on far too many Blue Oyster Cult albums – and to be honest, this sort of thing has been done better before and inspiring more excitement to the listener.

Other problems with the band manifest themselves in the form of the vocals of Papa Emeritus. He has a nasally, and curiously patronising tone that you could be forgiven for thinking is singing with a condescending drone that mocks the listener: “Na na na na naaaa, we're a pub band covering Blue Oyster Cult, someone gave us a record deal - more fool you!”. The vocals feels like they have more to give, but are lacking any form of dynamics to drawn the listener in. The overall sound of the music comes across as a mockery and sound so terribly twee laced with faux Satanism in an attempt to sound edgy and cool. 'Monsterance Clock' demonstrates this perfectly, composed of a simple nursery rhyme song structure that continues on in a varying theme throughout their songs, while “If You Have Ghosts” and “I'm a Marionette” has cloying harmonious singing combined with Hammond organ backing that in essence is a musical rock death by syrup that should carry a diabetes warning, The musical acid test for me, is to play songs in a rock nightclub or in a rock pub somewhere to see if they can stand out amongst all the hustle and bustle of such an environment. If a band stands out enough, the punters will automatically feel compelled to ask what the band is and I've often heard a very catchy earworm that I couldn't shift out of my system for weeks on end because of such an occurrence. In the case of Ghost, they would simply fade into the background noise and become a part of the furniture that is for the most part unnoticed.



Which brings me neatly onto the imagery of the band; a look that has ripped off the cloaks and scary demeanour of Portal in an attempt to add further interest to the band, Don't get me wrong, a mysterious shadowy imagery for a band in the live setting is a good thing and I much prefer a band that 'looks the part' rather than a bunch of scruffy herberts that have wandered in off the street which was a problem that I have with pretty much all of the grunge bands that were out at the time. However, in the case of Ghost I feel that this is an excessive gimmick in a manner similar to Slipknot, which also matches badly. Visually, before you heard them you would expect something like King Diamond and think “Ah sweet, these Ghost guys look cool! I've got to check them out”. Sadly, it strictly ends there with music that sounds truly pedestrian and treads water.

It's all very well to emulate and express your roots which inspired your band, but I believe that you need to add something to it that makes it stand out from the crowd. Imitation is often cited as being the sincerest form of flattery, and then there's just out and out brown nosing that is quite nauseating. Sadly, Ghost take far too many pointers from well-established bands and in an effort to make themselves stand out from the crowd and do nothing to innovate and make themselves sound interesting. Cynical Ghost fans out there have pointed out that I am taking them too seriously and they should be enjoyed for what they are, rather than digging around too far into what inspired them in the first place. The neo-thrash renaissance is a perfect example; been done before but don't concentrate too seriously on the originators of the thrash scene and I can appreciate them for what they are, an enjoyable blast not to be taken too seriously.

One of the best subtweets I read one night went along the lines of “Ok, so Ghost suck because they're a modern band and don't come from 1974. So, if Ghost originally came from 1974, would that make them good?”

My answer to this: No

Good music doesn't age, be it released 5, 10, 15 or 30 years ago. I don't have a problem with bands that emulate a sound from days gone by, such as Grand Magus, Witchcraft, Big Elf, Broadcast and the more experimental works of Opeth that are heavily prog rock influenced that veer away from their extreme style. Ghost are a relatively new band, which I believe may find themselves painted into a corner one day in the future and become a flash in the pan. For me, I feel Ghost must try to innovate somehow as opposed to emulate. Other bands are inspired and innovate, but there is a neutered quality that is bland and curiously lacking no matter how many times I listen to them.

To conclude, Ghost had better enjoy the good times when they can. Eventually, the novelty will wear off and they won't be remembered like the classic bands of days gone by they emulate so much. However, at this moment in time they continue to succeed in filling out stadiums, and festival appearances appealing to a disposable Grand Theft Guitar Hero inspired fan base, probably crossing the lines into the mainstream musical conscious at some point. Long may you continue to baffle, and bemuse me in equal measure.

My Definitive Top 20 Metal Albums Of 2014:

Even in my sometimes narrow world of music, where I can go for weeks lapsing back into 1980s post punk/darkwave/trad goth, to days of blasting nothing but 1970's rock, or even 1980s cheese – I eventually return back to playing metal once more. I describe myself nowadays as a part goth, part metalhead hybrid – but it's probably simpler to describe myself as a 'noisy music enthusiast'. If it's loud, lairy, guitar filled – and it pisses people off – then to me it's a beautiful thing.

Even more oddly, I'm not a man for 'chart lists' – but then I've read and heard many people babbling on about great releases, and to be honest this year has been a corker for the metal and extreme metal scenes. Death and black metal is doing well, and there's still no let up in what I refer to as the 'neo thrash renaissance'. In fact, I grew to love that after initially being rather cynical about it (as I've seen it done before); the turning point when I seen Gama Bomb earlier this year – where it brought be back in time to the early 1990s when I first got into metal. So many new fans, carrying the torch for metal – proper metal too, I may add. Nice work.

Please note: the order of these albums does not necessarily mean the lower down ones suck – far from it. It was a hard decision to quantify this into a list as it's something I normally don't do. In essence, if you haven't listened to this selection from this year you are either living in a cave, or you're a tone deaf root vegetable.

Anyway, without further ado – here's my top 20 choices:

20 : Mastodon – Once More Around The Sun

Love them or hate them, Mastodon appear to be going from strength to strength. Stylistically, they have changed a lot since the early days of Remission; and I personally thought the previous album 'The Hunter' done nothing for me at all. Thankfully, Mastodon have bounced back and made this fantastically catchy prog rock earworm.

19 : Mayhem – Esoteric Warfare

Mayhem had disappeared off the radar for a bit, and had suffered some drastic (according to some cynics) line up changes. However, I feel the latest album has shut the cynics up good and proper.

18: Monolord – Empress Rising

From out of the blue, some random Swedish band comes from nowhere as a side project – taking the best cues from vintage Electric Wizard, Kyuss and Sleep. A jaw dropping slice of doom.

17 : Conan – Blood Eagle

Gloriously fuzzy doom, that at times you feel will out doom Electric Wizard. Slow, chugging, and with monumental riffs that if played loudly will probably level disused apartment blocks.

16: Godflesh – A World Lit Only By Fire

A band that's been going for many years, and is pretty much a household established name in the scene. A band that had sailed past me for many years; I knew of them but they didn't entirely grab me for some odd reason. 'A World Lit Only By Fire' changed that for me, as it dragged me off by the scruff of the neck and demanded that I listened. I'm glad I did.

15 : Exodus – Blood In, Blood Out

A stunning return to form from the veteran thrashers, that somehow are too far down most people's lists – which is criminal in my book. Definitely worthy of investigation, especially since Zetro came back.

14: Electric Wizard – Time To Die

A superb album, drenched in lysergic doom that continues on in that familiar old template of a down tuned and more fucked up vintage Black Sabbath. What's not to like?

13: Nacthmystium – The World We Left Behind

A glorious swan song from the now defunct purveyors of weird, that to my ears sounded like a black metal version of Hawkwind. Not their strongest release to my ears, but it's still an incredible album that many bands strive for, with this level of quality.

12: At The Gates – At War With Reality

One of my favourite bands, and one that I am surprised has decided to bounce back and record an album. The 17 year old metal head living in a 30 something body was like a kid at Christmas that had been bought a shiny new Commodore Amiga. It filled my wooden bile filled cynical heart with joy.

11: Primordial – Where Greater Man Have Fallen

Gloriously catchy, infectious, and utterly enchanting with amazing chest beating anthems – sung with such glory, power and majestic force. A jaw dropping return from those Irish purveyors of black and doom tinged folk metal.

10 : Triptykon -Melana Chasmata

Tommy G and the boys still keep delivering the goods with this ongoing project formed from the ashes of Celtic Frost. Crushing as ever with no drop in quality.

09: Hoth – Oathbreaker

Insanely catchy black metal with a bewitching groove, that in places is vaguely Dimmu Borgir-esque but without the pretentiousness. Massive hook laden earworms that stay in your head for days that you'll end up whistling randomly. Love it.

08: Cannibal Corpse – A Skeletal Domain

Their 13^th album, and showing no signs of letting up. As catchy and brutal as ever before, and worth it for the catchy 'Kill Or Become' in its own right. Essential.

07: Behemoth – The Satanist

I'm glad that Nergal and his merry men came back, and made a stunning album. A true triumph over adversity that shows they have plenty of life left in them.

06: Agalloch – The Serpent And The Sphere

One of black metal's top tier artists in my humble opinion, that have released a beautiful and emotive slab of glorious black metal with doom and progressive elements.

05: Foreseen – Helsinki Savagery

A thrash metal band, that came seemingly from nowhere and promptly kicked the shit out of me sonically. Brining together all the best bits of Nuclear Assault, C.I.A. and Hirax – and sounding equally as good as the bands that influenced it. Utterly fucking ridiculously good. Just when you think you got bored of the neo thrash renaissance – these guys showed up.

04: Nightbringer – Ego Dominus Tuus

A truly astonishing album, that took dramatic leaps and bounds in quality from their previous output. Encompassing all your favourite riffs you've heard before, but stamping it with a layer of deliciously pernicious evil all of its own accord. I couldn't put the thing down.

03 : Winterfylleth – The Divination Of Antiquity

One of the most amazing black metal bands in recent years. So stereotypically British in sound, sounding soaring, majestic, and a thing of total sonic wonder. You'd have to be mental in the face to like black metal and not like this album, or Winterfylleth in general.

02: Darkspace III I

For me, this is a band that I feared had disappeared for good. However, they returned valiantly with what I would refer to as 'Cenobite Black Metal' – a truly dark and cold malevolent sound that at times is clastrophobic, suffocating, and bewitching in equal measure. A black metal tour de force, and an essential masterpiece.

01: Vesania – Deus Ex Machina

A wonderful return of the Polish super project, featuring members of Behemoth and Vader crushing skulls while taking a brief break from their day jobs. Initially, as much as I loved 'Distractive Killusions' I felt that they had taken a bold and dodgy sonic leap into trying to sound more mainstream – which at times sounded like it was trying too hard. However, they came back and corrected the balance with as much power and vigour than ever. Oddly, I got into them before I got into Behemoth and I love both bands – but Vesania held more of a place in my soul by a whisker. An amazing return.

Politically Correct Bandwagonism

Over the past two decades, I could be forgiven for thinking that we are now living in ridiculous stupid times where we are no longer allowed to have any opinion on anything without somebody spitting their dummy out and proclaiming that it's somehow racist, or offensive or just not allowed for one reason or another.

Idiots and morons, both on-line and in the real world wanting to jump on a great big offence bandwagon, just because everything nowadays is bogged down in so much bureaucratic bullshit that you can't fart, can't piss, can't breathe, and can't do fuck all. Pointing angrily at whatever it is, flapping their mouthpieces spewing out such flatulent air over things that they really shouldn't be complaining about,

A ridiculous culture where common sense has gone out the window, ambulance chasing morons picking over extremely fine small print just to fuck someone over for a few quid. Bureaucratic dogma that is slow long winded, hugely complex and mind boggling that even its creators have lost the thread and find it very difficult to decode and demystify

Personally, I'm getting pig fucking sick of it.

Recently, a microscopic internet witch hunt was declared due to some tweets that I had made – where I made the jokey reference of 'Islamic scary beard' which as far as I'm concerned was a completely throw away remark. Whereby I then clarified further and noted that I was not in any way racist, and elaborated further – notably the fact that if I was racist, why would I have a hobby that involved making friends with and speaking to foreign lands using the ancient arts of Amateur Radio - just to demonstrate a point.

However, for some people my clarification wasn't good enough. Just a couple of words on a screen was apparently too much for them, which was completely absurd and the person in question just decided to read what they wanted to read and jump on a self appointed offence bandwagon. Which, I told them in no uncertain terms was pretty much pathetic and pointed out they just wanted to take offence for offence sake. Good riddance to them, basically – and I fully back up what I typed and I have no intention of backing down because that individual just wanted to have a random fight with a follower all over a simple collaboration of throw away words on a screen. At the opposite end of the spectrum I have a friend that laughs off being called a 'Paddy' and make references to potatoes who is Irish, while another guy who's Asian mocking calls himself a 'Paki' and takes the piss out of his own culture and ways. It's all banter, and all harmless. He even calls me a Goth twat and makes references to cutting myself and cry wanking in moonlight to The Cure albums. Shame they didn't have a sense of humour and weren't so fucking miserable like those guys. But, people are people.

Which leads me nicely to a story of a friend of mine, who once worked as school caretaker. He was responsible for supervising the staff that were cleaning up a primary school, but he had a couple of staff members that were clearly exploiting cigarette breaks and the clocking off/on system. I was over at my friends out that evening, and decided to pop over for a chat and a brew to discuss various things in our lives, music, work, basically the usual conversations you'd have with any friend if you popped over for a visit. Anyway, he had some CCTV footage of the school burned onto a CD-R and had mentioned that a couple of staff were (for want of a better word) taking the piss.

He agonised about laying down some disciplinary procedures, but was scared to do so.

Why? Because they were Black Africans.

He told me that they got very touchy if he was watching what they were doing, and for arguments sake played the racist card when he was contemplating docking their pay for clocking in late – and these guys had everything so crossed referenced up that my friend didn't even have a leg to stand on as they made things up that were very convincing and basically had him backed into a corner while they slacked off and threw the rule book out of the window.

Needless to say, he eventually walked out and they in effect, won.

The point I am making here, is that if people get onto it they will use any form of discrimination card (be it disabled, race, gender, sexuality) or whatever to basically just cause shit for no reason and over the years it has somehow grew upon us to the point where people are just too shit scared to do anything.

The worrying thing about it is – it's that messy that I don't even see a way how it could be reversed.

There used to be a British TV soap in the 1970s, the name of which escapes me. It involved an ethnic household moving into a street with a white Caucasian household and the basis of it was pretty much what I would call interracial banter done in a humerus manner that wouldn't even be able to be broadcast on the air. Similarly, Tom and Jerry has been snuffed out from TV due to the supposed extreme violence and a black housekeeper – and it's even difficult to obtain unless you ordered it in Region 1 USA DVD format (it may have changed, it may not – I'm not sure). A few supposedly violent computer games have hit the headlines, supposedly sparking off killing sprees and heavy metal has always been the poster child bad boy for leading people astray when they forget about all the gangster rap made by Tupac and Biggie Whatever-his-fucking-face is (I'm not into that crap, taking fast over a Bontempi keyboard plugged into an Atari ST never appealed to me).

Anything, and I mean ANYTHING appears to be getting censored – even common sense. I've heard stories of teachers not wanting to perform CPR on students for fear of being demonised as a child molester. In fact, my own father got funny looks all because he was parked over at a shopping centre and my (then) 10 year old niece came over to say hello, only to get a dirty look from a passer by – for him to bellow “She's my fucking granddaughter you paranoid bastard!”. If you see a kid lost in a shopping centre, nobody wants to help him/her for fear of the 'Nonce Police' to come out with pitchforks and burning you in a wickerman.

If people are injured, people tend to run the fuck away and not get involved. I've had a nosebleed in public, and people parted like the fucking red sea while I walked to a walk in centre to sort myself out. In another instance, I fell off my bike in the snow getting back home from work and I had some moron stop in a van, watch for several seconds and drove off as soon as I dusted myself down and continued on my way.

In essence, people need to wake the fuck up and take a long good hard look at themselves.

Think before you jump off the deep end onto an offence bandwagon. Don't be scared to stand up and say something is wrong. Don't shy away from things and leave it to someone else. Stop treating things like a hot potato and giving it a wide berth.

Don't be scared to have a voice. If people don't like it - fuck them.

Because, if shit continues on the way it does we'll all become like the moronic docile Eloi from H.G. Well's 'The Time Machine' and then it will be too late. Then they've had us by the balls once and for all.

The Cover Letter You Wish You Could Write

Currently I am out in the wilderness due to being made redundant approximately 10 months ago, and despite much effort and applying, have mostly been ignored; going through the bureaucratic firewall that is employment agencies – about as close as I got to an interview was 2 months ago. Seeing as it's summer (at the time of being published), I am treating this a lot like the way a student would do when they have a so called “gap year”, doing things of which employment would have got in the way of.

Anyway, to cut a long story short I may possibly elaborate further on this experience in a future blog. But, there are a lot of areas to cover and it would be difficult to get it all out of my system.

In the meantime, I have penned a satirical letter which displays exactly how I feel about the whole re-employment process. I'm itching to use this, to be honest – especially if it did actually land me a job where the 'powers that be' have a sense of humour and would have piqued their interest.

So, here it goes....

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing with regards to your job vacancy of Head Office Administrator, as seen on a poorly coded and generic job recruitment website littered with spelling errors and ambiguity.

I am a fully experienced administrator that once worked somewhere for the best part of a decade and a half, performing many administrative tasks – notably data entry, dealing with awkward customers over the phone who think that they know better, and working as a team digging ourselves out of bodges performed by management that can't even find they way out of a paper bag. How they became management material is a continuous source of bafflement, but I digress. Please find enclosed my CV – which I believe fully demonstrates my capabilities.

I'm a hard working, popular employee that not only gets the job done well – but in an exemplary manner that will probably embarrass the more incompetent individuals in your team that you are probably sick to the back teeth of. More importantly, due to not being married or having children I won't use this a 'green card' to be absent on certain days and use my family as an scapegoat. This also includes the blonde office tart that's continuously sat Instagramming pictures of her lunch and gawping at her iPhone all day, trawling through Facebook when she should be working; while you haemorrhage away £20k a year to keep such a work shy individual, clearly kept by management because she looks 'easy on the eye' and enjoy low level sexual harassment and horseplay.

I am now tired and sick to death of applying for many jobs, and being out in the redundancy wilderness. I wish that you would give me the opportunity to discuss this vacancy further in person rather than dealing with the allegedly sage advice of recruiters who can't even find their way out of a carrier bag or organise a booze up in a brewery.

Thank you for your time. Please don't hesitate to contact me to discuss this further, but you probably won't bother and employ some college leaving bozo that has no prior experience and not learn from prior mistakes of employing people that aren't good enough for the job.

Yours Sincerely,

The Armchair Anarchist

Fakers - Declaring war on 'Top Shop Goths'.

I've been into Metal (and over the past several years) Goth for the best part of two decades. As a result, in that time I have seen a lot of things come and go in the scene; a lot of spurious fads and five minute wonders that have disappeared into obscurity. I am very much a man that wears being a goth/metalhead mix on his sleeve, and will no doubt still continue to do so for many years – irrespective of cynics out there that believe I should be some beige cardigan wearing tedious bore “at my age”. Fuck them, and while they're at it – they can fuck off, come back and fuck off again some more as far as I'm concerned.

“But, why are you so defensive about it?”

Well, when you've been into it all for such a period of time and you see people call everything from Tim Burton films, vaguely dull coloured frilly clothing and edgy coloured shit haircuts and tattoos, and things in Primarni that have faded band logos on it – you're bound to get a bit pissed off with it all and get defensive. Rightfully so.

I remember when I first got into it all, and there was no way people would even wear biker jackets, Doc Martens, and band T shirts of bands that they know fuck all about. In fact, it was looked down upon even more than it is today and actually viewed with a sense of fear. People associated you with “Hell's Angel” type people and gave you a fair bit of distance. Also, the exposure of music was kept very much underground, and the notion of downloading films and music was still the stuff of complete fantasy; especially when the fastest internet connection speed was as fast as 56kbit/sec and the world wide web as we know it today was in a practically embryonic phase. Knowing about music was limited to tape trading, or scouring through album liner notes to find out what other bands to check out that they toured with, or were friends with. Exchanging mix tapes with friends, discovering new music in a completely grass roots level – that was fresh and carried a far stronger air of excitement that it carries today.

I could could elaborate further, but the basic consensus in those days that there is not a rat shit in hell's chance that the mainstream wanted to copy or emulate our fashion. To be honest, we liked it that way – it was an identity of our own; having fuck all to do with mainstream culture for the most part – until the occasional band like Guns and Roses and Metallica broke through, along with stuff like Nirvana to name a couple. Okay, the albums may have “charted” as such – but back then there was no way anybody wanted to emulate our lifestyle or how we looked in any shape of form.

Don't get me wrong – I welcome fellow metalheads and goths, that's all well and good. I welcome the newer generation of people who are getting into new bands, checking out the old bands, and flying the “freak flag” of being an alternative. It's good to see that people are still being a part of the subculture, who simply aren't pleased with listening to musical diarrhoea pumped out of tedious radio stations, such as the latest hits from “Bored Lambrini Housewife FM” and such. That's great – please continue and keep the whole culture alive.

However, due to the nature of today's people with fickle attention spans that change far quicker than they ever did before thanks to the internet – it has brought a load of fucking morons along that like the idea of being “edgy” for a short time period, until the bovine masses decide on the “sage advice” spoon fed by the media. Trend morons who have under shaved hair in fruity colours, “bad decision” tattoos and expander piercings – which was one the sole preserve of what I refer to as “my ethnic group”. Ironically, these are the same people who sneer at us for being alternative, having tattoos, or having fruity coloured strange haircuts. The same sort of people that done stuff to my friends like throw them down a flight of stairs, putting them in hospital for the simple crime of having a mohawk back in the day. Also, while playing things like Grand Theft Guitar Hero and liking the rock soundtracks on them with completely zero sense of irony. “Ah sweet! It's that song 'Enter The Sandman' and 'Welcome To That Jungle'” they squeal, deciding to shovel much of this down their ears and throats as possible until the next big thing comes along. While raiding charity shops for piss stained leathers to wear for a couple of weeks, and joining the hipster edgy Zeitgeist with shit beards, record players, and looking like they fell from the 1970s or 1980s – because looking like you came from then is somehow “the new cool” (or should I say “looking sick as fuck, bro” - or whatever fucking adjective they say now).

From my point of view (and I'm definitely sure I'm not alone), many of my “ethnic group” are getting pretty pissed off with it. A sea of Primarni branded morons, wearing Doc Martens and Ramones shirts, with fruity coloured shaved hair and shit tattoos of skulls and zombies – because somehow looking like the people you take the piss out of is “in vogue” this season.

So, is it little wonder that people like me get real sick of your shit – when you're doing it as a fashion statement?

Don't worry – the REAL alternatives can spot you fake twats a fucking mile off, and we're all onto you.

We will rightfully reclaim Goth and Metal, and we will fight to have it back and restore it.

Album review: Monolord  - Empress Rising (category: Doom Metal, Sludge, Stoner)
Release date: April 1st, 2014 
Easyriderrecords.com
Twitter: @MonolordSweden

** 01.04.2014 Errata: I have since noticed that the album tracks have been reversed on reviewing this album for some odd reason on my PC's media player program. Since putting the album on my mp3 player, the order was in the correct orientation. Apologies for any confusion with regards to track order. **

On the odd occasion, a band comes from nowhere – and I mean literally from out of nowhere and just kicks the living shit out of you sonically. On my Twitter feed, I had heard a lot of excited babbling about other doom releases – notably Conan's 'Blood Eagle' (a superb doom release that is highly recommended) and Slomatic's 'Estron'. (again, another very decent doom release).

One night, the editor dudes of Echoes and Dust sent me a direct message one evening telling me about a Swedish six legged doom machine called Monolord – and sent me the album to check out. It had already been reviewed on their own website so it seemed churlish to just have the album sitting there and to not tell the world about about it.

I have to say - God's fucking tits – WHAT AN ALBUM!

Monolord initially started off as a side project born from a band called Marulk – an interesting band in its own right that concentrates on 1970's 'Proto Metal' that reminds me of bands such as Budgie, Mountain, The Stooges, and Black Sabbath. However, some of the guys apparently had some pent up energy that they wanted to channel into something that if turned up high enough could destroy derelict 1970s council flats that you'd see in Liverpool, Birmingham or London. With this band, they have certainly achieved that by the metric fucktonne.

The opener 'Watchers of the Waste' bursts forth from the speakers with a slow cyclical riff that if turned up loud enough causes the windows to warp and small animals and furniture to judder around the living room, thus: “DOWWW WOWWWW! DOW WOOWWW! DOW WOWWW! DOW WOWWWW DOW WOWWW DOWW WOWWWWW!”. Imagine, if you will, the slowest parts of Black Sabbath with a pinch of Electric Wizard and shoved hastily through a special patented doom metal filter of their own insane creation and you'll have a good idea of how it sounds. Further elements in the song creep through, while Thomas Jäger's vocals float over the top of it with a lysergic warble that fits very well with the rest of the sonic bludgeon. Usually, doom bands can usually make a hash of the vocals and make them with too much of a growl of distorted incoherent scream that doesn't sit well – but the vocals are spot on in this case and coherent.

'Icon' continues into a path of deep low fuzz, that makes the spleen vibrate. Despite the low end fuzz, the bass is beautifully coherent and easy to follow 5 minutes into the track before bursting forth from the speakers once more at full attack. The composition of the track is brilliant; a lull of bass with vocals towards almost halfway through before a big 'jam off' commences and finally ends the track. 'Harbinger of Death' starts with a wonderfully distorted but clear bass groove before the guitar and drums come in with a thunderous chug capable of destroying buildings.

Finally, 'Adulhumba' is a nice chuggy instrumental that has a hypnotic riff underpinning the whole tune with 'Empress Rising' being a superb album closer lasting for 12 minutes – reminding me of the best bits of Sleep's 'Dopesmoker', 'Jerusalem' and Electric Wizard's 'Dopethrone' put into a sonic blender that while clearly influenced by such albums adds an identity of their own that can stand head and shoulders above pretty much most doom metal realeases.

To conclude, this album is nothing short of brilliant. Over the years, I've heard many things come and go and seen people get excited over things that were quite frankly bland or boring. I have to say it's deeply refreshing to encounter an album that just has your jaw dropping to the floor in amazement – and Monolord have definitely succeeded in doing this in spades. An essential release, and I will actually go so far to say that it's a doom metal classic. Buy it, or be a tone deaf root vegetable.

My Experiences With Vegetarians.

Greetings to all my readers. So, another year and I'm glad that Xmas is over – although to be honest I enjoyed the distraction over the past 3 weeks as I actually felt vaguely like my old self for once, instead of worrying about current employment circumstances, or lack thereof at the time this blog has been posted.

Anyhow, I digress.

Recent news about the lentil abusing ramblings of Morrissey have compelled me to write a blog about vegetarianism – which is in my top ten hates of all time (closely followed by Apple products and people's inane worship of them, that might be covered another day).

What is it I hate about vegetarianism? PREACHY VEGETARIANS – people like Morrissey. As much as I enjoy the music of The Smiths and Morrissey, I wish people like him would quit being preachy fucks and telling what to eat. Recently, he has decided to go off on one and declare meat eating to be as bad as paedophilia and Nazism – which is needless to say an extreme step too far. Like many people, perhaps he could do with actually making an album instead of trying to convert a world for the most part who doesn't give a fuck about vegetarianism; because in all honesty it makes people like him look like complete and total dicks. I dare say there's probably vegetarians out there who aren't preachy thinking “Oh for fucks sake, another vegetarian making us look like a bunch of whiny twats, like we need any more bad press as it is!”.

Anyway, enough about him. Let's cover exactly what pisses me off about vegetarianism as a whole.

The Eternal Life Fantasy:

Preachy vegetarians always go on about how long they will live for, due to their diet being ever so super healthy. Personally, I'm not that convinced; the human species is an animal that is designed to be an omnivore (the most notable feature is incisors, which are featured on many carnivorous/omnivorous animals). If you eat a load of crap and don't mind your diet (omnivore or not), you will no doubt suffer the consequences of heart disease, diabetes and many other problems.

To me, a human trying to be a vegetarian is like a car trying to run on the wrong octane of fuel – it will no doubt misfire and bound to cause long term damage. I'm no scientist, but even I know that vegetarians often lack iron, and this is usually obtained via meat – notably Vitamin B12 and Heam Iron to stop such problems like anaemia. Another example that shows humans are engineered to be omnivorous is the redundant part of the stomach called the appendix, which in a herbivorous creature would've been used to help process tough plant matter and seeds. For many people, especially in today's financial climate with food banks – vegetarianism isn't a lifestyle option due to expense of trying to maintain such a diet and is a choice of the privileged.

A typical case in point is the vegetarians that I know, always appear to be more susceptible to colds and other illness more than others who stick to an omnivorous diet. Not forgetting the fact they take that many multi-vitamin pills to supplement what is lost from their diet, that if you shook them they would practically rattle. A friend of mine (who I have referred to as 'Vegan Goth' on my tweets), actually went as far as purchasing Spirulina, which is a form of algae that is supposed to be some sort of super super multi multi-vitamin that if you read the internet would have you believe to be the definitive cure for everything including AIDS and Cancer. He went as far as to make (for all intents and purposes) what is effectively a pond water smoothie from the stuff, however – he forgot to secure the lid on the blender properly. Needless to say, his kitchen got a decorating in rancid green slime which he mopped up with a load of dish cloths and towels to clear the slimy aftermath.

A few days later, he was washing clothes in his washing machine and tumble dryer combo in his apartment. Curiously, after a couple of minutes the smell of rotted eggs and sulphur was prevalent in his kitchen which he couldn't figure out. He couldn't quite work out where it came from, but he eventually put two and two together and worked out the smell was coming from the washing machine. It turns out that the pipework for the washing machine and dyer is the perfect warm and moist environment for algae to thrive, and that the pipes were coated with his very own culture that were absolutely loving the waste water and hot air that was spewed out from the machine. He was left with no option but to phone up a plumber to try and cure the problem, which apparently was sorted using a lump of borax in the washing machine a couple of times until the smell and algae was cleared.

Just think – if he was an omnivore than this particularly messy incident wouldn't have happened (but would have probably made this blog a bit less interesting). Also, I don't think citing vegetarianism aiding longevity of life a bit of a shaky one – there are far too many variables involved that could influence the mortality of a person such as: Life span of your family, hereditary diseases and illnesses, lifestyle, activity, what you do as a job, and so on and so forth.

Take Yul Brynner and Jim Fixx – the former smoked, snorted, fucked and ingested anything and still lived until he was 65. Jim Fixx turned into a health nut in his mid 30s, yet jogging killed him off when he was 52. Also, my nan smoked woodbines and couldn't even understand the concept or definition of dieting and ate and drank what she wanted – to eventually shuffle off the mortal coil at the ripe old age of 86.

So, on that basis who exactly was living life the right way? Hmmmm?

Fuck Off! Stop Telling Me What To Eat!

This is by far the biggest problem that I have with vegetarians in my experiences, the preaching and telling all and sundry how to eat. I don't give a fuck about what you eat, as long as you don't lecture me on what I should and shouldn't eat – otherwise we will establish some very big problems.

I know a small handful of vegetarian people in person, and half of them are pretty much okay and the topic of vegetarianism never crops up or causes any arguments – in fact, one of the friends in my group is vegan and I was completely and totally unaware until it was mentioned one night on Facebook. Another who I know was vegetarian. but if you crashed over at her house on a night out she wouldn't mind making you a therapeutic bacon and brown sauce on toast when you had a splitting hangover, and had no qualms about having a summer barbecue which would make most vegetarians flinch (she would stick to Quorn burgers or something similar, or offer a veggie option).

Sadly, the number of vegetarians who won't shut the fuck up and keep their opinions to themselves far outweighs those who would normally respect the wishes of others and myself.

A particularly annoying person, is a poorly informed vegetarian who is the worst and most neurotic pain in the arse that you could ever meet. The type of person who over analyses the side effects of medicine and would often refuse to take something, even if it was life threatening. This person would also go as far to give me hassle as soon as I ate a kebab while drunk, informing me that it was made of dead cats, dogs, cows arseholes and whatever else (not that anyone would ever care while drunk and eating a kebab). However, due to a sharp sense and wit I am very quick to point out the holes and flaws in their theories and proceed to show them up for the ridiculous arsehole that they are. Because, basically – they fucking well deserve it in all honesty.

A typical case in point was a few years ago, when me and a couple of my friends had made a trip to Yorkshire for a night out at Bradford Rio's to see a band play, and a trip around the drinking establishments inhabited by the Goths and Metalheads that live in the Leeds area. Before we landed at their home, we had decided on a trek around Leeds before making our way over to a small Yorkshire village where my friend lived. Amongst my friends, was the ranty vegetarian I mentioned earlier. Would you believe, that said person made us walk around the long way while looking at Leeds Market due to the butchers and that they “don't like the smell of cruelty and murder”; this was a pain in the arse as it is while we were lugging around a small suitcase and rucksack for the weekend, especially when the suitcases had New Rock boots in them. As a result, I ended up missing a cool little Polish food market that sold some strange confectionery I particularly liked that I couldn't find elsewhere.

I decided to declare war all fucking weekend. This, had finally made my piss boil!

Throughout this particular weekend, I took every endeavour to ensure that I ate even more meat than normal just to piss them off. Whatever I could eat, had to have meat in it somehow – or a least more meat than normal. Just a Chicken Curry? Fuck it – Let's order a special curry with a least a few different types of dead animal in it (Prawn, Chicken, Pork, Steak, etc). A kebab? Yeah sure, let's completely skip on the vegetable garnish and just concentrate on the meat and chilli sauce, fuck it – why not? A sandwich for lunch, Bacon Lettuce and Tomato? Nah – Let's have an all day breakfast sandwich that contains egg, chicken and pork sausage – fuck it, why not? Especially when whiny veggie had the nerve to piss and moan about choosing an eating establishment. They even asked a bunch of Turkish guys whether the Samosa's had been cooked in a facility that had been used to cook meat, of which they couldn't answer or particularly care less – so guess who went away starving while we all had kebab and burgers while smashed off our faces?

This didn't just stop there. Oh no, we went around some Goth clothes shops and even then said person was asking if there was vegan friendly clothing. Yep, they even made a snide comment about a leather jacket that I bought saying something along the lines of “Yeah, nice jacket but it was a shame an animal died to make it”. Granted, there were some vegan friendly clothing (whatever the fuck that nonsense is) but it came at a cost – as noted with Mad Fish boots. They liked the look of New Rocks and Doc Martens, but didn't like the idea of them being made from leather. As a consequence, such clothing is dramatically more expensive due to the specialist nature. They had a range of Mad Fish boots, which were made of some form of synthetic material but were actually bloody horrible to wear and looked as if they were made from old deckchairs or something.

I didn't let it stop there after this shopping excursion. I decided to use even more extreme logic traps to trip them up!

My friends house had some pretty expensive and comfortable leather couches. They sat on them without any apparent issue – which to me sounded very hypocritical. After much drunken debate before going out the door, I had decided to declare that they should either sit on the floor, a fabric foot stool thing or a chair brought in from the kitchen. There was a land slide vote from everybody in the house that they should pick one of these instead of sitting on the leather couch – despite it being the most comfortable option – it was their loss due to their inane fussiness. If they wanted to piss and moan about food choices and ethics as an outvoted minority then they deserved all the shit they got for being preachy. If they kept their mouths shut about it, then perhaps the weekend may have played out a lot differently. In conclusion, a good weekend was had by all (even the whiny vegetarian), but since that point they have become dramatically less vocal and for the most part seen the error of inflicting their 'Veggie Nazi' ways.

Meat Is Murder!

Lastly, a particularly annoying issue with preachy vegetarians is the way they yammer on about animal cruelty, animal testing and such. This is a topic that really annoys me the most.

First of all, there is a definite hierarchical food chain whether people like it or not. To think that all animals are sacred is an extremely naive one. If we applied this to its logical conclusion, then people wouldn't kill off cockroaches, rats or mosquitoes or other vermin and disease would be rife. In fact, they would probably be the first people to complain and make a hypocrite of themselves. Oh, your house is invaded with mice? Oh, that's a shame. Send an email to who gives a shit dot com because if we sent out the exterminators to your gaff would surely be a double standard. Oh, they're the wrong type of mice and they're not the cute ones like Mickey Mouse? Ah, my mistake! 

People who put the lives of animals before themselves in my opinion deserve to be locked up in an insane asylum for such ridiculous beliefs. The likes of Greenpeace, PETA and other such organisations who think they are bang to rights for blowing up scientists that could lead to a cure for Cancer, AIDS, Alzheimers or whatever are extremely odious pieces of work that deserve maximum contempt. There are far more organisations and shelters that cater for cats, dogs, and other unwanted animals that people are prepared to throw any amount of money at. Homeless shelters are closing down, rape crises centres are poorly funded, women and children are fleeing from domestic violence with almost nowhere to turn to. While animal charities are practically a licence to print money, with lots of cute merchandise to keep the collective piggy banks overfed so the accountants can enjoy counting the zeros at the end of the bank balance.

I have often thought to myself that perhaps criminals serving life sentences for murder and/or paedophilia should be used for testing instead of animals. After all, they have thrown away their rights to living in civilised society and they would be a more accurate living template to discover the effects on new treatments and methods. However, the politically correct brigade would be frothing at the mouth piece, citing that these people have rights. Nope, they threw away their rights when they chose to commit such heinous crimes.

It's also worth noting that without animal testing to forward the developments of science, progress would still be in the stone age. Without animal testing, my eldest sister wouldn't be alive and would've left her kids without a mother, fortunately she was treated with Wharfarin to cure what could've been a fatal blood clot. My friends and my missus who have asthma would have a dramatically poorer choice of life if it wasn't for the research and testing for their medication. My own father probably might not have been alive it it wasn't for research done on beta blockers used for his heart tablets to regulate heart beat and blood pressure. This can be applied to anybody that we know with an illness, and they might not have been alive if it wasn't for the research gained from animal testing.

If any of these preachy arseholes were ill and their lives or family members lives depended on medication whose research depended on medication that was tested on animals, they would soon change their idiotic flat earth beliefs.

To conclude, this is why I feel strongly about vegetarianism, and the things that are linked to such a choice.

You're holding the world back.