This past weekend, the 4B Wild West Biker Rally to Fuck Cancer 2014 happened! Along with several sketchy vendors, bike shops, sketchier attendees, and several more sex toys than one would think out in the open, Metal Machine was pleased to witness the stage stylings of Warrant (fronted by Robert Mason), LA Guns, Drowning Pool, and some band with the Redneck Nation in the title. It was Texas Country, so no loss. On to the review!!!!!
Top 10 Billboard charting metal legion, WHITECHAPEL, will be returning to the road this Fall! In their interview with Phil Bozeman, Alternative Press declares, “WHITECHAPEL put in a lot of blood and sweat to maintain their furious reputation,” and that work will continue on October 10th when their next North American headlining tour commences.
This past March, pummeling instrumental noise/punk/metal duo FOSSILS released their second full-length album, the merciless and deeply entertaining Flesh Hammer. At the subsequent shows during the Spring and Summer, the band’s crushing riff machine handed out severe sonic punches, not at least at Denmark’s biggest metal festival Copenhell, where FOSSILS opened the festivities in front of several thousand entertained metalheads.
This September, Tankcrimes will reissue the debut full-length from Oakland-born punishing sludge power trio, BRAINOIL. As long time contributors to the underground punk and metal scenes with members having collectively done time in Laudanum, Stormcrow, Watch Them Die, Destroy!, Dead Language, Grimple, Pig Heart Transplant and more, BRAINOIL‘s sludge style is chock full of up-tempo crust-inspired breaks and monstrously baked breakdowns undoubtedly suited for diehards of Black Cobra, Iron Lung, Iron Monkey, Dystopia, Whitehorse, Buzzov*en and El Dopa. Originally released on Life Is Abuse Records in 2003 but sold out for over five years, the monolithic Brainoil was recorded by Dan Rathburn at Polymorph Studios (Tragedy,...
Two years after leveling the expectations of critics and listeners alike with Atma, Portland doom bringers, YOB, prepare to unleash Clearing The Path To Ascend, an aptly titled album for what will undoubtedly be the crowning achievement for a band whose journey now nears two decades of creating music as commanding as it is cathartic. As is the YOB way, the tracks here don’t simply offer a vacuous glimpse into the already riff-soaked doom genre. These songs demand the tandem attention of mind, body, and soul – etching a mark across a sound that finds YOB as formidable and unequaled as they’ve ever been. True ascension requires a destruction of those barriers that prevent any movement forward. Unsurprisingly,...
