The Good

Devin Townsend nonchalantly Tweets:

@dvntownsend counting down…late nights, great progress…suddenly very happy about record 2. Released around Nov 20.

and unleashes more verbose psychobabble on the world:

Musically, ‘Addicted’ is along the lines of the big, wall-of-sound hard rock/heavy metal of Ocean Machine and (The Devin Townsend Project’s) ‘Accelerated Evolution’ — even Physicist at points. It is a very direct and ‘to-the-point’ album with an emphasis on groove and the chorus.

Exciting stuff, seriously. If it’s 1/10th as good as Terria or Accelerated Evolution, it’ll be amazing. Perhaps more tantalizing however is:

On other notes: I have been rehearsing with a new band, and we will start touring in early 2010, representing all the back catalogue of solo material, from ‘Ki’, ‘Addicted’, Physicist, Ziltoid, Terria, Ocean Machine, The Devin Townsend Band, Infinity etc… I have some big plans for this and rehearsals are sounding amazing. The touring entity will be called ‘Devin Townsend’ and is essentially a way for me to get out there and interact again and showcase 15 years of music that never really got its fair shake. We look forward to seeing you out there!

Yeah! You better be doing that in the UK Mr. Townsend!

Next – A new track released off of Megadeth’s anticipated new album:

Do I hear some leanings back to Countdown to Extinction days? Speed metal loveliness indeed!

Every Time I Die released another new track off of the forthcoming New Junk Aesthetic on their Myspace. This is a delightfully pleasant recording, but does anyone else notice a hint of a softer, more commercial sound seeping through? Could this be the beginning of a slippery slope for the southern hardcore mavericks?

This week I discovered that not all Metalcore sucks, with the introduction to my music vocabulary of Burnt by the Sun. Like a darker version of Hatebreed, they keep the breakdowns to a minimum and deliver top notch aggressive metal. I may even put on some big sunglasses and a fake beard (to wear over my real beard) and venture out surreptitiously to but a copy.

Other stuff keeping me happy:

• No Made Sense with their brutal progressive hardcore and stupid sounding album title
• Photonic, which has lead me to dust off various albums by Fugazi, Pavement and Guided by Voices
• Oceansize. Apparently they have an EP out soon.
• Earth. Slowly I’m getting my head around this most frustrating of bands. Albums Pentastar and Hex are simply beautiful but also infuriating.
• Revocation. Everyone is carping on about them like infatuated teenagers thanks to Cosmo Lee’s article suggesting that they may be the next great metal band. That’s probably going a bit far at this early stage, but they are pretty good. The guitar solo on Dismantle the Dictator is to die for. No doubt Metal Hammer will be forcing them down our throat for the next 3 years.

The Bad

Desparately naive wannabe journo’s laying into indisputably legendary bands like Black Sabbath. Why on earth would you write such an ill-informed bucket of badger shit is totally beyond me.

Music streaming site Spotify is part owned by the evil overlords of the music industry in an attempt to keep the site afloat in the face of pitiful advertising revenues and in lieu of paying out royalties to the record labels. If this isn’t depressing enough, it sounds like the artists aren’t getting any royalties either and are unlikely to see any dividends when some cash burdened corporate is stupid enough to buy this service which is as likely to see profit as I am likely to turn green and transform into a million dollar bill.

…and the Ugly

This dude bustin’ some classy moves. I have been known to do this after a couple of beverages, which is when it gets truly ugly.

When I grow up I want to be in a sandwich or a metal band

I had the violent displeasure today of (part)consuming what may be the worst pork sandwich I have ever had. I purchased this wretched morsel from a café near me that sells nothing else other than roast pork in rolls. How bad can it be? Well the stale baguette (they seem to have perfected the art of making them come out of the oven that way) was the worst bit, then the dry pork (I’m assuming it was pork, hard to tell) was the worst bit too, after the apple sauce (seemingly made be leaving the apples in pool of saliva to dissolve) it all went down hill (or to be more specific, in the bin).

How anyone could treat pig, not to mention food in general, with such disrespect is beyond me. To celebrate this most auspicious of occasions I’ve selected a few tasty pig related tracks for your entertainment.

War Pigs. The Faith No More version here, but there’s a multitude of excellent covers of the seminal Sabbath masterwork.

Piggy, the foreboding industrial ‘ballad’ from Nine Inch Nails’ astounding The Downward Spiral.

Some delightful, nosebleed inducing Grind from Pig Destroyer.

The fantastically silly, Scientology baiting Big Fat Pig from Clutch’s otherwise less than inspiring Jam Room.

May the pork be with you…

This quick-and-to-the-point first taster from their forthcoming album New Junk Aesthetic is not a great departure from their previous offering The Big Dirty. This frantic southern hardcore rock-out includes (somewhat muted) backing vocals from none other than The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato. Does this add anything to the recording? Other than aiding the ability for it to shift more copies, no. However, if the new album is all like this, it can’t be a bad thing.