Concert Review: Carcass, Deafheaven, and Inter Arma.

Saturday November 26th at 3:02pm, Danny arrived at my house.

By 3:04pm, we were two minutes into a road trip into the middle of our home state in order to see a metal bill of epic proportions. Carcass, Deaf Heaven and Inter Arma were playing at the Blue Note in Columbia, MO, the home of Mizzou.

For the drive, we just spoke and argued about metal mostly. Like how Danny doesn't understand how amazing Lulu is and how he thinks I'm nuts for my espousing of Underdog Albums, like Lulu and Kiss's Music From The Elder.

There was an interesting discussion about how we both used to traverse this drive in our childhoods and that we both made a pit stop in the same place in High Hill, MO. The most interesting thing about our drive though, was the pot bellied stove.

Album Review: "War Eternal" by Arch Enemy

War Eternal by Arch Enemy

Is there anyone who is not familiar with Arch Enemy?

Born of Carcass, Carnage, Mercyful Fate, and more?

Champions of women in metal?

OK, there has to be someone, so, a quick history lesson. The group was formed in 1996 after Michael Amott left Carcass.

Originally, the band's vocalist was Johan Liiva who was replaced by Angela Gossow in 2000.

In 2014, it was announced that at after 14 years, eight albums, and more, Angela was going to leave the band and she had even chosen her successor, Alissa White-Gluz, formerly of The Agonist. Angela and Micheal are still married and she is still involved with the band, but she has chosen to no longer participate in a musical capacity.

"Surgical Steel" by Carcass

Brutal mode: Engaged.Carcass has returned from the hell where they condemned themselves and I could not be happier.

Recently on Facebook, it was discussed how your friend and humble narrator got into death metal. During a Spanish II assignment in High School, my partner was a big death metal fan and he turned me onto it. Napalm Death, Carcass, Entombed, Obituary, etc.

Seeing the mighty Carcass return, brings warm feelings to my heart. Even if it's only really half of them. The original drummer, Ken Owen, had some pretty severe medical issues and could not participate in the reunion tours much less this new record. The classic Heartwork Lineup guitarist, Michael Arnott, later was a major part of Arch Enemy and did participate in the tours, but could not commit to the record and he went back to his main band taking drummer, Daniel Erlandsson with him.

Album Review: "Heartwork" by Carcass

It's about to get brutal up in here. Carcass are, well were, some pretty heavy boys. I had this album back when it was fairly new in the 90's and like many others, it slipped away from me. Even though I'm in my thirties now, I still like to blast some metal. A big part of that is because I love guitar. Many of the best guitarists play metal, so that's where I go to find it. Though I have to say that long gone are the days of my being in a mosh pit, stage diving, having long hair and piercings, etc. Sad isn't it? An aging metal guy.

Carcass has long since broken up and I have to say that this is pretty much a shame. Although this album is prototypical death metal, or grindcore, or whatever, it's more than just something like Cannibal Corpse and those kinds of guys. The first death band I got into was Morbid Angel. There's a group of guys that fall into every trap imaginable when it comes to death metal....

Review: "De Vermis Mysteriis" by High On Fire

This is my first foray into what is called Stoner Thrash. I can remember when I was a little kid listening to what we termed heavy metal because that's what Steppenwolf called it, but now there are so many designations of what metal is and part of it is where it's from, but this really has nothing to do with this album, and I'm rambling about this, so I'll move on.

High On Fire is a power trio from Oakland. "De Vermis Mysteriis" is the sixth release by the trio and it's supposedly a high minded concept album about a very strange story.

 The story line revolves around a character who's the twin brother of Jesus Christ who has to give his life force to the incubating messiah so that Jesus may live and redeem the world as foretold, but then after giving his life force to his in utero brother, he becomes a time traveler on the order of Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap. Confused yet? So was I, but I became very intrigued and I bought the CD.