Heavy Consequence
Machine Gun Kelly Mocks Slipknot During Riot Fest Set: Watch
Machine Gun Kelly mocked Slipknot while both acts were simultaneously performing on separate stages at Riot Fest on Sunday night (September 19th). From across the festival grounds, MGK paused between songs to tear into the metal band with a thinly veiled diss. “You all want to know what I’m happy that I’m not doing?” MGK asked the audience. “Being 50 years old wearing a f**king weird mask on the f**king stage. F**king sh*t.” Advertisement Related Video He awkwardly bungled the punch line, but it’s obvious the rapper-turned-pop-punker was angry about prior derogatory comments made by Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor that were apparently directed at MGK. In an interview from earlier this year with Cutter’s Rockcast, Taylor shared his disillusionment with modern rock music. Without saying any n...
Possessed Singer Jeff Becerra Walks for First Time in More Than 30 Years
Possessed singer Jeff Becerra, who was paralyzed in a 1989 shooting incident, walked for the first time in more than 30 years. On Saturday (September 18th), the pioneering death metal vocalist shared video of himself walking with the aid of robotic legs. The 90-second video shows Becerra walking down a hallway, with a small team of medical personnel helping him. Along with the clip, he wrote, “I walked again for the first time in over 30 years with the help of robotic legs #jeffbecerra #possessed #possessedband #rewalk #rewalkrobotics #smallmiracles.” Becerra was paralyzed from the chest down during a 1989 robbery. He described the incident during a 2019 interview with The Underground Metal Gamer (via Blabbermouth). “I’ve been in a wheelchair longer than I’ve been walking,” he began. ...
Mental Metal: Tool’s Ænima Turns 25
Dusting ‘Em Off is a rotating, free-form feature that revisits a classic album, film, or moment in pop-culture history. This piece celebrates Tool’s acclaimed sophomore album Ænima. Editor’s Note: This article originally ran in 2016, but has been updated in 2021 to reflect the 25th anniversary of Ænima. Many musicians have been influenced by books, but there seems to be something especially literary about the genres of hard rock and metal. This goes double for horror and fantasy fiction: Led Zeppelin meditated on The Lord of the Rings, Black Sabbath wailed about “The Wizard,” and Metallica thrashed to the monster Cthulu. Others have drawn imagery out of the Bible, Norse mythology, or the bloodier epochs of European history. For their second album, Tool drew on the writings of Carl Jun...
Bring Me the Horizon Continue Their Foray into Pop on New Single “DiE4u”: Stream
Bring Me the Horizon are back with a new single “DiE4u,” continuing their evolution from brutal deathcore upstarts to metalcore favorites to an infectious pop group. According to a press release, “DiE4u” begins the second phase of the UK band’s series of Post Human EPs. The first of the EP series, Post Human: Survival Horror, arrived last year. The song is primarily a pop tune, with the occasional scream from frontman Oli Sykes offering a nod to Bring Me the Horizon’s heavier days. It’s accompanied by a music video that starts out with a club performance and ends with a bloodbath. Advertisement “‘DiE4u’ is a song about toxic obsessions, vices and things you can’t kick,” said Sykes in a press release. “I think a lot of people went through very similar struggles while in lockdown, coming fac...
Carcass’ Torn Arteries Is a Masterpiece of Bitterness: Review
The Lowdown: British death metal innovators Carcass helped found the genre in the ’80s and expand its boundaries in the early ’90s with a series of mostly-excellent and progressively different records, then broke up before getting their due. After a long hiatus they returned in 2013 with the platonically perfect Surgical Steel, maybe the best comeback album in all of metal and Heavy Consequence’s eighth-best metal album of the 2010s. Eight years later, their long-delayed follow-up, Torn Arteries, is harder to love than its predecessor, but still excellent. The Good: Carcass play to their strengths on Torn Arteries, chief among them guitarist Bill Steer’s potent balance of rhythmic chugging, saturated guitar tone, and speedy-but-bluesy melodic runs. These have been the focus of his sound si...
Dave Navarro, Taylor Hawkins, and Chris Chaney Form New Band NHC, Share Two Songs: Stream
Dave Navarro, Taylor Hawkins, and Chris Chaney have formed a new supergroup called NHC, based on the first initial of their last names. The band has now shared its first two songs, “Feed the Cruel” and “Better Move On.” “Feed the Cruel” features a jam-room clip of the trio ripping through the song. There’s immediate chemistry between the three rock veterans. After all, Navarro and Chaney are both members of Jane’s Addiction. Meanwhile, Chaney and Hawkins played together as members of Alanis Morisette’s backing band in the 1990s. Fans of the Foo Fighters and Navarro’s guitar playing will immediately recognize the musical familiarities between NHC and the full-time projects of each member. With Hawkins on drums and lead vocals, both tracks have definite Foo vibes and also recall Hawkins’ rec...
Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine Calls Mask Mandates “Tyranny”
Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine went on an anti-mask rant at a concert (September 15th) in Camden, New Jersey on Wednesday, calling mandates “medical tyranny.” Performing in a state where over 27,000 people have died from COVID-19, Mustaine addressed the crowd before the final song of the set, decrying the enforcement of masks that have proven effective in slowing the spread of the virus. “I just wanna tell you how great it is,” Mustaine said before the last song of the night. “Look around you, guys. Look to your right, look to your left, and look how wonderful this is. We’re all here together. We’re not freaking out, and we’re not yelling at people, ‘Wear your f–king mask.’ Listen, it starts with this kind of a sensation that we build right now. We feel together, we feel like [there’s] strength ...
Death From Above 1979 Cover Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”: Stream
Death From Above 1979 have shared a cover of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” as part of the Amazon Original covers series. The duo make the classic rock anthem their own, adapting it to their trademark drum-bass format and injecting their signature dance-punk sound. Despite being an eclectic take on the timeless song, the cover nonetheless retains the uplifting chorus and big crescendos of the original. “We made a kind of witchy version of the song that would make Steve Perry magically join Journey again,” said Sebastien Grainger of Death From Above 1979 via a press release. Advertisement Related Video You can stream and purchase Death From Above 1979’s cover of “Don’t Stop Believin’” via Amazon. The track adds to an already successful year for the band. March saw the release of its...
Sharon Osbourne on Death Threats to Her, Ozzy, and Their Pets: “They Were Going to Cut All Our Throats”
Sharon Osbourne has opened up about the fallout she experienced after being ousted from The Talk earlier this year. The former host of the daytime TV show says that people threatened to “cut the throats” of herself, her husband Ozzy Osbourne, their children, and their pets. Back in March, Sharon exited The Talk after a heated exchange with co-host Sheryl Underwood led to a number of accusations regarding Sharon’s behavior around the show’s other hosts over the years. In the initial blow-up with Underwood, Sharon defended her friend Piers Morgan, who had made disparaging and apparent racist comments about Meghan Markle. Then, former co-hosts like Holly Robinson Peete and Leah Remini accused Sharon of using racist language in the past. It all led to Sharon parting ways with The Talk after a ...
Scientists Honor Gojira by Naming Three Fossils After the Metal Band
Gojira have always been an environmentally conscious band, and now scientists have honored the French metal act by naming three newly discovered fossils after them. The brittle star fossils were found in France, Luxembourg, and Austria on what was once the bed of the Jurassic Tethys Ocean. Each of the new species were named after the members of Gojira: Ophiogojira labadiei honoring bassist Jean-Michel Labadie; Ophiogojira andreui for lead guitarist Christian Andreu; and Ophioduplantiera noctiluca for both Joe and Mario Duplantier. Scientists Lea Numberger and Ben Thuy from Luxembourg’s Natural History Museum and biologist Tania Pineda from the Florida Museum of Natural History were behind the fossils’ discovery and naming. Advertisement Related Video “Genus named in honor of French metal b...
Mastodon and Opeth Announce Co-Headlining Fall 2021 US Tour
Mastodon and Opeth have announced a co-headlining fall 2021 US tour with support from Zeal & Ardor. The coast-to-coast trek kicks off November 16th in Asheville, North Carolina, and heads up the East Coast before routing through the South. After hitting the West Coast, the tour wraps up on December 5th in Denver. Mastodon will be out in support of their forthcoming album, Hushed and Grim, recorded over a 12-month period with producer David Bottrill. Openers Zeal & Ardor should also have new music in their setlist, with the avant-metal act set to drop a new self-titled album on February 11th, 2022. Advertisement Related Video Meanwhile, progressive metal vets Opeth played one of the last theater shows we saw prior to the pandemic. The band looks to head back out in support of its mo...
Mike Patton Pulls Out of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle Tour Dates Due to Mental Health Issues
Mike Patton has canceled his upcoming tour dates with both Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, citing “mental health reasons.” “I have issues that were exacerbated by the pandemic that are challenging me right now,” Patton said in a statement. “I don’t feel I can give what I should at this point and I am not going to give anything less than 100 percent. I am sorry to our fans and hope to make it up to you soon.” Patton noted that both Faith No More and Mr. Bungle “support me in this decision and we look forward to working through this in a healthy way.” Advertisement Related Video To that point, the members of Faith No More have issued their own statement expressing support of the band’s frontman. “We believe that forging ahead with these dates would have had a profoundly destructive effect on M...
