By the mid-1980s, the sound of heavy metal had come a long way from the demonic riffs of Sabbath and the groovy beats of Deep Purple. Its themes had evolved a lot, too. When Ozzy encounters Satan on the song “Black Sabbath,” he lets out a petrified cry of “Oh, no, no, please, God, help me!” But in the music of Slayer, Entombed, and the other bands in this playlist, we start to see man aligning with evil, pursuing it, making peace with it, even encouraging it. As thrash gave way to the rise of death metal, the mantra became “the more evil, the better”—we start getting dark, mythological, and even sadistic lyrics accompanying faster, heavier, and gnarlier music. As Mercyful Fate sang, “You know my only pleasure/ Is to hear you cry.” If that ain’t true evil, I don’t know what is.This feature is part of our Thrash 101 online course that was produced in partnership with the good rocking folks at GimmeRadio, a free 24/7 metal radio station hosted by heavy-music experts like Megadeths Dave Mustaine and Lamb of Gods Randy Blythe. Check them out here and sign up for the Thrash 101 course here.
Welcome to the sixth chapter of Thrash 101. This feature was produced in partnership with GimmeRadio, your free 24/7 metal radio station hosted by heavy-music experts like Megadeths Dave Mustaine and Death Angels Will Carroll. Check it out here.By the mid-1980s, the sound of heavy metal had come a long way from the demonic riffs of Sabbath and the groovy beats of Deep Purple. Its themes had evolved a lot, too. When Ozzy encounters Satan on the song “Black Sabbath,” he lets out a petrified cry of “Oh, no, no, please, God, help me!” But in the music of Slayer, Entombed, and the other bands in this playlist, we start to see man aligning with evil, pursuing it, making peace with it, even encouraging it. As thrash gave way to the rise of death metal, the mantra became “the more evil, the better”—we start getting dark, mythological, and even sadistic lyrics accompanying faster, heavier, and gnarlier music. As Mercyful Fate sang, “You know my only pleasure/ Is to hear you cry.” If that ain’t true evil, I don’t know what is.
With 30-plus years of thrash under our bullet belts, its hard to think of a time when the music didnt exist (especially if you grew up during the early reign of Metallica on MTV). But the late 70s/ early 80s were a vastly different landscape, where music was separated by geography and two major forces were about to collide.Powered by complex guitars and cerebral bombast, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) was thriving in England. And before long, U.K. bands like Judas Priest, Saxon, and Iron Maiden became more than just social currency in the stateside tape-trading underground; they were starting to make waves on the charts one mega-solo at a time, spreading the word to ravenous heavy music fans everywhere about this massive sound blowing up on the isles.Concurrently, hardcore was erupting in the U.S. underground on both coasts. Bands like Discharge, The Misfits, and the Dead Kennedys had something to say and a rabid voice to say it with, along with an equally rabid fanbase to heed the call. And at a time when socio-political unrest was plaguing the American counterculture due to the intensifying Cold War and the cold conservatism of the Reagan presidency, both of these music scenes (one the natural progression of metal, the other the natural progression of punk) spoke to disenfranchised teens nationwide, and a movement was born from their marriage: thrash.Fueled by the outspokenness of punk, the big sound of NWOBHM, and the bottled aggression of hardcore, the disillusioned youth of America picked up their guitars and built upon the foundation laid before them. Tracks like Discharges "Protest and Survive" practically nailed the thrash formula in 1982, and when you hear early Venom and Angel Witch alongside Agnostic Front, youve got two sides of the same rusty coin.This feature is part of our Thrash 101 online course that was produced in partnership with the good rocking folks at GimmeRadio, a free 24/7 metal radio station hosted by heavy-music experts like Megadeths Dave Mustaine and Lamb of Gods Randy Blythe. Check them out here and sign up for the Thrash 101 course here.
The late Ian Fraser Kilmister lived life as fast as Motörhead’s violently charging rock ’n’ roll. Of course, many readers will assume such a statement refers to the legendary bassist’s decadent reputation. After all, his appetite for drink, drugs, and sex (as chronicled in the 2010 documentary Lemmy) was insatiable and produced no shortage of outrageous tales (some false, but many quite true). But he also lived a fast life in terms of his art and creativity. As both a musician and actor, Lemmy was damn near everywhere. When he wasn’t leading one of the world’s most influential metal bands (who, it should be noted, dropped a posthumous covers compilation Under Cöver on September 1, 2017), he racked up an absurd number of side projects and guest spots onstage, in the studio, and on screen. Whether he was leading Wayne Kramer, Michael Davis, and Dennis Thompson of the MC5 through a raspy blowout of their proto-punk jam “Sister Ann,” popping up in Boys Don’t Cry’s cheesy “I Wanna Be a Cowboy” video, busting retro-rockabilly with HeadCat, unleashing the vicious “Shake Your Blood” with Dave Grohl’s Probot project, actually joining The Damned for a spell... you name it, he did it.Of course, all this action occurred after Lemmy had started Motörhead. Here’s the crazy thing: By the time he, “Fast” Eddie Clarke, and Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor recorded the band’s thunderous, game-changing debut in the summer of 1977, he had already been in the rock ’n’ roll game for a dozen years. Most folks know he helped pioneer chugging space rock and proto-punk as a shaggy member of the mighty Hawkwind, but he also served time in two fantastic British Invasion-era outfits. In addition to playing guitar and singing in Sam Gopal (a deeply moody psych-rock outfit who released the cult favorite Escalator in 1969), he lent his services to The Rockin Vickers, a beat group unloading manic R&B rave-ups much like the early Who and Kinks. (They whipped-up a searing version of Pete Townshend’s “It’s Alright” in 1966.) And if all that weren’t enough, young Lemmy actually shared a flat with bassist Noel Redding, who helped him land a gig as a Jimi Hendrix roadie in the downtime between Sam Gopal and Hawkwind.Here’s to Lemmy—no human has ever embodied rock ’n’ roll abandon as passionately as you. Well, maybe Keith Richards. But as we all know, you were always a Beatles guy, one who just so happened to see the Fabs at the effin’ Cavern when you were 18. Insane!
Psychedelic music emerged in the mid-’60s as a mutant offspring of the British Invasion and American garage rock. But, over the past five decades, it has morphed into so many different forms that its more accurate to describe it as a feeling than a sound. Be it the surrealist pop of The Beatles and Caribou, the brain-melting feedback of Jimi Hendrix and The Jesus and Mary Chain, the dreamy reveries of Slowdive and Tame Impala, or the head-nodding beats of Madvillain and Flying Lotus, psychedelia is hard to pin down—but you’ll know you’re hearing it when you feel your mind altering.In The Dowsers Psych 101 feature, well be exploring the psychedelic sound through a 14-playlist program that breaks down the crucial components of this mesmerizing musical kaleidoscope. This introductory mix provides an overview of what you can expect in your inbox over the next two weeks: the rock n roll radicals, the Afrofuturist freaks, the headiest hip-hoppers, the most adventurous beatmakers, the lava lamp–smashing metalheads. By the end of it, we hope youll see psychedelia less as a hippy-dippy 60s phenomenon and more as an endlessly renewable energy source that is forever fueling boundary-pushing artistry across all genres and eras. For now, we invite you to turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream—and brace yourself for the many weird and wonderful trips to come.
Chart the journey from the Fab Four to Flying Lotus through The Dowsers virtual box set devoted to all things psychedelic. Your trip begins in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...
Progressive metal first emerged in the late ’80s, a whirlwind of ambitious themes, sprawling concepts, aggressive precision, ambitious arrangements, off-kilter time signatures and wild displays of chops. Bands like Queensrÿche and Fates Warning would have varying intensity of the spotlight, but nothing matched the commercial and critical success of Tool, the uncompromising band that released the biggest rock record of 2019, the 86-minute Fear Inoculum.
However, the seeds of lofty, lateral-minded metal churn go back to the ’60s and ’70s. Pioneering prog artists (and Tool influences) King Crimson and Pink Floyd would often venture into the heavy and strange. Lesser-known bands such as Britain’s Atomic Rooster, Germany’s Lucifer’s Friend, and Los Angeles’ Captain Beyond sunk deep into proto-metal moods. Jazz artists like Tony Williams, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and ’70s-era Miles Davis mixed bonkers playing with abrasive rock energy. French “zeuhl” bands like Magma and Belgian “rock in opposition” band Univers Zero played with time signatures in disorienting ways. Here are some bands that paved the way for prog-metal’s lofty ideas.
Photo Credit: Travis Shinn
The ’90s have never sounded better than they do right now—especially for modern-day indie rockers. There’s no shortage of bands banging around these days whose sound suggests formative phases spent soaking up vintage ’90s indie rock. Not that the neo-’90s sound is itself a new thing. As soon as the era was far enough away in the rearview mirror to allow for nostalgia to set in (i.e., the second half of the 2000s), there were already some young artists out there onboarding ’90s alt-rock influences. But more recently, there’s been a bumper crop of bands that betray a soft spot for a time when MTV still played music videos and streaming was just something that happened in a restroom. In this context, the literate, lo-fi approach of Pavement has emerged as a particularly strong strand of the ’90s indie tapestry, and it isn’t hard to hear echoes of their sound in the work of more recent arrivals like Kiwi jr. or Teenage Cool Kids. Cherry Glazerr frontwoman Clementine Creevy seems to have a feeling for the kind of big, dirty guitar riffs that made Pacific Northwestern bands the kings of the alt-rock heap once upon a time. The world-weary, wise-guy angularity of Car Seat Headrest can bring to mind the lurching, loose-limbed attack of Railroad Jerk. And laconic, storytelling types like Nap Eyes stand to prove that there’s still a bright future ahead for those who mourn the passing of Silver Jews main man David Berman. But perhaps the best thing about a face-off between the modern indie bands evoking ’90s forebears and the old-school artists themselves is the fact that in this kind of competition, everybody wins.
It may be that 2019 was the best year for ’90s metal since, well, 1999. Bands from the decade of Judgment Night re-emerged with new creative twists and tweaks: Tool stretched out into polyrhythmic madness, Korn bludgeoned with more extreme and raw despair, Slipknot added a new drummer (Max Weinberg’s kid!) who gave them a new groove, and Rammstein wrote an anti-fascism anthem that caused controversy in Germany (and hit No. 1 there too). Elsewhere, icons of the era returned in unique ways: Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor scored a superhero TV series, Primus’ Les Claypool teamed up with Sean Lennon for some quirky psych rock, and Faith No More’s Mike Patton made an avant-decadent LP with ’70s soundtrack king Jean-Claude Vannier. Finally, the soaring voice of Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington returned for a moment thanks to Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton, who released a song they recorded together in 2017.
Taking a look at the playlists for my show on Boston’s WZBC might give the more seasoned college-radio listener a bit of déjà vu: They’re filled with bands like Versus, Team Dresch, and Sleater-Kinney, who were at the top of the CMJ charts back in the ’90s. But the records they released in 2019 turned out to be some of the year’s best rock. Versus, whose Ex Nihilo EP and Ex Voto full-length were part of a creative run for leader Richard Baluyut that also included a tour by his pre-Versus outfit Flower and his 2000s band +/-, put out a lot of beautifully thrashy rock; Team Dresch returned with all cylinders blazing and singers Jody Bleyle and Kaia Wilson wailing their hearts out on “Your Hands My Pockets”; and Sleater-Kinney confronted middle age head-on with their examination of finding one’s footing, The Center Won’t Hold.
Italian guitar heroes Uzeda—who have been putting out proggy, riff-heavy music for three-plus decades—released their first record in 13 years, the blistering Quocumque jerceris stabit; Imperial Teen, led by Faith No More multi-instrumentalist Roddy Bottum, kept the weird hooks coming with Now We Are Timeless; and high-concept Californians That Dog capped off a year of reissues with Old LP, their first album since 1997. Juliana Hatfield continued the creative tear she’s been on this decade with two albums: Weird, a collection of hooky, twisty songs that tackle alienation with searing wit, and Juliana Hatfield Sings the Police, her tribute record to the dubby New Wave chart heroes (in the spirit of the salute to Olivia Newton-John she released in 2018). And our playlist finishes with Mary Timony, formerly of the gnarled rockers Helium and currently part of the power trio Ex Hex, paying tribute to her former Autoclave bandmate Christina Billotte via an Ex Hex take on “What Kind of Monster Are You?,” one of the signature songs by Billotte’s ’90s triple threat Slant 6.
