HIATUS.

Hey everyone.

Just wanted to let you know we're going on indefinite hiatus. 

We're not shutting down for good. 

I can't speak for the others, but I have been feeling very burned out for a while and this whole thing seems a bit of a drag lately. Something that started out as a fun thing to do with my buddy has now begun to feel like an obligation and there's no fun in that. Real life obligations also play a part. Turns out it's not as easy finding time to write about emotional black metal bands when working a (pretty great) full time job and commuting for almost 2 hours every single day. Our platform of choice Blogspot is also a huge reason, at least for me - it's basically turned into a big pile of shit and I don't have the time and patience to wrestle with it and its dumb errors anymore.

Marco and I have been talking things over and we both feel the need for a fresh start with our blog. We don't know what that means yet, but we'll use this time to figure it out. 

So while we take some time off to find ourselves and reflect on the meaning of Kanye West lyrics on a sandy beach, this website will remain up as a testament of our greatness. Tumblr will still be updated daily through the mercy of our Saint Patron Gherasim and we're probably gonna post on Facebook every now and then, too. 

Don't be sad. We're gonna be back at some point. Just not too soon. 

The new Deafheaven song sucks, btw. 

BEDTIME PODCAST REVIEW: Kissing Contest

As most of you probably don't know, I usually fall asleep while listening to stuff on my iPod because I'm a baby and hearing people talk soothes me. Over the years, I've fallen asleep on countless nights while listening to the amazing Grand Theft Auto talkshows or to George Carlin's endless rants - I've gone through most of his live shows, as well as his audiobooks - and it's all been good. Unfortunately, there's only so many times you can listen to Integrity 2.0 before you start learning all the lines by heart. So, recently, I've turned my attention towards podcasts. It's uncharted territory for me, but I've started exploring various podcasts to support my bizarre nighttime addiction. So Bedtime Podcast Review will be about whatever the fuck I happen to listen to while falling asleep. I hope this will be useful for somebody. And if not, oh well... I tried.

Let's kick things off with my current favorite podcast, Kissing Contest, which is, as the hosts put it, a "comedy podcast about movies, television, sweet boys, pleasant fellows and hard-ass men." The show is usually hosted by Mike and Sawyer, two dudes in Brooklyn, with producer Doan joining in the fun most of the time and a few choice guests coming in from time to time. When it comes to podcasts, the hosts make or break the show, so I'm happy to say that Sawyer, Mike and Doan are some legitimately funny dudes who frequently engage in hilarious banter about whatever movie or actor they're talking about at the time. I've literally chuckled under my blanket more times than I can count while listening to these guys poke fun at movies and at each other. The audio quality is great and each host can be heard clearly, which is obviously a big plus. There are occasional background noises, but they're few and far between.

Gross hobo Sawyer and Nantucket Mike, Kissing Contest's loving hosts.

Each weekly episode of Kissing Contest follows a basic structure with a few segments that carry over between episodes. They usually feature movie news, a run-down of upcoming movies and a segment called Movie Hostage, where Mike and Sawyer force each other to watch movies they've never seen before and talk about it afterwards. They've recently started to regularly feature Snax Chat aka Mike and Doan Eat Shit, which is an entire segment devoted to movie snacks, featuring in-depth reviews of various brands of chips and stuff. It's easily my favorite segment and I look forward to it every time. There are various other topics unique for each episode, like big movie disappointments, best movie athletes, movie reviews, favorite movie babes and other stuff like that.

The episodes all run at about an hour and a half to two hours, so there's plenty of meat on these bones to keep you satisfied until next week's episode rolls over. They're nearing their 100th episode (latest episode is #92) so there's also a sizable archive of older episodes to go through if you're so inclined. All in all, I highly recommend Kissing Contest. It's funny, it's entertaining, it's hosted by some great dudes, it has its fair share of crass humor and, through it all, it still manages to be informative. I always end up with a few "movies I need to watch" notes after each episode.

As a downside, though, I should mention that it got me watching Extreme Couponing and My Strange Addiction. Those are some god-awful shows and I wish I had never heard of them.

Useful links:

Kissing Contest Blog: http://kissingcontest.wordpress.com/
Kissing Contest on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/ro/podcast/kissing-contest/id390568857
Kissing Contest on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kissingcontest

No Goats No Glory

I'm bored out of my skull, I didn't really plan to post anything specific today and, although I did listen to a bunch of new stuff today, most of it sucked and isn't worth posting about anyway. Instead, I figured I'd post a bunch of goat metal bands I like and maybe see if anyone else has any favorite goat bands. This is a bad day for me and this is what we're doing, so if you're not up for it, door's over there. Okay? Good!

Goatsnake is a California stoner doom band formed 1996, after the disbanding of The Obsessed (who will reunite for this year's Roadburn festival) and it consists of The Obsessed members Greg Rogers and Guy Pinhas on drums and bass, respectively, as well as vocalist Pete Stahl and Greg Anderson, who also plays guitar in the monolithic Sunn O))). A pretty cool line-up if you ask me, especially considering that Greg Anderson probably uses the same rig he drones with to play sweet bluesy doom for Goatsnake. Also, Pete Stahl's vocals are really nice. They've only released two studio albums so far, but they're well worth checking out if the line-up made you raise an eyebrow.

Archgoat are a trver-than-thou unholy black metal outfit from Finland. There's only three dudes in the band and they go by the names of Angelslayer, Ritual Butcher and Sinisterror. Their latest offering is an EP called Heavenly Vulva (Christ's Last Rites) and the cover art depicts Mother Mary cowgirling Jesus' corpse on a mortuary table, so I guess there's no point in describing their music. The imagery and song titles speak for themselves.



I've talked about Goatwhore before, the blackened death metal band formed in the wake of sludge legend Acid Bath's demise. They're awesome, in a vitriolic, pissed-off kinda way.



Weregoat are similar to Archgoat, in that they play vicious, bestial black metal with a thrashy edge and they sport names like Indiscriminate Impregnator, Nocturnal Hellfuker and Sadoseducer. They've only released one EP so far, called Unholy Exaltation of Fullmoon Perversity. If you enjoy blasphemous black metal with vocals so drenched in reverb that they sound like a pack of hellish fiends throwing a party in a cave, Weregoat should be right up your alley.



Goatvomit are an obscure black metal band from Greece that sing about destroying Christianity with nuclear missiles. The video below, though, is the intro to their 2002 EP called Chapel of the Winds of Belial, and I've always had a soft spot for the cheesy keyboards and the clean, spoken vocals it features.



The ludicrously-named Goat Penis hail from Brazil and they're a bunch of guys who obsess over anything that has to do with war, so expect to find a whole bunch of songs about tanks, nuclear warheads, machine  guns and bazookas on their albums, with relentless drumming, crunchy riffage and, for some reason, ski masks.



Finally, we have Von Goat, an off-shoot of the legendary US black metal outfit, Von. Nothing too special going on here - just well-executed, thick, sludgy black metal.

This is where my limited expertise on goat metal ends. There's also Goat Thrower, Goat Eater, Goat Messiah, Goat Puncher, Goat River, Goat Skull, Goat Perversion, Goat Tunnel, Goat Terrorism, Goat Vengeance, Goat Bleeder, Goat Command, Goat Funeral, Goat Semen and a whole fuckload of other goat-something bands I've never heard of. If there's a goat band I should TOTALLY check out, give me a heads-up in the comments. 

THE ACE OF SPADES, THE ACE OF SPADES

It's Sunday again and I'm already starting to feel like a piece of shit because it's beautiful outside and I'm sitting in front of my computer like a basement dweller because I have no friends. I also can't be bothered to come up with any sort of meaningful content today, so I'll just shoot the biggest fish in the barrel and post a bunch of Ace of Spades covers I enjoy. Fuck all.

First, let's enjoy good old Uncle Tom and his boys rip through this classic tune.

Bathory also did a well-known cover of Ace of Spades, turning into a longer, epic song with a viking vibe and men choirs and other sweet stuff.

This next Ace of Spades cover is by American heavy/speed metal band Abattoire, off their 1985 album Vicious Attack.

Mayhem (the American speed metal band, not the Norwegian black metal band) also did a cool cover on their 1986 Burned Alive LP.

The San Diego hardcore punk band Battalion of Saints also covered the song on their 1984 LP The Second Coming. 

Spanish grind freaks Machetazo also covered this song on their 2002 album, Trono de Huesos. Mucho br00tal!

This is my favourite Ace of Spades cover, courtesy of another great Spanish deathgrind outfit, Avulsed. There's nothing like hearing the classic lyrics being sung in sickening gurgles and pig squeals. You can check it on their 2005 effort, Gorespattered Suicide, but I'm going to leave you with a great live performance of their cover. 

And last but not least, there's Hayseed Dixie's cover.

Have I missed any other cool Ace of Spades covers?