Here are the chainsaw top ten, as compiled by Chainsaw Music Director, Cory Slep.

Amon Amarth - Surtur Rising

Belphegor - Blood Magick Necromance

Septicflesh - The Great Mass

Figure 1

I know it’s sad, the prospect of the end of my first year as a DJ coming to a close. But for those of you that don’t know, it is exam week this and next week, followed by that thing called summer. Summer is an exciting season, where I meet relatives and they ask me how stuff at the station goes. I tell them, and then they usually ask if I have ever actually eaten a human. Hah, the nerve!

Anyways, Chainsaw will be alive during this summer, so just because this is my last farewell for the Spring of 2010 doesn’t mean you have to stop listening in. Seriously, when people start ignoring Chainsaw, stuff like in Figure 1 starts to happen. Keep listening to your dose of Rotting Christ, old-school Dimmu Borgir, Goatwhore, Cannibal Corpse, Belphegor, and by listening to Lucretia, Mistress of Destruction‘s, show. Seriously, I may wreck the human body to splinters… er, with splinters, but she will tear down the walls of your house. Noobhammer‘s 2.0 version of his show is definitely a good tune-in as well.

For those that have been consistently reading these blog posts, I provide you with another comic! I know it’s been a while, but it’s either that or concert gore. And I figured concert gore was exciting. Now, I ran into a bit of trouble with this week’s comic and I’m sure you’ll see why. Just remember: offended people tend to have more tender meat. And everyone likes tender meat.

Question of the Week: “How could I be as cool as Noobhammer?”

“I would play Dungeons and Dragons.” -9th Priest
“I’d grab a foam sword and sing while drinking ale!” -Cannibal Cory

When I come back, I hope your limbs will have regenerated, intestines scabbed over, eyeballs re-socketed themselves, tongue stub re-grown, undisembowled, stitches sewn properly, and bones set straight all so another enjoyable round of shows can begin in the Fall of 2010!

The Cannibals meet!

I’m putting off my review of Borknagar‘s latest album until next week, as the Cannibal Corpse concert at Volume 11 yesterday was total face-smashing. The pure brutal assault of the Lecherous Nocturne, Diabolic, Skeletonwitch, and Cannibal Corpse lineup left my neck hanging by a string, my eye bruised from crowd surfers, my ears ringing from pure shredding, and my mind liquefying with an excellent show.

Lecherous Nocturne started off the night with some great grinding, the kind of teeth-on-chalkboard sensation that makes you realize the only thing you can do is keep on knocking your head against the stage floor in rhythm. At one point the band offered the most dominant person in a pit a copy of their latest album. I watched as fellow metalhead bashed into more metalheads, listening to the soothing sound of bone hitting bone and the growls of encouragement. They were good at turning model citizens into flying guided missiles.

Lecherous Nocturne shreds it out

It’s sad that 1349 is stuck in Europe due to some visa issues, but Diabolic was a solid substitute that did not leave me wanting to kick a door with a toothpick under my toenail, which is how I usually handle things that are not brütal enough. The old school sound was perfect for preparing us for the maggots feasting on our guts that would be disemboweled by Cannibal Corpse‘s earlier works.

Skeletonwitch hit the stage, and the crowd went bloodthirsty. People were squeezed so close to the stage that their eyes burst into white liquid, causing them to jump on stage and then back into the crowd. It seemed to rain frenzied metalheads, putting shoes into people’s noses with a bloody cracking sound and knees thudding against unlucky crowd members’ thick skulls. People ravaged so much in the Skeletonwitch set that people spontaneously combusted into bloody chunks. Some people may have helped themselves to a mid show snack.

Metalheads rockin' to some Cannibals

In the end, though, it was Cannibal Corpse that devoured the crowd. They played songs from albums across the entire timeline. the exact order is a blur since that part of my brain got lobotomized at some point in the show, but I remember them starting with Scalding Hail. From that point on the brütality pulverized my legs, neck, and brain. Priests of Sodom, The Wretched Spawn, Evisceration Plague, They Deserve To Die all brought on the horns. They ended with a personal favorite of mine: Stripped, Raped and Strangled. I left the concert fully satisfied and limbless, earless, eyeless, with the stench of a thousand decomposing fellow fans around me. I think that my arms fought off their chainsaw of a grinding gory song, with my arms losing. My legs still seem to be MIA, though I don’t think I’ll need them anytime soon.

With that, I leave you more images of the concert!

Alex grinding the bass

Corpsegrinder at his finest

With liberty and shredding for all!

Neck excercises have never been so fun!

The best picture of Paul I have

Arkaik wreaking havoc with their newest album

I know exactly what you’re thinking, you brutal metal freaks out there. What the heck should you expect from the inaugural post by Cannibal Cory? Well I’m here to firstly warn those weak of heart and easily disturbed to look elsewhere. The following just might, maybe, cause a heart attack – especially if the idea of gore like Scattered Remains, Splattered Brains makes you want to heave your ripening meal all over the keyboard.

To start, I’ve thoroughly been enjoying waking up to the sound of Arkaik‘s debut album “Reflections Within Dissonance.” Let me be the first to tell you that there’s nothing quite like waking up headbanging, pumped with fresh glass scraping my inner eardrum. I’m not a man of genres – in this day and age it can mean a gruesome, bloody death (preferably by Beheading and Burning, but fingernail removal is fine too) — so know that the bloodier my descriptions are, the higher the recommendation is.

The title track Reflections Within Dissonance definitely rips your intestines out via bellybutton by sheer force once it lulls you into a false sense of “I’m only gonna lose a leg listening to this one.” They keep grinding at your teeth with a sander up until about halfway, when they break it all down and cause your gums to bleed. In fact, they manage to do a great job of balancing shredding your arms with a cheese grater and shattering your ears with an icepick and technicality all the way to the end.

Another one of my personal favorites, Obscured Luminosity, keeps things more in the technical realm compared to other songs, meaning each brutal stroke of the guitar and pounding of the bass pedal is like a sledgehammer to a kneecap. When it does get brutal, they’re merely taking a table saw to your jaw. The ultimate climax comes when the bassist decides that the table saw isn’t enough and rips a short — but eyeball popping — solo. After that, you’ll never look at the album in the same way again.

Then there’s Elegy for the Disillusioned, where you feel like there’s wave after wave of sewing needles being shot at your face. They keep the thrashing and breakdowns transitioning so rapidly smooth you won’t even notice you’re being swept away by a tidal wave made of acid – be sure to hang on to your skin.

There you have it – it’s up to you to decide whether you can go without a couple spare limbs for a while. Overall, the album gets a gore cleanup rating of an hour and a half in my book. Still a couple of stains that won’t come out of the carpet, but I don’t mind the maggots.

Now, for the question of the week: “If you could go to any concert, and could time travel, what would it be?” Three people replied with their responses:

“Dude, if I could time travel I’d go to  the future and watch Dethklok destroy everything!”  – DJ Nick
“I’d have Overkill and Kreator start the concert, then have Motörhead and Manowar. Even though it’s pretty much impossible.” - Metal Commander
“If I could choose… it would be Nile.” – 9th Priest

There you have it, cannibals. Check out the next show to hear the question of the week, and come back to read a review of Borknagar‘s “Universal”. You might even get lucky and see pictures of the Cannibal Corpse concert at Volume 11! To end on a lighter note, I leave you with this:

There are many great metal albums that were released in the decade known as the 1990s. However when you ask many metal heads to name some of their favorite albums, and what they think some of the best ones are, you generally hear the same albums listed. Generally the albums mentioned are Death’s Human, Sepultura’s Arise, Carcass’ Heartwork, Megadeth’s Rust In Peace, Cannibal Corpse’s Tomb of the Mutilated, Slayer’s South of Heaven, Blind Guardian’s Nightfall In Middle-Earth, Iced Earth’s Burnt Offerings and many many more. Now don’t get me wrong, these are all great albums and I enjoy them every time I listen to them. However everyone I talk to about this always seems to leave out one album, and not even mention it. Or if I do mention it, will say that they have not listened to it. This album is Strapping Young Lad’s City.

This is one hell of an album, and quite possibly one of the best albums of the 90s. Every song on this album flows perfectly, and Devin’s rage is controlled, but at the same time wild and untamed. From the opening bells of “Velvet Kevorkian”, we are set up to some of the most intense 40 minutes I have ever listened to. As soon as Devin kicks in screaming “HEY! I WANT TO BE WHERE THE ACTION IS!!”, we get a picture of the rage that Devin has pent up and he wants to release on us. With his tirade on how fucked up we are, and how much our society is pissing him off, we then get sucked into the vortex of “All Hail The New Flesh” with swirling guitars falling out as he wails into our ears with a piercing scream before telling us to go fuck ourselves.  With blistering guitars and drums just pelting us sonically we are then thrown to the ground to be kicked in the stomach by “Oh My Fucking God”.

This song adds to the one-two punch that goes with the song before it.  With the sound byte saying how they can’t fail, the drums suddenly kick in with a brutal solo, until Devin screams and his wall of sound comes in and blows us away with his guitars.  A nonsensical tirade of words that are nigh untelligable until he gets to the chorus screaming “OH MY FUCKING GOD!!” Until it suddenly cuts off and leaves us with “Detox” and quite possibly the catchiest song on the album. This song showcases perfectly all of Devin’s abilities. From his brutality to his ability to express his pain while still being heavy as hell. A catchy riff, and catchy lyrics make this a catchily brutal song.

As soon as the song quietly goes away, “Home Nucleonics” blows you away with a wail and blistering guitar wall. Belting to us about how we have failed as a society. With stop and go riffs, the song feels like it is picking you up and slamming you on the ground with its sonic assault. Constantly beating you until it dissolves into all the members of the bands screaming madly, fading into to “AAA” which is a catchy song about Devin’s various addictions, slowly building up intensity until it hits you square in the face with its chorus screaming “NO ONE! NO ONE FUCKS WITH ME!!”. “Underneath The Waves” then blasts us in the face with double bass pedals and Devin taunting us with his voice repeating “on and on”. Until kicking in with the signature wall of sound and Devin singing about how he’s tired of the shit of world, making this not only intense sonically, but also vocally. After this song, the album begins to slow down it’s sonic intensity for a more brooding intensity.

“Room 429″ is a cover of a Cop Shoot Cop song. It’s very dark and very mid tempo, but it still has all the intensity of the earlier tracks.  How dark and empty the city is, how we go through the motions of life. “Spirituality” is the final track of the album, with layers and layers of guitars stacked upon each other. This sheer heaviness of the stacked guitar tracks just seem to pile up on you, putting all the wait of city on you, making you feel overwhelmed. Which is the purpose of this album, to make you feel insignificant and tiny. That you are really nothing in this world, an insignificant speck in the grand scheme of things.

All these songs are catchy and instantly memorable. As soon as you hear one of these songs, you will be humming along with it, singing along with it, or just going buck wild. It is a classic album, and it should be remembered as one of the best albums of the 90s, if not one of the best metal albums ever made.

-Noobhammer

Picture: heavy-power metal holocaust by ~redalakchiri on deviantART

It is a GREAT time to be a metal head. There are so many new albums coming out this year, as well as concerts touring the US.

Out of all the years I have been a metal head, the 08-09 year has been one of the best. I have seen Symphony X playing with Into Eternity and Epica. I have watched Iced Earth play with Into Eternity. I have seen Suffocation. I have seen the almighty Carcass play with Suffocation, Aborted, and 1349. I have seen the black metallers Watain. I will be seeing Soilwork with Darkane and Swallow The Sun. Soon I will see Kreator with Exodus, as well as Dragonforce with Cynic. I have never seen so many great concerts coming through. I didn’t get a chance to go see At The Gates with Darkest Hour, but they toured as well.

The only thing better than concerts this year was albums. There were so many great albums released in 08-09.

Alestorm-Captain Morgan’s Revenge
Avantasia-The Scarecrow
Ayreon-01011001
Ghenghis Tron-Board Up The House
Death Angel-Killing Season
Boris-Smile
Meshuggah-oBzen
Zimmer’s Hole-When You Were Shouting At The Devil…
Korpiklaani-Korven Kuningas
The Sword-Gods of the Earth
Arsis-We Are The Nightmare
Belphegor-Bondage Goat Zombie
Dominici-O3:A Trilogy, Part 3
Kalmah-For The Revolution
Warrel Dane-Praises To The War Machine
Deicide-Til Death Do Us Part
Testament-The Damnation of Formation
Moonspell-Night Eternal
Cryptopsy-The Unspoken King
Kataklysm-Prevail
Ihsahn-angL
Opeth-Watershed
Pyramaze-Immortal
Sabaton-The Art of War
Norma Jean-The Anti Mother
The Human Abstract-Midheaven
Dragonforce-Ultrabeatdown
Into Eternity-The Incurable Tragedy
Iced Earth-The Crucible of Man
Amon Amarth-Twilight of the Thunder God
Swallow The Sun-Plague of Butterflies
Evergrey-Torn
Battlelore-The Last Alliance
Psycroptic-Ob(Servant)
Jeff Loomis-Zero Order Phase
Bloodbath-The Fathomless Mastery
Unearth-The March
Darkthrone-Dark Thrones and Black Flags
Darkane-Demonic Art
Cradle of Filth-Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder
The Faceless-Planetary Duality
Cynic-Traced in Air

And that is all 2008. 2009 looks to be as good, if not even better.

Grave Digger-Ballads of a Hangman
Iron Fire-To The Grave
Kreator-Hordes of Chaos
Saxon-Into The Labyrinth
Cattle Decapitation-The Harvest Floor
Rumpelstiltskin Grinder-Living for Death, Destroying the Rest
Sepultura-A-lex
Napalm Death-Time Waits For No Slave
Vision Divine-9 Degrees West of the Moon
Cannibal Corpse-Evisceration Plague
Luna Mortis-The Absence
God Forbid-Earthsblood
Obscura-Cosmogenesis
Hammerfall-No Sacrifice, No Victory
Suidakra-Crógacht
Absu-Absu
Buried Inside-Spoils of Failure
My Dying Bride-For Lies I Sire
Mastodon-Crack The Skye
Wolves In The Throneroom-Black Cascade

It’s a good time to love metal my friends.

Keep The Horns Rising Brothers and Sisters
-Noobhammer

The cookie made me do it.

Many people refer to the vocal style used in death metal as “Cookie Monster vocals.” As a metalhead, I don’t usually use this term, but I am aware of the similarities between the voices of death-metal-ers like Chris Barnes (Cannibal Corpse, Six Feet Under) and the ravenous blue Muppet.

Although I haven’t watched “Sesame Street” in many years, I do remember Cookie Monster…and I believe there may be other links between Cookie Monster and Death Metal music.

Both Cookie Monster and death metal bands are obsessed with particular subjects. But instead of incessantly blathering about cookies, death metal bands tend to stick to their lyrical guns (knives, ice picks, etc.) and write sinister and disturbing music about destruction, mutilation, and of course, death.

This got me to thinking: are cookies evil? Maybe not, but, I know firsthand that they can definitely be used for evil.

When I was a kid, every winter my mom would buy those assorted butter cookies that come in a big blue tin. I always thought it wasn’t much of an assortment because four out of the five varieties tasted exactly the same (though they did come in different shapes).

The only cookies in the tin that I could tolerate were the chocolate chip ones; they were better than the taste-alike ones, but were poor representatives of the chocolate chip cookie ilk. My sister, on the other hand, liked the cookies, and chocolate chip were her favorite, too – they were always the first to go. Just like when we got Neapolitan ice cream: the chocolate portion always disappeared first.

Anyway, one early winter afternoon, I came home to find the first cookie tin of the season sitting on our kitchen table and I had an idea. I grabbed the tin and ran up to my room, emptied its contents onto my bed, and waited for my sister to get home. When she arrived, I snuck back downstairs with the empty tin under my shirt. I caught a glimpse of my sister reclining on the living room couch as I ran into the kitchen.

I placed the cookie tin on the stove and turned the burner on high. After about a minute I figured that the tin was hot enough and I removed it from the flame with potholders and put it on the kitchen table where I had first found it.

I strolled into living room with a satisfied smile on my face and informed my sister that there was a tin of cookies in the kitchen. She immediately headed for them, as I knew she would. Seconds later, I heard a scream and the sound of a hot aluminum hitting dirty linoleum.

Why did I do it? Well, because I was a kid and it seemed hilarious at the time. But…were there any underlying factors at play? Did I do it because my mind had been corrupted by years of listening to death metal?

Nah. I think the real reason is something that crazy blue Muppet knows all too well…those butter cookies are evil.