Artist Interview | Page 42 | Revolver

Artist Interview

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Machine Head have premiered a new music video for "Now We Die." Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments!

The track comes off the band's recently released album, 'Bloodstone & Diamonds.'

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Marilyn Manson has announced his next album,'The Pale Emperor,' will be released on January 20. Check out the track list and artwork below.

The Antichrist Superstar released a single, "Third Day Of A Seven Day Binge," in late October. Listen to it here.

Track list:
1. Killing Strangers
2. Deep Six
3. Third Day of a Seven Day Binge
4. The Mephistopheles of Los Angeles
5. Warship My Wreck
6. Slave Only Dreams To Be King
7. The Devil Beneath My Feet
8. Birds of Hell Awaiting
9. Cupid Carries a Gun
10. Odds of Even
11. Day 3 (Deluxe Edition Only)
12. Fated, Faithful, Fatal (Deluxe Edition Only)
13. Fall of the House of Death (Deluxe Edition Only)

'The Pale Emperor' can be pre-ordered on iTunes.

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The Dead Rabbitts, featuring Escape the Fate's Craig Mabbitt, released their latest album 'Shapeshifter' earlier this year, and tonight (Friday, November 7) the band kicks off its tour with The Word Alive. Today, the group has teamed up with Revolver to premiere a new music video for "Deer in the Headlights." Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments!

To get 'Shapeshifter,' visit iTunes and the band's merchstore. To get tickets for the show, visit here. For more on The Dead Rabbitts, follow them on Facebook.

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We caught up with Carla Harvey and Heidi Shepherd of Butcher Babies backstage at Knotfest and discussed working on their new full length album, tour life and their new creepy video.

Check out the video below and let us know what you think in the comments.

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Leading up to the end of the year, Revolver has asked some of our favorite artists to pick their Top Albums of 2014. Here, Corey Taylor, vocalist of Slipknot and Stone Sour, selects his faves.

Slipknot released '.5: The Gray Chapter' earlier this year.

 

 

Interview by J. Bennett

The fascinating and poignant new documentary 'Death Metal Angola' tells the story of Sonia Ferreira—a war survivor, lover of rock music, and mother to 55 orphans—as she and her partner, death-metal musician Wilker Flores, launch Angola's first-ever national rock concert. Their dream is to help their country recover from decades of war, through the power of music and their love for one another. 'Death Metal Angola' follows Sonia and Wilker's story, giving audiences a look at a rock show off the grid that is fulfilling, haunting, and real.

The doc is going on to play over 70 festivals worldwide and will be released on November 7 at the AMC Burbank 8. It will also opens on November 21s at Cinema Village in New York City. For more informaiton, visit www.deathmetalangola.org/. Below, we talk to director Jeremy Xido about his eye-opening and heart-rending film.

REVOLVER You initially went to Angola to research a film about a railway, but ended up making a film about music after a chance meeting in a cafe. Given the massive left turn you took from your original idea, do you see 'Death Metal Angola' as a happy accident, or do you think there's more to it than that? 
JEREMY XIDO That's a really interesting question, because I've always said that I made this film by total accident, but when I think more deeply about it, stumbling across 'Death Metal Angola' actually enabled the core of the story I was originally exploring with the train film to emerge in a particularly unexpected and vibrant way: What does rebirth in the aftermath of tremendous devastation look like? And how is Africa in the 21st more complex, more vibrant, more surprising and modern than people outside of the continent usually imagine? As I was traveling through the country researching the train film, I kept coming across ghost stories, everywhere I turned I was somehow confronted by tensions between the burning desire for progress or ultra-modernity and the restless ghosts of the past. In a way, the story was stalking me and eventually made itself known that afternoon when I ran into Wilker Flores at that cafe.  It was the story that needed to be told and the world and kismet sort of reveled the best way to tell it.  And of course, it was nothing like what I expected.

What were your initial impressions of the film's primary subjects, Wilker and Sonia, and why did you decide to make a film about them? 
Wilker: Soft spoken and fiercely intelligent. Something almost conservative in his demeanor, mild mannered wearing a button down oxford shirt and Khaki pants, which totally belies a deep well of passion and ferocity. He has a capacity to open worlds with his music. He is a gate keeper between this world and something else, something quite profound. He is one of those living lessons that things are almost never what they seem at first glance.

Sonia: A force of nature. Also fiercely intelligent with the most tremendous capacity to love and truly see the essence of people around her that I've ever encountered in my life. She is able to reflect people's best sides and best possibilities back to them so they can imagine and fulfill their own potential for greatness and decency.  She is equal parts master mediator and tenacious fighter. And above all, she is a survivor, possessing the willpower and intelligence to not only protect herself, but to shepherd 55 boys on her own through one of the most brutal wars the world has seen.

Wilker invited me to hear him play that night after we met in the cafe in Huambo. I pulled up to the bombed out milk factory that houses the Okutiuka center for children on a night without electricity. Wilker had syphoned power from a neighbor and was able to plug in his amplifier, but no microphone. I had arrived with some Chinese construction workers in one of their SUVs and we lit the courtyard with the headlights. After a little while Wilker began to play.  Electric guitar and acoustic vocals. It was harrowing and powerful and as I saw shadows of children running around and listened to the sounds of the guitar pealing off into the sky, it felt like I had landed in some sort of nexus of past and future, of something primal as well as part and parcel of the 21st century.  I knew that I had walked into an experience which shattered expectations and my idea about how the world worked.

But it wasn't until a year later, when I was headed back to Angola and called up Wilker and Sonia to let them know I was coming, that they told me that they were organizing the first ever national rock concert. And then matter of factly, they told me that I was going to film it.  No discussion.  Just smiles

So really, they decided we were going to make this film. And given what I experienced that first night, I was powerless to resist.

Africa is one of the last places one would expect death metal to take root. Why do you think it has in Angola? 
If you were to ask Wilker, he would be very clear to trace the history of Rock back to it's origins in Africa—following rhythms that emerged on the continent, which somehow miraculously survived the middle passage, only to then survive the brutality of slavery in the Americas, to emerge and take form in racist post-slavery America, and slowly travel it's way all over the world, experiencing all sorts of permutations only to eventually return home to Africa. For Wilker, metal was born in Africa and is a traditional African music.

Why extreme metal in particular has taken hold in Angola is very deep question requiring a long answer—one which would have to delve into the history of Rock in both war-torn Africa as well as fascist Europe. I'm not sure I'm the best person to tell this story, but I can share a couple of thoughts.

I'm going to spit ball here, but this might be one way to think of it: I believe Metal and rock in Angola is wrapped up with kids who escaped the Civil War and ended up in Portugal right after the dictator Salazar was overthrown. This was a period of youthful rebirth in Portugal and rock was at the center of this youth culture. Because of Salazar, Rock came to Portugal a bit later than other places in Europe. There were some Angolan musicians who this music resonated with and they brought it back with them to Angola. Sonia remembers every single one of these bands, and this music gave people a sense of staying-power. It helped them resist the war and abuse around them.  But because of the war and lack of communication inside the country, it could never fully take root and find a sustainable audience. So as the musicians now say, there were periods of emergence and disappearance of rock throughout the years. It wasn't until the end of the war that it actually took firm hold.  And this is the moment they are experiencing now.

It could take hold because of things that come with peace: communication infrastructure, access to information, ability to travel and congregate, ability to connect with the outside world. With the advent of internet technologies, musicians in different parts of the country were able to actually connect with each other for the first time, share music and influences, organize concerts, etc. As the roads were repaired, people could actually travel and get together.  Rock is a live phenomenon.  You need concerts for it to grow and thrive.  This was only really possible in the aftermath of the wars.

Why extreme metal? Hmmm…maybe this is the stage that comes after the sad music. The scream comes after the tears. Metal is a form that can move them into the future not by denial of the past, but by actively taking it on. How can people confront ghosts head on and come out standing? Maybe this is what metal offers.

Extreme metal is a form that can withstand the stories they have to tell. Whereas northern European Death Metal lyrics tend towards the mythical and phantasmagoric, in an Angolan context, they are almost journalistic. They reflect stories that the musicians have either experienced themselves or heard told by family. Stories about love ones being killed in the apartment where the entire family was hiding and rotting before everyone's eyes. Stories of dogs eating someone's mother or cousin in front of their eyes.  People watching their own limbs getting blown off. And worse. Extreme metal in an Angolan context, with its stylisic tendency towards the macabre, is a place where it is permissible to not only tell these stories, but to scream them, to infuse them with the full force of what they demand. And this happens in a social context. It is a shared experience.

This is of course cathartic, but it is also empowering. The music itself gives a feeling of power. And to be powerful while confronting these stories which are potentially disempowering, depredating and terrifying, is perhaps a profound way to rewire experience and remain standing.  And to move forward as opposed to being crushed by the weight of injustice and terror. And ultimately, through this and on the other side of this is joy and love.

Finally I think this music has taken hold is because of it's capacity to bring people together and require them to educate one another. Playing music is hard. It requires practice. It requires negotiating with other musicians. It requires organizing. It requires imagining the future and communicating with other people. All of these basic aspects of social interaction were destroyed during nearly 40 years of continual war. They are currently in a period of re-construction, and playing live music, teaching one another, negotiating personalities, pulling off events, etc all are aspects of reconstructing society and starting to write a new history. The music is extremely life affirming. Coming together and being part of something powerful plays a fundamental role in a society getting back on its feet and beginning to thrive.  It is extraordinarily social.

Perhaps it is this mix elements which has allowed the music to take a foothold. Again, I'm not the one to be asking.  Sonia and Wilker and the others would definitely be able to answer this in some brilliant way. And perhaps the film itself does this.

What was it like shooting a film in Huambo?  It seems like a much more difficult setting—logistically and otherwise—than a typical urban environment in North America or Europe. 
In a lot of ways Huambo reminds me of where I grew up in Detroit.  Just they physical devastation and organizational complexities of the city felt quite familiar.  That peculiar mix of trauma and resilience in people.  There were of course infrastructural issues like a compromised electrical grid, losing power, etc.  But that wasn't such a big deal at the end of the day.  The bureaucracy in Angola on the other hand is unlike anything I've experienced anywhere on the planet, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

All this said, working with Okutiuka and The Association of Angolan Rock was an absolute dream.  Landing in this community enabled us in so many ways to bypass all sorts of difficulties and it gave me a huge appreciation for the power of banding together. I loved the musicians as well as the kids. And this made being in Huambo a lot like being at home.

And just like being at home, there were occasional run-ins with police. On one occasion we almost got one of the characters in the film court-martialed and on another the sound recordist, Oswald and I were arrested for asking the police permission to film something.  But with the help of our friends and some quick talking, we all came away unscathed...

From what I saw in the trailer, Huambo looks pretty devastated. Is it being rebuilt?  Is there any lingering violence from the civil war?
Even in these past couple of years between when we filmed and now, Huambo has made huge strides in being rebuilt.  It is really a gorgeous town with incredible architecture and wonderful people. While it is relatively easy to fix the facade of houses at this point, the lingering violence from the wars exists mostly in people—unresolved traumas, broken families, broken educational systems, etc. I believe this is where most of the work needs to be done now. And Sonia is very much at the forefront of pushing these essential issues. The tendency to just put paint on everything misses some of the bigger challenges, but with people like Sonia and others, the world is being rebuilt.  Slowly and without the official support necessary. But things are moving.

Just being over there must've been incredible.  How long were you there, and what do you think you gained from the experience, other than the film itself? 
I feel like I have a family there in Angola. With all of the difficulties and complications that come with family. But I have come to love Sonia and Wilker and the kids and I in turn feel loved. On a very human level, it has been a remarkable experience.

Also, growing up in Detroit, metal was always something the white kids in the suburbs listened to. And I resisted it. It wasn't until I met these guys and actually saw what it was about, that I allowed it in. Now I love it. So, my music collection has expanded exponentially :)

Do you still plan to make a film about the railway? 
The attempts to make the railway film have turned into a three-part performance project which has toured the world.  It is called The Angola Project (www.angola-project.com). And this will be filmed.  It is coming!

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Los Angeles doom-metal act Ides of Gemini, featuring Revolver scribe J. Bennett on guitar, released their second album, 'Old World New Wave.' earlier this year via Neurot Recordings. Today, the band's vocalist-bassist Sera Timms discusses the album, track by track. Check it what she has to say below, and let us know what you think in the comments.

To get 'Old World New Wave,' visit Neurot's website. For more on Ides of Gemini, visit their Facebook.

For any of this to make sense I have to first explain the concept of the album, which traces the symbolic-psychological breakdown of a character over 10 days. We're working within the structures of psycho-spiritual alchemical transformation, utilizing Carl Jung's school of analytical psychology (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus)

Essentially we have a story of the psychological conflict of opposing forces (yin-yang, male/female/dark light, etc.) each driven by desire. The masculine archetype in this story desires control and structure, while the feminine archetype desires recognition and equality as it has been repressed in the "Old World." Our protagonist is the Emperor (based creatively on the last Emperor of Constantinople) who represents the ego, masculine, solar consciousness along with control, structure, domination, force and power.

The feminine is the lunar consciousness represented by wise, savage, angry, vengeful, seductive, manipulative, melancholy feminine archetypes, as well as innocent, helpless, and naive aspects as well. The "New Wave" is the wave of the lunar tide washing over and destroying the "Old World," cleansing it of its false beliefs and starting over. This will be when one lets go of it's ascribed ego identity-in this case masculine—to allow the subverted feminine shadow (anima) to arise out of the depths of the subconscious and return to a whole, balanced, harmonious state of being.

All the songs are told through the Emperor's voice or one of the repressed archetypes in his subconscious over a period of 10 days. The first day track is missing and will be revealed on a forthcoming 7-inch but a description of the missing 1st track is essential in order for the songs after it to truly makes sense within this fictional story.

Day 1: (song not yet released)
This is where the Emperor realizes that a force stronger than him is threatening his empire. When his military strength is failing he sneaks outside the walls of the city into a gypsy encampment. These gypsies trace their lineage back to ancient Carthage, and the priestesses of Tanit or Dea Caelistas still reign over spiritual and magical matters. It is said that they have power to move the sun and moon, to command eclipses and are skilled astrologers. But the reason the Emperor has come here is because he's heard that Tanit will send her aid in military strength if a pure child is sacrificed to her. So he brings his little girl, whom he had out of wedlock with one of the harem girls from Circassia.

He places his arms around his daughter in a loving clasp over her chest as she peers into the fire below a bronze Tanit statue, and then when a dog starts howling at the sky he strangles the child and shoves her into the fire.
The Priestesses have been watching all along, and he's unaware that they have a long running hatred of him because he is the last of a long line of "Constantines" and therefore carries the karma of the original Emperor Constantine, who had his wife—who was a priestess of Minerva (moon Goddess)—"disappeared." He also murdered one of his other wives and did plenty of other terrible things. The Emperor returns home that night feeling defeated and foolish, ready to forget the whole episode, regretting leaving his empire walls.

1. Black Door
Day 2: The Emperor awakes at dusk in his room where he sees a black door on the wall that was not there before. The door opens and a beautiful woman veiled in black walks out. She is the mythological-astrological Black Moon Lilith who urges him to partner with her and the lyrics are what she says to him.

He goes back to sleep after this, and writes it off as a bad dream. But a door in his consciousness has been opened by beginning a dialogue with the feminine shadow when he sacrificed his child to her (see Day 1).

2. The Chalice & The Blade
Day 3: This is the underworld anima as a destroyer aspect (i.e.: Hecate/Kali) coaxing the sacrificed little girl to leave her physical earth-based body identity and enter into the underworld womb of the Mother so that she may be immortal and cross between realms at her will. The Emperor sees this as a dream.

3. Seer of Circassia
Day 4: The Emperor returns to the harem girl, who is a seeress, and the sacrificed child's mother. She's disgusted by him now that he killed their child. Before he took the child he supported the seeress with much financial assistance for her and their child, but the relationship was primarily sexual and psychic. She helped him because keeping him strong and informed of threats was in her best interest as well. She must now maintain politeness as she is essentially a slave, but while they're intimate she sends him visions of his demise and all of he crimes he's committed. Afterward he begs her for help, and she says that the only way she will consider helping him is if he tears down the Tanit (Lunar Goddess of Carthage) statue and turns the spot into a proper grave with a White Hart statue symbolizing the innocence of their young girl.

4. White Hart
Day 5: In an attempt to end his "conversation" with the anima and get a spell from the Seer of Circassia, the Emperor sends a knight to the Tanit site to tear down the statue and place the White Hart statue in its place. The seer wanted this statue erected as a symbol of the benefic moon Goddess Diana/Artemis, so that Diana would protect her daughter. The song is sung by the little girl's ghost as she is awoken by the digging, hammering and erecting of the new statue. At first she believes this Emperor's knight has come to save her as the knight's hammer pulls her body towards earth, and imagines herself as his bride… but in this twilight she is in a limbo state and changing from child to corpse to deer to bride to black bird. The man fades into the light of the golden sun illuminating the full moon.

5. May 22, 1453
Day 6: This one is a creative interpretation of the legendary eclipse that actually happened just days before Constantinople's fall, sung by a gypsy Priestess of Tanit living outside the walls of the empire of Constantinople. She's watching and listening to the empire during and after the lunar eclipse, which was conjured on the Emperor's initial visit to their camp (from Day 1), and confirmed when he tore down their Tanit statue. The Emperor is holding a midnight mass where he is also the priest but he loses control of his words, and begins speaking in tongues. The divinity speaking through him is not his God but a feminine presence. He's lost his empire, his identity, and his control. He wanders out of the city into the wilderness so the conquerors do not kill or imprison him.

6. The Adversary
Day 7: This is what the Emperor perceives as "the Devil" talking to him in the forest in a depraved and desperate psychological state. He has collapsed inside a circle of trees, and is growing weak from hunger and confusion.

7. Fememorde
Day 8: This song has nothing to do with what you find when you look up the title. We just liked the obvious reference to femininity and death that seem apparent in the word itself.  This is the Emperor's last chance to choose to acknowledge his anima or she will take him through death. She would prefer to have him, as spirits of the dead are her children, but celestial law forbids her from taking him forcefully through death.

8. Valediction
Day 9: The Emperor has left the "Old World" (Empire of Constantinople) for good and enters the waters of the "New Wave." Like the tide, water is governed by the moon, so he surrenders to this force now that he's been burnt by his own sun god through defeat. This is the Emperor's final dissolution of ego self by surrendering to his own anima, and therefore awakening momentarily to wholeness within himself and the illusion of duality.

While he's in the center of the grove, water has come from underground and pooled up over him as he lay on his side so the left half (feminine side) of him is submerged in the waters. Lightning strikes him (Tanit has sent this thunderbolt—her last resort) on the back of his neck and here is his forced psycho-spiritual awakening. He is permanently scarred with a Lichtenberg figure (look it up!) covering much of the right side (masculine side) of his back.

9: Scimitar
Day 10: The moon acting as the force of the anima has taken the Emperor first through water and then more forcefully through fire, as she has branded him with the dendritic lightning tree. After the pain he enters the strange victorious bliss of dissolution.

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By Jon Wiederhorn

By the end of 2011, Bill Gould was getting tired of playing the same old songs with Faith No More. The hugely influential alt-rock band had reunited in 2009 to play live shows, having broken up a year after the release of their sixth and most recent record, 1997's 'Album of the Year.' So the bassist filled his practice space in Oakland with recording gear and started tinkering with new song ideas. Drummer Mike Bordin and guitarist Jon Hudson joined him, and in early 2012, the trio was demoing new songs. While Faith No More keyboard Roddy Bottum and vocalist Mike Patton reacted favorably to the material, they were initially reluctant to get involved; Patton, for one, was deeply involved in other recordings and was hard pressed to find the time to be part of the process.

"There was a weird caginess they had where they didn't want to just jump in the ring," Gould recalls. "I started to think we were just doing this for ourselves. Then little by little, they warmed up to it and decided to contribute more."

In early 2012, Patton agreed to work with the band on the song "Matador," which Faith No More performed in concert that summer. Bottum, who lives in New York, started sending in keyboard parts for other songs via digital files, and Gould integrated them into the songs. Bottum eventually flew to Oakland to track piano. Then last year, Patton joined the process full bore. He sat down with the rest of the band, listened to all of the demos, and mapped out what he wanted to do with the vocals. Then he returned to his home studio to record. At present, Faith No More have around 10 songs tracked and another 15 in demo form.

The first official single is "Motherfucker," an offbeat track driven by marching drums, spare piano, echoey string scrapes, and half-sung vocals layered over a euphoric chorus. The song will be released as a limited-edition 7-inch single for Record Store Day Black Friday on November 28. Another track, "Cone of Shame," is "blues-based rock and roll," according to the bassist, with some "influences from Link Wray, Cramps, and a little black metal." But Gould's favorite song is still "Matador."

"Parts of it remind me of the first Siouxsie and the Banshees album," he says. "We used real pianos and that brings this organic quality to it to the music."

Like most everything Faith No More have done, the new album—which is due for release in April 2015—will follow the group's own singular vision, regardless of what fans and critics may want or not want it to be. "It'll be much different than everything else out there—but that's sort of the point," Gould says. "It's a combination of what we don't hear in the outside world and what we feel is lacking from other bands. And in the end, it will sound like Faith No More."

Chris Krovatin is the author of multiple young adult novels, including Heavy Metal & You, Venomous, and Gravediggers: Mountain of Bones. He also fronts the New York metal band Flaming Tusk. He is a contributing writer for Revolver and generally comes off as a good-natured pain in everyone's collective ass. This column represents his opinions–and probably only his opinions.

King Diamond with Jess & The Ancient Ones

October 24 at The Paramount, Denver, CO

  • My hometown: New York.
  • Reason I'm seeing the King in Denver: The New York show sold out in two hours, and anyway, my girlfriend lives here.
  • Reason I'm OK with seeing King Diamond in Denver: It is really fucking cool that King Diamond can sell out the Best Buy Theater in New York City in two hours in 2014. Who knew?
  • Types of local Colorado specialties enjoyed before the show: Blue Dream, Dopium.
  • Where these specialties were bought: At a store, where one should be able to obtain them in a civilized nation.
  • Number of fans in King Diamond makeup seen upon arrival: Eight.
  • Number of fans seen dressed in full King Diamond regalia: Two.
  • Number of badass Mercyful Fate backpatches witnessed: Approximately 25.
  • Most readily available beer at the Paramount: Coors.
  • Surprising fact about Denver: You think all that Coors Rocky Mountian bullshit is totally corporate. Not true. They fucking love Coors in Denver.
  • Best modern metal band from Denver: Speedwolf.
  • Reason why Speedwolf aren't opening for King Diamond tonight: Your guess is as good as mine, dude.
  • Sad realization of the night: This is a seated venue.
  • But let's be honest here: A Colorado King Diamond crowd is old and husky enough that seating might be preferable.
  • Tour openers: Jess & the Ancient Ones.
  • Contemporaries: The Devil's Blood, Mount Salem.
  • Why they're on this tour: Much like King Diamond, Jess & the Ancient Ones have kind of a groovy '70s-style approach to metal mixed with a very operatic lead singer.
  • Why they shouldn't be: This band is boring. They're operatic in vocal quality only—there's none of the weird, swooping, melodramatic umph that King Diamond's music possesses.
  • Bands better suited as modern-day King Diamond openers: Skull Fist, Electric Wizard, High Spirits, Tombs, Triptykon.
  • Cheapest King Diamond shirt available: $25.
  • Merch totally unavailable: King Diamond patches.
  • Possible explanations for this: They must have sold out earlier in the tour. Or maybe the box filled with the sweet, sweet King Diamond patches got shipped somewhere else accidentally. Maybe they're sewing them onto battle jackets in Fiji right now.
  • Random baked thought: Must be weird being a Fijian metalhead.
  • Stage pieces erected: Two staircases, two huge glowing inverted crosses, a gothic castle gate backdrop, and a wrought-iron gate at the front of the stage.
  • Coolest surprise set piece: The giant light-up Sigil of Baphomet that rises behind the whole thing—HOLY CRAP THIS IS AMAZING!
  • And now: King Diamond.
  • Equals: None.
  • The King's pipes: Fucking incredible, to this day. He can still hit those massive high falsettos like it was nothing.
  • Why King Diamond is cool to this day: He never, ever did anything to try and be cool.
  • Phrases that only King Diamond sounds metal saying: "I wanna show you my GRANDMA!" and "I'm thirsty—for TEA!"
  • Things seen during King's set: The bone-cross mic-holder, a horrible old Grandma, a woman losing her child, a woman becoming a living marionette, a 20-foot-tall backdrop of the King himself, and Grandma being burned alive in a Satanic coffin.
  • Ways in which this could get any better: I really can't see how this act could HOLY CRAP, THEY'RE PLAYING "EVIL!" KING DIAMOND IS SINGING "EVIL" ONSTAGE!
  • Mercyful Fate songs performed: "Evil" and "Come to the Sabbath."
  • King Diamond song I didn't know before this show and now adore: "Shapes of Black" off of Give Me Your Soul…Please.
  • Lesson learned from seeing King Diamond live: There is a way to be theatrical, gothic, somewhat ridiculous, entertaining, and at the same time totally metal. You just have to completely believe it.
  • Number of words in this review: Including the title and information, 666.
  • In closing: Hail to the King, baby.

We've just received the tragic news that Wayne Static, of industrial metal act Static-X, has passed away. While no official cause of death has been announced, the following message was posted at 11 P.M. on Static-X's Facebook page: Platinum-selling musician Wayne Richard Wells, better known as Wayne Static, passed away at the age of 48. Wayne Static was the enigmatic former frontman and namesake of Static-X, who later forged a successful solo career. Wayne was scheduled to co-headline tours with Powerman 5000 and Drowning Pool over the next several months. No additional information is available at this time." Our thoughts go out to his family and bandmates. UPDATE: Responding to rumors that Static died as a result of a drug overdose, publicist Nancy B. Sayles sent out the following press release:

Frontman and founding member Wayne Static of Static-X passed away quietly in his sleep at his home last night. The couple was getting ready to leave for a Fall/Winter tour this morning. They were to have left the night before on Halloween, but decided they would head out early in the morning November 1st. The couple, known for partying heavy, had left hard drugs in 2009 and had not touched them since. Static's first solo album — 'Pighammer' — was a tribute to his new non-drug life and hoped it would help others to get clean from hard chemical drugs. More official information about his passing will be released in the following days. This is not a drug related incident or an O. D. Please be courteous to his family and wife and leave positive messages

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