In praise of...

In metal circles it seems popular to slag off Metallica for:

• "selling out" - no, I don't know what it means either.
• releasing Load and Reload which a lot of fans didn't like - not me, I liked them very much...Bleeding Me off Load is absolutely one of Metallica's finest tracks.
• making the St.Anger album and accompanying movie "Some Kind of Monster".
• the crusade against Napster.
• simply not being as good as they once were.

All of the above may or may not be valid. But to me, a band that did Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets is entitled to do whatever the fuck they like and follow whatever path they choose.

I was listening to RTL and MOP on headphones last night. Probably the first time I've listened to them all the way through for two or three years.

Hetfield was still only 20 when RTL came out, Hammett was 21. They produced music that changed metal forever.

Without Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets there wouldn't have been...well, almost every metal band that has ever been since.

Something to bear in mind.

Oceansize are no more

Just heard the news that Oceansize has split up. I know they are just a bunch of guys in a band and that its not the end of the world...but it feels like it.

I got into them six years ago and over the course of four albums and a bunch of gigs they have been quite simply the greatest British rock band and a band that were special to me in a way that only a select group of bands, or possibly a select group of bands, has been.

It would not be appropriate to say that I am inconsolable but this has sure ruined my weekend.

In Mourning "Monolith"

Monolith sounds a good metal name, doesn't it? Well, I'm here to tell you that the album Monolith by In Mourning, a Swedish band pretty new to me, is as good a metal album as I have heard since...the last really good metal album I raved about.

If you like Opeth, and what right-thinking person would not, then you will love In Mourning. Its both brutal and beautiful, melodic and monstrous, and epic, without just being Opeth.

What is it about Swedish bands? Opeth, Meshuggah, Soilwork, Amon Amarth et al. And now In Mourning must be added to the list.

Go out and buy...okay, stay in and click a couple of buttons on Amazon...and buy Monolith immediately. Then, like me, you'll have to try and get a copy of their first album Shrouded Divine, which I listened to on we7 and it sounds equally magnificent.

Then all we have to do is convince the band to come and play in the UK.