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METALHEAD PODCAST

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METALHEAD PODCAST

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GO!

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You must listen.

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You must listen.

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You must listen.

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Now, here is the podcast, Metal Heads Podcast Go.

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Hello, and welcome to the Metal Heads Podcast. My name is George.

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This is Jay. Dramatic pause for Will. And next.

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This is John.

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This is the Matt situational paradox.

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And this is Markisan. And with us this afternoon is Ian Gillings, the guitarist, vocalist, synth master, producer, and ultra metal overlord of the progressive death metal band, Rand Hook. Dude, I gotta stop you right there because that's the first time I've heard his name out loud and I was like, fucking, we're talking to Ian Gillings. How many times have you heard that in your life? That somebody making a joke about that? Ian Gillings? Not many.

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Wow. Because, well, yeah, Deep Purple are quite an old band, so maybe. I thought that might be why. I don't know. We just dated ourselves. Yeah, we're old. Yeah, could be that, could be that. Well, welcome. Yeah, welcome. Thanks for coming on the show. Well, actually, the family name, they pronounce it with a soft G, so Jillings. But, yeah, but looking up where it comes from, I trace it back to, I mean, it might not be related to this at all, but I like

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to think that it is. There's in Nordic folklore, there's a giant called Gilling without the S. So being Nordic, that's going to be hard, hard on the G. And he's like a stupid giant that gets murdered. I like to think the name comes from there. Can we redo this? Because I want to introduce him as the stupid giant. Do you trace your own lineage back to Nordic countries?

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I have no idea. I'm in England. So it's a bit of a bastard country really to be

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honest. There's um like you might have raped somebody way back in your family line. Maybe yeah probably it's very likely so you know you're going to have Germanic Saxon and there's going to be Celtic in there definitely Celtic because um my hair coloring there's certainly some Irish in there without a doubt and Scottish and things so it's just yeah I call myself a UK man. Northern Europe.

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I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't

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Yeah, I'm like English, Irish, Scotch, French, whatever. Scotch. You should never say, if you go to the land of the Scotch. But I like to drink Scotch. I would say I'm Scott. Yes. Always say Scott or Scottish, but never Scotch. Yeah. What happens if you make a mistake? They stab you, probably. That would be cool. I could be like,

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It says, I went to Scotland and all I got was stabbed. Stabbed and glassed and headbutted, yeah. Ian, that's really funny. You should say that. Jay will know this. If you were a traveler and you went to San Francisco, I'm from San Francisco, and you said, man, we really like your town. Frisco is really cool. You might not escape from some people there. That's just so taboo to say that. So when you said that about Scotch, that made me think of that. That's great. Nobody fucking says that. But yet, Vegas, I think you can get away with.

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Like, it's weird. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's... I like that. Well, as you're watching... You say it disturbs me, John, even though you said it as a... I feel dirty now, Jay. So anyway, there's a reason why Ian is here. Yes. It might have something to do with music. Maybe. Yeah, well, I mean, the reason he's on is because, you know, I love the Rannoch album, Conflagrations. It was in my top 10. It was even higher on John's top 10, and it was...

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is number 12, I believe, on the Metalheads podcast official top 25. So I thought it would be really cool to have Ian on the show, the first one of 2024, to talk about that record because it did score so high. And also he was on the Endless Metal podcast, and I'm friends with Ben, who does that. And Ian's a talker, and I was like, he's perfect for this podcast. So yeah, man, we really love the record. And why don't we just, we can start with that actually, is, you know, you got the

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from us and lots of other places in metal circles. What do you think about the reception that the record has gotten? Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, thanks for the kind words from you guys. It's always interesting to hear people's takes. And certainly when people rank it so highly amongst all the other bands' releases in a year, it's just staggering, really, to be honest.

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get through all the new albums that are released. I don't know how some of you guys do it. I honestly don't. But yeah, to be considered on people's top tens of the year and best song of the year and that kind of thing is just, it's, it's, yeah, it's quite staggering. It's unbelievable, really, to be honest. I remember I posted something when the album came out and I'm not sure if it's you or anyone else in the band, but as the band, you guys do actually comment quite a bit on some of our new music Fridays.

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things in our album. Yes, I do. Okay, so is it you that does that? Yeah, it's me, yeah. So anything on Instagram. Paul Bass Player sometimes comments on things as himself, but everything that comes from the band is coming from me. Okay, and I remember that when the album came out and I was just gushing about, we'll at some point talk about it, the final song on the album, Affinity to a Dying Star, and I remember saying, this song alone is going to put this album,

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I can't see it getting anywhere out of my top five. And I remember you saying, well, there's a lot of good albums out there this year. Well, it finished four on my list. But it was great to hear that because there are other people we've had on, specifically Ed from The Anchor It, who has been commenting on a bunch of stuff and a lot of your posts, too. I mean, he's pretty visible out there. It just is funny how at that time those two albums came out and it seems like you guys comment a lot.

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Yeah, I mean, Ed, because, yeah, he does everything for the Anchor as well. Yeah, we kind of have a bit of a love circle going on, I think. Yeah, it's pretty funny, actually, because anytime you post something, I almost know Ed's going to be already commenting or liking it. Cheers to Ed! Yeah, it is to Ed. I'm curious to know, can I ask you, we do watch, but it's just like the amount of albums that come out, the amount of lists that come out is huge, too.

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So you charted in a bunch of places, in other words. Yes, we did. So other notable lists would be No Clean Singing. Yeah, I saw that one. We were on a couple of those. You're on the Prague subway. I saw that one just came out. Yeah, we were on one of those guys' lists, which was excellent because they're very Prague-focused. Yeah, that's exactly why I brought them up. They didn't actually get,

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the album from the promotional company. So they contacted me and said, can we get the album? So I was like, oh, I thought these guys are sent it around to the prog sites as well, but they haven't. So I made sure they sent it around to the prog sites. So yeah, they got that in the end. So thankfully they asked for it. Otherwise they may not have featured us so highly. Yeah. So why don't we just go back to the beginning? Like, how did you even start playing metal?

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When did you first get into it? Oh my god, okay. I was, well, I guess when I first thought, I'd like to play guitar. It was when I was 12 or something like that, and I listened to Queen and Brian May. Oh yeah. So Brian May was my first like guitar interest. So I got hold of a crappy acoustic with nylon strings and like a three inch action on the fretboard.

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And I joined the guitar group at my school. We played like All the Saints Go Marching In and that kind of thing. And I just didn't have a clue what I was doing. And there was no one around that could really show me what to do, really. And then I put it back in the cupboard and forgot about it. And then I guess I was probably 14 or so. And then you start seeing kids older than you.

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and I made and things like that. And I think it was the Iron Maiden covers that piqued my interest. It was probably Seventh Son of a Seventh Son album cover. And I was also a bit of a Warhammer nerd at the time. I don't know if we have fellow Warhammer nerds in this collective. Some of you look like you could be. Yeah, I used to build art. I haven't done it in a long time. Yeah, yeah. So I was well into that. So all the artwork and the grim,

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It wasn't called Grim Dark then, but that kind of Grim Dark artwork kind of pulled me. That kind of fantasy kind of... Did you get into Bolt Thriller through that? Well, no, but I do have a small Bolt Thriller story. I'll come to that in a second, remind me. It's not a brilliant story, but it is a story. Yeah, it was seeing those t-shirts and album covers that piqued my interest. And then I think I got Peace Cell, not Peace Sells, Rust in Peace.

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was my very first metal album. It's a bit of a staggering place to start because that's a high bar. As they say, there's a lot of downfall from there. Yeah. Marty Friedman's playing on that is just, yeah, it, well, to a 14 year old ear who doesn't know how to play guitar and that's their first metal album. It's just like a mind melting experience. And then I think after that, it was Iron Maiden, Number of the Beast was my second.

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album. Oh, well, come on. I mean, you're still, you can't be doing any better. You're back a thousand so far. I mean, you must have been like sold. I'm like, well, that's it. That's it. And so then I'm like, I need to play guitar. I need to do this. And so I bought an electric guitar, real shitty Yamaha electric guitar, and then got some lessons from a local guitar tutor and went from there, got into more guitar based stuff like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani.

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and kind of absorbed all of that kind of thing along with the metal. Being a Friedman fan, did you listen to Scenes? Yes, I do have that. I freaking love that album. That was like, when that came out, that was so mind-blowingly beautiful. It was ridiculous. It's really clean, all the clean playing. Yeah, I did have Scenes. I have to comment really quick, if you don't mind, and it goes all the way back to the beginning, but it's something that I've kind of mentioned on this podcast before, and I think all bands are international, the big ones especially, obviously.

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But I think so often in America you hear Van Halen and stuff when it's a certain age like that was a guy who got me in guitar. It is staggering to me the amount of people who's like Queen was my first fucking band from UK. People from UK, Queen is like the fucking rock band. As they should be. When you were a kid but also your parents had these albums. Yeah, sure. There's an original at my parents' house, there's an original Night at the Opera LP kicking around somewhere because that album must have been in every

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Every Single Household. They joke about Frampton Goes Alive. You know, the Waynesworld joke about, is it Waynesworld joke about Frampton Goes Alive? Yes. I think it's the same with Night of the Opera. Totally. Yeah, but it's funny to me too, because like, well, I read Rob Halford's book, we all did, I'm sure, in the last year or two, and like Priest and other bands like that, they worshipped them. They fucking worshipped Queen, man. They, you know, Rob Halford for a while tried to steer Priest into being Queen, basically. So anyway, it's just always interesting to me that they have such a huge

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huge profile in England. And still, there's still really good. And still to this day. Pardon my digression there. Yeah, they still made it up to Number of the Beast, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, yeah, Number of the Beast. There we go. And then I made and became my favorite band at that point. I think probably just because they ran around. They had monsters coming on stage. Monsters coming behind the stage. They still do. They still do. The artwork was a bit edgy. So which is your favorite maiden album?

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Margaret Thatcher's head being chopped off or whatever. That's killers, isn't it? I think it was on a single. No, it's a single. Women in Uniform? No, it's not that either. It's women in Uniform. I think it's like women in Uniform. I thought that those two were connected because I thought that's the hand that's gripping Eddie. But I could be wrong. I thought women in Uniform Thatcher was like some sort of thug. Well, women in Uniform.

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wasn't on the album, was it? No, it was just a single. Yeah, so it was a single for Women in Uniform, and let's see what the B-side is here. Well, I'll continue on, and I'll get back with this, because this is actually fun. But yes, Killer's album cover, there is a hand coming up, grabbing his shirt. Which, to me, is still... I thought that I had read that. You know what that could also be? It could be anecdotal, where somebody was saying, oh, this is what it is, because of the time that it came out and everything. No, I got it. In the Sanctuary single, he's actually

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Standing Over. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. It's pretty nasty. I think we kept you from saying what your favorite Maiden record was. Oh, God. I mean, I don't know. I think probably my heart is telling me Power Slave. Okay, cool. I was going to say, just say, Brother Beast and get it over with, but that's a good choice. I think Power Slave is a better album than that. That's my pick too. Yeah. And then after Power Slave,

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Oh, I don't know. I don't know. They kind of, they all feel quite equal between Somewhere in Time and Seventh Son and Peace of Mind, maybe. That kind of era. Yeah. Well, they basically just made one great record in the 80s. And what I mean, there's one great long four album record, you know. Oh, yeah. From Beast to Seventh Son is pretty damn consistent and high bar consistent for that matter. Yeah. Yeah.

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And then, yeah, things started to, the wheels started to come off. Just a little. So let's find out where you start turning into your reaction to more extreme versions of metal in your timeline. Well, yeah, but I mean, that may come later. That may come later. So you got the Yamaha and you started learning stuff. What happened next? I just started to, well, I played in like a school band, which was just a shitty band. And there was a kid from school that played key

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And we both got into dream theater. And we would just drill dream theater albums back to back, just play them through. So I started doing that. I guess that's when I started getting more advanced with my playing, or at least attempting to be more advanced with my playing. And so it was from this kid that I was playing with that I was learning about time signatures and that kind of thing. And then, yeah, just started to

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I want to get a band going, but it's taken quite a long time to get to the stage where we are now, where I put an album out and it's seen worldwide. You know, so there's a lot of years in the wilderness of plugging away and trying to work out what music I want to create. Are you there now, though? Yeah, I think so. I think so. Certainly from the first round,

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Yeah, it felt right on the first Rannock album. And then it's kind of progressed from there. So listening back to the first Rannock album now, it does feel, what I was saying to the guys the other night, to me it feels a little bit pedestrian now. That's not unusual for people to... Yeah, I think that people feel that. But I've lived with that music for a long time. Yeah, I had a band previous to Rannock, which we were in for quite a few years, and then it kind of morphed.

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into Rannock. So people left, people joined. And then in the end, it was a whole different band. So we decided to change it up. Was it a similar style or did you change styles? Well, I guess my previous band, it was almost like it didn't really know what it wanted to be. So it was kind of, what did I say on the other podcast? Cradle of Filth meets Pearl Jam. How about that? Okay. Interesting.

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No, it wasn't. It wasn't interesting. Just take a Danny Phil thinking even flow right now. Yes. Yeah. Imagine just that. So the recordings of that, some people, they're out there somewhere, but they were only ever on a CDR and that's where they will remain. And then we did a couple of demos as Rannock. So the first demo we did as Rannock was some of the old material from the previous band. And that's lost.

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to the world.

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Although a guy contacted me a few years ago from New Zealand.

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And he'd picked it up from a secondhand CD store in his town in New Zealand.

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So I've no idea how it went from the UK to New Zealand.

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Very strange because there must have been only like a hundred copies of it on CDR.

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Did you tell him to destroy it?

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I said burn it.

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This is terrible.

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And then the second EP we did is actually on our band camp, which is a bit embarrassing for me to listen to, but it's there for the record. So that's officially where it starts. If you want to, for the new listener, that's kind of where we start on there. What does the name come from? Ranop is a moor in Scotland. Or as George would say, in Scotchland. In Scotchland. It's where Scotch comes from.

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Stab him!

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Somebody's gonna come from the side, just stab George in the back, and then run out of the room.

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It'll be Barb.

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The land of the Scotch.

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I'm a Scotchman.

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At the time, I was into a lot of pagan metal bands, like Primordial and In the Woods and things like this.

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And I was thinking, I really like a band name that ties us to the landscape and ties us to the British Isles.

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And so really I was just like looking around on a map and trying to find like cool place names or cool places. And Rannoch is just a huge wilderness of more marshes, bogs. And it's pretty much uninhabited, middle of nowhere. And that seemed to fit, I think, while I felt it, it seemed to fit what we were perhaps trying to do.

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Well, you know, we don't have that wealth of cool place names here in America. Plus, they don't have the history. I mean, you know, Kansas, right? But yeah, no, it totally works, man. Boston. Exactly. I mean, America. But that one's taken, though. Are you familiar with Art? The band Art? Mark Deak's band? ARD. Odd. Yeah, it looks like ARD, but it's like the Scandinavian D.

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So it's like a Northumbrian. Northumbria. Northumbria is north of England. So that's, yeah. Having taken the name upon yourself, have you made a point of getting out to that more at anything? Well, I have been, yeah. Like driven across on the roads across it. There is a small village there with like a school and a railway station. But we haven't done like a band shoot.

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on it. Maybe we should one day. Should I play a set at that school? I brought up art because Mark does a similar thing with, you know, he writes about like history of the area there that he's in. In the Shetland Isles, there's a place called Twat. Where are you from? Twat! No need to call me that. I was just asking where you're from. Twat! You could have to be a punk band or something at that point, though. That's right, yeah.

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I really want to believe that they were like an invading force back in the day and people would say all the twats are coming and I just like really want that to be true but I'm sure it's not. They came off the boat with the lead one was running slipped and fallen his sword and they go twat. Why does this feel like this is turning into a Monty Python bit all of a sudden? So you did the demos and then you had your debut album which was 2013 right so is that where you first started feeling comfortable with Rannock?

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because you're clearly not that. Yeah, that's right. So we did in 2011, we played Bloodstock, which is like a big UK festival. So it was around that time. It's like, yeah, we feel pretty confident with the direction and the band name and not being afraid to churn out huge long songs and that kind of thing. I think we did on the first album. There's a track called Between Two Worlds, which is like a three piece suite.

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And we played that at Bloodstock. I remember, which most have bored people to tears if I just expect. Three minute hit songs. So we played that and then we set to recording the first album with all the material that we had. And there was a record label called Eulogy Media, which was ran by a guy called Hal Sinden.

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Nathaniel Underwood, who later went on to play bass in Aka Koka and has his own band called Damim now. So we put together the album and put it out on Eulogy Media and it got pretty good reviews. And then it's quite a long time on our release schedule until we put out Reflections Upon Darkness. I think, is it seven years?

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something like that.

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Yep.

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I think it was seven years.

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Yeah.

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2020.

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So we kind of had.

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Yeah.

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We played live a lot.

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We did play a lot of those songs live, but then we had a bit of a lineup change

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with our drummer.

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And then it was kind of back to working out how to push forward.

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So the last two albums we used session drummers.

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So on Reflections Upon Darkness, it was Alex Mikkel-Wright, who recently you'd have heard in Viscera. So the Viscera album that came out this year, he was on that. And then obviously Dan Pressland played on Conflagrations, which was a pretty big get for us. Am I jumping ahead here? Am I jumping ahead too far? No, we jump around. Because I was just going to say, you recently announced that Will Pearson is going to be,

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your new drummer after a pretty frustrating search. Oh, yeah. It's been hard. Yeah. Why was it so frustrating to find the right drummer? We just scare everyone away. I think that's... It's the stabbing. It's the stabbings. I don't know. I think it's just all the really good drummers are already in four different bands. Well, all you need is Honest Grossman. Everybody can get Honest Grossman. Well, they didn't want to set... I mean, he would be a great session drummer, but they want somebody they could play live with, right? Somebody permanent.

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Well, that's right. And so I, you know, I've asked Alex multiple times, but it's just so busy with other music. So I put out some small kind of online ads saying looking for a drummer and Will contacted me and Will currently plays with Lichgate as well. If you've heard those guys, which is really sort of extreme kind of avant-garde or black metal.

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I feel like I know. And yeah, we'll just recorded a few things on his phone and just sent it over and it's like, let's get together and try it out. And so far it's working pretty well. Yeah. Hopefully 24 we'll get out and play live properly for the first time in quite a while. I'd love for you to come to the States. I'd love to come to the States. I don't know how, I don't know how logistically that's going to work. Unfortunately with budgets and things like that, because we're so small.

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such a small band.

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And you have to plan so far in advance, obviously, to make sure you can get into the country to play too.

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Visas and stuff, yeah.

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Visas and all that.

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It's just the costs are just painful.

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Oh, there's an Archspire video that Dean Lamb put out.

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And I think that the tour that they did with Whitechapel, now I don't know if that was three weeks, obviously a much bigger stage, much bigger operation.

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I think it cost them $120,000 before even starting. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So, and they're coming from Canada. I remember reading. That's all on the road. Yeah. I read an interview with Bifford from, or Biford from Saxon one time. And at this stage in their career, when they're not playing huge places, he said it's essentially a money losing proposition for them. Even they come over here. He said the house of blues, they play that pays for the whole tour and everything else. They come home with, you know, a couple of t-shirts.

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I bet the insurance alone is just astronomical to maintain that. You know, the underwriting for the tour has got to be heavy in the States. How did you end up like Bloodstock if you didn't even have a record out yet? Oh, we did like a Battle of the Bands thing that they run. Sweet. And they do like regional, like regional competitions. Like Valken does? I think, yeah, Valken do that. Yeah. Yes, they do. I think they actually have it there.

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We won the regional final. And so they just ram all these bands onto one of the small stages. It's a bit like a cattle market, to be fair. But we did have all access passes for the weekend, which was great. I was going to say, yeah, did you get to hang out all weekend? I got to meet Devin Townsend, which is cool. Oh, sweet. Wait, what year was this again? Oh, this is when he put out Deconstruction. Oh, okay.

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So this was the new version of Devon Townsend when he after his post-retirement Devon Townsend. But he took that like one year break, which was just for him to recharge his batteries. Yes, this is. Yeah, this is post. Now what did he put out before? Oh, he'd done the strapping stuff, hadn't he? So this is where he became much more reflective in his writing. Yeah. Although deconstruction is complete. It is insane. Yes. You mentioned also just because you mentioned the regionals. What region are you in? Where are you in UK?

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The closest major city is Birmingham. So we just say Midlands because we're based all around. So you're from the land of heavy metal. Well, close enough. Yeah. Yeah. I'm currently in the town of Rugby, which is where the game Rugby comes from. Wow. Yeah. Nice. But yeah, Birmingham is the epicenter of metal. Yeah, it is. It's funny. I actually looked up West Midlands and of course Birmingham comes up in that.

00:29:02.640 --> 00:29:32.400
And the story that kept popping up whenever I looked it up, Ian, was this urban legend about an actual vampire that stalked the streets of Birmingham in the early 2000s. So I was wondering if you remember that or if you heard about that. No, there was something similar. The other major city, which is slightly to the south of here, is called Northampton. If you look up something called the Clown of Northampton, it's almost like an It type character was just spotted all over the place.

00:29:32.460 --> 00:29:33.700
with some balloons.

00:29:34.820 --> 00:29:36.300
And people would take pictures of him.

00:29:36.580 --> 00:29:37.840
And he'd just be on the street corners.

00:29:38.260 --> 00:29:38.520
Wow.

00:29:38.960 --> 00:29:39.320
It's awesome.

00:29:39.740 --> 00:29:43.140
We have, in our local area, it's not as cool as your It character.

00:29:43.340 --> 00:29:46.900
We have the Bunny Man, which has become quite an urban legend.

00:29:48.060 --> 00:29:49.540
In Fairfax County, the Bunny Man.

00:29:50.140 --> 00:29:53.000
It's either practical jokers or perverts.

00:29:53.240 --> 00:29:53.600
We're not sure.

00:29:54.200 --> 00:29:58.200
No, actually, he apparently stabbed some kid in a tunnel or something like that.

00:29:59.000 --> 00:30:00.460
It's become like Slender Man.

00:30:00.620 --> 00:30:01.820
You guys have heard of Slender Man, right?

00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:02.100
Yeah.

00:30:02.180 --> 00:30:32.140
Yeah. So it's become an urban legend like that. It's not as big as that. Is that like a Donnie Darko thing? No. I don't know what the deal is, but there's actually now a brewery and they have like little bunny men in the woods near the brewery spying on people, like cutouts. And it's kind of freaky. You're drinking. You're like, is that a dude? Oh, I didn't like that. What's that kind of old, like 60s or 70s photograph, which is like a bit of a meme now of the

00:30:32.180 --> 00:31:01.800
guy dressed as a bunny looking really freakish and the kids like screaming to get away from him. Oh yeah, it's the Easter Bunny thing. Yeah, the Easter Bunny. Yeah, there was some, there's a lot of photos like that are just like really bad choices made in 1973 for an outfit to please children. Yeah, it looks like some kind of bad furry convention. Bad eggs. Yeah. Newcastle is part of the Midlands too, isn't it? Oh no, that's more like, that's way up north.

00:31:02.260 --> 00:31:32.120
Way out north, okay. Because I think of Newcastle as being a real centre too for... I mean, for bands. So Birmingham, London, obviously. Sheffield, Saxon is from Sheffield. So Sheffield's a few miles from here, I guess. We could say Nottingham, Derby. They're pretty big for bands. They were considered metal in the beginning. Def Leppard's from Sheffield, aren't they? Are they from Sheffield? I think they could be. George, you must know. I think so, yeah.

00:31:32.180 --> 00:32:02.140
Yeah, that sounds right. I mean, they were kind of a metal band for their first three records. Whatever. They were part of the way. Yeah, well, we talked about bands that got us into metal, and I mentioned Def Leppard was like one of the first bands I listened to before I moved into heavier stuff. Joe Elliott will always tell you they are not a metal band. He's lying. A little bit further north, a little bit further north from Sheffield. You're into Yorkshire now. Sheffield is Yorkshire. That's where proper men come from, right? So we've got Sheffield, which is like Saxon, and then we're going to go to the next one.

00:32:02.180 --> 00:32:32.080
And then if you go a little bit further north, you've got Leeds and Halifax and Bradford and you get in bands like Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride. So they all came up in that peaceful era, early 90s. Yeah. I've never been to England. I've got to get there. I've been to London and I've been to York. York is a great town. I loved York. I was like, this is what England is supposed to be. Also George, whenever somebody, you know, New Yorkers are always like such shits and they're always so,

00:32:32.160 --> 00:33:00.840
They're like, you're not from New York. And I always tell them, I've been to York. Fuck you. Yeah, I've been to the first one, bitch. OG York. It was really cool, yeah. I've been there too. Yeah, love York. Well, Liverpool's got a few bands too. They have Anathema and Isinkarcus from there too. And you know the Beatles. Yeah, they are from Liverpool, yeah. Well, we're talking metal bands, George. I don't want to bring out the big guns there. I believe Slugge is from Liverpool. Oh, okay. Oh, Birmingham, Bolt Thrower.

00:33:02.140 --> 00:33:32.060
to Bolt Thrower. There's a Bolt Thrower callback. I was in a perfect time for Tell Your Story. Oh, it's not a great story. So where my old band recorded a couple of demos, which shall remain forever in the dustbin of time, Bolt Thrower rehearsed and recorded one of their albums, which was called, I can't remember, it's a green cover. Again, it's like a Warhammer cover. Is that Mercer? Like Valor something and something. I can't remember.

00:33:32.620 --> 00:34:01.540
That's it. That's it. That's the story. The reason I brought up Bolt Thrower in the first place was because you were talking about Warhammer and the early Bolt Thrower stuff was released by Games Workshop, which is a gaming company, not a record label, but for whatever reason, the two got together. Yeah, it's great. They also put out early Sabbat as well. I love those guys. Does that make sense? I can see that for both of them. Bolt Thrower is a weapon in the Warhammer universe.

00:34:02.140 --> 00:34:29.560
They were probably fans, yeah. It was Honor, Valor, Pride. Yeah, so I was in the space where that was recorded. That's a total. That's my story. It was just in a basement. It was just in a basement in this guy's home studio. Nice. Yeah. I'll take it. Goodness. So how did we get to album two? I can't remember. Where are we? Yeah, so Reflections Upon Darkness.

00:34:32.139 --> 00:35:02.120
out just as the world turned to absolute shit in 2020. And all our bass player, he's friends with somebody who works at Northern Music, the guys that manage Opeth and Paradise Lost and Devin Townsend. And she said to him, you either hold on to it because nobody is releasing anything now, or you just put it out and see what happens. So we decided to do that, put it out and

00:35:02.160 --> 00:35:32.120
what happens and I think that because no one was releasing anything yeah we put that out and it was not on a label that was just completely self-released and yeah it got some really good traction and a lot of people heard it because there's nothing else to listen to yeah thankfully fill in the void good choice that kind of played in our favor certainly and then we did get on a few end of year lists in 2020 as well which was pretty good and but

00:35:32.140 --> 00:36:00.980
We weren't playing live, so we couldn't really capitalize on that. And everything was shit anyway, and everything was closed. And so, yeah, just pressed on with configurations straight off the back of it. How'd you get hooked up with Willow Tip? There's a band called Catless Skies. I liked that band a lot. Played with a couple of times, and those guys assigned to Willow Tip. And they said, yeah, these guys are a good label to work with.

00:36:01.800 --> 00:36:30.600
And also I'm mates with a guy called Leon Macy who plays in the band Mithras. Oh, wow. He lives in rugby. So I also had good recommendations from him as well. And so I sent out a track of Reflections Upon Darkness to a bunch of labels. And Jason got back and said, yeah, we'd be interested in the next one. So when the next one was ready, I sent it to him again.

00:36:31.580 --> 00:37:01.400
And he was like, yeah, let's do it. And he's been really good. He's been really kind of hands off and just let us get on with producing it how we want to produce it. And yeah, you produce all the albums, right, Ian? Yeah. Yeah. So I'll record them, produce them. And then I'll put the mix over to James Stevenson, who's also a pineal. And he'll mix and master because he's got a much better ear for that kind.

00:37:02.460 --> 00:37:31.500
What's it like for you to switch gears from musician to producer? It's not really very different because when I'm writing, I've also got the whole piece in mind. As you're constructing a song, you're also constructing the layers, building up the layers. So you're kind of, you're on the path anyway. So when you've demoed it, then it's just a case of, I guess it's like an author.

00:37:31.580 --> 00:38:01.540
doing a first draft, second draft, et cetera. And then you just go back and then I'll just re-record all the pieces with everybody. It's not a great deal of difference. For me, I don't think so. But not everybody does it, though. Not everybody does it, no. Do you take input from people when you go back to record it with them? Do they go, hey, maybe we should do it this way? Or are you like, Iron Fist, no, we will do it as it is written? Probably...

00:38:03.059 --> 00:38:31.540
around the individual parts, not necessarily around the structure of a piece, because it's generally demoed. And then the lyrical flow is demoed as well. And then it's just a case of approaching bass lines and approaching solos and extra guitars on top of things. So I really just give like Rich, who also plays guitar, I kind of, he has free reign to layer a bunch of guitars and then just see

00:38:31.580 --> 00:39:01.300
See what fits. See what sounds best. And then all our bass player will just, he's not an overly technical player, but he's very just solid on the bottom end. So I think that gives the music a little bit more beef, perhaps, say, compared to one of these more technical death bands where the bass is like all over the place, sliding around and that kind of thing. So yeah, Paul just.

00:39:02.720 --> 00:39:31.000
Well, and getting into the album, I read that the song Conflagrations, which is the title of the album too, is based on a chapter from Voice of Fire by writer Alan Moore. So you've talked about Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore being influences on you, which as a comic book writer myself was very cool to learn. So I was wondering if you could talk about how their writing in comics and novels has impacted you as a musician and a creator.

00:39:31.380 --> 00:40:01.340
Yeah, sure. I mean, particularly Alan Moore, I would say. Alan Moore lives in Northampton, which is the next town from Rugby, if you look at it on the map. And he's very grounded in his, he calls it his territory. So he knows Northampton and the surrounding area, like inside out. And a lot of his prose is kind of grounded in that. And if you read Voice in the Fire or Jerusalem, it's all about it.

00:40:01.380 --> 00:40:30.940
all in that one spot in England and just across different times and different stories all in that one area. So he's very invested in the history of a single place. So that kind of is really interesting. And just, I think the style of his writing and there's a kind of, there's a darkness to, there's a darkness to where his mind flows. Something like From Hell, if you've read that.

00:40:31.020 --> 00:41:00.420
You have Marcus Anacost. It's about Jack the Ripper. A lot of stabbing in that. There's a hell of a lot of stabbing in that. It's just, it's a really dark read, but at the same time, it's extremely complex and extremely crammed with detail. He's a genius. I mean, for people who are listening to, you might know Watchmen or V for Vendetta. That's Alan Moore's comics that he's done, but he also writes novels. Well, that's what, and lots of plays.

00:41:01.040 --> 00:41:01.720
all kinds of stuff.

00:41:02.080 --> 00:41:02.200
Yeah.

00:41:03.220 --> 00:41:04.180
It's just a really cool dude.

00:41:05.120 --> 00:41:05.900
I've never met him.

00:41:06.240 --> 00:41:15.780
I used to work with someone who lived in Northampton and said he would just see him all the time walking around like a wizard going into coffee shops.

00:41:15.880 --> 00:41:17.960
I swear this is the second time you've like read my mind.

00:41:18.210 --> 00:41:20.140
When you said primordial, I was thinking primordial.

00:41:20.600 --> 00:41:26.620
And as soon as you started saying, seeing him walking around, I'm picturing him, you know, and I was in the wizard starts playing in my head.

00:41:26.820 --> 00:41:27.740
Well, that's what he looks like too.

00:41:27.790 --> 00:41:30.700
I mean, he kind of cultivates that look.

00:41:30.800 --> 00:42:00.760
I think he's called himself a magician definitely I think did he claim for a while to maybe be a reincarnation of Crowley or something like that or was he just really into Crowley or something I can't remember but he's very into Crowley yeah yeah I was a big comic book guy for a long time and I really and Alan Moore's liked cream and crop but I loved his swamp thing was yeah I got that back here he was great nice yeah yeah

00:42:00.800 --> 00:42:02.840
I have all his stuff because I love it but

00:42:03.720 --> 00:42:05.560
yeah he doesn't really write comics that much anymore

00:42:05.680 --> 00:42:07.120
he's more focused on novels

00:42:07.660 --> 00:42:09.660
he retired from comics officially I think

00:42:10.160 --> 00:42:12.780
I think was League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

00:42:13.380 --> 00:42:14.080
his last one

00:42:14.080 --> 00:42:14.860
that was really good

00:42:15.680 --> 00:42:16.900
yeah I mean he's

00:42:17.900 --> 00:42:19.820
he is prone to

00:42:20.740 --> 00:42:22.140
particularly in his comics

00:42:22.620 --> 00:42:24.520
of going a bit off the rails

00:42:24.800 --> 00:42:26.460
into flights of fancy

00:42:27.380 --> 00:42:28.860
which don't make any sense

00:42:28.860 --> 00:42:30.760
to anybody but himself I'm sure

00:42:30.760 --> 00:42:59.980
And then, yeah, Neil Gaiman, he runs a similar channel to Alan Moore, I think. He's probably a little bit more art college than Alan Moore, who Alan comes across as, you know, learning from the School of Hard Knocks, where Neil Gaiman, he's a bit more of an art college or university boy, I think. But I might be doing him a disservice. He's American Gods and things like that.

00:43:00.060 --> 00:43:29.060
It's just great. Sandman. Yeah. Sandman. Yeah. Yeah. Where were we? My train of thought is gone. So it was really about Alan Moore and how he's talking about the land and like where it comes from. What about Neil Gaiman really inspired you for how you do music or anything creative? Just like his construction of stories and narrative. There's a track on the on our first album called Faith.

00:43:30.060 --> 00:43:58.420
which is about a man dying in a hospital bed and then an angel and a demon kind of trying to convince him one way or the other that one is real and one is false. And that kind of, I had Neil Gaiman definitely on my mind when I was writing that, the lyrics for that. Your lyrics are very poetic. What's one on the new album that you really spent time and that you really appreciate? Well, I, yeah.

00:44:01.140 --> 00:44:27.940
So I'm at the stage for the next album where I've really got to start thinking about lyrics. So we're getting a new album pretty soon. Well, well, well, wait and see. So the lyrics tend to come near the end. Right. So those lyrics on conflagrations, I wrote them relatively close together. So which one do I really, which did I spend a lot of time on?

00:44:30.060 --> 00:45:00.020
I think Trinity to a dying star was needed a couple of drafts and complete reworkings and the initial concept of Trinity to a dying star became the concept for the garrotype so my initial idea for Trinity to a dying star was about a like a Victorian photographer that could who was like sucking the souls from the people he

00:45:00.060 --> 00:45:28.780
took the pictures from. Some kind of weird concept like that. That was what a lot of work. Early, like, native peoples would think that if you took their picture, you were taking their soul. That's right. So it was something like that, but it was like, it was like literally happening or something, or he was seeing things in the photograph or whatever. Anyway, I can't remember exactly what it was about, but it was kind of nonsensical, but I kind of scrapped it and turned it into daguerreotype.

00:45:29.700 --> 00:45:58.880
And the lyrics in daguerreotype are about a, what would they call it, like a death photographer. In Victorian times, they would take pictures of the dead to remember them. And I was looking up the process of photography and they had to use like a mercury vapour to expose the silver plates that they would have a photosensitive coating on. And mercury obviously sends you insane.

00:45:58.980 --> 00:46:00.480
if you bathe in it.

00:46:00.840 --> 00:46:09.020
So I was just trying to kind of piece those jigsaw puzzle parts together somehow to make it work.

00:46:09.030 --> 00:46:12.660
So it's just about a photographer who's going insane, taking pictures of the dead.

00:46:13.360 --> 00:46:15.420
And yeah, that's that one.

00:46:16.160 --> 00:46:24.100
I have to say the original part you're saying of the photographer stealing souls made me think of one thing only.

00:46:24.220 --> 00:46:54.140
that would be an excellent supernatural episode for Sam and Dean to have to stop this photographer from stealing souls from people. Or Buffy the Vampire Slap. Something else. All I could think of was like, man, this would be great. Was there something new that you tried with this album that you hadn't done in the past? Yes. Yeah. So a track with no screaming vocals on it whatsoever. Ah. So, yeah, Frenody to a Dying Style was a real challenge.

00:46:54.240 --> 00:47:23.620
and completely out of my comfort zone. And why did you decide to do that, Ian? Well, it, yeah, I just couldn't not find a way to fit harsh vocals, but it just, it felt forced. So I thought, no, it doesn't need them. So I was contemplating putting them in the middle section. It's a long song. It's 17 minutes. And when it picks up a gear, there's all kinds of like morbid angels or riffs and things like that.

00:47:23.740 --> 00:47:53.420
So I was contemplating some lyrics in there, but it just didn't speak out to me as requiring it. So I decided to do all clean vocals, which was tough. And at one point I was considering not doing it and having a guest vocal to do it. Oh, you're such a good singer. You accomplished it. It's a hard time. It's been a real hard time to get it right, to get it sounding convincing. Well, it worked. Yeah.

00:47:53.520 --> 00:48:23.500
I mean, everybody talks about that song. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. Are you saying that because you're like, I don't want to say embarrassed, but you're like, wow, or you're like, man, I'm so sick of this song because it took so long. It was so hard to put together. I'm being modest and humble. Okay. I'm being modest and humble. I have to tell you, I'm glad you spent all the time with it because that's my favorite song of the year. It's not even remotely close, you know, but I'm the prod guy on the podcast, but

00:48:24.040 --> 00:48:53.500
It's still heavy as hell in the middle, like you said. It's melodic, but there's just something about the sound. Especially early on, the guitars, they don't have that heavy sound, and it just seems to work so well. No matter what the concept of the Dying Star is, it almost feels cosmic when you're listening to it, too, which I think really lends itself to how good that song really is. Yeah, I mean, lyrically, I don't know if it's not that

00:48:54.420 --> 00:49:21.760
ambiguous, but it could be considered ambiguous. The star that is dying could refer to anything. Yeah. But there's lots of cosmological kind of references in there, like redshift and that kind of thing. That's interesting. You just said that because I was reading an interview and I can't remember where it was. And I'm guessing it was you. Somebody asked you about themes on an album and I apologize if I remember what album it was.

00:49:22.600 --> 00:49:49.400
And the response was, well, I don't know if there's really any theme to bring out on the album. Why don't you just let's just listen to the album and see where it takes you. And I kind of like that response because it's almost saying, well, even if I do have something I was specifically writing about, the lyrics are in such a way that you can kind of interpret them and make them subjective to yourself. And I think those are the most powerful lyrics because you can get almost anything out of them, even if there is a direction that the writer has.

00:49:50.280 --> 00:50:20.120
And sometimes hearing what the direction the writer has ruins it for you. Well, so yeah. So sometimes it's good not to know and you can have your own vision or your own journey with the song. You know, like a David Lynch movie or something like that. Yeah. And at the end, you're like, what? Yeah. And David Lynch never says, oh, yeah, it's about this. If he did, it might ruin it for you. Yeah. We really knew what was going on with Dennis Hopper and that oxygen. It was oxygen. I think it was.

00:50:20.260 --> 00:50:48.860
What do you call it? Don't you look at me? That whole back and forth between the curtains. I was like, all right, I'm done with this. But I still watched. So, Marcus, I'm glad you brought that question up about the song. So, you definitely went into this album looking to do something different because I feel like this of the three is there's more melodic spots in it, especially in some of the soloing.

00:50:48.940 --> 00:51:16.700
But it's still heavy as anything. The riffs are still crushing. I wanted to make it more technical, I think. I did want to make it heavier and more technical with the riffage. So there's some pretty hard stuff. Right, but there's a lot of space on the album, though, too, in spots. And there's plenty of atmosphere, I think, too. Yeah, certainly the title track, Conflagrations, has that slow build. That was quite fun to do.

00:51:18.920 --> 00:51:26.340
the middle of prison black there's that kind of acoustic break which kind of reminded me when i plunk around

00:51:26.540 --> 00:51:46.920
on the guitar a lot it's like oh and then just try and come up with things and see what works and that kind of sounded a bit like a big black metal to me like a if you imagine that played on like a harpsichord instead that would be almost like a you know like a cartian thrown kind of track or something like that and then obviously the title track is

00:51:48.140 --> 00:52:16.160
the thing where everything gets thrown in. But yeah, some of the clean stuff on Serenity to a Dying Star, I even had like Steve Vai in mind. Some of the clean stuff. You can hear that in some of the solos that are put together. You mentioned early on, you know, when you were cutting your teeth listening to music and getting into Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. Some of those guitar solos are pretty melodic like those guys. Yeah, I mean, it's in there.

00:52:16.940 --> 00:52:44.180
I can't get it out. No, it's true. That Satriani legato stuff, I just can play that without thinking about it now these days. Almost to the point where it's like, I can't do that. I have to think of something new. But I think it works because there are some just huge crushing heavy riffs and then you expect this frenetic solo to follow and it's not anything like that in spots. And I like the contrast. I think it works really well. Personally, I do.

00:52:44.240 --> 00:53:14.180
Well, Rich, the guitarist, we've played together for so long. I think we complement each other quite well. He's really into, like, Randy Rhoads. He wins. Done. A lot of the old shrapnel guys and things like that. Jay and I are always going on and on about Randy Rhoads. He's obsessed. He's obsessed, literally obsessed with Randy Rhoads. Jay and I have been, you know, Jay, it's funny, you mentioned Joby T. I think he made a comment about you and I being just absolutely obsessed with Randy Rhoads once.

00:53:14.240 --> 00:53:42.440
Yeah, you know, it's funny too. I think from the outside, you don't get it. You know what I mean? Like, you don't understand why people think the way they think about him, but he was special. Weird proof that our computers are listening to us, and I'm not a conspiracy guy. I just got on Facebook, let's look at our page, and my first two posts I saw were about David Lynch, who apparently it's his birthday today, so happy birthday to David Lynch. Well, that's a weird coincidence. And the next one was Ard, so come on, or Arth.

00:53:44.260 --> 00:53:45.320
are no coincidences.

00:53:45.960 --> 00:53:46.500
All right.

00:53:46.660 --> 00:53:47.680
Oh, and hi, Will.

00:53:48.300 --> 00:53:48.820
Hi, Will.

00:53:49.980 --> 00:53:52.140
You look like you're a member of NWA.

00:53:55.340 --> 00:53:56.300
Which one, though?

00:53:56.640 --> 00:53:57.100
NWA?

00:53:57.640 --> 00:53:58.880
Either EZE or Ice Cube.

00:54:00.320 --> 00:54:01.060
He's the DJ.

00:54:02.660 --> 00:54:03.100
Sorry.

00:54:03.320 --> 00:54:10.040
I assume we were starting at 7 o'clock at night, but my daughter had a basketball game at 2.30, so I got here as soon as I could.

00:54:10.620 --> 00:54:11.860
Well, we're glad to have you.

00:54:12.700 --> 00:54:40.080
Well, Ian's been a great guest so far. So we're still in the interview portion. Thank you. I can let you down still. We expect that because you're going to be drinking more. Ian, you did mention clean singing right when Will came in. I heard that. Yes, I'm surprised he didn't turn his mic. Just throw my earbuds out. But Will, he was also pleased to have placed on the top lists of no clean singing this year. So there you go.

00:55:13.500 --> 00:55:16.920
I thought for a second I was thinking man if he could drop the camera I wonder if it's a

00:55:17.020 --> 00:55:20.300
Mellotron because it's white and I just kept thinking that's what it was at first.

00:55:20.380 --> 00:55:20.680
I wish.

00:55:21.480 --> 00:55:21.980
Yeah exactly.

00:55:23.160 --> 00:55:25.460
Hey Ian do you guys have IKEA in the UK?

00:55:26.360 --> 00:55:27.200
I imagine you do.

00:55:27.300 --> 00:55:28.060
Oh yeah everything.

00:55:28.500 --> 00:55:29.260
Okay all right.

00:55:30.020 --> 00:55:30.860
Yeah it's everywhere man.

00:55:31.200 --> 00:55:31.340
Yeah.

00:55:32.920 --> 00:55:33.820
It's good value.

00:55:34.140 --> 00:55:34.720
It's good value.

00:55:36.240 --> 00:55:37.780
Where in the UK are you?

00:55:37.840 --> 00:55:47.700
I know it's midlands somewhere but yeah so I live in rugby which is a town in between Birmingham and Northampton yeah okay all right

00:55:52.290 --> 00:56:07.800
so I was gonna ask because your debut album between two worlds it was released at the end of 2013 yes and then you talked about the demos and that was like a good five years or so before Rannock I know as a band so you've been a band for

00:56:07.800 --> 00:56:09.540
like over 15 years.

00:56:10.420 --> 00:56:15.680
So what is the most important thing you think you've learned about playing music in that time span?

00:56:15.740 --> 00:56:16.980
Because that's a good chunk of time.

00:56:18.100 --> 00:56:18.780
Playing music.

00:56:19.360 --> 00:56:27.820
I don't, not necessarily maybe the playing music, but other bands, obviously you see this all the time, self-implode.

00:56:28.640 --> 00:56:31.040
Eventually they self-implode.

00:56:32.180 --> 00:56:32.780
Not all of them.

00:56:32.780 --> 00:56:37.500
There are some notable exceptions, but usually there's falling outs and fights.

00:56:39.020 --> 00:57:04.800
And we three have remained just really good friends. But they're my best friends. That's key. For all that time. But, well, I've known Rich for a couple of decades now and the same for Paul, really. And it's like we are, yeah, we're best friends. Just happen to play music too. Yeah. That is key. And we happen to play music too.

00:57:08.860 --> 00:57:36.920
It's very cool. That is so refreshing to hear that because I just saw a band where they've been together for, oh, since the early mid-70s. It's the same three guys. George knows what I'm going to say here, but I just saw, are you familiar with the band Zebra? They're a hard rock band from the States. 80s, they're big, but they've been around for almost 50 years together. It's the same three guys. No, before the first album, you know, shuffling of band members.

00:57:37.020 --> 00:58:05.720
Literally the three guys form, same three guys for almost 50 years. I love hearing about bands where there's a core group, you know, be it you have the drummer thing right now, but it's nice. You could be nicer to the drummers. Maybe. Well, maybe if they'd stop exploding, it could be a spinal tap situation. Yes, we are. We are still friends with Damon who played on the first album. Damon helped us out with the DIY video we shot for what was the track threads.

00:58:07.040 --> 00:58:36.680
So we hadn't been together and working together for ages. And so it was just really cool. We just like slutted straight back into. Yeah. Nice. Like Pearl Jam in that way. Going back to Pearl Jam way back to the early days. I'm assuming John, by the way, because you had the conversation earlier today that you saw there was that zebra documentary being put together. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to be filming more shows and everything. Yeah. Now that shows the date on age for me. Yes.

00:58:36.720 --> 00:58:39.520
You are being in high school when their first album came out

00:58:39.850 --> 00:58:41.580
Well I remember, I don't know if you remember this

00:58:41.740 --> 00:58:43.560
but every metal compilation record

00:58:43.650 --> 00:58:45.480
in the early 80s had Tell Me What You Want on it

00:58:45.670 --> 00:58:46.320
Every fucker

00:58:48.820 --> 00:58:49.640
I've got one

00:58:50.220 --> 00:58:51.980
It's called Crazed and All Out Metal Assault

00:58:51.980 --> 00:58:53.660
It has Dio and Rush

00:58:54.360 --> 00:58:55.240
and Crocus

00:58:55.790 --> 00:58:56.640
and Zebra

00:58:58.020 --> 00:58:59.020
Crocus, wow

00:58:59.260 --> 00:59:00.740
Somebody else knows that name

00:59:00.890 --> 00:59:01.240
Oh yeah

00:59:01.900 --> 00:59:05.560
You know, whenever they play them on XM radio

00:59:05.560 --> 00:59:35.360
They always play Screaming in the Night. But for me, it's always going to be Midnight Maniac. I feel like I've seen them live once. I saw them at M3 and it was horrible. And they didn't play Midnight Maniac. Yeah, well, M3 would have been recent. I would have seen them back before cell phones. Should we go on to the new sections? But first, we got to do the three albums. We got to. Yeah, sure. Oh, shit. Okay.

00:59:35.800 --> 01:00:05.020
So cool. And I'll just say too, you know, if you want to learn more about the songs from the Rannock album, to listen to the Endless Metal podcast that Ian's on, because they go through almost like every song, like in detail. Yeah, we go deep there. That was, that's a three hour breakdown. Yeah, it's a breakdown of the album. I wouldn't want to repeat all that here, because that was. No. We have our own five hours. We got our own. So, so this is a question we always ask.

01:00:05.060 --> 01:00:35.040
new guests on the show and gave it to Ian a few weeks back actually and it's what three albums would help listeners people understand you better as a person yeah that's that is a ridiculously hard question that's why we ask it yeah and if he I think if you ask anybody that on the spot they would just go and just we did it once actually because remember I forgot to ask somebody about it and he just like

01:00:35.440 --> 01:01:05.020
What's that? I can't remember. Anyways, go ahead, Ian. Yeah, I mean, the temptation is to go, oh, my three favorite albums, but that's not it, is it? No, that's not what it is. So I have, I've written down three, and I'm going to stick with these three. It's my final answer. So the first album is by a band we've already mentioned. The band is Dream Theater, and it is their best album. So let me put it out to you guys. What do you think their best album actually is?

01:01:07.039 --> 01:01:34.520
That's a loaded question for a Dream Theater fan. Awake. Correct answer. I was going to say Markisan. You win. That is the correct answer. That is the correct answer. Excellent. It's my absolute favorite Dream Theater album. Why is that? I'm curious. Because that's my favorite too. The depth of the songwriting, the tastefulness. That is an important word to use.

01:01:34.560 --> 01:02:04.540
when you apply it to dream theater there's a tastefulness to those first few albums which is utterly lacking from any of their later output it's also their darkest album too i think yeah sound wise pretty dark you've got the heavy stuff like caught in a web and the mirror and lie which is just like i think that's probably the heaviest they've been darkness kind of level right and it's just

01:02:05.120 --> 01:02:06.880
Everything's just on point.

01:02:07.600 --> 01:02:13.760
And I think they played that, they recorded in the studio as a band and not as individuals, I think, when they did that.

01:02:13.980 --> 01:02:14.720
I think so.

01:02:14.860 --> 01:02:18.140
There's pictures in, I think there's pictures in the inlay.

01:02:18.520 --> 01:02:20.360
I would have it with me, but I don't know where it is.

01:02:20.440 --> 01:02:23.920
Yeah, I think when they went to L.A. to record that, they all, they played the songs.

01:02:23.920 --> 01:02:24.940
Pictures are all in the same room.

01:02:25.260 --> 01:02:29.900
Sounds like they could have played them all live and then retracted afterwards.

01:02:30.140 --> 01:02:32.460
So they played live, kept the drums, and then retracted over.

01:02:33.240 --> 01:03:02.620
But anyway, where am I going with this? So why does this represent me? Well, I think it's like just the progressive tendency and the, all the virtuoso stuff, the guitar virtuosity in it and the epicness of song length and pushing the boundaries. That's it. So that it's something that I try to do with Rannock. It's just an amazing, it's an amazing album. Really is amazing.

01:03:03.240 --> 01:03:32.500
Okay, so that's my album number one. Second album. You could tell Ian really thought about this, like really got to it, racked his brain. I have, right? I've worked hard on this. It's taken me hours. By the way, we've never done this, just for the record. Yeah, it's like we inflicted this on others, but we haven't done it ourselves. We're like, hey, let's see if you can jump over that. Yeah, let's see. We're not going to do it. Boys, 10th anniversary coming up. We should do that. I was going to say, if we do it, it will be like a full episode.

01:03:32.880 --> 01:04:02.820
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's almost, I'm almost challenging you all, but we'll tell you what. Yeah. All right. All right. So you're number two, Ian. Okay. Number two is, I actually do have this one in front of me. It's this. Oh, nice city. Wow. You know, Chuck, Chuck had an over. Yeah. So you wouldn't have expected the band that recorded Berg Tat and Natan's Madrigal.

01:04:02.880 --> 01:04:32.840
to come up with this kind of almost like cinematic noir kind of soundtrack but just the just the the atmosphere that it portrays just really appeals to me kind of like that noir kind of david lynch kind of vibe to it and in a lot of the route kind of electronic ambient sections this album's always kind of a little bit in the back of my mind and it's just a really

01:04:32.860 --> 01:04:39.860
really cool chilled album but it's got that strain of darkness to it still nice there's

01:04:39.920 --> 01:04:46.380
something there's still like that black metal darkness to it i think if you listen to some of those tracks like

01:04:46.550 --> 01:04:53.180
always of always and things like this it's yeah there's something going on in there that's not just

01:04:53.380 --> 01:05:00.820
like a run-of-the-mill electronic album definitely so that's my number two and then my number three which

01:05:00.840 --> 01:05:30.800
which again I can't find is Aka Kaka words that go unspoken deeds that go undone I love them I choose this one because again it's really progressive but it's wrapped in just extreme violence and aggression and it's really dark and it goes to very dark places as well lyrically and musically and it's my favorite album of theirs definitely my favorite album Matt Wilcox's

01:05:30.840 --> 01:06:00.760
Dreading on it is excellent as well. And it's, yeah, David Gray's drumming is just, just ungodly throughout. It's great. It's great. Great. What does it say about you? You think? What does it say about me? See, this is difficult, very difficult question. You just have to listen to it and say, and perceive for yourself. I guess just like with that album, again, it's speaking to my progressive leanings in music, but also just,

01:06:00.840 --> 01:06:30.760
Just hankering for something to be darker and violent at the same time. I think there's an element of violence in everybody, mostly. And that's... Clearly more in you. Perhaps. I'm not an outwardly violent person. Unless you refer to Scots as Scotch. Hey, come on now. Well, not being Scottish, it wouldn't offend me, but, you know, I'm just saying, if you go up to Scotland... It's more of a warning. Got it. A heads up, FYI.

01:06:30.840 --> 01:06:59.060
Yeah. You know, John and I got to see Aka Kocker at MDF a few years back. That was freaking awesome. Yeah, that's so good. That was in Ram's Head, right? We saw that. Yes. Yeah. That was cool. Yeah. Oh, I just remembered who did this question on the spot. It was a Christian Munzner. That's right. Oh, yeah. I just completely forgot to ask him, and we did it anyways. I'll do it. Yeah. I couldn't do it. Awake, probably. I would probably say Awake straight away.

01:07:00.040 --> 01:07:29.540
But the others I'd have to think about. Yeah. Cool. You did a good job, though. Those are some really interesting albums, you know. Yeah, well done. The complexity, the progressiveness. I can see it. I can see you in it. Well, I like that they're all different from each other, too, which is kind of nice. Yeah, so that was my thought. They're different. They're progressive. They're interesting musically. They're complex. But there's an element of darkness throughout. You mentioned Olver. Are you a fan of Dark Ambient or Electronic?

01:07:58.600 --> 01:08:00.000
Experimental.

01:08:00.020 --> 01:08:01.920
put out some interesting stuff.

01:08:02.260 --> 01:08:02.360
Yeah.

01:08:02.680 --> 01:08:04.700
If you dig deep in the catalog.

01:08:05.860 --> 01:08:06.600
Yeah, I would say so.

01:08:07.420 --> 01:08:08.800
And Nine Inch Nails, I like Nine Inch Nails.

01:08:09.320 --> 01:08:12.760
Yeah, that's how I got in Day Fixed One, because Trent Reznor was like,

01:08:12.790 --> 01:08:13.740
oh yeah, I have a listen to this.

01:08:14.900 --> 01:08:17.880
Yeah, I saw Nine Inch Nails twice the other year.

01:08:18.920 --> 01:08:19.359
That was great.

01:08:19.700 --> 01:08:19.900
Wow.

01:08:20.540 --> 01:08:24.319
It's cool how Trent's doing all these soundtracks and stuff and winning awards.

01:08:25.260 --> 01:08:26.400
He's churning them out.

01:08:26.640 --> 01:08:27.460
He's just doing something.

01:08:28.080 --> 01:08:56.620
I mean, he already was a very successful man and you know, now he's got this whole new career kind of really. Yeah. He's amazing. I mean, I love, he comes up from time to time and I love, I think they're great. And I think he's deeply talented, but yeah, he's doing that. He does a lot of soundtracks that would seem, many of them would seem out of, you wouldn't guess that he would do them. You wouldn't guess it's the guy who did Nine Inch Nails because it's so different than that. But let's not forget Atticus Ross as well. He works with and has worked with.

01:08:58.100 --> 01:09:27.140
It is a 50-50 affair. I assume 50-50. I wanted to ask if there's anything before we move on, if there's anything you wanted to say just off the cuff to listeners about the future or where they should find you or anything like that. Yeah, you can find us in all the usual places that you can find bands these days. So Instagram, Facebook, less on Facebook.

01:09:28.100 --> 01:09:57.900
But I do put things. Mostly Instagram is probably the one I put up on most. Don't put up on Twitter. Fuck that. Don't put up on what's the other one? Threads? Nah, fuck that. I'm not going to put it on there either. So mostly Instagram. Bandcamp is the best place to pick up our music. If you're in Europe or the UK and you want to get physical copies of the CD or the vinyl for conflagrations, we do have a big cartel page which is linked.

01:09:58.100 --> 01:10:01.100
off our Instagram page.

01:10:02.220 --> 01:10:04.500
Because the postage is just absolutely insane.

01:10:05.140 --> 01:10:05.900
From the US.

01:10:06.600 --> 01:10:06.700
Yeah.

01:10:07.020 --> 01:10:07.120
So.

01:10:07.460 --> 01:10:08.380
I'll talk about that later.

01:10:09.400 --> 01:10:09.540
Yeah.

01:10:09.620 --> 01:10:11.760
Well, they don't have like a EU distribution.

01:10:12.040 --> 01:10:14.280
It's all coming from Pennsylvania at the end.

01:10:14.720 --> 01:10:14.820
Yeah.

01:10:16.240 --> 01:10:17.600
And it's just insane.

01:10:18.840 --> 01:10:20.320
The postage is just completely nuts.

01:10:20.620 --> 01:10:20.880
Yeah.

01:10:21.460 --> 01:10:22.760
I got my vinyl for it.

01:10:23.560 --> 01:10:24.780
I know John's got it too now.

01:10:25.220 --> 01:10:25.420
Yeah.

01:10:25.780 --> 01:10:26.860
I just appreciate that.

01:10:26.980 --> 01:10:56.640
And I appreciate everyone that's picked it up and bought it and everybody that has had kind words to say about it. For a band as small as we are, it's just, it's just really appreciated. And yeah, we're working on the next one. It's probably 70% written, I think. Excellent. Yeah, I'd say 70%. Wow. So yeah, it's coming along. So probably 2025, I would guess. Let's see. Yes, I'd probably say.

01:10:56.980 --> 01:11:25.840
hopefully start recording it this year nice nice yeah that's quick compared to seven year gap and the one yeah i know life gets in the way sometimes certainly does well that comes first unfortunately or fortunately the way you want it does obviously yeah when when two worlds came out my son was two or something like that so it might have been a little busy you know yeah well yeah definitely there's a few things to do

01:11:26.440 --> 01:11:55.220
Yeah. So there we go. Let us now look back on 2023 and Brother John will give us the year-end awards and stats. I am ready to do that. So Ian, I don't know if you're familiar with this. I don't know how this started. I think it started because we just wanted to figure out what our, what albums showed up most on our list. And it's, I would like to say it's evolved, but it's more devolved at this point.

01:11:55.860 --> 01:12:25.440
into me putting together all kinds of statistics about our year in lists. So is it an aggregated score? Yes. However, that's the list we released, which is the list that the Rannick album, I'm sure you've heard of that band. They showed up on our list. They're okay. They're not bad. Yeah, that one is the one I aggregate. And so just as a sidebar, I'm not a statistician. My background is in economics, but I actually,

01:12:25.880 --> 01:12:55.320
for a statistical agency, the Treasury Department. So I'm by no means a smart person, but it keeps me busy for a while. So anyway, here we go. We do this, and every year it gets a little shorter because there's no need to bore everyone with some of this stuff. I love when I just put my headphones in. The first two things John says is, I'm not a smart person, and it gets shorter every year. Age will do that. Well, there's a reason why medication exists as you get older.

01:12:55.860 --> 01:13:25.580
So, all right. To start it off, how long has it been? It's been three weeks, I think, isn't it? Four weeks? Three weeks since we released our list. So off those lists, there's 97 individual albums that showed up on our list. There's six of us. So we have 150 total albums, but 97 different albums, which just goes to show how much music is out there. And Ian, I think you mentioned before about not being able to listen to everything. It's impossible these days to listen to everything.

01:13:25.680 --> 01:13:54.880
You can't even listen to... You can try, but... If I can interject one thing, one thing that just shows you the stats you just put out, is that it's not like a hive mind like the six of us. We all have very different tastes, and we all love different genres of music. I think that's one of the coolest things about us. Yeah. Plus, I don't like... We cover a lot of ground. Yes. And ironically, we also don't like each other very much. Yeah, which is weird. That's why we don't have the same albums on our list.

01:13:55.700 --> 01:13:57.800
Come about that, J.

01:14:01.520 --> 01:14:06.460
Yeah, so 97 albums from all different labels in all different countries.

01:14:06.700 --> 01:14:07.640
We get around.

01:14:08.120 --> 01:14:12.060
Although this year, we only had albums from bands that were in 17 countries.

01:14:12.720 --> 01:14:13.940
Usually we have a lot more than that.

01:14:14.120 --> 01:14:15.220
It's pretty focused this year.

01:14:15.900 --> 01:14:16.840
And we had fewer labels.

01:14:17.740 --> 01:14:22.560
And I think I have to have got the America Fuck You Award this year.

01:14:22.780 --> 01:14:23.620
I feel like...

01:14:23.640 --> 01:14:53.420
We'll just not get ahead of ourselves. I'm not going to talk that long. We'll get there in a few minutes. And shame on Czechoslovakia for not, like, bringing it. Well, they don't exist, so. Exactly. You got the point. Oh, no, they've changed their name again. It's Chechia. Yes. They changed it to, it's almost like Chechnya, but it's like Chechnya. Yeah, to be confused with Chechnya, yeah. Yeah, it's Chechia. I got a mate who's from Czech Republic and he fucking hates it. I hate it, mate. They change it, don't like it. All right,

01:14:53.640 --> 01:15:23.560
So let's get into the country stuff. Like I said, 17 countries, we hit four continents. We get around. All right. So as usual, every year, the country where we have the most albums from is the U.S. Because it seems like despite the fact that Finland has the most per capita bands, it seems like there's more bands in the U.S. just because it's the way it is, unfortunately. Or fortunately, depending on how you like your music. So 45 albums from there. The next country is the United Kingdom.

01:15:23.660 --> 01:15:52.780
We had 10 now, and I always like to break out the United Kingdom. I'm a big football fan, world football fan, so I always like to bring out the different countries within the United Kingdom because if they play in UEFA, they're a country, and they are already, but I like to break it out. UEFA, if you don't know, is for football. So England, Scotland won, and then we had a band that was from all around the UK. Was there one from Scotland? No, none from Scotland.

01:15:56.100 --> 01:16:23.520
No, nothing from Wales this year. Well, Ireland is the UK. Northern Ireland. Yeah, nothing from Ireland. Now, if you're going to go and say that in Ireland, you will also be stabbed. Yeah, we can get stabbed together. You're going to be burned as an epigenia well for that one. Following from there, Canada, nine, Germany, six, Norway, five. Those are individual albums. That means singular albums. I also go with,

01:16:23.600 --> 01:16:24.660
how many total?

01:16:25.520 --> 01:16:26.760
So 76 of our albums

01:16:28.440 --> 01:16:30.980
showed up 76 times on our list from the U.S.

01:16:31.080 --> 01:16:33.460
That means we all have repeating albums there.

01:16:34.460 --> 01:16:35.320
Canada was 15.

01:16:36.000 --> 01:16:36.780
UK was 13.

01:16:38.160 --> 01:16:39.520
Germany and Norway, 9.

01:16:40.460 --> 01:16:40.780
All right.

01:16:41.100 --> 01:16:42.700
So there you go.

01:16:42.820 --> 01:16:43.520
In terms of countries,

01:16:43.740 --> 01:16:44.860
we didn't have as many this year.

01:16:44.860 --> 01:16:47.560
We seem to be pretty focused on a few places.

01:16:48.040 --> 01:16:48.940
Whereas in the past,

01:16:49.100 --> 01:16:52.460
we've had like 25 or 26 countries,

01:16:52.640 --> 01:17:22.540
which is a lot when you think about it. Yeah. Considering the metal countries that are kind of consistent over the years, Germany, the United States, Canada has become quite the metal country. Always has been, but it seems like there's just more and more coming out of there. Yeah. But anyway, let's go into Will brought up, you know, America. Fuck yeah. Let's find out about that. All right. So mark a song for you, 11 from the U.S. and your big country was Canada.

01:17:22.620 --> 01:17:52.600
You had six from there. Yeah, Canada. Fuck yeah. Rip of the border. Fuck yeah, Canada award. Blame Canada. Blame Canada. All right, Matt, you had 14 from the U.S. Yeah, your big country scored Canada and Norway with three. Again with the Canada. Jeez. All right, for me, I was not big on the U.S. this year. I only had six. My big country was the United Kingdom, specifically England. I had five albums from

01:17:52.640 --> 01:18:22.540
there from those bands. Will, you brought this up. You had 15 from the U.S. That's looking good for you. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I got the America Fuck You Award. You usually do. You almost always do, dude. Yeah, all right. Your big country, Will, I think you'll appreciate this. Outside of the U.S. was Australia with three albums. I figured you'd like that. Oh, yeah. Mammoth Throne. Hey. What were the other ones? Oh, King Gizzard. Yeah, King Gizzard. What's the third one? InXX.

01:18:23.480 --> 01:18:26.640
I need you tonight. Hold on.

01:18:26.800 --> 01:18:27.840
Geez, you really want me to look?

01:18:28.320 --> 01:18:29.020
No, you don't have to.

01:18:29.080 --> 01:18:30.320
What's this one from Australia here?

01:18:30.460 --> 01:18:31.300
I do love Australia.

01:18:31.380 --> 01:18:33.460
I live there for a little while and it's phenomenal.

01:18:33.640 --> 01:18:34.580
Well, we can go over it later.

01:18:35.260 --> 01:18:35.820
All right.

01:18:36.200 --> 01:18:36.860
Let's get to Jay.

01:18:37.440 --> 01:18:38.340
Here's an interesting thing.

01:18:38.480 --> 01:18:41.260
Jay had 15 albums from the U.S.

01:18:42.500 --> 01:18:43.880
That's a tie right there so far.

01:18:44.040 --> 01:18:46.140
Germany, a whole easily two.

01:18:46.780 --> 01:18:49.920
Wait, did he list like the Hollywood vampires 15 times?

01:18:51.080 --> 01:18:51.580
He did not.

01:18:51.620 --> 01:19:21.500
No, they didn't have an album this year. All right, here's, we'll get to George. Here's what's interesting. George, you had 15 albums from the United States. Oh, three-way tie. We had a Group America Fuck Yeah award this year. A three-way, that's not unusual for this podcast. George, Jay, and Will, so there you go. Fuck yeah. I think we need to set some limits. There needs to be some quotas. Yeah, George, your big countries outside of the U.S. were,

01:19:21.640 --> 01:19:51.600
Germany and Norway shocker with the Norway three so I was the least US I had the most from outside obviously with only six albums from there all right I'm double-sided so it takes me a second to figure where I am here let's get to the labels real quick I'll get I'll run through this because these this stuff is fun but the awards are the best part so like I mentioned 46 labels for all our albums the big ones for us this year were 20 bucks spin nuclear blast and season miss all had to

01:19:51.640 --> 01:20:21.440
We had five albums from each one of those labels. Hey, John, have you looked at previous years? Because I feel like those three always come up. They do a lot, yeah. But it's secular, based on whatever label's going to have a lot coming out for certain years. Because there's been years where Dark Descent has had a whole bunch of albums, and then they don't. It's the way it goes. But yeah. Little Tip's been rocking it, man. We're going to get to that in a second. But thank you. These are individual albums now. So 20 Buck Spin, Nuclear Bus,

01:20:21.640 --> 01:20:51.380
Seasons and Miss had five. Then Metal Blade, Prosthetic, and Relapse all had four each. So in terms of how many times these albums show up on our list, Seasons and Miss showed up 15 times on our list. So they kind of Seasons and Miss had 20 bucks spent. 20 bucks spent was 12. Those were kind of our two big labels this year. Then the usual Nuclear Blast, Metal Blade showed up 10 times and then Prosthetic, nine. All right. So. By the way, Kudos to Nuclear Blast. They're on Bandcamp now. Oh, it's Century Media. Oh, no, it was Century Media is now on Metal.

01:20:51.620 --> 01:21:21.600
Sorry. At first, I thought that was, I don't know if you guys are familiar with Bandcamp, there's some people who rip albums and throw them up there and try to pretend that they're labels. It happened with Magna Carta, I think that happened, which is a now defunct label. And I thought for a second, because I sent a message to George, I said, is Century Media up there now? I had no idea. And it's legit. They're putting everything up finally. Which shocks me because Century Media is part of the whole Sony Music Group, which I didn't see coming. Because they've held out, because Inside Out is part of

01:21:21.620 --> 01:21:51.480
Century Media Group. And I didn't think it was going to come out. So it's kind of cool. Bandcamp is now owned by Epic Games, isn't it? Yeah. Yep, that's right. So if they got some tie. Yeah, so Epic Games got some tie to big media. Well, that doesn't surprise me. And Century Media has been pumping them out like crazy. Every day I'm getting like six and seven new albums.

01:21:51.620 --> 01:22:21.340
I'm like, ah, man, if only these were in high res. Yep. All right. Because we were thinking, sorry, I'm going on a tangent. We were thinking we'd have to put like Fortnite skins as free downloads. Now you should do that. Wait, I just learned about Fortnite skins. Are they called it Foreskins? That's really well. My son started playing Fortnite. Speaking of gaming, I have been absolutely consumed by Elden Ring.

01:22:21.620 --> 01:22:51.580
I don't know of it. It's it's ridiculously hard. I got it. Like when it came out, I played it for like, can we sample that by the way? A day or two. And I was like, this is too hard. I quit. Ridiculously hard. Well, it's made by the dark souls people. Yeah. And. But about a week or so ago, I said, let me just pick it up again. And my brother like got on with multiplayer with me and helped me out. And now I'm like level 80 and you know, everything kills me, which just makes

01:22:53.200 --> 01:23:21.500
It was on every game of the year list, George. And usually the game of the year. Yeah. It's like, how is it something that's so annoying is so soul suckingly engaging? Yeah. Yeah. That's the point. I feel like it's the same company. I'm playing Deathloop right now. And I feel like it might be similar, a similar company when you say Dark Souls. Secondly, Ian, if you make a Fortnite skin, I will force my children to use it in Fortnite. Turn off our PlayStation if they don't.

01:23:21.600 --> 01:23:51.320
So just... I don't know what would be on the skin. I don't know. I don't know. It's a bad idea. Let's not plow this. What about maybe something from the cover art that you have? Which I wanted to talk about. Just get a naked dude walking around. That's typical for our podcast, you know. I would allow it in my home. It's probably, you know, 50% of the Fortnite player base anyway. Naked dudes walking around. Are you in studio with us right now? Because that's never happened in studio with us. Never. Oh, boy.

01:23:51.620 --> 01:24:20.520
All right. Well, speaking of naked dudes, let's get to the love connection. So, all right, real quick. Markisan you and Jay had a love connection of seven. Your least love connection will to. Yeah, that makes sense. Matt, your love connection was with Jay eight. Your least with me four. So you can go fuck yourself. My love connection was with Jay. Is anyone seeing a pattern here?

01:24:21.620 --> 01:24:51.000
Nine out. My least. Now, this is not a shock. My least. Will. Two. Yeah. Will. Day most desirable award. Yeah. Will. Your love connection. You want to hazard a guess who it was with? Himself. Jay. Nine. Your least. Markisan and me, too. We're now being redundant on some of these. Mine was Jay? Yes. Nine. I'm not surprised. I remember us calling it a lot of the same stuff. Oh, dude. I'm going to be the big spoon when I come visit you in Portal. Jay. You're my little spoon.

01:24:51.620 --> 01:25:20.720
Your Love Connection was with Will and me, nine each. Least was Markisan seven. Think about that. Your lease was seven. Yeah. Great. George hasn't come up at all yet. George, your most was Jay. Eight. Wow. And your lease was Will. So the Get a Room Award goes to Jay and John and Jay and Will, nine each. The Cosmic Putrefaction, which I still don't know why I call it that, but it just sounds funny because it sounds so ominous and bad.

01:25:21.620 --> 01:25:51.580
Will and Markisan two, and Will and John two. And then we have a new thing now called Everybody Loves Jay, because Jay's everyone's top match this year. It's so weird. It is. It also explains why I had an ear infection after that. Funny, too, is I think last year we joked about Jay just, like, taking albums from our lists. Yes. Well, it continues. Sounds like he's all looking for mine. Let's not foreshadow too much, Marcus. Let's finish this up, because we're

01:25:51.620 --> 01:26:21.580
Now we come to the real awards, the Wilsons. And we got this thing about, do you remember the film? Castaway. Castaway with Tom Hanks. There you go. You got it. Volleyballs. Markisan, you had 14 Volleyballs. Matt and John had 12 Volleyballs. Let me just kind of further explain that to you, though, which is this means you were out on a desert island by yourself with these. Yeah, one one. I'm sorry. I apologize. Let me back up. Yeah. If you get a volleyball for

01:26:21.600 --> 01:26:49.880
Every album that you selected, nobody else selected on their list. That's what I mean. So it's a singular selection. So again, Markisan 14, Matt and John 12, Willie had 13 volleyballs. We're going to skip Jay for a second. George, you had 11 volleyballs. Jay had three volleyballs. How is that even possible? How is that even possible? Three volleyballs. So Markisan, you are Tom Hanks. All right. So we had this thing. The most coveted award.

01:26:50.900 --> 01:26:57.180
I will say one thing real quick is the first time I ever saw the movie the Tom Hanks movie Outkast

01:26:58.940 --> 01:27:12.700
Castaway I saw it in the UK there you go and like 2001 or 2000 whatever year came out that's as good as Ian's bolt thrower story and another another castaway link my day job is for FedEx

01:27:14.160 --> 01:27:42.760
Are you serious? Wow. Wait, have you ever seen the Exodus shirt that's FedExodus? No. That's pretty good. It's like banned. They got sued. Exodus had to stop making it because it literally is the FedEx logo, but it says FedExodus. They went after them for that. They did. They literally did. And I have one of those shirts, and I feel like that shirt's worth like $3,000. Yeah. Is Gene Simmons a large investor in FedEx? Right.

01:27:42.900 --> 01:28:12.820
Okay, let's finish this up. Got just a couple more. I had a thing called The Great Prognosticator. It's a dumb name. I would say it was a joke from a person I knew at work from years ago. I needed something in the interim. And now I've come up with, we mentioned Seven Son earlier from Maiden, so Clairvoyant. So who's our podcast Clairvoyant? Who's gotten on the most list? It's a big shocker what we've talked about so far. Marcus, you got 11 albums on our top 25 list. Matt had nine, I had 11. Will had nine. Let's skip J.

01:28:12.920 --> 01:28:42.880
George had 12. Jay had 16 albums on the top 25 list. Wow. Again, second year in a row. Yeah. It's tapping into everyone's laptops and desktops to figure out what they're listening to. Yeah. All right. Now the ominous Jay Award. So the Jay Award is when we would all pick an album and then Jay would come in and torpedo it and not have it on his list on purpose. So we announced it as the Jay

01:28:42.900 --> 01:29:12.840
The funny thing is Jay's been on this list once. The whole time we've been doing it. That's right. But I think it was a record that really hurt everybody's feelings. So probably a chemist. Yeah. Yeah. Poor man's pallbearer. Is that what you said? That's what it was. That's right. Yeah. And I usually end up having the most Jay Awards. I can't wait for the next one to come on. All right. So this year we have two awards. Enslaved Heimdall. Markisan you had that on your list at 20. Matt at 5. I had it at 10. Jay at 16. Georgia 2. Will. There's your Jay Award for the year. Yes.

01:29:12.900 --> 01:29:42.640
I will never put a new enslaved album in my class. Move along. Enslaved is Jay's chemist. Cut his mic when you get a chance, George. Really great guys. They're wonderful human beings. I just don't like their new music. I like the old Swim. We've heard Frost. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah. Blah,

01:29:42.920 --> 01:30:12.380
Parkinson, five, Matt, three, John, eight, Will, 14, J12, George, nada. Really? George had it. I had to go back and lay his list twice to make sure I wasn't imagining this. It might have even just forgot it. No, no. It wouldn't have been on my list either. It just didn't do anything for me. Really? No. Just cut Ian's like video mic feed. I thought we weren't listening to Will right now. Then I cut his mic. Well, no, I'm curious about this. I can just cut it.

01:30:13.100 --> 01:30:42.880
Do you not like 2Mold or you just didn't like this album in particular? Well, I wasn't overly familiar with 2Mold, so I can't speak of their back catalogue, but I listened to it. This was after it started showing up on all the lists, and I'm like, I don't know, man. It just didn't register. I thought, okay. And that's no reflection on the guys. I'm sure they're very cool. I don't like to fly off with the bands. This is the lowest it's ranked out of any of the records for us, by the way. I mean, you know, it's not...

01:30:42.900 --> 01:31:12.860
Still finished number two on our list. Yeah. They're Canadian. They're super nice. I've met them multiple times. They're really nice. Great. I mean, it's a very divided album because it's so progressive. It's so much more progressive than other stuff. Yeah. I didn't know they were Canadian. That's news to me. Yeah. All right. We got one last thing to do. It'll take a second. We don't, we have never been able to figure out how to do a hall of fame on the podcast. However, we do have a hall of fame for album of the month because we have now two albums.

01:31:13.980 --> 01:31:41.880
If you remember back in 2019, we all selected Tumult's Planetary Clairvoyance as our favorite album of the month in 2019 in July. Well, we did it again. This is, by the way, since Marcus has been on the podcast. We did it again with Horrendous. We were with Anthological Mysterium in August of this year. We all selected it as our album of the month. So we actually have a album of the month Hall of Fame now that we have two albums. That's it. That's all I got.

01:31:42.560 --> 01:32:10.180
All right, John. Thank you, John. All right, let's do a quick t-shirt and beer check. We'll start with Ian. What are you drinking? What are you wearing? Well, I've got a couple of beers here. First of all, I'm drinking Beaver Town Space Hulk. Of course. That's a call back to you Warhammer nerds.

01:32:11.980 --> 01:32:39.840
I won't go into that. And then this other one is a gift from my wife. This is Brewdog Rannock. Nice glyph printed on it there like that. Shirt wise, what have I got on here? Can you see that? Take it off, baby. This is from a company called Heavy Machine Gun.

01:32:41.980 --> 01:33:11.620
by an ex-British Special Forces guy who's a bit of a metalhead and loads of his t-shirts reference like Sepultura and Metallica and ACDC. What's it called again, Ian? Heavy Machine Gun. That's weird, a guy from the military that likes metal. We got one of those. That's weird. So he was in SBS, Special Boat Service. No, SAS. Oh, SBS, yes. So it's SAS and SBS.

01:33:11.960 --> 01:33:41.940
I was a Marine sniper recon did all kinds of crazy ridiculously crazy stuff for my life so you know just support your veterans man I love it I've got veterans in the family thank you for supporting your service British Army American Air Force my cousin and my granddad was in the Royal Air Force in World War II so when I type in heavy machine gun.com nothing comes up I'll find it I'll send it to you

01:33:42.480 --> 01:34:11.900
Heavy Machine Gun Clothing or something like that. I'll just Google it. I thought about the British Army myself at one point, and then I discovered metal growing my hair and not taking orders, so it kind of went by the wayside. By the way, it's hmgclothing.com. Check it out. Oh, yeah. Like, I just got a boner. The guy who's on, like, the cover is, like, he's jacked.

01:34:11.980 --> 01:34:13.220
And holding an M16.

01:34:14.180 --> 01:34:15.460
And not having a British gun.

01:34:15.780 --> 01:34:17.100
He's like holding an American gun.

01:34:17.800 --> 01:34:19.240
I think special police.

01:34:19.680 --> 01:34:22.640
He's got a big British flag on his bicep.

01:34:23.180 --> 01:34:24.560
Who was that guy that played with Alice Cooper?

01:34:25.480 --> 01:34:25.940
Kane Roberts.

01:34:26.500 --> 01:34:26.860
Remember him?

01:34:26.940 --> 01:34:27.020
Yeah.

01:34:27.840 --> 01:34:29.420
He was back in the van there for a few minutes.

01:34:29.620 --> 01:34:29.820
Yeah.

01:34:30.380 --> 01:34:31.000
Like last year.

01:34:31.320 --> 01:34:31.540
Wow.

01:34:31.540 --> 01:34:35.260
Yeah, I feel like we need to get Jack Reacher, the dude who plays him now, in like a metal hat.

01:34:35.290 --> 01:34:35.800
Oh, hell yeah.

01:34:35.830 --> 01:34:36.140
Like a shirt.

01:34:36.370 --> 01:34:37.440
That would be fucking awesome.

01:34:37.730 --> 01:34:41.700
I just feel like great joy out of listening to Will discover that site just now.

01:34:43.140 --> 01:34:43.980
And he just went.

01:34:44.300 --> 01:34:46.220
No, he's like completely off the cast now.

01:34:46.270 --> 01:34:47.540
And he's just got a big boner.

01:34:47.630 --> 01:34:48.700
And you're like, we're all over this.

01:34:48.700 --> 01:34:49.660
We'll see you in about two hours.

01:34:50.560 --> 01:34:52.720
In the meantime, let's move on to Marcason.

01:34:54.100 --> 01:34:57.560
Yeah, so I just finished a beer called Benthic.

01:34:58.140 --> 01:34:59.780
It's from Half Acre here in Chicago.

01:35:00.010 --> 01:35:05.900
And it is a bourbon barrel aged imperial style with toasted coconut and coffee.

01:35:07.060 --> 01:35:08.840
It's got sea creatures on it.

01:35:08.940 --> 01:35:10.620
I feel like this is like a theme with you.

01:35:10.660 --> 01:35:40.300
Like your Hawaii days has trans. And send it into. Yes, yes. Into Chicago where it's a lot of like imperial styles, toasted coconut. Like it's amazing. I love it. You're going dark. Yeah. Okay. Well, then I'm also not drinking though. A triple India pale ale called personal space from Anchorage. So you're right. Oh, I got that too. That must be strong, right? Oh, yeah. All the viewers I drink are strong.

01:35:40.640 --> 01:36:07.480
I don't think Marcasson ever drinks a beer that's like less than 9%. I don't. You're missing so many good beers Marcasson by doing that. You really are. It's like a wine. Yeah you are. So this one the triple IPA no I don't do session 10% the benthic was 13.6%. Well isn't Waze a session? Yeah it is. Waze is awesome. Waze it means.

01:36:10.760 --> 01:36:40.140
It also says on here, art by massive face, which I like. As opposed to like small face? Yeah, as opposed to tiny face. Well, what is it? Well, it just doesn't taste like nothing. There used to be this guy who was a brewer there who was awesome at brewing beer. And when I left, sorry, when that brewer left, they started to suck. They used adjuncts. They used like hop.

01:36:40.640 --> 01:37:10.580
I used to drink a lot of that beer by the way. I know. All right. It was good. It was it. So now we have. Oh, and also I'm wearing a brimming horn shirt. No goat's blood. It's the goat's blood that they made for incantation. Oh, they made a shirt for that. Oh, it's very Bathory like. I didn't know they made a shirt for that. I was there. I took my son there in October. I got it at decibel actually. Okay. You may have been a little too drunk. I was, I was ridiculously sober when I,

01:37:10.660 --> 01:37:38.620
showed up there because I was came from my son's baseball game. I didn't even have anything to drink. I just walked in and started talking to people and I didn't even have anything to drink. Yeah. All right, Matt. Shirt wise, I've got Cannibal Corpse. I picked up on the recent tour and I have been nursing a barrel aged barley wine aged in Highland Scotch by the brewery gigantic brewing. It's Scott, not Scotch.

01:37:40.640 --> 01:38:09.920
It is when it's a scotch ale. It just keeps coming up. Nope. I'm never saying scotch again unless it has to do with tape. Well, you can have a scotch ale. Nope. I'll have a scotch ale, thanks. But they're called scotch ales. I know. I'm just playing around. I like scotch eggs a lot. Oh, I love those. Anyways. Wait, what is scotch eggs? That's an egg. A hard-boiled egg with like a sausage. You'd like it well. Sorry, everyone saw it at the same time. It's what?

01:38:10.660 --> 01:38:40.620
Take this. You'd love it. It's a hard egg covered in meat, basically. Oh, of course. I mean, a hardball egg. I would love it, yes. It's right up your alley. Apparently Ian's not a fan. Oh, it's a hardball egg coated in offal and then a breadcrumb on top. Isn't it? Rolled in a breadcrumb. Delicious. Okay, then. And Matt, what are you drinking? Oh, wait. I know you did wine. I had the barley wine aged in scotch. No, I have nothing else. Okay. Yeah. That's where we

01:38:41.280 --> 01:39:10.020
Yeah. All right. Well then, John. All right, me. So real quick, we're in a Decimal Fest shirt. I don't know what year. I think 2021. I probably worn this like three times on the podcast. It's just, it's in the cycle. My first beer is from Grimm Brewing up in New York. Oracle Deck, double IPA. It's a nice can. We used to get their stuff all the time here because they used to contract brew at Beltway Brewing, but they aren't doing that anymore because Beltway Brewing ain't around anymore.

01:39:10.820 --> 01:39:39.200
And my second, and I mentioned, Marcus, on why you should drink beers that are less than 9% is because I'm drinking an actual classic when it comes to porters from Deschutes, Black Butte Porter. That's pretty good, yeah. No, not pretty good. This is really good. They win tons of award every year. Porter is a beer that I will dip down just because they're actually better when they're a little bit less. That's because they're supposed to be.

01:39:39.960 --> 01:40:09.200
That's the difference between them and what comes after. Them, that Edmunds Fitzgerald, well, I know you like that one too. Great Lakes. They're classic beers. They're still great. I don't know. I'll get something else at some point because we're only like 10% into this podcast. I'm wearing my Campbell Corps hoodie. That's pretty cool, actually. I like that. Wait, no, you said hoodie.

01:40:09.940 --> 01:40:39.880
You didn't say your hood. You said hoodie. If I saw that graphic, I would think it was candle mass for a second. I thought so, too. Yeah, it kind of does. Yeah, no, it's kind of a corpse hoodie. Jay, what are you wearing and not drinking? What are you wearing? And yeah, later. I'm retired, man. You can drink all day long. I'm pretty sure it's a lie. Okay, I'm happy. I'm happy with your shirt choice. I will say that. Yeah, well, honestly, it's nice out here. It's like 65 degrees, but it's a little cool in the house. I don't want to turn a heater on such a nice day. So we went long shirt.

01:40:41.680 --> 01:40:42.520
I mean,

01:40:42.520 --> 01:40:42.700
you know,

01:40:42.940 --> 01:40:44.520
nice mostly because it's long sleeve,

01:40:45.360 --> 01:40:46.240
but hey,

01:40:46.560 --> 01:40:51.880
it's metal and ice cold water sucked out of the reservoir or excuse me,

01:40:51.960 --> 01:40:54.300
aquifer directly below my house with my own.

01:40:55.600 --> 01:40:55.760
Hey,

01:40:55.920 --> 01:40:58.200
I'm coming out to like in March.

01:40:58.290 --> 01:41:00.940
I'm coming out to like white sands and Carlsbad.

01:41:01.740 --> 01:41:02.820
I'll meet you halfway or something.

01:41:03.080 --> 01:41:03.660
What are you doing?

01:41:04.880 --> 01:41:06.500
I'm going to white sands and Carlsbad.

01:41:06.860 --> 01:41:07.280
It's just fun.

01:41:07.340 --> 01:41:07.460
Oh,

01:41:07.460 --> 01:41:08.080
it's a fun thing.

01:41:08.260 --> 01:41:08.460
Yeah,

01:41:08.720 --> 01:41:08.800
dude,

01:41:10.140 --> 01:41:38.300
I mean, you're right on the border. Yeah. Like literally, we'll talk about later, but I will pencil you in and then I'll write it with a pen and then a magic marker. We'll see. Sharpies permanent. I got it. Okay. Ian J retired early. So he's like, basically just trudges through the desert. A man of pleasure. Does whatever he wants. Yes. Unfortunately, it's not because I sold some big tech company or something. I had a bullshit government job for 20 years and I get a nice little pension.

01:41:38.900 --> 01:41:41.020
and live out in the desert, which you can't see from here.

01:41:42.060 --> 01:41:47.540
I'm wearing my Ye Olde Tombs shirt, which I have worn many times before.

01:41:48.370 --> 01:41:51.200
I started with Lone Pines.

01:41:51.690 --> 01:41:53.460
It came from Maine.

01:41:54.130 --> 01:41:55.000
Triple IPA.

01:41:55.660 --> 01:41:55.760
Nice.

01:41:56.720 --> 01:41:57.780
Moved on to.

01:41:59.940 --> 01:42:00.380
Drekker.

01:42:00.660 --> 01:42:01.720
Stephen King type thing.

01:42:02.540 --> 01:42:07.560
I think I thought it was more of like a swamp thing kind of thing or a creature from the Black Lagoon kind of thing.

01:42:07.720 --> 01:42:08.640
Yeah, I can see that.

01:42:09.580 --> 01:42:34.840
Drekker's Goodbye Stranger Double IPA. Some more cool artwork. And just cracked. It's Complicated Being a Wizard Double IPA from Burlington. Oh, yeah. That's the Alan Moore beer. Just think about it. It's Complicated Being a Wizard. It's Complicated Being a Wizard. That's awesome. All right. Let's move on to the news.

01:42:48.080 --> 01:43:07.940
This first one, I'm just going to toss right to John as soon as I speak it. Ray Alder and Jim Mathios from Fate's Warning have formed a new project called North Sea Echoes. The debut album, Really Good Terrible Things, is out next month. End of next month, the 23rd of February.

01:43:08.740 --> 01:43:38.700
Yeah, there's not really much to say because I had no idea this was coming out until the other day when they announced it. And I don't think this is going to be very much metal. And I think it's just going to be a kind of a rock band kind of thing, which I get the feeling that's all Jim Athéas wants to do right now. So is it Fate's Warning light? I don't know. I mean, it's kind of cool that they're both doing something together. Could be interesting. Yeah, it's it is what it is. I mean, Fate's Warning is they were around for 40 years. So I just take

01:43:38.740 --> 01:44:08.700
They're gonna do their own thing now. So it's cool. They're both doing something together. I heard the first song. It was all right. I really like that picture that was attached to the story. They both looked like such elder statesmen in that. Yeah, they do. That was a cool photo. And out of nowhere, Ray's hair started showing up gray. I was like, whoa, when did that happen? They both looked like they were 10 years older than the last picture I saw of them. Well, it was black and white, so I'm sure, you know. Fair enough. No, you're right, Jay. They do. It doesn't seem like it's metal at all. I like the song, actually, but I mean, it's two metal legends from

01:44:08.740 --> 01:44:38.040
Fates Warning reuniting to make Haunting Dream Rock, I guess I would call it. Yeah. So it's coming out from Metal Blade, but it doesn't seem like there's going to be any metal on it. No, there's a reason why it's on Metal Blade because what's his name? Oh, God. Toronto Blade. The guy from Metal Blade. Ryan. Slagle, yes. He is such a big fan of everything Fates Warning and all the external projects that if you read the book Destination Onward, I think he, whatever you guys want, we'll do kind of thing.

01:44:38.120 --> 01:44:38.660
I mean,

01:44:38.870 --> 01:44:41.860
they must have been one of the first five bands signed the metal plate.

01:44:41.890 --> 01:44:43.840
I think they were really one of the early ones.

01:44:44.020 --> 01:44:44.120
Yeah.

01:44:45.280 --> 01:44:45.420
Well,

01:44:45.480 --> 01:44:47.620
I've loved Ray Alder's vocals all throughout,

01:44:47.760 --> 01:44:48.860
but especially recently,

01:44:49.020 --> 01:44:50.540
like A to C was really good.

01:44:51.980 --> 01:44:53.460
His solo stuff is pretty cool,

01:44:53.490 --> 01:44:57.220
but all that stuff is hard rock based with some proggy elements.

01:44:57.460 --> 01:44:57.960
And I think that's,

01:44:58.160 --> 01:45:00.560
those guys just want to do their own thing.

01:45:00.620 --> 01:45:01.520
Now they put their time in.

01:45:01.700 --> 01:45:02.460
So yeah.

01:45:02.960 --> 01:45:03.020
Yeah.

01:45:03.200 --> 01:45:03.500
It's cool.

01:45:04.620 --> 01:45:04.940
All right.

01:45:05.080 --> 01:45:05.740
Moving on.

01:45:06.320 --> 01:45:36.280
Hell has officially frozen over, at least in Finland. Wintersun has completed work on Time 2. It only took them 12 years. There's no release date yet, but apparently it's done. I guess he got his sauna, so he was able to... Oh, you just stole it right from me! So he was able to finish working with, you know, the sauna to, you know, relieve the stress of recording, yeah. Nice to use the word finish there, by the way, George. I was going to say Finch, but...

01:45:36.320 --> 01:46:06.020
Hey, raise your hand if you've been in a Finnish sauna. I have not. I've been to Norway. I've been to Sweden. I have not been to Finland. I have such a great story. I was supposed to go to Finland. If it wasn't for Valken trying to take my leg, I would have. But that got canceled. I mean, I don't even remember the album. This has been so long. This band is the George R. Martin of metal. This thing was in the works since right after time one, wasn't it?

01:46:06.880 --> 01:46:35.320
So, man, I gotta go back. This is like Guns N' Roses Chinese Democracy. I mean, they're like... Hopefully better, but... They do like a mellow death, almost like operas, really. So I'm not surprised it took a long time, but 12 years is a really long time. So the main guy have a day job. Jari, I mean. He's Winterson his whole thing. I hope he has a day job. And he spends his life from Kickstarters and whatnot. Yeah, exactly. Nice work if you can get it.

01:46:36.300 --> 01:47:06.260
It's the period Gabriel of a lot of death metal. He puts out an album once every 15 years now, it seems like. At least his last two. Yeah, at least it's doing it, though, you know. Yeah, you know, I'll listen to it. There's that. Yeah. So. The sauna has been built. Well, people are backing. I mean, people go on and saying, you know, he's a bit of a hustler and he's taking people's money, but people are backing the Kickstarters. Yeah. They want to back the Kickstarters. Yeah. Can't blame him for taking it.

01:47:06.300 --> 01:47:35.800
We should start a Kickstarter to get a sauna in the podcast studio here. We'll be the ones paying for it. I mean, in the one of the original crowdfunders, did he stipulate they were going for an in-studio sauna or not? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that was the whole. So people were willing to back it then. Yeah. It kind of divided fans. Fans either paid or they got rubbed really hard the wrong way. It was kind of funny. Yeah. Yeah.

01:47:37.800 --> 01:48:06.060
Anyway, besides that, Joey Vera is out of Merciful Fate. Don't know anything more about it. I'd actually forgotten that he was in the band because he's, you know, he's still doing the Armored Saint thing. I think he was just temporary from everything I've read. I assume that from the get-go. I did too. He was just helping out the band because, again, early Metal Blade stuff, the connections, and all those guys knew each other back then. Yeah. I took it from the get-go.

01:48:06.140 --> 01:48:35.520
that they were like, hey, could you do this tour with us? I thought that was probably it. The girl who has replaced him already did some shows with him. Yeah, she's already been playing for him. Yeah. She's been with them on the road since 2022. Becky. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. The thing of it was Merciful Fate did their like first North American tour in 23 years in 2022. And Joey couldn't do it because of a scheduling conflict. So it's probably just like he doesn't have time. They've got to get somebody to be permanent.

01:48:36.160 --> 01:49:05.720
and the drummer. You gotta get somebody who's gonna be there all the time. Yeah. I'm with Joey Vera though but that was because it was the very end of the sort of festival tour and they did. Yeah. Las Vegas. Yeah. And we talked to Joey at the hotel and I'm actually surprised he didn't mention something about this based on how close we are with the two of us. Did you guys talk to him? Yeah. We did. He probably had a lot on his plate. I get it. You know, he was busy. Just left his mind. You know, just a small aside here. We ran into everybody.

01:49:06.160 --> 01:49:35.860
A lot of people. We did. And we were walking around in the casino maybe a couple hours before the King, the Merciful Fates set. And for some reason I said to Matt, I was like, you know what? I bet if we go down to the front desk right now, we'll meet King Diamond. So we went to that and we did not meet King Diamond. We met every other fucking member of Merciful Fates. Everybody was walking by but no King Diamond. Including people not actually playing at Psycho Vegas. So. Yeah. That's right. That's exactly.

01:49:37.180 --> 01:50:06.080
Like Ross from Immolation walked by and we grabbed him and he's like, yeah, I was sitting at the table with, who was the guy? Danny Loker. You wouldn't talk to him. I didn't realize he was sitting at the table with him. So I digress. So anyway, no surprise. This isn't even news. I don't know why they put out any kind of weird press release. I think they were more announcing the new girl than the fact that he was leaving. I think that's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. Well, all right. She's from Birmingham. I've seen her.

01:50:06.180 --> 01:50:36.120
Oh, is that right? Yeah. I didn't read the article because it kind of didn't give a shit, even though it's merciful fate, but was she attached to other bands previous to this? Only like nothing big, nothing signed. I mean, it was like, I think the banner is called Fury, and it was almost like they put albums and stuff, but it was all, I think, it was all like self-released. So how did she get this gig? I have a theory about it. I suspect

01:50:36.160 --> 01:51:05.440
She's really active in the community through all these different things. She does voice acting and all this stuff. And for some reason, I'm convinced this is well, I think it could have been a blood. It could have been a blood stock thing. Yeah. Yeah. Cause like, you know, uh, like in the, uh, VIP area, there's like a bar and stuff. You can go around and drink. Her band fury has played it a lot.

01:51:06.160 --> 01:51:36.120
like as a bar band in the VIP area. It could be something like that. Well, that's a great gig for her. By the way, I mean, we're well past any kind of glass ceiling at this point, but in metal, I think kind of, but kind of a cool move to bring a woman into the band. Yeah, I think so. All right. Our last news item. This was a pleasant surprise to me, but legendary death metal producer, Scott Burns will be at the Philadelphia Decibel Metal

01:51:36.160 --> 01:51:44.520
and beer fest promoting his book the scott burns sessions a life in death metal 1987 to 1997 so

01:51:45.040 --> 01:51:50.500
theoretically we could run into scott burns in april when we are in philly at the decibel metal and

01:51:50.500 --> 01:52:06.120
beer fest that'd be cool yeah it'll be yeah i got the book as a christmas gift so i'll either bring it or i'll just get another copy and i think the author david gelke is going to be there as well so that's pretty cool yeah we're going to talk to that guy

01:52:06.800 --> 01:52:35.700
Scott? Individually or collectively, but I mean, why would you not want to just worship Scott Burns? Yeah. We got to get him on the couch, Will. Yeah. If they let us into the couch area. At the Marriott. They got rid of the couch, guys. I know. Oh, that couch. It's like, it's a weird cage. It's almost like they learn from their past mistakes. Like, okay, if we put a couch here, there's a whole bunch of fat, like 40-year-olds are going to sit here, drink beer and eat pizza.

01:52:36.140 --> 01:52:37.620
And they're going to like

01:52:38.240 --> 01:52:40.620
just take everything over. And it's like a cage now.

01:52:40.900 --> 01:52:42.700
I was literally, I checked out of there

01:52:43.360 --> 01:52:43.740
this morning.

01:52:44.680 --> 01:52:44.860
Yeah.

01:52:45.500 --> 01:52:47.060
That would be because of us.

01:52:47.520 --> 01:52:48.660
I know. It's not the same.

01:52:48.920 --> 01:52:50.420
It is no longer the same.

01:52:50.520 --> 01:52:51.320
We ruined it for everybody.

01:52:51.600 --> 01:52:53.160
Actually, you did. I wasn't there for that one.

01:52:53.180 --> 01:52:53.860
No, I was.

01:52:54.140 --> 01:52:57.500
It was Jay, Will, and myself, Looch.

01:52:58.320 --> 01:52:59.660
I was the best, man.

01:52:59.920 --> 01:53:00.340
All right.

01:53:01.040 --> 01:53:02.400
Let's move on to new releases.

01:53:03.880 --> 01:53:05.520
This week's new releases.

01:53:05.640 --> 01:53:35.560
Yes, give me your. Spend your 100 money now. There's a lot of them. First up, we have this little band you may have never heard of called Abhoria and their second album, Depths. They're a deathy black band from L.A. featuring the most sexy guy in metal, Trevor. And congratulations, Dan, for his latest feel. Yes, it's very good. I forgot that I pre-ordered it. I was all like, oh, I got to pick this up. And then I went to go pick it up and I was like,

01:53:35.660 --> 01:54:05.480
Oh yeah, I already bought it. Yeah. Let me just say that his wife's Facebook feed continues to exhaust me to no end. Well, they were just in like Cambodia and Vietnam. Your Facebook feed is exactly like his. Like you're off hiking in a desert somewhere. Yeah, but they're in them. You guys are the same. He was just in Anger Wat. He was just there last week or two weeks ago. And they went to Vietnam and Cambodia and a couple other places. They get back.

01:54:05.640 --> 01:54:35.180
Two fucking days later, they're like up the coast somewhere in California. I'm like, dude, fucking take a nap. Maybe binge something on Netflix. Imagine when he actually retires. Yeah, they get around, dude. They'll probably just stay home. But I love the record, though. I mean, I think it's some of the most dynamic songs Trevor's done. Like, it's ultra aggressive, but. Didn't it just come today? Or yesterday? Friday. Yeah, I mean, we've had it, but yeah. Got complexity in it, you know.

01:54:35.660 --> 01:55:05.580
I love the vocals from Ben Pitts from In the Company of Serpents. Yeah, the new vocalist is amazing. He can shift from that death roar to the black and rasps. Great fit for the band. Yeah, he is amazing. Trevor secretly sent me the video and the first video of the new lead singer and they're out in the woods and snowing and stuff like that and their wives and stuff. It was an amazing video.

01:55:05.640 --> 01:55:34.200
But what I noticed is that the new guys, Ben's vocals, are just, like, it's perfect. He is the most amazing. Like, he's up there with, in my opinion, with the greatest vocalist, death black metal vocalist ever. Like, he can enunciate, but he can also just, like, just kill you with it. Like, it's amazing. Like, I really like it. I really like it.

01:55:34.800 --> 01:56:03.940
I'm really shocked he didn't send you the children's clean singing choir version of the song. Trevor knows what to send me and what not to send me. All right. But I didn't feel special. Like I felt special. He sent me like, this is just for you. So Ian, Trevor's in another band where he does a lot of clean singing and I hate the clean singing in that other band. But he has this band, Emporia, which is just pure black metal, death metal.

01:56:04.040 --> 01:56:33.580
It's pure. There's no fucking clean singing. There's no clean singing. Yeah. I don't know. You might like the next one. The next Ashen Horde. Ian, what did you think of Vaporea? It was good. It was solid. It was really nasty. Yeah, I mean, I haven't spun it enough to really dig into it properly. But it was nice and immediate. Excellent. Yeah. Yeah, he's a friend of the cast.

01:56:34.040 --> 01:57:04.000
Good workout music, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Good energy in that. Yeah. I really like it. And it's gotten great in reviews so far, too. They've been posting those, so that's nice. Yeah. All right. Next up, we have the fourth album from Lord Dying, Clandestine Transcendence. Say that five times fast. It's their fourth album, as I said. They're from Oregon, and it's, I don't know, they used to be like a sludge band. I don't know if you'd still call it that. I mean, it's definitely still in their DNA, but

01:57:04.740 --> 01:57:33.480
Holy shit. What an album. Yeah. Hold no stops on this one. Yeah, no, I, this is hands down fricking amazing. And I'm just going to call it right now. I'm with the month. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's pretty stunning. I mean, the musicianship, the songwriting and arrangements, the vocals, everything's masterfully done. They call their music progressive sludge, but I think that's really just the base structure for the band. There's just a, there's a lot of hefty, like I would say an infusion of classic rock.

01:57:34.020 --> 01:58:04.000
There's a lot of dark gothic atmosphere, which was not on the last one, but I really like that injection on clandestine transcendence. So it's also almost an hour long, right? But it breezes by. I don't feel like there's a lot of filler in this thing. And the other cool thing about this album is it tells the second part of a story that they started on Mysterium Tremendum about an immortal character called the Dreamer who wants to die and then

01:58:05.360 --> 01:58:32.400
you know what it's like after that what happens after he does expire so i got two like story elements of course in music but yeah and every time i spin it i like it more and i listened to the the previous album mysterium tremendum and i think this one blows that one away and i like the last one was on my list yeah i think it was in the 20s but this one's better yeah i'm still torn on that because the previous album i think was

01:58:33.220 --> 01:59:02.300
five or six for me when it came out. So they're both great. It's a tale of two different bands. These two albums are different than the first two. So I like it too. I think it's good. I haven't had a chance to spin anything that much recently in terms of consistent spins. But I liked it from what I've heard. Ian, did you get a chance to spin this one? I did indeed. I liked, is it the second track called I Am Everything, I Am Nothing?

01:59:02.400 --> 01:59:32.220
or something like that. Had some really cool slide guitar in this kind of aggressive pummeling. I am nothing. I am everything. That's what it's called. I am nothing. I am everything. That's kind of the most immediate track that makes you go. It's pretty cool. And then it like even touched on like kind of like Opeth on one of the tracks. Oh, yeah. Near the end. There's one thing that there was a couple of things I thought they missed on. The bass player.

01:59:32.440 --> 02:00:01.880
What's her name? Alyssa? Got it here somewhere. Yeah, the bass player, Alyssa, she appears on vocals on the first track, but then I don't hear her again. I don't think I hear her again. Oh, yeah. I think they missed a bit of an opportunity there just to add an extra. Yeah. I think she's new, though, so maybe she'll do more. She's married to Matt Pike, I think. Yeah, but she joined the band actually a while ago, I thought. Did she? I thought.

02:00:02.420 --> 02:00:32.380
The first album that she was on. First recorded album, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to remember who she's from another band. I'm sorry. I was going to say, she's from another band in Portland that we all know, and I just can't think of it off the top of my head right now. It's in the bio. I've got the bio open. I was just looking it up. I'll tell you. No, I can't. I'm scanning through it. Oh, here we go. Eight Bells? Oh, yeah. She's a former one in Eight Bells, yeah. I got that. Yeah. I also didn't

02:00:32.440 --> 02:01:02.380
I like the mix unfortunately sorry guys I thought the mix was a bit really kind of flat and I think if it had a more polished mix I think it would have jumped out a bit more for me personally a punchier mix you think yeah yeah I think a punchier mix yeah the drums sounded a bit kind of hollow to me but it was mixed by the guy from

02:01:02.960 --> 02:01:32.380
Yeah, he mixes the shit out of everything. I assume that's who it is. He's the Converge guy. He's kind of America's little darling right now in the underground as far as he's got his own studio, actually. I think he does the high on fire stuff too, doesn't he? Not all of them, but he's done some of them. I think he did the last two or something like that. Yeah, the recent ones. And he did like the Veltor Talk records and a bunch of shit. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Our last new release is Saxon or

02:01:32.400 --> 02:01:33.620
for J, Saxon.

02:01:34.560 --> 02:01:35.380
Saxon, Saxon.

02:01:36.180 --> 02:01:38.300
Hell, Fire, and Damnation.

02:01:38.660 --> 02:01:44.240
Not Hellfire and Damnation, but Hell, Fire and Damnation.

02:01:44.240 --> 02:01:45.120
The pardon distinction.

02:01:45.400 --> 02:01:47.460
This is Saxon's 10,000th album.

02:01:48.280 --> 02:01:52.060
I was not going to take the time to count all that shit up, so I just made up a number.

02:01:52.300 --> 02:01:53.800
And, you know, it's good.

02:01:54.150 --> 02:01:56.700
I know some people like Saxon more than others.

02:01:57.280 --> 02:01:58.120
I don't have a problem with it.

02:01:58.640 --> 02:02:28.460
But at the same time, it doesn't blow my kilt up when I'm in Scotchland. So. There you go. Yeah, I'll take the Jay and John angle here. Well, first of all, I have a theory and I've shared it before that basically every third Saxon record is good at this point. And this isn't one of them. It's okay. It's nothing special. The last one, great. And this is the first one with what's his fuck. Unless he's on it, actually. I need to look the guitar. Oh, he is. The guy from Diamond Head. Paul Quinn was the one who laughed.

02:02:28.620 --> 02:02:57.240
Yeah, and honestly... Brian Tattler is the one who... Yeah, from Diamond Head. From Diamond Head, yeah. And does Paul Quinn on it, though? Because I thought he just quit touring with them. And he's such an important part of that band. I'm pretty sure the guy from Diamond Head now is on there. Yeah, I think Tattler did the... He's certainly in the video for one of the tracks I just watched. Yes, yeah. Yeah, you know what? I listened to it once. I don't know if I'm going to listen to it again. And I'm probably this band's biggest proponent on this podcast. Oh, yeah. Probably, yeah.

02:02:58.640 --> 02:03:28.160
It's actually proving to be quite true. Maybe every third album is pretty good. This is something they phoned in a little bit. Maybe it's Paul Quinn's absence. Could be. I mean, I thought it was pretty solid. It starts off with one of the cheesiest openings to an album ever. It's some old guy shouting about the powers of... I can tell you who that old guy is. That old guy is Brian Blessed, who's a British actor. Everything. That's his shit.

02:03:28.620 --> 02:03:57.720
He's a huge dude with a huge beard. I know that Ryan Blessed. He's amazing. He's in Flash Gordon. He's in Flash Gordon. Oh, I love Flash Gordon. That's his famous quote. Oh, yeah, I know him. Forgive me, but this reminds me of getting Patrick McGowan to do the prisoner thing. If you guys were familiar with the British. That's one of the best stories. Let's do it.

02:03:59.300 --> 02:04:28.580
It's the punchline after that that I always liked, which was they were like, we should do the prisoner thing at the beginning of it. And they were like, well, we should get him to do it. And they were like, it's a great story. So they call him up on the phone and it was Martin Burst that called him. And he was like, I've got this band here and they have a song called The Prisoner, blah, blah, blah. Yes. And then Patrick McGowan famously said, John. Let's do it. That was the only words he said to them. And they hung up the phone and they were like, they noticed he was kind of nervous.

02:04:29.200 --> 02:04:58.580
And they were like, what the fuck, man? Why were you so nervous talking to him? And they said, well, he's a fucking legend, not like you fucking cunts. Yeah, like you cunts would know that, yeah. Yeah, but I've always loved that story. But anyway, apparently, the, what was his name? What was the? Brian Blessed. Brian Blessed. Brian Blessed. And I apologize because I said that. You're a foil, Marcus. Yeah, it's a terrible opening. You know, listen, this band has been around 46 years, right? And they're still writing Hetchy, Hetchy,

02:04:59.000 --> 02:05:03.040
catchy, catchy, catchy, heavy tunes. So, and I think, in fact, I think they're heavier

02:05:03.180 --> 02:05:26.460
than when they started for sure. So I think that's cool that they're still tearing it up and they've been around this long and that's pretty remarkable, I think. So to put out an album like this, I think the songs are consistent. So if you'd like this band, the songs and the album are pretty consistent, you know, it is not my favorite kind of music, but I just think that if you have been doing it for almost 50 years and you can still put out an album like this, you deserve a little bit of credit.

02:05:28.640 --> 02:05:30.000
as a band, because that's pretty cool.

02:05:30.180 --> 02:05:30.600
Oh, they will.

02:05:30.610 --> 02:05:30.920
They will.

02:05:31.140 --> 02:05:32.380
I thought it was solid too.

02:05:32.510 --> 02:05:33.060
I'm with Jay.

02:05:33.920 --> 02:05:38.880
I think after a certain point, if you really want to have sax albums, the first five

02:05:38.970 --> 02:05:41.180
are something that you, the first one's even debatable.

02:05:41.320 --> 02:05:43.520
The first five albums are where you want to start.

02:05:44.000 --> 02:05:44.140
Yeah.

02:05:44.220 --> 02:05:48.200
And after that, you can literally pick and choose whatever you want, whatever fancies

02:05:48.550 --> 02:05:48.900
your taste.

02:05:49.030 --> 02:05:52.580
I mean, there's nothing that's changing every album.

02:05:53.220 --> 02:05:55.060
Well, there is one that you want to avoid.

02:05:55.240 --> 02:05:56.480
It's called Innocence is No Excuse.

02:05:56.550 --> 02:05:57.600
Well, yeah, of course.

02:05:57.680 --> 02:06:25.460
It's like their Bon Jovi phase or some bullshit, but short of that. But yeah, and like George said, you know, okay, so 9,999 albums are worth it and one isn't. I will say on this album, I got a weird Priest vibe a little bit. How about that? On some of the songs, and it's, they're from the same era, you know, they're a little later than Priest for terms of starting, but it's fine. I mean, if you like Saxon, you're gonna find something you probably like on this.

02:06:26.600 --> 02:06:56.300
And to me, they've become, this is a joke between TR and I, it's a prog joke. They're like the Osric tentacles of hard rock now. It's just every album sounds the same and you can pick and choose what you want from the catalog, but there's a thousand albums to choose from. And by the way, without leaning too hard into our upcoming list that we're about to do today, every lead track from the Priest album so far, I've really dug. Speaking of. Really? Yeah.

02:06:56.600 --> 02:07:26.420
I guess we'll be talking about that. Ian, what did you think of Saxon? Did you have thoughts? It started playing and I'm like, this sounds like an Andy Sneak mix. So I had to look at it. It was an Andy Sneak mix. Yeah. That might be my priest comment. That makes sense. Yes. Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. You're getting the priest vibe off it probably because of that. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, it was incredibly predictable. Yeah.

02:07:26.620 --> 02:07:54.860
But Biff sounds amazing. How old is he? He was born in 51. So what is that? 72, 73 this year. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like, yeah. Yeah. He sounds great. He sounds incredible. Yeah. Yeah. And so the production, I think the production sells the album for more than it's actually worth in the whole, but you know, it's Saxon.

02:08:00.360 --> 02:08:01.420
I've seen them a few times.

02:08:02.080 --> 02:08:03.160
They're fun to see live.

02:08:03.160 --> 02:08:04.960
They've come to America for the first time in a while too,

02:08:05.780 --> 02:08:07.380
which I was thinking I'll go out of my way,

02:08:07.560 --> 02:08:09.480
but they're really not getting very close to me.

02:08:09.760 --> 02:08:11.200
They wouldn't have even if I was in California.

02:08:11.720 --> 02:08:12.960
Nobody's getting close to you, Jay.

02:08:14.100 --> 02:08:15.320
George, you and I saw them, didn't we?

02:08:15.320 --> 02:08:15.840
Yes, we did.

02:08:16.040 --> 02:08:16.540
We saw them with Priest.

02:08:16.540 --> 02:08:17.560
Yeah, when they played with Priest.

02:08:17.780 --> 02:08:19.180
And I saw them when they were torn.

02:08:19.640 --> 02:08:21.880
They actually played in Prague Power of all places

02:08:22.400 --> 02:08:24.400
because they just happened to be in the area

02:08:24.400 --> 02:08:54.340
They played one of the early nights in the fest. I just noticed. For them, because, you know, through the 90s and stuff like that, they were just playing like, probably playing pubs, probably. Yeah. I mean, I saw Iron Maiden in a club in the 90s. You know what really, really reinvigorated their career was Wacken. They were headliners at Wacken for some of the real, more, not super early, but maybe the 10th year or something. And it really, I think, woke Europe up to them.

02:08:54.420 --> 02:09:24.380
them again and then making a real living again i think it's really great for them me too yeah me too i would love to i saw them once a very small club here and i was kind of far from home i didn't stick around i really wish i stuck around and kind of shake their hands but you never know if you're going to get to do that or not but i mean that byford is one of is somebody i really like one of my metal idols for sure the fact that they're that old and they can still do what they love and still play metal like that's amazing

02:09:24.400 --> 02:09:53.340
Well, they're not all as old as Biff. The whole band's basically been replacing them. Yeah, that's true. But the other guys have got to be in their late 50s. I thought the drummer was with them for a while, wasn't he? Yeah, Lochner. I don't know if he's with them now. He was a very early replacement. He would be like Biff Sage. Then he had a heart attack, I think. He was out for a while, and then he came back. I'm not sure. That's right. I forgot about that. I'll have to look that up. I wonder what Rana's going to look like when they're like 70. I don't know, man. It's fast approaching.

02:09:54.380 --> 02:10:23.820
Yeah, it does sneak up on you. But, well, yeah, we'll keep going until we fall down. So nice. I just noticed that Will is like dead asleep. I will. No judgment. You don't even have to say anything. I'm supposed to be on night shift, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. No judgment. We were talking about Saxon. So you took a break. I mean, yeah, you guys are talking about some boring ass shit. So whatever. All right. All right. Let's move on to what we are listening to.

02:10:47.619 --> 02:10:50.340
Ian, what have you been listening to lately?

02:10:50.800 --> 02:11:19.180
Well, I've been trying to catch up with just everything that came out last year. And half the time, I've completely forget what I've listened to. The album that I've spun this past week a few times is the album is called Zahn and the band is called And the World. What is it? And the World with Simon or something like that? Oh my God. Is it silent or quiet? The World is quiet here or something. Oh my God, this is terrible. I should be more prepared.

02:11:19.620 --> 02:11:49.540
The World Was Silent or something. Oh my god. Let me type this in. It's just terrible podcasting. You've never been on our podcast, have you? Oh, The World Is Quiet Here. It's the band. And the album's called Zon. And that's what I've been spinning. People have been talking about the vocalist going, oh, he sounds like Mike Patton. I think he sounds more like Howard Jones from Killsuit.

02:11:49.620 --> 02:12:19.580
and it's kind of reminds me of periphery as well it's pretty solid it's pretty good it's worth a spin if you've not heard it okay cool anything else i have been listening through the isam back catalog nice for reasons prepping for the new album perhaps coming to that aren't we

02:12:23.220 --> 02:12:49.500
Yeah, okay. So the first one I have on my list is Amorphous Queen of Time live at Tavastia 2020 records. So this was released in 2023 and I picked it up on vinyl, but I didn't really give it a spin until after we did our top 25. And I know you guys love great live records and this one is excellent. Queen of Time was an album that surprisingly did not make my top 25.

02:12:49.620 --> 02:12:50.800
back in 2018.

02:12:51.540 --> 02:12:52.560
I don't think it was on mine either,

02:12:52.700 --> 02:12:52.820
Marcus.

02:12:53.020 --> 02:12:53.400
Really?

02:12:53.640 --> 02:12:53.780
Yeah.

02:12:53.880 --> 02:12:55.760
The last album was very high on my list.

02:12:56.480 --> 02:12:57.760
So there was just something about it,

02:12:57.840 --> 02:12:59.420
but listening to it live.

02:12:59.600 --> 02:12:59.880
Cause they,

02:13:00.140 --> 02:13:00.260
you know,

02:13:00.260 --> 02:13:01.360
they play the whole album through.

02:13:01.640 --> 02:13:05.260
I feel like I have a whole new appreciation for the songs.

02:13:05.680 --> 02:13:08.040
The album production is really slick.

02:13:08.280 --> 02:13:10.200
I thought with the symphonics and everything.

02:13:10.840 --> 02:13:11.960
So I imagine live,

02:13:12.080 --> 02:13:12.560
it's much better.

02:13:13.440 --> 02:13:13.700
It's great.

02:13:13.860 --> 02:13:14.300
And this is a,

02:13:14.480 --> 02:13:15.560
I got it on vinyl cause I,

02:13:15.880 --> 02:13:15.960
you know,

02:13:15.960 --> 02:13:17.740
I just really liked it.

02:13:18.180 --> 02:13:46.840
So I would recommend that. I'd like to see Amorphous live again. Next album on my list is Corsair, the Golden Heart, independent release. I interviewed this band for the Ten Horns print feature that I was doing for our site a couple years ago because I really like their debut album. But this is a massive leap forward from the record they put out when I interviewed them. If I had to boil it down, I'd say that Corsair plays a pirate-themed progressive death metal.

02:13:46.960 --> 02:14:16.340
But they don't rock out the drunken galleon anthems like Aelstorm or something. This is brutal, eclectic adventure metal. Adventure metal is their term. There's death and traditional metal and thrash. There's even some metalcore on this record. It's all woven together exceptionally well. And it's a concept album about a pirate captain who's marooned on a jungle island and has to fight a great phantom guarding a treasure.

02:14:16.980 --> 02:14:45.340
It's really good. I've only spent a couple times, but I definitely will be spending it a lot more. I was trying to figure out why I knew who they were. And you have answered that question. Thank you. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're from Matt's neck of the woods in Minnesota. And so, yeah, I mean, they're not huge, but I feel like they're growing. The audience is definitely growing. Iron metal for the win. And just to be clear, if you say Minnesota like that here, you will get stabbed.

02:14:46.960 --> 02:15:16.140
It's Minnesota. Badly. With a frozen icicle. Oh, that's an ice pick. Next to my list is Corroding Soul Hopeless, another independent release. I did a top five metal EPs list for 2023, and this was number one on that list. And I'm a big fan of the musician David Lovejoy. He played everything on this record. And he used to write and record under the moniker Sorrow Plagues. And I love that band.

02:15:16.160 --> 02:15:44.480
And there was this period of time when he just wasn't happy with what he was doing musically. And he ended that project. So since then, he's played in bands, but I had hoped that he would come back to do the atmospheric, emotional black metal that first enchanted me. And that's Corroding Salt. It's the return to that. And it's a new name, but it feels like a reinvigorated continuation of what he did in Sorrow Plagues.

02:15:45.160 --> 02:16:15.000
And he actually posted on our Facebook page after I mentioned the EP, probably New Metal Friday or something. And he says he's got a lot more Corroding Soul coming out this year. And, you know, I'm looking forward to that. Next up is Sovereign Altered Realities on Dark Descent. Every year, I feel like I'm waiting months and months for a great thrash record to drop. But not this year, because I think Sovereign brought it earlier. This is progressive, speed death,

02:16:15.920 --> 02:16:45.139
with big manic solos. But the band also really knows how to just take a breath and downshift that tempo and then deliver some really playful breakdowns. Keeps me engaged throughout. So I'm really enjoying that one. Bear, a band called Bear. And the album's called Vonda. And it's on Pelagic Records. This album dropped last year and it's been a grower for me. They play progressive hardcore, which is the genre of

02:16:45.200 --> 02:17:14.599
music that I cut my metal teeth on. And these days I don't listen to a lot of hardcore. I don't dip my toe in those waters that much. But when I saw that this album was on Pelagic Records, I kind of set it aside until after we did the year-end episode. And then since then, I've been spinning it a ton. It's really intense, ripping, 90s-style hardcore, but it has, I guess, a math metal grooviness to it and a melodicism.

02:17:15.160 --> 02:17:45.120
to it that elevates it beyond that. There's also some really great atmospheric post-metal parts to it that I like. And so, yeah, I guess I'm listening to a little bit of hardcore. I'm just like an old teen son. And the last album I'll mention on my list is one that actually would have been on my list if I had heard it in 2023. And it's Winter Spells, Winds of Eternity on Banner of Blood Records. It's a high fantasy, melodic,

02:17:45.460 --> 02:18:14.860
black metal with symphonic elements that's really heavy on atmosphere. It has these really slow but fantastic mournful riffs on it that are perfect for snowy, bitter cold that we've all been experiencing lately. So, you know, there's always those albums that you didn't get to listen to and you kind of kick yourself for. But that's okay, you know. Hopefully you just find good records even if you missed them when they first came out. And I ended up picking this one up on vinyl.

02:18:15.160 --> 02:18:45.139
I've been spitting out a ton. So yeah, Winter Spells, Winds of Eternity. I haven't heard much about it. I came across a review of it just randomly and love it. All right, Matt. Sweet. I've mentioned this before, but I love this time of year. And by that, I mean post year end where we just can, you know, kick our feet up and just listen to whatever. We don't have to be compiling a list of our 25 favorite albums. And so one thing I did, I watched

02:18:45.179 --> 02:19:15.000
this documentary called The Wandering Path. I kind of talked about it a little bit in our chat. It's this documentary about Gilead Media and Adam, I can't think of his last name, but it's him and kind of all the bands that were on that label or are currently on that label. And this is a movie done by, I believe his name is Michael Demmitt. He's also the guitar player in Mutilation Rites, but it kind of had interviews by Panopticon, Thou, Crowlis, Yellow Eyes, and all the other groupings of bands on that label.

02:19:15.160 --> 02:19:44.580
So it really kind of pushed me to put together a playlist and listen to all of those. And two things I pulled out of it was I really dig Kralis' ambient offerings that I've kind of ignored. And some of that actually comes from the more recent Yellow Eyes album that I still think is just beautiful. And, you know, kind of opened my eyes to that kind of thing. And the second thing I'll mention, and I feel like I'm saying this because, Marcus, I feel like this album really ranked high for you, but it was the Emma Ruth, Rundle, and Dow collaboration.

02:19:45.340 --> 02:20:15.140
which I don't remember what year it came out but I remember you talking about it and now after listening to it. Wait which one what was it? It was the thou and Emma Ruth Rundle. Oh yeah it was number two on my list that year it came out that was a great that's a great album. It's fucking amazing. I wish you would have said something. No I'm kidding. Number two. It's so good. I've really been stuck on that a lot. It's one of the best collaborations I've ever come across because

02:20:15.140 --> 02:20:43.740
That one in particular is like the perfect marriage of styles to me. Yeah. There's something about her voice and Ryan's voice that both concurrently and consecutively, when you put them together, they have the most, they just work together so well, the contrast in them. Cool, man. Like I literally can't stop listening to it. So it is actually my number seven album for whatever year that was. Nice. An addendum.

02:20:44.740 --> 02:21:14.540
So listen to Markisan more is what you need to do. Exactly. You just tell me what I should listen to and then I'll do that. Just like Jay does with everybody else. Speaking of Jay helped me kind of do a deep dive with Kiss. He gave me a nice write up. The New Year's Eve Vikings game had this like kind of, I call them local, but they're probably they're more Midwest popular cover band. And they played Shut It Out Loud by Kiss. And it helped me understand that I actually like, I really dig that song. And I hear a lot of Kiss songs that I've, I've just gotten tired.

02:21:14.640 --> 02:21:44.320
of, not that they're not good, like you just have to not hear them anymore for a while. But that is one I hadn't heard in a while. And it really opened my eyes to dig in a little bit more. And I flashed back to the, the kiss mini golf that Jay and I also did in Vegas, which was kind of focused on the elder. And I listened to that album at that time, but it, I didn't actually just do a full on kiss deep dive. And sadly, I haven't finished it yet. I'm probably through the first two eras. There's just so much to, you know, kind of take in, but there's so much to choose from.

02:21:44.660 --> 02:22:14.620
There is. I also, thanks to Jay, I did a little bit of MC5 digging. I really dig it. And I have to go back and obviously take in more. After talking to Chuck and I told him, I said, once we're done with the year end, I need to dig in and listen to this over-over trilogy. I really dig it. It's interesting. I try not to read anything about it, but one thing I did read is if you take, I think it's the first album, and then split it into two parts, essentially the more black metal and the more

02:22:14.660 --> 02:22:44.620
you would get the next two albums and so I think going into that helped me understand what it was all about it's also super interesting because this is around the holidays and if you like if you take holiday music and you strip away all the happiness and you get to more just like like folky guitar stuff it was totally relevant to listen to but so Chuck and I joked about putting it on while we have our families over to celebrate the holidays and just force them to listen to their black metal as far as new stuff the band

02:22:44.620 --> 02:22:45.240
Let's see.

02:22:45.919 --> 02:22:46.720
Sevis Finis.

02:22:47.560 --> 02:22:48.860
Facilis De Senis.

02:22:49.659 --> 02:22:51.100
Averno, I think is the name of the album.

02:22:52.039 --> 02:22:54.280
It's a really solid death metal out of Portugal.

02:22:54.580 --> 02:22:54.900
First album.

02:22:55.220 --> 02:22:56.260
I had not heard this band before.

02:22:56.720 --> 02:22:57.580
Hope to keep listening.

02:22:58.400 --> 02:23:01.340
One of our favorites, Obsidian Tongue, Stoneheart EP.

02:23:01.860 --> 02:23:03.120
There's, I think, one track out.

02:23:03.180 --> 02:23:05.440
This probably comes out, let's see, February 2nd.

02:23:06.260 --> 02:23:07.960
But this is like a really nice, lush,

02:23:08.220 --> 02:23:09.940
atmospheric black metal if you're into that.

02:23:10.020 --> 02:23:12.300
And I kept wanting to compare them to Falls of Roars.

02:23:12.380 --> 02:23:42.340
come to find out that Ray the drummer is also in Falls of Mars as well as Benopticon and then we know Brandon is in Ross and Blot with Joel and they're also in a band called Shoppy together so it just kind of was a you know reminder of like how good that Portland Maine kind of music scene is also Mastiff has an album coming out I believe it's called Deprecipice they have one track out so far I would call them kind of a sludgy band with hardcore tendencies

02:23:42.360 --> 02:24:12.300
learned of them through Zatan from All Father that's been on a few times. Yes. And reminiscent of their sound as well. And then we have a new EP from Esquadalgrind called Death Metal with a ton of additional consonants and syllables. And that's probably what it is for me. You said Thrasenblatt. I love you. I did. I sure did. All right, John. That might be the longest you've ever gone in one consecutive speaking engagement.

02:24:12.360 --> 02:24:42.320
I know I had more it was a lot yeah and it was all real bands I'm winded it is it was all winded yeah get him some oxygen all right I don't have much to say what we're listening to because I always end up really so burned out after the year end I take a break and go back and listen to a bunch of non-metal but somewhat metal related we've already mentioned three of them the Aquaria Lord dying and Saxon I'll listen to these are all just real recent and Markisan

02:24:42.360 --> 02:25:12.280
I mentioned the Sovereign Ultra Realities. It's a solid Deathly Thrash album, like you said. And my only, I mean, I've been listening to other stuff for another podcast, but I don't want to say anything about that because that would just ruin it. You know, it's the surprise of finding out what we're listening to. But I do have one non-metal album I am going to bring up because the collaboration is from two of my favorite dark ambient artists, and that is the latest release from Atrium Casera.

02:25:12.380 --> 02:25:42.320
and camera height. They released an album called apparatus. I'm a real big dark ambient fan have been for a very long time. And these are two of my favorites. And so they're all great, John. Yeah, they're on crowd chamber, which is the guy from Atrium Caseri, Simon, he that's his label. And it's another great album of your, you want to explore experimental dark ambient stuff. And these are two big names to explore separately, but they also have

02:25:42.360 --> 02:26:12.300
have two collaborative albums together. Under this moniker, they have other stuff together, too. Yeah, I want to hear that. Well, John introduced me to that band, Kameraheid. Yeah, which is one guy. I think it's Par Barston or Ballston. I can't say his name. But yeah, Kameraheid's my favorite of all of them. That's a good record. That's it. I mean, all the other stuff is a lot of prog rock bands I'm listening to, which, you know, go on.

02:26:12.360 --> 02:26:42.320
about them all the time so i don't need to bring them up all right jay not jay sorry will muted okay what am i listening to there's a band called out of poland mountain of mystery it's the guys from space lug it sounds extremely exactly like space lug but it's slightly different it's i love it it's like soft atmospheric doom i love it and like john and i think

02:26:42.340 --> 02:27:11.720
Matt said, like after the year end, like I just, I go into a hole of, I don't want to listen to anything current. I just want to go back to listening to old stuff. So I've been listening to a lot of old school black Sabbath, Ozzy and Dio years, mostly Dio years. Yeah. And the, the Phobocosm album for Dane. Listen to that. That's it. Cool. And I love that Phobocosm album.

02:27:11.820 --> 02:27:41.560
It's really good. It came out way too late in the year for me to put on my list. It's on my list. I know. But I did spin it like five, six times before we did the cast, which is I had to get crammed that in. That's what she said. So that's super fucking weird because I haven't put on an old Black Sabbath record in a while. And I suddenly, well, partially I have a rowing machine that I use here.

02:27:41.820 --> 02:28:11.800
I like to listen to a full record when I'm doing that and I just started going through the catalog again and a it was just like fucking Black Sabbath fucking rules and I listened to a bunch of them in a long time but in particular I was I've been really focused on these the remasters that came out of late too which would be Heaven and Hell Mob Rules oh yeah or remixes rather and then and really the fantastic job that whoever remixed Live Evil did and have just really kind of spent a lot of time with those lately so I'm sorry that's so cool that you brought that up

02:28:11.820 --> 02:28:41.800
because it's literally I've just a bunch of Sabbath lately. Would like to recommend that remastered Live Evil to you because that's Dio on the Mob Rules Tour is pretty fucking great. I second that. I have the box that came out. It's freaking awesome. Yeah, I bought the super deluxe bullshit one too and I'm glad I did. It's got a lot of neat stuff in it. It's like a whole new listening experience the way they did that. Yeah, they even changed the song order and stuff. I mean, and there's all this banter in between it and they clean

02:28:41.840 --> 02:29:11.800
It ended up as far as Ronnie's vocals are concerned. And what I mean is back then producers were putting way too much EQ and shit on his vocals. Usually Ronnie the fuck alone, you know, he'll be fine. So this guy righted that wrong. Anyway, so that's cool that you brought that up because I've been listening to a lot of Sabbaths lately. Listen to the new releases from this week. Just like you guys, I'm doing a lot of palate cleansing at the beginning of the year. So I'm also just listening to random stuff. Before I got on, I was listening to the reissue of No Sleep Till Hammersmith and Mortar

02:29:11.820 --> 02:29:41.800
I had live record which is like one of my favorite fucking live records dude get that amorphous queen of time live at Tavastia I will that came out last year because you'll love that and you love that record you were a big fan of the queen of time big time yeah I will totally pick it up there's some stuff I'm leaving out there that I have been listening to lately but also like you guys I kind of go back and I'm just listening to older records whatever like the saxon made me want to listen to small saxon and and then something else I kind of threw in

02:29:41.800 --> 02:30:10.420
with the new Borknagar album is coming, or as George would say, Borknagar. And that kind of made me go back and put in their last record, which kind of led to a record that I've suddenly had listened to like five times in a row and forgot how much I liked, but it's going to be my crypt choice, so I'll just leave that off until we get it. Oh, okay. Spoiler. It's from that family. It's not a Borknagar album, but it's from that family of bands. And that's about the size of it. A bunch of cool stuff coming out next month, so I'm kind of excited about February, man.

02:30:11.460 --> 02:30:41.420
Namely, the Judas Priest and the Borknagot. We're doing top five. Come on. Here's everything. So anyway, that's about it. That and everything else. I mean, I listen to music every day, but nothing I should really call out outside of it. You better, you retiree, you. Life is good. Brady, my first album is courtesy of John. He sent this to me, and I ignored it for a few days, as I tend to do, and then I

02:30:41.460 --> 02:31:11.400
It's like, well, I should listen to this. And this is Artificial Heaven, Digital Dreams. It's their first album. They're an Italian Gothic, kind of rock, kind of metal band. I absolutely, well, the first time through, I absolutely didn't care about this album. Second time through, I absolutely loved this album. Granted, the first time was regular headphones, second time was heavies. What are you going to do? But they're an Italian band and on their band camp page, it lists the influences for this album.

02:31:11.460 --> 02:31:40.800
to include The Cult, Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, Fields of the Nephilim, Killing Joke, and Iggy Pop. I hear most of those. I don't hear any Iggy Pop because Iggy Pop sounds like shit, but the rest of that stuff I can hear in there. And the vocals are clean and deep. They're like super deep. Yeah, my first thought was Moonspell. Yeah.

02:31:41.460 --> 02:32:11.060
He's that deep, yeah. And then I was listening to it again the other day and it hit me what it actually was. And now that we're sitting here, I can't remember what it was. And it was like, it was so perfect. I was like, oh, this is like, and now I can't remember what it is. So that's killing me. But regardless, this is a really cool album. You know, it's heavier than any of those bands that were mentioned. It's heavier than Cult or Sisters of Mercy or anything like that. It's borderline enough to be metal.

02:32:11.460 --> 02:32:40.620
The riffs are just really cool. And the vocals are so deep and just like clean and strong. And it's killing me. I can't remember. Anyway, I really dig this. And I've been holding out on buying it on Bandcamp until now so that John wouldn't know that I liked it. Might as well wait till first Friday in February. Next up is the new Abagor album.

02:32:43.701 --> 02:33:10.560
Metaphonomia Eternatus. Oh, you got it. You finally found it. Yeah. So that's the CD, I think. Yeah. So this is the one that it came out in December and could have and would have made my list had it been available to the general public in any form other than CD and vinyl. But it was not. And so when it came out, I ordered the CD from Austria for like half a million dollars.

02:33:11.200 --> 02:33:41.160
All of that was postage, by the way. Most of it was... Ouch. Yeah, it was only like, you know, a little bit for the CD itself, but the shipping. And then, you know, middle of January, it finally arrived. And yeah, it's pretty good. I mean, they're an Austrian black metal band. They're a little... When I was listening to it, I was thinking that I would call them the less avant-garde, more evil cousin of Dothheim's guard. Interesting. Because they're kind of...

02:33:41.180 --> 02:34:11.160
Not traditional black metal in any stretch of the imagination. They're a little strange and out there, but they're not as much so or as progressive as Don Himesguard. But yeah, in fact, like the day after I got it, Neutrino, Chris texted me and was like, dude, did you see this? And I was like, yeah, it just came in the mail, finally. Well, yeah, and the reason they didn't put on digital is because they were kind of railing against

02:34:11.200 --> 02:34:40.840
the system. They've made a whole post that I had sent you about it. Yeah. It's like, they're so true with the V that they weren't going to. So this is a really good album. That's pretty much just consigned to the dustbin of 2023 because it came out too late and unavailable to make the 2023 list. And now it's kind of, well, yes, it's good, but let's move on with 2024. So this is why I don't recommend releasing something at the end of the year. Cause.

02:34:41.920 --> 02:35:11.040
Especially if you're going to only put it out physically. Yeah. It's just like, I don't know what's going to happen with this album. I mean, you know, the fans that like Abagor will pick it up, but it's disappointing to me that I don't get to gush about it more throughout the year or at the year end because it just didn't work out. So that's what being so darn true metal will get you. I have two more. The band Stone. They were a Finnish speed thrash band from the late 80s,

02:35:11.140 --> 02:35:41.100
I bought their self-titled album in 1988 on cassette and I freaking loved that album it was guy couldn't sing kind of kind of flat sounding vocals but it was cool in the late 80s and I knew they put out additional albums but I never had access to them and I was listening to this album like in December probably and I was like you know what I'm going to see if I can find it.

02:35:41.140 --> 02:35:42.240
these albums.

02:35:42.410 --> 02:35:47.940
And so I found CD versions because they're not available anywhere else of their albums,

02:35:48.080 --> 02:35:48.860
emotional playground,

02:35:49.700 --> 02:35:53.680
no anesthesia and colors and ordered them,

02:35:54.180 --> 02:35:58.820
received them much swifter than the Abogor album and a rip to them.

02:35:59.000 --> 02:35:59.860
And they're cool.

02:36:01.000 --> 02:36:04.060
And one of the guys in the band played in children of Bodom for a while,

02:36:04.120 --> 02:36:04.300
the key,

02:36:04.370 --> 02:36:05.040
the keyboard player.

02:36:06.240 --> 02:36:06.760
And lastly,

02:36:06.760 --> 02:36:11.060
a band that has surprisingly been mentioned twice before today is,

02:36:11.100 --> 02:36:40.940
It was over. After the last episode with Chuck, I was like, you know, I like, I like just about everything that over does or has done. And, but the one that always stuck in my craw was Madrigal of the night. That raw tone that the album starts off with just, it was just, it just grayed it. It was nails on the chalkboard. So I couldn't listen to it. And so I bought it when it first came out in 97, but it's been sitting there collecting dust for pretty much since I went back and listened to it again.

02:36:41.120 --> 02:37:09.360
I'm like this is not as bad as I thought it was 26 years ago. The first song is a little hard to take but after that it's pretty much standard. Once you're hearing it's been damaged. That's true. That's true. I've got 26 years of hearing damage on top of that. So I was like all right this is actually kind of cool. So I was happy to go back and fix that piece of their catalog. Have you got an EQ?

02:37:11.100 --> 02:37:41.000
in your system, you've got an EQ in your system, just turn all the treble off. Yeah, exactly. And then you can start to hear everything. It's a really strange decision. They just wanted to be super cult. It was painful to listen to how sharp those guitars were. Yeah. But yeah, there is a good album hidden in that. Indeed. So that's what I got. It needs the Barisi mix. Yeah, it does big time. I'd like to hear that with a complete different mix. That would be interesting.

02:37:42.439 --> 02:37:46.780
But anywho. All right, let's move on to our top five.

02:38:11.120 --> 02:38:40.940
Being that it's the first album of 2024, we are going to talk about the top five albums we are looking forward to this year. I'm sure there's still plenty of things yet to be announced, but this is what we've got to work with so far, so let's do it. Ian, are you familiar with how our top five works? You're just going to run, Robin. Yeah, everybody does five, everybody does four, so on and so forth. And you're first with number five. Yep, so good. Give us your number five.

02:38:41.120 --> 02:39:08.700
My number five is Cognizance. What's the album? Phantazine. I'm not quite sure how they're expecting people to pronounce that. So they're a willow tip band. So I'm not being biased in any way. But their previous album was a really good mix of death metal with it wasn't it was technical, but it wasn't like super tech death metal.

02:39:10.220 --> 02:39:39.320
The drummer is just fantastic. What's his name? Duphold from Belgium. Incredible drummer. And it's I'm looking forward to that one. Excellent. Well, a tip sounds like they're going to bring it again this year. It should be great. Number five for me is Unidentity. This album is expected to drop in fall or winter from Translation Lost Records. Their last two records were on my top 25. They're just one of my favorite.

02:39:40.220 --> 02:40:10.180
the metal bands going right now. So I'm just interested in seeing where they're going to go with the new release. I feel like they incorporate some new sounds into each record. So are they going to stick to traditional Doom and go back to the beginning? Are they going to become more progressive? What's going to happen with this record? I have no idea. But I'm very excited about that. So I do love Doom. All right, Matt. My number five is Yellow Eyes. I'm looking forward to the companion to the

02:40:10.220 --> 02:40:40.180
the more ambient album they put out this year. Excellent. Yeah, man, the ambient album was weird, but good. But you want them to do metal. You mean like blood incantation? Yeah. It took a while for it to grow on me, but once it did, we've been inseparable. And the new one, I think it's going to be metal. They haven't said much about it, but I assume it's going to be, I hesitate to say a proper yellow eyes album, but I think that's what we're going to get. So that'd be cool. I feel like you just referenced

02:40:40.220 --> 02:41:10.180
It's the darkness, Matt, and growing on me. Are you familiar with that? It's a track about genital warts. Okay. You're really growing on me. Yeah, check it out. Fair enough. The darkness, genital warts. All right, John. All right. Follow that one. Yeah. My number five is the new one coming from Mother of Graves. Is it the pair of absence? It's coming out in the fall. Mother of Graves, they're

02:41:10.220 --> 02:41:40.160
Debut album, not the EP, but the full length was my number one when it was released. So I'm looking forward to their new one. All right. Good live. I saw them last year. I think I did. There's a fun live band to watch. Will, give us your number five. I have eight on my list. Rip Sermon, Juice, Breeze, Glacial Tomb, High on Fire, Exodus, Deicide, On, and Kerry King. And Kerry King is just because I'm curious what the fuck this is going to be. Anyway, that's my list.

02:41:40.220 --> 02:42:09.800
Yeah, I gave you eight. And the Crip Sermon. I'm really excited about the new Crip Sermon. That's my number one. You guys can look at it as your number five. Sorry. That's Will. You ask for five, he gives you eight. That's right. Eight inches. Just the tip. Just the Willow tip. I'm actually going to go through four of my honorable mentions just real fast, too, because this is thinking about blood incantation, chapel of disease. I'm looking forward to that.

02:42:17.319 --> 02:42:40.180
I don't even think it's gonna come out but why not merciful fate they're supposed to be making a record I'll take either one to balance with you they keep not making years and I think they're not gonna make this year but if I'd be very excited to see what either and I don't even expect either would be that fucking great to be honest with you but number five merciful

02:42:41.279 --> 02:43:09.880
I feel like it might come out this year Jay. Yeah I mean there's a girl in the band now so some shit might get done. They want to impress. Some decisions made. Yeah well it's just that I saw an interview with Andy LaRock the other day and he was just like yeah there's a couple of things done you know and we'll probably put those out when they're done and what he meant was like two songs so we might get this piecemeal like you know. Peter Gabriel shit. What was the single George? Something of Madness. I forget the name of it yeah. Anyway we'll see.

02:43:10.240 --> 02:43:39.920
Fingers crossed. Yeah, I considered that and I was like, nah, it's too improbable to put on my list. However, you did mention a couple that I wasn't aware of, Inter Arma and... Chaplin Disease, Aronsi Pazuzu. Aronsi Pazuzu is another one that I would have... Definitely both of those would take out my number five, which is Job for a Cowboy Moon Healer. Oh, we just got the promo. We just got the promo. I haven't listened to it yet. I was never a huge fan of them,

02:43:39.980 --> 02:44:09.620
Although their last album, I did like quite a bit. So I'm just, this is more of a curiosity pick. We'll see if it's any good or not. Dude, I feel the same way. And that's why I sent the promo. And it's been like 10 years or something. I've never been a huge fan, but I just, where are they going to go next? Yeah. After all this time. I'm curious. So, all right. Are you guys talking about Draw for a Cowboy? Yes, sir. Yeah. Their last album, was it, what was the name of it?

02:44:10.020 --> 02:44:10.980
or something like that.

02:44:11.590 --> 02:44:13.240
There was a very much a doom out.

02:44:13.980 --> 02:44:15.720
And that's when they sold me.

02:44:16.120 --> 02:44:16.260
Yeah.

02:44:17.320 --> 02:44:17.540
Anyway,

02:44:17.730 --> 02:44:19.800
I felt like just when they were starting to get kind of cool,

02:44:19.920 --> 02:44:20.460
they disappeared.

02:44:20.840 --> 02:44:21.700
So yes,

02:44:22.200 --> 02:44:22.460
exactly.

02:44:22.960 --> 02:44:23.580
So we'll see.

02:44:24.600 --> 02:44:24.880
All right,

02:44:24.980 --> 02:44:25.240
Ian,

02:44:25.320 --> 02:44:26.080
what's your number four?

02:44:27.320 --> 02:44:32.940
My number four is a band from Germany called engurgitating oblivion.

02:44:33.340 --> 02:44:33.480
Oh my.

02:44:34.060 --> 02:44:37.900
The previous album was called visions wallows in symphonies of light,

02:44:38.280 --> 02:44:39.780
which came out a few years ago.

02:44:40.240 --> 02:45:09.860
I don't know if anyone heard that but it's a bit like a Gorguts kind of death metal but really long songs like 10 to 20 minute long songs and loads of changes it's kind of it's really raw sounding but it's completely insane batshit crazy at the same time so the new album is I think it's coming this year called Ontology of Nought and

02:45:09.900 --> 02:45:14.540
you should really check out their previous albums because they're really interesting.

02:45:15.680 --> 02:45:16.360
I will do that.

02:45:17.160 --> 02:45:17.280
Definitely.

02:45:18.580 --> 02:45:20.900
I think a new Gorgots album is supposed to come out as well.

02:45:21.340 --> 02:45:21.460
Yeah.

02:45:21.770 --> 02:45:22.220
This year.

02:45:22.600 --> 02:45:22.680
Wow.

02:45:22.720 --> 02:45:23.040
That's right.

02:45:24.140 --> 02:45:29.380
My number four, Will already shot his load and said it was his number one.

02:45:30.040 --> 02:45:32.200
It's Crip Sermon coming from Dark Descent.

02:45:32.330 --> 02:45:33.560
You know, I love this band.

02:45:33.960 --> 02:45:39.860
The water cooler talk is that this one is going to move past the epic doom label

02:45:39.860 --> 02:46:08.040
mix things up. So I like when bands change things, but I hope that they still keep those anthemic hooks while still finding a way to add more progressive elements in. Because sometimes bands change a bit too much for my taste and kind of lose, you know, what I liked about them at the start, like Paul Bearer or something. So we'll see, you know, what they do with it. But I'm very excited about that because I really like the last record a lot.

02:46:08.880 --> 02:46:37.860
That's another one I did not know was coming and would have made my list. All right, Matt. If you subscribe to Decibel, you would know it. I am subscribed to Decibel. I just did not have a chance to pick up that magazine. Read your Decibel. I did when it came out, but I didn't before this episode. Oh, shit. I forgot the Ravens are playing. I'm supposed to be watching that. They are. Yeah, no, I read it. Fuck the Ravens. They're up by seven. Oh, good.

02:46:38.860 --> 02:47:08.420
I'm really waiting for the Lions tomorrow. Oh, yeah. I'm actually looking forward to the 49ers game. You never know. My impact was back there for a minute. Anywho, my name is like, what the fuck are you guys talking about? American football. Who cares about American football? Do you watch sports at all? Not really. Not really. No. The only thing I really do is lift weights.

02:47:09.120 --> 02:47:38.420
stuff like that. So you crush weights. Come on. I mash steel. Yeah. Not even rugby. No, I don't even play rugby. No, I don't even play rugby or watch rugby. I'm just not interested. If you're in rugby, you can't play rugby. That's like wearing a band's shirt to their show. You know? Yeah. I really only watch being a band wearing your own shirt, being a band wearing your own shirt on stage. Yeah. Unless you're Iron Maiden and then it's fine.

02:47:40.060 --> 02:48:08.500
Iron Man can get away with all or carry King. Yeah. Where the hell are we here? My number four blood in contention. I. Yeah. That's it for me. All these guys. The EP was great, but I need more and I need it now. Yeah. Well, it's been a while. It's been like four years since they did a full length, a hidden history of human race.

02:48:08.880 --> 02:48:38.460
They have done a lot of stuff in between. But still, you know, it's nice to have that. Again, the proper album, you know, where they get back to the stuff we really love. Although that ambient record, I do love it a lot. It was good. It was good. And they do the EP too, right? Yeah. That last year? Not that long ago. Yeah. Yeah. The end of the year. And then they were on the tour with Cannibal Corpse. So I got to see them live, which just kept, you know, my appetite going. And yeah, definitely excited for it.

02:48:38.880 --> 02:48:39.060
Nice.

02:48:43.520 --> 02:48:43.920
John.

02:48:43.920 --> 02:48:44.020
John.

02:48:45.300 --> 02:49:01.860
All right. My number four. I have a list of honorable mentions too, and I'm actually adding to it for albums I didn't realize were coming out, but I'll do that at the very end. So my number four is Incantation of Blood, their new album coming out. I don't know when it's coming out, but it's coming out.

02:49:03.040 --> 02:49:04.400
Matt may have mentioned it already.

02:49:05.580 --> 02:49:34.640
All right, my number four is, I got a good feeling about this one. When you put out a, when you've been around for a while and you put out a self-titled album, I think you're getting ready to make a statement. Eson. And I like the advanced tracks I like, I've heard from this Eson record so far. I have high hopes for this. All right. My number four, kind of a shocker, probably not even metal, but Mick Mars, the other side of Mars. You know, we just talked about,

02:49:34.880 --> 02:50:03.980
Motley Crue on the last Stairway to 11 episode, which is not yet posted. But it should be by the time this is posted about Shout at the Devil. And, you know, if there's anybody in Motley Crue that you're going to cheer for or whatever, it's going to be McMars. And I know there's some songs out already. I haven't listened to them yet. But I'm really hoping that this is a good album because McMars. So we'll see.

02:50:04.880 --> 02:50:34.280
Didn't he win his suit against them too? I think he did. It went into arbitration. Yeah, yeah. Motley Crue did not get anything out of it. So yes, it's a positive for him. That just means they're talking behind doors and they're going to write him a check. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Ian, number three. My number three has been mentioned already. It's his son's latest one. So I've been listening back to his back catalog this past couple of weeks.

02:50:34.320 --> 02:51:04.000
Emperor is one of the greatest bands that has ever been with a flawless catalogue. Agreed. And the first four of his solo albums equally pretty good. And then he kind of started to lose me. And the EPs were just, well, difficult to get through. I've probably listened to them once or twice. So those couple of advanced tracks sound like he might be back.

02:51:04.300 --> 02:51:33.920
It's the most emperor sounding stuff that I think he's done in a while. Yeah. It's closer to his first couple of solo albums. I can probably live without the symphonic only versions. Yeah. Yeah. Fingers crossed this is a good one. I'm super excited. Yeah. All right. Mark it's on. Yeah. My number three is Glacial Tomb. So it's the sludgy black and death metal from Ben Hutcherson.

02:51:35.420 --> 02:52:04.280
I really liked the first record and it's been a while since that one came out so I'm just curious to see what this one's going to sound like I wore a glacial tomb shirt when I scaled a glacier in Norway so I feel like connected to this band somehow I took a picture of it and sent it to them so I think he's a really good guitar player I like that he struck out on his own and did this band so it's a lot more vicious than chemist so excited about it

02:52:04.300 --> 02:52:34.100
Yeah, I want to hear that too. All right, Matt. My number three, I would take anything from either King Diamond or Merciful Fate. Ah. My fingers are crossed. John. All right, my number three, and honestly, these really aren't in any order. It's just, I had to put them in an order. But my number three is Borknagar Fall, which is coming out in about a month. Nice. So I like their whole catalog, but I really like the last two albums.

02:52:34.300 --> 02:53:04.220
a lot. So I'm curious to see if they continue in the same path. So I don't know how many advanced tracks there were on that one. I've only heard one. It was good. My next one is morbid curiosity along the lines of will. I'm curious to see what Kerry King's record sounds like if it's got fucking Phil ensemble. I'm not that curious, but it's still my number three to hear because I really do not want Phil ensemble in this album. Like, please know, like, can I stand that guy? Well, he's playing it close to his chest and he's not saying a fucking word. So we'll see.

02:53:04.280 --> 02:53:10.180
but they did who produced it or something i can't remember who the fuck it was he says it's the

02:53:10.300 --> 02:53:16.340
follow-up to uh and you know which makes sense to uh repentless and repentless was pretty good by the way so

02:53:16.920 --> 02:53:21.580
if he's got the right vocalist on this thing it could be something worthwhile so i'll be there check it out

02:53:21.740 --> 02:53:28.060
hope for the best i would take zach singing on this over that i i just want to hear the who just tell us who the

02:53:28.200 --> 02:53:34.260
fuck's in the band you know but we'll see but so k king we'll see how it goes

02:53:34.280 --> 02:54:03.280
All right, my number three is also another number three. I'm with Ian on this one. It's Eson. Yeah. Especially after what you had to say. But yeah, I mean, I went to Germany to see Emperor play before they started playing everywhere again. And just fucking amazing. So I haven't actually seen him on his own, I don't think. But I love everything this guy does mostly.

02:54:03.300 --> 02:54:33.040
Well, I agree. The last few things kind of had me scratch my head a little bit. But on the whole... Arctis was just like two records ago. That was a fucking great record. I liked it too. I didn't get on with Arctis. We then couldn't do it. That's why I had these big massive fucking riffs on it. They were so fucking cool. But well, in any case, I guess he's got us all thinking, doesn't he? He does. Clearly. Guy's fucking talented though. Oh yeah. He does what he wants. He does what he wants.

02:54:33.300 --> 02:55:02.200
I respect that. Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah. That's why I end up liking a lot of his stuff, even if it's not my, my cup of tea, because he just doesn't care. You're right. It just goes where he wants to go, which is kind of cool. It's also interesting. He's on the same label that he signed to when he was 18 or 17. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah. All the way back around again. Yeah. Number two. I mean, my number two. Okay. It's, uh,

02:55:03.360 --> 02:55:33.200
He hasn't put out an album for many a year. Bruce Dickinson, Mandrake Project. I love his first solo album. And I really like Skunk Works. And Chemical Wedding is probably one of the greatest heavy metal albums ever made. You're talking Jay's language. You're talking my language. Trinity of Souls wasn't so great. It was a slight drop off. Accident of Birth is real good.

02:55:33.300 --> 02:56:03.280
Accident of Birth was okay. It felt a little bit Maiden derivative. And it's a little pieced together. You know, it's not as complete a statement as Chemical Wading is. But yeah, Chemical Wading, amazing. It's so good. Not enough people know that. I prefer listening to Bruce's solo stuff to Maiden these days, if I'm perfectly honest. I said no Brit ever. Wow. The one advanced track that came from

02:56:04.000 --> 02:56:32.180
is pretty strong. So, yeah, fingers crossed that it pans out. Who's the musicians on Bruce's solo albums? Who are the musicians? Roy Z is the main guy. But Adrian Smith was also on Chemical Wedding and Accident of Birth as well. He wrote a couple of the songs. Has anyone actually heard Adrian Smith's kind of solo band when he left Maiden? What was it called?

02:56:33.360 --> 02:56:33.960
Syco Motel.

02:56:35.020 --> 02:56:35.820
No, I didn't.

02:56:35.980 --> 02:56:37.200
You won't find it anywhere.

02:56:37.420 --> 02:56:38.260
You'll have to look on YouTube.

02:56:38.660 --> 02:56:41.000
Look for a band called Syco Motel on YouTube.

02:56:41.240 --> 02:56:41.560
All right.

02:56:41.740 --> 02:56:42.140
What's it like?

02:56:42.600 --> 02:56:43.120
Just straightforward.

02:56:43.300 --> 02:56:48.620
It's kind of like, yeah, kind of bluesy, straightforward rock stuff, but with like a hard edge.

02:56:49.280 --> 02:56:49.380
Cool.

02:56:49.620 --> 02:56:50.920
Maybe a bit of a grungy edge.

02:56:51.420 --> 02:56:52.420
It's actually really good.

02:56:52.840 --> 02:56:53.140
Cool.

02:56:53.360 --> 02:56:55.240
Maybe it's just, maybe it's just nostalgia.

02:56:55.940 --> 02:56:58.400
But yeah, that first album I thought was pretty good.

02:56:58.820 --> 02:56:59.180
I'll look it up.

02:57:00.460 --> 02:57:00.800
Marks on.

02:57:01.700 --> 02:57:30.400
Yeah, my number two is Jotun. They released a track from the album called Misland last year, and it was phenomenal. And there's no word on when the LP will actually drop, but they've been talking about it, saying that it's going to come out this year from Metal Blade. Their last album, Access All Worlds, was one of my most played albums in 2021. Grand, gorgeous, progressive death metal with a cosmic heart.

02:57:31.440 --> 02:58:00.620
I think it was actually number two on my list that year too. So I'm really looking forward to hearing what they do next. Okay. Nice. My number two, when Jay and I had a chance to talk to Matt Pike in Vegas, we did talk about the upcoming High on Fire album produced by Kurt Baloo. He said it was going to be good and we both said, yeah, obviously. We can't wait to hear it. So that is my number 20 or my number two for 2024.

02:58:02.000 --> 02:58:05.820
I love high and fire it's kind of in the can too right it's got title and

02:58:05.920 --> 02:58:11.120
everything I mean I think it's I think so yeah get ready to roll I think it has a release date actually

02:58:11.560 --> 02:58:16.080
already okay and this will be the first or no is it the second with the new bass player

02:58:19.380 --> 02:58:24.640
second or no is the new drummer drummer I think first actually yeah

02:58:29.199 --> 02:58:54.020
So this came up earlier. I made a comment about it. And now I get to say something about it. So my number two is Judas Priest and Invisible Shield. And that's just going to be on my list just because I've been with this band since 1980, since I first got British Steel when it came out. And I will say I like the first two tracks on the album. I thought they were pretty good. But the track that dropped yesterday or.

02:58:54.640 --> 02:59:24.560
within the last couple days, whatever, Crown of Horns or whatever it's called, it did nothing for me at all. It didn't work for you. No, it just didn't even sound like Priest to me. I saw a comment from Richie about how this album's got all bangers and there's no ballady stuff. Then I heard this song and I was like, huh. This is a pretty ballady. This is a pretty ballady song. So I'm hoping that these aren't, I hope that this isn't the whole album in terms of what's good on it. It can't be.

02:59:24.660 --> 02:59:54.260
Bands are famous for putting out the wrong lead track, and Priest would be one of those. I hope so. I don't remember what came out before. It definitely does not sound like Firepower that direction. I think they're mixing in a lot of... There's a lot of Whitley on it, man. So far, all three songs have had a kind of Richie intro, haven't they? All three of them? Yeah. And so it's... We'll see. I mean, I like the first track that came off it, but that song had a lot of nods to previous eras of the band. So I'll mix in.

02:59:56.199 --> 03:00:23.640
Yeah. So we'll see. Sorry, I'm like over defending a record that's not even out yet. I'm sure I'll like it. I just, this last song just didn't do squat for me when I heard it. Yeah. And sometimes, John, sometimes when you hear a song on its own, it's not strong. But then when you hear it in the context of the album, when you hear it as a whole, it actually makes the song better because it's slotted in on the right spot. Yeah. That's happened to me multiple times. Sometimes.

03:00:24.300 --> 03:00:53.520
I'm going to say this is probably not going to be my favorite song on the album. Sometimes it goes the other way and the first song they play is okay, but it doesn't work with the rest of the album. This might be an outlier for I hope that's what the case is. I'm thinking about Iron Maiden and was that speed of sound or sound of speed of light speed of light. I like it too, but it didn't really gel with the rest of the album.

03:00:54.320 --> 03:01:23.160
That happens a lot. So we'll see. Animated zombie thing for? Huh? It was speed of light or speed of sound, whatever it was. Is that the one that they had the animated video for? No, that was El Dorado. Yeah. That was the next album. El Dorado. No, that was something about the film coming to an end. No, that was. But I just remember like the video did not match the song at all. Is that the motorcycle thing in the desert? Yes.

03:01:24.300 --> 03:01:54.060
And zombies and zombies and stuff like that video was awesome. It was very heavy metal. It did not match the song at all. Like it was like this. They don't match together. Like it was. I thought it was fucking bizarre and super poor choice. Well, it's also a weird leads track because it doesn't sound like anything else on the record. So, but what the fucking. The writing's on the wall. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I don't remember much made in past dance of death because they've all kind of just blurred to me. Unfortunately, I should have mentioned this.

03:01:54.320 --> 03:02:24.020
I should have mentioned this earlier when Ian said it but Bruce Dickens is also doing a comic book for it and he's just signed recently at Midtown Comics in New York and he did a story I just got this too just like all different stories Iron Maiden Peace of Mind this is like the variant cover so that was cool and he did a story in there as well I got this for as a Christmas gift which is pretty cool comic book creators and then who is giving you all these Christmas gifts?

03:02:24.320 --> 03:02:53.800
I have a lot of people who like me. My wife, she always tells me, he's like, why do people keep giving you free shit all the time? I have no idea. But everywhere I go, I get free stuff. It's really weird. Hey, you. But yeah, I don't know. People give me Christmas gifts. It's nice. I'm taking over here going to my number two. I can think of a few good, great comeback records. I would call to mine Carcass, Deep Purple, Perfect Strangers.

03:02:54.320 --> 03:03:24.280
Celtic Frost, Monotheist, and Possessed. Revelations of Oblivion. Possessed is making a new record this year. I don't know if it'll make it up. When you say it's a comeback record, but it's not like they made some bad ones and then they came back and made a strong one. It was like a reunion record. They kept making strong ones. They had a huge break. Yeah, yeah. That's what I mean to say. And Possessed was dead, really. I mean, there was no reason for them to come back, but then these guys reached out to him and Jeff was

03:03:24.320 --> 03:03:52.840
That's the most important. Anyway, apparently the songs are done. They just got to record them. That could mean it'll make it out by 2024. I honestly thought Revelations of Bolivian was fucking brilliant. So fingers crossed that makes out 2024. That was your number one a couple years ago, right? It was. Yeah, I still throw that in every once in a while. It was so fucking good. Nice. Great record. Que pasara, man. Wheelchair and all. Fucking killing it. Wheelchair and all. Badass motherfucker. Yeah. Jorge.

03:03:54.320 --> 03:04:24.280
I'm copying off Ian's homework my number two is Bruce Dickinson the Mandrake project I hope he's got my number one too that didn't make my list and it didn't make my list because tyranny of souls was a big drop off I'm not sure what to expect from this so I'm hopeful you know and this is one of the people who thinks fucking chemical wedding is one of the greatest metal records of all time so I'm hopeful but it didn't make my list all right well Ian because I'm nervous have they only dropped one song from that

03:04:24.300 --> 03:04:53.820
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And it was good. That's a special. Well done. Yeah. Number one. All right. My number one. This actually might be a volleyball. I've got it. I've got it. You do. This is sleepy time. Gorilla museum. Oh, wow. Last human being. I love that band. So they have about San Francisco. So, right. Oh yeah. They're from.

03:04:54.280 --> 03:05:24.240
from San Francisco. They haven't put out an album for years and years and years. It's been a long time. And it might be argued they're not metal, but if you listen to something like Helpless Corpses. Oh, Jay does not care if it's not metal. He loves everything not metal. Well, I do like Sleeping Sun Gorilla Museum. Let him finish. When a donkey-headed adversary opens the discussion, something like that is completely metal. And Nils Freakdal has just got an amazing voice.

03:05:25.199 --> 03:05:54.240
and a really metal voice as well. They're heavy though. They may not be metallic, but they're heavy. It's dark and it's esoteric and sometimes it's downright satanic. Like him to the Morningstar or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Great live too. They're awesome live. I've never had the opportunity and it's complex and off kilter and weird and I'm looking forward to it. I saw them several times in San Francisco and I almost never knew what, you didn't ever know what,

03:05:54.280 --> 03:06:24.240
What to fucking expect? Sometimes they didn't really play. One time I saw him and they carried the main dude front man down the aisle in a coffin and then they just came up and did some weird avant-garde shit. Like super unpredictable. And then I kind of got to know that guy a little bit and he was the one who told me I met him, this is true, John, I met him at one of Opeth's first headlining shows in the United States. And we were shooting a breeze and he told me,

03:06:24.300 --> 03:06:54.260
You need to check out a band called Mastodon Remission. So it was the dude from that that told me about Mastodon. That's awesome. Yeah, they're a totally fucking weird band. I saw them at Nierfest on a big stage. Like, maybe no more than 2,000 people, but a theater. It was awesome. And they haven't done anything in a long time. No. Ian, I don't have them on the list, although I'm waiting for that. So we'll give you the volleyball today. Oh, for sure. It's like a volleyball times two, because it's

03:06:54.300 --> 03:07:22.700
It's such a great selection. Yeah. Nice. But that would be a volleyball even if we all said it. Because trust me, nobody else knows. Yeah, we're the only ones who know a sleepy time girl or sleepy time girl. Museum is, yeah. That's awesome. All right, Mark, us on. Yeah, so a couple things. First of all, you mentioned Mastodon. It is the 20th anniversary of Leviathan, Matt. Did you know that? He's not allowed to talk about them. Second thing, I looked in the decibel and we were talking about High on Fire.

03:07:23.280 --> 03:07:51.640
And the album's called Come at the Storm, and it comes out on April 19th. So you guys know. That's the first day of Decibel, isn't it? No, it's the week after. And then I'll just say a couple of my honorables before I do my number one, because most of them have been mentioned. Blood Incantation, High on Fire. My Dying Bride is also coming out with an album. And then Spectral Voice, which we've heard the first track, but I fucking love that band so much.

03:07:53.280 --> 03:08:22.300
Is it? Oh, I haven't listened to it yet. You have to throw that on. Yeah, love that band. But my number one is Glassing. The new album's done. It's coming out from Pelagic Records. They're one of my favorite post-metal bands over the last few years, for sure. And on one of the recent episodes I talked about, their last record, Twin Dream, it was the pick from the crypt for me. So I've been revisiting that catalog a lot lately and really excited to hear the new songs.

03:08:22.720 --> 03:08:52.440
I'm actually going to see them live this year because they announced a tour with Author and Punisher and Mourn here in Chicago in February. So hopefully they'll play new stuff from the album. But I'm just ridiculously excited about that one. They've put out like an EP in between too. So they've been putting out stuff that the EP doesn't have songs that are going to be on the album. It's separate, but I just think they're a phenomenal band. It's post-metal, but they mix so many different genres.

03:08:52.560 --> 03:09:21.340
into it. It's just awesome. I've never really heard a band like that, so. Classing. I expect that one to be on my list at the end of the year. Nice. All right, me, my number one. No matter what year we do this list or a list of this, you know, sort, this will always be my number one, and it is Carcass. Yeah. I knew you were going to say that. Even if they don't have an album coming out, it's Carcass. Oh, no, they don't. No, I don't think so. No idea.

03:09:25.719 --> 03:09:52.460
That is your number one. You're not. Okay. Number one. Serious. I don't have to say anything more about it. You never know with Matt. Yeah. So I'll do some honorable mentions real quick. I did not realize Aranti Pazuzu was coming out. So that would definitely be on my list. I mentioned Crip Sermon, Spectral Voice, the Jim Matheus, Ray Alder project called North Sea Echo.

03:09:53.719 --> 03:10:22.100
And I have no idea if this is coming out. It's supposedly coming out in April, but I haven't really searched that hard to see if it really is. But supposedly there's a final album coming years later for Sabotage called Curtain Call. So I'll be interested to see if that comes out. I like Sabotage, so preferably the early stuff. But that would be kind of cool to see if they finally wrapped it up. Now that they're all gazillionaires from Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

03:10:22.580 --> 03:10:52.280
So my number one is mentioned a few times already, and that's Eson, self-titled Eson. So I'm a fan of most of his stuff. I agree some of it is definitely out there. I've seen him live twice solo. The last time I saw him, they blew the whole sound system at Prague Power, which was pretty awesome, considering he was playing a song off the new album, and he made it that heavy. He's so much heavier live than he is on his more recent albums. But I do agree with Ian, those first,

03:10:52.600 --> 03:11:22.540
three, four albums are where I prefer to be with his sound, but I can find something I like on every album, and I can also find a lot that I don't like on every album, which I think speaks to his diversity and what he does, so I'm interested. I am encouraged by what I've heard so far. Yeah. Quite a few votes for Isan. Yes, and now a second vote for Judas Priest. I like the lead tracks on this. Priest is, I think it's funny that Ian was saying that

03:11:22.560 --> 03:11:52.320
He prefers late era Bruce Dickinson's solo records to maybe like Maiden Now and stuff. I think Priest is still kind of in a cool place. They're still making good records post 2020. So I hope for this one I like to lead tracks. Looking forward to this. And it's coming soon. Right next month. So yeah. Cool. And the tour's coming too. I already got tickets to go with my buddy the captain. So looking forward to that. I remember who's was it Uriah Heap? There was one leg to it. I think it had like some really cool.

03:11:52.900 --> 03:12:22.060
I thought it was Saxon and Uriah Heep were touring together. I thought. That's just in Britain, unfortunately. Oh, okay. I don't know. All right. My number one, since Ian went with a volleyball, I had to copy off somebody else's homework. So I decided to give Jay a taste of his own medicine and copy off his and go with Judas Priest, Invincible Shield. Nice. All right. Well, let's roll into this rocket from the crypt here and get the fuck out of here. All right.

03:12:22.580 --> 03:12:52.540
Pick from the Crypt. This is only the second time we've done this. Third. Only the third time. Really? Yes. I had to look. It's the third time, yeah. Okay, only the third time. Only the second time that I remember. So this is where we go and we pick an album. It doesn't matter when it was released. It's just something that you think people need to hear. So, Ian, what have you got? Okay, I've got it in front of me. This is from 2014. This is a band called

03:12:52.580 --> 03:12:54.740
from Manchester, England called Spires.

03:12:55.060 --> 03:12:55.940
Oh, yes.

03:12:56.080 --> 03:12:56.720
It's a great album.

03:12:57.330 --> 03:12:58.100
The whisperer.

03:12:59.140 --> 03:13:05.580
And it's like, I don't know, a heavy opeth, I guess you'd describe it as be the shorthand way to describe it.

03:13:05.820 --> 03:13:08.760
But Paul Sadler's vocals are just soaring.

03:13:09.940 --> 03:13:13.500
Just so, it's so much more versatile than the felt.

03:13:15.001 --> 03:13:17.200
And it's just a great album.

03:13:17.780 --> 03:13:20.200
And if you've heard it, fantastic.

03:13:20.780 --> 03:13:50.640
If you've not heard it, you should really go and check it out. I like everything from them. I think was the last one, The Gift, I think. A Partisan Gift, yeah. Yeah, I love that one. His solo record's good, too. Yeah, that's pretty good. So, yeah, I spoke to Paul the other day just online, and there should be a new Spires album coming, but I don't know when it's coming. So they're officially doing something again? They're kind of officially doing something, but they've not done something for a long time. Yeah. Cool.

03:13:51.300 --> 03:14:20.740
Yeah. Nice. All right. Mark is on. Yeah. So we talked about Century Media Records putting stuff on Bandcamp. And so there's just so many riches on there now because for a long time they were not on Bandcamp. So one of the bands that I really got into that I used to be quite fond of is Into Eternity. I put the entire catalog on there. And so for this pick from the Crypt, I'm picking a Berry

03:14:20.760 --> 03:14:50.440
in Oblivion. That was from 2004. I've been re-listening to this band's whole catalog again because they just put it up on Bandcamp. Is Stu on that one? No, he's not. Stu's on most of them. This one has Chris Kroll on it. It's the only one he was on, only full length that he was on. Okay. So, yeah, it brought back so many memories from when I was like a 20-something-year-old son. It's their second album, the only full length with Chris Kroll.

03:14:50.780 --> 03:15:20.540
They play a very melodic, progressive death metal with a variety of other influences. And at the time, I remember it sounding pretty unique to me when it came out. And it just has a really infectious energy to it with the choruses that you can sing, but it's still complex. It's still pretty heavy. And, you know, listening to it now, I feel like I'm hearing more of this kind of melodic shifting dynamics.

03:15:20.760 --> 03:15:49.940
and metal lately. Could be that I'm gravitating to that style again, because you know how things are just kind of cyclical. But it's been really fun to revisit these Into Eternity records that came out like half my lifetime ago. They're still around, but they have a new singer. I think they have a female singer now. Yep. Stu Block, you mentioned, was a singer too. They may even have had one more as well. But, you know, I love Dead or Dreaming, Buried in Oblivion. What's the next one? I think Scattering of Ashes.

03:15:50.780 --> 03:16:20.240
It was decent. So, yeah. Going back into the old catalog. I saw them open for Opeth, I don't know, four or five times when they toured with them back in 2005 on Ghost Reveries. Nice, John. Yeah. That was actually, I think Nevermore was on that bill, too, if I'm not mistaken. That's a killer lineup. Yeah. It was crazy. Let me see. I think it was. Yeah. Opeth, Nevermore, Into Eternity. Yeah.

03:16:22.380 --> 03:16:49.560
I've been bringing those out and spinning it like three or four. So yeah, I was a big fan. And it's always nice when you don't think of an album and then you haven't thought of a band in too long. And then you're like, oh yeah, I remember spinning this. And then you can just go to them and do that deep dive. So always one of my favorite things to do because there's so much metal that we'd listen to. I think I might've seen them on that Opeth tour as well. You probably did, George. I'm sure I did. Yeah. Anyway.

03:16:50.780 --> 03:17:20.440
Matt. Okay. My, Oh, first off, Sabaton is who's opening for priest. Oh yeah. That's right. The case for a few of their tours. I also have tickets. I'm looking forward to that. So my pick from the crypt. Yes. I know this isn't exactly metal. No, I don't really care. I'm saying in response to two things. First off, when Jay and I talked about MC five, one band that MC five reminds me of that is more modern would be at the drive in. And I feel like they definitely gave birth to them.

03:17:20.780 --> 03:17:48.260
Secondly, one of our sister podcasts, Stay Away to Heaven, you talked about Mars Volta. And I was driving home from Thanksgiving with my wife's family. And I was listening to that and I just thought, damn it, I wish I could call in and talk about this album. Because particularly that first album is, you know, you don't have Mars Volta unless you have Sparta. And those are the two bands that were birthed from the disintegration of... I love Sparta too.

03:17:48.720 --> 03:18:12.960
At The Drive-In, you know, you took kind of the more melodic side and then the kind of crazy side, melodic side being Sparta, the crazy side being Mars Volta. And if you put them together, you have At The Drive-In. And Relationship of Command is one of the craziest albums I've ever heard. I think it is, you know, the reason for a lot of things that we have today. And if you haven't heard it, you should.

03:18:13.480 --> 03:18:43.460
Super influential Sparta wiretap scars I have at the drive I have all those on vinyl too yeah that's the years where I was like the formative years for me when I'm getting into metal and I'm trying different things love those yeah and I think you know like Mars Volta but like at the drive-in kind of they regrouped I don't know if they're still doing things Mars Volta still around another touring and they've definitely kind of gone off and been more of the artistic piece but I feel like myself included there was just so much

03:18:43.460 --> 03:19:13.440
with Out the Drive and Breaking Up because I feel like they were kind of reaching the height of their curve, which is probably the best time to get out of the game. One-Armed Scissor was everywhere, and that's a good song, but I think even just the way that album starts with a carcinol, just mind-blowing. And so, like I said, I think, myself included, we were all so heartbroken about that breakup that we just wanted anything that had to do with those two bands. I was able to see Bill Sparta and Mars Volta live, or yeah, Mars Volta, and kind of take

03:19:13.460 --> 03:19:15.920
I still just want to drive in.

03:19:17.220 --> 03:19:18.600
They were. They were at the height of their power.

03:19:18.760 --> 03:19:20.860
Wow, now I'm going to have to do a deep dive. Thanks a lot, Matt.

03:19:20.970 --> 03:19:21.860
Now I'm going to have to do more.

03:19:23.020 --> 03:19:24.540
Because I fucking love that stuff.

03:19:25.280 --> 03:19:26.080
Yeah, it was all good.

03:19:26.839 --> 03:19:29.140
Unexpected but pleasant, Paul. Thanks, Matt.

03:19:30.160 --> 03:19:30.400
You bet.

03:19:31.460 --> 03:19:31.760
All right.

03:19:33.499 --> 03:19:35.520
Matt, before we go to my pick,

03:19:35.570 --> 03:19:39.320
did you say you wish you could have called into the Stairway to 11 podcast

03:19:39.580 --> 03:19:40.660
to talk about the Mars World Cup?

03:19:40.700 --> 03:19:42.860
I want it like when does everybody call into radio shows?

03:19:43.000 --> 03:20:11.980
I was like I want to call. All right, let's go to our next caller. Hey, this is Matt from Minneapolis. First time caller, long time listener. Well, that'd be great if you could call in. That'd be awesome. So since you mentioned that other podcast that George and I are on, I, on that one, am stuck in the early 80s with almost all my picks because those are my formative years when I was getting into music. But on this, excuse me? Like an 8-track? Yeah.

03:20:12.100 --> 03:20:42.080
That might be a little late for me. Or early for me, I should say. I'm a little after that. But yes, I have listened to eight tracks and the click track and everything, and it's awesome. It's just really cool to be listening to the song that just stops and clicks. It's like, wow, that was cool. But like that podcast on this one, I'm stuck in a certain period for these picks from the Caribbean, and I'm stuck in the mid to late 80s for all my picks because I've done Crimson Glory, and then I did Dream Theater's

03:20:42.120 --> 03:21:12.080
first album because when we did that was right after their original singer passed away but nothing's changed i'm still stuck in the late 80s and my pick is from 1989 and it's i think one of the the true great technical thrash albums that's also a progressive metal album and my pick is watchtower's control and resistance if you don't know it you should check it out the vocals might not be your thing because he's gets way

03:21:12.100 --> 03:21:42.080
up in the stratosphere, but the playing is just insane and off the charts is kind of, you know, cliche to say, but they really do define those phrases about their music. They're just, and it's somewhat melodic too, surprisingly, but they're all crazy players. And it's, I think, the first album with Ron Jarzombek on guitar, who's the brother of Bobby Jarzombek, who used to be the drummer for Fate's Warning. And I think for Rod Halford, and now he

03:21:42.120 --> 03:22:11.920
He plays with George Strait. So yeah. If I'm not mistaken. But yeah. Run John's country. Unbelievable. And they're all goofy kind of in a sense too. They act kind of funny. Have you seen the Blotted Science video where one of the tracks he actually wrote it to a sequence in the Peter Jackson King Kong movie? Have you seen that? No, I haven't seen it.

03:22:12.120 --> 03:22:39.280
I've seen this. Oh my god, I need to find it. So he wrote this song watching the bug scene in King Kong. And then there's a clip on YouTube where they've put them on top of each other. And it is perfectly in sync. It's amazing. It's incredible. It's interesting you should bring up Blotted Science because for those who don't know, a drummer who played with them is our friend Hannes Grossman.

03:22:41.520 --> 03:23:10.140
Surprise, surprise, surprise, surprise. Well, he would fit that band because it's, again, another crazy band in terms of the technicality. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. It's too bad they only have two albums and an EP. One of these days. They apparently are going to record a new album, which we've heard that for years because they've played a couple of live shows recently, or a live show, at least. All right.

03:23:11.520 --> 03:23:12.160
Well.

03:23:14.020 --> 03:23:16.660
My Crypt from the Pick, or Pick from the Crypt.

03:23:17.860 --> 03:23:18.280
Gorefest.

03:23:19.040 --> 03:23:19.380
False.

03:23:19.960 --> 03:23:20.580
Oh, yeah.

03:23:20.720 --> 03:23:22.100
Death Metal Band from the Netherlands.

03:23:22.880 --> 03:23:24.760
This was literally one of my favorite.

03:23:25.100 --> 03:23:26.840
It still is one of my favorite albums ever.

03:23:26.960 --> 03:23:30.860
And I just looked in my iTunes library and like, it's not even in there.

03:23:30.940 --> 03:23:31.860
I'm like, where is this?

03:23:31.950 --> 03:23:34.500
I have it on CD somewhere because I remember buying it.

03:23:34.700 --> 03:23:35.140
Yeah, me too.

03:23:35.200 --> 03:23:40.700
In 1992 in Guantanamo Bay when I was with Looch, my buddy Looch.

03:23:41.761 --> 03:24:06.440
And God, like the glory is dead. There's just so many good songs in this album. And for a while, my call sign in the Marine Corps was Gorefest. I just absolutely loved this album. And some of the later stuff they had was not as great, but like this is one of those like absolutely perfect death metal albums from start to finish. Gorefest, false.

03:24:07.919 --> 03:24:36.560
If we do this long enough, that probably would have come up on mine as well. Before I do one, I just want to throw my hat in and say that I was a huge Mars Volta devotee when they first came out. And they used to play the Barrio a lot, it seemed like to me. I must have seen them five times. And such an amazing live band. So good. I used to tell people the hardest working man in show business is the Mars Volta's drummer. Fucking that guy was insane. Mine, I mentioned earlier in the podcast, is from...

03:24:36.600 --> 03:25:06.540
The Borknagar family of bands, Amorphous, all these guys who kind of mixed and displaced. Arcturus, Arcturian. This was the last full-length Arcturus lecture. It was so fucking good. I put it on the other day and I forgot how much I like this record. No, I didn't forget. I just hadn't heard in a while. It came out in 2015. We're overdue for another full-length. I hope they'll come out and put another record out because they're such a creative, fun, cool band. But do yourself a favor. If you like some of those other bands I mentioned, check out Arcturus, Arcturian.

03:25:06.580 --> 03:25:36.560
and the rest of the catalog too. But definitely one of those bands that kind of was there for a minute and have kind of disappeared and the world is full of shit to listen to. So you might not know to go check those guys out. I love Arcturus. Good stuff. Have you ever heard the hidden track on the second album? Probably not. Masquerading finale. I can tell you for sure not. Apparently the only way to get to it, you need to have a CD player that you can put in reverse and rewind because it's before

03:25:36.600 --> 03:25:38.580
the first track index.

03:25:39.920 --> 03:25:41.580
And I don't have a CD player where you can do it.

03:25:41.700 --> 03:25:42.500
So I've got the CD.

03:25:43.859 --> 03:25:49.140
On the inside of the tray, it says there's a hidden track somewhere.

03:25:49.580 --> 03:25:51.500
It's like cryptically saying there's a hidden track.

03:25:52.180 --> 03:25:53.500
I could never find it.

03:25:53.580 --> 03:25:54.680
I still have to this day.

03:25:54.760 --> 03:25:55.220
I've not heard it.

03:25:55.940 --> 03:25:57.100
I've got the CD on the shelf.

03:25:57.620 --> 03:25:59.340
I don't have a CD player with that.

03:25:59.580 --> 03:26:01.620
You've got to play the first track and then reverse.

03:26:02.319 --> 03:26:02.720
Rewind.

03:26:03.280 --> 03:26:04.260
And it should rewind.

03:26:04.840 --> 03:26:05.640
This is what I've heard.

03:26:06.400 --> 03:26:34.700
in front of the previous. Got it. Cool. Oh, I love that. What's it called? I have no idea. Master of Disguise. So that's the first track. Master of Disguise, it's before that. And it's not on anything. I can't find it. It's so hidden and so esoterically mysterious. I'm looking it up because I want to La Masquerade Infernale. Yeah. I was just talking about that with Chris Neutrino.

03:26:36.400 --> 03:26:36.720
days ago.

03:26:37.440 --> 03:26:38.060
His track?

03:26:38.700 --> 03:26:39.800
No, just that album.

03:26:40.540 --> 03:26:40.700
Oh.

03:26:41.380 --> 03:26:42.040
He brought it up.

03:26:42.940 --> 03:26:43.860
All right, do you guys are going to start?

03:26:45.320 --> 03:26:45.440
Huh.

03:26:46.680 --> 03:26:47.820
How are we going to find that?

03:26:48.980 --> 03:26:50.460
Yeah, I've probably got the CD.

03:26:51.460 --> 03:26:53.020
I don't know if I have a CD player, though.

03:26:54.080 --> 03:26:56.140
Especially that you can play in reverse, so good luck with that.

03:26:56.320 --> 03:26:57.260
That you can rewind, yeah.

03:26:57.390 --> 03:27:02.080
Yeah, I've probably only got, like, you know, USB CD drives or whatever.

03:27:02.160 --> 03:27:04.780
I mean, somebody must have done it and put it on the web, right?

03:27:05.399 --> 03:27:06.240
I've not seen it.

03:27:06.300 --> 03:27:36.100
I've never found it. Huh. He's been searching for it for years. I know. The last track. It's like the Necronomicon, you know. Do you have the CD? Yes. You're a producer. You should be able to do this for us. I can't do it on a computer. I've tried. Shit. All right. All right. My pick from the crypt goes back to the year 1989. Woo. This is the band.

03:27:36.300 --> 03:27:40.500
Rathchild America, their first album, Climbing the Walls.

03:27:40.800 --> 03:27:57.440
Oh, such a good one. I saw them in concert at the Trocadero. In fact, I just drove past 10th and R Street in Philadelphia at the Trocadero just the other day just to see, even though it's closed, just nostalgia. That's where I spent my entire teenage years. Rathchild America was amazing.

03:27:57.640 --> 03:27:58.500
Who did you see him with?

03:28:01.060 --> 03:28:02.340
I think it was Teston.

03:28:02.610 --> 03:28:04.520
Yeah, I think it was too. That's when I saw him.

03:28:04.560 --> 03:28:34.540
I feel like there was like a testament Rothschild America Suicidal Tendencies tour or something like that like I remember there was like a there was a tour and my dad was there and my dad was sitting up in the balcony at the Trocadero and he was like what in the holy fuck did I just get myself into yeah yeah well you remember when you could smoke up there yeah upstairs oh it's just like a smoking pit it was horrible yeah yeah the truck I spent so much so many shows

03:28:37.580 --> 03:29:04.540
I'm just glad that anybody else knows this album because it was not a big release and they only put out two albums this was the first one 1989 so that was probably my senior year of high school they broke up they there was another band called souls at zero that had some of the people do you remember why they were called wrath child America because they were called wrath child and there was already a wrath child in England yep in England yep yeah

03:29:04.580 --> 03:29:04.860
Yep.

03:29:05.540 --> 03:29:08.780
And they did a phenomenal cover of Pink Floyd's time.

03:29:08.920 --> 03:29:09.360
They did.

03:29:10.080 --> 03:29:10.240
Yeah.

03:29:10.540 --> 03:29:11.580
And it was the first album.

03:29:12.140 --> 03:29:12.960
And it was the first album.

03:29:12.960 --> 03:29:13.240
I forget.

03:29:13.680 --> 03:29:13.820
Yeah.

03:29:14.140 --> 03:29:14.560
First album.

03:29:15.040 --> 03:29:18.040
And one of my all time favorite songs is off of this album.

03:29:18.560 --> 03:29:21.240
And it's called silent darkness smothered life.

03:29:22.200 --> 03:29:26.880
And this is like one of the greatest revenge songs of all time.

03:29:27.560 --> 03:29:28.500
It's in,

03:29:28.780 --> 03:29:29.820
in an eighties way.

03:29:30.480 --> 03:29:32.300
Basically it's about somebody who,

03:29:33.340 --> 03:29:33.660
you know,

03:29:34.279 --> 03:30:02.320
Okay, because I was in high school when this came out, I have a high school way of looking at it. And to me, it was like the football players took one of the kids that gets picked on and, you know, as a joke, they went and buried them alive. And they're like drinking beers and partying. And meanwhile, this kid is like suffocating under the dirt. But then the motherfucker comes back to life, comes back and kills them all.

03:30:04.479 --> 03:30:33.560
And I have to quote some of the lyrics because these are, like I said, this is one of my favorite songs of all time. And these are like words that are tattooed on my soul. I've mentioned that before, but let me see. Where is it? I can hear their muffled laughter. Can they hear my screams? It doesn't matter now because they don't care. It's all a harmless drunken joke to them. It seems I can't laugh. I'm running out of air.

03:30:33.780 --> 03:31:03.480
That's like the helpless feeling of anybody that has been completely fucked with by other people. Except to this point, it's a very lethal end. Okay. Anybody that's been messed with can relate to that kind of like, they just don't care what they're doing to you. Okay. And then we come down to the bottom end of the song. My soul, it climbs up through the dirt to haunt the earth above. Revenge is all I fucking seek. Tonight,

03:31:03.660 --> 03:31:33.620
There Is No Love. It's just fucking metal. I'm sorry. This song. And when I was out shoveling snow yesterday, I would put this song and just repeat and listen to it like five times in a row. And I was just like, yeah, it's my pick. I absolutely recommend this album. It does have a little bit of 80s in there. There is a little bit of on one or two of the songs. There's a little bit of like debauchery type lyrics. But the other interesting thing about this

03:31:33.660 --> 03:31:39.600
is that they are a local Maryland Hagerstown band.

03:31:41.060 --> 03:31:43.360
Yeah, they're from the area.

03:31:43.520 --> 03:31:46.920
They're like, yeah, they came up in the scene like 20 miles from where I'm sitting right now.

03:31:47.720 --> 03:31:51.340
But I lived in Michigan at the time, so I was nowhere near here.

03:31:52.190 --> 03:31:54.700
And, you know, many years later, I moved here.

03:31:55.880 --> 03:31:59.800
And, you know, I meet people in the scene and they're like, oh, yeah, we used to play with those guys.

03:32:00.410 --> 03:32:03.280
You know, so I'm friends with people that used to play with these guys in the scene.

03:32:03.420 --> 03:32:03.800
And they also,

03:32:04.939 --> 03:32:07.760
Kix was another band on the scene and another band,

03:32:08.280 --> 03:32:08.820
not metal,

03:32:09.720 --> 03:32:10.860
but still a good band.

03:32:10.980 --> 03:32:11.260
Clutch.

03:32:11.640 --> 03:32:12.640
Also part of that scene.

03:32:12.760 --> 03:32:15.380
I was just thinking to Kix and Clutch are that scene.

03:32:16.560 --> 03:32:16.960
Heresy.

03:32:17.560 --> 03:32:17.640
Yeah.

03:32:17.760 --> 03:32:18.140
They're metal.

03:32:19.260 --> 03:32:22.740
Nobody thinks that Hagerstown is a hotbed for rock or metal.

03:32:23.020 --> 03:32:23.180
Yeah.

03:32:23.420 --> 03:32:24.840
But quite a few bands from there.

03:32:25.080 --> 03:32:25.240
Yeah.

03:32:25.460 --> 03:32:25.560
Yeah.

03:32:25.720 --> 03:32:27.020
That is my pick this time.

03:32:28.080 --> 03:32:28.320
Nice.

03:32:28.360 --> 03:32:28.540
All right.

03:32:28.620 --> 03:32:29.540
Let's put this candle out.

03:32:30.540 --> 03:32:30.920
All right.

03:32:32.020 --> 03:32:32.420
What do you got?

03:32:33.260 --> 03:32:33.940
I know.

03:32:34.820 --> 03:32:35.340
You're tired.

03:32:36.239 --> 03:32:37.360
I got a mind to go.

03:32:37.360 --> 03:32:38.900
All you got is time, buddy.

03:32:38.930 --> 03:32:39.700
I got a mind to go.

03:32:41.000 --> 03:32:41.640
I'm hungry.

03:32:42.700 --> 03:32:44.300
Didn't you just eat like two hours ago?

03:32:45.500 --> 03:32:47.280
No, it's been five hours now.

03:32:47.400 --> 03:32:47.880
Oh, okay.

03:32:48.340 --> 03:32:48.800
Oh, no.

03:32:49.340 --> 03:32:50.360
We're just over four.

03:32:50.600 --> 03:32:50.820
Yeah.

03:32:51.010 --> 03:32:51.620
No, we did all right.

03:32:52.140 --> 03:32:53.820
I mean, it's pretty late for Ian, actually.

03:32:54.340 --> 03:32:54.660
Yeah.

03:32:54.780 --> 03:32:56.740
I appreciate that, Ian, very much.

03:32:56.840 --> 03:32:57.220
Oh, nice.

03:32:57.410 --> 03:32:57.500
Yes.

03:32:57.670 --> 03:32:57.960
Thank you.

03:32:58.020 --> 03:32:58.200
Pleasure.

03:32:58.440 --> 03:33:01.300
We really enjoy your company.

03:33:01.460 --> 03:33:31.420
Yeah, thanks for coming on. It's been a blast. If I talk too much, I apologize. You did not. Not even at all. Did you leave first so we could talk about you? I'm just joking. Yeah. Wow. Now you are awesome, man. Thank you so much for coming and sharing here. I appreciate it. We're all doing your time with us. Looking forward to the next album. Oh, yeah. Music is so good, dude. We really love the record. So, all the records. I mean, I've been spinning all the older stuff too because, to be honest, I really never came to Rannock

03:33:34.199 --> 03:33:37.800
So I think the newest album is the best record that you've done

03:33:38.200 --> 03:33:40.320
but I do really like the older stuff too

03:33:40.400 --> 03:33:40.880
so I

03:33:42.500 --> 03:33:43.700
keep moving forward

03:33:44.539 --> 03:33:46.560
I think the next album is even going to be

03:33:46.660 --> 03:33:47.060
even better

03:33:49.919 --> 03:33:52.940
Hey Ian if you see like 10 bucks in your bank account

03:33:53.040 --> 03:33:54.040
that was me buying it

03:33:54.659 --> 03:33:56.680
that was like 5 hours ago

03:33:57.500 --> 03:33:58.880
and also I'll be going straight

03:33:58.920 --> 03:34:00.761
to Blotted Science King Kong after this

03:34:00.780 --> 03:34:17.440
Thanks for sharing. I'm really excited. That sounds super fun. Yeah, that's pretty good. All right. Thanks so much. Thanks for coming. Thank you. We'll see you next time. All right, guys. We're out of here. See you boys. Later. Later. Bye.