Question Of The Week: A Million Times In A Row
Before the birth of the modern “album” as we know it, rock music was a little incomplete. Cuz a snugly-packed and deftly-paced album is an amazing experience: a winding, full-spectrum journey from A to B (or B to A), with peaks and valleys, climaxes and lulls, and examinations of the many facets of … of … of whatever the album’s creator is on about :) Think Seventh Son or Nothingface. Those wouldn’t have been possible during the album format’s infancy.
So before um probably Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (?), individual songs may’ve had less connection with their neighbors on a record. Tracks were ordered with an eye for the commercial — first single first, so on — so less cumulative and more contained were their impact. But even then, some songs make enough awesome for an entire album — for an entire discography, for an entire life … for a while! These are the tunes we jam fiendishly, feverishly, frequently, and/or forever. Let’s talk about those special addictive can’t-live-another-minute-without-hearing-it jamz in today’s Question Of The Week by MetalSucks!
Inspired by awesome standalone jamz, we asked our staff the following:
What is the most recent occurrence of u listening to a jam like a bunch of times in a row like an addict?
Please share yours below!! Have an awesome wknd and Monday!
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ANSO DF
Among my budz, there’s a belief that my vibe can be gauged by which jam I am replaying and replaying again. So they probably smell trouble now cuz our Spring has been packed with listens to “Forbidden Love” by The Darkness. It’s about a dude and a fox (/dude) who are irreversibly in love, but well y’know they can’t express it openly or at all. Nay, they must hide/repress their unceasing, intense urges to party naked. Per its lyrics, each of my brahs must be kinda hawking me to see if theirs is the off-limits lady with whom I am fighting the tractor-beam of bonerforce. lol They needn’t worry — it’s not a friend’s but a stranger’s life soon to be screwed by our poorly-timed and mercilessly hot infatuation. Total bummer. Like the song says, “Hell is the truth learned too late.” I’ll let u know how it turns out :)
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DAVID LEE ROTHMUND
When Periphery II came out, everything else became goddamn irrelevant to me. I’d been following them through their vocalist-unsure MySpace days — and eating up Bulb’s singles — and their debut album was everything you could need, kind of like a metal-ass protein shake made with fire and boobs. Then II was everything I wanted and so much fucking more, so it was good enough to replace smoking and drinking — jk, smoking + drinking + Periphery = hnnnngggg — and all other metal albums for like, uh, three straight weeks. The chorus to “Mile Zero” (below) is just dripping sex, and the super-heavy part of “Ragnarok” that we all know still gives me goosebumps, even on my taint. Weird, I know?
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EMPEROR RHOMBUS
Amon Amarth‘s “Death In Fire.” I worship that album, Versus The World (2002), but rediscovered it only recently. I have been blasting that bitch on repeat.
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SAMMY O’HAGAR
I’m not a big repeat-play guy. Before I go back and listen to a song again, I usually take in a few others so it can breathe. Therefore it speaks volumes of my adoration of a song when it’s on repeat. The last two came a few months ago, right after 2012’s barrage of awesome releases was just starting to wind down: I must have listened to the Deftones‘ “Poltergeist” like 58,000 times (give or take … four?). The intro’s handclaps — though a pretty unexceptional twist — rope me in every time. It’s a sly trick, really: The beginning of the song immediately reminds you of what’s coming up, leaving you as giddy and schoolgirlish as those claps. Neurosis’ “Bleed the Pigs” is a little different, as the slow, ominous trudge up the song to its peak requires more patience. But that altitude takes the wind out of you: Just thinking of the slithering aggression of Steve von Till’s Hammet-grade wah pedal abuse makes you want to throw it on. Of course, “Pigs” is one of the shorter songs on Honor Found in Decay; maybe I kept going back to it right away just so I could make it to bed before 4 AM.
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AXL ROSENBERG
There have already been a bunch of great releases this year, but the one I keep returning to these past of couple of months is Requiem for Us All, the sophomore release from Italian death metallers The Modern Age Slavery. The band comes from the same scene as Fleshgod Apocalypse (whose guitarist/vocalist, Tommaso Riccardi, makes a cameo on Requiem), and their sound is not dissimilar — minus the symphonic/operatic stuff. But TMAS share Fleshgod’s penchant for incredibly well-written music that’s heavier than a hippo standing atop two other hippos. I think the last time I heard such intense machine-gun riffs was on All Shall Perish’s The Price Of Existence. I just love this album so goddamn much. You can stream Requiem for Us All here and via Spotify or the new Google music thinger, or, better yet, just go ahead and buy it — it’s so worth it!
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DAVE MUSTEIN
I’ve been perpetually cycling the sidewinding sweeps of Vale Of Pnath‘s “Mental Crucifixion.” The Coloradan quintet’s death metal is particularly versatile, countering their relative inexperience with well-articulated nods to a lexicon of influences. “Mental Crucifixion” has it all: pernicious technical climaxes, murky blackened swells, and dissonance-riddled breakdowns that frenetically dive at all angles.
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