I know false metal when I hear it. Don’t you? It’s hard to put your finger on or define, but it’s impossible to miss. Limp Bizkit is false metal. Most of the train wreck that is the annual OzzFest is, regrettably, false metal (although Ozzy himself and the perpetually-reuniting Black Sabbath are not and never shall be, even though they’re silly old men). The Fucking Champs, the darlings of ironically mulleted hipsters everywhere, are the dictionary definition of false metal. As long as true metal has existed, its evil doppelgänger has thrived as well. And the sad fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of metal is false metal.
Except for the shit that is not. The debut album from Dave Grohl’s death metal supergroup Probot (named after the spy robot that tries to ice Chewbacca at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back and featuring a rotating cast of lead singers, including King Diamond, Venom’s Cronos, Voivod’s Snake, Napalm Death’s Lee Dorian, and Corrosion of Conformity’s Mike Dean) is going to see the light of day sometime next year, and we’ve heard it already, and yes, it is unholy.
The nine idiots that make up Des Moines’ Slipknot might seem like the apostles of false metal to the uninformed, but come on. Being a straight-up satanic cartoon is pure genius (their first album is a speed-metal concept record about werewolves for fuck’s sake!). Slipknot’s latest record, Iowa, is almost unlistenable if you’re over 30 and that’s what it’s supposed to be. Sometimes you have to let that shit go. But if you’re in that magic time between being mentally 12 and 20, these guys are a fucking stone riot. Piss off your mom - you know you still live with her, dude - by playing Iowa’s “Heretic Anthem” (the chorus is the heartwarming chant “If you’re 555, I’m 666!”).
Andrew W.K. is metal (?) that won’t make your Mom angry. You may remember him from the cover of VICE two years ago. His shit is as loud and hard as all these bands combined but the joy is universal. The English music press is sucking his dick with the gusto of a hooker with an obsessive/compulsive take on the Protestant work ethic, but AWK’s approach to metal is sooo fucking sooper-stoopid (think the Sweet’s “Little Willy” twisted up with a lil’ bit o’ Quiet Riot and such) it really works. Though the singles are being shot out all over the UK, the full-length won’t be available here until well into next year.
At the other end of the “Metal is back, again” spectrum are those previously fallen-off devil worshippers Slayer. Their latest record, God Hates Us All, is truly a record for our time. It kills with a fury known only to vengeful Eastern gods with eight arms, the types that rove the countryside chopping the heads off poor-ass motherfuckers with rusty knives.
And speaking of knives, “Get Scalped by Tomahawk” is a tagline that would be used by a lesser magazine. Kevin Rutmanis (Cows, Melvins), John Stanier (Helmet), Mike Patton (Faith No More, Fantomas) and Duane Denison (the Jesus Lizard) get into a sweaty circle jerk and release a classic record (Tomahawk, on Ipecac Records) that nobody will buy but everybody should.
We’re not going to get into why but something has happened as of late. The evil sounds of metal have never sounded so sweet. Aside from the bubblegum sounds of kids like Linkin Park, underground and mainstream metal are meeting in a catchy, snappy hellhole of power that has not been seen since Ozzy said “aiyee, aiyee, aiyee.”
GABE SORIA
