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Metal Heads Podcast Go.

Hello, and welcome to the Metal Heads Podcast.

My name is George.

This is John.

This is Matt.

This is Markisan.

And at some point, I think Jay will probably meander, wander on in, and join us hopefully

before too long.

Will, as usual, just doesn't have time for us. He wants to be here. He's in spirit. He's our spirit animal. Spirit penis. Yeah. Before we get into things, I just want to remind everybody that we do have the merch store on our website, metalheadspodcast.com. You can go there and buy some shirts so you can look cool like we do. Yeah.

And then we can identify you when we see you at a show. Exactly. Show your true colors. Which people do. Yeah. They don't come up to George, though. They only come up to us. Yeah. No, they have. But no, not in person. Sorry. They come up to me for shirts all the time. And they come up to me for podcast shirts. But it's not because they've heard of it. It's they're like, what is that? I was in Michigan last weekend. And we went to a German restaurant.

I gave her my Metalheads podcast card to pay. And the waitress. And she goes, runs our cards. She comes back and she's like, and this one's for the Metalheads podcast. And I was like, ha ha ha. I was like, you could read that? And she's like, yeah, it looked really cool. So I tried to figure it out. And she was like, yeah, my boyfriend's in a metal band. So I thought he might want to check this out. And I was worried. I was wearing a Metalheads shirt at the time as well. So she kind of put two and two together.

Yeah, that's awesome. So, yeah. All right, so last episode was our mid-year episode, and now John will thrill and amaze us with some stats. All right. Yes. Give it to us, John. Yeah. We won't do too much because it is the mid-year, and while the mid-year is cool to have stats from, we know that this is going to change. How much it changes, who knows. But anyway, the first thing, though, is that

I'm not going to go into too much detail about this because nobody needs to hear this detail. Because I changed how I ranked the albums this year a little bit. Because we get too many ties because we have too many volleyballs floating around in the ocean. And this year was especially bad. We had 14 albums tied and we dragged three extra in there. So we had 28 albums for the top 25. And I was like, this is getting ridiculous trying to figure this out.

So I tried to come up with a way to weight the albums. I'm not a statistician. I'm actually quote unquote an economist by trade, even though I work in statistics and I have a background in it, but I'm not a professional statistician. But you're qualified, John. That's another discussion for another time. You're the most qualified on this podcast. So I tried to weight them. So what we do is when we have ties, we look to see which album had more selections.

So we're like, oh, we'll go with that. And I used to do the eye test for that. And then if they had the same amount of selections from us, say three of us picked an album and the two albums were picked three times, then I was like, let's has the highest one in the ranking. We'll go with that. And these are all eye tests. It wasn't working this time. So I waited them. So what I did is I added the number of selections this time. So we're still using it, but it was added as a bonus, right? So if your album got picked five times, like enslaved, it got five times.

five more points added to it. All right. And then I was like, okay, that's good for only so much. It can only give you so much. So I decided then to wait how the album placed, which we were already doing. We had a time. We looked to see how it placed. All right. Oh, this one's 18. That one's 17. So the one that got 18, we'll get the nod over the one with 17 on the ranking. This time I waited actually where it placed. And I did it in such a way. I went through like, I don't know how many iterations to get to.

this and it wasn't working every time I came up with the numeric value so

I grouped them by I'm sure you've heard this expression quintiles whenever they do political

stats for how people vote and so the top 20 percent the first five albums got a certain amount of points the next 10 or five were then considered in the top 40 percent so the value decreased and then the next five would make it the top 60 percent so the value decreased for those

those five albums all the way down to the last five which basically you got one point oh yeah we made the list kind of thing congratulations and by doing that it ended up giving me the decimal points that were just enough separation for us to break it up to only one tie this time which was nice because trying to figure out ties sucks so that's a lot of gobbledygook to talk about but that's what i did this time so we did our regular scoring and then i added some bonus to it i wish i didn't have to do that because it's a lot of

I don't know what's going on with that.

97 albums, but from 23 countries. Not bad. Yeah, we've had more in the past, but it's a little more condensed this time, it seemed like. No international bands, but members from eight different countries. There were, I think, one or two, but they were still located at one country, even though they might have had musicians from another country. Sometimes they like to say those bands are from three countries, whatever. We have a few of them. Anyway.

So outside of the United States,

our big selected country with individual albums was,

I know they like to say United Kingdom over there.

I like to break it up a little because I like football and those

countries play as separate countries over there,

England,

Scotland,

all them.

Anyway,

the United Kingdom comprising of England,

Scotland had 10 individual albums.

Germany and Norway had six,

Canada and Finland had five.

And then for how many total? Again, United Kingdom with England and Scotland, 13 total. Norway, 11. Germany, 9. Canada, 7. Switzerland, 6. That's total albums that every time they showed up on our list. So you could have the same album showing up a couple times, which we had a few of those, obviously. All right. So to the people, we'll start with our good friend, Marcuson. Our good friend in the bottom right of my screen. Mine too. Yes.

He's definitely a power bottom. I'm in the top right of my screen. And that's below me. And how's that working out for you guys? I mean, any configuration is fine with me, John. It's all Twister. That's right. All right. So for Marcus, we all are all our number one country was the US. I never like to mention him because we only mention him when it comes to the awards. Marcus, you had nine countries outside of the US. And I think Germany was your big one with three.

So you're in Deutschland. Matt had 12 countries. He was big on the Nordic bands this year. Norway and Sweden grabbed a 2-H. I had 12 also. I was in the Great White North with Canada with three. Will had seven countries. But somebody had even less. Maybe. And his big one, again, United Kingdom, but England was his big one with four. He had five total from the United Kingdom.

Kingdom. Jay had 10 countries. United Kingdom was his big one too, with two from England and Scotland. But he also had two from Finland and Switzerland, if you want to go by individual countries. And then George had five countries outside the U.S. with Norway being his big one with four. Which I thought was appropriate for you, George, in Norway.

Our global citizen, our traveler, goes to Matt and myself with the 12 countries. Nice. All right. So we're holding hands. We're traveling, checking things out. But the America fuck yet is not go to George. Damn it. Goes to Will with 14. Damn you, Will. Yeah. Which seems appropriate for some reason this year. I don't know why. It was my year. I thought for sure you had it, George, because let's be honest, only five other countries outside the U.S.

Cut that down.

But it just goes to show how global metal is.

You are the Norwegian ambassador now, so that's good, George.

Yes.

You've got family ties, yeah.

All right, so to the labels.

And the labels are getting harder and harder to do because every year it seems like there's a new label popping up out of nowhere and never heard of it like spewing vomit blood records.

And you're like, oh, wow, I bought an album from them on Bandcamp, you know, and then.

Bleeding Butt Lumps records. Exactly. Yeah. To generic stuff like Black Star Records. There's four of those. So anyway. Record Records. Exactly. Records and tapes. Placete tracks. All right. The label that had the most albums. So this is individual albums. Was Prosthetic. Had six. Then we had 20 Buck Spin, Season of Mist, and Transcending Obscurity records with four each.

And in Century Media and Napalm with three. Now they out the labels that had the most on our list total. So, you know, this includes all the duplicates. Prosthetic again had 11. 20 Buckspin had nine. Eight for Season of Mist. Transcending Obscurity and Nuclear Blast had seven. So it's funny, Nuclear Blast didn't make the top five for individual albums, but they still had seven total. I don't know what could affect that. Maybe Enslaved being in there five times. Oh, yeah. All right.

So now we get to the Chuck Willery part of the podcast statistics. It's the love connection. So here we go. Markisan your love. This time was with Jay. You guys matched on six. Your lace was with Will with four. That's a pretty narrow gap. So that means this is a lot of individual albums again. So Matt, you apparently had a full house. So Jay and myself were your,

your love connection with seven but then five was your least for everybody else so for Markisan will and george i thought

that was interesting so you don't usually see that for me matt and jay were my most and george also

actually with seven so i matched with three people seven and then of course as par for the course

my least matching member of the podcast was will that never happens usually

We have so much fun drinking together. So Will's most is with Jay with seven. Again, the least was with me. Jay's most is with you, George, with nine. The least for Jay was Markisan with six. And George's most, again, with Jay, nine. And your least was with Will, four. Yeah, nobody has Will. No. So the getter room goes to Jay and George at nine.

I had this during the last podcast, but I had,

apparently I was calling the least cosmic petrifaction,

which if think of the words, what they mean, that's morbid.

And it was Will and me, but last time too.

So I thought that was kind of fun.

I just had it in parentheses, cosmic petrifaction.

So whatever.

All right.

To the important stuff now.

I mean, the really important stuff.

Oh, here we go.

The big awards.

There we go.

The volleyballs.

Here's the Wilsons.

Markison had 13 volleyballs. Matt had 12. John and Will had 11. Jay had 6 volleyballs. What? He didn't Jay very much. Yeah. And George had 12. So our Tom Hanks for the mid-year is Markison. Woohoo! I mean, I'm usually... By one, right? Yeah. Yeah, by one. 13's a lot. That's more than half. I'm coming after you, too.

That always changes at the year end, though. I feel like we match a little bit more at the year end. We do. We do. I think so. That's why with the mid-year, you take these with a grain of salt, they're going to change. Oh, no. I got that award, Wilson. Woo. I came up with this. I explained last time about this thing called The Great Prognosticator. It's a joke. It's a joke from somebody at work who used to walk around when he wanted to mock someone who thought they were smart. Yeah, this guy is The Great Prognosticator. It just sounded funny. So what that means is how many albums,

from your list made our top 25 combined list. So Markisan you had 10. Matt had 10. I had 13. This one's a little bit of shock. Will had eight. Being sarcastic when I say that. Because he didn't think he was going to be able to put his list together. Jay had 16. Of the top 25. And then George had 12. So Jay was copying our list.

in class. Exactly. He's just paying attention to what's on New Music Friday, what we say we like the most. All right. So we have the J Awards. We have two. The first J Award goes to Will for Enslaved. He did not have Enslaved. Heimdall on there. Matt, Marcason, John, George, and Jay all had the album in their top four. Will didn't have them all. And the second one goes to me for Cattle Decapitation.

for Terrasite. Marcus, you had them in 22. Matt had them in 3. Will had them in 12. Jay had them in 8. George had them in 5. Expected Jay Awards given the albums. That's it. That's all we got. All right, we'll see you next time. I expect it will be quite interesting because there are some big albums to come out still. Some good ones have come out since the mid-year. I think we got some stuff coming.

The second half of the year looks pretty strong. Just because of all the announcements and really just albums that have come out just since or very at the very end of June that I didn't even get a chance to listen to. Which I have, I think one or two. Actually, I think I have three on my list of what I've been listening to. So yeah, it's going to be pretty strong. But I think Will is a lock for a J Award because we're probably all going to have Enslaved at the end of the year. And he won't.

No, he won't. And I'm sure I'll still keep the cattle decapitation because you guys all seem to like that. It's like number 22 on my list, John, so I could fall off. Just trying to keep a little company. Yeah. We got other albums like Horrendous is being pimped again by Decibel, so who knows? They're going to put them in their top two or three again like they have in the past with a few of their albums. They're so good. I'm imagining that this album is going to be great, but we'll see.

And there's other albums that are coming out.

Yeah.

Without saying too much. So that's all I got for you.

Nice. Thanks, John.

Sure.

That's cool.

Hopefully we won't have to rely so much on this crazy scheme I came up with to come up with our numbers, but I suspect we'll still have a ton of individual albums. 97's a lot. That's a lot of fucking albums.

Really is.

I know it's six of us, but still, that's a lot.

And you never know how it's going to go because we could align more once everything solidifies and then the year winds down. But there's also a lot more albums so we could diverge even more. Yeah, a lot of more Wilsons. Who knows it's going to happen. That's crazy. Really is. We got to throw a perfect game. That's where nobody's albums overlaps with anybody else's albums for the whole 25. It's a perfect game. That'll never happen. That would be. How many?

Wait, how many did Will have again? Eight, did I say? Yeah, that sounds right. Oh, man. See, even... And I'm not single in Will. I just know he said he didn't have much time and he was struggling at the end to find some, but even with eight, man. Yeah. I want to see how corporate Jay's going to be. Is he going to get 25 of 25? That'd be awesome. Everybody guard their homework. We're going to... You know how sometimes he asks for

I'm going to send him the shittiest things I can think of. Every great album I love, I'm going to hide on Bandcamp. I'll just send you guys messages. Hey, this album's fucking great. Or be like me and send a made up shit. But then at the end of the year, his list is going to be like some Shanker album 10 times. A couple of live albums. Who knows? Did he put a live album on his

No, he did last time. But yeah. But he had a Uriah Heep album on this time, so. Yeah. The Heep. The Heep. Yeah, I like The Heep. Who doesn't like The Heep? That reminds me, did you guys ever watch Ozark? Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember when they were putting together the Riverboat Casino and the first band they were going to bring on was REO Speedwagon? Yeah. He goes, REO Speedwagon goes, come on, man, everyone loves the wagon.

The Wagon's got a couple decent songs. Anytime you guys say heap, my first thought is the trash heap from Fraggle Rock. Well, that's an interesting. Yeah. All right. That's the, that's my number one heap. All right. Let's do the ye olde t-shirt and beer check. Mark is on. Okay. Yes. I am wearing a yob shirt. I'll show you guys.

That is very yobby. Saw them pretty recently. Last couple months, I think. With Stacy. That was a pretty fun show. Who was on that tour, Marcus? Was it Kayden? Was BlackBraid on that one? They were on Desa. I thought it was Kayden. Was it Converge? I think so. No, it was not Converge. Kayden was there and there was a band with a lot of saxophone. I don't remember. But yeah.

Kaven was great. And then I am drinking, as I mentioned before, it was a gift from a friend in Minneapolis who came here 4th of July. Brandon, thank you. It's called Sacred Night. A barrel-aged Imperial Mole Stout from Modest. Is it Modest or Modest Brewing? Modest. Modest. So I got this. I asked Matt because my friend Brandon was coming and he's, do you want any beers from Minneapolis? Oh, yes, I do. I have a list.

But then I also asked Matt, because I wanted to know what was, what were the big beers out now? What are the special releases? And so Matt gave me a bunch, but I found this one on my own and then he brought it and I tasted it and it was phenomenal. And it is still phenomenal tonight. And so I immediately sent a message to Matt saying, you got to get this beer. Just go to the brewery and get it. Cause they don't, I think they only have it at the brewery to buy the bottle. That's cool. Jen might actually drink that. She loves mole.

It has a sweetness to it, but it's not overly sweet. It's really well-balanced. Thick. Sacred Knight, yeah. One of my favorites. I think I give a pretty high rating on Untapped. All right, Matt. I am wearing my Merciful Fate cover of Melissa, the album. Not the wife. Nope, nope, but definitely a factor. And I'm drinking, it's a triple IPA from Anchorage Brewing. It's called Personal Space.

Oh, totally. I'm with you, man. The one thing I love about Anchorage is they do a lot of their labels are by an artist called Massive Face. It's some pretty killer stuff. Yeah, actually, their stuff is cool. My neighbor's been doing this mural of beer labels in his basement. And so Massive Face has a lot of, and Anchorage, I should say, has a lot of representation there. So I just go over and stare at it as we drink.

So good stuff.

What's wrong with him?

He just stares.

It's a sailboat.

You got to hyper focus, man.

Cross your eyes.

I took a break from doing Tavor because they have a lot of Anchorage beers on there.

But my friends came for 4th of July and I went through a lot of beer.

So I went back on the Tavor.

I've got a big shipment coming in.

So some of the Anchorage beers.

Thanks, man.

So I'm looking forward to those.

We got cat dad 4.0 coming. Nice. Yeah. All right. My shirt. I'm recycling through shirts. So my shirt is my contortionist 2018 tour shirt. And my beer is called spawn of space reaper in paradise. Indian paleo from our good friends at DC brow in Washington, DC. Interesting. And this artwork is pretty fucking cool. Oh, that's awesome.

I've had their skulls and flowers. That's a DC bra. But this is the spawn of Space Reaper. So there's a Space Reaper also. Yeah, I think that's the one I have. I've got the camera in the other room. I didn't know that was a DC bra. I just bought it because it was all Reaper-y. Yeah. It's like a nice Reaper. It's like, hey, check it out. I got a little Hawaiian shirt on. It doesn't look like a DC bra. They have a style.

The Space Reaper is the one, I'm trying to think of what the other one looks like. It's similar to this one, too. Yeah, it is. I recognize. But it's the spawn, so it's like a little less than the alcohol, you know, it's kind of the kid. I remember, what was it, Son of Godzilla or whatever it was, he couldn't get the fire out, he had little smoke rings that came out of his mouth. Yeah. Which is really funny. They do a lot of those, I like when they do that, and sometimes they do collaborations with other breweries, where they take their beer, or the barrels from a beer, and then

they make a son or daughter of that. Fine. Yeah. Where are we? It's me. I was like, wait, he was just talking about space. Sorry. George took a little personal space there. Yes, I did. I'm wearing my Thrasenblatt shirt. This is the Canada 2010 cover. And I am watching John play with his hair. Yeah, I've got one hair standing up and it's dry.

Let me fucking nuts. All right, then. It's like that one whisker that just wants to make itself apparent on your face. You're like, fuck. Yeah. Metal hygiene cast. As I am somewhat known to do, I picked up some nepentay this afternoon. Nice. And I got jellyfish huntress triple IPA. Nice. Don't step on it. Yeah. Nice. Not unless you're there to pee on me. Huh? Triples and quads for you, George. I like this.

I have a triple on the fridge on deck if I get through this giant beer. How strong is that one, George? Only 10. It's not pretty good. It was a baby. It was a baby. A sacred baby triple. 12. TR will appreciate it. That beer's so small, it's only for a baby. Milk is for babies. Milk is for babies. Thank you to the Metalheads butler. I checked in a beer last night and he commented that it is in the Brutal Truth Guide to Beers. Thank you, TR, for that. I appreciate it.

I have to get myself a copy so I know. So, John, is it me or was TR kind of bitchy this afternoon? So, I was watching Rick and Morty, okay? Yeah. And there's an episode where there's Tiny Rick, like when he makes himself younger and he's trapped in the body and they call him Tiny Rick. And he's like, Tiny Rick! And somebody was talking to him and he called him TR for Tiny Rick. And I was like, TR. And I was like, that's what TR stands for, Tiny Rick.

And he was like, um, no. And so then I explained it and he was like, whatever. Yeah, still no. I was just like, geez, I was making a joke and I feel like I offended him. What does it actually stand for? Yeah, that'll go well. I think I know the T. I don't know the R though. It's terrible. I used to know and I forgot. As I saw it, I don't know, he like showed me his license or something. And I was like, oh,

I need to solve this mystery. It wasn't terribly like strange or weird or out of the ordinary or anything from what I recall. But did you get the T or did you get the T and the R? I got them both. Yeah, it was like his license or something. So I was like, no, no, no. But because I'm old and stupid, I promptly forgot what it was. I actually got it. I got the T tattooed on my arm just so I wouldn't forget. Oh.

All right. So next we have the results from the last Thunderdome. I don't actually remember how the cast voted. Do you remember? We were unanimous. We weren't? Not. No, because we weren't? No, because I think the cast was unanimous. Okay. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, I begrudgingly took Carcass. I think everybody in the cast took Carcass. Yes. And as did everybody. But Oak Pantheon went the other way. Yeah, that's right. They called like this. Yeah, it was almost like they were being contrarians. They're almost like, oh, those guys all took this, so fuck them. Although they picked first, though, which is funny. So I don't think I actually announced what they were, but as you might have guessed, Carcass was one of them, and it was their Swan Song album that Matt put

against Celtic Frost's Cold Lake. That was just cold, bitch. You're welcome. And the public overwhelmingly went Carcass with 88%. As they should. I'm going to put money down that 90% of that 88% were just like, I don't really know either album, but I'll just go with Carcass because I like Carcass more. The least of worst. The least of the worst. Because everyone who's a metal fan that likes Celtic Frost has heard of Cold Lake.

And we know that Tanner and Sammy are the 12% in that vote. Yeah, probably. Well, you know, Jay's not here, so I'll mention it, but he said that John BT was like, why did you make me listen to this? Again. No one forced you. You didn't have to. I gotta say, though, it is cool that Matt did that because we always do like classic albums that are actually good, usually, I'd say.

And this, although that Carcass album isn't bad. It's good. I think so. It really is. But, you know, there are albums that are reviled. There are albums that are forgettable, that people don't really talk about except to say we don't like that as much as the other records they've done. So that was interesting. If I'm next for this, I'm thinking maybe I'd double down on that and just pick two horrible fucking albums. I would file it under rite of passage. Like, everyone should have to listen to Cold.

like at least once if you're going to call yourself a metalhead. Whether you like it or not. The good with the bad. Exactly. You put them both together and have the facts of life or something. I don't know. I'm going to pair up like Turbo versus Ram It Down. But they're supposed to be the same album. Exactly my plate. Yeah, I'm glad you got that right away. Man. Twin Turbos. What will John do? That is the question. I don't know. Let's make bracelets. Yeah.

Well, George did talk about the merch at the top of the hour, so we could have metalheads bracelets. No, I don't need to. So there you go. All right. Next we have the news. First up, the YouTube channel AI Playgrounds released a version of the news.

of Metallica's Master of Puppets with AI Dave Mustaine singing. And I don't know if anybody else listened to it, but it wasn't perfect, obviously, but it sure did sound like Dave Mustaine singing Master of Puppets. I think these are popping up all over now because I saw one today where James Hetfield sings Dream Theater. Whoa. And I was like, okay, I actually want to hear that now because that could be funny and it could be interesting. Metalhead's podcast crew sings Bohemian Rhapsody.

I mean, anything with AI, I'm not going to bother with. So this is a theft to me. So I don't like that. That's a mashup, though. They do mashups all over the place long before AI existed. So it's not like it's creating anything new. And it's not like it's meant to be like, oh, this is cool. It's just supposed to be like, wow, that's crazy. That's my opinion. That dude from Slipknot's always doing that shit. Sure. And at least they're not trying to sell it. That's the thing. Yeah, I don't disagree.

I agree with you on that. This is just, let's have James

Hetfield sing, pull me under. Yeah. Pull me under.

That could be funny. Actually, James actually

Hetfield sounds pretty good on this. He sounds like he could actually do it.

I wonder if Mustaine's heard this though. Oh, I'm sure he's going to have some great

comment about it afterwards. Cause he always, he's become the new Gene Simmons of metal.

Oh boy. He's just saying stupid shit constantly now.

He is talking a lot lately. It's probably all from one interview that Blabbermouth just breaks up for content. I don't know if you guys heard how he trashed all his former musicians except for one guy, Marty Friedman. He trashed everybody else. I'm like, come on. This is getting old. All right. Yeah. Next up, the new Deicide album is going to be called Banished by Sin. Unfortunately, no release date yet, but I would guess latter half of the year.

I wonder what that's about. It's on a new label too. Yeah, I didn't recognize the name. It was RPM Music. Yeah, I never heard of it either. I wanted to read up more on them. It was just interesting. Yeah, it's only a one album deal. I think they were on Century Media for the last record. So that's interesting. But they also mentioned the album was more anthemic and leans proggy. So we'll see. It's the first album since I think 2018 was.

the last one. So it's been, yeah, that's a good amount of time. All right. And our last news item, Blood Incantation is also recording a new album. No date, no name, just their recording. So no details yet, other than that it will be on John's year end list. I mean, I think we all like Blood Incantation. It'll be. Yeah, but it'll be like number one or something. It's already on my year end list. It's number seven.

Well, I read the news in Metal Injection and the front man, Paul Riedel, how do you say his name? He said the new material the band was working on is nothing short of batshit insanity. And here's the quote that I got from it says, nobody is ready for what is happening next. Because when you come up with like straight up psychedelic, progressive, technical, ambient fusion, world music, prog, extreme shred and new age, people are going to be like, what the fuck?

is this. And then all the people who are down will be like, dude, this is the most blood incantation record ever. It's number three on my list. I think they'll be on the Cannibal Corpse tour coming up this fall. So them and Gorguts, which that's already going to get me out of the house besides Cannibal Corpse. So it's such a bummer that track in them. And I would go just to see Gorguts and blood incantation. They're only going to get no more than a half an hour each, which is a bummer. Absolutely.

Especially Gorgots. What I take from that quote, Marcus, is that Paul is basically just absolutely fucking with everyone who just got so bent out of shape over their time wave zero. Everyone's losing it. This band is crap. This is a gimmick. I think he's just messing with everybody because he seems like a really mellow, cool guy. I think this is just him messing with everyone. Oh, yeah, it's going to be just so crazy. It's going to probably be balls of just death metal.

Although it's,

they can't control themselves.

They got to add their space cosmic field.

So,

which is,

I mean,

I can see him going either way.

And of course you and I,

we love time wave zero.

A lot of people are like,

what the fuck?

Let them do something else.

They can still come back to doing what you like,

but let them do what they like that.

They're doing music for them.

They should change the name of the band for this album.

Oh gosh.

Okay.

One album.

Settle down.

Anyway.

Anyway.

All right, now we move on to new releases. First new release, Black Braid and Black Braid 2. Obviously the second album from this one-man black metal band from New York. Pretty good. You like it? You think it's okay?

I think it's gonna work it'll work it'll do yeah it's I really like the album I think it's a huge improvement over the first record which is amazing when you consider that record drop last year so I think that the uh the melodic black metal formula hasn't changed but everything on two is just better than its predecessor the song structures are more interesting on it to me the production sounds better the atmosphere

parts and that native instrumentation, they're just integrated better

into it, which heightens that kind of evil forest

spirit feeling in the band. And just as a whole, I think

the album just, it feels like more massive, more kinetic.

Just, I think it just levels up in every single

facet of their game. So it's really good.

It was definitely like a continuation. I actually, I don't, personally, because my ears

aren't that great. I didn't notice a huge difference between them, but that's because I love them both so much. You know, it just feels like a continuation of the first album. What I really dig is he's not on a label. Like he is doing all this. I'm sure there's advisement going on and stuff, but he's just like the actual brand of BlackBrain is really good. It's really well done. I just got a note about they had their van breakdown on the Decimal Tour. So people pitched in and then GoFundMe to get the van fixed, myself included. And then they took the leftover money and gave it to, I want to say it had

to deal with some sort of conservation group out in where they're from in New York. So, I mean, just kind of bullshit. And then I watched their live set from Hellfest in France and it was like, wow, good stuff. So, yeah. Yeah, no, it's really good at connecting with fans and everything. And I bought the vinyl for this one and the last one and it just came right away. And yeah, I actually listened to an interview with him where he was talking about how these different labels were coming after the band because they just really wanted to sign.

them. Excuse me. And the things they were offering are just.

Well, that's never happened before.

I think I drank that fricking sacred night a little too fast.

Yeah. The things that they were offering him, he just,

I could just do this myself and make the money. Like it wasn't,

they weren't really doing much more than what he was already doing for the

first album, the way that he promoted it.

So why not try to do it himself and just reap all the rewards instead of just like giving half of it or whatever it is to a label. 90% of it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. So next we have Cadaver and their sixth album, The Age of the Offended. That's funny. And this is only their second album in 20 years. They had another one in 2020 and then nothing since 2011, 13, somewhere around there.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Earlier than that. 2003. I think it was. Yeah. That makes more sense. Yeah. That would be 20 years. Yeah. Math bad. Let John do the math. Yeah. That's right. I'm doing triple IPA math. I only, I've only heard one track, but I did like it. So I look forward to listening to more of this. If you're on band camp, they only had one track. Yep. So I went to like Spotify or I think it was Spotify and they have, and, uh, I don't know,

I know I was really big on the last album, Edder and Bile, and it listed. So I was, I don't know if my expectations were too high this time or what. It's still carcass worshipy, which is fine. I don't know. It just didn't grab me. I liked it. I listened to the whole thing. I thought it was good, just aggressive, stomping death metal, but it had those cool psychedelic passages and almost some sludgy doom in there too that gave it a little extra character.

to me. So I like that the band's been around a long time, even though they haven't put out a ton of releases, but they can still put out a record all these years later and it slays pretty hard and there's a little bit of diversity in there too. So I don't think it's like a lister for me, but I did enjoy listening to it. Yeah. We'll see how it tracks the rest of the year. I may change my mind, but yeah, I thought it was good, George. So I would re-spin it. I think I liked it better than the last one. Yeah. I remember you not liking the last one at all.

No. Sorry, what, Matt? George, you need to commit to it right now. All right. Take the choice. Number seven. Don't dilly. Don't dilly. Don't dilly. Don't dilly. Number seven. All right. So what is this I have here before me? Cavalera Conspiracy. And they re-recorded the first EP, Bestial Devastation, and the first album, Morbid Visions. Yeah.

Normally, when bands do this, you're like, or at least I'm like, uh, you know, why? When Twisted Sister did that and somebody else did that. But anyway, with this, I was like, the original production was pretty shitty. So maybe they'll make it better. Did they? Anybody listen to this? Yeah, no, it fucking rules. Really? It's fucking awesome. I thought the music sounded really good, but I was a little disappointed that Max made the vocals sound almost as shitty as they did on the originals.

I like that I think it retains that raw viciousness because they didn't want to go all the way because people still like that record both those records but it has a new energy to it that I like because it inject that modern quality into it and it just makes those old records has really come alive to me I thought it sounded great like I there's no reason for me to ever listen to the old versions again I thought I would agree with that and I think the same thing you said George like I'm

very skeptical when a band re-records material. I don't normally need that. But yeah, I actually would love to get these on vinyl. But I think they're like sold out already. People are really into them. And I also noticed, too, they have new cover artwork, which is awesome. It's like the old artwork, but it's Elrond Cantor did them. So he took that original image and did it in his style, and it looks great. And they also dropped the conspiracy part of the title. So the album is just called Cavalier.

I don't know if they're going to do that for all the releases but for these two I thought that was the case too but then when I went and looked at the new release list it called it Cavalera Conspiracy so maybe that was just a mistake on the release they said they actually say on the the press release that they dropped that and they're just went in the Cavalera but it is confusing George because if you go to Bandcamp it's still Cavalera Conspiracy but I think that's because that's the name that they've had on Bandcamp for a while but they actually put conspiracy and like really shitty like font underneath

on the record there. But if you just buy the record, it's just Cavalier, which I think is a better name to just drop Conspiracy. But I agree. Yeah, it sounds really good to me. I was very impressed. Yeah, I thought it was better. Like I said, the vocal production wasn't as where I would have liked to have seen it, but it was still improved. And the best part is Max sounds like Max now. The way his singing style that we've come to know is what he used on this as opposed to what he was doing.

these first two releases, which was not the max we knew. And I think it's just tricky because when you hear rerecord, George, you probably wanted to just redo everything and make it sound like the times now. And that's what I would say too. But I like that they did both. They took it from both worlds way back in the day. I think it's 38 years ago or something that EP came out. 87 or 88, somewhere around there. So that's, I can't do math. We got to let John do that. It's about 35.

A long time ago. Oh, yeah. Sorry. I deferred to John. But anyways, so yeah, I like that they kept some of that raw energy, but they still updated it. You know, they did the best of both worlds. And I thought that was a really good choice because it still sounds like the old stuff, but it's new at the same time. That was neat. That would be 35 years ago. Oh, really? If it was 88. Let's see. Or if it was 87, that would be 36 years ago.

I'm curious to see when it came out. It says it was recorded in 85 on Wikipedia. Yep. He went on 85. No way. Wow. Morbid Vision was 86. Damn. That is 38. That's the same year that Master of Puppets came out. That's insane. Yeah. Master of Puppets came out in 86. Yeah. That's what I said. 38. That's what I said. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But you said that the first one came out in 85.

No, he said that. But then he said the second one came out in 86. And I was referring to that being, yeah. Dude, got it. He still devastation came out before master of puppets. How is that even? What kind of time machine makes that possible? What's in the water down there? Technology. Oh, biotech. It was also cool too, as they did the Cavalera in the, the old Sepultura logo style, which was pretty.

That was a nice touch. Yeah. All right. Next, we have the new album from Fenn, Monuments to Absence. It's their seventh album. They're a London atmospheric black metal band. I'll just let Markisan and John do their thing for a while. And maybe Matt, too. I don't know. People can't see it. Only the guys here can see it, but I've got it displayed behind me. Yeah, I see that book version. And I love those book versions.

I'm not a big fan of the super books, but if you want those, they're like almost like coffee table books, like the little smaller ones because they're cool, but they're not that big. Yeah. New fan is really good. It's not what I expected because it's like aggressive atmospheric black metal. It's like they put some turbochargers on the band this time. It just went full steam ahead for 60, I guess 60 plus minutes.

It's good. I like it. I mean, it still has all the thin qualities. It still gets a little atmospheric, but you have to hyper-focus to hear the changes because it's not as immediate as their previous albums. But I like it. I will say, though, the one thing about this and the Black Braid, because they're relentless albums, after a while you're like, man, I could just take a little bit of a break or maybe not so much music because they're both like 60 plus minutes. Yeah, they're long.

And I've complained about this for years now. I just don't have... It's not that I don't have the retention. I just feel like I lose my enthusiasm sometimes when albums get too long. Yeah. And that Fenn album has the deluxe version as well. So you get even more music if you want to listen to it. Yeah. And all their albums are like these deluxe versions. Some of their are like Winter and the one before that, Carrie Ann Skies.

I think it's called there's an additional 30 minutes on those deluxe editions like oh my goodness

like Lord of the Rings so they crank out the work I like it I like it a lot yeah I like the last couple fan albums a lot but I thought this one was a level up for the band I think John and I talked a little bit about this on the instant messenger but it's that upbeat energy that's on this the tracks to just there's like a new life breathed into them into that atmospheric black kind of post-medicine

It's just it's grand. It's sweeping. It's full of vigor and spirit. It's a great record. I really enjoy this one.

But you saying that, I want to point out, and I think you agree, we're not saying like the previous albums were tired or needed something.

Oh, right.

They just changed gears. They just switched it up just to do, because every album is just slightly different a little bit. This one's a little bit more than just, hey, let's turn it up a notch. They went to 11 with this one with their sound.

Yeah, Stairway to 11.

No, I totally agree with that, John. I like the last albums a lot, but this one, just the guitar work in it and just that energy. There's something about it that makes you, that draws my attention to it immediately. Whereas the other ones, I liked them. You had to spend a little bit more time with them to really absorb all the music. And this one, I feel like, boom, you just hit the ground running. You're like, yeah, I fucking dig this Fenn record. George, what's the other band that the main guy from Fenn has?

Is that Felwarden that you and I liked? I think that sounds right. And it was more the traditional, like, 90s atmospheric black metal. It feels like he's separating the two out a little bit so Fenn can do other things, which is cool, if that's what he does. It still sounds like him. It doesn't sound anything different. Just like Marcason said, it just, it's got a little piss and vinegar to it, which is good. No, it's good. I hope that they keep going with this kind of sound because I think it suits them really well.

Yeah, or just tweak it a little bit. Go down a different dark alley and see what you give us. Make it shorter for us oldies. I'm going to pray to the metal gods. If this is a good album, let Jay appear now. And there he be. All right, Jay. So hold on. We need to inform Jay of a couple things real quick. Some housekeeping. Give me a sec here.

Back in time.

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do.

Yes.

All right.

So, Jay, you are not a global citizen, nor did you win the America Fuck Yeah Award for our...

I'm surprised about that one.

Who won that?

Because that...

That was Will.

Oh, well.

That's nice.

Yeah.

All right.

So...

But you didn't win any J's either.

Yeah.

No J Award.

Jay hasn't won a...

He's like won one the last eight times we've done the J Awards.

Yeah.

You and George got a room together.

You guys had the most love connection.

I just wish I had Chuck Willery's voice just for that part. And let's see. You had the fewest volleyballs, which is crazy. You only had six. That just blows my mind, actually. Who had the most? Markisan at 13. I had the love connection with Jay, too. No, that was Jay and George had the love connection. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Yeah. And then you were the great prognosticator. You had 16 of your 25 in the combined top 25. That's...

I'm universal. That's pretty good. Yeah, I think my taste crosses everybody else's taste. That or you just basically have wormed into all of our laptops to see what we have on our list. We joked that you were looking over our shoulder at school and stealing our homework. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, you're going to see. It's going to look like I haven't purchased an album for the next four months on Bandcamp because they're all going to be hidden now. Stop stealing, Jay. It's your own taste.

I'm joking. No, that's impressive to get 16. That's hard to do. I could have been similar last year, to be honest with you. I'm not sure. We'd have to look. But did we do Global Citizen last year? Yeah. Yeah, we do it all the time. And I can't remember. I think, George, you had it. Didn't you recently? I won something. Yeah. You had a crazy number of international releases, not in the US. Yeah, that's true. I did. You did. I have to go back and look. I got so many files from all this shit you guys send me and all the stuff I put together.

I'm like, I need a week off to go through and get it all sorted and organized. George is the official Metalheads ambassador to Norway now, though. Yeah. He's got a lot of albums from Norway. His albums are icy and cold and barren. Exactly. And they're cool. Just stepping in now, and pardon my lateness, I hope we're going to do honorable mentions on the list, because she's whiz. Yeah. We don't have that kind of time.

I didn't even write my down because I could easily think of them. There's so many.

So we just mentioned Fen. I don't know if you had any comment on that.

I do not.

Okay. Then we're moving on to the final new release of the hour. Outer Heaven, Infinite Psychic Depths. It's their second album. They're a PA death metal band. Pennsylvania for the uninitiated.

It's good. I listened to it. I wasn't as big on the first album like you guys, but I thought this album was pretty good. We've seen them a couple times, haven't we, George? Yeah, we've met them. We interviewed them. But we saw them at one of the... Is it a Droit? Yeah, it was a Droit. They played a Droit. Yeah. I like it a lot. It's real good. You can put your hands down. Put them down around... Personal space, Matt. Personal space.

Actually, on my screen, Matt's getting ready to give Jay a neck massage. Almost the way he did that. Virtual. It's virtual. I'm down on the market's head. Matt's shirt is giving me a neck massage. Yeah, but he wore the black one, so it's like I'm losing him on the screen. I can't find him because everyone else is wearing black shirts. Yeah. I thought it was awesome. I thought it was just a fucking killer sci-fi fist of pummeling death metal. So it has that breakneck pace, but they still deliver a variety.

in their attack. Like they have some haunting female vocals on one of the tracks and the solos are just fucking blistering. And they have a lot of guest stars on the record too because they've made so many friends. They've got people in the band who are in a lot of other bands too. So I like that. And shout out to Nuclear Blast because they sent out the vinyls super early. I got the LP almost a week before it officially dropped. Today actually. That's impressive for Nuclear Blast. They'll get you stuff a couple days early but never a week.

So we're moving on to what we're listening to

We're not even one hour yet

Oh, that's crazy

Should we do t-shirt beer truck again?

Even if it's just the same stuff?

No, I'm kidding

Yeah, I changed my shirt

As I spilled beer all over myself, I changed my shirt

I took my shirt off

Nobody wants to see that

Since I was the missing one, I'll just do my shirt check

The Motorhead California shirt. Right. Yeah. Did you have anything to say about any of the new releases? Let's take a look at the list real quick. I haven't heard the Black Braid. Is it available to be heard? Because I'm excited about it. If you buy it. It's been out for a couple weeks. Oh, it's been out for a couple weeks. Yeah. Honestly, I've spent the last, we'll talk about this and what we've been listening to, but one of the ways I usually spend post list week is listening to all the stuff

on your guys' list, especially the higher-rated stuff, just to make sure I'm not missing a bunch of stuff. So I'm catching up in some very real way. How many unique titles were there, John? 97. 97 albums total between us. Now, that was less than last time by two albums. Interesting. That's how many we had. It's crazy. Yeah, that's nuts.

It's been a good year

And I was just

I don't know if you guys talked about

Oh, let's talk about the second half of the year

What did I just see was coming out?

I was like, holy fucking shit

I don't

While you're thinking of that

I don't know if you guys noticed

They've only

Before the mid-year came

They only dropped

A limited number of

I mean, there's albums that are coming out

But

Yeah

Usually

As you get to the middle of the year

You start to see a lot more

For December, November, October

And the listings for all those dates

Those months are slim still

Obviously a lot for July and August. And I keep thinking, man, how much stuff is going to get dropped on us at the last second? Again, I'm thinking there's no way that November and October are that thin. There's stuff coming out. It's going to be big. And there's albums that haven't been announced, but they've talked about them, like Wayfair, for example. The albums, they've already recorded it. They just haven't announced when it's going to be released. So we know there's used to be a ton more stuff.

Oh, the Wayfarer is in the canon. Yeah. Yeah. And actually it was in the last decimal. There's a new one coming out with horrendous on the cover. I haven't gotten. That's the one before it though. They talk about it, but I actually saw them and they were talking about their album. They're like, we're almost done recording it. And that was a while ago. So yeah, it's coming out this year for sure. Jay, we just don't know yet. Yeah. Incantation, horrendous. Yeah. Very cool. I don't know. Even helmet announced an album. Jesus.

Oh yeah.

I'm excited about both of the ones you just mentioned the horrendous and the blood

incantation.

I'm super psyched about what did you say about who are you just talking about?

Markson.

You said you talked to him.

Oh,

Oh,

Wayfair.

Oh,

Wayfair is dropping an album this year for sure.

Yeah.

It's funny too.

Cause I just dove back into them again,

which they're actually on a kind of more of a,

not a constant rotation with me,

but they're never far away from my sweat pod.

And I just do worlds,

blah,

blah,

blah.

and Legacy of Violence, whatever, both of them on there the other day. And I was just like, God damn, these are good fucking records. Yeah. Primordial is going to have an album too. They're done recording it. And they said it's coming out. So no announcements yet for it. But the last one come out, it's got to be five years. Yeah, that's a good question. Dude, like that last record, well, all the last ones would be good. But yeah, I'm going to look it up. What was it called? Puritans.

Vinyl Library.

I literally can't see it from here.

I know, it's funny because I got all that stuff.

Exile amongst the ruins in 2018.

18. Jesus, five years?

Yeah.

Just apropos of vinyl, a couple days ago, the pest control guy came to do a...

I like where this is going.

To do an inspection because we have a subscription thing where they come out every three,

four months or whatever because we have a big ant problem but anyway we don't need more

anyway so he was doing his like round of the lower floor and he comes back in the uh

kitchen he's like nice vinyl collection

i have the pest control people too we don't really have any issues but i'm like i don't want to ever

have them with the house i'm just gonna have somebody come in and do it all the time yeah

Yeah, when you get ants, you get ants. And it's just like, it's a fucking fight to the death. And everybody does. That's the thing. When I bought the house, I don't know anything about it. I've been living in apartments and condos my whole life. And then I get a house and like, oh, there's all these other challenges that people have faced. And I tell them, oh, I saw an ant. Like, what? We had an explosion of ants last year. You saw one ant? Oh, yeah. We do too. George's, he's been to our house and he does the forest that.

Yes.

Behind us.

We have to.

We have no choice.

We have to do it.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

But the key is if you do get ants.

Do not spray anything on them.

You just call someone in.

They'll take care of it.

Because the guy.

When he explained it to us on.

This is ants podcast by the way.

Just real quick.

He said don't spray any cleaners or anything.

Because what happens is a few ants escape.

And they go back to the hive.

Or where they're from.

They tell everyone.

Hey.

They're attacking us.

And they all come back. It's what they do. They say, wow, they don't take any shit. They come back to take you on. It scatters them. They have this gel. You can actually buy this too. Where you put it out and they come and they eat it. And then it kills them all. Piles and piles of dead bodies. That's what you want. Yes. And so he said, don't be alarmed when you have a stream of ants on your cabinet or your wall. They're only going to stay on this one.

like straight line and then they'll be gone after a couple days our cat would just sit there and stare at them he was like what is going on here and then literally two days later all gone they've never been back yeah i love the feeling of killing off a colony of ants it's like godlike and the funny thing is i didn't i didn't know this given our areas is what it is it is their colony will move so you might have them for a couple of years and then once they realize say this isn't a good

They'll go to your neighbor's house then. They'll move the colony underground. Yeah. And it was like... I read an article a little while back that said that the... And this is, I'm sure, true all over the United States, but the colony of ants that exists in the West Coast of the United States extends all the way down to Argentina. So it's just like this one continuous family of ants that goes for thousands of times. Yeah. Creepy. And these are the... Yeah, I like ants. And these are the bastards that inherit the earth when we nuke ourselves. That's right. They all live.

Now, I've learned all kinds of stuff. Like, so we have bumblebees and there's like this, they like little holes to build their nest. So under the deck, there's like the electrical and then there's a little hole there and the bumblebees go down in there. But you want bumblebees because they're good for the garden and everything. And then they only last like a few weeks and they're gone or whatever. They don't sting. No, they can sting, but they don't normally. Yeah. They're not the aggressive bees. No, I was going to kill them all. And then I read up on them.

I watch them. I'll be sitting on the deck and they just fly and they go in this little hole. That's it. They don't bother me. They're working. They're not wasps. Those things come after your ass. Yeah. They must have something in the ground by our mailbox because every time it warms up, I go out to go get the mail and there's two of them like flying around, like trying to get me away from the mailbox. And they're like, hey, man, this is our spot. Yeah. Just be glad you guys don't live in the mid Atlantic.

for every 17 years or whatever it is. When the cicadas come. Oh, my goodness. You don't get those in Chicago? We used to get them in Missouri. Oh, yeah, we do. I don't have them here much. When I lived in Evanston, I had a condo there. They were loud. In the summertime, they were everywhere in the trees. And, yeah, they were pretty, they're cool. I like them, but, man, they can just get overwhelming. Yeah, the big years are fucked up. Yeah. Shells all over the trees and stuff. Yeah. Our last time was the

It was so loud here. I know. I remember you guys all complaining about it. It was really free. It was bad this last time. I've been through twice now since I've lived here. Two big ones. They come every X number of years, but they have like two. They have a real big. Big cycle. Migration cycle. I don't know how many years it is, but. I think they're underground. I think they're literally hypermating. I don't think they come. I think they're there and they just come out from the ground. Yeah. Seven or 17 or whatever it is. I'm on my third round. Yeah.

They were out the year I was born. Just crazy. Our whole gutter was just filled with them. The whole length of the street. Yeah, it was gross. Just carcasses everywhere. Yeah. I was like waiting for Bill Steer to come out. Hey, neighbor. Wait, Bill Steer's here? What? Just to get deeper into freaking house and gardening. So we have, we've started growing things. We have these little pots on the deck or whatever. And there's little bugs that start eating the tomato plants or whatever.

There you go. So in order to get rid of them, you got to either get ladybugs or you got to get mantis, praying mantis. So we bought like a jug of praying mantis. They have the little cocoons of whatever to hatch and they throw it in there and they hatch and then they just, they kill all those bugs. And I never knew any of this. And I was like, I love praying mantis. They're so cool looking. They're like the most.

That's crazy. You just go to a garden store and they have them. They put them in this little like plastic barrel. And it's like an egg. But it's not an egg. What do you call it? Like a cocoon, larva, something. And you just put it in your plant and they hatch. And then there's, I don't know, 200 of them or something. They don't all survive, of course. And then they just eat all the aphids and anything else, really, that's trying to invade your garden. It sounds like one of those jokes, though, where it's then we had to get gorillas to eat the frogs.

I don't know why she swallowed the fly. And that's why Australia is run over. It's just, it's so weird owning a house and learning all this stuff about just gardening and maintenance, just general maintenance of the house is just so different for me. I hate to take this further down the rabbit hole, but screw your aphids, man. I got Japanese beetles. Oh, those motherfuckers eat. They're like fucking locusts coming through. They just devour everything. They're machines. You gotta get some praying mantis. Yeah. I thought I was a

I went out and bought like a Japanese beetle trap. It's basically you hang it up on the thing and it's like a big long sleeve like a square to catch the bodies and it's a trap of some kind and that thing like filled in one afternoon and I mean we're talking like a foot of dead beetles. There are so many Japanese beetles and they love this stuff but the problem is that it lures them from further away than you would actually have them. So you're killing a bunch, you're attracting,

more people to the party.

So yeah, the same with ants.

Oppenheimer comes out today.

So if you can just get a copy of that and play it in the garden,

you'll be fine.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, we would mark us on.

We would love to grow vegetables.

We did for a while, but see, we have a thing called mutual Omaha's wild kingdom in our backyard.

Yes.

So we have deer.

We have wood chucks.

Wood chucks are really pissing me off.

Because they keep chucking wood.

Yeah.

And a woodchuck is basically the same name as eight different animals. It's all the same animal. We've got tons of fox, raccoons, all kinds of shit. And every time any beaver Jen tried to grow something, it was gone the next day because they, they find it, they eat it. And they, Jay will appreciate this. My aunt sent me pumpkin seeds from Half Moon Bay. Jay, I was so excited. I was like, I'm gonna have a pumpkin from home. Yeah. Yeah. It grew. And I was like, Jen put it out in the front porch for us. And I was like, yes.

Fuck you. No one here has a pumpkin from Half Moon Bay, one of the pumpkin capitals of the world. That woodchuck came the next night and just tore it apart. I said, that's it. Never growing another pumpkin. There's this hilarious video that will show up in your Facebook feed eventually if you haven't seen it. Some farmer has this camera on his land and there's this same fucking, I want to say beaver that comes in every day and eats his food and he stands right in front of the camera and it's like hilarious, dude. It's just like this montage of him eating like a pepper and then he's eating

All this different stuff this guy grows and he literally for some reason stops and eats it in front of the camera like facing the camera like fuck you it is the funniest fucking video dude and there's sometimes where he just stands there and stares at the camera Must be related to squirrels because squirrels like to taunt you they're the worst animals that they really are vermin they'll eat like a tomato take a bite they'll look at it and then throw and toss it in the dirt I could have had that green tomato asshole Squirrels taunt my cat Zoso because we have the deck

the sliding door. So he, you know, it's kitty TV. He's there all the time. And they actually, they'll run across the deck and around it and just keep going through the yard and just run and chase each other right in front of them. And they'll sit in front of the window and just look at them. And it's just, he's just like seething with cat energy. Our tail twitching. Yeah. We have a privacy fence and now the squirrels will run across the fence and our dog will just go bananas. Yeah. I always tell every squirrel and chipmunk, I'm like,

You should be glad you're on the other side of the glass

If she gets you

It's literally going to be seconds before you're gutted

She will tear you apart in a second

Her claws are so sharp

We can't keep up with her

So we've done the whole HGTV

On here

I didn't even get to my bunnies

It's 20 minutes of agricultural cast

No we just literally went past the hour mark

We gotta come up with some content for the next four hours

Yeah. Should we do beer check? Everybody got new beers? I should do beer check too. Nice, nice. Go for it then. Jay's not drinking, so I guess I'm going to go first. I did have, I know I just had a lovely Ron Bauer's Infindel, which is my favorite. Nice. Oh my God, this Infindel is so good. Nice. When Matt comes out here, I really wanted to go Ron Bauer because it's also one of the most beautiful wineries here, but we have, it's pizza, it's pizza wine night at the Dickinson household. Nice. Oh, nice. And then on tap is the, I got the,

It's a 20, 20, 21st Amendment, which I often mention. And they have this blood orange IPA, which is so good. And they just had this cold IPA that they had. And I loved it. I was like, oh my God, this is so great. And it was like, apparently it was a limited edition. So it's gone. And then I'll also just mention that there are people making a play to purchase. Anchor. I heard. I think it's going to survive, but it's hard to say. Such a kick to the gut, man. It really is. It's good beer, too. I mean, really.

You go to hell, Sapporo. You go to hell. And you too, San Francisco. Sapporo, to be fair, Sapporo, America. But same difference. Doesn't matter. There's still one corporate. I know. You're right. You're right. Anyway, nice. Nice choices. Pardon my interruption, Marcus. No, I'm just happy you're drinking. Maybe we should always record on Fridays. Holy shit. Jay's all liquored up already. Thanks for hanging out with us properly, Jay. Yeah. So I inspired by George because he's drinking a triple IPA. I got a hazy triple IPA.

called Triple Beezer from Old Irving Brewery, which is just around the corner from me, and they make amazing beers. And it's got, I think it's deep-sea diving or some shit on it. I don't know. It's weird. Anyways, it's really good. They don't make this all the time, so whenever I see it, it's 10.2%. So I'm edging out George's Triple IPA by 0.2.

You know what I hate is you see a really cool beer label in the beer store and it's like you know werewolves and blah blah and then you look at it and it's like chocolate cherry sour and it's something that it's like it sounds so cool and I would never buy it. Sour is such an apt name for beers because I always sour on them whenever I see them. Totally.

Justin, I don't get it. I keep trying. You're not drinking the right ones. Fair enough. Yeah, I'll buy that. There are a couple good ones. I'm being very serious about that. I've tried a bunch. I've got a friend who loves sour. He has a wall of just sour beer because that's how much he loves. It's the only beer he drinks. And he's given me different ones and they definitely have different flavor profiles. There's like real sours and then there's like the fake ones, right?

Well, right off the bat, if you drink a Belgian sour, it's going to be completely different, and it's going to be significantly better. Yeah. I know Will and I have had this one. We've drank sours from Cascade from Portland. They're outstanding. They're so good. And then you've got unicorn farts. Sometimes. That's a sour, and it's not very good. I know. Jay, I know you have the rare barrel near you, which has some decent stuff. You know who else does actually pretty good sour? I don't think this will surprise you.

No, it's not that one, though. I almost took a picture of a shop I was at the other day because of the line of Russian River on the shop, and I want to make you guys feel bad. But the Berkeley one, John. Oh, Fieldworks. Yeah, Fieldworks. They do some sour stuff, too. That's pretty good. So, Marcus, I agree with you. Some of them are, but if you find the right, first of all, they have to know how to make them. They're not easy, especially Belgian sours. If you knew what they put in some of those, you'd be like, I'm never drinking this ever again. The Duchess.

It's true. I've had a lot of different ones and there's some that I enjoyed trying them because they just had a different flavor. But I've never had a sour that I wanted to have again. You know what I mean? I don't mind trying it and there's some that are better and I enjoyed it for that time just having something a little bit different. But I wouldn't seek it out. It's not something I want in my fridge all the time. That's all. I haven't met that sour yet. That's the Dutchess. Dutchess is nice. I like Dutchess. I've had Dutchess many times. Nice. You know what?

I would kill to have again is Dissident from, oh God, I've drawn a blank now in the name. I can't think of it from Bend, Oregon. Give me a second. I'll think of it. But it's called Dissident. It's in the Brutal Truth Guide to Beer. From Deschutes. I couldn't think of the name. Damn. Wow. That thing is awesome. It's so good. I remember one night, I think Will and I drank at his old place in Alexandria. And we just sat there and I think everyone was asleep. It was just him in the kitchen and I drank and it was like, oh my God.

I thought this is so good. Nice. All right, Matt, what are you drinking? I'm still wearing my merciful fade shirt. I just want everybody to cover of Melissa. And now I've moved on to Quandary. Exo River North Brewing. I think it is a river north. A Drupal Ale aged in bourbon barrels. I don't know that I need to say anything else about that. I had to say river north. I love almost everything.

That's 15.8%. I can't feel a single thing in my gums. Bye-bye, Matt. Bye-bye. This has been a great night. Oh, it's Will. Will's back. Hey, Jay, what shirt are you wearing? We didn't ask you. He actually did it. Motorhead, California. The limited edition. I wonder if they did that this 4th again. At the 4th of July, you could order Motorhead with any state on it. I have a strange amount of Motorhead shirts I've discovered.

That's weird. Yeah. Like a lot. Like I must, I think I have like five more shirts and they're all, they're all the, you know. Weren't you like having a problem, Jay, you at night, late, you were having a beer and you're like, hey, new Motorhead shirt online. Yes, that's exactly what was happening because they show, you buy from their store, they start showing up in your Facebook thing and they're like, Arian Fest 30th anniversary and you're like, I'll take it. Yeah. I've got a little more self-control now, but yeah. My beer. It's from Vassin Brewing. They're from

And I hate that I have to call a beer this. It pisses me off to no end

because I'm from California. And I hate to have to say, oh, I'm having a West Coast IPA.

No, I'm actually having just an IPA. But you have to brand it now because of these

freaking New England hazy IPAs. Anyway, it's a cool little cover. Guy's eyes get blown out of his head.

What's it called? Oh, it's called West Coast IPA. Yeah, I've had that.

West Coast IPA. It's good. See, it's clear.

I got just two things to say real quick Matt I hope you enjoy your liquid Snuggie and because that beer is awesome and Jay did you hear that forbidden played a secret show in Richmond the other night in Richmond yeah where I don't know the name of the place but it looked like it was quite small I'm friends with a bunch of those dudes who are in that scene yeah it looks like they played I don't even know any fucking places here

I that's why I wanted to mention it because I didn't recognize the name of the place 16th video from Richmond, California. I don't know. That's crazy, dude, but that's cool that they play. I don't know if you guys like for a bit. I like their first two albums a lot. Me too. Yeah, they're cool. Yeah, that's Craig Lucicero's in that band, right? Or no, he's in violence. In any case, yeah, I did see it's funny because I saw some postings on just Facebook friends, but I didn't put two or two together. I can't keep everyone straight. I can't even figure out what that would be. Yeah, that's the

Other Richmond. Not the Richmond, Virginia. This is Jay's Richmond. Ironically, my cassette. Right near Pittsburgh, California. Sorry, George. I'm sorry. Ironically, my cassette copy of Twisted Into Form was left in the back window of my car, and it warped. And it twisted into form. It twisted into form. I was like, I should save this. You'd better have saved that. That's actually really cool. It's probably here somewhere, but. What are the chances?

Yeah.

All right.

Somebody knocked off an extra half an hour.

Hold on.

I didn't do mine.

Was it going to take you another half an hour to do it?

I mean,

no.

Good.

I've moved on to Monocacy Brewing,

which is right here in Frederick.

Monocacy River runs through Frederick.

And I also have a West Coast IPA called West Coast.

Yeah.

That's weird.

Wait a minute.

Yours is called West Coast IPA.

Mine's just called West Coast.

That's strange. Isn't it though? Dude, what's yours say? Or what's mine say? Dude, what's mine say? Dude, yeah, I know, but what's mine say? Just have a 6% IPA that I can actually see through. It's nice. Mine's murky. Yeah, mine's a little murky for being a West Coast. It tastes like a West Coast. What is this, Swamp People? Is that what we're drinking now? I like it murky and citrusy. I do. Citrus is great, but citrus can be a little bit more.

be clear. It can be. That's fine, too. But usually I like the hazy ones that are just really fruity. Right now, Will is at home and he's like, oh, like this. And what happened is I felt a great disturbance in the forest. Yeah. IPAs are supposed to taste like pine cones, not grapefruit. I like them juicy. I really like them juicy. I like them that way. I like them both, but I do love me a pine cone IPA.

I love citrus in mine. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. I'm a stout guy, but we're not talking about body shape here. All right. All right. So now we could conceivably move on to what we are listening to.

Let's do it. Starts with me. Yeah. So what are you listening to? I have to say that a lot of my time has been spent listening to debut tracks from upcoming albums. We were just talking about the second half of the year and it feels like the second half of 2023 is going to be a monster.

So I've been spinning tracks from, here's a list, A Lion's Daughter. These are all albums that are coming out. Incantation, Horrendous, Mutoid Man, Anti-God Hand, Restless Spirit, Panopticon, although it might just be a single. I can't remember. It's not. It's not from an album? Yeah. Looking forward to that one. Yotin, although that album's not coming out to 2024, they mentioned it, which is too bad. Track is still like 47 minutes long. It's so good, too.

and Terminalist. That's just a short list that I can think of off the top of my head. Oh, I forgot about the Terminalist. Yeah, I have that saved. Yeah. So there's a lot of like singles or just maybe two tracks from the band. That's all that stuff's coming. And then along with that, of course, I spun a bunch of LPs. And the first one on my list is John, You'll Love It. The Anchor It. It all began with Loneliness. A little tip record. So when we recorded our mid-year, I had not spun this.

I think I even mentioned that on the show when you dropped it as your number two, John, that I hadn't heard it. But I've spun it a ton now and I love it. And I've even been talking to Ed because he's been listening to the podcast. Ed's the guy who writes all the songs for the Anchorhead. And he heard John talk about the album on our top 25 at Midyear. And so he sent a message on Instagram and I run the Instagram. And so I've been responding to him. So hopefully he'll come on the cast because he seems like a cool guy.

Did you guys see that they actually clipped when I talked about it for on Instagram? Yeah. And if you click on the image, it just starts with me saying they throw the whole fucking kitchen sink at you. And I was like, Oh God, of all things you guys grabbed, which I'm glad they, they use it. I was like, Oh man. Yeah. It's just really, he loves the cast. Cause the fact that we have this kind of this camaraderie and this community that we endorse that we promote.

When I told him about how I came on the cast, I was a listener before, and he just really liked that part of it. He likes that people just really appreciate his music. I think he's just excited that you talked about the album on the cast, John, which is cool. I think he'll be a good guest because of that. I was waiting a long time for that to come out because I had heard the one track that was released a long time ago. Because Willa Tip has been killing it for me lately. And so I was just like, well, I'm in. Let's do it, man. Bring it. I just, and it's just, it's impressive. It's passion.

progressive metal records,

just a variety of musical elements.

Like John said,

the kitchen sink sometimes for me,

prog albums feel a little bit too disjointed or showy,

but this one,

it really flows well from start to finish.

So I really appreciate that.

The songwriting is just really top notch.

The vocals are great.

And there just seems like there's a lot of care that went into making it,

just a balanced fluid album.

I even like the saxophone on this thing.

help me. Saxes,

flutes,

clarinets.

They got the keyboardist and the tangent.

He's very good.

And I think the singer,

is he from heaven's cry?

I think.

I'm not sure.

They got a lot of different musicians.

Yeah.

Cause Ed's the guy who wrote the music and then he got musicians to come on and play on it.

So I've been on that,

I'm not really sure.

Of who's on it,

but they're all great.

Like the singer's awesome on it.

Yeah, just a great record. Next one up for me is Breaths. It's a Floruit on Trepanation Records. Just came out today. It's doom-gazy, black and post-metal with a bit of 90s and emo rock nostalgia for me in this record. It has a warm, almost inviting, comforting atmosphere, a snuggy, if you will. But there are lots of those kind of crunch, crackling riffs, just really great tempo changes.

in there when the band spits out its venomous tongue and gives you a little bit heavier things. I really quite like this record. Agriculture, self-titled on the Flenser. It's just emotional, avant-garde, atmospheric black metal. This band kind of exists in that crossroads hybrid black metal space where they bring in elements of noise rock, post-metal, and even some country.

Country-inspired instrumentation in the mix. It's not full-on country, but you know what I'm saying? Like guitar sounds from country music. I really like the way the songs evoke a feeling in me, but it's definitely an album I have to spin a little bit more and let it wash over me to really get into it. Gateway, Galgandude, I think this one also came out today, Untranscending Obscurity. It's a murky swamp monster of oozing death doom and lots of

Gryant, lumbering rifts submerged in a filthy mat, tree-thick, wet atmosphere. So it's basically Will. That sounds dirty. Yeah, it's like Will. Dirty, dirty. Boltgun, The Warren on avant-garde music. This is an experimental black metal post-metal EP with Igor Cavalera on drums. So a lot of Cavalera love on tonight's cast. Boltgun, Nail,

What? Yeah, I thought it was Bolt Thrower's kid. Son of Bolt Thrower is Bolt Gun. Yeah, it pays homage to a novella of the same name, which was described as a surrealist nightmare of claustrophobia and annihilation. And this is the first time I've heard of Bolt Gun, but they have a few albums under their belt, actually. They also have a full length coming out in September, so I'm curious to check that one out because I dug this one.

Serpent of Old, Ensemble Under the Dark Sun on Transcending Obscurity Records. A dark cyclone of blackened atmospheric death. Just brutal, massive, nightmarish. It almost sounds like a mix between Ulcerate and Blutaus Nord to me. It's really good. Vengeful Spectre. Vengeful Spectre 2. Yeah. From Pest Productions.

This was a really interesting listen because

I love the first Vengeful Spectre record. It was on my top 25.

I remember that a couple years ago, whatever. I think Matt also really liked that record.

And that was an aggressive melodic black metal record with that incorporated this Chinese folk instrumentation into it.

But this follow up is more of a death doom album with Chinese folk elements to it.

So I didn't expect that shift. It's drastic. So it took me a few spins to get into it, but they won me over. And I'm just curious to see if they're going to continue this more death direction or if they're going to go back to black metal or kind of merge all of it. But it's quite good. And that's what I got.

Okay. Strangely enough, what I did after mid-year is I took my top 25 and I put it in a playlist on Spotify and then I just hit shuffle. And that's literally what I've been doing since mid-year. And I think it's significant for the fact of what we're doing and listening to music. It really is more of a job at times. We're just consuming as much music as we possibly can and then ranking them. But it's actually just been nice to just rock out to what I chose. I'm like, this is actually a really good list.

When you rocked out, was it out? Absolutely. Absolutely. Although with the heat, I've wanted to put it back in. But, so that's been good. Much like Markisan, I've been hitting up some of those early tracks because I just feel like every day I'm seeing another band release a preview track and it's, oh God, that's bossed my list. So also horrendous, Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus, Lion's Daughter, Blue Dust, Nard, Wada. Also Black Braid 2, gosh, gosh, gosh, gosh, gosh, gosh. Really love the new Outer Heaven. I think it sounds pretty solid.

Another band I've mentioned in the past,

Somnuri out of New York.

They dropped a new album today called Dysiderium.

If you like Mastodon before they changed,

definitely check this out.

And then another one that really grabbed me today,

the band is Ageless Summoning.

The album is called Corrupting the Entempled Plain.

Super duper solid death metal.

Might have been a little bit doomy too,

but again, I crammed so much stuff in this afternoon.

I don't remember, but this one I definitely was like,

I have to come back to this and I did and I wasn't disappointed so that is it for me excellent John all right I don't really have that much to be honest with you because I've been listening to the same albums Marcus and I mentioned being stuck on x number albums this month because there's been some some great releases actually but the ones I focused on the most we've mentioned the anchor I mentioned up there in the mid-year but I still have been listening to them

them a ton since then. So I won't go any more than that other than it was that two, I would expect it will still be high on my list, like really high. It's just a great album. Fen, we mentioned, Monuments to Absence, another great release, I think, from them. I expect that might list for me. A new one today for me is Rannick, is Conflagrations. I've heard of this band before and I've listened to them and I've liked them,

But this one really got me. It's the third album from a progressive death band out of the Midlands in England. They're on Willow Tip. This is a killer album. And it came out today. And I've spun it twice so far and absolutely love it. It's just, it's in my wheelhouse. It's the kind of stuff I like. The final track on it is this Threnody to a Dying Star. This thing is like 16 minutes. It's fucking epic. It's just so good.

It's just so good

I saw you post that on Metal Friday

I got a list of that one

I hadn't heard of it before you

Yeah

You might dig it Marcus

I'm not so big on the album cover

I didn't care for that too much

But musically it's great

I love it

So

It's like

My first glance at it was like Metropolis

Yeah

It has that kind of feel

And their last album cover is similar

Themed

And then the other one I got after that is Voyager

Fearless in Love

It's the eighth album from the kind of Progy Power synth pop band out of Australia, who, by the way, was just part of what is the big contest in Europe? Eurovision. They were actually part of that. And I think they made it to like the quarters or the semis or something like that. Nice. So good for Voyager. I've seen them three or four times at Prog Power. Do you guys ever watch that Eurovision movie? Yeah. Will Ferrell? Yeah. Is it funny? It's so funny. I'm not even a huge Will Ferrell.

I also liked the album

Oh, did you dig it? Cool. Yes. And I know you and I have a synth pop, not guilty pleasure, because we actually like some of that stuff from the 80s. It's not guilty. Not at all. It's not bad if you like it. Let it go. It's cool. It's a little more poppy than some of their previous albums. And I don't mean that in a negative way. It's just the choruses are that way. And the guitar tones are a little gent-y, but it's not.

It doesn't do that Meshuggah stuff. It's just, and I think that term now has become just so watered down. Oh, it sounds like gent to me. It's just the tuning. It doesn't mean anything now. It doesn't mean anything. It was like literally only a few bands that actually play like Meshuggah. That's the funny thing about it. Luckily. Everyone gets so bent out of shape on like, I like Tesseract. Everyone's like, oh, they're a gent band. It's not anything like Meshuggah. They just have that tuned down sound. That's all it is. So anyway. And they don't wear shoes.

That's right. You saw them with me. You actually thought they were okay, though. Yeah, they were all right. Other than the guy that didn't wear shoes. Yeah, the one guy doesn't wear shoes. Daniel Tompkins is a pretty good singer. But yeah, it's cool. If you want to have an interest in listening to that, Voyager is a fabulous band in terms of execution and performance. Yeah. So they really are. And I didn't know, we always wonder what these bands do for a living. I saw something posted online that apparently the guy who's been in the band the longest, he's the

Synth Keyboard Keytar Singer. Keytar! Yeah, he actually plays Keytar live, which is, and he gets it. It's actually, he's not being serious when he does it. It's ironic. Yeah, and he's a fabulous. I don't think he can be serious with Keytar. Oh, no, some people try to be. They try. I didn't know he was an attorney in Perth, and he's like an immigration attorney. He's there to help you if you want to move to Australia, and he was voted as one of the top under 40, like, business

People in the city of Perth. I was like, this is fucking awesome. I love it. It's always nice to hear that musicians have something other than just music when they're not getting paid to play their music. And that Spotify and Amazon and Google and all those other platforms are stealing their music. So I saw the post again about how much bands make off of the streaming platforms and it just made me so... Yeah, it was brutal. And the worst is YouTube. They're by far the worst of all of them. And this is how I hate this whole thing.

I think Strike is actually based on similar logic. The streaming content for Netflix and stuff, they don't pay squat for that shit. And where they used to get whatever, I'm not going to fight the cause for them except to say that it's a similar thing to Spotify. Yeah, and I understand the whole thing about AI. My only issue with this whole Strike is if the actors, the ones that are making the most noise, cared that much, they would have walked the first day the writers walked. But they waited a while, and I was like, this is lame now.

All I know is that this means that this fall I got a lot of back catalog stuff to catch up on. So there isn't going to be anything new to watch. There's a couple things coming out. But yes, you're right. What we do in the shadows just started again. I know. I'm like two seasons behind now. I'm like, how did that happen? A new season just started and it's great. And the new winning time is coming to HBO Max. I'm super excited about that. That's the Lakers thing with John C. Riley. Nice. If you guys watch based on a real story.

Are they based on a true story? Yes. That is fucked up. What is it? It's Kaylee Cuoco and... Oh, yeah. But it's not what you think. I mean, it's just a messed up story. It's bizarre. Yeah, it is. And she seems to be doing that, those kind of... Because she did the flight attendant also, which is... The flight attendant was really good. If you like that, you gotta like this. Yeah, I like this one better. Just because the subject matter... It's actually... They're taking shots at podcasters. Yes, exactly. It's about a podcaster.

And at one point, George, did you just start laughing when they're like, we only got 136 downloads the first day? And I'm like, wow, that's a really good day. And they're like, we're expecting to make easily 50,000. We'll negotiate 50,000 an episode. I'm like, wait, how do we get that deal on our podcast? Yeah. So I did. I do enjoy the whole podcasting part of it. And hey, we have gotten 136 in one day. Yes. Go team.

I just watched finally the new Guardians of the Galaxy and it was really fucking good.

Oh, I haven't seen it.

Don't say it, don't tell me.

No spoilers.

Very good.

This is not a spoiler.

I think it's probably the best of all of them, I thought.

That's amazing.

That's high praise.

Any John Wick 4 viewers yet?

No.

I haven't seen that either.

I haven't seen it either.

People get shot.

This weekend.

Yeah, yeah.

A few people might die.

Do it.

Okay.

Matt kills a whole bunch of people.

Matt, am I going to be happy, Matt?

I don't know, dude.

It might be getting a little long in the tooth now. Yeah, you'll be happy with the movie, but I would love to hear your thoughts after you leave. I'm going to watch it. My brother has a voodoo account. He buys movies, tons of movies. So he has all the John Wicks and Tracy's going to go on a girl's vacation. I'm watching all that. I'm watching all the Fast and Furious movies. I'm going to Mead Fest. I got a plan.

I don't care what anybody says. Fast and Furious

in Tokyo is still the best one.

I've never seen that one. Tokyo Drift?

Interesting. Tokyo Drift is

freaking awesome.

I'm going to watch it. I've never, I actually

own them on Blu-ray except for that one.

Han, man, Han.

Thank you, George. You have to watch

Because of Han.

I've only seen the first six

Fast movies.

You're so far behind.

I know. I'm going to watch all of them from the beginning. And I've never seen two. Whatever, Boomer. Outrageous. Very true. Interesting. And that's what makes it interesting. But I'm going to watch all of them because I just, I don't, I've never had time. And the, what's the spinoff one? Hobbs and Shaw. Hobbs and Shaw. I'm going to watch that too. So I got a lot of movies. Yeah. We watch them regularly in my house. Nice. I've only watched Tokyo Drift once, John. And now you're saying that, and that tells me I need to go back and rewatch that one. It's not like I didn't watch it.

I'm sorry, I didn't like it, but I think it just gets so focused on the heist aspect. It's so off the beaten path from the rest of the story. It's literally just small bits and pieces that tie into the main theme. And it is that connection between we had number one and then Too Fast, Too Furious, and then this, and then once four picks up, that is really the beginning of the story that we're seeing now. But the funny thing is, all the characters from Tokyo Drift show up, what, eight films later, they're all back.

I really like it and I've seen most of them in the theater but then I just fell off and I didn't go see them so now I have to play catch up Marcus you should just watch all four John Wicks and then watch them again yeah I've seen that I don't think I've seen the third John Wick I think I've seen the first two so that's on my list too I have all those I'm gonna watch all those I just watched them again actually when you watch them all in a row it's so good it's awesome so good yeah it's happening so if you're asking

I'm back. Yeah, I'm thinking I'm back. And I'm also going to watch this freaking Sisu movie that came out. Yeah, I want to see that. What's it called? Sisu. S-I-S-U. It's Finnish. Okay. It's like John Wick, apparently. Oh, I think I saw at least a post. There's like a trail. I think, is he fighting Nazis? I don't even remember now. It's some sort of military thing. Yeah. Okay. It's an old guy who's like an ex-commando fighting people.

This won't be available for a while, but I really can't wait to see Oppenheimer. I'm really excited. Oh, yeah, it is Nazis. It says I just looked up Sissy during the last desperate days of World War Two. A solitary prospector crosses paths with Nazis on a scorched earth retreat in northern Finland. Wait a minute. Is this a Clint Eastwood film? A lone prospector in the middle of nowhere. It totally sounds like a Rutger Howard.

See, you said that, Jay. Now I gotta go watch Blade Runner again. Damn it. Anytime his name gets dropped, I gotta go watch. Time to die. So good. That scene is like one of the greatest scenes ever. A friend of mine just saw the new one recently, and I don't know if you guys watched the new one. I thought it was fucking great. It was good, too. It was amazing. The one with Ryan Gosling. Yeah, not enough people, a lot of people wrote it off, I think, ahead of time, but this is a great movie. It's him, but

He actually impressed me with, and I don't like him, Brian Gosling, that much. But he was good. Ken? You don't like Ken? I've seen him in a few things. He's in the form. He thinks he's okay, but sometimes it's just him. He plays Neil Armstrong in one called First Man. Fuck. Such a good movie. I think he's a great actor. Oh, he's a fabulous actor. It's just something about him. I love that movie, Drive, The Place Beyond the Pines. Fucking, he takes on really interesting, weird goals.

This is one where he hangs out with a blow-up doll or some shit. I don't know. It's kind of amazing. Yeah, it's Lars and the real woman. Real girl. Let's not forget about Murder by Numbers. Yes, Murder by Numbers. Come on. And there's the Blade Runner series is coming out now. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, was it set in 2099 or something like that? Or whatever. Who's doing it next? I don't know what the time frame is. I'm not sure. They've had a bunch of comics.

I think he I thought he was in it I was real skeptical when the Ryan Gosling Blade Runner movie was announced because the original is my favorite movie of all time just like John but I it lived up to expectations surpassed them like I think it's it's right up there with the original one I thought it was it kept the tone everything about Blade Runner was captured in that movie and that director who also did Dune

He did The Arrival. That guy is my favorite director. And Arrival is one of the best science fiction films I've seen in years. I can't wait for Dune 2. The trailer. Yes. Yes. That director is just he's. Dude I think I watched the first one three times. I haven't watched it because I want to watch them both together. So you're going to be waiting another year for the last one. No there's only two. There's only two? Yeah just two. For the first book. Yeah.

So who knows if they're going to do more. I thought that I heard they might do more

after this one. They're pretty successful so I wouldn't imagine that. Wait we gotta hold on George you said you had a spoiler. Oh it was it was a joke. Fuck I don't remember. Not a spoiler anymore. Oh I remember what it was we were talking about the

Fast and Furious movies and I said spoiler Han shot first.

I love to work on our

Have you been drinking too fast, George? Always. Sicario is so underrated in both of them. And I don't think there's supposed to be a third one, but I love Benicio Del Toro. And also, who's the guy, the famous guy's son who's in it? But he's all his famous son, Josh Roland. Fuck, he's so good. I love Sicario. I watched those a couple of times. Those are good. And Emily Blunt's in there, too. They're both just as good. Both one and two are just as good as each other, I think.

I don't think he did the second one but

it is good the second one is good

I just love that director

Narcos and Narcos Mexico

both are very

similar they're not

the tone's pretty different but no the tone's similar

but it's more told from the

drug lord side

so good

I don't even sure which one I would suggest

first but Pedro Pascal

is in them and there's three seasons

each and there's 10 episodes each an hour it's long fucking show but one of them is based on one of them's about paulo escobar and then the other one's about the sort of founding drug lord in mexico who started the cartels okay cool fuck those are such good shows and very much like sicario in that sense so at the risk of bringing us back to the podcast um oh right does anybody have any idea who we are on me all right and um

And I'll keep it brief. I mentioned this when a couple of you guys were up. What I tend to do after mid-year is to go back and grab everybody else's records that aren't on my radar or on my list. So there's just a big shuffle play going to those. Make sure that there's stuff that I don't want to miss before the end of the year, even though I know the rest of the year still has to play out. So I spent a lot of time on those. No point in getting into specifics because it's a lot of fucking records. But I literally loaded them all into a list. I'm still doing this docking thing. I still can't believe I did not.

I understand how good a band they were. What's your favorite one then? Back for the Attack. To be honest, they did a live record probably. That's the one that kind of ties it all together. But they're all good. Those four four. They're doing that and not a lot of the old usual crap I listen to. And then Offshoot from Metal. Really gotten into this country singer Chris Stapleton lately. Fuck, this guy's good. He's like a latter era Wylan Jennings who sings like a R&B singer. He's just got gorgeous voice. Looks like he's in Lynyrd Skynyrd.

He rather famously did the very moving version of the national anthem at the last Super Bowl. And yes, that's right. Now, he's pretty cool. I think he showed up like on my Facebook and I was like, how come I haven't looked into this dude? And I did. And I literally bought all his records. They're all good. They're of a sort of Willie Nelson, late 70s, early 80s variety. Yeah, they're more of a blues rock than country. Yeah. Yeah. But there's some pretty twangy. He does some pretty twangy stuff. Yeah. But all in all, he's just this beautiful singer. And it's just always a joy to discover somebody with that one.

That much talent, that much writing talent, singing talent. And he's a clever writer. So, so it's been a fun time for him too. To your point, I was going to say, I was totally, I think, did we say it was the Super Bowl where he was singing? Yeah, I was totally pulled in by that. My wife likes country and she's like, you actually are probably like him. He looks like my people. So he would fit in with Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson. He's that kind of guy. And it's nice that somebody these days in this modern era is doing that kind of stuff and doing it with such,

Class.

So, therein mixed and all that stuff.

And then even just this week's Top 5 list spun me off into a couple of fucked up directions,

which we'll talk about when we get to it, which is, yeah.

I just want to mention, too, I listen to country every once in a while because I like the old school country.

I don't know if you guys have heard of Coulter Wall.

Yes.

But he's fucking great.

He's a new, he's a young guy, but he does a very kind of, he's a very deep voice and does like old school style.

like a Johnny Cash style. And he's got multiple albums, maybe five albums. And I love his stuff. So he's one of my favorites when I'm in the mood for that style of music. I like Stapleton, but I really, really like Colter Wall. Okay, cool. And he just released a new album like days ago, I think, called Little Songs. But the other ones are terrific. So I'll throw out one more than you might try to, which is a band called The Civil Wars. It's just a... Yeah, I've heard them. Yeah.

Yeah, they have some really cool stuff. Yeah, they're good. They're very good. Pass it off to you, George. All righty. I've only got three, so don't go anywhere. What? First up is one that I've talked with the boys with a little bit. This is a band called 1476. The album's called In Exile. It looks like it's their fifth album. They're not on Metal Archives, so I have to trust the real internets. They're from Massachusetts, and according to the

I looked at today. They are neo-folk, post-punk, horror-punk, death rock, black metal. Yeah, they're on Rate Your Music, George. They have five albums, it says on here. Yeah, that's where I got it from. Oh, cool. Gotcha. I stand corrected. No, no, you stand right next to me because we're looking at the same thing. I don't know if anybody's listened to this. It's a crazy album because of just how many genres I just listed.

the green man face on a like monk or something like that with a sword yeah it looks like it ought to be like an obsequia cover yeah i think that's the green man face though yeah i think i think you're correct on that yes all right on the wish list gonna listen but uh to me the music like it tends to start neo-folk and then work its way into some sort of rock post-rock black metal whatever i mean there's blast beats on here there's some screaming but most of the vocals

have this like,

I said this on the other podcast just the other day,

a punk rock snarl and swagger about it.

Like the guy from rancid crossed with the guy from social distortion.

It's a very like snotty,

like punky vocal style,

but played over nothing.

That's punk rock musically.

It's,

it's wild.

It's,

I don't know.

That's not the same thing,

but the Kvelter talk thing works in a backwards sense to that.

And I've bought into it. And I was just making a belt to talk. There's some new door that's open for me where you can fuck with it a little bit if you want and introduce some punk slash elements that I used to not be quite as open to. Check this out and see what you think. Okay. Next up I have the band Lotus Thrones and their second album, The Heretic Souvenir. It's like an industrial post-metal band. This is one that was, we didn't do them, but it would have been in my honorable mentions list.

And then my last album, it's not out for another couple of weeks yet, but is the new Werewolves album, My Enemies Look and Sound Like Me. This is their fourth album in four years. They're an Australian death metal band, and they are super, super productive. However, personally, I've loved their first three albums. I'm starting to think they might want to slow down and think about it a little more with this one.

I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying that it's it doesn't feel so far each album has been a step up. This one is feels like a step sideways at best. I don't know maybe take another six months to nine months to write. How have you heard it charge? We got the promo. Did I not give it to people? No. Fuck me. Because my exactly it's because the fucking box doesn't work. I thought I put it. I thought I put it up for everybody but you but it's not in the box.

Yeah, but I can't put stuff on the box. I put it there and you don't see it. I thought I put it on Google Docs for people. I don't think so. All right. My bad. I'll do that. Keeping it to himself. My precious. All right. All right. So now we are at the top five.

次の一つで、

It makes sense since each one has two albums. Well, I believe this is back, George. And Jay, I don't know if you were on the podcast yet as a full-time member. I remember Will had come on. And so I started listening to you guys. And I remember you posted something about, hey, if you have any suggestions for top fives, send them to us on social media. And I think I sent you this one. And I think you did it the next episode.

Wow. I'm cool like that. Yeah. And this is going back. Yeah. And I don't, and like I said, Jay, I don't remember if you were on for this. I don't know either. It feels like something I could have been part of, but I'm not sure. Maybe. Yeah. And so I said to George, I said, we should, and I had mentioned this a few years ago. I said, we should revisit. And you're like, ah, we did that one, but it's now been at least seven or eight years since then or whatever it was. I was like, if it was before Jay, it's beyond the scope of my memory. Yeah. And I said, we might as well do it again,

because we have at least three or four people who haven't been able to do it. So I said, it could be fun. And so I said, let's do it. Best back to back. Now, we could always expand this every time to like best three or best four, or some people may want to do best five albums. One of my honorable mentions is the best run of all time in my mind, and it crosses eight records. Okay. So I do want to.

It also crosses bands. It's not just one band, but one musician. Yeah, I was going to say, that's easy. Way to give it away, Jay. That's okay. That's okay. In fact, I'll just do it now, then I'll just tell you. Dio from Richie Blackmore's Rainbow all the way up through Holy Diver is one of my favorite runs of records of all time. And I would include the two live albums in that, which is Live Evil and Rainbow on stage. And how many records is that? That's the first three rainbows plus the live. Black Sabbath. The two Sabbaths plus the live.

And if you don't include Sacred Heart in there, or wait, Last in Line. Last in Line. I was going to say, I pushed my one album. I ditched the first rainbow. That's where we're going to get into some arguments to this whole concept, by the way, because some of my doubles are going to be, you're going to be like, whoa, what the fuck, Jay? You went the wrong direction there. Why'd you do Uriah Heep? There were so many on this that I wanted to include, and I was like,

Like, fuck. If Dreaming Neon Black was just next to... Or no, if Dead Heart and Dead World was just next to this godless endeavor... Oh. But enemies of reality is... Jay. There's a lot like that. I had that with Incantation, my favorite death metal band, but I couldn't find two together. Yeah, they stymie you. Jay, you want to know the band that killed me the most for this was Priest? Yep, but I did pick one, and I think you're going to be

I just I would I wanted priest so bad and I was like I like all these albums but I wanted like back to back had to be like premier albums yeah they're like one on one off so I cheated you'll see what I did but that no priest is a great example and I stared at that list for a long time dude and I was like I could just move a couple of these yeah if this song was on the album then that happened such a ton like I picked one out I'm like okay the next album is pretty awesome but then you find

I'm going to find out the one after that.

He's better.

Yep.

Yep.

That happened a ton for me.

All right.

It'll be interesting.

There's going to be not some arguments,

but I'm going to either disappoint or impress John like four times.

In one night?

Since Matt's not here.

Yeah.

In one night.

He's going to be on.

You can cast a couple of mine easy,

but yeah,

let's roll this.

So I'm curious to hear the themes we went with,

because we talked about this before we started.

And I,

I'll tell you mine when we get there.

So let's just say.

Wait,

there's a theme for you,

John?

No.

Meaning how we decided what to do. Oh, gotcha. Yeah, that's what I mean. I think mine was a case-by-case basis, but I guess I get to start, so. You do. We're all gonna laugh at you. Top five, favorite, best, whatever you want to call it, back-to-back albums. Two albums, one after another. And my number five, a band I think we all love, Bolt Thrower.

Fourth Crusade from 1992 for Victory 1994. Nice. Good one. So I love all the Bolt Thrower records. My favorite record is those ones, Loyal. But the one before it. It's good. But this here, right here, this is, Fourth Crusade is the one that got me out of the band. So I got a sentimental attachment to it.

Part of my metal journey, if you will. But it also happens to be where the band decided to slow their shit down. And that tempo change really, to me, cemented the bolt thrower sound. That opening fucking riff for the Fourth Crusade is just quintessential fucking bolt thrower. The bolt thrower sound, by the way, is tanks rolling over broken skulls. Yes, thank you. Thank you for illustrating it.

I think what Markisan saying is that tanks hit the swamp though for this album and got stuck and so they were moving a little slower over the skulls but yeah but this is where I think they really found that groove that sound that we know is bolt thrower not that the albums before this fucking awesome too but this is the sound of bolt thrower when I think of bolt thrower this started here so and then of course they followed up this classic fucking crush fest

with Four Victory, which for a lot of metalheads is their favorite bolt thrower album. That would be me. There you go. And I get that. And it's very high on my list. Those ones, Loyal is my favorite. This one's a little notch below. But these two combined just really does that fucking, that double hit. Yeah. Just perfect. So there you go. That's my number five. That's a nice pick. Very nice. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Matt, will we know your number five? Real quick. When I first got the script this week and I read the top five, as I chatted with Joan and George about, I thought it was the top five, five back-to-back albums, like five albums in a row, which I was talking about. Exactly. And Marcus, and you had thrown something out like, this will be tough. We'll get through it. It'll be a lot of good options. I thought, okay, cool.

So I'm looking at this script and it does say top five dash top five back to back album. So you're like top five. Exactly. I doubled up and I fucked you up. Which I mean story of my life. I'm such an overachiever. You guys all know this. Like I'm always striving to be the best. No. Nothing even remotely close. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to do my I'm going to do my revised back to back followed by my top five five. Nice. So my number five my back to back.

The Band is Gojira. The album is From Mars to Sirius, followed by The Way of All Flesh. Nice. I'm one of those weird people that I actually like The Way of All Flesh more than From Mars to Sirius, and you can throw shit at the screen. It's totally fine. No, I agree. Either way, cool shit. My top five, five albums back to back would be Carcass, Necroticism, Discanting the Insalubrious Through Torn Arteries. Nice.

なし、ほら

set aside your personal picks and you just say, well, these are just, you just can't deny that these are great back-to-back albums. I figured you guys are going to be mentioning a lot of these, so I just went on a different direction. Three of my five are personal favorites. They're still good. I'm going to be wrong. Are you saying mine are impersonal? No, not at all. However, like I mentioned earlier, you could pick all the big giant bands and you have back-to-backs that would come up on list after list. So I wanted mine to be

I resemble that remark. I wanted my five to be, if no one else has them, then that's great. It's five more back-to-backs that people could check out if they don't know them. But I would be surprised if you didn't know all these. But anyway, so my number five also involves a whale, but a slightly different whale. Don't say it! Jay and I have had this conversation before. I firmly believe this when I say this. My number five is massive.

Percadon's Remission from 2002 and Leviathan from 2004. I'll be honest with you, John. I was wondering which direction you were going to go in there. Because you could have gone, I would have accepted Leviathan Blood Mountain too, but I think Remission is a fine choice. Those were their two first albums. Yeah. And I just, I was so in. I think Jay and I had this conversation. I was so in with this band. I was done. And then Blood Mountain, awesome. And I like Crack the Sky. And then the Prog Nerds got involved.

And I live in the prog world and when the prog nerds show up, the party's over. Unfortunately, but remission and Leviathan just. It's a great choice, John. I don't have Mastodon on my list. I struggle with this. So Jay was talking about, can we do honorables? And one of my honorables on my list is Mastodon Leviathan and Blood Mountain. But I struggle with remission because when you first heard that, you're like, what the fuck is this? It's fucking awesome.

And then they come out with Leviathan, which is the ultimate. And I like that, that the way that they progress with that. But Blood Mountain is such a good fucking record. It really is. It is. So it's a great pick. I'm glad that you picked Remission because it's the beginning of Mastodon. You see it like this affected me. I heard this and it was great. And then they come with fucking Leviathan. It just blows your mind because it's one of the best metal records ever. Really?

I was at Opeth's first American tour when a guy who I used to see at shows told me, you need to get remissioned by Mastodon. This guy used to see it only at shows. And I was like, I gotta check it out. And I was like, what the fuck? And he knew I would like him because I was at the Opeth show, which is interesting. All right. It's harder to explain my process. And so I'm going to cheat a little bit here in very fast and rapid succession, whether I'm breaking the rules or not, read all of my honorable mentions because there's a bunch of them.

and I'll do it fast. But it shows you how hard it is. You're breaking all the rules. I don't think. All the rules. Number of the beast, peace of mind. Back in black for those about to rock. Schools out, billion dollar babies. Sabbath, bloody Sabbath, sabotage. Rising, long live rock and roll. Rainbow for the uninitiated. Accident of birth, chemical wedding. In rock and fireball. Rune and vertebrae. Sorry, that didn't make it up there. Carving out the eyes of God. Blood for the master. Stained class and killing machine. You're welcome for using

The Kidding, The

in there. But the truth I like Rune better than Issa. Me too. That's how the politics of this whole thing was so fucking hard. Me too. So I'm going to go into my notes. Yeah, it's that putting those two albums together that makes it difficult. You can choose your favorite album, but choosing the two favorites together or two that work so well together one after another. It's too hard. But I do. But for instance, with Enslaved, Issa is probably my overall favorite record. Below the Lights being what it is. And it's not on your list.

No, but it's in my honorable mention. So it was Rune and Vertebring. So let's get to my actual list. Modern releases. And yes, I really like these records this much. And I really think it's one of these notable moments where it's, wow, I can't believe that those two records in a row. Megaton Sword, Blood Hail, Steel, Hell's Fire, and Might and Power. Wow. This harkens to all of that things I just read off my list. I'm like, how does fucking band put all these two amazing records in a row? So.

No further explanation on that except to say I love those two records and I can't wait for the next one.

That's awesome to put a current band. I mean that album just released.

That's as current as it gets.

That's saying something.

Yeah.

That's as current as it gets on the list, but yeah.

That's how much I like those records.

Yeah.

I forgot to put it on my list, so I'll call this an honorable, but I wanted to amend your list.

I went with Slayer's Rain and Blood and then South of Heaven.

And that's what I'm saying. You could do that. I totally get it. I don't think that's a wrong answer. Sabbath is a tough one. For instance, Sabbath. And I don't know how many people went with the Sabbath thing, but try to dig your way out. George is the better answer. Sabotage Volume 4, Master of Reality, Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath. Where are you going with that? You actually picked my Sabbath. That's what I would have went with had I put them on my top five. Sabotage. Yeah. Those aren't my two favorites, but two favorite. All right. So my actual top number five, nobody's going to have this one.

Because I went with my heart. Sentenced. Sentenced, yes. Load and reload. Crimson and the cold white light. Not that that means anything to you freaking pagans. You heathens. Not load and reload? I'm disappointed. No. Sentenced, Crimson, the cold white light. I am sorry you'd have to travel that road. We knew you were going to have Sentenced because you love so many of their albums, George. All their fucking albums, really.

So there's nothing on my list that's going to be surprising to anyone. Well, actually, it's surprising that it's number five. I'm actually a little bit surprised it's number five. Number five? What? You love scented. Apparently you don't love them that much. Apparently not. All right. Back to you, motherfucker. Back to me. Yeah, this is, I'm not going to give my honorable mentions to the end. But I just made mine up on the spot. Really, George? It was something that I, when we were talking lists,

I was like, oh, it's going to be on there. And then I forgot about it until he did his Slayer.

Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, and John was talking about how we picked it. I really went with the albums that speak to me, that invoke something emotionally in me, that are truly my favorites, the albums that I have to have on vinyl that I spin a ton, not the ones that are considered the all-time best albums. You know what I mean? They have to mean something to me to be on my list.

So with that said, my number four is The Gathering. Mandillion from 1995 and Nighttime Birds from 1997. Mandillion was a bit of a revelation for me because I just had never heard anything like that record at the time. And that's largely due to Annika. She's just an amazing singer who has one of the most unique and expressive

voices and music. And this was her first album as singer for The Gathering. And I think that recruiting her in the band just made the stars align for The Gathering. It's one of those things where it's this addition that it makes everything click in place. And it completely elevated the music, the atmospheric doom music that they were playing. And right from that first line that Annika sang in the opening, Strange Machines,

I just knew that I was listening to something special. And then the follow-up, Nighttime Birds, which was my top record for 1995 on our Top 50 at 50. And it's the last metal record from The Gathering. And it's absolutely a stunning swan song for them in that genre. And they would go on to do a lot more records. We've got a different vocalist, including their next album, which is,

How to Measure a Planet, which is actually my favorite all-time gathering album. I love that LPA so much. But these two metal records, they were everything to me at that time period. So I just, I still really haven't heard anything quite like that. Of course, we have a lot of female singers who are in metal and everything, but I've never responded to a woman singing like I have in the gathering. And just love it.

I always go back to it I have all the records on vinyl and it's a special place in the jackhammer's heart right on what's in your heart pick thanks John my heart is full of so my number four of the back-to-back comes from my number five of the five back-to-back and that would be carcass necroticism merging

into heart work as my back-to-back. If I were to go into my five back-to-back-to-back-to-back, I went with the band Rush. They are on Metal Archives, and so that is fucking legit. I would start with 2112, and I would go through moving pictures, although I would argue that you could do a farewell to Kings through signals. That's what I got. Those are both fine ways to cut up that discography nicely done. I would accept both of those answers is my point.

I dove in after the year end. And so in the spring, I spent a lot of time with Rush. And even this past weekend, driving back from Duluth, I put Rush on shuffle. And I was like, God, I would drive for another three hours and I could listen to more Rush. So understandable. So good. My work is done here. I just spent last weekend in Michigan. And that's like a seven and a half hour drive from here. And I made the ultimate playlist. Handpicked every song instead of just like,

And it was one of those playlists where you just don't skip anything because

everything's so good. And I like, so Taylor Swift medley then? No, not that I have anything against Tay Swift. No, I like her music, but that was not on there. This was mostly like classic rock stuff, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s stuff. And it made the drive go by so fast. I was singing along in the car, driving down the highway, doing way too fast. You know how it is. It was cool.

What was on the list? Just like all kinds of like 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s rock. Okay. Not a lot of metal. There was a little. And there's probably some Metallica and some Tool and stuff. There was 80s rock. I do like 80s rock a lot. Anyways. Matt, your life will never be the same. Nope. Nope. I'm done. You're done. You can't go back. Nope. You're in. You're on the team.

Come for the ride. It's fun. There's no going back. Now you're going to be seeking out rare shows from the fucking Caress of Steel tour and everything. It's just all. You're done. There was Rush on my list because I sent John a picture of one of them. This is the way. It was and it was no longer is though, did you? Oh, you mean on your playlist? My playlist, yeah. See, Matt understands. He just said, this is the way. This is the way. All right. My number four. I had to take this.

Because again, I was hoping that my picks would be different so that we could have more selections and not repeat ourselves. And I'm not big on this whole, oh, we have to all have individual picks. If we have the picks and we like them, if they double up, whatever. We're all into quadrupling up and shit. This is going not the way I wanted it to, but anyway. I lost control of this thing. Yeah, I'm off the rails. So my number four,

This is my second favorite death metal album of all time, and it would just be impossible not to include this on the list because I think this is my favorite period of the band. You could choose any one of their seven albums and you would be making the right choice putting them together. My number four is Death Human 1991 and Individual Thought Patterns 1993. This is the period of death I like the most.

There's three periods. Maybe four of you separate symbolic from. Because then it's the whole other band that he was forced to use the death name for. But these two albums together, they pair together. They're progressive death period and human is still. If it wasn't for Cynic, then it would be Human is my favorite death metal album. I was going to say, what is your number one? And I knew it was going to be Cynic. Cynic, yeah. But it's funny because I understand why you drew the split the way you did.

But it's just another one of those instances in which, as you said, you can stick your hand anywhere into that timeline and you're fine. Yeah. John did it perfectly. That's a great pick. Yeah. Jay, trust me. I was looking at symbolic and saying, I'm sorry. And then I'm like, hey, leprosy, I know you don't feel well. I feel bad, too. I'm sorry. I know you don't feel well. Because I love you, too. Don't go screaming bloody gore. Come on. I know. Yeah.

You pick the perfect pair, John. You literally could take their last album and say, fuck it, Control Denied, those two albums together, you know? So, I mean. So, my number four is, I said doing Priest on this would be hard, but it's not impossible. And so, they are Priest albums, and I kind of, I wasn't sure, I wasn't going to force them into the list, but I went back and forth and looked at a few things, and I was like, no. And I think,

I think those are two fantastic back-to-back records, albeit one live. But if I have to pick two priests next to each other that they didn't let me down or take a little thing off, because staying in class, I tried real hard, John. I tried so hard. I wouldn't feel too bad, Jay. I think Unleashed in the East might be a studio album, too. Well, they do call it Unleashed in the Studio, but Rob is in the studio. Everything else is live, yeah. And hey, he had a bad day. But it's so good, I don't care.

one of the great new wave of British head metal records, even though it's not even really a new wave of British head metal records. It's really strange. You should say that, Jay, because I swear I was just listening to a podcast where somebody was talking about unleashed in the East, how it sounds so much better than sad wings. That would be John. Fair enough. Yeah. There's a few. I heard that on the stairway to 11 podcast. Exactly. Check it out. Episode three.

Jay, I agree 1000%. Unleashed, this is one of my favorite albums of all time. It just, it sounds so good. It would be interesting to trace. There's some lineages there that work across other bands like this too. And what I'm getting at is I am convinced it's because the Marshall JCM 800 must've come out right about that time. Cause that was the first like high gain thing where they used to have to crank the old Marshalls to get it just to kind of break up. And so all I'm getting at is that the same thing is true of the Scorpion 70 records.

70s records were all kind of okay. But then they did this live record right after that amplifier came out and it was like it's so much better than everything. It's the best versions of those songs. I bet if we tried real hard we could find other versions of that. I think Saxon would be another one where they were able to revisit their catalog with the new high gain amplifiers and it just made all the difference. Yeah, I agree. So a little unorthodox pick, otherwise orthodox band, but yeah. And I stand by my summation that I think a

which still was this foundational record for what happened in the 80s. Oh, without question. That's their sound. It started right there. And I think it opened the doors for Maiden and everybody else. My number four, another one that nobody's going to have because you're a bunch of pagan heathen scum. Must be Thrasenblot. It is Thrasenblot. I'm not even going to bother to say my stuff anymore. This is Wanderer on the Continent of Saplings and Metakthonia.

That's a great pick. I'm glad you picked that. No, I'm serious. I actually am glad that we're not going with the usual suspects. Oh, from here on out we are. But it's because I like it. Okay. It's not because they should be. That's what you should pick, I think. Yeah, I picked them because it was duh. And not duh from your perspective. It should be on your list. Oh, no, no. I mean the next three.

The next three, yeah. Those are all wrong. Got it, got it. I voted in for the rest. No, technically I did, but it is infused with truth because these are like the greatest. They're great for a reason. Load and Reload coming up. Something in the Black Album. Metallica is definitely going to be on George's list because there are some... It should be. It's his favorite band. Like I said, I'm just not going to say anything. I don't need to.

I don't need to. Y'all can just do it for me. Let's see if we can pull that off. If not, you'll have to pull me off. I mean, come on. I know that's going to be a George's List. It might be Master and Justice, but we'll keep moving. Back to Markson. Back to me. My number three. Fucking love this band so much. Primordial. The Gathering Wilderness. 2005. Yes. To the Nameless Dead. 2007. Yes.

There are very few bands where I feel the need to buy all of their albums on vinyl. I have all the Primordial albums and all the live albums on vinyl. I love all their records and I think they're frighteningly consistent in delivering greatness every time out. But for me, these two albums represent the very height of their Celtic Black and Doom powers. Yeah, it's their best two albums.

They're great. And I love all the records. And there's songs on other records that are like some of my favorite songs. But these two records in particular, I can't stop spinning. That one, two punch is just, obviously it's one of my favorites. So number three, Primordial. That's a great pick. Awesome. Thanks, Joe. Yeah. And I can't wait for the new record that supposedly drops. Yeah, that might be top three most excited for the rest of the year. Me too. Nice. Especially since it's been so long.

All right, Matt.

Okie doke on my back-to-back.

I had to go with Black Sabbath.

Masters of Reality,

reaching into Volume 4.

Granted, I talked,

there is a range of multitudes of combinations you can do.

And actually, it might be a fun board game.

In terms of my back-to-back-to-back-to-back.

Also Black Sabbath.

Yes, but I went with enslaved.

And I personally was going vertebrae through E, but you could probably do below the light song and just find your way anywhere in there. Go your own way. We'll fleet way back there. Yeah. I love Black Sabbath. When we did our top 50 or 50, pretty much the, like the first five years versus all Black Sabbath. But I think I was picking purple in there, but yeah. I didn't put Black Sabbath on my top five, but in my honorable mentions I had, cause you know, I love Dio.

So Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules were a two for me. Yeah. There are eight albums you could mix and match. Yeah. Yep. They're all great. Yeah, they're all great. Yeah, I was going to say Technical Exit and never say Die would make my list. But then you'd be a jackass. Exactly. Thank you. But I, by the way, I didn't put Blizzard of Oz and Die of a Man Man in my own Marvel Netflix show. You suck. I fucked that up. So my number three is for Jay. Ozzy Osbourne,

and Diary of Edmond 1981. Wow. Awkward. Yeah. That was weird. It's just impossible for me not to have this on my list. Those two albums are so important. And it just frustrates the hell out of me that people call them rock albums now. They were metal albums when they came out. They still are. They're metal albums. It just, I could not stop listening. I still listen to those two all the time. All the time. I still put them in. I swear to God.

And then when I get done listening to them, then I put in the live album and listen to that. Yeah. You got to put on Bark at the Moon. I really want to like that one. And I need to just probably spend more time. And I should. It's good. It's going to be an inevitable fall off. There was just no way it was going to. Yeah. Which is funny. If you worship those two like we. Because I like Jake E. Lee. Because I actually like The Ultimate Sin. I actually like that album. It's a good album. I think it's cool. Yeah. Blues Rock Band.

And the great thing about it is you got those two Ozzy albums and you got the two Sabbath albums with Dio together in the same years. It was a good couple of years. Sabbath albums with Dio. I love them so much. And I had to choose between the two because as much as I love the ones that Jay mentioned, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is my favorite Black Sabbath and I love Sabotage. And I was like, how do I take that over the two Dio albums? I had a hard time.

Yeah, mine is number three is one of my favorite really bands. They have a period where they were great and then they still exist in a form today. But the original period with the original members is still just one of my favorite metal moments. But they definitely released two seminal records of which not unlike Dire of a Madman and Blizzard, I still put on on a fairly regular basis. And it's Venom, Welcome to Hell, Black Metal.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, nice.

Yeah. Two of my favorite metal records of all time. And so fucking good. I still put on I and Clank Knock Music, which is the live one. That was my first Venom. And I was like, what the fuck is this? Yeah, it's good though. It's got a lot of the great stuff. So anyway, I don't think that requires a lot of explanation except for that. That's a great period. Those are two great records. And I figured those would be on your list. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me at all. That's a good, great pick actually. I love that one. I love that we all are going in different directions with this. Yes.

I love doing stuff like this. I will say this though too. I do feel like, I don't think I was trying to look at the grand history of the American Songbook or anything like that, meaning what is the best or whatever. Those are for you. All I need to say is just, you're saying Marcus, and those two are just really close to my heart. Like when they came out, they just changed a lot for me. I think that's why we have so many different picks because it's really, I really love this top five because it's really about what really moves you. These albums that mattered to you,

Especially if you picked up that first record, whatever it is. Like I talked about Bolt Thrower, Fourth Crusade. It's really the first record I picked up and spun from them. And it has such sentimental value. And then you hear the next one. And that makes a mark on your life, on your metal life. And it's all different for everybody. How do you come across that? Oh, totally. It's fun about it. Adjacent to Venom, and I would say the prototype to Venom. And we were talking about Priest and how difficult that was to navigate.

and sometimes it was one good one whatever so you try to find those two records i didn't try that hard but it was hard to do motorhead because motorhead was kind of one on one for a while there and because it like goes overkill and bomber's good but it's not as good as overkill closest i can get and i think john will appreciate this is ace of spades and iron fist yeah it's the one i thought of yeah yeah so that's probably but i still it didn't quite reach the heights of of the rest of my list all right jorge what do you have that none of us cares about i i'm just joking that's how he's how he's felt about it

So far, we all care about you and your list. I haven't done one of mine yet, so who wants to do my number three? I'm thinking Jay does. Metallica, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets. You got it. Nice. We knew that was going to be on the list. And I don't know if there is any other way to go with writing. You could do justice. Depends on how your era. But Ride the Lightning was my first Metallica album, followed by Master of Puppets, which blew everything away, so those clearly have to be my two. And yeah,

Okay, it's Metallica, whatever. Everybody likes it. But for me, that was a life-changing event. George, they should be on our combined list of these. They have to be. Those are two unbelievably important albums. They have to be. So I'm glad you picked up. George, I actually did have Kill Em All, but it didn't blow me away like I already did. Ride the Lightning did, though. And I bought Ride the Lightning the same day I bought Into Glory Ride. Ooh. Yeah, literally the same day. And I didn't know what Into Glory Ride was.

I was like I'll fucking buy it. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. No, it's as easy and as good and as hard as it gets. That's those two. Yeah. No, it's an honorable mention for me. Has to be. Because I'm not, I don't have as big a connection to Metallica as like George does or other people does, but I fucking love those records. I do love those records. If they would have, if I would have connected them when I was younger. That's what it is. I think they'd

be on the list, but they still deserve a mention. I knew they'd be on George's and they're fucking phenomenal. But again, for me, it's the albums that spoke to me when I first heard them mostly. Well, look at it this way, me and George both, I can speak for both of us to say our hormones were out of control when we first heard those records. Yeah. So a major imprint was placed on our brains. Yes. I was replacing female affection with heavy metal. Yeah, me too. I don't know what grade.

I'd have to think of what grade I was in, but it was early junior high maybe or something, or middle junior high. Well, it was 1986, which was like 7th grade, 8th grade. So maybe 8th grade. Oh, wait, no, it was 8th grade. What? So I think 9th grade for me, 8th grade for you. I think it was like at the end of 8th grade into the summer, into the fall of fall. When did it come out? Actually, I think it came out in the fall. No, it had to be

of 86 because Cliff died in September of 86. Let's get it. I'm going to look it up. What are we talking about? Puppets. Puppets was 86. March 3rd. March 3rd. Yeah. I knew it was early in the year because. Okay. So I was still in high school. That's the point I was trying to make. Barely, right? Was I in college when I came out? I was in 84. I was nine.

-86 is Master of Puppets. So you were 11? - I was. So that's the thing, like I was even in metal at that point. That's why I don't have the same connection. - I was 'cause I am metal. - You're the podfather. Of course you were, George. - I was 15, dude. That's the perfect age to be when that record came out. - Exactly. - That is the perfect age. - Yeah. - Back around the ride here. - Number two. - Yes, it's me.

I think you can't.

I got those out of order, but that's okay. I don't think so. We both got them out of order. Just perfect. I know Jay and I are in the same Slayer camp. But I can't fault you. No, but here's the thing though. The band, they put out Rain and Blood, one of the most revered, ferocious metal albums of all time. And they had to follow that up. And they did it by changing the formula. They slowed the velocity down. They could have just

recorded Rain in Blood Part 2, but instead they made a ballsy move and added an unexpected new dimension to the band with just more nuanced song craft to their repertoire. And South of Heaven is what made me really love Slayer even more. And I just snuck some Judas Priest into the list too. Dissendant Aggressor. Yeah, Dissendant Aggressor is on that record. So I love South of Heaven. I just, that album, and I just thought of this.

It's the 30th anniversary of South of Heaven, which is pretty crazy this year. That is nuts. But here's an interesting thing. I think Will would probably go South of Heaven, Seasons in the Abyss. Yes, I think he would. He loves Seasons in the Abyss, yes. Yeah, even though I know he loves Rain of Blood, Seasons is his favorite one. And I know he loves South of Heaven, so he probably would have gone that direction. Was Seasons in the Abyss Dave's last record before he split? I think it is.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause then we had the, uh, the, uh, dial of us in music. Did that? No, there was another one before that. Sorry. Uh, dominate something. Divine intervention. Yeah. Yep. Gotcha. Okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to step on your narrative there. Marcus. I was done anyways. Yeah. No, for me, cause South of heaven is my favorite. It has to be in there. And of course, random blood, that's a no brainer for me. Cause, uh,

Yeah.

Matt. Darn. Okay. My back to back. There is this band called Mastodon. Ooh. I'm real curious to see which direction he's going. Back to back. One was called Remission and one was called Leviathan. Same route as John. That wasn't a given, Matt. I wasn't entirely sure that's the direction he's going. But over the last year, I am just hopelessly in love with Remission. My love with Leviathan is clear.

But if I'm going with my back-to-back-to-back-to-back, it was Black Sabbath, self-titled through sabotage. Wait a minute. You did six there, not five? I did six. Oh, okay. That just breaks all the rules. You see why? He's bitchy. I caught that. This is more show-and-tell than bragging, but this is my love for Remission. It's a special edition. I shelled out for that. By the way, have you ever seen this, Mark?

It's got an artistic interpretation for every song by the artist who did the cover

and so on and so forth. Such a cool little set. Not a lot of stuff in it, but it's also remastered. It comes on some cool

colored vinyl and stuff, but it's such a cool thing that relapsed, but it must have been a tenth. Way to make Matt jealous.

I'm glad you guys like it as much as you do. I knew John did.

So maybe we can wrap this shit up so I get to the airport and then get to Jace House.

And you know the beauty of remission

and I don't know if you guys ever picked up on this

but Ol' Nessie is a Rush song

It's also probably my favorite song on that record

That?

I don't know, now I gotta think about that for a second

It's a tough call

I need to first figure that out for you

Those first four records

they're so good, I could see

doing it any different combination

for the two

just because they're so good.

This is too easy, but what do the first three Master Time records all have in common? Oh, Mother Puncher's great.

They don't suck.

That's a broad question.

Animals?

No, but you're on the right track.

They all have a song about the Elephant Man on them.

Oh.

And you just showed that insert with the illustration of the song, and it definitely was the Elephant Man.

So it's Elephant Man in the first one, and then Leviathan closed with Joseph Merrick, which is the Elephant Man's real name, and then I forget which one it is on Blood Mountain. I'll have to go look, but Blood Mountain also has a song about the Elephant Man. Something about Squatch? He says Squatch. So you said Mother Puncher, John? Yeah, Work Horse, Mother Puncher, Old Nessie. That album is so fucking good. I don't think I ever saw him do Old Nessie, and it seemed like one they would just obviously do.

I'll check when you guys are talking. I think they opened up with that one the very first time I ever saw them. I have to check. Do you know what tour it was? It would have been on the Blood Mountain tour. I'll double check. I saw that tour though so maybe I did see them. I'll take a look. I'll look after my pick here. It's so interesting to me. We talk about this a lot but Metallica and Mastod, the two bands where those first few albums are so fucking good.

So revered. And then after that, we just don't connect with them at all. I can't think of any other bands that are like that. Those two. Gojira. Yeah, Gojira is a big deal, too. I guess that's true. And I think it's because of the absolute, devastatingly good quality of those first few records. You know what I mean? They're so good. And you're just like, these guys are going to change the world. And in a way, they did for a few records. And then you're just eternally disappointed after that.

So Jay real quick my first time ever seeing them they opened up with old Nessie

they went right into circle the size Squatch then they followed it up with iron tusk and march of the time

march of the ants those are the first four my son's songs ever saw live i was just like who are these guys

what the hell is that yeah okay i saw that tour so i probably saw it since i don't remember that

That means I don't get to claim it. And I saw them at Rams Head in Baltimore. And George will note this means they only had the downstairs open. The top was completely closed because they didn't sell enough tickets. So it was like 350 of us just on the floor. I was standing right in front of Bill the whole night. I was like, what the fuck? So anyway. All right. So my number two is going to be the second repeat. Surprisingly. Yeah. And it's a second repeat on my list.

What the fuck? I didn't think anyone was going to have anything on my list. My number two. It's obvious. Because the first of these two albums is my second favorite metal album of all time. That's The Gathering's Mandillion in 95 and Nighttime Birds in 97. Yes, John. I feel very close to you at this moment. Yes. You're on this episode's Get a Room. So good. Matt's in there too because he had Macedon.

So I mean, I'm getting it on with everybody tonight. It's just not with this fella. You're not. I'll just drive up one day. Tell us about your experience of those records there, John. I don't think we've ever really talked about it though. So yeah, the first time I ever heard that opening riff to strange machines, I was just like, what is this? And then the kind of synthy bell they use, it's a patch on his synth, but it's not an actual real bell that the bell

They Gong at the beginning. And I was like, oh my God, what is this? And then some 21-year-old no-name girl comes in to sing, because she was a girl back then. I was hook, line, and sinker after the first lyric with that band. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I bought that one, like, Sound Unheard. I just bought it because I was like, I was a metal album. It's on, what was it, Century Media? Century Media, yeah. And I was just like, yeah, I'll get it.

I was like whoa. Yeah. She was just a kid. Yeah. They were all kids but wow. And surprisingly and I'm impressed. Decimal has that in there. I don't know if you guys remember when they used to release those like top 50 or top 100 magazines. Yeah. And they did top 100. I have some of them. Yeah. And it was in their top 100 doom albums. I was actually happy to see that. And there's not one song and on Mandelian I don't like. I like actually every song on both albums but that

The Album just holds a special place.

Absolutely.

Okay, my number two has been a lot of people, it was mentioned as an honorable mention by at least one person, and it might have been two people who have already mentioned it.

But perhaps more importantly than that, even it covers, John can cover me for me and I'll cover for John.

And what I mean is he took Blizzard of Oz, the Diary of Madman, I'm throwing out Heaven and Hell and My Rules.

Nice.

They really are so good. And they're just nothing I don't like on either of them. They're both super exciting. Great. I think. And it's funny that, you know, my Sabotage and Sabbath, I put in my honorable mentions instead of the Steel Sabbath that's pulling on my list. But those are just two fucking great. So good. Yeah. So good. Yeah. Like I said, they were on my, as my honorables, that Dio Sabbath's my favorite. Just. Yeah. And no more need to be said by me, except for that. I do think they are.

The Companion Records to the Ozzy Records. That's a really cool couple of years there that they both, they separated for the benefit of both bands and or turned out to be for the benefit of both bands. And we got four great records out of it. Yeah. I mean, listen, all these records are represented on our top five last year. Totally. All right. So that's pretty cool. Yeah. All right, Jay, what's my number two? I'm not going to start telling them now. Is it Black Sabbath? No. Okay. All right. Who else wants to guess? Yeah.

I got nothing. I don't. That's a good question. So far I said Metallica sentenced and. Yeah. Draw some block. Draw some block. Is it pretty George? Nope. It is very broad. Are you made? No. Close. Close. To his priest. Yes. Oh yeah. Screaming in defenders. Yeah. As previously mentioned by Jay. Mockingly. My number two is just this piece of shit.

called Screaming for Vengeance, Defenders of the Faith. Which, by the way, I'm not going to argue with you, dude. Those are two of the best metal records of the 80s. Easy. Easy. Definitely. It's a good pick. It's a great pick. What do you like? I guess Defenders is your favorite, as previously mentioned. Yes. Unfortunately, Turbo was on the other side of that. Yeah, but Screaming, I could make an argument for Screaming for Vengeance being my favorite out of those two. Yeah, no, I could too, if it wasn't that Defenders was my first. Fair enough.

And fuck, man, open a record with Free Will Vernon. I mean, it ripped my head off the first time I heard it. I was like, what is this? It's so good. Yeah. Screaming was always my favorite of the two because I saw that tour. Yeah. Yeah. And it's memorialized in a very fine VHS slash DVD. From the full conference in Tennessee, I thought. Okay. I'll look it up. But I still watch that. That's on the regular. So good.

Back to Markisan for number one. Number one. Oh, shit. I'm like knocking shit over. Oh, I'm powerful. Yes. Number one actually has been mentioned by my buddy, John. We've had a few, a couple shared things on the list. A throuple. A throuple? A throuple. Did I say that? No, I did.

I know I just don't know how drunk I am John. I'm George by the way. I know I know who you are. You called me John. No I'm talking to John. I'm not talking to you. Who are you talking to? John you don't need me to tell you this because you obviously know but it is indeed Memphis. Oh Memphis not Nashville Memphis okay. Oh Nashville is it guys? Sorry go ahead Marcus. Okay my number one I guess it has been mentioned by John.

And it is Death, Human from 1991, and Individual Thought Patterns 1993. So Human is my favorite Beth album, just like John. And it was a huge leap forward in innovation for the band, a leap that included Chuck enlisting Paul Masvidal and Sean Reinhart from Sinek, a band that also redefined progressive death metal.

I love it I just saw Sinek not too long ago

the bass player was well known at that time too wasn't he

oh yeah

talking about Steve

I'm joking yes Steve of course

and Steve also played on

individual thought patterns

and they followed up with individual thought patterns

which is also high on my list

of favorites from death

because it continued that amazing

progression of human but

it was also fucking heavier

and it had killer performances

from Steve, but also they got Andy LaRocque on guitar. Yeah. It's actually from Death, he was a dark angel. LaRocque, yeah. LaRocque, whatever. No, but that's the dumbest, I like it your way better. Yeah, so it's way better. Like Baroque. Hoagland on the kit. Oh, me, Gene, yeah. Yeah, and that was cool. Like, I love that Death, they brought in different players, each album, and it just, it gave it a little bit of different flavor, but

Obviously still Chuck drove the whole thing but I love both those albums I love the whole death catalog but those two together where you have human where it really brings that progressive death element forward and then it continues the new individual thought patterns but still fucking gets a little heavier perfect perfect two punch combination man. I want to briefly share something with George and I think all of you but

Also, perhaps, I think, John, this will be relevant to you to the most. Not that the others won't enjoy this. But this is this very unbeat up piece of paper is from my copy of Screening for Vengeance. It's the original order form for T-shirts. And look at this merchandise from an unknown land and distant skies. And you have two options. You got the Hellion or the Cross Guitars, and then all of these products can be bought.

for your picture. Wow. You should try to order them. I know. I totally do. And I put it in order. And listen to this t-shirts, $10 postage, $1 for postage and handling. Allow six to eight weeks. Wow. It was either the dirty secret was either four to six. Well taken care of order form that wasn't used. Yeah. That's nostalgia, baby. Oh my goodness. That's awesome.

I remember that. You guys must have some of those stuck in some of your records. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Of course. Oh, my God. Six to eight weeks. Yeah. Yeah, Jay, I was all psyched when I'd say four to six. I'm like, no time. That's pretty quick. Then it would come three months later. Yeah. Strangely enough, my number one for my back to back as well as my back to back to back to back to back is the same band. Fair enough.

And that is death. And as far as what album is back to back, it doesn't matter. It's death. It's fucking death. You still gotta make a choice, buddy. Nice try. Any combination. No, I would probably do, hang on, let me type it in. Symbolic was my first death album. Let's see. It's so good. It's hard, dude. I appreciate the love for human, and I do, because I love it too, but Symbolic always probably my favorite. You know what? I'm going to do Symbolic into Sound of Perseverance. Wow. Oh, nice. You went the other direction.

It's great, dude. Yeah. We don't talk about that record a lot when we talk about death. There's a lot of great stuff in there. And they're all good. Yeah. It's technically a Control Denied album, but he couldn't use that name. But I love that cover on that record. It's so fucking cool, too. Oh, God, yeah. I ordered the shirt for that, and when I got it, it was horrible. Oh, seriously? It's like gold. And I don't know, it just looked funny. I'll have to go find it again, but yeah. You should wear it on a podcast, George. I should. I just love that cover. I have so many

I have shirts just thrown in the corner and I always wear the same like three four or five shirts we all do yeah you gotta print put them away George and then bring out new ones yeah I should like just bring like boxes of them down here and just before the pot I'll just throw one on you gotta rotate it just do that do the blankets or they cut them out and then make a blanket I've thought about doing that I have because I have so many oh that's right we talked about it yeah forget about that yeah you know because we'll do it but I think it was with marine stuff or something oh here's a

story for you guys. So on 4th of July here in Chicago, it rained a shit ton, right? I got the house. We've been talking about how it's very different to have a house. I got a little flooding. We've had a lot of rain here, but on the 4th of July, it rained on Saturday and then Sunday, it was just a downpour nonstop all day. So in my basement, they have the cement floor and then there's, it's basically like an apartment down there. Somebody can't live there.

There's a kitchen. There's like extra rooms. They're all raised up. But the main area where you have the laundry and everything, it's got the concrete. And that's where it flooded just a little bit. And then there's like a closet area where it flooded. So I have all these metal shirts that just don't fit or that is worn out that I was going to donate. And I was like, I don't fucking, I don't have a mop. I don't know what to do. I have a shop vac. Metal will clean it up. But I got to clean it up.

Tracy's always getting on me about metal shirts and how I have or whatever so I had gone through them put them downstairs I'm like all right I'm not gonna I don't need all these metal shirts when I donate these but then it floods I shop back in I need something I don't have anything I got these fucking metal shirts put them all down I had more metal shirts than I needed to cover the ground for this little bit of flooding that I have I mean it was a little a good amount perfect so now I told

I can buy

however many metal shirts I want

because eventually I'll get rid of them

and then we'll use them to stop the flood.

She's like, that's how it works.

I'm like, that's how it works.

I have a few of those too.

So I washed them and now I have a box

of metal shirts

for flood damage and

water.

I forgot where we went.

I know me too. That went. Hey, Jay, I want to say I like your shoes in the picture you posted for this episode. Let me look. I like that you already know which one is me. That disturbs me slightly. It's obvious. I put it on Instagram too. Yeah, I saw that. That's how I noticed. Because I tag you in it. Yeah. So I have to say, I'm actually disappointed. Like, I thought my list was really unique. And apparently,

Not really not. No. Nice try, buddy. Yeah. Boy, I suck. No volleyball for you. No Wilson Award for you, John. I know. Who would have thought that my volleyball would be Aussie? No, I think my volleyball is intact here for my number one. It shouldn't come any surprise. And I'm not going to waste any time. It's my favorite. The first one is my favorite album. Not just my favorite metal album, but my favorite album. And my number one is Opeth Still Life 1999 and Blackwater Park from 2001.

There it is.

There it is.

Yo, it was coming.

And both albums have been inducted into the decibel hall of fame because

still life is on the issue.

It's funny, but I would have considered going the other direction.

I love still life, but the animation did come out before deliverance, didn't it?

Or vice versa.

No deliverance first.

Okay.

That'd be our choice for me.

Cause I still, if it's great, but I do fucking love deliverance.

Yeah.

That's another band.

you can go back to back to back. Yeah. So yeah. You know what's going on the list. Yep. Yep. George, I'm going to give you a crack at mine. Since you've given me a crack at some of my, if you really just think what's the most obvious dumbass thing Jay would do, probably one of them is often quoted as my favorite metal record of all time and it's not Holy Diver. So that means it's merciful fate. That would be Melissa and don't break the oath. Nicely done, sir. Nice. That's it. I mean, come on. And there's two records.

I love so much and the fact that they managed to crank them out back to back is stupid. Yeah, no, I was actually thinking that earlier tonight. I was like, ah, it's totally going to be out. It's stupid. It is. It's just you don't live through a bunch of those and it was fun to live through that one and I still just love those records back to front. And the funny thing is those are two records that I have listened to so many times that have not lost even a touch of their freshness. Probably almost more than any other metal record I listen to them and I never am like, I'm skipping a song and bored of

this. That's probably because of the sheer amount of time changes and blah, blah, blah, but still. So it was a no-brainer for me. Yeah, it is. All right, then, Jay, return the favor. What's my number one? Considering my number two. It's got to be Maiden. Could it be Number of the Beast, Peace of Mind? No. Peace of Mind. Close. Yes. It is Maiden. Peace of Mind, Power Slave. Okay. Also a fine choice.

Well, you could even have gone Power Slave somewhere in time. Yeah, but like Peace of Mind is actually probably my favorite. That's your favorite one. Yeah. Even though I love Power Slave. That was a tough one for me. I really wanted to put some Maiden in there, and I think it would have been Number of the Beast for me, and I didn't want to go back to Killers. But I could say Peace of Mind was. Number of Beast and Peace of Mind. Peace of Mind, yeah. I knew that would be you guys, too. I was like, they're not going to get this because they're going to think that. See, for me, Brave New World, but it's like,

I can't just know before. Yeah, it doesn't work. Oh, but by the way, I'd love to be reminded how wrong I am about shit sometimes, frequently, actually. And I went on MTV late at night. They still have their metal mayhem thing. And every once in a while, I'll be drinking a beer or something. I'm like, hey, it's on. I'll watch it for a minute. And I was on the other night. Well, this is probably a few weeks ago. And Be Quick or Be Dead was on the amazing song. And I was like, how did I just gloss over this?

This is a really fucking good song. That's No Prayer for the Dying? It's heavy as fuck, dude. Fear the Dark. Fear the Dark. Okay. Yeah, that's right. You missed it, Jay, because there's two good songs on that album. Yeah, and I know that to be true. And I've heard Be Quick or Be Dead a thousand times. I was just like, holy shit. It's a great song. Coming at it with nothing in front of it and nothing behind it and a cool video out in an industrial yard or something. I was like, this is fucking good. Yeah. And heavy. It is interesting with Embedid because they do have some

I don't like them as a whole, but they always have at least like one good song. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Thank you guys for making me not have to say any of my five. So predictable. I'm just sitting back and yeah, being predictable, I guess. Well, being knowable. All of us are pretty vocal, though. We love the most. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do some honorable mentions, though, George. What do you have?

I didn't write any down the Slayer obviously gosh there wasn't anything anybody said that I wouldn't agree with so all your stuff that would be an honorable yeah you know what I'm gonna race through mine again just to do it because I think it'll sound a little different after what we just did sons of golden darkness all shall fall number of the beast peace of mind back and black for those about to rock schools out million-dollar babies Sabbath bloody Sabbath sabotage John rising and long live rock

and roll accident of birth chemical wedding you might have guessed that about me ruin vertebrae carving out the eyes of god blood for the master stained class and killing machine abigail and them wheels of steel denim and leather or denim and leather powering the glory hollow weights rain and blood force it no heavy putting buffalo i'm the only one who's going to have the ufo but all that fit in there and hurt my feelings to not include you know right right yeah i mean for me the ones that we mentioned and i said they were on my list black sabbath heaven and hell

and Mob Rules, Masked Down Leviathan and Blood Mountain, Metallica, Ride the Lightning, and Master of Puppets. And then I had some new, well actually I had one old one and some newer ones. The older one I had, and I didn't put it on my list because fucking, it's so controversial sometimes when you talk about this, but Dissection, The Somber Lane and The Storm of the Lights Bane. Yeah. That would be on a lot of lists, Marcus. Yeah, it would. It's so good.

You can go for the hat trick though with Rain Chaos too. I mean, that was great too. I mean, it's so good. But also I had some newer bands that just really stuck with me and that's Yellow Eyes, Sick With Bloom from 2015 and Immersion Trench Reverie from 2017. One of my favorite black metal bands out there. Chemists also, both these albums were number one on my list. Hunted and Desolation. Love both of those. And then Weak, Divine,

Ruin from 2020, that was my number one. And then Thought Form Descent just last year was my number two record. So I felt like I had to put those in honorable mentions because clearly I thought very highly of them to be that high in my top 25. So. I'll throw one more out, but there's an EP between them, but I would say Morbid Tales and Tomegatherium. Oh God, yeah. Yeah, but Emperor's Return comes out between those two, which I'm not going to count that, but still. Yeah. Is it me or did,

Does Matt have a liquid Snuggie on right now? Matt seems immersed. You said it's hot, man. How hot is it there? And how hot is it by you guys? Not that hot today. We're like mid-80s here. Oh, that's not too bad. No, I got a bunch if you guys got a second. Of course. Yeah, go for it, man. A new one. Blood Incantation, Star Spawn, and Hidden History. Totally, totally, totally. Good one. Here's one for George in Markisan Paradise Lost, Icon and Draconian Times.

Great one. Matt, you want to hit the bar real quick? We probably should, yeah. Candlemask, Epic Doom Metal, and Nighttime. Nightfall. Oh, yeah, right on. Nightfall, excuse me. I can't read my writing. Either way, but that's a good choice. Alice in Chains, Facelift and Dirt. I thought of that one, too. Now, this is going against back-to-back, but they're still back-to-back albums. Cynic, Focus, Tracing Air, only about 18 or 15.

I don't think anyone thought of. Trouble, Psalm 9 and The Skull. I think those two are awesome. Yeah, those are great. Here are my Matt back-to-back-to-back-to-backs. Opeth from My Arms Rehears Through Ghost Reveries. Made in the first seven albums. And this is a nine back-to-back rush. Fly by Night Through Grace Under Crusher. Anybody willing to throw

Rest in Peace and Countdown to Extinction in there? Sure. I so wanted to put in Peace Cells and Rest in Peace, but I couldn't because so far so good. So what was in the middle? Yeah. I thought of two more. Voivod, Nothing Face, and Angel Rat. Yeah, those are the only two Voivod records I like. I forgot to mention Heteros and Nothing Face. Oh, and Nothing Face, yeah. Metal Church also, the self-titled and The Dark. The Dark. Yeah, yeah, I'll find that. Yeah.

I love the first two Crimson Glory albums a lot.

Those are really good.

And by the way, we didn't even get into stuff like Zeppelin and whatever.

I put Deep Purple on my honorable mentions, but the Zeppelin is one through basically physical graffiti in my book.

Is it metal, though? I don't know.

No, no, it's proto-metal.

Rush isn't metal, but Rush deserves to be on every list.

It's Rush, though. They can be on any list. I don't care.

And how about Tua, Enema, and Lateralus? Yeah, I thought about that. You mean Undertow and Enema. Lateralus is there. I like Action and Tua a lot. Undertow's awesome. Yeah, it is. Nile's done a bunch of good records in a row. What about Isis, Oceanic, and Panopticon? Oh, God, I forgot about that. Isis was on my short list. It's very difficult. And I got a good call out with all the Carcass records in a row. Totally worked for me. You know what I mean? Shit, man. I got one for you, George.

Corner, No More Color, and Mental Vortex. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I was getting deep in the weeds. I love Cormorant. I love all their records. I could have picked any of those. They haven't done anything in a while. They broke up. They broke up. So good. Okay. All their records are great. Here we go, George. Your Zoma for you. Fate's Warning, Specter Within, and Awaken the Guardian. Yeah, boo. Yeah, totally. Yeah, you just keep going and going and going.

Yeah, it's fun. It doesn't stop. That was a fun one. I really liked that. It was tough, but I mean, I'm happy with my picks for sure because I thought about it so much, but. I gave us a chance to talk about a bunch of different fucking records. Yeah, and we had some that were alike and some that are very different. That's cool. Jim, glad you mentioned Saxon. Yeah, those first four records are amazing, dude. Like even the first first one, the self-titled Stronger Mind of Law, Denim and Leather, Wheels of Steel, and Power of the Glory.

I mean, it's fucking the well-created stuff.

All right, gents. That was fun. We got one more thing to do, Jay. Oh, let's do it. Sorry. Album of the episode. Oh, sorry. We got Matt taking care of. Yeah, Markisan. What do you want to say before Matt? I got to go with Death Human. I just, I fucking love that record so much. And, you know, doing the top five, Death was my number one and Human's my favorite. So there you go. Nice.

Matt, do you want to say Leviathan or something? It was really close. As it is every week. But based on the contractual obligation I've signed, Leviathan by Mastodon. If you had to pick a different album, what would it be? Remission by Mastodon. So if you had to pick the back albums. All right. For me, I'm going to go with that Rannick Confligations as my.

Also the album of the month, probably.

Oh, so we'll see. We'll see.

Preview of maybe. Okay.

In honor of George, I'm going to go with Screaming for Vengeance.

It's my album, the episode with the runner up of Welcome to Hell.

Nice.

Love Screaming.

I wanted to go with 1476, but then when we did our top five,

sentence took it with the gold white light.

There you go.

Nice.

Somehow my five beat my four. I don't know. That probably should have been reversed. But George, you're a mystery wrapped in enigma. Wrapped in a pile of crap. Just cellophane, actually. Oh, yeah. I'd like to suggest in the future we turn our cameras off because I don't like looking at you guys. Yeah. Just joking. No, this has been a blast. Yes. Thanks for coming. Will, we miss you maybe next time. Yeah. Thanks for drinking with us, Jay.

We did this in under two and a half hours and we had HGTV talk for a half an hour. Three and a half. I told you guys, if we did a weekday where we streamline the cast, it would be shorter. Hey, there's going to be a bunch of metal gardens out there. We can do it. There's going to be a bunch of healthy metal gardens out there with no aphids nicely done. Black green foam. Or green black foam. How did I learn that? That's a funny story how I learned that, my friend. Praying mantis for all. Just so you guys know, if you go to the Instagram,

page, you will see that Dan Lake mentioned us having an agricultural discussion on the episode. And I'm like, boy, you have no idea. We did 20 minutes. Who knows how it's going to come out in editing, but still, it was pretty awesome. Yeah. It'll just be like this brain mantis. And then it'll be like, I'm down the line. All right, fellas. All right, guys. See you next time. Good to talk to you. Bye. Have a good weekend. All right, guys.