The gent who puts on the Anti-Christ Mass festivals and most of the Houston underground metal shows is Luis Carlos, who fronts The Adversary productions. He gave a lengthy interview with lots of information about the state of the underground:

• Interview with Luis Carlos of The Adversary and producer of the Anti-Christ Mass festival

Plaguecast radio brings you the Samhain edition of their mixed metal, noise, hardcore and dark ambient show. Not for the faint of heart.

• Stream online
• Download (117 mb MP3)

The object of the bronies’ fascination is “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic,” a remake of a 1980s animated TV show for preadolescent girls featuring plucky, candy-colored equines.

…

Bronies say their hobby has nothing to do with their sexuality or gender. “I don’t care about showing to the world that I am masculine,” says Jason Subhani, a 19-year-old college student in Astoria, N.Y. A Pony poster on his bedroom wall mingles with images of heavy-metal icons. – WSJ

We have found the great source of Opeth, Mastodon, Isis, Kylesa, DEP, Rage Against the Machine, Tool, etc. fans — they’re not gay, they’re sit-down-to-pee types.

Consort, summon my legion of rape-vultures. We must feast on the prostates of the self-enslaved.

One of our users, Devolved, has launched his own radio show called Are You Morbid? It’s old school underground metal (OSUM) with dark ambient. He will be on again tonight. We recorded the show last week, but this week, we need some help. Can any of you record this live stream from 6-8 PM PST tonight?

Here are some basic instructions. All you need to do is

• Go to your audio controls (double-click on speaker in system tray), select File->Properties, then select Recording from the radio buttons. Make sure Line In is represented and not muted.
• Go to your audio program (Audacity, Soundforge) and in your recording options, select Line In or Stereo Mix.

This will record whatever is playing on your computer. Save the file as an MP3 and upload.

For hilarity’s sake:

The members of death metal bands are not usually accused of tolerance of homosexuals. It’s just not easy to pronounce LGBT in a screech, a grunt or a scream. The two groups don’t usually coexist, so when Samwise Didier played a video of the lead singer from Cannibal Corpse ranting of his hatred of “Night Elf faggots,” many WoW-players and Blizzard fans were stunned. Sure, most of the offensive words were bleeped out, and when George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher took the stage to play with the all-Blizzard employee band Level 90 Epic Tauren Chieftain, only normal non-offensive metal ensued.

Cannibal Corpse is blockhead metal that sold out the percussive sound back in the 1990s, but Corpsegrinder is a really good fellow. It is a sad truth of being a metalhead that there are a lot of interesting and/or good people who make shitty music.

You probably missed the show tonight. That’s understandable — if you haven’t heard it already.

Click below to download the 107mb 128k mp3 capture from this week’s show.

Maybe next week, you’ll choose to tune in. Oldschool metal and dark ambient, with acerbic yet cosmic commentary.

• Devolved “Are You Morbid?” (107mb)

Updated link.

We’ve just conducted an interview with Are You Morbid?‘s Devolved, host of this new underground metal/dark ambient radio show.

Check it out:

• Live stream (mp3) 6-8 PM PST Saturdays
• Interview with Devolved

Currently playing (6-8 PM PST).

From the Times of Malta:

The note, which parish priest Fr Kalċidon Vassallo confirmed was the parish’s doing, comes replete with a hand-drawn skull and pumpkin and warns readers that Halloween “celebrates a culture of death” and “attacks that which is holy”.

In boxed, bolded text, it says: “As a Church, we are warning parents of Halloween’s serious dangers. This feast is a dangerous celebration of fear and the macabre.”

It concludes with a motley list of “other things which draw children towards the occult”. The list includes heavy metal music, negative and fantastical role-playing, sadistic pornography and reading about the occult and Satan.

If you wonder why people distrust religions, it’s because of stuff like this.

You want to find evil? There’s real evil everywhere.

And then some grandstanding idiot, who spends his days comfortably blowing off the actual problems, worries about halloween.

You want evil? How about the toxic waste dumped in the mediterranean sea, the organized crime, the corrupt leaders, the people who walk among us and daily lie cheat and steal, or even Fr. Buttfinger who’s violating young boys down the hall?

That’s evil… but it’s harder to face and harder to win against, where bashing halloween is easy and provides cheap karma points on the social network of do-nothings.

I liked this thorough and insightful review:

When listening to this album, a repugnant air permeates constantly throughout “Infernal Warriors of Death”’s duration, in a similar vibe to Obituary’s “Cause of Death” or Incantation’s “Onward to Golgotha”, although the album is far from a mere rehashing of classics. The gut-wrenchingly low guitar tone is enough to level those without proper preparation, while the blasphemous vocal assault of Lord Apollyon represents an ideal archetype of its genre. The riffing style of Wes Infernal, previously a guitar player for Texas legends Imprecation, concentrates on a more “meat-and-potatoes” style of playing that removes any excesses in favor of a disgusting assault on the eardrums, without any hints of “modern metal” clichés such as overuse of breakdowns or soulless guitar noodling. The rhythm section of Joe Necro (bass) and Matt Mayhem (drums) keep in-the-pocket over the course of the entire album, maintaining a blasphemous beat that compliments the guitar riffing. Lord Apollyon utilizes an echoed effect on many of the album’s songs, which only adds to the old-school vibe of the album. – Texas metal reviews: Blaspherian, “Infernal Warriors of Death” on Examiner.com

Between this album, recent BEHERIT, the new DEMONCY, the last and next DIVINE EVE, recent BAHIMIRON and ASPHYX material, we see how old school underground metal not only remains alive but advancing.

The usual suspects — a media composed of bitter also-rans and half-thoughts — has spewed forth its latest confusion between causation and correlation:

A new study conducted by Melbourne University finds that teens exposed to heavy metal music are more susceptible to depression and suicide.

Dr. Katrina McFerran — who we’ve confirmed isn’t Tipper Gore operating under a pseudonym — looked at the effects of several types of music on teenagers 13-18, and found that there was a higher risk of mental illness.

“Most young people listen to a range of music in positive ways; to block out crowds, to lift their mood or to give them energy when exercising,” said McFerran, “but young people at risk of depression are more likely to be listening to music, particularly heavy metal music, in a negative way.” – Guitar World

What makes someone seek heavy metal? They have realized that morality does not command the world, but power, and have also begun to seek a contrary power that is not afflicted with the terminal small-minded egomania of the modern “equal but unique” individual.

Why might they be depressed? They have realized that our society is falling like Rome fell, and that these things take time, but that the cause is not the damn Vandals but the corruption within. Our society has no values except an immediate and temporary power within the social context. Metal is beyond the social context.

What these dummies should ask instead is: Why are non-heavy-metal-fans in danger of falling into terminal narcissism, egalitarianism, oblivion, selfishness, egodrama and social “nonconformist” conformity?

t’s perhaps the biggest threat to the nation’s mental wellbeing, yet it’s freely available on every street – for pennies. The dealers claim it expands the mind and bolsters the intellect: users experience an initial rush of emotion (often euphoria or rage), followed by what they believe is a state of enhanced awareness. Tragically this “awareness” is a delusion. As they grow increasingly detached from reality, heavy users often exhibit impaired decision-making abilities, becoming paranoid, agitated and quick to anger. In extreme cases they’ve even been known to form mobs and attack people. Technically it’s called “a newspaper”, although it’s better known by one of its many “street names”, such as “The Currant Bun” or “The Mail” or “The Grauniad” (see me – Ed).

In its purest form, a newspaper consists of a collection of facts which, in controlled circumstances, can actively improve knowledge. Unfortunately, facts are expensive, so to save costs and drive up sales, unscrupulous dealers often “cut” the basic contents with cheaper material, such as wild opinion, bullshit, empty hysteria, reheated press releases, advertorial padding and photographs of Lady Gaga with her bum hanging out. The hapless user has little or no concept of the toxicity of the end product: they digest the contents in good faith, only to pay the price later when they find themselves raging incoherently in pubs, or – increasingly – on internet messageboards. – The Guardian

Our society is dying because it has no values in common, and so the selfishness of individuals predominates, and so oligarchy and commerce takes over from where leadership once stood.

Don’t blame heavy metal fans for noticing that, and being willing to face it and be depressed instead of hide their heads in the sand like the rest of you.