Rush

Artist: Rush
Album: Moving Pictures
Genre: Progressive Rock
Official Site: www.rush.com

Formed in 1968 in Toronto, Ontario in Canada, Rush is the best progressive rock band to come out of the 70's and 80's, and are still going strong today. This trio really fucking rocks. The skill of these musicians is incredible, as is seen across their 19 studio albums and 8 live albums. Geddy Lee is the band's frontman, acting as bass player most predominantly, but is also the vocalist and keyboard player, and is most well known for his incredible bass playing on songs such as YYZ. Guitarist Alex Lifeson shows incredible prowess in his simple yet intricate riffs, allowing the bass to take the lead role while providing the backing instrumentation - until the solo comes, at which point Alex can rip up a solo worthy of some of the greatest guitar gods. Drummer Niel Peart is one of the most well known drummers in all of music history, displaying some of the most technical drumming you'll find in any band short of Dream Theater, and is also the band's lyricist.

Together, these three put on an incredible live show. Over the years, the band members have all added to their respective stage rigs, and the results are astounding. Geddy Lee prefers to run his bass through the PA of the venue, so in the big empty space where his amps would be on stage, one can find various pieces of quirky equipment ranging from rotisseries with reall cooking chickens inside, washing machines with band t-shirts inside which are thrown to the crowd after the show, and vending machines full of flashy pieces of merchandise. Niel Peart's rotating drumset with over 50 drums, cymbals, bells, and other percussive instruments is a sight to behold. Alex Lifeson brings tons of guitars on stage with him, usually switching between each song. The band loves to play funny cartoons and other comedic visuals during their concerts, such as the Little Rush skit from South Park played during their Snakes & Arrows tour in 2007.

Overall, if you like progressive rock, or just want something you can jam to, Rush is your ticket.

Track Listing:
1. Tom Sawyer – (4:31)
2. Red Barchetta - (6:10)
3. YYZ - (4:23)
4. Limelight - (4:20)
5. The Camera Eye - (10:59)
6. Witch Hunt (Part III of Fear) – (4:44)
7. Vital Signs – (4:46)

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ManOwaR

See my chariot run to your ships
I'll drive you back in the sea
You came here for gold
The wall will not hold
This day was promised to me

ManOwaR, I think, are a band that needs no introduction. If you do remain a skeptic, I beg you to tuck your sense of irony safely in its bed and just let go. Get caught up in the glorious celebration of Heavy Metal that is ManOwaR. And just in case that isn't enough, perhaps they aren't so ridiculous, when one considers this appraisal of the albums centrepiece;

De Maio's lyrics imply a careful and scrupulous reading of the Illiad. The songwriter has focused his attention essentially on the crucial fight between Hector and Achilles, has paraphrased some passages of the poem adapting them to the melodic structure with a certain fluency and partly reinterpreting them, but never altering or upsetting Homer’s storyline. The purpose of the lyrics (and of the music as well) is to evoke some characteristic Homeric sceneries: the raging storm of the battle, the barbaric, ferocious exultance of the winner, the grief and anguish of the warrior who feels death impending over him. The whole action hinges upon Hector and Achilles, who are represented as specular characters, divided by an irreducible hatred and yet destined to share a similar destiny. Both are caught in the moment of the greatest exaltation, as they savagely rejoice for the blood of their killed enemies, but also in the one of the extreme pain, when the daemon of war finally pounces on them. Furthermore, differently than in the irreverent and iconoclastic movie Troy, in AAaE the divine is a constant and ineluctable presence, determining human destinies with inscrutable and steely will: and, despite the generic reference to 'the Gods', the real master of human lives is Zeus, the only God to whom both Hector and Achilles address their prayers.

Now, if Mrs E. Cavallini, the Classics professor at Bologna University can appreciate a good bit of True Metal of Steel, I'm sure you can too!

Artist: ManOwaR
Album: Triumph of Steel
Genre: Heavy Metal

Track Listing:

1. Achilles, Agony and Ecstacy in Eight Parts
2. Metal Warriors
3. Ride the Dragon
4. Spirit Horse of the Cherokee
5. Burning
6. The Power of Thy Sword
7. The Demon's Whip
8. Master of the Wind


Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=75OPK4GF

Lich King

Blacke Foryst of Despayr, taking photos of the band
Put 'em up on myspace you're the envy of the land
Posing with a battleaxe and grimacing with hate
When you're done with this, figure skating at the lake!

The following was copied from Lich King's official myspace:

Once upon a time, Thor and He-Man were fighting. He-Man swung his sword of power and Thor met it with Mjolnir, his mighty hammer. The resulting lightningstorm killed them both, but from the blood and ozone and blackened bits of bone a new band was born. This would be the greatest thrash metal band in history. This is their tale. Then they wrote some songs and stuff, casting their spell upon the altar of steel. Gary Holt took a listen and his ears burst into flame. Billy Milano began weeping as he listened, and he threw himself from a bridge in despair. Jeff Hanneman listened to BUT ONE Lich King song and shook his head, then broke his guitar over one knee. He walked into a Staples and began filling out an application.

Sadly, the fans of Lich King are few, as the music is so ferocious and primal that it boils the brain and sends a potential listener to valhalla with but a few tasty riffs. The lesson to be learned is that listening to Lich King will kill you... so don't do it.

I feel that it safe to say that Lich King are totally fucking sweet. This is their second album. If you like your thrash to have a silly sense of humour then this is the album for you!

Artist: Lich King
Album: Toxic Zombie Onslaught
Genre: Thrash Metal

Track Listing:
1. Cheesy Metal Intro
2. Attack of the Wrath of the War of the Death of the Strike of the Sword of the Blood of the Beast
3. Toxic Zombie Onslaught
4. Black Metal Sucks
5. Thrash Resurgence
6. I Destroy
7. Predator
8. Cold Steel Machine
9. Office Politics
10. Lich King II

Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NZO1OU3T

Withered

Thorns of contempt and of disgust
Strip away all my compassion

I find Withered a very difficult band to define. Death Metal seems to be the most prevalent stylistic choice, so that's how I'll label it, but they shift between death to black to sludge to grind and back again so often and smoothly that they can be pretty much anything. However you want to class them one thing is certain: this is a fine piece of metal, to be sure. One minute the guitars may be lulling you with sludgy melody, and then when you're least likely to expect it, they'll fucking crush you with some terrifyingly aggressive riffs. The vocals are fittingly guttural and coarse and match the riff-laden, grinding guitar onslaught perfectly - watch out for some guest vocals from Barney Greenway on ...The Fated Breath and Clamour Beneath. Highlight of the album? The fucking ripping Necrophobic cover it ends with. Good shit yo.

Enough excitement from me. Download and devour this morsel of extreme metal tastiness, children.

Artist: Withered
Album: Folie Circulaire
Genre: Death Metal

Track Listing:
1. To Embrace...
2. ...the Fated Breath
3. Dichotomy of Exile
4. Gnosis Unveils...
5. ...the Forsaken Truth
6. Purification of Ignorance
7. Drawn Black Drapes...
8. ...Reveal the Essence of Suffering
9. Clamor Beneath
10. Into Armageddon

Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YHKXPBTG

Zähringer - Zähringer LP

From the TTR blag

The original Zähringer LP, a very limited release... UNTIL NOW!!! Recorded mostly the day of Goatse Armada's demise, this collaboration between Goatse members Joey Clark and Dom Morris along side with Goatse session member Lawrence Costella resulted in the epic kinda hardcore album posted here. Vocals were recorded on laptop en route to some shitty rave in Baltimore. All songs by Morris/Clark/Costella unless otherwise noted

1. OOOOHHH
2. Intro + Drank
3. Ridin'
4. When the Shit Hits the Fan
5. Teabaggin' It
6. UHN!
7. The End of the World
8. Beast
9. Incubation (Morris/Clark)
10. Psychosis (Morris/Clark)
11. Avalon (Morris/Clark)
12. Error: Fatal (Costella)
13. Everyone Get Happy Now (Clark)
14. Norskson (Morris)

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Cannibal Ox

I rest my head on 115
But miracles only happen on 34th, so I guess life is mean
And death is the median
And purgatory is the mode that we settle in

A rap album for you boys and girls. On of my favourites, in fact. Say hello to the MCs Vordul Megallah and Vast Aire, collectively Cannibal Ox. Definitely grab this if you enjoyed 36 Chambers.

The Cold Vein is the debut album by American hip hop duo Cannibal Ox. It was produced by El-P and released on his Definitive Jux label on May 15, 2001.

The Cold Vein was generally received well by critics, drawing many favorable comparisons to the 36 Chambers-era Wu-Tang Clan.

Many praised El-P's production work, with CMJ contributor Brian Coleman writing "Producer El-P, of the now-defunct Company Flow, gives this Harlem-bred and Brooklyn-based vocal duo of Vast Aire and Shamar what usually sounds like a full goth orchestra perched in a dank basement, with thick synth strings, simulated outer-space found-sounds and choppy, pounding drums." Allmusic contributor Jack LV Isles was also impressed by El-P's beats, writing "El-P (a serious candidate for producer of the year) lays out some of the most lushly intriguing sounds and beats that feel as herky-jerky as they sound gilded with silk."

The album was also noted for its profound lyrical content; many critics and fans felt Vast Aire's and Vordul Mega's lyrics painted a vivid picture of a poverty-stricken New York. Gavin Mueller of Stylus Magazine wrote about "The F-Word", a song addressing unrequited love: "Moments like these show not only the skill of Can Ox’s MCs, but the potential for hip hop lyrics to work on as many levels as the finest English poetry."

The Cold Vein landed on many 'best of 2001' lists and even some best of the decade.

Artist: Cannibal Ox
Album: The Cold Vein
Genre: Hip Hop, Rap
LastFM: http://www.last.fm/music/Cannibal+Ox

Track Listing:
1. "Iron Galaxy" – 5:56
2. "Ox Out the Cage" – 3:28
3. "Atom" – 5:52
4. "A B-Boys Alpha" – 4:27
5. "Raspberry Fields" – 4:01
6. "Straight Off the D.I.C." – 4:17
7. "Vein" – 4:27
8. "The F-Word" – 5:27
9. "Stress Rap" – 5:31
10. "Battle for Asgard" – 4:26
11. "Real Earth" – 3:57
12. "Ridiculoid" – 4:46
13. "Painkillers" – 5:58
14. "Pigeon" – 6:10
15. "Scream Phoenix" – 5:05

Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZE7E9958

Electric Six

Time to get this shit started! The Stormblog is back, and we hope to keep it updating regularly this time! And how better to start than with some Electric Six?

Fire is the debut album of Electric Six, released in 2003. It spawned three singles, the first charting ("Danger! High Voltage") in the US, the second getting heavy video play on MTV ("Gay Bar") and the third being "Dance Commander".

The album received generally positive critical reviews. Rolling Stone called the album a "brilliantly demented party record" and Blender hailed the music as "convincingly ferocious." Detractors of the album such as Splendid called the album "a misfire and a waste of time."

The lyrics of several songs from the album contain tongue-in-cheek references to fascism and militarism, for example the line "Let's start a war" from the Song 'Gay Bar,' and the line "You must obey the dance commander" from 'Dance Commander,' not to mention the song 'Nuclear War (On the Dance Floor).' As the single "Gay Bar" was released around the time of the American invasion of Iraq, radio airplay changed a line from "Let's start a war, start a nuclear war, at the gay bar" to "Let's do an edit, do a radio edit, at the gay bar!". In the UK, the words 'nuclear' and 'war' were censored by a 'whip' sound effect.

Fire went gold in the United Kingdom on 5 September 2003.

In May 2008, the track Danger! High Voltage was used in a Subaru Forrester commercial. It depicts several sumo wrestlers approaching a Forrester with the needed requirements for washing a car, and then parodying the cliche of the sexy woman (women) washing the car in slow-motion. Near the end two elderly people watch the proceedings with mouths agape. The tag line is then said over the end of the clip of the song. The tag line for the commercial is "Japanese SUV's just got a little sexier."

Artist: Electric Six
Album: Fire
Genre: Alternative Rock
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/electricsixmusic

Track Listing:
1. Dance Commander
2. Electric Demons In Love
3. Naked Pictures Of Your Mother
4. Danger! High Voltage
5. She's White
6. I Invented The Night
7. Improper Dancing
8. Gay Bar
9. Nuclear War
10. Getting Into The Jam
11. Vengeance & Fashion
12. I'm The Bomb
13. Synthesizer

Download: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YD1JARDP