Pirate Knights

I’ve missed out on posting about some shows, but rather than let the weight of my unfinished drafts keep me from posting, I’m just going to start now.  I’m also trying to re-learn to post longer thoughts than 140 characters.  On Thursday, the Pirate Pagan Knights Fest came through Austin.  We skipped out of the [...]

2008 Best of Lists

Top 5 Metal Albums I thought this year would go  much differently.  All the bands that I love were releasing albums this year, I thought I’d see them all here.  But Children of Bodom returned to their classical ways at the expense of hooks and In Flames made album of mediocre radio-friendly snorers.  Opeth’s album [...]

Buckshot Ep. 11: Shows

Too many shows to make full length single show reviews: Thursday: Opeth at Monarch event center.  Monarch Event Center used to be a movie theater, it’s not anywhere near Red River and 6th, it’s in a strip mall off Airport Blvd.  Not only that, they hung plastic butterflies (get it? monarch?) on shiny strings from [...]

Sludge

This has been the week for sludgy post-metal.  Plenty of bands have jumped into the build-explode-repeat, wall-of-sound, and crushing riffs of the genre this year, but the two best albums of the scene came out this week. Burst has been moving slowly deeper into the genre, from what were crust/hardcore roots.  In Coveting Ways was [...]