After several years establishing themselves as one of the greatest thrash metal bands in the world, Brazil’s Sepultura put out their death metal opus, ‘Chaos A.D.’ in 1993 which brought them mainstream success. This was back in the early 90s when death metal was a little slower and more interesting, inspired by bands like Sweden’s Entombed.
Chaos A.D. stood out not only because of the large hardcore punk influence, but also because of the unique rhythms present in the songs. Max Cavalera had been known for his interest in the music of the native Brazilian tribes and he brought some of those beats into play on Chaos A.D. This sound is a bit dated now as a lot of mediocre metal bands added tribal beats to their music in the late 90s, but in 1993 tribal beats in heavy music was unheard of.
This video was shot on the Israel-Palistine border; I’m not sure if Sepultura were pro-Israel, anti-Israel, or just anti-war. From the looks of the video, maybe they just wanted some shots of metal looking dudes looking hard in the Middle-Eastern desert.
Matisyahu became famous a couple years ago, most of the buzz was due to the novelty of there being a Hasidic reggae singer. I think his music speaks for itself and shows that he is more than just a gimmick. This live version of ‘King Without a Crown’ from the ‘Live at Stubb’s’ album is probably his biggest hit; I think it sounds better than either of the recorded versions on his two studio albums, ‘Shake Off The Dust . . . Arise’ and ‘Youth’. Notice the stage dives during the solo, which apparently he can’t do anymore because the Rabbis told him that he runs the risk of being touched by unmarried or menstruating women . . . Isn’t old time religion grand?
Back in the early 90s when punk became marketable thanks to bands like Green Day and the Offspring, a lot of other, less accessible bands tried to get in on the action, including New York Hardcore veterans Sick Of It All. They put out a record, Scratch The Surface, on a major label (EastWest, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers) and had a video on MTV, but they refused to compromise their sound and never became a commercially successful band. Nonetheless this video has become something of a cult favorite among hardcore punk enthusiasts; Step Down is one of their most popular songs and quite frankly this video is just tons of fun to watch.
Since I was talking about At the Gates last week, I figured it only fitting to post a Haunted video. The Haunted were born out of the ashes of the Swedish metal phenomenon At The Gates. They started out as a pretty straightforward thrash band in the vein of Slayer, but as you can see here their sound has gotten a bit more accessible.
Honestly I don’t think their newer stuff is nearly as good as the stuff on their second album (The Haunted Made Me Do It) but this video is pretty cool for reasons I probably don’t have to mention.
This is a gem from the golden era of thrash, probably Anthrax’s biggest hit from their best album, 1987’s Among the Living. This was the classic Anthrax lineup of Joey Belladona on vocals, Charlie Benante on drums, Frank Bello on bass and Scott Ian and Dan Spitz on guitar. Awesome hair.
I just heard that At The Gates is re-uniting to do a tour of Europe and the US, which got me listening to their records again. They were a very influential Swedish metal band in the 90s (they broke up in 1996) whose members went on to be in The Haunted, The Crown, Disfear, Cradle of Filth, The Great Deceiver, Nightrage and Skitsystem. Blinded By Fear is the first song on Slaughter of the Soul, which is considered by many to be a classic album and it’s influence can be clearly heard by more modern US bands like Darkest Hour and Black Dhalia Murder.
The video is a pretty standard rock music video; nothing special here, but I think the song makes up for that.
I figured throwing some rap in here was long overdue; Cannibal Ox was something of an East Coast hip-hop supergroup featuring Vast Aire and Vordul Mega (of Atoms Family) and produced by El-P. They put out one album, ‘The Cold Vein’ in 2001 and since it has gone down as a classic. Their sound is sort of indicative of the New York underground sound; there is a lot of influence on the beats and not really any hooks or choruses on the album. I think what makes their record really stand out is the production. I was never really a fan of LP as an emcee so I was pretty surprised to find out he made the beats for this album, it has a very strange and original sound, this record sounds like it is from outer space. Painkillers is a great example of this.
Honestly, I don’t really know anything about this band. Seems to be some sort of gimmick group pairing white-people-dance-music with little kid singers, but regardless the video is awesome. Once the 10-year old hipsters enter the party things get wild. I’ll let the video speak for itself.
Violent Femmes self-titled first album was hailed as a classic and you still hear Blister In The Sun on radio stations and cheesy movie soundtracks to this day. Their second album, Hallowed Ground, was considered a disappointment by music critics and the vast majority of fans. With songs like Country Death Song, Never Tell, Jesus Walking on the Water, and Black Girls the album confronted singer Gordon Gano’s lifelong battle with religion (he was the son of a Baptist minister) rather than rehashing the teen-angsty lightheartedness of the first album. Because of the dark tone of the songs and some of the more experimental sounds used (including a horn section led by John Zorn) the album was a flop.
Music critics wrote reviews claiming that Gano had let the success of the first album go to his head and that the lyrics of the older, more mature Gano were not as interesting as those written by the angsty, teenage Gano. Gordon replied to these reviews, revealing that he wrote the lyrics to every song on Hallowed Ground while zoning out in his 10th and 11th grade math classes, the exact same time period when he wrote the songs for the first album. According to Gano the inaccuracy of the reviews were very telling to him about how adept most music critics are.
This is probably my favorite Violent Femmes album for a lot of reasons and Country Death Song is probably one of the more interesting tracks. It’s dark, religious undertones are indicative of what will be found on the rest of the album.
NOTE: this is not a real Violent Femmes music video, this is an art student’s animation project, but I think it fits the song very well and I liked it enough to post it here.
I think this was Bad Religion’s first real music video; it’s from their album Recipe For Hate and is probably one of their most poppy and lyrically most interesting songs. I believe Greg Graffin wrote the song in reaction to George H.W. Bush stating that America couldn’t do wrong in the Gulf War, because Jesus was on the side of America. In general I think the song is meant to poke fun at the often hypocritical neo-Christian values that America was founded on, as well as the suggestion that Jesus was someone that would endorse American values.
The video is kind of funny, there is sort of a rusty black-and-white color to the whole thing which I think is used to mock religious imagery and we see people carrying crosses on the LA freeway. You can see Greg Hetson of the Circle Jerks playing guitar in the video as well as Mr. Brett; Brian Baker of Minor Threat wouldn’t join the band until Mr. Brett’s departure after the Stranger Than Fiction album. Ironically, Mr. Brett joined the band again a few years ago and now they have three guitar players; the band is now something of a punk-rock retirement home.
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