2003, 'twas a very meh year
OK, it's time for Ross' gay Rolling Stone-esque year of music review thingy. let's get the ball rolling...(I will post fruity little commentaries about my choices)
Top 5 Albums of 2003
1. Turbonegro - Scandinavian Leather: The Norweigian kings of deathpunk reformed late last year and released this: A hedonistic glam/punk album that rocked like a motherfucker and put all those fancy "The" bands to shame. Euroboy's solos were a particular highlight (BEST SONGS: Train Of Flesh, Fuck The World)
2. Agoraphobic Nosebleed - The Altered States Of America: Scott Hull (Pig Destroyer, Anal Cunt) & co returned this year and answered the question "how do you top the chaos of 2002's Frozen Corpse Stuffed With Dope?" Easy, you lay down 100 tracks of psychotic electronic grind in under 20 minutes, all on a handy 3" CD that fits easily in your back pocket. (BEST SONG: 12 Days Of Sodom-It's actually 12 songs, but at an average running time of 8 secs per songs, I went with one of the sections of the album)
3. MC Paul Barman - Paullejulah!: This 23 year old Yale graduate restored my faith in hip-hop by releasing one of the wittiest, hilarious and occasionally distasteful rap albums ever! He's relentless in his rhymes which range from subjects such as bookstores and outdoor sculptures. Where else would you hear raps such as "I'm iller than the Illiad" and "Pops made a damn nice lampshade/we stretched his tan flesh out like a band-aid" on the same album? (BEST SONGS: Anarchist Bookstore Pt.1, A Somewhat New Medium)
4. Iron Maiden - Dance Of Death: Possibly the most surprising album for me in terms of quality, the Maidens balanced out the slick production of Brave New World with a somewhat more raw production with this one. Bruce & company use the "if it aint broke, don't fix it" rule to full effect, by doing what they do best, from Bruce's wail to Dave, Adrian, and Jannick's bitchin' guitar work, they delivered possibly their best album since Bruce left and the shite Blayze Bayley joined the group (BEST SONGS: Dance Of Death, Face In The Sand)
5. Exhumed - Anatomy Is Destiny: Alright it's no Gore Metal (their fucking classic debut) but it's better (in my view) than their last release, Slaughtercult. Exhumed continue their homage to Carcass and stick with what they know best: scream/growl vocals, killer solos, technical drumming and graphic details of hacking and slashing. (BEST SONGS: Waxwork, Grotesqueries)
Worst album of the year: Metallica - St. Anger: OK, admittedly it's better than Load and Reload, but that's like comparing shit to sugar in terms of sweetness. Metallica continued to alienate their core audience and kept moving away from their roots by releasing an album full of 3rd rate System Of A Down riffs. St. Anger? More like St. Stinking Pile Of Horseshit!
Best live show: Turbonegro, Corner Hotel Richmond Melbourne October 14. : Simply fucking awesome, do some scrolling down to see a full LJ entry about the show.
Worst live show: June Come Sooner, The Setup and many other shitty screamo/hc bands:admittedly I'm a big fan of Aussie HC/Screamo, but all these bands are starting to sound the fucking same! I think I'll stick with the good ones: I Killed The Prom Queen, Parkway Drive, No Grace, Embodiment 12:14, Not For You, The August Reign.
Best News: The reformation of ANAL CUNT!!!: Scrolling through http://www.sethputnam.com recently, I was very excited to read this, "anal cunt have been added onto the superjoint ritual/morbid angel/devil driver show at the worcester palladium on november 7th. we will be going on first, around 8 i think. this show is all ages. we will also be playing at bill's bar in boston, MA on november 10th with adolf satan, random acts of violence, and in dire need. we will be headlining this show, i'm not sure what time we're going on. get there by 11 to be safe. if you only have the chance to go to one of these shows, i'd suggest the bill's bar show. we should be playing for about 45 minues to an hour (depending on how much time the club gives us) at that show, where as we'll only have about 30 minutes at the worcester show. both shows will include songs we haven't done for MANY years, as well as some some old songs that we never even played live before. at the bill's bar show, mark fields from you're fired will be doing guest backing vocals for the songs that require backing vocals. lots of surprises, etc, in store for everyone. in case you forgot, the current anal cunt lineup is:
seth putnam - vocals (band founder/dictator)
john kozik- guitar (a.c. guitarist from 1992-1995)
nate linehan - drums (a.c. drummer from 1996-1999)
rehearsals have been going very well, and we're psyched to do these shows. the show with superjoint ritual will be the first since we reformed. big thanks to superjoint ritual for going out of their way to get us on this show."
It was fucking great to see one of the most fucked-up bands back again, they're touring Japan soon too, I'm praying they end up flying over here and playing a song in Melbourne (yeah right).
Worst news - The Death of Johnny Cash: OK, so I'm not a fan of his music, but his persona, his reckless abandon for his own life made this guy one of of the biggest, baddest sonuvabitches alive. With the mainstream music scene being as bland and as cookie-cutter as it is today, I mourn for future generations who will be brought up with boring tales such as "the night Pink made out with that chick from Terminator 3"