King Animal, The New Album From Soundgarden, Out November 13th

Soundgarden is one of those bands with such a massive sound that it can take a while to digest the music in it's entirety. I got into them a bit late after seeing them first in the early 90's and then passed on them for a while as they weren't fast or crazy enough for my head space at the time. Thank you to hardcore and thrash metal for dominating the cerebral cortex during those years. As time moves forward though, I have been continually digging deeper into their sound and picking up the older material. Looking forward to checking out the new album.

Dive into all things Soundgarden

Check out Billboard Magazine for more music news

Soundgarden's - King Animal, will be available on November 13, 2012

"Soundgarden will release "King Animal," the veteran rock band's sixth studio album and first in over 16 years, on Nov. 13. The set's first single, "Been Away Too Long," hits digital retailers on Sept. 27.

Since reuniting in 2010, the Seattle group has issued retrospective album "Telephantasm" and live release "Live on I-5." In June, they hit No. 4 on the Rock Songs chart with "Live to Rise," a hard-driving rocker written for "The Avengers" soundtrack that has sold 90,000 downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Chris Cornell, Matt Cameron, Ben Shepherd and Kim Thayil co-produced the album with longtime collaborator Adam Kasper and recorded at Studio X in Seattle. "King Animal" will be released on Seven Four Entertainment and Republic Records.

In March, Cornell told Billboard the album's sound would be diverse.

"I don't really know how to describe it musically," he said, "because typically with Soundgarden... every time we write a song we always take it for what it is and try to make it the most it can be. It's very diverse, I can tell you that."

"King Animal" is the band's first studio effort since 1996's "Down on the Upside," which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200. Other releases include the grunge standards "Ultramega OK" (1988), "Louder Than Love" (1989) and "Badmotorfinger" (1991). They reached a commercial peak in 1994 with "Superunknown," which has sold 3.8 million copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan, and topped the album chart, yielding five hit singles and two Grammy Awards.

Overall, the band has 8.2 million albums sold in the U.S. during their career, according to SoundScan."

"King Animal" Track Listing
Been Away Too Long
Non-State Actor
By Crooked Steps
A Thousand Days Before
Blood On The Valley Floor
Bones of Birds
Taree
Attrition
Black Saturday
Halfway There
Worse Dreams
Eyelid's Mouth
Rowing

Ghost... Hipster Metal Or The Real Deal?

The mysterious melodic sounds of the band Ghost have been making their rounds for a couple of years now. Their approach to subject matter normally being screamed and running parallel to blast beats and stinging guitars, is what has helped to launch them onto an international level.

Are they serious in their approach? Damn right they are. Is their melody refreshing? Well that is up to the listener, but its decidedly different and a fresh approach on tired material. We have been toeing the line on these guys as their melody isn't quite our flavor of soup, but we respect it for sure. For us when it comes to Black Metal, we want it raw and rowdy and with the punk ethos that brought it to the masses. Let Immortal, show us the dark path in their video below...

Ghost rockin' the stage at Roskilde Fest in Europe

Metal Evolution - VH1 Documentary Series

Finally, a great show about Heavy Metal called Metal Evolution and the storied history about where it really came from. VH1, you are alright in our books now and we cannot wait for the Thrash Metal show on December 31st. Our only gripe is that with the series listing, nothing is covered when it comes to Death or Black Metal? C'mon folks, this is a huge area to mine or maybe the suits over at Viacom were a bit nervous about talking to church burners and legions of the damned.

Nov 11: Pre Metal

Nov 19: Early Metal US

Dec 3: Early Metal UK

Dec 10: New Wave Of British Heavy Metal

Dec 17: Glam

Dec 31: Thrash

Jan 7: Grunge

Jan 14: Nu Metal

Jan 21: Shock Rock

Jan 28: Power Metal

Feb 4: Progressive Metal

About Metal Evolution:

Metal Evolution presents 11 episodes based on the much-debated Metal History "family tree" originally shown in Headbanger's Journey. This 24 sub-genre genealogical chart reveals the vast complex progeny of heavy metal--from Early Metal and Shock Rock to Thrash, from Progressive Metal to Grunge and Nu Metal. Using the chart as his road map, our host, metalhead turned anthropologist Sam Dunn, will crisscross the globe in search of the very essence of Metal, from bars and back alleys to the biggest open air festivals.

Get More: Metal Evolution

Some thrash classics...

Remembering Cliff Burton, Passed On 25 Years Ago

Found this amazing write up over at Revolver Magazine with Lars Ulrich of Metallica speaking on Cliff Burton. What an amazing talent that left this world way too soon. For all of us that grew up listening to Metallica in the 80's and being one of our first metal bands, Cliff we forever will remember your memory...

Link to article over at Revolver

Today marks the 25th anniversary of Metallica bassist Cliff Burton’s death. In remembrance of him, the band’s drummer Lars Ulrich (pictured left) gave a personal and emotional account of him in Revolver’s January/February “Fallen Heroes” issue (available here). He had so many great stories about Burton, we couldn’t fit them in the magazine. So, in reverence, here is everything Ulrich had to say about Burton.



REVOLVER What do you remember about the first time you saw him?
LARS ULRICH I had just never really seen anything quite like it. It was just unique and so original. And there was just this incredible stage presence and this uniqueness to the whole vibe. I had just never seen anything like it. It was new, it was different. And obviously you could tell there was an incredible ability, and there was a stage presence, and all this type of stuff wrapped up in this incredible type of personality. And I think we were a little intimidated by him in the beginning because he was just so unique.

But then as we got to know him a little bit, and I sort of started courting him to try and jump ship [from his band Trauma], then I started realizing he was a pretty chill dude. But he was also pretty firm on the fact that L.A. was not for him. ’Cause me and James were trying to get him to come down to L.A., and he just wasn’t into that. He was really rooted up here [near San Francisco], he really was a kind of a Northern California…almost a hillbilly like. I mean, there’s a lot of different vibes up here, and there’s definitely a kind of unique vibe in Castro Valley and Hayward and stuff. And he was a real, really rooted where it came from. And he was probably, certainly speaking for myself, I was much more of a gypsy. When we traveled and stuff like that, he was the first guy to want to go home. And he was the one who was probably at the strongest of roots of all of us. He had family and kind of a history. Me and James were more loners.

He seems like he was laidback.
He didn’t hurt people. He didn’t cross the line, but he was certainly always up for being part of stirring some shit up. But more like a rascal point of view then someone who was out to hurt people. So it was more fun and games. He would fake fight or whatever, throw some kind of fake punches, but he would never throw any real punches. I don’t think I ever saw Cliff in a fight. I don’t think I ever saw Cliff get into heated exchanges or anything. I mean, he was a pretty chill guy. And it never got nasty or unpleasant.

What are your fondest memories of him?
My fondest memories of Cliff are his total disregard for convention and his total disregard for playing things out the way you expected them. He was up to challenge the normalcy, to challenge the status quo, to just fuck with things musically, attitude-wise—the way he dressed, the way he carried himself, his sense of humor, his relationship with the music that inspired him, the music that he played. It was always very unconventional, and it was very unusual. You could certainly argue that me and James [Hetfield] at that time were more kind of the squarer guys, ’cause we were more like, “Motörhead, Iron Maiden!” Heavy metal T-shirts, and long hair and bang our heads into the wall. Cliff was just so fast in his palette of things that he was into and things that were inspiring him and the things that he was doing. So it was definitely his music, and his attitude, and his approach towards life that really inspired me and James to broaden our horizons, broaden Metallica’s horizons musically. So when I think of Cliff, that’s what I think…that’s just kind of variety and unpredictability, you know



What are some of the bands he turned you on to?
First of all, he was classically trained and really knew his way around classical music. He actually studied classical music at college. So he’s sitting there talking about Johann Sebastian Bach, talking about some of these kind of cool classical things. And I had heard some of these words thrown around when Richie Blackmore was talking about his influences, but it was not something I had ever been exposed to.

Then he was also really…you know, this whole Southern thing. I mean, obviously I was aware of Skynyrd and had an appreciation for some of their heavier moments. But he was so immersed in Skynyrd and .38 Special and ZZ Top and the Allman Brothers and all of these things that kind of came in the wake of that Black Oak Arkansas. And the Outlaws and all that stuff, there was a whole kind of thing there.

He was also really into a lot of kind of progressive stuff like Yes, and Peter Gabriel, and a lot of f prog rock. And he was a hardcore Rush fanatic. Certainly I had an appreciation of Rush, but not to the level that he did. So there was a whole kind of array of things.

When I met Cliff in ’81, I had been through a lot of different musical experiences myself. But at that time, the things that were inspiring me to play music and so on were…I can’t say that Lynyrd Skynyrd was a particularly big inspiration for me to start playing drums. It was much more narrow. Iron Maiden and Deep Purple and Judas Priest and Diamond Head and Angel Witch, and the stories been told a thousand times. And the New Wave of British Heavy Metal stuff, and Cliff was just so wide in his scope. I played him Diamond Head. He liked some of their stuff, he liked some of Iron Maiden’s energy. He liked Witchfinder General, some of that stuff. But he also, he was a little more selective in what he liked, where me and James were more sort of like, Dude, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, it rocks! Where some of it you can argue 20, 30 years later was not as good some of the other stuff. There were hit and misses in there.

But Cliff was sort of into Peter Gabriel, the Police. Some of the stuff, I mean, it wasn’t the enemy because I was aware of the fact that there was musical integrity there. But I can’t tell you I knew much about what the Police were doing other then five songs I’d heard on the radio. But all of the sudden, in between the Diamond Head tapes and the Iron Maiden tapes being played on the tour buses and in the shitty vans, the fuckin’ Police album Zenyattà Mondatta would come on. Or what was that Yes album? 90125 or whatever. Some of that stuff would come on. It would just be nice. He loved to play some early ZZ Top. I just didn’t really know my way around Tres Hombres or the rest of those albums until Cliff started pounding them in our direction.

What do you think of him when you look back at it all now?
He was really cool. It was, obviously other than losing a brother, it would’ve been the more… I would’ve been interested to see what else he could’ve contributed, because it felt like we were just getting started. We just started playing “Orion” again on the last run, in the last two weeks [when Metallica were preparing for the Big Four concert in April]. So playing “Orion,” I think we played it like three times in the last two weeks. You sit there and all of a sudden go, Fuck! What a, just, incredible piece of music. And just so unique. And it would’ve been interesting to see what else would’ve been in that vast well of stuff that he could’ve shared with the rest of us. That will forever be the curiosity element. But I’m so glad that I got a chance to play with him for a couple, three years. And got a chance to know him, and got a chance to drink with him, and all the shenanigans that probably shouldn’t be printed in a nice, family publication like Revolver. But it definitely was a pretty nutty time, and at the time we certainly embraced what life was offering us. And accelerated it to a “mach 10,” as James used to say on stage.