2011 And So It Begins... First Buy of 2011

   Ok well I've been compiling a list of CDs that I want to get for 2011, and the list is quite long.  I couldn't really decide what I wanted to get first, well most of all I wanted to wait to get any until DevilDriver's beast comes out in the later part of this month, but come on I just couldn't wait that long.  I'll have to say my first one wasn't very high on my list to be honest it was more towards the bottom.  Well lets just say I totally underestimated this album.  I picked up crowbar's - Sever the Wicked Hand.  It's a great deep low tuned sludgy crunch like Crowbar does best.  These guys really bring a great intensity and visceral presence to the drone, or sludge metal.  Whatever you want to label these guys they do it well none the less.  The album is basically about ridding yourself of anything negative or evil in your life.  Weather it be drugs, alcohol, porn, weight, relationships.  Anything that feeds the evil in all of us, purge it from yourself and start fresh.  That's kind of what I took from listening to Kirk Windstein, the mastermind behind all of Crowbar's sonic ear bleeding masterpieces.  I won't do a complete review of the album, but its a really great hard, heavy hitting, album the whole way through.  With a few clean tone licks spun in there a few times.  So this year I have started off with a real bang.  I hope to keep it going with more great ones.  I'm really looking forward to the DevilDriver album.  I haven't listened to any of the sample tracks or anything because I want to soak it all up for the first time with the whole albums experience.  That's the way to really get the real feeling of a record anyway.  Not listening to sample tracks or stuff from youtube.  I mean those tools are great, but if its an album that I have high hope for I don't do that for them.  That album I have really really high hopes.  I was happy with Pray For Villains.  It was definitely different from their previous material, but I like change.  means you're thinking outside the box, and that's a good thing for any musician.  So we will see what Dez has in store for us this time.  I hope it really kicks their past stuff down a peg or two and shines as their best yet, but we will see.

   

  If you go to wikipedia they have a pretty extensive list of stuff coming out this year, and bands that are in the studio, or just albums in production.  Which doesn't necessarily mean that they will be releasing it this year but they are working on new material none the less.  So hopefully this year if not soon.  Here is a list of the stuff that I'm looking forward to. 

Deicide - To Hell With God

DevilDriver - Beast

Darkest Hour - The Human Romance

Amon Amarth - Surtur Rising

Children of Bodom - Reckless Relentless Forever

Arch Enemy - Khaos Legions

In Flames - Sounds of a Playground Fading

Sodom - In War and Pieces

Cavalera Conspiracy - Blunt Force Trauma

Devin Townsend - Ghost

Lazarus A.D. - Black Rivers Flow

Sirenia - The Enigma of  Life

Stratovarious - Elysium

Ghost - Opus Eponymous

Sixx A.M. - This Is Going To Hurt

Mastodon - Live at the Aragon

Protest the Hero - Scurrilous

Becoming the Archetype - Celestial Completion

Winds of Plague - Against the World

  Now I may not get all of these, or I may get this many and more.  I also get stuff from the past as well through out the year so sometimes some of these get left behind, but its the real important ones that I don't let slip through the mass of stuff I still need to get.  Like for instance in 2010 I got a lot of CDs and I still didn't get Dark Tranquility - We Are the Void, Nevermore - The Obsidian Conspiracy, Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit, Kataklysm - heaven's Venom, Eluveitie - Everything Remains as it Never Was, and Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones.  I still want to get those guys so it may push some of these back.  Its a never ending thing that I will forever be going through.  I know I know how do I deal with all this stress man.  hahaha.  The music gets me through, and my family. 

   Now here is a list of bands that are still working on new material.  Some have titles already for their works, and some are just in the studio working and aren't to that point yet.  None of these lists are complete.  These are just the ones that I am looking forward to hearing from.  If you want the full list go to wikipedia and type in 2011 in heavy metal music and the cool article about this year will come up.  It gives bands that reformed this year, and broke up, news, the list of stuff coming out this year, and the works in progress.  Some of the info may not be 100% accurate but its a good base to see who's been busy and go check it out officially for yourself on their own personal page to get the real skinny.

Alice In Chains

Anthrax

Arch Enemy - Chaos Legions

August Burns Red

Austrian Death Machine - Keep it Brutal

Between the Buried & Me

Bison B.C.

Bleeding Through

Blackfield - Welcome to My DNA

Candlemass

Cannibal Corpse

Chimaira

Converge

Alice Cooper - The Night Shift

Cradle of Filth - Midnight In the the Labrynth

Cynic

Down - 5

Dream Theater

Every Time I Die

The Faceless

Fear Factory

Five Finger Death Punch

Goatwhore

Gojira

Gorgoroth

The Haunted - Unseen

Iced Earth

Judas Priest

KISS

Korn

Kreator

Lamb of God

Jeff Loomis

Machine Head

Marilyn Manson

Mastodon

Megadeth

Meshuggah

Metallica

Napalm Death

Nightwish

Obituary

OPETH

Primus

Rammstein

Riverside

Rush

Satyricon

Seether

Sepultura

Shadows Fall

Spineshank

Tool

Devin Townsend

Trivium

Unearth

Vader

Voivod

White Wizzard

Wizard. 

So there it is.  I know its long but hey just goes to show metal is a movin and the ground is a shaking.  We will break the earth with our metal mania and won't stop there.  LOOK TO THE SKY... DOMINATE, DESTROY, REBUILD.  Ha if you're a true metal fan you'll know where I kind of made that up from.  It resembles an album title along the same lines of what I just said but not exactly.  So can you tell me?  Until next time.  Stay hard, stay heavy