Autumn doesn’t officially arrive in the northern hemisphere until the fall equinox – due this year on the 23rd of September. But for many of us, the final long weekend of summer marks the change in seasons we actually feel. Here at Hellbound we’re saying “see you later, summer” with another set of staff playlists: the Labour Day weekend edition. Here, in addition to some general selections, you’ll find listed a few songs about work and some of our top metal picks of the year so far.
Gruesome Greg
LABOUR DAY TRACK
Eyehategod – “Kill Your Boss” (does not apply if you’re self-employed)
METAL PICK OF THE YEAR SO FAR
Brimstone Coven – self-titled (super sleeper pick for album of the year; if you see ’em live, you’ll get it)
LISTENING
YOB – Clearing the Path to Ascend (Neurot Recordings)
Earth – Primitive and Deadly (Southern Lord)
Accept – Blind Rage (Nuclear Blast)
The Monks – Bad Habits (!!!) (EMI)
Rob Hughes
LABOUR DAY TRACK
Styx – “Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)”
I love this song, but it cracks me up. The idea of flourishing arena rockers with white jeans and Farrah Fawcett hair singing about the plight of a hapless Joe who can only aspire to blue-collar status seems ludicrous. But then again it was 1978, so most of Styx’s audience consisted of ordinary working dudes with white jeans and Farrah Fawcett hair. Styx were always about offering their crowd a reassuring pat on the back (see also “The Grand Illusion”), and here they do it with a burning keyboard riff forged in the Heep mold. Very ’eavy and very ’umble indeed.
METAL PICKS OF THE YEAR SO FAR
Morbus Chron – Sweven (Century Media)
Archspire – The Lucid Collective (Season of Mist)
Horseback – Piedmont Apocrypha (Three Lobed)
Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell – Check ‘Em Before You Wreck ‘Em (Rise Above)
The Wounded Kings – Consolamentum (Candlelight)
LISTENING
1. Opeth – Pale Communion (Roadrunner)
2. IQ – The Road of Bones (GEP)
3. Pallbearer – Foundations of Burden (Profound Lore)
4. Heldon – II, Allez-Téia (Superior Viaduct)
5. A Formal Horse – s/t EP (self-released)
ANTICIPATING
Yob – Clearing the Path to Ascend (Neurot)
My Brother the Wind – Once There Was a Time When Time and Space Were One (Free Electric Sound)
Nik Turner’s Hawkwind live
King Crimson live
Sinoia Caves – Beyond the Black Rainbow soundtrack (Jagjaguwar)
Rob Kachluba
LISTENING
Pallbearer – Foundations of Burden (Profound Lore)
Overkill – White Devil Armory (eOne)
Accept –Blind Rage (Nuclear Blast)
Dust Bolt – Awake the Riot (Napalm)
My Dying Bride – A Map of All Our Failures (Peaceville)
Been on a huge My Dying Bride kick lately after being mesmerized by them at Maryland Deathfest. I bought like 10 of their cds In the last month or so.
Chainbreaker and Bat – live (Thursday, August 28 at the Bovine Sex Club on Queen St W in Toronto)
ANTICIPATING
Lot of good shows im going to in the next few months:
King Diamond
Overkill
Pallbearer
Jonathan Smith
LISTENING
1. Mares of Thrace – The Pilgrimage (Sonic Unyon)
2. Tiamat – Wildhoney (Century Media)
3. Anathema – Distant Satellites (Kscope)
4. Casualties of Cool – s/t (HevyDevy Records)
5. Nadja – Corrasion (Foreshadow Records_
WATCHING
Under The Skin (dir. Jonathan Glazer)
READING
Silk, Caitlin R. Kiernan
Laura Wiebe
LABOUR DAY TRACK
Brutal Truth – “All Work and No Play”
A harsh, grinding and cathartic critique of the harm wrought by the existing global economic system.
METAL PICKS OF THE YEAR SO FAR
Dread Sovereign – All Hell’s Martyrs (Ván Records)
Grand Magus – Triumph and Power (Nuclear Blast)
LISTENING
Hypocrisy – The Arrival (Nuclear Blast)
Killer Be Killed – self-titled (Nuclear Blast)
Melissa Auf der Maur – Out of Our Minds (MAdM Music)
Novembers Doom – Bled White (The End)
Vallenfyre – Splinters (Century Media)
WATCHING
The Strain
The Bletchley Circle
ANTICIPATING
Blood Ceremony, Spell and Funeral Circle live in Toronto – September 6
Time to properly listen to the new Opeth, Pallbearer and Yob records.
Adam Wills
LISTENING
Opeth – Pale Communion (Roadrunner)
Pallbearer – Foundations of Burden (Profound Lore)
Mica Levi – Under The Skin Original Soundtrack (Warners)
Dawnbringer – Into the Lair of the Sun God (Profound Lore)
Haken – Visions (Sensory)
WATCHING
Under the Skin (dir. Jonathan Glazer)
