One of WikiHow’s featured articles of the day:

While most people associate death metal music with a bunch of guys grunting and slapping detuned guitars randomly, there’s a multitude of reasons why this genre maintains a strong following and earns the fierce loyalty of many listeners worldwide. If you’re curious about death metal, here’s you’re chance to learn, appreciate, listen, and enjoy.

Read the full article here.

Now, I doubt most people reading this need a guide to tell them how to appreciate death metal, but you probably know at least one person who thinks death metal is all ultra-distorted guitars melded with “cookie monster” vocals. Point them to this article and set ‘em straight.

Also don’t miss other great articles like How to Do Harsh Death Metal Vocals, How to Apply Corpsepaint, and the best of all, HOW TO BE METAL (but where’s the beMETAL link?)!

As you may have guessed from my recent lack of posting, I haven’t had much time or inspiration to add stories here for a while.

So I’m thinking, maybe there are others out there with a bit more time on their hands who might want to contribute?

If you’re interested, shoot me an email or leave a comment.

So with the whole Ozzfest / Sharon Ozbourne / Iron Maiden egging debacle that went on last summer, what looks to be a seriously shitty lineup for this year, and hell, even Ozzy himself is calling it quits, it all begs the question:

Do we need Ozzfest anymore?

Some might argue that Ozzfest was never really that great. It’s way too overpriced, bands’ sets are too short, and the lineups haven’t always represented the best of what metal has to offer. Granted, in recent years, the Ozzfest lineup looked to be heightening (Slayer, The Haunted, Dimmu Borgir, etc.), but this year I imagine Ozzfest is going to drop off the radar for most of the metal community (Disturbed?! Ugh).

So who cares if Ozzfest sucks now? In past years, Ozzfest was it as far as a big metal tour in the U.S. But now we have THREE fucking incredible tours coming our way!

Sounds of the Underground - As I Lay Dying, In Flames, Trivium, Cannibal Corpse, Terror, Black Dahlia Murder, Behemoth, The Chariot and Through The Eyes Of The Dead, GWAR

Unholy Alliance Tour - Slayer, Lamb of God, Children of Bodom, Mastodon, Thine Eyes Bleed

Gigantour - Megadeth, Overkill, Anthrax (maybe), and lots more I’m sure

There are a lot of metalheads in the states who aren’t fortunate to live close enough to attend one of the big festivals, so tours like these are often the only big shows that they get to see all year.

I, for one, am totally psyched that the metal world has grown to the point where it can sustain all of these kick ass tours. But at this point I think we could do without Ozzfest.

Your thoughts?

According to The Gematriculator, beMETAL.com is 23% evil and 77% good?! What am I doing wrong?

Any suggestions to help make the site more evil would be appreciated.

This just in from Century Media:

WITCHERY’s first spell, “Plague Rider,” from their upcoming album Don’t Fear The Reaper, has been posted here. Scheduled for North American release March 21st, the album was recorded at Berno Studios (Amon Amarth, Dark Funeral) in 2004, with mixing duties entrusted to Tue Madsen and his Antfarm Studios (The Haunted, Heaven Shall Burn). Chilling original artwork by David Diaz (P.O.D.) has been posted here. The North American release features an exclusive track, a cover version of Satanic Slaughter’s classic “Legion Of Hades.”

It’s about damn time we had some new Witchery!

Well, I finally got around to re-uploading the archives of the Carbonado comic!

Now you can enjoy classics like Know the Power of thy Sword (Part 1), Part 2, and Bort’s Curse! And of course, some of my personal favorites, such as Troy is “yort” Backwards, Keep Away from Children, and the infamous Confrontation!

For those who don’t know, Carbonado was an original metal webcomic that ran for a few months in 2004. More information can be found in the archives.

If you can see this, then your DNS has updated, and you’re looking at beMETAL.com at its new home!

Give yourself a pat on the back.

Interested in making your own music podcast? Or maybe you’re just curious about how much work goes into making one? Well wonder no more, for I have created what I think is the first tutorial ever on how to make a music podcast using Audacity!

If people are interested, I might make more guides like this on how the whole podcasting process works.

What can I say about Arsis that hasn’t been said already? Probably nothing. This band is outstanding beyond description.

Sure, it’s just a 3 song EP (one of which is almost 13 minutes long), but as I always say, quite often less is more in metal these days.

If ever you were a fan of Carcass, At The Gates, Arch Enemy (the list goes on…), it would be criminal for you to not check out this band.

For a more detailed review of this EP, go here. It can be had for a mere $8 through Willowtip Records’ site.

P.S.: I’ve wanted to start “mini reviews” like this for a while, so I think I’ll do these “Mandatory METAL” posts pretty often.

[audio:http://libsyn.com/media/bemetal/tel_060101.mp3]

***DRUMROLL PLEASE!!!***

The Entropy League and Metal Injection have joined forces to create Metal Injection Guerilla Radio!

Along with The Entropy League, the Metal Injection crew have come up with three original METAL podcasts of their own!

• Dead Zone - “bringing you all forms of metal from Death Metal, to Grindcore, Black Metal, Metalcore, Doom and everything in between”
• Power Hour - “hosted by METAL Injection’s own Noa, will bring you the best music ranging from power metal, to viking metal, and everything in between”
• System Shutdown - “the best in technical death metal, crust, hardcore (not metalcore), black metal, thrash, punk and a plethora of sub-genres too innumerous to list”

You can read most of the details here.

If you’re worried about TEL changing, don’t be. The show is going to stay the same, each episode focusing on a different style of metal.

Each show has its own feed, but right now only TEL is listed in iTunes. Hopefully we’ll get the other 3 shows, as well as the “master” feed of all 4 shows listen in iTunes soon.

The major change will be that The Entropy League will no longer be listed on beMETAL.com. I will put a list of the most recent shows on the sidebar (where the bravewords.com news is), but to see the playlists you’ll have to head over to the MIGR site, or use an RSS reader for the feed.

Each episode of Metal Injection’s “TV” show gets about 25,000 downloads, compared to the approximately 1,000 downloads a week for TEL. Needless to say, this should result in TEL getting a LOT of exposure that it wouldn’t get otherwise.

So what do you think?