Have You Scene That?

Let us skip the formalities. We both know it’s been a while since there has been any sort of articulate, wordy post on Have You Scene That. We’re a fickle sort of beast. It seems that once we actually build up some sort of steam, we realise there are other things to do with our lives instead of care about you miserable metal bastards. Normally this realisation ends with us turning over and hibernating for another 2 or 3 months. Will that happen this time? Who knows…but yeh, probably.

Anyway, to business!

Dubai Rock Festival, not to be confused with the old and pretty outstanding Dubai Desert Rock Festival, has finally confirmed the final act for the festival which takes place on 12th April, 2013.

By now I’m guessing you would have heard that Yngwie Malmsteen is the  headliner of the festival, so there isn’t a whole lot to say about that except for ‘coolio’. While I’ve never really gotten into Malmsteen it seems like a mad ballin’ choice for the festival and it certainly adds some meat to lineup (that isn’t me poking fun at Yngwie being fat…promise).

You’re definitely in for a show from Malmsteen as he’s been around for years now, and the current line up of his ‘band’ features Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens who is pretty well known, and talented in his own right. You probably know him best as the vocalist who was voted out of Iced Earth by the fans. #sadtimes #yolo

Anyway, here is Yngwie Malsteen playing a bit but also throwing his guitar around like one of Black Veil Bride douches .

The rest of the line-up seems pretty legit, to be fair, what with Dark Tranquility bringing their awesome melo-death riffery;

Myrath adding a bit of soulful Arabic taste to what seems to be a more Western flavoured metal affair;

a bit off progressive metal is found with the likes of local band, Anuryzm. Note - Doesn’t the bass at the beginning of this song make you slappada air bass?

and then we have Nightmare from France who are power metal and make me sad in a way that only power metal truly can.

Last but not least…well actually probably least…The Sanity Days are playing. Now I’m not to sure what to think about this. Featuring Onslaught’s one time singer Steve Grimmett, TSD play…Onlaught songs…but only songs off of ‘In Search Of Sanity’, the one album Grimmett appeared on.

While I personally think ‘In Search Of Sanity’ is a fantastic album and that Grimmett is, in all fairness, an accomplished vocalist from the NWOBHM days, I don’t think they’re up to par. With the current touring Onslaught, which is a bit of a shame. 

Here is a picture of Steve Grimmett’s face as all i could find of TSD, to link, were terrible sounding live videos.

You can check out the line-up and post about all the other bands you wished had come to Dubai Rock Fest 2013 on the Facebook page, and you can purchase your tickets here! Get to it!

Metal Underground are streaming the new Rotting Christ album, ‘Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy’, and it’s all sorts of mental.

With album being released tomorrow, MU have gotten an exclusive stream of the full album in all its random, genre melding glory. From just one listen you can spot some pretty tremendous moments, such as ‘Kataton Demona Eaftou’ pretty majestic outro, and the rather black ‘n’ roll rollicking that gets blasted at you when ‘Iwa Woodoo’ comes a knocking.

Genre defying to say the least, Rotting Christ have come a long way with this album, and it maybe hard for some to swallow (not your mum though) at first, but this seems like a well constructed album from first listen.

You can check out the full stream here!

Metal Album-Art Artist Accused of Plagiarism

Not really sure why I’m posting this, ‘cus you know, it’s kinda news worthy, and we don’t really do that around here..but somebody has been a bastard and it seemed like a good idea to spread the word of said bastard and his bastard-ly deeds.

Basically, Justin Osbourn, AKA Slasher Design has been accused of flat out stealing other artists’ work and selling it off as his own.

Vertebrae33, of Metal Band Art, posted the following up on his site.

I got an email from an anonymous person, presenting a bunch of evidence that one of our own, had used entire sections of other artist’s work. When I asked who they were and for more details, I got more examples and this response: “I don’t want to get into “politics” and have this story be “one graphic designer claims against another” but instead it should be about stopping this guy.”

Of course, Justin has yet to comment on the accusations, but you can check out the images put forward as proof here. Bands who have used Justin for his talents include Aborted, Malignancy, and Municipal Waste among others.

You can check out examples of what Justin has been selling off as his own here. 

Don't Be A Dick and Listen to the New Rotting Christ Album

Metal Underground are streaming the new Rotting Christ album, ‘Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy’, and it’s all sorts of mental.

With album being released tomorrow, MU have gotten an exclusive stream of the full album in all its random, genre melding glory. From just one listen you can spot some pretty tremendous moments, such as ‘Kataton Demona Eaftou’ pretty majestic outro, and the rather black ‘n’ roll rollicking that gets blasted at you when ‘Iwa Woodoo’ comes a knocking.

Genre defying to say the least, Rotting Christ have come a long way with this album, and it maybe hard for some to swallow (not your mum though) at first, but this seems like a well constructed album from first listen.

Get to listening here!

Recently I’ve been having a hard time wanting to go see bands live, which is a bit odd seeing as I genuinely enjoy live music. You see unlike a lot of sorry saps who go to mosh senselessly for the whole band’s set so as to finally soak up that sadistic rush of testosterone that they, unfortunately, cannot attain by sitting in their own filth and loudly masturbating in front of a computer screen.

Actually the whole idea of going to a show feels somewhat alien these days. When it was finally decided that I would be attending this first day of Gulf Bike Week to see MegaDave (plus support) I was left in some sort of odd state of confusion and bewilderment, like a sort of metal obsessed deer, caught staring into the headlights of a particularly large orange truck; thrash music barely audible as the monstrosity roared towards my fear stricken body.

When the day came to actually head out to the show, some excitement was certainly creeping up on me and may have possibly wrestled the cynical asshole out of the controls for a few seconds every now and again, so that I could let out a stuttered, whimpering ‘Fuck yeh’.

Of course, the cynicism came rushing back when I realized I was going to miss the one main band I had wanted to see on that day – local progressive metallers, Benevolent. Seeing as I wasn’t going to be able to catch them in action I opted out for heading up early enough to catch the first opening band for MegaDave – Sandwash.

Now I can’t really say a whole ton about Sandwash except for the fact that they’re one of those UAE based bands that I’ve heard of for ages, but never seen.  I know they’ve recently played a bunch of shows at some bars but I’ve made very little effort to go out and see them because I’m not a fan of their music. I’m sure they have plenty of fans, and they’ve obviously been hard at work finding their sound but their stuff just isn’t my cup of tea, and I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole that somebody else was holding for me.

With having said that, I arrived to see Absolace play live for the first time (or possibly second time), and as far as I’m concerned I thought they were pretty darn good.  There were a bunch of people I talked to who said that they were a good band, but in the end they would rather listen to Tool, and I can completely understand that. The band tends to come across as a rather rockier, yet meek Tool –esque band, which for some can be a pretty bad thing. As far as I see it though, the more bands that sound like Tool, the better. While I enjoyed the music for the most part, I didn’t enjoy their new material as much as the material off of their first album. It just didn’t feel as bombastic or interesting live, and that would really be the only qualm  I had, as the band were pretty energetic, and sounded tight as all hell.

I really didn’t know what to expect from MegaDave. What I definitely wasn’t expecting was for a song by Metallica to be played before MegaDave came on. Twas pretty lulzy to say the least. Apart from that the random shouts from people in the crowd shouting ‘SSSSLLAAAAAAYYYYYEEEEEEERRRRR’ or calling out requests for more Metallica (especially ‘Four Horsemen’ and somebody else shouting ‘Fuck Mechanix’) definitely did a lot to raise the excitement levels.

Of course the inevitable happened and MegaDave came out on stage and opened up with “Trust’, ‘Hanger 18’ and ‘Tout Le Monde’. Now I don’t want to sound crass but upon hearing the rest of their set, it felt as though MegaDave blew their load with in the first few strokes.  Coming out with 2 of their most commercially viable songs in the first 15 minutes seem somewhat absurd, and then playing ‘Hanger 18’, which is a real stomper; it seemed as though this was going to be a night of hits and misses. This became more apparent as the next two songs bored me to absolute tears.

 In all fairness I stopped paying attention for awhile. Not out of disinterest for the music as, well, MegaDave have written some great tunes in their time, but Jesus H. Christ they really just seemed to be going through the motions. I could actually see when they stopped enjoying themselves, and it was around the time the crowd stopped recognizing which song was which. Minimal showmanship from Dave, and little to no crowd interaction left for a rather bland performance. Sure they were tight as hell, but in terms of entertainment factor I was left wanting more. Some bands are supposed to just get up on stage and play music and that’s enough. With MegaDave’s set list on that night I felt that we could have gotten more in terms actual interaction.

Also they didn’t play ‘Holy wars…’. So yeh. What the fuck, man?

Overall, it was a decent night out. MegaDave were definitely on form, even if they played some songs which bored me - other people seemed to really enjoy themselves for the whole set. It was great to hear songs like ‘Skin O’ My Teeth’, ‘Sweating Bullets’, ‘Symphony of Destruction’, and ‘Peace Sells…’, so I really have little to no regrets.

Wow, Look at that…I wasn’t a complete and utter bastard for once. That, my friends, is growth.

I can be unbelievably lazy, and it’s due to this profound laziness that I tend to completely ‘forget’ (read - not bother) to review some outstanding local bands and the releases which they put out after they’ve spewed so much time and energy into creating something which they love and cherish. For this laziness, I would like apologise. Once again, I would like to apologise, but unfortunately that apology takes more energy to muster than seems necessary, so I won’t. If you have a problem with that then you should write up a lovely bit of hate mail, print it out on some A4 paper, and insert it in your rectum.

Now let us commence with this thing that music ‘journalists’ like to call a ‘review’.

Actually, before I start this review of Midway’s ‘Burdens Lost’ EP, I should probably state that I know next to nothing about hardcore, and as far as I can see I’m never really going to know anything about this rather promiscuous genre. My main flirtations with this type of music is based around my love of Madball, and a rather shouty hardcore punk band called Refused, who kick more ass than Bruce Lee on speed.

Midway are in no way at all like either of those bands, and if it wasn’t for breakdowns, and the way the music makes me go a bit weak in the knees like a rather slutty Victorian, I would never have really bothered calling them a hardcore band. Then again this is what the reputed music press tends to refer to as ‘hardcore’ these days, so to hell with it. They’re hardcore - although a rather melodic version of it.

Like many of their tank top touting, flat brim baseball hat wearing, fashion conscious brethren, a la Architects and The Ghost Inside, Midway write bone crushing breakdowns and intertwine them with some extremely melodic hooks. Fluidly moving between the slow paced, mosh inducing riffs, and some slightly more upbeat tunes, Midway tend to work on a rather simple framework of captivating their audience before placing their foot firmly over the tracheae and pressing down, until all you can do is lash out and, for lack of a better term, be fucking angry.

Probably the song which stands out the most on this EP is the track ‘Burning Bridges’, which is - to use a rather power metaly term - epic. From the rather vicious beginning and angry gang vocals, to some hateful shouted vox and a massive breakdown at the half mark, this song really takes the biscuit, and then commences to pound the biscuit into a rather fine, crumby powder.

As a young band Midway could have quite a future ahead of them if they don’t succumb to, what I like to call, ‘The Dubai Effect’, which is the idea that a band starts to think they can’t ‘make it’ while being in the Middle East so they begin to play a handful of shows each year while working towards making their first full length that takes far too long to get out. In the end all they’re left with is a rather flaccid sounding album and regret. Mostly regret.

Anyway, on a whole ‘Burdens Lost’ is quite the badass release. With some tight production, monstrous songs like ‘Kraken’, and a solid blueprint for their upcoming album, Midway are bound to get some attention from somebody remotely important, and when they do you’ll be one happy fucking hipster when you can tell people you knew them when they were ‘underground’, or whatever you cunts are calling it these days. 

Check out ‘Burdens Lost’ below on the band’s bandcamp page!

http://midway.bandcamp.com/album/burdens-lost

headdnan:

you better come out to this show! | #hardcore #metal #dubai #cdc #live (Taken with instagram)

Obey the Brave is a band that took me by surprise… had no idea they existed until @BloodGutter shared a link. 

Now I can’t wait for the whole album. 

HAVE YOU SCENE THAT PODCAST? EPISODE TWO. WHY IS THIS ALL IN CAPS?

For the first time ever I actually arrived at a concert early. This meant that I got the privilege of hearing Hail sound-check while huddling, hooded, in a dark corner of the parking lot. Aside from that, the night starts off with a few little kiddies in their carefully planned outfits being dropped off by mommy and daddy at Demco Steel factory in Bourj Hamoud, a suburb of Beirut. The location seems pretty cool; the concert area is basically a clearing in a factory storage area filled with steel tumbles and equipment, which makes for an epic setting.

People fill in pretty slowly, following the standard protocol that you’re only cool if you’re perpetually late to gigs so it takes an hour for the organizers to feel they can begin cutting tickets. This part actually goes pretty smoothly, the set up is well organized and runs in an orderly fashion. Moving on- the entrance to the allotted concert area is populated with vendors namely: crepes, hotdogs, “bar” (to my knowledge they sell only beer), and t-shirts. After about forty five minutes or so, the show is opened by the comic Nemr who introduces the bands and is all funneh and stuuuuff.

Okay here’s the part where the review digresses due to my personal prejudices. The opening band is called EpiSode. Now usually I like to listen to opening bands and give them a chance to wow me or something so I approached this band no differently. The V.I.P. section of the concert was quarantined off from the poories, the dregs of society, so I pushed as far as possible towards the barricades holding us Plebs back and waited patiently for EpiSode to set up not one, but TWO violins. This seemed to me a bit excessive but regardless, I listened to the first song (songs?) and then found that the urge to relieve my bladder was more important to me than this band. So basically as your reading this imagine a black screen saying intermission and a cheerful upbeat song playing in the background. For me personally, I was completely bored by this band and I was beginning to think about my daily schedule and errands and such things so I did myself a solid and just said no. I’m sure they’re a lovely band in the genre of melodic violin stuff but all I have to say on this subject is that when I returned (at the end of their show) it sounded like the same song as when I left…

HAIL begins shortly thereafter, and of course they are pretty awesome. Here we have Ripper Owens (Judas Priest, Yngwie Malmstein), James Lomenzo (Ozzy Osborne, Megadeth), Dave Linsk (Speed Kill Hate, Overkill), Paul Bostaph (Slayer, Testament) and if you’re not already creaming your panties then you’re dead inside. They play song after song of epicness covering Motorhead, Slayer, Pantera, Megadeth, and Judas Priest among others. The songs are really well paced and the moshpit is going pretty strong and all is well and dandy. It’s really a treat to be able to hear some of my favorite songs covered by some of the people who actually wrote them and I think that’s the draw with HAIL. They’re a collection of legendary musicians and they really put on a good show, with song after song from the best repertoires in metal played to perfection. Highly recommended by Tarminator if only cause they played Ace of Spades…which makes me do the wiggle dance- I have no shame to say.

Though I must say that I agree with Ripper Owens when he asked why the crowd wasn’t pushing into the huge empty space in the V.I.P.OH.LA.LA area, not realizing there was a barricade. In my opinion this was a huge gaffe on the behalf of the organizers who gave V.I.P.’s way too much space and pushed the other 70 or 80% to the very back of the venue behind a huge camera crane. Moreover, I noticed that the bouncers and security people hired were complete assholes. After the show ended, as HAIL were leaving the stage, this teen jumps over the barricade into the (mostly empty) V.I.P. section and is caught by the shirt by this huge bouncer who literally throws him to the next bouncer who proceeds to lift him up by his neck in a choke hold and slam him against the wall. He screams in his face and then pushes him through the barricaded walkway out of the V.I.P. section and out of the venue. Now I don’t know what your opinion is on the unnecessary use of force, but who the fuck are these bouncer bastards to beat, choke, and push around anyone who’s not threatening or acting out? The kid was going into the area AFTER THE SHOW ENDED and could’ve been escorted out instead of attacked. I doubt he paid 40 bucks for the gross abuse of his personal space, and it was completely disgusting behavior. I hope the kid was able to land a kick on the shriveled ‘roidy nuts of that jerk.

Overall, good show, good organization, not too many jerks puking and/or inappropriately touching. HAIL were awesome and the crowd was eating that shit up so good on Rock Ring.

By: @Tarminator13