The AoO Metal Alphabet: 'M' is for MIESZKO TALARCZYK

[Agent of Oblivion]

Who the fuck is Mieszko Talarczyk, you ask? Lead singer/guitarist/sometimes bassist/driving force of Nasum.

Nasum is absolutely relentless. Politically-themed (the good kind) Swedish grind/death. This is how their full-length debut starts:

This is Rose
Nasum - The Masked Face
This is a rich letter! You've got Morbid Angel, Malevolent Creation, Metal Church, Melvins, Mortician (haha), and lots more. So why am I picking Mieszko Talarczyk? Because I can't use N for Nasum, that's why, and they're the best metal band I've ever seen live, other than Lividity. I have never seen a drummer abuse a kit as badly as Anders Jakobssen.

Nasum - Time to Act! (Riots Compilation)
It is a scientific fact that a person can listen to this song before any fight, and they are guaranteed to win. It's the combination of snare pop before the blast beat, and the ball-grabbing breakdown from hell. Go ahead, try to listen to that breakdown without grabbing your balls. It's not the same.

Nasum Tribute
RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

Their second effort: Human 2.0

Nasum - Mass Hypnosis
Nasum - A Welcome Breeze Of Stinking Air

Kind of samey and formulaic maybe? Yeah, but it's fucking grind. Tune punk to A and add blast beats and there you are. Add in the breakdowns for the deathy element. It does get a little different though, so don't write them off:

Nasum - Shadows

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

Their sound changed a bit for Helvete, which received some decent critical acclaim.

Nasum - Scoop

Not quite as straightforward and brutal. Lot more changeuppy.

Nasum - Bullshit
Psyche!, it's still fucking Nasum.

Nasum - I Hate People

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

Shift is the most accessible and probably weakest overall album. I still like it, but it lacks the visceral rage of their other releases.

Nasum - "Wrath"

Nasum - The smallest man (Lyrics)
^that one starts kinda nu metally, but gets better.

Nasum - Fury

Shortly after this, Mieszko went on a very ill-timed vacation to Thailand with his girlfriend and got tsunami'd. His body was identified two months[/i] after the tsunami. Eew. She lived, but was royally fucked up. Being (usually) a three-piece, the two surviving members went back to other bands.

 

[Wario Lemieux]

I like Nasum's four second songs.

*DUN DUN DUN* RED TAPE SUCKERS *DUN DUN DUN*

Oh yeah, and Mercyful "way radder than King Diamond's solo stuff" Fate:

Mercyful Fate - Evil

Mercyful Fate - The Oath

Mercyful Fate - Gypsy

 

[Gary]

I'm going with two bands. The first is obvious-Mastodon

March of the Fire Ants

Blood and Thunder

Colony of Birchmen

Oblivion

 

[Gary]

The second one was going to be Mercyful Fate, but that's taken. So I'm going with Mayhem. sure, I think De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas is their only album worth a damn, but fuck if it isn't a great album.

Funeral Fog

Freezing Moon

Life Eternal

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Hrmmmm...Metall...no. Megad...no. Morbid Ang...no. Macabr...no. Mardu...no. Motörhe...nah. "M" can only be for one band that I've been championing since I discovered them. One band that, despite any limits on their actual abilities, never fails to produce fun, intense metal, with an incredible stageshow that attracts more and more fans each tour. One band that essentially spearheaded the current thrash revival the world over, bringing classic thrash metal in the vein of Anthrax right to the current young crop of metalheads. "M" is for...

Band: Municipal Waste
Style: Thrash Metal/Crossover
Years Active: 2001-present
Area of Origin: Richmond, VA

"Municipal Waste is gonna fuck you up!" A virtual battle cry repeated ad nauseum at the end of every Municipal Waste gig, all while the end of "Bangover" is being played. Circle pits. Stage diving. Crowd surfing. Crowd boogeyboarding. Stagehands in cheap wizard Halloween costumes. A personalized beer funnel developed by the boys from Gwar dubbed the Inebriator. That's just in concert, little things that plenty of bands do (well, besides the Inebriator) to try and get a reaction, yet few come anywhere close to the success rate that Municipal Waste always does. After touring for their debut album Waste 'Em All (2003), the band lost original drummer Brendon Trache and bassist Andy Harris, replacing them with Dave Witte (Burnt by the Sun) and Phil "LandPhil" Hall, respectively. From there, the band hooked up with Cory "Flattus Maximus" Smoot of Gwar fame, who produced their sophomore LP Hazardous Mutation (2005), as well as taking them out on tour in the fall of 2006 in support for it (and, of course, Gwar's '06 release Beyond Hell). This would prove to be the break Municipal Waste needed, as their '07 release, The Art of Partying, was met with great anticipation and generally positive reviews. The band's fourth LP, Massive Aggressive, drops later this year.
Municipal Waste brings little new to the table. Everything they do has been done before, and sometimes better, but with today's current climate of Gothenburg-inspired metalcore, generic death metal, and poor black metal retreads, a fun, dumb, and tongue-in-cheek approach to classic thrash is well-needed. Combining the best elements of Crossover and 4 of a Kind-era DRI with classic Eurothrash (Kreator and Sodom) and Belladonna-era Anthrax, Municipal Waste play thrash metal. They play thrash metal. Municipal Waste are a thrash metal band. There's not much else to say. They are the purveyors of "party thrash," the self-proclaimed "speed metal punks," with a lyrical emphasis on partying, classic horror and cult films, and more partying. The music speaks for itself, quite frankly, because if you can't find something to love about this band? Then you shouldn't even be listening to any form of thrash metal at all.

Unleash the Bastards
Terror Shark (Live)
Headbanger Face Rip
Waste 'Em All
Bangover (Live)
Knife Fight
Sadistic Magician
Massive Aggressive

Recommended Albums: Hazardous Mutation, The Art of Partying, Waste 'Em All
Avoided Albums: N/A

 

[AA484]

Yeah, Mercyful Fate's first two albums rule harder than Diamond's solo stuff, Agent. "A Dangerous Meeting" is one of my all-time favorite metal songs.

 

[Slayer]

So many different bands, it's easy to get totally bogged down in this letter for a week, much less a day.

First, responses to mentioned bands:

Nasum - never heard of these guys before, though I think I remember the news of Mieszko's death when it happened. Since I've been getting more into grind the last year or so this is a good pick-up.

Mercyful Fate - As I said in the King Diamond thread, the first two albums are all you need, although Time (1994) is a good one as well. The problem with 90's MF is that the satanic elements were greatly toned down to a more horror element with some satanic overtones. That combined with a change in musical composition style turned MF into an alternate version of KD's titular band.

("Nightmare Be Thy Name") - from Time
("Angel of Light") - ibid

On a side note, like most teens of the mid-90's I was a big Beavis and Butthead fan. After really getting into metal in the late 90's/early 00's and then later seeing some eps on MTV2 or online, I was amazed at how they had many videos of bands' I would eventually get into years later that I thought absolutely nothing of at the time. I bring that up because I loved B&B watching the video for "The Bell Witch." I enjoyed Butthead doing a whole bit about how the band tricked KD into wearing the make-up, like "Aw yeah dude we're all gonna be wearing this makeup and it'll be awesome" and then KD shows up as the only one.

"That face might have been scary 20 years ago but now you just look like an old fart!"

Mastodon - Leviathan is great, newest one is really good (AOTY contender), but for all the love it got, I never got into Blood Mountain

Mayhem - DMDS is a big album of course (though I've never been a fan of the Mustaine-y vocals), but the importance of Deathcrush cannot be discounted. I prefer the Live in Leipzig album which features Dead performing songs from both DC and DMDS.

Municipal Waste - Laz can give himself a big ol' pat on the back for introducing me to this band. One of the very few bands from the 00's thrash revival scene that I really dig, partly because of the crossover style and partly because of the tongue-in-cheekedness of the band, both very reminiscent of Anthrax.

War, death, destruction, and other retread subjects of other thrash revival bands? Fuckin' old hat. This is where it's at.

 

[Slayer]

Originally I was going to post my main article for M today. After giving it some thought though, realizing the major intertwining between it and my P article (neither of whom should be a surprise if you know me well enough), both because of the stylistic similarities and personal meaning to me, I'm holding off until the P thread for that.

In the meantime, some quick hits:

Masterplan - Power metal band formed by 90's Helloween mainstays Roland Grapow and Uli Kusch with the prolific Swedish singer Jorn Lande (whose large body of work would have made a good J article in retrospect), released a highly acclaimed s/t album in 2003. The two subsequent releases (with the latter having a new singer) haven't been quite as good, but I highly recommend the s/t to any power metal fan.

("Spirit Never Dies") - from Masterplan (2003)
("Kind Hearted Light") - ibid

Speaking of Jorn Lande, that segues nicely into

Magnus Karlsson. While his full-time job is playing guitar for Starbreaker, Magnus is better known for composing two CDs featuring Lande and Symphony X singer Russell Allen, releasing them under the name Allen/Lande. The Battle (2005) has become one of my favorite CDs this decade, though I have been unsure whether to include it in my various top 10 metal lists as good portion of the CD is more hard rock and AOR than metal (not that such is a bad thing). Highly recommended.

("Hunters Night") - from The Battle
("Wish for a Miracle") - ibid
("Truth About Our Time") - ibid

Machine Head - Yeah, their body of work is largely filled with nu-metal shit, but Burn My Eyes is still great and goddamn if I don't feel like a 14 y/o metalhead again whenever I hear "LET FREEDOM RING WITH A SHOTGUN BLAST!" They did make a return to respectability with 2007's The Blackening, which featured four 9+ minute groove/thrash epics.

Moonspell - Gothic metal from Portugal, probably my second favorite M band.

Recommend: Most every album except The Butterfly Effect, but Irreligious and Wolfheart are the best starting points
Avoid: The Butterfly Effect

("Love Crimes") - from Wolfheart (1995)
("Opium") - from Irreligious (1996)
("Awake") - ibid
("In and Above Man") - from The Antidote (2003)
("Memento Mori") - from Memorial (2006)
("Night Eternal") - from Night Eternal (2008)

 

[Slayer]

Oh, and you didn't think I was going to go through the M thread without a single mention of this band, did you?

BORN TO LIVE FOREVER MORE
THE RIGHT TO CONQUER EVERY SHORE

Über-goofy "Metal is serious business" leather-clad image notwithstanding, they have a few good albums and several good songs, although they haven't done anything worthwhile since the early 90's. They compete with the aforementioned Moonspell for the title of my second favorite M band.

Recommend: Into Glory Ride, Hail to England, Sign of the Hammer and Fighting the World.

The live albums Hell on Wheels and Hell on Stage are also worthwhile pickups as many songs elevate to a whole new level with crowd interaction

("Manowar") - from Battle Hymns (1982)
("Gloves of Metal") - from Into Glory Ride (1983) (real video, bask in it)
("Blood of My Enemies") - from Hail to England (1984)
("ALL MEN PLAY ON TEN") - from Sign of the Hammer (1985)
("Thor (The Powerhead)") - ibid
("Carry On") - from Fighting the World (1987)
("Black Wind, Fire and Steel") - ibid
("Metal Warriors") - from Triumph of Steel (1992) (HEAVY METAL OR NO METAL AT ALL)

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

I was so hoping that Manowar would not be brought up. To paraphrase their own slogan...

OTHER BANDS SOUND GAY
BUT MANOWAR HAS AIDS!!

 

[Slayer]

Aside from the fact that I do like the band (and not a "hipster irony" like as Cybermark once incorrectly stated), I also posted it because I knew it would make people like you facepalm

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

Anyone here like Master? Early 90's Russian proto-death, ala "Scream Bloody Gore" era Schuldiner.