If there’s one band that has been shaping my musical taste through the years that I’ve been actively listening to music, it’s Soundgarden.

The Seattle-based band started out in 1984, but didn’t see much success until the early nineties, when Grunge gained its position as a popular Rock subgenre. People tend to refer to their third and fourth albums when they speak about the band and praise their work. Badmotorfinger and Superunknown are indeed great records, but actually there’s another album which I think is even better, and which is the one that got me into the band. It’s the last album the band put out; Down on the Upside from 1996.

It wasn’t quite so successful in terms of sales as Superunknown, which had Black Hole Sun as a huge selling point, but it still did pretty good. And one of the copies they sold went to my dad, who was looking for ”the album that had Black Hole Sun on it”, but didn’t pay a lot attention in the record store. He didn’t play it much, but I did! Rediscovering it the other day I found out that I still dig the living shit out of this thing! Figured I’d write down why.

That’s what bassist Otto of Sweden-based Metal outfit Scarred put in the subject line when he sent us the link to their stuff. Hm, strange, I suspect someone has been leaking about my prime interest in life. That being not the sexy part, not the Metal part and certainly not the Swedish part. Yes sir, it’s the bacon part, greasy strings of pig fat and dead meat. Otto must know this, but unfortunately his trick – which he pulled mid-December – to lure me in to check out their stuff resulted in a bacon binge eating session from which I’ve only just recovered. Close but no cigar!

With some delay though, I’ve just started playing some Scarred tunes and I like what I’m hearing. The band is sorely lacking professionalism in terms of recording and shit, but I like the concepts. The band pulls in influences from all over Metal and Rock and ends up spitting a flavor of Metal / Hard Rock that has groove as its prime ingredient. More importantly, their music sounds honest and I have no fuckin’ clue why. It’s just so obviously a bunch of guys in an old shed trying to have a bit of fun and maybe not realizing that they’re actually pretty good. I sincerely hope these guys will put together their life savings soon and spend it all on a proper recording session and professional mastering, if they haven’t already. That’s going to create hot shit!

Can’t sort you out with an embedded song this time, so instead pay the band a visit on Facebook for some tunes. Have fun!

Liberty N Justice are an all-star Hard Rock-project run by Justin Murr. Although Liberty N Justice are only quite famous within the Christian Metal world, some big names have collaborated, also from ‘outside’. Examples are Lou Gramm (Foreigner), Sebastian Bach (ex-Skid Row) and Robert Fleischman (Journey). They released a string of four albums and one EP called Chasing a Cure, of which all profits go to epilepsy research, a great cause of course.

The news for today is the release of the first song of their upcoming fifth album called Hell Is Coming For Breakfast, which is due somewhere this year. The song is called Stretch Armstrong, and it rocks! The lyrics are a bit dumb, but the song’s really catchy and there’s a goofy video coming with it. Anyways, it’s pretty good fun to watch and listen to Stretch Armstrong and worth your time!

We don’t usually write about Rammstein. Shock therapy as it might be to most people, it just isn’t Extreme enough for us. But you have to give them something: that they put up a great fuckin’ image! On November the 25^th they added another item to their list of fucked-up but actually pretty damn awesome exploits: ”Coinciding with 2 shows in their hometown Berlin, German industrial rockers and bêtes noires for cultural mainstream, Rammstein, were celebrated with a mausoleum.”

”In front of the O2 World, Berlin’s biggest indoor arena, fans congregated for a procession including a horse-drawn hearse, which delivered the original death masks of the six band members to the mausoleum. Inside the black cubic building the busts were carefully placed amongst candles and a book of condolence and could be visited by fans in appropriate reverence.”

Thanks to motig we got ourselves some delicious Norwegian, classically-sounding Metal. Just Metal, no subgenre indicators – although the band itself seems to favor the descriptor ”Doom Heavy Rock”. I think this is just Metal as it could have been in the Eighties. Except that the band has only been together since 2004.

In the time since then, the band aired three studio albums, titled I, II and III. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

More non-Black Metal from Norway. It’s like it’s just raining down on me! This time it’s an outfit called Zaed, consisting of four dudes that have been jamming together since late 2009. Two years later, Ragnar (vocals), John (drums), Thomas (bass) and Bjarne (guitars) released their first album together and they titled it simply ‘I’.

I know, I know, some people will not be happy with what I’m about to write, but this groups debut has had seven spins in total in the past week, so I didn’t want to keep this to myself. Walking With Kings are a four piece Hard Rock / Heavy Metal outfit from the States, which features frontman Terry Chism, ex-Stuck Mojo/ex-Adrenaline Mob guitarist Rick Ward, ex-Stuck Mojo drummer Frank Fontsere (the latter two were also in Heavy Metal band Fozzy), and last but not least ex-Furyon bassist Simon Farmery. One hell of a long list, but some (semi-) great names are to be spotted, which means that Walking With Kings should be blowing some people’s minds here.

Although one would expect some Rap Metal to be made here, but I advise you to look towards Bon Jovi, and other Modern Hard Rock outfits. I’d like to say that if the overly melodic approach, and blatantly Christian lyrics put you off, don’t just walk away, because this really is good stuff. I didn’t like it at first either, but now it’s on non-stop.

These guys are good! Phase Reverse. I had never heard of these guys before, but I’m glad I did now, despite that they are ”not quite Metal, not quite Rock, but the best of both”. I guess that’ll depend on your point of reference. If you look back in music history and think about bands like Sabbath, this will definitely fall within your definition of Metal. If by Metal the first think you think of is gutturals, it won’t. In any case that band itself says ”our music is just Rock… Heavy Rock”.

In the end I don’t care much, this stuff has struck a chord in me and that’s all that matters. Out of Athens, Greece, these three boys don’t come from where their music would make you expect them to be from. That’s because they have intertwined their Retal / Mock with a thick, juicy, Bourbon-lovin’ Southern influence. How that becomes apparent? Well, music-technically I have no fuckin’ idea. It’s just an atmosphere they breathe and a feeling you get as a listener.

Today we’re rockin out to a new gem from the States. Darlings of the Underground (what a name) deliver us Hard Rock with a fresh sound. Their first single Panzer is catchy, solid and promising.

And from the underground they are! You’re asking for background information? Take a look on their website. Nothing. They come from Charlotte, North Carolina. No, but seriously. The Darlings are in fact a bunch of really nice guys. When I asked drummer Neel Jadeja for some information he was kind enough to provide me with some detailed information.

This time in Rockin’ Out, we’re not going to listen to some new Hard Rock outfit from nowhere, but we’re going back in time, when Metal and Hard Rock made the most sleazy and dirty type of music we’ve come up with until today. Glam Metal was born!