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!

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.

So I’m getting involved in some top secret Metal blogging business that is about to unfold within the next two months or so. It will be landscape changing and all that shit, but right now I’ll keep you in the dark and laugh at you silently. Did I tell you ‘Asshole’ is my middle name? Anyfuck, one thing leads to another and for some not to be disclosed reason we end up at Brent Petrie. Who the hell is Brent Petrie?

He’s a musician. And no, I have no idea if that name of his is short for Brent petroleum. In fact, there’s much else I don’t know about him and for that reason I’ll limit myself to mentioning what I do know. Like that he’s Canadian – I think – and that he is the sole crewmember of his project…, named Brent Petrie. Simplicity can be refreshing, can’t it?!

The Sacrificed is one of those bands with which I don’t know whether I like them or not. I picked some of their songs from different samplers, since their name seemed to be big in the Christian world. For some time I couldn’t be bothered with it, but when news came out of their upcoming album III, I picked out their song Offended and started to listen. Now, this song is supposed to be on that album, but apparently I had it already a year the before was out. Now a year later label Roxx Records released another song, called Fallen. Like Offended, this song actually surprised me, and makes III a very promising album.

The Sacrificed are an American Heavy Metal band from Florida, who have been around since 2005. With their album’s The DaVinci Hoax (2007), 2012 (2010) and now III, they seem to be taking their time in order to make an album. Style-wise they seem to be taking a Heavy Metal approach, with a very big splash of Modern sounds incorporated, which makes for a very nice, and enjoyable listening-experience.

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.

I was just done writing an article when I stumbled over Cage, whom have just released their latest effort Supremacy of Steel. Normally, I’m not too much into Power Metal, but listening to this band just put a smile on my face. Where Black Metal Bands are known for singing about the occult, Thrash Metal bands about killing posers, Heavy/Power Metal bands are known for singing about Metal in general. However, Cage takes all of this over the top and covers this Metalness with a sauce made of even more Metalness. It seems like they took the American concept of deep fried butter, and replaced the butter with Metal. Well that’s Metal isn’t it?

Supremacy of Steel shows Cage at their best. Where previous releases seemed to be a bit flat in the mix, they have overcome this and now they are steaming on to bring the world their deep-Metalled Metal. This Metal is formed by a combination of Heavy Metal, Power Metal and a splash of Speed Metal. This last is probably due to the resemblance with Agent Steel’s work (you know the alien stuff, the screams etc.). One can’t deny the fact that Sean “The Hell Destroyer” Peck’s vocals have a lot in common with the sound Rob Halford pumps out of his throat. However, again the boys take it over the top, and Peck seems to spend whole songs screaming the lyrics in stead of normally singing.

For me, the release of this record has passed by silently, and I only discovered it existed a few days ago. As you probably know, Lulu is a collaboration record between Lou Reed and Metallica. Funnily, when I think of Lou Reed, I think of his song Perfect Day, and when I think of Metallica I think of Fuel. Two songs that are seemingly quite the opposite. This was reflected when I gave their single The View a first spin, since I was repulsed by the combination of Metal and Spoken Word.

However, today I gave it another few spins and I think I’ve seen the light. The lyrics are sure enough quite brilliant, the riffing is pretty good and Kirk Hammett seems to be playing a real metal guitar-solo for the first time in his 30-year career.

List season has arrived. Soon the internet will be littered with countless lists of the year’s best albums. After pondering what my own list might be I realised that I couldn’t possibly come up with a truely ‘best of’ list. I haven’t even heard every album that’s come out this year, I imagine no one has. So, to do something a little different I’ve put together a list of my favorite releases from 2011 that were offered for free, including some with a name your price option. Remember, this is a ‘favorites’ list not a ‘best of’ list, I haven’t heard all the free ones either. Of the freebies I’ve heard these are the ten that have kept me coming back and I’ll present them two at a time.

10. – Savage Messiah – A Plague of Conscience