Brad Wilson was lamenting over the lack of decent metal bands out there. He feels a lot like me, loves the metal, but can not stand the recent trend of “Oscar the Grouch” vocals (I also call them Cookie Monster vocals). Classic thrash metal bands like Slayer and Testament touched upon that trend, way back when, but it was used to create an effect, not as the soul of the song. A lot of it has to do with recent bands like Chevelle dropping their guitars down from standard E tuning to C. E tuning is standard because it sits squarely in the middle of human vocal ranges. Dropping down to C causes the singer to have to adjust their voice downward, which isn’t as natural, and you get the deep grovelly sounding vocals.
But don’t despare, this is just a recent trend, and like all trends they tend to fade away, and I think that Oscar is on his death bed. Seems as though one of the newer metal bands, that use to have those Oscar vocals had fate step in and make them change their ways. Avenged Sevenfold made their way into the limelight with some of the most intense, progressive metal music, but although the lead singer really had a set of pipes, tended to drift into the Oscar thing and ruin the song (for me). Their first 2 CDs showed they had potential, but the vocals always ruined it for me. Then fate stepped in, and the singer blew out his voice on tour and now he can’t do the Oscar thing. Instead of giving him the boot, the band went with it, and created the best metal album of the year, City Of Evil 
. Actually, I think City Of Evil is the best metal CD since Black Label Society’s Sonic Brew (Zakk Wylde’s first full metal release way back in 1999). Hopefully the other new metal bands will influenced by Avenged Sevenfold’s success.
But you don’t have to rely on the new bands. A bunch of the old school metal bands also have new releases.
Anthrax (reunited with Joey Belladonna) released a live CD and DVD (although I was pissed that they just released a live DVD/CD combo with John Bush and decided to release the “new” live CD and DVD separately). For Anthrax, the reunion is all about making some money (and Scott Ian even said as much). I joined their new fan club, Anthrax CDC, mostly to get access to their “never seen media”. But, they took my money and never sent the t-shirt, and the exclusive media is an Internet radio station with a couple “bootlegs” and demos with a bunch of regular releases mixed in. Basically, your typical, screw the dedicated fan, fan club. And to make matters worse, Joey actually thinks he can sing now, and it sounds terrible. Give me the old Joey, or even better, get John Bush back.
Speaking of reunions, Testament got back together for a show in London and released it as separate DVD and CD. I’ve listened to it on Napster, and it is better then any of the older live stuff. Even better, Testament now sells “bootleg” DVDs recorded throughout their long career. You can get them here, the classic 1988 and 1989 shows are a must for any metal fan.
Of course my personal favorite local metal band, Overkill released a new CD this year, Relixiv. The song “Old School” is just about the perfect old school metal theme song. Overkill is going back on tour in early 2006, with Prong, which should be a killer show.
During the summer touring lull, DD got together with his side project, Bronx Casket Company, and put together another release, Hellectric.
Bruce Dickinson also release a new CD this year, Tyranny of Souls. I was hoping for a continuation of the excellent Chemical Wedding CD, but, nope. It is still better than some of his older stuff, but Chemical Wedding was intense, and Tyranny lacks something compared to it.