The United Nations of Metal

    I’ve got something kinda fun planned for this time out. Or at least I think it’s fun. Maybe I’m just a big dork. Anyways, some set-up: I recently got thinking about how insular we metal fans can be. I mean, we do listen to a pretty niche genre of music. Even your most mainstream modern metal bands, your Lamb of Gods (Lambs of God?), your Killswitch Engages, your Slipknots (OK, maybe Slipknot is a bad example...), even bands like these aren’t getting top 40 radio play, or appearing on People magazine, or even being followed by douchebags from TMZ. Even the biggest fish in the metal pond are seldom caught by the nets of mainstream popular culture. (How’s that for a metaphor?)

Song of the Day: The Dillinger Escape Plan - Widower

     A couple of days ago, when posting Gojira's "Liquid Fire" as the Song of the Day, I mentioned that these Frenchmen have pulled out of Heavies TO and MTL to rejigger their schedule, and that they've been replaced by The Dillinger Escape Plan. Either way this affects Saturday, and since I'm going on Sunday, I won't see either band. But I can still make you listen to them with me!

Song of the Day: Trivium - Rain

     More Heavy TO prep for you today, as well as the first Song of the Day repeat: Trivium. This is also the only kind of Song of the Day repeat allowed (ie: band) because I've been choosing songs, and will continue to choose songs, based on two simple unwritten rules which I will now commit to writing.
1) A band can't have back to back songs on consecutive days, or even days that are close together.
2) No repeat songs.
I won't be breaking either of those by picking another Trivium song (since it's been a few weeks since "The Crusade" was Song of the Day) so we're all good.

     Your Song of the Day is "Rain" off of 2005's Ascendancy. This is the song that got me into Trivium. I'm not the hugest fan of their newer stuff (don't get me wrong, I still like some of it) but when this came out this was a pretty solid, pretty thrashy metalcore album. And it got stuck in my craw partly because of this song. Even though it's the second track, it almost serves as the album opener, since it's the first "real" song, and boy does it fucking boot the door of the album wide open with that intro/verse riff. Have a listen, and then tune in again tomorrow.

Song of the Day: Gojira - Liquid Fire

     Day 2 of Heavy TO prep here, and today I'm going to go with one of the bands that was originally on the bill but has had to back out -- there are in fact two now. If you've been following the Randy Blythe story at all you know that Randy is still in jail in the Czech Republic, so any summer dates Lamb of God had scheduled, such as Heavy TO and Heavy MTL, have been cancelled. In Flames have awesomely taken Lamb of God's spot at both shows.

Song of the Day: Protest the Hero - The Dissentience

     Well, it's official: I'm going to Heavy TO! In case you're not Canadian, or you are Canadian and don't live in Ontario or Quebec, Heavy TO and Heavy MTL are a pair of metal festivals happening in Toronto and Montreal on the weekend of August 11th and 12th. All of the bands in the fairly deep line-up (which can be seen here for Heavy TO...) are playing both cities on alternate days, giving fans in both areas a chance to see everyone, which is a pretty rad idea in my book. Due to budgetary constraints and scheduling issues I'm only going to be at the second day, but lucky for you, you get to attend (in spirit, anyways) because from now until then I'm going to be featuring some of my favourite bands from this year's Heavy TO and MTL festivals in the Loud Noises Songs of the Day.

     So without further ado, today's song. We're going to start with Canadian punk-metal-prog badasses Protest the Hero today, and their song "The Dissentience" from 2008's Fortress. Since I'm going Sunday, I won't get to see them this time out, but if I were I'd like to see them play this one. Enjoy.

Song of the Day: Opeth - The Lotus Eater

     It's been almost a month of songs of the day now, and I have yet to do an Opeth song. Shame! Odds are you don't need me to tell you how awesome Opeth is, so I won't waste a lot of time and energy trying to convince you of said awesomeness, but if you don't know Opeth... seriously, what's wrong with you? Have you been living under a rock for the last 20 years or something? Stop reading this right now and click play already, OK?

     Your song for today is "The Lotus Eater" from Opeth's phenomenal 2008 album Watershed. This was such a great album that I could really recommend the whole thing, one song a day, for a week, but I'll settle for having you listen to this thoroughly badass track from it. If the demented metal circus break at about 5:45 doesn't get you going, you're a stronger man than I.

Song of the Day: Mandroid Echostar - Kingdom and the Crown

     We're back in the present today, and I've got yet another recently-discovered band to share with you. I found Mandroid Echostar (yes, that's their name) at the same time that I found Intervals (they're going on tour together this fall), and both bands are proggy outfits based in southern Ontario (go Canada!). But while Intervals is heavier, instrumental (for the moment, anyways) and kinda djenty, Mandroid Echostar sounds like Coheed and Cambria if the latter leaned away from proggy punky pop-rock and towards proggy metal. Vocalist Michael Ciccia even resembles Coheed and Cambria's Claudio Sanchez a little. But make no mistake -- these guys aren't just Co&Ca copycats, and I think they're definitely worth a listen.

     As such, today's song is "Kingdom and the Crown", the lead track from Mandroid Echostar's self-titled first EP, which you can download from the band's bandcamp FOR FREE! So if you like the song, check out the rest of the EP and let me know what you think.