Book Review - To Live Is To Die: The Life and Death of Metallica’s Cliff Burton: 2 comments

To Live Is To Die: The Life and Death of Metallica’s Cliff Burton, Joel McIver, Jawbone Press, 2009.

With out any shadow of a doubt, Cliff Burton can be considered the most influential heavy metal figure out of the 80s Thrash Metal scene. Yes, Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath), Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy), Steve Harris (Iron Maiden) (with the former two, each being a major influence to the playing of the mighty Burton himself), just to name a few, were all great bass players but the legend, momentum and impact that each and everyone of these legendary bassists have had on the underground metal scene, in my honest personal opinion, is incomparable to those of Cliff Burton’s.

With Metallica being the most successful heavy metal band of all time, the legend of Cliff Burton is not just some second page yesterday news.

This book was written by the mighty Joel McIver (the author who brought you the 2004 “And Justice for All: The Truth about Metallica” and 2008 “The Bloody Reign of Slayer”) with Metallica’s Kirk Hammet penning the foreward. Now that I am quite familiar with McIver’s methods in constructing the contents of his books, I have managed to finish this 272 page book at one go. One heavy metal biscuit for me, cheers.

This book can be considered as the most complete autobiography of Cliff Burton (none had ever been written anyway, except for the chapters written about him in every book written about his band). Covering in detail the journey of Cliff Burton, from his days playing in EZ Street with Jim Martin to his days in Trauma to his days in Metallica detailed down to his last days in September of 1986.

It felt like it was an off shot read to Justice And For All, McIver’s book on Metallica, since in And Justice For All, McIver had already dedicated a spread of 16 pages on the mighty bassist alone. If you have already read And Justice For All, reading through the pages of this book will give you a stint of déjà vu, if you get my drift.

What ever it is, this one is a must for all you Metallicats out there. RIP Cliff Burton.

Videos - Sil Khannaz Rockumentari: 1 comments

The first of its kind, finally a (local made) documentary about a local Malaysian underground death metal band and the mighty Sil Khannaz was without any doubt a well deserving and document worthy band in my book. Sil Khannaz is one of the more popular and well recognized death metal bands in the local heavy metal circuit today and one of the few bands (the only?) who stuck with their guns from day one against the neverending assaults from the government, media and the society since the 90’s.

Having formed way back in the 80s somewhere in the gloomy land called Perlis, a small state located in the northern part of Malaysia, Sil Khannaz had evolved (and is still evolving I guess) from playing thrash covers to straight no bullshit death metal in their early demos and debut album titled Conception of Madness, progressive death metal in their controversial Gerbang Kayangan album and melodic death metal in their latest album Berdiri Antara Panji-Panji.

This 2005 documentary was produced by Nebiula Production, the bands’ own independent record label and it mainly contains music videos, early concerts and interviews with the members of the band, the fans and a number of local veteran heavy metal enthusiasts illustrating the colorful history of the band and its undeniable influence to the local death metal scene and Malaysian metal as a whole.

Unfortunately the narration and the interviews were all conducted in the Malay language since I think it was only targeting the local market and was not really meant for an international release except to a few neighbouring Malay speaking countries in the likes of Indonesia and Singapore.

The only frustration I had was that it did not include any interviews from any former members of the band from the earlier version of the band except for an undersized and brief commentary from their previous guitar who played the guitars in their highly acclaimed debut album. Apart from that slight disappointment, this video was a decent documentary of the band. A must for every Sil Khannaz fans.

Bands - Vermillion: no comments

Due to my hectic day job, I totally forgot about this one interview request that I had made to this one nasty melodic death metal band called Vermillion. Do you want a Gothenberg sound and worship the ground In Flames walked? Have you been dreaming about Angela Gossow (archenemy) tearing your ears lobes lately? Have you been wanking off a centerfold poster of Jessica Alba lately? Then I give you Vermillion that has nothing to do with Jessica Alba.

VERMILLION

Vermillion is a talented 5 piece melodic metal band from the muddy banks of Kuala Lumpur. Nothing new there except for the fact that this is an all girl band. Nothing new there either. What ever!

Besides the talented Singaporean thrashers, Tormentress, and another local thrashers, Shewolves, I have to say that I have got to tip my hat to Vermillion for doing what they are doing. I am very impressed with the hair rising Gossowic vocals though. Extremely brutal. Even to the extent of being so much better than some of the wimpy growls from a number of our glorified local male metal core vocalists ever had nowadays. Another female growler that had me impressed with her growling skills is that girl from Predicate Not Define, couldn’t really remember her name though.

Musically, there is nothing complex nor impressive about the songs (2 to be exact) uploaded on their MySpace page, but I honestly do believe that within time they will be able to polish their instrumental skills giving all the other bands a long and tiring run for their money. The solos were mediocre in my book. Well at least she can damn solo. Haha. Even the drummer can drum better than me for God sake. One thing though, wipe out the core elements, go for pure death metal next time ladies. That would be a shocker.

Maybe the local heavy metal gig promoters should open their eyes and arms for this young and rising band. Put their name on the bill for the next metal camp 4 gig next year. Get them out off the lame metal core circle more often. Those wimps does not deserve Vermillion. We do. Haha.

Judging from the gig lists on their MySpace, I have got to say that these girls have been marking their territories all over the place, which is very good. Obviously they have been very busy gigging since 2008 with up to 20 performances under their belt. Impressive for a three year stint of gigging and I hope we will see more of them in the future.

Vermillion is Aca on vocals, Hana on lead guitar, Yaz on rhythm guitar, Syahnaz on bass and Alie on Drums.

VERMILLION MySpace