heavy metal music...

The Young Gods - XXY
The Young Gods were a strange rock band in that despite sounding very guitar orientated at times they had no guitar player, instead the lineup was comprised of vocals, drums and a keyboard player. They also had a tendancy to experiment, dabbling in ambient-esque sounding music and even recording an album of early 20th century composer Kurt Weil's songs (Mack the Knife, that ring any bells?). They are also responsible, along with Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, for helping to drag me into electronic music when I was a young narrow minded head banger thanks to a 12" version of there Skinflowers EP. This is rather a good introduction to the band, there is a good cross section of there music and it comes with a bonus CD of remixes and rare songs.

MP3: Skinflowers

M.I.A. - Galang
Despite being a bit of a fan I still haven't got round to buying the M.I.A. album instead settling for buying lots of singles and the going for the download route. Anyway, here's a rerelease of Galang, picked this up as it has a fascinating remix from System of a Down's Serj Tankian. See what you make of it.

MP3: Galang (Serj Tankian Remix)

Cave In - Perfect Pitch Black
What a find! I was in the mood for metal at the time so went for these as I'd seen a couple of promising reviews, they are on Isis's label Hydrahead which was a sure sign I was in good company and I'm sure they have something to do with Old Man Gloom. Anyway, I was expecting a fairly dark and challenging CD, instead it's full on quality metal with hints of pop sensibilities. They seem to have two people handling vocal duties, one shouty and guttural, the other nice and melodic - there bassist can pull off a good old fashioned galloping riff when he needs to, and they know the value of a metallica-esque dual guitar break. Hands down one of the best Rock albums I've heard this year, I really struggled to choose a single song for you to listen to.

MP3: Down the Drain