Birthday Party of Madness

Burger King Diamond
Upon The Red Wings of Phallic Delusion
2005

Swedish metal gods Burger King Diamond are all but unknown in the US, but in their native Sweden they headline festivals and sell out arenas, preaching the gospel of old school heavy metal with a hot beef injection of black metal imagery and King Diamond worship. Also most of their songs are about fast food. Frontman Sven Hellhammer has been struggling with the current state of the music business, but both this album and their follow up Kiss The Goat: The Anthology are available on iTunes. Hear the blazing leads from dueling guitarists Christofer Bartlett and Nocturno Frost, the thundering bass work from Culto Kathaarian, and of course the competent drumming of one Ásbjörn. HAIL!

Upon The Red Wings of Phallic Delusion

Night of the Swords

The Crown
The Burning
1995

I recently found out that The Crown, one of my favorite Swedish death metal bands, has reformed. They have a new singer, but I'm actually cool with that, because my favorite album of theirs is Crowned in Terror, which features Thomas Lindberg (At The Gates, Disfear, etc) on vocals instead of Johan Lindstrand, who was the band's usual vocalist. They even rerecorded the album w/ Lindstrand on vocals once he rejoined, but that version and the album the did after that just don't have the same oomph the earlier stuff had, in my humble opinion. Lindstrand's post-The Crown band, One Man Army and the Undead Quartet suffers from both a stupid name and boring music.

So anyway, I'm pretty jazzed about a new album from The Crown, and the new vocalist, Jonas Stålhammar of God Macabre, sounds great to me. You can hear samples on their website.

I figured this news was good enough reason to post the band's debut from way back in 1995 when they were called Crown of Thorns. After two albums, another band with the same name got ill about it and our Crown of Thorns lost the thumb war or whatever they used to settle the situation, and thus renamed themselves The Crown.

The Burning

Misanthropy for Beginners

This is just a little mix I threw together for a friend, but I figured I'd go ahead and post it here, even though it doesn't really fit my usual format here. I didn't make a cover for it or anything. But it's a few doom metal songs and a bunch of American black metal. Enjoy.

Misanthropy for Beginners: A Doom and Black Metal Mix
1. Suma- Let The Churches Burn
2. Lurker of Chalice- Granite
3. Wolves in the Throne Room- Behold The Vastness and Sorrow
4. Thou- I Was Ignored, And Judged, And Cast Down
5. Krieg- II
6. Krallice- Timehusk
7. Skepticism- The Rising Of The Flames
8. Nachtmystium- Life Of Fire
9. Weakling- This Entire Fucking Battlefield

Misanthropy for Beginners