Anybody going to Metallica in Houston this weekend?

I wish. I was able to secure a GA ticket for my 21 yo son, but have not found one for me (yet).

Went to The Melvins and Napalm Death. Brilliant show, front row. Buzz still has it, played with as much piss and vigor as he did in the early 90's. Second time seeing them (first time was in Dallas in 1994 opening up for NIN. Napalm Death was a bit of a nostalgic watch after liking them a lot in the 80s/90s. Barney has always been a legend for me as well.

Wolves at the Gate have a great new album entitled Wasteland. They mix in several short softer "songs" but absolutely rip it with tracks like Synthetic Sun and Unrest.

The Ozzy/Black Sabbath Back to the Beginning concert was yesterday and it might have the most bonkers list of artists ever assembled. I think the show was like 10 hours long so rather than post everything Loudwire has a comprehensive list together you should check out. Lot's of 'supergroup' bands put together as well during the show for different songs.

https://loudwire.com/all-ozzy-osbourne-black-sabbath-back-to-the-beginning-concert-setlists/

I spent a good portion of last night and this morning on Youtube watching performances, and there's a lot of good stuff.















The full set of Sabbath I watched from last night got taken down.

Saw some of that, Steven Tyler did a great job when he came out. Good to see him healthy again.

Ozzy, voice-wise, didn't sound very good unfortunately. And just sad to see him singing in a chair, similar to Phil Collins.

Seeing Ozzy was depressing. Everyone else in Sabbath looked good, but Ozzy just looked broken. It was like a bunch of friends going to see someone in hospice, but they wheeled the guy in hospice out onto the stage at a concert.

Looks like most of the videos I post have been taken down, hopefully there's others posted later because the audio was really good on a number of them.

man.. the rock and metal royalty in this room is astounding.. Tobias must be walking around like.. 'how the hell did I end up here!'

One underrated guitar player that didn't get much mention is Nuno Bettancourt. He played like 12 songs for the Ozzy shows. His versatility is amazing. Fell down this rabbit hole on a fan page of his

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLvWDL9OTkh/?igsh=YXZmbHV2M2J5Mjc3

digging tunnels said:

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One underrated guitar player that didn't get much mention is Nuno Bettancourt. He played like 12 songs for the Ozzy shows. His versatility is amazing. Fell down this rabbit hole on a fan page of his

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLvWDL9OTkh/?igsh=YXZmbHV2M2J5Mjc3

---

I don't think any guitar player or metal head doesn't respect nuno. Even Beato had him on in the recent past.

They're not all metal; but they're all mine

https://pitchfork.com/news/foo-fighters-and-nine-inch-nails-swap-drummers-switching-josh-freese-for-ilan-rubin/

Freese being let go seemed odd, but at the end of the day he's a hired gun. But other than Trent everyone in NIN is a hired gun as well, maybe not Atticus Ross these days due to everything those two work on together. I think Trent's a difficult guy to work for, and Ilan has been there a long time so it's probably less stressful and the pay is as good or better I would think drumming for the Foo Fighters. Freese has a history with NIN so that's not going to be a difficult transition. It feels bizarre but makes sense at the same time to me.

I've been enjoying 2 recent releases in Chevelle's Bright as Blasphemy and Fit For a King's Lonely God. Both are excellent albums from 2 different genres.

Chevelle just never disappoints and it continues on their 10th record. Love Pale Horse and Jim Jones.

Fit For a King have released a powerful, unfiltered metalcore album. Witness the End and Sentient are my favorite tracks.

NC Ag said:

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I've been enjoying 2 recent releases in Chevelle's Bright as Blasphemy and Fit For a King's Lonely God. Both are excellent albums from 2 different genres.

Chevelle just never disappoints and it continues on their 10th record. Love Pale Horse and Jim Jones.

Fit For a King have released a powerful, unfiltered metalcore album. Witness the End and Sentient are my favorite tracks.

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Bright as Blasphemy is flipping awesome. Those guys just keep getting better and better. Saw them in Durant, OK a couple of weeks ago and they are even better live.

Brent Hinds, who recently left Mastodon, died yesterday in a motorcycle accident

https://consequence.net/2025/08/brent-hinds-dead-motocycle-accident/

Really enjoyed the new Fit for a King. The Temple followed by Extinction was awesome. I've had it on repeat since it came out.

62strat said:

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digging tunnels said:

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One underrated guitar player that didn't get much mention is Nuno Bettancourt. He played like 12 songs for the Ozzy shows. His versatility is amazing. Fell down this rabbit hole on a fan page of his

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLvWDL9OTkh/?igsh=YXZmbHV2M2J5Mjc3

---

I don't think any guitar player or metal head doesn't respect nuno. Even Beato had him on in the recent past.

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I dove back into Extreme a while ago, specifically their first three albums. Nuno has always been great.

It sounded as if Gary Cherone was auditioning for Van Halen. Turns out, he was. I never picked up on this before but the first three albums had a distinct VH feel. It kind of blew me away after not listening to them for over 30 years.

Mudvayne released their first new song in over 16 years with "Hurt People Hurt People." Going to see them with Static-X in October, very excited!

A little on the nose for this week...

Chad Gray has always been a fan of the idea that "music is therapy." I wonder if they had any internal discussions about holding off the release?

British masked band PRESIDENT released their latest single ahead of their EP drop later this month.

This is the heaviest song they've released so far and it's an instant favorite of mine.

No love for the new Deftones album? I was only somewhat familiar with their stuff up till now, but I'm digging this record.

https://blabbermouth.net/news/at-the-gates-vocalist-tomas-lindberg-dead-at-52

Damn.. one of my first all time favs in what I saw as 'not on the radio' metal. Back in mid 90s, you had your pantera and metallica and slayer that everyone knew about, but unless you spent some time in a record shop browsing cover art or had friends that were into this stuff, you probably didn't come across much of this way more underground metal. Not like today. My big 3 of the extreme underground stuff was At the Gates, In flames and Dissection. Their 3 seminal albums all came out in like a 3 month period nov 95 to feb 96. Man '96 was a good year discovering all 3 of those.

I saw these guys in '96 with dissection, both opening for morbid angel, at the abyss in Houston, then again for their resurgence back in '08. So glad I saw them a final time in 2022 playing Slaughter of the Soul front to back.



EFF CANCER.

If you aren't familiar with this album, do yourself a favor and set aside just 30 minutes to hit play on track 1.

62strat said:

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https://blabbermouth.net/news/at-the-gates-vocalist-tomas-lindberg-dead-at-52

Damn.. one of my first all time favs in what I saw as 'not on the radio' metal. Back in mid 90s, you had your pantera and metallica and slayer that everyone knew about, but unless you spent some time in a record shop browsing cover art or had friends that were into this stuff, you probably didn't come across much of this way more underground metal. Not like today. My big 3 of the extreme underground stuff was At the Gates, In flames and Dissection. Their 3 seminal albums all came out in like a 3 month period nov 95 to feb 96. Man '96 was a good year discovering all 3 of those.

I saw these guys in '96 with dissection, both opening for morbid angel, at the abyss in Houston, then again for their resurgence back in '08. So glad I saw them a final time in 2022 playing Slaughter of the Soul front to back.



EFF CANCER.

If you aren't familiar with this album, do yourself a favor and set aside just 30 minutes to hit play on track 1.

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Damn.

**** cancer.

Slaughter of the Soul is sooooo good. Iconic band for me. They were one of my firsts when I started going down the heavier path all those years ago.

RIP Lindberg

Two outstanding bands.



Both came from the ashes of this killer band.

A relatively new band I heard on Matt Heafy's Chaos Hour, Cold Steel, is about as close to thrash as you can get these days. Not as heavy as I typically listen to, but some of y'all might enjoy:

I Prevail released Violent Nature with Burkheiser out and Vanlerberghe taking over the clean vocals. 10 tracks highlighted by Synthetic Soul, Pray, Violent Nature, and God. They balance the heavy with the melodic. As usual, I tend to like the more unhinged tracks best.

NC Ag said:

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I Prevail released Violent Nature with Burkheiser out and Vanlerberghe taking over the clean vocals. 10 tracks highlighted by Synthetic Soul, Pray, Violent Nature, and God. They balance the heavy with the melodic. As usual, I tend to like the more unhinged tracks best.

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Been enjoying this new album.

Any update on what the previous singer is up to?

None - he just seems to have disappeared.

Interesting - hope he's doing okay!

Bring Me The Horizon and Motionless in White on Friday in Houston - can't wait!

Thanks to this thread I revisited my old metal collection and have been reliving my Manowar youth.

Another At the Gates fan here. Very sad.