Metal Nerdery Podcast

“It sucks that he’s gone, but what a legacy!”   The recent passing of VENOM bassist & frontman Conrad “Cronos” Lant came as an unexpected shock, especially given the recent release of INTO OBLIVION, the 16th and final album from the godfathers of extreme metal and undoubtedly the most well produced and best sounding album in the band’s discography.   Released May 1, 2026, and featuring all of...

1976. The year of the American Bicentennial. The year that brought us “The Tale of Two Steves” (Jobs & Wozniak) who created the Apple Computer Company, Evel Knievel who successfully jumped 7 Greyhound Buses at the Kingdome in Seattle, and Bruce Jenner who took home the gold in the men’s decathlon at the Summer Olympics in Montreal.    1976 was all about being “on the train to Bangkok” and gett...

“Was it as good as The First Six? No…”   Released on September 25, 1976 (exactly 4 years to the day after the release of Vol. 4 ), TECHNICAL ECSTASY, the 7th album by the mighty BLACK SABBATH, is one of the most mysterious, polarizing, and perhaps confusing albums from the legendary Ozzy Osbourne era of the band.   First of all, the album cover depicts two robots having a fling and exchanging “lub...

A lot can happen in a decade…   If you go back to 2016 and mention the terms “TikTok” or “AI Slop” in casual conversation, nobody will have any idea what you’re talking about, mainly because TikTok had just launched and the AI Slop that we’ve all come to know and loathe was still a few years away from becoming a nightmarish reality.   Released September 18, 2026, CURSUM PERFICIO, the 12th studio a...

It’s DEATH MATCH season again, and it’s time to take two of the very best PANTERA albums and make them battle it out in the Bunkerpoon Octagon, featuring 1992’s multi-platinum VULGAR DISPLAY OF POWER against the 1994 Billboard Number 1 follow-up, FAR BEYOND DRIVEN.   VULGAR was under construction throughout the band’s relentless tour for Cowboys From Hell in the states and following their legendar...

Very few bands in the history of recorded music have managed to maintain the same lineup for as long as Atlanta, Georgia’s own progressive metal titans, MASTODON . After Brent Hinds’ departure from the band in 2025 and the tragic permanence of his untimely demise which followed just a few months later, it seemed that after 25 years the band which Brann Dailor, Bill Kelliher, and Troy Sanders had l...

In early July 1985, ¾ (or 75%) of the “Fistful of Metal” era of Anthrax (Charlie Benante, Scott Ian, and Dan Lilker) joined Billy Milano in the studio to form the legendary crossover thrash band S.O.D. (aka STORMTROOPERS OF DEATH) and in less than one week, recorded and mixed one of the most notoriously hilarious thrash albums of all time, SPEAK ENGLISH OR DIE.    In the highly unlikely event that...

“On a scale of 1 to 5 Honks, how many Honks would you give it…for their performance at the show?”   The STRAP IT DOWN TOUR (featuring Spirit In The Room, Helmet , and Down ) kicked off in relentlessly heavy fashion on Saturday, August 15, 2026, at The Eastern in Atlanta, Georgia, and we made our way down into the heart of the city to experience opening night firsthand, in the flesh.   “I don’t wan...

New York City. A place where the subways never close, you can hit any deli, diner, or pizzeria in town at all hours (“in the middle of the night”) for a bite to eat, and your soul will become properly calloused with a “G.F.Y.” mentality and attitude in the most hard core, New York way imaginable.    And when it comes to infusing that kind of attitude into metal, NYC’s PRONG has quite literally tur...

“It’s been a while since we’ve been to a show together…”   The STRAP IT DOWN Summer Tour kicks off on Saturday, August 15, 2026, at The Eastern in Atlanta, Georgia, featuring DOWN, HELMET, & SPIRIT IN THE ROOM, so naturally, we decided to engage in a little PRE-GAME preparation to get in the right headspace for the show.    As you may recall, we last traveled to The Eastern back in 2024 when w...

“Chimpanzee, he said it…he said chimpanzee…”   PRIMUS is always a fun stop on the road to Relaxerville (especially if you’ve got something to inhale ), and PORK SODA (the band’s 3rd official studio long player) is the perfect soundtrack for just such an occasion.    Released on April 20th, 1993, almost 50 years to the day after Albert Hofmann’s legendary trip on Bicycle Day, PORK SODA ups the dosa...

“How many people do you think go into a bar and say: ‘I’d like an Everclear on the rocks, please…’?”   Looking back, 1997 seems utterly surreal…   To put things in perspective, 1997 marked the debut of South Park on Comedy Central, the release of Radiohead’s breakthrough, third album, OK Computer, the beginning of the final season of Seinfeld, and (of course) the arrival of Metallica’s conclusion...

“It’s the most readable death metal logo I’ve ever seen in my life…”   Dave and Joe Haley.   If you’re trying to understand the importance of this particular drum & guitar team, just think of some of the other legendary “band of brothers” in the metal community that come to mind who have gone on to elevate and transform modern music as we know it…brothers such as Alex & Eddie Van Halen and...

Summary: “Have you ever been to a buffet where you literally try everything?”   Sometimes the best way to find your new favorite things is to just sample a lot of different things until you find the things that you enjoy the most. As with a buffet…or even dating, you just “grab something” you think you might like and “give it a taste”. If you like it, you keep going back for more. And if it’s not...

“No sink or nothing, right? You’re just gonna go free ball it…”   1989 was the very first year EVER that The Recording Academy recognized hard rock and metal music with the “Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance Vocal or Instrumental”. And other than the completely insulting “slap in the face” by The Recording Academy to Metallica (think Will Smith & Chris Rock, but even more child...

Death.    The word alone possesses the same tangible finality and permanence as the act itself. Death marks the end of one’s physical life & existence in this world and can come as a tragic, sudden, and untimely end, or as the sometimes “welcome” final resolution of life following a long, protracted period of illness and suffering.   “We got to live on the same earth at the same time as all th...

“I mean it’s June, so…”   Released September 29, 1992, CORE, the debut album from San Diego, California’s own STONE TEMPLE PILOTS (or STP for short) is one of those albums that doesn’t really fit into the “grunge” category, nor does it fit into the traditional “heavy metal” box either. It’s certainly not grunge but is definitely “more metal than Pearl Jam”, and while there may be some subtle simil...

The year is 1980. The U.S. National Debt is a paltry $900 Billion, the word “yuppie” appears for the first time in print, the Pac-Man videogame is released in arcades everywhere, Mount St. Helens explodes in Washington state, and Cable News Network (also known as CNN) becomes a thing.   In the world of metal, Iron Maiden release their self-titled debut album, Black Sabbath reinvent themselves with...

“I wanna hear THAT at my grocery store, when I’m going for the meat section…”   Whether it’s the song we all rise for at sports ball events,  the first song on Rush’s “Fly By Night” album (not to mention the first song on Anthrax’s EP of classic rock covers), or the sing-along, encore at the end of a rock show, ANTHEMS represent a clarion call, a rallying cry that unites fans in unspeakable joy, u...

“Today is all about 7’s…”   We can’t believe it…it’s officially been SEVEN years since we began our podcasting journey, and as of this episode, we are celebrating SEVEN years of heavy metal podcasting excellence!  And in the spirit of heavy metal greatness, what better way to celebrate and commemorate the completion of our SEVENTH year than a tribute to the best thing MTV ever did for metal heads...

“Would it be fair to say that horror metal and death metal are kinda…symbiotic?”   Released May 25, 1987, SCREAM BLOODY GORE, the debut album from Florida death metal pioneers DEATH, marks a dark and transformative turning point from thrash metal into something else…something with “thrash overtones” that “sounds like thrash” but also doesn’t. While it seemed to be the next logical evolutionary ste...

“I wonder how many modern bands still do it?”   Maybe the song is named after the band and referenced in the chorus. Maybe the song is named after the band but there’s no reference to the band’s name anywhere in the lyrics. Or maybe it’s a song with a completely different title than the band name BUT the band name IS mentioned somewhere in the lyrics.    “They mostly do it during their early years...

“It took me like a hard 16 seconds…but I got it down…I swallowed all of it…”   Released April 10, 2026, DEAD TO RIGHTS, the 14th studio album in 40+ years from the mighty METAL CHURCH, features a new line up and a return to the power metal infused thrash style that made them a force to be reckoned with back in the 80’s, during the heyday of the (then relatively new) thrash scene.   “I was proud of...

“If you were gonna be a stripper…what would your stage name be?”   When you think about 1986 , it’s almost hard to fathom that we are 40 years away from it. Four decades away from perhaps THE biggest year in metal, and we’re not just saying that because we were still young and impressionable, but because it was quite literally THAT epic of a year!    March, September, and October of 1986 gave us M...

“You like to hear how they have progressed or digressed…or either…or gressed…”   This episode is a lot like looking at pictures of family when everyone is much younger and then looking at recent pictures of family and realizing that after enough time, a LOT changes.    Just as people grow and age and (hopefully) evolve over time, no artist should currently be EXACTLY as they were when they first s...