Metal Nerdery Podcast

If you were to blend the dark, heavy riffs of Sabbath & Zeppelin with the straight-ahead power of AC/DC and then add the incredible vocal crooning style of The Doors’ frontman Jim Morrison, mixing everything with a generous infusion of punk rock angst and Halloween themed, gothic horror vibes to tie it all together, the end result would be DANZIG, the “modern classic” sounding “horror metal” b...

The 1970’s is one of the greatest decades in the history of the development of modern metal. Back in the 70’s, it was not at all uncommon to get 2 albums from the same artist within the same year! During the 70’s, you’d drop the needle on the record, turn on the lava lamps and the black lights, indulge in your preferred relaxer of choice, and be instantly transported to an alternate dimension of s...

“Let it ring out…okay turn it off now…” Way back “during the late 1900’s” (1998 to be precise), METALLICA released an updated volume of various cover songs by various artists of their youth via GARAGE INC., a 2-disc set (that’s compact disc, btw:  those were still pretty popular “during the late 1900’s”) including one disc of brand new cover tunes and one disc including the original $5.98 EP: Gara...

It’s always a treat to talk about “hometown” metal, especially when it’s one of the heaviest, most modern, progressive metal bands in the entire genre. Actually, to call them “prog” might be a bit misleading, although “progressive” is certainly an apropos descriptor for the shared artistic odyssey which Brann Dailor, Brent Hinds, Bill Kelliher, and Troy Sanders (collectively known as MASTODON) had...

With a little guidance from Loudwire’s Dumbest Best Metal Band Names listicle, we decided to take the offramp into the offbeat and investigate the most off-kilter, ODDBALL metal bands with the most outlandish names and over the top aesthetics ever to bless metal.    Whether it’s the band’s look, their theme, or the simple hilarity of “what’s in a name” (including, but not limited to: band name, al...

Less than a year after the release of the crushingly heavy & near flawless masterpiece known as their self-titled debut album, LED ZEPPELIN released their sophomore follow up, LED ZEPPELIN II, on the 22th and the 31th of October 1969 (in the US & UK, respectively). While something of a departure from the blues-centric focus of their debut, LED ZEPPELIN II included a significant refinement...

Given the recent release & fanfare surrounding the remixed and remasterized 40th anniversary edition of LIVE EVIL, the “first official” live album from metal founding fathers BLACK SABBATH and the last official album to feature RONNIE JAMES DIO on vocals (until 1992 anyway), we felt obliged to share our own personal experiences regarding LIVE EVIL, from our first listen until now.   With a set...

QOTSA, aka QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, began back in the late “Nineteen Hundreds” in Seattle, Washington following the breakup of Josh Homme’s former band, desert metal legends Kyuss. With a wide array of sonic textures, layers, and sound design sorcery ingrained within their music, as with Kyuss, QOTSA is another prime example of a band whose albums should be listened to and enjoyed via headphones (...

This episode is dedicated to one of a handful of times in thrash metal history where the first two albums have two totally different singers, giving the illusion of two totally different “first new albums”. And since this is an episode of firsts, we felt that diving into BONDED BY BLOOD (the first album with Paul Baloff on vocals) and PLEASURES OF THE FLESH (the first album with Steve “Zetro” Souz...

If you’re gonna describe a riff to somebody…”   There are a multitude of MOUTH SHAPES that exist all across the rock & metal landscape, many of which we’re pretty certain you’ve never heard of before in your life.   Sure, there’s the typical FLAHNS & DJUNTS. (And thanks to Pantera, there are even super djunts!).    But did you know about the muns, the buns, the duns, the luns, and the uns?   What...

July 27, 1979 Perhaps one of the most brilliant & haunting albums of AC/DC’s 1970’s output, HIGHWAY TO HELL shows the band at their peak with the most polished production of their career thanks in no small part to the production genius of Robert John “Mutt” Lange. Not only is it the perfect finale to the Bon Scott era of the band, but it perfectly portrays everything the band had evolved to up to...

Summary: Prepare to travel back in time and embrace the dayglo technicolor of the 1980’s, a time when Miami Vice impacted fashion, the PMRC became the best promoters of heavy metal in the world, and JUDAS PRIEST achieved mainstream success and popularity with a shift towards bigger, heavier, more modern metal soundscapes which has become their calling card (with the exception of that one keyboard...

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”   1987. That sounds like a very long time ago, but here’s a few events that will provide some perspective. 1987 marked the time of the Black Monday stock market crash, the FDA approval of Prozac, the first sighting of The Simpsons on television, WrestleMania III at the Pontiac Silverdome, and the release of Guns N’ Roses debut album, Appetite For Destruction....

“You are Number 6…”   There’s a t-shirt somewhere that perfectly sums up the philosophy of life, which is as follows:   “You can only trust yourself and the first six Black Sabbath albums.”   After 4 brutally brilliant albums of heavy metal doom & gloom, and one with a greater focus on more progressive music and experimental soundscapes, BLACK SABBATH finally managed to blend every facet of their...

“It was everything I loved about my teen years…”   The 2023 KLASH OF THE TITANS NORTH AMERICAN TOUR (featuring SpiritWorld, Death Angel, Sepultura, and Kreator) which recently graced the stage at The Masquerade in Atlanta, Georgia is easily one of THE most perfect thrash shows we’ve ever experienced. It was “100% bone across the board” and that rating applies to EVERYTHING: the venue, the merch, t...

“They’ve got HUGE djunts!”   MESHUGGAH, the Nordic Godfathers of Djent (“Djunt”) hailing from Umea, Sweden, sound like the logical evolution of extreme metal to emerge out of the early 90’s thrash scene. Tempered with their own surgically precise, ferociously complex, polyrhythmic brand of math metal genius, MESHUGGAH have carved out their own unique place in metal by blending their unmistakable s...

“Everything’s LITERALLY ‘literally’…” It’s time to blow out the lines again, which means anything goes! And by “anything” we LITERALLY mean anything, including possibly the worst Aussie accent ever attempted. For the record, we humbly apologize (in advance) to our Australian and/or New Zealand listeners (and/or bolth) as well as the good people of “Old Zealand” where the accent (and climate) is co...

SYSTEM OF A DOWN, the Glendale, California quartet who dominated the “Alt + Nu” metal landscape from 1998 to 2005 before going on hiatus, are one of the most uniquely incomparable & original bands of the early 2000s. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, S.O.A.D. are the heavy metal equivalent of “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”, a musical force beyond classification or genre. The onl...

AC/DC’s 1978 banger, POWERAGE (pronounced like voltage, amperage, and sausage; NOT like volt-AGE, amper-AGE, or saus-AGE) is undoubtedly one of “the most 1978 sounding” albums that has ever been released in rock and metal.  And after giving it a listen, you’ll undoubtedly agree.     It’s the first album to feature Cliff Williams on bass, the first album to not have a title track and (perhaps most...

For anyone out there who identifies as a “cannabis person” on any level, even if that means just being a fan of STONER METAL, then we cordially invite you to our 420 SUPER SPECIAL to partake of a small sampling of the myriad of stoner metal strains which are available to you. There’s some 70’s style stoner metal, some actual 1970’s stoner metal, some stoner metal that’s tuned down so low the strin...

July 25, 1983:  the day that changed heavy metal forever. There are certain turning points in heavy metal that simply cannot be denied. KILL ‘EM ALL, the debut album from the mighty METALLICA, is without question the first shot fired in the sonic revolution of heavy metal that would ultimately come to be known as the point of origin for thrash metal.  Heavier, faster, and more aggressive than anyt...

After touring a crapload for The Black Album and effectively unloading their classic thrash sound from the 80’s, METALLICA released LOAD in June of 1996 and RELOAD in November of 1997 (same sessions, different loads).  The original intent was for “The Loads” to be released as a double album (aka “One Massive Load”), but since there was concern that so much new material released at once might be “t...

IRON MAIDEN’s 3rd release with Bruce Dickinson (and 5th release overall), POWERSLAVE, might very well have been the most progressive heavy metal album of 1984.  In fact, it is easily the most progressive metal album of the early Dickinson era, with ½ the songs from this album being included on their 1985 “World Slavery Tour” concert souvenir, Live After Death.   It's time to find “the emergency la...

“If you let it go long enough, it’ll get there eventually…” Since this episode is focused on SLAYER COVERS, we decided to reference: covers OF other artists as performed BY Slayer  As well as… covers OF Slayer as performed BY other artists. That way, it’s understood that “SLAYER COVERS” refers to bolth scenarios above.  To paraphrase a Van Halen reference, it’s literally the best of bolth worlds....

In a way, you might say that DIVINE INTERVENTION, the 6th album from SLAYER (and the first with former Forbidden skins man Paul Bostaph behind the drumkit) was their moment of resurrection.   By the early 90’s, much of the pre-existing thrash landscape from the 80’s had either completely disappeared or radically transformed into a different non-thrash genre altogether.  Naturally, SLAYER refused t...