Metal Nerdery Podcast

“It’s the ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ of ‘Kill ‘em All’…” Thanks to the “radio homogenization” resulting from the 1996 Telecommunications Act which prompted a handful of corporations to buy up all the radio stations and systematically destroy them by repeatedly violating our ear holes and airwaves with the same overrated, pre-programmed, 6-song playlist (like some Clockwork Orange style mind con...

For the inhabitants of the Bunkerpoon, Georgia Tech’s college radio station (WREK 91.1FM) and their weekly, late-night metal show (WREKage) was our very first exposure to one of the titans of “The Big Teutonic Four” of thrash metal, Germany’s KREATOR.  In fact, for many of us in and around the tri-county, metropolitan Atlanta area, that was the only place in the late 80’s where we’d hear them (at...

With the exception of a few notable anomalies in metal history, a band’s second (i.e., follow-up) album is almost always more ambitious (and usually a ginormous quantum leap forward) than their debut album in nearly every way imaginable. And because we can’t help but “poke the bear” every now and again, we thought “Why not pick two of the most incredibly important follow-up albums in thrash metal...

PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH, the third release from “Big Six” Bay Area thrashers TESTAMENT, is a bit of a departure from the more eerie, dark, and creepy signature sound represented on The Legacy & The New Order.   There’s an almost upbeat, “good time thrash” vibe to it, with “more singy, less screamy” vocals and “more accessible” songs that radio stations could feel safer playing over the airwaves (...

We thank all of you and your respective ear-holes for listening to our absurd nonsense and continuing to spread the wordery and we hope that you’ll continue to JOIN US and keep listening to Metal Nerdery forever!     From all of us here at Bunkerpoon Studios International, we’d like to wish a HAPPY VALENTINES DAY to you all and may you all excrete fluids of pleasure in the name of Love and Metal f...

“How close can we sound like Black Sabbath without ripping off Black Sabbath?” Initially we had planned to only do a 4-volume series on STONER & DOOM Metal, but we quickly realized that the likelihood of that was as unrealistically absurd as sparking up a spit moistened doob with a waterlogged lighter, because there is ALWAYS some kind of stony, doomy, glorious metal goodness oozing out of the woo...

“It wouldn’t pain me more to bury you rich than to bury you poor…” One of the quintessential principles of the Bunkerpoon creed is to arrive at a philosophically logical conclusion regarding any and all things metal, regardless of genre or subgenre.    To put it plainly: “there’s Thrash, and then there’s Metal.” Similarly, there’s ALT METAL, and then there’s NU METAL (“ALT…and NU.”) You’re gonna w...

“Those were the days…”   1983. A time when “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi” was number one at the box office,  the national debt was a meager $195 BILLION (compared to the $31,000 BILLION behemoth it is today), the first mobile phones cost around four grand (which, when adjusted for inflation, would be around $12K today), and Metallica, Pantera, and Slayer had just released their first...

“So I told him about my pain and the life I’ve been through, he just smiled and the laughter came Then I told him that I love you…and the devil cried.”   The early 80’s saw a changing of the guard in BLACK SABBATH, with vocalist RONNIE JAMES DIO becoming the new “captain at the helm” as the front man for the legendary Birmingham quartet and bringing along with him a heroic dose of wizards, dragons...

The NEW WAVE OF OLD SCHOOL THRASH METAL (NWOOSTM) is the sonic equivalent of getting in a time machine and travelling back to when thrash was still relatively new (throughout the 80’s and the early 90’s) and making a few subtle tweaks.    All of the classic ingredients of old school thrash are there. The sound, the album art, the band logos, not to mention the continuous evolution of 30 years of m...

“YURRNOTUHRRRROTATONTATROTATATANBUMBUMBLAKAEAUHHTAHHHEAUBLAHUUURRRRAHHHH!”   After blowing everyone’s mind with their revolutionary, self-titled debut, KORN returned with their follow up album, LIFE IS PEACHY, which took the Bakersfield, California Nu Metal pioneers to new levels of unmatched sonic aggression including deeply disturbing lyrics fueled by pure existential fury and primal rage.  No b...

“I want you to listen!  I’m talking to you…” One could easily argue that SABBATH BLOODY SABBATH, the fifth studio release from Birmingham’s own BLACK SABBATH, is their “Black Album” moment, in that there are a multitude of different dimensions present on this album that were not as evident or pronounced as on the first four albums, including the addition of synthesizers, orchestras, and atmosphere...

Ahhh, the Holiday season. Christmastime in the city. Filled with “tidings of comfort and joy” that includes leaving out some special “Christmas tree” infused cookies for Santa in the hope that you will be blessed with something special from SANTA’S SACK on Christmas morn. Grab yourself some “cocoa nibs”, settle in and prepare to “get tingly”, for the time is at hand to come together “at the same t...

“What’s the biggest metal boner you think you ever got in your life?”   As much as it pains us to say it, it has only been extremely recently that we finally got some insight into the ROB DUKES ERA of EXODUS, and thank goodness we finally did, because we seriously had no clue as to the level of thrashtactical brutality we’d been missing!   Not only were the early 2000’s a renaissance for a multitu...

“The perfect is the enemy of the good” - Voltaire In a world infested and subjugated by the tediously mediocre, all we can ever strive for in this life is to do the BEST we possibly can (even if our best is not perfect.) Having said that, we’ve decided to embrace “the enemy of the good” by BUILDING THE PERFECT THRASH ALBUM.  We each came into the Bunkerpoon with our top 12 favorite thrash tunes an...

“Why don’t you think for yourself?” NUCLEAR ASSAULT, the crossover thrash titans hailing from NYC featuring the aggro bass thunder of Dan Lilker (formerly of Anthrax and S.O.D.) alongside the punishing riffs & brutal lyrical commentary of John Connelly, graced metal with an uncompromising attitude and visceral urgency that combines old-school thrash themes with New York hardcore aggression, result...

“What do you wanna do with your life?” For everyone still trying to recover from “the prior episode” we understand you’ve endured a lot and assure you that it’s about to get even more surreal. Think of THE CHRONICLES:  Part II as a 2-part episode embedded within the second half of The Chronicles, like appetizers before the main course or, using a more apropos food analogy, a “Turducken” of Metal i...

“We’ve got a little surprise for you tonight…”   We’ve been talking about doing this for so long now that many of you (ourselves included) had almost given up thinking it was ever going to happen, like it was just another instance of the usual psilly nonsense that manifests deep within the Bunkerpoon Studios whilst surfing relaxer fueled waves of madness.   Well, the aforementioned “psilly nonsens...

“In the beginning…back in 1955…” While it’s the first album sporting the trademark lightning bolt logo (and the last album with Mark Evans on bass), AC/DC’s 1977 masterpiece LET THERE BE ROCK remains a quintessential chapter in the AC/DC catalog and is without question one of the most blistering albums of their legendary 70’s output.    Featuring the furiously unrestrained lyrical genius of Bon Sc...

“Step inside, walk this way…” The world just wouldn’t be the same without Dave Mustaine and MEGADETH. No one else in metal embodies the same snarling, vengeful angst against the psychopathic “powers that be” as Mega Dave, and the band’s 16th studio offering, “THE SICK, THE DYING…AND THE DEAD!” once again proves it. With topics running the gamut from space travel, war, and (actual) plague to nuclea...

“How could The Exorcist be your LEAST favorite scary movie?” Gratuitous thunderclaps, ominous church bells ringing in the chapel, creepy haunted castles, ghosts & poltergeists, witches & werewolves, paranormal and supernatural activity, candy… That’s right:  candy!!!  And with any luck, hopefully some fortunate trick-or-treaters will be blessed with some of that “good candy” on their door-to-door...

“First I drink, then I smoke…” Everyone already knows that when you mix heavy blues, rock, and jazz, the result is Black Sabbath.  Now, if you mix some Sabbath with a hardcore foundation, a liberal splash of misanthropic loathing for fake people, and a generous portion of brutal grooves seasoned with discordant jazz noises, the result is HELMET. HELMET’S fourth outing, AFTERTASTE, is a sonic colle...

“Hey, hey, have you read the news?”   For over 30 years, the mighty minstrels from Maryland known collectively as CLUTCH have been synthesizing sonic goodness that defies categorization, capturing all of the greatest nuances and attitude of 70’s classic rock from “The Days of Yore” and seamlessly blending that together with ingeniously crafted lyrical ciphers and modern-day stoner metal intensity...

“Yeah, yeah…” For SLAYER fans, their merciless 1983 debut SHOW NO MERCY and their even darker, more progressive 1985 follow up HELL AWAITS both possess a somewhat more sinister sound and atmosphere relative to the totality of their catalog. These first two records mark the beginning of their development into the fiercest, darkest, and evilest of The Big Four of thrash, featuring a virtually contin...

“You really like…my limousine…you like the way…the wheels roll…you like my seven-inch…leather heels…and going to…all of the shows…BUT…” Exactly ONE year, ONE month, and ONE day before the rain, thunder, bells and tritones of Black Sabbath’s debut “delivered” heavy metal upon the world, the release of the eponymous debut from Birmingham (England, NOT Alabama) quartet LED ZEPPELIN marked the “birth...