Mastodon (Band)

Top Ten Los Angeles Metal Albums of 2012

Twenty twelve was another strong year for Los Angeles metal bands. What's especially cool is that we're not just kicking ass in one kind of metal -- L.A.'s got it going on in just about every metal sub-genre. Without further ado, then, here are our top ten Los Angeles metal albums of 2012. See also ... More >>

Music Picks: Cedric Gervais, Van Hunt, Jonathan Richman

It's Casual Hate Stop-and-Go Traffic, So They Made An Album About It

Los Angeles' stop-start traffic has been boosting drivers' blood pressure for decades. Yet to our knowledge no band had addressed and channeled this almost universal Angeleno rage until local hardcore duo It's Casual dropped their album, The New Los Angeles Part 1: Through the Eyes of a Bus Rider, i ... More >>

Opeth, Mastodon, Ghost - Gibson Amphitheatre - 4-26-12

Opeth, Mastodon, and Ghost Gibson Amphitheatre 4-26-12 Better than...being stuck in a Tenth Avenue Freeze Out. We had a bit of trepidation about seeing Mastodon live last night. We've seen them put on a great show, we've seen them put on a lackluster show; you never know for sure which Mastodon yo ... More >>

Record Store Day 2012: What the Employees Are Buying

See also: Record Store Day 2012: Our Comprehensive Guide to Steals and Deals, Free Grub and Live Performances Listen, we're sure you're a crate-digging ninja and your vinyl collection is a wonder to behold. And we're sure you've been talking everyone's ear off all week about how you're gonna clean ... More >>

Behold! The Monolith: How They Got Their Name Was Not Very Metal

Los Angeles power trio Behold! The Monolith's sophomore effort Defender, Redeemist mixes stoner rock, sludge, doom, classic thrash, and black metal into a massive cauldron. Since forming in 2008, vocalist/bassist Kevin McDade and guitarist Matt Price have been pushing the band forward. But during o ... More >>

Intronaut's Tour Diary: From Playing Clubs to Opening for Tool in Sports Arenas

See also: Intronaut's Tour Diary II: Buying Weed in the Middle of Nowhere Intronaut's thunderous blend of sludge-doom and post-rock (most recently on display in their 2010 album Valley Of Smoke) has earned critical praise as well as tours with metal luminaries such as Mastodon, Isis, and Animals As ... More >>

The Top Five Los Angeles Metal Shows of 2011

Audio Visual PhotographyAgalloch ​In the world of heavy metal, the most critical component for long-term success is a killer live show. Even back in the era before the record industry imploded, the bands that got the most devoted fan bases were the ones that could fucking bring it live. All of ... More >>

Music Picks: Amanda Palmer & Jason Webley, Tinariwen, Mastodon

Also: Wadada Leo Smith's Ten Freedom Summers, Danzig and others

All Of A Sudden, Lifelong 
Thin Lizzy Fan Ricky Warwick Is Thin Lizzy's Frontman

Ace Trump​"I'll turn around and say to Scott Gorham, 'Dude, you're in fucking Thin Lizzy!' " says Ricky Warwick. "And he goes back to me, 'Yeah, and so are you!' " As a wee lad in mid-1970s Northern Ireland, Warwick would play air guitar to his big sisters' Thin Lizzy records. Watching th ... More >>

Top 10 Best Musician Mustaches of 2010: Whiskers and Thigh Ticklers

Top 10 Best Musician Mustaches, Whiskers, and Thigh Ticklers

Movie Reviews: Restrepo, Eyes Wide Open, The Sun Behind the Clouds

Also, Knight and Day, Raavan, The Killer Inside Me and more

Movie Reviews: Anton Chekhov's The Duel, Toy Story 3, I Am Love

Also, Cyrus, The Mormon Proposition, The Lottery

MP3 Exclusive: Night Horse Resurrects Thin Lizzy with 'Rollin' On'

Night Horse rides again.​Oh this train is rollin' alright. Back in August, Drew Tewksbury spent a hard-rock morning with L.A.'s Night Horse. This is the band at 11 a.m. on a Saturday: "[Guitarist Justin] Maranga... strokes his long, reddish beard once, straps on his guitar and rips into the ... More >>

Live in L.A. This Weekend: Drive-By Truckers, Peter Gabriel, Les Savy Fav, First Fridays

Drive-By Truckers​You may not have noticed if you don't live in a neighborhood where "y'all" is the prevalent pronoun -- and no, that's not pejorative -- but the Drive-By Truckers have a new album out. "The Big To-Do" is just that, out-sized riffs, growling vocals and sweat-stained rhythms sup ... More >>

The Secrets of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Live: Meatwad, Master Shake, and Carl Brutananadilewski Tell All

The Secrets of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Live: Meatwad, Master Shake, and Carl Brutananadilewski Tell All

Drummers, Drag-sters and Death Rockers

10 Great Heavy Metal Albums of 2009 (Or, Well, Make That 14)

Over the Top Eyes open and ears bleeding, Phil Freeman loads up on the year's best metal. This year was such a good one for heavy music, we wound up having to cheat when putting this list together. We just couldn't settle on ten albums that kicked my ass the hardest in 2009; there were dozens of ca ... More >>

The Metalocalypse Is Here: Dethklok Plays Hollywood Palladium

Liz Ohanesian​In the Adult Swim series Metalocalypse, which recently began its third season by moving from a fifteen-minute spot to a half-hour one, Dethklok is so huge that they've spawned an economy larger than that of most countries, so famous that fans will do anything for them. While the ... More >>

Rock Picks: THE JOE KROWN TRIO, THE FIERY FURNACES, THE LILYS, MR. GNOME

Also, Simian Mobile Disco, Wolfmother, El Perro del Mar and others

This Just In: Fans of Cartoon Metal Band Dethklok Line Up for Hours @ The Palladium

We've seen the future of rock'n'roll, and it is a fictional metal band. This picture below is the line at 3:35pm in front of the Hollywood Palladium for the double bill of Mastodon (a real metal band) and Dethklok (a fictional metal band from the Adult Swim Metalocalypse cartoon). When the fans we ... More >>

Troublemaker Celebrates 'The Maestro' Release with Dance Right, Remixes Mastodon (MP3)

Tonight marks the release party for Atwater Village-based producer, video music composer and remixer Troublemaker, whose new album, The Maestro, delivers a sturdy, totally pumping combination of breakbeat, dubstep and hip hop rhythms. The producer, the nom de DJ of Josh Kouzomis, is incredibly activ ... More >>

LA Weekly Coachella Awards 2009: The Best and Worst of the Festival

View more Coachella pics here: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Half-Dressed People & Scenes from the Desert Timothy NorrisCoachella 2009, at the awards ceremony Weirdest Between-song Banter: Paul McCartney, bless his heart, played an epic set, staked a claim on a body of work that only fools would i ... More >>

Over the Weekend: RIP J.G. Ballard, Three Days of Coachella Madness, Plus Zombie Invasion at Fangoria Convention

We don't know about you but we are the very definition of exhausted. Three days of music, parties and the desert heat at the 10th annual Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio has left us completely wiped. But damn if we didn't get some great coverage while we were there. Randall Roberts put tog ... More >>

Coachella Day 2: Sunday Morning Procrastinator Post

Randall RobertsFashion tip for those wearing headbands and/or Carrera sunglasses: Tinariwen had a better look. Updates coming. We're still in a sort worship mode. Tinariwen at sundown yesterday was a glory to behold. It carried us through the night, and this morning as we were drifting awake after ... More >>

Coachella Trend Alert: Sailor's Caps, Navy Hats; Tuareg Fashion Tips

Timothy NorrisUm. Yes? No? You decide whether this works or not. We're just saying that more than one person remarked on the inordinate number of sailor's caps and Navy hats being worn yesterday. The white caps are a Turbonegro thing, apparently. But could this cleaner, more playful head wear suppl ... More >>

Coachella Day 2: On Mastodon, Metal, Moshing and Men's Briefs

It's an image that will be ingrained in our memory till our dying day. It's nearly midnight. Mastodon, one of America's greatest metal bands, is playing the Mojave tent. The guitars are fucking loud, the bass is in your bones. The pit, in front of the stage and about the size of a boxing ring, is ... More >>

Ten Coachella Picks: Ariel Pink, Genghis Tron, Vivian Girls, Mastodon

Plus, A Place to Bury Strangers, Mexican Institute of Sound, Gui Boratto, MSTRKFT and more

Top 10 Metal Albums of 2008

By Phil Freeman In a year worthy of your rage, metal delivered in spades. What with the economy circling the drain and Sarah Palin coming down from the tundra and then refusing to go back, 2008's been the kind of year that really makes you want to smash your head into walls or punch random stran ... More >>

Queens of the Stone Age, Nokia Theater, 10/29

What I experienced at the Nokia Theater was simply phenomenal. Scary in good ways as well as bad. A sign of things to come and remembering the way it used to be. Setting the tone for the evening, Mastodon opened up and played a very heavy and very evil set that had the crowed frothing at the mouth ... More >>

Vegoose: This is How they Dance

Random observations on dancing at Vegoose and elsewhere: photographs by Timothy Norris Shins fans don't dance. I know this because it was at the beginning of this show that I first discovered that my wristband was in fact MAGIC and offered me backstage access. And free food. And free cocktails. A ... More >>

Rock Like an Egyptian

a.k.a. The Year in Greg Burk: Metal Went Mideastern, Paul Rodgers became Freddie Mercury, and Diana Krall did not become Ella Fitzgerald

Blogs & iPods & Jay-Z & (non-ironic) Metal

The Hipster’s musical year-end predictions and post-game analysis