Waldo’s Pecks of the Week

Every other Friday, Waldo the African Grey Parrot, frontbird of thrash-grind immortals Hatebeak, will get you caught up on the week’s latest “extreme” releases.
What the squawk? It’s your old pal Waldo and I’m going to challenge myself. Remember Anthrax’s Attack of the Killer B’s? Well, this is my Attack of the Mediocre at Best B’s. I’m going to preview only bands whose names begin with “B.”

Victory milk the teat of Between the Buried and Me, The Best of Between the Buried and Me. This birdbrain for one is confused as to why this band needs a 2 CD/1 DVD set. The first CD compiles songs off of their various full-lengths. CD 2 has live tracks, and only seven at that. I pecking believe that even to fans of these guys, this would be pointless. The DVD only contains their four (four?!?!) videos and a companion piece to another song. Contained in these discs are the usual switches from progressive metal, metalcore, death metal grunts and growls. If you are at all curious about this band (and I do mean curious), do yourself a favor and get something else; don’t feed into Victory’s attempt to eke every last cent out of one of their acts. Fuck this shit. 4 Fucking Pecks.

Bloodiest release their Relapse debut with Descent. Featuring members of every Chicago band ever formed, this seven-piece brings the bland with their Swans/Neurosis worship. It’s not that Descent is bad; it’s not. Just par for the course when one imagines a band that sounds like the aforementioned. Taking a risk on this isn’t risky, and if this type of metal is your thing, it’s a fairly solid release. It’s just pecking generic, in this birdbrain’s opinion; songs kind of meander in and out of parts with no real sense of direction or purpose. Looking forward to seeing if this becomes a real band and less of a project. That may give Bloodiest a little more sack. Also, c’mon, leave this name to a punishing death metal band. 6 Fucking Pecks.

Now for Birdzum, I mean Burzum’s Fallen. What can one really say about this? I’m squawking sure this has been downloaded more times that Britney’s first beaver shot. Harkening back to the Filosofem era, hypnotic riffs repeat more times than Charlie Sheen has dropped the word “winning.” Fallen is a natural progression from last year’s Belus, yet has a bit more beak. Definitely NOT the Burzum of yore, but solid. What the peck happened to the old recording sound? And what’s with the clean beaking vocals? 6 Fucking Pecks.

Believer… pecking believe(r) it… Believer are at it once again with Transhuman. Just the title alone makes me chuckle. Is this necessary? Aren’t there TONS of progressive metal bands out there? Do we REALLY need another one? Granted, Believer were one of the originals, making unique sounding death/thrash, but that was 20 pecking years ago. This thing sucks outright, missing are any riffs that have ANY bite. Gone are the interesting arrangements. And the vocals, don’t get me started: singing, more singing. Being able to play time signatures in 19/7.5 doesn’t mean you SHOULD, and it definitely doesn’t mean you need to put it out there for the public to buy. Why tarnish your name with birdshit like this? Do yourself a favor: go get Extraction From Mortality or Sanity Obscure instead. Notice, your satanic parrot didn’t say anything about the fact that they are Christian as well… This shit makes my beak hurt. 2 Fucking Pecks.