Giveaways are a lot like hot cakes...

They are delicious and they are going FAST! (only you don't have to pay for them... )

This week at WKNC we have some amazing giveaways we are pretty excited about. We've also got something AMAZING coming next week, so stay tuned (literally). Or become our friend on facebook to find out NOW.

4/6 Black Lips @ Cat's Cradle

Bronzed Chorus @ Pinhook

4/7 Destroyer @ Cat's Cradle

Surf City @ Kings

Movie: Hanna @ Mission Valley Cinema

4/8 Fridays on the Lawn: Midtown Dickens and Butterflies @ Harris Field (Just kidding, you can't win tickets... its FREE for everyone!)



 

4/9 Dr. Dog @ Cat's Cradle



 

Rotting Christ (Chainsaw) @ Volume 11

4/13 The Greenhornes @ Kings



 

Remember, you have to listen to win!

Cannibal's Corner IV: temporary farewell

I know it's sad, the prospect of the end of my first year as a DJ coming to a close. But for those of you that don't know, it is exam week this and next week, followed by that thing called summer. Summer is an exciting season, where I meet relatives and they ask me how stuff at the station goes. I tell them, and then they usually ask if I have ever actually eaten a human. Hah, the nerve!

Anyways, Chainsaw will be alive during this summer, so just because this is my last farewell for the Spring of 2010 doesn't mean you have to stop listening in. Seriously, when people start ignoring Chainsaw, stuff like in Figure 1 starts to happen. Keep listening to your dose of Rotting Christ, old-school Dimmu Borgir, Goatwhore, Cannibal Corpse, Belphegor, and by listening to Lucretia, Mistress of Destruction's, show. Seriously, I may wreck the human body to splinters... er, with splinters, but she will tear down the walls of your house. Noobhammer's 2.0 version of his show is definitely a good tune-in as well.

For those that have been consistently reading these blog posts, I provide you with another comic! I know it's been a while, but it's either that or concert gore. And I figured concert gore was exciting. Now, I ran into a bit of trouble with this week's comic and I'm sure you'll see why. Just remember: offended people tend to have more tender meat. And everyone likes tender meat.

Question of the Week: "How could I be as cool as Noobhammer?"

"I would play Dungeons and Dragons." -9th Priest
"I'd grab a foam sword and sing while drinking ale!" -Cannibal Cory

When I come back, I hope your limbs will have regenerated, intestines scabbed over, eyeballs re-socketed themselves, tongue stub re-grown, undisembowled, stitches sewn properly, and bones set straight all so another enjoyable round of shows can begin in the Fall of 2010!

Cannibal's Corner III: Borknagar and Amon Amarth

The heavyweight band is back with their latest album, and I won't try to sweeten any of what I have to say about Borknagar's latest. There are times when it really does take a knife to the intestines and lets out that nice fine ooze, but I felt that for much of the album I had to repeatedly dive headfirst into any bricks I came across. And if you didn't know, there's a mighty ton of bricks here at N.C. State.

I'm sure my colleague and fellow metalhead-in-crime Noobhammer wouldn't object to calling this piece of work "progressive" in some way, but I'm not a man of labels. I just know that past Havoc and Reason, the guitars aren't grinding my elbows to dust. Once I even took a flier from those folks on campus gathering attention for their cause by handing out dead tree pulp just so I could papercut my tongue with a pentagram

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate how they give those cuddly-type of music people their teddy bears and skin-moisturizing lotion, and I thoroughly enjoy black metal artists, but by the end I feel like this is a softer "Aealo" from Rotting Christ. Rotting Christ delivers the rot, Borknagar does not.



Now the Amon Amarth concert this past Tuesday was quite disembowling-- or satisfying in layman's terms. The first band to play was Pandah, and they did a good job getting the crowd worked up on chewing through their own cheeks. They were a refreshing mix of deathly speed and blackened keyboard gore. Next to play was Holy Grail, remnants of 80's speed metal both in sound and the singer's tight pants. His shrill was fierce, and we all enjoyed the feeling of leeches feasting from within our ear canal.

Both bands' styles, however, stood at a contrast to Týr and Amon Amarth. Their songs, based upon Nordic mythology and Scandinavian tales of viking warriors led some in the crowd to produce hammers and bash people's skulls inside out. Many wound up with a Hammer Smashed Face.

Týr did not disappoint, playing beloveds such as By The Sword In My Hand, Hail To The Hammer, and By The Light Of The Northern Star. Their stage presence was a nice menacing beast through which many lost pints of blood, fluids, and bile. By the time Amon Amarth arrived, the concrete floor was coated with a nice slippery mix of stomach acid, disfigured severed limbs, and organs. Nothing like free food.

Amon Amarth brought quite a light show with them, causing peoples' eyes to become hyperactive and either explode or pop out and dangle by that stretchy optic nerve. They opened with Twilight Of The Thunder God, where fans immediately lost all sense of self and began destroying each other in a mosh pit of flying gore. Johan, the singer, kept repeating between songs about how rockin' the people of Raleigh were. If only he could see the floor, where half the crowd was scattered about.

They wound up playing many bloody songs such as Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags, The Fate Of Norns, Down The Slopes Of Death, Cry Of The Black Birds, Under The Northern Star, Live For The Kill, and Guardians Of Asgaard to just name a few. Their destructive power, the packed venue, and the madness-inducing lights created an environment where it was impossible to not headbang and give Johan the horns. I could keep on describing the concert, but instead have a look (that is, if you've got eyes to spare at the moment) at the concert pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words, but these blurry pictures are worth the wading through pools of excrement and gore.

The attack of "Aealo"

Aealo is a Greek word meaning thrashing, catastrophe, or destruction. That is exactly what Rotting Christ's latest album does -- it destroys.  However, it does so in a beautiful way. It may crush you and pummel you, but it will find a way to lift you up with its guitar melodies.

I have always been a fan of Rotting Christ, and I enjoy all of their albums. Though the band may be as old as I am, this hasn't stopped them from progressing and defining itself with each new album. "Aealo" is no exception to that rule.

Every song on the album is an entity of its own, bringing in so many elements from past albums as well as adding new elements at the same time.  It's hard to pick just one song on this album because each one is that good, able to stand on its own. You could randomly pick any song on the album and you would still leave it on repeat.  What makes this album really standout is that it incorporates Mediterranean influences into the songs, such as Greek chants, and Greek melodies played on guitars. I want to pick out songs for someone interested to listen to, but I cannot, because they are all equally as impressive.  If I had to rate this album, I couldn't because it is that well done. Sakis has written some of his best riffs to date, and Themis performs some of his best drumming on this album.

To use a quote I saw from Sakis in an interview with blistering.com, "This album is Hellenic, it is Greek." And maybe that is what makes this album so amazing.  There is no question -- I believe I have already found my album of the year, maybe even of the decade.  I cannot tell you how much I recommend this album to anybody who enjoys metal, or who wishes to expand their music library and tastes.  From the opening chants to the closing riffs,  you will be blown away by this album. The members of Rotting Christ are true defenders of metal, and keep the banner of not only the left hand path raised high, but also the banner of metal, and this album shows that.

Let's get Brütal

In this world there are two things that I absolutely love. They are as follows: metal  music and video games. Tim Schafer has used his genius as a game designer to combine the two in a truly one-of-a-kind experience.

In the game, players acts as  Eddie Riggs, a roadie who is sucked into a world of metal. There are remnants of the old metal titans everywhere in the world. From hotrod exhausts sticking out of the ground, engine blocks making trees, to giant mountains of skulls. Essentially, if it was on a heavy metal cover you will find it in the game. Not only, will we have a metal environment and character, there is a great amount of cameos including the likes of Lita Ford, Lemmy Kilmeister, Rob Halford, and Ozzy Osbourne. Your character is voiced by the comedian Jack Black.  But those are all icing on the cake of metal. The true star of this game is the soundtrack that is in the game.

Featuring bands such as Rotting Christ, 3 Inches of Blood, Accept, Carcass, Dark Tranquillity, Iced Earth, Manowar, and King Diamond, as well as many others, it truly is a metal-head's dream game. Comedy and metal make this a game that only comes around once in a while. It makes me proud to see metal getting rightful treatment and seeing true underground metal bands that not everyone has heard of, but will show more people a different kind of metal other than Metallica or Dragonforce. I can't wait for this game to come out, and will be the first in line for the release date on Rocktober 13th.

The Sign of Evil Existence

Rotting Christ is one of my all time favorite bands in the metal world. I have been to all of their Lucifer Over America tours, which have been their only American tours as well as own all of their cds. I have guitar picks from both shows as well as autographs and photos from all of the band members. I got to both shows about 3-4 hours early.  Needless to say, I am a fanboy of Rotting Christ. However these guys are one of the purest and truest metal bands in the scene. They put so much emotion into both their studio work as well as their live shows. The band members treat all their fans like they were truly brothers and sisters. I have been honored to sit down and talk with Sakis, the lead vocalist, rythmn guitarist, and founder of the band.  He is one of the nicest guys I have had the chance to meet in the metal world. The show, at Volume 11, was top notch. I didn't much care for the opening bands, even though I was excited to see thr opening band Epicurean, they disappointed vocal wise. Their singer couldn't seem to hit the notes that he sang on the album, he was very badly off key. Mantic Ritual I had never heard going into the show, but they played some good old fashioned thrash metal. However none of these guys mattered because I was front and center for the band I had been waiting since they announced they would be touring here again, Rotting Christ. If you are a true metal head, you need to experience this band live. They are truly masters of their craft writing such beautiful music and heavy lyrics. They played with so much energy that the crowd was acting just as crazy as they were. They played a multitude of tracks from many albums, though most of their tracks came off the recently released Theogonia. They played, what I considered their single and probably best track, "King of a Stellar War". They also touched on my favorite all time album of theirs, Thy Mighty Contract, and played "Turn All Sufferings Into Plauges" and "Sign of Evil Existence". Truly this show was a sign of evil existence as we were shown metal in it's purest form. Anyone should go see Rotting Christ just because they are one of the greatest metal bands out there.

Setlist

The Sign of Prime Creation
Kervanos Kivernitos
Athanatoi Este
Enuma Elish
King of a Stellar War
The Sign of Evil Existence
Transform A Suffering Into Plagues
The Fifth Illusion
Satani
In Domine Sathani
Phobos Synagogue
Nemecic
Threnody

Encore:
Non Serviam

-Noobhammer