Loud Music In Cars

Picked up an issue of Metal Hammer for the first time in a while. It's getting controversial.

The free CD has band names you'd expect: Trivium, Hammerfall, 3 Inches of Blood, Venom, Battleheart, Conquest of Steel, and, er ... Fairyland? Well, an advert says they are "symphonic metal meets speed metal", so that's all right then, had me worried. But a letter supports the recent coverage of "other genres" - and apparently much other support exists to. 21 to 8 seems unnecessarily precise ...

However there's quite a lot of religious content, too. Turned (somehow, spooky) to a page in memory of Stryper (Salvation Through Redemption, Yielding Peace, Encouragement and Righteousness? Yeah right.) with a mention of www.christianhardrock.net the place for "God-loving metallers". Add news of Norma Jean "Christian metalcore" and a worying trend develops, only reassured by feature on The Meads of Asphodel (how do they think of them?) who often dress as Templars (not quite sure where the gas mask fits in here). But even this page has ... book reviews (OK paragraphs about) of Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, and two more about "the other lives of the Big J".

I also need to know about Abigail Williams (as female as Alice Cooper, but she does take a mean picture), Arch Enemy (who really are fronted by a girly) and Blind Guardian (iffy name) who follow in the footsteps of Dragonforce (better name) down the quasi-operatic route. I need to do some serious catching up. Oh yes, Killswitch Engage are still in the mag but who are the rest of these guys?

Title of this post: an old track by Billy Bremner (appalling name) which is somehow relevant to where I shall mostly listen to the free CD. Sleep tight.

I wonder what Kerrang! is up to these days ...