For Toronto punk/metal hybrid, Maximum RNR are significantly better, but I guess NOW's not going to hand out an award to a band with a member writing for a rival weekly.

have you seen them?? Its ridiculous... its like Dolly Parton singing for Slayer with Sonic Youth producing... Vice may be be hipsters, but the attitude that someone can "decide what good metal and punk is" beyond people who listen to metal and punk (be they Vice kids or not) is kindof lame. Good music is good music.

the Ark has been around for awhile, paid serious dues, and were still kicking out the crazy thrash two years ago when Vice didnt know them, not many people knew them and listening to Napalm Death wasnt exactly hip. Maybe its "cool" to like them now, but FUCK IT! They're cool! Great people, amazing fuck yeah music!!!! Ive seen them get people to throw up the devil horns who youd never think. Maybe hipsters like them now because of Vice but seriously, why hate? Plus Vice has amazing label distribution, and thanks to them L.A might be able to make a little money, not to mention have thousands more people hear their music!

haha wow that post turned long....hah just love the Ark.

and Sunn O))). They may just be a tribute band to Earth but they melt faces.

word.

Let's put it this way, Eye Weekly has a guy who actually knows metal on staff (Carman). NOW doesn't. So when NOW wants to praise metal, its through the eyes of the Vice magazine type person, who isn't ever going to accept a power metal band or a serious black metal band. So when I see this band get put up there, they may be good, but picking them out of all the punk or metal bands in Toronto just rings so hollow and pandering to a certain kind of readership, trying to represent metal and retain all cool points.

haha I dont know, I thought Sunn was kindof boring when i first heard them (drone can be!), but when I saw them (in a church, on Halloween, with only red lights) it kindof blew my mind. Its all about context!

this is awesome! I've never commented on anything before (just wanted to praise L.A) and now I've got some sweet beef goin down....

solid...

Im not sure its pandering to a type of readership...I mean, you seem to read the NOW. Cmon, its free! it may be kindof cliquey but what publication isnt? and its FREE! and it has naked people in the back!

I think the idea is more to give the readership a band theyd probably enjoy. And personally, I consider Arkestra "best punk/metal" right now just because theyre doing something new...combining different genres, having fun with it, growing in their sound and as a band

have you thought about the fact that these amazing unsung "power metal" and "black metal" bands youre talking about may be amazing bands ( be they punk or metal or whatever) but they just arent really pushing the genre or doing anything particularly new, interesting or worthy of a mention?

I confess to pushing harder on the opinion than I may otherwise in casual conversation. I'm not deeply offended at LA earning the accolades, and I have no beef with RAZMATAZZ (sorry to disappoint). To datedly quote Red vs. Blue: "I HATE YOU, AND I HATE THE BANDS YOU LIKE!"

"I think the idea is more to give the readership a band theyd probably enjoy."

Let me dial it back a bit - the complaint is not so much about if this band deserves attention or not, I guess I'm more bothered by how typical it is of it, and very unchallenging of NOW's readership. I just think it shows me that NOW is just as capable of fence sitting for fear of hitting their audience with anything truly weird as Rolling Stone is of giving anything challenging anything higher than a 3.5/5 stars. Yeah yeah free paper, but now that Tim Perlich is gone someone else has to feel the brunt of my unwanted bitching.

"and its FREE! and it has naked people in the back! "

Nuh uh, you dunderhead! (do you feel like its a beef again?) Not all of the back. Its Eye that has to leave us with just the spank section now, NOW still thankfully has Dan Savage to let us finish reading on a positive note rather than "I guess they have to pay the bills"

:)

"Im not sure its pandering to a type of readership" "I think the idea is more to give the readership a band theyd probably enjoy."

I think these are kind of contradictory, don't you think?

"..but they just arent really pushing the genre or doing anything particularly new, interesting or worthy of a mention? "

I simply don't feel that "new" and "best" are mutually exclusive terms. This example just popped in my head randomly: what Brokencyde is doing is definitely newer and thus perhaps more 'interesting' than what Alexisonfire are doing, but if you were writing for Wonkavision Magazine or Decibel or something, would you listen to this and single it out for positive attention instead? :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEksNBMmL8A

To clarify here, I think given NOWs readership, trying to turn them on to a "regular" extreme metal band, like this: http://www.myspace.com/sacrificecanada

is more challenging than spoonfeeding them something already geared to the tastes one expects from a NOW reader.

No rug pulled to me, because the point is that there are two major alt weeklies in Toronto - eye covers the Obituarys and the Finntrolls and the Behemoths out there when they come to town, I can't think of the last time NOW prominently featured any significant metal band, despite the fact that when the year end list comes around, there are certainly a couple writers on staff who can list off some good underground acts.

Whatever Eye's budget issues are, they continue to cover metal throughout the year, and NOW doesn't. Do you actually want to debate this, because these papers' archives clearly prove me correct.

you guys are amazing!

eye has never reviewed Mastodon, while NOW covers their every move... explain that... I understand you appreciate Keith Carman. I do too. But handing that appreciation over to a whole magazine for one underused contributor is just plain wrongheaded..

review: http://www.eyeweekly.com/music/ondisc/article/56268

article: http://www.eyeweekly.com/interview/article/58985

live review: http://www.eyeweekly.com/music/liveeye/article/59637

:D

PS do you work for TorStar? PSPS. Now put Dethklock on their cover a while back. In my 10 years in T.O., I've never seen an eye metal cover (besides Anvil, which was about the movie...)

And now you bring up the second biggest metal band right now as if THAT'S an underground thing you can ignore. NOW gave the cartoon version of Dethklok the cover in 2008. I believe Brendon Small of Dethklok has been on the Eye cover as well wearing corpsepaint. I could double check if Eye kept better cover archives. NOW covered their recent live show, but if you look at the archive, it was clear they only went for Mastodon and that their reviewer didn't "Get" Dethklok. Carla Gillis wrote of them: "...one speed (purée-fast), volume (head-splittingly loud) and tone (pummelling ridiculousness), let's just say they're a phenomenon I don't understand."

At Eye they were given more consideration by Dave Morris (even though I'm not a huge fan of his lately), and that week in advance they were given a full page article which I guarantee was in print, which is here: http://www.eyeweekly.com/interview/article/74852

So in the question of "What have you done for me lately", for those two major bands I'm still giving the coverage nod to Eye.

To repeat, when it comes to covering actual relevant metal bands that aren't so huge you're pretty much obligated to cover them. And I've listed Obituary, Finntroll, Behemoth... it's Eye that covers them. It's eye that reviews new albums from your Toxic Holocausts or Cannibal Corpses.

No, I don't work for Torstar, and I don't give Eye the automatic "better paper" nod for covering one genre better. It doesn't take an expert to notice that NOW has been missing the boat on metal, and that Eye's metal coverage is better than NOW's, even if it is only occasional.

Is Evan Davies on NOW's staff anymore? His 2008 end of year list included great albums like Nachtmystium's "Assassins..". If you're going to complain about Carman only being 'occasional' at Eye, Davies is certainly far less occasional at NOW. I'd like to get more than a good metal top 10 list once a year.

All this time btw I've realized that for a 'punk/metal' category NOW also thus chose LA over Fucked Up, who are certainly also a superior act.

I'm not intentionally moving goal posts... I genuinely missed all that coverage because eye doesn't run it in print or even indicate it exists. They instead bury it somewhere on their site. My bad, I guess, but I think I should share that fault with their editor/webmaster who can't get the coverage to the people who want to read it. The best metal coverage has to go to the magazine that allows you to read it. Anyway, at least we agree Keith Carmen is awesome.

Maybe I'm wrong about that live review, but I'm certain that the other Mastodon articles went to print, and I'm also pretty certain Carman doesn't give them stuff for their 'blog' - if he's hired for them, its most likely in print.

"The best metal coverage has to go to the magazine that allows you to read it. "

And I still think thats Eye, through feature articles and reviews. I think the last time I saw a metal band given a feature in NOW was when Evan Davies gave space for Rotting Christ back in January. This thread has really made me want to go through NOWs archives and find the last time Evan had written anything. I really did enjoy him as a writer and how he could cover everything from blistering black metal to Kelly Clarkson with proper due for each. Maybe I'm missing it but I haven't noticed him lately in NOWs pages. I'm not saying at all that NOW has never covered metal, but I definitely think right now they're not up to it and maybe don't even want to be.

A couple more hard Toronto acts worthy of note: Nadja (who may appeal to NOW readers based on their ambient sensibilities) and math metal group The End.

If you're a Carmen fan obviously you probably read his Exclaim reviews, but I also check in on him on FFWD Weekly's website since he writes for that Calgary paper frequently: http://www.ffwdweekly.com/author/keith-carman/

I've also noticed that it seems like the big Toronto metal promoter (Inertia) advertises in Eye more than NOW, if even in NOW at all. Just checked my papers in front of me and they were only in Eye this week, for certain. Could just be a case of ad fees, but maybe they go where metal is given more play.

I want to make clear that those examples of bands including Obituary, Behemoth, etc, were all not of live reviews but of feature articles within Eye's print pages. Another Eye writer had a feature on Every Time I Die recently as well. I'd have to see some examples of NOW doing features on at least 3 heavy groups of similar length in their print editions since this summer to show me that they are currently keeping up.

I do think that both papers could cover it more, but I don't actually expect much more than Eye currently does. There are a lot of fans of specific genres as well as various activist groups who think they're being under-represented, so I don't think metal has necessarily been singled out for exclusion.