Puscifer, yet another side project by Tool front man Maynard James Keenan, has finally released a full length album, titled V is for Vagina. To be completely honest I had no idea who Puscifer was until I did a thorough background check via Wikipedia. The only time I’d seem the name was while skimming the soundtrack for one of the Underworld movies. From the sounds of it, Maynard is attempting to some kind of word of mouth/street team promotion on this album. This must’ve payed off for him, since the first song off the album, Queen B. debuted at #38 on the billboard modern rock chart.

If you do catch Queen B. on your local radio station you’ll get a fair impression of the entire album. V sounds like a smooth playing rock tribute to old cowboys and sipping whiskey on a lazy Sunday afternoon while watching the sun go down. The subject matter of the album is hardly more varied than the sound. V’s lyrics seem mostly satirical referencing honey pots, pimp hands and bellowing southern preachers.

Puscifer has definitely created a different kind of chill album. It’s easy to pop this one in, sit back, relax, and enjoy.

Lordi Lordi, what can you say about Lordi. Are these guys completey nuts or are they just a cheap rip-off of GWAR. Actually Lordi is neither of those things. Lordi is a hard rock maelstrom invading the states. These super beasts hail from Finland where it gets so cold in the winter that you have to climb into elaborate monster costumes just to stay warm.

Seriously though, Lordi is a new import courtesy of the kind folks over at The End Records, and the Arockalypse is what they are reigning down. After making it big in their homeland by winning the Eurovision music contest Lordi brought their act to the world with a summer long stretch with Ozzfest.

Some people can’t seem to get past Lordi’s outlandish monster get ups to really appreciate what they are doing. Lordi is filling this crazy big hole left by some of the original monsters of rock such as Alice Cooper and Ozzie. Their sound has more in common with these grand-daddies of hard rock and hair metal than they do with today’s doom and gloom generation of metal bands.

When I first heard this album I thought to myself, “Sh!t, this is the best album I’ve heard all year!” After a month or so of listening to Traineater I can stick to that opinion. The Book of Knots have created a tribute to the decaying landscape that is the heart of industrial America. The core members of The Book of Knots—Matthias Bossi, Joel Hamilton, Tony Maimone, and Carla Kihlstedt—have teamed up with some amazing talents including Megan Reilly, Mike Watt, and the man himself Tom Waits.

My first impression of Traineater, well first after Holy Sh!t, was that this album is the bastard child of Tom Waits and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. I suppose considering who’s involved in the production of Traineater that isn’t exactly a quantum leap of the imagination. What struck me though is how much it deviated from the somber depressive tone of their first self-titled album. Traineater borrows a lot from Waits’ Mule Variations album. They’ve take the dirty booze-hound blues that Waits does so well and mixed it with their own fusion of Post Punk and Classical sensibilities to create something that I’m increasingly beginning to consider Millennial Folk.

So, I managed to crawl out from under my rock long enough this weekend to make it out to the late Sunday show at the new and improved Box Awesome—formerly known as The Chatter Box. So, who was playing? Well, Shinyville of course. Shinyville opened for two other great bans Time of Orchids and Upsilon Acrux.

Before I jump into the music I’d like to give kudos to the folks at the Box. They did a bang-up job of sprucing the place up. The stage is no longer crammed in the front window, it’s now smack in the middle of the venue, where the old bar was. The stage has gotten quite a bit bigger so now a four piece band doesn’t have to sit on each others lap to perform. There’s a lot more room on the floor in front of the stage too, which must be nice for bigger shows. The best part of all is the new and improve sound “booth” which is now a crows nest instead of a table behind the guy taking the cover from people coming in. With a wider space to project the sound I didn’t get the feeling that my ears were bleeding either. After the show I kept hearing the band members gushing over what and awesome venue it is. So big thumbs up to Box Awesome.

In the ongoing saga of Halo 3 fan-boy geekdom I’d like to present a couple of videos that pay homage to the Master Chief.

First up, we have The Halo 3 Hoedown by SarcasticGamer.com.

Next is Halo Nights by Team Tiger Awesome. This one strikes a chord in my old heart-strings, since my friend Rocky and I are known to bust out an NSYNC style Bye Bye Bye complete with quacky hand wave just for shiz-n-giggles.

And if that isn’t enough Halo fun, I highly recommend checking out the John 117 memorial over at the official Halo 3 website. Take the 360° tour of the battle for New Mombasa complete with first person accounts, and profiles of both UNSC and Covenant soldiers.

So, Ivy and I did get a chance to check out the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween during our long weekend. In a word: BRUTAL, I was cringing within the first 10-15 minutes of the film. I must say that I enjoyed Halloween a lot more than Ivy did. Her take on it was that it was a) too trashy b) too gory. Which are both pretty accurate statements.

Rob Zombie’s (RZ) Myers family isn’t as clean cut as John Carpenter’s. Little Mikey has a stripper mommy, a drunk abusive stepfather, and a whore-in-training big sister. This aspect of the film is what I loved the most—the amount of detail put into Michael’s back-story. RZ added so much depth to the character, you almost felt sympathy for him at times. Here’s a kid who lived such a shit-hole life that it’s no wonder that he turns into a homicidal maniac. You could almost call it a prequel to all the other Halloween films.

Admittedly, I wasn’t really all that thrilled to hear that Billy Corgen, Jimmy Chamberlin, and a couple others were putting out a new Smashing Pumpkins album. This is why I was not entirely broken up when Zeitgeist proved to be a little underwhelming. There are a few things that put me off of Zeitgeist right from the beginning:

• Billy Corgan’s solo album Future Embrace was great IMHO, it moved in a direction that the Pumpkins only touched on in their later albums.
• Two original band members and a couple stand-ins do not make a reunion—especially when the two have already played together in another band.
• The whole thing sounds like a ploy to cash in on the nostalgia of their old fans who have grown into adults with jobs and paychecks to spend.
• Shower curtain capes are fragging lame.

So, onto the album. It starts out with Doomsday Clock, the only thing that stands out about this song is when Billy pulls out a couple lines that start out with “Apocalyptic.” It sounds so cheesy, just saying something is “Apocalyptic” does not give it substance…

Devildriver has released their third album, The Last Kind Words. For those of you who don’t know, Devildriver is the latest project of Dez Fafara former front-man of Nu-Metal/Goth band Coal Chamber. Suffice it to say, Coal Chamber disbanded for reasons too numerous to count. Out of the ashes of that debacle came Devildriver, a no-holds barred grab you by the throat and shake you metal band. From where I’m standing Devildriver is a step in the right direction.

Anyhow, two other albums have come and gone and now Devildriver has done what so many bands struggle for… Their third album actually rocks harder than their first ones. This is aided by the fact that Dez’s vocals are awesome, he sounds like madman off his meds running wild in the streets. Also, the music is playing a bigger part in act three. Pounding lead-ins and plenty of tight guitar solos bring The Last Kind Words to a slightly higher level than most metal these days. Stylistically, this album pays homage to the metal gods of old, reminding me a lot of Pantera and Sepultura.