So, my article on the first great album of 2010–Charred Walls of the Damned’s self-titled debut–is in the Village Voice this week. CWOTD is drummer Richard Christy’s metal project–you may know Richard Christy as one of the writers on the Howard Stern Show but he’s also a metal veteran, having drummed for bands like Iced Earth and Death. Talking to him was a big deal, as I’m a huge Stern fan and just a big fan of his music and stuff. A lot of things we discussed just didn’t make it into the article due to word-space, but I especially loved a rant he had about how John Carpenter is his favorite songwriter.
After the interview, he was awesome enough to give me a tour of the Stern show studios which is sort of a dream fulfilled since I was eight years old listening to Stern with my dad. In Richard’s office, amongst the metal CDs and porno DVDs was a bunch of Carpenter movie soundtrack LPs. Charred Walls of the Damned came out today. Go get it!
“It’s early in the year, but Richard Christy has already released two masterpieces. First, there’s his epic rearranging of Sarah Palin’s audio book—one of many pre-recorded bits he provides for The Howard Stern Show—wherein the comedian turns Going Rogue into Penthouse Forum, cutting and splicing Palin’s voice so she’s describing an indefatigable orgy that includes, among other things, her inclination to “jerk off a caribou.” But don’t forget Charred Walls of the Damned, the self-titled debut of his new songs-in-the-key-of-Maiden metal supergroup.The Stern affiliation often outshines Fort Scott, Kansas’s favorite son’s nearly 20 years in the heavy-metal scene—including bygone gigs as drummer for death-metal pioneers Death and the concept-album-obsessed Iced Earth, among many others—but Christy is comfortable with that. “I work on the greatest radio show in the world,” he exclaims. “I get paid to goof around…”
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Anonymous
3 Feb 10 at 4:40 am
I want to shoot my goo/on robin's big brown boobs/and then lick her vagina
(sung to the tune of "Electric Avenue")
brandon
3 Feb 10 at 8:04 am
Man, Richard Christy and Steve Digiorgio! When I was 15 I would have genuinely flipped my shit over that lineup.
I saw him drumming with Death on the Sound Of Perseverance tour, still one of the best shows I've ever been to in my life. I'd already gotten bored with seeing loads of my favorite death and thrash metal bands play really lifeless, boring sets, and Death just totally tore my face off that night.
My best friend in high school had bought tickets to see Marilyn Manson with his girlfriend the same night as the Death gig, so he was even more bummed out than I was when Chuck S. died a couple years later. I think if you were to ask him now, he'd probably still say it's his biggest regret.
Anyway, looking forward to checking this out, even though it has the guy from fucking wack ass Capharnaum on guitar.
mark p.
4 Feb 10 at 12:14 am
Mark-
Yeah, man. Same here re: flipping my shit. I really do think the album is great, it's just really weird and sincere. Tons of little details in every song.
What's wrong with Carpharnaum? Certainly not the guitars, ha…
brandon
4 Feb 10 at 2:05 am
Checking this out now. Never listened to Carpharnaum before, but that Jason Suecof dude is producing the new Whitechapel album, so I'm excited to hear he's on this.
joseph
4 Feb 10 at 10:09 pm
What's Wrong With Capharnum:
Matt Heafy sings like a penis.
Did you ever listen to Crotchduster?
Christopher
5 Feb 10 at 2:45 am
Christopher-
LOLZ, I originally typed, "what's wrong with Carpharnaum other than the vocals?".
brandon
5 Feb 10 at 3:04 am
Oddly, the guitarwork was my main issue with that Capharnaum album (moreso than the fact that they have the guy from Trivium on vocals).
I can't get into any death metal that goes too far over the top with the "tech" stuff. Blessed Are The Sick-era Morbid Angel, the later Death records, first two Atrocity albums, and maybe Suffocation or early Cryptopsy are about as wanky and complex as death metal can get without giving me a headache, and even there the emphasis was always on writing killer tunes/riffs and building up to the heaviest parts. Y'know, rather than just being an endless barrage of annoying squiggly wank riffs (what's up Necrophagist?).
mark p.
6 Feb 10 at 3:41 pm
Well, that's why all the tech death nerds are properly segregated away. They had their run 4 or 5 years ago when everyone was pre-coming over the release of the guitar tablature for the Necrophagist album but in reality they're the death metal version of twee aficionados; they progressed into such self-parody and pathetic embodiment of everything wrong with modern death metal and modern technical-ability-obsessed musicians that reactionary stuff like Razorback and the popularization of powerviolence and grind happened.
Spawn of Possession have some jams and Gorod are supposed to be good but a lot of what's churned out is hyper-compressed wankery, yeah. Although that last Origin record had it's moments.
Christopher
6 Feb 10 at 4:44 pm
With all the nods to death in that song, I'm already a fan. And the older i get, the more i can appreciate those opera vocals. Seems Dam-Funk has just lost his exclusive rights over my iPod.
C.R.
6 Feb 10 at 5:33 pm