New High On Fire

Earlier in the week I downloaded the new record from one of my favorite metal outfits High On Fire. The new record is called De Vermis Mysteriis. That would be Latin for Mysteries of the Worm for those who didn't have Jesuits for teachers. The last record was called Snakes For The Divine and the record before that Death Is This Communion. So you can probably infer they are pretty mellow dudes.

Anywho, this is a killer record if you dig heavy, scarier Sabbath-style metal. I highly recommend it if you're casting about for a fresh record and want to frighten your wife. Blasting it through the car window will get you some odd looks from old ladies coming back from the garden store (I speak with experience here). Matt Pike is the guitarist and vocalist and he shreds when needs to and screams when needs to but the band never loses the song's melody. Jeff Matz and Des Kensel are the rhythm section and they maintain the groove especially on tunes like "Madness Of An Architect."

One of the many things I like about metal is the courage to be goofy. I got this from Wikipedia so I cannot verify it's authenticity. But let's assume it's true because it's funny and supports my point. This has Pike talking about the new record's concept (because every great metal record needs a concept, right!?!):

The album’s title (translation: “The Mysteries of the Worm,”) is a nod to a fictional grimoire conceived by the late, great Psycho author Robert Bloch in 1935 and later incorporated into horror master H.P. Lovecraft’s renowned Cthulu Mythos. “It’s a concept record, a little bit,” Pike offers. “I got this idea about Jesus Christ and the Immaculate Conception: What if Jesus had a twin who died at birth to give Jesus his life? And then what if the twin became a time traveler right then? He lives his life only going forward until he finds this scroll from an ancient Chinese alchemist who derived a serum out of the black lotus—which is actually in Robert E. Howard’s ‘Conan’ stories—and then he starts traveling back in time. He can see the past through his ancestors’ eyes, but his enemies can kill him if they kill the ancestor that he’s seeing through at the time. Basically, he keeps waking up in other people’s bodies at bad times. It’s kinda like that old TV show Quantum Leap. Kurt actually pointed that out to me after I told him the idea. But whatever—time travel is a killer concept.”

Mastodon did the same thing a record back but they had Rasputin traveling through time. Rasputin...Jesus' dead twin brother...it's all good, man.

Evidently this is the first single off the new record but I doubt you shall hear it on your radio next to "Party In The USA" or whatever the new summer-time jam is (I am so behind on such things). Unless you have Sirius. Then you'll probably find it on station 40. This is called "Fertile Green" and yes that is the album cover.