mixtape: Metal Health

Banner week for yours truly and MPH this week as the show concept is officially broadcasting on two stations! The target for now is to continue the live broadcast on Party 934 and use a prerecorded alternate version of the show theme for the KAOS Austin version. Trying to feel through programming both for the first week out was a bit of a challenge so there’s maybe a little more initial redundancy than you’re going to here on future shows.

The core of this week’s theme was related to the Affordable Care Act being at the top of everyone’s mind for any number of reasons. As it turns out metal, punk and hardcore have a long, and not always pleasant, relationship with one another. Leaving aside for the second most working musicians cannot afford either the cost of care or the cost of insurance for care aside they tend to draw very heavily on references to the medical professions and it’s not limited to grindcore either (although, they are one of the more obviously subgenres appropriating it for lyrical content). The songs actually have less to do with the ACA than they do with just generally touching on things somewhat related to healthcare so don’t look for any kind of political insight into the theme at all. It was, more or less, just one of those easy ones to borrow conceptually for the headlines in crafting a soundtrack of vaguely similar ideas about medical devices, cures and healing, drugs and so on.

Due to the nature of the theme and the many minutes of programming to fill the show(s) this week wander quite far and wide sonically. That’s what I like about doing a show who’s sub-title encompasses the three pillars of aggressive music, it allows me to meander between them and it can still make sense fluidly if you like heavy music in general. The jaunt between death, grind, thrash, punk, hardcore, doom and gothic metal (among others) showed the range of the show theme, carried a number of otherwise unconnected artists requests and shoutouts and encompassed my general mood for the day as you’ll see after the jump.

#MetalHealth – #AlterofMetal edition
#MetalHealth – #MondayMosh edition

Sepultura “Manipulation of Tragedy” the mediator… (2013)
Amorphis “Reformation” the Beginning of times
Paradise Lost “Elusive Cure” Draconian Times
Type O Negative “Life is Killing Me” LiKM
Jesu “Comforter” Everyday I Get Closer (2013) #ByRequest
Origin “Endless Cure” Echos of Decimalization
Amoral “Drug of Choice” Decrowning
Gorguts “Orphans of Sickness” the Erosion of Sanity
Xerath “Reform II” I #ByRequest
Arsis “No One Lies to the Dead” Unwelcome (2013)
Bad Religion “Crisis Time” True North (2013)
Poison the Well “Zombies Are Good For Your Health” You Come Before You
Haste the Day “Invoke Reform” Dreamer
Indecision “May be Monitored For QC” Release the Cure #ByRequest
A Wilhelm Scream “Better Health Through Screaming in Tune” Benefits of Thinking Out Loud
Funeral for a Friend “Best Friends & Hospital Beds” Conduit (2013) #ByRequest
Deeds of Flesh “Medical Murder” Crown of Souls
Aborted “Medical Deviance” Gormageddon
Gaza “Hospital Fat Bags” I Don’t Care
Carcass “316 L Grade SS” Surgical Steel (2013)
August Burns Red “Treatment” Rescue & Restore (2013)
God Forbid “Reject the Sickness” RtS #ByRequest
Nightrage “Drug” Descent into Chaos
Norther “the Cure” Death Unlimited
Chaos Divine “Refuse the Sickness” Avalon
Skeleton Witch “I am of Death” Serpents Unleashed (2013)
Megadeth “Drugs, Sex & Money” 13