DON'T HATE ME: HIPSTERS OUT OF ROADRUNNER RECORDS

I sincerely love the whole Roadrunner organization and get way prickly when kvlt types slag them. Monte Conner and crew are great folks, Metal people of the highest caliber for realsies. Now, post-platinum Roadrunner (Slipknot, Nickelback) and I have lost touch a bit, and who knows the pressure brought about by the Universal and now Warner Bros deals. But if you look up there it reads Hipsters Out Of Metal! and RR dangled this info for all to see so if we at HooM! were to give them a pass, we'd only be hurting ourselves. And you. From Roadrunner Records' roster/staff picks for Best of 2008:

T*** S*********, Promotions Coordinator

Girl Talk – Feed The Animals

Gnarls Barkley – The Odd Couple

Death Cab For Cutie – Narrow Stairs

Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

She & Him – Volume 1

Bloc Party – Intimacy

The Parlor Mob – And You Were A Crow

Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

Anathallo – Canopy Glow

Phantom Planet – Raise The Dead

TV On The Radio - Dear Science,

Gaslight Anthem - The 59' Sound

Sigur Ros - Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust

Low Vs. Diamond - Low Vs. Diamond

Lykke Li - Youth Novels

The Wombats - A Guide To Love, Loss, & Desperation

R** B*****, Senior Vice President, A&R

Bat for Lashes - Fur and Gold

TV On The Radio - Dear Science

MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

Nickelback - Dark Horse

Sigur Ros - Heim

Feist - Let It Die

Coldplay - Viva La Vida

The Wombats - A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation

Portishead - Third

Ray LaMontagne- Gossip in the Grain

Cold War Kids - Loyalty to Loyalty

Ack! These aren't fussy artists (like the disgraces in Trivium and Killswitch Engage) or office staffers -- these are major decision-makers in the Roadrunner organization! Hipster subversives charged with promoting and managing some of our greatest Metal resources! Arm-crossers, not headbangers! They like Ray LaMontagne? His new video looks like a Dockers ad! Coldplay? That shit is for people who find Radiohead too challenging and U2 not shrill enough! Bon Iver? Yeah we get it dude, your gf dumped you. Why don't you cry about it? Hipsters out of Roadrunner Records!

STREAM FOR ME LONG BEACH

Hey this has come up before, but check out the black-and-white examples of wise marketing: Enslaved, a band I don't listen to, is streaming their new album here. Trivium, a band I hate, is streaming their new album here. One record would've slipped by unbeknownst to HooM! and the other would've been ignored. One record slays, and the other is an encouraging improvement by a young, developing group.  

Making entire albums available is especially pertinent to heavy music. With some variation, this is how Metal people get into bands: You jump into your friend's car (or Scott Burns' pick-up) and dude presses play on some shit you haven't heard. You shred, you shrug, or you sneer. But you're poised to like it cause your wallet is no lighter and your bud is trustworthy (he got you into The Crown, The Ocean, and uh Scatterbrain). So streaming entire albums stirs up the same feelings, as the band themselves screech up alongside you in their Camaro let you give their new record a fair listen. Bravo Enslaved, Trivium. Listen up major labels!

 

Your Servant Is Your Master: Trivium's 'Shogun'

At some point during the long, blurry Independence Day weekend, it came up that rapper Immortal Technique and wad of gay Sting have something in common, having both lyrically referenced Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. It turns out that one of contemporary Metal's hunkiest, crappiest bands, Trivium, can join the Sting party as well: Metal Injection reports the quartet has released song titles for their Nick Raskulinecz-produced third album, Shogun. Can you spot the Sting lyric? And from what Sting-penned song? I hope not! 

Trivium -- Shogun (Roadrunner Records) due September 30

Kirisute Gomen*

Torn Between Scylla And Charybdis

Down From The Sky

Insurrection

Into The Mouth Of Hell We March

Throes Of Perdition

He Who Spawned the Furies

Of Premetheus And The Crucifix

The Calamity

Like Callisto To A Star In Heaven

Shogun

It's adorable to see singer/guitarist Matt Heafy embrace (the corniest part of) his Japanese heritage on the album, assuredly inspiring countless neck tattoos. On the bright side, after two unlistenable albums, Trivium may be primed to cease paying lip service to classic thrash bands and make some memorable music. Glad there's a song about Furries.

* "Sorry About Slaying You, Dude"