WRECKED NEEDS MORE WRITERS!!

Hey, are you from the San Francisco Bay Area in California and are looking for a place to voice your opinion? Are you a good writer? Are you looking to make a name for yourself in the entertainment industry? Well, Wrecked is looking to expand, and to do that, we need more contributors. The small team of guys that put together this website can only do so much.

Meshuggah’s Live DVD Wrecks Faces… Mostly.

Early this last year, Meshuggah released their first-ever live DVD, simply titled: Alive. Being that I have never caught Meshuggah live, I was ecstatic. I now know this: watching Meshuggah perform live is like watching your brain get beat up by a group of super buff Mathletes after you tell them that Pi is exactly 3. You know what I mean.

Dead Island Gameplay Trailer Unveiled

Yesterday the internet was caught off guard when Deep Silver games pulled the curtain off the previously uber-mysterious zombie game, Dead Island. Buzz for the game went viral when the original announcement trailer swept us off our feet back in February. Though the game is no where near as dramatic as that teaser trailer implies, the gameplay shows a lot of potential. While we were all expecting another Left 4 Dead, Dead Island looks to be more of a Fallout-style of gameplay, sporting an enormous open world with tons of story-driven missions and side missions that can be played start to finish with drop-in/drop-out four-player co-op. Yeah, I’ve got a semi-chub just thinking about it. While the combat is mostly melee-centric, the gameplay trailer below showcases a bit of firearm combat as well, though the developers stresses guns will be few and far between.

Click the jump for the gameplay trailer, courtesy of GameTrailers.com!

BAMF Spotlight: Casket of Cassandra

Every week, Wrecked will be highlighting 2-3 bands playing the upcoming Bay Area Metal Festival. Check out Casket of Cassandra, the East Bay’s newest emerging metalcore outfit.

For Fans of Light This City, Bring Me the Horizon, As I Lay Dying, Himsa, It Dies Today, Manntis, etc

Casket of Cassandra is a metalcore band based out of the San Ramon area that really remind me of the old glory days when metalcore was first starting out; when the sound was fresh and I was watching these bands play at The Pound in San Francisco (RIP). Since then, metalcore has become a bit of a bad word, but I think there’s always room for good metalcore bands today. Casket of Cassandra definitely brings me back to those days, and that’s not a bad thing at all. The first thing most listeners will notice is the presence of female frontwoman, Amanda Maddera, and her vocal style, not unlike Light This City’s Laura Nichol — but that’s where the similarities end. Casket has a much more raw and in your face sound, with guitarist and back up vocalist Riley Olacsi providing appropriate doses of melody to give you something to sing along to. The band has also built up some internet-meme worthy notoriety for their metalcore cover of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”, which you can check out here. I’m really looking forward to seeing this band tear up the stage at the BAMF festival this July.

Click the jump to check out some samples of Casket of Cassandra…

BAMF Spotlight: Something Left Unsaid

Every week, Wrecked will be highlighting 2-3 bands playing the upcoming Bay Area Metal Festival. Hold onto your pants, because you’re about to have your balls smashed in by Something Left Unsaid, a metalcore band from Pacifica, CA.

For fans of Lamb of God, Killswitch Engage, Trivium, Shadows Fall, God Forbid, etc.

Sometimes it seems like there’s a real lack of good shredding in metal today. Something Left Unsaid fills that void with hard-hitting, chunky rhythms, technical leads, and insane solos that will make babies cry (I can literally hear a baby crying right now as I listen to this band and write this spotlight). SLU comes out of Pacifica, starting out as two close friends collaborating tracks online and in just less than a year they solidified a lineup, released an EP, and are working on a full length entitled Deconstructionism. They are definitely a mosh-worthy band dedicated to the art of metal.

They Say it Gets Lonely on the Top

YOU CAN'T TRUST THE SYSTEM!

I have so many great memories with the guys from The Lonely Island over the years. I still remember the first time I watched “The Backseatsman,” following each episode of “The ‘Bu” religiously, and trying to explain to my friends how whitening your teeth would bring up the real estate value of your mouth. Naturally, when news got out that a follow-up to 2009’s colossal hit Incredibad was coming out, I was pretty stoked. Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer return with Turtleneck & Chain, released last week, and though this album took a few listens to really grow on me, it’s definitely a solid fake-rap comedy album that you need to have.

Now I’ll be up front with you, it’s a little odd to review a comedy album. Since comedy is so subjective, I can’t really sit here and tell you if this album is truly funny or not, but there are so many great moments on this record that everyone can enjoy. Both old school Lonely Island fans and newcomers alike will find a lot of laughs on this album.

BAMF Spotlight: Lyceum

Every week, Wrecked will be highlighting 2-3 bands playing the upcoming Bay Area Metal Festival. This week we have Lyceum, a melodic extreme metal band from my hometown in Concord, CA.

For fans of Amon Amarth, As I Lay Dying, God Forbid, Testament, In Flames, Unearth, Dethklok, etc.

Lyceum, though relatively new to the local scene, is as metal as it gets: melodies that conjure images of fighting wizards, nonstop riffage, leather jackets, long, unkempt hair, and blastbeats that could make heads explode. Vocalist Blake Peterson literally sounds like Satan. I instantly thought of Amon Amarth when I first heard this band, but upon listening more intently, I discovered there was much more than just gurgled growls and rapid-fire double bass; there is something very old school about this band’s focus that is refreshing in a “stick-to-your-roots” kind of way. I’m stoked Concord still has bands like Lyceum holding down the darker metal scene and I can’t wait to see them play live at BAMF and give them some local love.

Some tunes and footage of the band tearing it up live await you after the jump…

Dredg Tries to Make You Chuckle

From the moment I heard the title for Dredg’s new album, Chuckles and Mr. Squeezy, I knew it would be a bit different. Little did I imagine that it would not just be a little different, but the type of different where helmets are mandatory and you get to ride the short bus to school.

Dredg has a track record of taking “creative gambles” with their albums. From the Nu-Metal sounds of their Orph EP beginnings to the pop-tastic Catch Without Arms, they have shown a drive to never be contained by one genre. That being said, not ever gamble can pay off. Just like ripping a fart an hour after eating some bomb chinese food, you run the risk of that “oh shit!” moment. The real question is, did Dredg shit their pants on this one?

2011 NHL Playoffs: Round 3

The Conference Semifinals were INTENSE. We had two sweeps in the Eastern Conference: the Tampa Bay Lightning swept the Washington Capitals, and the Boston Bruins, with Tim Thomas’ god like performance, swept the Philadelphia Flyers. In the Western Conference, the Vancouver Canucks beat the Nashville Predators in 6, and the Sharks…oh boy, our Sharks. I love ’em, I have a ton of confidence in them, but damn do they make me nervous sometimes.

You Need to Watch the Trailer for Hesher

Definitely my nominee for best theatrical trailer of 2011.

I just stumbled across this gem of a trailer for a film called “Hesher” that I had never heard of before, until now. Apparently, it was screened at Sundance last year and is going to hit theaters this Friday, May 13.

Not only does this movie look bad ass because it involves fire, gasoline, explosions, smoking, wild driving, and general destruction (all while “Battery” by Metallica is blasting in the background), but also because it has a damn good cast backing it with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Natalie Portman, and Rainn Wilson. I’m also a sucker for drama with an edge.

Anyone else pumped to see this?

-BW

DEAD ON ARRIVAL: As Blood Runs Black’s New Album Runs Dry

For fans of watered-down versions of All Shall Perish, Through the Eyes of the Dead, Bury Your Dead, etc.

I’ll give them this: As Blood Runs Black has somehow found a way to make deathcore watered down enough to appeal to a mainstream audience. But what you’ll find in Instinct is an unoriginal, uninspired, and breakdown-dependent excuse for an album, with a laughable Tron-like album cover.

BAMF Spotlight: Dissipate

Every week, Wrecked will be highlighting 2-3 bands playing the upcoming Bay Area Metal Festival. We’re kicking this week off with Dissipate, an 8-string wielding, progressive death metal band from Livermore, CA.

For fans of Dying Fetus, Candiria, Sikth, Meshuggah, Massive Attack, Car Bomb, The Dillinger Escape Plan, etc.

Fun fact #1: I had my nose permanently broken while moshing to Dissipate back in 2006 when my old band played a show with them at Lucky’s Pizza in Dublin, CA.

Fun fact #2: Wrecked founder, Ivan Torres, was their vocalist at the time.

It’s nice to see that Dissipate is still around melting faces like candle wax. If you want to see a band that knows how to handle their shit live, then you need to check out Dissipate. This is technical death metal that is actually interesting, in my opinion. From their Into the Moat style vocals, to their unique blend of progressive, slightly math-y, and ferociously executed death metal, Dissipate is one of those bands that always breathes something fresh into an ever-growing more stale metal genre. That and they represent Livermore, which has been a breeding ground for some pretty sick acts over the last ten years. We’ve got some tunes and a music video for you after the jump…

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

This meal is more than meets the eye. I'll give you a hint: it's booze.

Breakfast rules. But how often do you really have time to make some? Well, only if something sounds delicious enough, do you actually make a conscious effort to make time for it. If you’ve ever been on the internet, you’ve probably noticed the Epic Meal Time videos, specifically, their breakfast video. Getting drunk off pancakes? Yes, please. You get the gist of how to make stuff from the video, but here’s some detailed instructions on how to achieve that level of morning glory. Let’s be honest, who doesn’t love getting whiskey’d and beer’d at 9 in the morning?

23 Days with the Motorola Atrix 4G

I’ve had an iPhone 3G for the past 21 months. The last 12 of those months have been irritating, annoying, frustrating and inconvenient thanks to Apple and the iOS4. I thought “Oh cool, an update to iOS4 for my phone…it should make improvements!” Wrong! It slowed my phone down so much that, at times, it was almost unusable. It shouldn’t take three minutes to type out “Hey man where are you?”. After a few updates with minimal improvements, I went to my local Apple store to see what I could do about it:

“Hey my phone is messed up because of your update, how do I go back to iOS3?”

“Sorry sir, you can’t revert back to iOS3 once iOS4 is installed”

“So you can’t fix it? I can barely use this thing”

“Well you can replace it for $200, but at that point you might as well get the iPhone 4”

“Or I can get an Android…”

BAMF Spotlight: Izeovasis

Every week, Wrecked will be highlighting 2-3 bands playing the upcoming Bay Area Metal Festival. Check out Izeovasis, a crushing tech metal band from Livermore, CA.

For fans of: The Red Chord, Despised Icon, Ion Dissonance, Glass Casket, etc

The last time I saw Izeovasis perform live was more than a couple years ago, and man have they grown. I took my eyes of these guys for a second, only to be surprised to see how refined their music has become. If you’re a fan of technical metal, metalcore, or deathcore, you need to check these guys out. They’re based in Livermore, CA, and will be playing at the BAMF festival this year. These guys can shred your faces off with their technicality and then punch you in the gut with their devastating breakdowns. Izeovasis has everything an extreme metal fan could ask for: pummeling blast beats, a relentless vocal attack, some brutal chugging breakdowns and strong energy to do it all live. The musicianship in this band is impressive, and considering how young these guys are, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where they are headed. Check out some of their stuff below…

BAMF Spotlight: Repaid in Blood

Every week, Wrecked will be highlighting 2-3 bands playing the upcoming Bay Area Metal Festival. This week, we present you the San Jose based death-metalcore act, Repaid in Blood.

For Fans of  The Red Chord, The Acacia Strain, Veil of Maya, Despised Icon, Born of Osiris, etc.

One thing I absolutely love about covering the Bay Area Metal Festival is the fact that I’m discovering a lot of great bands from the Bay Area. One that really stands out to me is Repaid in Blood, from San Jose (aka Taqueria Heaven). I dig their technical, yet chugalicious approach to metalcore; think of a young, more rhythm-oriented All Shall Perish with the guitar soloing skills of Zero Hour. I can’t wait to see how their sound progresses over the next couple of years and I’m definitely stoked to see these guys in action live at BAMF. We’ve got some tunes and a music video for you after the jump!

St. Anger to be Released on Vinyl this June

Seriously. The PRP is reporting that metal juggernauts washed-up old farts, Metallica, are going to release the most awfully produced and poorly written album of all time on vinyl on June 7. Honestly, I wouldn’t buy this with a stolen credit card.

Nintendo’s Finally Done Ripping You Off

According to G4TV.com, Nintendo finally announced price drops on some of its biggest titles, like Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Wii Sports (previously FREE?), Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and more, bringing them to a much more reasonable $19.99 under the “Nintendo Selects” moniker. To me, this feels like a too-little-too-late move for Nintendo. I mean, taking FOUR AND A HALF YEARS to drop a single dime off Zelda’s price tag seems absolutely batshit crazy, don’t you think? Part of the speculation behind this move is that Ninty is price-dropping the big titles as well as bringing the system down to $149 to make way for the new Wii successor, code-named Project Cafe.

Get Viking’d with Amon Amarth’s Surtur Rising

For fans of: Dark Tranquillity, (early) In Flames, Opeth, Dethklok, etc

There are a ton of big names in metal that we hear about all the time but somehow never manage to look into, and for me that big name was always Amon Amarth. I have friends that have liked them forever, I’ve seen people sport their hoodies at shows, I’ve seen their albums on store shelves, and every time I made a mental note to listen to the band, but never followed through in doing so. A few weeks ago, the Swedish natives released their eighth studio album, Surtur Rising. After so many years of passing this band up, I finally decided to give them a shot, and I’m very glad I did.

Why Single Player Matters (An FPS Rant)

Quality single player content in first-person shooters is a dying art.

It’s all about the multiplayer experience these days, which I can understand. Thanks to the same amazing internet technology that allows me to stream porn at 60 titties per second, I’m able to trade bullets (and colorful insults) with some 13-year-old in Georgia. However, it seems that developers are placing too much emphasis on this aspect of game playing, and we’re usually stuck with a fucktarded single player campaign attached to an excellent multiplayer game.

Quite frankly, I’m sick of it.