JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 58th birthday of Mr. Bungle and Faith No More frontman Mike Patton.
Category: metal
Throwback: Happy 71st Birthday, Eddie Van Halen!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 71st anniversary of the birth of Eddie Van Halen.
New Audio: Bronco Forte Shares Bruising “Obvious Alias”
Los Angeles-based stoner rock outfit Bronco Forte — Chris Klepac (vocals, guitar), All Hail the Yeti‘s Sako Inajaian (guitar), White Forest‘s Jen Glomboski (bass), and Batillus‘ and A Storm of Light‘s Geoff Summers (drums) — will be releasing their full-length debut, Lightning Scars on April 3, 2026.
After years of creative toil and preparation, the Los Angeles-based stoner rock quartet’s full-length debut sees the band stepping into the spotlight as a fully-formed heavy rock phenomenon with roots in the classic heavy music of the 1970s — but with a modern sensibility and sonic approach. Lightning Scars was tracked and mixed by engineer Kevin McCombs at The Steakhouse, the studio where Queens of The Stone Age recorded Era Vulgaris. The album was mastered by Nick Townsend, who cut the album to lacquer on his own personal lathe.
Thematically, Lightning Scars chronicle the uncertain lives of ordinary people of California and elsewhere, with the characters each song depicts desperately striving to maintain their integrity and sanity in the face of a rapidly-changing, increasingly dystopian hellscape.
And as a result, the album’s lyrics balance literary style and kitchen-sink realism. The album’s material is anchored around deep, dirty riffs, hard swinging grooves and song structures that are clever without being cluttered or overly complicated. And this is paired by a pop leaning sense of harmony.
Lightning Scars‘ second and latest single “Obvious Alias,” is anchored around the sort of bruising riffage that seemingly channels Queens of the Stone Age, Dirt-era Alice in Chains and Badmotorfinger-era Soundgarden while showcasing a band with an uncanny knack for pairing catchy, melodic-driven hooks, rousingly anthemic hooks and lived-in lyrics.
Throwback: Happy 56th Birthday Zack de la Rocha!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Rage Against The Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha’s 56th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 82nd Birthday, Jimmy Page!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 82nd birthday of the legendary Jimmy Page.
Throwback: Happy 73rd Birthday, Malcolm Young!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 73rd anniversary of the birth of AC/DC co-founder Malcolm Young.
Albums of the Year 2025
JOVM turns 16 this year. And for first handful of years, my Best of List was an annual tradition until about 2014 or so. Between 2014 and 2020, it became sporadic and then it stopped. I haven’t done one of these in several years. There was a part of me that wondered if it really mattered much. And then life happened.
So here we are in 2026. And with the year starting in earnest, let’s check out my best of 2025.
- Big Fish Fyra liter stoft
- Tan Cologne Unknown Beyond
- Moondaddy Dove Tapes
- Sessa Pequena Vertigem de Amor
- Preservation Brass & Preservation Hall Jazz Band For Fat Man
- Silk Daisys S/T
- The Circling Sun Orbits
- Gabriel da Rosa Cacofonia
- Yoo Doo Right, Population II & Nolan Potter Yoo II avec Nolan Potter
- bat zoo The Upward Bird EP
- Public Circuit Modern Church
- L’Eclair Cloud Drifter
- Gloin All of your anger is actually shame (and I bet that makes you angry)
- CIVIC Chrome Dipped
- Population II Maintenant Jamais
- White Birches A New Reign
- Anish Kumar and Hagop Tchaparian Kino EP
- Friendship Commanders BEAR
- The Besnard Lakes The Besnard Lakes are the Ghost Nation
- SHOLTO The Sirens
- S.C.A.B. Somebody In New York Loves You!
- Pierpont & Hegeleson Of Time
- RORO and snapir Colors Left
- St. Panther Strange World
- Nation of Language Dance Called Memory
- Quad90 S/T
- Slumbering Sun Starmony
- Tunde Adebimpe Thee Black Boltz
- Quad90 S/T
- Die Spitz Something To Consume
- debdepan LOVERS & OTHERS EP
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Throwback: Happy 80th Birthday, John Paul Jones!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones’ 80th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 62nd Birthday, Lars Ulrich!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Metallica co-founder and drummer Lars Ulrich’s 62nd birthday.
Throwback: Happy 80th Birthday, Lemmy!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 80th anniversary of Mötorhead founder and frontman Lemmy Kilmister’s birth.
Throwback: Happy 67th Birthday, Nikki Sixx!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Nikki Sixx’s 67th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 77th Birthday, Ozzy Osbourne!
JOVM’s Wiliam Ruben Helms celebrates the 77th anniversary of the birth of Ozzy Osbourne.
Throwback: Happy 65th Birthday, Rick Savage!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Def Leppard bassist Rick Savage’s 65th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 63rd Birthday, Kirk Hammett!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Metallica guitarist Kirt Hammett’s 63rd birthday.
New Audio: New Jersey’s NUSE Returns with a Bruising Ripper
Formed back in the ’90s, Hillsborough, NJ-based metal outfit NUSE — Mike LaMastro (vocals, guitar), Eric Mangual (bass), Bob Mangual (drums) and Mike Wilday (guitar) — exploded into the regional scene with the release of a handful of early EPs before, their full-length debut, 2002’s Hung Well, which was re-released in 2005 through No Joke Records.
Their sophomore album, 2008’s Forever Starts Today featured the underground smash “Beat to Death.” Building upon a growing profile, their third album, 2012’s All American Beat Down, which featured “Breath & Fluid,” “War Face,” and “Free Tattoos,” broke through nationally, charting in several key markets, including Kansas City (#5), NYC (#8), Philadelphia (#7) and Hawaii (#5) while receiving streams globally across Pandora, Spotify, iTunes and others.
2018’s The Pain Collection featured “Top Hat Man,” which broke into the Top 10 in NYC and Philadelphia while arguably being their most critically applauded album of their career to date. In 2020, the band, which had long been a trio added Ixion Lux‘ s and Spin Psykill‘s Mike Wilday, Jr., whose rich harmonies and intense leads helped the band’s sound evolve.
2021’s Evilution: Vol. 1 EP featured acclaimed singles “Swept Away” and “Scoundrel,” which also earned global awards and recognition. With an increasingly larger profile, the New Jersey-based outfit has made a run of the festival circuit, while opening for the likes of Biohazard, Cannibal Corpse, Clutch, Soulfly, Entombed, M.O.D., Mercyful Fate, Misfits, Napalm Death, Nuclear Assault, Overkill, Pro-Pain, Scar the Martyr, Shattered Sun, Testament, Type O Negative, and a growing list of metal heavyweights.
Earlier this year, the New Jersey-based metalheads released the Evilution: Vol 2 EP, which features the previously released “Malibu,” and the EP’s latest single, EP closing track “Xperimental.” is a swaggering and bruising ripper that’s kind of modern but also manages to channel old school Metallica and Slayer, all while continuing to fit in perfectly with the RidingEasy Records roster.