Dr. Lemmy (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love 2011)

Oh, Lemmy.

You grizzled Adonis. You Saint of Beer. You destroyer of ear drums.

The last time I saw Motorhead was nine years ago and it was amazing. The moled man you see before you opened the Concord Pavillion with a question:

“Con-cord, eh? Never been here before.”

Then they proceeded to whoop everyone’s ass for an hour. It was the best opening act I could have seen as a 16-year old, especially seeing as how Dio and Iron Maiden were next.. The power trio finally made sense and witnessing those same three men playing just as fast at a higher volume nearly a decade later was most excellent. In my review, I mention how the band is very cross-generational, something that grabs attention from all shapes and sizes, but I think they are in an echelon only shared with the great AC/DC. Maybe greater!

Enough hyperlinking…let’s get onto the longwinded portion of today’s topic: 2011 album releases!

Now this is mostly a metal heavy post, focusing on the roughest, toughest, rootinist, tootinist sons of guns in the rock world. Sorry if I don’t mention the 134th Ani DiFranco album, or the double-disc Lady Antebellum frisbee that may or may not be coming out this year. No list can be complete, but here are a few highlights of a year that hopefully makes up for the year prior’s dismal output.

March:

New albums from viking gods Amon Amarth, moody Blackfield, and Christ-like Becoming the Archetype should hold most over, and the best-of Between the Buried and Me compilation is out on 3/29.

April:

NEW BTBAM OMG!!! Also, Bootsy Collins!

May:

Dredg, Fleet Foxes, Moby, Death Cab, and Beastie Boys should be enough to make the shitty month of May go by. Just kidding. I don’t hate May.

June:

Potentially a new Tool album and the final two albums in the grand Deconstruction Project by Devin Townsend: 2 discs, one heavy, one soft, and both amazingly released on the same day. Add in Arctic Monkeys’ new record “Suck It and See” and June rocks.

September:

Steven Wilson has a solo follow-up to last year’s “Insurgentes” due around my birthday, and another solo album potentially by the end of the year.

TBA

A ton of bands have announced studio time and songwriting without giving a firm date other than “late 2011.” We may potentially see albums from all of the following bands:

Metallica

Opeth

Queens of the Stone Age

Devin Townsend’s sequel to ZILTOID!!!!

Megadeth

Steven Wilson + Mike from Opeth

Rumplestilskin Grinder

The Mars Volta

OSI

Necrophagist

Pig Destroyer

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