Welcome to the meandering musical insights of Aaron Joy (me!), formerly known as the Roman Midnight Music Blog. Here you'll find nearly 750 reviews of CDs & DVDs of rock & metal in all its variations, mainstream & indie, good & bad, U.S. & foreign. A new review every Monday.

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February 19, 2013

The Militants ~ Fuel The Aggression (album review) ... The band of tomorrow's revolution!


Style: heavy metal, black metal, death metal
Label: self-released
Year: 2012
Home: Los Angeles, California

Members: Charlie Zeigler ~ vocals/drum programming/keyboards

Horace Miller ~ guitars/bass
A band called the Militants, with an album named Fuel The Aggression & song titles of "Echoes Of Evil", "Deadly As The Webs Spins", "Ethnic Cleansing", "Smoking Gun" & "Born Under A Bad Sign" ... what image are you getting into your head about the music? Satanic? Dark? Well, let me offer two other song titles as influential variables - "Rise Against Oppression" & "Empty Inside". There's more here than meets the eye ... or the ear. Yes, there's all the double bass drumming & churning guitars one might expect, & though check out the guitar playing on "Ethnic Cleansing", against a throaty holler, but the Militants are metal with a message of social awareness. Is that an oxymoron? Not in the least. A lot of metal is just as much about spreading an idea as having a headbanging good time. "We are the people of tomorrow's revolution" is called out in "Rise Against Oppression" & the Militants see themselves facing the oncoming social revolution head-on. As "Rise Against The Oppression" furthers shouts "The revolution isn't over/don't you know its just beginning." The title is deceptive. Aggression here is not Satanic & not angry, but the aggression fueled from sadness at seeing the state of the world & where it potentially is going. Some of us say a civil war, but other argue we've become too 'empty inside' to put down our iphones to change the world for better. Musically the Militants aren't braving new ground, they're not feeding the revolution from outside with strange new musical ideas, but using the standard form to feed the revolution from the inside. I've been listening to the Militants for a few years. They've put out two very good albums - strong on a message & strong on dedication to making good reliable metal with killer sweep-picking riffs. Killing two birds with one stone, you could say. I'll also say that Charlie Zieger is one of the better throat/guttural singers out there, versus so much of the screaming or glorified gargling I hear.

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