Megalucufers 2024

The annual issue of your favorite topic this time was not as interesting as the last one. Partly because some scammers are still engaged in the same old fraud (for example, ASRAR continues to publish bootlegs, and Weltenf(r)iend are still desperately cling to the name of ABSURD), and there is no point in writing about them again. However, human stupidity, greed and heinousness are indestructible, so I will not leave you without sweets during this festive period.

ONE TIME IS A COINCEDENCE, TWO TIMES IS A PATTERN

The cunning Finnish lad Jari Mäenpää, in his own opinion, is an outstanding musician who creates "universal" metal. A few years ago, he discovered such a wonderful thing as crowdfunding, and began raising funds to build a studio to create his magnum opus “Time II". According to Jari, the capabilities of all modern studios were too fragile for his Gargantuan musical ideas, as he wanted to work with hundreds of tracks simultaneously (it should be added here that any HELLHAMMER song recorded on a 4-track machine has more meaning and significance than the entire WINTERSUN discography, but jedem das seine). Among the most necessary studio equimpment, noticed Jari, should be... a sauna. Because how can you record Finnish metal without a sauna!
The world was more naive then, so then what could be called the Star Citizen of the metal industry began to happen: generous listeners threw an unbelievable amount of money at Jari. According to the latest info, he collected from 500 to 750 thousands of Euro. Year after year went by, but the promised masterpiece still did not come out. Instead, Jari tried his hand on dubious album "The Forest Seasons", then offered the participants of the crowdfunding campaign an expanded digital version of the same recording (with a booklet in 5K resolution, no less!), and remained silent until 2023, when he released a 2-minute instrumental single that was available only for a month on Bandcamp!
In 2024, the fans received good news: Jari announced that the album "Time II" would finally be released in late summer or autumn, but those who want to receive special packageshould participate in a new crowdfunding campaign. The people who bought a studio for Jari with their contributions were veeeeery happy to hear this. As they say, if you've been deceived once, you're a victim; if you've been deceived twice, you're a fool. Obviously, there were a certain number of fools, since the "Time Package" was released anyway and turned out to be a digital compilation of albums and tracks and demos cut into parts.
The most piquant detail of this story is that from the very beginning of its career, WINTERSUN was signed to Nuclear Blast Records, probably the richest metal label on Earth. This is not the case when a brilliant artist, dying of hunger, asks for a piece of bread so he could finish his masterpiece. However, I'm not accusing Jari of anything – his band now has the most fashionable studio with a sauna, and thousands of boobies have finally received the long-awaited masterpiece, which, of course, did not make a revolution in music, did not particularly interest anyone, and in general turned out to be just another pretentious symphonic "happy" shit made for the music journalists of the second half of 2000-x.

GO WOKE – GO BROKE

Everyone knows that Shaxul was the first vocalist of DEATHSPELL OMEGA before their avant-garde era, but few people know that he's fucked in the head. At first, he's got too heavily into Picts (Robert Howard's Picts were smelly, short savages, and if you look at Shaxul's photo, you'll understand why he chose to identify himself with them), and then, as is fashionable now, he got into antifascism. His label Legion of Death Records (later Armée de la Mort Records) reformed into Lucha Final in January 2024, and Shaxul proudly announced that he would “explore new musical and conceptual horizons with an anti–fascist approach". The result was predictable: already in August, our militant pict, who in an interview joyfully fantasized about how he would strangle them nazis with his chubby hands, declared that the label had gone bankrupt due to a complete lack of sales. It's funny that he continued to sell various NS records through his distro, but it didn't help. Being an experienced person on this scene, Shaxul made the standard mistake of all pink European leftists: for some reason he thought that the old-school metal audience of third world countries, the one he targeted with the previous incarnations of his label, should automatically support his perversion because of their skin color. But in fact, the situation in the world is just the opposite - all these Indians, Chinese, Bangladeshis, and Latin Americans see European and U.S. communists as nothing but dog vomit. And the self-proclaimed leftists never, never support each other with money. No one buys even the recordings of those clowns DAWN GAY'D, promoted by various media outlets, so there is absolutely zero interest to this shit. I can only wish Shaxul to stop at nothing and to finish his transformation by coming out as trans woman. All he needs to do is to shave his beard.

A SWINISH ACT

I try almost never to grumble about modern youth, because, as one wise man said, who wasn't an idiot when he was young? But sometimes young talents disappoint me by the fact that they lose their potential already at first steps, and this is very sad.
For example, a very recent US-based band MARTYRDOM signed up to participate in some kind of festival with 5$ tickets, where all the other participants were punks and hardcore. This in itself is bad enough, but you can make allowances for the young age of the participants. At the concert, the guys demonstrated respect for the traditions and aesthetics of Black Metal by putting a rotten pig's head on stage, and in the final they threw it into the crowd of grateful listeners, inspired, most likely, by the famous performance of PESTILENTIA band at the "Неглубокая Могила" festival.
The audience, which, obviously, consisted of leftists, vegans and other fighters for a certain range of ideas, did not expect such a raw (meat) experience. After the concert, there was such a fuss on Twitter that even some music media picked it up. Someone was throwing up, others complained about the stink (although we all know that punks smell worse than dead swines). And then the finest hour could have come for MARTYRDOM, but instead the boys shat their pants like the little piggies. The band released a statement saying that MARTYRDOM is Black Metal (obviously not), and that's why they sometimes get carried away, but they sincerely, sincerely apologize to all Muslims, members of minorities and other offended listeners. Thus permanently destroying any opportunity to build a reputation for themselves. Given that the band members remain anonymous, there is still hope for them to do something serious in the future, but no one will ever respect the name MARTYRDOM anymore.
Let this story be a lesson to all young extreme musicians: don't mess with so-called punks and hardcore artists (after all, there are almost no real punks left in the world) and never apologize for creative excesses. And don't get into Black Metal if you're just cowardly piglets.

SOY HARDCORE

In the past, men courting the same woman often solved their problem by dueling. But in our progressive times, such low and savage methods are, of course, unacceptable.
Representatives of the hardcore scene have always been at the forefront of progressive ideas, so it is not surprising that it was a member of a hardcore band who became the hero of a story that appeared even on the pages of yellow newspapers. A Llorona vocalist named Diego fell in love with his bandmate's girlfriend, and in order to get him out of the way, he started... to put estrogen-boosting drugs in his drinks, which he had access to due to his work. Considering that the poor guy, like the aforementioned girl, dyed his hair purple, he hardly needed an additional portion of the female hormone. As a result, he got an overdose and severe health problems, and the idiot Diego drunkenly revealed the true cause of his friend's illness. After that he was kicked out of the band and left the scene forever.
...and instead, he could just try to stuff himself with testosterone, no?

AUSTRALIAN AUTIST MADNESS

Honored Autist of all Australia, STRIBORG, who recently also came out as faggot non-binary, continues to entertain the audience with ridiculous escapades. This year, short-sighted promoter Bleed Records put Striborg on the Australian tour with MORTIIS, and the adventures began immediately. Striborg flew to Sydney and took a taxi to his hotel, missing the sound check. At the appointed moment, he was required to leave the hotel, walk 150 meters to the pier and board a boat that would take him to the concert venue. Striborg went the other way and got lost. The organizer found an Uber for him, but Striborg somehow miraculously couldn't get into the right car and was completely late. The organizer only had to ask him to return to the hotel and sit there until he was picked up for the next show. At night, Bleed Records employees turned back to the hotel and received a full house of cocks and death threats from Striborg. The next morning, Striborg was given a ticket home and kicked out from the tour.
Of course, he did not calm down and filled the organizer's Facebook, Instagram and entire SMS box with hysterical screams, stating that if anyone did not know yet, he had an official diagnosis of autism, and the organizer did not arrange him accomodations, thus showed disrespect to veterans all autists. In the end, Striborg stated that he would record a new track right now, and this was perhaps the most terrible threat from his side.

CLEANSING FIRE

Experienced readers of Bagnik Zine know about the Norwegian Neseblod Records: it's a small and shitty anti-fascist label, the only distinguishing feature of which is the label owner's personal acquaintance with Fenriz from DARKTHRONE. Thanks to his connections, Neseblod, until recently, occupied the basement in the building where the Helvete store was located, and from there he sold shit punk, hardcore, and rare flyers for $200 per copy. In April, the tragic news shocked the world - the legendary Helvete burned down! As it turned out later, when the smoke cleared, it was the basement where some of the punk Neseblod garbage was stored that burned down, and most of the ancient artifacts were on the ground floor, so they were not damaged that badly.
Of course, the owner of Neseblod, who, unfortunately, did not burn down along with his store, could not help but take advantage of the situation, because an artifact is good, and an artifact burned during a high–profile event is very good! He put up for sale several rare T-shirts and discs, the condition of which I would describe as near mint:

Don't run for your Master Cards - that was 8 months ago, and valuables have probably already found their new owners. But I am sure that this is not the last ultra-generous offer from Neseblod. Maybe next time he'll put on sale those Fenriz action figures that he probably used as dildo.
P.S. By the way, one of the employees of the burned–out store wrote fan fiction about MAYHEM, in which she described Euronymous as a sexual tyrant and abuser, Necrobutcher and Hellhammer as a couple of homosexuals, and Dead and Varg as normal guys who tried to bring Euro to reason. Do you still doubt that this place should have burn?

SUDDENLY

A short and very typical story: the French grind band GRIST suddenly found out that their drummer Thomas, who had been a member of the band for 11 years, had previously played at concerts of the scary evil fascist nazi band OSCULUM INFAME. Thomas was fired, and GRIST posted a plaintive statement of apology on social media.

NATIONAL ZIONIST

When crazy feminist J.K. Rowling fights against the genderless degenerates on Twitter, I always think of a quote from Snoop Dogg from a shitty nigger horror movie "Bones": "Dog eats dog, brother, dog eats dog". Another event that can be identified by this quote occurred this year around the Antifascist Black Metal Gathering. The ultra-leftists made the organizer cancel one of the most prominent anti–fascist projects of recent times - the Danish AFSKY. I guess the creator of the project spoke out in support of Israel in the war against terrorists, and this, as is well known, is totally unacceptable in an anti-fascist environment - our kind an humanistic red friends can holocaust your ass for that! The leader of AFSKY defecated with a wordy statement, where he suddenly began to reflect on cancel culture (getting cancelled rather than cancelling someone is a bit painful, eh?), and quite wittily he called his haters "snowflakes in my sunshine." Well, what can I say? Dog eats dog!

THEFT PRIVILEGE

German Prophecy Productions, which for almost its entire career has been a haven for hipsters and honestly followed in the wake of disgusting socio-political trends (including BLM), for some reason suddenly changed course and sailed towards Agonia Records (this label willingly picks up “scandalous” bands and feels itself pretty well). Only if the Poles act fairly consistently, then the Germans are all over the place. On the one hand, they stand up for their bands when someone tries to cancel them for allegedly far-right remarks. They sign Belarusians (even if it is DYMNA LOTVA, but still such a step requires some courage, since today the vast majority of foreign labels refuse to cooperate with Belarusians). On the other hand, they also indiscriminately sign Russians or, as in this case, a world-famous liar, scammer, hypocrite, and hopeless degenerate.
It should be understood that Blake Judd is not one of those people whose personal qualities may not be too attractive to most, but have nothing to do with their art. Throughout his career, Judd has stolen, lied, and framed bandmates to make himself look like a saint against their background. He somehow tarnished everything and everyone he collaborated with, and twice dumped countless people for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars - first on NACHTMYSTIUM merchandise, then on JUDAS ISCARIOT bootlegs. And, worst of all, he was not beaten and did not go to jail, but actually got away with it, since to this day he has the opportunity to record and publish something.
As experts in criminology and criminal psychology say, if a criminal goes unpunished, it deepens the deviations in his thinking, and he begins to believe that he was doing everything right. This is obviously what happened to Judd, as the entire advertising campaign for the new album "Blight Privilege" is based on an immensely brazen message: I am a drug addict who shat and pissed himself during painful withdrawal and breakdowns, so I am a victim, and you are all haters. The topic of stolen money, of course, does not come up, because this is all mundane stuff, and he is a man who suffered (for some reason, it is not said that only he himself is to blame for his suffering). The pretentious names of tracks like "Survivor's Remorse", "Predator Phoenix" and "Conquistador" make me feel a little awkward. What kind of fucking phoenix are you? Just an ordinary fucker whose ass was not kicked at the right time. So far, Judd is trying to take advantage of his fifteen minutes of dubious fame. The promo video for the new song contains footage with comments from haters, and in one of the few interviews Judd suddenly attacked Neil Jameson from KRIEG for the fact that 10 years ago Jameson got tired of dragging this useless junkie on his neck and told the world who Blake Judd really is.
Despite all the previous events, Judd had a chance for partial rehabilitation - a real reabilitation, not the one he talks about, once again assuring that he no longer uses drugs. All he had to do was declare that he would transfer the funds from the sales of his new shit to those he ripped off before. And even if it would be a drop in the bucket, but that's something. Instead, Judd chose a pose of misunderstood victim, which is typical of all hopeless alcoholics, drug addicts, and other scanty subhumans. I doubt that "Blight Privilege" will be a big success, but I have little doubt what will happen next: in a year or two, Judd will ask the label for an advance payment for a new album, and a little later he will be found in a puddle of vomit with veins full of heroin. Maybe for the last time.

DOGS FOR LEASHES

This story is almost 7 years old, but it amazed me so much that I couldn't help but share it. The Swiss hardcore band (yes, hardcore again) VALE TUDO recorded a song... in support of a tax, intended to finance state television and radio. A tax. In favor of the state television. State propaganda.

I've seen all kinds of things, but I wouldn't have imagined such postmodernism even during the worst fever. One of the band members works on TV, but still, how could anyone come up with such an idea?! Hardcore in the service of the state! What's next – porn grind in the service of morals? I don't know what to say.

THE DEVIL FINDS WORKS FOR IDLE HANDS TO DO

Every year, new "authors" appear on the expanses of our long-suffering planet, who take off at a gallop and regurgitate with 50-60 useless turds. I cannot understand what guides these people. The undisputed winner of 2024 is a fat Italian Drakul, who founded 10 projects over 2023-2024 period (and managed to close already 8 of them), for most of which he made an average of 20+ records. A quick count makes it clear that he recorded the release at least every few days. You can imagine how it sounds. There is only one thing left to wish to a fruitful creator: get yourself a job!

LEFTWAFFE KAPUT

There is a band called LIFE OF AGONY in the United States (where else!). Older listeners should remember them for releasing the first recordings on Roadrunner. In 2011, their vocalist Keith Caputo got fagged, changed his gender and called himself Mina. Strangely, Mina turned out to be delayed-action mine: by 2024, Caputo had become an ardent Trumpist, a fierce anti–vaxxer, and, remarkably, grown to hate trannies - in short, he turned into the embodiment of what is considered “far-right” in the modern United States. In the end, Caputo announced that he had decided to be a man again. The backwards transition was easy, because cunning Keith didn't cut his dick off in 2011. I wonder what the degenerate zoo called Napalm Records, where LIFE OF AGONY is signed to this day, will do with this reborn "fascist". Sometimes life throws up humorous scenarios that you could imagine only in the movie.

LARPaganism

In Mexico, they have a fantastic Mr. Worldwide named Daniel Consuelos. At first, I thought that he's just another retard with 50+ projects, but, when I dug deeper, I understood how many suprises there are in mr. Consuelos' creativity - if you can call it that.
To begin with, Daniel looks very young. I don't think he's over 30. But that didn't stop him from cautiously trying to throw in information about some of his projects allegedly created in late 90s and early 2000s. No one believed it, so it was swept under the carpet. Daniel probably took up the guitar for the first time only in 2018. He divided his more than 50 projects into thematic categories (sorry, circles). Among them, there are weak-ass LLN clones, fantasy ambient, NS"BM", pseudo-Icelandic Black Metal, and - the most interesting! - Slavic metal.
Mexicans and Brazilians quite often engage in ridiculous cosplay of foreign cultural phenomena, but Daniel seems to have surpassed everyone. The outstanding creator decided to use Polish-language titles, translated into old church Cyrillic font with broken coding (there are squares!) through some kind of janky online service. It gave a lot of funny pearls (read in Wojnar's voice): ПОГАНЬСКѪ КРЕВ НА ШЬМѢРТЧ! НА ШЧЫЧѢ ВОЛАМЫ НАШЕ БОГИНЬѢ!! БУЖА И ЖЕЗЬ В ПОГАЊСКИХ ЗѢМЯХ!!! All this Turbo Slavonic stuff is published by the label "Мьчь Богыньѧ" with release numbers like
“Blood&Honour 010”. In two of his projects, Consuelos uses the pseudonym "Valkislava“ to add even more pepper to this hilarious nonsense. By the way, like every racial Slav, Daniel has a Vkontakte page where he reposts all kinds of cancerous quasi-pagan idiocy about TRIUMPHANT RUSSIAN DICK and congratulates "his Fuehrer" Adolf Hitler with another birthday.
I do not know why a descendant of a civilization with a history of 4,500 years would need all this totally artificial drivel, but it is probably a symptom of the same disease that causes adults to put anime characters on their profiles and pollute their speech with Japanese words.

HELLFECES

Major global metal festivals are rapidly continuing to degrade. Except for the Finnish Steelfest and, perhaps, Obscene Extreme, all of them have become long-lasting gay parades of the most “safe”, sterile and disgusting bands. Last year I laughed at the Norwegian Inferno with its bearded women, and this year it was overtaken and surpassed by the French Hellfest. Ben Barbeau, a real knight in a white cloak, refused to invite... Marilyn Manson, because his festival is supposed to be a safe place for women, and Manson, perhaps, probably, maybe, not definitely, somewhere once said something wrong about a woman. The world in which the old circus performer Manson has become too dangerous and scandalous for a metal festival cannot be called healthy. But at least Hellfrest will have a separate day for female bands, as well as what can be called "we have Manson at home" - the Tasmanian homosexual Kim Dracula, who plays, believe it or not, neo-core-poppy-trap-goth-salsa-funk-death-heavy-electro metal!
However, even without taking into account all these events, it makes no sense to attend Hellfest. The festival, where SLAYER, INQUISITION, SODOM, ARCHGOAT, DEICIDE, etc. once performed, has declared for year 2025 such a line-up, that I couldn't help but feel respect for the organizers. It took a lot of effort to pick up almost a hundred of such toothless, neutered, smooth groups! Compared to this, even Wacken Open Air looks like a real metal ball. I haven't been to a concert in almost 5 years and I miss them very much, but there's not a single band in Hellfest 2025 that I would want to see for any money. I would even say that I would agree to listen to most of them only for money. Fucking EAGLES OF DEATH METAL! Holy shit, KITTIE! The amazing GORILLA, believe it or not, BISCUITS! What and who are they anyway?

ARTIFICIAL MIND REFLECTIONS

Patrick Mameli from PESTILENCE has always been a man of strong principles and consistent opinions. In the mid-90s, Mameli accused stupid metalheads of not being able to understand the genius of "Spheres", and then left the metal scene for being too primitive for him(after all, everyone who listens to metal is a poseur!) and "dragging him down". Although in 2006, together with the members of CYNIC, he recorded an album for the nu-metal project C-187: one of the most shameful, distasteful and smelly flakes of shit in the history of heavy music. 20 years later, Patrick said that "Spheres" was also shit that they recorded just to piss everyone off and get off the label.
During the period spent outside of metal, Mameli did not waste time in vain, but worked in the gym so that, having returned with PESTILENCE in 2008, he could beat the shit out of haters from the Internet. I don't know if he managed to catch at least one but I know that Patrick takes even the personal opinions of listeners close to his heart - for example, he sent threats to the founder of Dark Descent Records because he didn't like the interludes on “Testimony of the Ancients". To be honest, it's always sad to see an adult, strong and talented man with such a thin skin and such a huge ego. Mameli is not the only one.
In February 2024, Patrick fell flat on his whole body, once again demonstrating that he does not understand the principles and values of the scene that he made his name on. PESTILENCE announced the album "Levels of Perception“, which in its meaninglessness is somewhere near the releases of "The Beast of..." series from Roadrunner Records: a collection of tracks from a new era (2008 -...), re-recorded in the demo style. But in the process, Patrick ”produced" such horror that it sounds as if during recording the whole band had connected to a cheap laptop via a Chinese adapter with multiple sockets. This is not a ”raw" but organic performance; this is just total garbage, smeared with digital noises from top to bottom. The appropriate cover was chosen for ”Levels of Perception": the faces of the four PESTILENCE members, processed in Midjourney.
Of course, people instantly threw shit at this idea, and Patrick sincerely did not understand why, and began to argue, putting forward standard ridiculous arguments of the connoiseurs of rubber women AI "art". AI is everywhere! Are we stuck in the past? Is the cover generated by Chinese Skynet worse than the cover of "Consvming Impulse"? (YES!) Is Polaroid better than photo that was made on modern smartphone? (YES!!) Is recording on tape better than digital? (YES!!!) The whole point, says Patrick, is in the music and lyrics, and they are real! Personally, I would recommend him to go forward and start generating music and lyrics in ChatGPT, and put his own hologram on stage in order to be consistent in his futuristic worldview. When it became clear that no one was taking this seriously, Mameli tried to arouse the audience's pity by posting an explanation from the ”artist" who created the cover. He dramatically described how he had been working on his masterpiece for three days, driving the prompts into an image generator. I am speechless and crying. Some people move mountains just to avoid working!
In the end, the cover was replaced with another one, also quite ugly and not free of AI dirt, but still more decent. Then it turned out that the album is horrible, and then Kerry King and Glen Benton appeared with their version of AI-generated visual crap, and everyone switched to them.
But on New Year's Eve, Patrick decided to take the burden off his mind and gave out another batch of nonsense about artificial intelligence and PESTILENCE being the future. You're all sitting in the mossy past, my dear readers, but you need to develop technologically, otherwise you won't survive on this scene. It would seem that Mameli, who is almost 60 years old, should know that only 2-3% of metal bands managed to successfully get hooked on some new trend and at least not ruin their careers. And it's always been thanks to very hard work. Using AI in music has nothing to do with work - on a contrary. Perhaps Mameli sees the future of humanity as in the wonderful cartoon "WALL-E", where everyone is fat, robots do all the work, and people move exclusively on electric scooters, but then why is he so actively sharing his photos from the gym?