Cookin', relaxin', workin', steamin'

. . .

Metal Blade has launched a new website, Metal Blade TV, devoted to videos from the label.  This is curious, since Metal Blade already has a YouTube channel, where much, if not all, of this content will appear anyway.  Besides, do people actually spend time at label websites?  Roadrunner must think so, as its site is tricked out with loads of videos.  Victory also has a video site forthcoming.  It would seem that YouTube, as the grand aggregator of videos, would trump all of the above.

The leadoff feature of Metal Blade TV is a brief segment in the kitchen with Armored Saint‘s John Bush and Joey Vera.  Bush does the “can I do anything to help” thing, while Vera does the cooking, admits his foodiness, and shows off his cookbook collection.  It’s all quite charming.  I know I just wrote a hand-wringing post about demystifying Metal Overlords.  But Armored Saint aren’t Metal Overlords to me so much as respected elders, so I don’t mind seeing them as humans.

Besides, the vibe fits.  Armored Saint’s new album La Raza, which comes out next Tuesday, is surprisingly sunny.  It’s a “driving with the top down” (don’t say my car’s topless, say the titties is out) kind of record.  In fact, it’s not really metal so much as hard rock with a stoner vibe at times.  (Adrien Begrand has a good review here.)  This Armored Saint is far from the classic ’80s incarnation, but it’s turned out to be a lively beast.