Think you know your alt-rock history? Nirvana may have grabbed the headlines, but it was Mudhoney who put grunge - and the Seattle scene - on the map. To many, they're still the quintessential Pacific Northwest rock band: bruising, uncompromising, darkly humorous, fuzzed-out, stealth-articulate, dangerously loose. Mudhoney fused Sixties garage rock, Seventies distorted-guitar wattage, and raucous, inebriated Eighties punk, and in so doing, they pointed the way forward for countless alternative bands. It's no coincidence that Michael Azerrad chose to write about Mudhoney as his representative Seattle group in This Band Could Be Your Life. Few bands truly deserve to be called groundbreaking. Here's one of them.

If Mudhoney kicked off the alternative rock revolution, "Touch Me I'm Sick" was the shot heard round the world. The 1988 single release was the first for the Seattle four-piece, and it sent shockwaves through the underground and established the band as underground hitmakers. Nothing at the time sounded anywhere near as raw or as immediate: it made the popular metal bands look tame by comparison. "Touch Me I'm Sick" became the song that all the Seattle groups strove to emulate - the template for the sound that would take over the airwaves in the Nineties. The Superfuzz Bigmuff (named for the band's two favorite distortion pedals) collection soon followed, and the EP is now considered a stone classic and a must-hear for anybody interested in understanding the roots of the alt-rock movement.

Now, twenty years after that initial salvo, SubPop Records is releasing a deluxe edition of the debut compilation. The new version of Superfuzz Bigmuff comes in conjunction with a brand new Mudhoney set, and one that's been hailed as the band's strongest effort since the early Nineties. The Lucky Ones follows the confrontational Under A Billion Suns - an album on which Mudhoney took a turn toward the political - and should further cement the band's living-legend status. In fact, listening to The Lucky Ones and Superfuzz Bigmuff Deluxe back-to-back proves how little has changed: the group still crafts irresistible riffs and indelible garage-punk choruses, they still play with utter abandon, they still sound fantastic, and they've still got that wicked, angst-ridden, and fatalistic sense of humor.

Whitey McConnaughy is a Pacific Northwest stalwart too: he directed the lead video from Under A Billion Suns, and he's shot dazzling clips for locals The Thermals and Band Of Horses. His semi-archival clip for "Touch Me I'm Sick" finds Mudhoney in action in front of a riotous crowd, howling into microphones, pounding on their instruments, and demonstrating why Seattle punk rock is so exciting and so enduring. Any doubts about the band's gigantic influence on Nirvana can be put to rest here: as the clip shows, the firm of Cobain, Novocelic, and Grohl took more than a few of their world-historic moves from Mudhoney. We're thrilled to be able to pair with SubPop to introduce a whole new generation to a timeless track that's already been recognized as one of rock's greatest and most epochal.

My American Heart is a rock band hailing from San Diego, CA. The band's original name was No Way Out, consisting of Larry Soliman on vocals, Jesse Barrera on bass guitar, Clint Delgado and Jeremy Mendez on guitar, and Steven Oira on Drums. No Way Out gained much local fame from many local SoCal venues they played at. Due to some legal troubles concerning their name the band changed it from No Way Out to their current name. Although many of the original members of the band are Filipino, singer Larry Soliman says "we're all American". The band made their first big break winning the Ernie Ball Battle Of The Bands. As popularity grew, the band was pressured to play at larger venues farther from home, causing Clint Delgado to leave the band to focus on his education. Instead, the band was left with Dustin Hook, Jesse Barrera, Steven Oira, and Larry Soliman. The band played the Taste of Chaos tour in 2005 and shortly after recorded the full length album The Meaning in Makeup with famed producer Sal Villanueva (Thursday, Taking Back Sunday) released on punk/indie legend Kevin Lyman's label, Warcon, in fall 2005. The band headlined the Ernie Ball stage on the entire Warped Tour in the summer of 2005, and followed with a late fall headlining tour sponsored by MySpace. They also headlined their own independent tour with bands such as Portugal. The Man, Lorene Drive, and Action Action opening for them. In 2007 they supported Madina Lake on their tour of the UK. During this tour they said that they would return to the UK at a later date. On December 24th, it was announced that they will be supporting The Blackout on their European tour in January & February It was announced on the Australian Soundwave Festival tour that Steve Oira would be leaving the band after the tour. Jake Kalb (ex-The Fold/New Atlantic) has replaced him on drums.

"This album is a thank-you to the 80's" "I think I always sang," Pete says. "I sang along with the radio or made up my own goofy songs...but I never took it seriously, or thought of it as something I could really do, until high school. In high school, I met Neil Robins (of Dirt Poor Robins). He was a phenomenal guitarist, and was already an amazing songwriter at age fourteen. We started writing songs together and I was hooked. I knew I had to make music." Later in high school, Pete and Neil started playing shows together, singing two-part harmony in the halls and in the back of the school bus. No More Kings was born, with Pete Mitchell, Neil Robins, and Adam DeGraide (founder/CEO of Astonish Entertainment), and began to perfect its sound. Neil and Pete wrote silly,energetic songs and No More Kings played all over New England. But when Pete and Neil moved to L.A. with a different band, they "kind of split up, and I thought that was the end of No More Kings," Pete says.The band was the catalyst for his move, but Pete wanted to keep pursuing a fine art career. "I really didn't think I would end up doing music for a living. I didn't think it was possible," he says. He started working for Disney, animating for video games, and then moved on to Henson to make Muppet games. As he was developing as a visual and musical Artist, he searched for his own unique voice."I think your voice is always going to be a combination of your influences, and then at some point getting comfortable enough that you relax when you sing, and be yourself. I still kind of wonder sometimes if this is what I sound like, or if I'm channeling Stevie Wonder or something," Pete kids. "I want my music to be a celebration of the crazy times I grew up in, the things that influenced me, the little pieces that made me. Whether that's watching Knight Rider every night, or whether that's School House Rock, or The Muppet Show. Whatever those influences are that got in and stayed in, and have been rattling around for years. This album says, 'Thank you, 80's, for raising me, you did a good job.' "

Periodically, we'll read articles in the mainstream press complaining about how modern bands have abandoned the tradition of protest music. In the Sixties, we're reminded, popular musicians kicked back at the powers that be; at this crucial moment, their modern counterparts have abandoned ideology for something safer. Well, that may or may not be true - but if it is, don't blame the bands on Fat Wreck Chords. Over the past seven years, Fat Mike's roster has delivered broadside after broadside at the government; while others have flagged, the Fat Wreck Chords bands have sharpened their critiques, focused their disappointment, and redoubled their efforts. Some may find irony in the fact that the bands in this loose affiliation of straightforward punk rockers have, by necessity, become trenchant social critics. We, on the other hand, know that groups like No Use For A Name have always been about questioning authority and speaking truth to power. If their songs seem more pointed these days than they did when the band started back in the late eighties, well, as another punk-poet once told us, the times are a-changin'.

Which isn't to say that No Use For A Name (or NUFAN, as they're often called by underground-rock aficionados) would have been incapable of writing something as articulate and convincing as "Biggest Lie" for their 1994 debut. Even then, Tony Sly was channeling his outrage into stinging rebukes against suburban complacency and thoughtless conformity. But on 2005's incendiary Keep Them Confused, his writing took a turn toward the overtly - and unashamedly - political. "Biggest Lie" (and Feel Good Record Of The Year, the stinging follow-up) picks up where Keep Them Confused left off. Over scalding six-strings and pounding drums, Sly barks out his disgust. "Left freedom bleeding on the roadside", he roars, "we believe the biggest lie." The whole thing feels like a challenge that's impossible to dismiss; words hanging heavy in the air, demanding a response. And at a little under two and a half minutes, it's over in a flash - it's a quick punch to the gut, leaving audiences breathless.

No Use For A Name has long been among the most reliably exciting live bands on the punk circuit. Their shows are cathartic, energizing, raucous, wild, celebratory: everything that makes this sort of music so indispensable. Director Justin Staggs has always been attracted to bands like that - he's shot clips for Against Me!, The Soviettes, and many others - and his vision is a natural match for NUFAN's enthusiasm and energy. Staggs specializes in recontextualizing performance footage: he likes to shoot bands in action in unusual locations or with strange backdrops, and he often juxtaposes concert images with other hallucinatory visuals. For the "Biggest Lie" clip, he strips away the stage altogether, leaving No Use For A Name to float among a blood-red sea of smoke, radio waves, and inverted patriotic signifiers. The punk band performs in front of an upside-down black and white American flag, a national seal bent on flying out of the frame, the Statue of Liberty, barbed wire, radio waves. It's chaotic, dizzying, and oddly moving - the punk band steadying themselves and giving the audience their very best as the fabric of their nation unravels.

Possessed and Death may have brought death metal to life, but Obituary brought it to fruition. Possessed and Death may have brought death metal to life, but Obituary brought it to fruition. After releasing some demos as Xecutioner as far back as 1986, the five-man band debuted as Obituary on Roadrunner Records in 1989 with Slowly We Rot, and in a word, the album was landmark. The previous forays into what would quickly become tagged as death metal - primarily by the above-mentioned bands, Possessed and Death, along with grindcore innovators Repulsion and Napalm Death - were exercises in relentlessness. These bands took the breakneck abandon of Slayer's Reign in Blood one step further, to the point of sheer, sometimes even ridiculous musical abandon. Obituary, on the other hand, varied their tempo considerably - and did so at the absolute height of speed metal nonetheless. Yes, the band could play at breakneck speed, but within the same song, guitarists Allen West and Trevor Peres could slow the tempo down to dirge-like levels in a moment's notice, all the while keeping the music as heavy as hell thanks to down-tuned guitars and the snarling vocals of John Tardy. As a result, Slowly We Rot made quite a splash back in 1989, influencing an entire legion of death metal bands in Florida: Morbid Angel, Deicide, Malevolent Creation, Cannibal Corpse, and numerous others now forgotten among the thousands of international bands that followed. In a way, Slowly We Rot was the prototypical death metal album, establishing a template that would come to define the style (one that is distinct from grindcore or black metal, it should be pointed out). A few albums followed - Cause of Death (1990) and The End Complete (1992) both also very influential - but by the mid-'90s Obituary had run its course and the band splintered, reuniting now and then. Yet even as the bandmembers went their seperate ways (most notably West going on to much success as the guitarist of Six Feet Under), Obituary continued to stand tall as one of the definitive death metal bands, if not the definitive (a distinction that probably goes to Death, whose James Murphy actually was a bandmember for a while). Their latest, Xecutioners Return was released in August 2007 on the Candleight label.

Submit yourself to the dark empire of Octavia, Norwegian all-female band whose domain is the world of heavy, Gloom metal. Since the beginning in 2000 Octavia has established themselves as a new shining star on the already crowded Norwegian metal sky. Their empire is founded on doom metal with heavy riffs and a massive, atmospheric expression - and of course the ambition to conquer the world. Their music is not easily categorized and has been associated with the likes of Candlemass, Nightwish, The Gathering and The Third and the Mortal, even though Octavia's approach is slightly more of a rock style than any of those. Octavia Sperati took shape in Bergen, Norway, as a result of several coincidences during 2000 and the preceding year. The main trigger, however, was new friendships and considerable amounts of alcohol. In the dead of spring, as the spirits ran high and the wits burned low, a common desire to get up and play heavy music revealed itself among three girls who were affectionate to metal but so far compelled to enjoy the music from outside of the stage lights. When the hangover was gone the desire was still there, and Octavia was a fact. First line-up consisted of Silje Wergeland (vocals, synth), Trine Johansen (bass), Bodil Myklebust (guitars) and Gyri Losnegaard (guitars). Now looking for a drummer, which is not particularly easy if you're looking for a female specimen of the kind, the girls had incredible luck when Trine bumped into Horgh (ex-Immortal, Hypocrisy, ex-Grimfist) at favourite pub Garage. Shortly after his girlfriend Silje Røyseth joined Octavia. Rehearsing at the music organisation AKKS Bergen, some of the girls took the AKKS's instrument courses, and consequently they were thrown into their first gig after only a couple of months of playing together. The top gear mentality proved to set a standard for the band's progression through the following years. In 2001, Silje started working for AKKS and made acquaintance with Tone Midtgaard, who soon released Silje's busy front woman/lead singer hands and took over the tangents. After a while drummer Silje had to leave the band. Once more lucky in their quest for a drummer, the girls persuaded Östblokk drummer Hege Larsen to join forces with Octavia. After supporting Enslaved at the release of their 'Monumension' album (Bergen, 2001), Octavia did several gigs in Norway, including the major festivals like Hole in the Sky - Bergen metal fest 2002, 1001 Watt (Skien, 2002), Ride This Train (Bergen, 2003) and the Lost Weekend festival (Askøy, 2003). Octavia also appeared as one of 50 promising Norwegian bands performing at the 2004 by:Larm conference, which is Norway's largest happening within music trading and network building. In 2002 Octavia released a self-financed, low budget 5-track demo 'Guilty. With financial support from their local government they entered studio once more in October 2003. Besides this, the song "Lifelines of Depths" from this recording was included as one of the tracks on Music Export Norway's first-ever metal compilation CD together with tunes from bands such as Audiopain, Einherjer, Enslaved, Red Harvest and Zyklon among others. In March 2004 Octavia recorded a "Lifelines of Depths" music video, which was currently spinning on the Norwegian broadcasting TV channel NRK2 for about 4 months.In late 2004 Octavia signed a record deal with Candlelight Records home to some of Norway's best Metal bands. With more financial support from the local Government, a national fond (Fond for lyd og bilde) and Candlelight Records Octavia again entered Earshot studio with the producers Herbrand Larsen and Arve Isdal (members of Enslaved, Audrey Horne) in December 2004. The band also did the grand piano and some guitar at Grieghallen (Hall of Grieg) studio with Pytten. The album will be released on the 9 th of May 2005 with 11 tracks,and the title is "Winter Enclosure ". The title Winter Enclosure reflects the most dominant season during the creative period of making the album. All songs were recorded in the winter, and the title captures some of the moods expressed by the music and lyrics. It is not necessarily dark or pessimistic - it also suggests some constructive optimism. The aspects of winter can produce a lot of creative energy, as people tend to stay indoors at the dark time of year, taking shelter from the dark and the cold. The state of withdrawal and isolation will often be an inspirational source and trigger much alike nocturnal creativity. No doubt, this inspiration is reflected in the Octavian sound and expression. The music is grand and atmospheric, naturally creating associations to the equally grand and magnificent imagery of Norwegian nature and winter landscapes. The songs on Winter Enclosure have been developed during the last three years. The musical expression is founded on doom metal with heavy riffs and a massive, atmospheric feel. The music has been associated with the likes of Black Sabbath, Candlemass, The Gathering, The Third and the Mortal and My Dying Bryde. Octavia will be recording two videos from thealbum, and will use producer Asle Birkeland who has worked with Enslaved and Audrey Horne.

OMNIUM GATHERUM is a band of many directions and styles, some of them clearly visible while others more unseen. Namely working and keeping it all together under the monicker of melodic life-and-death metal and bastardizing it by various influences from a whole lot of genres and sub-genres, OG produce complex but accessible death metal that incorporates elements of thrash and tradl metal without ever sounding derivate. Top quality Finnish steel, in other words. It has said also that if you mix At The Gates, Katatonia, Death and Judas Priest there's the recipe to OMNIUM GATHERUM stuff!

Thorsten Zahn, chief editor of METAL HAMMER GERMANY: "Nobody can deny that the metal scene is thriving and blooming. Fresh new bands carry the spirit and give new impulses to the genre - or at least leave their fingerprints. One of these young and hungry bands is called Omnium Gatherum. The Finnish six-piece creates complex yet accessible death metal with traditional influences and a massive dose of thrash metal. This puts Omnium Gatherum in line with Finnish high-class metal forgers.