Here's their post from Facebook:
"Som walked out on us less than 24 hours before the US tour, and we were forced to either cancel or go ahead with it as an instrumental if need be. We didn't want to let our US fans down, so we went ahead with our buddy Shawn Whitaker on vocals for the tour. Show us your support and make Shawn feel at home, he saved us from a disaster."

Anyone have any more info on this? Is Som done with the band for good or just couldn't do the US tour for some reason?

I guess so, someone updated their page on here where the only members left in the band are Allan MacDonald and Paul McGuire

Maybe the fanboyism will stop now.

Seriously though, I think Cerebral Bore is okay and all but they get a ton of press simply because of her. Now either one of two things will happen: Either they will stay popular and reaffirm my theory that they're the most accessible BDM band in the universe (something I've noticed a good contingent of fans refuse to recognize) or they will lose a huge chunk of popularity, which would prove my other theory that 80% of their fans are teenage males (based on the long proven theory that teenage males are horny idiots).

I never really cared that their vocalist had tits, mostly because I've never been huge into brutal death metal to begin with and Cerebral Bore are just alright in my book.

I'm in the same camp as Subrick, as I already liked them long before realizing that the one behind the mic in CB was a woman. I agree with BastardHead regarding the two ways in which this might turn out though. But hey, it's not like there's anything wrong with having a very accessible BDM band. If anything, too many BDM bands try too hard to make their sound as inaccessible as possible, resulting in heaviness for the sake of it (and thus, shitty music).

But yeah, so as to not stray too far from the topic at hand; Som is a rock solid vocalist, but it's not like they can't replacer her if she decides to leave. If she stays, good, and if she doesn't, well, I guess that as long as they bring someone good enough to take her place, I won't mind.

That's why I don't like most BDM. Every single band in that genre is trying to one up each other, leading to shitty, unlistenable noise that someone slapped the label of "music" onto. Same goes for the tweedly tech death shit like Rings of Saturn and Brain Drill.

The question we must now ask is will this ruin Cerebral Bore's position as the most famous Scottish metal band who don't sing about pirates.

There's a pretty big death metal scene here from which the band could find a vocalist though, so only the aforementioned Som-fanboys are likely to be lost.

Cerebral Bore, what a fitting name for their band. It's too bad they won't be "the band with the chick on vocals" anymore, I guess that's a major loss for such a mediocre band.

But I do wonder what caused her to quit in such and unexpected and sudden way? How much shit would a chick have to put up with fronting a band where the core audience is made up of obese and/or socially inept teenagers? But I do like that bands like this act as a filter for keeping juggalo equivalents away from real death metal , so I hope they find another chick, possibly with giant breast implants, to keep the gimmick going.

That'd be just straight up ripping off Huntress right there, as they already have the "singer with enormous fake tits that can't actually sing" gimmick down pat.

Checked out Huntress out of curiosity, and

That was some of the most irrelevant, manufactured and spiritless crap masked as metal that I've ever heard, not to mention that the vocalist is dismal. She's just tunelessly yelling, for crying out loud!

I like the music. The vocals absolutely kill it for me. That bitch cannot sing to save her leaking implants.

I'm in tears, jesus christ hahahaha.

They named a band after a weapon in Turok 2?

That's funny. Will listen to them.

Edit - Not really my thing, but seeing a picture of Alan Partridge in a metal video made my day.

This was why I soully gave them a listen.

thought it was alright... like 4 dollar with the shipping on ebay alright. Didn't realize it was a female vocalist till after my 4 dollar cd came in.

BUT THAT'S THE POINT! Listening to watered-down BDM like Cerebral Bore is like eating Tabasco sauce with the spiciness removed. It's pointless - it's supposed to be music that makes you uncomfortable. Also, don't be a fool and resort to the "this is noise" rhetoric; it's quite rude and disrespectful to the actual genre of noise.

Moving on from such wild ignorance as to the purpose of brutal death metal, I summed up my thoughts on the matter earlier on Facebook thusly:

Pretty sure it's no secret that Cerebral Bore got where they are not only because of their riffs being the DM equivalent of Katy Perry, but because of what was in their vocalist's pants. She was definitely the face of the band, as is evidenced by the fact that no one gave a flying fuck about them until they acquired her despite their being around for over four years and mostly playing the exact same thing they play today. So, yeah, good luck on maintaining mainstream relevance; I know you sound like t.A.T.u. with blast beats, but you're still gonna need it without a pair of lactating breasts behind the mic if you want to continue to captivate the hearts of zit-faced, teenaged, "ARCH ENEMY IS AN INSPIRING FIGURE IN METAL BECAUSE ANGELA GOSSOW BREAKS GENDER STEREOTYPES AND PLUS NOW I CAN DO MY MASTURBATING AND MUSIC-LISTENING IN THE SAME PLACE" metalheads everywhere.

Oh it doesn't make me uncomfortable. It just bores me for a few minutes and then I move onto better stuff. At least that's how it is with stuff like Cerebral Bore. Rings of Saturn and Brain Drill actively annoy me through how anti-music they are.

Haha, I just checked their facebook page and it's a riot at the moment...because of the fans. It sucks that bands have to go through such ups and downs, but that's life. Let's see what the press-release says about the situation.

Anyway, I got to know about the band a few years back. At first, I thought they were pretty decent, not very uber BDM as bastardhead pointed out, very accessible. But then I felt the songs got a tad repetitive. I suppose for the mass-appeal of a band, a female-fronted band does get more mileage in the community. For the sake of this band, this will be the real test whether the music can withstand this setback or not.

Now you're either saying that Brain Drill and Rings of Saturn have no discernible melodies, rhythm or dynamics, or that they're self-aware music which is aware of the standards placed upon the art form as a whole and satirically defy them. Both would be equally silly claims to make, really.

I have a feeling this is going to be a sad story really... The band will be just as good with whoever they replace her with, but I doubt many of their tit-deprived fans will see it. I've seen two bands which feature ex-Cerebral Bore vocalists, and both have been excellent, so it's not as if Som improved the band in a musical sense.

MalignantThrone, I highly recommend reading BastardHead's reviews on the Brain Drill's Quantum Catastrophe and whatever that new turd by Rings of Saturn is called. Same with his review of the latest Beneath the Massacre album. He gets it right on the money about why that style of complete fucking racket doesn't work.

I'm well aware of BH's reviews for those two albums and I don't agree with them at all. He says they're unmemorable and boring, whereas I think those sorts of riffs are pretty interesting as long as you invest enough time in them to memorise where they're going to lead. Whatever, I don't care if you dislike the two bands because I know weedle-wank isn't everyone's cuppa, but don't call them "noise" or anything silly like that when they have clearly discernible melodies in their music, however spastic and fast they might be. I'm out.

Cerebral Bore is my favourite female fronted Scottish four-piece brutal gore-grindish melodic death metal band. I wish there were more female fronted Scottish four-piece brutal gore-grindish melodic death metal bands.

She wasn't that attractive and Aborted's frequent flirtations with deathcore make them more accessible overall than Cerebral bore. I loved it when they attracted all of these morons to the music though, especially when these guys could be listening to Insert X band off the Unique leader roster and they are more technical if not sounding virtually the same as Cerebral Boredom.

Except for the fact that Abnormality have been around for just as long as CB and have a female vocalist, but no one really brings it up beyond cursory mentions. They're getting recognition because they work hard and have managed to work their way up to the top of the Boston brutal death scene, not because of the "OMG we have a girl in the band" factor. Also, Cerebral Bore had been in talks with Earache since before Som even joined, IIRC, and that was largely because they worked their asses off.

Oh, and "t.A.T.u. with blast beats"? What the fuck are you talking about? No, seriously, are you fucking high?

The difference between Abnormality and Cerebral Bore being that Abnormality actually play technical BDM and not fluffy, warm, non-threatening, and bass-heavy pop music with vaguely BDM-ish riffs mixed in. CB are the t.A.T.u. of brutal death metal.

But in regards to popularity, Abnormality haven't really gotten that far since being signed to Sevared Records isn't exactly an impossible feat (tons of shitty bands get free rides on Sevared) - in fact, I was actually expecting them to go even further than Sevared considering the attention that their appearance on Rock Band 2 brought them, but apparently they were deemed less marketable than "death metal for people who don't like death metal". And it's true that they have a female vocalist, but on the other hand the band don't make a big deal of it, as opposed to Cerebral Bore and Arch Enemy who shove theirs in the fans' faces every chance they can get to soak up some more of that sweet, sweet adolescent publicity.

Arch Enemy, yes (it's the only reason anyone cares about Michael Amott anymore), but I've honestly never seen Cerebral Bore advertise the fact that they had a female vocalist. With AE, it's the first thing that gets brought up about them; with CB, I actually didn't realize that their vocalist was female until I checked out the band's entry here.

And as far as calling bands pop-BDM, I'd be more apt to issue that to JFaC and Krisiun, since JFaC first decided they wanted to be Suffocation circa Genesis and switched to wanting to be modern Deeds of Flesh with Gloom, while Krisiun has always had a fairly mainstream-friendly sound.

Malignant and Frank; you do know that it's rather ridiculous to call Cerebral Bore, Krisiun and anything even resembling them "pop music", right?

Do you and Noktorn the thief legitimately think half of your absurd, half-baked, introspective conclusions are legitimately why bands make it big? I hear zero pop music influence in Cerebral Bore maybe you're making some asinine claim just to make sense on why they have a least one inkling of popularity. Bass Heavy pop music

It's an easy way to refer to a band with a sound that is far more accessible than others in its genre. I mean, it isn't exactly the most accurate way to describe them, but it is certainly the most convenient.

Maybe for you, power metal fan. I dunno, after having been exposed to Enmity and Torsofuck and the like, I listen to Cerebral Bore and think "wow this sounds really watered-down and accessible". Sort of like a regular DM fan's response would be to Pantera.

I don't hear any Suffocation in Genesis and I certainly don't hear any DOF in Gloom - in fact, Job for a Cowboy don't seem like any sort of BDM to me but rather regular death metal that's a bit more groovy and technical than usual. I haven't listened to much Krisiun but I definitely get "accessible BDM" vibes from their general fanbase and presence.

Veracs, regardless of the reason the band have soared to popularity, if you hear zero pop music influence in Cerebral Bore it's probably because you haven't listened to much real brutal death metal at all. Hint: brutal death metal doesn't inject its slams with absurd amounts of melody, tune to C and play riffs that try to sound as un-death metal as possible. Cerebral Bore are to BDM (and death metal as a whole, by extension) as The Black Album is to thrash, or Dimmu Borgir are to black metal. And when the band seemingly have the talent and skill needed to be a Defeated Sanity-esque face-crushingly heavy band, and opt instead to play brutal death metal which is devoid of slams and unfriendly melodies, that's the most logical conclusion one can make.

Regarding what's accessible and what isn't; it's all relative, really. Totally, utterly, and bluntly relative, but the discussion is already completely off topic, and I won't keep feeding this fire. I'm out.

The people calling Krisiun "mainstream" and "accessible" should spend less time trying to categorize music, and more time listening to it. That's all I've got to say.

I've been following this discussion as a passionate lurker but there's one thing I have to say:

What the fuck?!

Without trying to be in any way conflictual or insulting I do have to say that you probably haven't heard much pop music if you're seriously insinuating something like what I've just quoted. A word to all those saying that death metal (brutal or not) is more or less accessible, please bear in mind that any kind of death metal is completely far away from what mainstream music really is all about. If the day ever comes that death metal becomes mainstream music then we can have a stronger discussion in this topic, but as things are calling any genre of death metal mainstream music is delusional. But after reading a review this week calling Esoteric a rock band I already believe that everything is possible.

Now, addressing the issue at hand which is the actual departure of the lead singer from a band. I've been working with Earache for almost too years now, doing the usual combo of news/reviews/previews/interviews for a webzine and never, and I mean never, has the publicity surrounding the band been about Som. The advertisement of the band has always been around the new act from a country with little or no international recognition in the death metal world, of them being able to play in big festivals and do tours with bigger names and all of that. The "new cool act" figure of advertisement if you like. Som has never been the point about their publicity. So when I see posts comparing Som to Angela, which has basically turned into the band's flag other than the actual music (but let's not discuss that here), I can't help but to think that suddenly metal fans have turned into macho bullshit because "oh look, another metal band with a chick" and all that crap. Are you seriously criticizing people who listen to those bands because they have chicks when you take the perfect opposite stance, as if chicks were the reason metal bands suck? I seem to be reading a lot of crap lately.

Speaking of Abnormality, what makes them all that different from Cerebral Bore in terms of having a chick as a vocalist and not doing publicity stunts about that? Because both bands have the same public stance, they have a female singer, move along. So why is one put on a "trve" pedestal and the other treated like crap when the public stance is the same? I don't get it.

Get over your personal tastes will you? If you dislike something, which you're entitled to, then go ahead. Now claiming this world and the next about things that are far away from reality... Let's get real shall we?!

I liked hellsunicorn's review on brain drill's first album. It's basically how I feel about both bands; I only listen to their albums when i'm thinking 'hm, i feel like hearing an asston of sweeps and tech riffs'.

Your thoughts on female vocalists are pretty spot on actually; what a lot of those fans think is admiration is just objectification. A lot of these female fronted bands end up being defined by their female vocalist, just look at how to a degree dark moor has been taken down a notch in popularity after elisa martin left; the new vocalist is maybe a few hairs worse but he doesn't really bring the music down anymore. I don't think they'll make another album of the same caliber as their first two but it's no reason to write them off entirely. Similary you can look at all the fanboy arguments between which nightwish vocalist is the best, or how any band with operatic tits and a keyboard gets signed; I'm not even counting all the shit like 'in this moment' that isn't metal. Seriously, I'm surprised nobody has picked up keydragon yet for some albums. And I never really got the whole, 'watered down pm+operatic vocals' thing at all.

But as a feminist, I do see it as genuinely inspiring when a female band does break through, but only when their music actually warrants being listened to; not when people think they can differentiate a mediocre band by adding a female member (speaking of which, what the fuck happened to that keyboardist that cryptopsy hired for TUK?). I enjoy stuff like flagitious idosyncrasy in the dilapidation, ancient bards, the dogma, and Chthonic immensely. My favorite story from that band was when doris yeh was asked by the crowd to 'show her tits' and she replied 'show us your dicks' and the crowd went silent. There is a 'boys club' mentality in metal, but it isn't being helped by the huge mindless adoration of female fronted bands.

As far as cerebral bore goes, they seem like the angela glossow fronted arch enemy of BDM. Listened to a few songs and the riffs are mostly workable and catchy, but then don't really blend together at all well despite the melodic slams and spazzy but melodic tech leads. I still get this aura of safe, plastic mediocrity, and I think it's one of the tamest BDM bands i've ever heard, which explains their success. It almost reminds me of a warped version of benighted with it's balls chopped off and replaced with acessible groove. It's not bad, but I don't see what the damn fuss is othe than that they have a female vocalist. Anyway, she seems decent enough and is fun enough to listen to; lets hope she lands in a more interesting band this time around.

Way to skim my post, dickhead. I said absolutely nothing about Som being anything different from Mallika. If you actually read it, you would have picked up on how I was basically saying that Som and Mallika are girls who play metal, not metal chicks like Angela Gossow. If you're going to fucking insult someone and throw accusations of their trying to be "trver than thou" at them, at least analyze what they said first. Retard.

Pretty sure he was talking to me, Frank Booth.

Anyways, I actually do think Cerebral Bore are a decent band, I own their album and it gets pretty regular spins from me, but it just really grinds my gears how they get tagged as stuff like "the only good brutal death metal band" when really they're about as watered-down and diluted as a BDM band can possibly be. And I suppose Som isn't as bad about the attentionwhoring as Angel Gossow, but from what I've seen you still can't really have a conversation about the band without someone bringing into play the fact of the matter that she's a female. I certainly don't think that's a legitimate reason to dismiss a band, and it personally doesn't have much of an effect on me in the black-and-white sense, but it does admittedly cause me to hold a bit of animosity towards the band for reasons beyond their control.

It's not necessarily that they're popular which annoys me, since Defeated Sanity are arguably more famous overall and, while I dislike them, they don't particularly bother me. I think it's mostly that the band gets freely associated with the likes of DS, when their music is a lot warmer, friendlier, generally not very heavy and yes - quite poppy as far as metal goes. I don't want the future of brutal death metal to be a bunch of fast, heavy-hitting bands that otherwise lack anything in the form of grotesquerie or brutality.

The way I see it with female fronted bands is that many of them fall into the trap of coasting along on the fact that their singer is a chick and neglecting the music because of this. Bands like Huntress, Arch Enemy, and In This Moment are 100% guilty of that. Not all female fronted bands are like that though; bands like Abnormality, The Agonist, Sorrowseed, Arkona, and even, although I've stated earlier that they aren't really my thing, Cerebral Bore are more the kind of band that you don't really care that the singer is female because of the quality of the actual music.

Erh... I think you may have severely misread my post dude. I thought that the "I don't want to insult or shit fling at anyone" part would suffice for other posters to understand what I meant. Apparently it didn't.


Mostly, yes. While some parts where directly in response to you, hence the quote, most of it was directed at the general audience and not anyone in particular.

Anyway, I see what annoys you and I do have to agree that the sentiment makes one twist the eye sockets more often than not. Subrick's last post is another good example of what I meant. That some bands are riding with the "female singer" thing but that doesn't mean that all of them do, no matter how bland and watered down they are in whatever genre they play. With that being said I think that it's mostly the media, and subsequently the media-whoring fan bases that only know what the metal mags present to them as "metal", that are to blame for the sentiment you describe MalignantThrone. Most of the times it just isn't accountable towards the bands because they don't do their own publicity. Media and labels do that for them.

Someone above mentioned Huntress. That's got to be the single best example to this discussion. An ex-playmate (correct me if I'm wrong) who jumps the gun into non-mainstream music and gets a lot of attention because she's almost naked half the time. You know, there was this band of chicks that used to play naked and have stage sex, can't remember the name, and they did that for shock value (and probably due to some very loose screws!) and not for mainstream fame. If anything mainstream condoned them for acting like that and they were banned in a few countries. So one has to separate the fact that; one, females leading metal bands exist, and two, many of them are more than a cute face and a pair of tits! Now if the music is bad or good is a whole new discussion, which doesn't and shouldn't be in any way related to the gender of the band members.

You're all correct one some point.

-The band DOESN'T sexualize her or make her the selling point, they never did, the press never did, the label never did. That shame lies purely with the shitty fans they attract thanks to a combination of easy to listen to BDM and retarded lyrics. It's the fans who helped give the band that unfair distinction, when really it was the work of teenage dipshits.

-They ARE poppy, but not in the sense that MT is making it out to be. Their music is easy to listen to. It's clean, it's simple, it's hooky, catchy, and memorable. Calling them the [lame pop group] of their genre is a hyperbole so extreme that even Morbid Angel can't handle it, but the base idea behind the silly statement is entirely valid.

-Unless it's all on the fans like I described in point one, The Agonist is totally notorious for pushing their sexy vocalist to the forefront.

Were her vocals pitch shifted? They aren't a terrible band. Just kind of bland but I like them more than most other BDM I've heard.