Rolling Metal Thread 2015

New year, new metal (not nu-metal, please).

hey

So is this the place for black metal also? Missed out on most of that in '14, but am on board again!

All colors of metal are welcome here!

I'm currently listening to iDentity, the second album by German power metal band Alpha Tiger—comes out later this month on SPV. It reminds me a lot of Somewhere in Time/Seventh Son era Iron Maiden. I'm into it.

I liked their first one, but I think the guy's voice was a turnoff for a lot of people.

Maybe because I've been on a Melechesh kick lately, I'm very much looking forward to Enki in March. I'd post the fabulously garish album art but I don't want to start image dumping so early in the year. (And everyone's likely to have seen it anyway.) One of those bands in the "hey, we give a shit" songwriting category -- maybe to a fault; their albums are ... sometimes a little on the long side. In true overzealous Babylonian necromancer fashion, however, getting lost in those never-ending labyrinths is part of the deal. And the charm.

I'm sure I'll find stuff to anticipate that's much more obscure once I start dragging the nets.

The other big names of the coming year, btw, are Napalm Death, Blind Guardian, Immolation, Enslaved, Marduk, Nokturnal Mortum, and Lost Soul. Bring!

I think I heard Nile might have something and boy do I hope they've reconfigured, like, everything after whatever Gate of Sethu was supposed to be. It hurt my ears and my soul. At this point I wish they'd either go their separate ways and/or lose the conceptual thing. Or maybe they'll be like Marduk and put out a Romans 5:12 type rejuvenation album. Or maybe I'm just gonna have to keep listening to Nephren-Ka.

Not that their other stuff was bad. Ithyphallic and At the Gate of Sethu were just awful for polar opposite reasons: Ithy because it was going through the motions, Sethu because they tried to be weirdly different in their sound and vocal approach and it was bad weird not good weird.

I have used up my word allotment for the month, I think.

Enki is fantastic. The drumming is so unbelievably satisfying.

Didn't know there was a new Lost Soul coming. Very excited about that. The Napalm album will be a Napalm album, but I'm fine with that; they haven't made a bad record since Harmony Corruption, and their recent streak—Smear Campaign/Time Waits for No Slave/Utilitarian—has been great. Definitely looking forward to hearing the new Enslaved, but they kinda bored the socks off me when I saw them last year with Amon Amarth and Skeletonwitch, so I'll be skipping the tour. I'll check out the Marduk album for sure—their last three albums have been pretty amazing.

The Lost Soul album is finished, actually, and has been since late August, per their FB; hence my broken record incantation of their name throughout the 2014 thread, only to be disappointed with every Lost Soulless month. Seems they're having label issues. To say I've been anticipating this thing is an understatement.

Now if they do what Mayhem did, which is to put out crap after reaching a creative pinnacle, I'll have to take up drinking again.

ps: there's an image of the Lost Album back cover at that FB link.

*Lost Soul album back cover, were I able to type

Rang in the New Year (and the night before) being band bitch for Kowloon Walled City as they opened for Neurosis in SF, with Tragedy and Arthur & Punisher... holy shit.. Such a good show all the way around.

Also saw Death Angel a couple nights before that with Orchid.. I didn't know anyone could be that much of an Ozzy era Black Sabbath cover band with out actually being Black Sabbath or playing any Black Sabbath songs. Dude even hold the mic on the stand and head bangs like Ozzy did in 1970... A dude behind me yelled, "you guys are fucking ridiculous!" I'd have to say I agreed.. DA was stellar.. they played way too long though, like 2 hrs. But original rhythm guitarist Gus Peppa got up and jammed a tune which was nice...

Happy New Year everyone!!!!

Looking forward to new Desolate Shrine, Ufomammut and Bosse-de-Nage.

Supposed to get new Vektor this year, psyched for that. And Torche has one imminent on Relapse, right? First single is dull, but I'm still hoping. Also Melechesh, Nokturnal Mortum (w due reservations), King Diamond, debut Aktor LP, Black Breath. Curiously optimistic about a Bolzer full-length, curious but not optimistic about new Nile.

\m/

This is going to be a good year. Blind Giardian, Enslaved, Nightwish, Royal Thunder, Napalm Death, maybe even Maiden.

The Visigoth album The Revenant King, which comes out 1/27 on Metal Blade, is a lot of fun. RIYL Grand Magus. Fair warning: There's a song called "Dungeon Master" and it's about exactly what you think it's about. On the other hand, "Creature of Desire" is maybe the most egalitarian song about a metal woman I've ever heard—despite its title, she's portrayed as the narrator's equal in every way.

Haha, Brujeria has a new one coming out. I'm basing this, along with a few of the others I listed, on this Nuclear Blast promo image: http://imgur.com/c1DA5VP

And the Napalm Death artwork is somewhere between amazing and horrifying, while the sample track is nothing but the former: http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/napalm-death-apex-predator-easy-meat-artwork-track-listing-revealed/

I'm not even that big of a fan but after that song ... yeah I'll be grabbing this one. And probably going back through their discography in order to become that big of a fan.

new xibalba in a few weeks https://soundcloud.com/noisey/xibalba-invierno

who recommended this Devil Ancestry record - it's really great

That was me! Glad someone else digs druggy satanic bass metal!

It's not MDF but the A389 11th Anniversary Bash seems like fun...

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/58545da97c32fd0a047659782/images/32cfdd14-7e9a-44bb-93c9-ad015851790e.jpg

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/58545da97c32fd0a047659782/images/32cfdd14-7e9a-44bb-93c9-ad015851790e.jpg

Heidens Hart records has a dodgy-lookin runic sigil kinda logo and a lot of bands that ID as "pagan," so, y'know, possible nazi alert, but the two bands I've been listening to on their bandcamp page - Murwe and Mondovolland - 1) do not seem to be nsbm types and 2) are fuckin' really good

Murw's stuff is pretty cool! Thanks for that. The demo reminds me a bit of Ophthalamia, full length takes the oddly elaborate riffing style and commits more to a doom style.

catching the Decibel tour here in Ottawa in a few weeks - Voivod/Napalm Death/Exhumed/Iron Reagan/Black Crown Initiate. First proper metal show in a long long time.

Having a very power metal day today; started with the new Alpha Tiger (again), and am now checking out the new Battle Beast, with the new Blind Guardian on deck.

xpost that tour is awesome, but the Decibel tour is At The Gates + Converge + Vallenfyre, and they just added Pallbearer.

they're both Decibel tours, though sadly that one is not oming to Ottawa.

oh. ok.

hi

Hey back in September there was a bit of chatter about a Slagmaur release in the works ... thought it was supposed to be in '14, but that didn't happen AFAICT. Anyone know more?

i feel like they've been "finishing up" that album since 2013

According to their FB they're doing shows, with the last message about a new album from like October saying "it'll be out in the near future."

I want.

Of course the Brave Words article about it from January of 2013 says it'll be completed by Spring (of, I presume, 2013).

Just got the new Psycroptic. They're still tech-death, but they've added some melodic prog-core chugga-chugga that I'd describe as almost...Trivium-esque. I like it.

I liked them already, will check that out

this Stargazer album that came out in December is fucking great imo

yeah, that stargazer album's awesome. would have included it among my 2014 favorites if i'd heard it in time.

I still can't stop listening to spectral lore III

infinite dreamscape, no kidding

This could be fun.

http://www.relapse.com/bedemon
http://www.relapse.com/myspace/bed/bed_landingpage.jpg

The name was chosen as a portmanteau of two earlier suggested names, Demon and Behemoth.[11]

I was gonna guess it was either a contraction of "bed demon" or a verb similar to "bedevil".

I was thinking it was a Pokemon character that looked like a mattress

That's actually a reissue of the Black Widow release, I guess? Good to see anyway, it's good stuff if you like 70s Pentagram and don't mind raw recording.

i like the phrase "provocation to doom"

http://www.metalinjection.net/latest-news/amazon-has-over-3000-metal-hard-rock-albums-on-sale-for-only-5

love how sly & the family stone are in the metal section

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=s9_dnav_bw_ir12_c?_encoding=UTF8&bbn=2384464011&rh=i%3Adigital-music-album%2Cn%3A163856011%2Cn%3A!2334092011%2Cn%3A!2334154011%2Cn%3A2384464011%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A625150011%2Cn%3A625011011%2Cn%3A!2334154011%2Cn%3A!2334092011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-5&pf_rd_r=0F71YHPQZ92W2RQZDR03&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=2015969142&pf_rd_i=678551011

some albums appear to be free to prime members

wish this was in the UK

lol the goo goo dolls "hold me up" is in thrash & speed metal

Weren't they on Metal Blade once?

yeah for a while iirc. and sued them

I think it says "invocation to doom", so "provocation" is still up for grabs.

Doom without malice aforethought?

fuck that's a great shirt

http://kognitivtod.bandcamp.com/album/howls-from-the-void

I have no idea what the hell I'm listening to. The artist labels it "experimental black metal." To me it sounds like early Ween. Well, Ween when they let their goofiness slip and became cartoon prog wizards.

Of course the icing is that as I'm sitting here tranced out to the moons of Saturn my eyes focus for a moment on the little part of the bio that says the music was "conceived while reading [among others listed] Thomas Ligotti," my favorite living author and the philosopher on which much of True Detective's anti-natalist themes were based. True Detective, also of course, is the show I've only just begun watching this week. This music is not what I consider dark, however. I ... uh, I dunno. I feel an obsessive phase looming.

WEIRD.

For completion's sake, he also lists Laird Barron as a literary influence on his music, and while Barron was claimed by the writer behind True Detective to be the primary inspiration for the Rusty Cohle character's uh, impenetrably morose worldview, no one who listens to that dialogue can think it was anyone other than Ligotti -- but this is an academic argument I would need to have elsewhere.

This musical entity put out on album in January and three last year.

Sounds like rock with black metal vocals, maybe like a demetalled "Imaginary Sonicscape" era Sigh. I am looking at the dude's picture and imagining him demanding his friends call him Kognitiv Todd, though.

http://i.imgur.com/t6TzeqI.jpg

Now that I've briefly reread some of the True Detective influences saga, I'm reminded that Laird Barron was only one of several lit inspirations the writer reeled off. It was a little more complicated than I stated.

Also also the character was Rustin not Rusty. Heh.

Well this has all been rather mindfucky. Off to sleep with me.

.....never heard of ligotti before... according to wikipedia:

Ligotti collaborated with the musical group Current 93 on the albums In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land (1997, reissued 2002), I Have a Special Plan for This World (2000), This Degenerate Little Town (2001) and The Unholy City (2003), all released on David Tibet's Durtro label. Tibet has also published several limited editions of Ligotti's books on Durtro Press. Additionally, Ligotti played guitar on Current 93's contribution to the compilation album Foxtrot, whose proceeds went to the treatment of musician John Balance's alcoholism.[8]

........

Ligotti's an odd one. He's sort of a living Lovecraft protagonist post-insanity-inducing revelation -- only instead of mania or dementia it's nothing but definitive depression. I have a hard time recommending him because if you're of a certain mindset his work can create a rather unpleasant sediment in the bottom of your psyche which doesn't seem to go away. I've had his latest book sitting on my nightstand for months but haven't yet gathered the momentum to charge into it -- and it's like less than a hundred pages long. And again, he's my favorite writer. Can't say I have a relationship like that with any other.

The least controversial way to sum him up is as a modern Lovecraft, I guess. A lot of Nabokov, Cioran, even Borges in there, too. But below it all, Ligotti is less about the writing, as amazing and effective as it is, and more about nihilist philosophy.

And his collaborations with C93 have been interesting. Usually it's just writing or reciting his own stuff for Tibet's crazy music. He did have a series of songs that he played guitar and "sang" on (spoke, really) but they didn't do much for me. I think those were The Unholy City listed in the wiki.

I'm kind of glad metal musicians haven't tried too often to translate Ligotti into their genre of music, to be honest (unlike Lovecraft, who works well in the context). There was a two-volume graphic novelization of some of his stories and it was a disaster. I never even picked up the second one. Some things are better left intangible or at least subjective.

So, uh, yeah. Music. Continuing the I, Voidhanger love from last year's thread, here is the very weird Malhkebre. The music, if a little busy, is pretty standard second wave bm. The vocals ... aren't.

Which Ligotti books would you recommend?

Personally I think his first three collections are his best: Grimscribe, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, and Noctuary. Even they can feel a little archaic, even Victorian, though. His later stuff feels much more modern: My Work Is Not Yet Done and the later stories in Teatro Grottesco aren't as purple prosed and the former even takes the guise of a workplace massacre revenge story. Sort of. All of his stuff is "sort of."

His lone actual philosophical work is The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. I would ... avoid that one, unless you find yourself falling in love with his worldview. At that point, there's no turning back.

My only complaint about Ligotti is that edited some of his stories from the first three collections before they went to Kindle and reprint. He seems to think he's making them better but in some cases he's removing some of the more memorable moments. It's a strange tic of his, I guess.

oh and his interviews are always a blast.
http://www.amazon.com/Born-Fear-Interviews-Thomas-Ligotti/dp/1596066210

They're collected there but I'm pretty sure (and hoping) they're still widely available across the internet.

"my only complaint is that he* edited" his stories, should have said

I received a $5 Best Buy certificate so I looked at the website to find a cheap CD I could get. I did some searching and found this CD that comes out next week by a band Witchrider:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fVPepMmmfw

It's now my favorite album of 2015 (it's early) and you might like it if you like the first three Queens Of The Stoneage albums.

Here's one I am looking forward to, a new A Forest of Stars album.

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/bc095d7581180521ee87967a5/images/a4c53e33-4db9-41ef-b8dd-9ed33eca3004.jpg

It comes out at the end of February.

Wow that cover.

damn that witchrider album is right up my alley

man that is one dumb snake

Yeah, Witchrider are a great Austrian band, Truckfighters released it on their Fuzzorama label in November!

https://fuzzoramarecords1.bandcamp.com/album/witchrider-unmountable-stairs

I though A Forest of Stars had split up! Their last album wasn't so great but that cover's amazing.

Also this came out late last year

http://sonance.bandcamp.com/album/blackflower

Kind of straddles the line between doom and post-metal. That particular genre was pretty much played out a decade ago but these guys are compellingly grim

The new Triosphere album is out! The year is totally underway. http://open.spotify.com/album/0PRu59gkd2Lyi8sybScuec

There's a new Monolord track streaming at Riding Easy and I think I like it even more than their debut album.

http://ridingeasyrecords.com/monolord-vaenir-first-song-artwork-leaked/

Prong is putting out a covers album March 31. The last two Prong albums have been pretty good, but I don't know how excited I am about this. Here's the track listing:

1. Doomsday (DISCHARGE)
2. Vision Thing (SISTERS OF MERCY)
3. Goofy's Concern (BUTTHOLE SURFERS)
4. Kids Of The Black Hole (ADOLESCENTS)
5. The Bars (BLACK FLAG)
6. Seeing Red (KILLING JOKE)
7. Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely (HÜSKER DÜ)
8. Give Me The Cure (FUGAZI)
9. Banned in DC (BAD BRAINS)
10. Cortez The Killer (NEIL YOUNG)

I don't know what you're talking about, cover albums by bands past their prime are always great.

The Scorpions one a few years back was fun.

I just realized tonight how much I've been underrating Napalm Death's Time Waits for No Slave. (I'm ranking their whole catalog for Stereogum.) Holy shit, what a sharp, creative (but still totally skull-cracking) record.

UFOMAMMUT Reveals Details Of Seventh Album, Ecate, Due In March Via Neurot Recordings; First Audio/Video Trailer Released

Ecate is the title worthy of deities and of UFOMAMMUT's seventh studio full-length, which has been confirmed for North American release late this March worldwide via Neurot Recordings.

On their latest album, UFOMAMMUT takes a confident step forward with their craft, orchestrating atmospheric processions that take the six songs on the album to places as-of-yet uncharted, the only guide being that of Ecate (Hecate in English), the three-sided goddess who moves between the realms of the living, the dead, and the gods. Traditionally associated with matters of the liminal, as statues of her can be found at crossroads and city walls, where she would be believed to either bless or curse travelers, she represents the link between the past, the present and the future in a way which resonates true with UFOMAMMUT, and with the name of the band, too.

Ecate will see release in Germany on March 27th, in Europe on March 30th and in the US on March 31st. The first in a series of video trailers for the album, which will be continually released over the coming weeks, has today been revealed. These short videos offer a chance to explore the story behind the recording of the album and the roots of their sound, re-affirming the band's DIY approach to everything they do. View the first installment RIGHT HERE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVO6Xx9EyLA

Ecate Track Listing:
1. Somnium
2. Plouton
3. Chaosecret
4. Temple
5. Revelation
6. Daemon

ENSIFERUM: Finnish Folk Metal Forbearers Unleash New Video; One Man Army Full-Length To See Release Next Month

One Man Army is the sixth studio album from Finnish folk metal forbearers, ENSIFERUM. Set to drop next month via Metal Blade Records, the predominantly analog-recorded offering was captured by award-winning producer Anssi Kippo (Children Of Bodom, Impaled Nazarene, Entwine etc.) at Astia-Studios in Lappeenranta, Finland and delivers eleven punishingly epic odes alongside a four-track bonus CD featuring the band's rendition of Barathrum's "Warmetal," Iron Maiden's "Wrathchild," Uriah Heep's "Lady In Black," and Judas Priest's "Breaking The Law," initially unveiled as the covermount CD of issue #94 of Germany's long-running Legacy Magazine.

In anticipation of the forthcoming release, today ENSIFERUM unveils the official new video for One Man Army's title track as well as an in-depth "making of" clip that brings fans deep into the heart of the filming session. Take a looksee at: http://www.metalblade.com/ensiferum.

ENSIFERUM's One Man Army will be released via Metal Blade Records on February 24th, 2015.

Samael apparently is going to do a one of those "we play our best album in order" European tour. Great news of course, but as Ceremony Of Opposites is only thirty minutes long, I'd hope there'll be some bonus tracks.

More good gothic metal of the relatively lower-gloss-than-energy variety:

Elessär: Dark Desires - http://open.spotify.com/album/1VmUkdZwx7ZFEARuPn1P7O
Bare Infinity: Race of Destiny - http://open.spotify.com/album/4nV0XYhfBIYucZ7uVkw1Ie
Onyx Eyes: Dó - http://open.spotify.com/album/7rCGW1c752CokNDAtgWwF1

New Archgoat - The Apocalyptic Triumphator up for to listen on Soundcloud. Fucking great.

Those dudes are old enough to have kids in college and shit, right? How are they still recording such great blackened death metal?

The answer is Finland, isn't it.

https://avantgardemusic.bandcamp.com/album/earth-i

Darkspace gone terraforming! (Some people are suggesting it may literally be Darkspace. I dunno. Their bio says Italy. Definitely sounds like Darkspace, and it's three guys, one of whom is on "programming.")

Came out late last year.

If you like your metal weird and borderline and apt to veer off into jazz-pop or polka-disco with no warning, you might also at least want to sample the new 6:33 album Deadly Scenes. http://open.spotify.com/album/5cSxE267WHScEwgIwYF4bN

Digging this Earth & Pillars album, tho I'm in no rush to peg them as secret Darkspace. Aside from the programmed drums and general ballpark, similarities are mostly extra-musical. The sound is warmer & blurrier (& more generic?) than anything DS have ever done, also much less focused on crushing riffs.

Watch me eat these words a couple months down the road...

any rumors of a gilead media fest '15?

If there is another one it won't be until Fall of 2016. It takes too much out of him to run it each year.

is he hiring an assistant

jk

At the last one his parents worked the door. :)

And oh, man, this instrumental progressive-djent album (with ambient interludes) Spherical, from Omni Dimensional.

Love slow, grinding sounds, but don't know where to find them?

http://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/6G59WjpkvVcYGTa8mKI92i

Has anyone here heard of Scythian, a UK death/thrash band? Sorry, did I say band, I meant fucking insatiable time-and-space-devouring langolier. I kept seeing their name on metal-archives -- anticipation of an album this year, praise for previous work -- finally checked them on YT, and uh wow. They're like Destroyer 666 if you injected them with, like, Angel Corpse or Defleshed. Ripping when fast, somber but sort of menacing when slow, songs lacking moments of boredom. Kind of reminds me how Sons of Northern Darkness took a little from this and that genre but had enough purity of personality to make all the distinctions meaningless. I am on board with these guys.

Previous album: http://youtu.be/6mVRPaFJzIw

Preview of thing coming this year: http://youtu.be/id-zju9YfLw

Dunno if they just picked every most amazing and epic moment from the new one but jesus. Sounds a little more epic and blackened than their other album, too. And that artwork.

I swear one day I'll employ references beyond late 90s/early 00s.

Nowhere near me, but FUCK...

http://s3.amazonaws.com/roblyimages/accounts/3199/original/1421260873118-b62wllinvn-37e9711a4fc23a5fc7975e8bd410a777.jpg

Psycho California Sampler: http://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/5ip0lwFZYtT7MjUFnxPjNL

daaaaaaamn on that festival

Re: Ligotti. Big news in this thread post below, so this present thread isn't too off-topic.

ThReads Must Roll: the new, improved rolling fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction &c. thread

If that festival was north of LA I would go. Fuck travelling to Orange County though.

I'll be there.

First track off the upcoming Pyramids album A Northern Meadow (March 17, Profound Lore)

https://soundcloud.com/profoundlorerecords/pyramids-i-am-so-sorry-goodbye

cool! I'm not sure if I'm sold on that clip but I still really dig that first lp. unique sound. never really followed all the weird splits, collabs, etc. they've put out since, so this will be a good opportunity to catch up.

teaser for the new deiphago def promising:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsM0k58FPjU

I wish I could contribute more to this thread but the only thing I listen to these days is azarath blasphemers' maledictions. old news to everyone I'm sure but really impressed. another record that does that sons of northern darkness super refined genre blend thing mentioned upthread (that scythian is cool btw!). shout out to siegbran for reminding me about these guys, so killer!!!

Holy shit, Deiphago guitarist wearing a Sore Throat "Unhindered By Talent" shirt. I guess there IS a noisecore/grind influence there.

Yeah Deiphago hit the spot. Seems like once a year I get bowled over by an album of that black/death/grind/war/bestial/whatever we're calling it. Last year's Diocletian and 2013's Beyond (Fatal Power of Death) did it as well.

As long as it's not too nuts, that is. I'm still working my way toward stuff like Revenge.

I loved that Diocletian album, I'll have to check out Beyond.

Know what you mean about the more brutal war metal stuff; I can handle a Sacramentary Abolishment or Conqueror, but when it gets to Revenge levels it's almost like wall noise as metal. Not that I don't own 3 Revenge albums, of course, but I do have a "buy any album with a gasmask on the cover" policy.

haha yeah, have a couple revenge albums dutifully filed away in the shelves but I never really put em on much either

cremation and axis of advance otoh http://www.varunaholzapfel.de/wbblite/images/smilies/headbang.gif

I gotta go back to Axis of Advance, when Sacramentary Abolishment split I was (am!) a die hard fan of Paulus' Rites Of Thy Degringolade stuff, never got into AOA so much.

weirdly enough, I have never checked out the old sacramentary abolishment records, so I can't really speak to that comparison. but the axis of advance records are a good time.

<3 rites of thy degringolade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcbXKfifOrg

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10455561_10152765675704125_5195345157977705518_n.jpg?oh=6dbd0fa5f5c3476fc67c07218c29655e&oe=552BB30B&__gda__=1428275828_876259776e22791187786ad383bb1108

this seems to be p much sewn up now and should be good for UK folks or folks from elsewhere who fancy making it part of a holiday or something

could probably live without seeing most of day one tbh but I think if you were gonna buy two days tickets you might as well go the whole hog

Good god that second night second stage.

And someone really needs to reissue Sacramentary Abolishment's two albums.

I agree with both statements!

And that Axis of Advance track is insane.

anybody heard the latest Nader Sadek? cos I digs.

also was into Hierophant's Peste from last year.

I went to Temples last year (their first) and had a blast but there were the usual first time organisation issues. I keep on meaning to get a ticket for this year but haven't got round to it yet. There's a lot to see, right enough.

The new Brothers of the Sonic Cloth record is stupidly good. All the work Tad has been doing with other folks has made him even better.

whole metal world getting ready to give Jef Whitehead a pass on being a convicted abuser it seems. bummed.

I would like to say that Nader Sadek lives up to the names involved but the whole thing seems like a waste. Dude's got some of the most talented people on each of their instruments but he leaves the "writing, concepts, and direction" up to himself -- and his ideas are not what I would call worthy of that lineup.

On the plus side, I guess I need to take another look at Aura Noir because I never realized who exactly was involved there. I remember checking them out way back around Deep Tracts of Hell and not being blown away but here's to hoping.

As long as I'm here and losing myself in 90s Norwegian black metal remembrance, I stumbled upon this band last night: Kozeljnik, Serbian band with an apparent love of that era. The vocalist could not sound any more like Aldrahn, especially on their two full lengths. The music sort of takes that Thorns/Satyricon/Dodheimsgard sound into more chunky rock territory but I'm loving it. Reminds me of Secrets of the Moon at times.
http://kozeljnik.bandcamp.com/

Their more recent stuff, the EP and the Deeper the Fall LP, are probably the more interesting half of their discography.

if the earlier aura noir material didnt do much for you, maybe consider hades rise? one of my fave hooky 'black and roll' lps

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2015/01/20/377711878/vikings-choice-liturgy-quetzalcoatl

Man. Kudos, I guess, for finding a new way of being unlistenable.

@__@

man, talk about a trainwreck!!

it's the best thing they've ever done.

dang, that liturgy track is all caps horrid. aura noir are great tho, so i guess it evens out.

Heh, I like this Liturgy track, but then I like it when someone takes black metal and does weird things to it. Not really striking me as much as the highlights from Aesthetica though.

there's a track, not the one above, on the new Liturgy which sounds like something PAN Records would put out kinda and which I think owns

would have been cool if they'd released it under a diff name on the download because no-one is gonna listen to it sans baggage. not that they're obliged to care either way

lol download = downlow

Will wait to hear album in full

DESOLATE SHRINE

http://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-heart-of-the-netherworld

murky death metal

I used to like Liturgy a lot. Wrote a big piece on 'em for Signal to Noise. But that new song is hot garbage.

I guess I like hot garbage, because this is interesting in a way they've never been.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ipss4XUWL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-v3-big,TopRight,0,-55_SX278_SY278_PIkin4,BottomRight,1,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

To me it sounds like the demo for what could eventually become a good song. But I also hate his new vocals; I liked his screams, which sounded like a really enraged kitten.

Me and screams are almost never friends. No exception for Hunter.

It wasn't until it was over and I was sort of humming the melody in my head that I could relate any aspect of that Liturgy song to black metal, so I guess if you go into it like that, it kinda works -- which is to say, I liked it, at least for the first 2 minutes before I realized it was just gonna repeat the same thing over and over. I am possibly interested in hearing the rest.

But for now I'm gonna keep Aura Noir ahead of Liturgy on my to-do list.

Aura Noir is all-time imo

loved the latest Desecravity. tech-death sometimes puts me off but it goes enough interesting directions for me...

I really like that Liturgy track, and only partially for how gloriously false it is

The Desecravity album is really good. I like the new/upcoming Psycroptic album a lot, too.

Came here to see what people thought about the Liturgy. I see there's some contention. That's good. It probably won't bore me then - the song doesn't, at any rate.

They're entering their own Rush "Signals" period.

whole metal world getting ready to give Jef Whitehead a pass on being a convicted abuser it seems. bummed.

― The Complainte of Ray Tabano, Tuesday, January 20, 2015 7:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just saw the cover of the new Decibel. vile. not the good metal kind of vile either

Would you believe that the internet controversy about that cover isn't about Whitehead's past, but that because posing on a glossy magazine cover with your child is not true and kvlt?

Here's the most representative quote I saw on the subject: "Even though Black Metal composers have all the rights ijn the world to have family, they should keep that to themselves for the sake of their art's integrity."

ok lol

Holy shit, this Swallowed album from last year. Got that Dark Descent vibe but chaotic and with slightly more pronounced doom influences. Really digging this.

I second the Swallowed album. I finally got the vinyl from Dark Descent last week and fuck me it's fantastic. The production achieves a great balance -- the guitars have a nice atmospheric, doomy feeling but without losing too much clarity. And it offers a good example of harsh vocals done right -- varied and mega-creepy. If I'd heard it earlier, it would have featured way up high on my year-end list.

New Marduk video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yPOqlrCl1I&feature=youtu.be

yooo that swallowed album rules! missed it, so glad y'all mentioned it!

and yeah, love the production. great drum sound, great mix in general.

Swallowed, Drowned, Decomposed, Corpsessed: a good year for the past tense.

Actually those latter two weren't all that but their names were needed fer mah funnin'.

kinda diggin the Ingurgitating Oblivion album from last year even if it isn't terribly original. dissonant exotic death metal always tickles my heartstrings

This Volahn album is nice. Hopefully it will appease Quetzalcoatl in light of recent insults.

I'm enjoying the new Sylosis album, Dormant Heart. Throat-barky death-metal with notes of metalcore and progressive metal.

http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/5xPSDWnboP74K9x5F9taKV

Though honestly, Glenn really has this on lock.

Totally into the Volahn album. It hits exactly the same spot that the Spectral Lore record did for me last year. That playlist above might just get me through being chained to my desk all weekend.

seeing Machine Head tomorrow. kinda funny, I'm more into their newer stuff than their old stuff (though the old is decent enough). they good live? it's just them so....

next week though, Napalm Death/Iron Reagan etc....what a lineup

Machine Head are really good live. Robb Flynn is a fun frontman; he's got sort of a metal Macho Man Randy Savage persona. I'm hoping to see them on Friday night (still waiting for word on a guest list spot).

The new Napalm Death album is really, really good.

Speaking of Machine Head...

Phil Labonte from All That Remains defended his use of the word "faggot" and suggested that gays don't have "legit grievance" over the use of that word and others. It's in Revolver Magazine.

Well, Robb Flynn went off on him for this and also took on a lot of other subject matter in a blog post he wrote after seeing "Selma" on MLK Day:

http://www.metalinjection.net/latest-news/machine-heads-robb-flynn-comments-on-selma-racism-and-phil-labontes-recent-comments

I don't listen to either of their bands very much but good on Flynn.

Somehow I totally missed that Blood Stain Child singer Sophia Aslanidou was now in a new band, called Season of Ghosts. It doesn't sound exactly like BSC, but I expect a fair amount of appreciation overlap. Tech-glossy industripop metal with lots of surging synths.

http://open.spotify.com/album/0A9ZUZv031zwdoqjAynScT

It's just not the same, though.

so i listened to that liturgy song again, just in case i'd been wrong the first time. and cuz i'd been listening to viet cong, an arty post-punk band that's similar in a lot of ways, but good. turns out that the liturgy track really does suck. not cuz it's false or w/e, but because hunt's a terrible, terrible singer. he's not even going all in on his crap singing. he punts it with this weak, uncommitted, "too bored to try" mush-mouth monotone. and the rhythm track sucks. i like the more densely packed moments okay, but they're islands in a sea of watery crap. boo.

I think the Liturgy track is brilliant (ducks head and runs).

Snow days today and tomorrow, and I've got an interview with the man himself tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, so I'm plowing my way through all 15 U.D.O. studio albums. Although I started with the first one, Animal House, I'm otherwise not going in order; right now I'm listening to Thunderball, from 2004.

Animal House was actually written for Udo by the members of Accept, as a parting gift to help him get his solo career started, and it definitely sounds like the next step after Russian Roulette. Thunderball is a little weirder; there's a song called "Train Ride in Russia" that's mostly driven by accordion, and half the lyrics are in Russian. (I'm guessing he's got a tone of Eastern European fans, because the band has one live album recorded in Russia, and another from Bulgaria.) But the rest of it is chugga-chugga trad metal, and his voice is as awesome/horrifying as ever, totally unaffected by time. Brian Johnson wishes he had the same immunity to time's ravages that Udo clearly possesses.

"Thunderball is a little weirder; there's a song called "Train Ride in Russia" that's mostly driven by accordion, and half the lyrics are in Russian. "

Jeezus. I was listening to that thinking, this sounds like one of those folk punk bands, Gogol Bordello or something, and then I played some Gogol Bordello, and I'm right. Now I'm imagining people elbowing each other at Defiance, Ohio shows or some such -- "hey man, I think that dude over there is Udo!"

The playlist (http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/5xPSDWnboP74K9x5F9taKV) got me to give Swallowed another chance, after having dismissed it somehow before. Monster music of the giant-slithering-worm variety!

yeah, i too was listening to lunarterial this morning. some youtube commenter called them a "death metal cultes des ghoules", which makes a certain kind of sense, though they're not really going for that ritual, robes & incense vibe. i'm not sure it's for me? monstrous and seriously spooky, but around halfway through, i started itching for a bit more action/swagger/rock.

top man inna lang dept otm about the new napalm death, though. kill kill kill kill kill kill fight! in that order.

New A Forest Of Stars track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2GDjP6RMDk

I like it a lot, has a serious Rush vibe at the start when you think it's gonna be an instrumental before the vocals and higher density kicks in after a couple of minutes.

Blut Aus Nord's Memoria Vetusta III (Saturnian Poetry) is finally on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/7oo5w94txl1DJhJ2ObAgud

I'm also liking the kind of crazed album Are You Kidding Me? No. by the Italian band Destrage, which I admit I only queued up because I confused them with Destrose. This isn't as much of a stretch as you might expect from a random name-similarity, although Destrage are a lot gruffer. They kind of make me think this is what Thought Industry might have sounded like if they'd come into being during (and in reaction to) the metalcore age rather than the prog-metal age.

Also: the dreamy post-metal-ish blur of Rervm, by the Botanist-related band Lotus Thief. Like a black-metal Cowboy Junkies.

Also, I somehow didn't realize that there were two MONO albums last year!

That AFOS track is fucking great

Yeah, I really like this.

i like it too. not sure "psychedelic black metal" (as metallum suggests) is really cutting it for me as a description, but i'm not sure what might better suit. blake's "dark satanic mills" getting something of a workout these days...

AFOS covered Bauhaus's "She's in Parties" so spectacularly a couple years ago.

I premiered a track from Japan-based (one of them is Japanese, the other Italian) industrial/noise/doom duo Legion of Andromeda on Burning Ambulance today. Check it out.

saw Ringworm last night. Not a huge fan (actually had only heard their newest prior to last night, and acquired a few more yesterday), but just needed the two hour drive and a random show.

Other than getting plugged by some asshat hardcore dancing which spilled my beer all over me, it was actually a good show! It was weird given how tinny Ringworm's albums often sound on disc, because they were pretty massive sounding live. Looking forward to seeing them again tomorrow when they open for Napalm Death.

enjoying the Night Demon album. I mean obv this type of thing is tailor made for me, with its Diamond Head-isms. Their vocalist is pretty talented too.

Hooks all over the place. I love how he sings with such unwavering conviction on songs called "THE HOWLING MAN".

http://youtu.be/Kz7l9M5V5Ds

Out of nowhere, a new Voivod track; timely, as I've been on a Voivod kick in the last few days. Still finding more to love about Target Earth or, hell, for that matter, Killing Technology. This new song, however, at its bookends reminds me of Angel Rat (a good thing), and in its middle section doesn't remind me of anything this band has done before (an even better thing). Seems to be from an upcoming split 7" with At The Gates. Eh.

Wow, I dig that. It actually sounds like Nothingface 2 compared to Target Earth's Hatross 2. Broadly speaking, of course...

enjoying the Night Demon album. I mean obv this type of thing is tailor made for me, with its Diamond Head-isms. Their vocalist is pretty talented too.

These guys are local where I live; the singer used to be in a retro-soul group but could be seen around town in a battle vest, too. I like what I've heard of Night Demon, gotta check out that album.

New Devouring Star has a definite Deathspell Omega vibe. Might also be Branca-metal-thread appropriate; structurally it's pretty straightforward black metal, but those guitars...

You're in Ventura?

Besides a review in a recent Decibel mag, I haven't heard much about the latest Inferion record, "This Will Decay." It came out late last year and seems to have been lost in the shuffle. It's frickin' phenomenal. They pour on a level of energy and hunger that is rare in black metal these days. And they have actual riffs, not just atmospheric chord-shuffling. The songwriting maybe peters out a little toward the end, but I've been surprised by how much I've enjoyed it each time I've played it.

Los Angeles, California's GOATSNAKE has announced further live dates in Europe, kicking off at the end of May with their set at Temples Festival, and taking the band through territories new to them. This news comes alongside the completion of the recording of the band's new album, which will see release on Southern Lord this Summer.

The new GOATSNAKE album will feature the familiar faces of Greg Rogers (The Obsessed, Sonic Medusa), providing drums, Greg Anderson (Sunn O)))) taking care of the riffs, Pete Stahl (Scream, Wool, Earthlings?) on vocals, and new bassist new and Cape Fear North Carolina legend Scott Renner (Brickbat, Sourvein, Sonic Medusa).

At Napalm Death show. BLack Crown Initiate are competent but boring. Fortunately I love the other five band s.

I think the first post of last year's thread mentioned Avenger and I'm only just now getting around to hearing them. They're great! (Duh.) They definitely go for that Grieghallen grandiosity thing akin to Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, And So the Night Became, or At the Heart of Winter. Their albums give you that "staring at a map at the beginning of a fantasy novel" sensation. I have no idea why their name isn't bigger.

However I'm really here to complain that I'd never checked out Sickening Horror before. I guess I heard "Nile drummer's ex-tech-death band" and thought something like Spawn of Possession or Decrepit Birth. Uh, no, try: a slick and shiny Demilich, removed of the slime. Amazing. (I can't say it's an "improvement" on the Demilich sound; it's just a different take on it.) Lots of Gorguts there, too, esp in those long guitar phrases.
http://sfcrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-dead-end-experiment

note: neither of these has anything to do with 2015, unless the bands happily surprise me with something new. (Avenger's last release was 2012, Sickening Horror's 2009, both listed as active on metal-archives.)

Lastly,

At Napalm Death show. BLack Crown Initiate are competent but boring. Fortunately I love the other five band s.

― Hammer Smashed Bagels

I premiered a track from Japan-based (one of them is Japanese, the other Italian) industrial/noise/doom duo Legion of Andromeda on Burning Ambulance today. Check it out.

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Tuesday, January 27, 2015 2:08 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this album is totally "in my wheelhouse" but I'm having a tough time getting into it so far. do not understand how or why it was recorded in Electrical Audio, it sounds like they did it on a four-track

I saw Napalm Death on their European tour with Hatebreed in October. I'm not a huge ND fan, but it was good fun.

Napalm were great but i was so damn drunk I barely remember it now. Voivod did play the new song.....

do not understand how or why it was recorded in Electrical Audio, it sounds like they did it on a four-track

I know what you mean; seems like they went to Albini because they were giant Big Black fans and hey! Excuse to come visit America!

Udo interview went really well - he's a nice old guy. Actually a little taller than I expected; I was picturing Peter Dinklage from Game of Thrones and got someone closer to Henry Rollins (i.e., significantly shorter than 6'2" me but still within normal human height range).

He's 5'6" or something? It's more that he's compact.

He's not that compact anymore; he's pretty round. Of course, he's also 62.

New Devouring Star has a definite Deathspell Omega vibe. Might also be Branca-metal-thread appropriate; structurally it's pretty straightforward black metal, but those guitars...

― pelvic slang (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Wednesday, 28 January 2015 10:00 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like this a lot, it's almost a bit too in thrall to their influences but I've been jonesing for more things like DSO lately so it hits the spot

I know what you mean; seems like they went to Albini because they were giant Big Black fans and hey! Excuse to come visit America!

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Thursday, January 29, 2015 11:12 AM (29 minutes ago)

that, and though it's not mentioned in the interview, i figure they were maybe seeking the sound albini gave to zeni geva? two bands share a similar approach, but i really don't like what he did for (or to) legion of andromeda. especially strange how flat the drum machine sounds.

I like this a lot, it's almost a bit too in thrall to their influences but I've been jonesing for more things like DSO lately so it hits the spot

Yeah, absolutely agree on both points!

Was listening to that Sickening Horror before work and kinda wanted to put work off for thirty minuts to finish it off, really cool stuff with some great riffs.

Yeah I'm selling Sickening Horror short by summing them up as an inferior Demilich. I don't really have a category for these guys. Sometimes they remind me of Mithras in that they take furious Morbid Angel inflected dm and make it spacier and weirder. Strange, because something about Mithras has been off putting to me. The main commonality with Demilich though is the bouncing rhythm section. Some of the passages make me think they're Rush fans, too. Whatever it is, it's one of the more creative death metal albums I've heard in a while.

Oh great. Now I see that they've had a new album ready since early last year but are having problems releasing it. I guess they can hang out with Anata and Lost Soul.

Lyric vid for new track, anyway:
http://youtu.be/460AfjWNc1I

I feel like Drudge. "Developing..." Bluh.

In a strange coincidence I just stumbled upon this band, Veilburner, for whom a lot of what I said above about Sickening Horror could apply, though less in the Demilich vein and more just the "weird" vein. I see they've been compared to Akercocke but as I've never heard an Akercocke song that I can remember, I can't c/d. There is however a band they remind me of, a Dutch band, I think, who did all kinds of weird genre meddling over their albums but I've been sitting here for several minutes unable to recall the name. Nice. Anyway, I can find no mention of them here on ilx and, stranger, literally only one mention on all of the metal-archives forums on someone's 2014 EOY list. Seems the two guys in the band are from PA and go by the names Chrisom Infernium and Mephisto Deleterio.

That's a lot of words to tell you nothing. Here, enjoy Veilburner:
http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2014/12/track-debut-veilburners-masturbating-the-obelisk/
https://veilburner.bandcamp.com/releases

Ah, Polish not Dutch. I was thinking of Lux Occulta. Veilburner isn't anywhere near that level of bonkers, though.

Actually the base of Veilburner sort of reminds me of Lost Soul's first album; there's just some weird harmonic stuff floating around that makes it odd.

I interviewed Udo Dirkschneider. The new U.D.O. album is good if you like straightforward, fist-pumping Euro metal (the first single is kinda Rammstein-ish).

nice to hear a new xibalba album, i played their last one quite a bit

https://soundcloud.com/earsplit/xibalba-enemigo/s-go9hO?in=earsplit/sets/xibalba-tierra-y-libertad

I just listened to the two tunes on Veilburner's Bandcamp page. Killer stuff. Love their guitar tone.

Apparently former Metal Maniacs editor Katherine Ludwig passed away this afternoon from cancer. Horrible news. Condolences to her friends and family.

god, Torche is the best band

I haven't been feeling the preview tracks from the new Torche album. It just sounds like a rehash of their older stuff to me

Saw Machine Head last night; wrote about it for the Village Voice (took some pictures, too, more of which can be seen on the Burning Ambulance Facebook page).

Hello metal friends

Spent today listening to dissection storm of the lights bane and wondering why I don't spend every day listening to dissection storm of the lights bane

cuz the somberlain?

dawnbringer
January 1 at 2:00pm ·

Welcome to the future. As of 3 PM yesterday, the next album 'Snake' is completely recorded and now being mixed by the capable hands and ears of Sanford Parker.

This looks like fun...

http://www.earsplitcompound.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/APEX-FEST-VI-FINAL01.29.15-72dpi-e1422563055187.jpg

The upcoming sixth installment of the NYC-based Apocalyptic music event, APEX VI, has been announced, bringing a three-day fiesta of absolutely demolishing proportions to the city the first weekend of June 2015.

more new Dawnbringer?! sweet deal.

I'm trying to figure out if I can afford a NYC trip to go to Apex.

At 7:58 into this first part of a Norwegian documentary on black metal, I'm pretty sure a bat is nibbling on Ihsahn's ponytail. I don't know how this can be, but it seems to be.
http://youtu.be/E2fYugdY6P0

(I guess there's no way to link a timestamp without embedding.)

I'm not sure how I'd never seen this doc before. At this point no one probably needs to see black metal given the 20/20 treatment again but it would've been nice if I'd known sooner about this particular one, made when the movement was actually a thing.

And yes they're all toolish children. It's one long cringe.

lol, hand shadow, right? thanks for the link, looks like fun.

Misty Grey - Grey Mist - Doom from Spain out today.
https://shadowkingdomrecords.bandcamp.com/album/grey-mist

I haven't historically been a big Blind Guardian fan, but I'm really liking this new album. Seems likely that it's me that's changed, not them, but whatever.

Love the "Misty Grey - Grey Mist" artist/album combo

My shameful confession: I have never listened to the early 80s albums by the Michael Schenker Group until today. The s/t debut is fantastic; it's basically a European (read: more keyboards) answer to the first Montrose album. Can't wait to dig into all four, plus the live disc.

The three McAuley Schenker Group albums that came after those are also worth hearing if you can tolerate late-80s gloss-metal.

Oh man, Perfect Timing was one of the first CD's I got along with my first player (Christmas of -- gulp -- '87). At the time it was one of the best sounding things I'd ever heard. "So clear! So digital!"

Fortunately this was around the same time I would see a full page ad in a Hit Parader for Abigail so my interests in metal were about to take a dramatic turn.

True story: my parents' anti-satanic freakout over King D was so intense that it eventually pushed me to set my copy of Abigail on fire in an old oil drum in the backyard.

(I ultimately bought a second copy.)

Was that to keep them from knowing that you had bought the album?

I'm sure Satan was happy for the burnt offering. :)

It was more an exasperated "LOOK IT'S GONE STOP HARANGUING ME" thing.

As far as subterfuge, you've reminded me that once I got more into death metal, I taped over Genesis' Trespass with my buddy's copy of Scream Bloody Gore. Now I wonder, if my parents had been able at the time to see performance footage of Gabriel era Genesis, whether they'd find it more or less horrific than Schuldiner and friends. I know that I, as a fan of Invisible Touch at the time who had only begun to explore Genesis' back catalog, was bewildered to the point of loathing when I heard anything from the pre-Phil days, so this dubbing sacrifice was not a difficult one to make.

For the record I love Trespass now. It's got that rickety black metal ambience.

The irony is that through all the forays into music with darker and more demonic trappings, my friends and I were most of all massive fans of KISS, a band none of our parents had any problems with, and to whose concerts they would even drive us when necessary. King Diamond seems like a decent human, and, well, KISS ... do not.

On a non-autobiographical note, Skepticism have recorded an album of new material, but in front of an audience.
http://youtu.be/DaivDYwdv-k

Aside from Disembowelment and the occasional Evoken, I've never been too into funeral doom, but after watching some other performances of this band, I think my disinterest is shifting.

I never had that experience of freaking anyone out on the basis of music. The only moral panic from when I was a teenager that would have been comparable to 80s Satanism was Columbine, which happened when I was in ninth grade. But that didn't seem to apply at my school. We spent plenty of art classes playing Marilyn Manson without a peep from any teachers. They didn't even tell us not to play music in class. Buncha hippies.

One of the more fascinating explanations for the 80's satanic panic is that it came out of the sort of subconscious suspicion with which parents regard their children as envoys from the supernatural world. It comes from our own memories of seeing the world on a supernatural basis, before reality's concrete really hardens. Why the 80s specifically, though, who knows. The socio-economic luxury of worrying over the unreal, maybe.

Anyway:
http://www.amazon.com/Demons-Modern-World-Malcolm-McGrath/dp/1573929352

I'd recommend seeking it out at a library; that's where I found it.

Obviously there was the whole false memory recovery thing too.

my parents really should have been paying more attention to what axl was singing on my boombox

"That ... and the budget cuts, and ... poof ..." if I can quote a good movie.

My thing at EMP this year is a search for actual philosophical Satanism in supposedly-Satanic metal.

On the gruff, pagan front, the new Moonspell song is very exciting, I think (http://open.spotify.com/track/7wKW5dIMkeVrMbbouefUHR), and the whole new Wolfheart album is solid (http://open.spotify.com/album/7tr5vCysDOlCxbisE3rmoz).

Also, I'm upgrading the Blind Guardian album from "really liking" to "really liking". Sometimes it's worth paying extra for the italics.

Random find:
http://i.imgur.com/XH4nhDz.jpg

Well, yeah, that'll do it.

enjoying the new Blind Guardian so far, even though the opening track's pseudo-industrial-cum-James-Horner isms try even my cheese meter. still have a bit to go, though.

I just feel like the hooks on the last few BG albums aren't as good as they were in their prime (ie "I'm Alive", "Time, What is Time", "Nightfall"), but on the other hand I'm glad they're still around for us nerds.

"Prophecies" from the newie does hit the spot for me though.

whoa, new skepticism! been a while since alloy, been wondering what's up for a while now. love this band.

New Ensiferum: http://loudwire.com/ensiferum-heathen-horde-exclusive-song-premiere/

Tankard of mead, etcetera.

I ranked all the Napalm Death albums for Stereogum. Enjoy!

Got new Caina lp in the mail today.

Anyone else interested in the new Poison Idea? It comes out 4/7 on Southern Lord.

New cut from the forthcoming Ufomammut streaming here:

http://thequietus.com/articles/17168-ufomammut-temple

Grimy, atonal grindy doom metal tuned looooow as shit! I love this band.

ok this Blind Guardian is just the pretentious fun i always love from them. but "Miracle Machine" is one of the catchiest songs they've written in a hot minute....

Anyone else interested in the new Poison Idea?

Well, I like Poison Idea. Kinda skeptical of non-Pig P.I. albums though.

that's mr. champion to you

forgot I'm nasty

I've brought back my metal column at PopMatters, which will be a weekly thing there instead of the old monthly schedule. Should be fun!

http://www.popmatters.com/post/190269-blood-and-thunder-70000-tons-of-metal-2015-recap-and-blind-guardians/

The Caïna album sounded pretty great on first listen.

I couldn't quite place the opening monologue although the voice sounded very familiar. Of course, Matthew McConaughey!

Haven't heard it, but are they copping True Detective samples already too? Some stoner metal band did that last year, but I'm forgetting just who.

Yeah, it's something from True Detective. McConaughey pontificating on voluntary human extinction. I haven't seen the show. I guess he's our new nihilist icon.

Those Lincoln commercials do kind of make me want to murder the entire human race so

lol

Ah, it was Herder that uses the TD samples no their album Gods. I have a feeling we'll be hearing a lot more of that.

Well... One of the new High On Fire tracks is called Carcosa so... yeah. Fortunately it sounded awesome when I saw them last month.

Eh, knowing High On Fire and their love of crazy conspiracies, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were into the Carcosa stuff even before that show.

Matt Pike probably read Chambers back when he was a teenage Lovecraft pothead

Oh I'm 100% sure his interest pre-dates TD.
In unrelated news. Got an advance copy of the new Boss-De-Nage. So far, so great.

nice review of the BG, Adri3n. I'm enjoying it a lot too, it's hooky and bombastic and it's more dynamic than their prior releases. my only issue with post-Nightfall BG is bloat (outside of A Twist in the Myth, which I think overcorrected way too much in the other direction).

subtlety was never BG's strong suit so I'm not asking them to be stripped down, but they jam pack so much into their albums now...nobody would call Nightfall in Middle Earth 'lean' by any means, but it was easier to approach.

but with that being said, I feel like the new album is the best thing they've done in a while....it's not classic-era BG, but it's a lot of fun. the Brian May-esque guitar harmonies are stronger than ever, Hansi is inspired, the orchestra(s) actually add nice flourishes to the songs rather than feeling tacked on...I'll be spinning this one a lot.

('than their prior releases' means 'their prior three releases', not all of them)

Enjoyed Phil's Napalm Death album ranking; apparently I've missed a LOT of albums by them, which is kind of amazing considering how much I loved them back in the day. Also, went back to Harmony Corruption after 10+ years and man, that's a bloated album. Also the worst Scott Burns sound-of-swimmers-ear production ever, I think.

Also finally getting around to Avenger's "Bohemian Dark Metal" album and holy shit, great stuff.

Taking a spin this morning through Crypt Sermon's "Out of the Garden" out on Dark Descent in a couple weeks -- really digging it. I'd call it doomy trad more than trad-flavored doom; ymmv. Brooks Wilson's bark is more than a little Dio-ish. For some unknown reason I pulled out Alcatrazz's "No Parole from Rock'n'Roll" a couple weeks ago, and when Steve Jansson takes a solo he reminds me of Malmsteen on that album -- fast, fluid, but in service to the song.

digging the Lord Dying, I mean I don't think it's a top ten of the year or anything but for it's Mastodon-esque tones it is catchy and low-end heavy as hell. I liked their album from last year too, though not enough to remember much about it.

weird that theyre opening for Anvil of all people.

Speaking of Dark Descent, I'm hoping that House of Atreus' The Spear and the Ichor that Follows decimates everything. Due out in May.

Their previous EP: http://houseofatreus.bandcamp.com/

Riffs riffs riffs.

Also the worst Scott Burns sound-of-swimmers-ear production ever, I think.

Yep. The worst I've heard myself. I really like the songs (even though it's not really Napalm Death, is it) but playing that album is like hearing them through a wall.

I am at the 1349 tour. And I gotta say...Abysmal Dawn? Yes. Fuck yes.

Steve Asheim is here. I love that guy. Totally supports the scene.

He's blazing with a fan.

I like Abysmal Dawn, but I kinda felt like the 2014 album was a bit of a case of diminishing returns. I'd imagine they might be fun live though.

serpentine path's 2014 record on super heavy rotation lately, nice soundtrack to trudging around slush & snow. vibe is a bit like if autopsy never picked up the speed and just got slower and slower instead. rules.

New Negură Bunget video is intense and beautiful meditative black metal and makes me anticipate the new album even more than I already did...

http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2015/02/video-debut-negura-bungets-nametenie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG6BcesgOW0#t=362

serpentine path's 2014 record on super heavy rotation lately

Listening to this now. Nice stuff.

http://www.metalsucks.net/2015/02/10/video-killswitch-engages-adam-dutkiewicz-wins-everything-price-right/

Kinda want to see an all metal version of TPIR now. Karl Sanders dropping Plinko chips, Nergal's face in the superimposed bubble while the little yodeling guy treks up the mountain. Etc.

that's hysterical

Here are the clips in a more professional, non third hand format.

pt 1: http://youtu.be/N2jqoUABDGI

pt 2: http://youtu.be/5keNxXQxQ5w

"The LP The History of Death & Burial Rituals part 1 is the first part of the musicalization of posthumous rituals and the perception of death in different cultures and countries around the world." O_O Relevant to my interests.

http://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com/album/death-karma-the-history-of-death-burial-rituals-part-i

After reading the extended info on their bandcamp, seeing the album art, and listening to the first track, consider me on fucking board with those guys. Wow.

Yeah, I really love that album concept. Not sure about the music yet. I'll need to let it sink in a bit. I haven't heard Cult of Fire, but the drummer for this band was also in Lykathea Aflame who are amazing.

The only problem with Cult of Fire is that their music never gets better than the first time you hear it, if that makes any sense. I thought they were gonna be mind blowing but I guess the charm wore off quick. I hope that doesn't happen with Death Karma.

That said, the first time I heard CoF, I was like whoooaah.

Cradle of Filth are pretty awesome

oh wait

Tonight I am enjoying Cloud Rat, The Hand of Doom and the most recent Cauldron Black Ram. And that Death Karma's sounding pretty good, too.

Guitarist from Cloud Rat is a riff machine.

Cloud Rat is phenomenal!

In cold light of day, the appropriation going on in Death Karma is bothering me some. Famadihana is a real custom, which they're using to elicit shivers around a dumb black metal song. I suppose stuff like this goes on all the time in metal and isn't much criticized only because it's minor on the scale of metal's offenses. I can imagine excusing it on the basis that these tracks aren't pitched as having any real anthropological seriousness. If they were to cross a threshold where, for instance, they began incorporating field samples, then maybe that thin gesture at seriousness would leave no excuse not to be absolutely serious about representing these practices truthfully -- in which case, subjecting them to black metal would be totally absurd. If, on the other hand, we admit from the start that these are absurd representations, completely based in fantasy, then maybe the pressure towards truthfulness gets no purchase. But the fact that something's been admitted as being absurd doesn't mean it isn't offensive. I can't even say for certain that Death Karma aren't being a little serious about this project. The pseudo-academic title, for instance.

I don't know. Not sure if I'm overthinking this. Something about the specificity of the appropriations on this Death Karma album seems to me to provoke these questions where I might ignore them when faced with the kind of generalized orientalism or exoticization that you see in a lot of metal.

can we get a working definition of appropriation? I know this is the 20,000 dollar question but it's an important one in this context imo

jmm you should probably not listen to metal.

Speaking of appropriating religious or spiritual rituals, I'm almost delirious at the combination of amazingness and inaccessibility here (it's in Belgium; I am ... not):

AN ENDING IN FIRE!

This will be the very last edition of Nidrosian Black Mass.
Before anyone doubts the name, again: besides location, the foundations of the original three masses still remains. Questions? No need.
Would the festival sell less with another name? Absolutely not.
The lineup speaks for itself.
End of story.
-O.A.A.-

TERRATUR POSSESSIONS and A THOUSAND LOST CIVILIZATIONS presents:

NIDROSIAN BLACK MASS part 5

DARK SONORITY feat. KAOSRITUAL songs.
-Dark Sonority will do their very first gig ever, featuring selected songs from Kaosrituals "Svopt Morgenrod".
Nidrosian Black Metal

MARE feat. LAMIA VOX
-Fourth NBM Mare performance, but the first ever alongside the eminent occult ambient artist Lamia Vox. This will be an otherwordly gig.
Nidrosian Black Metal + Russian Ambient

ONE TAIL ONE HEAD
-What's a Nidrosian Black Mass without OTOH? Unleash the firebirds!! Expect a new record out by this time!
Nidrosian Black Metal

NYOGTHAEBLISZ
-All the way from Texas, the noisiest Black Metal band with the easiest name to pronounce to ever grace this planet Hell, their very first European gig: Nyogthaeblisz!!
US Black Metal Noise

SVARTIDAUDI
-We welcome back the Icelandic supernauts for the third time, and trust me, third time's not the charm…
Icelandic Black Metal.

URFAUST
What is Nidrosian Black Mass without The True Drunkards? Please welcome the utterly imperfect URFAUST to the club. These fine intoxicated gentlemen has played a huge role since day one in the NBM history and it's a no brainer they play the final edition.
Dutch Synthesizer Ultra Doom

PSEUDOGOD
-Russian revenge, 2nd time playing NBM this time featuring Impurath from Black Witchery handling the bass making it a 5 piece band.
Russian Blackened Death Metal

MISTHYRMING
-First NBM appearance, these Icelandic youngsters will blow you away.
Icelandic Black Metal

LVCIFYRE
-It's with extreme pleasure we welcome one of Englands finest to the Nidrosian fest for the first time. One of the absolute best live bands I've seen the recent years. Featuring M. from Cultes Des Ghoules on co-vocals.
Brutal Death Metal

BOLZER
-Well known by most, and well deserved so! We welcome these cavemen for their first NBM appearance!
Swiss Blackened Death Metal

CULT OF FIRE
-After their brilliant performance last time, we welcome back these Czech madmen.
Czech Black Metal

DROWNED
-It's an honour to have these highly acclaimed deathsters joining the NBM ranks.
German Death Metal

AOSOTH
-Yet another highly acclaimed live band will set this festival on fire! First NBM appearance!
French Black Metal

ARCHGOAT
-As this festival has come full circle, let's finish where we started with the goat ryders of Archgoat. This is their second NBM performance, first time since the very first fest back in 2007.
Finnish Black Metal

NEGATIVE PLANE
-We're very proud to welcome Negative Plane to NBM for the very first time, one of the most unique bands within the genre.
US Black Metal

NIGHTBRINGER
-Very first NBM performance, we welcome the death worshippers of Nightbringer!
US Black Metal.

ANTAEUS
-We welcome our French allies Antaeus to the Mass.
French Black Metal.

THE RUINS OF BEVERAST
-With complications preventing TROB to play last edition of NBM, it's extremely fulfilling to finally have them playing this fest.
German Doom Black Metal

PERTURBATOR
-We're proud to have Perturbator ending this last edition of Nidrosian Black Mass with a special performance created for this festival. Expect the unexpected! Enter the realms of Horror!
French Horror Synth Madness

MGLA
-We welcome back the outstanding Polish horde Mgla for their second appearance.
Polish Black Metal

CLANDESTINE BLAZE
-It's again with extreme honour we present a very special happening, a full set of Clandestine Blaze! Those who witnessed the three songs performed at last years Black Flames Of Blasphemy are still in awe of what happened that night. Yet another spectacular band to enter the NBM history.
Finnish Black Metal

SINMARA
-Besides Svartidaudi, Sinmara will be the second band on anyones lips when talking Icelandic Black Metal! First NBM appearance and it's going to be mind blowing.
Icelandic Black Metal

Dec 2 - Dec 6

I mean...

Oh I forgot the link.

https://www.facebook.com/events/996619540365548/

This Icelandic movie Metalhead is screening at a few places in February. I am hopeful my work schedule will allow me to attend a Philly screening. The movie looks riveting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5yweKs_rfU

I saw Metalhead on an Icelandair flight last year. It's interesting, but be forewarned that it's pretty bleak. And the actual metal content, while critical to the story and the experience, is limited.

I'm currently watching an opening band whose drummer yells like Quorthon if he was choking on pubes. They have no bass player and their music is like 1989 Goo Goo Dolls doing shitty covers of Macabre songs.

Mobile Deathcamp...if you get a chance to see em...

Stay home and listen to "Bonded By Blood" 3 times instead.

Always good advice!

I'm currently watching an opening band whose drummer yells like Quorthon if he was choking on pubes

So... like Quorthon's solo albums?

psyched about Sete Star Sept touring soon (even though i guess they're kind of always touring)

The new Nightwish song is out!

Just listening to it didn't feel like enough, to me, so I fed it into my songs-like-this playlist-generator at work, and made this:

http://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/1n0T4H7WS3dBhMA4A2zjvc

Nice song. I like Floor's melodies in the verses.

This album is all about evolutionary biology, right? Is this song about élan vital?

feeling guilty about not following this thread/new metal stuff in general yet in 2015, i went through and made a list of all the new releases discussed in this thread so far so i can catch up. here it is & hope to god this is not of use only to me.

2014 (still-to-be-released stuff at the bottom w/ dates):
Alpha Tiger – iDentity
Desolate Shrine – The Heart of the Netherworld
Blind Guardian – Beyond the Red Mirror
Royal Thunder – Crooked Doors (4/7)
Napalm Death – Apex Predator - Easy Meat
Xibalba – Tierra Y Libertad
Battle Beast – Unholy Savior
Kognitiv Tod – Howls From the Void
Archgoat – The Apocalyptic Triumphator
Pyramids – A Northern Meadow
6:33 – Deadly Scenes
Brothers of the Sonic Cloth – S/T
Night Demon – Curse of the Damned
Devouring Star – Through Lung and Heart
U.D.O. - Decadent
Misty Grey – Grey Mist
Wolfheart - Winterborn
Caina – Setter of Unseen Snares
Lord Dying – Poisoned Altars
Death Karma - The History of Death & Burial Rituals Part I
Aktor – Paranoia (2/20)
Ensiferum – One Man Army (2/20)
Bedemon – Child of Darkness redux (2/20)
Legion of Andromeda – Iron Scorn (2/20)
Torche – Restarter (2/24)
Crypt Sermon's - Out of the Garden (2/24)
A Forest of Stars – Beware the Sword You Cannot See (2/27)
Negura Bunget – Tau (2/27)
Enslaved – In Times (3/6)
Melechesh – Enki (3/10)
Moonspell – Extinct (3/15)
Liturgy – The Ark Work (3/23)
Prong – Songs From the Black Hole (3/25)
Nightwish – Endless Forms Most Beautiful (3/27)
Ufomammut – Ecate (3/30)
Poison Idea – Confuse & Conquer (4/7)
Bosse-de-Nage – All Fours (4/14)
Monolord – Vaenir (4/28)
House of Atreus - The Spear and the Ichor that Follows (5/20)

Anticipated but indefinite:
Lost Soul - Atlantis (The New Beginning)
Dawnbringer – Snake
Anata – Greed Conquers All
Nokturnal Mortum
King Diamond
Black Breath
Bolzer LP
Vektor
Nile
Brujeria
Slagmaur
Scythian
Voivod

Mid/Late 2014 stuff still being discussed:
Swallowed – Lunarterial
Veilburner – The Three Lightbearers
Stargazer – A Merging to the Boundless
Serpentine Path - Emanations
Bolzer – Soma
Spectral Lore – III
Mahlkebre - Revelation
Witchrider – Unmountable Stairs
Sonance – Blackflower
Triosphere – The Heart of the Matter
Bare Infinity - Race of Destiny
Onyx Eyes – Dó
Earth and Pillars – Earth I
Nader Sadek – The Malefic: Chapter III
Desecravity – Orphic Signs
Volahn – Aq’Ab’Al
Season of Ghosts – The Human Paradox
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III (Saturnian Poetry)
Inferion – This Will Decay

(um, the 2014 at the top should say 2015. lol)

New Elder 2/27. Absolutely loved everything they've done so far.

tnx for that, roxy. been dragging my heels, listening mostly to older stuff & nonmetal, spending most of my free time catching up on movies. can report that the new lord dying is pretty okay, a bit dull. weird how massive an influence karp has had on pac nw metal.

Anvil were fun yesterday! how can you not enjoy such a good natured group

speaking of relapse stuff (xp), though i didn't hear it until the metalpoll, cretin's late 2014 stranger is holding up very well, lots of fun

I love that Cretin album. that's the kind of grind that I gravitate towards

I feel like an idiot for trying to find where I could get a copy of the latest Nader Sadek EP and then realizing I got a free one with my copy of Decibel a few months ago. jesus fucking christ.

man I dig that EP

Band name makes me think of Ralph Nader in a Vulcan costume

going to Fallujah/Revocation/Contortionist tonight. don't know the latter but love the prior two.

Oh Jesus snowboarding christ there's a fuckin pirate parade on the exact street the show is taking place

Please have a West Side Story singing showdown between metalheads and pirates, pleeeeeasssee

anyone here got a recent copy of Rock-A-Rolla nearby and willing to share direct email addresses for their editorial folks? i'd like to send 'em a pitch and there's just a general address on the website...tried to order the latest issue and my paypal's scewed up...a comedy of errors here. (sorry if this is annoying)

Phil was right, this Visigoth album is a total blast.

2nd the Visigoth - that's been the ruling commute music.

I wrote about ritual in metal for SoundAmerican magazine.

Got the Death Karma album in the mail today. It really is quite stunning. Will be a great year for metal if more albums are released that are as good or indeed better than this.
Makes me really want Bolzer to drop an album this year too. Hopefully there's a lot of new bands will release some great debuts this year.
Anyone especially worth keeping an eye out for?

I'm looking forward to the Zom album on Dark Descent.

I'd like to think I'm looking forward to God of Atheists but given the amount of time it has taken to presumably be cut and pasted together, and the sort of overly digital predilections of the people involved, I'm keeping expectations low. The lineup is tempting, though. (Ihsahn, ICS Vortex, the drummer and the bassist from Spiral Architect, the Winds guitarist.)

This could be promising--
http://www.stereogum.com/1734615/sarpanitum-by-virtuous-reclamation-stereogum-premiere/mp3s/
--if only the whole song lived up to that first melodic hook; that's like the best 40 secs of music I've heard this year.

There's also this if you like thunderous Icelandic black metal (from late 2014 but on CD only last month):
https://misthyrming.bandcamp.com/album/s-ngvar-elds-og-rei-u

And this makes me wish Myrkgrav would get a second full length out:
http://youtu.be/Q_VruXoh13c
(I can't imagine anything will ever beat Trollskau though)

Still looking forward to Scythian, Sickening Horror, and House of Atreus.

Oh ho and I just saw that there's a new Ataraxy coming this year, according to the Dark Descent dude.

Er, if you were asking specifically for debuts then ignore a few of those, I guess.

I just read of the band named URFAUST on the festival lineup a few clicks upthread & had to register my amusement...... okay back to lurking the metal thread/drinking

... annnnd apparently the band Urfaust has been around for a decade-plus. this is why I don't post more often

They're kind of great, too, for fans of early Goethe.

Urfaust are awesome.

There's also this if you like thunderous Icelandic black metal (from late 2014 but on CD only last month):
https://misthyrming.bandcamp.com/album/s-ngvar-elds-og-rei-u

Devilock

I've been listening to this one a few times, good stuff

I'm really liking this melodic/progressive/black/doom/death thing Infinite Dissonance, by Russian band Negative Voice. Understated and epic at the same time, somehow. The vocals are sort of chanted hoarse muttering, but there's not that much of them, and they're mixed towards the background, so the whole thing has kind of an instrumental feel to me, despite not actually being instrumental.

http://open.spotify.com/album/1g2RytJCL4nOK0HytMgklZ

Wow, this Tribulation track is great.

http://www.decibelmagazine.com/featured/streaming-tribulation-in-the-dreams-of-the-dead/

http://www.earsplitcompound.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Ufomammut-ECATE-NorthAmerica-web-dates.jpg

And there's a Philly date! So excited!!!!!!

I've been listening to this one a few times, good stuff

― Dinsdale

You may already be aware of these, but if you like that style, check out Svartidaudi and Sinmara. That sound seems to be all the rage in Iceland.
http://daemonworship.bandcamp.com/album/flesh-cathedral
http://sinmara.bandcamp.com/album/aphotic-womb

Thanks for the rec. Never heard of Sinmara. I've been meaning to check out Svartidaudi for a while. It will happen some day.

Went to a new dentist today. Not sure what I've gotten myself into because the way he asked what sort of music I wanted to listen to was, "okay so you're driving down the highway at 70 mph, windows down, what are you blasting?" This being a dentist's office, and in consideration of my jangled nerves, we haggled it down to blues. However, he said he was a big fan of Megadeth, despite Dave being, as he put it sarcastically, "such a deep political thinker," and when he asked for a name he should look into, I -- like most metal nerds who don't want to come off as total loons -- went with the lowest common denominator of Opeth (which he wrote down on a napkin).

Glad I didn't suggest Rotting Christ because his last words before turning me over to the hygienist were, "hey you have a great and blessed day."

Here's to hoping that on my followup visit, when I go under the drill it will be to the soothing sounds of Blackwater Park or Ghost Reveries.

I'm looking forward to the Zom album on Dark Descent.

It's been out here a while, since they're local lads. I like it a lot, but I've seen them a few times live and I think the atmosphere they work with is stronger through a loud PA.

That sounds more negative than I intended. It's a great record; I don't often hear D-beat and death metal cross paths in the way they do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeezSMWfPGc

That's great! Nasty Savage kinda rule a little bit.

Much smarter than you might expect from a band called that with a singer named Nasty Ronnie.

Based on how much ILX loves doom metal, nobody here would be allowed to buy this guitar...

http://www.metalsucks.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/guitar-will-not-play-doom-ad.jpg

The Nasty Savage clip is wonderful! Also found this. I love it when local news shows do reports on underground musical styles and this is no exception...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0kvVrdqJDU

Ha, that's great.

I like how that ad is all about YEAH TRUE METAL and to illustrate his true metal credentials dude wheels out...Mötley Crüe!

I liked how he suggested that we "think about" the your mom joke he made. glad he did as it was p complex

goddamn i wanna buy that guitar and then play it in a band that makes belle & sebastian look like nuclear assault

although come to think of it my actual guitar is pretty f'n metal ('85 les paul with double cutaway & pointy angled headstock) . so i guess I don't need to spend $400 + NY shipping to start an extremely unmetal band.

NB the person who wrote this is undoubtedly some indierock/weird twitter type dude with a working knowledge of 80s metal but hey ho

anyone got any opinions on the bands playing this? http://www.dometufnellpark.co.uk/listings/events/4-apr-15-doom-over-london-v-the-dome/ Worth buying a ticket?

I'm only superficially familiar enough with those bands to at least commend the organizers for representing every shade of doom with the exception of funeral. For a genre-specific show, there's pretty much no redundancy in sound/style there.

I want to make a doom metal joke like "How many days is that festival?" but well

lol, you guys are the thread i simply can't keep up with.
I'm making the metal spotify list collaborative, anybody wanna work it with me?
http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/5xPSDWnboP74K9x5F9taKV

xp okay thanks, that sounds like qualified praise at least, good how it's scheduled for Easter weekend too!

It came up on Rolling Stoner/Psych/whatever, but probably more appropriate here... listening to the new Al-Namrood EP on Spotify. Musically I like the middle eastern folky touches, but the vocals are nuts. Kind of remind me of Big Boss from Root at his rantiest. I think I'm going to be getting into this band.

I still haven't made up my mind where I fall on the spectrum of opinion on Jef Whitehead but fuck me, the new Leviathan is head and shoulders above most everything I've heard this year. It took me a few listens but yeah, really amazing record.

Maybe I should give it a try then, I never really rated anything he's done, either solo or with Twilight and SunnO.

PSA Pre release link for new Porta Nigra allows full download, at least until the link is fixed

http://dmp666.bandcamp.com/album/kaiserschnitt

So far this year, black metal-wise, I'm really digging the new Imperial Triumphant (ungodly, virtuosic chaos), the Mastery debut (ungodly, virtuosic chaos), and a band from Philly called Haethen, whose new one "Shaped by Aeolian Winds" is available on Bandcamp as a "name your price" (atmospheric and lush, strong and memorable songwriting - https://haethen.bandcamp.com/). Great year so far for black metal. I still need to hear the new Leviathan and Enslaved.

Yeah, that Imperial Triumphant album is pretty astonishing. Hadn't heard Mastery, but that sounds pretty intriguing, too.

Porta Nigra clarification --what I meant is that if you purchase the prerelease you get a full DL right away. But the whole thing is streaming anyway. I thought we'd talked about this here, but I can't find the convo now so I guess not -- BM with lots of chuggy palm mute riffs with weird arrangement details (foghorn sounds, bells .... a lot of it feels a bit nautical to me).

Imperial Triumphant is great. At the moment I marginally prefer their last record but I've only listened to Abyssal Gods twice.

if anyone wants to list their favorite metal albums/releases of 2015's first two months, i'd love to see 'em

Here's mine:

A Forest of Stars - Beware The Sword You Cannot See
Mastery - Valis
Imperial Triumphant - Abyssal Gods (though I'm still chewing it over)
Devouring Star - Through Lung And Heart
Solefald - World Metal. Kosmopolis Sud
Desolate Shrine - The Heart Of The Netherworld
Sonance - Blackflower

And this might be old news to some but I just found out Arcturus have recorded again and will have a new album out in May, which I'm tentatively excited about, and I'm one of the apparently few people who actually liked Sideshow Symphonies

Ha, I'm actually listening to SS right now. I think the main two problems with it are a lack of song distinction, esp compared to the previous album, and the almost random sounding production values. I'll never understand how a band so stridently visionary ends up with an overall sound that makes me wince. This is all the more ironic considering that their first album has one of my favorite sounds, or at least atmosphere's, of all time -- but I guess that was a different era with a different purpose. Anyway SS has this headache-inducing thumping thrumming thing going on, the guitars are buried, and Simen's voice has way too much sibilance. Maybe the reason I find little song distinction is because the obnoxious production keeps me at arm's length.

There's live (phone) footage of a couple new songs on YT btw. Just search for "Arcturus 2015."

Also, "squashed," I believe, is the term those audiophile forums use to describe the lack of dynamic range of an album, and that applies to SS. Verily.

Also xpost I don't think I have any favorites this year yet. That's troubling. I mean I've heard a lot of cool stuff online but I don't start getting organized til I have albums in front of me.

Speaking of not having physical media, Epoch of Unlight is sort of back with a quintet of digital-only studio tracks. I loved this band in the late 90s/early 00s, thought they'd gone kaput after their 3rd album, then the other night stumbled onto some live footage of new songs. Turns out they just haven't gotten around to assembling an album. Investigate if you like palm muted thrashy riffing in a kind of Swedish death metal harmonic context. Kind of a God Dethroned sound. They're from Memphis.
http://epochofunlight.bandcamp.com/releases

I know SS doesn't sound very good but I think every Arcturus album sounds like shit, it's just that SS sounds like shit in an entirely different way. Everything else is as abrasive as fuck, I mean I've got increasingly used to raw BM production but I find that Sham Mirrors etc are hard to listen to. SS has a more mournful quality compared with everything else, it almost sounds like an entirely different project.

Arcturian Sign sounds OK, but nothing startling. I imagine they're going to try go to for something crowd-pleasing rather anything truly daring. That said I'll listen to the record before being too dismissive.

I never heard of Nuclear Hellfrost until just now but they just made themselves Public Enemy #1 among Pantera fans for defacing Dimebag's grave and bragging about it online:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/s720x720/11041821_10153170136449697_2181011836826179673_n.jpg?oh=80ac604320d9c16cc4e84c7ce8242933&oe=557E876D&__gda__=1434387602_9de0c98da2764fd40c701dffef216025

Needless to say, this upset some Pantera fans...

If you're anti-racist, maybe go the whole way and not write FAG on somebody's grave. Maybe leave a 1,000 word critique of Pantera's deleterious effect on metal through the 90s taped to the stone instead.

Maybe respect other peoples' feelings and be an adult oh wait they're called Nuclear Hellfrost.

"I'm not a homophobe but"
what assholes

huh, well apparently it WASN'T the band, just the ex-lead singer:
http://www.metalinjection.net/shocking-revelations/new-details-surface-on-alleged-dimebag-darrell-grave-desecrators
http://www.metalinjection.net/shocking-revelations/defacer-of-dimebag-darrell-grave-comes-forward-with-apology

The fact of the matter is I feel awful and guilty and this will stick with me forever, just like the Seinfeld guy using the N word...

huh, I have a Hod album on my hard drive here iirc. can't recall anything specific about it though

Saw the Behemoth/Cannibal Corpse tour last night. Tribulation were really, really good. Aeon were not. Also, I was very surprised that Behemoth were closing the night, but they have a more elaborate stage setup, so logistically it makes sense.

Well twenty years ago things were obv different, but anno 2015 Behemoth is clearly the bigger band.

I did not realize they were doing those kinds of numbers. Anyway, here's my full review.

Totally agree about Tribulation (and Aeon). I would have loved to have been able to leave and grab dinner during the Aeon / Cannibal Corpse sets. I think that's a sign that I'm getting old.

Imperial Triumphant (ungodly, virtuosic chaos)

otm

full stream of the new Enslaved:

http://youtu.be/IwvcXnDl1GM

no more indian http://www.cvltnation.com/r-i-h-rest-in-heavy-indian-is-over/

xpost this is my introduction to Enslaved. never heard a note before.

is track 2 typical of them? i actually switched back to that tab during the first verse to see if YouTube had switched over to another band or something.

It's kind of hard to call anything about Enslaved "typical", they've evolved quite a bit over the years. NB I haven't heard the new stream yet.

I'm digging it.

I feel like they're sort of at an Opeth-ish point where they really should give up the harsh vocals and just be a prog-metal band. Every time they start blasting and growling, it feels so regressive to me when compared with the truly beautiful music they're creating the rest of the time.

Last year's Blood Freak is fuckin fun

Re: Enslaved, I understand the desire for them to explore the melodic prog side more, but that contrast between harsh/melodic has always worked exceptionally well. Plus unlike Akerfeldt there's no sense of boredom creeping in at all, they like what they're doing still, and you can feel it in the music.

I agree with you on Enslaved Adrien, I really like that tension. But boredom is the last thing I'd accuse Akerfeldt of at this point, he sounded really engaged on last year's Opeth record. I think he's finally unafraid to completely embrace prog and the latest album was better for it.

I'm unsure how I feel about this. The vocal melodies remind me of Angel Rat era Voivod but the chord structures are a little more basic which makes it feel a little cheesy in places.

I think what strikes me about this Enslaved record - again, as a newcomer to the band - is just how very melodic/pretty it is in places. Like, a lot of metal bands are described as having moments of harshness and moments of beauty, and that's true, but I don't know that I've heard many, if any, that swing as far into the latter as this one does. You add up the clean vocals, the melodies, the strings sections, etc., and the pretty parts of "In Times" are like massive doses of baroque sunshine.

new jute gyte out today. some of it sounds like mid 90s autechre

yeah, got that update. have so far avoided the non-metal jute gyte stuff. anyone willing to go to bat for it?

As for Akerfeldt and boredom, I was referring to his harsh vocals, which he was so clearly finished doing in his new music. The band is all the better for it. As great as Watershed is, you can sense that disinterest here and there.

Coming from the opposite perspective, Opeth started out boring and have been steadily spiraling closer and closer to a black hole of mod-prog disinterest for decades now. Does progressive have to be bland?

I'm a few Enslaved albums behind, as ever, but man... that second track is not so good. Seems really obvious melodically and lacking Enslaved-ness.

Metallica are gonna start doing the deluxe reissue thing soon, beginning with a Record Store Day reissue (on cassette) of the No Life 'Til Leather demo. I will buy remastered versions of their catalog, particularly if they come bundled with era-appropriate live discs or something similar.

I'd like to throw my hat in the ring for the new A Forest of Stars (mentioned upthread). The vocals are borderline annoying at times, but overall it's one hell of an album. I also finally heard the new Leviathan last night. It reminds me a lot of Lurker of Chalice, which is a really good thing. I hope it holds up on repeat listens. I've also heard the new Enslaved, which has been boring me a bit. I need to listen more, though, as their records tend to grow on me over time. Has anyone mentioned the Sarpanitum record yet? It's my favorite death metal of 2015 so far - well produced, well written, just weird enough to keep my interest (I'm not usually a big death guy).

Everything on Agonia Records' bandcamp is only $3 (dunno for how long). This one in particular is great:
http://agoniarecords.bandcamp.com/album/iv-arrow-in-heart

Cool. I like the Endezzma album they did. Kinda back to basics Mayhem sounding stuff but with some odd ideas thrown in. And you have to love the lyrics:

Walking barefoot in the desert
Warm sand eats through my wounds
While the dusty old woman plays jazz
On her white virgin Mellotron steel guitar

That Aosoth album is indeed badass. One of my favorites from recent years.

Dark Descent dude hinting on FB that there may -- MAY -- be a new Horrendous this year.

Also new Hic Iacet is kinda cool. Reminds me a little of that Lantern CD from a couple years ago. Subterranean sounding death metal without being tied to all the trappings of the style.
http://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com/album/hic-iacet-the-cosmic-trance-into-the-void

Oh they're from Spain. Of course. Hitch them to the Ataraxy-Domains train. Is there like an amazing Spanish DM scene that I'm only skimming the surface of?

already? we just had a new Horrendous last October!

The way he phrased it suggests that if at all it'll be late in the year.

xxp Teitanblood's from Spain so maybe? I dig that Hic Iacet too btw.

Yeah, Teitanblood too, though I've not really gotten into them.

In still more Dark Descent news, Begrime Exemious and Adversarial have new ones coming too. BE's Visions of the Scourge was one of the coolest things about 2012 so that'll be very yay. OTOH I remember trying to comprehend Adversarial's first album and not making much progress. That particular style of death metal has produced so many bands starting with the letter A that I'm overwhelmed before I even get around to checking them out.

Not at all joking when I say I just realized I was thinking of Antediluvian not Adversarial. I've never even heard Adversarial.

Ha! I loved that last Begrime Exemious album; they've got that chaotic Canadian (Chaonadian? Cthonadian?) death sound I dig that sort of descends from Order From Chaos and gets strained through the Blasphemy/Proclamation/Sacramentary Abolishment/Rites of Thy Degringolade style. Lots of name your price stuff on their bandcamp too, for anyone who wants to check them out.

weird. CC is the closer at this Behemoth/CC show

Oh yea I forgot where I live

My updated Amazon Wish List of metallic stuff I wanna get:

Ark Work by Liturgy
Beware the Sword You Cannot See by Forest of Stars
Brothers of the Sonic Cloth by Brothers of the Sonic Cloth
Curse of the Damned by Night Demon
Doubt by King Woman (Vinyl)
Ecate by Ufomammut
Enki by MELECHESH
Epistemology by Keep of Kalessin
Extinct by Moonspell
From the Very Depths by Venom
Frontschwein by Marduk
I'm Going to Kill Myself by Black Sheep Wall
In Times by ENSLAVED
One Eyed Horse by Corsair
One Man Army by Ensiferum
Pain of the Saints by Theologian
Restarter by Torche
Revenant King by Visigoth
Scar Sighted by Leviathan
Tau by Negura Bunget
The Blessed Curse / After The Muse by Manilla Road
Tierra Y Libertad by Xibalba
Viet Cong by Viet Cong
You Whom I Have Always Hated / Released From Love by The Body & Thou

(Not sure how "metal" the Viet Cong will be but I hear it's loud in spots.)

yeah that's a stretch re: Viet Cong

The Viet Cong album is definitely not metal, but it's worth hearing. Which you could be doing on Spotify, right now, along with much of the rest of your list...

non-sequitur but every time I see the phrase "not metal" in any context it reminds me of this troll from a metal forum I was once on who anytime he didn't like something would type 'NOT METAL' in all caps.

thx for new username

My favorite metal forum troll will always be the one on the Metal Maniacs message board (when it existed) who went by "the voices," had Testament's Souls of Black's album cover for an av (which somehow made it funnier), and would respond to every OP with either "yes" or "it is sad." The weird murmuring randomness of it amused me forever.

Haha.

Significant Pickle from alt.music.slayer was a 'treat'

Has anyone mentioned the Sarpanitum record yet? It's my favorite death metal of 2015 so far - well produced, well written, just weird enough to keep my interest (I'm not usually a big death guy).

oh yeah this fuckin rules

that would make a good name for a trend microstyle

BIG DEATH

not sure how they would actually make most of it any bigger tho

Wasn't Big Death part of Three 6 Mafia?

Re: Sarpanitum -- The guitars are so gorgeous, they're majestic like my favorite passages of Blut Aus Nord, but in a death metal context. You can tell they spent some time working out the harmonies, which so often gets overlooked in extreme metal. I've listened to it probably a dozen times now, and I'm still hearing new things. Do I detect some Voivod in the guitars too maybe?

What other death metal is like this? Are there any other bands comparable in sound style songwriting, etc.?

One of the Sarpanitum guys is from Mithras, and they def have that "bursting out of the song" celestial leadwork. Maybe Fallujah or Inferi too. The latter really only saved that sound for the solos, though. Some of the stuff on that Sarpanitum -- which I agree is pretty amazing -- reminds me of Zyklon's first album if it had been decorated with power metal. Really I'm not sure I can say there's anything that sounds like it.

Oh, Lykathea Aflame. That's a band they remind me of. Well, maybe a less extreme version.

Checking for shows in Stockholm while I'm there next, I find this bill: Ensiferum, Insomnium and Omnium Gatherum.

oh man, love mithras. and specifically for the spaced-out melodic leads too, so guess I gotta get on this sarpanitum asap!

sarpanitum now at the top of my 2015 list. love it.

yeah, add me to the Sarpanitum bandwagon...I'm never drawn to growling, but this is a case when the beauty/badassery of the music is so great, it overwhelms my feeling about the vocals.

Just tried to listen to the Dødheimsgard album. Lasted 24 seconds into the first actual song (there's a one-minute instrumental intro). The vocals are a complete and total deal-breaker.

Well that makes me really really want to hear that album now

http://treeworthy.org/1395/arts/sannhet-revisionist/

finally grabbed that Bedemon reissue Child of Darkness. it sounds less like a collection of demos and more like, well, a rehearsal, but it's full of everything I like in 70s doom so worth it

yeah, I really like that Bedemon reissue. it's great.

that Sannhet review is amazing. she has other good ones on that site.

I just read several of her reviews, and it was a very entertaining few minutes. I'll give Sannhet another listen now.

I've become so inured to the ironic internet voice that I wasn't even sure if the review was straight. Then I read her bio and saw she's a junior in high school -- yet there's a derisive comment about angsty teen music.

lolnothingmatters.gif etc.

New Sulphur Aeon preview.

I have no idea who or what Sannhet is. I had to read the pfork review to figure out if it was even metal.

p much only listen to sarpanitum now, "thy sermon lies forever tarnished" is godly

I got this thanks to you all. Wau

I can't get over how good it is. whenever they lay the choir keys on thick, I think of "inno a satana".

Huh, guess I'm going to need to check out this Sarpanitum now.

could lay off a little on the triggered drums imo

yea fair enough. it's all about those leads tho.

All about those leads
Bout those leads
No triggers

'Transient' by Chaos Echoes is pretty wild. apart from one black metal song it's not really a metal record, more of a psychedelic noise thing, but it's on Nuclear War Now so it'll be bought by metal folks. really into it w/e

liking this Nailgun Massacre so far

If you like your black metal Greek this is probably the Greekest thing of the year:
http://katavasia.bandcamp.com/releases

Over the last year I've discovered that I definitely like my black metal Greek.

You guys like Mortuary Drape? They're from Italy of course, but Italy has some great weird bands too.

I'm down with the Drape.

I know it's difficult for musicians to make money these days and there's often a need to find other sources of income.

Still, this makes me shake my head...

http://www.testamentlegions.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/billyvape-sm.jpg

idk I'd probably vape from the Chuck Billy vaporizer pen if I hadn't heard pens are kinda weak

I have absolutely no idea what the 'Fork Enslaved review was getting at. Too pretty? Too poppy? Too soft? Except when it isn't? That it might have somehow benefited from being offensively bad?

the reviewer does not get Enslaved at all, I think. has he even heard the (excellent) last several albums?

Yeah, I think the guy just plain doesn't like recent Enslaved, so I'm taking that one with a grain of salt. I haven't had a chance to crack my copy just yet.

The perspective of the review is so misguided. If you approach any post-2003 Enslaved point of view from a black metal POV, you're going to be disappointed because while the band retains black metal qualities, they've gone well beyond that style. They continue to embrace the sounds of classic '70s prog, the experimentalism of Voivod, and marry that with extremity, which is why I consider them one of the most exciting metal bands of the last 15 years.

yeah and a bit weird considering they've been in this mode longer than they were a 'tr00 BM' band

Well I again couldn't sit through an Enslaved album, jesus fuck this band is so thoroughly mediocre at both genres they love so much.

Anyone who's in any way interested in what Enslaved are trying to do with prog and black metal, I direct you to the 2CD remaster of Nokturnal Mortum's The Voice Of Steel (including a cover of Nights In White Satin) that came out a couple weeks ago.

Oh wow, I had no idea Voice of Steel had been reissued. Thanks.

And yeah to the other point: with all the chatter over the new Enslaved, I went back and tried Isa and Ruun again just to see if my opinion of them had improved, esp now that I've had ample to time to get over the immediate disappointment after the heights of Mardraum and Below the Lights. Nope. All the post BtL stuff is just so ... soft. Axioma had a few good parts but no entire songs I'd consider mandatory. I still haven't heard RIITIIR and I have no intention of checking out whatever the new one is called.

Maybe this is all because I never got into Hawkwind. Come to think of it, my reaction to Isa was similar to my first reaction to Hawkwind after being really into Nik Turner's solo stuff in the 90s (I blame Cleopatra Records for the latter). In theory it was something I should've enjoyed; the actual music coming out of the speakers, however, never seemed to cross that final threshold.

Note that this is the same Pitchfork reviewer who made the following head-scratching statement a few months ago about the Oozing Wound record: "The band didn’t need to be a part of a dying, irrelevant movement [i.e., trash]; they’ve got what it takes to make one for themselves." Yeah, totally -- Oozing Wound transcends the entirety of thrash and will soon usher in a glorious new form of metal. Or not.

has the best metal album of 2015 so far, arrived?

find out with this album stream

DØDHEIMSGARD HAS RETURNED WITH ANOTHER AVANTGARDE MASTERPIECE, 'A UMBRA OMEGA'
http://noisey.vice.com/blog/dodheimsgard-album-stream

OK, I'm finally sitting down with In Times. I never got into Hawkwind much, either, but this is (again) fantastic.

Speaking of appropriating religious or spiritual rituals, I'm almost delirious at the combination of amazingness and inaccessibility here (it's in Belgium; I am ... not):

AN ENDING IN FIRE!

This will be the very last edition of Nidrosian Black Mass.

----list of awesome bands----

Dec 2 - Dec 6

I mean...

― Devilock, Thursday, February 12, 2015 8:54 PM (1 month ago)

Maybe this is all because I never got into Hawkwind. Come to think of it, my reaction to Isa was similar to my first reaction to Hawkwind after being really into Nik Turner's solo stuff in the 90s (I blame Cleopatra Records for the latter). In theory it was something I should've enjoyed; the actual music coming out of the speakers, however, never seemed to cross that final threshold.

I'm gonna go quietly have a stroke.

Okay, okay. Taste is subjective. Alright. I'm ok.

Are there any bands along the lines of Virus/Ved Buens Ende/Manimalism out there with a female vocalist? Like Madder Mortem's "Necropolis" album sort of scratches that itch.

Believe me, I wanted to like Hawkwind. As I said, everything about them, in writing, should add up to orgasm. I'd even heard, and really dug, the songs of theirs on Turner's Space Ritual live album. I hope it's not as superficial a matter as production. I dunno. I feel like it's music made for head trips but there's not enough happening to make the trip worthwhile.

To this day I love Nik Turner's Prophets of Time album, haha. "Stonehenge, Who Knows." Awesome.

And xpost to Siegbrand: I thought it sold out in like minutes or something absurd like that? I recall seeing a Facebook post about it but I have no idea whose page it was on.

Siegbran rather.

Also I'm listening to that DHG stream for the first time and despite my unending love for Aldrahn holy shit does he not need to be on this one. The music's incredible though.

Can the guy from Spiral Architect please report to the microphone? Man whatever happened to him?

Ufomammut's 6/5 Eugene show turned into a Yob + Agalloch + Ufomammut show today.

http://www.wowhall.org/events/agalloch-yob-ufomammut

man Siegbran and Devilock you guys are bummin' me OUT. I consider myself a pretty harsh-on-softs dude but Enslaved's prog turn is one of my favorite things -- they're probably my favorite working band, honestly -- I can depend on them to make interesting, beautifully played, repays-close-attention albums every time out.

Man, they are so soft, my little girls listen to them when they are playing with dolls or trying to go to sleep. They are always saying, put on that soft girlie singing stuff.

lol yeah. still though - if you did an edit of any 2000s Enslaved record and took out the harsh vocal sections, you could play that shit for classic rock bros and they'd probably be stoked and go into an orgasm of "now this is more like it" stuff. it can't be denied, Enslaved has made major overtures to the softs

I think they sometimes sound like Tool, if that is what you mean.

big soft tool

Wow, DHG is wonderful! Thanks!

One of the things I most miss about the Enslaved of old is that they almost sounded like a different band on every album. From Hordanes Land through Below the Lights, nothing sounds like it could even exist in the same time and space as anything else. From Isa onward they've settled into their melo-prog groove and not only lost a lot of the peaks and valleys that made their previous music so consuming but kept of all things the totally incongruous harsh vocals. It reminds me of something like Coheed and Cambria, taking those elements of different genres that go together the worst. Vocalwise though I'm not sure the solution is to turn the microphone exclusively over to the guy who isn't Grutle. I'm not too fond of those plaintive and breathy Katatonia-type vox in prog either. They would probably need something way more singular and idiosyncratic.

I have nothing against prog. Some of my best friends are prog!

#notallprog

this isn't perfect -- some of the chug-chug midtempo stuff is seriously dated and is hardly the ore you wanna be mining from the past -- but 1) the production is fucking spectacular 2) the parts that aren't kinda dated are...fucking spectacular?

http://loudwire.com/alkaloid-the-malkuth-grimoire-exclusive-album-stream/

new old school death metal from Norway's Gouge, for anyone who thinks (like me) that death metal was basically perfected by Autopsy in 1989. (Also good for those into bands like Obliteration, who are from the same area)

http://hellsheadbangers.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-death

I definitely hear the Repulsion influence, too. Nice!

wooo

https://metalhammer.teamrock.com/news/2015-02-24/ukrainian-black-metal-legends-drudkh-unveil-spectacular-new-track

Oh god, the vocals on this DHG album. Any chance of an instrumental remix? Because the rest of it sounds amazing.

late to this latest EArth album but this thing is beautiful.

Sulphur Aeon album art:
http://i.imgur.com/Mn0KJ4c.jpg

Particularly love the aquarium effect.

Damn, that's amazing. As a kid I avidly collected those "Art of Sci-Fi and Fantasy" coffee table books, metal album covers have been scratching that itch lately.

this new Elder album is fun.

highly recommended avant/progressive black metal music from a band calleed, Maladie.

Spotify links: album

Maladie - Still:
https://open.spotify.com/album/6eVWrVP9DWvYG4DF1SABu7

spotify:album:6eVWrVP9DWvYG4DF1SABu7

a combination of progressiive / avant-garde / black metal that includes post-classical piano and avant jazz saxophone. The production on this album is dynamic, flowing and full on. One of the best sounding / produced avantgarde progressive black metal albums since TODTGELICHTER's groundbreaking "Angst" album in 2010.

18 minute track “Inexistentia" that ends with 4 minutes of nils frahm type piano playing - is astonishing

MALADIE: “…STILL…”
http://www.nocleansinging.com/2015/03/06/maladie-still/

In crafting a sound that encompasses a cascading arrangement of lighter and darker emotions, it serves to fully portray life and reality as it is, and for that …Still… is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. It’s a gut-wrenching experience of sheer visceral truth and trembling that really touches the soul in a way that’s stunning. It cuts deep, and yet its triumphant moments soar infinitely high, aloft and forever abounding in a sense of wonder at the possibilities of will floating within darkness and silver linings.

Hearing a record like …Still…, which delivers all that, plumbs emotional depths in a powerful way, its split focus between heart-wrenching melancholy and ravenous hate ringing true, with a painful authenticity in its delivery. …Still… is a stunning achievement, the heights of which even I, already a fan of Maladie, could not have predicted. Yet it’s exactly the kind of record which shows that further progress and experimentation are not only alive and well in metal, but pushing things forward in a truly interesting way.

Oh wow. For some reason I felt like they'd end up as a one album wonder. I completely love Plague Within, never expected to hear from them again. Thanks for posting that! I'm gonna check out that song later tonight when I can focus.

Oh god, the vocals on this DHG album. Any chance of an instrumental remix? Because the rest of it sounds amazing.

Yeah, the vocals were my least favourite part but I could deal.

jesus now i'm curious to listen. how bad could these vocals be, does fucking Ned Beatty sing on it?

oh my fucking god

it's like DHG got together to do some instrumental jams and Donald Gibb busted the door down and began shouting in the midst of an out of control acid trip

i feel like I could still listen to this music anyway but the LOLs from the vocals are going to distract for a while

Aldrahn was much more suited to the first two Dodheimsgard albums, Thorns, the first Old Man's Child, and The Deathtrip. Basically anything but this.

don't get why they didn't want to let the quieter passages breathe? I don't even get the logic of letting him do those double tracked vocals over the more resolute, exploratory sections. wonder if he has a clause in his contract that says his voice must appear on 45% of the album. it'd be like GYBE! recording an album where Gilbert Gottfried came in ranting incomprehensibly over the music

admittedly the vocals on the heavier bits are funnier but easier to ignore when accompanied by a mammoth sized riff.

That's my biggest problem with the vocals, they just absolutely smother everything else and never give the album room to breathe.

Captain Caaaaaaveman.....

The weird DHG vocals are growing on me.

First reaction to DHG vocals was a resounding HELL YES! I'm always (internally) complaining about how boring metal vocals tend to be — I miss how completely weird metal vocals often got in the 80s, but now so many bands just stamp on their genre-appropriate style and leave it at that. Love that he *squawks* at a few points. He does admittedly sound like he's reading for a part as a badguy in a Marvel blockbuster.

I may have to go back to earlier DHG albums — never heard Supervillain, and 666 Int was a big disappointment after Satanic Art. (But man did I love Satanic Art.) BUt uh, I guess I should listen to this entire album first ...

ymmv and all but the vox on Supervillain, not to mention the music, are even more annoying. The irony is that they were done by the guy who now sings for Beastmilk.* Needless to say his approach is different.

*I've just looked up Beastmilk to see what's going on with them and apparently they've dropped a founding guitarist and gained one from Oranssi Pazuzu and changed their name to Grave Pleasures. I've just gone through a whole whirligig of emotions.
https://www.facebook.com/gravepleasvres

Oh and yeah the music on Supervillain Outcast is nothing like that on the new one. It's got this angular ratchety thing that at times almost sounds like djent.

Oh pardon me: Grave PleasVres.

I don't get Beastmilk. Sounds like deathrock for guys who lift weights.

"...deathrock for guys who lift weights" -- aka Samhain

But that's at least goofy fun!

I know, I know. I was just being silly!

the dodheimsgard vocals are so good, siegbran is otm - like, they remind me of when death/extreme vocals were new and people developed their own approaches and you had to get your head around people treating the vocals as a different thing than "here's the guy who sings." these are weird, I have to acclimate to them. that's a plus for me

not siegbran! Oystein!

while that's all well and good, I prefer not having Encino Man shitting all over beautiful guitar work

yeah idk I'll take these over pretty much all the other "just exactly what you hear every single day" metal vocals of most of the other stuff I hear

most metal I hear these days I'd happily trade for an instrumental mix, nobody even bothers to try to do anything novel or distinctive. these guys do and it totally works for me

I agree that there are a wide variety of garden variety vocalists on albums, though I don't mind that as they're not usually my focal point in that context. that doesn't mean I'm willing to champion some guy who sounds like an unemployed voiceover actor from a 90s superhero cartoon simply because nobody else sounds like him. I feel like the music was calling for something much more understated, which could have been novel in its own right - maybe chants/whispers and not outright growls. It's a bit jarring to hear some pretty passage and then have some caveman come in howling about inane shit right as you start appreciating it.

I don't think I have the problem others in this thread have of having it actually ruin the music for me, but in a way I get it, because stifling laughter is hardly the reaction that goes with some of the 'serious' sounding music underneath.

some of it sounds like a Satanist walked into a coffee shop to do awkward spoken word

guessing you're not a Cirith Ungol fan

idk it takes a lot for a vocalist in metal to put me off of an album completely. with sung vocals it's easier for that to happen but I can still appreciate the DHG despite thinking this guy is balls

Cirith Ungol guy is way more annoying than this guy

yeah ok I'm not gonna convince you. idk metal fans doing the "oh, no! I just don't like it!" thing are a disappointment to me, metal's about stretching definitions of what works as music and asking the listener to hear stuff differently instead of just asking the same pleasure-centers be touched again and again. not many people heard Scream Bloody Gore when it was new and went "ahh, there's the singing style I was waiting for" - but once you get used to it, it's rad. something totally weird like this just makes me want to listen more so I can try to hear it the way the people who're making the music hear it, to see what they're driving at, to try to hear what they're trying to say instead of running the "but does it please me according to my already-established aesthetic principles" criterion, which is the sort of approach I try to resist tooth & nail

metal's about stretching definitions of what works as music and asking the listener to hear stuff differently instead of just asking the same pleasure-centers be touched again and again

Oh, bullshit. This is an effectively meaningless statement - depending on where you start out, every unfamiliar style of music "asks you to hear stuff differently." If you grow up on metal, you're not prepared for Nigerian juju music, and vice versa.

something totally weird like this just makes me want to listen more so I can try to hear it the way the people who're making the music hear it, to see what they're driving at, to try to hear what they're trying to say instead of running the "but does it please me according to my already-established aesthetic principles" criterion, which is the sort of approach I try to resist tooth & nail

#humblebrag

Sorry, but I've been listening to metal for 30 years (and jazz and classical for nearly as long), and yeah, I have "already-established aesthetic principles" and they're not going anywhere. When I press play on a new album, it may not immediately be exactly what I hope it will be, but if I don't like it on some level, if I have an immediate, visceral negative reaction, I don't bother going any further, because I have heard literally thousands of albums at this point in my life. It's not like if I furrow my brow and sit down and really concentrate on this thing I already don't like, my skull's gonna get popped by some mystical revelation. Music is great, but it's just music, and if playing a record makes me think, "You know what? I could be listening to X other record that I like a lot better," then I'm gonna do that, and not regret it for a second.

Regarding vocals in general, I treat them as just another instrument anyway - I have no idea what the lyrics are to 90 percent of the songs I listen to, either 'cause they're being indecipherably growled, or 'cause I'm just not interested or paying attention. So an annoying voice is no different than if I was listening to a death metal album and all of a sudden somebody started playing a trombone or a really corny-ass synthesizer on top of it. That would cause me to press "Stop," too.

You should listen however you want, but I have definitely had my musical world expanded multiple times by sticking with things that I initially disliked for their strangeness.

I have a pretty high tolerance for strangeness, so if something sends me running the other way, it's likely to be for one of a few specific reasons:

• Anything black metal-derived has a huge hurdle to get over immediately
• Anything in the Mr. Bungle-ish "look how many styles we know how to play 10 seconds' worth of!" zone can fuck off
• Most doom of the non-biker (read: non-Wino) school either bores me comatose or annoys the hell out of me

And of course, annoying vocals are a deal-breaker too.

if I have an immediate, visceral negative reaction, I don't bother going any further

"I'll never have any opinions anyone who's ever heard me speak about music for five minutes doesn't already know"

bully for you, man -- metal has traditionally been about stretching boundaries whether you're into that or not

you know what you might try though is tribute bands -- they play music by bands you already like, as faithfully as they can! there's a good Beatles one and some Guns 'n' Roses ones too. Remember those rockin 80s? good times!

metal has traditionally been about stretching boundaries whether you're into that or not

It's cute how you think this is an automatically good thing.

Full disclosure - main dude in this band is a friend of mine, and an ilxor of note makes an appearance as well, but this album rules and is all I've been listening to for a couple of weeks:

http://kultofthewizard.bandcamp.com/album/the-white-wizard

Stoney occulty doom with absolutely great riffs and a killer female singer that's half Grace Slick and half Ann Wilson.

Might post about it main ILX too because I'm totally obsessed at the moment.

an ilxor of note, is there a faheyesque breakdown in the middle

Haha very much the opposite

the vocal melody to the first track sounds so much like something, i just can't place it though

I've reached the status of "ilxor of note"! I'm so very pleased.

kudos

yeah ok I'm not gonna convince you. idk metal fans doing the "oh, no! I just don't like it!" thing are a disappointment to me, metal's about stretching definitions of what works as music and asking the listener to hear stuff differently instead of just asking the same pleasure-centers be touched again and again. not many people heard Scream Bloody Gore when it was new and went "ahh, there's the singing style I was waiting for" - but once you get used to it, it's rad. something totally weird like this just makes me want to listen more so I can try to hear it the way the people who're making the music hear it, to see what they're driving at, to try to hear what they're trying to say instead of running the "but does it please me according to my already-established aesthetic principles" criterion, which is the sort of approach I try to resist tooth & nail

Does something being novel (which, frankly, I think you're overstating that aspect of it) preclude it from criticism? I've specifically listed what I don't like about the vocals.

I have no issues with vocalists challenging the listener. However, part of experimenting is failure. They should be applauded for the effort, sure, but that doesn't mean I have to like the result.

Not being patronizing but out of curiosity, what specifically (outside of "it's different") do you like about the vocals? I've already illustrated why I find them abhorrent.

(Also ftr Chuck was one of the first death vocalist I ever enjoyed and I loved him precisely cos of how different he sounded from what I was used to.)

Not being patronizing but out of curiosity, what specifically (outside of "it's different") do you like about the vocals?

well, they're theatrical, which is a plus for me. but also it's really the case that as soon as I feel provoked by a vocal style, I want to dig in a little deeper, and plenty of my favorite music is stuff I reacted violently against at first, so I learned to be more curious than quick on the draw. first time I heard Don't Break the Oath I laughed my ass off, but now I have the title tattooed on my forearm. "It's different" is for me enough to warrant harder listening over a long period if the music seems good, and it's fucking GREAT music here, so I kind of trust that the musicians are up to something worth my investment -- sometimes I'm going to conclude "holy fuck, I hate this style" but if the music's good I'm more inclined to say "I don't get the vocals, trying to wrap my head around them" than anything else -- honestly so many metal bands I love are bands whose vocals are stuff I had to work my way around. Cirith Ungol, Toxik, Mercyful Fate, Blind Guardian. Nothing patronizing about this question btw! For me anyway "this is weird" is generally a good sign - like, the fuckin' Brechty shit in "The Unlocking" -- that's interesting to me. It's weird! kinda offputting! I'm a lot more interested in engaging that than in "lol it sounds like [pop culture reference]" which is just...beneath people who're bothering to talk about music this interesting

btw Nate (if yr reading) congrats on getting Kayla Dixon for Witch Mountain. I dig her sound, her screams are terrifying and you found a really good fit for the band. love that she has a musical theatre background too - always felt like there should be more of us fronting bands :)

wish I could catch this tour but the one show I could trek to I have another event, blehhhhhh :/

whoops actually I don't. yay!

xxpost

It's interesting that earlier you used Scream Bloody Gore's vocals as an example because Schuldiner recognized that as his music got further away from death metal and into the power/trad metal area, he needed a less extreme vocalist (for Control Denied). I don't think anyone has a problem with Aldrahn's vocals in and of themselves; after all he's sounded like this for like 20 years and I've loved all the heavier stuff he's done. It's the context here that makes him sound so ill placed. This is also why Enslaved lost me after Below the Lights and especially on Vertebrae. If having one element of the music working against all the others is the goal of these bands as they progress away from their heavier/darker/rougher styles, then I guess they're succeeding at that. At this point in time though I don't think there's anything "novel" about it.

Now just to contradict myself: it is not impossible to have "monster" vocals with music that is anything but extreme.
http://digital.negative-existence.com/album/sanctus-daemoneon-the-unavoidable
There's something in the overall presentation there that just works for me. Maybe it's the lack of grandiosity in the music, contra both Enslaved and DHG. It's okay for the vocalist to sound like a drunken ogre in this context because the music sounds like someone set a Casio to "The Crow OST" and left the room. It all sounds drunken and poisoned. I don't hear as drastic a discontinuity between music and vocals as I do in the case of the other two bands. And I'm not sure I understand why the jarring contrast is so necessary to whatever their vision is.

The key there is "whatever their vision is" because I'll admit to not understanding what exactly DHG is going for these days.

I will admit to hating Attila from Mayhem for years because of his weird sound and came around to him later. I still think his performances outside of De Mysteriis are better (he has a tendency to go 'popeye' on that one) but I've come to appreciate his vocals on DMDS now too.

I really feel like the vocals Aldrahn supplies here would work better in thrash, where over the top and fairly ridic deliveries are more frequent. similarly, I feel like if Bobby Blitz Ellsworth was doing vocals for like, an Opeth type band, I might hate him.

(probably not - I love that guy too much)

Witch Mountain/YOB in ATL this Sat. should be a badass show!

guys thanks for these thoughts, I get p aggro when people do the "after one minute, I turned it off! ho ho ho!" shit w/stuff I think is worthy of thought

that's what the thread's for! with me, the issue these days is, thanks to the internet and having disposable income, I am probably acquiring music faster than I ever did when I first got into metal (age 19, maxing out several credit cards and blowing his financial aid on everything he could find at Vinyl Fever in Tallahassee..may it R.I.P.), but unlike then, have about 40% of the time to listen to it.

I do miss the days where I would give everything the repeat listens they deserve, even shit I didn't like. But it tends to mean I don't come back to things that don't have any kind of connection with me on the first few listens. Sometimes I stop acquiring music to play catch up but I tend to be too curious to quit acquiring. The one benefit to the approach is I never run out of music to listen to. In the last week I've pulled out shit from the last year that I hadn't played enough and it sounded so fresh again.

DHG wouldn't fit that category because the vocals to me don't ruin what they are doing as a band (admittedly, I haven't heard enough of the album to know whether it's for me or not). I'm a vocalist myself (though of the singing rather than 'screaming' variety) so I tend to have a general idea of what I like pretty quickly, but I have definitely done about faces on vocalists over time.

most of the reason I still hang around ILX is this particular thread, tbh. though my bank statement might have a bone to pick with some of you (and Decibel, which for purposes of this thread is pretty redundant, lol)

holy GOD the production on Scar Sighted is amazing. As much as I'd like to shake my fists at engineers et al I can see how this probably wouldn't work for every modern metal album. The music is like a giant cloud that fills the room. It sounds like it's coming from everywhere.

And of course as I'm typing this there's some kind of sonic boom effect in "Dawn Vibration" to scare the shit out of me.

"cloud" does not mean "unclear" though; everything is wondrously defined. Also for some reason track 5, "Wicked Field of Calm" shows up on my CD player readout as "Extinction of the Stars."

(age 19, maxing out several credit cards and blowing his financial aid on everything he could find at Vinyl Fever in Tallahassee..may it R.I.P.)

What the fuck, are you me?! Weird. I mean it wasn't college money for me, but otherwise...

xpost - mine too, in fact I think I noticed one other track that had a different title on my car's CD player, but I can't remember which one for sure.

Yeah as it turns out "A Veil is Lifted" shows as "Serpens Ignis" and "Aphonos" as "Wombless Hiirodule" which I am assuming is supposed to be "Heirodule" and I've learned a new word today.

On the topic of bankruptcy via music hoarding, I really miss not just music stores in general but Media Play specifically. It was like a less snooty, more suburban Tower, and I can't even count the number of albums I didn't expect to find there in the 90s/00s. In fact, speak of the devil, that was where I first laid eyes on Leviathan's Tenth Sub Level, something that at the time I bought on record label alone. Well, I guess the corpsepainted cover and song titles helped sway me as well.

I also remember fishing Beherit's Drawing Down the Moon and Pyogenesis' Ignis Creatio out of a dollar bin, having no idea who either was but recognizing them as Things I Need. I kinda miss those days of having to utilize metal sonar. At the risk of sounding rockist, acquiring music really felt like a mystical process then; the stuff felt talismanic in hand. Now it's "read description, check youtube, click to add to cart."

*hierodule rather

Really, really liking the debut record from Alkaloid, The Malkuth Grimoire. Basically, a bunch of guys from Obscura, Aborted, Spawn of Possession and Necrophagist (among several other related bands) get together to play something that I can really only describe as tech-death gone prog.

I see someone mentioned it in passing upthread, I really love it.

I also remember fishing Beherit's Drawing Down the Moon and Pyogenesis' Ignis Creatio out of a dollar bin, having no idea who either was but recognizing them as Things I Need. I kinda miss those days of having to utilize metal sonar. At the risk of sounding rockist, acquiring music really felt like a mystical process then; the stuff felt talismanic in hand. Now it's "read description, check youtube, click to add to cart."

Me too. I mean I don't lament the times I was frustrated at not being able to hear something (though to be fair, I had a T-1 connection and if I were that desperate, there was #mp3_death on DALnet), but it was somewhat fun having to scavenger hunt for the stuff.

I'd lived just outside of Orlando my entire life and prior to moving to Tallahassee for one year, only had access to metal albums via CD Warehouses (which were hit and miss) and chains like Camelot/Sam Goody. Didn't have a credit/debit card to order stuff with (though I remember begging my mom to let me pay her and use her card to order The Haunted's s/t).

In Tallahassee I discovered this place called Vinyl Fever, a misnomer because the volume of vinyl was greatly inferior to the CDs, but it didn't matter. They had a really strange, meticulous collection of metal that was very clearly the doings of the metal buyer (I think her name was Sandra, she introduced herself to me). They had not one, not two, but eight copies of Mayhem's Dawn of the Black Hearts bootleg. Actually, lots of black metal in general.

Also managed to get imports at affordable prices, such as Opeth's Still Life (prior to it getting its stateside release). Also got Cryptopsy's None So Vile reissue...not the big reissue that was done around 2001-2002, but the small one on Disfigured (or Displeased, forget which) around 1999. And ridiculous things like Malignancy's Intrauterine Cannibalism.

Lot of weird blind spots, like no Strapping Young Lad, but between there, the Spec's music, the Sam Goody in the mall, I managed to find a lot of stuff. Hell, even the Best Buy there had Entombed's Clandestine (in fact, for a while they were carrying a good deal of metal until around the mid-aughts, although they've ramped it up a bit in the last year again here).

I had to time out my bus rides cos I had no car and just wish the bus would drive faster so I could get home and listen to the shit. I kind of miss listening to metal as a newb (though it also caused me to dismiss a lot of good shit at the time that I just wasn't ready to hear yet).

some links, for further investigation / discussion:

* alkaloid is the top rated 2015 album on Metal Storm at the mo

Top 20 albums of 2015
http://www.metalstorm.net/bands/albums_top.php?album_year=2015
only 13 ranked

number 1: Alkaloid - The Malkuth Grimoire

* also new Dødheimsgard interview on decibel

Vicotnik (Dødheimsgard) interviewed
http://www.decibelmagazine.com/featured/vicotnik-dodheimsgard-interviewed/

* a metal storm user, Neachy has ranked his top 57 albums of 2015
http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=4017

1. Misþyrming - Söngvar Elds Og óreiðu
(9.5) (Black)
"This is easily the best black metal album I've heard since Carpe Noctem's 2013 debut. Iceland does not fuck around when it comes to black metal. Dark, heavy and dissonant while still maintaining enough melody and rhythm to be thoroughly memorable. Guitars have a DsO style and tone but the drums and bass often steal the show. I tend to favor black metal (and metal in general, really) that features the bass high in the mix, or at least audible. Here the bass is doing much more than just setting bland low end tones. It takes center stage at numerous points throughout, laying down fantastic grooves complemented perfectly by superb drumming. Even the two ambient tracks which serve as a midpoint interlude and closing track, are eerie and haunting in just the right way. Finally, the roaring, vitriolic vocals are at exactly the right level in the mix, not overbearing, not too buried."

top album, a black metal album from iceland

listen on bandcamp

Misþyrming - Söngvar Elds Og óreiðu
https://misthyrming.bandcamp.com/releases

* rateyourmusic.com - Top Albums of 2015
https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/2015
Misþyrming at number top 23

* Top Metal albums of 2015 - on rateyourmusic.com (Custom Chart)
http://bit.ly/1BbCiAV

at the mo 579 albums are listed, worth a browse through

Man, I never thought it would happen, but I've been getting nostalgic even for Best Buy's music selection lately. Setting aside even how surprisingly varied they were in the 90s, even up until 2007, 2008 there were several Best Buy locations near my old work that stocked a really healthy metal selection. I remember one trip picking up the Hellhammer Demon Entrails comp, Heartwork, and Enslaved's Eld and Blodhemn.

(xpost)

Yeah for a while Best Buy was still good for Relapse/Nuclear Blast type stuff. Whenever Behemoth or Suffocation put something out I knew I could go there that Tuesday and find it. The last time I went (years ago), an old metalhead friend who I didn't even know worked there came up to me going "yyyyyyyup" when he saw me staring despondently at what remained of their music section. Do they even have CDs anymore?

The only positive aspect of all these chains going out of business was the stacks of CDs I would walk out with during the liquidations. God. Even that's sort of depressing, though.

Also just stick a big "same" under HSB's post because that was pretty similar to my suburban metal venturing.

And now I'm going to read that massive RYM list and rock myself grinning in the corner like Renfield.

Swans is kicking my ass.

1. Misþyrming - Söngvar Elds Og óreiðu

Yeah this record is awesome.

Fans of death metal with weirdo modern-classical interludes might wanna check out this track from Ad Nauseam, streaming on Burning Ambulance...

http://loudwire.com/former-death-bassist-scott-clendenin-dies-at-47/

Sucks. The guitar and bass weaving around one another on The Sound of Perseverance is one of the most memorable aspects of Death's career. It's one of those albums you can identify by hearing any random 2 seconds.

https://youtu.be/xRyl_p1z9Nw

And if I'd actually noticed that R Christy had linked an amazing live performance of "Spirit Crusher" I wouldn't have stuck the studio version in my post.

Fans of death metal with weirdo modern-classical interludes might wanna check out this track from Ad Nauseam, streaming on Burning Ambulance...

fuckin excellent stuff imo

Yeah I'm listening to that song right now and it's great.

If "Darkspace meets Coldworld" sounds appealing to you, you could do worse than check out the new Ethereal Shroud They Became The Falling Ash. It occasionally wanders into funeral doom territory too.

Yeah, I enjoyed the Ad Nauseum.

"Darkspace meets Coldworld" -- that's all I needed to here. Will track it down pronto.

Finally at The Earl in ATL to see YOB/Witch Mountain.

Whose bright idea was it to close a lane of I-75?

I like this venue tho

Holy fuck Witch Mountain. Their new vocalist is phenomenal too.

YOB. god. Yes.

New ILSA on the horizon sometime in late May... Like the band a lot.

http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0231/0791/products/a1541653277_2_13af1357-698d-46d7-b365-ab00f34549a8_1024x1024.jpg?v=1427483230

So is Nader Sadek being a colossal dick atm or justified with his recent firing of his bandmates? Serious question cos I know very little about the guy or what expectations he set at the onset.

Urgh. Due to a family outbreak of chicken pox I've totally fucked up a job I'm supposed to be doing for a magazine. If you have an ounce of sympathy for me, have access to an electronic review copy of D0pethr0ne's H0chelaga & have the inclination to help, can you DM me please? \m/

This album art really cracked me up. I especially like how some faux record wear was added, presumably to make it look less copyright violation.

https://melgibsonsafari.bandcamp.com/album/rap-crap-minus-c

Dropping in quickly as a reminder that there's a rolling spotify playlist of tracks mentioned in this thread that I am finding nearly impossible to keep up with; you guys cover A LOT of ground in a field that requires a ton of focus and activity. It's more specialist than any other rolling music thread on here (with the possible exception of K-Pop). So I am backing up a bit from this one (especially given Glenn's curatorial work already in progress) but I am leaving the playlist open and collaborative, so please feel free to bookmark and update with your faves when and if the occasion moves you.

Rolling Metal 2015 Spotify Playlist

Unfortunately, Misþyrming's Söngur uppljómunar is not on Spotify.

Got the promo of the Tribulation album (due out in 3 weeks) last night. It's really good, very rock 'n' roll. The most "black metal" thing about it is the singer's voice, which is tolerable but honestly, I think a cleaner, more early-Axl Rose sound would suit the music better. Oh, well.

http://youtu.be/EcaWMa23C4M

new sulphur aeon (german cthulu-themed death) coming out soon, had a listen to their first album as well, it was amazing

I'm looking forward to that Tribulation album based on the couple songs that have come out, but yeah, the harsh vocals sound a bit flat. Not an ideal match for the really cool lead guitar parts.

Yeah, the Tribulation album is a huge improvement songwriting-wise, but those vocals are a bit of a missed opportunity. It'll be this year's Horrendous, a good album deemed great by those who only know harsh vox in metal.

A. Begrand:

I am a huge fan of your writing. I think you are one of the most insightful metal critics working right now. However, I also think last year's Horrendous album is great. And get this -- I am aware that harsh vocals aren't the only option in metal. So... I find your statement above to be a little troublesome. (I do realize it's just a forum post, not a finished piece of professional writing, so please take the following with a grain of salt.)

It's a massive oversimplification (and also kind of insulting) to say that the only reason people would consider Horrendous or the new Tribulation great is because we don't know any better, the implication being that we're not refined enough or well-versed enough as listeners to realize that screaming isn't the only option. Did you ever stop to consider that certain listeners oftentimes prefer harsh vocals over clean vocals, even when the music itself is melodic or pretty? For example, Alcest bores me to tears nowadays. I listened to plenty of Slowdive and Chapterhouse the first time around. I don't need the modern-day "former metal dude" version of that stuff. My favorite parts of Alcest were those moments when a dichotomy opened up between the gorgeous music and the harsh screaming. I feel similarly about the Horrendous album, that the record is actually bolstered by the way the sophisticated songwriting plays against the primal and dry harsh vocals. On a non-metal note, it's also the reason I loved the Dan Deacon remix of that "Call Me Maybe" song a couple years ago -- the way he made the filth and noise of his remix mesh so wonderfully with the original straightforward poppy tune.

If you had said, "I think clean vocals would have gone better with the music" and then presented your case with a reasoned argument, I probably would've still disagreed with you, but at least we could have chalked it up to different tastes. However, to make a blanket statement like "a good album deemed great by those who only know harsh vox in metal" smacks of music-critic elitism. I haven't heard the new Tribulation yet, but I do know that, based on my own listening preferences (which are informed by 30-plus years of both playing and studying extreme music), last year's Horrendous album wouldn't have sounded as good to me if it had clean vocals. In other words, I don't love the Horrendous album because I "only know harsh vox in metal." Far from it. I suspect the same is true for many folks.

Don't confuse your own personal tastes and preferences with objective truth. Just because you make a living writing about music doesn't mean your preferences are anything more than that -- they're just preferences. Sure, they're well-informed preferences, but we're not doing math here. It's not so cut and dry.

Dude, I grew up on Maiden and Priest and Dio. I understand the beauty and power of a great singer. But I also often find just as much beauty and power in a well-done harsh vocal performance. It's okay if we don't agree which albums would benefit from clean vs. harsh vocals. I just can't stand it when writers who should know better make such close-minded statements.

idk I mean I also like the Horrendous album better than Adrien does but the comment didn't bother me that much. I mean I'm sure most of us have made a statement like "Man, this band is metal for people who like <thing>" before. I get where you're coming from but I doubt he was trying to insult people's tastes as opposed to lament what he feels is a missed opportunity (I personally like the Horrendous vox just fine).

I would happily champion a return to the Jeff Gilbert school of metal reviewing myself.

Like his review for Grave's "Extremely Rotten Live" being just 'Yes, it is."

I'm sure Adrien wasn't consciously trying to insult people's tastes. He did anyway, though, which is kinda my point. I feel the same way when critics say things like, "X is the best album of the year." It's using objective language to frame a statement that isn't objective at all. Semantics should be important to writers, right? "X is the best album of the year" is a qualitatively different statement than "X is my favorite album of the year."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbZLpxnDFoM

Hyperbole is okay if it makes for more interesting writing. It's no fun always putting subjective things in subjective terms.

No insult was intended, it was just a spontaneous grumpy-old-man crack toward the younger extreme-exclusive metal tastemakers, who have a habit of going NUTS any time one of their bands figures out how to integrate melody into the brutal din they play. I know it's a lot more complex than that, I'm always guilty of making surly blanket statements, especially early in the morning. :-)

But I do feel people are far too forgiving of harsh vocals, especially when they either clash with the music or don't bring anything to the table. In Tribulation's case, they have a very, very good thing happening, but the more their music advances the more the growling starts to clash. It's a terrific new album, but in the back of my head it feels like such a wasted opportunity too.

Thank you, Adrien, for the intelligent response. Go to hell, Phil, for your typical bullshit.

I guess I should've expected nothing less from the Phil Freeman "I Don't Like It and I'm a Sophisticated Music Writer and You're an Idiot" School of Music Criticism...

i hate to be Elmo in the metal thread but guys, there are churches we could be burning right now if we just focused our energies *together*

I hear ya. Onward and upward!!

In other news, the new KEN Mode album is by far the best thing they've ever done. Toned down the metal, cranked up the Touch & Go noise, and wow does Albini do a number on the recording end.

hearing you of all people say that something KEN Mode recorded is the best thing they've ever done has just set some unreasonably high expectations around my house.

The new track is a good indication.

https://youtu.be/OeMAWgNskv0

Thanks to a person who saw my plea on Craig's List and met me to sell me two tickets practically at cost, I will be seeing Electric Wizard tonight in Philly. So looking forward to it!

nice! snag a short vid if you can

Thanks for the reminder - I put in a guest list request for the NYC date months ago; just emailed the publicist to check.

x-topic: Just for the record, by the way -- I actually generally quite enjoy Phil's long-form writing. When he has room to explain himself, he is entertaining and well-argued and always gives me a good sense of whether or not a particular record would be something I'd enjoy. I guess the frustrated musician in me just gets fired up sometimes when a record is dismissed or minimized on account of a single aspect of the overall performance / writing / production / etc. (I'm not directing this comment at anyone in particular right now. I've just been thinking about this stuff lately.) Regardless of whether you're a musician, critic, avid listener, casual fan, whatever -- I realize you're entitled to your opinion, you're entitled to express it any way you like, and thank goodness for that. It's what makes this whole shebang so lively and rewarding.

Okay, back to burning churches and decimating weaklings...

The new Pyramids record has been growing on me big time. The guitars are utterly gorgeous, with just the right amount of whammy bar insanity now and then to keep things weird. And the Ethereal Shroud record that was mentioned upthread sounded dazzling on first listen and has continued to amaze me on subsequent spins. It has so many layers, ebbs and flows nicely, and occasionally marshals the squall into grandiose, almost Glenn Branca-esque arches. Great find, Siegbran.

No video, but a pic:

http://scontent-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/17305_10155399827400597_6813095979236955100_n.jpg?oh=6053522630a22207b73602dcd7c535c7&oe=55AA7897

They were so fucking great. I wished the vocals were higher in the mix but they aren't on the albums, so it makes sense they weren't. It was a mesmerizing slow and steady parade of riffs, each one bigger than the previous one.

What label is the new Pyramids on? WANT