Rolling 2006 Metal Thread, Part 2

This link is needed, for future reference:

Rolling 2006 Metal Thread

Cellador's name reminds me of a line in "Talk Dirty to Me" by Poison!

And speaking of sludge, have i mentioned how much i dig the new Negative Reaction album? It's so very good.

And the new Intronaut album is very, very good. Lives up to the promise that the Null EP showed.

Speaking of short (as in short songs), I swear this might be an even catchier 2006 Voivod album than Voivod's 2006 Voivod album:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/fentanyl

-- Thomas Tallis (tallis4...), May 30th, 2006.

YOU ARE A MAN OF YOUR WORD!!!

it's like changing the font in the bible.

i got the elysium/monarch split on shifty (and a bunch of other labels). elysium does four tracks in five minutes of crusty/grindy shit that didn't really do it for me. monarch does one track in about 58 minutes of corrupted-style crushing sludge-doom. i think they broke up recently, unfortunately.

i'm still listening to monotheist alot, but haven't bought much metal recently.

Crack the Sky Returns for A One Night Only
Reunion Show on Saturday, July 8th, 2006

Leader John Palumbo Plays Classic Crack The Sky Tunes
Plus Songs From His New Solo CD Citizen X
Citizen X out July 25th/ Lifesong Records

The Recher Theatre, Towson, MD
Showtime is 10PM
512 York Road
Towson, MD 21204

haven't heard them but i guess i will now.

that jotunspor is indeed pretty hot, btw.

Polytheist or deist? Such a dilemma. I can understand where it could tear you apart.

So not even if you paid me and delivered a couple cases.

"This band, along with Sir Lord Baltimore, Yesterday's Children et al were among the East Coast's premier heavy blasters of the post-psychedelic era. Check out I Just Don't Know and Evolmia from their amazing first album on Atlantic. The second album has longer, less structured cuts with seemingly endless guitar soloing... nevertheless, both are recommended."

speaking of that kind of thing, i just picked up primevil's smokin' bats at campton's on radioactive - not really evil, more of a good time heavy rock vibe like the first side of bolder damn, and coincidentally the track "high steppin' stomper" sounds like bolder damn's "breakthrough." good stuff. and did anyone other than me buy the mad dog 617 album?

I even sold my Toad CD last week. Vic Vergat, out of my collection for the first time in years!

Heh, I've been listening to a track per day myself. 15 minutes at a time, it's really good, but yeah, it has to be a real slog over 66 minutes. Has its moments...I definitely don't hate it.

Yeah, I read that press release and got all happy...then I pressed play. I also got the new disc by Intronaut, who are apparently touring with MOTA soon and who I therefore infer are probably just as boring. Oh, well. It's a long weekend, maybe I'll get to 'em. Gotta be better than the Japanese Torture Comedy Hour disc I got. If you've got two projects as great as Pig Destroyer and Agoraphobic Nosebleed going already, why waste loyalists' time with a lazy-ass ripoff of what Merzbow was doing a decade ago?

If anybody's curious what other albums I bought (for $50 total), visit the link below; the other most notable metal find is probably the 1984 debut EP by Shrapnel, whose singer is one Dave Wyndorf:

It's A New "Recent Purchases" Thread (aka Why Does Anyone Still Buy CDs?)

Didn't Shrapnel take shit from Christgau because they wore helmets and army uniforms? I seem to recall a GI Joe/Sgt. Rock/Nick Fury army toys and comic book love going on with that band. Speaking of Wyndorf, I almost bought the reissue of Tab today. Then I passed, maybe later.

Gonna release the Storm LP in mid-July and give Ted's Double Live Gonzo the plush treatment. They've actually done Doc Holliday, so - who knows -- maybe someday soon Marcus will be resurrected. They've done Spider and Stampede from their Encyclopedia and Storm is described as "a very wild aggressive hard rock band from Los Angeles who sound like a cross between Queen and Van Halen. Jeannette Chase is almost in the same league as Karen Lawrence!"

I had that record and don't remember quite that fondly but I'm always up for reapproaching/reappraising antiques.

three skinny white guys and two black guys in the marcus band; two of the white guys may or may not be blond, hard to tell; on the album cover, at least, none of 'em seem to be wearing glasses though.

more on that mysterious marcus LP:

http://www.marcusmalone.com/html/'Marcus'%20Album%20UA%20(EMI).htm

http://www.marcusmalone.com/html/'Marcus'%20Album%20UA%20(EMI).htm

also, has this been discussed?

http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/37111/Show_No_Mercy

I HEAR THERE'S SOME GOOD STUFF ON SOUTHERN LORD YUK YUK

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/07/every-cheap-trick-in-book-faced-with.html

http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/07/hard-rock-for-people-who-dont-like.html

Yep, you own the phrase.

Could someone make a separate hard rock thread? I think hard rock and metal are different enough and we might not even need a part 3.

I get asked from time to time about what Fushitsusha CD’s are a good starting point to check out. Well if you have taste for video this DVD would really bring to focus what Fushitsusha was during its very formable power trio days. Haino has always been one of the greatest visual spectacles of the underground over the last twenty years, hair flying, convulsing around on stage, bend in half shrieks on the mic, spastic convulsion guitar frenzy. One of the few live performers I can sit and watch for hours on end and never get bored. And Fushitsusha is probably his most important body of works to this point in his music career. This piece of documentation definitely displays the work of Fushitsusha in full glory. Originally released as a VHS tape, and has been out of print for the past few years, now has been dropped onto DVD for the modern era from the folks at Modern Music. Minimal package job here and nothing fancy with the video edit or camera work. Really just a single camera side stage view that sucks up the whole performance to be digested.. 55min playing time and NTSC format
$25 Postpaid in the US

LLENANDOSE DE GUSANOS 2 X CD double disc for extended fun from Corrupted.. coolest thing about this one i think is the fact i made the lengthy thanks list.. first disc opens with the long Paino intro only to have the hammers drop about 25mins in. might be my fav. corrupted work to date. 2nd disc is more of an ambient type deal
$18 postpaid in the US

BORIS MABUTA NO URA CD essence music
Brazilian edition of the Inoxia soundtrax CD for an imaginary film. Audio and layout is different then Japanese version. Comes housed in a sleek minimal white mini-gatefold sleeve with a white diecut slipcase.. wow.. really wonderful in layout and design. Hard to find a better looking release anywhere. Tunes bounce around a good bit from soundscapey type stuff to a few trippy deludes. All and all I found it interesting work. If you are looking for the rock stuff or the heavy weirdness of Boris don’t get this release!! Worth owning however if you can lean towards experimental works as well. For folks who need imaginary friends perhaps???
$18 US postpaid

note this album's title....how many of these songs are we still allowed to call "heavy metal"?

For Immediate Release

June 9, 2006

HEAVY METAL ROCKS

NOW MORE THAN EVER

IN

Heavy Metal: The First 20 Years
In Stores July 25th

Head Banging Tunes From

Iron Butterfly, Motorhead, Kiss,

Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, The Scorpions and More

Fairfax, VA --- When nearly every town in the country has a radio station that still plays songs like Kiss’ “Detroit Rock City,” “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by the Scorpions and Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law,” there’s no escaping the fact that heavy metal, rock n’ roll’s brazen and histrionic stepchild, has endured the test of time. Heavy Metal: The First 20 Years (in stores July 25th, Time Life) is a tribute to the bands that rocked, filled with songs that manage to be both nostalgic yet as relevant as ever. Vintage metal videos still run on VH1 Classic around the clock and fans still wear their beloved tour t-shirts, but this time around, their adolescent kids are wearing them too.

Filled with songs from the first two decades of earsplitting rock (1964-1984), Heavy Metal boasts stadium anthems by Alice Cooper, Kiss and the Scorpions and the over-the-top orchestrations by acts like Iron Butterfly and Queensryche. Quiet Riot’s pop-crossover hit, “Cum on Feel The Noize” is tempered by Dio’s sonic masterpiece “Holy Diver” and Motorhead’s speed metal “Ace of Spades,” showcasing the full spectrum of the heavy metal genre. Defined by its loud instrumentation, relatively simple song structure and raucous lyrics, heavy metal first roared on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1960s and continues to be one of the most enduring and popular forms of rock.

About Time Life Inc.

Headquartered in Fairfax VA, Time Life Inc. was founded in 1961 as a direct marketing company specializing in music and books. It has since grown to become one of the world’s largest direct marketers of audio and video products, selling more than 13 million units each year throughout North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, and is the largest advertiser of music products in Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Time-Life set the standard in the direct response industry by pioneering direct marketing techniques, building one of the most trusted and recognized brands in commerce. The company now also sells their products through major traditional and non-traditional retailers around the world as well as via the Internet. Time Life is a registered trademark of Time Warner Inc. used under license by Direct Holdings Americas Inc., which is not affiliated with Time Warner Inc.

###

Heavy Metal: The First 20 Years
Tracklisting

1. You Really Got Me / The Kinks

2. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida / Iron Butterfly

3. Eighteen / Alice Cooper

4. Easy Livin / Uriah Heep

5. Detroit Rock City / Kiss

6. Free-for-All / Ted Nugent

7. Godzilla / Blue Öyster Cult

8. Kill the King / Rainbow

9. Ace of Spades / Motörhead

10. Breaking the Law / Judas Priest

11. Hot Love / Aldo Nova

12. Heavy Metal Love / Helix

13. Cum On Feel the Noize / Quiet Riot

14. Holy Diver / Dio

15. Queen of the Reich / Queensrÿche

16. Screaming in the Night / Krokus

17. Balls to the Wall / Accept

18. Rock You Like a Hurricane / Scorpions

Nice use of Rolling Metal's idiom!

Resistant Militia were (are?) an excellent LA crust-grind band with Geronimo backpatches, born of a Wild Rags records thrash band called Resistant Militia.

I'm scared of new Terrorizer. It's sitting before me next to new New York Dolls, which I expect will be the betterer.

Both bands at least have nerve going out under their original names.

I'm doing a metal DJ set tonight in Chapel Hill!

http://demo-lition.blogspot.com/

It's my motivation to digitize the thousands of tapes around here. I can hear the magnetic particles flying off each day -- time to take a stand!

Someone sent me a copy of XXX Maniak's Harvesting The Cunt Nectar album and they really didn't have to. I feel like I'm supposed to hide it at the bottom of my sock drawer or something.

That album by Teeth Of The Hydra on Tee Pee ain't bad! Stoner metal stuff. I can't remember the last time i dug something on Tee Pee.

http://www.decibelmagazine.com/features_detail.aspx?id=4566

Tee Pee also put out that El Dopa compilation, which you'd probably like since you like Eyehategod maybe even more than I do.

Lost

Loathing

Pain

Empty

Suffer

Sorrow

Linger

Alone

Relapse Records has announced the 2006 installment of the Contamination Tour.

Contamination 2006 will feature fresh Relapse signings UNEARTHLY TRANCE, FACEDOWNINSHIT and FUCK THE FACTS with special guest appearances by label mates JUCIFER, BURIED INSIDE, MINSK and more in various cities throughout the tour. The trek will kick off on September 2 in Philadelphia and will run through the end of the month.

All of the bands will be touring in support of their Relapse debuts. Both UNEARTHLY TRANCE's "The Trident" and FACEDOWNINSHIT's "N.P.O.N." (Nothing Positive, Only Negative) were released this past April and FUCK THE FACTS' "Stigmata High Five" will see its release just prior to the tour on August 22.

For years, the "Contamination" title has been used to by the label to expose some of its newest acts. Contamination 2006 is the fifth installment in this tour's history. Previous "Contamination Tour" alumni include MASTODON, HIGH ON FIRE, CEPHALIC CARNAGE, NEUROSIS, COALESCE, DYSRHYTHMIA, and many more.

Relapse Records Contamination Tour 2006 featuring UNEARTHLY TRANCE, FACEDOWNINSHIT, FUCK THE FACTS:

Sep. 02 - Philadelphia, PA - The Balcony (w/ BURIED INSIDE, HEX MACHINE)
Sep. 03 - Cleveland, OH - Peabody's (w/ BURIED INSIDE)
Sep. 04 - Chicago, IL - The Note
Sep. 05 - St. Louis, MO - Creepy Crawl (w/ MINSK)
Sep. 06 - Lawrence, KS - Granada Theater (w/ MINSK)
Sep. 07 - Denver, CO - 3 Kings Tavern (w/ MINSK)
Sep. 08 - Salt Lake City, UT - Burts Tiki Lounge (w/ MINSK)
Sep. 11 - San Francisco, CA - Elbo Room (w/ MINSK)
Sep. 12 - Los Angeles, CA - The Mountain Bar (w/ MINSK)
Sep. 14 - Glendale, AZ - Bullbogs (w/ MINSK)
Sep. 16 - Oklahoma City, OK - The Conservatory (w/ MINSK)
Sep. 18 - Austin, TX - Emo's (w/ MINSK)
Sep. 19 - Beaumont, TX - Vortex
Sep. 20 - New Orleans, LA - The Big Top
Sep. 21 - Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn
Sep. 22 - Gainesville, FL - Common Grounds
Sep. 23 - Savannah, GA - The Jinx
Sep. 24 - Greensboro, NC - The Flying Anvil
Sep. 26 - Richmond, VA - Nanci Raygun (w/ JUCIFER, HEX ACHINE)
Sep. 27 - Washington, DC - Warehouse Next Door (w/ JUCIFER, HEX MACHINE)
Sep. 28 - Baltimore, MD - OttoBar (w/ JUCIFER, HEX MACHINE)
Sep. 30 - Providence, RI - Redrum (w/ JUCIFER, HEX MACHINE, no FDIS)
Oct. 01 - Middletown, CT - Living Proof (w/ JUCIFER, HEX MACHINE, no FDIS)

Got the new Arch Enemy 2DVD live thing, the new All Shall Perish, some death 'n' roll Dimmu Borgir side project, and the Sentenced vocalist's new band's debut disc in today's mail. Don't much care about any of 'em. I might watch the first disc of Arch Enemy, they were pretty good opening for Iron Maiden at the Hammerstein, and almost as good at Ozzfest. But I know it's not gonna be nearly as good as Amon Amarth's Fury Of The Norsemen, which I'm gonna throw on tonight while I read the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf, which I bought tonight with used-CD cash.

Nobody saw an Emperor reunion show? Subdued, thanks to Samoth being denied a visa. Google "black metal terrorist" and you'll see why. But the Ihsahn show was still righteous. He rearranged everything on the fly, implying harmonized guitars with some crazy chording. Now he goes back to farming.

The Trivium spoof on YouTube is FINE!

Insecticide, Primal Scream, and Defcon now on the metal demo blog...

This one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNLDLyeepVs

Interesting. Got my attention, anyway. And yeah, I can't get that Trivium spoof out of my head. Brilliant stuff.

The new Vader's pretty decent, but the one old-school metal disc that came from out of nowhere to surprise me was the new Metal Church, which reminds me a lot of the Blessing in Disguise days. I never suspected Vanderhoof still had it in him.

This is a make or break year for major label metal, and on the strength of Sacrament I'm guessing make.

I ws hoping Lamb of God would take things to the next level. Say what you will about this band, but "Redneck" is an ace of a single.

And I'm now convinced the new Intronaut album is one of the year's better discs. It's all about the bassist...that dude is all over the record.

I am glad someone got to this before I mentioned it. This band is amazing live and I do love the disc quite a bit as well. For you indie rocker folks, the band's drummer played guitar in the lamentably gone Party Of Helicopters.

Columbus has an amazing metal scene and I'm glad that Teeth are geting out. Deadsea will hopefully be next... They play shows together all the time and when they do, roofs are not safe.

[i've kinda fallen into the archivecd.com/siwarecords/some stuff on important wormhole.]

http://www.pandora.com/?ext_lsfi=147735007998702601

http://www.pandora.com/?ext_lsfi=147547274978194441

http://www.pandora.com/?ext_lsfi=147735007998702601

It has the same feel as Sons Of Northern Darkness, but it's more rockish.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/1onop8

Thoughts on upcoming stuff:

Trivium: not as good as the last one. They really want to be Metallica, with more pretty parts, but really they sound better when they're just being Trivium. Still better than anything Metallica has done in a decade, though.

Cradle of Filth: I think I like it. Can't decide if it's a commercial bid, or just a return to the pre-Damnation time where they actually wrote songs with hooks and stuff instead of masturbatory epics.

69 Eyes: this would be the best band ever if I had never heard Type O Negative, sentenced, Paradise lost, sisters of Mercy, HIM, or even Nosferatu. Unfortunately, I have, so they aren't.

Into Eternity: Progressive Death/Thrash has become my new favorite genre. Between this and Loch Vostok, there's been some great stuff in that subgenre. Never thought these guys would get that good.

New Iron Maiden sounds solid so far (halfway through it). And the new Amon Amarth is awesome....I don't think I was expecting it to be as good as it is.

I'm really looking forward to the new Trivium. I agree, they try way too hard to emulate Metallica...thay're good and all, but they had me laughing a couple weeks ago when I saw them with their mirror ball and pogoing. Calm down, boys...simplify!

I lost patience with the Skullflower album. I can see the effect he's going after, but in the end, the noise was a bit too overwhelming, the melodies buried too deeply.

And the new Maiden album is indeed a fine one. Nice return to form after the rather uneven Dance of Death.

I requested Iron Maiden, didn't get it. Not like I'm not going to buy it the day it comes out, though.

Glad to here Amon Amarth is good. I was listening to their last one today, which is good but a slight step down from Versus the World. They have some seriously awesome interweaving melodic guitar work, which not enough bands do well. Plus, the singer has a pot belly and insists on performing in tight leather pants with no shirt, which makes them entertaining live.

The new Trivium isn't as immediate as its predecessor, but it's grown on me. The big problems are the lack of vocal dynamics (no growling vocals), and they're trying too hard to impress you the first half of the album. Once they settle into a groove on the second half, they allow the hooks to come out more, and it's definitely better. The instrumental at the end is also pretty great. At least, that's my impression after two listens. Need to give it a couple more spins before I write my full review.

once sent from the golden hall is still my fave amon amarth album. one of my fave metal albums ever. i can't remember if that was the last album with martin lopez on it before he joined opeth. maybe not. he was great in that band.

Hell, that's why I know I'm going to like the album, the mallcore screaming is getting old, and I'm glad Heafy's come to his senses. The two tracks that have surfaced ("Detonation", "Anthem") are quite impressive.

Anyone else have the new Jucifer? I'm really impressed. Starts off a bit slow, but it's really moody and heavy, and I'm a sucker for violent music with a pretty female singer over it.

I noticed when I saw them do "Detonation" that the bass player does the emo vocals...not exactly necessary. Hopefully his singing role is minimal.

Yeah, I like the new Jucifer as well. I only played it once, but a couple of tracks really grabbed me, but I can't remember what they are. I always like the female vox as well...if it wasn't for Amber Valentine, an album like this would be nowhere near as compelling.

Agreed on the Valentine thing.

Totally random observation, but I'm listening to the new Cradle of Filth right now, in the second half is way better than the first. Anyone else notice this pattern recently? Trivium, Into Eternity, Loch Vostok, and now Cradle have better second halves, and that's off the top of my head... is it just the stuff that I've been reviewing, or is the b-side the new a-side?

If you get a copy of the new cradle, check out track 9, The Fetus of a New Day Kicking. It's got kind of a Bodom vibe going on. Pretty awesome, but doesn't feel much like Cradle. They always have at least one awesome commercial single per album.

i got that burzum vinyl today. so, i'm listening to that. and the new suffocation album! it sounds EXACTLY like a suffocation album. who would have guessed? i dig it.

for the record, i don't have anything against trivium. or lamb of god. or shadows fall. or avenged sevenfold. but they are no ahab!

http://www.forsakken.com/images/forsakkenbillypromo3.jpg

is gonna be on the new season of Survivor on CBS. i am so in his corner.

It's cool to not be anticipating Trivium. What I personally don't get is why everyone is jizzing themselves over Intronaut. I listened to a couple tracks online, and I don't really see what the big deal is. Of course, admitting that will probably get me drummed out of the critics corp, but... yeah. Sounds like more Neurisis worship. Can someone explain this to me?

meanwhile, i love the new hope conspiracy album. completely rockin'. kurt ballou production clockin'. the d-beats flyin'. the riffs a stoppin' and a startin'. punk rock.

Got the Children of Bodom DVD in the mail today. I think it's okay to like them again, Dragonforce has taken their place as the "suddenly popular band that all the elitists hate now." Not that I've ever cared about that. Anyway, the copy I got doesn't even have a finished title screen, just this CD-R menu. Also, the sound mix is completely fucked, in that the sound completely cuts out sometimes, and the rest of the time it sounds like it's supposed to be surround but somebody screwed up. Thanks, universal.

I actually don't expect anybody here to like Trivium. I don't love 'em myself, but there are a couple of good songs on the new one, and I like the closing instrumental. It needed a drum solo, though.

The new Lamb of God and Motorhead discs are both holding actions rather than moves forward. I know, nobody expects Motorhead to move forward, even me really, but the last two studio albums were so much better than the two before 'em that I kinda had hopes Lemmy'd been rejuvenated somehow. This new one, though, feels like a rehashing of earlier work (especially "God Was Never On Your Side," which is a straight retake of "I Don't Believe A Word" from Overnight Sensation, and that pisses me off because OS is one of my favorite Motorhead discs and that song is a particular highlight). Oh, well.

I nearly fell asleep standing up to Lamb of God live. Boring band, in my opinion. Never got what the big deal was.

I've had that new Motorhead disc for a couple months now, and I'm quite amazed at how it's held up. Despite the, erm, obviousness of the songs (you've got the old school thrasher, the latter-day heavy tunes, a "Stay Vlean" swinger, the acoustic ballad, and plenty of rock 'n' roll tunes), it's a very likeable album. For some reason I can't get enough of the riff in "Devil I Know".

I was expecting more from the new Lamb of God. I've always enjoyed them, and Sacrament certainly isn't awful, but it's beginning to look like Ashes of the Wake might be the best these boys will ever get.

Have I mentioned the new All That Remains? Man, I can't get enough of that one. The vocal melodies are tremendous, finding a comfy middle ground between metal singing and emo whinging. The kids complaining about Trivium's new vocal direction should listen to this.

And as for Trivium, I know I'm going to like the new one. Good melodic metal always hooks me in...I've been like that since 1984.

I've had that new Motorhead disc for a couple months now, and I'm quite amazed at how it's held up. Despite the, erm, obviousness of the songs (you've got the old school thrasher, the latter-day heavy tunes, a "Stay Clean" swinger, the acoustic ballad, and plenty of rock 'n' roll tunes), it's a very likeable album. For some reason I can't get enough of the riff in "Devil I Know".

I was expecting more from the new Lamb of God. I've always enjoyed them, and Sacrament certainly isn't awful, but it's beginning to look like Ashes of the Wake might be the best these boys will ever get.

Have I mentioned the new All That Remains? Man, I can't get enough of that one. The vocal melodies are tremendous, finding a comfy middle ground between metal singing and emo whinging. The kids complaining about Trivium's new vocal direction should listen to this.

And as for Trivium, I know I'm going to like the new one. Good melodic metal always hooks me in...I've been like that since 1984.

also: i'm seconding the lamb of god/trivium incomprehension.

mouth of the architect and intronaut seem oddly nothing to me.

haven't heard new lamb of god yet. don't have much interest in it, given how much their previous albums left me not giving a darn.

i get it, it's just not my bag. maybe the new thrash just isn't that exciting to me. or new american thrash anyway. i think those dudes are talented though. i'd probably rather listen to something like children of bodom, and i don't even really listen to them. i dunno. i loved the last sodom album! i guess i'd rather listen to eurocheeze power metal when all is said and done. yet another album that isn't quite as good as an old metallica album isn't that thrilling a prospect. when one of these bands makes an album that's BETTER than an old metallica record, let me know.

having said all that, i much prefer da kidz listening to trivium than most horrible trustkill type metalcore. it's a step in the right direction anyway.

like, fr'instance, the massacre tyrant of death cd. has some of the tunes off from beyond but cruder, the guitar doesn't sound like tuned static, kam lee sounds less like barney greenway.

and actually, so did the previous skullflower album in its day (well, i *think* it was the previous one. two years ago or so?)haven't heard their new one; can't imagine why somebody would need to own more than one album by them (i mean him, whatever). same with isis, i guess, but i got sent that free. which is only slightly less than i can imagine somebody wanting to pay for it, as nice as it sounds.

my problem with intronaut is the horrible vocals; the music did seem vaguely interesting. my problem with mouth of an architect is that they sound like a sub-par hack version of an ambient thrashy thing i'm pretty tired of by now even when it's actually done well.

and damn is thread boring compared to part 1.

3-song angiescreams demo EP the paper fortress on now. pretty decent and rocking fake zep stuff from, um, somewhere or other.

I would describe it as readable.

I would describe it as readable.

Sure. Lack of writing makes reading easy!

Which I bought when I was 17. (I have listened to it probably three times since.)

Re: metal not being cheesy enough -- sometimes I just want the overpowering noise/obliteration factor without having to think about gooniness. (Obviously, other times I do.)

Do you mean that interpreted lyrics one? Classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNLDLyeepVs

I have the CD, but I don't ever want to know the lyrics to "Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr". "Kicking smalveh's germacide away" is just so much better.

WOILL!

we're not all writers, xhuxk.

Haven't really got anything else new in recently, although I have been enjoying this The Shocker CD that I picked up for a dollar. Fast, fun, catchy punk that doesn't feel too contrived. And hey, Jennifer Finch *can* show emotion.

YES. I love the album, it's their best since Seventh Son. It's an interesting album, cantankerous, raw yet catchy, with a really punchy mix. Much more focused, too. I've been playing "Benjamin Breeg" a ton over the past month, and I think "The Longest Day" is one of the best epic songs they've done in the last 16 years or so. It's a fan-pleaser...if you haven't bought into the Maiden formula before, this won't change things, but if you've listened to this band for say, as long as I have, you'll dig it.

It's pretty nuts -- slow summer, and then suddenly a bunch of high profile metal releases within a couple weeks. Motorhead, Lamb of God (don't like them, but that's a pretty big release), Iron Maiden, Mastodon, Blind Guardian, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting... between metal CDs and Justice League DVDs, there goes my spending money.

anyone know who i should get in touch with for them? i just looked up and realized they're playing around the corner from me and volunteered something for Philly Weekly not realizing how fast it was coming up. thx.

Regarding Jennifer Finch actually expressing emotion, I may have been going a bit far, but she doesn't sound nearly as bored as she did in L7. She still can't actually sing, but if you need to peel some paint off your walls, her voice will do the trick. Obvious reference points are Joan Jett (everywhere), Girlschool (especially on Pop narcotics), Black Flag ("Bad Brain, Good Head" quotes "TV party" pretty well), and some fifties rock-and-roll bands (although that just may be more of the John Jett influence). Pretty much every song is catchy, especially "bad brain" and the title track. Nothing ground breaking, as usual, but definitely worth the dollar I paid for it. And hey, at least their name is from a sexual act, not the lame Spiderman villain.

You have no idea how jealous I am. Doesn't go on sale til Halloween.

I guess it will pop up illegally somewhere. They know every Sunno)))/Boris fan will buy it anyway. Hopefully i can buy one at the gig in the middle of october(unless they all sell out the night before at London like last time)

Usually people who talk like this don't bother reviewing Maiden albums for free on web sites, so at least we're onto something. Metal rules!

Also, their tour diary is a fun catalog of near-cataclysmic disasters. They're a collective and are keeping it real throughout Europe, damn the consequences. It impresses me how unpretentious they manage to be about such high-concept music (their lighting and sound riders are kinda hilar; even in San Francisco there's only a couple places that could accommodate their full setup, and they spent the first part of the year touring squats and coffee shops throughout central Europe).

Meanwhile, anytime a new 324 record comes out is party time, and _Rebelgrinder_ holds up their high standards (while maybe not being quite as hard-edged as _Curse of the Sun_, which I guess almost nobody heard anyway). And I also like the Berzerker record, although it comes from a different place than any of the aforementioned. I never would have guessed grindcore would have so much room for growth left in it.

I think the Rosetta album was mentioned early this year on the first 2006 metal thread. It's a good one...the first CD sounds good enough without the drone disc playing at the same time.

I was really enjoying the Ocean's album back in January or so, but to be honest I haven't listened to it in a while. Perhaps I should.

The Ocean track I like best is "Queen of the Food-Chain", which seems to be the one most reviewers zoom in on. It's catchy and weird and shows off how good those guys are with the samples. I dunno, I just got this one a few months ago but I still listen to it regularly.

One disc that's really blindsided me is the new Black Stone Cherry album. There shouldn't be any reason to get excited about it, as it does that same southern metal that Brand New Sin and countless others have been doing, but after a sluggish, Godsmacky opening couple tracks, a really cool groove starts to settle in, and it gets better the longer it goes, sneaky melodies sneaking in, touches of B3, etc. Not as ostentatious as Wolfmother, which works to this band's advantage.

I'm not sure what they're lumped in with exactly, but the !T.O.O.H! album Order & Punishment is excellent and I don't think it's been mentioned here (original version, Řád a Trest, was released in Dec. '05, but I don't think it was mentioned in the last thread either). It reminds me a bit of Unquestionable Presence, but is not too far off from Genghis Tron. Short, sharp, peculiar and some catchy songs. I think the U.S. release is already out of print, so pick it up if that sounds interesting.

Unexpect - In A Flesh Aquarium
http://metalreview.com/2854/Unexpect-In-A-Flesh-Aquarium.aspx

Unexpect
http://www.myspace.com/unexpect

About unexpect

An ecclectic band rooted in the creative soils of Montreal,Quebec. Mixing elements of black, death, core, progressive and melodic metal ; classical, operatic, medieval, electro, ambient, psychotic, noise and circus music with an occasional jazzy touch. 7 musicians all in all. Their vocal performance range from an extreme to the other as they alternate between glorious choirs; inhuman screams of deep, high, mid-growl and delirious intensity; theatrical narrations; and clean/sober sections strewn with a female singer who's angelic voice could melt the will of the most vile corporate jerk.

i agree. it just kinda...ends. i thought the first track (which just sounds like a really long intro. i always thought it would be cool if someone released a 70-minute intro) had the most promise cuz heavy doom+acidguitars is always a good thing in my book. but by the time they go anywhere they don't go anywhere and its over.

Blut Aus Nord - Metamorphosis Of Realistic Theories

is it in your top 10 of the year?

Heres the US tour dates.

Aug 30 @ Drifters / Nashua, NH with Ocean, Space Train, Devil in the Kitchen, and Phoenix Pyre
Aug 31 @ SPACE Gallery / Portland, ME with Ocean and Metempskyrie
Sep 1 @ 242 Main / Burlington, VT with Junius, Carrigan, Tell No One, and State Street Residential
Sep 2 @ End Hits Records / Ottawa, ON with Moth
Sep 3 @ Main Hall / Montreal, QC with Argon Floozy, Wapstan, and Cortisol
Sep 4 @ Dinosaur BBQ / Syracuse, NY
Sep 5 @ O'Brien's / Allston, MA with Headed For The Smoke and The Black
Sep 6 @ DAY OFF!
____________________________________

Sep 7 @ PA's Lounge / Somerville, MA - Tartar Lamb (Toby and Mia of Kayo Dot) in Somerville, MA with Dilly Dilly (members of Cerberus Shoal) and Fence Kitchen - NOT a Kayo Dot show!
Sep 8 @ Metropolis Music / Torrington, CT - 6 PM
Sep 9 @ Sin-E / Manhattan, NY with Made Out of Babies, Gospel, Versoma, and Rosetta
Sep 10 @ The Nest / Bridgeport, CT with Barnacle - EARLY SHOW! 5 PM
Sep 11 @ The Saint / Asbury Park, NJ with Day Without Dawn, So Is the Tongue, and Delft
Sep 12 @ The First Unitarian Church / Philadelphia, PA with Rosetta, Belegost, and Towers
Sep 13 @ The Talking Head Club / Baltimore, MD with Howling Hex (Neil Michael Hagerty of Royal Trux)
Sep 18 @ Garfield Art Works / Pittsburgh, PA with Brown Angel and Kalon
Sep 19 @ The Soundlab / Buffalo, NY with Novelist
Sep 20 @ The Drake Hotel / Toronto, ON with Mare and I Have Eaten the City
Sep 21 @ The Bohemian National Home / Detroit, MI with Larval
Sep 22 @ The Secret Location (2455 Broadway St.) / Indianapolis, IN with Holy Bible, Little Boots and Drusilla, and Larval
Sep 23 @ Lemp Arts / St. Louis, MO with Tatsuya Nakatani, Epicycle, and Larval
Sep 24 @ The Empty Bottle (The Wire's Adventures in Modern Music Fest) with Steinski, Hamid Drake/William Parker Duo, Trapist
Sep 25 @ The Cactus Club / Milwaukee, WI with Canyons of Static
Sep 26 @ Vaudeville Mews / Des Moines, IA with Pinebox Rhythm Revue
Sep 27 O'Leaver's / Omaha, NE with Shinyville
Sep 28 @ TBA / Wichita, KS with Ricky Fitts
Sep 29 @ Monkey Mania / Denver, CO with The Autokinoton, Across Tundras, and Black Helicopters
Sep 30 @ The Urban Lounge / Salt Lake City, UT with Eagle Twin
Oct 1 @ The Grove Street Concert House / Boise, ID
Oct 2 @ The Funhouse / Seattle, WA with Book of Black Earth and Sugar Skulls
Oct 3 @ The Food Hole / Portland, OR with Mustaphamond
Oct 4 @ The Samurai Duck / Eugene, OR with The Hedonists
Oct 5 - HELP BOOK THIS SHOW! (please e-mail mia [at] kayodot.net!)
Oct 6 @ 1078 Gallery / Chico, CA with The Makai and Intronaut
Oct 7 @ The Hemlock Tavern / San Francisco, CA with Oxbow and Intronaut
Oct 8 @ The Blue Lagoon / Santa Cruz, CA with Intronaut
Oct 9 @ Casa De La Raza / Santa Barbara, CA with Intronaut, Crossbows and Catapults, Mars, and Rhino Charge
Oct 10 @ The Mountain Bar / Los Angeles, CA with Intronaut and Upsilon Acrux - **FREE** show!
Oct 11 @ Medical Abuse Records / Riverside, CA with TBA
Oct 12 @ The Jumping Turtle / San Marcos, CA with Intronaut and Variable
Oct 13 @ The Space (2015 E. 5th St. #10) / Tempe, AZ with Attack Of The Giant Squid and Arc Of The Aurora
Oct 14 @ Skrappy's / Tucson, AZ with North, Jaime J, and TBA
Oct 15 @ Zeppelin's Pub / El Paso, TX with Night of the Wrecking Ball and And The Furies Say
Oct 16 @ The Roadhouse / Odessa, TX with Church of the Snake, Pinstripe and Tweed
Oct 17 @ Rubber Gloves / Denton, TX with The Great Tyrant and TBA
Oct 18 @ Walters on Washington / Houston, TX with Tambersauro and Motion Turns It On
Oct 19 @ The Vortex / Beaumont, TX with Storms Threaten To Destroy
Oct 20 @ The Green Room / Hattiesburg, MS with That Yellow Bastard
Oct 21 - HELP BOOK THIS SHOW! (please e-mail mia [at] kayodot.net!)
Oct 22 @ Transitions Art Gallery / Tampa, FL with TBA
Oct 23 @ Backbone Music / West Palm Beach, FL with The Catalyst, Entropy, and Crusades
Oct 24 - HELP BOOK THIS SHOW!
Oct 25 @ The Drunken Unicorn / Atlanta, GA with Ahleuchatistas
Oct 26 @ Ziggy's / Chattanooga, TN with Ahleuchatistas, Moscow Theatre Siege, and The Tracers
Oct 27 @ The Muse / Nashville, TN with Ahleuchatistas
Oct 28 @ The Rocket Club / Asheville, NC with Ahleuchatistas
Oct 29 @ The Spazzatorium / Greenville, NC with Giant
Oct 30 @ Gallery 5 (a.k.a. The Richmond Fire Museum) / Richmond, VA with Grails and Souvenir's Young America
Oct 31 @ The Rock and Roll Hotel / Washington, DC with Grails, Wooden Wand and Vanishing Voice, Kohoutek, and Piasa
Nov 1 @ Baltimore, MD with Grails and Friendly Bears - HELP BOOK THIS SHOW! (please e-mail mia [at] kayodot.net!)
Nov 2 @ TBA / New York, NY with Made Out of Babies, Grails, Ghastly City Sleep, and more! (Robotic Empire/Neurot Records showcase for CMJ Fest)
Nov 3 @ Philadelphia, PA @ TBA with Grails and Friendly Bears
Nov 4 @ Providence, RI or CT with Grails and Friendly Bears - HELP BOOK THIS SHOW! (please e-mail mia [at] kayodot.net!)
Nov 5 @ Amherst, MA @ TBA with Grails and Friendly Bears
Nov 6 @ Knitting Factory Tap Bar / Manhattan, NY with Grails, Friendly Bears, and Bloody Panda

Iron Maiden is growing on me. Second-half is definitely better than the first.

Relapse have just reissued Courtesy and good will toward men, need to pick that up.

I got that one yesterday...someone told me about the band back in May, and they sounded right up my alley. And yeah, this album sounds very good. The singer hits just the right balance of melody and power...no Liv Kristine wispiness, but no Tarja histrionics, either. Not in the league of Anneke, but very effective.

Dragonforce was just on G4's live show. Pretty entertaining. You could sell the cameramen had no idea how the shoot a power metal band, because every member of the band was doing something crazy. At one point, one of the guitarists fell or did a power slide, can't tell which. They also had a wind machine so their hair would blow behind them. Very metal. Too bad I still don't like them very much.

Heh, I just saw this. A joyous trainwreck would be the best way to describe it. And yeah, the guitarist tripped over the bass player and went flying. They're so stupid, but how can I not like these guys?

manes svarte skoger demo comp is pretty damn nice, too. fuck xasthur.

agalloch,katatonia and moonspell.

hehheh,& i have tix for bonnie prince billy that night there :)

knowing what brand of vodka is being drunk really makes the piece, you know?

Itz transgressive literature.

Ansur
http://www.myspace.com/ansursite
myspace

Ansur
http://www.ansursite.com/

They have been described as progressive extreme metal, with influences of Enslaved, Death, Emperor, Rush according to a distributor ad.

The Terrorizer review drops in references to Meshuggah, Voivod and Celtic Frost

listening to the two Ansur tracks on myspace one reference point that springs to my mind is Gojira, the same full epic production, technical / rythmic groove chaos, experimentation of different tempos etc

Ansur album Axiom is released next week on Candlelight

http://home.online.no/~hilde-ej/axiommedium.jpg

Mastodon album is okay. Doesn't near blow me away. They still need to hire a singer. And I wish their songs actually had hooks in them. But they do seem to be upstanding young men, and I wish them well.

In other news, I have decided that I sort of like Pissed Jeans. The 12-inch EP on their own label is better than the Subpop 45, though.

And also oh yeah, Heart Attacks CD on Hellcat, produced by Rancid's Lars Friedrickson, sounded borderline rock'n'roll enough the two times I played it that it hasn't moved to the sell-pile quite yet. Singer attempts a Steve Tyler thing sometimes, and they cover CCR.

Also I meant "Only if it can help me get to sleep at night!"

There's a big Xasthur logo right on the front of that CD, but you probably didn't even recognize it as being letters.

I got the limited-edition second CD of the Boris/Sunn thing today. It's a single 28-minute track, "Her Lips Were Wet With Venom," featuring Dylan Carlson, and it's better than the actual album, because it sounds exactly like an Earth 2 outtake. I guess O'Malley & co. have just been walking in a very long, very slow circle.

Listened to the first couple of songs on the Gojira and Across Tundras albums this morning, too. Gojira are really good, AT not so much, though George Smith might dig 'em.

I'm still loving the Warpig reissue, even if it falls apart a little toward the end.

The Gojira cd is cool. The new Ahab album blew me away. And the new Trivium is indeed an awesome CD musically speaking, but while I like Heafy's clean vox, his lyric writing needs plenty of work. There are some unintentionally hilarious lines on there.

Oh, and the CD by Stolen Babies is surprisingly awesome. For all their circus goofiness, there are some killer songs on there, some hardcore, some goth post punk stuff.

Its great. The 1st was my favourite album of last year.

Solar Anus are really good. The 2cd is their 3 albums compiled together. Things get a little weirder towards the end, but the early stuff is like Early Monster Magnet meets Cathedral.

whaaa...? is it downloads only? (love that sainte anthony's fyre, btw.)

i'm still stumped that some people don't hear red sparrowes as absolute hacks, but yeah, i never understood shoegazer music either (and i dunno how "shoegazer metal minus the metal" is a big deal).

and i'd forgotten about warpig. that reissue's a really nice album, way better than any of this recent stuff we've been talking about (though interestingly, martin popoff only gave it 7/6 out of 10/10.)

Mastodon - Blood Mountain
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1872502,00.html

Meanwhile Metacritic have finally discovered Mastodon

http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/mastodon/bloodmountain

best of 2006: http://www.metacritic.com/music/bests/2006.shtml

(though i think they'd finish second to fentanyl on my list. unless pentagram or warpig count.) (also, which tyr album did you vote for?)

i voted for eric the red. which is a reissue, but what the hell, i loved it too much not to vote for it.

1 - Celtic Frost - Monotheist (Century Media)

2 - Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain (The End)

3 - Tyr - Eric The Red (Napalm)

4 - Negative Reaction - Under The Ancient Penalty (This Dark Reign)

5 - Carpathian Forest - Fuck You All!!!! (Season Of Mist)

6 - Ahab - The Call Of The Wretched Sea (Napalm)

7 - Tristwood - The Delphic Doctrine (Sound Riot)

8 - The Hope Conspiracy - Death Knows Your Name (Deathwish)

9 - Harvey Milk - Special Wishes (Megablade)

10 - Sepultura - Dante XXI (Steamhammer/SPV)

11 - Infernum - The Curse (Sound Riot)

12 - Korpiklaani - Tales Along The Road (Napalm)

13 - Ancient Rites - Rubicon (Season Of Mist)

14 - Celestiial - Desolate North (Bindrune)

15 - Skinless - Trample The Weak, Hurdle The Dead (Relapse)

16 - Unearthly Trance - The Trident (Relapse)

17 - To-Mera - Transcendental (Candlelight)

18 - Jotunspor - Gleipnirs Smeder (Candlelight)

19 - Aborym - Generator (Season Of Mist)

20 - Moonspell - Memorial (Steamhammer/SPV)

Apparently it's okay for people with "taste" to like Mastodon. Maybe it's because they sing about crazy shit instead of the usual metal clichés, or because they're "artistic", or maybe they aren't as scary as your usual metal dudes. I don't know, haven't been able to figure it out myself. Still like them, although it's something I definitely have to be in the right mood for.

I agree on the Damone record, Chuck. Can't say it's exactly metal, but it may very well wind up in my top 10 at the end of the year anyway (if for no other reason than nothing except maybe Into Eternity and Mastodon and Korpiklaani have impressed me all that much this year). Even the Iron Maiden cover is one of those rare covers that's as good as the original (although I realize you have very little use for Maiden, if Stairway to Hell is any indication).

2 - Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain (The End)

Awesome.

I almost put To-Mera and Moonspell on mine, but Sunn/Boris and Amon Amarth edged them out. My Decibel list is a bit more, erm, obvious. It's my first one, so I agonized over it a great deal:

1. Mastodon – Blood Mountain
2. Celtic Frost - Monotheist
3. Boris - Pink
4. Agalloch - Ashes Against the Grain
5. Isis – In the Absence of Truth
6. Intronaut - Void
7. Katatonia - The Great Cold Distance
8. Voivod - Katorz
9. Enslaved - Ruun
10. In Flames - Come Clarity
11. All That Remains – The Fall of Ideals
12. Wolves in the Throne Room - Diadem of 12 Stars
13. Iron Maiden – A Matter of Life and Death
14. Slayer – Christ Illusion
15. Jesu - Silver
16. Sunn O))) & Boris - Altar
17. Nachtmystium – Instinct: Decay
18. Scar Symmetry - Pitch Black Progress
19. Protest the Hero - Kezia
20. Amon Amarth – With Oden on Our Side

good advice! i think you can get that album for about half a penny on ebay.

well, you clearly need the followup CD and 12-inch as well, then! (Wait, didn't I send you a copy of the 12-inch once?) Then again, I say that as somebody who does own some Isis (and some Neurosis) (and okay, I admit it, still some Pelican I think, though it's in storage somewhere nowadays) (and some Glen Branca and Rhys Chatham for that matter, and more drone metal noizak than you can shake a stick at, somewhere or other) (but no Khanate -- fuck those dudes, man).

One of the worst (as in most ridiculous and most unlistenable) singing shticks I've heard in my life, basically. (Then again, "hard to take" isn't a compliment in my book, probably never has been.)

will the place of skulls album make any decibel top 10 lists? it should. i'd say that's one of the best "real" metal albums of the year for sure. (and yeah, voivod, obviously. i almost forgot them!)

Of course it can be fun telling a poison fan who thinks he's a hard man who listens to heavy metal(what happened at my school) that its not metal, and telling an extreme metal fan that Poison is heavy metal, just to wind em up.

When I read that book in the library years ago,long before I read ilx, I just thought it was full of records I liked that some metal fans would enjoy if they heard it. Then finding out on here some years ago that you didn't like half of those albums anymore came as a shock.

I love that album. There were about ten great albums that didn't make my 20.

"Scott Kelly from San Francisco's Neurosis; a sorely under-appreciated band who have replaced Swans as the manic-depressive, arty, misanthropist's heavy band of choice."

not that anyone could REPLACE swans in my heart of hearts, but still...

Only if it can help me get to sleep at night!

not sure who'll believe this, but i'm actually playing the CD now (competing with a blender making homemade hummus in the kitchen), and i'm finding it quite relaxing (xasthur, not the blender.) verdict: extreme metal's use as new age muzak is not extinct yet. (the blender probably rocks harder, but who cares about rocking?)

New Blind Guardian is pretty killer. Production is a definite step down (although really, that's not saying much considering the nine layers of vocals or so on Night at the Opera), but the songwriting is still great.

i believe it. xasthur's music always sounded midway between lycia and burzum to me anyway.

Sent in my review of Unholy to Transform, I think my initial take on them was pretty much right: Hatebreed meets Entombed, but without songs. Nothing particularly worth seeking out.

My friend just hooked me up with a burn of Andrew WK's new record, which apparently only came out in Japan. Can't wait to hear it.

Yeah, despite the greatness of Blood Mountain, that just might be the band's finest moment right there. "Megalodon" kills live...there's a great recording on the Masters of Horror soundtrack comp.

Liking the new Fear before the March of Flames more than I thought. The parts that sound like quiet Dillinger/Mr. bungle are pretty cool, although I could do without the big emo choruses. "My (Fucking) Deer Hunter" is (fucking) awesome, building from a minimalist electronica opening to a devastating shout-from-the-rooftops chorus, despite having traces of said emo in it. And I'm going to stop now, before I don't have anything left to write for my review. Worth checking out, though.

It Dies Today does a great cover of Depeche Mode's "Breaking the Silence", too.

Anyway, I see there are some Agalloch fans on here, and I just wanted to say, having heard the album -- damn, that's good stuff.

Also hailing: Drudkh and Agalloch jams. Mastadon still not living up to what they did for me on Remission, also I get sick of my friends talking about them like they are the next Metallica. They probably are the next Metallica but stop talking about it already!

If You Only Buy One New Metal Album This Year...

Loving the new Blind Guardian. It amazes me how far ahead of every other power metal and they are in terms of the sophistication of the songwriting. Great stuff.

Sahg is pretty good. Blatant Sabbath worship, but they don't try to hide it, and the vocals are pretty harmless (unlike a lot of the hipster metal or whatever you want to call them bands). What's with all the black-metal rock 'n roll side projects this year?

And on that note, I definitely think that the black-metal guys doing throwback metal has been, on the whole, better than the indie rock kids doing throwback metal. By which I mean the vocals don't piss me off as much.

...Sorry, reflex action.

Yeah, I'm really struck by how much I'm still enjoying it. Good, solid melodic metal, and for once, BG shows a little restraint.

I love the way that the different instruments and the vocals flow together, and how everything is layered on top of each other but it all works together beautifully. The latest Amorphis has a similar thing going on (one of the more underrated comeback albums this year; I like it way more than Celtic Frost, personally, although I realize most people here don't share that opinion). Lyrics are still pretty cheesy, but that's part of the charm.

Is it just me, or does "Fly" have elements of Oingo Boingo in it?

Just got the new Hammerfall in the mail. I was excited until I saw it was a voiceover promo, so I haven't listened to it. My friend says it's pretty underwhelming, which is unfortunate, because I loved their last record.

I am unfamiliar with Gowan.

That Doro anti-leaking tactic is just plain bizarre.

It seems to just be European labels that have the really lame copy protection techniques. Most of the American promos I've gotten have either been watermarks, Burns, or slip cases (and when they aren't the full package, of course), none of which I mind too much, but I've noticed that the European labels freak out and do these bizarre (and mostly ineffectual) things to annoy critics. Maybe it's because metal CDs sell better over there?

decided that here's what i think about harvey milk: their first album > the first disc of their new one > the second disc of their new one. if my math is misguided, somebody please explain why, ok?

Plus Buffalo's singer has a bullwhip, no doubt inspiring an Aussie rock tradition. I saw the Kings of the Sun's singer pull a bullwhip on the audience years ago on one of their few trips to the States.

I'm gonna get to this on the blog sometime soon, along with the Slade reissues and other things, but too much other subject matter to deliver.

This will answer all your questions. Aztec has reissued quite a bit of Lobby Loyde, these of which I have never seen. Reviews are all hung off the interview/bio page. Guy looks almost dead. Sheesh.

http://www.i94bar.com/ints/lobbyloyde.html

NEGURA BUNGET: New Song Posted Online - Oct. 2, 2006
http://tinyurl.com/p4j3s

listen to Negura Bunget
http://www.myspace.com/code666records

The track comes off the group's new album, "OM", due on November 3 via Code666 Records.

this track is combination of atmospheric black metal, avant-progressive rock, and post-metal ala Isis. Parts of the track remind me of In the Woods... and Arcturus

Negura Bunget need to be ranked this year alongside Agalloch and Enslaved in terms of atmospherics.

Weirdly enough, I'm really getting a kick out of Dream Evil's "Fire! Battle! In Metal!" Old school rave-up fun in the tradition of mid-80s Grave Digger. The rest of the CD is blah, but damn, that one song is catchy.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6532/3293/1600/regurgsicknw2.jpg

http://www.relapse.com/ecards/Regurgitate/

>>Hailing from the damp, blood-caked shores of Norway, it is only natural that Erik K. Skodvin (better known as one half of Deaf Center) would be beckoned toward the dark side. As we all know, Norway is the most evil country in the north of Europe; they invented black metal and have a liberal government that actually works - there's got to be something wrong. It was only a matter of time before Skodvin felt the call of his pagan ancestors and smelted Knive, a dusty anthology of surreal and doom-laden paeans to the ancient ones.

Basically, it sounds like if Dylan Carlson joined Main. Occasional depressed/depressing female vocals, lots of scraping sounds, no such thing as melody or rhythm...you know you want it.

-- a. begrand

I also love that Edguy record. I was thinking, maybe Hammerfall next, but which album...?

with greatness I mean

CHILDREN OF BODOM
AMON AMARTH
SANCTITY
GOJIRA

01.12.2006 (MI) DETROIT, HARPOS
02.12.2006 (WI) MILWAUKEE, EAGLES CLUB
04.12.2006 (TX) DALLAS, GYSPY BALLROOM
06.12.2006 (AZ) PHOENIX, MARQUEE THEATER
07.12.2006 TBA
08.12.2006 (CA) SAN DIEGO, SOMA
09.12.2006 (CA) LOS ANGELES, THE WILTERN
11.12.2006 (CO) DENVER, OGDEN THEATRE
12.12.2006 (KS) LAWRENCE, GRANADA
13.12.2006 (MN) MINNEAPOLIS, THE QUEST
15.12.2006 (DC) WASHINGTON, 9:30 CLUB
16.12.2006 (MA) WORCESTER, PALLADIUM
17.12.2006 (NY) NEW YORK, NOKIA THEATRE
18.12.2006 (QU) MONTREAL, METROPOLIS

haven't heard it, scott. what label is it on? yesterday though i was listening to the heart attacks (who rip off hanoi rocks or the heartbreakers better than d generation ever did) and the horrors (who sounds like stranglers with some cramps thrown in) and i like them both. (oddly, the horrors are said to be part of a brand-new "goth revival" in england, but they don't sound dreary at all! they sound more like a 1977 punk band than a goth band, to my ears.) also trying to get into another hanoi rocks type ripoff band, vains of jenny, but they haven't clicked yet. plus lots of probably more boring new "real metal" CDs are waiting in the wings -- like, are hammerfall supposed to be any good? they seem fairly sucky, but with the lady who keeps coming in every few seconds and saying "you are now listening to the new hammerful album" on my advance CD, who can tell? anyway, my working-class union dropkick beer-punk album of the year was probably the one by the reducers s.f., which wasn't as good as their previous one. unless there's a better '06 album i forgot. (tower of londons one was great, but they're not beer-punk per se'.)

-- Ian Christe (ia...), July 20th, 2006.

Here's the SoundScan sales numbers as of last week:

Lamb Of God - Sacrament, 124,657
Iron Maiden - A Matter Of Life And Death, 97,999
Mars Volta - Amputechure, 83,256
Mastodon - Blood Mountain, 39,692

I had no idea Lamb Of God were so popular. There was a lot of talk of Blood Mountain going big, but after three weeks, it's hurtin'. It's gotten a bunch of perfect ten reviews, and I love it. It seems a lot of the indie cognoscenti are shunning it because of perceived overrating, and normal metalheads aren't into it because. . . I don't know. Too pretentious? Complex? But look at Mars Volta, selling more than twice as much. So not pretentious/complex enough?

Meanwhile, are Heresi, Killvst, or Today is The Day worth investing any time in? None look especially promising, but who the who the heck knows. To Mera in the changer now, and I'm not liking it nearly as much as Scott does, though it's not awful I suppose. The girl-led goth-thrash album I did wound up liking is the new one by Ludicra, on Alternative Tentacles. I liked their previous one, too. The new one might be the best Die Kreuzen approximation I've heard all year.

That Khlyst thing on Hydra Head is awful. It's a duo project by James Plotkin and Runhild Gammelsaeter or however you spell her name, and it's just noise and female growl/screech for 40 minutes or so. No riffs, no beats, just crawling, thumping, and general annoyance. Maybe it's all the 70s hard rock I've been listening to lately, but the sonic hostility arms race bores the shit out of me right now.

Welcome to the club.

To Mera do seem capable of a bit of drama after all, though. (In the femme vocals and arrangements both.) Scott may be right about them.

As for Today is the Day, I wouldn't know new from old. But yeah, it came from Relapse, in a package with two albums by bands who went straight to the hallway since they definitely didn't even look like they were worth a token perfunctory cursory listen. Which is all I plan on giving Today is the Day and those two Hydra Head CDs, though after what people have said about them here I'm even less hopeful.

Why I'm even paying attention to any of this ugly crap when that Incredible Bongo Band reissue came in the mail yesterday is beyond me, of course. (They cover Iron Butterfly. So that's kinda metal!)

To Mera do seem capable of a bit of drama after all, though. (In the femme vocals and arrangements both.) Scott may be right about them.

As for Today is the Day, I wouldn't know new from old. But yeah, it came from Relapse, in a package with two albums by bands who went straight to the hallway since they definitely didn't even look like they were worth a token perfunctory cursory listen. Which is all I plan on giving Today is the Day and those two Hydra Head CDs, though after what people have said about them here I'm even less hopeful.

Why I'm even paying attention to any of this ugly crap when that Incredible Bongo Band reissue came in the mail yesterday is beyond me, of course. (They cover Iron Butterfly. So that's kinda metal!)

To Mera do seem capable of a bit of drama after all, though. (In the femme vocals and arrangements both.) Scott may be right about them.

As for Today is the Day, I wouldn't know new from old. But yeah, it came from Relapse, in a package with two albums by bands who went straight to the hallway since they definitely didn't even look like they were worth a token perfunctory cursory listen. Which is all I plan on giving Today is the Day and those two Hydra Head CDs, though after what people have said about them here I'm even less hopeful.

Why I'm even paying attention to any of this ugly crap when that Incredible Bongo Band reissue came in the mail yesterday is beyond me, of course. (They cover Iron Butterfly. So that's kinda metal!)

"Love's So Tough" off their first album got airplay on Detroit AOR stations in 1979, and I thought they were a new wave band, since they sounded like the Boomtown Rats song "Rat Trap" which was also getting AOR airplay at the time! It never occured to me that they both basically sounded like Bruce Springsteen. Or Thin Lizzy. (More than the Hold Steady sound like either of those, if truth be told. But I still love the Hold Steady even though I get why I shouldn't.)

I'm playing the Youngbloodz' album from early this (late last?) year now. Outside of Crunk Hits Vol. 2, it might be my favorite hip-hop CD from this year. Which just means this has been a horrible year of hip-hop albums, unless I've just missed all the good ones, which is possible. Yesterday I finally gave up on trying to like the Ghostface album. I feel bad about that, since so many people I trust swear it's great. I say his voice is boring enough to be indie-rock.

Ram Jam's second album is great! As is their debut LP, just in a different way (seeing how the second one actually features a band.)

Iron City Houserockers' second album, Have a Good Time (But Get Out Alive, might be the all-time great forgotten Pazz&Jop poll success. I bet most critics now never even heard of the band. Sad.

ha, third track on to mera's album keeps turning into, um, smooth jazz or something! is that the symphony one you were talking about? it's pretty cool. reminds me of subterranean masquerade (who might be my favorite current dark metal band, though nobody else cares.)

also, the new my dying bride is cool. they are always cool though.

Finally got around to listening to the first track on the new Agalloch, I hope it gets a little heavier 'cause that first song sounded like Katatonia meets H.I.M. Not that that's an entirely bad thing but I'm leaning toward heavy stuff as autumn comes in.

No, I liked Portrait of an Artist . . . as much as the first album. Different band, different vibe, still the tried-and-true Kasenatz-Katz ringer formula, see the Crazy Elephant thread. Ram Jam was the Crazy Elephant of the Seventies.

"Kid Next Door" is screamin' high energy 70's metal.

PlanesMistakenforStars definitely reminded me of Thursday, only older. I didn't hear any of the vintage hard rock in them, the kind promised or attested to in various statements that came with the promotional copy. Nice album cover, though. Made me want to play it once or twice all by itself.

The Stray reissues are all cool. Saturday Morning Pictures -- look it up in Jasper & Oliver, xhuxk. You'll want to search for that.
Caveat emptor to the usual lurkers. It's Brit Seventies and they talked a lot about playing with Kiss and holding their own without having even a remotely similar style.

It's funny, it seems like I've been hearing something totally different than a lot of other people with the Planes Mistaken for Stars (my review is here
). I got more of an "art doom with actual songs" vibe then a "we heart emo!" vibe. Could be wrong, but I still liked the album. Hated the Pitchfork blurb in the press material, though. But then, I generally don't like pitchfork.

Urnst, I suspect you would like these guys. (Heavy boogie men from Sweden on the great great great great Transubstans Records label):

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=62454072

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCU1tGFiT34

this is my fave wig wam video. the red/white/blue jumpsuit is key:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGg9mY8Z-4I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9-8zYzu01g

also, some thoughts by me about the melvins can be found here:

http://paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item?id=143

I'm really liking the new Stolen Babies album, "There Be Squabbles Ahead" on The End. They used to play at shows for my college radio station, and I have an EP they put out from back then where they sound like sub-sub-par Faith No More. The full length is a vast, vast improvement. Yeah, it's Circus metal, but they actually have songs instead of just weirdness, and there's some great organized chaos going on. Also, the fact that the singer has two X. chromosomes really help set them apart. She sounds like a female Mike Patton, but there's something sexy about it nonetheless. Probably has more to do with the "female" part than the "Mike Patton" part.

The new Borknagar sounds like Jethro Tull. I can't decide whether this is a good thing or not; I like Jethro Tull, but I'm leaning towards "not."

Dawn of Azazel, meanwhile, is one of those bands that makes me wonder how people can honestly even listen to that crap. Australian tech death that should've stayed dead.

http://shopping.theendrecords.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.38/.f

Yay, Scott. I would love Harvey Milk. I boosted Harvey Milk years ago in VV thu CE. I told as many as I could how much I liked Harvey Milk. And it just wasn't the right fad. So I ain't payin' for no new Harvey Milk.

He wanted to be a rock critic.

Maybe he could write for a metal 'zine, since he's got the cred. Or be the next Nick Sylvester. Ooof.

Between this, Chrome Division, Sahg, and the new Satyricon, there seems to be a trend of black metal dudes doing kick ass hard rock albums (well, Chrome Division not as much as the rest). I think it might be some sort of Scandinavian reaction to the whole "hipster"/indie metal thing, like they're saying saying "anything you can do, I can do better." And they do.

Emetic Records is proud to announce the release of “ FOR THE SICK – A TRIBUTE TO EYEHATEGOD “ set for the fall of 2006. All the artists involved in the release are friends or fans of the sludge legends and we are happy to have the best of the underground to show their support of EHG. Below is a list of most of the bands.
Disc one

01 - Dot(.) - Man is Too Ignorant to Exsit
02 - Unearthly Trance - Shinobi
03 - Cable - Pigs
04 - Bowel - Run it Into the Ground
05 - Alabama Thunderpussy - Godsong
06 - Deadbird - Children of God
07 - Kylesa - Left to Starve
08 - Rue - Blank
09 - Brutal Truth - Sister Fucker
10 - Byzantine - Shop Lift
11 - Buried At Sea w/ Kevin Sharp - White Nigger
12 - Raging Speedhorn - 30$ Bag
13 - The Unholy 3 - Take As Needed for Pain
14 - The Esoteric - Crimes Against Skin
15 - Total Fucking Destruction - Kill Your Boss
16 - Triac - My Name is God (I Hate You)
17 - One Dead Three Wounded - Dog's Holy Life
18 - Halo of Locusts - Dixie Whisky

Disc two

01 - Minsk - Ruptured Heart Theory
02 - Ramesses - Lack of Almost Everything
03 - The Mighty Nimbus - Zero Nowhere
04 - Lair Of The Minotaur - Peace thru war
05 - Sourvein - Broken Down But Not Locked Up
06 - Bloody Panda - Anxiety Hangover
07 - Mouth Of The Architect - Story of the Eye
08 - Left In Ruin - Southern Discomfort
09 - Watch Them Die - Serving Time In The Middle of
Nowhere
10 - Ozenza - Revelation/Revolution
11 - Swarm Of The Lotus - Blood Money
12 - Ichabod - Jack Ass In The Will Of God
13 - Kill The Client - The Confusion Machine Process
14 - Sow Belly - 99 Miles of Bad Road
15 - If He Dies, He Dies - Age of Bootcamp
16 - The Nain Rouge - I am the Gestapo
17 - The Unholy 3 - Torn Between Suicide And Breakfast

so,as a metal n00b [as i mentioned upthread],from reading i have now heard a lot of great bands that somehow i missed . i have purchased all 3 available agalloch cds,a couple of katatonia [the great cold distance & last fair deal gone down] ,my dying bride [a line of deathless kings & songs of darkness,words of light]. the latest from moonspell,amon amarth,enslaved & celtic frost. i also grabbed moss 'cthonic rites' & both indesinence and intronaut releases.

i stumbled across swallow the sun through the profound lore site and really like 'ghosts of loss'.

so,my question would be....what should i track down next? thanks!

I'm loving the new disc by I, the band led by Abbath from Immortal. Out in November, I think, it's great, straightforward metal.

drone/a/sore, on the arty tip, you might like the Caina album *Some People Fall*. For fans of Jesu and Xasthur:

http://www.god-is-myth.com/releases.html

for sheer overblown doomage, please proceed to the Ahab album!

http://apoprecords.com/moss.html

http://forums.southernlord.com/viewtopic.php?t=17911

Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 8:56 pm Post subject: Asva Futurist's Against the Ocean Vinyl preorder info Reply with quote

Finally my ass has been kicked into gear! Dos Fatales will be pressing Asva- Futurist's Against The Ocean on double vinyl, 180 gm, gatefold packaging, hand numbered in an edition limited to 1000 copies. I'll pre-sell up to #500, keeping the remaining copies in reserve for tour. There is a limit of two copies per order and dont try to sneek any additional (you know who you are).

$25 us per copy

shipping:
$6 USA
$7 Canada
$7 Mexico and further south
$15 Asia
$15 Australia
$13 EU
$13 UK

add $3 for shipping an additional copy

Payment can be made via paypal to:

asvavinyl@hotmail.com

Cash, checks, or money order can be sent directly to:

George Dahlquist
2391 Cedar Ave.
Long Beach, Ca.
90806 USA

Be very sure to clearly write your name and shipping address on all correspondence!

As with the split it'll take me a while to put all this together but, as before, you'll get it and you'll be stoked-

And I have a Dixie Witch CD which is dragged out every now and then. They did a good version of Joe Walsh's "The Bomber."

I still have most of these. 16 was a favorite for a long time. The idiotic Grief album covers did a lot for me too.

My favorite stoner performance could, at this juncture, be Sea of Green doing "Breathe." Obviously, with Pink Floyd, they had an actual pop song -- plus they had a singer. Then the band fired him and that was pretty much it for them. And I still like a couple of the Mammoth Volume CDs, their demo and singles takes comp, and one in brown cardboard where they go King Crimson.

http://www.broughtlow.com/

TV EYE DVD Magazine and Southern Lord present:

-Live collaboration between Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley of SunnO))) and David Grubbs (Squirrel Bait, Bastro, Gastr Del Sol).

-A screening of TV EYE ISSUE #4 DVD featuring SunnO))), Isis, Melvins, High on Fire and more.

-DJ SETS by STEPHEN O'MALLEY (and friends)

Friday November 3rd 5-8pm

ROCKSTAR BAR
349 Kent Ave., Brooklyn, NYC
(under the Williamsburg Bridge)
-Free Admission. Free Beer-

i'm listening to drudkh on last fm right now.

oh ya,ordered the caina from sardonicwrath.com already :)

Afghan Whigs – The Temple
The Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
The Comsat Angels – For Your Information (Unreleased)
Pere Ubu – Race the Sun
The Gun Club – Sleeping In Blood City
Mogwai – Radar Maker
Tortoise – Along the Banks of Rivers
The Skygreen Leopards – Come Down Off Your Mountain, Moses

and the torche album is talked about at the rock action site,but not in their store.

about a show at da continental:

Biggest surprise, though, were Denton, Texas boogiemen Dixie Witch, who I wasn’t even aware were on the bill. They’re no Point Blank or anything, but one of ‘em wasn’t wearing shoes, and they can surely riff. “What You Want” on their new Smoke & Mirrors would scare Montgomery Gentry. The rest of the disc is a decent mix of grunge gloom and loud shouts, plus a lovely wandering guitar instro that gently weeps for nearly ten maggot-brained minutes. They’d be better with a real singer, but their James Gang’s “The Bomber” encore was the bomb.

about an album:

Another sad-day option might be Dozer’s recent Through the Eyes of Heathens (Small Stone), even though some of it may sadly not be as slow as their best earlier work. The record bulldozes quite lovely, though it’s true you have to wait until its tenth and final track, an anthemic 10-minute drone-unto-climax (semi)-war protest, to get a real payoff.

However if you subscribe you get lots of features including tag radio. Where you can listen to radio based on anything thats tagged. And yes theres loads of metal ones amongst others. However it's based on whatever the user tags and some people think they're funny by tagging things like Britney as thrash metal and Pantera as chart-pop. But you just skip the track if that happens.

Really there's almost any kind of radio available through the tag system.

x-post

DOZER Dozer
(Man's Ruin EP)
If you spin the only gray translucent vinyl 10-inch I've touched at 45 rpm instead of 33, you'll hear as much "Super Fly" in "Supersoul" 's groove as "Supernaut" (that's Sabbath, G). More committed to verses/choruses/ verses than Beaver, these Swedes pummel tunefully, though you're forgiven for not caring about angstrom distinctions within such a throwback subsubgenre. "Light Years Ahead" is chunkier than "up to the fucking sun we're gonna fly then fly to the moon" suggests; a spiraling byrd-of-prey called "Inside the Falcon" is the big blastoff.

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/0113,eddy,23384,22.html

that's my favorite cut!

chuck, i think you would really like the last Five Horse Johnson album and the Down Low album if you haven't heard them.

i'll only post this one more time, i swear:

http://www.broughtlow.com/

listen to "A Better Life".

And anybody have any thoughts on Dixie Witch, Five Horse Johnson, or Throttlerod? All this Small Stone post-stoner-rock quasi-biker-metal shit is starting to sound the same to me, especially after realizing there are so many hit Nashville country bands and random cdbaby.com oldtimers who do it so much more tunefully. (Novadriver, who are great, don't count; they're still on Small Stone right? But what they do is completely different.) Any reason to spend much time with any of these?
-- xhuxk (xedd...), March 9th, 2006.

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don't do it! listen to the new Moonspell instead. although it might be to "ugly" for you. and get soul asylum off of this thread! sorry, too much coffee.
-- scott seward (skotro...), March 9th, 2006.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i thought i liked that old novadriver album a lot and i couldn't find my copy for years, and then i found it and it was kind of an anticlimax. maybe i should listen again. i have a five horse johnson album somewhere that i never play.
-- scott seward (skotro...), March 9th, 2006.

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Dixie Witch
Had a decent album a couple years ago. Did a complete cover -- middle section and all -- of the James Gang's Bomber suite. Virtually perfect, down to the Joe Walsh yowl. So they didn't sound much like a stoner rock band for that record, a distinct benefit. Haven't heard the latest although I could, I guess.

Five Horse Johnson

Checked out after one album sounded like bad Savoy Brown and stoner hybrid. Throttlerod, no opinion, although they sure have the image of generically stoner. The only stoner metal bands that are interesting now are ones that aren't "good" at it or are arty. Everyone else -- the really minor faves and such -- all sound the same. They get the same guitar sound, invariant downtuned wall of lava, and he-man shouting vocals. And they barely rock and roll, which is damn peculiar since they all profess to be influenced by 70's bands that were very rock and roll.

-- George 'the Animal' Steele (70743.171...), March 9th, 2006.

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Just got a reissue of Praxis's Transmutation Live in the mail. It's now just called Zurich, and features a bonus track from the Knitting Factory NYC in 2000 - a show I was actually at, and which didn't impress me nearly as much as the show that takes up the majority of the disc does, mostly because in Switzerland they had the whole Invisibl Skratch Piklz with 'em, and at the Knit they only had DJ Disk, the weakest of the Piklz, and the rappers from Anti-Pop Consortium and Ramm-Ell-Zee came out onstage and pretty thoroughly disappointed me (bad soundmix garbled their words beyond recognition). Also got the new Bananarama and Dub Syndicate discs, but those are in no way metal.
-- pdf (newyorkisno...), March 9th, 2006.

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"It’s like the Fucking Champs meets the Pointer Sisters, and that’s the beat that rocks the house, yo."
Blurb for Bacon & Egg's ...are Fanduvo on CD Baby. Produced by a Fucking Champ in San Francisco. Two guys with organ, drum machine and guitar doing rap metal BS, as in Black Sabbath. Yurgh.

-- George 'the Animal' Steele (70743.171...), March 9th, 2006.

I wouldn't get too excited over Mystic Prophecy, I have a promo from when they were on Nuclear Blast that makes a good cure for insomnia but not much else.

I'm liking Fear My Thoughts. Generic Gothenberg worship, but the good sort of generic.

My Dying Bride, on the other hand, is pretty good, although their lyrics make emo kids look like freaking Happy Hardcore ravers.

And, on a lighter note, I saw a preview screening of Tenacious D. in the Pick of Destiny, and it was far more entertaining than I thought it would be. Quite metal, including cameos from Meatloaf and Dio. Not as good as School of Rock, but what is?

I'm loving my burn of Andrew WK - Close Calls with Brick Walls. Why has this not been released in the US?

And who do we have to blame for this? I could name a half dozen culprits but everyone here knows who they are. (Actually, some of them have taken a body blow by the collapse of Tower. Tower, for example, was the only place you could reliably find 'em if you weren't a subscriber in Pasadena, soCal. I'll not see Decibel again until some other store gets daring. Even the record shop directly serving the two colleges in town -- Caltech and PCC -- doesn't carry it.)

I dragged out Dixie Witch's "Into the Sun" and Drunk Horses' "In Tongues" and they remain strong. (Man, Drunk Horse really made a classic.)

Dixie Witch's version of "The Bomber" owns the James Gang song in the same way Quiot Riot owns the US popularity on Slade's "C'mon Feel the Noize." Actually, Dixie Witch does better. It is one of the finer moments of US hard rock in the last couple years and few people have heard it.

I think it's impossible for metal and hard rock bands to develop in an appropriate way. No one is ready to play the Rose Bowl on their first or second or even third album. But there's no allocation of resources or patience to bring a band to that point. So it's quite remarkable when they produce single performances, all on their lonesome, like "The Bomber" or Novadriver's "Turn to Stone."

Plus the Solar Anus box would be fine even without the entire second disc. If you're observant of the "jasper & oliver" hard rock and heavy metal encyclopedia or the larkin -heavy metal- encyclo recommendations, then it's indispendable. Both are more reliable if less amusing than Popoff's 70's assessments. But not mine.

http://www.crucialblast.net/blackelkst.html

album described as a more metal jesus lizard, and when listening, i said to myself, hey, this sounds like a more metal jesus lizard! dude does a good yow. this may bug people, i don't know. it doesn't bug me. i haven't heard a good yow in a while. the last song on the album is truly stunning. beautiful psychmetal crawl. the rest is mostly herky jerky riffing and dementia of yore.

That's sort of how I feel about the new Isis.

The new Agalloch, on the other hand: Scott, why didn't you tell me about this? So fucking great, perfect for the autumn too.

jeez, i've been listening to tonz of stuff, but i gotta get it all straight in my pea-brain before i post about it all.

man, i just heard this for the first time and what a totally crap production job. like there's a perfectly good mix with well-defined instruments but then they ran it through DOD SUPRA DISTORTION or something. music's ok, neurisis meets 'americana' (with americana = neil young's soundtrack for dead man).

I think this is actually pretty OTM what with home recording tech being what it is.

meanwhile. i've still got metal coming out of my ears, and i will report back soon.

What's yer problem with Opeth, Don? I saw them live a few years ago (right around the time of Deliverance but before Damnation and they were great. No moshpit, just a bunch of dorks staring at Akerfeldt's flying fingers the whole time.

Weird, last time I saw Opeth, there was the most insane moshpit going on, during "Under the Weeping Moon", of all songs.

I actually haven't listened to the album yet, although my friend tells me that the Deep Purple cover is pretty great. I generally find bonus DVDs to be pretty disposable, though.

Amon Amarth's latest is, indeed, very good. Nothing particularly unexpected, but they're very good at what they do. I especially like the verse, "Some seek shelter in the church / a refuge for those with faith / but we know how to smoke them out / a pyre will be raised." Cheerful stuff!

i think siegbran is the biggest opeth hater on ilm. but i think it's kinda cute. he gets all riled up when he rants about them.

i like that link fine. i like when people talk about stuff like that. i have to refrain from posting on there though, cuz i really don't need another board to hang on. i notice primal void is on there. he hangs on the decibel board. if i did barge in it would be to mention to the person who wished for a "darker" less D&D-based power metal that lots of troo Viking metal fits that bill. triumphant choruses and melodies, but the speed and precision and nastiness of death and/or black metal all mixed together.

Yeah, UFO did -- somewhat unbelievably -- have a Springsteen-jones going on, one they carried to record, most obviously after Michael Schenker left and was replaced by Paul Chapman. A song on Obsession but most prominently on Nowhere to Run which was produced by ------- George Martin!

It shows up again a bit on Making Contact. Singer Mogg was a Springsteen fan and he copies Bruce's cadence a bit.

There's been endless repackages of live UFO stuff. If it's from 79, it's when Paul Chapman was in the band. If it's '92, then Schenker was back in a reformed group for a short period, hanging around for two more albums or so. Sheesh, they even had a double live CD out earlier in the year with Jason Bonham on drums. Bonham did one or two studio albums with them, too, and the one I had was mediocre and overlong.

UFO albums tended to scrape into the bottom reaches of the charts in the late 70's but not hang around long. No single 'hits' at all although a number of their tunes became known as metal/hard rock signature pieces, all from when Schenker was with 'em.

Years ago I liked the Schenker LPs best. Now I like the material from when Chapman was on axe. The songs tended consistantly better.

The Batallion of Saints song on American Hardcore, "My Minds Diseased" (no apostrophe on the CD cover, not sure if that's a typo or not) has a decent Kreuzen/Void screech to it. I could look it up, I guess, but who were they and when and where were they from? Guess I always just assumed they were a metal band, thanks to their name.

On Danava: PRAISE ALLAH!!! Love the album, they're playing NYC soon... What 2 days at Mercury Lounge??? YES! I will be waving my hair flag all night.

On Schenker: I'm so sick of arguing about him. If anyone in nyc knows Kenny from Kreisor, I've gotten into at least 5 arguments with him about Schenker. I think he's boring. Kenny thinks he rules. That is all. And fuck to the "Schenker Position," man.

San Diego, I think. I used to have an album by 'em. They were Doug Moody/Mystic casualties. Whatever happened to Doug Moody? I liked a surprising number of those trash punk rock insta-records he put out, much as he seemed to wind up being loathed by the soCal bands. Mentors Live at the Cathay still is my favorite I-love-misogyny comedy album of all time.

"Out on the Street" has that E Street Band-type piano break in it, don't it?

Schenker solo in MSG was boring, except when he was fighting with Graham Bonnet. Perpetual Airport Music Hall fodder, me patiently waiting for him to get done with his stuff for the sake of hearing one or two UFO tunes on the last song and encore. Only to slag him off in the newspaper anyway. But middle period UFO wouldn't ha' gone anywhere without him.

see, if opeth displayed any influence from the bands they namecheck they'd be better. listenable, even.

("my arms your hearse" is a comus lyric.)

I just happened across the above comment (from a couple weeks ago), and have to say I wholeheartedly agree. As much as I enjoy the entire album, it's that track (the least circusy one) that won me over the most.

also received the new asunder “Works Will Come Undone”
on profound lore. fans of moss should search it out.

Hi everyone,

We're really very, very sorry about this but four of our members quit our band last night and we won't be able to finish the last few dates of our tour. We suckily had to cancel our shows in Syracuse and Marlboro and we're still deciding if Toby/Mia/Greg will perform "60 Metonymies" (a chilled out, ambient classical piece that Toby wrote for guitar/acoustic violin) in Somerville, MA on the 10th (with former Kayo Dot drummer Sam Gutterman). Again, we apologize for this and we'll keep you updated on the situation...

I have to agree that the Deep Purple cover isn't anything special, though. It sounds a lot like Jethro Tull, and it isn't that I don't like Jethro Tull, but I feel like when a band covers a song, it should sound like the band that's covering it, and not like another band that isn't even the band they're covering.

I loved metal BECAUSE it was the one escape I saw from the world of midpaced pop music. The idea of playing FAST made the genre for me. It showed me there was music that was not midpaced or slow, it showed me people can love distortion and the effect it caused. The "simple, but not" thing. I have always ignored bands like iron maiden, moterhead, sabbath, the "gods" of metal because to me, they where just making rock music. Thats what I thought we called "hard rock" its not a different thing. Doom metal is the same. It's a worship of the idea of being "heavy" found in hard rock. Hard rock only, its just a distorted guitar and a slow heavy pound. Well fuck that, that is not what heavyness is, thats only what heavy rock is, and rock never became heavy sucessfully without being fast. Slayer is the first metal band.

The argument against a form of music because it is easy is wrong to, thats like pointing to the big bang and sying "god does not exsist" it does not answer the question of why people want this music and as a whole should be ignored.

The "Slayer invented metal" dude sounds completely incoherent, Phil, but I'll check out that link if I have a chance. Won't expect much, though. (Were Slayer really faster than Motorhead, though? If so, I never noticed. Then again, to paraphase George, if you're standing here on earth with human ears, the speed of light and twice the speed of light are going to sound basically the same to you, right?) (Or I'll just concede: So okay, I hate "heavy metal," I guess. So what?) (Though ha, at least we both feel the same about Iron Maiden.)

Nope; it's right here in Elizabeth, NJ, at a nice old theater about four blocks away. They get good shows sometimes - I saw Aterciopelados there a couple of years ago, and Public Enemy (with Stetsasonic, EPMD and Big Daddy Kane) way back in 1988.

I don't know if I'd credit it specifically to Slayer, but I've long been convinced that death metal is a leap forward for electric guitar music because it's almost totally free of blues riffs. Especially the super-dissonant screechcore bands (Ion Dissonance, Dillinger Escape Plan, etc., etc.) - while I may not actually like what they do, they seem like the next step after traditional hard rock/metal.

I think I'm gonna go see this Mago band. I just hope I don't walk out with an armload of expensive import CDs.

hahahaha! DOH!

My general thoughts on the subject are: if you take your music so seriously,, what the hell are you doing listening to a genre where two of the primary lyrical subjects are elves and Satan?

Slayer is the first metal band

You can stop carving the band's name in your arm with an x-acto knife now if you want.

"With their long hair and scruffy jeans, the rock fans queued up outside the Fillmore Auditorium could almost be mistaken for the throngs that floated to this concert palace in the 60's.

"And just like the old days, the bands they've come to see -- a heavy metal triple helping of Goatwhore, High on Fire and Venom -- might trigger a few tsk-tsk's from the over-30 crowd.

"Goatwhore? Whatever happened to bands with class, like Foghat?"

[Answer with rimshot: Two of 'em died.]

-- Urnst Kouch (cryptnew...), November 12th, 2006.

What about a different band?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v216/sexymollusk/forearm20.jpg

Wait until you get that 36 crazy fists CD. It's really shameless how they went from hackneyed nu-metal to hackneyed metalcore.

And Ashes has converted a good dozen in my social circle.

loving the new converge. got it on vinyl yesterday. it's as good as everyone was saying it was. elsewhere anyway. maybe not here. i can't remember. kurt ballou is still my god thanks to this one and the hope conspiracy album.

He quit the band over the summer.

that is all.

No. They suck.

1. Celtic Frost
2. Enslaved
3. Killing Joke
4. Negura Bunget
5. Deicide
6. Iron Maiden
7. Jesu
8. Melechesh
9. Converge
10. Mastodon
11. I
12. Nachtmystium
13. Napalam Death
14. Madder Mortem
15. Anaal Nathrakh
16. Isis
17. Sunn0)))/ Boris
18. Gorgoroth
19. Ministry
20. Antaeus
21. Melvins
22. Blut Aus Nord
23. Indesinence
24. Katatonia
25. Current 93
26. Suffocation
27. Cannibal Corpse
28. The Meads of Asphodel
29. Soltitude Aeturnus
30. Darkthrone
31. Sick of it All
32. Satyricon
33. Whitehouse
34. The Angelic Process
35. Drudkh
36. Skullflower
37. Amon Amarth
38. Shora
39. Ignite
40. Lamb of God

this should have gotten a lot more press......it has had steady play at the igloo here all year.