rolling 2024 heavy metal and boutique blast beat thread

and I feel like naming yrself after a Lovecraft thing is distinctly unhelpful, coz, y’know, you can been into the Mythos because tentacled horrors from beyond space are cool .... or because of what the dude named his cat 🙄

My big Bandcamp Friday splurge this month is the whole discography of Lady Beast, a Pittsburgh, PA trad/power metal band who've been around for like 15 years but I just discovered them tonight. I bought a compilation of their first two albums and an EP, their third and fourth albums, and another EP, all for about $20. If you're a fan of Crystal Viper, Christian Mistress, Huntress, and other trad/power metal bands with female singers, this will be your kind of thing.

https://ladybeast.bandcamp.com/

oooh a rainbow cover!

Best album credits of 2024 so far:

L.B. - Six Strings of Doomed Dementia
B.P. - Six More Strings of Delirium, Choir of Madness
L.V.L. - 4 Chthonic Vibrations of the Earth, Blower of the Blossoming Horn, Choir of Blasphemy
T.H. - Beater of Skins from the Depths of Hades to the Heights of Olympus
N.C. - Invocator of the Primordial Fire and Spells of Enchantment

From Dionysiaque's Diogonos, out next month on I, Voidhanger (of course).

I'd been off and on trying to fill a countries-of-the-world bingo card with music and movies to listen/watch, and this thread has been pretty great -- what's the most obscure country or region where you've found metal gems?

sorry this is not exactly within the focus of this thread, but i'm not sure where else to post it. i've been really into that vitriol album, and wanting to know what else sounds like it, i asked my partner's metalhead nephew what else i should check out. i had never heard and now really like hate eternal. i'd never heard gorguts. i like it ("colored sands") but i think i should probably try an earlier record.

he told me he hadn't really listened to them but that he keeps hearing about deathspell omega. so i copped "the last defeat" and oh my fucking GOD it's completely blowing me away. it's just the best thing ever.

I liked some of Deathspell Omega's earlier stuff - Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice and Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum - but vocalist Mikko Aspa is both a Nazi and a pedophile, so...

ah shit

xpost - unperson, have you heard that Dionusiaque album yet? was considering ordering it with some other stuff from I, Voidhanger but was wondering if it was worth it.

I haven't listened to the whole thing, but the two tracks streaming on Bandcamp are pretty good — I like the prominence of the bass.

Cool, thanks. I liked those two, was just curious if the whole thing held up like that. Usually try to bundle a few things when I order from them since shipping is pretty high.

If there's one thing everyone in the music industry knows, it's Do Not Tempt The Wrath Of Sharon Fucking Osbourne. I almost feel sorry for Kanye West.

. @kanyewest ASKED PERMISSION TO SAMPLE A SECTION OF A 1983 LIVE PERFORMANCE OF “WAR PIG” FROM THE US FESTIVAL WITHOUT VOCALS & WAS REFUSED PERMISSION BECAUSE HE IS AN ANTISEMITE AND HAS CAUSED UNTOLD HEARTACHE TO MANY. HE WENT AHEAD AND USED THE SAMPLE ANYWAY AT HIS ALBUM…

— Ozzy Osbourne (@OzzyOsbourne) February 9, 2024

In case the tweet doesn't populate:

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:izxpomdyri45gzhppiiyattq/bafkreigvbgkxbklnjpotts5phxt3zrklo43fgowdsscyi2etulmqmpvgwy@jpeg

Was it Iron Maiden that she had people throw eggs at because they outplayed Ozzy at one of his festivals? She should start that up again.

There's a new Chapel of Disease album out today:

https://chapelofdisease.bandcamp.com/album/echoes-of-light

I liked their last one (...And As We Have Seen The Storm, We Have Embraced The Eye, released in 2018) a lot, so this was an instant purchase for me.

got the apartment to myself (well, myself and some sleepy cats), so taking the opportunity to loudly try out the new spectral voice (along with the new kali malone, which is metal adjacent and quite good). i love their demos comp and some of their splits, liked the first full-length tho thought it dragged a bit, and am pretty on board with the new one midway thru. currently at the big payoff moment in “sinew censer” 😈

they def lean more into the disembowelment sound than most of their contemporaries in the very crowded death doom field, which i enjoy

is this band really hyped or something? blood incantation connection? a quick glance at the bandcamp and rym comments is showing more negativity than expected from - i’m guessing - young skeptic types

I need to hear the new Kali Malone before I buy it. I like her organ stuff but this one seems like it might be a little too...active?

i had the same concern looking at the (long-ish) tracklist but the shorter choir pieces work as interludes for me and compliment the longer, slower organ drone tracks well imo

New Coffins album March 29! The first song is so gross (in the best way). I swear their guitar tone gives me literal chills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6FS5br7MYY

new Necrowretch is really solid blackened death, though it really does lean more on the blackened side

Always happy for more Coffins!

me too. i think Joan Chachi got me into them in one of these rolling metal threads back in the day

Yeah, they're one of those bands I never think about, but whenever I listen to them — especially Buried Death, the first record I heard by them — they give me such pure, simple pleasure. They've really achieved perfection in their sound.

Yeah I wish Buried Death was still in print, I missed that one but have followed them since.

other side of blasphemy -> buried death is my personal coffins sweet spot, but yeah, its all very enjoyable. there isn't a lot that you can count on in this world anymore but you can count on coffins, thats for sure.

This Rolling Stone interview with Kerry King surprised me. I've never read any interviews with him, because he's always given the impression of being kind of a steakhead, and I've never interviewed him myself (though I've talked to Tom Araya and Dave Lombardo). Anyway, Kerry King is not who I thought he was.

And the first single from his solo album (which has Mark Osugueda of Death Angel on vocals, Phil Demmel of Machine Head on guitar, Kyle Sanders on bass, and Paul Bostaph on drums) is surprisingly good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOwFC56MQgA

That's a really great piece on King, and the new track is really good. Mark from Death Angel really steps up on vocals, wow.

And meanwhile, new High on Fire, at long last!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHOj0O-qkC8

New single from Unleash the Archers! New album in May!

https://open.spotify.com/track/3PFhTnE0mWxkDOOhHDw3ua?si=e4d3f78f534a4021

Given some teases the other day, sounds like a new Witch Vomit might be announced today as well.

Definitely ready for HoF!

yup re: witch vomit

https://20buckspin.bandcamp.com/album/funeral-sanctum

i'm taking one of my spawn to see xentrix tonight. i know nothing about xentrix. excited though!

Oh man. I saw Xentrix at the Marquee sometime in the 90s. I remember two things: 1) Dennis Gasser's hair 2) diving off a bass bin *over* the pit and landing square on my bollocks on the sweaty cement floor. I somehow escaped serious injury.

haha ouch! 'doing a chinaski' definitely not in my plans, but it looks like dennis gasser is still in the band though i think his hair retired some time ago

No word on when it will be released, but apparently Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull is a guest on "three or four tracks" from the upcoming Opeth album.

Well this has gotten ugly

https://lambgoat.com/news/41773/escuela-grinds-guitarist-denies-tour-driver-allegations-while-it-surfaces-drummer-is-a-free-mason/comments/#0

I do not recommend reading the comments under that story; what a cesspit.

i only saw one but really the shitheads acting like this is some minor band that metal media is only focusing on because they're 'woke' is complete horseshit. they're a solid band and went on a headlining tour last year and also played Hell in the Harbor and other festivals.

I can't say I know enough about the ins and outs of NYC venue permits and the like, but it certainly seems like someone has it out to get Saint Vitus shut down:

https://gothamist.com/news/beloved-brooklyn-bars-abrupt-shutdown-sends-bands-scrambling-to-book-new-venues

oh fuck no!

Yeah, the way the actual complaint is phrased reeks of pissed-off neighbor — and this being Brooklyn, it's probably someone new to the neighborhood. Real loser shit that's gonna have major consequences for that business and possibly others, if it inspires a broader Department of Buildings crackdown. 'Cause hey, maybe closing some Brooklyn nightclubs will distract the local media from how badly DOB has been fucking up when it comes to NYCHA (low-income housing, where landlords give low-bid contracts to their cronies who don't even do the work most of the time — there was a huge wave of arrests not long ago).

totally sucks about Saint Vitus. Figured something was up since the last couple of shows I went to there ended around 10PM on Friday/Saturday nights, even with stacked bills, so it certainly seemed like someone was hounding them with noise complaints. But as I am now in my 40s, I really liked being able to go see a metal show and not have to stay out until 1AM to see the headliner.

As a fellow member of the show going 40 year olds club, I too am happy to be done earlier, but this one sucks. I hate when new people come into a neighborhood and decide only they know what should be happening within it.

This reminds me of the new neighbors that tried to get Empty Bottle in Chicago shut down some years ago. Fortunately the venue won that one and it still around, hoping for the same for Saint Vitus.

totally. a mid show shut down on a Friday night is such an unnecessarily dick-ish move, too, especially if this whole thing is just over paperwork.

Fortunately, they've been booking more "Saint Vitus presents" shows at other venues in the greater NYC area so hopefully they can shift some of their shows over without too too much trouble for the time being. My wife and I are actually planning on going to see Vomit Forth and Jarhead Fertilizer at one of em on the Jersey Shore this weekend.

Apparently this is the dude responsible:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGqwj1kWgAAoy9E.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGqwj1kXMAE_iBb.jpg

And yes, this has exactly the backstory you'd expect.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGqwj1iW0AAoa1X.jpg

If this is to be believed, maybe not a neighbor but a chud who's mad that Saint Vitus is "woke":

Funny how you can randomly stumble upon the guy who got Saint Vitus Bar shut down on Twitter.

You can look up this account’s replies and see he’s done nothing but bother the DOB and others about “exposing” Vitus. pic.twitter.com/ScpZnr6NkW

— a___ b____ (@blckbltnhlst) February 19, 2024

(ha xpost!)

ugh, somehow even worse than a NIMBY noise complainer.

also I see that this coward has already deleted their account.

would support harassing this guy daily

@jgrindstone666 you are a real awesome person and we would love to meet you.

— 𝐕𝐎𝐌𝐈𝐓 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐇 (@VomitForth) February 19, 2024

I do not recommend reading the comments under that story; what a cesspit.

you're generally right but the guy claiming to be Mortiis is worth a laff.

Figured something was up since the last couple of shows I went to there ended around 10PM on Friday/Saturday nights, even with stacked bills, so it certainly seemed like someone was hounding them with noise complaints.

i’ve noticed the same but thought it was just part of the general post-covid “we’re the city that does sleep now, and pretty early too” transformation

ugh this really sucks btw

I have just realized that Hoplites is a Chinese one-man band. Also that two millenia ago there was a conflict between the Han dynasty and a Greek kingdom called the War of the Heavenly Horses.

was almost turned off enough not to check out the new Vale of Pnath because metalheads were calling it 'symphonic deathcore' and comparing it to Lorna Shore (one person compared it to Dummy Burger, which was completely wrong), but on listening to half of it thus far, I actually like it a lot? it's more black metally, less techy.

I find the deathcore label completely wrong, there's no breakdowns, nor are the vocals deathcore, nor did Lorna Shore invent the pairing of symphonic music with death metal. but I'm the wrong guy to talk LS with, I feel like their music sounds like it was created by AI and has zero human touch at all.

i caught vitriol on tuesday night. great show. their stage presence at the start was very "pro metal guys" but they revealed over the course of the set that at heart they're sensitive and ambitious. kyle broke a string halfway through which threw them off a bit but they finished strong. matt kilner's drumming is something to behold.

oh killer! would love to see them live

There
is
a
new

Nightwish

song.

Nightwish has gotten so wackadoodle, the campiness is off the charts, and I kind of LIKE this song because of that? I mean, this is utterly ridonkulous.

Just sounds great to me.

I couldn't claim to have ever been the most diligent Death fan, but I had a free evening yesterday and checked the concert calendar to see that Death to All was doing the second of two nights here. I admit I bought the ticket thinking I was going to see Cryptopsy, too, but at least half the information sources noted correctly that they weren't doing this date. NJ thrash-metal band Morbid Cross handled warm-up with admirable destructive glee. Death to All were tremendous, playing all of The Sound of Perseverance and a bunch of other mostly-later Death stuff. I read Choosing Death recently (also recommended), so the whole original scene had been on my mind again. DTA would sound like a dubious premise in most other contexts: former members of a band whose only constant member has been dead for longer than the band existed, playing songs that in many cases they weren't individually involved in creating at all, and certainly not together, with a singer who was never in the band. I would not pay to see Doobie Brothers To All. But these guys all have other bands, and the will to keep Chuck's music alive live in the world justifies this parallel project pretty well. Worth a night if your schedule and theirs line up.

I love Death to All because it's just basically a warm "we love and miss you, Chuck" experience. The band always sounding great helps too.

The best version of it that I saw wasn't actually officially Death to All, but a two day Death tribute that was attended by the surviving Schuldiners on the 20th anniversary of his death.

They had a mini-museum in the back featuring his guitars, pedals, original handwritten lyric sheets, as well as other odds and ends. And James Murphy was present.

I've never seen Death To All but their existence always reminds me of a show I went to, fuck, almost 20 years ago now. It was a whole night of tech-death bands, and one of them ended their set by saying, "We've only got one song left. We know an Atheist cover and a Death cover. Let's have a vote!" (The Atheist cover won.) The whole thing was...charming, is the only word I can come up with.

yo if i really like the new heseriarch album, what else new or old should i check out?

err heresiarch

RIYL the new Heresiarch album (IMO):

Incantation - Unholy Deification
Pneuma Hagion - Demiurge
Aeviterne - The Ailing Facade
Ulcerate - Stare Into Death And Be Still
Portal - Avow (the U.S. Maple of this shit, kinda/vaguely?)
VoidRot - Descending Pillars
Of Feather And Bone - Sulfuric Disintegration
Altarage - The Approaching Roar

New Nile album in August, for those who like Nile. I'm not a big fan; saw them once and they bored me senseless. But anyway, the new song is called "Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in the Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes," so there's that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmwqMQ2g0NQ

Reasons To Be Grateful Brutal

Really liking this new album from Belgian thrashy/heavy/power metal group Scavenger. Energetic old-school 80s stuff. The funny thing is that Scavenger has a previous album from 1985, and re-formed in 2018, but the original members left, so the current band has no membership overlap with the 80s band.

https://scavenger1985.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-the-bells

Defacement (whose previous S/T album back in 2021 bore one of the most artfully gory metal covers in recent memory IMO) return with Duality, out in full on July 30th: https://totaldissonanceworship.bandcamp.com/album/duality

MEEEEMORIIIIIES
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1502519686_10.jpg

whoa, that defacement preview track is really something! I hope there's at least one more epic on there when the whole thing gets released