rolling 2024 heavy metal and boutique blast beat thread

"Evil is Everywhere" on the Iron Curtain album is such a jam.

new replicant out today:

https://replicantband.bandcamp.com/album/infinite-mortality

more metalcore slammin groove parts than i expected but not complaining. a couple moments bordering on meshuggah circa catch 33 too. im guessing the band members may have some history with moshy hardcore, but theyre from NJ, so might just be in their blood.

I pre-ordered that but listening to it at 8 AM was a mistake; I thought it had been on for about 40 minutes and it turned out I'd only heard the first three songs. Might go back to it tonight while I'm editing a truly awful manuscript.

Just got a promo of the new Six Feet Under album and...it's...not...completely...terrible? Jack Owen's in the band now, so the guitars at least rule. The second guitarist, Ray Suhy, is a jazz player who put out a really good album with pianist Lewis Porter, bassist Brad Jones, and drummer Rudy Royston a couple of years ago:

https://sunnysiderecords.bandcamp.com/album/transcendent

Also, there's a song on this album called "Neanderthal," so I'm predisposed to like it.

How did I not know until today that there's a new Necrot album coming out tomorrow? Mortal, from 2020, was amazing, and on first listen this is just as good.

https://necrot.bandcamp.com/album/lifeless-birth

yeah I"ve been excited for it.

I went to see them open for Muni Waste despite not liking Muni Waste, only to find out they're doing a headlining US tour a few months from now. lol...welp, cool!

also excited to hear it. not just because i liked the other one but but because, as the old saying goes, “if the cover has a giant demon with an evil devil crotch sucking up naked guys, its gotta be pretty cool”

I read it exactly the opposite way — that the demon was giving birth to those guys, and then eating them.

🤔

fuuuuuuuuuuuck, the Necrot cooks

dude's leads are underrated too, the solos r tasteful as hell

"Winds of Hell" has the most triumphant melodeath riff in recent memory, even though melodeath isn't even remotely what Necrot do, they just threw it into the song and it worked

now onto the new Benighted

solid as normal but it's not touching the Necrot. it's weird, they don't live in the fast Autopsy tempo mode they did on the previous album, they settle in for mid-tempo moments a lot more. the riffs are just sharper, and as said above, the guitar solos are better than ever, they're surprisingly tasteful and melodic for a band of thsi style

Necrot-style OSDM is the stuff that makes me dream about taking up drums and being a death metal drummer.

There's a very interesting essay on Stereogum about the changes in big-name, mass-market metal. It's really long and I'm not done reading it yet, but he deals with Ghost, Bring Me The Horizon, and Sleep Token in depth and his analysis of metal overall, while it definitely comes from someone much younger than me, is all the more fascinating for that. And the first few paragraphs provide some excellent slash-and-burn:

Let’s just get this out of the way up top: No, metal isn’t dead. If you look around the underground today, there are plenty of thriving pockets: death metal, black metal, doom, thrash, sludge, etc. Metal as a holistic genre of music is alive and well. But as a cultural force that extends beyond small clubs, filling stadiums and festival grounds worldwide and provoking the uninitiated masses with its wicked sounds and filth-mongering imagery, metal — the sound, spirit, and culture — is in a precarious state. The genre’s longstanding A-listers feel less vital (and less cool) than ever, and the generation of bands who are slated to take their place are less metal (and arguably less cool) than at any previous era in the genre’s history.

Metallica and Megadeth are each more popular and more uninteresting than they’ve ever been — safe, sterile, and flagrantly leveraging their brand values to disrupt the whiskey and NFT markets. Slipknot are little more than a masked LLC at this point, shedding beloved members, getting sued by the estate of a dead one, and barely keeping a lid on their creative bankruptcy, all while frontman Corey Taylor pursues one of the worst solo careers in recent memory. Ozzy Osbourne is too incapacitated to tour, but has enough spring in his step to bang out a third LP with grandad-whisperer Andrew Watt, the 33-year-old whizkid who oversaw Ozzman’s geriatric jerk-off anthem on 2022’s woefully limp Patient Number 9. I can already feel the anticipation building around which Pearl Jam guitarist will guest on the next album. Heavy fucking metal! Speaking of make-work programs for Zakk Wylde, Pantera are touring again — and without the co-founding Abbott brothers — but somehow that doesn’t feel as heinous as Static-X barreling forward in “tribute” (i.e. cha-ching) to late singer-songwriter Wayne Static. It appears that Linkin Park are about to do the same thing.

Avenged Sevenfold took seven years to follow their Elon Musk-inspired 2016 dumpster fire, The Stage, with 2023’s Life Is But A Dream…, a pseudo-intellectual shitstorm inspired by Daft Punk and Yeezus that’s genuinely more grating to listen to than Lulu. To make matters worse, the band, arguably the closest thing the 21st century has produced to a capital-“m” Metal act who can fill stadiums when Metallica and Mötley Crüe aren’t in town, see heavy music’s future in Silicon Valley, having inundated their fans with NFT evangelizing, atrocious-looking VR concerts, and their “heavy-metal approach to token-gated ticketing” — i.e. partnering with Live Nation on a blockchain ticketing service. “It’s your fuckin’ nightmare” indeed, boys.

Who’s left? Judas Priest and Iron Maiden have, at most, a decade left in the tank. Korn will continue to release the same song every three years for the rest of eternity if they can, but Limp Bizkit’s improbable return to headliner status already feels doomed as nu-metal’s memetic revival starts to wither. Deftones are thriving, no doubt about that, but they’re an anomaly among their peers. System Of A Down hate each other and will likely never tour again (although they did just announce a special one-off show with Deftones). Rage Against The Machine (probably) hate each other and will likely never tour again. Marilyn Manson is certainly hated but will, unfortunately, tour again. The alleged serial abuser will make his controversial comeback this summer opening for Five Finger Death Punch, who’ve cornered the market on Pantera cosplay and army recruitment office balladry now that A7X are off in the meta-verse. But don’t worry, Tool are still kickin’, and they’ve got plenty of $2,500 tour posters and $800 fetus-in-skull sculptures to go around.

Korn, Limp Bizikit, Deftones, Marilyn Manson, Tool and RATM were all scraping the very borderlines of Metal though, the criticism that "today's big metal bands are less metal/less cool than at any previous era" has been a constant lament since the mid-90s.

But yeah, Metal at this point is pretty much where Jazz has been since the 1970s - thriving in the sense that it's absorbed into music history, there's still lots of people playing it and listening to it, and the heritage acts like Metallica, Slayer and Maiden are still as widely loved and respected as Miles, Satchmo, Nina and Billie, but it's dead in the sense that it's done both as a major cultural force and as something at the artistic forefront of today's music.

I mean, at this point it's very difficult to draw up a list of the 100 most important Metal bands ever, and make a solid case for a spot for even a single popular/big band that debuted post-2000.

the conclusion is obviously true but tbh accessibility as well as mainstream radio being more centered around rock in past decades had a lot to do with it. there will probably never be bands with the stature of Maiden or Priest again, but that's largely because mainstream radio seems to move further and further from guitar-based music as years progressed.

Blink 182 were the first rock band to top the Billboard Top 200 chart in 2023 (in October), and only RHCP and Machine Gun Kelly topped it in 2022. Not a single rock act topped it in 2021.

Compare that to 1982, when AC/DC, Foreigner, and J. Geils Band, Asia, and John Cougar topped the charts, or 1987 when Springsteen did it TWICE in one year, Bon Jovi, U2 and Los Lobos also owning the charts. Obv these aren't metal bands but it shows rock more in the front and center in mainstream consciousness.

add on top of that the earliest progenitors are metal were also catchy as hell and that helped a lot. the metal that was ear-wormy in the earliest incarnation of the genre though just so happens to be a style that devoted lifer metalheads like us also liked, whereas now, most of the mainstream shit sounds watered down and boring to us since it's largely metalcore or diluted stuff.

more abrasive subgenres of metal were never huge cultural forces, they were always big fish within a much smaller swimming pool. the sheer number of albums easily accessible now also dilutes attention, whereas you had to make effort to hear all of these bands pre-streaming era. I buy no shortage of albums a year that I forget I even have now.

Neanderthal OTM as far as my own thoughts about this go. Especially with regard to the (more extreme) metal that’s my preference. Like, how close did we get to mainstream acceptance there? Morbid Angel on Warner Bros and a clip or two on Beavis and Butt-Head?

Cannibal Corpse in Ace Ventura?

add on top of that the earliest progenitors are metal were also catchy as hell and that helped a lot. the metal that was ear-wormy in the earliest incarnation of the genre though just so happens to be a style that devoted lifer metalheads like us also liked, whereas now, most of the mainstream shit sounds watered down and boring to us since it's largely metalcore or diluted stuff.

more abrasive subgenres of metal were never huge cultural forces, they were always big fish within a much smaller swimming pool.

Maybe it's just my own perspective based on not reading Revolver, but it feels like over the last however many years, underground metal has dominated the discourse to the point that not only can trad/power metal bands not get a fair shake at all from US journalists, but anything that's not black metal, death metal, or metalcore/deathcore isn't even considered metal at all. Witness the fact that 80s bands like Ratt, Warrant, and Poison don't have Metal Archives pages. (Twisted Sister, Mötley Crüe and W.A.S.P do, though.) So there's really no way for a melodic but heavy band to even build up a support base in the metal press, such as it is.

xpost I feel like a traditional heavy metal band COULD become big again, not by 80s standards, but by 21st century standards. Ghost at least started like a NWOBHM-esque band before going poppier. and the Canadian band 3 Inches of Blood seemed to want to become that next big heavy metal band, they cracked the Billboard Top 200 and Canadian charts, they opened for Maiden and Metallica, their albums were well received*, their drummer beat up the guy from Saxon....and then they disbanded for 11 years before they could grow any further.

*I hate Cam Pipes's vocals

Maybe it's just my own perspective based on not reading Revolver, but it feels like over the last however many years, underground metal has dominated the discourse to the point that not only can trad/power metal bands not get a fair shake at all from US journalists, but anything that's not black metal, death metal, or metalcore/deathcore isn't even considered metal at all. Witness the fact that 80s bands like Ratt, Warrant, and Poison don't have Metal Archives pages. (Twisted Sister, Mötley Crüe and W.A.S.P do, though.) So there's really no way for a melodic but heavy band to even build up a support base in the metal press, such as it is.

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Monday, April 15, 2024 1:22 PM bookmarkflaglink

my perspective too and it drives me insane. "extreme or go home" is just the most boring way to be to me, and I say that as a dude who eats death metal like Corn Pops. when there are still a significant number of traditional heavy metal/epic metal bands out there making quality music. it's had quite the revival, and it's more inspired than the thrash revival ever was.

like I keep running into a growing number of revisionist metalheads who are essentially saying it outright isn't metal at all and that's nuts. I remember some shitlord black metal musician hearing In Solitude's second album and saying "what does this crap have to do with metal?" in Decibel magazine, and it's like....did you miss out on 1969-1987? or something.

in honor of this thread, listening to nothing but Angel Witch, Diamond Head, Saxon, and Blitzkrieg

my friend Ed, who I saw Satan with, when I complained about this, shook his head and said "I don't think these people realized that NWOBHM bands WERE the 'extreme' metal bands when they came out. metal itself was extreme!"

Ghost will probably end up being the sole traditional flag bearer in mainstream rock/metal, because it's skewing crazily towards surreally mediocre deathcore right now. I can't see the metal my generation grew up with ever becoming as big ever again.

As for 3IOB, they're doing reunion shows in Canada this year, and holy moly they've been selling out fast. They had to move the Montréal show to a bigger venue. A lot of us have missed that band like crazy. And big Cam Pipes fan here!

I don't think it's realistic to think any big new metal bands to sound or be like the 80s bands you grew up with. If nu-metal is anything to go by, it almost certainly will be something we all hate but the kids love it.

I feel like what's popular is cyclical though. Nu-metal have way to metalcore and then deathcore seems to have taken over slightly but there's no reason a more traditional band can't do it.

Perhaps Maiden/Priest need to retire first to leave a vacuum though

I do think the people who listen to deathcore/metalcore who are averse to traditional heavy metal object to what they see as the datedness of the material from the 80s, what they think is cheesy production, perhaps the vocals being too 'dramatic' for them.

but I feel like when the sound is modernized a bit they're more amenable. two of my good friends always said they hated Priest and Maiden and stuff like that, they were more into the deathcore-y/nu-metal stuff, and the new Priest came out and both were like "wow this is actually really great", and it's cos Rob is shrieking, and it sounds slick and full.

i'm sure a new sound will come along that takes off at some point. I don't see an old fashioned sound taking off other than to people like us who lapped up Ghost, Uncle Acid, Witchcraft, In Solitude etc

Personally I find metal as it is perfectly fine. It's the heavier rock groups that's lacking IMO

As weird as it may sound, I don’t think Slipknot get ENOUGH credit for innovating and experimenting. Their last album was great.

I have yet to hear a single song by Slipknot. Maybe I'll give them a shot.

If you do, try the debut album and 2019's We Are Not Your Kind (the one I was talking about above; I forgot they put out one more after that).

like I keep running into a growing number of revisionist metalheads who are essentially saying it outright isn't metal at all and that's nuts. I remember some shitlord black metal musician hearing In Solitude's second album and saying "what does this crap have to do with metal?" in Decibel magazine, and it's like....did you miss out on 1969-1987? or something.

liking the new Early Moods record

yeah it's awesome

It really is great, even better than the debut imo. Glad to see some love here.

after several listens to the Necrot, I'm comfortable saying they've taken a big leap forward and are one of the genre leaders now. I loved both the first two albums, so it isn't like they were bad before, but this one just seems to have a level of songcraft that is much improved while not sacrificing the punch-in-the-mouth sonics of their sound. they've elevated themselves without actually leaving the confines of their core sound.

I think a big part of the reason is Sonny Reinhardt - his guitar solos aren't the squiggly-wiggly 'demon from hell' kind, they have a melodic sensibility not terribly removed from what Matt Pike does, so even though I would never call Necrot melodic, his leads allow the songwriting to explore more dynamic territory.

I guess a close comparison is Vital Remains's Dechristianize. That album is odd in their catalog. Not just because they removed almost all of their black metal influence and had Glen Benton on vocals, but because they had these very epic NWOBHM breakdowns with dual lead guitar solos. Unlike Necrot, I think their execution of these moments were a bit sloppy - they often didn't fit neatly into the song, and the band frequently stopped the song's forward momentum to awkwardly shift into these moments, which were cool when they arrived, but it kinda felt like smashing in a puzzle piece with a hammer. (I say this when Dechristianize is one of my favorite death metal albums of the 21st century)

But it did kind of establish a template for laying in some subtle melodic nuances into an extreme metal sound to open it up more, without turning the band into fuckin' At the Gates or watering down the sound.

It's also more than that though - the riffs on this thing, like, they've always been good at writing riffs that seem to survive fluid-tempo shifts easily, but they just simply hit harder on this one. if there is any justice, people will stop talking about the perfectly fine but overrated 200 Stab Wounds and give Necrot their stature in the scene. which tbh, I think is coming.

xpost - anything else in the Early Moods vein in terms of recommendations would be appreciated, Wytch Hazel finally got too explicitly Christian for me

Do you listen to Crypt Sermon?

i have not heard of them, will check it out!

they are that sweet spot of epic doom which contains a lot of heavy metal influence and the vocalist kinda sounds like a neo-Dio. i love em

Listening to the Early Moods. They really nailed the production on this. Simple and heavy.

Absolutely. Songcraft inspired too.

Wish I'd gotten into them sooner

new DVNE tomorrow, can't wait

new High on Fire and My Dying Bride are wehre I'm at

Def excited for DVNE and High On Fire.

High on Fire not exactly blowing me away on first listen. i get it's not going for 'high octane' like Electric Messiah but a lot of these songs are all at the same tempo with the same drum patterns.

but I need at least one listen to get the 'expectations' out of the way so...we'll see how I feel. it's by no means bad, but the last three or so releases I was a wee more excited on first listen.

Anyone heard this Transit Method album? I am pleasantly surprised. Punky prog-metal, but mostly bypassing anything hardcore - more like a pop-punk group playing Thin Lizzy, Maiden, and Rush tunes.

https://transitmethod.bandcamp.com/album/othervoid

I like the new High On Fire a lot, but I've always loved The Art of Self Defense and thought they lost a little something when they sped up on the second album. This feels like a return to their earliest, doomiest sound. Plus, Coady Willis's drumming is great. I loved him with Big Business and the Melvins and I think he really adds something here. I'm gonna write about it at length in my next newsletter. But this morning I'm replaying the new Necrot.

wow I LOVE transit method. thanks so much