Today Is The Day/Neurosis/Relapse Records C or D/ Search & Destroy.

For the American microgenre metal audience that confuses mechanization with excellence or even listenability. The "Miss Machine" sampler I have was poor.

Agreed, although it works better on video for me where one sees the "singer," in all his glory, flexing his muscles at the audience for the entirety of the set. Unfortunately, he's too small for pro-wrestling and lacks the personal bonhomie of The Rock. Extra points for being a member of the tenth graduating class of the Rollins School of Method Apoplexy.

Really needs to convince Peter Grabriel to record a version of "Return of the Giant Hogweed" with them.

Hmmm, checking the last label sampler, what do I like: Mastodon, Nile, The Unsane best-of, High On Fire, Neurosis, Cephalic Carnage (More comedy), Today Is The Day (who were really boring once when I saw them live and really good another time), Suffocation, Pentagram, Mandible Chatter (that album is really good psych/ambient).

Good! I'll prob'ly give away a handful on ILM when the final art is ready, a week or two, I thin'.

Yeah, reminded me of The Doo Doo Ettes record I had about twenty years ago. Almost exactly the same vibe.

Couldn't deal with the End. Uphill Battle grew on me but it was...an uphill battle <rimshot>.

This is a pretty neat thing vis-a-vis for living on a Mass. island. One wonders if there are similar people on Catalina.

No.

I mean you can think something is kinda unintentionally funny and still think it's great, right?

Absolutely. It should be obvious by now that I think most everything made in American "music" in 2004 is unintentionally funny on some level. But it doesn't stop me from liking it.

Please, no! For the love of God, Montresor! This is an old newspaper trick -- republishing the wit and wisdom of a teenage boy turned consumer judge. But sometimes it can work and sometimes it's even better to manufacture a fifteen year old and its opinions and insert it in the story.

Hahaha! "its"

Eggs Ackly! I was an "it" when I was fifteen, utterly witless, preparing for a short career in the totalling of motor vehicles.

However, when this is all scraped away you can get something. Or you can run with the bogosity and reverse the standard journalistic convention of repeating it with a straight face.

I don't like Dillinger either, but I liked some bands that were lumped in with them (Botch and early Cave In in particular).

I saw Today Is The Day and Unsane at Coney Island High some years back. The singer from TITD screamed so hard on one line that a giant glob of snot flew out of his nose and landed right on the microphone head. On the next line, he sucked the whole mic into his mouth, Lux Interior-style, booger and all. I don't think he noticed, but we all did.

Relapse has given the world Mortician and Agoraphobic Nosebleed. This grants them an unbelievable amount of slack when it comes to putting out albums by Uphill Battle, The End, and that Robert Rich DVD you were supposed to put on and fall asleep.

The new Alabama Thunderpussy is really good.

Heh -- damned by faint praise. Thanks, Ned, sehr helpful!

We were making a joke about similar on some mailing list a couple weeks back, although it related to emo- and screamo- bands being thought to be good because their singers got the heaves or something.

The new criterion of excellence in hard rock performance could be if vocalist soils his trousers. Which has probably already been adopted.
I seem to recall some press to this effect in the sheaf of foolscap that came with the Dillinger Escape Plan sampler.

;-) I have heard a couple of songs on the album now where he definitely has got a case of Axl in quieter moments mode, so there ya go. Not yet sure what I think of this album entirely but most of the music's been pretty good.

but i wanna hear the rest of the album! i wanna see if they've done anything new.

"There are a lot of DEP and Converge clones out there these days. It's a growth industry.
-- scott seward (skotro...), June 6th, 2004."

OTM, unfortunately. 3 years ago it was the coolest shit for me.

When they covered 'Come To Daddy' on that EP last year all the mags over here were like, "this makes the original sound wussy!" and this was so patently untrue you just despair for people's ears.

I'm pretty much constantly impressed by Relapse as an operation - I like maybe half of the stuff it put out but like, say, Alternative Tentacles up until the early 90s, there's a lot to be said for its status as a proper independent success story.

Relapse band I never got round to hearing but always wanted to: Nightstick. Any good?

OTM. Same for me.

"When they covered 'Come To Daddy' on that EP last year all the mags over here were like, "this makes the original sound wussy!" and this was so patently untrue you just despair for people's ears."

Yeah, it's a credible attempt at a cover but even Dillinger plus Patton can't compete with Richard D. James.

I second this and also sugget These Things Take Time, also on Release.

And I like High on Fire quite a bit, and though I haven't heard the record, Alabama Thunderpussy destroyed live.

today is the day and spider virus have a special place in my heart from many years ago. trouble is... years and years of loudness and pot... it shakes your shit loose i think. i dunno. pals o mine used ta hang with that end of the amrep crowd and there were lot's of cool folks. but these days, many of the ideas seem nearly over. (chance of rain 95%.)

i'll say it again and again, these days, screamo bands are the new iteration of the 80s metal band. (same with emo.) the kids find loudness to be empowering i guess. i agree with the dime a dozen thing. where's the heaviness end? seems like several genres are on this meme. reminds me of the other day about the bit about the noise band prurient half-bragging about making some kid's ears bleed.

fuckin morons.

kids these days!

i wonder how long it'll be 'til we hear of a screamo dude shitting his pants from screaming too hard? any odds on that?
m.

-- George Smith (70743.171...), June 6th, 2004.

seriously?

or has gg, etc already sealed the deal?

m.