Rolling Metal Thread 2012

I have reactions to both those things!

Have the Yakuza but haven't played it yet; strongly disliked the Neurosis.

you hate all neurosis albums though, right?

Hate is too strong a word. They bore me senseless, and the worship afforded them annoys me.

Have you ever seen Neurosis live? I was the same as you, thought they were kinda boring until I saw them live, now they are my fave all-time band.. But if you don't like em, you don't like em.. Most of you guys like Ghost, and I think they are terrible...

Just playing it now and it's fucking fantastic!

I saw them in 1997, opening for Clutch and Pantera. They were actually OK back then. They've gotten worse as the years have gone on.

xxp Man, this is one depressing group of jaded motherf***ers. I'm enjoying the Witchcraft so damn much, and could give a rat's ass that they dropped the 60s psych thing, as good as they were at it. Neurosis certainly had a difficult patch for a few years in 00-03, but the album with Jarboe is cool, and Given To The Rising is good. I'm keeping an open mind when I check it out today. Yakuza is an interesting listen too, need to hear it more. Officially out Oct 30 but available on Bandcamp now is Venomous Maximus - Beg Upon The Light (http://venomousmaximus.bandcamp.com/). I saw them open for Hammers of Misfortune and they had a good sludgy High On Fire thing going, but hearing the new songs more clearly, the hooks and Hammer Horror occult vibe is really coming through. Awesome!

i dont get why people think the last witchcraft was better. Its their weakest album.

last as in 3rd album not the one due out

Venomous Maximus is a blast. Bummed I miss their last show here in town, but they'll be back in December and I hope to catch them then.

The Witchcraft is fine, but other bands do the straight ahead retro-rock just as well if not better. If The Alchemist was an A, I'd give this a B-. Still better than average but didn't blow my mind. And the political lyrics do them no favors.

I wouldn't say The Alchemist is their weakest, but I'm liking Legend more so far, it's hardly generic retro. Who can do Witchcraft better than Witchcraft other than perhaps Graveyard?

That's probably my issue. I don't like Graveyard, so Witchcraft shifting their sound toward that end of the retro-rock spectrum is the last thing I wanted from them.

it's only a metal record in certain parts but the debut album by Spiders, which has the old Witchcraft guitarist and which just came out I believe, is really great. 'Fraction' is the money track on it imo

think they had a Graveyard dude in also but not anymore? w/e it's all gold

Spiders was co-formed by the drummer from Graveyard, but when Graveyard broke he decided to stick with that band full-time.

Also Troubled Horse is well worth checking out. It has guys from Witchcraft & Spiders, and they sound a little closer to what I was hoping the Witchcraft album would sound like. It's a little more lively and psych-influenced.

http://metalblade.com/troubledhorse/

speaking of Graveyard, anyone heard their new one yet? I'm into both advance tracks I've heard.

I really liked the single I heard a while back by Troubled Horse, so it's fantastic news to see the album has a release date! Love the Spiders, I reviewed it as my album of the week after the previous week's Witchcraft. A great Autumn for this kind of music. Metal Blast is being stingy with review copies/streams for independent critics/sites, so I haven't heard yet, but The Obelisk did review the new one: http://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2012/10/11/graveyard-lights-out-the-wolves-at-your-door/

Also, what do people think about these 3 records qualifying for year-end lists? (All old music, but very sparsely available until now apparently -- especially the top one.)

Coven – Worship New Gods (Shadow Kingdom)
Pagan Altar – The Time Lord (Shadow Kingdom)
Manilla Road – Invasion (Shadow Kingdom)

I need to listen to the Coven more, but both Pagan Altar and Manilla Road are early demos and formative first recordings for both bands and more historical interest than measuring up to their best. I'm more interested in the more recent reissue of Pagan Altar's first album, Judgement Of The Dead (1982).

I have a stream for the Graveyard album (they've hired an indie publicist to push it), but haven't listened to the whole thing yet. What I have heard sounds like a definite step forward from the last album, which I didn't like as much as the debut.

Liked the Spiders album OK. Reminded me of Bad Wizard at times.

Yeah, the Graveyard record is a big step forward – it's their darkest album to date, musically, and it's really nice to see that they actually had a place to go with their sound instead of just mining the same retro rock territory.

hooded menace is such a deep fucking doom record

I didn't like the Hooded Menace; the Serpentine Path record is way more my thing, like if treacle was music.

Jon look what got a BNM
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17132-all-we-love-we-leave-behind/

I'm no writer (nor a Converge fan) but that's a shockingly badly written review, for a high-profile site like Pitchfork.

Just finished a review of the new Malignancy album Eugenics for Burning Ambulance; it'll be up tomorrow.

I'm not a Converge fan, either, but I don't see anything "shockingly" bad about the writing in that piece.

Its not terrible, but its not written very well. It was a little hard to read for some reason.

I listened to the new Converge, and I felt that it was on par with the last one, to the point where its almost a carbon copy... Which kinda let me down in a way, cuz I wanted to be blown away. But, when a song from the new record came up while the ipod was on shuffle it had an different life! holy shit!

You ever do that? You hear an album, and it doesn't hit you until you hear it out of context? its as if the rest of the songs are all on the same level of awesome, so nothing sticks out. But if you hear it against other stuff, its awesomeness shines more..

Am I explaining this right? lol!

like a third of that review is quotes from Bannon which strikes me as a little cheap, especially as they didn't exactly contain much searing insight

'Coral Blue' makes me think of Alice Cooper's 'Poison'.

Which is cool as both songs are awesome.

I think both cheese and chocolate are awesome, but I don't want them both on the same piece of bread.

I hope by "carbon copy" you don't mean that it SOUNDS exactly like the last record – because it doesn't at all!

Mmm, very much enjoying the crazed demonic roar of De Magia Veterum's The Deification so far. Seriious monster music in the vein of Dodecahedron or Gnaw Their Tongues. Reminds me that I haven't listened to that Aluk Todolo album yet...

"Seriious" was a typo, but I think I'm going to adopt it for this sense of taking a set of aesthetic premises seriously for artist purposes, whether you take them seriously in any non-artistic sense or not.

hooded menace is such a deep fucking doom record

holy shit i love this

their last album was awesome too

So this is odd but potentially cool, apparently Ireland's number one underground metal record store is opening a location in...St.Paul, MN!

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d106/gojohnnygojohnny/456252_422680184460538_725034555_o.jpg

Anyone know the place?

Wow, that's very unexpected! I still haven't been into the original Dublin store (it's hidden on a side street away from the heart of town, though close to a college) but it seems to have its fans.

that dog in the window is sporting a not particularly metal body warmer.

Liturgy fan

Having heard Occult Rock a half dozen times and while it's good (often in a very Daydream Nation way) I can now say re-listening to Finsternis that the latter is far better (it's like a black metal Harmonia).

why is converge dude singing like guy picciotto now?

2400 or so words I wrote on Royal Thunder, Christian Mistress, Witch Mountain, etc. -- finally on line, 2 months or so after they ran in print.

http://www.spin.com/articles/strange-brew-metals-new-obsession-with-witchcraft-biker-blues-and-tina-turner

As usual, a solid piece of writing xhuxk. Any chance you'll be at the Witch Mountain show in Austin next month?

I should probably go to that, huh? (I better look up where & when it is first, though.)

Saturday, Nov 10th at Red 7.

OK. It is now officially marked on my wall calendar.

Cool. See you there.

hopefully.