Rolling Metal Thread 2009

I wasn't clowning you for calling them boring! Twenty minute jams aren't for everyone, I was just clowning the second part about "oh its pretty easy to do".

Hahaha, yeah I thought they were completely, insanely epic. And I don't typically dig 45-minute single-song instrumental sets (in fact, the idea of a 45-minute single-song instrumental set is completely nauseating to me). Dunno why exactly, but they blew me away.

i dunno man, i mean they're good musicians, but like lots of people are good musicians.

I don't get Earthless, either. I wanted to, as a big fan of Loop and Circle and stuff like that, but they just sound like a bluesy jam band to me.

No, I can totally understand where you're coming from, but it just crushed me. Maybe because I didn't know what to expect, and then they delivered something SO humongous and psychedelic and loud. But I just loved it. Would (and will) see them again.

BTW did you guys like Baroness? As I said, they were kind of ruined for me, so opinions from people for whom they weren't ruined are appreciated!

yeah i thought they were good. appreciated some of the blue record material more in a live setting.

Meshuggah live album in early 2010. Title: Alive. Track listing: Perpetual Black Second, Electric Red, Rational Gaze, Pravus, Lethargica, Combustion, Straws Pulled At Random, New Millennium Cyanide Christ, Stengah, The Mouth Licking What You've Bled, Humiliative, Bleed. Listening to it now; it's extremely well recorded and awesome.

Earthless are fucking epic live. If you weren't into it, you just weren't standing close enough.

Sheesh, Meshuggah finally gets around to putting together a definitive live document and there's no "Future Beed Machine"? Weird.

There's supposed to be a DVD coming out too, right?

no "future breed machine" is pretty weird. prob their most popular song.

and I love meshuggah but the prospect of a live album getting me psyched, really. does it bring anything new to the table?

argh.

"but the prospect of a live album isn't exactly getting me psyched"

I saw them live and it was cool except for their super quiet stage volume and the singer's horrible nu-metal monkey dance.

There's supposed to be a DVD coming out too, right?

I believe this is gonna be a CD/DVD set (w/identical track listing). NB is also putting one of these out by Exodus, which I really don't care about.

does it bring anything new to the table?

Not really, no. Really well-recorded, impeccably performed versions of Meshuggah songs with crowd noise in between. And worst of all, as I pointed out on Twitter, you don't get any of Jens Kidman's bizarrely hilarious between-song banter. But at least with the DVD you'll get to see him do that creepy Terminator move he does (what Nate calls the "horrible nu-metal monkey dance").

Yeah, Meshuggah's dry sense of humour is rivalled only by the great Mr. Akerfeldt, who really should have a book of between-song quotes.

Grave Miasma, guys. Grave Miasma.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GOs92bYO5w

http://www.hellbound.ca/2009/11/grave-miasma-exalted-emanation/

now that's death metal.

Had some trouble with Gates Of Slumber's Conqueror. Have now bought Hymns Of Blood And Thunder and yyyyeahhh this is more like it. Added NWOBHM feel suits me down to the ground.

Get ready for the ilx metal albums of 2009 nominations thread. Will start it a bit earlier this year so I can let the voting last a week or 2 longer this year and hopefully some of you will not be so burnt out on voting like last year.
Glenn will be co-running it again but he does all the hard work so thanks to him.

NOMINATIONS THREAD for ILX METAL ALBUMS Of 2009 (Closes December 20)

haha, love the metal thread gettin aggro on a dude ^^thread

new Sigh album is so corny. what a cornball band.

They didn't name it somethign starting with I?!?! What sellouts.

Oh, wait, I confused them with Morbid Angel.

yeah, sigh have gotten quite over the top lately in a different way that i'm not sure i like. i still admire them and listen to them.

i have to be in the mood for circus music.

I saw Sigh last year and was really disappointed, I just didn't get it at all.

BTW just got home from Motorhead gig. Am totally metal right now.

Impetuous Ritual 'Relentless Execution Of Ceremonial Excrescence' Just listening to this now. Very impressive BM.

Except now it sounds like death metal.

Ah, it's dudes from Portal. This is ace.

13 Metal Albums You May Have Missed In 2009. Most of the denizens of this thread will probably not actually have missed all of these. But you'll probably find something worth investigating or revisiting. And like I say at the end, it's better than pretending Between The Buried And Me are good.

Nice list, I agree with every one of those choices. Nice to see Gwynbleidd and Zu there.

(the new BTBAM is good!)

Saw Between the Buried and Me supporting the DEP some time last year - they were so quiet! It was quite funny actually, watching them riff and gurn away while this piddly sound drifted out of the PA.

I wonder if this is at Borders yet - http://store.decibelmagazine.com/products/top-100-albums-of-the-decade-special-issue

"So here's a small sampling - a baker's dozen, if you will - of highly worthwhile metal albums that may have slipped past you unnoticed in '09."

20 is a baker's dozen. 13 is a demon's dozen! \m/

wont be in the UK Borders. They've gone bust.

20 is so not a baker's dozen.

That is a nice list Phil, I can especially endorse the Kreator, Wolf, and Obscura albums - all of which I enjoyed to varying levels and didn't really see a whole lot on. Still need to check out the Zu and Minsk though.

Hasn't 13 always been a baker's dozen?

(ha xpost!)

Have all the Borders straight up just locked their doors never to return as of today then? Crazy

Aren't they still struggling on in vain like Willem Dafoe at the end of Platoon? I'm sure the one in Islington was open the other day.

closing down sale apparently, but they wont be getting any new stock obviously.

But what if the baker did a wake 'n' bake and was feeling generous? Or was addled with cold medicine like me?

20 is only a baker's dozen if you're a really hungry baker.

Question for Adrien if he sees this. I saw you mention Orphaned Land on your Twitter, do they have a new one coming out? My wife works with a guy who splits time between Israel and Chicago for their company and he knows a couple of the Orphaned Land guys, which is how I got ahold of Mabool originally.

Yeah, I've been listening to the new album, I was a big fan of Mabool as well. It's pretty good, but there's a lot to digest. It comes out in February I believe.

I'm not Adrien, obviously, but yeah, there's a new OL disc coming out in early '10. I got a download link for it but haven't grabbed it yet 'cause I've got eight dozen other things demanding my attention at the moment.

i want new orphaned land!

Thanks for the info Phil, curious to hear it.

i wrote a review of mabool almost SIX years ago in the village voice and i used the term "half-assed experimentalism" which i TOTALLY stole from siegbran! wow, feels likes a lifetime ago:

Some purists decry what they see as half-assed experimentalism in some modern metal as an aesthetic dead end and as a trend that prizes novelty over the perfection of form dictated by the unwritten laws and constraints of whatever sui generis subgenres a band aligns itself with. Unfortunately, I was cursed with a funny bone, a belief that exploration can often trump orthodoxy, and have never been much interested in the comfort and faith that purism provides and requires.

Plus, you never know what's gonna come of anything. If Israel's Orphaned Land, beloved by Arab and Israeli alike, manage to service the long-overlooked segment of society that are fans of Fiddler on the Roof, Ofra Haza, and death metal with their album Mabool: The Story of the Three Sons of Seven, then all I can say is hurrah for the Holy Land!

I happen to enjoy their mixture of Jesus Christ Superstar choral work, death-barking, epic Semitic desert riffs, Mideastern folk warbling and plucking, triumphal hi-diddle-diddle-la-la-la-la choruses, temple-mount rock-god solos, and a cappella prettiness mixed with spoken-word portentousness. Heavy metal is folk music, so combining it with trad ethnic hootenanny action makes perfect sense. And there ain't nothing half-assed in the way that Orphaned Land go about it. Do I care that the three sons pictured on the album cover are a snake, an eagle, and a lion, and that these animals represent Judaism, Islam, and Christianity? No, I don't. The song is the thing. What Orphaned Land do make me think about is that metal—and music!—is a land you are free to roam, even though there will always be people who choose to stay close to home working the same plot of ancestral soil year in and year out.