Rolling Metal Thread 2010

I reviewed the album for AMG and compared it to Geinoh Yamashirogumi, the group that did the soundtrack to Akira.

when college acapella groups drop out

RON KON KON KON KA TOW!

Band/album name of the day: BESTIAL MOCKERY - "CHRISTCRUSHING HAMMERCHAINSAW"

hey metal folx:

Pentagram (the O.G. 70s stoner/doom/sab type thang) is playing my town in March...are they good live?

Yes.
What's teh big deal about Pentagram, anyway?

Just wanted to say that Feb 2 is CANDLEMASS.

xpost - Pentagram is 50% awesome 50% spinal tap hilarity. 100% worth seeing. Make sure you get First Daze Here comp on Relapse to brush up on their best written and worst recorded material.

The new Alcest album is wonderful. A little more black metal tossed in here and there, a few harsh vox, but hoo boy, if you like Ride and Slowdive, wait till you hear its final third.

excited for that! and my gf, who liked the last one, is gonna freak out at you namechecking slowdive

I thought the last Alcest album sounded massively like Slowdive

(thx y'all i think i will go to pentagram!)

Listening to the new Rob Zombie right now, thanks to all of Phil's enthusing... and really loving it. I like that the industrial influences have been toned down drastically, this is a pretty straightforward hard rock record. Yeah, his basic schtick is still very much in place, but I haven't heard him sound this energetic in awhile. I especially like the two short, punk-y songs.

I can't get enough of the new Vasaeleth album. This comes close to besting Portal, as far as atmospere goes.

I reviewed the Van Canto album for AMG; here's what I said:

Van Canto's gimmick can be summed up in one sentence: they perform a cappella power metal. These Germans have five vocalists -- a male and female lead, and three backup vocalists who make the sounds of the instruments by singing things like "dundundundunrakatakatakatakadundundundun" behind them. Anyone familiar with the harmonies created by barbershop quartets, doo wop groups, or show choirs will understand the principle, even if hearing it applied to power metal -- with all its lyrics about dragons, fire, and glory -- is a little weird. The vocalists are extremely skilled, though, and it winds up not being nearly as laughable as it could be -- it's desperately earnest in a way only German power metal can be, but by the third or fourth song that becomes appealing rather than stupid. Some may argue with their lack of commitment to their stylistic choice, given that they have a real drummer -- and worse yet, Rage guitarist Victor Smolski plays screaming, shred-happy solos on several songs here, which winds up being disappointing, because what the group members can achieve using only their voices is much more impressive than one more whammy-bar-abusing axeman. Some songs, like their cover of Grave Digger's "Rebellion," almost sound like the work of Japanese group Geinoh Yamashirogumi, who recorded the soundtrack to Akira. And their version of Metallica's "Master of Puppets" is just…indescribable.

RIP metal haven (chicago)
;_; u were loved

Canada's greatest metal record store, Edmonton's Octopus Ink, also closed recently. Going to miss it, I spent a lot of cash there.

Metal Haven closed? No way, I was just there last week, and they didn't say anything. The site is still up...

OK, I just got download links for the new Landmine Marathon, Triptykon and Unleashed albums. It's gonna be a loud weekend...

I had no idea Unleashed had a new one. That'll be fun.

Landmine Marathon's new one is good, but I liked Rusted Eyes Awake so much that I doubt that the new CD can top it, improved production and all.

RIP metal haven (chicago)

awww, this used to be my go-to place when i couldn't find sabbat and root albums anywhere else. i only mailordered from them, but they were a good place.

man it's Friday in the Triangle and I would just like to state for the record how completely awesome it is that Friday nights on WKNC Raleigh they have the metal show. There is something so special about radio, I know it's super-corny to get all emo about radio but really, when there's a guy playing metal and you're part of an audience listening to the live mix it's really so rad. Especially when you're driving home or something. Tonight heading home dude busted out "Raining Blood." Now, at home, he's up on some Nightwish. I am 100% down and seriously thankful for my local metal show!!

That's awesome. What Nightwish was he playing?

Here in atx we have NO CONTROL friday nights on 101x and its my favorite shit on earth featuring "midnight slayer" and "the metalocalypse moment" and stuff from grind to death to prog to a lil folk metals

That's awesome. What Nightwish was he playing?

He played "Bless the Child." So hot! Man Friday night metal radio show is the BUSINESS. just perfect in every way. if you click on this playlist in the next hour or so it'll tell you how my evening's been goin':

http://wknc.org/playlist/

Sweet! I know a bunch of scattered Nightwish songs, but I haven't heard Bless the Child.

And thanks for the link. Since I'll be sitting here for a while, I'll listen in.

http://wknc.org/playlist

Wow, that's exactly the kind of eclectic mix that I like in a metal show, but so rarely hear. Very cool!

oh man they're playing WASP now. man do I ever fucking love hearing some WASP.

This is making my Friday night so much better.

Love Andrew W.K.

Now this is a Nightwish song I've heard many times before! (A bunch of my friends in high school were in a metal band that covered Nightwish, so I ended up getting into a bunch of their songs.)

this is one of the things I love best about wknc metal night - they'll play the same act a few times but not necessarily in a row - it's kind of exactly how my home listening works: "you know what I want to hear now? another maiden song"

yeah, that is awesome!

i'm really enjoying what i've heard of the show so far.

http://www.myspace.com/finntroll

That's interesting, Finntroll prefers Skittles to M&Ms.

On an unrelated note, when did Overkill get so freakin' good? Ironbound is flat-out the best front-to-back album they've ever made. They were always one of the most annoyingly inconsistent bands in metal and their recent stuff was just plain lousy, and I had ZERO expectations when I played this album on a whim, so this comes as a massive surprise.

I admit to not having been a big Immolation fan up until now, but I'm really liking the new one. Not sure it's due to any significant change on their part, I think I'm accepting more and more non-melodic voices that used to turn me off.

anyone have any idea what happened to the Mayhem tour?

Glenn--Immolation is fantastic. Finally finally saw them live about two weeks ago and they lived up to my many years of great expectations.

Rockapads--pretty sure they are just greedy assholes. That cancellation has screwed over hundreds of people, not counting the fans. Ludicra will be touring anyway, and we are scrambling to put that together immediately. Anyone who wants to give shout outs to Ludicra for soldiering on and touring anyway, please drop me a line.

I'm hoping the end result is a longer Ludicra set... not a huge Mayhem fan anyway.

So what's the plan - get the three support acts out on the road on the same dates but maybe in smaller venues?

re: metal haven
i don't think they've closed all the way, but the end is nigh. for now it's deep discounts, etc. until it's all gone, i guess? that's what i read at least.

Yeah, I tend to lose patience quickly with uber-technical death metal where flurries take precendence over rhythm, at one end, and brutal death focused on pounding and bellowing, at the other, but Immolation find a good place in between. Not that their purpose is to suit my particular parameters, obviously.

Also, this new Gamma Ray album sounds a lot better than I expected. But lately the test of Gamma Ray/Helloween albums is whether I can still stand them the third time, so we'll see.

(And this last is not a metal rec, but if your metal tastes segue into Jesu, then over to Mono, then into quieter atmopherics, go look up the Japanese duo Matryoshka...)

It's a good time for old-fashioned doom these days...the new albums by Hour of 13 and Apostle of Solitude are knockouts.

I'm doing some research into NSBM music and I'm curious if, outside listening to the artists on the Resistance Records website, there's a good place to start -- has anyone written about NSBM or other racist/anti-semitic metal movements? Are there other labels/artists that I should be checking out?

Also, loosely related, I'm trying to compile a sizable list of songs/albums/lyrics that deal thematically with concepts of possession, embodiment, exorcism, etc. I'm sure there are tons, but I've only been able to come up with a few (Master of Puppets, maybe?).

There's a book written in German called Unheilige Allianzen, unfortunately untranslated and my German is only good enough to read the German wiki page about the book (barely). I probably couldn't do substantive work in the original (tho maybe this is a good chance to improve my German so I could).

The Encyclopedia Metallum is pretty comprehensive - searches on 'genre' and 'lyrical theme' will give you good starts on either of your questions

http://www.last.fm/tag/the%20pagan%20front

http://www.last.fm/tag/national%20socialist%20black%20metal

http://www.last.fm/tag/nsbm

http://www.last.fm/music/Sieg+Oder+Tod

http://www.last.fm/tag/rac

http://www.last.fm/music/Sons+Of+North

http://www.last.fm/music/Gestapo+666

http://www.last.fm/music/Aryan+Blood

that's just two minutes i spent on the internet. lemme know if you want me to spend three minutes.

Even legendary Canadian Werewolf True Pitch Black Metal band Byzantum is on the Encyclopedia Metallum

http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=26983

I think Decibel had an article on this a few years back.