Rolling Metal Thread 2010

What a disaster for Profound Lore

ok Immolation's newie (Majesty and Decay) is amazing. not that it aws any surprise. some of it harkened back to Close to a World Below, tho, which is surprising as they really haven't touched on that sound much since.

Music to my ears Ballistic.

Ok, finally getting to The Guessing Game...wow. Just wow. Incredible.

Best Buy is selling a version of the new High On Fire album with three extra songs (one studio, two live) for $7.99 and free shipping. I just ordered mine.

my local store is apparently going to have it for 5.99!!

$5.99 around here too. I'd pay twice as much for a different mix.

$7.99 on Amazon too, fwiw.

"Ok, finally getting to The Guessing Game...wow. Just wow. Incredible."

Yeah. Aside from the purist doom of Forest of Equilibrium and to a less degree Endtyme, this is hitting me as their best and most innovative album. Finally a weirdo Cathedral album that I can love. They sound like the utter veterans that they are on this one. My album of the year so far in just one listen.

I keep waiting for that album to surface on the Nuclear Blast ipool. Have to hear it!

My album of the year so far in just one listen.

^^^ ksh are you listening 'cause the truth just came flyin at you my friend

just ordered the latest Festered album. STILL waiting on my goddamn Necrophagist cd from my half.com order. wtf did I pay for expedited shipping for if it takes almost two weeks?

OK, I'm downloading the Cathedral thing now, but before I even listen to it, I have a question: This thing is almost 85 minutes long, but the website doesn't list it as being a two-CD set. How do they make that work?

no idea, I got mine from the press pool.

I am listening to it again this evening. I find it just breathtaking - I guess I shouldn't be surprised, because over the years they've always been capable of awesome & different looks, but I guess I would have expected a move toward more titanic sludge like Endtyme (which I also love) instead of this really crazy weird psychedelic folk-tinged THING.

so rad.

According to the label, it is in fact a double disc. Tracks 1-7 are Disc 1, Tracks 8-13 are Disc 2.

Curious to hear that, sounds pretty epic. Also looking forward to hearing the High On Fire finally.

Meanwhile, the new Helloween "best-of" that xhuxk mentioned a while back upthread is one of the biggest metal trainwrecks I have ever heard. Gospel choirs, Sanborn-style sax, attempts at Americana...it's impossible to keep a straight face listening to this stuff. Yikes.

oh guys, this ihsahn record is SO GOOD

i mean most of you already know that, but holy shit.

He's back.

http://www.thelefthandpath.com/lefthandpath/index.cfm/event/read/entry/High_on_Fire_Snakes_for_the_Divine

What a goddamned awful High on Fire record. There’s nothing to like about this fifth full-length, Snakes for the Divine, not even the two-bit fanto cover art. What remains is Matt Pike’s tiresome Lemmy impression, front and center, illuminated by a complete inability to convey anything but passing-a-Mini-Cooper-through-his-shitter pathos. Every song swathed in the same schema: Ball-aching growls “compete” with drummer Des Kensel’s yawning mid-paced blah.

The program's obvious intent -- huffin’ it over mountains to swipe marauder gold from ice caverns rife with Githyanki and Frost Giants -- never materializes. Try to erase the stubborn picture of group therapy sessions full of tatted, steel-haired guys smoking Pall Malls and sipping Folgers, chatting up how long they’ve stuck it out with the methadone. No, I never liked “reality” television.

What a moody, cantankerous blast of ennui... Songs take far too long to get their bearing and then flail about listlessly, content with grand declarations of emotional quagmire received in wholly disconnected and unfounded ways – sorta like a dog flipping through a Time magazine photo special on the Haiti earthquake devastation.

The greatest crime here is Pike’s guitar. Long his most appealing weapon, the axe is blunted, inexcusably dressed down by an indifferent and destructive mix. Propulsive, fanged riffs gone fruity is a disease I never figured this guy to present. But the world’s rife with disappointment. Aint it? People predisposed to praise this transformation likely cower from Albini’s fist-to-the-nuts production style – and Blessed Black Wings’ (exquisite) brand of tunes. That’s fine. Most folks need another underachieving bullshit band whose total artistic ambition consists in “playing epic tunes, brah.”

Stewart Voegtlin

WHY DO PEOPLE EMPLOY THIS GUY?

Ball-aching growls
Ball-aching growls
Ball-aching growls
Ball-aching growls
Ball-aching growls

His review of the Devil's Blood album (which isn't great) is amazingly bullshit.

The Devil's Blood - The Time of No Time Evermore

Ahem. Those into a weekender “occult” band fronted by an R. Crumb illustration covered in stage blood who whips her band of merry men into able lockstep aping of the impossibly dreary latter half of Blue Oyster Cult’s catalog will find the quasi-Poe titled, and logically impossible The Time of No Time Evermore a pulsing vibe on the clit of aesthetic eureka. Myself? I prefer early BOC, and legitimately rocking, uncool lifer “roots rock” bands such as Witch. Even if The Devil’s Blood somehow managed to wrangle the limitless drumming talents of J. Mascis into its fold, they’d still be just another inoffensive crit darling playing Praise-Hell-Satan to other weekender skeez in fresh-from-the-biker-trunk leather vests. To quote the venerable Slim Pickens, don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining. Coming soon to a Pitchfork Media column near you.

I guess they didn't return his emails.

legitimately rocking, uncool lifer “roots rock” bands such as Witch

hahaha OK buddy

hah check this guys OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

I don't like The Devil's Blood half as much as a lot of ppl, I don't think, but as far as I can see they have no particular critical cachet to speak of

okay, THIS is a great album title though:

"a pulsing vibe on the clit of aesthetic eureka"

and a great username for someone. any takers?

nah

the guys from witch are pretty cool. and they ARE just rock dudes. they have bought records from me here and its always, like, moxy and godz records that they buy. (70's biker godz, not e.s.p. godz) haven't met dinosaur dude though.

you guys are gonna make me a fan of this guy! didn't know his stuff at all. very entertaining.

Kinda used to like The Left Hand path when it was just a column, but ever since they became a website the writing has got more & more irritating.

Won't disagree The Devil's Blood album isn't great, but saw them live last week & they were very fine indeed.

were all these witchcraft/sabbath/coven 70's blood ritual bands actually swing bands 5 years ago. that's what i want to know. or were they ska bands?

retro-satanic heavy rock's leaving a shitstain across the 00s

My album of the year so far in just one listen.

^^^ ksh are you listening 'cause the truth just came flyin at you my friend

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.)

:-) The store opens in a mere hour. . .

yeah but the new Cathedral won't be in stores til April

Stereogum just updated, and now you can get the Haunting the Chapel column as a standalone RSS feed, which I don't think you could do before:

http://stereogum.com/category/franchises/haunting-the-chapel/feed/

thanks for the heads up!

Okay absolutely love the High On Fire! I don't really have any problems with the production. Fantastic fucking record. Think it is just barely pushing past Ihsahn as me favorite of the young year.

^^^word.

WHY DO PEOPLE EMPLOY THIS GUY?

Presumably because he has the balls to make a call without worrying what the fanboys will think?

Oh, on the contrary; I think he's obsessed with what "fanboys" think. Otherwise he'd just state his own opinion without feeling the need to bolster it by caricaturing others who disagree.

haha Please everyone welcome my good friend Piotr (aka Helmut Was A Krautrocker). He did post a few times years ago under that name but clearly he's bored with DFFD and has come back!

Hey, speaking of which, I'm not registered on DFFD but I think some of the folks there would be interested in reading about Orthodox in Burning Ambulance. Can someone who's a regular poster there email me with the goal of starting a discussion of the mag over there? I'll provide all relevant links to include, etc.

ahoy hoy, piotr.

so, I listened to the new HOF yesterday and really wasn't feeling it at all. I actually liked how prominent the bass and drums were in the mix but the songs weren't really doing it for me. not much stuck.

vox were probably too high in the mix, yeah.

have to listen again.

and I want to hear that new cathedral album real bad. supremely jealous of you guys.

Now then Piotr,

I've got to say that constantly harping on in reviews about how everyone bar you has got it wrong (even if you're right) is deeply unpleasant. The odd occasion I've caught myself doing it I've been thoroughly ashamed. You just can't confidently state why a group of people, maybe numbering in the tens of thousands love a record for the wrong reasons.

It amazes me that so many people like Saxon. I don't think they're doing it because of peer pressure though. And (despite my gut feeling to the contrary) I know people actually genuinely love stuff like Girls and Wavves and Andrew WK and Manowar. It's not my job to state that they don't unless I've got some kind of proof.

Plus going on about how great your taste is and how everyone else bar you and your mates are wrong is the review equivalent of going "LOL@USERNAME^" - nothing outrageous about it. It's just, well, uncouth and ever so slightly lame.

I'm pretty sure Piotr disliked Mr Voegtlin on the old SL board even though he doesn't like Mastodon,Torche etc.

Sorry that was a Hello Piotr.

And then me ranting in general. Too much coffee. Back to work.

Oh hi!

I went and read some more Voegtlin, and Doran, you are correct... dude's a bit caustic in a sneering, everyone-but-me-is-wrong kind of way. I guess I just got sick of hearing how the new HoF is awesome and it was refreshing to see someone not feeling it like I don't feel it.

Who was this dude on the old SL board?