Rolling Metal Thread 2010

OK, I've quickly warmed to the new Cathedral and Negura Bunget, but the one I'm really surprised by is the new Poisonblack. They're sliding towards hard rock, and parts sound like an updated Deep Purple as much as anything (maybe I just mean there's some Hammond-y organ), but man does Ville Laihiala sound great. Something like a midpoint between UFO and Heaven & Hell.

Yeah, I just got done reading Miles Davis' autobiography and it made me feel like I would be a huge ol' hypocrite if I started getting all indignant about shady things artists do in their personal lives. NOT AT ALL to compare murder with Miles' rep, but in my book it is 10000% not okay to ever ever smack a girl around, but I'm not about to chuck out Bitches Brew or On the Corner.

And maybe its a good thing for dB to cover Varg? I mean, maybe a lot of kids out there that keep seeing the Burzum logo around need to know the full story behind the man - which sometimes I wonder if is as widespread as it is for us internet metal nerds.

Just thinking out loud here, I don't know.

It sells magazines. And gets people talking. Simple business. Who can really blame them? I don't even care about Burzum (at all really) and I've already posted on the topic like 3 times in 2 days.

Varg = O_o

do you smell the church that the Varg is cooking?

lol jjjusten!

I just realized -- the Varg cover is just in time for Passover!

there was a thread on the decibel forum about terrorizer and their burzum cover and this is by far my favorite post:

2/26/2010 12:40 PM

Black metal has a disturbing lack of satan and a needed plate of shut the fuck up stew.

Listening to the new Cathedral album now. If you like it, I recommend you check out Uriah Heep's Wake the Sleeper, from 2008.

I heard one of the funniest ever rock prank stories the other day concerning Uriah Heep inviting a fan to appear live with them the other day. Just want to stand it up before I go on. (It's probably quite well known, but it came from one of the perpetrators and probably bears repeating regardless.)

Favourite Heep right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnKgvOKnIgs

And do you know when I heard it? The other day. D'oh.

I don't know if it's been mentioned here yet but SST has copies of "Hallow's Victim" and "The Walking Dead" by Saint Vitus for $9 each. Just in case any of you have been looking for copies for YEARS, like me.

ON VINYL

This hipster chick scored the most amazing 70s metal accessory out there. Can you guess what it is without reading ahead on her blog?

http://hal-coholic.blogspot.com/

Wow, wasn't expecting that.

HOLY SHIT IT'S HIS WIFE!

i've been to two Newbury Comics stores within the past week in my area, and both of them were having a sale on a bunch of metal records. a lot of stuff was $9.99. picked up Nachtmystium's Instinct:Decay and last year's Baroness. not sure how many of their stores are having the sale or how long it'll last for, but if you have one of their stores in your area you might want to stop by.

Eventually I am going to get tired of Tom Warrior talking about his old band breaking up like it was the demise of an ancient cabal of ruling gods that we all adored.

xpost: I owe the setup of that Pentagram wife blog to Aesop at Cosmic Hearse. And it was funnier in his words.

Either way-- SURREAL!

Oh hey Nate, got the ludicra posters. Any idea who the openers are so I can put them in the info at the bottom?

It is surreal! But, you know, old rocker dude in hot, young wife non-shocker!

Until I met my husband, I always wondered what it must be like to be in a lesbian relationship, be the same size, have similar styles, and be able to share a wardrobe (idealistic, I know). I guess it's a similar concept if you have a same-sex twin, but undoubtedly my twin would be vastly more successful, better-looking, and not go to Crown Fried Chicken at 3am to fetch me BBQ ribs when I'm pregnant.

My husband is of a very small build and therefore I have open-access to a wardrobe of studded leather, drapey satin, crinkled lame and hand-sequined denim, all perfected and honed over the decades. Bobby's style has changed throughout the years, but his affinity for high-quality original items and unique ensembles has remained basically the same. This is a man I would admire for his ability to make a bold statement and accessorize even if I didn't wash his underwear.

this made me lol
i'm not very impressed with her fashion statements, though

There was some hilarious / endearing homesick stoner tweeting going on between those two last year while Bobby was touring Europe with Pentagram.

ha, thanks mr. liebling for my new screen name

The Crinn. Fucking A. If this album were instrumental, I would be going 100% insane trying to convince people to buy it. Fucking super-tech spacey shit that I love. But the vocals. Fucking hardcore/post-death screamo shit has to be stopped. Zero publicity boycott an' shit. This is a fucking excellent band, and their album is ruined by the vocals.

But the kiddies love that stuff, unfortunately.

There's some insane chops on display on that album, that's for sure.

it's SO GOOD. and the vocals are SO BAD. this extended breakdown in track 3 is like GGGGGHHHHHHAAAAHHH GIMME MORE and then there's a sweet slow part and I just know it'll shortly be spoiled, completely, by more hyper-compressed tray-table caterwauling. srsly young cats. it's not that I don't love loud screaming. loud screaming is awesome. characterless one-note emotion-free screaming is not.

if the "hardcore" style of vocal isn't a dealbreaker for anybody on this thread though, holy shit, this album is loaded with instrumental treats.

God this is really pissing me off

There's a pretty incredible meta-moment on the new Scorpions album. "Sly" is a power ballad about a girl who was conceived to, and subsequently named after a Scorpions power ballad. "Still Loving You"...get it?

Metasleaze.

Man, this Triptykon album is too fucking long. If you can't fit it on one LP (maybe two, if it's REALLY, REALLY STRONG), edit it or don't put it out.

The new Bison disc is a logical next step after Quiet Earth; a few more acoustic bits, but generally their sound remains big 'n' loud and fairly Mastodon-ish but with a much less hyperactive drummer.

"Man, this Triptykon album is too fucking long. If you can't fit it on one LP (maybe two, if it's REALLY, REALLY STRONG), edit it or don't put it out."

I invoke the law of 36:42. If an album is longer than South Of Heaven, then there has to be a good reason for it and it has to be really fucking great. and that's me being nice. if i were to invoke the law of 28:25, man, 99% of all bands would fail in a big way.

WORD. I'm kind of a liberal, though, I'll allow up to like 43 minutes.

okay i've inspired myself to have a slayer tape party. starting with haunting the chapel.

i was gonna listen to these death demos on tape that i never listen to, but they'll keep. mantas rehearsals!

yeah from the musician side of things though do you guys have ANY idea how common it is for the 2nd thing a person says to you (after "dig your stuff," for which, permanent real gratitude don't take me wrong) to be "why was the last album only 28/32/45 minutes long? should totally have put [name of outtake] on it" - a LOT of listeners, especially European ones in my experience, feel ripped off if an album is short. They think that cost should correlate to running time, and since the cost is already more or less fixed within certain parameters, that running time should default to "longer."

IOW most listeners are size queens

Albums cost a lot more here

you guys realize you can actually play an album twice right

Europeans: wrong on album lengths, wrong for America.

I come down on the "no more than 40-45 minutes of music per release, please" side of things, 'cause a) I'm old and remember vinyl and especially cassettes, and b) life is short and I'm a busy man; I need to finish listening to your album so I can listen to the five or six other albums I have to review this week. The thing that really used to chap my ass, in my Walkman days, was when Side B of a tape was longer than Side A, so after I finished listening to the first set of songs I had to fast forward to the end, thus wasting precious battery power.

The big thing for me with album length is that metal is, for the most part, a very passionate form of music, and it's hard for a band to keep up the energy level for 80 minutes, especially if they are thrash or death or something that works best in small doses.

more metal EPs please. EPs rule and everyone knows it. if i ran a record label it would be nothing but 10 inch EPs. and 7 inch singles.

Long album lengths really bother me too (for exactly the reasons Phil cites above), but the Triptykon doesn't overstay its welcome at all.

had to fast forward to the end, thus wasting precious battery power

Us cheap ass eurodudes always used pen(cil)s for fwd/rwd-ing.

EPs rule and everyone knows it.

man that brief window when EPs were ruling the roost was the best. three fucking words for the doubters: tragic fucking serenades.

EPs are the best in every genre.

I've got no problem with EPs. I wish jazz musicians would go back to releasing 40-minute albums with five or six tracks on 'em, too.

So, this album will be Xasthur's last as Xasthur . . . he's done with metal: http://xasthurnews.blogspot.com/2010/03/out-now-and-ending-now.html

(via P4k)

I do not have a ‘shopping cart’ because I’m not a professional black metal internet wheeler and dealer

oh ok bud cool

but if you want to buy single copies go look on ebay. In a couple weeks or so, I will have a limited amount of 11x17" posters signed by both participants of the album. In a few months or so, you can look for the vinyl LP edition on Hydra Head, they'll do nice job with it.

hey wait I thought you said

"The honorable thing to do is to end the band and not hang around too long, like so many metal/black metal bands do. Enough is enough, right?"

hahaha, says the guy with a hundred albums, EPs, and singles and splits and comp tracks who has been around for over a decade.

better late than never, i guess!

geez what a terrible "retirement" announcement