Rolling Metal 2016

Here's one for the avant/metal-that-sounds-like-Branca crowd:

Plasmodium - Entheognosis
https://plasmodium-ritual.bandcamp.com/releases

Blackened powerfully violent sludge metal? Might be easier just to call it black noise.

The new Pallbearer EP is so freaking good.

https://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/fear-and-fury

old album but Morta Skuld's "Dying Remains" is kicking my fucking ass tonight.

Spotted on Facebook:

https://scontent.fewr1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13935123_10154242787381206_5559339468717071580_n.jpg?oh=ce4cac3885113220f1e04c95c7690fdb&oe=581C101A

http://i63.tinypic.com/2sbjqco.jpg

I mean that in a good way.

Nobody mentioned the new Ihsahn album yet? I am listening for the second time and I really love it.
It's somewhat proggy, highly melodic, industrial at times.

Track six "Until I Too Dissolve" sounds like Queensryche outtake from Rage For Order until the harsh vocals kick in but the riff and chugging bass rumble and clean parts is vintage brilliance.

I guess it's not getting much love because it's a departure? I thought he had already departed though...

Anyway, I love it.

New Goatess record is fun as hell. ― You say tomato, Isao Tomita (RIP) (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ)

Yay! I am digging that Plasmodium mentioned upthread... and this Black Viper demo with dudes from Deathammer, Obliteration and Mion's Hill. Ripping speed metal stuff. Free!

http://blackvipermetal.bandcamp.com/releases

listening to that Demilich compilation from a few years ago and lord these lyrics have me giggling like a fiend:

"You see your bowels in the air
approaching the ceiling like tentacles
Dying like your father when he was young
Flying out of this world to another land..."

Heh. Man, whatever exploding bowel condition that family has, they need to see a specialist...

Some of the best black metal albums of all time have drum machines (Rotting Christ's Thy Mighty Contract for one). But yeah, nothing like a perfect artificial beat to turn wild, lawless music into something nice and mannered sounding.

That's not even getting into e-drums and stuff. The history of metal drumming is checkered indeed.

re Arctic Thunder--I think Darkthrone kinda got back on track with Underground Resistance, so I'll buy it. I tuned out for a while after FOAD, too much "funny" retro record collector type stuff, but lately it seems like they're beginning to incorporate all those old cult metal influences (Manilla Road & Agent Steel & whatnot) in a more personal "artistic" way.

I hope it's not a return to black metal because everything after Panzerfaust proves they lost it in that genre.

It's more than possible to made a drum machine sound good, it just takes some effort. And there are tons of albums that are so triggered they might as well be machines (since you're not actually hearing real drum hits anyway).

I can live with a drum machine if the music's great, but there's always this "human touch" it can't recreate as far as I'm concerned.

Really bad, sloppy drumming can actually make metal better! Like Grand Belial's Key's first album, those batshit stumbling drums full of false starts and unsteady blastbeats gives it such a savage feel, I love it

def excited about new Darkthrone, but actually hoping they steer away from the sound of the last couple of records. The quality on the 2005-2008 era was inconsistent, but there was still black metal bite in the performances, even if they were essentially applying them to Motorhead/Venom style tunes. Starting w/Circle the Wagons, their traditional heavy metal love came a bit too close to the fore IMO.

Also very happy to hear Culto is doing all the vox on the new one, because he is incapable of sounding cheesy.

ha and totally expect to hear that Black Viper on a Fenriz radio show

Drum Machines? Godflesh. 'Nuff said.

Darkestrah
Turan
(Osmose Productions)
Release Date: 4/29/2016

http://shop.season-of-mist.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/500x500/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/D/a/Darkestrah-Turan-49179-1.jpg

http://open.spotify.com/album/2fqE80hDwkXqcHst0jV3jP
http://darkestrahofficial.bandcamp.com/album/turan

Never heard this band before despite them having a slew of releases going back to 2004 with the new one and 2013's Манас on Osmose Productions. My loss. The new album takes elements of folk, classical and prosaic black metal and makes all of them work, and work together. If you like your atmospheric black metal to have some substance or your pagan metal to not be cheesy, you will likely find something you will like here. A lot of things, actually.

For the record, I posted that thing because it made me laugh. Drum machines aren't what makes black metal a garbage genre.

I know that's a challops but I want to pick at it so bad

Revisiting the Full of Hell/Merzbow album today. Still not as glorious as I'd hoped when I bought it - I was anticipating something in the vein of, I don't know, Kill the Client crossed with James Plotkin's Atomsmasher - but it's an excellent soundtrack to a hot day.

Man this Inter Arma record is pretty great. Aside from the cover, which looks like blacklight art from a pirate bar.

new Cadaveric Fumes is fucking outstanding. just great loosey-goosey guitar work in a black metal context, it's like Jeffrey Lee Pierce or Kid Congo recruited to play in a black metal band

seriously this shit is GREAT

It kind of has a Tribulation/Stench/Morbus Chron vibe to my ears... I feel like someone gave all these kids copies of King Crimson's "Red" and it's starting to pay dividends. I definitely hear a looseness there, it's a great direction to take death/black in after two decades of super-uptight, rigid precision. Well maybe moreso for death...

(it is great!)

yay Cadaveric Fumes love! Between that, Ghoulgotha, and Wakedead Gathering, this year has been great for not-clinical/overly-precise, DIY death metal. I feel like there's been the birth of a sort of new style in the last few years along these lines (see also last year's Khthoniik Cerviiks, Domains from 2014, the various Stargazer releases) for death metal that doesn't feel constrained by the genre, allows for a little black metal ambiance, and song structures that aren't just emphasizing brutal upon brutal upon brutal.

I'm split between wanting a name for that style so I can easily refer to it without naming a bunch of bands and being afraid it'll be called something really stupid.

>> I feel like someone gave all these kids copies of King Crimson's "Red" and it's starting to pay dividends. <<

YES!

and not even sure it's a "style", but an organic evolution of death metal, which actually seems cooler to me

that said, hypnagogic metal

I didn't realize that Joel Violette from Woods of Ypres had another band. Thrawsunblat. Wowwowwow. Epic melodic black metal. https://open.spotify.com/album/27M8aMOAQ4feeqMYwdFWEB

into this concept but I always like modifiers of extant categories so how about hypnopompic death

I also like a lot of this OSDM that's kind of progressive without being "prog" (I'm not suggesting that's what anyone should call it). Howls of Ebb are another good one, as are Execration - Morbid Dimensions is a good album from a couple of years ago if you're into that sort of thing.

Hypnopompic is a good word though.

Execration album totally up my alley, kind of reminds me of Head of the Demon crossed with Autopsy. was this on the metal poll spreadsheet?

https://twitter.com/leyawn/status/765579594086883328

adding to the chorus of "man the cadaveric fumes record is so cool"

xp that leather chair is siiiick

also love that Execration, too!

the Execration was great.

I like the new Ghoul - maybe it's time I listen to the old Ghoul that's been on my Amazon Cloud for two years now.

Was just urged to listen to Blood Incantations's Starspawn and it's kinda in the same line as Cadaveric Fumes/Khthoniik C. I especially like "Chaoplasm" -- def waves the ol' King Crimson banner

will check it

first track off new 40 Watt Sun sounding good https://soundcloud.com/40wattsun/beyond-you

hoping this is gonna be a whole album of indie rock just because it'll piss ppl off

listening to the new Darkthrone track now, and right off the bat getting Ravishing Grimness vibes (which is good). Does go into 80s heavy metal territory midway through track, but encouraging!

Is that the one with that Celtic Frosty opening riff? Loved it.

Yeeeesss, Blood Incantation delivers. I listened to their debut EP a couple of times last year and though it was quite good but ended up not buying it because I thought the Timeghoul worship was a bit too on the nose iirc. This is great though.

I dunno if I could have too much Timeghoul worship. Am I missing a bunch of Timeghoulies out there making records about wars in the guts of giant monsters and deros and teros and shit?

Way too uncool for the room, I know, but there's a new Metallica song out today, and a new album in November - a 12-track, 80-minute double CD called Hardwired...To Self-Destruct. The first track rips. YouTube embeds won't work, I know, so here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhBHL3v4d3I

I'm into it. I'd have pre-ordered the album already, but their webstore doesn't take PayPal.

It's a scorcher! I was excited about the new Darkthrone track this morning, but this tops it.

Ehhh... wish they'd just go back to dad-rockin', getting tired of them faking the funk.

It's really weird how concerned they are about being perceived as a thrash band suddenly.

Lukewarm on that track. Why are Metallica going back to Exodus-style thrash after they played it for maybe one album?

I don't hate the song, but if I were to weigh it against any number of thrash acts in 2016, it's nothing special. James actually kinda sounds ok on it which surprised me, but I dislike the production.

Listenable but....I'll wait for more leaks to see how excited I should be.