Rolling 2020 Metal Thread

I don't have a feel for what people are or aren't flipping out about but the Esoctrilihum album just delivers every time.

The new Napalm Death album is really good. Barney is doing enough interesting things with his voice that I had to look up to see if there were any guest vocalists. (There are not.)

Will report a Facebook post I just made for the amusement of some here...

I checked out the new Vio-lence video for "California Über Alles" against my better judgement when I saw how Leon del Muerte [a Facebook friend and guitarist of note] raked it over the coals and I just had to see for myself. Despite a lot of people who revere their first two albums, I never thought much of the band. The Dead Kennedys cover somehow makes a great song sound horrible and the anti-mask message of the video is dumb.

The line-up shows why this is the path that they chose:

Bassist Christian Olde Wolbers Believes COVID-19 Is a Biological Weapon Created to Kill “Anti-Commie Protestors”

I personally got into it with guitarist Bobby Gustafson because he was a Tea Party idiot way back in 2014 (I can only wonder how his views have evolved since then).

Phil Demmel and Sean Killian recorded this trash back in 1993 for a demo that wound up on the Torque album which Sean didn't sing on (not sure who wrote the charming lyrics):

No welfare case of sinking bums
NO GANGSTERS WITH THEIR KILLING GUNS!
No crack babies for sucking breasts
WIPE OUT THEIR MOTHERS!

No fornication of the breeds
No more conception of you we need
No more the love of fucking cunt
Discard the ones we consider scum

One simple incision at the balls
One slice direct from the love of GOD
One rape your cock on the chopping block
One kill and you're the next to fall!

YOU BREED LIKE RATS - You fucking breed
YOU BREED LIKE RATS - Like disease
YOU BREED LIKE RATS - Like a rat you breed
YOU BREED LIKE RATS - You fuckin' breed like rats!

No more you hear your mother scream
No more crack babies on the street
No scenes of sacrifices for hate
Wipe out this fucked up race!

YOU BREED LIKE RATS - You fucking breed
YOU BREED LIKE RATS - Like disease
YOU BREED LIKE RATS - Like a rat you breed
YOU BREED LIKE RATS - You fuckin' breed like rats!

So yeah, fuck this band. I am glad I never liked them. And I am not linking to the shitty video.

Good: Carcass that was delayed due to COVID-19 has a new release date of 10/30.
Bad: Only an EP (Maybe that was common knowledge but it's news to me).

The new Unleash the Archers album is fantastic.

https://open.spotify.com/album/5AZyScekGF0otc4JAYGiDG

fuckin' yiiiiiiikes on that Vio-lence stuff

so is the new Napalm Death all in that Killing Joke-influenced style?

Just to backtrack for a second, Angel Morgue's riffs are simple, but some of them are Iommi-tier in their ability to burrow into my brain. If you've heard a better death/doom album this year, please share!

new INcantation is indeed dope, and a little less dirgey as unperson mentioned. kind of some uncharacteristic riff choices at times too.

angel morgue is a cool name.

but all I can hear in my head is

YOU'RE AN ANGEL MORGUE
YOU'RE AN ANGEL MOOOOORGUE

I don't have a feel for what people are or aren't flipping out about but the Esoctrilihum album just delivers every time.

yeah, I love this thing. big step up from telluric ashes, which was already pretty good.

this and the mystras record are both top-notch imo, good year for i voidhanger records.

agreed.
btw, new japanese goregrind band:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnNMHMyicOY

Good: Carcass that was delayed due to COVID-19 has a new release date of 10/30.
Bad: Only an EP (Maybe that was common knowledge but it's news to me).

It looks like the full-length is delayed until 2021 and this EP is meant to tide folks over until then.

New Botanist out 10/30.

http://verdant-realm-botanist.bandcamp.com/album/photosynthesis

The first song from it, "Water," is dulcimerific as usual!

Was just coming to post that! I reviewed the Hammer of Botany/Oplopanax Horridus reissue for The Wire last year. Really interesting stuff.

Plague Organ are a project by Rene Aquarius (Horrid Apparition, Imperial Cult, Sneezing Pus, Celestial Bodies, Dead Neanderthals, etc) and recording engineer Marlon W. With influences ranging from deviant free-form jazz, drone and dark ambient, to ritualistic black and death metal all the way to the most erratic strains of kraut and improvised psychedelia, Plague Organ’s abhorrent avant-garde/ambient black/death metal deformity “Orphan” is a spiraling and malformed mantra of deviated experimentalism and inverted incantations designed to bore into the listener’s mind and ravage it of its sanity. By all means a triumph in fringe sonic experimentalism and among the most accomplished and unclassifiable avant-garde extreme metal anomalies of the year.

90 seconds in and i'm yes

https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/orphan

Every time I revisit this record 'Ashen Goblets' strikes me as the single most perfect metal track I've heard all year, almost Brucknerian in its stateliness. Bonus points for distantly and intermittently echoing the 'Opening' to Glassworks and the impeccable vocal work:

https://bloodreddistribution.bandcamp.com/album/black-stream

The rest is pretty damn good too, if you're into this kind of thing.

Ooohh Plague Organ & new Botanist both seem really awesome

Riley Gale of Power Trip has died

Tragic and terrible but very on point for 2020, alas.

Goddamnit. That’s awful news.

RIP

Thirty fuckin' five.

This just killed my mood

So sad.

This is Century Media's latest signing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS42JD_YTg8

I'm kinda surprised Roadrunner didn't grab her up, honestly.

I see she describes her music as "doom trap", which I'm guessing sounds a lot more intriguing than what it actually sounds like (I'm not in a place where I can hear that video yet).

sounds a lot more intriguing than what it actually sounds like

*ding ding ding*

"The Dark" is a slightly older Mimi Barks song, more dark trap than scream rap. But I've really liked her last two singles, which are both much screamier than that:

"Big Ass Chains": https://open.spotify.com/track/6M5Ikc8Qt3RZjTCCxLiiRE
"Transient": https://open.spotify.com/track/0yXlEjKoSRD7oKpPsqIMMx

Also, debugging a random Spotify issue resulted in me discovering Pukuut, a pretty good metal band from Greenland: https://open.spotify.com/album/4oq7BjeBROkyTZlT2k9rXb?si=W9_iURbQSD6AJ7IbPV8YaA

that is a lot more like XXXtentacion than metal

Powerman 5000 are still around and have a new LP? Heh.

I wrote a piece on seven recent-ish, weird-ish metal albums for Bandcamp Daily. Perhaps some of you will enjoy reading it.

Surprised not to see Ulcerate and Khthoniik Cerviiks in there.

I wrote a whole article on Ulcerate back in May.

Ah, my bad, I'll check it out.

The Necrot album out today is...fine, but totally unmemorable. Other than the guitar solo on "Sinister Will," it's basically 40 minutes of rehashed Grave and Dismember riffs. These guys bring nothing new to the table at all.

"asleep forever" also has a cool solo, so there's that

can I get a fash check on the band Panzerfaust? I perused some lyrics and didn't see anything overtly sus but yknow...the name...

They’ve opened for Watain in the past!

For real though, I haven’t found anything damning about them, they just seem to be morbidly obsessed with war.

Morbidly Obsessed With War will be the name of my first thrash album

Be my guest. And your band name?

Mega Death.

Poutinefaust?

xp

Metallic Band

Panzera

ah yes, the all-panzerotti offshoot of Panera

my best friend in high school was actually concerned when he saw Santana's cd in a store. he was pronouncing it "Satan-uh".

he was wondering if they were problematic. I said "no, it's San-tan-a, Carlos San-tan-a, not Satan at all".

he said "still guy should think about changing his name, gives people the wrong idea"

he must have a hard time every christmas

Blame St Anne who begat Mary who begat Jesus. There’d be no Satan without her.

Re: Mortal. have to disagree with 'unmemorable'. i already feel like i will recognize any of this tracks in a future invisible jukebox. idk, their songwriting here is still distinctive enough to me, and full with twists and curves, that they can keep kicking off with 'you may have heard this before' to beeing remarkable

Three albums out today I was interested in. My opinions after one listen each:

Ulver - Their assimilation to a full-on pop band is complete. I miss the sound of the more transitional records and if you're gonna be pop, I would want songs a skoch more memorable.

Pig Destroyer - Fuck yes, only a 25 minute-long EP but so much fun! "The Cavalry" is riff after riff after glorious riff. And if there's a better time for Pig Destroyer to drop new material, I can't think of it.

Atomic Bitchwax - Shit kicking, a few hefty slabs that stick to my ribs, what I expect from Bitchwax and it doesn't disappoint.