Rolling 2023 Metal thread

!!!!

it is almost boring how reliably brilliant Ayloss is. new Auriferous Flame is yet another masterpiece

https://auriferousflame.bandcamp.com/album/ardor-for-black-mastery

New Judas Priest album in March:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwC_KNT24kU

If the music in the teaser is indicative of the record as a whole, it's gonna be Turbo II... and honestly, I'm up for that.

Definitely hear a Turbo style gloss to it! I'm all-in if that's the case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQh2xNa_Bv4

Glorious. Wow.

New Priest above. I was so excited I used a New Zealand VPN to hear it, so it should be working soon, whatever time zone you're in.

ffs, just found out that my friend and former poster of this parish Sean Boyles aka SeanWayne (drummer of Hellbeard and various bands) passed away yesterday.

He will be sorely missed.

https://i.imgur.com/rkXFo9o.jpg

I remember him. RIP. Way too young.

He was a great guy. He did comedy clubs too. His grandaughter posted on fb yesterday, she's utterly heartbroken. He adored her.

am taking my youngest spawn to damnation festival this year, he's a total metalhead now so this is like an early christmas present for him. other than the obvious though, i don't really know anything about these bands. what's good?

https://louderthanwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/377508819_7563068373707296_2260504728296247621_n-768x389.jpg

Not sure which are obvious to you, but I would absolutely be ready to see Sigh, Amenea, Bossk, Anaal Nathrakh. Ahab, Khemmis and of course Enslaved and Electric Wizard.

Haven't heard Coffin Mulch, but dig the name.

cool, thank you! I did randomly check coffin mulch out and they're pretty cool imo.

I would be most excited to see Electric Wizard, Enslaved (especially the night they're playing Below The Lights), Akercocke (even though they got me in trouble), Khemmis, and especially Deadguy (a reunited noise-rock band from the 90s). Unearth are a melodic death metal/metalcore band whose songs are catchy and fist-pumpy, and based on a few songs on YouTube High Command are good, knuckle-walking thrash/metalcore.

Oh, and Rotten Sound are great! Finnish grindcore in a Napalm Death-ish vein. Very shouty.

Appreciate that, thanks! High Command is one of the things my son has been going on about, so I'm sure we'll be checking them out

I'm a total Katatonia amd Enslaved nerd. Julie Christmas would be killer, she's so underrated and I heard loads of great things about her set at Roadburn 2022.

Oh, and the nattily clad Akercocke, too.

My mate is the vocalist of Coffin Mulch. He also runs the record label At War With False Noise.

Sorry to hear about SeanWayne. I remember seeing him in these threads way back.

What can you tell me about Messa? Seeing them Sunday.

My mate is the vocalist of Coffin Mulch. He also runs the record label At War With False Noise.

oh nice, i did see they were from glasgow, definitely want to see them play

xpost - Hmm, they rule? Seriously though, great and unique doom band. Sara is an absolutely stellar vocalist.

What can you tell me about Messa? Seeing them Sunday.

They're great. I reviewed their most recent album for The Wire:

Messa
Close
Svart CD/DL/LP
Italy’s Messa came out of the gate strong and have steadily pushed at the limitations of doom and occult rock, challenging themselves and their listeners in a way that aligns them more with experimentalists like Spain’s Orthodox than with trad acts seeking nothing more than to sound like their favourite Ozzy-era Black Sabbath bootlegs. Their 2016 debut Belfry ran the gamut from rumbling drone tracks (“Alba”) via Danzig meets Heart anthems (“Hour Of The Wolf”) to the astonishing “Blood”, a nearly 11 minute track that pushed vocalist Sara Bianchin’s voice through a rack of effects while making room for eerie, warped clarinet and saxophone solos.

Messa’s second album, 2018’s Feast For Water, was more focused but just as powerful. Bianchin had become a much more powerful singer, capable of haunted wailing and gentle murmurs. The eight minute “Leah” transitioned smoothly from a thunderous doom riff to crooned, almost Mazzy Star-ish vocals over gentle, haunting electric piano – then the guitars came back in, with bonus spaghetti western twang to give it all that much more epic sweep. Drummer Rocco Toaldo’s mastery of space and dynamics anchored the music, driving it while allowing it to feel like it was expanding and contracting naturally, on its own.

Close is the band’s first album for Finland’s Svart label. It starts right up, with no preamble beyond a few seconds of keyboard before the riff to “Suspended” comes crashing in. Bianchin’s voice floats in a cloud of reverb, surrounded at first by massively distorted guitars and later by cleaner tones; the first big surprise comes when the solo is not a Tony Iommi-esque explosion, but a gentle Pat Martino-like jazz reverie.

The next track “Dark Horse” might feature the fastest tempo in the entire Messa catalogue to date; at one point, Bianchin lets out an exultant yelp. “Rubedo” vacillates between crushing whomp and a delicate, sardonic melody (and arena-ready guitar solo) worthy of Blue Öyster Cult, and the saxophone returns, forcefully, on the nearly 11 minute “0 = 2” as the band galumph along. Messa prove that doom is far from beholden to tradition; indeed, it’s wide open territory.

new Afterbirth today!

oh god i love this new priest song

I feel like my great grandkids are gonna be raving about new Priest and Maiden.

Crazy how good both bands have stated this late into their lives

New track indeed fire

always been a huge Turbo (and not huge but way more than most) Ram It Down fan so this fits the bill nicely

The new Priest earns that epic intro.

they better release the Stock Aitken Waterman tracks as bonus tracks.

someone has to release the full track of their cover of You are Everything, dammit

like this is the best thing ever but i want it all!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL1JFybK9FE

Love the new Dream Unending tracks. To continue from the Tomb Mold discussion upthread, they're kinda like a Tomb Mold with the ratio of death metal to jazzy prog fusion reversed.

https://listen.20buckspin.com/album/starpath

I'm sure the new Temperance album is going to take over much of my attention once I let it, but for the moment I'm enjoying a little obsessive looping of this amazing Sister Shotgun song:

https://open.spotify.com/track/0CofWYL9PCd2t67WdksS1I

fundraiser for Sean's family.

https://gofund.me/ad5dbc16

hey prolly a longshot, but: in '84 (pretty sure of year) Kerrang! ran a vicious, very short pan of an early Voivod (i think War and Pain, but maybe Rrroooaarr), and i'm trying to find a scan of it, or the text, or ha-ha a pointer to a library that might let me go through Kerrang! archives

also, nice to see names i remember after a long time away. hope you've all been well, at least by 2020s standards

also also brand new cirith ungol!? i'm unreasonably excited

Welcome back.

Messa was pretty good last night. Great vocals, though that's not the only thing that makes the group standout. I could imagine them really cracking the code and coming up with something even cooler in the near future.

can't deal with new Temperance singer

The new Afterbirth album is so fucking good. I wish I could review it for The Wire.

Hey summervillain!

https://64.media.tumblr.com/8956a63c7555bbb6c23a647b35dc5499/tumblr_n2p2hwwwxk1qfnqgvo1_1280.jpg

oh wow, thank you! that is amazing. I think it was actually the Mr X review that I saw waaaay back when, but I think this will work for my purposes if I can't find the original slagging.

so OF COURSE I'm playing War & Pain now, for the first time in a while, and didn't Kerrang! usually love Motorhead? coz I hear a lot of Motorhead influence...

Just from that selection Adrien posted, I'm wondering if Kerrang! even liked metal back then?

extreme metal was extreme then, they were probably still clutching Raven and Saxon tightly

XR = Xavier Russell. He has a famous dad.

He eventually became the thrash metal guy

Bertrand Russell?

lol, no

Never mind Bathory, more like Bath Plughole

hahaha

aside from that zinger for the ages, I cant say that made me particularly nostalgic for that era of music criticism

SO many people hated Voivod in 1984. Including 14 year-old me!!! I came around a few years later.