Rolling Metal Thread 2012

Well, of course they aren't – Witch Mountain aren't European power metal.

Or weird Europrog or folk/pagan metal…

so j3ff, where's your list of best metal albums so far this year?

This year I was totally going to write down which albums I loved to make it easier to compile a list at the end of the year… And then I didn't.

so do it now!

In no particular order (also, I love the Baroness and Torche records, but I'm not sure they are metal any longer):

Paradise Lost - Tragic Idol
Dawnbringer - Into the Lair of the Sun God
Meshuggah - Koloss
Grand Magus - The Hunt
Gojira - L'enfant sauvage
Christian Mistress - Possession
Ihsahn - Eremita
Barren Earth - The Devil's Resolve
Witch Mountain - Cauldron of the Wild
Pallbearer - Sorrow and Extinction
Royal Thunder - CVI
Liberteer - Better to Die on Your Feet Than Live on Your Knees
Worm Ouroboros - Come The Thaw
Alcest - Les Voyages De L'Âme
Les Discrets - Ariettes oubliées...
Asphyx - Deathhammer
Cannibal Corpse - Torture
Katatonia - Dead End Kings
Jeff Loomis - Plains of Oblivion
Horisont - Second Assault
Occultation - Three and Seven
Nachtmystium - Silencing Machine
Testament - Dark Roots of Earth

But what the hell, let's include these:

The Devils Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre (by US release date)
Baroness - Yellow and Green
Torche - Harmonicraft

Metall is the most honest genre

My top 12 of 2012, so far:

Baroness, Yellow & Green
Cannibal Corpse, Torture
Emmure, Slave to the Game
Gojira, L'Enfant Sauvage
Grand Magus, The Hunt
Job for a Cowboy, Demonocracy
Kreator, Phantom Antichrist
Manowar, The Lord of Steel
Napalm Death, Utilitarian
Steelwing, Zone of Alienation
Whitechapel, s/t
Whourkr, 4247 Snare Drums

Manowar certainly are no more silly than Alice Cooper, who opened for Iron Maiden and was well received. I could see them opening for Maiden.

How was the show?

Solid lists, Jeff and Phil. Though I'm still not feeling the Paradise Lost album much, and Emmure, well, their gimmick is smarter than people give them credit for, but I still find them unbearable. Katatonia is growing on me, but I still think it's their least consistent album in a very long time, perhaps ever.

I posted my own January-June highlights at MSN earlier this week:
http://social.entertainment.msn.com/music/blogs/headbang-blogpost.aspx?post=2ed01d65-6407-462b-b3be-19923c4ac2ca

Yeah, I saw that – I was considering putting Accept on my list, but I'm not sure how often I'm going to revisit that one. And as my Decibel review indicated, I still don't understand the appeal of Lamb of God's pure American mediocrity.

First time I saw Iron Maiden. Great to see them play plenty of songs from 80-84 era that I grew up with. Sound could have been better -- loud but muddy, hard to discern which of the three (!) guitarists were playing what. Bruce D jumps around like he's frickin' 25. I'm not too into these big venues though, I much preferred the Elder show in a small room with 35 people.

Bruce jumps around a little too much for his own good – he fell off the drum riser onto his head at the Dance of Death show I saw.

I'm sorry the sound was muddy. I wonder how much was venue or band. I'm seeing Maiden in August for the first time in 25 or so years, and am really excited by the setlists that have been making the rounds.

I'm a small room show guy too. This will be my first thousands and thousands of people show in 15 or 20 years.

listening to new baroness for the first time right now. just finishing yellow but WOW.

The new Lamb of God goes on some interesting tangents, and I don't consider them mediocre, but I just don't need anything beyond Palaces and Ashes, you know what I mean?

Most intriguing new album in a while for me: Arbor's The Plutonian Shore. Black Metal, I guess, but with enthusiasm and real dynamics. Wolves in the Garage?

And Ankhagram are tiding me over on breathy funeral doom until the new Evoken comes out.

And provisional approval for Kråke, Thormesis, Uncertain, Bend the Sky and Natan. And the Agalloch "EP". And old Asrai and Xandria albums.

The brothers in metal thing is dumb.. its just dumb.

Trying to be the loudest band in the world. dumb! trying to be the fasted drummer, loudest screamer.. all that shit they tried to do to get notice and in the Guiness book years ago.. fucking lame! Only a pretentious prickface would try to do any of those things. Bands with real heart don't try and do those things, they just are..

Viking songs? from an American Band? lame!!! What the fuck do they know about Vikings?

Manowar to me is the very reason metal gets clowned on for being ridiculous, overly macho, homo-erotic, war-mongering and just not smart.. For some, Metal are burnouts, or dumb jocks that got kicked off the team for bad grades, and they fall into the latter.. They cover all the stereotypes, imo.

And I think Alice Cooper is hella silly, too. His music was never cool to me, certainly nothing heavy, and the theatrics seem to try and make up for lack of musical integrity..

back when all i knew about manowar was that they were 'the world's loudest band' (and i didn't really listen to any metal then) i listened to them once to test that claim and it was the most embarrassing thing ever. AND not the loudest.

I'm with you re: Manowar, Sean, but you just might want to reconsider Alice Cooper.

I've tried with Alice, it ain't happenin... lol!

Mgła With Hearts Toward None is probably my pick of the year so far. Somewhere in between Nachtmystium, Drudkh and Deathspell Omega, very well produced, great songwriting, not a weak riff to be found and all played with max intensity.

I posted my own January-June highlights at MSN earlier this week

I like the Asphyx album, for sure, I was singing its praises when it came out. I forgot to include it when singling out the better death metal releases, but in the end it won't make the cut on my EOY list come December anyway. Nile just might, I love the new one.

So I was poking around an antique mall in Bay City, Michigan the other day and stumbled across this, for $20:

http://i999.photobucket.com/albums/af118/jon830/IMAG2522.jpg

Also, as we were driving home last night, some mid-Michigan rock station had a "Mandatory Metallica" block. So I thought, hey, at least a stretch of good music to keep me awake. Nope. The "block" consisted of 2 Death Magnetic songs. Come on.

Nice find!

Yeah, I was super excited!

I had no idea any part of the series was collected like that. Hella cool.

With the risk of sounding like the boy who cried wolf: apparently Summoning are working on their first album in more than seven years.

Siegbran you are only saying that to taunt me.

fucking A this is pretty exciting.

19.02.2012
After a longer winter-sleep summoning is back again and ow works constantly for a new release. We promise that in the near future we will regularly update the homepage again, so it will we worth the costs to check the page in regular intervals.

The present situation of Summoning:

In the past years we have worked on new material just very rarely because of different reasons (partly personal, partly being not motivated enough) but since the last months ,we intensified the work for new material and realised, that the old spirit is back again and we are very motivated for a cool new release and we are very committed in every terms of composing.

Meanwhile there are two songs which are fix starters for the album. 4 or 5 songs are in a more advance state and we composed riffs for at least 10 or 15 songs in a very early state. Btw. we still have one finished song from the last oath bound session which also will be in one or another way. so probably this time we are in the luck situation that we have more songs left, so maybe there will be some special limited fan releases beside the normal release, but this is of course just a wish right now.

We hope that until the end of this year most of the material for the new album can be finished. In the moment we have no concrete conception about the lyrical concept. All we can say right now is, that Summoning is still alive and middle earth will awake again.

I only have Oath Bound (which is pretty great), what's their classic record?

Ah so old news - hadn't seen that message yet, I heard it through one of my Austrian contacts.

Classic one...I guess Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame or Minas Morgul...they don't really have one undisputed classic. Oath Bound could've been monumental but it sounds like ass, either they were drunk when mixing it or they only heard the final master over the phone.

I think Mortal Heroes is probably the one that represents them best but Stronghold has "Long Lost to Where No Pathway Goes" which is an all-time jam for me. But Stronghold also suffers from the vocals of Tania Borsky, who on some lines ("I wait for youuuuuu!") literally does not seem to know where the right note is. I'll rep for getting their whole catalog to be honest - for me they're one of those bands who, when it's what I want to hear, literally nothing else will do.

Also, as we were driving home last night, some mid-Michigan rock station had a "Mandatory Metallica" block. So I thought, hey, at least a stretch of good music to keep me awake. Nope. The "block" consisted of 2 Death Magnetic songs. Come on.

― heated debate over derpy hooves (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Saturday, July 7, 2012 8:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol jvc, there's a real good chance that station was Q106, which was a fixture of my childhood. My band played a battle of the bands they hosted last year...they're totally corrupt.

Now that you mention it, that was definitely it. The only other thing I remember was a bunch of commercials for Pop Evil and Three Days Grace concerts. Sadly, by playing old Tool and Nirvana, it was one of the better stations we came across driving through that part of the state.

Pop Evil – why

Who knows? The new band I hear people talk about is the Hollywood Undead. I have no idea whether they get any radioplay or if they have more of a grassroots, word-of-mouth appeal.

I haven't heard much of them but they're p emblematic of why I try to never leave the house anymore.

I think boring radio rock is my least favorite thing ever.

Anyone else heard the new Nachtvorst album?

I think boring radio rock is my least favorite thing ever.

Seriously, modern mainstream radio rock is the worst. Of all the directions heavy rock could have taken over the past 10 years, how did the Creed descendents win out?

Laziness.

Just gave the Summoning a try. I have a hard time with nature-worshiping bands that use drum machines.

Like Fear Factory?

Just gave the Summoning a try. I have a hard time with nature-worshiping bands that use drum machines.

dude there's only a handful of bands ever with guitar lines as stellar as Summoning's

Dude, why are you guys all not listening to this Ptahil album RIGHT NOW?

Ha, the cover of their album is a picture of the Bohemian Grove owl statue.