Rolling Metal Thread 2009

Heh, wow.

Maybe it's so awesome they wanted to do it twice.

Reuse Your Illusion

The songs evolved as the band played them live? I'd say this re-recording doesn't prove the record will suck. But I haven't been very thrilled with a Lacuna Coil record in a while, so actually I'd have been inclined to tell them to try twice no matter how the first one turned out...

I'm listening to the new Absu. I was not a big fan of Tara, so I fully expected to just skip through a few songs and delete this, but it's holding my attention so far.

Also liking the two new Wolves in the Throne Room songs. Vinyl-only is a dubious trick in general, but kind of in character for WitTR...

The songs evolved as the band played them live?

Nope. The album was supposed to be out in late spring, but is being pushed back to the fall, so after they get off the tour they're about to commence, they've gotta get back to work on it.

Woah, I had no idea Orphaned Land had a new album coming out this year.

About time, too. I loved Mabool, but I hadn't listened to it in quite a while...the Global Metal movie reminded me of just how cool a band they are.

HAIL SATAN

http://www.boingboing.net/200902021203.jpg

Oops. That image is kind of huge.

The Fall Of Troy, from the album i heard is some super spazzmocore stuff that i seem to think i found sort of ok at the time but had zero lasting power. also were like really ridiculously young at the time, so like a wee baby version of Blood Brothers maybe.

So I listened to the new Lamb of God today. I mostly liked the parts that weren't the howling growling cookie monster vocals. (So parts of "Grace," the entire "The Passing," parts of "In Your Words," especially around 3:30 in that song.) I think one of my biggest issues with metal is how addicted I am to lyrics in almost all the music I listen to (probably cause I listen to mostly folk/singer-songwriter) and how hard it is to listen to something entirely not for the lyrics. Ironically I don't have this issue with Classical music. So it might be that the presence of vocals, but their incomprehensibility, bothers me. I feel like I should be able to understand them, and I'm frustrated that I cannot. Is frustrating the listener a part of the intention of metal music? Or is there something about the vocals that if I understood it, I'd be able to appreciate it more?

lyric sheets, bro.

Mordy I feel like you phrased your question in a cloying way, but I feel u: it's occurred to me "am I supposed to care what Xasthur or whoever is howling at me?"

When it comes to the more extreme forms of metal, lyrics are pretty much secondary in my opinion, what counts is the overall visceral impact of the music. If an extreme band does have an extremely talented lyricist (Red Chord, Pig Destroyer are two of my faves for instance), then that's just gravy. I don't care as much about metal lyrics as I did 25 years ago (really, really exceptional lyrics are few and far between), but I do appreciate the growlers and screamers who do make an effort to enunciate. Like Blythe in Lamb of God, he has a real knack for it. Or Corpsegrinder.

Yeah, I vastly prefer growls in my metal, but can't say I ever pay any attention to the lyrics. Just an odd line here and there (y'know, "Welcome to... my church!", haha!)
This point is limited to the subgenres that I guess get lumped together as "extreme metal" these days. I'm not sure how I listen to the vocals, to be honest. It's just a sort of binding rhythmic and textural element most of the time, though I do really like the -sound- of some growls, such as the ones on _Clandestine_.
I'd say I listen to metal mainly for rhythm (and implicitly structure), with the limited sort of melody and harmony brutal riffs provide trailing a bit behind. I do not like "melodic" death metal etc where people try to jam Judas Priest or Abba into their guitar leads, whether it's Vital Remains' _Dechristianized_ or In Flames' _The Jester Race_.

There's incidentally very little I find more offensive to listen to than -singing- over properly brutal riffs, which has made it very hard to find listenable recent "technical" metal bands, since they're all doing that unfortunate emo yell now.

Ignoring lyrics might be more common for us who don't speak English natively, I suppose; it's easier for us to not really pay close attention what the lyrics really say, and thus more easily be comfortable with songs where the lyrics are nigh-impossible to make out. It might also explain why "Every breath you take" is sometimes played at weddings here. Hm. Or why I've heard people complain about Anacrusis' cover of "I Love The World", which apparently wasn't a properly metal sentiment. This might be completely off-base, I admit. I've never really asked around.

Hrm, that didn't really lead anywhere, did it? Damn.
I've been listening to Solstafir on myspace lately, and uh, I don't really get it. Competent but kinda dull, eh? Maybe if I hadn't played "The Silent Enigma" to death back in the days.

I think that "Every Breath You Take" is played at weddings everywhere.

Very few modern metal bands have lyrics that matter to me, so I don't really care what bands are singing about. They have to have good riffs and a solid rhythm section (and of course make music I like).

i never pay attention to metal lyrics but the quality of the vocals matters a lot to me--timbre, timing, style, and just generally fitting in well with the music. a lot of solid bands are dragged down by a boring singer, but most of my favorite bands have a singer who is really trying to do something interesting. for example anaal nathrakh is to me a sort of forgettable band without their singer, and one thing that really elevated krallice was that mick barr did a nice job with the vocals.

This year's token metal band at Bonnaroo is Down.

xp I love melodic death metal, but that's probably because I look for melody over rhythm and music. However, I find that the Cobra Commander-style vocals work much better with melodic death metal than the Cookie Monster ones.

Also: RIP Metal Edge =(

word, RIP BIG MAG

Yeah, it's a sad day.

Yup. :-(

waht happen?

Yeah, really bummed out to hear that news.

The magazine stopped sucking just in time for the economy to kill it.

crap! after i just subscribed a couple of days ago. maybe that done it in?

Technically not public knowledge yet, fellas, but yeah, we're outta here.

Oops... epic fail!

No big deal.

Well, anyway, you did a great job with the magazine, Phil.

Yeah, what a turnaround that was. It went from being a Hit Parader-style jumble of badly written press releases to a magazine with real integrity.

Yeah, it was great to be even a very, very small part of that turnaround. Phil did such an amazing job.

Shit, I guess I should actually try and read a copy of this while I can - sorry to hear that

new Tombs video - gossamer
http://pitchfork.tv/videos/tombs-gossamer

metalgaze music from the USA

Are Tombs America's answer to Jesu?

album review
Tombs - Winter Hours
http://www.lordsofmetal.nl/showreview.php?id=13240〈=en

That review is not super useful, considering that it isn't in English. Although I already reviewed this record for Outburn.

ilxor bbcode messed the url up, go to the review and in the top left corner of the webpage see the link to the english language review

As you might surmise from the name, that is a really freaking depressing album.

I've been meaning to check out that Tombs album, but I've been having loads of trouble getting the Relapse promo flash player to work right.

Ah, I'm glad I'm not the only one having Relapse streamer trouble. Man, I hate those things.

They sound virtually nothing like Jesu for anyone taking djmartian notes btw - I mean they both have an evident boner for olde tyme shoegazing but take it in basically the opposite direction to each other

Yeah, I hate the streamer too. I don't see the Jesu thing, either. I heard something a bit more post-post-metal.

"Yeah, it was great to be even a very, very small part of that turnaround. Phil did such an amazing job."

WORD.

Thanks, y'all.

I got a physical copy of that Tombs disc in the mail yesterday, along with a copy of the new Buried Inside, which I'm more excited about, frankly.

The new Buried Inside rules (think I mentioned it a while back), but I'm still iffy re: Tombs. "Gossamer" does sound pretty strong.

new ABSU is out there. i will be listening to it as soon as my illegal download is done.

"I've been listening to Solstafir on myspace lately, and uh, I don't really get it. Competent but kinda dull, eh? Maybe if I hadn't played "The Silent Enigma" to death back in the days."

i gotta agree. if you are gonna rip off anathema and primordial, you REALLY have to do it well to impress me.

and i like plenty of MDB biters and other U.K. rainstorm doom copycats, so it's not like i'm a purist or something.

"Also: RIP Metal Edge =("

yikes! so sorry to hear this, phil. for real. i could tell that you were very much in your element and putting a lot into the mag. i would have written more for you if life hadn't intruded so mundanely for me. i dug reading the mag, for sure. and i will definitely miss the near-perfect placement of matt's haiku craziness.

it might be that the presence of vocals, but their incomprehensibility, bothers me. I feel like I should be able to understand them, and I'm frustrated that I cannot. Is frustrating the listener a part of the intention of metal music? Or is there something about the vocals that if I understood it, I'd be able to appreciate it more?

Ugly, clunky vocals are my biggest stumbling block in current ("extreme", whatever) metal by far. When I like metal vocals, it's usually because I like their sound. Hell, sometimes it's just because I can tolerate their sound. In "real" metal, they almost never communicate anything anymore, or at least anything remotely concrete -- which is a weakness of the music whether metal fans admit it or not. It also explains why, when I made out my "Top 25" metal albums list for last year, the ones near the top usually tended to be the kind of albums (like Rose Tattoo, say) that lots of metal fans would now insist are merely "hard rock." And sorry, lyric sheets are not the answer -- I judge music by what I hear, not what I could hear in theory if the band would only let me. (Also don't think the Lamb of God guy's vocals are particularly comprehensible, for what it's worth.) Anyway, the inability to decipher lyrics doesn't make me dislike metal -- I still like a lot of it and love some of it, regardless. Lyrics are far from the main thing I listen for when I listen to music, any music. (And I also like lots of rock and other music in foreign languages, and obviously I can't decipher those vocals, either.) But I do have to think that a lot of metal would be better if I could make sense out of what the lyrics might be. In other words, not being able to decipher the lyrics never makes the music better. (Well, maybe it does if the lyrics stink -- just like I have a feeling I wouldn't have loved the '90s Mexican rock band Caifanes so much if their apparent new age poetry baloney was in my face all the time, so thank God I didn't speak Spanish too well -- but like I said, I usually don't check lyric sheets to make sure.) But again, that's just me. What the heck do I know.

Sorry about the beer-stained rant. And yeah, Phil, that does indeed suck about Metal Edge. You should be proud for what you pulled off, though....