Rolling Metal Thread 2009

Having a listen now. It's very ... runic.

But already I'd have to say that if I was going to be stripped naked and hung upside-down over a mountaintop fire by sinister hooded figures in the light of a full moon, this would perhaps be my soundtrack of choice. I like this a lot.

ok this is def more of the drone/stoner/whatever instrumental non-tru-kult-metal side of things but wanted to throw Gay Witch Abortion (from my hometown) into the mix here. not the best off the new album, but its on youtube so you dont even have to leave the page to check it out.

would have posted their myspace but the flashy background is super annoying and evokes way too much load records vibe.

if I was going to be stripped naked and hung upside-down over a mountaintop fire by sinister hooded figures in the light of a full moon

Just another day in Oban. Or not.

Relapse present the metalgaze album of the year?

Full album stream:

now streaming
Tombs - Winter Hours

http://www.winterhours.info/

"Winter Hours" is scheduled for release on February 17 in North America (February 23 internationally) via Relapse Records. The CD was recorded at the Etching Tin Studios in Richmond, Virginia with engineer Ian Whalen.

will this album crossover to a wider audience? i.e fans of these bands: My Bloody Valentine, Swans, Black Flag, Wetnurse, Helmet, Killing Joke, Botch, Dazzling Killmen, Husker Du.

elements of: sludge metal, post-metal, hardcore, shoegaze, experimental rock, mathcore, math-rock

Very, very keen to hear that. Site doesn't want to load for me right now, though.

relapse server is down

it's back
http://www.winterhours.info/

i can also detect some similarity to Withered on this Tombs album - the way the guitars have that buzzing backwards post-black metal reverb

Tomb track: Seven stars of the angel of death - has a Killing Joke vibe - Killing Joke circa 1990 on Extremities, Dirt & Various Repressed Emotions

Yup. That's pretty bloody great. On the list, underlined.

elements of: sludge metal, post-metal, hardcore, shoegaze, experimental rock, mathcore, math-rock

hmmm. sounds mighty intriguing, especially given the reference to extremities, dirt...

the head of david rumour is no longer a rumour, btw.

will this album crossover to a wider audience? i.e fans of these bands: My Bloody Valentine, Swans, Black Flag, Wetnurse, Helmet, Killing Joke, Botch, Dazzling Killmen, Husker Du.

elements of: sludge metal, post-metal, hardcore, shoegaze, experimental rock, mathcore, math-rock

you know, they can say this stuff, but as someone who has listened to a fair amount of "shoegaze, experimental rock, mathcore and math-rock" but not a lot of metal, the tombs album doesn't sound especially different from most other metal albums to my ears. so i'm guessing the crossover elements are exaggerated. i am a philistine though.

interesting that I can't find Tombs on:

Metal-Archives
http://www.metal-archives.com/

I finally heard the Gods & Queens album, holy shit hear it if you haven't.

mind you metal-archives also don't include: Converge or The Angelic Process

with Tombs there is a heavy shoegaze, hardcore and indeed industrial-rock twist embedded into their sound vortex - that's why the metal purists have probably barred them from metal-archives

got that tombs album the other day, ppl tar me as a "purist" sometimes but I thought that album was great

it was actually the first metal record I'd heard this year that did much for me til I heard Gods & Queens

Tombs sounds very 90s to me; like I dunno, a boogie-less meeting of Neurosis, Tad and Fudge Tunnel? But then "Beneath the Toxic Jungle" that has a black metal lead riff.
(Note that I've not heard the album, I've just played the stuff on their myspace page)

earlier this year i compared Cobalt and Sólstafir to The God Machine

thinking of the 90s reference there are some The God Machine vibes in Tombs music

Apparently I'm going to have to break down and order that Tombs album on Amazon. I haven't been able to get the Relapse promo player to work for a couple months now and it seems that Relapse's distribution (around Chicago at least) has gone to shit. Their stuff hasn't been showing up in stores until a month or two after the release date. Long way of saying, haven't heard Tombs yet... but I'm really anxious to do so.

jon, i just saw the tombs album on vinyl at metal haven the other day, guessing they probably have it on cd too

That's one place I haven't looked yet. I need to make a trip down there this week, thanks for the heads up.

I should qualify that when I say "great" I don't mean it's breaking down any doors or anything

Well, damn. The J0hn D. stamp of approval is what made me so anxious to hear it! Actually it sounds like it would be right up my alley.

imagine Fugazi or an Am-Rep band drowning in a sea of shoegazy reverb and noise... panicking and thrashing, desperately trying to claw their way out.

Gods & Queens description on brooklynvegan, could definitely hang with this. and the last j0hn recommendation i hit was wetnurse, so yeah i will be checking this out.

That Gods & Queens is great, definitely check it out!

add to "tombs curious" list

I nominated Gods And Queens on the metal poll

I'm really liking the new Blut Aus Nord album. It is, as the Memoria Vetusta II title implies, a little more accessible than their last couple, but I kind of think that maybe (unlike with Deathspell Omega) they were closer to their personal strengths in that mode, and the combination of focus plus distance ("maturity"? experience?) sounds pretty good to me.

I've also been doing some remedial catalog-spelunking while things are still pretty quiet on the new-release front, and am really enjoying Ven Buens Ende's old album Written in Waters. A Black Metal Classic, I've been assured by the internet, but I had never heard of it until a few days ago. Excitingly strange, in no small part because it was done in 1995 before as many of the genre-tropes had been trope-ified.

Re Gods & Queens: singer has some faint Perry Farrell overtones to his voice (or to the combination of his voice and my ears) that totally ruin it for me.

another Relapse album stream, this time from Obscura from German tech death-metal band, will give it a listen tomorrow

OBSCURA: Entire New Album Available For Streaming
http://bit.ly/CU0s4

"Cosmogenesis", the second full-length album from German death metallers OBSCURA, is available for streaming in its entirety at ObscuraCosmogenesis.com. The CD is being released in the U.S. today (February 17) via Relapse Records (March 2 internationally). The CD features guest appearances from Ron Jarzombek (WATCHTOWER, SPASTIC INK, BLOTTED SCIENCE) and Tymon Kruidenier (CYNIC, EXIVIOUS). "The new album sounds very intense and brutal", the band says in a statement.

Obscura - Cosmogenesis
http://www.obscuracosmogenesis.com/

Glenn, that Ved Buens Ende is a classic. If you like it, you'll probably enjoy the entire Ludicra catalog, as well as their new band Virus.

That's Ved's new band I mean. Ludicra are still Ludicra (and thanks Satan for that!).

BTW - new Wolves in the Throneroom E.P. is the best thing I've heard in 2009 so far.

I think the Obscura is one of my surprise albums of the year so far. It has better songwriting than Necrophagist and some great fretless bass playing. I've had a few people compare it to Human-era Death so far, but I don't really think they're comparable. Two completely different beasts.

Picked it up on vinyl a few weeks ago when I was in Philadelphia. Cool packaging with a diecut sleeve inside and nice blue vinyl.

Made a huge mistake I think on Tuesday night. Instead of going to the Meshuggah/Cynic show in Toronto I took the offer for a free ticket to the Soilwork/Darkane/Warbringer/Swallow The Sun show that same night across town.

Swallow The Sun were best band of the night. They made the most of what they had, stage and PA-wise, and received rapturous response from the 450 or so in the hall. Warbringer were bad. 10th grade retro thrash from a bunch of kids trying way too hard to please. Not looking forward to seeing them again on the Kreator tour in a month or so. Darkane did a good job but the PA wasn't doing them any favors. No vocals for the first song, guitars inaudible until the middle of the second. However, they pulled through any problems and did a great job. Soilwork ended the night. I am not a fan, never have been. They were okay but all I could think of by this point was how Cynic's set went over and what the fuck was I thinking not going to see them anyway.

yeah, I love the new wolves in the throne room ep. best thing they've done to date.

Picked it up on vinyl a few weeks ago when I was in Philadelphia.

where? who is selling metal now that the relapse store is closed?

Relapse's warehouse. I used to work in another life. I even met 'unperson' a few times in person during my time there (although I doubt he remembers).

Relapse's warehouse. I used to work there in another life. I even met 'unperson' a few times in person during my time there (although I doubt he remembers).

so i was streaming the tombs album earlier and couldn't make it past the fourth song. all the black-metal-referencing melodies sounded really really familiar, and not in a good way.

I even met 'unperson' a few times in person during my time there (although I doubt he remembers).

Yeah, I came down there interviewing for what became Carl Schultz's job.

Listening to the live bonus disc on the reissue of Amon Amarth's Once Sent from the Golden Hall right now. I vastly prefer Johan Hegg's current, lower vocals to his earlier, more black-metal-influenced screech, so the live versions of these songs are actually much better, to my ear, than the old studio recordings.

Metal Inquisition has quite an amazing investigation of Manowar's life in Auburn, New York when they're not playing to tens of thousands of people in Europe:

http://metalinquisition.blogspot.com/2009/02/metal-inquisition-investigative-report_20.html

BAN
G
YOUR
HEAD

awesome inbestigative reporting

by which i mean omfg lol dr peppar

Swallow The Sun are fucking great

metal inquisition article is kind of a bummer. ;__; I like metal inquisition and all but the mean-spiritedness gives me a vice mag vibe sometimes.

wasn't feeling the new buried inside but maybe I just wasn't in an angry hardcore guy screaming at me at 8am mood. switched over to the new blut aus nord instead. loving it on first listen. surprisingly melodic for a hypnotic, repetitive black metal album. (especially after that dissonance fest a couple years back.) plus, it swings.

last few tracks are especially strong.

Dudes, you were all right about that God Forbid album. Pretty awesome.

lissening to tombs. liveblog! first track = boring, though scary-pretty at times. screamo vox a huge problem, gotta admit. almost gave up, but "golden eyes", holy shit! esp dig the straight-up, heavy-handed rock drumming. first half of "beneath the toxic jungle" is great too. then it drags again. don't dig the stonefaced blackened postrock when they play it straight. want more catchy shit. and the ambient stuff is straight filler.

second half (side 2) ups gaze quotient, for the better. "the divide" could easily be some midwest amrep also ran. hammerhead? really, really prefer the less hysterical vocals here. dude should pull back more often. good shit, fucking standout track. jeez, now that i think about it, hammerhead/vaz seem like the template for a lot of this record's tricks. beyond the more obvious godflesh thing i mean. "merrimack" goes back to the wounded howling (with some embarassing "look inside your soul" lyrics), but melodicism saves it. kinda started to tune back out after that.

really nice guitar tones throughout, raw and sharp, albini-ish, kinda, but thicker, more lo-end luv. clink clanky junkyard cymbals are weird, but maybe that's just the rip. good record, though the harder they try to crush my soul, the more bored i get. serious godflesh vibes on the 2nd half of "filled with secrets".

super short! without the short interludes, only about 33 min. probably for the best at this stage, though i'm surprised they don't stretch out more.