Rolling Metal Thread 2009

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
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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.

^ maybe that sounds too unimpressed/bitchy. i dug it, spun it twice, will listen again.

maybe i gotta go back to the stream and try the second half. i was def. not crazy about the recording or vox, and when they would toss in a blastbeat and black metal riff it just sounded kind rote; not like they felt it needed to be there.

I'm glad the Tombs isn't more than 33 minutes. Any longer would have been overkill...this album gets it right, concise and catchy.

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

So let's see here. They invade the privacy of older acts in unfortunate circumstances but can't afford to pay for their own domain separate from blogspot.com. Or get the font in their captions right. Or distinguish a photo of an air-conditioner from a microwave oven.

I found that Manowar "expose" very cruel and tasteless.

A band known for it's taste..

I don't remember the band ever being cruel. They're having fun. What's wrong with that?

Never said there was!

They invade the privacy of older acts in unfortunate circumstances but can't afford to pay for their own domain separate from blogspot.com. Or get the font in their captions right. Or distinguish a photo of an air-conditioner from a microwave oven

or worse yet (and more likely) just doesn't care enough about his own writing to. a skilled writer could have used this information to paint a sad and profound portrait about what happens to bands that are at some point able to quit their day jobs for a music career, and spend the prime of their lives doing something for love that won't continue to pay the bills once they get too old to keep going. i have NO idea if this is the case with these guys, but it seems like something that could easily happen to musicians.

just saying it would be a hell of a lot more interesting than "lol they r poor"

"They don't live in a castle. OMGZ. Such loserz!!!!"

when all is said and done, i wonder who has seen and done more awesome things in their lives: metal internet blogger, or...

http://www.metalyou.com/img/history/p2.jpg

just read that blog, you guys werent kidding about it being cruel.

Yes, now no one will ever mistake them (or it) for being sissies to charity or the pure milk of human kindness.

pretty fucked up, imo

I didn't like MI's mocking of Eric Adams' drywalling job, that was unnecessary. However, anything that brings Joey DeMaio down a peg or two is fine.

How have Man O War (they) sinned? C'mon, tell us, how they've been predatory
assholes. Other than the big crime of being absurd and harmless boasters for over fifteen
years (which many of their fans know is a joke and enjoy.)

Y'know, there's an ocean of difference between saying someone's made a mediocre to lame
record and just randomly condemning a group because their rentals or properties aren't on the
Santa Barbara, CA, mesa. (And do you even know where this is?) I'm astonished this requires a protest.

How many metal communities could withstand scrutiny nailing them on not being economically superior? It seems to me there was a documentary on Anvil last year, one which was sincere and painful but which everyone chose to ignore. Who watched that?

OK, let's just agree to shit on those who boast and don't go multi-platinum in the US.

Y'know, if you're going to critique groups -- a valid thing. Do it on the basis of taste and leave the character and class assassinations aside -- unless they've really asked for it. (Country rock comes to mind as a better target than metal.) Twenty years ago anyone could have written they didn't like Manowar's first album because it was cheesy and OTT. (I really liked it.) It featured a vocal overdub by Orson Welles, the guy who made the alleged best movie ever, Citizen Kane, but who was better known then for endorsing cheap wine.

Did you learn any of this reading Metal Inquisition? Nope. And I've just tossed it off the
cuff. Wow. What a bunch of probers they are. The Manowar guys are lower middle classmen. Nominate that blog for a Pulitzer.

I can see how people reading that as an introductory point to Metal Inquisition would be sort of cheesed off by it but it fits into a really large proportion of what they write, which is this completely self-mocking and backhanded celebration of pseudo-idolatry in metal and, like, being a kid and thinking that bands who give it all that on stage must be really living the high life... then figuring out in later life that they're actually hopeless broke cases like yourself

Oh, so they're doing a community service by teaching kids that being a metal star isn't all it's cracked up to be?

Er, no

As a longtime Metal Inquisition reader, I'm gonna speak up for them. I think Mencap's got it right - look at the title of the blog: "Metal Inquisition." In an admittedly often mean-spirited way, they deflate metal, looking at where these guys really live (they did one on Joey Belladonna recently, too, though it wasn't nearly as in-depth as the Manowar one) or what they do outside of performing and recording, but at the same time they make fun of their own ridiculousness as obsessed fans of the genre. But it's done from a position of real fandom - I have no doubt that those guys really love Manowar's music, because who would do such a thing about a band they didn't care about? Look at their recent post on Suicidal Tendencies, or their whole "wigger slam" thing - they're obsessed with this weird sub-sub-variant of death metal that seems entirely confined to MySpace, and have written numerous posts lovingly describing ultra-obscure bands no one but meth-addled teenagers could ever possibly like. These guys are fans, and I think the post was funny and informative all at once. Besides, as Michael O'Donoghue said, "Making people laugh is the lowest form of comedy."

^^^

seriously, read any of their posts about their lives as teenage metal nerds before you get too upset, dudes.

reading through this now and they've got some funny stuff. the post about "screamo crunk" is classic.