Rolling Metal Thread 2009

Got the new Agoraphobic Nosebleed and Brutal Truth discs in today's mail. I'm still not digging the new long-boring-songs version of ANb, and the Brutal Truth album just sounds like another Brutal Truth album. The only band with a wider gulf between how awesome they should be in theory vs. how lame and tiresome they are in practice is probably the Grateful Dead.

I'd say that you were the king of metal challops, but that's obviously Chuck. The prince, maybe?

jester

Re: Candlemass "but this may be their best since Nightfall, and I love the White album."

That's exciting news. Though I really give high props to Dactylis Glomerata as the best Candlemass between the aforementioned two.

Re: Disney bands "Wait, is this the first metal group named after a Disney character?"

Not a character per se, but I've been in Witch Mountain for the last twelve years...

http://cdbaby.com/cd/pluto

So I'm really transfixed by the new Funeral Mist album. So much of it is such overly contrived black metal (processed vocals, samples of sermons, disturbing artwork), but it's so deliriously over the top and above all catchy, especially the wickedly groovy 12 minute jam "Blessed Curse". Good stuff.

Absolutely, my fav album of the year so far. Glad someone finally brings this one up, def. deserves a lot more attention. For instance, "Sword Of Faith" has got a positively mindblowing Dick-Dale-in-corpse-paint tremolo picking breakdown. Also the buzzing amp atmospherics in "White Stones", very impressive. And that's just the first two songs.

Holy shit Carcass were amazing...

Here's my AMG review of the Heaven and Hell album.

Attn Brits, Corrupted confirmed for Supersonic.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/homepage/d/int/music/albumreviews/rockandindie/-/music/release/h5mq

i think it's pretty hilarious that a bunch of the reviews latched on to the banjo at the beginning of 'divinations' as in 'WTF banjo on a metal album!?!' deal given that it's like 6 seconds of banjo that isn't really even integrated into the song

poorly written but you know what i mean

I think I've run out of things to say about stoner-psych bands.

I think I've run out of things to say about stoner-psych bands.

For me, it's NeurIsis bands. I'm tapped out.

I have the biggest trouble finding something new to say about death metal bands (which is too bad because I still really enjoy death metal) and black metal (which is mostly rooted in my ever-increasing dislike of black metal).

I still like stoner-psych, there are just so many ways to describe psychedelic jam solos.

I know this is late but fuck, I'm enjoying deleting my Cynic files, fucking shit is Steely Dan without the edge, wtf got into everyone on this?

>For me, it's NeurIsis bands. I'm tapped out.

I dunno--Cult of Luna...it's hard to say if they're better but they've gotten weirder

The new Gathering album sorely misses Anneke. Sigh.

Not exactly fair to the new girl, but when she's stuck singing ballad after tepid ballad, we can't help but draw comparisons. The three uptempo tracks are really good, but that's hardly redeeming.

I feel guilty even writing the word Neurisis, but what you gonna do? It's catchier than leprosy at this point.

Know what I'd love to hear? NeurArsis.

Blabbermouth is reporting a rumour that Anvil will be joining the Priest/Whitesnake tour. I would love to see that happen.

rofl
http://www.amazon.com/Hair-Metal-For-Fitness/dp/B001ZG98UG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1239192495&sr=8-1

Zodiac Mindwarp???

I had the same reaction ;)

not a very metal last couple weeks for me... but I have put on the new mastodon a few times. it's so busy that not all that much has stuck yet... but I think I like it. never got into blood mountain, so that's a nice surprise.

still hate the vox, tho. I wish they were mixed down. and less annoying. sub-ozzy at best.

...and agoraphobic nosebleed has a cute girl on board now. (!?!?)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshsisk/3288536889/

I wonder if they'll ease up on the casual misogyny?

and my first impressions for the new anb are positive. they took the short songs thing about as far as they could, so I don't mind them stretching things out. it's a bit like what pig destroyer did on their last one; this isn't exactly the new cryptopsy.

still loving that blut aus nord. anyone even mildly interested should check that one out, imo.

hmmm.. my image got sliced out of my post.

direct link to anb band photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshsisk/3288536889/

The new ANb album is easily my favourite grind album to come out in a while. The songs are really well-written, the lyrics are twisted, the artwork is over the top, and it's exceptionally produced.

Anyone seen dj martian lately?

Didn't expect Victoria Coren to join ANb :0

The new ANb album is easily my favourite grind album to come out in a while. The songs are really well-written, the lyrics are twisted, the artwork is over the top, and it's exceptionally produced.

have you heard their side on the domestic powerviolence split? pretty great. as you might guess from the title, serious man is the bastard vibe going on. but with little epic doom (ahab came to mind) and wolf eyes bits thrown in for good measure. probably more into it than the new one, but again, I've only listened to that once.

I'm still not sold on the new ANb. I am, however, greatly enjoying Bulldozer's Alive...in Poland, which came in today's mail. Ultra-primitive biker thrash, super-heavily indebted to Venom and Motörhead, plus cheesy keyboards, plus barely intelligible between-song banter in one of the thickest Italian accents I've ever heard not coming from the pizza chef on The Simpsons.

The new Amorphis is as solid as expected. I really like this incarnation of the band, their last three albums have been quite good, and new single "Silver Bride" is a killer melodic hard rock track. Weirdly, though, "Majestic Beast" seems to rip off Opeth's "The Grand Conjuration", of all things...

Wow, Ulcerate's Everything is Fire is one of the best death metal records I've heard in a long time. Technical but with long stretches of slow, dissonant guitar interplay - imagine if Gorguts, Oceanic-era Isis and Immolation were all one band. On Willowtip. (Has that label released a bad record yet? Because everything I've ever heard from them has been great, in one way or another.)

dude that's a hell of a description. definitely gonna check that out.

Really liking the new Coalesce so far.

I'm not exactly blown away by it.

After listening again this morning, I can't say I'm exactly blown away either but still liking it quite a bit. They aren't bringing a whole lot new to the table, but I have just always really loved what they do bring.

I have an iPod shuffle, which I keep filled with a random 2GB of the last 6GB I added to iTunes, in a random order. This is, numerically, even more heavily metal than my usual listening rotation, and it's not uncommon for something to come up that I can't readily identify without looking it up. Usually it's some new band whose latest album I downloaded and will soon delete, but recently I hit a couple songs that I thought sounded fantastic. Heavy and dark, but with this great sneaky creepy tunefulness. Some band taking the black metal blueprint and turning it back into something powerful and scary but not so misanthrophic. Very pleasing to hear a new band with some solid old-school principles.

Except when I went back and figured out who it was, it was old Sentenced, from Love & Death. But, you know, anything you've forgotten is new again.

Any thoughts on the Khanate? Giving it my first listen right now, sounding good to these ears.

Yeah, back to really liking the Coalesce, sorry doods.

The Khanate is great

New L'acephale, on Aurora Bourealis, is like 25% of a metal record or something but completely kicks my arse

Phil, you're right, that Ulcerate album is really good. A little like Gojira too, but a lot more deathy.

I'm listening to In Flames - The Jester Race for the first time. I've never been this fucking bored in my whole life. Is it because this just sucks or because 100,000 bands have done this since then?

or both?

Phil, you're right, that Ulcerate album is really good. A little like Gojira too, but a lot more deathy.

― A. Begrand, Thursday, April 16, 2009 8:23 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

Is it less boring than The Way of All Flesh?

This is not entirely new, either, but I just saw the "expanded" reissue of Xandria's Ravenheart go across my iTunes new-release feed, and clicked on it guessing from the cover that it might be interesting techno. It's female-fronted gothic metal with some little electronic bits, and although I usually have very little tolerance for sub-Nightwish femme-metal gawkiness, the snippets of this actually sounded pretty animated to me. Downloaded Now and Forever, their 2008 best-of, and have had it on near-constant rotation for several days since. It's dramatic and ambitious, but not in the stilted more-operatic-than-thou way this genre sometimes goes. More straightforward than Brave, but more adventurous than Asrai, to take two other in-genre examples I like a lot. Worth a listen if you like this sort of thing.

I've been enjoying Unholy's new record, New Life behind Closed Eyes. I remember hearing their EP a few years ago and thinking they had potential, and they did. Really solid death metalcore along the lines of The Haunted or later Entombed, with lots of killer guitar work and a grouchy shouter. Plus it clocks in at around half an hour, so it doesn't wear out its welcome, something that I am increasingly appreciative of.

(Something which anyone who read my Sylosis review in the latest issue of Decibel could have probably figured out)