Rolling Metal 2017

I wish that had come to TO, and also wish that the Cattle Decapitation / Revocation / Full of Hell / Artificial Brain tour (!!!!) that's hittingTO on Halloween (!!!!!) didn't conflict with the Clientele

i fucked up missing the Thou / Cloud Rat / False tour :(

― alpine static

i saw Thou a year or so ago, and this time there were 5 bands on the bill (they added The Body in Portland at the last minute) so i'm guessing they were pretty short sets, and it was a weeknight ... but still.

I, Voidhanger is doing a physical release of the s/t Tchornobog album, which is also Name Your Price on Bandcamp. Epic lunatic black doom death chaos.

http://markovsoroka.bandcamp.com/album/tchornobog

New Temple of Void is sounding pretty great. Riffy as fuck death metal, generally slow to mid-paced

"Wretched Banquet" (!) has a pretty neck-snapping verse riff.

http://templeofvoid.bandcamp.com/album/lords-of-death

The Dead Cross album is streaming at Noisey and the lede might have been buried in the otherwise nice interview with Dave Lombardo and Mike Patton...

"This is the heaviest album I've ever recorded," Lombardo says.

Other lyrics require more unpacking, such as the menacing, inflammatory indictment on "Idiopathic": "We are all terrorists and fags / and niggers and spics and fuckin' dirt-bags / sketchy-cracker white trash / and we're coming / we comin' to get your ass."

"Well, you know, it's egalitarian racism," says Patton, who sounds aghast that journalists can get their hands on the album's lyric sheet. "You know how it goes. With friends, there's a vernacular that you use all the time—and I'm not talking about white friends. I'm talking about everybody. And everyone laughs and everything's cool. But all of a sudden, I use it in a hardcore song and it's a fucking problem? No. No it's not. This is the way people talk, and this is also important to realize that.

"I'm not targeting a Mexican or an African-American or anything else," he continues. "It's all of us. And we've all got our own little, you know, slang words, and pitfalls, and whatever you want to call it, and ways that we're discriminated against. I mean, shit, I think we've all felt that in some weird way. So I thought it was good to put that in there. Who knows? Maybe I'll get blasted for it. Who fucking knows?"

Oh, and the video for "Obedience School" features footage from actual cockfighting. No controversy from that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTtJXEpR-XA

The most important thing about the Dead Cross record is that it's fucking awful. One of Patton's most annoying vocal performances (and that's a high fuckin' bar) on top of utterly generic speedcore riff 'n' bash; a total waste of Lombardo's talents. And it's not even produced well - it sounds like shrill, distorted (and not in a good way) shit. It's got me revisiting Grip Inc. just so I can hear Lombardo actually play something.

Sweet, super-edgy lyrics, shitty vocals and boring music! Somehow I think Patton's fans will still tell me its brilliant every chance they get.

Obedience School has the worst guitar production I've heard in a minute

Just picked up an Anvil box set cleverly titled 5 Original Albums in 1 Box.

Strength of Steel (1987)
Pound for Pound (1988)
Worth the Weight (1992)
Plugged in Permanent (1996)
Absolutely No Alternative (1997)

Pretty sure there's a lot of filler here but it can be found for the price of one album.

http://scontent.fewr1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/20604237_10159148027075597_4054508561794605442_n.jpg?oh=8608357a107d25dc03d2ea2b9c2d8d64&oe=5A311C36

I love those boxes. I just got one with the first five Montrose albums in it in today's mail. I've also got an 8CD box of all of Whitesnake's 1978-82 material on the way, and three two-CD sets that between them compile the first eight albums by Frank Marino and Mahogany Rush. Summer is the time for '70s rock.

Negative metal act REBEL WIZARD will issue four brand new anti-shamanic, pre-fetal anthems later this month in the form of The Warning Of One EP.

Set for release on August 18th via Prosthetic Records, the EP will be available on cassette and digital formats. Comments REBEL WIZARD mastermind NKSV, "negative wizard metal once again proves that in an era of 'the shell' and fevered, self-righteous evolution, we can abandon hope and rest blissfully within the mystical indifference of the wizards majestic riff."

Hear opening psalm, "The One I Seek," at THIS LOCATION. Preorder The Warning Of One HERE.

The Warning Of One Track Listing:
1. One I Seek
2. One I Know
3. One I See
4. One I Call

I know we're not all big on Warbringer but the new one seems much better than the last one. still not bringing anything new to the table and the Seasons-era Slayer worship is still on display but the songwriting is better for sure and at least they aren't one of 100 interchangeable crossover bands.

anybody heard the Expulsion disc?

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Just checked Expulsion out... fuuuuuuuuuck indeed. It's only like 15 minutes long, though?

Yup. Quick hitter

Well, this is...unexpected.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J06yQb4lbPk

I saw Converge/Neurosis last night. You know what was great about the Converge set? They were surprisingly restrained in volume! I was not expecting that. (Not sure if it was just the venue or if that's how they normally do things.) Neurosis seemed louder from my vantage point.

I saw them years ago, in between Mastodon and High On Fire, and they didn't seem particularly loud. Does Jacob still run up and down the stage doing that stiff-arm-waving thing that looks off-puttingly like a Nazi salute if you're not paying attention?

He didn't do anything noticeably Nazi-esque when I saw them, and it's tough to pay attention to anyone but him really, he's quite a showman. Also it wasn't until seeing them live that I noticed he looks a bit like the goth ghost of brad lol

I confess I left midway through the Neurosis set, I'm not the hugest fan of theirs and they seemed weirdly sloppy?

I'll be seeing/reviewing that Converge / Neurosis show on Monday in Philly if I get tix.

Tomorrow I see Melvins whose sprawling double album sounds like a self-indulgent bizarro world Flaming Lips. Not sure what I think about it but the Dale Crover solo release is a little more palatable (or at least immediate).

The new Incantation album, unsurprisingly, rules.

forgot that's out later this month (well, for the rest of us!)

\m/

Just checked Expulsion out... fuuuuuuuuuck indeed. It's only like 15 minutes long, though?

― The Man Who Saw The Midwife (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Thursday, August 3, 2017 5:29 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup. Quick hitter

― Neanderthal, Thursday, August 3, 2017 9:14 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was going to say Matt Harvey has found his niche as a mimic w/ this band and Gruesome but he kinda has done that his whole career, w/ Exhumed largely being Carcass worship.

It's a weird niche, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Anyone checked this Iron Bonehead demo from Blooming Carrions yet? Aside from the Evil Outback Steakhouse name I'm not a huge fan of the production - the guitars feel overly EQ'd and it gives them a monotonous quality on my speakers, a little less so on headphones. But there's promise here for people that like the somewhat hypertrophied Incantation wing of death metal.

https://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com/album/blooming-carrions-sparkling-rotten-dreams

if you didn't listen to this last year...listen to it this year. somehow threads a knot of the more technical style of EARLY death metal (not modern tech-death), sludge, and...art-rock?

https://oksennus.bandcamp.com/album/sokea-idiootti

Very, very good.

Oksennus are cool. Some of my favorite cover art. I love Finland.

ha wtf that Oksennus. have I even heard any metal that sounds like this?

if I've done my time zone math correctly, Emperor should be coming up on the Wacken livestream in about an hour (3:30 EST/9:30 Wacken time)

http://stream.wacken.com/

(and after that, Megadeth, Turbonegro, and Annihilator)

fucking sun going down as they play "...Nightspirit," this is incredible

honestly wasn't expecting much, as Emperor's music seems to lose something in a live setting but uhhh this is cool

Thanks for posting - I didn't realize they were streaming, and this is awesome. Emperor!

Keijo Niinimaa of Rotten sound has a new band, Morbid Evils, who do a kind of postpunk doom thing that I like a lot, so I interviewed him for Bandcamp.

too lazy to repost but the cover art for the new bell witch album mirror reaper is fucking incredible and may compel me to buy it on LP unheard

Kayla Dixon of Witch Mountain was apparently let go from her other band Helion Prime.

one less reason to care about HP I guess

Mayhem resurrecting its "De Mysteriis in full" tour from earlier this year, and Black Anvil is rejoining them, only replace Inquisition with.....Immolation.

...

fuck yes!

They played pretty much the whole album anyway on their regular tours, don't they?

a good chunk of it, I think. the first time I saw them (2015), they played Funeral Fog, Freezing Moon, Life Eternal, and uhh.....maybe the title track? the rest was spread out over their other albums/Deathcrush

I will admit I was bummed when I found out that literally it's the album and nothing else when I first caught this set in Feb, cos nothing is more fun than hearing "Deathcrush" live. will hope against hope that they bring back an extra set (I like the new stuff too so like....bring it too!).

but really the thing I'm excited about is Immolation cos I never get to see em

Yeah, I'm interested in that tour, but not interested in sticking around for Mayhem. (I kinda sorta like some of their weirdest stuff, but De Mysteriis... nah.) Black Anvil are really good live, and I've never seen Immolation but their last 3-4 albums have been pretty incredible.

yeah I enjoyed Black Anvil (what I heard of their set).

Immolation was my first death metal show so I have warm memories of it. last saw them on the Decibel tour in 2013 promoting Kingdom of Conspiracy.

they're one of those bands where the setlist doesn't matter, it all sounds amazing

(tho it'd be nice if I could get "Father, You're Not a Father" this time)

I saw Black Anvil and Tombs open for Marduk...fuck, that was eight years ago.

ahh nice, Withered too. only thing that bugs me about them is the first time I saw them they had the sound guy turn up their volume to painful decibels, I had to leave. last time they were much more, uhh, sparing with the loudness

Immolation + Mayhem tour is crazy! potential bad-scene-pairings yes, but why wouldn't I want to see them?

no reason, get thee there!

loling at the nearest show to me being Tampa (90 minute drive) the day after Thanksgiving. guess I'll burning off those calories in the pit.

ok so I'm three tracks into the new pyrrhon and I think it stands a fair chance of being my metal AOTY

https://www.decibelmagazine.com/2017/08/07/201787full-album-stream-pyrrhons-what-passes-for-survival/

Relapse really dropped the ball when they dropped Pyrrhon, but I guess that's the direction they're going and they're still putting out great stuff like the new Atriarch so whatevs.

Yeah I thought that was strange - it was like signed-album out-dropped in a very short period of time. But it doesn't seem to have slowed the band down, thankfully.

Bonehunter album is pretty good punky black metal with more depth than you might expect. For an album with a bear-man with a huge erection stuck in a science tube on the cover.

Dunno if I mentioned it or whatever but Nuclear War Now seems to have gotten some wider distribution (through the Alliance one-stop) so there's a good chance their releases will turn up at well-stocked record stores they might not have previously. I picked up the Rites of Thy Degringolade "Arch Spatial" LP (an anthology of their demo, EP etc) recently and highly recommend it for anyone who likes Canadian black death with some really excellently weird drumming.