Rolling Metal Thread 2009

Bodom was fun tonight, but Skeletonwitch was better. Way, way better.

(I have to grab that DM comp)

it's like the pebbles of swedish dm, full of garagey gems.
the notes for each band are pretty much just variations on "they don't make 'em like this anymore"
but ekelof's enthusiasm is infectious.

xpost-If Axxis girl is not the sex-slave of the flaming whip woman, I am not buying.

the notes for each band are pretty much just variations on "they don't make 'em like this anymore" but ekeroth's enthusiasm is infectious.

Same goes for the book actually.

(yeah, ekeroth, i meant)

(not 'ekelof')

Oh, man. Nargaroth, Jahreszeiten. A concept album about the seasons? Right up there with symphonies to the alphabet or the five Platonic solids, in my book, normally, but it's in German and mostly howled, so on the one hand it hardly matters. But on the other, what this album actually amounts to, I think, is an attempt to circuit some approximation of the cycle of human emotion, for which the seasons are just a convenient proxy. This is an obviously idiotic idea, as you can't get a much more emotionally single-minded subgenre than black metal. But my opinion, two listens in, is that it works. Go listen to "Fruhling" (Spring) via your music-sampling strategy of choice. It's nihilistic and joyful at the same time. Seriously. Imagine the chorus of the Skids' "Working for the Yankee Dollar" turned into a 10-minute black metal catharsis catchy enough that my 2-year-old daughter was walking around the living room bobbing her head. In fact, we listened to the whole thing while I was making dinner, and the only thing she didn't like was the spoken stuff at the beginning and end. Can't blame her, it goes on too long.

Overall, though, I think this may be up there with Funeral Mist's Maranatha as not only a year's-best-grade album, but one that validates the subgenre in the face of any amount of forgettable crap.

Or maybe tomorrow I'll decide it's just really good. But regardless, check this out. I will trade anybody, in fact: you try this, I will try whatever last dumbfounded you.

Jeez.

Wow, Dethklok tour is show of the year material. High on Fire came out strong (at 6:30pm no less). Converge were the odd men out, though I love them anyway. They definitely seemed out of place here.

I had written off Mastodon earlier in the year, but this performance was really powerful. The vocals sounded better this time. Encore was a song from each of the first 3 LPs and a fantastic surprise cover tune.

Dethklok Dethklok Dethklok! That shit is brilliant.

Too bad the crowd is so low-brow for this.

That tour's coming to NYC right before Halloween, and I'm definitely going, but I'll be leaving after Mastodon. The whole Dethklok thing leaves me utterly cold.

Have you watched Season 2 dvd?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v627/pointlineplane/dethchallops.jpg

I've always liked the show and the tunes, but hearing one new track on Sirius the other day, it sounds like musically Small & co. are really stepping it up as of late.

Never seen Dethklok live, though. So they're that good, huh?

Brendon Small went to Berklee School of Music and has played metal guitar for 16 years. He's got Gene Hoglan and a crack team of session players backing him up. And the visual presentation is all on a giant monitor--special remixed video presentations of each song. It's pretty incredible, especially when you realize that you're surrounded by 1500 suburban knuckle-draggers who know every word to every song from a Death Metal album.

What I noticed most is that his death growl seems to be getting a lot better on record.

Have you watched Season 2 dvd?

I can't remember which season I watched, but it didn't make me laugh. And I don't mean I sat there with my arms folded glowering and muttering "How dare they make fun of metal!" - I just mean I watched it and I didn't think it was funny. It bored me. I have the new album here somewhere, but I haven't popped that into the player either, 'cause if the cartoons themselves don't do a thing for me, the ancillary product is sure to seem twice as pointless.

I find the show to be pretty funny and have a lot of respect for the guy's musical chops, but with the exception of Go Into the Water, nothing really stuck.

I was struck by how little the second Dethklok album sounds like a "novelty" thing. The vocals aren't mixed as "up front" as they were with the last one, and if you weren't paying close attention it certainly wouldn't be as obvious where this band came from. I mean, during my first background listen, they mostly sounded like your average-to-decent band.

Yeeeah the first album is definitely a novelty but the second one they're making a bid for Serious Mid-Level etal band

how can a cartoon tour?
youtubes?

tbh i never got into that show. kinda left me... cold?

live band on stage in the dark, big cartoons on big screen

I think it's one of the funniest tv shows I've ever seen, and the second season REALLY raises the bar for pace and complexity. The art is stunning, the situations are ridiculously OTT, and there is an larger story arc/world conspiracy tale unfolding in the background.

I dunno--this shit is aimed right at me, so I can't deny it.

I can't remember which season I watched, but it didn't make me laugh. And I don't mean I sat there with my arms folded glowering and muttering "How dare they make fun of metal!" - I just mean I watched it and I didn't think it was funny. It bored me.

agreeing with this. the episodes i've watched have had about a laugh each.

yeah, I couldn't get into the show either. too much gross out stuff. I dunno, I might try s2.

If you're not into gratuitous violence, you will not like Metalocalypse.

not so much the violence as the dick jokes, but yeah.

I'll give it another shot sometime. I just watched random episodes on youtube a few years ago.

I did 3-4 episodes on Youtube last year and thought it was cute. I recently did both seasons of DVDs in anticipation of a Brendon Small interview and was blown the fuck away. (didn't hurt that I have a projector and could see a lot of subtle background details not visible on a tv screen).

It helps to be able to pause on the hell scenes and look at all the detail--particularly in Season 2, when the pace is aggressively cranked up.

I think Go Into the Water fans should check out the double-whammy of "Laser Cannon Deth Sentence" and "Black Fire Upon Us" on Dethalbum II.

Metalocalypse is a lot better with DVD captions, I find. The show's funnier when you can actually tell what they're singing about.

^^^ u&k

I'm not polling it, but I want to know what you all think (especially j0hn) of the Rate Your Music all-time metal list?

Well, Symbolic and Crimson are oddly high-ranked, for starters.

"I'm not polling it, but I want to know what you all think"

i think it's a list. of metal albums. lots of metal albums. some of them are better than others. some are worse than others. many of them have colorful covers. some of them came out in the same year. some in different years. there is at least one rage against the machine album on this list. this list is web-based.

The ranking is pretty arbitrary, but nothing really jumped out at me as not belonging somewhere on that list. Haven't heard the Edge of Sanity record, though.

Tool should not belong in anything else than the Steaming Pile Of Shit list.

i think my issue with metalocalypse is that like, you don't really need to satirize metal because it's pretty much intrinsically funny? maybe i was missing the point.

nothing really jumped out at me as not belonging somewhere on that list

You mean like any W.A.S.P. album post-The Last Command?

lol tool fans

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/Tool-Sober-video-screencap.jpg

"i think my issue with metalocalypse is that like, you don't really need to satirize metal because it's pretty much intrinsically funny?"

this was actually my problem with spinal tap when i finally saw it. but i think i was the only person who felt that way. everyone else on earth loves it.

that's funny--i sort of agree but think the individual performances and the way the scenes in spinal tap are constructed are just funny on their own. whereas, metalocalypse is like a cartoon with bad animation.

you can't satirize something funny?!

my award winning satire on looney tunes coming any day now.

"i think my issue with metalocalypse is that like, you don't really need to satirize metal because it's pretty much intrinsically funny? maybe i was missing the point."

Definitely think you're missing the point. These guys are metal fans who are satirizing celebrity culture.

Shame on me for not listening to the new Revocation sooner. What an incredible album. Traditional yet proggy in places, and can that dude ever shred. Why aren't those meatheads at Liquid Metal not playing the hell out of this? This is groovy American metal at its finest.

so the new converge album is pretty great. anyone else heard it? it's a really solid set of songs. i'm not really sure how i feel about the barrage of guests, because i don't think they really make the disc unfocused like some others have been saying, but some of them just strike me as being unnecessary.

TIS GREAT STUFF. nOT SURE ABOUT THE LAT 2 SONGS MIND YOU.

ugh my keyboard fucked up there. In english

It's great stuff. Not sure about the last 2 songs mind you.

i feel the same way, although i'm warming up to "wretched world."

OK, I justed listened to the new Lita Ford album. The whole thing. Where's my medal?

On the other hand, never having to listen to it again is probably reward enough.

Yeesh.

I'm not sure if my enjoyment of the new The Red Chord record is more indicative of it actually being a good album (which I think it is) or of my increased tolerance of tech-death-core stuff.