Rolling Metal Thread 2009

excuse me, fellow metal enthusiasts, but I have just begun listening to Avenger's 2009 release, Feast of Anger, Joy of Despair. I thought I would pay the thread a visit to say HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT AN AWESOME FUCKING SOUND + VIBE + ATMOSPHERE + BITCHIN GUITAR TEXTURES + FUCK YEAH THIS IS WHAT I AM FUCKING TALKING ABOUT WHEN I ASK FOR GOOD METAL.

what is it like?

sounds like dissection/master's hammer with a dose of darkthrone mainly on the vocals - basically it's death metal with a grim & frostbitten kingdoms vibe, also a little like that last marduk album Rom 5:12 songwriting-wise but with dirtier production/cooler-sounding atmosphere - like if you knew Rom 5:12, remember some of the mid-tempo dirge-y moments from it (song name escaping me but there was this one, very "classical" mode goin' on, minor-key lurching vibe), only that album the sound was kinda brash for me in a boring way, here there's a very re-amped in castle feel

fucking record is on point I'll tell you what

ok sorry for liveblog but srsly you guys I'm on track 4 now and unless somebody falls asleep at the wheel this is one of the best metal albums of 2009.

word, keep us posted

climax of track 5, "joy of despair," ramps up to some immortal-style greatness & then back in the lurching-like-frankenstein thing but w/a little viking vibe

this shit is absolutely fucking solid, I am seriously 100% down with this excellent release

track 6 is basically a weird soundscape trolls-or-whatever-around-the-fire thing, Conan renfaire that segues into another march into the fiery chasm track. listening to this while watching hockey w/sound on tv muted, my life rules

fantastic really contemplative soloing here in the middle of track 7, has a "middle eastern" (I know, but what can I say? phrygian mode maybe? all these guys are big heads on the scales-and-modes) feel. awesome sfx of marching armies or maybe just a big ol' empty oil drum, into a sort of hollowed-out/dialed-back drumkit dropout...and now the drums are back, rolling instead of marching...fuck I should shut off the lights and listen to this, it's just that hot

like, this isn't amon amarth, but if you feel amon amarth I can't see you not feeling this

hockey game is now phoenix vs. st louis btw, fuck st louis they came here and beat carolina last night so go yotes

last track a little disappointing tbh, generic by comparison to the rest of the album but fucking A everybody that was a solid listen.

Where would you say they fall on the Prostitute Disfigurement scale of awesome?

I have to say that they are more interesting than Prostitute Disfigurement. PD are what the dude at the Sevared table called "brutal death!" in the cheeriest most awesome tone that I will remember all my life - Cannibal Corpse/Morbid Angel/Hate fuckin Eternal style you know - a genre I love (I am listening to some right now, Spanish band called Fermento whose singer has a really amazing pig squeal goin) but I can't sit here and go "oh yeah you gotta hear Fermento, it'll totally open your mind to the brutal death style." You love it maybe or you don't maybe but it's not something like Avenger where I'd say, yo, if you like metal, especially if you've liked metal since the early nineties/post-thrash era, you should fucking check this out, because it's really creative and interesting and sonically it's got a lot to recommend it. whereas with prostitute disfigurement I'm like, you don't like it, fine, what fucking ever, prostitute fucking disfigurement ok everybody else jump off a fuckin cliff. but brutal death is like thrash. you can't really make the case for thrash. either you want to thrash til death or you need to go home 'cause the show isn't gonna get more interesting for you. avenger is in the more artistic mode. but still punishing and great, not We Are Showing Off Our Art School Bona Fides artistic because everybody knows how I feel about that kinda thing.

I completely love it when J0hn gets excited about a band.

It's kinda sounding like you like them for the same reasons I like the melodic death metal band The Absence, who I recently commented about elsewhere, saying, "These guys are so good I thought they were from Sweden" (they're Americans). I will listen to Avenger.

Cannibal Corpse/Morbid Angel/Hate fuckin Eternal

This trio bemuses me, because I love Cannibal Corpse and I love Morbid Angel (the other day it was absolutely pouring down rain around here and I put on Gateways To Annihilation and it was just the perfect rainy day death metal album because the riffs were so slow, if you took away the blast beats it would be almost Swans-like in its crushing intensity) but man, I have tried and tried and Hate Eternal just don't pull my trigger. I tried listening to the most recent album and just focusing on the drummer, because he's a terrifying destruction machine, but I don't know, there's just some tiny but crucial element that's missing for me.

last time i bought a record cause john got excited about it it was the wetnurse record, which continues to blow me away with how good it is

this is not as crucial as wetnurse, invisible city was a pretty this-only-happens-every-so-often moment in my opinion

well yeah that's a really unique record that didn't really have many comparables but still i dig it when you get psyched and post on this thread

me too!!

I do too! Is this Feast of Anger, Joy of Despair? Because its on iTunes and J0hn's fawning is making me want to click 'Buy'.

Oh ha ha, you did say that it was already. Missed it in all the CAPITAL EXCITEMENT!

I am listening to it again

there's this breakdown at 2:10 - 2:32 of the first track where there's this interplay between an acoustic guitar (or two or them? or a 12-string?) and some fuzzed out picked electric & it's so hot it has me making jazz faces

Seriously we need a J0hn D. Awesome Metal Album Livecast.

I am currently enjoying the new solo album from Children of Bodom keyboardist Janne Warmen. Totally cheeseball Finnish melodic death/power/hair metal with no redeeming artistic value whatsoever, but it's a whole lot of fun. Crazy synth solos for everyone!

Also, surprisingly faithful covers of Joan Jett's "Black Cat" and Journey's "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)."

Which basically means that A. Begrand will like this and no one else.

Man, it might be redundant and obvious to talk about how the new Converge record slays me and impales my head on the city gates so I may be an example, but it does, I got friends who are all like, "Man they ain't evolving dramatically anymore" but who needs evolution when you are disembodied head warning travelers of the severe carnage done by the opening four songs.

[i]Also, surprisingly faithful covers of Joan Jett's "Black Cat" and Journey's "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)...Which basically means that A. Begrand will like this and no one else.</p>

I will sheepishly admit that when I got the Warmen CD I popped it in and skipped ahead to those two tracks. And then I downloaded their Rockwell cover. I'm awful.

Wow, those are some messed-up html tags I made.

Their cover of Heart's "Alone" with Kim Goss on vocals is also pretty great, if a bit obvious.

Avenger? These guys are still around?

Well fuck me apparently they are. This was a class act in the late 90s - will check that new record out.

new Deiphago album is my new album to beat. thing is so nasty and fierce. best album i've heard in weeks.

I have been waiting on that new Deiphago. Their last one took my head off. There are a fair # of Nuclear War Now!-approved bands who scratch the same itch, Morbosidad espeicially, but Deiphago add that little extra frenzied bit of crazy.

it's an album that invites hyperbole. "unhinged". "recorded in a dark pit filled with c.h.u.d.". stuff like that. very very cool stuff.

"recorded in a dark pit filled with c.h.u.d."

LOOOOL of the day

Went to the Mastodon/Converge/High On Fire show tonight. Caught the last song-and-a-half of HOF's set, but it was like my fourth time seeing them so I didn't mind. Converge were awesome, though seeing them live only makes me even more curious why anybody uses the word "hardcore" to describe them. And Mastodon was terrific, though I left pretty much as soon as they started the non-Crack the Skye portion of the set because when I was up in the balcony they sounded terrific, but down on the floor (where I migrated after the album run-through) they sounded like shit. All in all, time well spent.

Still trying to sleep off Fall Into Darkness (and I only had 2 beers over 3 days). A lot of work and totally worthwhile. Great turnouts and fantastic vibe. Earth and Agalloch were great. Seeing YOB and Ludicra back to back is positively life-affirming.

Next weekend I'm going to detox by seeing DEVO perform their first album.

BTW - listening to Avenger on myspace now. Sounds good (Unleashed meets Craft?)! If that had been anyone at JOhn, we'd have banned them from the thread, haha.

Is it the same Avenger from the 80s? I'm guessing not?

Huh. An 8.5 for Baroness doesn't qualify them for 'Best New Music'? Just give up the metal coverage if you don't really want to acknowledge it Pitchfork.

Hi everybody. Wrote this stuff on the Past Expiry Hard Rock rolling thread yesterday, but nobody answered my question about which Baroness tracks work as actual songs. Maybe somebody will here?

New Baroness is very pretty late night background guitar Muzak -- soundtrack-metal with some Southern rock guitar parts, though no real boogie rhythm I can detect. I'm not trying to be backhanded; I've actually played the thing quite a bit this month. It even has a shot at the lower reaches of my top ten (maybe the only loud rock album with a shot at my top ten, unless Death, who recorded their album over three decades ago, count), though that says a lot about how unimpressive this year has been. None of the songs have sunk in as songs, and I definitely don't listen to it like I would a great hard rock record.

― xhuxk, Monday, 2 November 2009 21:25

btw, if people are hearing actual discrete concrete rock songs on that new Baroness album, I'd love to know which tracks they are. Maybe the thing's better than I've been giving it credit for -- I'm just saying how it's hit me so far. Has a fucking gorgeous CD cover, either way. (So did their last one, as I recall. And I like how this one sounds more than that one.)

And also fwiw, I've definitely heard other hard rock records this year (Cheap Trick included) that I thought were at least okay enough to keep, at least for now (though I'll no doubt clear the shelves of a bunch of those after the year's over, as usual). Listed a bunch upthread somewhere. Just none that have really stuck with me, and I've obsessively returned to.

― xhuxk, Monday, 2 November 2009 22:06

best new music is not completely tied to numerical score jon

the baroness record is after two listens a huge disappointment imo

Yeah, I just love the Baroness record and would love to see it get the attention it deserves.

Chuck, the standout tracks (i.e. the ones you could conceivably play on a college or "alternative" rock station) would be "The Sweetest Curse" and "The Gnashing" and possibly "O'er Hell And Hide," though that one's an instrumental with a monologue buried in the middle rather than a song with verses 'n' choruses 'n' stuff. But it rocks.

I kind of feel the way xhuxk does about the Blue Record. My mind doesn't grab anything on that Baroness album (and barely anything on previous ones to be honest). It seems like every time they are about to get into a groove, or hit a chord progression I like, they abruptly change it up and start the flashy dual-guitar-up-and-down-the-scales thing. I love their production and the album cover art, and I recognize these guys are very accomplished instrumentalists, but this album puts Baroness securely in the not-my-thing category (along with Mastodon, High on Fire, and a shitload of those Neurisis "post-metal" groups).

I really don't see how anyone could put Mastodon and High on Fire in any group of "NeurIsis post-metal" bands, they are both doing very distinct things from that in my mind.

That was just bad punctuation on my part. But I dislike Mastodon, Baroness, and High on Fire, for the same reason I dislike many of those NeurIsis groups.

I dont see too much in common between Mastodon/Baroness on the one hand and High on Fire on the other, save for record labels and the fact that the guys in the bands seem to be friends. HOF gives off a whole different vibe for me than the other two. I think they are all awesome, however. On simplistic level, I dont think Baroness is heavy at all, while HOF is like weapons-grade plutonium.

xp Thanks, Phil. Though to be honest, I don't know how promising, hard-rock-wise, "could conceivably play on a college or 'alternative' rock station" is as a recommendation. Will focus on those cuts nonetheless...

I don't think Rockapads did group Mastodon or High On Fire as NeurIsis bands. (He didn't say ...a shitload of other Neurisis 'post-metal' groups," after all.) Though I swear, when I first heard High On Fire in 2002 or whenever, I somehow decided at the time that they sounded like a cross between Blue Cheer and Neurosis. (But that was before the worldwide metalgaze boom, obviously. So maybe comparing a band to Neurosis meant something different then.) Still have never really had much use for either them or Mastodon, regardless.