Rolling Metal Thread 2009

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.

What they have in common for me is that they seem to go out of their way to avoid writing any hooks or staying in any kind of groove. Their songs move all over the place, but don't seem to go anywhere. Maybe it is as simple as that they don't play notes that resonate with me. I also kind of hate all of their vocalists, and I'm not sure why.

I still love Kylesa's Static Tensions, though.

anyway, the blue record is to me a lesser version of the red album in like every regard. production is too dry and unfocused, the drums are mixed WAY too high. good luck finding anything as catchy, punchy, and well-written as rays on pinion. steel that sleeps the eye sounds like bad alice in chains. the next song sounds clever but is just a very vanilla three-chord progression that goes on too long. the second half is murky and boring.

eh self-edit it might be more than three chords but it's still blah

I don't know how promising, hard-rock-wise, "could conceivably play on a college or 'alternative' rock station" is as a recommendation.

Well, I don't listen to the radio, so I don't know how accurate my gauge of what's radio-friendly hard rock is, at all. But my impression is that mainstream "rock" stations play mostly wussy indie crap and/or turgid, post-Vedder depresso grunge-like dirges. Bands that actually rock have no place on rock radio as far as I can tell.

And as far as comparing High On Fire and Neurosis, it's worth remembering that HOF's first album, The Art Of Self Defense, was made when Matt Pike hadn't worked all the Sleep out of his system yet. Every album since has been approximately twice as fast as the debut.

fyi mainstream "rock" stations play really shallow versions of 90s aor playlists plus the occasional killers song.

Bands that actually rock have no place on rock radio as far as I can tell

Yeah, totally agree with you there. Just not convinced college or altie stations are any more inclined to rocking. But still, I get your point.

Though fwiw, I actually heard Mastodon on the commercial rock station here a couple months ago; just happened upon it on my car, don't listen regularly. But I don't know if that was just a one-time thing, or not.

got stuck alongside Kylesa at UK customs a few days ago, youtube videos are promising, what's a good start w/those dudes?

the new one, static tensions. it's a winner.

cool, will purchase

Currently listening to Oppressor, a now-defunct Chicago death metal band who released three albums in the '90s. The debut, Solstice of Oppression, is probably the best one; prog-death with little dashes of jazz here and there. Make no mistake, they're not Cynic or Atheist by any means; this is DM first and foremost. But there are some interesting little touches around the margins that make it worth a play or two. The second and third albums get more traditional, and a little less interesting, but none of it sucks. They just never had a real chance in the market, being on Olympic and all. I think their stuff is getting reissued by Metal Mind pretty soon; maybe they'll be rediscovered.

who will be attending the blackened weekend in new yawk?

A three day festival with Krallice, Liturgy, Skeletonwitch, Black Anvil, Rwake, Malkuth, Orphan, and the debut of doom supergroup Shrinebuilder

The Blackened Music Series continues to present the greatest artists in heavy music with a full weekend of events: The Blackened Weekend.

The most vibrant music scene in New York today is it’s thrilling take on Black Metal. With mesmerizing, bewilderingly repetitious riffs and trance-inducing, astoundingly relentless drumming, a handful of serious local bands are recreating Black Metal in New York’s image. The scene's leaders: Krallice, Liturgy, Malkuth and Black Anvil are all playing The Blackened Weekend.

Friday, November 13, 2009 at 9:00pm
End Time: Sunday, November 15, 2009 at 11:55am
Location: Union Pool and Le Poisson Rouge

With regard to xhuxk's question: "Swollen and Halo" and "A Horse Called Golgotha," for me, are the best *songs* on the Baroness record (which is my favorite album this year). They're the album's big epic moments, but they're also catchy as heck and tightly constructed (the noodly outro on "Swollen" aside). I think they're probably the songs most frequently mentioned in reviews, too (except for maybe "Steel that Sleeps the Eye," which is cool but not really a *song*). So add that to unperson's recommendations and you have about half the album covered.

hey do you guys talk about powerviolence and stuff, too? i'm slowly edging into it, and so far the real find has been endless blockade. got their split w/ agoraphobic nosebleed and last year's primitive and both are rad! basically i cannot pour this stuff into my brain quick enough.

I know absolutely nothing about powerviolence. Actually didn't even hear of it until the Decibel piece last year.

man that oppressor sounds like just my kinda thing!

hey do you guys talk about powerviolence and stuff, too?

I'm listening to Black Army Jacket's 222 as I type this. I can't actually tell the difference between powerviolence and grindcore, but I like Kill The Client, Phobia, Magrudergrind, Discordance Axis, BAJ, Enemy Soil, Capitalist Casualties and lots of similar rip-roarin' stuff.

John, I think you would definitely dig Oppressor. They're not trying to change the world, they just wanna play death metal.

I can't actually tell the difference between powerviolence and grindcore

i think it's like, powerviolence is closer to punk and sludge, whereas grindcore is closer to deathmetal. that's what i've heard and so far it sounds just about right.