Rolling Metal Thread 2010

Listened to the new Dimmu last night and Adrien is very much OTM. Its like they realized how half-assed the songs were and handed them over to the orchestra to spice them up instead of, you know, trying to make them actually engaging first.

Have any of you heard that Dwarr Animals reissue on Drag City? Basically crazy 80s one-man-band stuff that is equal parts metal and weird, bedroom psych. It isn't revelatory stuff, but I have a feeling a few of you may find something to like.

Interview with Monster Magnet's Dave Wyndorf (part 1 of 2, with the rest coming Thursday)

Trip Report: COUGH - Ritual Abuse is fucking amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twMCPzY6IZg

Vestments: check. Mitre: check. Burning thurible: check. Skull facepaint: check. Dead serious stage presence: check.

Damn, I'm liking Ghost a ton.

I'm definitely warming to the Dimmu Borgir the more I listen to it. I agree with the observation that the songs mostly don't seem to have been constructed so that they'd sound complete without the orchestra, but to me that's not a criticism. The orchestra on this record is very much part of the sound. It makes as much sense to say that something wasn't composed to sound just as good without drums. It could be, but that wouldn't necessarily be better. An arrangement is a whole, not a sum of individually independent parts.

"Gateways" also doesn't strike me as a disastrous choice of single, but if it had been up to me, I probably would have picked "Born Treacherous", "Chess With the Abyss" or "Dimmu Borgir". And while I'm usually skeptical of "orchestral version" bonus tracks, in this case the symphony-only reprise of "Gateways" kind of works for me, bookending the mostly-orchestral intro "Xibir" and playing like exit music after the fairly dramatic band finale of "Endings and Continuations".

Also, I think the orchestral parts on this album are pretty impressive, and the integration is ambitious in scope. Maybe they don't always quite pull if off: a couple songs towards the end still seem to me like they lose their momentum, but I'm always suspicious when I feel like an album lags towards the end. Is the album lagging, or am I just not quite in sync with it yet?

Trip Report: COUGH - Ritual Abuse is fucking amazing.

hey, nice! I really liked the last one.

Really liking the Stargazer album. Trio prog-death; think Sadus crossed with the Trio of Doom (McLaughlin/Pastorius/Williams) and a (very) little (early) Opeth thrown in.

whoa, I could do with some of that

It's on Profound Lore. I think it'll be right up your street.

"think Sadus..." = instant excitement

the stargazer is good. somebody upthread recommended their previous album, "the scream that tore the sky." their split with invocation from '99 is good too.

Something else I recommend: Missing Time, the new CD by Many Arms. If The Process of Weeding Out is your favorite Black Flag record, you need this more than you know.

Does anyone know when Jeff Wagner's Prog Metal book comes out? I enjoyed the excerpt from Decibel, but Amazon doesn't even have a release date up for it.

If The Process of Weeding Out is your favorite Black Flag record, you need this more than you know.

If The Process of Weeding out is your favorite Black Flag record, who are you?!

hey what grindcore bands are on tour right now/soon?

No idea re grind, but I already know of two shows I'm going to next month: Monarch/Bloody Panda on 11/12 (though it's not listed on Cake Shop's website yet) and Blind Guardian/Holy Grail on 11/20.

Full BG tour dates:

11/19/10 The Trocadero – Philadelphia, PA
11/20/10 Best Buy Theatre (formerly The Nokia) – New York, NY
11/21/10 The Palladium – Worcester, MA
11/23/10 Metropolis – Montreal, QC – CANADA
11/25/10 Theatre Capitole – Quebec City, QC – CANADA
11/26/10 Kool Haus – Toronto, ON – CANADA
11/27/10 Royal Oak Music Theatre – Royal Oak, MI
11/29/10 Bottom Lounge – Chicago, IL
11/30/10 The Cabooze – Minneapolis, MN
12/01/10 The Garrick Centre – Winnipeg, MB – CANADA
12/03/10 MacEwan Hall Ballroom – Calgary, AB – CANADA
12/04/10 The Starlite Room – Edmonton, AB – CANADA
12/06/10 Showbox at The Market – Seattle, WA
12/08/10 The Regency Ballroom – San Francisco, CA
12/09/10 Henry Fonda Theatre / The Music Box – Los Angeles, CA
12/10/10 Marquee Theatre – Tempe, AZ
12/11/10 Sunshine Theater – Albuquerque, NM
12/12/10 Bluebird Theater – Denver, CO
12/14/10 Trees – Dallas, TX
12/15/10 Scout Bar – Houston, TX
12/17/10 The Orange Peel – Asheville, NC
12/18/10 The State Theatre – St. Petersburg, FL ***FLORIDA POWER FEST***
12/19/10 The Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
12/21/10 Lincoln Theatre - Raleigh, NC
12/22/10 Jaxx – W. Springfield, VA

Disappointed BG is skipping my city (open date and everything, aargh).

Meanwhile, it's becoming more and more apparent that the new Agalloch just might be my album of the year. It's growing on me something fierce.

Blind Guardian are like a step away from grind.

i'm looking for well known (not playing in arenas or anything remotely like that though) bands to play at a grind festival, if they are planning on touring the US already that usually helps immensely

I can ask around...drop me an email [pdfreeman at gmail dot com] with more info (date, location, etc.).

still rocking that display name, huh?

emailed you

Listening to Heaven & Hell's Neon Nights: Live in Europe now. It's a fitting capper to Dio's career: heavy as fuck, impassioned and powerful. Great set list, too, encompassing the whole catalog (three songs from The Devil You Know). I got the CD and DVD versions in the mail.

Today's successful auditions:
- Goth/black-metal/gloom-rock sweep of the Vision Bleak's Set Sail to Mystery, which I almost wrote off without listening due to the over-themed-looking cover.
- Gleaming speed-death romp from Dawn of Ashes, meaning I will try to make it to the Enslaved/Dimmu Borgir show on time to see them in their opening-opening slot.
- Very excited about the dark-folk compilation Whom the Moon a Nightsong Sings, albeit not on grammatical grounds.
- I'd written off Kamelot, Queensryche and Paradise Lost a while ago, but the new Kamelot album, Poetry for the Poisoned, is at least initially sounding to me like a combination of the things I once liked about all three.

Not so successful:
- Really liked the rawness of the music on the new Woe album; really hated the shrieky, monotonous vocals.

That Kamelot album is a good one, something I wasn't expecting. Their last couple didn't do anything for me.

Wrote about Blind Guardian on BurningAmbulance.com today; review of the new Electric Wizard coming tomorrow.

Don't be shy about interrupting me and EZ on the nearly-moribund Metal Listening Club thread, where I'm just going to keep posting stuff until somebody else cuts me off...

Today on BurningAmbulance.com, my thoughts on the new Electric Wizard album. (It's pretty great.)

Any word of a US release date on the ELectric Wizard? The import isn't too expensive (and it's downright cheap on iTunes), but if a domestic release isn't too far of I'll wait.

No idea. Figure early 2011, though.

I was hoping a date might have been in a press kit. Well, it's only a few bucks as opposed to double the price or something.

Just listening to the Mortemia album again. You know before you start it that's it's off-brand Sirenia, which some would claim was already off-brand Tristania, but I readily admit that I like Morten Veland's epicgothicdeathchoir thing a lot, and am perfectly happy to listen to him trying to perfect it in its own terms. In the abstract I'd have guessed I'd like it less without female lead vocals (the women are banished to the choir for this one, and he does all the lead croaking himself), but in fact that doesn't end up bothering me at all. This is an album of consolidation, not innovation, but I have time for that. I might even have a 2010 top 10 spot for it.

My inside source reports back that the EW disc is likely a January release through Metal Blade (they, not Candlelight, have the Rise Above contract now).

Thank you sir! Ordered the import this morning.

By the way, if for some reason you didn't buy the Judas Priest box set Metalogy before now, my local has it brand new on sale for $15.97. Yep, 4 discs and a DVD for that price. If you are interested and don't have a Bull Moose in your area, their website (bullmoose.com) has the same price.

Enthusiastic after-two-listens endorsement for folk-ambience-tinged battering Finnish black metal band Draugnim, whose new (second) album is called Horizons Low.

Also, damn, this Kamelot album is really good.

Today's BurningAmbulance.com review: the latest by Texas grindcore kings Kill The Client.

Listening to Wino's (mostly) acoustic album Adrift, released a couple of weeks ago on Exile on Mainstream. It's really great. It's actually more of a "drumless" album than an "acoustic" album, as quite a few tracks have overdubbed electric guitar solos, but he appears to be the only person on it. Shows that as awesome as his guitar tone is, he's not totally amp-dependent and is in fact a pretty damn good songwriter. It's certainly much less boring than acoustic records by, say, the Neurosis dudes have been.

I'm a little surprised to be saying this... but the new Disturbed actually isn't too bad. Got some pretty decent metal riffs and solos, and Rabbi Draiman keeps the awk-ing down.

Finally catching up and hearing the new Slough Feg album. I'm not as rabid as quite a few of you are, but I'm enjoying this well enough. I don't understand why anyone hates this stuff though, its kinda like hating desert. You can say you've heard better, but this stuff seems pretty difficult to actively dislike.

The Slough Feg really does have staying power, I'm enjoying it more now than a couple months ago. That Alan Parsons Project cover is killer.

And I actually like the title track off that Disturbed album.

I cancelled my subscription to Decibel last week. Since signing up in March I only received six issues - and three of those I had to ask for when they failed to show up many weeks after the due date.

I can't complain about the service of Mark at Decibel, he replied quickly whenever I contacted him and did whatever he could to help. But if I'm not getting my issues in the post, what's the point in subscribing? It's not like I'm in an awkward location - mail from the States takes only a few days to get here, usually less.

I don't know if this is a common issue for international subscribers, but in any case I won't be subscribing to Decibel again.

Finally catching up and hearing the new Slough Feg album. I'm not as rabid as quite a few of you are, but I'm enjoying this well enough. I don't understand why anyone hates this stuff though, its kinda like hating desert. You can say you've heard better, but this stuff seems pretty difficult to actively dislike.

― "I am a fairly respected poster." (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, November 3, 2010 11:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Herm Neuname ruined these guys for me.

I'm not going to be suckered into hearing another Disturbed album, I'm not going to be suckered into hearing another Disturbed album, I'm not going to be suckered into hearing another Disturbed album, I'm not...

It's good. But I like them more than most posters here.

I wrote about the latest Grand Magus album for BurningAmbulance.com today - they're signed to Roadrunner, but the album hasn't been released in the US and they're not even listed on the label's artists page...weird, right?

who did this agalloch "review"

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs909.snc4/72208_10150112133364816_663344815_7570148_1955142_n.jpg

someone on fb

man, just listened to the new agalloch. was all like, "this is a great agalloch record. nothing new but solid as hell" until the manuel gottsching delay pedal action kicked in!!

i refuse to listen until i get my own copy
that diagram is ridic

moody moog!