Rolling Metal Thread 2012

What's your complaint with the Huntress record, Adrien? I could see how you might find her voice irritating, but I don't know, I think it's a fun combination of traditional metal and blackened thrash.

Idea for poll thread that nobody will vote in: Better Accept album in 2012 – the actual Accept album, or the new 3 Inches of Blood?

The band is competent, but yikes the singing is shrill. Annoyingly so.

I haven't listened to the whole Huntress record yet, but so far I like her voice better than Davis's - she's much more technically accomplished and, to my ear, better suited to retro-metal material.

Couldn't disagree with you more there, Phil. I love what Davis does vocally, it's so unorthodox. Huntress singer does go for bombast like the style of music typically demands, and the effort is there, but vocally she's a total hack. The melodies are terrible and the frequency of her awful shriek is seizure-inducing.

I like both bands! It's okay to like both bands! The Huntress singer sounds like Doro after a nervous breakdown, which I like! Also, while they have elements of traditional metal, they definitely aren't retro metal. Too many modern elements in the mix.

Yeah, after listening to seven of the album's ten tracks, I'm definitely pro-Huntress. The music is a) more modern, and b) just played better and produced more crisply. As I said when we discussed the possibility of signing them, they're 3 Inches of Blood with tits, but her vocals are very impressive to me. She combines a gruffness that reminds me of Sabine Classen from Holy Ghost with genuinely powerful high notes, and I don't hear her shrieks as that frequent or shrill. They're just one tool in her kit.

This might be the best $10 show I've come across in recent memory:

Nachtmystium
Alcest
The Atlas Moth
Hull
Mutilation Rites
Bruce Lamont

I think all these bands will be in Texas for SXSW so they've scheduled a shindig in Dallas. Was happy to see Alcest & Hull (the original bill), but I'm not turning down the rest.

whoa! chicago explosion.

That is an astonishing amount of awesomeness for ten bucks.

Slight hitch: The booker doesn't know why the ticket agent doesn't have tickets for sale, and the ticket agent told me they have no idea this show exists. Slight hitch.

You're going to get there and it's going to be Better Than Ezra playing.

Hitch resolved. Booker was really nice, ticket agent oblivious. Tickets paid for.

Wow, Killing Joke is empty tonight. 100 people, maybe? At the absolute most?

Shame on those folks for taking the mighty Killing Joke for granted!

(seeing them FINALLY for the first time ever in a month, and am super-excited)

Where are you catching Killing Joke? Oh wait - you're going to Roadburn.

Maybe they were right. That's probably the weakest Killing Joke show I've ever been to, and I've been doing it for over 25 years (including the Outside The Gate years). More to follow, but a massive let-down.

hey all, profound lore sez -

CASTEVET Update
KRALLICE bassist/vocalist Nicholas McMaster has joined CASTEVET as their new bass player. The band also have a string of upcoming live dates which will mark the band's first appearance in Canada and an appearance at this year's Maryland Deathfest. Dates are as follows:

3/23 - w/ Aesahaettr, Ensorcelor + more @ Death Church (Montreal, QC Canada)
3/24 - w/ Aesahaettr, Ensorcelor, Sound Asleep & The Sustained Low ‘C’ of Richard Strauss “Also Sprach Zarathustra” @ Soybomb (Toronto, ON Canada)
3/25 - w/ Phantom Glue + more @ Radio (Boston, MA)
4/27 - w/ Inquisition & Villains @ Saint Vitus (Brooklyn, NY)
5/24 - Maryland Deathfest X @ Club Sonar (Baltimore, MD)

The band are also in the process of writing and rehearsing new material.

anyone know if mcmaster remains krallice's bass player as well?

(and what happened to castevet's old bass player? i like his playing a lot more than mcmaster's on 'diotima', though it may just be the nature of the songs that gives them different things to do.)

Yeah, I believe he's still in Krallice. He's become quite an important member of that band.

wtf

Trivium @TriviumOfficial is now following you (@Algerian_Goalie).

its only a dummy acc to get into outloud, i dont do twitter, but how the hell have i been added. does it mean so that i get crap tweets from them?

No, it just means they would see your tweets. You'd have to follow them back to see theirs.

so they just add everyone they can in hope they follow them back?

i really dont understand twitter tbh

so they just add everyone they can in hope they follow them back?

― fuck deathcore and metalcore (Algerian Goalkeeper), Tuesday, March 6, 2012 9:25 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes

This morning's pleasing surprise: German pagan/black metal band Ahnengrab's new album Omen. "Pagan" = "some violins every once in a while", "black" = "raspy vocals", and in this case I guess the "/" means "with a propulsive energy closer to thrash, and guitar exuberance that might almost sound like power-metal if it were produced differently". Like maybe if Agrypnie had grown up with more Iron Maiden records, or maybe just less self-consciousness about that.

Yesterday's pleaasing surprise: Minneapolis goth/prog/synth band Echoterra's unpromisingly titled 2011 album Land of the Midnight Sun, their second but first since taking on Visions of Atlantic singer Melissa Ferlaak. The band is definitely on the Nightwish/Epica axis, but where the form usually tends to bombastic production, this album is way on the other end, with a dry demo-like ambience that I'm finding intriguing to listen to. I imagine that if you don't like this kind of thing, that might be kind of like me extolling a painting of dogs playing poker for the unusual design on the backs of the cards. Actually, it might be like that if you do like this sort of thing, too. Details are cool!

Been listening to the Christian Mistress more, and liking it more pretty much every time. Finally dawned on me who they remind me of: UFO. Both instrumentally and even, in a way, with something in both Phil and Christine's voices.

are alcest worthwhile live?

Adrien told me they were so I bought tickets.

Yeah, they've become a good live band.

Their vocals were painfully flat and sometimes off-key when I saw them. Not sure if it was an isolated experience or if that's just how they are. I don't like them very much, so...

Another nice $10 lineup this Friday at Ultra Lounge. Anyone going?

Black Tusk
Royal Thunder
East Of The Wall
Hull

Saw Alcest a couple of years ago, pretty great (it was just before the US tour where he lost his voice), saw them for the 2nd time a few weeks ago & the interim touring has seriously honed the band. If you like them already I'd say go. Only problem might be the venue/soundguy has to be able to cope with them. The recent show I saw seemed like you had to be stood in the right place, which luckily I was for the most part, as some positions in the venue it wasn't sounding as good.

ahh they're playing at this stupid art gallery nonsmoking type place that's like a square cinderblock room, we'll see. torche sounded like farting mud in that space. but hey it's $5.

This new Black Breath kicks all kinds of ass. Just stunning from front to back.

Immortal/Tsjuder tomorrow in Lausanne - worth going? Haven't seen Immortal in years...

dunno if anyone cares but there's now
Doom Metal Room http://open.soundrop.fm/s/Vw6FRBau3Qe1JQ0X (doom/sludge/stoner/drone etc)
and
Black Metal Room http://open.soundrop.fm/s/Vw6FJO3toeFpfBqa
on spotify/soundrop now.

You need links to join as they're not putting it on the main page in an experiment to avoid trolls and to see how many join via word of mouth. There's a bug just now that means the room appears empty so just go back to the main page and the room should be there so just click on the room and it will work.

DM (which presumably will cove Thrash/Grind too) room is coming in the future they said.

Listening to the new Ancestors album, In Dreams and Time. The vocals are very Baroness-ish this time out, but some of the songs are more Pink Floyd-circa-1971 than anything they've ever done before. I really love their brand of retro stoner psych, and think this might be their best full-length to date.

Very curious to hear this solo album by Mike from Yob. Looks like he's channelling his inner Lebowski a bit more on this one.

That sounds promsing re: the Ancestors album, but I'm one for whom "Pink Floyd-circa-1971" makes me happy, rather than run screaming.

I wrote about the A Storm Of Light/Valient Thorr/Torche/Corrosion Of Conformity show on one of my blogs if anyone is interested.

http://notfromtx.tumblr.com/post/19237527640/my-corrosion-my-conversion

Short version: Great show, and I want to follow Valient Thorr around in an airbrushed van with shag carpeting in the back.

Yep, Valient Thorr absolutely kill it live. Would see them again anytime.

Seriously one of the best bands I've seen a long time. They have 4 shows the next 4 nights within about a 4 hour drive from my house, and I have to say I'm sorely tempted. The two at SXSW are making me itchy.

A bit early to review an Apr 3 release, but here's one for High On Fire's De Vermis Mysteriis
http://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2012/03/12/highonfirereview-2/

Valient Thorr are amazing live.. I've seen em 3 or 4 times.. the 1st time, the 1st year they did Warped tour, total fluke.. it was only 11am, butit was by far the best band I'd seen all day, and the fisrt one I'd seen doing big rock again. It was refreshing!

The new Asphyx, people! They've never sounded heavier, tad more doom than the previous one (don't let the video fool you). They've pretty much become the Motorhead of death metal, down to the inimitable vocals of Martin van Drunen.

i love the new asphyx! i've been listening to the title track ('deathhammer'!) obsessively. (but it's all good)

'this is true death metal, you bastards!' - it's no idle boast neither.

hi metal ppl, i'm listening to pallbearer right now and this is great, doesn't have the two things that i can never stand about lots of metal i hear ppl talking abt - shitty production and either gargling or screeching vox

Here's a thing I did for work: a Spotify playlist of 20 metal songs that use the "(X) of (Y)" titling formula.

"Rockin' like Wacken"? Really, J3ff? Otherwise, another great Lazarus Pit.