Rolling Metal Thread 2009

If I YSI one of the tracks, will you guys take a listen?

Oh yes, I'm just trying to keep myself from buying it unheard, so that would be grand.

Hrm, I'm listening to Nile's _Black Seeds of Vengeance_ now, and yup, I really like the hell out of these vocals, though they're perhaps a bit too sibilant at times. Deep and gurgly and fairly easy to understand to boot.
Also, one track has a fantastic guest-appearance by Krusty The Clown. DESOOOLAAAAAATE!

Really? I've sat there with the lyric sheet and still had no idea what the hell Karl Sanders is saying.

mildly impressed by the new Serpencult album

I was tolerable of it but not as impressed as I hoped to be. (Mentioned it a bit upthread, I think.)

Mordy, this is, um...interesting so far.

It's an interesting question, though, whether I'd love Leviathan and Deathspell Omega even more if they had real singers. Possibly, but not definitely.

the vocals for these two groups are some of my favorite in their respective styles. i started writing a post last night about how much i love Wrest's vox on the Lurker of Chalice stuff. it's really hard for me to imagine any other vocal style working for either of these groups.

speaking of bad vocals, I'm listening to Harvey Milk right now, and this guy's vox are just on the right side of tolerable for me.

Harvey Milk's vocals suit the music so perfectly.

new 2009 album from Urna - self described as "post funeral doom metal from Italy"

Urna - Iter ad lucem

2 new sample tracks on myspace

Urna
http://www.myspace.com/urnaproject

stated Influences:

Funeral Doom
Post Metal
Black Metal
Electronics & Ambient Soundscapes
Drone
Sludge Death Metal
and some others

expansive crushing twisting dynamics, big churning psychedelic riffs

Second track on the album:
http://rapidshare.com/files/194385864/02_Blood.mp3.html

Personally would much prefer if Harvey Milk's vocals had more Burke Shelley in them and less King Buzzo.

A few '09 records with loud guitars (or other instruments that sound like guitars) on them that I've decided I like since the last list I posted:

Death – …For The Whole World To See (Drag City reissue EP)
Dirty Little Rabbits – Simon (The End EP)
The Answer – Everyday Demons (The End)
Black Lips – 200 Million Thousand (Vice)
Gene Dante and the Future Starlets – The Romantic Lead (Omnirox Entertainment)
Talk Normal – Talk Normal (myspace/talknormal EP)

really don't hear any buzzo in the harvey milk vox at all.

I think they're perfect for the band too. strained/fragile for the "clean" parts, strained/burly for the rest.

Mostly just sound like your old who-cares pigfuck to me (a shame, since the sludge of the '70s riffs can be pretty awesome.)

album version is better but the vox SO PERFECT for that song.

bah, embedding disabled. just click on the link!

Hey Chuck, there is a new Shakin' Street album out this month.

http://shakinstreetofthe21stcentury.maxximum.org/

in non-metal news, the new nashville pussy album sucks and so does the new mono album. (mono + 23 piece orchestra = worst classical music of all time. and most boring.)

there is a new Shakin' Street album

Yay!

new nashville pussy album sucks

I already pointed this out on the Rolling Country thread!

Just got the fine new Metal Edge issue today. Argh, just when we were on one hell of a roll...

Not metal, but I'm listening to the advanced track from that forthcoming Mono (the Japanese band) album Scott just mentioned, and it sounds pretty fantastic to me.

I'm listening too and it's GREAT! I pre-ordered the vinyl the other day.

(i mean I'm listening to the whole album)

front cover:

Isis - Wavering Radiant
http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/isis/wavering_radiant_f1/

http://www.bravewords.com/news/106231
The track listing for Wavering Radiant is: 'Hall Of The Dead', 'Ghost Key', 'Hand Of The Host', 'Wavering Radiant', 'Stone To Wake A Serpent', '20 Minutes / 40 Years', 'Threshold of Transformation'.

titles = "we will bore you to death in 70+ minutes"

I've heard "20 Minutes/40 Years," because it's the first song on the CD that'll come with the last(?) issue of Metal Edge. It's seven minutes long and it's one of the heaviest things they've done in years. I like it more than I liked anything on the last album.

I look forward to hearing it. Esp if they're doing something heavy again. (Qotsa take note)

Yeah, every time I say I'm bored with the NeurIsis sound, Neurosis and Isis come along and remind me why they're the best at what they do. Looking forward to the new Isis, silly title and all.

Just picked up In the Absence of Truth yesterday out of the dollar bin, I'm psyched for the new one.

Neurosis and Isis are the masters of the sound. There's always going to be lame imitators but then some of the imitators are very good at it ie Cult Of Luna.
But it's silly to blame Neurosis/Isis for crappy imitators.

yeah, I like some of the imitators too... but neurosis did it first/best. I doubt anyone would dispute that.

seeing isis live circa panopticon actually got me to stop listening to them for a while. just played the whole album. (which I actually really like!) a little improv here-and-there, but overall, very little variation from the studio cuts and very little reason to not just stay home and listen to the album. dull, dull show.

seeing built to spill like 10 years ago had a similar effect, lolz.

anyway, then that last isis dropped and it was probably their worst. never got into it. but I'll give this new one a shot. glad to hear they're heavy again.

still think mosquito control ep is my fave by them. probs the only one with no filler.

I kinda agree with the above. I saw Isis live in 1999 or so, opening for Botch, and they were great. Tons of improv - the high point of the set was a theremin/didjeridoo duet, for fuck's sake! But when I caught up with them again on their 10th anniversary tour with Jesu, they were paralyzingly tedious live. And the DVD - forget it.

The only time I've seen Isis live was a few years back, when they did a free show at the MOCA here in Los Angeles, and I just remember WALL OF SOUND but also being kind of bored and wandering around. Maybe it was because it was daylight, maybe it was because the band was on ground level, or maybe it was because of all the damn hipsters (who, as I discovered at the Eagles of Death Metal show the other night, are really good at killing the vibe), but it kind of put me off seeing post-metal bands live. I just couldn't get into it.

Okay, I'm really liking the Tombs album. Post-metal that actually gets to the point, it doesn't drag on and on.

I was in Philadelphia on business last week and I saw Tombs on Thursday night at a small place called Jung Fu Necktie. They were punishingly loud, too loud for the size of the room. I really like their album a lot, but live they still need a little bit of tweaking. Also on the bill was Dysrhythmia, who were playing lots of new stuff as they're going into the studio next week. They were bang on and the new stuff is stellar.

This new Obscura album, Cosmogenesis, is ridiculously great. Total tech-death madness with two ex-members of Necrophagist and one ex-member of Pestilence. Ultra-complex riffing with jazz-fusion interludes (including some Cynic-style computer voice!) and really prominent fretless bass lines, including bass solos. It's like the best aspects of Necrophagist, Pestilence and Cynic all wadded up into one big ball of awesome.

Meanwhile, the samples from the new Amesoeurs CD have me very excited for the full album: http://www.myspace.com/amesoeurs

Coldwave metal!

Haha, the beginning of the track simply titled "Album preview" made me think it was going to be a cover of "Breaking the law". The hell with this.

I love Cynic, but dammit, I want frets on my metal-bass, and Pestilence were much better as morons than as fuzak-metalers. Never heard Necrophagist properly (last I heard the group, they were as I recall it basically a German guy in his bedroom uploading shit to myspace? He definitely had chops. There's a risk I'm just mixing up two unrelated groups. God knows there are enough Necro* bands out there)
But hell, I obviously must look into Obscura. How can they have that name and NOT sound like Gorguts anyways? Curious.

My rave for today: Wardruna. Gorgoroth side-project, probably not metal by anything but association, but wow. Pagan-ambient rune-drone? Dunno what to call it, but it does for trolls what Enya does for elves.

Trolls may be overstating things, but dwarves anyway.

Goblins, perhaps?

Just downloaded a bunch of upcoming and/or recent stuff from Earache's press site. Had no idea about the label picking up Insect Warfare until this afternoon, and playing it now I'm pretty impressed - stomps a good path between first wave grind and the more recent guttural techy stuff.

New Cauldron on there!

Well, only Cauldron. But still awesome (as I mentioned above, new band from Goat Horn dudes).

Anxious to check out that Cauldron album. After further listening, I've decided that I like the Cannibal Corpse album more than the Cattle Decapitation one, although it is still pretty good. Got my physical promo for the new Kylesa in the mail yesterday, still such an awesome album. I'm figuring it to end up on my list come end of year.

Kylesa's a contender, that's for sure. I like the new one a lot more than anythnig else they've done.

Cant wait to hear it

The Cauldron album is pretty damn good. They're not my favorite band on that Heavy Metal Killers compilation, but the fact that they recorded and released a song called "Chained Up In Chains" wins them a lot of points. And that album cover...

Listening to the Batillus EP that Invisible Oranges threw up a couple weeks ago. Pleasant enough, but I imagine those who tire easily when it comes to post-metal, NeurIsis imitators will probably hate this.

"Chained Up in Chains" really reminds me of White Wolf. Anyone remember White Wolf? From 1984-ish?

That Heavy Metal Killers comp is pretty solid. I like it more than comparable retro-thrash compilations, but I like NWOBHM more than most thrash, so that would probably explain that. Retro-NWOBHM still has a distressing lack of anything remotely original, though.

I think White Lion ate White Wolf in one semifinal. Snow Dog beat By-Tor in the other one, of course, but I confess I've forgotten what happened in the final...