Rolling Metal Thread 2010

This is making my Friday night so much better.

Love Andrew W.K.

Now this is a Nightwish song I've heard many times before! (A bunch of my friends in high school were in a metal band that covered Nightwish, so I ended up getting into a bunch of their songs.)

this is one of the things I love best about wknc metal night - they'll play the same act a few times but not necessarily in a row - it's kind of exactly how my home listening works: "you know what I want to hear now? another maiden song"

yeah, that is awesome!

i'm really enjoying what i've heard of the show so far.

http://www.myspace.com/finntroll

That's interesting, Finntroll prefers Skittles to M&Ms.

On an unrelated note, when did Overkill get so freakin' good? Ironbound is flat-out the best front-to-back album they've ever made. They were always one of the most annoyingly inconsistent bands in metal and their recent stuff was just plain lousy, and I had ZERO expectations when I played this album on a whim, so this comes as a massive surprise.

I admit to not having been a big Immolation fan up until now, but I'm really liking the new one. Not sure it's due to any significant change on their part, I think I'm accepting more and more non-melodic voices that used to turn me off.

anyone have any idea what happened to the Mayhem tour?

Glenn--Immolation is fantastic. Finally finally saw them live about two weeks ago and they lived up to my many years of great expectations.

Rockapads--pretty sure they are just greedy assholes. That cancellation has screwed over hundreds of people, not counting the fans. Ludicra will be touring anyway, and we are scrambling to put that together immediately. Anyone who wants to give shout outs to Ludicra for soldiering on and touring anyway, please drop me a line.

I'm hoping the end result is a longer Ludicra set... not a huge Mayhem fan anyway.

So what's the plan - get the three support acts out on the road on the same dates but maybe in smaller venues?

re: metal haven
i don't think they've closed all the way, but the end is nigh. for now it's deep discounts, etc. until it's all gone, i guess? that's what i read at least.

Yeah, I tend to lose patience quickly with uber-technical death metal where flurries take precendence over rhythm, at one end, and brutal death focused on pounding and bellowing, at the other, but Immolation find a good place in between. Not that their purpose is to suit my particular parameters, obviously.

Also, this new Gamma Ray album sounds a lot better than I expected. But lately the test of Gamma Ray/Helloween albums is whether I can still stand them the third time, so we'll see.

(And this last is not a metal rec, but if your metal tastes segue into Jesu, then over to Mono, then into quieter atmopherics, go look up the Japanese duo Matryoshka...)

It's a good time for old-fashioned doom these days...the new albums by Hour of 13 and Apostle of Solitude are knockouts.

I'm doing some research into NSBM music and I'm curious if, outside listening to the artists on the Resistance Records website, there's a good place to start -- has anyone written about NSBM or other racist/anti-semitic metal movements? Are there other labels/artists that I should be checking out?

Also, loosely related, I'm trying to compile a sizable list of songs/albums/lyrics that deal thematically with concepts of possession, embodiment, exorcism, etc. I'm sure there are tons, but I've only been able to come up with a few (Master of Puppets, maybe?).

There's a book written in German called Unheilige Allianzen, unfortunately untranslated and my German is only good enough to read the German wiki page about the book (barely). I probably couldn't do substantive work in the original (tho maybe this is a good chance to improve my German so I could).

The Encyclopedia Metallum is pretty comprehensive - searches on 'genre' and 'lyrical theme' will give you good starts on either of your questions

http://www.last.fm/tag/the%20pagan%20front

http://www.last.fm/tag/national%20socialist%20black%20metal

http://www.last.fm/tag/nsbm

http://www.last.fm/music/Sieg+Oder+Tod

http://www.last.fm/tag/rac

http://www.last.fm/music/Sons+Of+North

http://www.last.fm/music/Gestapo+666

http://www.last.fm/music/Aryan+Blood

that's just two minutes i spent on the internet. lemme know if you want me to spend three minutes.

Even legendary Canadian Werewolf True Pitch Black Metal band Byzantum is on the Encyclopedia Metallum

http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=26983

I think Decibel had an article on this a few years back.

"Orgasmatron"

"So what's the plan - get the three support acts out on the road on the same dates but maybe in smaller venues?"

Essentially, yes. Though Tombs and Krallice want to stick to the east coast. So there will be a host of Ludicra dates with the best local support we can muster.

And on a personal note: my band Witch Mountain (formed in Portland, OR back in 1997) has just finished a new album with producer Billy Anderson. Think Goatsnake with Anne Wilson of Heart on vocals.

I'll be shopping it at Scion fest and Roadburn. But meanwhile, any press folks who are interested in this sort of thing, email me at nanotear AT hotmail and I'll get you the mastered sampler.

And if you know of any radio outlets that handle this sort of music (like Scott Kelly's satellite radio show for instance), please let me know. We ended up with a song under 4 minutes that actually has a chorus.

It took us ten years to make a second album and it feels so so good to have it done once and for all.

Send me one. I will even post an MP3 on my MSN blog if you want.

Done.

Think Goatsnake with Anne Wilson of Heart on vocals.

I'm definitely interested. Will email.

I'm certainly interested in hearing it, but these days I'm not writing for anything beyond my barely browsed blogs.

Finally digging into the Ihsahn, this is fucking fantastic.

Jon, I'm happy to have people hear it who will simply spread the good word. It is a "promotional sampler" after all ;)

Well then. :) E-mail sent.

Just wrapping up my first listen to the new Orphaned Land and, well, I think it'll take some time to fully form an opinion on this thing. It's massive, and honestly, a bit of a slog to get through in one session. There are some really good moments and, unsurprisingly for an album this massive and ambitious, some moments that really don't work well at all. An early favorite is "Disciples of the Sacred Oath II".

Does C0sm0 still post around here? Curious to hear why he thought Phil's exercise was an "unnecessary mess". I thought it was good to see someone try to find out the truth before either a) giving press to a band with questionable beliefs or b) unfairly ignoring a good young band.

http://invisibleoranges.com/2010/02/wolvhammer-eps.html

weird post--it's like he wants to minimize the issue of racism in metal. i think it's perfectly reasonable that folks might want to avoid bands that have those beliefs. but c0sm0 and i have never seen eye-to-eye afaict

weird post--it's like he wants to minimize the issue of racism in metal

Especially when paired with the post below it, where he asks what questions people would like him to ask Varg Vikernes.

lol didn't even see that

Yeah, I thought it was good of Phil to call out the band and forcing them to get that all out in the open, and it was good of the band to respond so quickly. I don't understand what's so wrong with that.

With Varg's people screening each email interview before approving submission, I doubt he'll be giving many interesting answers at all, at least answers to the questions most people want asked.

I got this email yesterday.

This is too good an opportunity to pass up.

So, let's put our heads together.

What questions do you have for Mr. Vikernes?

hahah i don't really know what's so good about this opportunity, both for the reason adrien mentioned and because varg is an upper-level bullshit artist in interviews anyway.

oh also and why give pub/attention to an asshole like varg?

it seems more like people want to make a bigger deal out of the wolvhammer thing than necessary. it didn't really seem like he was "calling them out," more like he was asking a legitimate question that, i would think, they would want to be clear about in the first place.

Varg Vikernes: no. Ville Valo: yes! Yes yes yes new HIM yes yes. Back to sounding like they sounded when I thought they might be my new favorite band. Happy Metal!

awesome! That last record was way too artsy for its own good. I want big hooks from HIM, not weirdness.

Thanks for the Witch Mountain love on the MSN Blog Phil.

http://music.msn.com/superfans/heavy-metal/blog/free-music-witch-mountain-mp3/?silentchk=1&

Forty years ago, Black Sabbath released their debut album

HAIL THE (tr00) BIRTH OF HEAVY METAL, ACCURSED INFIDELS!!!!!!

"Forty years -- what a surprise!" (to the tune of Bowie's 5 years)

Nice Overkill review Adrien. I almost picked that up yesterday when I saw it at Best Buy, but it was fucking $18.99 for the single disc version for some weird reason.

Kinda liking Anima (Serbian rock/metal) and While Heaven Wept (somewhere between Dream Theater and Candlemass). And Gamma Ray and Overkill sound good. But HIM and Rotting Christ and Ihsahn and Immolation are my heavy rotation right now. HIM back to their grandiosity, Rotting Christ taking those arabic flutter-riffs into a new sphere, Ihsahn making sax sound both metal and Metal, and Immolation just stomping on heads. The music year is officially well underway.

Ihsahn is definitely my early favorite of the young year, particularly "Frozen Lakes On Mars" - I can't stop playing that one. The whole thing is really awesome though.