Rolling Metal Thread 2010

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.

Anyone heard this band?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1Otz94ZFcBM/S3fvpgpI7gI/AAAAAAAAAnY/Wa2kZ2_Xo0A/s400/a2adb7c63e05.jpg

http://www.myspace.com/mountaingoatband

http://thewarp.org/blog/images/fortunel_a.jpg

It's amazing how noodle vague has influenced so many ilxors to store images they find to use on ilx one day

i found that in seconds by GISing "copyright police"!

Influences

Clutch. Kyuss. Nirvana. Boris. Black Sabbath. Sleep. Electric Wizard. Down. Queens of the Stone Age. Goatsnake. Probot. Cathedral. The Melvins. Bongzilla. Weedeater. Daniel Lioneye. Tom Morello solos.

hey, there's another goat somewhere in dere.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1Otz94ZFcBM/S3fvpgpI7gI/AAAAAAAAAnY/Wa2kZ2_Xo0A/s400/a2adb7c63e05.jpg

she got to keep the bong after the divorce iirc

I like his friendly face and friendly moobs

In other news, I am listening to the Black Breath album on Southern Lord - this is the followup to the EP they released in December - and it owns, in much the same way as the EP owned. Kurt Ballou produced it so it's a bit more, um, produced, but it works for them. Really hope the whole world is sucking their dicks by summer

I loved the Black Breath EP, and having Ballou produce the new one can only be a good thing. Really looking forward to this one!

I liked the EP, but I thought it was a little one-dimensional. Is the album more varied?

Listening to the new Lair of the Minotaur disc, Evil Power. I don't know...I want to love this band, because on the surface they're the ultimate metal band - their name, the fact that their albums have titles like Carnage, The Ultimate Destroyer and War Metal Battle Master, the video for the last album's title track - but I just don't feel like they're living up to their potential. In my opinion, they peaked with The Ultimate Destroyer. This time out, they've brought in bassist/vocalist Nate Olp from Demiricious, a band I think is really underrated, and the songs have titles like "Let's Kill These Motherfuckers," "Hunt and Devour" and "Death March of the Conquerors," but it's just not as awesome as it should be. I'll give it a few more listens and see if it grows on me.

fwiw i always felt similarly about those guys.

So...Just dropping in to say that, though I have next to no use for new metal these days, I do think I like the new Ratt album, new Orphaned Land album, and new Helloween best-of album regardless. That's all.

Same. I have a friend for whom they are one of about three metal groups he likes - to him they embody everything metal is, or should be, about. I find their music boring and their whole shtick kind of goofy.

(xp)

Lair of the Minotaur are a hell of a lot of fun live. I bought this shirt when I saw them:

http://shop.relapse.com/dbimages/sleeves/93612dvd_216.jpg

That being said, I do not own any actual music from them.

in case anyone out of town wondered about metal haven/closing/etc
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/metal-haven-closing-mark-weglarz-ravenswood-music-stores/Content?oid=1418106

I like the new Ratt too. Hate the Orphaned Land. Have never listened to a whole Helloween song.

Not even all 13 glorious minutes of "Halloween", Phil? Pre-1988 Helloween is so great. After that, not so much.

I like Lair of the Minotaur, but it seems they never go as over the top as they should with this kind of battle metal or what have you. I'll be giving the new album a listen later.

Meanwhile, the new Landmine Marathon album isn't really growing on me much. It's good, but it doesn't feel like the big leap you'd expect from a band expected to get a lot of hype in 2010. I just like their previous stuff better, I think.

What do you hate about the Orphaned Land?

helloween (yeah the old stuff) is great, get tarnished with the silly brush a little too often so a lot of dudes i know wont listen to them, but i think it holds up

yeah, i too liked the Orphaned Land quite a bit on first hearing. come to think of it, that alone may well be definitive proof that it does indeed suck.

Despite being probably way too long, it's the first "real" metal album I've made it all the way through, painlessly, on first sitting, in ages.

Helloween best-of sounded way lighter and catchier (even almost "new wave" now and then) than I expected. Which I'm sure will bother some people, but fuck 'em.

Of course I was just playing both of them in the background; maybe on closer inspection, they'll wind up boring me. But I hope not.

Currently listening to the new Armored Saint, which is really good. Not metal exactly; heavy in a Wino/Trouble sort of way, with Mellotron and classic hard rock guitar sounds. Plus John Bush's vocals, of course, which are terrific.

The Orphaned Land album is just...too much. Too long, too overbearing with the Middle Eastern instrumentation, too boring ("Bereft in the Abyss"), and not heavy enough. No thanks. I'll stick with Melechesh.

what i have heard of Orphaned Land has not impressed me very much

I'm glad I'm not the only one less than impressed with the Orphaned Land CD. Tries way too hard, whereas Mabool was totally charming.

Oh, and thanks, jon, for the Overkill comment upthread. What a great album Ironbound is! I was totally floored when I heard "The Green and Black".

i dunno, for me Mabool sounded really primitive/tentative in comparison to the new one's all out, head-long dive into the "cultural" abyss. the more middle-eastern flavor they let seep into their more or less standard, by-the-numbers extreme metal tunes the better, i say. eclecticism is not always a negative trait, y'know.