Rolling Metal Thread 2010

Metasleaze.

Man, this Triptykon album is too fucking long. If you can't fit it on one LP (maybe two, if it's REALLY, REALLY STRONG), edit it or don't put it out.

The new Bison disc is a logical next step after Quiet Earth; a few more acoustic bits, but generally their sound remains big 'n' loud and fairly Mastodon-ish but with a much less hyperactive drummer.

"Man, this Triptykon album is too fucking long. If you can't fit it on one LP (maybe two, if it's REALLY, REALLY STRONG), edit it or don't put it out."

I invoke the law of 36:42. If an album is longer than South Of Heaven, then there has to be a good reason for it and it has to be really fucking great. and that's me being nice. if i were to invoke the law of 28:25, man, 99% of all bands would fail in a big way.

WORD. I'm kind of a liberal, though, I'll allow up to like 43 minutes.

okay i've inspired myself to have a slayer tape party. starting with haunting the chapel.

i was gonna listen to these death demos on tape that i never listen to, but they'll keep. mantas rehearsals!

yeah from the musician side of things though do you guys have ANY idea how common it is for the 2nd thing a person says to you (after "dig your stuff," for which, permanent real gratitude don't take me wrong) to be "why was the last album only 28/32/45 minutes long? should totally have put [name of outtake] on it" - a LOT of listeners, especially European ones in my experience, feel ripped off if an album is short. They think that cost should correlate to running time, and since the cost is already more or less fixed within certain parameters, that running time should default to "longer."

IOW most listeners are size queens

Albums cost a lot more here

you guys realize you can actually play an album twice right

Europeans: wrong on album lengths, wrong for America.

I come down on the "no more than 40-45 minutes of music per release, please" side of things, 'cause a) I'm old and remember vinyl and especially cassettes, and b) life is short and I'm a busy man; I need to finish listening to your album so I can listen to the five or six other albums I have to review this week. The thing that really used to chap my ass, in my Walkman days, was when Side B of a tape was longer than Side A, so after I finished listening to the first set of songs I had to fast forward to the end, thus wasting precious battery power.

The big thing for me with album length is that metal is, for the most part, a very passionate form of music, and it's hard for a band to keep up the energy level for 80 minutes, especially if they are thrash or death or something that works best in small doses.

more metal EPs please. EPs rule and everyone knows it. if i ran a record label it would be nothing but 10 inch EPs. and 7 inch singles.

Long album lengths really bother me too (for exactly the reasons Phil cites above), but the Triptykon doesn't overstay its welcome at all.

had to fast forward to the end, thus wasting precious battery power

Us cheap ass eurodudes always used pen(cil)s for fwd/rwd-ing.

EPs rule and everyone knows it.

man that brief window when EPs were ruling the roost was the best. three fucking words for the doubters: tragic fucking serenades.

EPs are the best in every genre.

I've got no problem with EPs. I wish jazz musicians would go back to releasing 40-minute albums with five or six tracks on 'em, too.

So, this album will be Xasthur's last as Xasthur . . . he's done with metal: http://xasthurnews.blogspot.com/2010/03/out-now-and-ending-now.html

(via P4k)

I do not have a ‘shopping cart’ because I’m not a professional black metal internet wheeler and dealer

oh ok bud cool

but if you want to buy single copies go look on ebay. In a couple weeks or so, I will have a limited amount of 11x17" posters signed by both participants of the album. In a few months or so, you can look for the vinyl LP edition on Hydra Head, they'll do nice job with it.

hey wait I thought you said

"The honorable thing to do is to end the band and not hang around too long, like so many metal/black metal bands do. Enough is enough, right?"

hahaha, says the guy with a hundred albums, EPs, and singles and splits and comp tracks who has been around for over a decade.

better late than never, i guess!

geez what a terrible "retirement" announcement

I will not name influences, genres or anything of the sort.

plz be chillwave

ksh it's like you've got a crystal ball

actually, i am Xasthur. in-studio collabs w/ Neon Indian & appearances on Kimmel forthcoming in 2k11

k'sthur

so glad my metal heroes didn't have blogs when i was a kid.

man for real

Listening to the new UFOMammut disc. It's pretty great. One big song divided into five chunks, like My Cat Is An Alien crossed with Esoteric.

xpost Most of my heroes still don't have blogs and that suits me really nicely!

elvis was a hero to most
but his blog never meant shit to me

Listening to the new UFOMammut disc. It's pretty great.

Glad to hear that, if a bit jealous. Looking forward to this more than anything else at the moment.

like My Cat Is An Alien

please please please dont say its true

Black Breath LP making the rounds, sounds pretty awesome on first scan.

Great album, that one. I really liked the EP from last year and had high hopes for the LP, what with Ballou producing and all.

Xasthur's admission that All Reflections Drained wasn't "up to par" has got me more excited about the new final one.

by the way everybody the new abscess is total fuckin genius.

going way back up in the thread re: album lengths, I hate overbloated 70+ minute albums generally, although there are a few that fill the time nicely.

I remember debating with someone about Reign in Blood - the guy felt cheated because he was paying full price for a 28 minute album that was shorter than Alice in Chain's "Jar of Flies", and said he wished they had shoved more tracks onto it.

I pointed out that the album is pretty much flawless as is and even though I could hit the "stop" button early, I didn't think adding a bunch of tracks would do anything but make an amazing album just "good". His viewpoint was that he'd rather have 10-15 "pretty good" songs than 8 "amazing" ones. I just don't get that at all.

I'll admit to having a pretty high tolerance for long albums. Bad is bad, at any length, but if a band can get deeply enough invested in an aesthetic to hold it together for 72:09, I'm in favor. The "shove more track on it" thing is question-begging; maybe the other 12 minutes of the 40-minute Reign in Blood would have been just as perfect. I'm not giving up any amount of Lolita Nation or 69 Love Songs. But interestingly, I can't quickly think of a great true metal double-album (not counting live albums and bonus discs and whatever). Can't even think of that many examples other than the new Cathedral.

A lot of it also depends on the genre for me as well. Like I feel that thrash metal is better when it is over in a short spurt. I don't think Reign in Blood would have worked at the 40 minute length simply because its whole point was to be a quick burst of energy and one could appreciate it despite the minimal dynamics at that length.

There are certainly "long" metal albums that I like, but they're usually of the "concept album" or progressive type (ie Pain of Salvation). Just like an album can be too long, some albums can be too short, although I feel a lot less annoyed with being mad that an album is too short than when it is too long. Having to use the skip button=fail!

Appropriately, I'm listening to Cathedral's The Ethereal Mirror (54 minutes) now, for the first time, and not wanting it to be any shorter.

Also, how lame is it that iTunes can't sort my albums by duration?

well Cathedral would definitely be one of those that work at a longer length....doom is slow developing inherently (not that that is a bad thing!)

I can't quickly think of a great true metal double-album

Does ...And Justice For All count?

I'd say the Gathering's How to Measure a Planet? is a great metal double album. Though some might have issues with just how "metal" it actually is, I suppose...

And it might make me look patently uncool, but Therion's Gothic Kabballah is a cool double album.

I would say one of the esoteric double albums but the two single albums are probably my faves.

it's a collection, but Katatonia's Brave Yester Days is a mindblowing double CD.

also the last Blut Aus Nord was a double LP & was quite righteous

listening to those early mantas and death demos now. so crazy. can't help but wonder what would have happened if they had got it together to record an EP or an album in 1984. they were already on to some next-level nastiness in 1983 when they recorded death by metal. anyway, listening to death by metal/reign of terror/infernal death/back from the dead/mutilation. 1983 to 1986.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3f/Death1.jpg

and, you know, for the record, i listen to and like LOTS of long-ass albums. if i really like a band i can go along for almost any ride. i mean, i'm a funeral doom fan. i just think, in general, the cd age has ruined many a good thing. i love bands that leave me wanting MORE. that have me wearing out my vinyl/tape/cd because i can't get enough of it. and this was common in the vinyl age. you couldn't wait for the next album or single or ep. now its like you get a big care package that is supposed to hold you over for the next couple of years till the next one. and don't even get me started about rap music. quadruple vinyl? really?

Yeah I find myself having to play editor far too often. But not so often with metal, actually!

Wasn't Come My Fanatics a double?