Rolling Metal Thread 2010

TBH I thought the last Alcest album was way more Pitchfork friendly than this one, and also a lot better. These things aren't necessarily related.

BUT I am going to see Bolt Thrower & Rotting Christ in 2 days so maybe I'm still metal enough, I dunno.

I'm skipping the Dublin Bolt Thrower show this Sunday - they moved the start time back by 2 hours so it won't end till 1am. On a Sunday night! I'm not metal enough for that, I've got work in the morning.

The former P4k metal writer moved his shop to Stereogum.

yeah it's still an excellent column!!

Weird - the London gig starts at 5pm!

xpost

No bank holiday in Ireland on Monday then I guess?

Indeed, thanks for the heads up on that EZ, I had no idea he moved!

xxpost

No bank holiday in Ireland on Monday then I guess?

There is, but not in my line of work.

The start time was supposed to be 5pm here as well, but it got moved back due to 'changes in the ferry schedule' or some bullshit. It's a five band bill, they could have cut someone out or trimmed back the set times or something. Anyway, it freed me up to afford a ticket to see Dinosaur Jr in a couple of weeks' time, so every cloud and all that.

tbh I figured the 5pm start time was because the London gig is in a student union and they probably have a club night after or something. Doesn't really make any difference to me but my friend has to get back to Milton Keynes after so that could be interesting.

you guys should stop talking about pitchfork and listen to the new overkill album instead

this album outclasses any of the nu-thrash I've heard by a wide, wide margin.

If I've never liked an Overkill album, is this going to change my mind?

Let me rephrase - I didn't like their first four records in the 80s and never heard another note. Should I?

I'd say "yes" but it's honestly been 10+ years since I've even listened to overkill, so I'll leave that to more knowledgeable posters.

but check out the title track at least:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAFIkUZqWtY

that solo!

I'm with you, EZ - I didn't like Overkill in the 80s and the new album, while not bad for old dudes, isn't gonna suddenly convert you.

I'm currently listening to Witchkrieg, the new album by the reconstituted Witchery, now featuring Legion, formerly of Marduk, on vocals. This album has a shit-ton of guest guitar solos by Hank Sherman and Andy La Rocque (Mercyful Fate/King Diamond), Gary Holt and Lee Altus from Exodus, Jim Durkin of Dark Angel, and Kerry King on the title track. So far it's pretty fucking awesome.

you're a tough man to please

That's a pretty good track Alan. Still not going to rush out and pick it up, but much better than I expected based on my memories.

just fyi, and for the last fucking time, p4k stated ages ago that they gave bnm tags to things that they felt would appeal to the vast majority of their readership. so uh sorry metal albums ;_;

Then that means they obviously dont think their readership is very openminded, and of course im sure others might point out that if they did give it a BNM tag, then they might still check it out and like it. Otherwise their claims to be not just an indie site ring hollow.

Why did no one tell me there was a new Karma To Burn album?

I totally told you there was when I was reviewing it for Decibel. Great stuff, as usual. Picked up an album by the band that a couple of guys did with the son of one of the Kinks, Year-Long Disaster, but my hopes aren't quite as high for that one.

Yeah it is great as always.

Why did no one tell me there was a new Karma To Burn album?

You woulda found out soon enough; I'm writing them up in the Bands You Should Know section of my MSN blog in a week or so.

Not heard of that one, jeff. I do have the 1st cd though which did have vocals. Apparently their record label wanted them to record with John Garcia.

Nice one , Phil. Do you know how many pageviews your blog gets?

The new Overkill album is the first of theirs I've really, really liked. They always had moments of greatness in the 80s, but their albums were so mediocre.

yep, your positive comments got me to check it out bc I had written them off a long time ago. thanks!

Do you know how many pageviews your blog gets?

I always assume about five, but they told me the obit I wrote for Pete Steele got like 80K. That piece was linked on the MSN front page, though.

Today on the blog: balancing nostalgia with actively hating young bands.

A few little metal-stats tidbits for today, arising from my using some Encyclopaedia Metallum data to experiement with the system I design for work: of the 55 countries with 100+ bands in EM, 42 of them have more Death bands than any other metal genre (as defined by EM, not by me). What's more interesting is who doesn't:

12 have more Black metal bands than anything else: Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Ecuador, France, Greece, Norway, Russia.
4 have more Heavy/Traditional bands than anything else: Argentina, Japan, South Korea, Spain.
Slovenia has more Speed/Thrash than anything else.

The greatest single-genre dominance is in the Phillipines, where 62.5% of the bands are Death, and 25% are Speed/Thrash. Thailand runs 56.2% Death to 22.3% Black, for the second widest magin, but Norway is third with 51.4% Black, 21.2% Death.

For most genres, the US has the greatest number of bands and Germany is second. But there are a few exceptions:
- France has the second most Electronic metal bands.
- Germany has more Folk/Viking bands than the US.
- Gothic metal goes Germany, Italy, US.
- Italy has the second most Orchestral/Symphonic metal bands.

There are 9 bands listed under 5 different EM top-level genres:

Caer Ibormeith: Black - Death - Gothic - Orchestral/Symphonic - Progressive
Celtic Frost: Black - Death - Doom - Gothic - Speed/Thrash
Coventide: Black - Death - Folk/Viking - Gothic - Progressive
Death SS: Black - Doom - Electronic - Heavy/Traditional - Speed/Thrash
Indicium: Death - Doom - Gothic - Heavy/Traditional - Speed/Thrash
Karelia: Electronic - Gothic - Heavy/Traditional - Orchestral/Symphonic - Power
Krom: Death - Heavy/Traditional - Orchestral/Symphonic - Power - Speed/Thrash
Legacies Unchain: Black - Death - Doom - Heavy/Traditional - Speed/Thrash
Little Dead Bertha: Black - Death - Doom - Gothic - Orchestral/Symphonic

The least common genre pairings are Electronic + Folk/Viking (10 bands, Ulver being the only one I recognized), and Electronic + Power (also 10: I'd heard of Jack Rose, Karelia and Skymning). The most common are Death + Speed/Thrash (5107) and Black + Death (3474).

OK, that's enough of that.

glenn! do you have em's "lyrical themes" data available?

Er, in the bit about countries with more Black metal than anything else, it should say 8, not 12. The list there is right.

Also, to "experiement" is to experiment while listening to Eluveitie.

xpost: No, the set I'm looking at is just band names, countries and genres. Scraping the lyrical themes would be very amusing, I suspect, but probably not worth the time/load.

i always thought it would be awesome to find the 50 best lyrical themes and poll 'em on ilm. ah well, the dream lives on.

Oh, and in the actual Genre field (as opposed to the 11 top-level genres EM defines) there are 6225 different values for 72000+ bands. Of these, about 4600 are unique (there's only one band described in exactly that way). But the top 10 such "genres" cover half the bands, so the overall consistency is actually pretty high. Those top 10 are:

Black Metal - 9,245
Death Metal - 6,821
Thrash Metal - 5,663
Heavy Metal - 5,173
Death/Thrash Metal - 1,867
Melodic Death Metal - 1,692
Power Metal - 1,583
Progressive Metal - 1,420
Death Metal/Grindcore - 1,306
Brutal Death Metal - 1,283

any of you who don't mind paying for mp3s & don't have last year's Converge record yet, it's on Amazon Mp3 for $5. hyped & am off to buy it now

on my first listen through the standout track for me, no question, is "Wretched World," which totally just kicked my ass

My thoughts on Ozzfest 2010. I wonder who the secret 13th band is? I kinda hope it's Anthrax.

This may be the lamest Ozzfest lineup ever. Just... lazy.

I was also shocked to hear that Nonpoint was worthy of being a main stage act.

They've clearly given up on trying to be even remotely relevant.

maybe they were the only bands willing to pay to get on the tour

I remember hearing a Nonpoint song a few years ago that I kinda liked (it was very modern rock radio tho), but I can't remember what it was.

Apparently it was "Bullet with a Name"

It sounded better when I heard it in 2005 :/

Nonpoint's first album is pretty decent. Not really worth bothering with anything after that, though.

I think the big thing for me is that it really isn't worth going for any of these acts. With the exception of Ozzy and Motley Crue, who are way past their prime as live performers, everybody else tours constantly and headlines fairly small venues (I've even seen Rob Halford solo at the House of Blues), so there's no real incentive to go out to the desert for this.

Absolutely loving this Coffinworm album. I was a big fan of the three-track demo from last year, but this is really great.

Yeah, for me, Ozzfest is neither convenient nor enticing this year. Neither is the Mayhem tour. The only package tour I'm interested in seeing this year is Summer Slaughter.

no finger eleven no credibility. is ozzfest playing county fairs this year?