Rolling Metal Thread 2010

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?

Anyone heard the new Fatso Jetson yet?

Just got in from seeing Bolt Thrower/Benediction/Rotting Christ/The Rotted. Wicked gig, it got more awesome with each band - I'd always thought I liked Anaal Nathrakh more than Benediction, and I probably still do, but Benediction kicked fucking ass tonight, even though they lost a guitarist to technical problems after about 3 songs. Bolt Thrower were fucking amazing. And a dude came up to me and said hi cos I was wearing a punk t-shirt instead of a metal t-shirt which is always nice.

Yeah, Benediction was excellent at Neurotic Deathfest (at Roadburn venue 013 in Tilburg) too this weekend. Dave Hunt has turned into a pretty good frontman, big improvement on when I saw Anaal Nathrakh three years ago. Nick Barker on drums didn't hurt either. I'm still reeling from all the great bands I got to see the last couple of days: Bolt Thrower(!), Carcass(!!), Lock Up(!!!), Napalm Death, Pestilence, Revocation, Immolation, Origin, Rotten Sound, Human Mincer, Man Must Die, Kickback and last but not least Severe Torture, who were added at the last moment because Annotations of an Autopsy cancelled, but managed to blow just about everyone off the stage. So good to see a Dutch band hold its own amongst such a stellar international line-up (42 bands), especially because the Pestilence show was quite disappointing.

Just came across this little gem from a band that fell down the cracks of history long ago. Get ready for some headbangin':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr0VDHe0q9o

Mordy's new picks are up Mordy's Metal Listening Club Volume #3: April 26 thru May 3, 2010 - Amon Amarth, GridLink and Manowar... All ILXors and Lurkers welcome!

Cannibal Corpse are coming back through Florida to end their U.S. tour, in an odd move. I just bought a ticket to see the last show on the US leg. first time I've ever seen an artist twice on one tour....be interesting to see how they sound in a diff venue.

Caught an amazing set from Zeni Geva in Barcelona last weekend. Now I'm off to Oslo for Thrones/OvO/Nadja and (believe it or not) lunch with Geir!

That should be something!

any more opinions on the new Deftones? considering getting it if it's really really good

xxp this is an ILX first right???

Deftones are playing a record release show tonight in Dallas; it'll be streaming online here starting at 8PM EST/5PM PST.

oh sick, thanks dude. if i'm here at 8, I'm definitely going to listen in

I'm sorta picky when it comes to metal, but the metal I like, I like a LOT. My taste runs more toward the sludgy, drony, avant-garde end of the spectrum. And the original Sabbath LPs with Ozzy... ;-)

So far this year I'm really diggin' Gnod & Wounded Kings. Also, I think Striborg put out something this year that was decent, but it may have been last year...

The new Deftones is a mighty fine record, I wasn't expecting something so upbeat. I didn't know it was out today.

i might slip out to Best Buy later today to buy it

gotta say though, out of the two songs i've heard -- "Diamond Eyes" and "Rocket Skates" -- the former is so much better than the latter. i love Chino's voice on DE, but RS goes nowhere

I picked it up today. V nice.

Wow, the new In This Moment album, A Star-Crossed Wasteland, is awesome. It's got all the rage and aggression of the first album, with all the soaring melodies and beauty of the second album. Really a major disc. (If you haven't liked them before, I can't guarantee you'll like this one, but I know Adrien digs 'em as much as I do, so.)

I listened to the first track yesterday. I'd say there's more rage and aggression then on the first album. Practically ripped my head off. Really catchy, though.

As I mentioned on Twitter, I only listened to the last one because of Phil's enthusing (and, come to think of it, Adrien's as well) and I really liked it. Would have totally been the type of thing I'd have dismissed out of hand, but glad I gave it a chance.

any more opinions on the new Deftones?

Not a patch on White Pony. On first pass it sounded a bit too commercial to me - I prefer the Deftones when they're being weird. But it's not a bad record by any means; I guess I have high expectations for bands like them.

On a related note: would I like Saturday Night Wrist? For some reason that one totally passed me by when it came out.

This is actually the first Deftones record I've heard since White Pony, and it seems okay after one listen. It does seem like a polished and streamlined version, not as "off" as they can be.

It's not as weird as White Pony, but it's the best non-weird Deftones disc since Around the Fur.

Re: In This Moment, that's true, Phil & Jeff, I really like that band. They get a lot of flak for having a pretty singer and playing Warped and whatnot, but they're an honest, hard-working band and have learned how to write some pretty killer melodic heavy rock tunes. I wasn't too sure about the new CD's "darker" direction after they totally nailed 80s hard rock on the last one, but Phil's comments have me looking forward to hearing it. Hopefully sooner than later.

And yeah, the new Deftones is top-notch.

Oops, I mean Phil & Jon.

I can't quit listening to this Skeletonwitch. seriously. I'm so glad they were on the CC tour or else I may not have heard of em.