Mordy's Metal Listening Club - New Albums Every Monday

finally have time to get to mordy's albums--just started orphaned land

it's funny--there's at least one or two things i like about all these songs and at least that many things where i'm just smh and thinking "that would've been really easy to cut." ultimately i think they just need to rock harder and lose all the keybs and melodic prog dross. really pushes the limits of taste for me personally.

mysteriously, there are only 4 tracks from the skyclad album on grooveshark. they're ok.

I often say that my musical taste all basically devolves from The Mob Rules and The Sound of Silence, so Folk Metal is pretty much a native idiom for me.

I was a Skyclad maniac when I discovered them with Prince of the Poverty Line, and it's a sad testament to how disappointed I became by their later albums that I'd never gone back, in the internet age, to find their first three albums, which I'd never been able to find back in the CD age. Listening to them now, including Burnt Offering, I'm pleased by how raw they are, but the particular pagan glee which characterized the next two or three records, at least in my memory (I haven't played those for a while, either), doesn't seem quite there yet on the earlier ones. The way I imagine folk-metal history, though, without Skyclad there's no Eluveitie. And maybe no Alestorm, either, but anybody who defines a new genre inevitably gives rise to both the future masters and the future embarrassments.

Mabool was an interesting listen, and I'm glad I've heard it, but count me in the camp who thinks they really badly needed an editor, probably starting from the conceptual and compositional stages, and certainly later in production. For me the album is way too long, way too scattered, way too overwrought. And over-earnest, and maybe I have to admit that the particular arabic (?) cast to their version of "folk" isn't as instinctively appealing to me as, say, Skyclad's more Celtic version. By the end of the album I felt like I'd been trapped listening to Scheherazade's endless stories for rather longer than they deserved.

The Subway to Sally record, and I'd never even heard of the band before, was in a way the most interesting of the three to me. I haven't heard much German folk-metal, and although StS are incorporating influences from a bunch of places, there's a kind of thumpy polka-ish core energy that was new to me. Not sure I actually want much more of it, but I'm pleased to know it exists.

thumpy polka-ish core energy

That's what hooked me - it reminded me of the humpa style of Korpiklaani, only a little more stiff.

havent had any time for this this week but i listened to some subway to sally stuff and really dug it

Im not sure about it but need to listen further

Just noticed that the 2002 reissue of Sahara adds a few bonus tracks and another 15 minutes. Great, just what that record did not need, the original 58 minutes were enough already.

We need to sort a rota for metal club.

Who wants to go monday? Alan N I know volunteered. Who wants to go after him? If noone volunteers then I guess its back to me. CAD & Seigbran surely want a go first?

Volunteer guys!

I'm told I need to decide who is posting albums next. However, this listening club is egal-anarchistic, so whoever wants to be next will be next. There's no rush, no time limit. Everyone who wants to be fit in will be fit in, because this thread has no expiration date. And many times! If you want to post albums a thousand times over the next hundred years, I'm totally okay with that. Strict rotation in metal stinks of fascism to me anyway, and as I just got done with a paper on NSBM (which, despite its nods to fascism is so much looser, more open), I'd rather none of that. So step in, whoever, and if no one by the end of Monday, then someone else as the day grinds to a close. No need to micro-manage these things, I think.

grumpy mordy

agreed on the anti-mico mgmt stance. i'm game. I'll do next week.

arent you meant to be doing it like now? noones chosen for this week

If noone wants to do it this week then i guess its back to me.. so you better do it Alan!

I'll do a week at some point if needed. Just not tomorrow's picks.

^^^yeah this

Mordy says I can do todays picks. So you guys have a week to decide who goes next

don't we do this monday mornings? what's the bfd?

and I'm on the east coast, USA

it's monday where i am, and im not staying up to 9am!

#1 The Lord Weird Slough Feg - Down Among the Deadmen
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GZCNBjJooyM/SvxcbNBIXXI/AAAAAAAAAFM/AusDgvz6ILY/s320/cover_front.jpg

Not a Spotify Link

#2 Electric Wizard - Come My Fanatics
http://www.spirit-of-metal.com/les%20goupes/E/Electric%20Wizard/Come%20my%20Fanatics.../Come%20my%20Fanatics....jpg

Not a Spotify Link

#3 YOB - Catharsis
http://www.ancientspirit.de/covers/covers23/yob2.jpg

Not a Spotify Link

you're crazy, man

good picks tho. I spent a whole afternoon playing "return trip" off of come my fanatics on loop a few months ago.

Chill out alan, its only a few hours til its midnight for ya! At least this way the brits at work on monday morning can see it.

xp
i aim to please

nah, I really don't care too much. it's just weird to me that you got in a huff over waiting a few hours for me to post a list of three albums.

anyway, I will make sure to post sunday nights (eastern time) next time to avoid anxiety for all our metal fiends. gotta get ready for work tomorrow. later!

thx 4 linx pfunk

oh i thought you wanted to wait a week as you werent ready, oh well.

aaaaaaah sorry

just re-read the thread and I can see why there was some confusion. my apologies.

I just felt like taylor swift and pfunk west was stealing my metal listening club thunder

no worries. its why a rota like in other clubs helps..

anyway look forward to what you all say about the albums.

Come My Fanatics... is my favorite Electric Wizard album. I know everybody reps for Dopethrone, but CMF just has better songs, and I like the somewhat cleaner, dubbier/more bass-heavy sound.

I've tried to get into Yob several times, and they never quite get a hook into me. I don't hate all doom, obviously; I love early Esoteric, for example. But Yob just makes me impatient. I don't know how to be more specific than that.

I've never listened to Slough Feg. Will seek that one out this week.

Surprised about that Phil, I thought you may have heard last years album , which finished in the ILM Metal top 15 I think.

First time I actually own all the picks. I'll relisten to them all before I comment.

haha, something I like that you like too finally!

jj can you update the thread title please?

Great choices! I own other albums by all three of these bands, but not any of the three selected!

Lee Dorrian told me that Come My Fanatics... is the one Rise Above release he's proudest of.

Down Among the Deadmen is a great choice! Wicked album, that one. Old school metal doesn't get much better than this.

Hurrah!

Come My Fanatics - not my go to Electric Wizard album (I love Witchcult Today), but I play it more than Dopethrone. Heavy as shit, but not overwhelming the way Dopethrone can be, as the riffs never disappear into a wall of rumbling bass. They definitely improved technically as they went on - the drums on this sometimes lose their way - but the overall sound of this just so, so good. Simple, and simply massive. I have a soft spot for the spacey, less crushing bits; "Ivixor B - Phase Inducer" is some great Hawkwind/Floyd tuned-down shit, and is a welcome breather when it comes on. Great way to start a week.

Does anyone have the addition with the additional bonus cuts ("Demon Lung" and"Return to the Son of Nothingness")? Do they make it feel too long?

I thought that was the version i didnt link to when i couldnt find the spotify

Well, I didn't need the link. What do you think of those tunes?

they aren't bad but they don't really jive with the rest of the album. like many bonus cuts, they're kind of an anti-climax. I never listen to em when I play the whole thing straight through.

Thanks Alan - that's what I figured.

The Lord Weird Slough Feg: so good, so good. Not quite sure how you like this and not the Manower, pfunk, as there is lots of classic power metal (and Manowar in particular) in Slough Feg's sound. Great riffs. I love how the start of the riff in "Warriors Dawn" (dun-dada-da-dun) is from Thin Lizzy's "Bad Reputation", but then they just extend it into crazyriffcentral John Cobett broke into some Lizzyisms when I saw Ludicra last month, too, and who wouldn't? The mix on this is wonderful - vocals are clear and understandable, but not as forward as is common in more traditional power metal. "Fergus Mac Roich" is my jam. A minute and a half of glory. Mike Scalzi's vocals don't really sound like anyone else, though when his voice starts to get ragged at the end of long vocal lines he veers into Mike Ness of Social Distortion territory.

Special shout-out to Erol Otus, cover artist and D&D god extraordinaire. If people want to know more about the band, check this out - Eclipsing a Vargr Moon, and then an interview of Mike Scalzi by the same folks - Release the Spores.

I see more early Maiden-isms in them rather than Manowar.

I wonder if for once Glenn will like one of my picks

this slough feg album is a blast! i had never really listened to them. definitely reminds me of a slightly heavier maiden and a vocal style i much prefer to that of manowar. so many catchy riffs!

Dunno for sure about "like" yet, but I'm on Lord Weird Slough Feg now, and after 9 songs don't see any reason I won't make it to the end. So that's something!