Rolling Metal Thread 2010

Over at Hellbound I posted an interview with my favourite new Canadian metal band, a wickedly good female guitar/drums duo called Mares of Thrace, whose debut album is a cool blend of Neurosis and the Jesus Lizard: http://www.hellbound.ca/2010/08/introducing-mares-of-thrace/

They're a ferocious live act, and the drummer is one of the better female metal drummers I've seen. Well worth checking out!

― A. Begrand, Wednesday, August 11, 2010 4:05 AM

Man, this band is super badass! I like them better than Jesus Lizard!
For me, they bring to mind a little some of the better resurgences of No Wave.

Glad you like!

Unperson: I've not seen those films but I'm gathering it was more of a personal film for the director and perhaps one he took slightly more seriously. Especially if all the distraught comments on IMDB from angry action movie fans are anything to go by.

Locked in, rapping with my corpsepaint and a mullet,
Let's see how my sword stands up to your bullets
Like Hecate, I'm enthroned, and if you disrespect
You'll be lying in a Graveland like Oystein Aarseth

I grab the mic, and I drop Norwegian coldness
Truly underground, don't need no radio hits
Bringing obscure sounds to your town, you better harken
I bring pride pure white like my homie Rob Darken

I do not like Christians, Samoth-I-Am
Burning down churches and I don't give a goddamn
Now I'd advise you not to fuck with this
Or I'll disfigure your face, and leave you looking like Mortiis

Marduk duck goose, I choose you to be my victim
I rip you up and stab you in the back like Bard Eithun
I rock cold like a Blizzard, with the mark of a Beast
Ripping up posers right and left I bring 'em down to their knees

And like the Nightspirit, thus I have spake
Don't try to disrespect, cuz that's a big mistake
Like a Beherit EP, sorry to end so soon
But this is me signing off, Under a Funeral Moon

Amazing.

Wow!

I saw Slayer last night. Ive seen them about 5 times since 1988 and this may be the best show Ive seen. Two words that may be proof that there is a god: Dave Lombardo. I cant even describe how good he is.

xp lord custos tribute thread

Listening to Kylesa's new one now. They've finally become great on this album; it's like a cross between Baroness and recent/current Melvins. The double drumming thing really, really works, and they've got these psychedelic/90s indie rock guitar melodies that are just fucking awesome. Highly, highly recommended.

excited!!!

definitely gonna pick up that one

damn i have to wait until 10/26? that feels really far.

sounds like itll be worth it

oh, man. really excited about that one now too!

got Blind Guardian on pre-order

I'm agreeing with Phil, the Kylesa's really good. Not as heavy (when they were sludgy they were a less interesting band), but they've really ogt the melodies down now.

I haven't listened to a new Iron Maiden album in 15 years, and haven't liked one in 20, but pfunk prodded me into playing The Final Frontier one, and I like it! Solid, shamelessly unexaggerated and nearly nuanced! Kinda reminds me, in hard-rock feel, of that last Uriah Heep album from a couple years ago. The tonal skew between the music and the cover art has gotten pretty wide, though, and this sounds about as far from a Frontier or a Finality as anything; quite the opposite, it sounds like they're settling into a groove they might be able to sustain indefinitely.

The Maiden album is holding up beautifully. I'm enjoying it quite a bit more than A Matter of Life and Death (which I really dug)...it's amazing how strong this band still is. And yeah, I love those 70s riffs by Smith on the first third of the album.

Like many others, I make fun of Janick Gers for his onstage cavorting, but he's a pretty great interview subject. I talked to him last week, and the results are up now at MSN.

Nice interview, I really enjoyed that.

AMG's review of the album is really wishy-washy.

Got a link? I didn't even see it on the site.

Never mind; found it. Yeah, I think it's much better than Rividividavia does, obviously.

so it wasn't ned then?

anybody looking forward to the new Blind Guardian? the first song I heard from it sounded like it harkened back to their earlier days. which is good cuz the last two albums were abysmal.

Listening to "The Will to Survive," the previously unreleased song on the 3CD Cowboys From Hell deluxe reissue. I know why it didn't make the album; it's a good song, but it's a real mishmash: the main riff sounds like Van Halen circa 1981, Anselmo's in full Halford/Tate power metal mode, and the backing vocals (and the bridge, and the guitar solo) are howlingly '80s.

I wouldn't mind hearing that. one thing I hate about Phil Anselmo is how he let his voice go cuz he thought singing in falsetto is so "gay", I liked his multifaceted voice, I mean he still screamed on the debut!

It should be noted that, while the new Blind Guardian is quite good, the first single is somewhat misleading. It's a pretty varied album, and while there are a couple of old-school tracks, they also have medieval ballads and orchestra pieces. But then again, I really liked the last album, and the songs that were buried under the production in At Night at the Opera were actually pretty great (check out the stripped down versions on the Live record).

Kylesa - Spiral Shadow, Oct 26. Can't wait! I wonder if it will feature more Baizley artwork? One of the indie guitar influences they namechecked in the Decibel interview was Built To Spill, but I think more for the recording and mixing of the guitars rather than style. They also talked about Flower Travelin' Band, which they've been touting since last year (http://www.crushermagazine.com/features2_09/featkylesa.htm). I like that they mentioned Atomic Rooster too!

thanks for the warning Jeff. like, the last studio album was ok for more immediate songs and such, I'd almost say it was like their Black album, but it felt so sterile to me. Night at the Opera was to me the equivalent of being forced to eat a one-ton cake when all you want is a cupcake.

Like there were great melodies/harmonies and such but it was so overblown. The 15 minute lead single from that though was one of my favorites, though it worked on occasion. I did like the live album though admittedly don't remember how those songs sounded on it.

Kylesa - Spiral Shadow, Oct 26. Can't wait! I wonder if it will feature more Baizley artwork?

I hope not, his stuff has been done to death. It doesn't even suit the Kvelertak album.

I love his art. It's sometimes even better than the content of the albums.

New Bongripper album is streaming over at http://bongripper.bandcamp.com/album/satan-worshipping-doom
http://bandcamp.com/files/25/38/2538883222-1.jpg
It's a double lp with download or just a download, CD is coming soon apparently.

Queensryche's Empire album has always stuck in my craw, it has some good songs and some atrocious ones, a fascinating record but also a bloated one, and the new 20th anniversary edition only hammers home just how much better a band they were before they got all MOR on us. The bonus live disc is loaded with tepid performances of Empire, songs that rely too heavily on backing vocal/synth tracks, but when they do stuff like "Roads to Madness" and "Take Hold of the Flame", it's like night and day, they absolutely kill on those songs. It's a fleeting reminder that once upon a time, before they started imitating Pink Floyd ballads, they were one of the most exciting American heavy metal bands of the 80s.

Queensryche:Empire::Metallica:Black Album

I am REALLY digging this new Maiden so far. THIS is what I've been wanting from them for years.

new bongripper is fucking awesome. hail satan.

http://www.bazillionpoints.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/meandev-front-web.jpg

doubletime drums on the title track have me headbanging alone in my room!!!

ok wow i want that book

Blind Guardian is pimping j0hn's Jakarta post on their new album on facebook, lol I love it...

"yes
the singer still sounds like he's afraid of a monster
and yes

his subject matter still comes
from science fiction and fantasy books
and there's a dragon on the album cover

and then what's more get this
this dragon, flanked by two dudes with axes,
is emerging from a fucking pyramid"

yes that jakarta post made my day

Blind Guardian is pimping j0hn's Jakarta post on their new album on facebook

dude! kick ass! thank you for the heads up, I am so stoked!

Reasons I am wary of that Mean Deviation book:

1) Jeff Wagner is a former Metal Maniacs editor, and the writing in Metal Maniacs is among the worst in all of written English;

2) That cover. The illustration, the layout, the fonts, it all screams "Run away!"

But I love prog-metal a lot, so I'll be reading it.

xp hahah that's a great post

as long as Mike G doesn't write any of the chapters you're good

thanks cad! in re: Mean Deviation I could not be more stoked. proggy death is like my favorite stuff - Nocturnus, Sadist, Death (who belong in my opinon in the "proggy death" field) - fuckin love that stuff

proggy death is like my favorite stuff - Nocturnus, Sadist, Death (who belong in my opinon in the "proggy death" field) - fuckin love that stuff

Total agreement here, which is why I'm hoping with all my heart that Wagner's become a much better writer than he was in his MM days. The subject matter is something I have enough passion about that a bad (read: amateurish, zine-ish) book will enrage and depress me in more or less equal measure.

mmmm Death, could totally go for a Symbolic revisit right now. Proof positive that metal is and can be beautiful

Haha, Away must have yanked that cover image from the margin of his high school notebook. Not his best work!

k this Maiden is seriously giving me an aural hardon....