Rolling Metal Thread 2010

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....

listening to the new maiden. "isle of avalon" is the standout track so far - love it!

the funny thing is I looked at the track lengths when I opened the cd and my heart sank, fearing these were going to be all 9 minute "Nomad"-esque excursions. soooooooo glad I was wrong.

I thought they pulled off the long tracks on a matter of life and death so I wasn't too worried, but this one seems even stronger.

I'm really enjoying this Valborg album Crown of Sorrow that Cosmo plugged on invisibleoranges yesterday. Grim and catchy at the same time. I also poked through his list of "similar" bands in that post, since it included the excellent Secrets of the Moon, and of those am definitely also enjoying Semen Datura, who are very much in the Secrets of the Moon vein. And yes, after a few more listens I'm still liking this Iron Maiden record just fine!

hey Nate if you stop by the thread, got some ludicra posters in the mail, but no venue or date info included, so if you get a chance hit me up at the email linked to my name below or just post where and when in the twin cities here

thx dude

paging Pfunkboy - I have a question for him. Anyone see him around lately?

ears burning

Have you been caught buttering yet?

have you noticed a pungent stench?

The new Therion album is cringe-inducing. I was a huge fan of the previous band lineup (post-2001), and the new band shows little imagination at all. I've never been a fan of Vikstrom, either. But the songs are incredibly clunky. You take the operatic/symphonic stuff with a grain of salt with these guys, but the hooks are nowhere to be found.

I've never been into Therion. I got the one that was supposed to be their best (Theli) but it seems like its from a bygone era that just doesn't click with me. I have a feeling I'd have loved it at the time it came out.

Therion are my dream band, or at least that's what I always think when I read about them. And then I try to listen and it all just sounds so clunky to me. Does make me appreciate Septic Flesh more, though, so that's something.

"hey Nate if you stop by the thread, got some ludicra posters in the mail, but no venue or date info included, so if you get a chance hit me up at the email linked to my name below or just post where and when in the twin cities here"

? They played there months ago and have no more shows in 2010. Lost in the mail til now?

haha ok im not crazy! no its a second set of posters, so idk if im on some sort of automail thing or what. ill use them to pimp the album to kids that come into the store.

Funny. Yeah, give them out like candy. Or you know, those Bart Simpson stamps that were supposedly acid.

So the new Dimmu Borgir single is quite silly.

Erm, sillier than usual, anyway.

There was a listening session for the Dimmu album in NYC this week. I got the email but didn't even bother responding.

so, anyway, i think the new lustre album is my fave metal of the year so far. i really like it a bunch. super frosty and minimal ambient bm. for fans of burzum and/or stars of the lid. i wish i had the cd though. i've only heard it on my computer. which kinda sucks. having said that, it sounds REALLY good on my computer. so, i can only imagine i would like it even more on my hi-fi.

http://highwiredaze.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/lustre_gog_front450px-300x300.jpg

super frosty and minimal ambient bm. for fans of burzum and/or stars of the lid.

oh man, i want to hear this now

Got a digital advance of the vinyl-only Wolvserpent (formerly Pussygutt) album from 20 Buck Spin.

Glad they changed their name because this band just graduated from underground gem to top ten of 2010. Ambient doom in the best sense. I'll be listening to this one A LOT--and I'm mostly a "live show" guy.

they are playing at my store in october. pussygutt. or, um, wolverspent now.

i will be sure to buy a copy of the album when they come here.

they are touring with this band and both of them are playing at the store. excited to see these guys. they have a new album coming out on crucial blast. atonal, serial, improvisational bm/doom:

http://www.myspace.com/ehnahremetal

Enahre I have worked with a number of times. Never seen them live, but they are good guys and reportedly put on a killer show.

hope my basement can handle them.

UPS was supposed to deliver the new Blind Guardian tomorrow. Amazon overachieved again and I got it today, day before street date. What an awesome surprise.

And so far, this album is the album I've been wanting BG to make for the last 7 years. I hope this keeps up.

New Torche song! "U.F.O."

http://stereogum.com/484402/torche-u-f-o-stereogum-premiere/franchises/haunting-the-chapel/

The Sword's Warp Riders hit the streets today, and on first listen it's even better than I anticipated. I didn't really dig their first two - perfectly fine for what they were, but I didn't need more by the numbers stoner doom thank you very much. This is something else; the Southern Rock touches are strong to even dominant on a few tracks. Reminds me of a more metal version of Clutch circa the amazing From Beale Street to Oblivion. I expect this will be in heavy rotation for a long time to come.

had no idea that was out today -- thanks for the heads up!

$8.99 at Newbury.