Rolling Metal Thread 2010

i saw liturgy last night. they were good, but they played a lot of new stuff—kinda thrashy/proggy, mostly instrumental, and frankly pretty dull. dampened my enthusiasm for the new album.

Every time I listen to the latest Sword album, I have to revise my opinion. It keeps getting more and more solid with every spin.

At the risk of filling the thread with blasphemy, I've never heard Unquestionable Presence - it was way, way out of my wheelhouse back when it came out and I've just never come across it. But I picked up Jupiter last night and apparently I need to hear UP, like, immediately, because Jupiter really hit me in a good way.

bongripper

Going to a thanksgiving potluck that Cough are playing. Stoked on this.

Oh, and serenchwilen, I did review the new weapon, it should be in next month's dB. But I'll spoil the surprise and say it's the best Canadian metal album of the year. Easily.
― A. Begrand

Excellent. Looking forward to it!

Seriously, though, that first Puya record, Fundamental, was actually pretty decent.
― Moving Pixels

I gave them a listen... thanks! They weren't half bad. Definitely onto something.

I wrote about Ehnahre on BurningAmbulance.com today. Arty stuff, but very good, and they're definitely evolving from album to album.

speaking of which, love the comments on here:

http://www.metalsucks.net/2010/10/19/help-axl-figure-out-the-appeal-of-ehnahres-taming-the-cannibals/

and you can still listen to the whole album on the deciblog:

http://www.decibelmagazine.com/uncategorized/stream-the-new-ehnahre-before-you-can-pronounce-it/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+DecibelMagazine+(Decibel+Magazine)

phil, you should check out ricardo's label if you haven't already:

http://www.semataproductions.com/releases.html

(not a metal label)

OK, I'm now ready to say that I think the new Cradle of Filth album is really good. Whatever it was that made the last one sound to me like it was thrashing in place and never actually moving, this one isn't mired in that.

Also: Jesu, Dethroned. Wow.

Yeah, the CoF is shockingly good. Coming from a band I find so frustrating, it's a nice surprise. I think whatshername from Abigail Williams does a nice job on the keyboards...she was a rather important part of that band, and she provides the same cascading synths on the CoF record.

Sales-wise, it had such a bad first week I'd be tempted to call it a bomb. It sold about half of what the last album did in its first week. Kind of like the new Dimmu.

Disappointing indication of where metal sales are heading? I know neither is really a flash bang classic, but both are pretty popular names and I saw many copies of both at big chain stores so it isn't like they weren't circulating. With the CoF I wonder how much the last album sucking had to do with the lower sales this time around. I loved the synth work on that last Abigail Williams, so I may need to check this out. I wonder how this year's Abigail Williams is without her, haven't heard it.

i would think that both bands would be on the downward slide by now. they've been around for (seemingly) forever. how many bands get bigger after so many years? i'm sure they would be happy to keep the fans they have. tour. make some money. buy more tarantulas or whatever they spend their money on.

So are you two actually recommending that I listen to this thing, or would you not go that far?

I think scott has a valid point regarding CoF, but I felt like Dimmu got a decent mainstream bump with the positive buzz surrounding In Sorte Diaboli.

Maybe that kind of "cartoon" metal is on the decline as their audience ages and the younger kids are getting into something else like the thrash revival or deathcore?

I'd bet most bands that sold a decent amount 5 or 10 years ago are on the decline except the mega bands. Who are the hot new bands selling loads? (not the critic/hip faves)

That's a good question, I'm not even sure. Judging by merch on display at Hot Topic its the crunkcore shit and metalcore (stuff like Escape the Fate and whatever) that is big with the kids, but I don't feel like that stuff is putting up stellar number either.

Oh man, I know I used to rant about the ubiquitousness of metalcore all the time, but I really hoped that shit had died. I suppose deathcore aka melodic metalcore mixed with death metal means it didn't die, just mutated into something worse.

To think there was a time when metalcore was seen as an obvious good thing. Most of the hydrahead bands and converge will deny they were ever that im sure.

Yeah, its pretty much a dirty word like "emo" at this point.

emocore was always a derogatory term though, at least it was coined in that way.

metalcore is like skapunk. The less said about both the better.

I think Dimmu just got too big for their britches. They're the most popular act on the Nuclear Blast roster, and it feels like they thought they could get away with anything.

And yeah, amateur hour stuff like A7X and Escape the Fate is really starting to dominate as far as mainstream metal goes. It seems every week there's some goofy band with funny hair and limp riffs that I've never heard of debuting in the top 40. It's depressing.

So are you two actually recommending that I listen to this thing, or would you not go that far?

Give it a shot. Dani is as logorrheic as ever, but his screech isn't as silly this time. Plus the riffs actually deliver this time. Pretty darn good album.

Both the Cradle of Filth and Abigail Williams records are totally worth listening to. I think they made the right trade there.

Also, metalcore may have run itself into the ground pretty hard, but there were some pretty great bands that came out of that scene, and it was WORLDS better than nu-metal. WORLDS.

Don't forget Five Finger Death Punch!

And Asking Alexandria, they're going to blow up in 2011.

Metaphorically, though literally would be better.

Black Veil Brides

Okay, now I'm just depressing myself.

Please tell me about the good metalcore you refer too (not hydrahead bands or converge stuff that I know & like)

to

I mean, you aren't going to like any of them, but off the top of my head: Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, Beyond the Embrace, In This Moment, Heaven Shall Burn.

Looks like you were right first time

The only one I like on that list is In This Moment, but I have a few more recommendations: Job For A Cowboy, The Acacia Strain, Chelsea Grin, Waking the Cadaver, and The Showdown (Blood in the Gears is a really slept-on album).

job for the cowboy are one of the worst bands i've ever heard since waking the cadaver funnily enough

Heaven Shall Burn is a very good band, I always liked them. Their new CD is arguably their best one to date

I don't have HSB on this laptop - I'll have to dig that one up.

Are we talking about metalcore or deathcore? I mostly dislike deathcore, but that's probably because I prefer melodic death metal to brutal death. Also, recommending any of these bands to Pfunk/Herman/Algerian Goalkeeper is pretty much a waste of time. He doesn't like thrash or death or (as far as I know) hardcore, to begin with, so it seems unlikely that he'd be a very big fan of their derivatives.

I can't keep track of people's display names. I thought AG might be an entirely new poster.

Might not be him, I just assumed it was because of the posting style.

pretty sure its him

Yeah, Puya springs immediately to mind. I'm sure there are others; I'll look into it.
― that's not funny. (unperson)

Yeah, if you come across anything else, please post about it.
I've been searching around with no luck so far.

Here are some thoughts on the still unreleased Hell album
that I mentioned up thread.

http://isen-torr.blogspot.com/2010/08/hell-human-remains-2010.html

Hell posted this on their myspace blog.

Any thoughts or interest from anybody here?
Perhaps this is already old news to some.

Any thoughts or interest from anybody here?

"wow" is my main thought - read a big breakdown on this band in Snakepit not long ago. extremely interested in the ongoing history-work getting done about this era of metal -- I'll be buying that when it's ready.

Anyone heard the new Intronaut?

I have. I'm not a fan, but others seem to like it.

I think I'm just really over harsh/death vocals in music that doesn't require it. Intronaut's music is Tool-ish enough that they could offer clean vocals, and I think if they did, their music would be improved immeasurably. (I also like Mastodon more when they try to really sing.)

The new one does have clean vocals!

Not enough of the time.