Rolling Metal Thread 2014

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelllllllll.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02240/Lulu_2240895b.jpg

so I saw Carcass the other night. they slayed, as usual. the new material sounds fantastic live. and I can't not go nuts when I hear "Reek of Putrefaction" or "Genital Grinder".

but man, the dude I saw it with was such a buzzkill. he's the stereotypical metal scenester - all the 'old' albums are the best, the new stuff sucks...with every band. he espouses such o_O opinions like "old Gorguts = boring generic death" and "Immortal have been a joke since Pure Holocaust". Whines about how he's not seeing "the original" Carcass lineup when just two months ago, he saw a version of Terrorizer with me in which the only real member was Pete Sandoval and didn't whine once.

after the show he whines that they played "Keep on Rotting in the Free World" and said Jeff Walker "screwed up some vocal patterns" on one of the songs. I'm like BRO DO YOU COME TO SHOWS TO HARSH EVERYBODY'S MELLOW? never again.

I've been lucky enough to see Carcass three times since September, and those Surgical Steel songs sound every bit as good as the old stuff. At times better.

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/food-trend-alert-artisanal-black-metal-cuisine

Our first dish, “Cut Their Grain and Place Fire Therein,” named for the Weakling song of the same name, arrived as Darkthrone’s “As Flittermice As Satans Spys” played. Naming the first course after a Weakling song was sort of a way of saying, “We know our shit.” The dish was a smoked farro salad with what I think were dandelion greens and a creamy lemon dressing. The meaty farro gave the dish a heartiness that was accented by the light bitter greens. Did the dish remind me of the frantic and frigid blasting of its namesake, menacing yet at once majestic? Not really, but it was good anyway.

I think I just made the Charlie Brown grimace-face that looks like a sine wave. What sucks is that I'm hungry now so I think I'll go eat my Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk CD booklet. It always smelled better than the others.

That reads like a computer-generated generic internet headline from... five years ago?

This looks like a fun little fest if anyone is in the area...

http://images.benchmarkemail.com/client67922/image1275023.jpg

why the fuck are Spiral Arms playing that.. they're a rock band.. its a stretch to call a stoner rock band imo

Why the fuck are MY RUIN playing that?!

Anyway, I'm probably going to cover it for a magazine, so if anybody's going, let me know.

This is just over a month away for me:

http://www.thisisnotascene.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/148623_696827717004857_859658027_n.jpg

xp going on the bands on there I'm familiar w/ I don't think it's supposed to be a stoner rock festival?

gift horse in the mouth and that but Temples being like an hour away from me kills any faint chance of the bands on it I really want to see, specifically Beastmilk/Satan's Satyrs/Blood Ceremony, doing their own shows at all nearby. have already pencilled in more full weekends of loud music and expense over the next few months than I'm totally comfortable with

Anyone liking the new Sargeist as much as me?

I've only heard the two released tracks, and while I like the songs, I can't say I'm crazy about the production. Of all the variations of "necro" or whatever production, most of which I really like, that particular "airy treble fog" is the only one that grates on me. Reminds me of IC Rex's first album -- though not to such an extreme, thank god.

Are Sargeist still doggedly pursuing straightforward orthodox black metal or is there anything that makes this one special?

Unless the rest of the album differs vastly from the tracks I've heard, then no, Sargeist are not doing anything today that they weren't doing yesterday. I still love them. And Horna. And Finland.

As long as I'm here, there's this band from Quebec doing both the dissonant death metal thing and the cavernous death metal thing -- but don't let the categorizations chase you off. The only track I've heard from them is kind of galvanizing me. One of those songs that get faster and faster and better and better so that by the end you're no longer touching the floor. Have some Phobocosm.
http://youtu.be/2gSVoTNYRLY

I think I burned out on the Finnish style a while back. I do still love Morko, but they're on some minimal drone shit.

Phobocosm track sounds GREAT. I'm such a sucker for that style right now.

Doom in June in Las Vegas has always been a doom/sludge/stoner fest.. mostly stoner actually.. from what I can remember from past line ups.
Maybe the've opened it up a bit..

Phobocosm track sounds GREAT.

OTM

really liking the Abominant album from last year

I couldn't get pass the 2 minute mark of that new Metallica song demo... DON'T put out out demos, Metallica, just don't

Very, very pleased with the new Shear album, Katharsis. Their last one made my 2012 top-10 list. Finnish gothic/progressive/power metal with more Madder Mortem than Within Temptation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnR6y7MDesY

new gridlink shreds. sounds comparably dense to the earlier material but this one is way more hooky. sick.

also, multiple tracks named after nerdy cave shmup videogames, <3 jon chang

Kim Kelly just tweeted that Dave Brockie, AKA Oderus Urungus, has died. The world's now a far less interesting place.

yeah just saw abt that. leading me to also see this photo, so every cloud etc

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/t1.0-9/1969244_10152313928655520_1834325333_n.jpg

Yeah, R.I.P. Oderus. This:

The world's now a far less interesting place.

is axactly what popped into my head as well. Though I'll admit that I haven't given GWAR much time since I was in college. The guy in the room next to me was an absolutle GWAR and White Zombie (pre-major label) freak. Spent a lot of time playing Madden '94 and listening to GWAR with him. Good memories.

At The Gates, Triptykon and Morbus Chron in my lil corner of the world (and many others in Europe) in December... I can get w/ that

i really like the new morbus chron ('sweven'); they somehow manage to combine old-school swedish death with pretty, proggy atheist/cynic bits and it works really well...I'm digging this trend for psychedelic DM - tribulation, obliteration, morbus chron, maybe include teitanblood in there too...

http://lastrit.es/articles/759/preview
http://lastrit.es/articles/769/preview

craig hayes on his efforts to write about metal for a mainstream readership at popmatters ('fraudulent', he says, i guess for cherrypicking from the scene/underground?)

It was hardly fraudulent, but it's a valuable commentary on the dangers of reviewing only the music you like.

I think the new Nux Vomica album is absolutely terrific, and it's now streaming in full: http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2014/03/album-debut-nux-vomica-st/

just got round to an album by this Portland band SHROUD OF THE HERETIC which is bandcampable here and am really digging it. super weird Portal/Negative Plane style death metal with Winter-style slow bits and a strong blackened vibe

finally getting around to this and http://forum.grinderscape.org/images/smilies/smiley-headbanging.gif

we don't use that lil guy enough and he def applies to these shroud of the heretic songs

BÖLZER

The release of 'Soma' will unfortunately be delayed by a number of weeks. But fret not, have our assurances that she will sound and look that much better.
An upload of the first song 'Steppes' will also be made for you as soon as we receive the final master.
Godspeed!!!

I can't lie

I am down with the Scrooge McDuck album

This new Black Sabbath box is tempting. Anyone know of reasons not to get it? I only have 5 out of 8 of these albums, all older pre-remastered CD's.

Absolutely get it – if all you've heard are the pre-remastered CDs, the remasters are a revelation. I thought I hated "Changes" for years until I heard it how it was meant to be heard.

Brickwalled to death?

The Sabbath reissues? No way, they sound fantastic.

I've never heard the remasters that occurred between the original releases and the 2009 "deluxe edition" remasters; I can only say that the latter, on Sanctuary, sound amazing and are pretty much universally lauded (and preferred) on audiophile forums. On Amazon their prices vary all over the place. You have to search for "black sabbath + album title + deluxe edition" to bring them up. It'll say "import" in parentheses.

I however am by no means an audiophile and listen to my CDs on a $200 bookshelf system. All I know is that they sound great.

I've heard that the Rules of Hell box set had a similar remastering to the pre-2009 remasters and those do sort of have that compressed, grating sound that people love to complain about. Obviously though those had a totally different textural approach from the start, much more modern and crunchy. Your mileage may vary. Some of my descriptors could very well be results of placebo effect. ("Vinyl is warmer!" "Soundstage!" "Presence!" Etc.)

http://www.black-sabbath.com/2014/03/complete-albums-1970-1978-details/

This is NOT a new remastering. This is the same remastering work done around 2001/2002 which was used in 2002′s “Symptom of the Universe: The Original Black Sabbath“, 2004′s “Black Box“, & 2006′s “Greatest Hits 1970-1978“.

Ah, cool.

(But Changes still sucks and will always suck.)

I have affection for "Changes," it's corny as fuck and kind of cynical but it has that Sabbathian earnestness

I like the chorus a lot, the verse reminds me too much of a dude singing cabaret tunes

Hm, I am intrigued to hear what the remastered guitar tones sound like. (Was listening to Sabbath this morning, coincidentally.)

I had a chance to buy the 2004 box set from the local indie store, slept on it, andi t's gone now, so may have to jump on this, bare-bones or not.

I find "Changes" a bit of a canker in Vol. 4's starting lineup too. If it weren't Sabbath, I'd probably not have given it a second listen.

My local shop had some great stuff in stock today. Sodom's Persecution Mania, incredible record.

I love Persecution Mania. Kind of marked the switch from the evil-and-magic to the war-obsessed period of their lyrics and imagery. One of my favorite bass sounds on that one.

For the other fans of German threshing machine Beyond, here's some recent live footage:
http://youtu.be/1SKEODb3m4U

iPhone audio quality notwithstanding, the cameraperson did a phenomenal job of shooting this thing. Just the right amount of movement, lots of perfectly framed shots of the entire band, crowd pans (I see the American crowd apathy has finally hit Germany), overall high video quality. And really, Beyond's gonna sound the same whether they're coming out of a clock radio or a multi thousand dollar system.

Argh it cuts off during "Merciless at Heart."

Also, having wised up and plugged in my external speakers, this sound quality is better than I'd thought. Works really well for this kind of music.

ROCKSTAR ENERGY DRINK MAIN STAGE:
Avenged Sevenfold
Korn
Asking Alexandria
Trivium

COLDCOCK AMERICAN HERBAL WHISKEY STAGE:
Cannibal Corpse
Suicide Silence
Miss May I
Mushroomhead
Texas Hippie Coalition
King 810

THE SUMERIAN RECORDS/HEADBANG FOR THE HIGHWAY STAGE:
Body Count featuring Ice-T
Upon A Burning Body*
Veil of Maya*
Darkest Hour*
Headbang Local Winner

THE VICTORY RECORDS STAGE:
Emmure
Ill Nino
Wretched
Islander
Erimha

I have like zero need to go. Okay, I'd probably see Body Count for old time's sake, but not here.