Rolling Metal Thread 2014

I wanted to like that Beth Gibbons-sings-Black Sabbath thing, but as I said on Twitter, I bailed as soon as she sang the phrase "Oh no" in this sort of weary descending sigh, like she'd accidentally spilled her tea on the antique sofa. Totally missing the gut-level medieval-Christian horror of the original.

It's all a bit winnie the pooh. Oh bother.

As a unit, the band members seem to be attuned to each other

yep, this was a big draw for me as well. there's a give-and-take to the playing and the way that the songs unfold.

Xandria! This is fun. Too bad the new singer isn't as strong as the last one.

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

getting a late pass on the now-disbanded Ava Inferi, who I first heard when I was in a long anti-goth-metal phase and wrote off. this band has/had some of the best guitar lines around imo

New Judas Priest song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhkoNQ-7uRw

Yeah, the new Priest song rules. I even like that Halford's VOX sound a little weathered and natural.

welcome, Jonathan!

The state of metal criticism in 2014:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8QZFdh8-7k

new Floor album..... anyone heard??

lemme just go ahead and do this for the lulz
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/img/as/floor-oblation.jpg

lol I always forget the extent to which Anathema don't rock these days. didn't put this on in work cos no-one else can tolerate any sort of heavy guitars and two tracks in there's been a song that sounds like Elbow and a power ballad that I think was produced by Dave Stewart

did hear the Floor album but can only really say that it's very Floor-esque, rather than anything more useful about its merits

I like the Floor album a lot, yeah its just Floor but IT'S FLOOR!

ooh looks like they just kicked off a tour.... they'll be in Charlotte this Saturday, but I'm pretty sure I work till midnight v_v

i thought the Floor album was good - it was streaming at Pitchfork for a while - but yeah ... it is very Floor. Sludgy pop-rock songs with Steve Brooks singing. So very Floor.

I guess I should probably just hear it already, but I know I will immediately regret not playing it A.) in my car with the windows down, and/or B.) burning one with friends

I prefer Torche. But it's interesting how Brooks brought a real Torche influence to the new Floor stuff, which of course heavily informed Torche from the start. Bit of a stonier rock ouroboros thing happening there.

yeah the clips I heard made it hard to shake the feeling that it was just, like, a slower Torche record. I think I might prefer the production on the Floor s/t, but only time will tell

my first thought upon hearing it was it sounds like a Torche record playing too slow, so...

Brooks has an oddly distinctive voice for a guy whose voice isn't terribly distinctive...don't be fooled, that totally make sense.

http://i.imgur.com/jZNazSI.png

Oh wow. The randomized imgur link I just got for that image:
i.imgur.com / jZNazSI. png

emphasis mine, needless to say

So Inquisition are Nazis too, huh?

Supposedly Dagon, or someone on his behalf, is going to put out a statement. He mentioned that in a FB post after complaining about strict border security, which for some reason I found funny.

As is usually the case, I'm more entertained by the carousel of willful ignorance-infused denials that metal fans crank up when these things happen. "But metal is supposed to be offensive!" "It's a generalized hatred, it isn't focused on one group!" "SLAYER!" "The swastika was around before the Nazis!"

I really like Naer Mataron and their bassist is literally the Golden Dawn representative in Greek Parliament so I guess I've already bought the ticket for this ride.

Unrelated, I don't know what a Plebeian Grandstand is, but it makes good music. I'll just say it's "dissonant" because that's the quickest, easiest, and laziest way to present you with an accurate idea of what it sounds like. I know there are others here who dig this style. I'd never heard of this band before yesterday.
http://plebeiangrandstand.bandcamp.com/album/lowgazers

New Floor is most definitely Florche, which is totally fine with me. Brooks is a damn good songwriter and master of de hook.

ooh looks like they just kicked off a tour.... they'll be in Charlotte this Saturday, but I'm pretty sure I work till midnight v_v

― endzone selfie (bernard snowy), Tuesday, April 29, 2014 4:24 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they're playing DC sunday night! i'm stoked.

http://www.decibelmagazine.com/featured/inquisition-frontman-dagon-im-not-a-nazi/

this guy is....not that great at expressing himself, but i guess i take him at his word on his response to the first question. also this is interesting imo:

Yes. Yeah. I’ve always had the assumption that, within the extreme music scene, that there were no rules, per se. That, you know, I know within heavy metal or noise or whatever, we have people of different races. We have people… I mean, look: My mother’s Colombian, okay? I have half-Latino blood. I have half-German blood. I mean, if that makes me bad, I don’t know. But I view the world sometimes the way I view myself, and sometimes we make those mistakes. We think, like, you know, “Well, this doesn’t offend me. It has some edge.” Of course, there have been things that have offended me. There’s noise music that talks about things that I won’t even bring up here that can be offensive to me. But I get it. I get it and, within the art itself, I’m not offended. I accept it. And that’s where I stand. And this is what happens, I mean, when you do this stuff.
And you’re right, you know? Bottom line, I’m thinking, “Yeah, I’m gonna spark some feelings here. This stuff has some edge. Some people might get offended, or will get offended.” So, did I expect it? Yes. But not within the scene itself. You know, I forget that. It’s like, within black metal, I always assumed—and, you know, I’m not a stupid guy, but I do forget sometimes that not everybody in black metal has this spirit of “the more extreme, the better,” or “the faster the song, the better.” The more this or the more that, the better. I’m not saying the more Nazi, the better. I’m just saying, when people push the limits, even if they’re getting to a fine line or something, I get it. People feed off of that stuff, regardless of what the scene is. But you’re not really targeting people within your own scene. OK? See, that’s the thing: I mean, like extreme death metal, extreme black metal, extreme noise, it’s extreme because some things are sugar-coated. There’s sugarless, diet, light everything.
But, here’s the thing: I guess on the side, I can say, you know, Inquisition has grown now, and we’re more exposed now to the mainstream, obviously. It’s no secret. And so now you start realizing that not everybody in heavy metal per se is in it for the same reason. Not everybody is an adrenaline junkie.

rocky showed me this
http://www.metalsucks.net/2014/05/02/best-subgenre-metal-please-read/

"DINOSAUR “METAL”/CLASSIC ROCK
IMO u cannot even consider this metal, but I am including it here bc many ppl simply do not know any better and this is an opportunity for us expert metalheads to set the record straight. It is pretty simple: rule no 1 of metal is that it has to be HEAVY and there is nothing heavy at all about IRON MAIDEN, SAXON, TANKARD, etc. It sounds like stuff my unemployed uncle listens to while he paints his D&D figures lol.
FINAL GRADE: F"

click the link for the rest

People still read that shit? The central joke of that site wore out years ago.

wow the new lord mantis the guy uses the n word in the first song on the album, v edgy

that inquisition interview was so hysterical i was doubled over in laughter after the first page or so of his lengthy story about taking a "bath" in the lake in Canada in response to the question "ARE YOU A NAZI"

any of y;all listen into Hell Militia (FR)? theyre touring the US this year, but I don't think they've released anything new in the last few years, so that's sorta weird. unless there's something new im not hip to

holy fuck this Triptykon album

is it in stores yet? didn't see it on the racks yesterday when I picked up the Autopsy vinyl

i saw it the other day on cd

umm holy fuck this Autopsy record btw

not breakin down any doors, if you like Autopsy & Abscess then you already know what it is, but it's very very very fucking high-quality Reifert/Corrales

It's their best post-reunion album, easily.

oh, neat. didn't realize there was a new one.

Yea the Topsy is great. Tho i was confused by Decibel's review indicating the previous album was a bedshitting.

Was that really the consensus? Cos i thought it was a fuck ton better than Macabre Eternal and lots of my peers loved it (cept for my dumb "ah only lahk old stuff" friend)

I'm just picturing Harlan Pepper as a death metal fan. "Scream Bloody Gore... Leprosy... Severed Survival... Mental Funeral... Retribution, Retribution for the Dead EP..."

lol

hahaha

o snap Portrait have a new one coming out? loved the last one

I liked it, Adrien didn't, pick your poison.

a Decibel divided....

http://www.dampfzentrale.ch/?title=darkspace

"Record Release Concert" -> Dark Space III I

There's been speculation about a "Dark Space IV" for a couple of years now, but this doesn't seem to be it, or does it?

The working theory is that it's some kind of record release thing. The metal-archives thread, here, has most of the info, if you scroll a little more than 3/4 of the way down (to where the 2014 posts begin). I love when bands do weird shit like this. Geo-coordinates, morse code, "audio transmissions."

Yeah, the new Portrait album is a real downer to me. I can't get into it at all.

Thanks! XP