Rolling Metal Thread 2014

Okay what's some good recent metal for 80s/90s punk/noise rock/hardcore/AmRep refugees? Looking for something hard and heavy without hairfarmer vocals but not too math/proggy either. I'm sure I'm asking for false metal, that's fine, I don't care.

Also not 2014, but what's a good Slayer record?

We can talk about this in 2014

Anything from 1983 to 1988. Though no one wants to admit Hell Awaits underachieved.

adam, try black breath - http://youtu.be/mGej0qn6CQo

may even be too hc/not metal enough for what you have in mind

(course if you like that and you haven't been listening to converge, oh man)

you might dig the debut album from noisem, 'agony defined', fast thrashy and noisy, will put you in mind of slayer, made by a bunch of feral children

i really like the aeternus album from last year, 'and the seventh his soul detesteth', death metal with very clean-lined songwriting and playing, growled/gurgled vocals but on the whole a restrained show of force, dexterity, etc. more than, like, howling and bleeding and eviscerating all over the place

the beastwars album from last year, 'blood becomes fire', will put you in mind of soundgarden - heavy, sludgy, groovy, bellowed vocals, apocalyptic mood

maybe you would like the last suffocation album, 'pinnacle of bedlam'? depends on what kinds of sounds you like in death metal, if any.

Oh yeah, I did actually listen to Black Breath the last time I was on one of these threads and they were cool. I'll check that out again.

I don't even know death metal, I think I might like it now I'm learning to play guitar.

Thanks! I'll look these up

Not a big Soundgarden fan but the other stuff sounds great. And I don't know Converge!

Actually last time I was on a metal thread, ppl turned me onto Black Breath and a kind of proggy, jammy Italian metal band whose name escapes me. But they were both great

Ufomammut! That was it

you might try the new tombs album, i haven't quite gotten a feel for it yet but i loved their previous one

http://tombsbklyn.bandcamp.com/album/savage-gold

but oh man yeah converge 'all we love we leave behind' http://youtu.be/t-vZRGK4FbI

I am listening to Converge now.

Metal drummers are crazy

Black Breath still really hits the spot though. I can't imagine playing this music!

Heavy as fuck, definitely hardcore-influenced and all-around good fun:
Entrails - Bloodhammer

The new Trap Them might hit the spot.
http://trapthem.bandcamp.com/releases (very d-beat/core)

For weird slightly noisy stuff, Pyrrhon?
http://pyrrhonband.bandcamp.com/releases

Honestly you could spend the afternoon finding noisy stuff at the Relapse bandcamp. God Macabre, Obliteration, Mammoth Grinder, Weekend Nachos, it goes on and on.
http://relapserecords.bandcamp.com/

If this is already stupid obvious then pretend I didn't mention it.

If you like Trap Them then Great Falls (the other band of one of them) are worth a punt also.

Not metal, but Drunk In Hell are the best match for your description. They have some stuff on a bandcamp page.

If this is already stupid obvious then pretend I didn't mention it.

Haha, I love that you would say this! But no, it really isn't

These bands names are so awesome.

Here is another question.

Are modern metal bands into vinyl? Or is it more of an mp3/CD/live culture? I don't see these records around but maybe I'm not really going to the right places. Maybe I should ask Scott.

With few exceptions it's all mail order now but yeah, vinyl is pretty huge. But so are CD's. And mp3's. And live shows. It's an all-of-the-above scene!

(I haven't had a turntable since like 1998 but I'm beginning to feel left out, especially when these niche labels like Blood Music come along and crank out vinyl-only $500+ 14-platter discography box sets of, oh I don't know, say, Emperor. This world has gone mad, I tells ya.)

Modern metal bands that are into money are into vinyl because people will pay WAY too much money for it. If you can stretch to a special "tour edition" of something then you can write your own cheques. If you are mates with Greg Anderson he will happily press your stuff on "ultra heavyweight super flawless virgin black special edition vinyl" and watch the money roll in.

Woah that first Black Breath LP is like $100 now

What is the politics of contemporary metal like? Are there anarcho-syndicalist bands?

Thanks for not making fun of my naive questionings

Kvelertak kind of splits the difference between hardcore and metal. Check out the self-titled debut.

Also not 2014, but what's a good Slayer record?

― Kornblud (admrl), Wednesday, June 11, 2014 11:22 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My order of preference:

Reign in Blood - Predictable but correct answer. It's like a crossover symphony in three movements.
Hell Awaits - Makes more sense in context to its predecessor. Show No Mercy is great, but wears its NWOBHM influences on its sleeve. This was a massive leap forward, evil as fuck thrash with proto-death influence.
Seasons in the Abyss - Used to like this less, but in recent years, has come around to be a favorite. Some rock 'n roll-esque influence at times, marries some of the slowed-down elements from South of Heaven with their previous thrash, but it's a little 'cleaner' - Tom sings more. It also has two songs that most Slayer fans have grown tired of - "Dead Skin Mask" and the title track.
Haunting the Chapel - Just three songs, but one of them is in the top five of all-time Slayer tunes ("Chemical Warfare")
Divine Intervention - Folks think I'm nuts but this one is very underrated. Production is weird sounding but I love it - "Sex. Murder. Art", "213", and "Killing Fields" are nasty little fuckers.
South of Heaven - The right move after RiB. Slowed down affair (though still sinister as fuck, title track rules)
Show No Mercy - Great debut, lots of Venom influence. Tom's vocals are drowning in reverb though, which aggravates me.
World Painted Blood - This is not a *great* album, but worlds better than the two that proceeded it. "Americon" is a terrible song tho.
Diabolus in Musica - This is half great, half crap. The post-thrash Machine Head/Biohazard pandering though sounds half-assed and lame.
Christ Illusion - I dislike this album because much of the first four tracks sound like thrash by numbers, like they're imitating past glories, but nothing much sticks out. Also some of the bleh nu-metal influence remains
God Hates Us All - Fuck this album. I have made a concerted effort in recent years to reassess after my initial "fuck it" response, and I like it *more*, but I still hate it. "Disciple" is a good song, but the songwriting is just bland - some people can do nu-metal, they cannot.

also you can't go wrong with the live album Decade of Aggression - great set choices.

^what that dude says but Show No Mercy at #2.

haha i love god hates us all

funny thing is while SNM and Seasons have kinda leapfrogged each other over the years, my favs haven't moved much in over a decade, which is never true for bands I enjoy ever.

lol Brad - I hate saying that I hate GHUA because I realize that it puts me in camp with those knuckledragging metalheads that hate all music recorded after 1992, but I legit tried to like it! For those who get something out of it, more power to ya :)

not listened to GHUA for a fair while but calling it nu-metal feels like reaching

Woulda ranked South of Heaven higher, but that's a great breakdown of their albums. Pretty much anything from '83 to '90 is a safe bet. Slayer will forever be one of my favorite bands. Saw them open for WASP when I was 17 (just after Reign came out). Me and four of my friends were the only people in the front row in this little old theater. Cleveland often has no clue about music, so only a few dozen people had shown up for Slayer, most of whom were hanging toward the back of the theater for some insane reason. We were headbanging like our lives depended on it. Kerry kept pointing at us, obviously enjoying the fact that at least a few hardcore fans had shown up.

Incidentally, to further demonstrate how unbelievably lame Cleveland can be music-wise, I saw Alcest headline here a few years ago. There were way more people there for this local jam band-Goa trance monstrosity of an opener. By the time Alcest came on around 10:30, there were maybe 15 people left. The only advantage of that situation (other than the fact that Alcest ruled) was that I got to talk to Neige for a while after the show. He seemed bemused by the small crowd, but was very friendly.

Ah Cleveland. Land of cursed sports teams and an unused lake... Home sweet home.

So I guess Mark Greening was booted out of Electric Wizard? Bummer.

Haunting the Chapel does everything Hell Awaits tries to do, and succeeded so well on those three songs that when Hell Awaits came out it felt like Slayer was spinning its wheels a bit.

Agh, sorry to interrupt, Erik. That's pretty big news.

I know nothing about Cleveland, but what kind of promoter would book a band that nobody wants to see? Complete misjudgement of Alcests popularity?

I'm trying to confirm it. Word seems to be spreading fast.

My Slayer ranking:

South of Heaven - just as aggressive as RiB when it wants to be, but that opening track is an all-time killer.
Seasons in the Abyss - the version of this in my iPod only has 9 tracks, because "Dead Skin Mask" is fucking wretched. But the rest absolutely kills, and Lombardo's drums in particular have never sounded better.
Reign in Blood - Beloved for a reason, and/but really only has one or two actual songs on it.
Decade Of Aggression: Live - Great song selection, and absolutely crushing performances.
World Painted Blood - A much stronger final album (or at any rate the last one I'll ever listen to) than it's credited with being.
Christ Illusion - Huge credit for having the stones to release a song as musically assaultive and lyrically acidic as "Jihad." A few other really good ones here, too.
Diabolus in Musica - My favorite of their Bostaph-era albums, just 'cause it sounds so unlike them half the time.
Divine Intervention - They needed to prove they could survive without Lombardo; they did.
God Hates Us All - The weakest Bostaph-era album by some distance.
Hell Awaits - Great thrash/death with plenty of squiggly guitar solos.
Haunting the Chapel - "Chemical Warfare" rules, the other two songs don't suck.
Show No Mercy - Massive Venom influence, and I fucking hate Venom.
Undisputed Attitude - FUUUUUUUUUUCK this record.

Do you have a source for this Electric Wizard news? Cheers.

Doran:

https://twitter.com/metalskunkblog/status/476800171050008576

Cheers… GAH!

He makes it sound so wonderfully amicable.

If you can stretch to a special "tour edition" of something then you can write your own cheques. If you are mates with Greg Anderson he will happily press your stuff on "ultra heavyweight super flawless virgin black special edition vinyl" and watch the money roll in.

"write your own cheques" and "watch the money roll in" is perhaps overstating the case here

Electric Wizard have responded, sort of:

https://fbcdn-photos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/t1.0-0/10419556_10152169612113583_3901873958427716793_n.jpg

Classy

xpost to aero

Yeah, I wss overstating for effect but we've all stood at merch tables watching kids drop hundreds of dollars on very, very little purchase then spend the show deciding whether to have fun or protect their new vinyl.

Anybody who's ever bought from Greg has thought he was way overpriced even before the USPS price hike. NB these two stories may be linked

so i'm noticing the opening track on the new Lord Mantis has a riff that sounds somewhat like the theme from Fraggle Rock

hey siegbran, thanx for the entrails rec, i heard abt that record but for some reason a review or a sample made me give it a pass (could possibly have been a review that tut-tutted D-BEAT WORSHIP so i have no idea what could have been going thru my d-beat addled mind)

i.e. entrails, awesome

The new Vader album is exactly what I want from Vader, and indeed pretty much exactly what I want from death metal at this point. Head-down, face-punching riffs, blasting drums, crisp booming production, straight down the middle (of your skull, with an axe). It rocks. And so does the High Spirits album.

― Humorist (horse) (誤訳侮辱), Friday, May 16, 2014 8:00 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I definitely like this better than Welcome to the Morbid Reich, which I did admittedly like but felt was a little 'soft'.

I know we're barely halfway through the year, but 2014 has so far been a great year for metal! Some excellent albums so far;
Lord Mantis - Death Mask - scathing, acidic black/sludge that will literally peel your skin off with layered riffs and Today Is The Day-esque vocals
Behemoth - The Satanist - Finally, these Polish stalwarts up the songwriting quality and production to create their first truly great album
Sigirya - Darkness Died Today - thundering doom metal from elder statesmen of the genre
Triptykon - Melana Chasmata - gloomy, atmospheric yet crushing goth/thrash/groove that evokes classic Celtic Frost, as well as Tiamat
Dark Forest - The Awakening - an apt title as this New Wave Trad Metal band drastically increase in quality, delivering a powerhouse of a power metal album
Slough Feg - Digital Resistance - classic celtic/sci-fi metallers prove once again they can do no wrong with their best album yet
And many more by greats like The Oath, Demon Eye, Morgue of Saints, Dread Sovereign, Tempel, Morbus Chron & Volume IV.
Also like what I've heard so far of new albums by Opeth & Mastodon, and looking forward to new YOB, Wo Fat, Tombs, Serpent Venom and loads more

It has been a very solid year, regardless of which subgenres float your boat.

On the basis of how obnoxious I find the production of the music and even the color palette of the album cover, I'm assuming Russian band 7 H.Target is the brutal death version of "kids these days [shakes fist]" but if you're gonna have a song called "Cyborg Kombat" this is what it needs to sound like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71uNeZPvZUI#t=810

As for production values that I can get behind:
This Skaphe ambient black doom metal thing, while cassette only (boo), is one of the most wondrously dismal and suffocated things I've ever heard. Penetrating the muck to find the song seems merely an option.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTZB9uGbR3U

Cavernous death metal from Spain, 13th Moon, keeps the music pretty minimal but knows how to wallop you over the head with it. I love the drum sound. Reminds me of Gorgoroth's "Revelation of Doom."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tn_fFTCuXM (They also have a song on their label's soundcloud.)

Also what I've heard of that Vanhelgd album is pretty good but it seems like another of those things that others will like more than I. Could be a grower, though.

And dammit once again I meant those to be the non-embedded links. A thousand pardons.

Especially in light of the fact that the 7 H.Target link was to a specific timestamp, not to the whole album. Argh.