Rolling Metal Thread 2014

Granted, in my critic's mind a 6 is still positive, but in metal parlance a 6 is practically the kiss of death.

Unless there's three of them.

The problem isn't that a 6 is particularly bad, but with ~3000 metal albums released every year, that means you get the feeling there's an awful lot of records that are more worthy of your time.

Indeed, to me a 6 would indicate there should be several hundred or even a couple thousand better albums. Which is just not true, and why I mostly ignore scaled scores, and removed them from my site, though they are hidden in my database.

I also refuse to believe the Electric Wiz is uninspired. We'll see.

Am I the only person who ignores the shit out of number scores?

no, i ignore them too. if an album is in a metal genre/style that interests me, i'll probably end up listening even if it's a minor entry. an album could get all 10 out of 10s but if it's trash metal or grindcore i probably won't even bother. (unless the cover looks really cool.)

lol trash metal. i meant thrash.

if a number is like an 8-10 and i don't otherwise have an interest in a record, i'll check it out just on that basis (unless the review makes it sound obviously not what i want). especially if it's kind of a keeping-up-with-the-wider-world kind of thing.

Ratings do work on an aggregated level I find - Rateyourmusic is an amazingly reliable indicator, esp how few 'false positives' it gives, if it's highly rated it's good. Obviously the genre tags are important, I mostly filter out prog metal, trad doom and melodeath (although I have to say, I do sample a few each year).

Funny regarding mistrust of writers who get "too excited," ha ha. If it's a writer I know and not just some excitable 20 yr old, I figure if they get passionate and lose their cool and get too enthusiastic, that's a sign that there is something really interesting about the album. Even if it's not my thing, I can appreciate a good rave review and want to at least check out what they're hearing. It seems there are thousands of tepid not bad/not great reviews, so not sure how those can stand out.

If it's a writer I know and not just some excitable 20 yr old, I figure if they get passionate and lose their cool and get too enthusiastic, that's a sign that there is something really interesting about the album.

I think it's about knowing the writer either way, whether it's music reviews or film reviews or whatever; usually I have to get a handle on the reviewer's tastes over a sample of reviews which then colours my overall judgement. It's easy to mistake enthusiasm for PR twaddle, for sure, but more so if you don't have an inkling of the writer's tastes.

I note, for the record, that Pitchfork's "The 200 Best Tracks of the Decade So Far (2010-2014)" contains one (1) arguably metal song, and it's Deafheaven.

http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/9466-the-top-200-tracks-of-2010-2014/

Yeah, I pointed that out in the pitchfork is dumb thread.

Late summer 2014 is a perfect time to resume the overselling of Deafheaven.

New Electric Wizard track: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/17051-electric-wizard-sadiowitch

Debate on how "uninspired" is it below.

That's a song off the new album I genuinely like.

why do their recent records sound so bad

It's better than the first song they put out from this record.

I deleted the EW album from my iPod last night.

Detroit stoner rock label Small Stone Records got flooded:

http://ih.constantcontact.com/fs190/1114457189250/img/962.jpg

They are crowd-sourcing relief if anyone cares. That picture is depressing. Reminds me of the Great Basement Flood of 2010 which destroyed all of my vinyl.

Oh damn, that is depressing! I just bought a huge pile of records from them a few weeks ago, I'll see if I can toss some dollars their way.

I see they managed to put the computer up on the desk, but it seems to still be plugged in, yikes! Floodwater is nasty, my sympathies. They've been having such a great year release wise, hope they had some kind of insurance.

From the conflicts that EW's Jus Osborn is having with just about everyone except his wife, at least we know his hate-filled lyrics are no pose. He's a true blue misanthrope who keeps moving further and further out into the middle of nowhere to escape people, just like my wife's (psychiatrist) most difficult and frustrating patients. But I've never heard an album by him I didn't like, and am undaunted by the negative feedback so far.

So thoughts on today's releases?

Pallbearer – Foundations Of Burden (Profound Lore) - Anyone not like it? This seems to be the one that will cross over to the most non-doom heads.
Cardinals Folly – Our Cult Continues! (Shadow Kingdom) - I reviewed both.
Black Trip – Goin' Under (Prosthetic) - Some really catchy Swedish trad rock n' metal along the lines of Saturn and Death Penalty (coming next week)
Johnny Touch – Inner City Wolves (Shadow Kingdom) - solid trad metal
Accept – Blind Rage (Nuclear Blast) - Probably best of the three most recent efforts

that looks like an ancient power mac tower or something. push it in the water & upgrade

Pallbearer – Foundations Of Burden (Profound Lore) - Anyone not like it? This seems to be the one that will cross over to the most non-doom heads.

like it, but after a few listens, I can't tell if the first lp is more immediate or just plain better. feel like the mix could stand to be a bit more dynamic. still working out my feelings out.

Pallbearer is going to be nearly unbeatable for my album of the year

i like the new one ok but the first one was a lot more immediate i think. there are more stodgy/draggy passages on the new one, where the old one might have opted for floaty dreaminess in its less fully articulated passages.

i feel like i have to catch it in the right circumstances, so that the dynamism really stands out. if i don't, then it seems a bit trudgy.

Two stand-out news songs this week, for me: Lyriel's folk-gothic "Numbers" and Khors' folk-death "My Cossack Way".

don't really have any interest in armchair psychoanalysing Jus Osborn but in his band boss role he kind of reminds me of Mark E Smith

In his "buy lots of pringles and pasties at the late night garage to deal with the munchies" role he kind of reminds me of Mel Smith.

I made a playlist of some pretty good metal songs from 2010-2014 that weren't on Pitchfork's list.

http://open.spotify.com/user/glennpmcdonald/playlist/5gN8HREn7YhC97OhlCFdNc

somehow I feel like Pallbearer are both unfuckwithable AND they leave me slightly cold. what's up with that?

the opening lead guitar riff feels like it could have come out of an 80's pop song yet it fits so well with the doom riff

I warmed up quite a bit in the 18 minutes since I posted that, tbh

so two songs later

^^^^ Same. I can hear the emotion and craft, and they've definitely refined a style of their own. It just isn't for me.

Just got the promo of the new Decapitated. Pretty excited to hear it; their first four albums were an amazing example of exponential growth disc-to-disc, until they were doing something totally unique in tech-death. I mean, Nihility, The Negation and Organic Hallucinosis are some of the most airless, compressed, almost anti-human - yet still totally thrilling - DM ever made, to my ear. Then came The Accident, and when they (read: Vogg and three other dudes) returned years later with Carnival is Forever, it was this really weird, great, multifaceted thing that was nothing like any previous Decapitated album, experimental as hell, and yet also totally brilliant. So I'm very much looking forward to checking this new one out tomorrow.

Nihility: The Negation sounds like a pretty kickass fantasy card game.

It took a few listens before Pallbearer clicked for me. It fits a very specific mood/mindspace that isn't always right for your state of mind but when it is, it's perfect.

Early review of Time To Die: http://www.occultrock.com/2014/08/review-electric-wizard-time-to-die.html

Fans will either be delighted and celebrate the efforts of said band, hailing it as a masterpiece, or they will react in sheer disgust and turn into the most rabid, scathing pack of wild dogs imaginable. They will not only denounce the latest offering, but they will also turn back time, either pining for the “good old days,” or even going as far as to wonder if they ever truly liked the band in the first place.

Sounds about right ;)

If you go into Browse / Genres & Moods in Spotify now, there's finally a Metal section! (I helped lobby for this and get it built.)

thanks glenn! i keep checking for something like that every so often and have always been previously disappointed.

I wasn't even aware of those sections, as I always just made my own playlists. The playlists within it must have existed previously, such as the Best of Metal & Rock with 42,559 followers. Looks like they need one for Doom!

A couple of those playlists had already been featured in Rock, thus the high follower-counts. But we did a bunch of new ones. Exoskeleton (metal covers of non-metal songs) and Satan's Molten Tears (ballads) are mine, and I worked on a few others.

Got the new Cavalera Conspiracy album yesterday; listened to it this morning. I never liked Soulfly, but I like CC a lot. The new record is a pretty big departure for them. Max's vocals are buried in the mix, and they sound electronically pitch-shifted to more of a death metal roar than his usual bark. The actual music is a kind of shiny industrial thrash, rather than the hardcore/death metal soundtrack-to-a-beating that was on the first two discs. It honestly sounds kind of like Max's tribute to Ministry's "W trilogy." I like it, but I'm wondering if the few hundred people who actually care about Cavalera Conspiracy are gonna be into it.

interviewing Power Trip in a bit! open to suggestions for questions besides what i have so far, which is just "why do you guys slay sooo hard?"

Who are you talking to? Riley and Blake? Just Riley?

Just Riley, as far as I know.

Hmm. I guess you could ask how his being far away (he moved to Chicago) has affected the band, if at all. Maybe ask him to compare where they were before the release of Manifest Decimation a year ago to where they are now. He's a good guy, and usually warms up to folks pretty quick.

yeah, def gonna talk to him about the sort of status of the band, given that last summer in interviews he basically said they were gonna go full time last fall and make a run at it. he *also* said he was gonna give it 2 years and if it didn't work, he was fine to bail and do something else.

i'm not too worried about it, i can tell from reading interviews he's a talker. so am i, we'll be fine.

had no idea he moved to Chicago!

i read an interview he did with The Quietus last year ... pretty good stuff. dude is SHARP.

Sharp is an apt description. At the last show he introduced "Conditioned to Death" as being inspired by reading Foucault.

You're sure it wasn't reading fuck-all?