Rolling Metal Thread 2014

the most interesting part of these polls are the individual lists anyway imho - what if ppl made up some personal top genre-based lists and shared them?

too heavy a lift

Difficult to say anything definitive yet, it's rare for me to be able to fully digest more than a hundred new albums in a year, so I tend to find the best records during the following years. But so far I like these:
Eternal Riffian - Aeonian (trad-ish doom)
Fluisteraars - Dromers (atmospheric black metal)
Dub Buk - Цвях ("Nail") (thrash metal)
Ghost Bath - Funeral (depressive black metal)
Heresiarch - Wælwulf (death metal)
Bölzer - Soma (death metal)
Kriegsmaschine - Enemy Of Man (dissonant black metal)
Basarabian Hills - Groping In A Misty Spread (dreamy ambient/black)
Neoheresy - Noc Która Dniem Się Stała (neoclassical/black)
Impetuous Ritual - Unholy Congregation Of Hypocritical Ambivalence (death metal)
Saor - Aura (atmospheric/blackgaze)
Taiga - Ashen Light (depressive black metal)
Vader - Tibi Et Igni (death/thrash)
Wijlen Wij - Coronachs of the Ω (funeral doom)
Zgard - Contemplation (atmospheric black)
Behemoth - The Satanist (death/black)
Doom:VS - Earthless (doom)

So I remember Order From Chaos from my tape trading, fanzine-making days. The Kansas City crew were legendary in the underground but never seemed to attract the attention of anyone. Even their debut album, 1992's Stillbirth Machine was essentially not one bootleg but TWO bootlegs released on two labels a year apart:

In the 1993 Decapitated Records MC/CD/LP release on the back of the booklet/sleeve there is a "Warning" note about the bootlegging of this particular album by the notorious "Wild Rag Records".

However, the band considers the Wild Rags release to be more legitimate than the Decapitated Records release despite both, in essence, being bootlegs. This was confirmed in an interview as follows: "Because at least Wild Rags released the format we designed. Technically, because they dropped us in November 1992, they had no right to release the album at all, but since they had no intention of holding to their word and send back to us the layouts and DATs, there was nothing we could do. The Decapitated version looks nothing like what we designed for them in the spring of 1993 (which was completely different from the Wild Rags version). So, as far as we are concerned, it is a bootleg. From misspelled names to words omitted from the songtitles, the Decapitated has many marks of a rank amateur." (Encyclopaedia Metallum

https://scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10370447_702716443149074_8024591709820105635_n.jpg?oh=0475f6eb885d131f112ad7bc21d13a8b&oe=54B9627A

It not only comes with 12 albums but a 124-page hardcover book. Unreal.

listening to stalagmire by cauldron black ram, never heard this band before but this is really solid, groovy blackened death with some idiosyncratic compositional choices

So it was with great amusement that I saw the group is released a box set. Not just any box set, but a 12-LP box set!!!

OFC are pretty esteemed in the underground; there's a whole strain of rabid blackened death/war metal that is derived from OFC (and Blasphemy). But they definitely didn't make much of an impact back in the day (I remember reading about them in the Wild Rags house mag and occasionally seeing them on tape traders' lists, but yeah, that was it for about ten years...).

yo metal bros you guys know anything about WITCH CROSS? super catchy NWOBHM type stuff, almost reminds me of the scorpions in terms of catchiness

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

Hell's Headbangers reissued that one on picture disc in 2011 as well as CD and a 3-CD/DVD box set. I received a digital promo of it back then. It's really good.

I think there was a big vinyl box of Witch Cross, too! But I just got the plain CD, which is fucking great.

I was still at Roadrunner when that was reissued and Monte Conner (also still at Roadrunner then) emailed me complaining that they'd fucked up the mastering somehow and asking if I had a contact at the label. I didn't, but I had gotten the promo, so I let the publicist know. No idea whether anything came of it.

Well then. I sure didn't know this was coming. Says it's not metal, though.
http://progenieterrestrepura.bandcamp.com/album/asteroidi

I assume it'll be released on the 15th. I feel sort of stupid sitting here clicking things that do not make music play.

that new horrendous record fuckin rules

my copy has been shipped and I can't wait to get it

man good call on the new horrendous. i love how rocky it is. some nice old school death and thrash guitar tones. and you can tell they spent some time on the arrangements and performances.

by that last part i mean the arrangements are versatile and dynamic and the recording makes the band sound like they are playing in a room rather than in a bunch of isolated click-tracking sessions (not sure on the production details though). ordering on vinyl pronto.

Yeah it sounds great. Every song is a winner. I love how the double bass comes in on the first track. Sounds really live, as you said.

And that instrumental toward the end of the album reminds me of a band from the 80s and it's driving me crazy. Seriously sounds like something from the Rhoads/E. Lee era of Ozzy, or ... Dokken, I dunno. Not something I was expecting to hear on a Horrendous album but this whole album has been a pleasant expectation smasher.

Maybe more the Jake E Lee period than the Randy Rhoads. Sounds like it could have been on The Ultimate Sin, especially with those oooh-WOO-oooh guitar leads.

Maybe oooh-WEE-oooh is the onomatopoeia I am looking for. I've been listening to this song too much.

yeah, this horrendous album def seems top-notch on my initial pass...

I'm counting at least three Borges references in the tracklisting of the new At The Gates (due 10/27)

haha nice I am only seeing two but the titles as a whole do seem to be like Borges signifier salad

incidentally I always thought of Krallice as the most Borgesian metal band

"The Circular Ruins" may be one you're missing? or "The Book of Sand"??

a few of the titles seem kinda Lovecraftian to me...

which in turn reminds me that one of my favorite unappreciated later Borges stories (from the collection The Book of Sand) is a Lovecraft homage entitled "There Are More Things"

I don't know enough about Krallice to comment one way or the other on their Borgesity. would be curious to hear your reasoning though

(PS wow *do not* look up the wikipedia entry for "There Are More Things" because that shit is Spoiler City, USA)

wait a sec circular ruins and book of sand were the ones I had! still not seeing a third tho :(

Are we counting "Death and the Labyrinth"? I remember a Borges collection called Labyrinths, and even though it's a pretty Borgesian word, I don't think any of his titles featured it.

But yeah all of the song titles sound feasible. I'm actually surprised there isn't a JLB story called "City of Mirrors."

"Death and the Labyrinth" is the title of a book Foucault wrote about Borges, so I figure it counts; also I tend to get the title confused with "Death and the Compass"

I can think of at least one title to disprove your theory, though ("Ibn Hakkan al-Bokhari, Dead in His Labyrinth")

agree with you on "City of Mirrors"!

Oh, right, look at that. This has been a good excuse to pluck my own Borges collection from the shelf.

This is, like, third hand at best, two hands of which are people on the internet, but supposedly the Aborted vocalist panned the new ATG, saying it sounds like The Haunted with Tomas on vox. Actually I guess all three hands are on the internet, because I am in fact on the internet.

Still looking forward to getting it, because a) it's At the Gates, b) I dug the advance track, and c) who cares what someone from Aborted said. I don't think I've ever heard, or at least remembered, an Aborted song.

Meaning the Aborted dude claimed to have heard the whole thing.

There's a metal show on the amazing WFMU; I'd never heard it til tonight. Not bad! The dude likes him some King D/Mercyful.
http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/57687

They're playing Communic at the moment and for one blissful moment I thought it was the new Sanctuary. Ha. Communic rules, though.

xp

cool I have no memory of that Ibn Hakkan one gonna have to revisit

xp to me

And I only just now realized the show is hosted by Bill Zebub. Well don't I feel out of the loop.

just gave a (semi-distracted) first listen to Inter Arma's new 45-minute one-track EP & came away very impressed--this might be even better than Sky Burial. definitely worth your time, even in a very strong year for doom

did we already discuss that the new stargazer sounds fucking awesome and that the bassist is just killing it in every way

http://nuclearwarnowproductions.bandcamp.com/album/a-merging-to-the-boundless

I think I mentioned that they had a new one coming out, but I assumed everyone knew they're fucking awesome and their bassist kills...

very much enjoyed the first three tracks on the new Godflesh record this evening...to me they sound p much exactly like Godflesh

http://www.metalinjection.net/av/full-album-stream/1349-is-streaming-massive-cauldron-of-chaos

So apparently 1349 rule now. Whatever of theirs I'd heard in the past made zero impression; this new album is wonderfully (and thrashily) riveting. I love that there's a decent amount of space between vocals, guitars, and drums, rather than everything blurring into Generic Black Metal Noise. So many wicked riffs here. And memorable songs! Reminds me of how Nile took inscrutable brutal death metal and reorganized it into something more dramatic and captivating.

Not that I dislike inscrutable brutable death metal. I was just listening to Internal Suffering earlier. They rule too.

Scrutable black metal.

fuck yeah stargazer!!! frets are an instrument of social control!!!

A bit far out, but in case anyone's interested:

2015 Decibel Magazine Tour: At The Gates + Converge + Vallenfyre + fourth band TBA

Friday, March 27-- Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern
Saturday, March 28 -- San Francisco, CA The Regency Ballroom
Sunday, March 29 -- Portland, OR Roseland Theater
Monday, March 30 -- Vancouver, BC Commodore Ballroom
Tuesday, March 31 -- Seattle, WA Showbox at the Market
Thursday, April 2 -- Salt Lake City, UT The Complex
Friday, April 3 -- Denver, CO Summit Music Hall
Saturday, April 4 -- Lincoln, NE Bourbon Street
Sunday, April 5 -- Minneapolis, MN Mill City Nights
Monday, April 6 -- Chicago, IL House of Blues
Wednesday, April 8 -- Toronto, ON The Phoenix
Thursday, April 9 -- Montreal, QC Metropolis
Friday, April 10 -- Boston, MA Royale
Saturday, April 11 -- Philadelphia, PA Union Transfer
Sunday, April 12 -- New York, NY Webster Hall

I wonder if that implies a new Converge album next year, something new to tour behind. It'd be about the right time for them.

Does anybody else think Couch Slut (whose debut record is fantastic, by the way) sound like Cloud Rat if they were a sludgy hardcore/noise rock band, or is it just me? I don't even mean because they're both fronted by women; their respective vocalists have similar voices, and similar styles of emotional expression.

Also, reading up on Couch Slut I see one of their guitarists has a weirdo prog black metal band called Epistasis who put out a record on Crucial Blast this year. Good stuff.

― wronger than 100 geir posts (MacDara), Monday, September 29, 2014 1:45 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm just hearing the Couch Slut now and it's awesome. I like the singer, who yeah is a bit like Cloud Rat's. There must be obvious 80s dark noise-rock antecedents for this that I just haven't heard.

Couch Slut: http://handshakeinc.bandcamp.com/album/my-life-as-a-woman

I should add, the album cover is NSFW.

wow this Couch Slut thing is really good

started off feeling like it was p second tier noiserock but it's really digging its hooks into me

Satan was a total blast last weekend. Thanks to NYC Native's rave in April for inspiring me to go. Definitely one of the best reunion shows I've seen.

What is going on up in Portland, Maine? First Ogre, now this. I'm likin' it.

https://hessian-music.bandcamp.com/releases
http://youtu.be/UCmq3Vm6GQ0

Premiering a new Giant Squid song on Burning Ambulance today.

New Giant Squid album is great.

hey dudes i hope it's not a faux pas to rep for my friends here but:

ayo my friends are in this metal band called flaming tusk and they deeply shred, they just put out a new record, only halfway into the first track and man it is the thing http://music.flamingtusk.com/album/inquisitor

Man I really hope the new Spectral Lore album (III) doesn't get overlooked in year-end lists due to its relatively late arrival. It's a complete master class in avant garde black metal. I get hints of Ved Buens Ende/Virus, Blut Aus Nord, a much more fierce Alcest, mid-period Enslaved, Agalloch, even a Glenn Branca vibe during some of the extended instrumental passages. There are plenty of straight-ahead blasting parts, which are also excellent, but the real joy comes when they head out into the stratosphere electric guitar-wise and make noises that sound like the NASA Voyager recordings from a few decades ago. I'm not on the street team or anything. Just holy shit. At roughly 87 minutes, it's a lot to take in, but man is it worth it if you like that kind of thing. Diverse without being show-offy, some absolutely gorgeous finger-picked acoustic guitar during the handful of folky parts. Even when things get all nice and "sit down here by the fire while I tell you a story," you can feel the next launch into the dark clouds slowly building tension underneath, roiling, sometimes surprisingly patient, but of course always raging in the end. Sorry for the purple prose. This thread has been quiet for a while, but I haven't felt this strongly about an album in a while, so cheers!

I think emo canon and I must have been typing at the same time. Cool. Hi.