Rolling Metal 2016

Also if that Soulfly/Suffo opening act is supposed to be Abnormality, they also rule pretty well. (And after checking their metal-archives page, turns out they have a new one on Metal Blade coming later this month. Killer.)

Oh, yeah, guess they have a video out and everything. Can't say I'm blown away but eh.
http://www.metalinjection.net/video/abnormality-are-being-followed-by-the-cia-in-mechanisms-of-omniscience-music-video

Not exactly safe for work, and I'm not sure we needed another "person being tortured in a chair" video.

"First Kill" from the new Amon Amarth might be one of my fav metal tracks of the year. great lyrics too.

damn i love that UXO album, maybe my fave of the year so far

https://youtu.be/QDGBOTy6fXM

Supposedly this is Beherit playing in a mall for some kind of music contest -- in 1990, when they looked like Hanson. They're only in the video from 2:58 - 4:20.

Haha, I came to post that Beherit clip. Amazing.

At Amon Amarth. Entombed ADs set was half Left Hand Path/Clandestine.

Fuuuuuck yes

A friend of mine Steve Holtje turned me on to this:

https://ethicist.bandcamp.com/

Ethicist is from Cincinnati. They play what some call post-black metal, what I call bleak, blackened landscapes of doom-gaze.

The band has a name your own price download there as well as CD, LP and cassette options. It was released on 4/8.

If you like the idea of Deafheaven but are off-put by the output (or if you're like me and you actually like them) Ethicist might have something to offer you.

Amazon is currently selling the single disc Metallica reissues for $5 each.

Speaking of Metallica, I am currently thinking stupid thoughts about buying one of those Metallica Kill 'Em All box sets. Someone stop me.

Also Neanderthal or anyone, do I need to be fucking with those Entombed AD albums?

They're pretty weak, really. I just listen to the last two Entrails albums when I want to hear 'new' Entombed music, at this point they're better than the original band.

I was afraid of that. How about Firespawn?

That's great but not very "Entombed" - it has blastbeats etc.

I know this isn't 2016 but I was listening to sweven tonight and got so massively bummed that morbus chron broke up. what a record

never was a huge Aborted fan, always just aped other better bands, but I found myself liking "Necrotic Manifesto" from two years ago (just fun catchy death metal with horror soundbytes and horror-film score-sounding choruses), and the new one is actually kinda fun too!

nothing mindblowing but surprised I like them consider how quickly I got bored of their other stuff (other than maybe when they were a huge Carcass clone)

Does anyone sound like Asphyx these days or should I just keep buying Asphyx albums until my collection's complete? PS Asphyx rules.

I assume you've got the Grand Supreme Blood Court album?

I do not, actually! I guess I'll get on that.

I know this isn't 2016 but I was listening to sweven tonight and got so massively bummed that morbus chron broke up. what a record

concur. that's one of the strongest metal records of the last 10 years imo, it's a crying shame that we won't hear more from them

The guitar sound on that Blood Court album might actually be the best in the history of death metal. The album got some flak for being (even) less refined than Asphyx but it's totally won me over for being just so stupendously heavy. It's an eleven on the Bolt Thrower scale.

Wow! Kind of a shame their name sounds like the title of an anti-abortion pamphlet, but "less refined than Asphyx" sounds amazing!

funny enough I got the Grand Supreme Blood Court album at the exact time I started listening to Asphyx. great stuff

I started listening to Asphyx back when they were just a demo band (still have a copy of the Crush the Cenotaph demo somewhere) but kinda fell off after van Drunen left. I've been getting into them again lately, though, most recently been loving the unreleased first album Embrace the Death.

Well 'less refined' also means that at points they're wheeling out riffs so boneheaded they wouldn't feel out of place on an Emmure album.

Oh I

Oh.

(I actually checked out a couple of songs on Youtube, sounded pretty good. I'm a sucker for that guitar tone, though.)

Cloud Rat are excellent live and you should see them.

Man if they come to California I would

Man if they come to California I would
--a spate of non-fatal hammer attacks (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ)

Saw them open for Thou w Kowloon Walled City.

If they come to Southern California I would

(Actually I probably wouldn't, I'm pretty lame anymore)

Hey, Vanhelgd is scratching my Asphyx itch.

If you like power metal, but miss how it sounded back when Epic wasn't quite so epic yet, this just-reissued Human Fortress album Defenders of the Crown from 2003 is pretty great.

https://open.spotify.com/album/21vGBh1O4VhnyJfavAyVjB

I forget who tweeted this link, so maybe it's old news, but this may be the longest album title I'm aware of (pretty sure it beats Apple's "When the pawn...") one of the longest band names, and a logo that is impressive both for utter illegibility AND being easy to recognize (at least until someone forms a band with as many characters in the name...).

https://eximperitus.bandcamp.com/album/prajecyruju-y-sinhuliarnaje-wypramie-wa-nie-daktryny-absaliutnaha-j-usiopah-yna-naha-z-a-skro-a-cihrannuju-pryzmu-s-n-ahh-er-ba-na-hipierpawierchniu-zadyjaka-naha-ka-ha-zasnawa-nika-kosmat-chni-n

I love that the track itself only runs 3:06.

Catching up on some 2015 records: Kaeck Stormkult is fucking awesome and I don't understand how I missed it. Project of various other Dutch bands, plays catchy and charismatic B-tuned wall-of-sound filth with unhinged, pissed-off vocals. Other one is Acherontas Ma-IoN (Formulas of Reptilian Unification) which combines ritualistic ambient with very well written black metal, sometimes reminiscent of Mgła/Kriegsmaschine.

Death metal band performs John Cage's 4'33":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGEG4JiOqew

Zemial already did that. He is black metal though.

digging the new Fallujah

Playlist somewhat updated for April. Fixed the Cobalt song btw.

ILM's Rolling Metal Thread 2016 Spotify Playlist

Good news: after six years on (Ukranian war-related) hiatus, there's finally a new Nokturnal Mortum release! The bad news, it's a only three tracks, on a split with Graveland (whose three tracks are terrible).

And another new discovery: Mourning Sun from Chile, who do an excellent job in falling exactly between The 3rd And The Mortal (circa Tears Laid In Earth) and Mandylion-era The Gathering.

really interesting black/doom(ish) band from Sweden called Head of the Demon:
https://invictusproductions666.bandcamp.com/album/sathanas-trismegistos

heard this on the Fenriz show, wherein he called them "introvert" metal, and it never occurred to me to categorize music like that, but it makes complete sense on this. The only band that it reminds me of is maybe the slow parts of Cultes des Ghoules, but with a moodier edge. Really cool stuff.

They're an odd band, kinda occult rock verging on doom, but those vocals. Kind reminds of Faustcoven if they had been super-70s sounding and backed off on the distortion.

I haven't heard them, but will check out. The vocals seem like the most normal thing about them, because they sound a lot like Tom g Warrior to me, though the music more doom oriented than Celtic Frost (and yeah, doom in a 70s way)

First album came out on Ajna Offensive, definitely worth a listen.

Hell's Headbangers has a new Profanatica track on their Bandcamp (worst cover art yet! but nice stuff if you like the USOSBM style), one by Nuke (detroit gutter-scum metal, crazy vocals) and they're reissuing Arphaxat's demo on vinyl, which is quality French black bass metal (no guitars at all) with an occult tinge.

Just looking at the lineup for this year's Ragnard Rock festival, and they've really upped the ante here - this has to be pretty much the best event ever organised if you're into the whole viking/folk/black metal thing. It has Moonsorrow, Nokturnal Mortum, Kroda, Nargaroth, Belphegor, Skyforger, Månegarm, Khors, Graveland (who I think have never even done liveshows before?), Rotting Christ, Heidevolk, Aeternus, Cruachan, Tengger Cavalry (yes the Mongolian band!). That's got to be worth putting up with a bunch of LARPing French dudes pretending to be vikings.

Anyway, on the new Nokturnal Mortum - only two new tracks is a bit frustrating after a five year wait but it's very good, especially B Кайданах Часу - I just love how the band effortlessly locks into this nice head-nodding groove for minutes on end and patiently cycles through a sequence of verses and meandering guitar lines and keyboard melodies. It's a bit like oldschool Katatonia played by better musicians. Can't think of any other band that does this kind of stuff right now - comparable bands like Moonsorrow and Finsterforst all work so hard to be 110% awesome epic all the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyn_3Mt2dzg

It looks like Graveland actually are a band now and just played their first ever live show at the beginning of April. Also I note that their Metal Archives page doesn't mention NS anymore, wonder if he's trying to do a Nokturnal Mortum and turn towards acceptability?

Ah it looks like he's been backing off of that stuff for quite a while, I guess I stopped paying attention!

Graveland never really had explicit nazi stuff on the records, unless you consider songs about medieval battles of brave Slavs against Ottoman armies as coded dog-whistle anti-Muslim propaganda.

To be honest I've lost interest in Graveland, there has been zero developments in his sound or approach in almost twenty years. In theory the new members could help him get out of his rut but these two new tracks on the split are really fucking boring and don't point to any real change. They're also (pointlessly) reissuing old material with re-recorded drums and keyboards by the new members, which again in theory is a nice way to integrate them into the bands discography, but I have almost zero interest in hearing possibly slightly less limp versions of those boring ass Dawn Of The Iron Blades songs.

it's kind of delicious that these Nazi bands, in middle age, realize that they could be making actual money if they'll just renounce their Nazi ways

If only the real nazis had done that.