Rolling Metal 2019

Dead to a Dying World - Elegy
(@profound_lore)

A myriad of voices, sounds, textures, and ideas come at you. 'Elegy' eloquently dispatches convention with conviction and makes what could possibly be my favorite album of the year. It's the shape of doom to come. #TwitterLPReview pic.twitter.com/zfQ6SbssOc

— Brian O'Neill (@NYC__Native) April 19, 2019

http://deadtoadyingworld.bandcamp.com/album/elegy-3
http://open.spotify.com/album/3sirhUOFCfP2qp2wlIQ4lB?si=ouP2OqLWQbedJi17161Kwg

have we done this yet

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwnzm7/this-youtube-channel-streams-ai-generated-black-metal-247

headline is an error (vs the story), it's death metal mostly, though there are moments at first when it sounds black

They characterize their work with Dadabots as working towards “eliminating humans from black metal.”

True misanthropy

The Dead to a Dying World is alright, but it feels a tad… emotionally manipulative? I don't think it holds a candle to the Inter Arma.

oooh I love emotional manipulation

So do I, when it's seamless. Anyhow, I liked it better the second time around but I stand by my initial comment.

I like the Leonard Cohen-esque vocals on the first track

I love Lenny Cohen but that intro just screams faux world weariness to me. I'm probably not very receptive to the Southernness of it tbf.

That Judiciary album sounds great. Reminds me a bit of Power Trip.

rigging up the brad signal for this very Katatonia-esque record

https://sermonsound.bandcamp.com/

xp - That album sounds like my favorite late-period-Slayer song expanded to half an hour. Fantastic stuff.

Digging this Canadian epic doom

http://smoulder.bandcamp.com/album/times-of-obscene-evil-and-wild-daring

That Smoulder album is one of my 2019 favourites so far. Very strong swords & sorcery metal in the vein of Atlantean Kodex.

Worshipper album sounds very promising from the one preview track.

Enjoyed Smoulder as well.

Worshipper is very good - a big step up from their last album, which I didn't love.

Anxious to hear that Worshipper one. I really, really liked the new Magic Circle record. Yes, very Sabbath derivative, but derivative of the Vol. 4 era in the best possible way - meaning not just the riffs, but the sense of widening the lens a little.

Holy shit, a postmillennial Darkthrone track I actually enjoy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6h4b-Jm8iU

that fucking rocks

FUCK YEAH

Yeah, this fucking rules. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I look forward to the new LP now.

HI ALL OF YOU! As you may know we have a new album coming out (I am not on social media at all anymore so I don't know what you've seen or heard so far) and Ted said that this time our fans will hear a new song first. So guys here it is - our new track, “The Hardship Of The Scots” and since Ted and me always write our own songs, one song could not fully represent Old Star, but let’s start with this one. Normally the journalists and other scenesters get to check out new albums 2-3-4 months before fans get to hear it, but not this time .. you are first!
FENRIZ

love fenriz so much

This is so good!

This Dark Heresey reissue on Svart is pretty cool

https://darkheresy.bandcamp.com/album/abstract-principles-taken-to-their-logical-extremes

If you're looking for weird riffs in the Argh*slent vein but with no abhorrent political baggage (that I'm aware of) and much more imagination, check it out. I hear a Sabbat UK influence and there's some jazzy acoustic bits.

Can someone Cliff Notes what's going on with MGLA?

Two gigs with Deus Mortem got cancelled in Munich and Berlin due to alleged antisemitism. Members of the latter were apparently in a Nazi band called Infernal War. Mgła claims it's all just a smear campaign and will take legal action against any and all instances of 'defamation'.

Here's an article about Infernal War, published last year after one of their shows got cancelled in the UK:

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/infernal-war-metal-band-nazi-atrocities-antisemitism-hope-not-hate-1.464498

So wait... Nobody in MGLA is sketchy? They were just playing with a band whose members *other* band was sketchy? Do I have that correct?

As far as I can tell, yes.

Huh, because I definitely saw some vague comments on twitter about MGLA being "cancelled". Glad to have more context though.

dont read the comments on mgla's facebook post

Tbf M. put out a cassette titled Judenfrei under his power electronics moniker, Leichenhalle, back in 2000, so make of that what you will.

https://i.redd.it/rtoynz4v32v21.png

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but uhhhhhhhhhh "brown mud" seems a weird inclusion.

yeahhh that's a little odd huh

Tbf M. put out a cassette titled Judenfrei under his power electronics moniker, Leichenhalle, back in 2000, so make of that what you will.

also a release called "Bloodsoil"

You're not the only one who did a double-take at 'brown mud'. And that's besides the defensive verbosity alone -- which, by the way, includes no disavowals or denials of what they've been accused of, only vague threats of legal action. (Like, GTF over yourselves, band that's been caught out platforming Nazis.)

Exactly, there certainly wasn't any heartfelt (or even feigned heartfelt) disavowal of anything in there. The "brown mud" thing struck me because it was so pointless, just "mud" would do guys.

I'm not exactly shocked (that would be dumb, at this point) but as someone who really liked the Mgla releases this is pretty shitty to learn

Not to mention Kriegsmaschine, so yeah, this blows. I think it's safe to assume that at least 50% of BM bands are affected by the rot in some way, whether its symptoms are visible or not.

Mgla always bored the shit out of me so I'm fine with this development

^high five!

<i>I think it's safe to assume that at least 50% of BM bands are affected by the rot in some way, whether its symptoms are visible or not.<i/>

The rot, for me, is in the feigned 'we're apolitical!' BS. Too often to me that's a couch for 'we've chosen a side: we prefer being edgy to, like, taking any kind of stand against right-wing populism'.

Bleh messed up the tags there.

we regret to inform you that these guys making some of the most violent and hateful misanthropic music on earth are not as woke as we hoped

there's a pretty huge gap btwn "not being woke" and generalized misanthrophy vs the stuff cited in the MetalSucks post

More like I prefer it when it's just a depiction of violence and hateful misanthropy rather than a tacit vehicle for far-right propaganda. Thankfully, art is always more (and less) than what its catalyst/creator intends it to be, so I have no qualms about listening to this stuff (I won't pay for it, though). Nor do I have any qualms about saying that M. is an edgy shithead and that there are other ways of meaningfully engaging with anti-theism and the holocaust.

If you're as tired of all this "which black metal band is racist this week, and how racist are we talking here, really?" bullshit as I am, here's something different.

Tanith are a NYC-based band who combine 70s hard rock/metal crunch (think BÖC, Heart) with excellent, folky male/female vocal harmonies. Their debut album, In Another Time, comes out 5/24 on Metal Blade. Here's the first song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPY_Jw-O5k0

70s hard rock/metal crunch (think BÖC, Heart) with excellent, folky male/female vocal harmonies

sold!

Whoa, thanks for the Tanith recommendation, Phil! It's so much better than the black metal bs that's distracting the hive mind these days.

Not bad, although I still struggle with this neo-trad stuff due to its relative lack of aura. I like their touchstones but the original records' documentary value is at least half the fun for me.

Going back to the Polish fash/black metal bs for a second, the Deus Mortem album is actually quite good and the lyrics don't contain any objectionable material as far as I can tell.