Rolling 2021 Metal Thread

Malcolm Dome passed away. Legendary metal scribe who was there at the genesis of being a metal scribe. I met him a few times and he was always smiling, outgoing, enjoyed metal and enjoyed writing about it. A good bloke, if I may steal the British vernacular. He'll be missed.

http://landoftreason.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/electric-wizards.jpg

Anybody read this book yet? Thinking of buying because, of course. I've seen a lot of mixed reviews, though most of the negative ones come down to more grousing about who or who is not included, not so much about the actual quality of the writing. I don't think any book of this sort is going to hit on every important band.

There's a savage review on Amazon:

Neatly sidesteps having to have any knowledge of music or writing ability by getting the exceedingly well worn and trite "heaviness is objective" spiel in as early as possible. Just about as misinformed and lazy as a music writer could get. Continues with a statement that "very nearly" negates the influence and achievements of every stream of jazz,blues, rock & roll, classical music and every other genre pre 1961 in favour of the man who wrote The Frog Chorus. Riddled with mistakes, omissions and line after line of over trodden tedium, there is barely an original thought or statement in nearly 450 pages. I would heartily recommend avoiding this book as strenuously as is possible. Get everything said here the same way this author did - just skim through a few hundred Google search results and read the first line. If you are tempted, pop down to my local Oxfam where I deposited my copy within two days of receipt.

That makes it sound kinda like that drone book, Monolithic Undertow, which had some decent stuff but was absolutely jammed with typos and factual errors (band names misspelled, musicians credited with the wrong instruments, real basic shit like that).

Wow, yeah, that's some review.

The best book I've ever read on metal is probably Albert Mudrian's Choosing Death, with Daniel Ekeroth's Swedish Death Metal (though it's more narrowly focused, obviously) in second place. I wanted to like Ian Christe's Sound of the Beast more than I did, and the recent oral history, Louder Than Hell, probably sucks just 'cause it's an oral history.

Going back to the 1914 discussion from a few days ago, this 2018 interview from Echoes & Dust with the lead singer seems to be a pretty clear statement about it:

E&D: You’ve recently released the single ‘Stormtrupp 1917’. Can you tell a bit about that? Maybe what its about and what it signifies to you? And is it related to the 1934 movie?

Dmytro: This a first single from our upcoming album. About this song, we received different feedbacks, but mostly positive. The song is about German assault troops, and it’s neither about their glorifications, nor about propaganda or ode to Stormtrupp. No, it’s just a story from the first person, German’s soldier who loved to kill peoples and war. Because at the Western front this Stormtrupp were the most horrible and successful assault brigades. The same we have about Italian, British, Ottoman, Ukrainian troops. And yes, I wrote this song with a strong influence of this propagandist movie and book Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger, he was a German’s assault trooper, he was fought on the Western Front during the Great War.

I even receive a letter with words like this – song about German soldiers with iron crosses, why? Are you a Nazi band? What could I say? Just no, it`s about human nature, Homo sapiens behavior, history, and war. And – fuck Nazis and all kind of totalitarian shitheads.

New Moon Tooth single: https://smarturl.it/MoonToothMusic sounds pretty epic, hopefully a new album coming soon.

Ugh.

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/exodus-singer-rails-against-socialist-vaccine-mandates-defends-his-support-of-donald-trump

Putting aside whether I want to give that guy any of my money, if they're going to be stirring up anti-vax/anti-mask sentiment in their audiences, I'm not sure how safe I'd feel going to their upcoming show.

new Mortiferum is sounding great

xpost not as worried about the money part, but I have had legit fear that i'd wear a mask to a show and someone in the band would put a 'bounty' on me for being a sheep, though thath asn't happened at the shows I've been to yet.

Yeah, I could see something like that in some crowds. I'm in the Bay Area, so it's probably more likely they'd be boo'd off the stage, but who knows at a metal show.

here, they'd be cheered and worshipped as gods

Putting aside whether I want to give that guy any of my money, if they're going to be stirring up anti-vax/anti-mask sentiment in their audiences, I'm not sure how safe I'd feel going to their upcoming show.

Ah, I did not realize it had been postponed. I never really cared much for the other two bands, so I would have gone mostly for Exodus anyway.

Screw all that, listen to the new Mystras. Ayloss' songwriting makes all the bad stuff not matter

new Archspire is extremely good

Metal albums I purchased this Bandcamp Friday:

Pyrexia, Gravitas Maximus (veteran slam metal chuds; they have a new lead singer because the old one is doing life for a triple murder) (pre-order, out in December)
Intestinal Pestilence, Rotten Cadaver Forsaken (broooootal death metal from Mexico) (pre-order, out November 15)
Alaridos, Horca (D-beat-ish grind from Chile)
Biomorphic Engulfment, Incubation in the Parallel Dimension (broooootal death metal duo from Thailand)

Don't make your EOY lists too early, folks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_hKC-q6SXo

There's an excerpt from the Electric Wizards book mentioned upthread on The Wire's website. It's about TAD, and it's...fine. The language is relatively un-hyperbolic, there are good quotes from the man himself...if I needed a book like this in my life at the moment, I would probably find this to be a good one.

Thanks for sharing that, the excerpt definitely doesn't seem all that bad.

I have been apprised of Baazlvaat.

https://baazlvaat.bandcamp.com/album/the-higher-power-2

It's...I don't even know if I can sum it up. Lo-fi 70's funk-prog gone to war, or something. They're from Michigan

I've been a big fan of Blackwater Holylight for some time, I really dug their approach to the stoner stuff that RidingEasy does, but I think they are growing into something really special with the new one, Silence/Motion. Hell, there's a song that sounds like Slint.

Decibel's year-end list is out. The ones I've heard are in bold.

40. Rivers of Nihil, The Work, Metal Blade
39. Darkthrone, Eternal Hails……, Peaceville
38. Body Void, Bury Me Beneath This Rotting Earth, Prosthetic
37. Frozen Soul, Crypt of Ice, Century Media
36. Mare Cognitum, Solar Paroxysm, I, Voidhanger
35. Silver Talon, Decadence and Decay, M-Theory
34. Spectral Wound, A Diabolic Thirst, Profound Lore
33. The Ruins of Beverast, The Thule Grimoires, Van
32. Enforced, Kill Grid, Century Media
31. Knoll, Interstice, Self-released
30. Archspire, Bleed the Future, Season of Mist
29. Dungeon Serpent, World of Sorrows, Nameless Grave
28. Exodus, Persona Non Grata, Nuclear Blast
27. Hulder, Godslastering Hymns of a Forlorn Peasantry, Iron Bonehead
26. Craven Idol, Forked Tongues, Dark Descent
25. Deafheaven, Infinite Granite, Sargent House
24. Rudimentary Peni, The Great War, Sealed
23. Stormkeep, Tales of Othertime, Van
22. Genghis Tron, Dream Weapon, Relapse
21. Gatecreeper, An Unexpected Reality, Closed Casket Activities
20. Cannibal Corpse, Violence Unimagined, Metal Blade
19. Worm, Foreverglade, 20 Buck Spin
18. Unto Others, Strength, Roadrunner
17. Full of Hell, Garden of Burning Apparitions, Relapse
16. Cerebral Rot, Excretion of Mortality, 20 Buck Spin
15. Amenra, De doorn, Relapse
14. Lingua Ignota, Sinner Get Ready, Sargent House
13. The Silver, Ward of Roses, Gilead Media
12. Skepticism, Companion, Svart
11. Fucked Up, Year of the Horse, Tankcrimes
10. Wolves in the Throne Room, Primordial Arcana, Relapse
9. Iron Maiden, Senjutsu, BMG
8. Lamp of Murmuur, Submission and Slavery, Self-released
7. Converge, Bloodmoon: I, Epitaph/Deathwish Inc
6. Hooded Menace, The Tritonus Bell, Season of Mist
5. Panopticon, …And Again into the Light, Bindrune
4. Apparition, Feel, Profound Lore
3. Tribulation, Where the Gloom Becomes Sound, Metal Blade
2. Khemmis, Deceiver, Nuclear Blast
1. Carcass, Torn Arteries, Nuclear Blast

Definitely has me stoked for the Converge and Khemmis albums to show up this weekend.

The Bloodmoon advance tracks have been very promising.

Glad to see love for that incredible Fucked Up record too.

Lack of Thy Catafalque though.

No Ulcerate was the big surprise for me. But I feel like I don't live on Planet Metal anymore. (Hating Carcass has always kept me on the outside of the pack, anyway.)

depressing that this year's been so nuts that I forgot we had a Darkthrone release despite loving it.

ulcerate record was from 2020

good enough to be album of the year two years running though

Surprisingly it also didn't make last year's Decibel list, though.

Lingua Ignota: the non-dude metal it's still OK for dudes to like.

LI album wasn't remotely metal, lol

I mean, metal af but

The Pit has taken the position that if you have a problem with Brass Against frontwoman Sophia Urista peeing on a willing fan onstage, you suck at being metal.

http://www.wearethepit.com/2021/11/opinion-if-a-little-pee-upsets-you-get-the-fk-out-of-metal

otm

I mean, sure it's metal and it was consensual for the willing fan, but I'd possibly take the very uncool position of saying that people in the audience for a more general music festival didn't get a chance to consent to watching it.

Okay I guess the festival in question is even more metal and rock leaning than I understood, still though, I halfheartedly stand behind my definitely unmetal position. I think I'd feel differently if it was a Brass Against headlining show or something though.

my radical position is that the frontperson of an all-brass covers band peeing on someone onstage is in all senses an aesthetic affront

lol

The Pit must have a very righteous glow about itself after publishing that, though. It must feel like it's on the right side of piss story.

woah I had no idea Rudimentary Peni was still a band

oh I bought that on Bandcamp and haven't listened to it yet lol

their latest is really good, you wouldn't know how many years separated it and like...Death Church

Really baffled by the Pitchfork pan of the Converge record. The main thrust seems to be that it's Converge sticking too close to their formula (as if that in and of itself is a bad thing), but also that the formula sounds too much like Evanescence and Breaking Benjamin?

Bloodmoon suffers from two problems that seem as though they should preclude one another: It is thin on fresh ideas and unexpected twists. Its hard rock-meets-hardcore permutations are familiar to anyone who has ever heard, say, Evanescence and Breaking Benjamin. Despite those predictable modes, the sounds are so overdone and unfocused that listening in one sitting is exhausting.

I dunno, I usually really like Currin's writing, which is why this surprised me even more. Feels like an obligatory Pitchfork slaying of the idols type piece than a thoughtful critique on the album itself. But I haven't heard the whole thing yet, so who know.

new Exodus is really good but there are some inane, ignorant lyrics on it (see upthread for cluez re: Souza), and I couldn't stomach that with my current mood so I put on the new Khemmis, which is really good and not full of that nonsense.

fortunately most of the Exodus songs arej ust your typical garden variety violence and I can skip the ones that aggravate me

Evanescence and BB are...weird reference points, even though I know he's not saying they *sound* like those bands.