Rolling 2004 Metal Thread

Anata, Under a Stone With No Inscription (metalcore/death-metal fusion [!]: really a grower, sounded good on first listen way back in January and just keeps getting fiercer & wilder
Decapitated, The Negation Plain ol' death metal with a Morbid Angel fixation but gawd they're good at it, really spaced-out & great
The End, Within Dividia Somewhat ike Anata but not as crazy & way more on the metalcore side of things - which is odd because the End used to be super-crazy on purpose, only in an often annoying way i.e. their bass parts reminded me of Primus sometimes, which can't be good. But this one really cages in the bassist and the whole album's really focused and savage.

...and the new Lickgoldensky, which I've only got a burned copy of & I'm not sure when it comes out but is easily the best of the lot, because Lickgoldensky is just unbelievably great.

http://www.zebulonpike.com/

mpls based...lead by the bass player of free jazz/funky whatever band Happy Apple (also related to the Bad Plus)...

Anyways, saw them and was very impressed....all instrumental doom/stoner stuff, but they (unlike alot of all instrumental bands like this i've seen)...had a good sense of composition (ie they write multiple "movements" to the songs that eb and flow so's they don't get boring)..excellent musicians, used alot of harmony double lead guitar stuff....bass player had monster loud tone (and very old Rush 2112 t-shirt on so you know he's not playin')...

they have some demos on the site a 5-song full length is recorded and coming out this summer...

Signed,
C. Eddy

Other things I like right now:

Cadaver (formerly Cadaver Inc.), Necrosis
1349, Beyond The Apocalypse
Dimension Zero, This Is Hell
Pelican, Australasia

Recent tuneful metal

You can add the new Katatonia album and Subterranean Masquerade CD single to the ones I talk about on that thread, as well. I like the End and Anata; haven't heard Decapitated. The Lickgoldensky EP or whatever it was from last year was kind of fun, in a stupid way.

Best Foghat song of the year is on the Mr. Wonka!? CD-R I review here:

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0415/eddy.php

As far as other newish heavy music goes, I haven't heard anything that can touch Kayo Dot's "Choirs of the Eye" since that came out last year. The new Koma album (feat. members from Cult of Luna) is pretty good, but not in the same league.

That Vital Remains album was my second favorite album of last year after the Lickgoldensky debut! As to the new Deicide, I thought it was pretty weak on first listen but I'm a little more into it now - still, Glenn's vocals on it sound like he's just plain not into it any more. Maybe Vital Remains, umm, revitalized him. AAaagh sorry about that one.

Chuck I thought the last Katatonia was totally unlistenable - is the new one more of that, or back in the direction of Last Fair Deal Gone Down?

and finally, Phil- am I right in guessing that metalcore-ish stuff doesn't do anything for you?

For the most part, yeah. I love the Deftones, though, and have an affection for Machine Head that's a mystery even to me. (Their new album, which reunites Robb Flynn with his old guitarist from Vio-lence, is really good.)

Other than that on a commercial metal tip I would say the new fear factory and soulfly records are both returns to form after preceding blips.

and Scott I wouldn't know whether the Viva Emptiness songs are good because the singing & production thereof/upon is so very, very bad :)

All I will say here is that I trust Scott Seward's Katatonia judgement implicitly, at all times. I'm talking about a 2-CD set I got in the mail two weeks ago. I have no idea when its songs were recorded, but its sad grumbling frequently sounds quite beautiful.

Actually, his new single is really good, but I wouldn't call it metal, honest!

The comp has the demo, a couple of tracks off the first album, For Funerals To Come, A couple from Brave Murder Day, a couple comp tracks, and a couple old e.p.s/single tracks.

Decapitated-I can't remember. I might have a promo of it, but i could be thinking of something else. I'll check.

In the UK we have two stations Radio 1 and Xfm - that have weekly rock/ metal shows - but they are mostly useless.

Some Dark Metal/Metalcore/Noisecore artists that I am looking forward to release albums in 2004 [although no doubt some will be delayed to 2005 !]

Arcturus
Borknager
Celtic Frost
Converge
Cult of Luna
Death Angel
DHG/ Dodheimsgard
Diabolical Masquerade
Dillinger Escape Plan
Ephel Duath
Gehenna
Green Carnation
Lamb of God
Lickgoldensky
Madder Mortem
Mastodon
Motorhead
Neurosis
Nile
Opeth
Potentiam
The Red Chord
Red Harvest
Solefald
System of a Down

http://www.snakenetmetalradio.com/mostrecentadds.asp

http://www.snakenetmetalradio.com/charts/charts.asp

i never really pay attention to what years things come out, i think the only newish metal stuff i've bought recently is:

abigail - forever street metal bitch. ridiculous retro japanese 'black thrash' with motorhead/venom/sodom influences proudly to the fore.

spear of longinus - black sun society box. australian 'nazi occult metal,' probably their best release and moving toward a heavier, seemingly more death metal inspired sound.

mutiilation - majestas leprosus. french black legions = virulent/crapulent darkthrone-descended ugliness.

tangorodrim - unholy and unlimited lp on southern lord. first thing on SL i've heard that's outside their usual 'genre' - this is more pure hellhammer/darkthrone-inspired stuff.

blood storm's "ancient wraith of ku" is pretty cool. main guy used to be in goreaphobia and toured as a member of absu.

The Mutilation disc is impossible to find. But if you have Soulseek and a halfway decent gentleman willing to share, you can get lucky.

-Alan

-looking forward to converge and dep. mastodon should rock.

-i've been digging the latest flying luttenbachers stuff which is very prog metalish... it's really blistering stuff.

-temporary residence put out this metal record by some teenagers called nightfist.... it's total 80s epic cheese with little acknowledgement of what everybody else is doing... somebody grew up in a trailer with nothing but Yes and Europe maybe. it's kinda refreshing cause i don't have any of my old metal like it. the midi piano is choice.

-probot has some good moments but you can tell the excitement of such a project overshadowed the song writing at times.

-circle takes the square... sort of grind meets emocore with weird quite parts... probably not metal, pear say. very good though. multi-vocals rule.

-heh...squarepusher has some near industrial metal like stuff on his new one... track i'm referring to specifically: "steinbolt"

-friends are pissing themselves over bathtub shitter but i'm not feeling it.
m.

The Mutilation disc is impossible to find.

www.theajnaoffensive.com has it - i just got my copy (+abigail +s.o.l.) from them. i think they're also doing US distro for drakkar these days.

By the way, "Rolling Metal" would be one kick-ass genre!

Here's my review of those precocious tykes:

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0351/eddy.php

The Lord of the Rings conquering the world was just the start. JUST YOU WAIT etc. Chuck remind me to send you some Raunchy Young Lepers songs one of these days.

msp if you dig "The Beautiful Sounds of Lickgoldensky" just wait 'til you hear their next stuff...holy God is it focused

Unpersons have a good 15-minute one-song album-as-CD-as single out now, too. (Of "dirgecore music," I bet somebody calls it.) It's a trend!! (I haven't heard the Meshuggah one yet, though.)

RIP, Satan's Penguins. Drink mead in the frosty halls of your fathers.

http://www.salmonhater.com/

...and Hatebeak, with a parrot for a lead singer:

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/06/29/free_mp3_of_parrotfr.html

http://www.systemcorrupt.com/rank/ranksinatra.html

I'll have a bloody mary thanks! P'taaeuugh! That's not real blood! Joke metal is the new black. Or rather, black metal is the new joke.

Witchcraft surpised me. It was on TMC so more stoner metal, guitars like oozing magma, right? Nope, a perfect imitation of the 69-72 sound of second & third tier hard rock, the kind of thing that would have been dismissed as trash in Rolling Stone. Absolutely authentic down to the still clinging to psychedelia singer. Now I don't have to dig up Demian anymore.

"Her Sisters They Were Weak" sounds like someone who has just seen Jethro Tull chart for the first time and wants a piece of the action.

This isn't a backhanded compliment but genuise praise. I am delighted someone would publish Witchcraft. For fans of Uriah Heep, first two UFO albums, you know who you are.

i.e format
artist - album title

there should be metal kraftwerk cover band called Witchkraftwerk

Between the Buried and Me seems to totally slay Mastodon -- except when exploring their Mountain Goats influence.

Mortiis had the side project Fata Morgana, which was essentially a Kraftwerk cover band.

I used to consider Harry Pussy in their raging prime to be American black metal, and they covered Showroom Dummies.

Okay then, here's one...I'm really enjoying the recent album Mob Wheel, by Shallow North Dakota. It's got kind of an Eyehategod/Outlaw Order/Melvins/Isis thing going on with this one. Great sludgy sound to it all. Last I heard, it was released only on double LP (I have a promo cd of it).

Also, I'm impressed with the new cd by Italian band The Secret, which has a similar Isis/Neurosis sound, but instead of sludge, it's got more of a crisp, prog (think Meshuggah) influence, with some surprising melodic bursts that appear from out of nowhere.

Has anyone else heard the new Mnemic album? I like it. In a real ballsy move, they cover Duran Duran's "Wild Boys", and they make it work.

Eesh. The guy who ISO 9000 codified the p-too punctuating noise done with the whammy bar, now injected into every pause or hole in metal riffage by the generics.

I'd pick two possibles, if pressed. "Living the Life I Wanna Live" from the "Rockstar" soundtrack, or the double live CD ... "Alcohol Fueled Brewtality" or something, because it's relentless noise.

Then you'll want to admire his signature metal overdrive footpedal, too. I think he's also in the business of peddling chain link guitar straps. Next, maybe bullseye painted Zakk Wylde free weights.

For pure nausea, however, nothing compares to the enormous pile of Eddie van Halen signature guitar junk.

Anyway:

B.C. Rich is honored to team up with Kerry King, guitarist for the legendary metal group, Slayer, to create an exciting new guitar. Based on Kerry King's handcrafted B.C. Rich V-shaped guitar, the new KKV Signature Special captures the essence of the expensive handmade instrument at a totally affordable price.

The new B.C Rich guitar features a black finish with tribal graphics, a maple neck with rosewood fingerboard and Widow® headstock, custom 12th fret KKV inlay, a one-piece adjustable bridge, and 2 B.C Rich Special Design humbucking pickups.

The Kerry King Signature Special package also includes a KKV gigbag, KKV guitar strap, a full-color poster of Kerry King, custom tribal headsweat, and signature guitar picks.

http://www.bcrich.com/images/guitars/sm_kkv_pk.jpg

Very true, Ian. Kramer, the house that EVH built and which went bankrupt upon trying to pick its final winner, Gorky Park, with an official "Gorky Park" balalaika-shaped axe.

No one ever really dies in the business, though. Kramer, I bet, has climbed out of disgrace by sweatshopping their manufacturing to Indonesia or someplace where a roll of nickels a year is a wage.

http://villagevoice.com/issues/0445/smith.php

Harry Pussy did "Showroom Dummies."

The heavy mucus coating in the colon thickens and becomes a host of putrefaction. The blood capillaries to the colon begin to pick up the toxins, poisons and noxious debris as it seeps through the bowel wall. All tissues and organs of the body are now taking on toxic substances. Here is the beginning of true autointoxication on a physiological level. This accumulation can have the consistency of truck tire rubber. It's that hard and black."

http://blessedherbs.com/?af=0006&sp=colon_cleansing_kit

The Relapse Records store also had BS.

"i find ... "Lifetime Shitlist" to be hilarious.

mosurock posted this on Nov 11th, 2004 at 10:44:49 am

As do I find ... "Control of Own Hole".

west nile posted this on Nov 11th, 2004 at 12:13:06 pm

I find this band to be brutal. I will get a bathtub shitter tattoo if someone else pays for it.

mike posted this on Nov 11th, 2004 at 01:05:56 pm

Man...I love that band...I need to get the CD.

I've got the lifetime shitlist 7", but I need the rest of the tracks.

I can now confirm I.C.E's "Apocalyptic End..." is also worth ear damage. It's no Bathtub Shitter but still has moments.
The blast beat tripe does not completely overcome the enjoyment of the ridiculous and the infrequent slab of radiating power riff. Art reminds me of my old Creepy and Eerie magazines. Now, when someone in this type of "act" figures out they can do Ambrose Bierce to the din rather than use their own lyrics...

=========

Then they will become my favorite band ever.

Mardo are i the same 70's hard rock thing, but more to the Kinks side than white-boy blooz.

You'd probably like "Bloodrock Live," too, Don. It pretty much collects their best material -- probably redone in the studio actually with a crowd track from some gig. It picks up some extra vim as compared to the studio recordings, which helps a lot on the material from "Bloodrock 3."

I definitely hear the influence on Styx, possibly early Kansas, too, although the latter also had to be copping from Uriah Heep's "Look at Yourself." ("Belexes," for example.)

Was watching an MTV2 special on Busted over the weekend. Apparently huge in England, they have come over here to conquer and appear to have already lost the fight. Lots of worried knitting of brows that Busted will be pitched as a boy band to eleven year old girls, something that got them success in Britain but which obscured their true nature, it is said, as a hard rock and pop band that "wrote their own songs."

Busted arrive in New York. Are taken to label edifice in Manhattan where they attend a 90 second meeting in which every department head informs them enthusiastically that they will be aggressively pitched to the teenage wet-your-pants girl demographic, getting to be on some Nickelodeon show where the focus is pouring icky syrups and candies on the heads of guests in front of screaming children. Ha-ha-ha-ha, the dismay on their faces caught by the camera was priceless. Best short comedy piece over the weekend.

I think all these bands would have done better had they cut the cheese and reliance on the say-so of Hollywood types and tried bribing people into letting them onto Outlaws and Skynyrd tours. Artful Dodger went that way and they wound up with a couple of good records and a reputation.

What's most entertaining is to see how American and mechanical the treatment of a band like Busted is. It's obvious the label employees believe in pop music, or hard rock, or whatever, as an equation to be solved simply by arranging the right inputs and outputs and balancing them.

It's nasty and a joy to watch other people come a cropper by it. The Busted guys can sit there and watch as their careers are taken in thirty seconds, analyzed according to theoretical demographic, and ground into packets of Lik-M-Aid. (Which, by the way, comes with the Mr. Wonka?! CD-Rs.) In their old age they will still be able to precisely map when they became fucked. Yep, it was when they said nothing as the chick at the big table scheduled 'em for that TV show where Cocoa Marsh is dumped on heads.

Well, things could be worse. You could always be in a Kiss, Judas Priest or Queen tribute band, which is what I learned from the absolutely awful documentary, "Tribute." Watching "Tribute" was right up there with going to the eye doctor to have a chelazion in your bottom eyelid cauterized. It was too much about sadism/masochism rationalized as a way to earn some money off rock and roll. You get to be Kiss without any of the benefits or, actually, Wicked Lester.
You get to put on faux Kiss duds (or faux Judas priest) and make-up
(how good it looks dependent on your limited budget,) play the Kiss songs you're sick of in small dives for really drunk men. If there are any women involved, it's only one or two with grey tattoos and all their teeth knocked out from years of amphetamines abuse. Finally, you "get lucky" in the sense that someone with a video camera puts you onscreen on cable, like that series about whores at some street corner in one of the outer boroughs of NYC.

Get slowly driven mad until you quit, have a nervous breakdown that results in a transformation into a religious zealot.

Precision Sound Releases "Demonic - Voices from Hell" Sample Collection

From the darkest areas of human vocal art comes a new 158-file, 24-bit Mono WAV format collection of "Growls", "Screams" and "Words". All WAV files has also been mapped for HALion & Kontakt for easy access if you working with these samplers.

Demonic - Voices from hell offers unprocessed performances from professional singers in the darker heavy metal genres. The collection contains staccato and long growls, hi and lo in different "tonal colors" and lengths, screams and demonic words.

For more information, visit their web site at

http://www.precisionsound.net