Rolling Metal Thread 2010

I love how the song really kicks in to photos of them running on a beach

Ha, someone at MSN Music must have linked my blog post on the Soundgarden reunion to the main page, because folks were just lining up to call me a dick: Check it out. I love the Internet.

Listening to the new Through The Eyes Of The Dead right now and just not hearing anything new. Borrowed riffs, standard-issue attitude, the same ol' typewriter drums...how is anyone supposed to be excited about this album, this band, this genre? Even when I try to take the standard metal-fan approach of appreciating tiny incremental change within an overall landscape of structural sameness, there's just nothing here for me to grab onto and say, "Okay, this is Through The Eyes Of The Dead's unique little patch of ground that enables me to tell them apart from their peers and appreciate their contribution to the metal gestalt in 2010."

dear phil, im sorry that you couldnt write about a stupid band, like your fav one, Airsupply, or something along that line.

ya burnt

I love this Shining album. I mean, it automatically sounds slightly dated because of the industrial element to it but man alive, it's so exciting.

And the reissue of the three Summer Sessions albums by Causa Sui. Danes in flares on acid.

hey, i finally got around to falling in love with the Avenger album, Feast of Anger, Joy of Despair which J0hn liveblogged on the 2009 thread. Thanks for another great recommendation, dude.

It took a few listens for this album to really sink in, but now that it has, I can't seem to listen to anything else. The first song is flat out amazing - I almost wish it would go on for another minute or two at the end instead of fading out so quickly. it struck me on the train this morning that you could actually dance to a lot of the songs on this album - I don't mean manic mosh pit stuff, but like some kind of actual dance, maybe around a big fire or something. The drummer is great, I will never get sick of slow tempo double-kick style playing, and the kettle drum things, though overbearing at times, really add a lot of atmosphere and uniqueness to their sound. I love the way the vocals sound: blackened with a touch of reverb and delay on them. and then the rhythm guitar playing - maybe I'm high but some of the chord progressions almost remind me of stuff George Lynch might come up with if he were in a black/death band. J0hn is way better at explaining the appeal of this than I am, so if you missed his posts on this, click my link to his post. Did anyone else ever get around to listening to this? I haven't checked the best of 2009 threads, but this should definitely be on there.

oh yeah, I meant to check out that avenger album but promptly forgot!

xpost - Air Supply's best songs are way better than the best Soundgarden tunes.

Listening to the new Through The Eyes Of The Dead right now and just not hearing anything new. Borrowed riffs, standard-issue attitude, the same ol' typewriter drums...how is anyone supposed to be excited about this album, this band, this genre? Even when I try to take the standard metal-fan approach of appreciating tiny incremental change within an overall landscape of structural sameness, there's just nothing here for me to grab onto and say, "Okay, this is Through The Eyes Of The Dead's unique little patch of ground that enables me to tell them apart from their peers and appreciate their contribution to the metal gestalt in 2010."

well, half the time I'm with you on this kinda thought, and the other half I'm like: is it really your position that the point of metal is Make It New a la the Imagists or whoever? like, I dig Coffins. Coffins are breaking exactly zero new ground. But that's cool, because the ground they're working is awesome.

I love Coffins too. But even when they're doing their most old-school-Swedish grinding, I can tell them apart from, say, Grave. Same way I can tell Grave from Unleashed from Entombed even though they're all working off the same template - they do little things that reflect the desire to be recognized as individual creative spirits. But TTEOTD don't do that. They are totally indistinguishable from, say, Whitechapel or Suicide Silence.

I think a lot of it has to do with modern studio techniques, honestly - with digital recording and drum triggers and such it's possible to walk in and tell the producer/engineer "make me sound like Band X" and if you punch in the right codes, you can sound exactly like Band X. When you're working with live instruments in a room and recording to tape with air between you and the microphones, there are too many variables for ultra-precise cloning to take place.

xpost: glad you dig coffins, j0hn. got the impression you weren't much of a fan from some old posts. the other side of blasphemy is such a hugely satisfying listen every time I throw it on.

and yeah, digital recording/drum triggers/etc. - that stuff is easily one of my least favorite things about modern metal. nothing against these techniques per se and I honestly don't know a hell of a lot about it all... but the antiseptic drum sounds, bass mixed down so low that you wonder why they even bothered someone in (tbh this really isn't anything new and is maybe my least favorite thing about metal now that I think about it), coupled with some dude yelling at you for an hour just makes this stuff exhausting to listen to. and not in a br00tal way, either. it's just so tedious.

oh man I am sorry to have given that impression. they kind of slay. I mean, it's fun to point out that they're not reinventing the wheel, but I'll take their brand of derivative over any dozen bedroom black-metallers.

yeah <3 coffins.

and on modern production: meshuggah are one of my favorite bands and you could throw a lot of those same complaints at them too. so, this is something I'm willing to tolerate if I like the material. but it makes the generic bands sound so, so generic. and how awesome would it be if meshuggah put out an album that sounded like mental funeral? man, it would be totally awesome! (but they never will, of course.)

holy shit this avenger album! love when they morph into moonsorrow on the second track.

opening riff on the album is killer. that one-two, strumming up, strumming down one note thing (while one guitar keeps strumming the same note the whole time if I'm hearing this right) is something I'm a sucker for.

love the acoustic build to the riff that kicks off the (awesome) penultimate track.

good news..

New Rosetta record, "A Determinism of Morality", goes to mastering next Monday
http://twitter.com/rosettaband/status/7413450005

Totally agree with Phil on Through the Eyes of the Dead. I've listened to their last one and the new one, and they are about as middle-of-the-road as you get. Competent, thoroughly uninteresting. You don't have to be original to be enjoyable (I really liked the Mr. death record from last year), but mediocrity is mediocrity no matter how you slice it.

Cobalt on Fox News:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jzrTKbEhDE

he's like boyd rice 2.0. a younger more deadly boyd. all that stuff about lions and the overman and excess. and the olde-tyme neo-folk album cover.

just hope he doesn't go on a shooting spree...

Is that a picture of Hemingway on the cover?

oh, probably! i never even noticed.

I always assumed it was, given the inside artwork.

Yes, that's Hemingway in his Red Cross Ambulance Corps uniform.

lol someone needs to make an animated gif of those anchors listening to that Cobalt clip.

Great stuff...they actually did a nice job with the interview.

I interviewed Erik Wunder while McSorley was on a tour of duty in Baghdad and he was rolling stupid fruity swag drunk is what he was.

He was amazing. I only had to do a 500 word piece but I had to interview him for ages because he'd just want to talk about other stuff. I'd ask him about blacked metal and he'd say 'Hey man, do you like 'Empires and Dance' by Simple Minds? I love that record.' Then I'd ask him about war metal and he'd start telling me about how he'd just seen a guy drive a car into the front of his house trying not to hit a fox in the road. And when I asked him what being in Cobalt was about he said: 'Being in Cobalt is about being the kind of man who stays up all night drinking gin, reading Hemmingway, smoking cigarettes and writing stuff on typewriters.' Then he started having an argument with someone about a cigarette lighter and then made me stay on the phone and talk to him about Killing Joke for an hour while he got even more blasted.

What a guy.

Ah, so "cobalt" refers to gun bluing. I don't think shooting spree is as big a danger as suicide pact after erectile dysfunction diagnosis. Death before dishonor, Levitra.

Jeff, I finally got around to hearing the Mnemic album, and you're right, this is so much better than that atrocious last album. This one seems to be more on par with The Audio Injected Soul, which I really dug in 04.

And the new Dillinger is good. My initial reaction was, 'not as great as the last three albums,' but every DEP record needs time to settle in.

Holy fucking shit folks, this new High On Fire album is their masterpiece (Blessed Black Wings comes in a close second). Absolutely crushing and epic (most songs run 6-8 minutes). Plus it sounds incredible; I'm willing to call Greg Fidelman the best producer in metal right now.

I was like really excited before, now I'm practically frothing at the mouth to hear it!

Anxious for the new Dillinger as well.

Holy fucking shit folks, this new High On Fire album is their masterpiece (Blessed Black Wings comes in a close second)

is there somebody I can write to to get it? I am in a big High on Fire kick right now

Publicist is Carl Schultz at Action PR - carl at action dash pr dot com.

YES! Can't wait to hear this! Should be getting this in a day or two.

Yeah, it's early in the year but the HoF is AOTY caliber, without a doubt. Better than the new Dillinger. Less prog & acoustic touches, and a lot more gigantic riffs.

Fewer prog and acoustic touches...forgive my murdering the Queen's English.

Oh, you Canadians do love your queen.

Generally DEP are more up my alley than HoF, but I'm stoked at the prospect of both. Then again I thought Ire Works was DEP's best record yet but Communion was a step below Wings.

pretty much nothing is better than blessed black wings imo

^^^true statement. tho you guys are getting me excited because i sincerely want this to be better than communion

I thought Ire Works was DEP's best record yet but Communion was a step below Wings.

Totally agree with both halves of this statement.

I still think Art of Self Defense is their best but I'm more than willing to give the new one consideration after Carl sends it to me. Thanks for the tip Phil! :)

I just think there's no such thing as a bad HoF album. But yeah, the new one does make Communion sound a little inferior.

accidents very much in character, starring Weedeater

http://qcjeph.livejournal.com/112588.html

Parts of this list irritate, but High On Fire is the really hot girl you have sex with occasionally if you're both single and it's always rad and there's never any drama

Dude seems to have forgotten to do an analogy for the Momus one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A43JOxLa5MM

i was hoping someone would post that. rooster rules, better than 90% of willowtip vocalists.

double disc by some black metal band called Helrunar

Haven't heard their new one (iirc their label only deals in digital promos now, fuck that), but I wrote this a few years ago about an earlier album by them and one by their labelmates Noekk, both of which I still pull out and play, three years later -- still like the Prophecy-label Nucleus Torn album from that year, too:

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/03/excellent-boring-metal-from-germany.html

Otherwise, people will perhaps be shocked to learn that I actually agree with lots of the people on this thread! Or at least people who say the Cauldron album is their favorite metal album from this year. In fact, as I already mentioned on Past Expiry Hard Rock, it's one of my favorite albums from this year, period, and one of the catchiest metal albums I've heard in years. Also been liking the Holy Grail and Christian Mistress albums from 2010 (hey, I'm slow, sue me), though the latter with reservations; wish it was less thinly and fuzzily produced, so I could hear the singing and songs more. But I do detect real potential in that band.

Thought the new albums by Burzum, Crowbar, and Stryper (all of which I reviewed for Rhapsody) were bearable; will never play them again, though.

And finally, here's something halfway amusing I wrote a couple weeks ago on all-covers albums by metal bands. (Garage Days and the Def Leppard one from a couple years back aren't available on Rhapsody, so those got left out; I'm sure I left out other obvious ones too, but this was still fun to do):

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2011/02/metal.html

I'm slow, sue me

So slow that I probably just posted, for maybe the very first time, on last year's thread! (Didn't notice 'til now, oh well.)

lol