METAL for ART-metallers

as for agalloch...can't stand the vocals. that's the problem with most metal bands with non-shrieking/growling vocals, they're just awful. ved buens ende i like, despite the vocals.

I feel sort of silly for being part of this thread, as I realized that I'm not quite sure always what people mean when they're talking about art rock etc.
For me Morbid Angel's "Blessed are the sick" is much more artistic than say something like Converge or Boris (though I love both of those bands)

As for the "does REAL metal hold secrets of time signatures & psychedelic mentalisms?" question of the initial post.. Undoubtedly, though mainly the former... Psychedelia often strikes me as the opposite of what most metal bands want to do. Though bands like Esoteric certainly have delved into that direction.
I still say someone should send a bunch of Gong, Amon Düül II etc to Gorguts!
Come to think of it, to go back to Morbid Angel, I often find a lot of Trey's solosections to delve into psychedelia in a way. That guy is plain weird.

how about we send them a muffin basket with some CDR copies of "yeti," "you," "tago mago," maybe the silberbart album. see what happens.

Don't like Ved Buens Ende, but definitely check out Fleurety - just as weird, but more developed and more interesting.

I love Isis, Orthrelm, and have even warmed up to the new Locust CD (though I don't think that's metal in any sense, but I love the keyboards).

Also, for non-metal noise-guitar kicks, check out the last CD by Raoul Bjorkenheim's Scorch Trio (can't remember title; it may not even have one).

Enslaved's new Below the Lights CD is total art rock black metal, complete with flutes. Really excellent cut-up of high-speed rage, pompous ghostly folk, and prog breakdowns.

Solefald are a pretty great Jethro Tull-influenced post-black metal band.

Secret Chiefs 3 are barely metal, but Zappa-possessed ex-Mr. Bungle guys (not the annoying ones) pulling a virtuoso art-rock take on the fake mysticism of old Murat temple "oriental" bands.

Yeah, Tarantula Hawk are like a slacker Magma, and their latest is good.

As for Khanate, the members' splinter groups like SUNN are more experimental, but more about drones than ROCK.

Ulver's gone all the way from black metal to bad techno to blipcore, complete with a Fennesz remix on the new one.

Pan-thy-monium are heavily psychedelicized metal from Sweden in the mid-1990s, sort of like Acid Mother Temple landing atop Entombed.

Burzum's Filosofem could be compared to Mark Rothko, so I guess that's art metal.

The last Mayhem studio album, Grand Declaration of War, was arty in a bad but not worthless Flock of Seagulls kind of way.

Arcturus were the first metal band to use amen breaks.

Do the No-Neck Blues Band count? Their founding drummer was in the Texas metalcore (80s metalcore) band Angkor Wat.

And everybody's favorite Chris Burdon-inspired performance metal act AC has reunited, to the delight of reconstructive surgeons everywhere.

I thought Mayhem's last album sounded like Laibach.

actually, hasn't one of Bolt Thrower just put out a very arty jazz metal album??

Heresy! HERESY!!!

Sigh!!!

Heresy! HERESY!!!

I take that back, I take it back! Or at least they're a less reliable beast in the golden Earache stable of Morbid Angel, Carcass, Napalm Death, Godflesh, Cathedral... And by now haven't they fought one crusade too many?

If every band named in this topic [plus the Thrones; Necrophagist; Absu; the original version of Kataklysm; even the reformed Celtic Frost] could gather for a 3-day festival in Iceland some year soon, I'd start building my ice bridge from New York now. Need somebody with a Segway to tow me part of the way on my runt bike. Party!

Oh absolutely, they've basically become the Motörhead of Death Metal: an instantly recognizable, perfected and insanely catchy formula band with a live show resembling a twenty ton steamroller. But because their charisma, you forgive them for releasing the same collection of ten identical songs every two years.

But Bolt Thrower is a bit of an odd choice for putting down - if you would name and shame also-ran DM bands, why not point out the obvious ones: Benediction, Brutality, Monstrosity & all the NYDM 'groove' DM bands (or alternatively, basically every early 90s band on Nuclear Blast). The success of those bands basically bled DM completely dry.

Mayhem is apparently recording a new album at the moment. I'm REALLY looking forward to that one, as Grand Declaration Of War had a very interesting core concept but was a letdown because of quite superficial flaws (some dodgy/amateurish experimentation). After three years, it's still surprisingly good once you look behind that. They just need a critical editor and Hellhammer & His Merry Men could well come up with something truly spectacular again.

Mayhem is apparently recording a new album at the moment. I'm REALLY looking forward to that one, as Grand Declaration Of War had a very interesting core concept but was a letdown because of quite superficial flaws (some dodgy/amateurish experimentation). After three years, it's still surprisingly good once you look behind that. They just need a critical editor and Hellhammer & His Merry Men could well come up with something truly spectacular again.

I really like the Mezzerschmitt EP, which is Mayhem minus Maniac plus a guy from Red Harvest, where they nail down a lot of the flighty concepts from Grand Declaration. (and sing in german, but offer one of those "we're not political" disclaimers on the back cover to thwart NSBM accusations.)

Also, the Swiss band Meridian do a wholly derivative but class job of basing their sound on the precepts of Grand Declaration. Fine and ingenious Swiss craftsmanship. I think they won their contract with Season of Mist via some sort of heavy metal Eurovision contest, but don't know much else about them.

I wanna give some love in the art-metal catagory to Today is the Day, mostly for their first two Amphetamine Reptile albums, which hold up really well as some sort of apex of the super ugly noise rock style made hideously misshapen and complex and scary. As for their Relapse work, I'm down with In the Eyes of God as slightly less with Temple of the Morning Star.

On that note, I also adore Mastodon, a band built on an old TITD rhythm section. Debut EP pretty good, debut LP fucking excellent.

As for Discordance Axis, I cannot wait to hear Jon Chang and Dave Witte's new band War Chalking. Anyone heard 'em?

Mostly these days I'm enjoying super-old-school style death metal, consciously retro bands like Sinister and Arch Enemy (great female vocals on both), Bloodbath, Grave, even total cheeseball acts like Destruction and Hypocrisy. That's why I liked Immortal's last record so much...it was totally retro. Black metal mixed with death metal guitar breaks.

Is it me, or is Cult of Luna strictly for people who think Neurosis take too long between records?

Best live band I saw in the last 12 months? Amon Amarth. And they're coming back around.

really not keen on it
must 've posted this in my sleep years ago.

that double bass drums thing. that's kind of like a baby's rattle, isn't it?

erm...
necrophagist.
they're fun !
benighted leams.
necrofrost.
necronomitron.
velvet cacoon.
i dunno it's all panto to me
i am now listening to aavikko in preference over music of such monolithic gravitas >ahem< and so should you.

Anyone heard this?

btw that Schammasch album I managed to get Mark S intrigued enough to listen to it a few months ago and he seemed to like some of it. So I really really recommend giving it a shot. It might be a bit over-ambitious but I find it quite rewarding to listen to.

It does help of course to listen to the album in 3 different sittings.
I have the triple lp so have a break inbetween each side so it feels more like listening to 3 different albums (which tbh it is)

https://schammasch.bandcamp.com/album/the-maldoror-chants-hermaphrodite

"Swiftly following their Triangle triple album, Schammasch return with the first of a number of releases exploring the 19th century poetic novel, Les Chants de Maldoror by Comte de Lautréamont. Centred around a protagonist who opposes God and renounces morality’s conventions, this long-prose poem certainly lends itself thematically to an ambitious metal act"

It has a bit of an industrial feel to it. Its short (32 mins) but very good.

black metal jazz! https://whiteward.bandcamp.com/album/futility-report

can we make this a rolling thread from 2020 onwards

with a more palatable title

rolling metal can be wall to wall genre exercises and brutal death and 'this could have come out in 1982!' and we can all be happy

Sure, why not? Although now you're tempting me to start a rolling thread per metal subgenre, that I may forever be exempt from -core-related hype.

<snooty voice>genre exercises</snooty voice>

you're probably underestimating how snooty I felt as I typed that

I've begun to think of the metal I like as soundscape metal. That thing where I mostly love how I get images in my mind of winds and demons and fjords. Lots and lots of beautiful icy fjords. My faves this year has been stuff like Inter Arma, Abyssal and Pissgrave.

ok plan abandoned

i saw my friend's little brother's band the other night -- Apprentice Destroyer -- kinda kraut-y. Nice kids!

Apprentice Destroyer

Awwww.

here's a nice article about them:
https://cvltnation.com/erase-your-mind-apprentice-destroyer-permanent-climbing-monolith-exclusive-full-album-premiere/

So I've just discovered Murmuüre :D

they probably didn't need FOUR guitarists to pull this sound off but it rules anyway!

Murmuüre were amazing. I have their CDr but missed out on the vinyl issue when it came out a few years later as it sold out instantly and has been selling on eBay/Discogs for silly money ever since

Even the CD is £85 on here https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/2500715?ev=rb

Not sure if they are arty enough for this thread, but the new White Ward is awesome lounge-jazz black metal. Also, if you want more cool arty metallic stuff their recommendations at the end of this interview are all very cool: https://kvlt.pl/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Interview_with_WHITE_WARD_wwwKVLTpl.pdf

Shit, the last post before the revive was a plug for... White Ward. Now I feel dumb.

Don't sleep on those recommendations though: Genghis Tron, Cult Leader, Valborg, Hybrid... so much goodness.