Your five favorite metal records of the moment

none of which are essential? i dunno, essential for someone out there obviously. maybe the nasty savage is essential. i like it a bunch.

the leeway album is in no way essential.

Entombed - Wolverine Blues
Possessed - Seven Churches
Electric Wizard - Dopethrone
Carcass - Heartwork
Kreator - Extreme Aggression

^ my top five AT the moment, not OF the moment obv

oh but totally essential and stuff i've been playing would be posessed circa 1984-86. man, just the best. been playing a live tape of an 84 show a bunch.

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

Scott, I can't wait to watch those youtubes once I'm hooked up to my speakers. I'm already predisposed to like them from the graphics alone. Ah, Dopethrone! I like that one too, but I don't quite get the INTENSE reverence for it just yet I suppose.

Oh yeah, Possessed; they're on my short to-check-out list too.

TS: "Death Metal" by Possessed vs. "Black Metal" by Venom

vs. "Power Metal" by Pantera?

I've found my enthusiasm for Venom fading a little as I've been diving deeper into stuff that came later. I'm finding them harder to take seriously--which I think is probably part of the point (I know they weren't "really" Satanic), but I feel like their stuff lacks depth sometimes.

I got to do something awesome last night. It was snowing like a beast in NY, and I was on a bus on the way back from Pennsylvania riding through it in the dark and cold, watching it come down. And I listened to Transilvanian Hunger and it never sounded better to me than it did then.

Five things I'm loving:

Gore Mean Man's Dream still a sick record after all these years SL reish is amazing
Liturgy Aesthetica kinda ashamed that I've ended up liking this record so much, but I put it on in anticipation of the TJ 20th anniversary show and it's great hipster metal or no
Eagle Twin The Unkindness of Crows
Aluk Todolo Finsternis
Altar of Plagues White Tomb

that aluk todolo is so amazing. the new album is intense. man oh man love that stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow1g4xd7gTM

I haven't heard any recent Utech stuff but that label can basically do no wrong.

my favorite label. for like the last 3 years in a row.

new aluk is on ajna offensive.

What recent Utech stuff would you recommend?

definitely get the new Gog album. which is coming out soon. or pre-order it or whatever.

the sky burial album from last year is one of my favorite things ever. that album is a trip.

new aluk is on ajna offensive.
--scott seward

I have that but I prefer Finsternis.

I love the other Gog Utech record so I will have to look for that.

oh and the architeuthis rex album. urania. very very disorienting. if you always need to know where you are don't get that one. but if you don't mind being split from your body than definitely get it.

i'm a Gog super-fan. william fowler collins/gog collab album is well worth seeking out as well.

New VagusNerve in December as well!

don't listen to Scott re: High on Fire, they're amazing.

love this thread idea! I haven't been listening to metal so much the past month except for I went on a two-night binge of The Silent Enigma and I seldom let a few days pass without some Mercyful Fate. I am playing the Hooded Menace record a lot.

I haven't been listening to much metal at all either. 2012 just isn't the year for me. but there was a snow storm the other day and I had to walk over a bride, so clearly I had to play a darkspace album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXdCBAUW244

haha walk over a BRIDGE, I am not a monster that walks over brides

but check out that darkspace clip if you've never heard em. everyone should listen to darkspace.

actually, watch the cool space grafix on the first vid but listen to this one instead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rwt_UjLPrk

didn't realize the killer slo-mo slayer outro got the axe in the first vid

tonight just ain't my night

thoughts on deathhammer? can't decide if they are pretty righteous or kind of generic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzYMnGn5NSI

(5) Autopsy: Mental Funeral -- I LOVE this. I love when death metal gets slowed down and a little doomy but still maintains its death-ness

Wow, thanks Alan; that Darkspace is phenomenal on first listen. And thanks for the Asphyx recommendation, Siegbran. Anyone have an opinion on the best Gorguts record to start with?

Obscura, if you don't mind atonality and bizarre compositions and genius. The second one (Erosion of Sanity) if you're a little more into straight Death Metal.

don't sleep on from wisdom to hate either. dials the skronk down considerably from obscura but it's still top-notch and also has a much sludgier sound. you might dig that since the autopsy death/doom mix is really doing it for you.

glad you dug darkspace btw. they scratch an itch little else does for me, pretty special band.

I have to admit, I have innate misgivings about the *idea* of Obscura, given what I've read about its similarity to free jazz/skronk. I have lots of time for free jazz/skronk (though less than I used to, I think), but it's hard for me to imagine it not sounding a bit like a formal exercise. I'm alwas suspicious of those records, though, that allow people not very steeped in a genre to say, "now THIS, this is showing how [genre x] can stretch boundaries"... Whatever, I probably just need to listen to the damn thing!

yeah, just listen to it. it's incredibly and doesn't really sound like naked city or whatever. it's certainly a death metal record at the end of the day.

re: asphyx: the records from the reunited lineup are definitely solid but I have to say that the production on each was a turn-off for me. they definitely have that modern metal sound - no warmth or space in the mix, big slab of sound. guess I gotta listen to the old stuff already.

Production in metal is something I've been thinking about a lot. It seems like a hard genre (broadly speaking) to produce, and I remember reading something how only that one guy could really harness the sound of those first-wave Florida death metal bands, but lots of people hate his production. Then there's the stuff I gravitated to first like Priest and Sabbath and Maiden (early at least) which is definitely more "'70s hard rock" production (are there bands still recording metal in such a sort of drily documentarian way, or did that die off?). Then there's all the second-wave Norwegian BM stuff which is legendarily "poorly" recorded but part of the aesthetic--which I love for certain records but find for others that it feels forced and genuinely unpleasant to listen to (e.g. Nattens Madrigal by Ulver--I can understand not wanting super-clean production, but those melodies are so lovely and it feels like this very willful attempt to uglify them). I don't know that I've encountered much with that "modern metal sound" but it sounds like the loudness war is alive and well in the genre.

cosign on perennially underrated From Wisdom to Hate

Obscura's great but I don't like to admit it because it's one of those records that people who won't listen to straight-up beautiful death metal say is SO GREAT because it sounds at points more like stuff they already know

every gorguts album is well worth owning.

don't forget to listen to siegbran's other favorite band if you haven't already:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi2REgByOqs&feature=related

Obscura's great but I don't like to admit it because it's one of those records that people who won't listen to straight-up beautiful death metal say is SO GREAT because it sounds at points more like stuff they already know

― Inconceivable (to the entire world) (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, November 9, 2012 9:41 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Zackly how it's scanned to me in reading about it, but having you guys who listen to metal with metal ears recommend it means I will now check it out. I can't believe how many amazing records are still out there for me to discover. It's almost stressful.

Scott, I LOVE that record. I got it some months back and wore the hell out of it, so it's not in my "current top 5" or whatever, but it made an enormous impression on me. I'd never heard anything like it.

yeah I mean you can't hold that against it, it was a pretty fucking ballsy move at the time & it's still great

I have to admit that I'm guilty more than I should be of negative predisposition toward a record based on the surrounding discourse or how it's generally critically framed.

obscura is amazing. and quite the listening experience. i don't let its thurston moore status or whatever bother me. actually i have no idea if thurston is a fan. but you know what i mean.

Atriarch - Ritual of Passing
Neurosis - Honor Found in Decay
Aluk Todolo - Occult Rock
Old Man Gloom - NO
Pig Destroyer - Book Burner

i've never had a problem recommending "crazy" metal albums to people who don't listen to metal. or hip metal or whatever. i don't care what their motivations are. darkspace are a good example. would totally recommend them to people who just like heavy ambient music. they could appeal to lots of folks.

Obscura is only "hipster" death metal in retrospect anyway, right. It wasn't like it came out and was critically acclaimed by the Wire or whatever.

I heard about it from a certain Mountain Goats lead singer though haha.

hmm, maybe the Belketre. None of the others are as extreme as Darkspace, but Belketre is almost uncomfortably dark and lo-fi. Truly "black" metal. (just as good is their split with Vlad Tepes)

I'm enjoying all kinds of death metal lately. Carcass, Suffocation, Incantation, Cruciamentum. I couldn't stand any of this stuff six months ago. My ears must be changing shape.

Also Triptykon, Celtic Frost, Sodom, Exciter, Mercyful Fate.

ooh ty!

intro was truly beautiful. second song is like a BM take on The Fall :D

can see myself really getting on with this

holy shit this is magnificent

it hits the same wonky pleasure-spots that the most haggard, fucked-up Fall does, seriously. feels like a malignant, semi-lucid Other swaggering demonically to bathe me in wrongness

Gigan - Multi-Dimensional Fractal-Sorcery And Super Science
Mithras - Behind the Shadows Lie Madness
Aevangelist - Omen Ex Simulacra
Absu - Tara (as usual)
Megadeth - Rust in Peace (ditto)

Verhzleyavbtreleambreb is not only a fucking incredible song, but possibly the most unfuckwithable songtitle since 'Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos'

incantation - mortal throne of nazarene

I love that record. There's something deep and primeval about Incantation. Maybe because the vocalist sounds like Treebeard.

on a big metal kick.

morbus chron - sleepers in the rift
cosmic church - ylistis
moonblood - blut und krieg
darkthrone - panzerfaust
teitanblood - death

autopsy -'tourniquets, hacksaws and graves'
morbus chron - 'sweven'
annihilator - 'alice in hell'
mayhem - 'deathcrush'
behemoth - 'the satanist'

also,
necrovation - s/t
slaughter - 'strappado'
the obsessed - s/t
paysage d'hiver - 'einsamkeit'
pestilence - 'consuming impulse'

rigor mortis!!!

Teitanblood - Death
Thorns - s/t
Harvest Gulgaltha - Necrosophic
Rotting Christ - Thy Mighty Contract
Dream Death - Somnium Excessum

Brutality - Screams of Anguish

xp I feel like I should note that this is the first Rotting Christ album I've ever owned, having taken some weird disliking to their music back in the day that I'm over. Great stuff!

http://lastrit.es/reviews/7257/spectral-lore-iii

still feeling this so much this year

https://jackholesrealm.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/c0021227-solar-system-and-nicolaus-copernicus-spl.jpg

If I had wishes, I would shout to you and scream
But now I realize, you're like young dying streams
I'm in the real world, with people, crises and scars
Copernicus, I don't care about your stars

Vorum - Poisoned Void/Undergang (new one with Danish title)
Dark Descent death metal. Undergang takes me back to first hearing demos by Entombed, Grave, Funebre, etc, real gutteral grave gnarl. Vorum is just vicious old school death.

Inquisition - Obscure Verses for the Multiverse
A couple of songs on this approach Bolzer's "Entranced by the Wolfshook" for weird melodic ideas that sound new to metal. Also greatly appreciate the weird, warping riffs generally.

Stargazer - A Merging to the Boundless
These guys are so great. I feel like this walks back what I didn't like about "A Work of Great Ages," a more defined production highlighting the contrast between the fluid, proggy bass guitar and mildly discordant, off-kilter riffs.

Root - Hell Symphony
Finally got a copy of this. Czech old school black metal, featuring the weird barks of Jiri "Big Boss" Valter, founder (and no longer member) of the Czech branch of the Church of Satan. I was listening to Triptykon recently and realized some of the bits with clean vocals actually reminded me of later Root.

Necrophobic - Nocturnal Silence
File under bands I somehow never heard until recently. Great black death stuff, first time I listened to it in the car I wound up driving around for ten minutes so I wouldn't have to stop it before the album ended.

Okay I used the word "weird" like fifty times, sorry.

wait so you liked the one before 'work of great ages' better?

Nah, I should've separated that. I didn't like Work of Great Ages as much, kind loses the band in that murky production. New one's great, though.

kind of loses, that is. It's like 85 degrees and 99% humidity here, I think my brain's melting.

At the moment i'm listening to:

Tribulation - Children Of The Night
Taiga - Gaia (over-the-top Siberian depressive black metal)
Obsequiae - Area Of Vernal Tombs
Vile Creature - A Steady Descent Into The Soil
Below The Sun - Envoy (really beautiful cosmic doom, again from Siberia)

*Aria*

I love this Vorum track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaOECtl6Q4A

^^^^ awesome. They've really got a knack for making their stuff sound vicious.

Tribulation - Children Of The Night

I really like this record but it doesn't really stick with me; not necessarily a bad thing if you can kind of rediscover an album repeatedly.

Going to have to check out Below the Sun and Taiga later.

I quite liked last years "Ashen Light" by Taiga so good to see they have a follow-up so quickly.

i don't have five right now but i genuinely can't stop listening to coroner's mental vortex and razor's shotgun justice

Those are great albums, man, easily worth 250% of many other metal albums.

I got the Violent Restitution reissue recently and it's awesome but I keep going back to Malicious Intent too. It's less polished and straight-up thrashy but still vicious.

Well I've been hooked on Razor's Evil Invaders lately, our Canadian thrash stars are not aligning! Metal record I constantly find myself coming back to is Vhol's debut. Happy to hear a new one is coming out this year.

blut aus nord: 777 cosmosophy
morbus chron: sweven
motley crüe: too fast for love
paradise lost: medusa
gorement: the ending quest

I think Cosmosophy is my favorite of the 777 series.

morbus chron: sweven

yeeeeeah

I listen to too much metal but here's five I keep coming back to recently:

Skepticism - Stormcrowfleet
Thergothon - Stream from the Heavens
Agalloch - Ashes Against the Grain
Falls of Rauros - Vigilance Perennial
Adramelech - Psychostasia (has a weird style of riffing similar to Nespithe but more listener-friendly)

I'm pretty certain that one day Blut aus Nord will click with me but I find them pretty hard going tbh

I actually had that reaction to BAN for many years - thought it was interesting but it didn't really grab me. The 777 series and Deus Salutis Meae finally did it.

Love that Adramelech album!

I've never understood why Indian aren't huge - because of their un-searchable name?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB9ElBNon-E

SubRosa - More Constant Than the Gods
Slayer - Decade of Aggression
Ashbringer - Yügen
Sárr - Avitun
Sepultura - Arise

xp tbh I never checked out Indian because the (not great) name led me to think they were on some generic stoner business... that's why more ripping than I was expecting.

Anyway this week:

Uncle Acid - Wasteland
Mortuous - Through Wilderness
High On Fire - Electric Messiah (& a lot of Blessed Black Wings too)
Voivod - The Wake
Dog Soldier - Barking of the Dogs of War (strong 80s UK metal punk vibes)

*way not why

Recently started going through my 2018 'to listen' list. So far:

Kroda - Selbstwelt
Dautha - Brethren of the Black Soil
Hamferð - Támsins likam
Argonavis - Passing Through the Igneous Maw
Arkona - Khram

Panopticon - The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness
Portal - ION
YOB - Our Raw Heart
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer.
Thou - Magus

Would love to mention Deafheaven and The Armed but a bit too false for this

Gorguts - Colored Sands
KEN Mode - Loved
Helms Alee - Sleepwalking Sailors
Cult of Luna - Mariner
Immolation - Atonement

Ghost- Opus Eponymous (still my favorite of theirs)
Peste Noire - Ballade Cuntre li Anemi Francor (recent discovery)
Tribulation- Down Below (their streak continues)
Khanus- Flammarion (very promising debut)
King Heavy- s/t (haven’t been able to get into the new one but this is still a classic)