Your five favorite metal records of the moment

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.

Gore Mean Man's Dream still a sick record after all these years SL reish is amazing

totally, been listening to this loads after the 80s poll, also Band of Susans, Bitch Magnet (yeah I know, not metal).

Morbid Angel: Altars of Madness

Seconded Clark, great record. I would recommend Obituary's Slowly We Rot if you like early Morbid Angel.

Also:

Flower Travellin' Band - Satori
Tweak Bird - Undercover Crops
Harvey Milk - Life... The Best Game in Town

New Eagle Twin is p great as well, though I need to listen to it more.

Siegbran (or anyone else): is The Rack as good a place as any to start with Asphyx?

NM, you mentioned that one upthread; thanks! Will get.

don't know if i'm ever digging five at once but here are a few metal albums on my phone

ulver: bergtatt - don't have the time of day for straight up black metal lately but this has always been a favorite because 1) ulver is the best band 2) their particular idea of black metal, at least on this record, is more rolling & cinematic, less icy hypnosis
azarath: blasphemers' maledictions - still mad i didn't know about this record last year. astounding, exploratory death.
anata: the infernal depths of hatred - THIS FUCKING BAND Y'ALL. jazzy death metal that is kind of just on the edge of floating off into pestilence territory. tight, brutal, mind-turning
iron maiden: killers - yep

also i cannot get into this year's asphyx record. when it's death-y or crusty, it's great. when it's doomy it's boring

also definitely a member of the "from wisdom to hate kicks ass, don't sleep on it" crew

Seconded Clark, great record. I would recommend Obituary's Slowly We Rot if you like early Morbid Angel.

Also:

Flower Travellin' Band - Satori
Tweak Bird - Undercover Crops
Harvey Milk - Life... The Best Game in Town

― Neil S, Friday, November 9, 2012 11:44 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I do really like Slowly We Rot and Cause of Death by Obituary; I just don't looove them outright like I do Morbid Angel. And yeah, I just recently discovered Satori too--what a ride that is.

ulver: bergtatt - don't have the time of day for straight up black metal lately but this has always been a favorite because 1) ulver is the best band 2) their particular idea of black metal, at least on this record, is more rolling & cinematic, less icy hypnosis

That first song absolutely slays me. And the album art is amazingly gorgeous.

new Pig Destroyer, new Black Breath, all albums by Horseback (on a big kick right now), and now thanks to this thread Gorguts and Dissection.

anata: the infernal depths of hatred - THIS FUCKING BAND Y'ALL. jazzy death metal that is kind of just on the edge of floating off into pestilence territory. tight, brutal, mind-turning

otm. don't know why these guys don't get more shine

the effort, or non-effort as it were, to uglify (render primal) the melodies and general atmosphere on Nattens Madrigal is exactly what i love about it. it's like the music has found electrifying rapport with nature and has become more beautiful for it.

Saint Vitus - Lillie: F-65
Celeste - Misanthrope(s)
Candlemass - Nightfall
Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I
Nachtmystium - Silencing Machine

Loving the new Nachtmystium a lot. So far, more than any of their others

Listened to the latest Cannibal Corpse again this morning. They are on such a hot streak the last few years. Hooking up with Erik Rutan was one of the best ideas they ever had.

I def need to hear that

"I really need to hear Storm of the Light's Bane."

yeah you do. its even better. i just call it blackened death. or deathened black.

― scott seward, Thursday, November 8, 2012 8:13 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I just got this yesterday... Man, it's a beautiful record! His ability to write a stirring tremolo riff is uncanny. I need more records full of amazing tremolo riffs. (I mean, I guess that's a meat-and-potatoes part of black metal, right? I have this idea that In the Nightside Eclipse will scratch the same itch although I haven't had much luck getting into later Emperor.)

i reckon you will love 'in the mightside eclipse'

in terms of uncanny swedish amalgams of black/death, try grotesque's 'in the embrace of evil'; it's not beautiful in the way the dissection albums are, but the sheer ferocity of it is a thing of beauty.

('nightside', obv.)

Cool, thanks... I suppose I should finally listen to De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas soon too.

Today at work I was running some analysis code on gothic symphonic metal songs. Which lead me to:

- Regardless of Me: Pleasures and Fear
- One Without: Sweet Relief
- Sengir: Guilty Water
- Alight: Don't Fear the Revenge
- Amaranthe: Amaranthe (Special US Edition)

In The Nightside >>>>>>> later Emperor (although the next record is still pretty good.)

Definitely get Setherial "Nord" which is basically "In The Nightside Eclipse part 2".

Also, peak-era Marduk (Opus Nocturne/Heaven Shall Burn) were the kings of tremolo riffs.

gman mentioned Candlemass upthread... After being totally floored by Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, I got the next two records but I'm having tons of trouble getting into the vocalist for those, whereas the vocalist on that first record just clicked for me immediately. It's hard to say why; they're roughly equivalent in over-the-top-ness I suppose.

Oh, Siegbran, I forgot to mention a record I really enjoy on the tremolo-riff front: Nattestid Ser Porten Vid by Taake.

Yep Nattestid is a great record. Too bad about that grating, shitty digital brick wall-compressed guiter sound though.

Has anyone else noticed how good black metal tends to sound at really low volumes? I've found myself playing it very quietly from time to time so as not to bother my neighbors--and an album like Nattens Madrigal I find hard to play loudly simply because of how piercingly shrill it is (I'll get my dress and go home)--but it really works. I think "Jesu Dod" was the first time I really noticed this--all these little interlocking tendrils of tremolo riffage seemed to surface, whereas at louder volumes I noticed more the full-on rush and pummel of it.

peak-era Marduk

As far as I'm concerned, Marduk are pretty much peaking right now. Bringing in Mortuus was probably the smartest move they ever made. (Here's my review of Serpent Sermon

I just picked up In the Nightside Eclipse yesterday. Wow, this is great. I got my head around black metal by way of Darkthrone and Burzum (and to some extent Bathory), so it's actually been a little of a challenge getting used to the technical prowess of things in this vein. But this manages to be nimble and technical while still totally crushingly intense. The one-two punch of "Beyond the Great Vast Forest" and "Towards the Pantheon" is astonishing.

I always loved the lyrics to Nightside, those stream of consciousness ramblings by Mortiis were sadly missed on the later material, which is veers towards Manowar-in-corpsepaint.

I very much dislike those 2 cover songs that were tacked on the reissues, they're recorded by the later 'comeback' lineup with Alver/Charmand/Trym and don't fit the sound and feel of the album at all.

nightside set the bar so friggin' high. hard to reach those heights. or depths...or whatever. there's many who tried to prove that they're faster and they didn't last and they died as they tried.

Covers also add nothing to the originals either. Very bland.

Listening to Nightside right now. Amazing record.

Siegbran, I was marveling at the lyrics yesterday; I love them too. They read like black metal freestyle.

been addicted to this youtube channel lately. not all amazing stuff and a lot to wade through but i have fun wading. if you are a fan of fuzzy tapes its a winner:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Oiceoptoma/videos?view=0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnNfsuU7Ih0&feature=plcp

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)