Your five favorite metal records of the moment

Re: Summoning, some more news on their website:

This month Protector will record the guitars for the new album while Silenius is working on the lyrical concept.
As soon as possible Napalm Records will put a one minute trailer to advertise the new CD on the their homepage, that hopefully will happen around december.

oh man! the music's written! I can't wait for that - there's really nobody like them, as far as I know.

summoning's 'stronghold' is one of my top five at the moment. the others being:

- hooded menace - 'effigies of evil'
- anathema - 'the silent enigma' (prompted to check it out by aero and siegbran's enthusiasm for it. love it. at the moment it's my favourite example of this kinda thing, just over katatonia's 'dance of december souls' and my dying bride's 'turn loose the swans'.)
- the chasm - 'procession to the infraworld'(these guys' amazing, flowing, psychedelic DM deserves more love, imo.)
- darkthrone - 'a blaze in the northern sky'

i need to get 'blizzard beasts' and 'diabolical fullmoon mysticism'.

darkthrone - 'a blaze in the northern sky'

This one is all-time

Blizzard Beasts is highly underrated.

I'll play it soon if I can stop listening to De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas for a second... Atilla Csihar's vocals are unreal! I love them. I wish more BM and DM vocalists stepped ouside the rigorous confines of their respective styles like he does here. And the music rocks WAY harder than I was expecting it to for some reason. The production is perfect.

Attila's pretty much amazing on everything he's on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW-8gp2qiZo

Yeah the production of De Mysteriis is excellent, for years every BM band went into the studio with that record under their arm - "like this please".

Atilla Csihar's vocals are unreal! I love them. I wish more BM and DM vocalists stepped ouside the rigorous confines of their respective styles like he does here.

YES. The weird almost throat-singing growls he does in Freezing Moon kill me.

First off, Suffocation are insanely good. I really liked that EP I bought, so I picked up Pierced From Within yesterday--totally floored. The singer has a pretty much perfect (for me) DM growl that stays just this side of over-the-top. The production feels a little more balanced than the other Scott Burns stuff I know, too. Which leads me to another question: you know how things like Transilvanian Hunger and De Mysteriis are held up as examples of perfectly produced BM? What are the DM equivalents with regard to production (if there are any)?

That Sunlight Studios (so Left Hand Path being the originator) sound is probably the closest DM equivalent.

this week :

cattle decapitation - monolith of inhumanity
pig destroyer - book burner
carcass - symphonies of sickness
incantation - onward to golgotha
suffocation - effigy of the forgotten

...been on a death metal tip lately

This week for me:

Incantation, Vanquish in Vengeance
Melvins, (A) Senile Animal
Fear Factory, Soul of a New Machine
Destruction, Spiritual Genocide
Sepultura, Chaos A.D.

Damn, it seems Far Away From the Sun by Sacramentum is painfully out of print... I really want that! Anyone read that book Swedish Death Metal by Daniel Eckeroth? It's on my Xmas wish list.

I also just discovered the metal reviews on anus.com... Wow, that's some intense writing. I enjoy the way he really tries to describe how the music works on a structural/musical level, and his depth of knowledge is impressive.

I did just pick up Battles in the North too after liking Blizzard Beasts pretty well, and I love it, "Cursed Realms of the Winterdemons" and "Blashyrkh" in particular. I probably need to check out Enslaved's early stuff next, right?

I have the Ekeroth book. It's terrific, and there's a 3CD compilation that (I think) Season of Mist put out that's pretty great, too. I reviewed it for AMG (and the review also appears on the Amazon product page):

"This compilation is a three-CD companion to an equally exhaustive book of the same name, and each in its own way is an authoritative and wholly enjoyable tour guide to a scene the reverberations of which have echoed throughout the entire metal world since the late 1980s. The Swedish death metal scene has given us some of the most melodic, fist-pumping, anthemic, and classic music to ever emerge under that subgenre's banner, from At the Gates and Arch Enemy to Entombed, Grave, Dismember, Unleashed, Therion...the list is seemingly endless. And yet, many of the bands featured here will be new to the average listener, because compiler Daniel Ekeroth is attempting to chart the earliest days of the scene and pay respect to bands that never broke out of their homeland (if, indeed, they were even renowned beyond their home towns). Consequently, the entire first disc is taken up by never-before officially released tracks from demo tapes, originally circulated by hand and by mail in the pre-Internet era. Bands like Grave, Therion, and Nihilist (who would become Entombed) are heard alongside more obscure peers like Carbonized, Afflicted Convulsion, and the aptly named Obscurity. The second and third discs offer songs by Marduk, Dissection, At the Gates, Unleashed, and many more, and again, acts known only to diehards like Toxaemia, Liers in Wait, Crypt of Kerberos, and Repugnant get their moment in the (midnight) sun. Virtually everything here boasts the thick, distorted guitar sound that was the trademark of the Swedish scene, though some bands display greater ambition than others, experimenting with keyboards, progressive song structures, and greater length (with the longest track here, Dissection's proto-black metal epic 'Black Horizons,' coming in at a patience-testing 8:10). There are some big names absent, whether it's because of licensing issues or Ekeroth's personal tastes, notably Amon Amarth and Opeth; in the latter case, it's easy to suspect aesthetic choice at work, since they were ignored in the book as well. Ekeroth's tastes clearly run to the primitive and the obscure; he's one of those "they were better before anybody knew who they were" guys, which is one of the things that makes this trip through the history of the Swedish metal underground a bounty of surprises, no matter how knowledgeable you may think you are. But even a total newcomer will find much to enjoy here."

Oh awesome, thank you! I just bought the last copy on Amazon (plus the last copy apparently of Stormcrowfleet by Skepticism--for the free shipping, of course). I didn't realize that comp existed and it'll be nice to have it as I read the book since I'm unfamiliar with almost all of the bands.

The book is an awesome read. The 3 CD set, however, is kind of exhausting frankly. I think I've listened to it once all the way through.

I plan to use it as a reference to get a little context for the bands I'm reading about... I have about as much of a chance as making it through a 3CD anything as I do reading the entire book in one sitting.

Apparently, the whole Far Away From The Sun album is on YouTube. Can't vouch for the sound quality tho.

I wish I could get over it, but I can be pretty anal about that. Especially if it's a record I'm really excited about, I just want my first experience of it to be as ideal as possible. I find it oddly fun to wait for the reward of my searching and patience too. </weirdo>

skepticism! you're in for a (slow and depressing) treat.

Delicious! Do you guys ever find yourself laughing when you're listening to really brutal DM? I'm walking around the city right now between visits for work with Suffocation in my headphones, and it's just so freaking BRUTAL and sick sounding that I'm finding myself cracking up with joy over it. It's fucking fun!

totally! the 'angry' part of the metal equation has been grossly overstated imo. I mean, I get why people not into it might think it comes off that way... and nu metal didn't really help things. but most of this stuff is all about big, fun riffs, crazy drums, headbanging, fist pumping, pulpy horror subjects, etc., etc. definitely joyous in its own way.

strangely, i think that i went from finding metal vocals (of various later styles) obtrusive irritants to 'part of the music' in two respects at the same time: being able to laugh at them and being able to take them seriously.

This Skepticism record... It feels kind of lame to say this, but I didn't really know music like this existed. Definitely unlike anything I've ever heard... But it's great!

They're a great band, also a rare example of how keyboards should be used in metal. May I recommend their Aes EP?

Also you might want to check out Thergothon.

Been meaning to... I stumbled upon an old list that Siegbran made of a bunch of great metal records; what a feast!

siegbran's great metal list

BTW, j., I like your comment about both laughing at extreme vocals and taking them seriously at the same time. Those vocalists seem to run the gamut, too, with regard to balancing those two things. Someone like David Vincent seems to not have a lick of "it's okay to laugh along with me" in his delivery, whereas someone like Lord Worm plunges so far into the realm of the inhuman/ridiculous that I can't see it not having an element of humor underpinning it.

Siegbran's fav Voivod album not in my top five Voivod albums.

immolation - 'majesty and decay'
convulse - 'world without god'
repugnant - 'epitome of darkness'
teitanblood - 'seven chalices'
voivod - 'dimension hatross'

A few recent acquisitions that have me jumping off the walls:

(1) Atheist: Piece of Time -- From what I've read of this band, I suppose I was expecting something a little more "jazz-lite" or somehow not powerful, but happily this is crushingly awesome. The band can turn on a dime, but it never feels too flashy in its technical prowess. The guy's voice is prett great, too.

(2) Unleashed: Where No Life Dwells -- This is just solid, satisfying, meat-and-potatoes death metal. I'm digging in to the Ekeroth book about Swedish death metal so I'm looking forward to discovering a bunch more bands.

(3) D.R.I.: Dealing With It -- I've always read about these guys as a big "crossover" band but somehow never checked them out until just now (I happily found this LP used). This sounds pretty much like straight old-school hardcore to me, but it is nonetheless an insanely addictive listen, just really spilling over with creativity and catchiness. It's hard to say what makes it special, but it really does rule.

(4) Immortal: Sons of Northern Darkness -- One great freaking riff after another. The last song blows me away.

(5) Gorguts: The Erosion of Sanity -- There's a little bass break in "Orphans of Sickness" that is one of my current favorite moments in any metal song.

I also think Mean Man's Dream is one of the most unintentionally hilarious album titles ever for some reason.

First off, Suffocation are insanely good. I really liked that EP I bought, so I picked up Pierced From Within yesterday--totally floored.

ok this is sweet

"orphans of sickness" is alltime

Are there any metal albums that sound significantly influenced by Miles Davis' "metal" stuff (Dark Magus/Agharta/Pangaea)? I think that could be my way in to metal.

FunkyTonk, that's a tough question... I don't know if there's all that much overlap there, to be honest. I'm not all that big on "gateways" in music, though. It's a nice theory, but I think the best way to appreciate a genre is just to jump right in. Forget about how it relates to what you already know and are comfortable with. Try to appreciate it for what it is. Relish the disorientation and lack of comprehension. My favorite, most cherished, "landmark" records have pretty much uniformly been "what the fuck is THIS?!" experiences on first listen.

Thanks. I've been at this for a while and gateways are what works for me.

Btw, I already like some metal (Gojira, Pelican, The Locust, High On Fire, some Gothenburg stuff), just not enough to, you know, ever want to actually LISTEN to it.

Different question though: could some one point me toward some modern instrumental metal that is technically/compositionally complex but that also puts a high premium on emotion/soulfulness?

I should have added rhythmically complex to the above.

I've been hearing great stuff about Gojira--definitely need to check them out. I've still never heard it, but Obscura by Gorguts is supposed to be pretty out-there and harmonically unhinged in a way that I can imagine someone into Miles's deeper, freer '70s stuff might be able to dig...

If you have a really, really loose definition of metal, Ice's first album Under the Skin kind of reminds me of Miles (when it doesn't sound like dubby Godflesh), but more On the Corner than the ones mentioned above.

new Fontanelle rec on Southern Lord is deep Miles tribute from Sunn/Jessamine/Earth/Iceburn dudes

Yeah, that Fontanelle record is fantastic. Not even remotely metal, but awesome.

'modern instrumental metal' - cmon, just get used to the vocals.

One the Kevin Martin/Justin Broadrick/Ice tip, be sure to check out God's "Possession", and the less jazzy "Anatomy of Addiction". I could swear both albums were on Spotify (U.S.) only a week or two ago, but I can't seem to find them anymore.

There are two other God albums - Loco (live) and Consumed - but they're super hard to find these days.

Ulcerate's Destroyers of All - technically, compositionally and rhythmically complex, as well as surprisingly soulful/emotional.

Not instrumental but yes, you should try to get used to the vocals. As with most extreme stuff their vocals are basically a percussive or textural instrument anyway.

I third the Fontanelle, coming more from the prog side, but certainly dips into the Miles fusion era. Diagonal's The Second Mechanism on Rise Above/Metal Blade also has some fusion, but definitely heavy on the prog.

Texas stoner metal band Wo Fat have a post-Bitches Brew element to some of their latest stuff, but even going back to their first album in 2006, they covered "Runnin' The Voodoo Down."

Chopping and blending Miles' voodoo brew even finer among other elements like space-rockin' Hawkind and Pink Floyd are Ufomammut. Their latest double is not to be missed.

Listening to Gojira on this goddamned day though. I picked a good week to get on anti-depressants.

has anyone already said, Scott Walker's 'Bish Bosch'? if not, that's the one for me.

curiously enough, 'Fontanelle' (which get a mention upthread) is a word found in one of the songs' lyrics. : )

candlemass!!!