Rolling Metal Thread 2014

who the fuck contacted/greenlit Tenacious D for the Dio tribute & one of his best jams too

fuck that shit

and there you go. when i read the tracklist i rmde at that one, but it made sense.

the fucking Obliteration disc is awesome as hell.

Um... Wendy Dio.

lol well all right but of all the people to get "the last in line." really certain it'll be "hilarious" and "rocking" to hear them emphasize the i in "line" to really draw out the hilarity of metal!! gah.

a month late but

2013: THE YEAR IN BALLOU

in rough order of enjoyment I got out of em, below are the records I could determine that Kurt Ballou either mixed or produced or engineered, basically twiddled some knobs on. I gather he gets stick for sometimes propagating his signature sound a bit too much, arguably at the possible expense of the individuality of the bands he records but he still puts out more than a few badass sounding albums every year; this year's Nails in particular, absolutely smothering, and can't really imagine someone else doing as good a job. And anyway in the below you'll actually find a decent amount of diversity, it's not all strictly on the sludge/crust/hardcore "balloucore" axis; beastmilk, skeletonwitch, immortal bird, ramming speed, toxic holocaust, and my dark horse favorite, the heavy post punk of swedish youngsters stiu nu stiu

Baptists - Bushcraft
Phantom Glue - A War of Light Cones
Nails - Abandon All Life
All Pigs Must Die - Nothing Violates this Nature
Beastmilk - Climax
Meek is Murder - Everything is Awesome, Nothing Matters
Kvelertak - Meir
Nice Hooves - S/T
Stiu Nu Stiu - Ultra Silvam (12")
Immortal Bird - Akrasia EP
Skeletonwitch - Serpents Unleashed
Elizabeth - Insomnia (7")
Ramming Speed - Doomed to Destroy, Destined to Die
Doomriders - Grand Blood
Toxic Holocaust - Chemistry of Consciousness
Modern Life is War - Fever Hunting
Oathbreaker - Eros|Anteros
Castles - Fiction or Truth?
This Routine is Hell - Howl
Sleeping in Gesthemane - When the Landscape is Quiet Again
Generation of Vipers - Howl and Filth

That's a great set of records, right there.

Jesus Christ that is a hardcore studio tan that guy's getting. I only heard a couple of those records but I really dug the Toxic Holocaust one

the Ramming Speed record is really fun.

Meanwhile, for fans of Balloucore, new Trap Them soon. Yessss!

that actually brings up a question i had for you guys:

interested in metal records that don't sound like shit! like well recorded records...do they exist? (anything w/trigger drums automatically DQ)

is this ballou guy good? (though "signature sound" makes me nervous)

Last year's Gris album stood out to me as extremely well recorded.

Krallice is probably one of the best-recorded metal bands, Colin Marston is a great engineer/producer. Crystal-clear without being too polished, sort of like... ambient aggression or something (I have no idea about recording techniques/terms etc, obviously)

the last Kowloon Walled City was really well recorded, kind of tense, spacious sounding sludge metal verging on post hardcore

i heard… 5?… of those ballou-produced albums last year

ums, i think he's got a good sound. lots of presence for the bass, loud and realistic drums, separable parts (which i would guess is a challenge in the thrashiest hardcoreiest bits of some of this stuff).

i haven't really noticed any terrible production lately, it just generally seems fine to me, not super noteworthy.

omg i wish my order from Aquarius wasn't still sitting in limbo, i want to hear that Beastmilk!

I have also heard 5 of those (Nails, All Pigs Must Die, Beastmilk, Kvelertak, Skeletonwitch). Didn't realize the Beastmilk and Skeletonwitch were his work, so I guess his style isn't as overpowering to the bands as some might assume.

Nice Hooves - S/T

this record rules btw

nice hooves:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU4_p0KHpWs

That band name makes me think of a New Yorker cartoon in which deer construction workers are cat-calling does that walk by the job site.

ballou's style is very present--everything is pretty cranked but also well-defined. works well for the uptempo bands he tends to record.

the krallice records sound great. i thought the inter arma record had some really interesting production that suited it well. i do think the production can make or break records in metal more so than in other genres.

9. “Holy Diver” – Killswitch Engage

noooooooooooooooooo

they disrespect Dio, and more importantly they disrespect the results of the all-time metal trax poll

the last Kowloon Walled City was really well recorded, kind of tense, spacious sounding sludge metal verging on post hardcore

― a chance to cross is a chance to score (anonanon), Friday, February 7, 2014 3:18 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they record their own stuff in a member's basement iirc? there are def bigger fans of this band then me, overall, but yeah they do have a good sound

i think they went to a real studio for the most recent one

ums - Ballou is Converge's guitarist, he started off producing their records (edit - actually even before that looks like produced among others Until Your Heart Stops which makes a lot of sense) and went on to produce a ton of records, especially for bands that followed in their metallic-hardcore-but-don't-call-it-metalcore wake, bestowing on them a bit of Converge's trademark sound and only deepening their influence.

I mean just look at this list, which is still far from comprehensive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Ballou#Production_and_recording_discography

I'd describe his production sound, as really vivid, intense, kind of... front-loaded? agree with cad, it's very present, it's like the band is playing 2 inches from your face, but with surprising clarity

The last Kowloon is gorgeous. Their singer/rhythm guitarist just built his own studio: http://antisleep.com/

hah look at the second post there, quite the convergence

hey! I totally missed that.

I'm not a huge fan of Ballou as a producer, he's pretty effective in what he does (ie, metalcore) but that brickwalled to the extreme, overcompressed sound is pretty tiring. He's the new Ross Robinson, in that respect.

I don't like everything Ballou's recorded, and figuratively he's a bit like Steve Albini in that I imagine bands would gravitate to him to get a particular sound. But look back on the varied stuff he's done, even more than a decade ago: Until Your Heart Stops still sounds amazing, and different from Suicide Note, different again from the Jan Michael Vincent Car Crash. It's not all Converge-core.

and on the same tip, I would not have guessed he produced the Beastmilk record.

(I can't front on Ross Robinson, didn't he produce Burn, Piano Island, Burn?)

was gonna say, I'd be willing to bet he is somewhat keen for more non-metal bands to come knocking, much like Albini circa 1993 probably hankered for more recording jobs for bands who didn't sound like idk Tar or someone

(I can't front on Ross Robinson, didn't he produce Burn, Piano Island, Burn?)

also relationship of command, the first time i heard a record mastered so brutally i thought it was breaking my stereo. think there's a bit more nuance in ballou's stuff but yeah they're pretty brickwalled

Ballou is the first guy who's managed to really capture Skeletonwitch on record, so respect for that.

Yeah, the Skeletonwitch album is easily the best sounding record they have ever made.
They also have one of his disciples doing the sound for them on the road.
Even though they were third on the Amon Amarth / Enslaved bill, the live sound was the best I ever heard from them.
And I have seen this band literally dozens of times (they came up in Ohio when I was there - I sold their self-released CDs in my record store for them).
The bass really could be heard, giving even older material a groove, a new dimension I was unaccustomed to hearing.

I just recorded with Scott from Kowloon.. dude knows what he's doing. the new Hellbeard is sounding really good..

(I can't front on Ross Robinson, didn't he produce Burn, Piano Island, Burn?)

Really badly. It's the worst sounding Blood Brothers album, compressed to shit and so exhausting to listen to. Granted I haven't heard the reissue on Epitaph, which might be remastered?

really loving the use of horns on this Behemoth album. also Nergals vocals are some of the best he's ever delivered.

Horns? I just lost any interest in checking out that record.. lol

That's funny, seeing that there are horns on it just made me want to check it out.

sean is not a horny dude

i listened to that record in the background but reasonably closely and "horns" did not really come up prominently in my mind, so i think you can probably still check it out.

It's not like it's ska metal, dude. The horns sound seriously evil.

The Skatanist?

Celtic Frost used horns, so horns are metal. Especially French horns.

yeah, they're flourishes, it's not like they're recording Extreme singles....

well I figured they were not doing bad ass Earth, Wind and Fire horn lines..

And I was more than half kidding

man this Obliteration album isn't innovative or anything but it's one of the most aggressive 80s-esque sounding death metal albums I've heard in a minute.

I would really like to hear/start a doom metal band with a lineup like Roy Wood's Wizzard - double drummers, cello and baritone saxophones. Mmm. Yeah. Metal needs more horns.

Or maybe have Borbetomagus play with Lugubrum. Anyway I gotta check out that Obliteration album.