Rolling Metal Thread 2014

One of you should start a Babymetal thread as I'm sure it might appeal to non-metal thread reading ilxors.

the last track "Zero" on the most recent Melt-Banana album is a fantastic straight up pop song, very little extreme elements whatsoever

Babymetal is way too put together and calculated, which is a turn off for me. There is nothing organic about it. its a product, verses being art. Thats what bothers me about it.

― SeanWayne

Surely this isn't a post on ilx in 2014.

huh, that's funny, i'm listening to disfear, haven't in quite a while since i wasn't super into metal when it came out (live the storm, 2008), and now i find that it's got ballou sound™ (and an entombed guitarist!).

lol sputnik reviewz

The only complaint I have with this album is the drums. It sounds like he only plays slight variations on the same beat throughout the album. The beat does go well with all the songs and he can play it very fast and well but it gives the songs a repetitive feel that they avoid on all the other instruments.

Purchased today without irony in honor of Babymetal:

http://a1-images.myspacecdn.com/images04/1/13846627d14c4280b539ca9df2e062ee/full.jpg

We can all agree that chocolate rules, I hope... Save for the lactose intolerant among us, I guess.

Surely this isn't a post on ilx in 2014.

this is the metal thread, our aesthetics are still righteous here

this is the metal thread, our aesthetics are still righteous here

Change board description to this please.

some still follow the old ways

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/18962-thou-heathen/

this is v. sick

good dirty rhythm section

good dirty rhythm section

*ears perk up*

hey they beat the pfork 8.2 ceiling on metal, well done

burned out on thou a few years ago due to fatigue with their prolific release schedule. that and I also didn't find the idea of grunge covers too promising. but I think I'm ready for more again.

yeah same p much. they were one of v v few bands where I tried to buy everything (bands for which this takes some kind of effort I mean); really can't be bothered trying to do that anymore so kinda glad they eased off for a while. keen to hear this

you can hear a tiny bit of grunge (or grunge-era sludge) in their sound, i think, mainly in the willingness to get a smidge gnarly where a lot of doom is more refined. but i kind of think of it like, people who cared for those sounds and then saw what came of them and said, ~~never again~~, voila, 70-minute sub-100bpm album with anguished shrieking in place of singing, no chance of THAT soundtracking or being co-opted by anything

could probably stand a lesson or two from nate on caveman technique

i'm loving it though, more than anything else i've heard so far this year

has anyone heard the new nadja record? came out last month. really liking this one:

http://nadja.bandcamp.com/album/queller

their promo cycle uptake is terrible, i never hear about theirs ahead of time/on release

god and they had one last year too

I've recently tried to look for some metal albums on Spotify and it seems like there are very few on it.

Is there a particular reason for this? Is it because it doesn't suit the metal aesthetic?

Hey, new Xandria album in May. It sounds really good from the available snippet.

Not sure what albums you were looking for, but I've never had trouble finding metal albums on Spotify, especially more recent stuff.

i thought they were like chock full of swedish metal et al

I find plenty of metal on spotify, certain labels/artists are just black holes

also some, like profound lore, sometimes wait quite a while after the release date to make an album available on spotify for streaming

Thou's Heathen isn't on there. At least when I posted my previous comment it wasn't.

But that may be just to it being too new?

Thinking about it, maybe I'm just looking for albums that are too new or not on a big enough label, so never mind.

i think its release date is a week and a half from now

yeah thought I saw that somewhere is hosting an advance album stream next week

release date is 3/25, NPR will stream it a week before

http://www.gileadmedia.net/releasedirectory/relic48-thou-heathen-gatefold-cd/

Just wondering, how many people does Slayer normally pull? I just saw them booked in a 750 ppl sized venue here in June. Surely Slayer could easily sell out much bigger places?

I would have thought so

they play for a few thousand in Dallas.

they fluctuated here over the years between the barrowlands (1900 capacity) and the SECC (probably not the big hall but youre still talking 4 or 5 thousand in the smallest one I think) though they usually had biggish name supporting them that helped sell tix.

maybe theyre doing a smaller warm up show before festivals?

Yeah, Slayer is drawing a lot less these days. Got about a couple thousand here in November (Lamb of God drew nearly three times that a couple weeks later), and their Toronto show was moved from a hockey rink to a much cozier venue.

No wait, Slayer here was more like 1000. Shockingly small.

xpost

I love the new Nadja. First one I've heard by them in ages that holds up to their early stuff. Quite lovely.

If they're not able to make as much money as before then maybe Kerry and Tom will pull the plug on Slayer?

Or will touring in support of a new album help ticket sales?

saw them doing Reign in Blood a couple of years ago here in London, there must have been 5k people, but the bill did also have Sleep, Melvins, Wolves in the Throne Room, YOB etc. on it. That was a good gig!

hey they beat the pfork 8.2 ceiling on metal, well done

Still no 'Best New Music' tag, even thought plenty of 8.2 and 8.3 rated albums have been given that tag.

The rating for the Thou record is a bit high. It's an admirable album, especially the latter half, which is impressive, but the first half hour isn't anywhere near as extraordinary.

Deafheaven got BNM right? Look at the difference it made. It popped up on most "indie" kids year end lists last year nevermind magazine lists.

there's no rating cut off for BNM, it seems more they reserve it for albums they think have some extra crossover appeal for their non-metal audience: Deafheaven, Pallbearer, Isis, Sunn O))) all got it but a bunch of high rated metal doesn't: Converge, Agalloch, The Body

Actually Baroness is a good example, 8.4 and 8.5 for their first two albums, then Yellow and Green also gets an 8.5 and also BNM

dont see why converge or agalloch wouldnt crossover tbh

Yeah, I feel weird spending any time at all thinking about Pitchfork ratings. But otoh, I also like thinking about how metal gets attention from certain corners of the crit-sphere and the Pitchfork scores and BNM tags give you kind of a metric for comparison, as wrong-headed as it may be.

The BNM brand is significant. When Pallbearer got it two years ago the effect was immediate, it instantly became Profound Lore's biggest seller. Plus of course it puts the band on the radar of non-metal music critics looking for something "extreme", and you get folks like Greg Kot making foolish declarations like Deafheaven "is drawing a new map for heavy music."

so is Deafheaven becoming metal's version of Drake now? granted I get that they're not really 'metal' I s'pose but....

Don't know but can't wait until they host SNL.

^Only if the entire cast wears corpse paint for that episode.

Do Deafheaven actually wear corpse paint at any point? It seems like it'd be out of character with their whole presentation.

um...humour?