Rolling Metal Thread 2014

witchrist sounds like a light summery wheat christ brewed according to german brewing purity laws so im just going to go ahead and believe that

lol, otm

Man, it looks like they actually have pretty restrictive policies around Nazi memorabilia: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/offensive.html

I mean, banning 1936 Olympic medals? You wouldn't have to be a Nazi fetishist to be interested in those, I don't think.

But I see some of this stuff is being sold, so maybe the policy just isn't enforced (until someone like Varg gets convicted of hate speech and they get nervous?)

His stuff isn't banned because of racism, it's banned because of his "history of violence." So the comparison isn't to Nazi memorabilia, it's to, say, someone trying to sell a John Wayne Gacy painting. They wouldn't let that go up, either. Which seems fair to me. The dude is, after all, a convicted murderer.

I guess the Burzum ban doesn't fall foul of any racist-related rules, but:
"Out of respect for the families and friends of victims, we don't allow listing items closely associated with notorious murderers within the past 100 years."

xpost :)

Oddly enough I see plenty of Max B records, and loads of Phil Spector-produced records.

But I guess Dissection records are the next to go.

as a rule I wouldn't be quick to rush to the side of eBay but the sheer volume of items the site processes means that they have no realistic chance of implementing their guidelines in a way they'd profess to

if you recall that long blog post from a dude who worked at Facebook about how they deal with offensive pages etc being flagged up, I guess it's on that kind of scale, or at least closer to that than, eg, someone moderating comments on a blog or w/e

GODFLESH ANNOUNCE DETAILS OF FIRST ALBUM IN 13 YEARS, SHARE NEW SONG "NEW DARK AGES"

A WORLD LIT ONLY BY FIRE SET FOR OCTOBER 7 RELEASE

HEAR ALBUM OPENER "NEW DARK AGES" HERE:
https://soundcloud.com/godflesh-2/new-dark-ages/

woah

really boring.

I like the new Godflesh song but Broadrick sounds a lot like Tom G. Warrior on it to me. Kept waiting for a big "UNGH!"

I totally love the Sabbath Assembly disc, especially "I, Satan," the only really metal song on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9iGhXJhI5g

Finally got the latest Dream Death album. So much better than I had any right to expect, really sounds like it could've been recorded a year or two after "Journey Into Mystery."

oh wow didn't know there was one! kick ass

The new Obituary album, Inked in Blood, comes out in October. It's really good. Totally organic-sounding, just dudes in a room cranking out old-school groovin' death metal, Donald Tardy in particular delivering an incredible performance. The guitar tones are so full and grimy, you can almost get an oily taste in your mouth while they're playing. It's so good it's making me want to go back and check out their previous post-Roadrunner albums, which I've never heard.

Kim Kelly, who most of you know of if not know personally (and who posts here on occasion) did an interview with Dragonforce for Vice that exposes members of the band for their past project Demoniac.

This group released three albums in the mid to late '90s and had some racist and homophobic lyrics and Kim wanted the band to explain it now.

It's an awkward interview with a band member who obviously wants to forget the silly past and talk about their new record, but I guess that's to be expected.

The comments below it are an explosion of hate against Kim, calling her out for hypocrisy for enjoying black metal bands with similar lyrics, and for being Anal Cunt's publicist. Amazingly the very first commenter is Phil "Landphil" Hall from Municipal Waste and Cannabis Corpse and it's a sarcastic jab directed at Kim.

I respect the hell out of Kim and she's a big girl who knows how to handle herself. But it's tough to defend taking a guy in Dragonforce to task for a band he was in two decades ago when she was doing PR work for Seth Putnam. Of course I am just as "guilty" as she is. I wrote about Anal Cunt and own several of their releases, but I abhor racism, sexism, violence against women, antisemitism, etcetera and would like to think I would call someone out on it when appropriate; does that make me a hypocrite?

It's cool that she had the guts to push on with what was a very confrontational and uncomfortable interview, and it's also cool that Sam Totman (the interview subject) didn't just hang up the phone on her when things got dicey.

It sounds like you guys are really excited about the future and you’ve got a lot of good stuff going on, now that you’ve grown up and aren’t singing terrible things anymore.

Ha!

You guys were talking about it when it came out in March but I just now got to c heck out Sargeist's latest "Feeding the Crawling Shadows." It's is a lot more raw and uncompromising than the last album "Let The Devil In," a throwback to the band's more primitive Bathory-ensconced early material. Which is fine with me.

jfc that interview with the singer w/the disma/incantation guy (linked from the chaos in teja article linked from the dragonforce one). super gross. somehow missed this one :-/

oof, one day I'll learn to proofread my own damn posts >_<

anyway, I don't really know how kim would respond to the AC stuff but I'm guessing it wouldn't be all "hey, we were just having a laugh!" like the dragonforce guy. p weak.

The second one kind of turned into NOFX crossed with black metal

maybe the most offensive thing in there

listening to the new Belphegor. digging but i always liked em to begin w/, death/black hybrid kind of my 'thing'

Listening to the new Nachtmystium and I'm wondering just how much the negative press for this album is the metal crit world circling the wagons to punish Blake for being an asshole. Cuz while it certainly isn't their best, it also doesn't scan like the complete failure and abomination that most reviews are making it out to be.

NB I'm not saying Blake doesn't deserve all the shit he's getting for the stunts he's pulled, but this feels to me like a case of people punishing this album for it. I just don't hear a terrible album. A minor disappointment, maybe, but not a failure.

The new Nachtmystium sounded good to me when I listened to it for the first time the other day. This is just the old "is it okay to listen to Burzum" conundrum all over again. It's weird how some critics still are unable to separate the personality from the actual music. If you're writing a think piece about how a person's beliefs filter into their music, then by all means talk about the person's beliefs. If your assignment is to review an album, though, just review the goddamn album and let the personality shit go. An artist doesn't have a moral obligation to be a good person or a role model. An artist is allowed to make mistakes just like the rest of us. It sucks that people got ripped off. I hope he finds some way to repay them. But that doesn't categorically mean his music is bad. Beethoven was supposedly an insufferable prick. Does that make his 9th any less glorious and moving? (not that I'm putting Blake Judd's musical talents on the same level as Beethoven's or anything)

Or it could be that some reviewers honestly think it isn't any good.

I don't think Nachtmystium were ever that good, so I don't mind giving it a pass for non-musical reasons. But don't assume just because he's a dick that critics can't separate that from the music.

Frontwoman Uta Plotkin to Leave Witch Mountain after Release of New Album, ‘Mobile of Angels’

You got a source for that quote? WTF, that would be disappointing.

Well, shit.

Revolver.

Nachtmystium was never good, but

An artist doesn't have a moral obligation to be a good person or a role model.

says who?

artists lol

WRT to the Dragonforce thing....I got on an argument with some random dude on EZ Snappin's facebook page and random dude turned out to be the singer of Primordial haha

EZ Snappin: I don't assume anything about critics. I go by the evidence of their words. And a certain percentage of them seem to struggle with the separation of church and state, so to speak. I'm definitely not talking about anyone on this forum, by the way. Y'all are consistently fuckin' awesome.

Aero: Says me. I wasn't claiming anyone else's opinions but my own. Do you have a point? (I'm playing devil's advocate here.) To me, an artist's obligation is to make art. I don't see an artist as having any more obligation to be a good person than anyone else on this planet. If a plumber is known to be a racist, I'm not going to hire that plumber. But I'm certainly not going to publicly claim that he's a terrible plumber.

I don't understand the inherent cognitive dissonance of wanting to say extremely offensive things to piss people off but not having to deal with the consequences that come with pissing people off

well, the first one involves getting something you want, and the second one involves avoiding something you don't want, if you can swing it it works out pretty sweet

jfc that interview with the singer w/the disma/incantation guy (linked from the chaos in teja article linked from the dragonforce one). super gross. somehow missed this one :-/

Yeah, that is disappointing. He's on some great albums. :(

Separating "church and state" is fine if that's how you view art. It's also okay to view art as the expression of an individual or individuals, and what is known about them is part of the context of the art. The wall between them is arbitrary; ignoring what you know in order to "address the art" is a game many critics - myself included - have no interest in playing.

In totally unrelated news ('cause I don't think any of the surviving members have ever said/written anything horrible, and by all accounts Mike Scaccia was just an incredibly nice dude), I am listening to the new/final Rigor Mortis album and it fucking rules.

I only met Mike once and he was a sweetheart. I'm really excited to hear it; Harden said he thinks it's the best record they ever made.

His playing on it is pretty incredible, and there's tons of layered guitars and stuff. The production is great, too, and the mix is really clear, not brick-walled at all. That was what disappointed me a few years ago when Hallows Eve did a reunion album; the songs were fine, but the mix was painful, digital clipping all over the place.

Earth are on their Euro tour right now, so I interviewed Dylan Carlson and Adrienne Davies before their Dublin gig next week.

Also, the new Earth album is great stuff; Mark Lanegan's voice is a perfect fit.

Oh shit really? I love Lanegan

Aero: Says me. I wasn't claiming anyone else's opinions but my own. Do you have a point? (I'm playing devil's advocate here.)

well, you made the claim with heavy truth-claim airs - "An artist doesn't have a moral obligation to be a good person" is a different statement from "I don't care what kind of person an artist is." Personally, I think everybody, artists included, have an obligation to at minimum not be pieces of shit. If an artist turns out to be a piece of shit, I find it really rewarding to say "I don't need your music in my life any more" - I have plenty of other good music, there's not really a shortage. For me, taking the art and the artist as a single package is more rewarding than imagining the art as some magic Athena that's not related to the forehead from which it sprung.

I guess I'll have to be more careful about throwing around "heavy truth-claim airs." Maybe Athena can help me figure out what that even means next time she visits. Could it be related to how "Nachtmystium was never good" is a different statement from "I've never really enjoyed Nachtmystium's music"? Or do our artists not have to live by their own rules when it comes to social media etiquette? That would be very convenient for said artists.

Anyway, can we all just agree that the announcement of a new Darkspace album on the near horizon is phenomenal news?

it's just kinda funny to me how much energy is expelled in metal circled defending the "right" of someone to say really shitty and horrible things rather than like i dunno, championing ppl who aren't

If an artist turns out to be a piece of shit, I find it really rewarding to say "I don't need your music in my life any more" - I have plenty of other good music, there's not really a shortage.

But just as Shakespeare's villains were never entirely evil, most people are not completely reprehensible and I (and I would submit you too) have a greater tolerance towards things when the art is really good.

We make excuses for the lesser evils in order to defend them and the placement of their art in our esteem and I don't think that there's anything wrong with that.