Rolling Metal 2017

Thanks for your contribution to the thread.

My impression is that the Bolzer guy has a facile view about the swastika. That rates pretty low on the Nazi scale. It doesn't mean he shouldn't be criticized, but it's not enough to cross the threshold where I'd avoid listening to them on principle.

well now that that's settled, let us proceed further into the review of minutes from the last Council meeting

well now that that's settled, let us proceed further into the review of minutes from the last Council meeting

Fair enough! BIG|BRAVE count as metal, right? Their new one is excellent.

Trap Them are breaking up (final shows in November). I saw them live once about seven years ago and enjoyed it, but they were the kind of band that should have been together for maybe five years, and put out no more than three albums. (Converge is this kind of band too - whoops!) I have at least three Trap Them albums on my hard drive and don't think I've made it through a single one of them more than twice.

I liked Crown Feral a lot

The one and a half time I listened to it

Managed to see them once and they were tremendous.

I loved Great Falls too, a really apparently short-lived and wilfully obscure band featuring their singer.

Ambient metal devotees, Azonic (Blind Idiot God guitarist Andy Hawkins's solo project) is putting out its second full-length at the end of October. The first one, Halo, came out in 1994. It's an amazing record, hard to even describe - here's the first track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhV9n-52k7I

The new one isn't totally solo; Tim Wyskida (formerly of Khanate, currently in Blind Idiot God) is also on it, playing timpani, concert bass drum, and gong.

Oranssi Pazuzu taking flak on their Facebook page for bowing out of a Berlin festival they'd been scheduled to play, due to the Israeli embassy co-sponsoring travel expenses for another act.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/Oranssi-pazuzu-58437793552/posts/?ref=page_internal

Decapitated kicked ass 2nite i m drunk

We do not want to endorse any state, governance or agenda; open or hidden.

Hmm. So does that extend to refusing any state arts funding, even indirect, such as playing in subsidised venues? Seems difficult if not impossible in Europe.

BDS is a perfectly valid strategy, and Radiohead rightly look a lot of flak for their own opposite stance (in defending a gig in Tel Aviv), but this smacks of... a facile understanding of the situation, at best.

This Maim record from a month or two ago is delicious riffy OSDM. Great instrumental track, too.

so when you decide to get a tattoo "reclaiming" the swastika and you happen to be a musician in a genre that has had a notorious Nazi problem, both with the musicians and the fans, you can't really get upset that you're "misunderstood"

this smacks of... a facile understanding of the situation, at best.

And this is why they are metal musicians and not rocket surgeons.

So Antisect have a new album coming out. The first song I've heard from it doesn't sound anything like Antisect, really, more groove-oriented doom. Kind of a bummer.

tbf there was a lot of grief over Antisect's reformation with a few members leaving acrimoniously so afaik it's only 1 original member now or something.

Ah okay. They're one of those bands that made an album that's so strong I dunno why they need to continue anyway.

There's two new tracks by Wolves in the Throne Room up on Spotify. Black and beautiful imo.

I'm waiting for the whole thing to come out but I'm ecouraged by the good response to the new songs so far. There's so much "atmospheric" black metal out there these days of middling quality so I hope these guys come up with the goods.

The new Nervecell (floor-punching thrash/death metal from the UAE) is good. Unsurprising, but solid. It's their first album in six years.

Reverorum ib Malacht
Ter Agios Numini
(The Ajna Offensive)
Release Date: 8/18/2017

http://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81axlty-P2L._SY355_.jpg

http://open.spotify.com/album/79tFlu1bgF1hNQq6Gfd1tC

Duo from Sweden got static when they converted to Roman Catholicism a few years back, but this album is a total mindfuck of horror sound effects and ambient percussion; four dismal hymns subliminal atmospherics created by haunting strings and synths and bizarre, cryptic vocal samples. It's dense and loopy and undeniably foreboding and I have trouble believing the church of Rome would understand. Not even sure that I do, for that matter. But it's intriguing and disconcerting in a Goblin/Pinkish Black if they were Black Metal kind of way.

Wanted to like that
Did not

new Chasm samples hello hooray

https://luxinframundisproductions.bandcamp.com/album/a-conscious-creation-from-the-isolated-domain-sampler

Darkspace still exists, apparently: they're playing at the Dutch Deathfest next year (with loads of other bands obv) - http://www.deathfests.com/event/ndf-2018

This Pyrrhon album is a motherfucker

and they sample Tom Lehrer

is it 'we will all go together when we go' by any chance

heh nah just spoken word, the "life is like a sewer" quote

holy shit @ the Tilburg Deathfests lineup

This Pyrrhon album is a motherfucker

and they sample Tom Lehrer

― Wichita prepares for totality (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ)

Cool! Man, that music would be overwhelming live.

OK Pyrrhon's been bumped up to the top of my shopping list. In other "difficult" metal news, the new Ehnahre album is extremely fucking good.

can somebody in the know give me the gist of the Matt Harvey op-ed for Decibel magazine regarding NSBM, cos my anger level is too high to wade through it

can somebody in the know give me the gist of the Matt Harvey op-ed for Decibel magazine regarding NSBM, cos my anger level is too high to wade through it

Some weak sauce along the lines of 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it'.

Yeah. Also I think my eyes slid off of some "let's have a conversation" style shit? Dunno.

My late night coffee is kicking in so let me rep this in this thread, too, even though it is guilty of being a few years old - Stilla's "Ensamhetens Andar"

http://stillaswe.bandcamp.com/album/ensamhetens-andar

Black metal with some Virus/Voivod weirdo elements and some keys. Not super vicious and thrashy, which is just fine with me.

Basically Harvey says Nazis are bad and no one should buy their shitty albums, but distributors should feel free to choose for themselves whether to make a few bucks off the suckers who do want that shit in their houses. He does a better job of considering counterarguments like "easy for you to say, white boy" than an empty-headed fuckhole like Neill Jameson might, but trips over his dick by calling metal "apolitical" when what he really means is that metal is a political free-fire zone. It's better than I expected it to be, but still pointless.

Has Jameson stood up for NSBM bands? Hadn't seen that.

That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that Jameson is an idiot and a bad writer who caricatures counterarguments in a buffoonish and unfunny manner, and Harvey doesn't do that - he grants them the weight they deserve and even says "you could say x...and you'd be right."

Ah okay, sorry I misunderstood.

didn't decibel publish an opinion peace by some buffoon complaining about "social justice warriors" a few years ago (as the gamergate wars raged)?

christ piece*

didn't decibel publish an opinion peace by some buffoon complaining about "social justice warriors" a few years ago (as the gamergate wars raged)?

That would be Jameson.

this is why when I make friends w/ metalheads I like basically put them through an interview process.

let's just all agree that Craig Pillard deserves to have his stomach turned into a punching bag and move on I guess

Master of Puppets to become a gigantic box set November 10.

No disc of isolated Cliff bass tracks, not interested

I'm probably a sucker for wanting to hear those riff tapes, but I do.

I'd love to hear those, too, actually!

Like me as a teenager learning to play guitar and recording myself playing those riffs poorly would love to hear proper Jaymz chopping it up.

Huh. New album.

http://peaceville.com/bands/fleurety

didn't decibel publish an opinion peace by some buffoon complaining about "social justice warriors" a few years ago (as the gamergate wars raged)? ― adam

The one you're referring, I think, was by one Professor *shrug* Jeffrey S Podoshen which asked Does the Underground Metal Scene REALLY Have a Social Justice Warrior Problem? and answered in the affirmative in such tone-deaf ways that he got push-back even from the likes of Metal Injection and Metal Sucks.

On a personal note, author Laina Dawes and myself (among others) were discussing exactly how lame his thesis in a Facebook group devoted to Metal in Academia. As a member I had the authority and went and added him to the group, thinking a robust discussion would come around. Instead he started saying that the antisemitism that he allegedly deals with is just as pervasive as the death threats that inundate Amalie Bruun (Myrkur) whenever she has a new release available. When this was met by push-back, especially from Dawes who, as a black female metalhead of some renown can herself lay claim to "my dad can beat up your dad" stories about what it's like being a minority in metal, he proceeded to evidently leave the group and put Dawes, myself and likely others on ignore.

This was a while ago and I didn't think much of it. I only thought of it at all when in a thread on Decibel editor Albert Mudrian's Facebook page context clues showed me that the Professor was getting into it with Albert and others. I casually mentioned that the exchange I only saw half of showed me that he blocked me, which was fine and his right, but it apparently got back to him because he sent me a Facebook message which I was unable to respond to (because he had me blocked; he likely unblocked me long enough to send it and then ensure I would be unable to respond).

"Hi Brian. The reason I choose not to have a dialogue with you is because I don't like your comments. Belittling anti-Semitism is not ok with me. Now you can belittle anti-Semitism all you want, as is your right, but I don't need to read your comments in my newsfeed or an social media. Simple as that."

I posted this on my friends-only Facebook page so it would get back to him (since other things got back to him) that sending me a one-way message was cowardly and that, hey, guess what, my mom was Jewish and I was raised culturally Jewish in a New York kind of way, though not religiously. Frankly his accusations of Dawes and myself as being antisemitic made me think that the supposed abuse he gets as a Jew in metal is vastly overstated because neither of us said anything antisemitic unless saying that he didn't get it as bad as some other groups as he claimed was somehow antisemitic in and of itself.

It's a private group FB page but I can't even copy and paste the exchange to let people judge for themselves since (I am pretty sure) he deleted the exchanges (they are certainly deleted).

He got a lot of justified criticism, for that column as well as for the clumsy way he tried to run a panel on inclusivity in metal with a panel entirely made up of white and white-passing males (a panel I was at, which thanks to the uproar was fleshed out with actual diversity) and he cuts off those who would dare have a different perspective yet still send them snarky one-way messages. He's an ass.

He also penned One Of The Worst Takes Ever Written About Online Gambling, which frankly affects me a lot more because my actual job is working for a New Jersey online casino and his misinformed opinions presented authoritatively in a well-known outlet could influence opinion of the populace and legislators negatively which would directly and negatively impact my ability to keep my job/grow a career in the field because expansion to Pennsylvania may be crucial for the company I work for. I would be happy to debate him on that one but the website I linked to does a good enough job and I would hate for him to think my disagreement is because he's Jewish.

For the record I like Neill Jameson quite a bit and think he's a genuine, flawed but still evolving human being who has helped create music that I enjoy. It's not my place to defend him otherwise; he is easy enough to find and he does not shy away from answering questions (though I am sure he doesn't waste his time with everyone who attempts to correspond) so feel free to take things up with him.