Rolling Metal 2017

I'm already struggling to keep up with my exploration of older, canonical material so I've barely heard anything from this year. Yet I'm curious to hear your thoughts on sites like Angry Metal Guy or Metal Injection. What are their biases? Are they at all 'trustworthy'?

Subjective questions bound to elicit subjective answers, to be sure…

Despite some slightly annoying quirks, I've found some great, great albums through AMG that I would not have otherwise, and I'm constantly impressed by just how many reviews they crank out.

Speaking of which, I'm not normally a power metal guy but man are Galneryus a blast.

I don't get much in the way of recommendations from AMG, but I find all but one of their reviewers bar one quite entertaining so I read it fairly often. They're quite harsh scorers, when in doubt they round down; what I *do* find annoying is their obsession about production/mixing, they often have valid criticisms but anything remotely raw or sub-professional gets shat on.

yeah that's my primary beef, perfectly fine-sounding albums get docked for having a DR5 or whatever.

I like AMG but tbh I rarely discover albums through reviews these days, I'm more prone to following links to premieres or tooling around the Bandcamp pages of labels and bands I like.

Listening to Dodsengel - Interequinox. Pretty good, slightly weird black metal that sounds like they probably slip some creeping death rock influences in. Vocals are nuts.

Okay as it goes on it just gets weirder and weirder. There's a song that sounds like Garden of Worm (Finnish doom band, not the KC song) with meandering slide guitar and female vocals.

I've been revisiting The Crown on Spotify. Man, some of those albums really fucking rip.

I liked the one that had "13" in the title (forget its name).

Been listening to Mirror Reaper by Bell Witch this morning, which is a single track, 83-minutes long.
I just checked on my player figuring I must be almost all the way through... I'm only 28 minutes in!
So apparently funeral doom has the ability to warp time.

I'm intrigued enough by the 2 free sampler tracks from this album that I think I'll take the plunge and buy it:

https://invictusproductions666.bandcamp.com/album/nordkarpatenland

New Godflesh song is good, if unsurprising (reminds me of their Pure/Selfless-era work):

https://godflesh1.bandcamp.com/track/post-self-single

There's also a new Attila song. If you're down with the Devil, say hell yeah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVC7f59ibI8

fp

I've been revisiting The Crown on Spotify. Man, some of those albums really fucking rip.

Hell is Here and Deathrace King are my go-to albums for Swedish velocity (well, Defleshed too). "Rebel Angel" is so obnoxious with the repetitive lyrics but it has one of the greatest riff sequences ever.

I've been on a bit of a late 90s/early 00s kick lately (meaning the last 17 years) and those first two post Crown of Thorns discs are so perfectly of their time.

I've been revisiting The Crown on Spotify. Man, some of those albums really fucking rip.

Hell is Here and Deathrace King are my go-to albums for Swedish velocity (well, Defleshed too). "Rebel Angel" is so obnoxious with the repetitive lyrics but it has one of the greatest riff sequences ever.

I've been on a bit of a late 90s/early 00s kick lately (meaning the last 17 years) and those first two post Crown of Thorns discs are so perfectly of their time.

Amenra's release show in AB Brussels, yesterday, is on youtube and it's... VERY intense (they already had their singer suspended on hooks in his arms live on stage during the last track of their 23.10 live DVD (also on youtube) but this was WAY more visible and in your face, with weights hanging on hooks that were put in his front and back in full view) - I'm not really sure I need to see that to believe the music is intense/cathartic :-/

Five Finger Death Punch have a best-of coming out in December with two new songs. The first of those, "Trouble," is pretty bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buDl_QY640k

what next, I ask, what next #gutter

I don't/can't keep up with much new metal but christ the new Bell Witch is magnificent.

This a fun Halloween release. Some of the spoken word parts remind me of The Residents!

https://acid-witch-detroit.bandcamp.com/album/evil-sound-screamers

the new Lustre album is out (this is somehow classified as metal)
https://lustre.bandcamp.com/

I don't even... what is that? It's like Vangelis-gaze.

it's "atmospheric black metal/ambient" :

https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Lustre/3540266973

(I like all his stuff a lot, but I'm perplexed by the label)

this is where he started out, I guess the label stuck and the guitar/screams just went away over the years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9GvebVOP4k

Lustre is great!

If you like diseased doomy death, Serpentrance

http://bloodharvestrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-besieged-sanctum

Chepang - vicious Nepalese grindcore with two drummers and two vocalists, one guitarist. I'm pretty picky about grind these days but this one singed my ear hair.

http://nervealtar.bandcamp.com/album/dadhelo

Aussie blackened hardcore with lots of diverse textural ("gaze"-y I guess) things happening, some "Nothingface" style weird melodic ideas, noisy one second and beautiful the next.

http://slowlybuildingweapons.bandcamp.com/album/sunbirds-2

Cavalera Conspiracy are doing their part to maintain 2017's status as The Year Old Metal Dudes Kicked Everybody Else's Ass. The new album (out 11/17) crushes - and does so in a totally different way from their last album. Max still has the fire.

I'm on a big Fuck the Facts kick right now. Great band, hope they do more stuff soon.

new Thantifaxath EP 11/24
https://www.discogs.com/Thantifaxath-Void-Masquerading-As-Matter/release/11112614

yesss

yesss

last track is apparently a piece for choir!

relistening to 'self devouring womb'. jesus christ this is going to be metal aoty isn't it

We doing a poll this year?

I'd get in on it

co-workers just hipped me eo Eefiomorfia's "Mortal Lacuna" – 21-min track of nearly-actionable DSO worship wich I kinda lukewarmly RIYL that sorta thing*
*loses points with me by not breaking up into tracks, which seems a bit of an arbitrary decision here

https://play.google.com/music/listen#/album/Bhcnz6v64tmnnffiqu3gyblvjia/Eeviomorfia/Mortal+Lacuna

flamenco death metal: https://impureza.bandcamp.com/

into it

I'm late to this but the Yellow Eyes album is sick

We doing a poll this year?

― The Fortnightly Intruder (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ),

I don't know. It gets harder each year to get posters from this thread to vote.

:C

If I hold it after Xmas people complain they're already burnt out on making their lists so don't do it.
If I hold it before Xmas they still don't.

haha

there's a chance the new Cleric will be out soon so let's just hold our horses for now

If I run it, I think we will do it in January. we dont need to do it before the big poll.

Anyone else have any feelings on the new Ayat disc Carry On, Carrio (Moribund)? It comes out on 11/24 but I am sure others here have the digital promo if I got it.

I think it's really unique in a modern black metal band incorporates Motorhead not unlike Impaled Nazarene but with an Into The Pandemonium avant garde feeling. That experimentalism doesn't often calm the unrelenting wall of hate. However their on-again, off-again anti-Islam shtick (based on their Bandcamp page for the new release which unambiguously states "AYAT are staunchly anti-Muslim," it's on again) is off-putting. One outlet I write for rejected a review at least in part because of this and also because who knows if they are really from Lebanon (after the Janaza thing a while back that's not paranoia either).

If they are from Lebanon, being anti-Muslim would be like other bands in Christian-dominated locations being against Christianity, a metal band rebelling against the dominant religious culture where they are from. Of course if they're not, it seems like a sneaky way to sneak in anti-Islamic sentiments that some find reprehensible and make them seem more palatable.

The record is interesting and heavy but I understand why some might not want to go out on a limb to rep for them. Not sure I would be comfortable doing so since I don't have a lyric jacket and who knows what singer
Members Reverend Filthy Fuck (ahem) is singing in charged song titles such as "Raw War (Beirut unveils her pussy once more)," and "Closure is boring?"

Anyone else have an opinion?

It's finally here!

https://clericmimicry.bandcamp.com/

GET EXCITED PEOPLE

aaaah

Oh the new Godflesh is quite lovely...