Rolling Metal 2019

I really...really...really like the new Possessed!

It's not perfect - by now, so many new bands are emulating the 80s death metal sound that it doesn't sound ahead of the curve. And yea, lots of songs at the same tempo.

But it's pretty inspired overall.

The new Phobia album - out in August from Willowtip - is called Generation Coward, and has songs called "Internet Tough Guy" and "PC Fascist Fuck Off," the latter of which opens with a sample of the "dicks, pussies and assholes" speech from Team America. This is the cover art:

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a1264083175_10.jpg

Since their last album had a caricature of Donald Trump being dismembered on the cover, it seems like someone must have said something mean to them on Facebook between 2017 and now.

New Lingua Ignota album coming out in July. Here's the single:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH10IyS2FOc

So fucking hyped.

yessss

Hyped because the extra letter of psyched is just too much work.

On a completely different note, I'm surprised no one's commenting the latest Rammstein.

I'm a fan, but I haven't listened to it all the way through yet. Maybe I will today. Their 2010 show at Madison Square Garden was one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life. They should do a Vegas residency.

Since I brought up Lingua Ignota itt, Uboa's The Origin of My Depression also goes a long way towards scratching that twisted itch for me at the moment:

https://uboa.bandcamp.com/album/the-origin-of-my-depression

RYM files it under 'death industrial' aka 'dark noise' – I was not aware either of these appellations had any currency.

Oh right, that's the Clockwork Orange intro music in the Lingua Ignota track.

I absolutely love the new Rammstein. Really tight, some good variety, and great vocal performances by Till.

I give you… Troll: trad/stoner doom from Portland, OR that flirts with prog structures and doesn't skimp on the vocals, for once:

https://shadowkingdomrecords.bandcamp.com/album/legend-master

Another Troll? There are like four of em, not even counting the Swedish disco act.

The glut is such now that it's almost impossible to come up with an original metal band name, so it might as well be blindingly obvious. Although the other day a friend and I were talking about how 'Traumatic Insemination' is still up for grabs.

I used to write a fanzine with another bloke and he used to give any old death metal shit a good review. Two mates and I went as far as recording a tape of us hitting biscuit tins and shrieking and burping and sent it in for review. We were called Impaled Rats Cunt (no apostrophe); as far as I'm aware, the name is still available.

A subtle reference to Impaled Northern Moonforest?

This was '94, man. Way before those pretenders had even heard of a blast beat.

Subrosa calling it a day

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2202260859819897&id=107632335949437

To all of our beautiful, supportive fans and friends, After a magical 13-year run, SubRosa is calling it quits (for now). Rebecca decided she wanted to focus on her solo project, The Keening, and Kim, Sarah, Levi and Andy have all been able to focus their creative energies on other musical ventures. We would never have experienced our dreams as reality without you, and we cannot thank you enough.

Can't say I much care at this point but a new Opeth is reportedly on the way.

Subrosa were a great band and they're going out with an unblemished discography. Nothing wrong with that.

I'm intrigued by the new Opeth, not just because I'm a fan, but because the album will be released in two versions - one in English and one in Swedish, and the track titles aren't exact translations from one language to the other. Sometimes they're close, but other times they're pretty different, as you'll see below.

Unless there's a 2CD bundled version, which I'm sure there will be, I'll definitely be buying both.

In Cauda Venenum Tracklisting:

1. Livet’s Trädgård / Garden Of Earthly Delights (Intro) ("Livets Trädgård" = "Life's Garden")
2. Svekets Prins / Dignity ("Svekets Prins" = "Betrayal's Prince")
3. Hjärtat Vet Vad Handen Gör / Heart In Hand ("Hjärtat Vet Vad Handen Gör" = "The Heart Knows What The Hand Does")
4. De Närmast Sörjande / Next Of Kin
5. Minnets Yta / Lovelorn Crime ("Minnets Yta" = "The Memory's Surface")
6. Charlatan
7. Ingen Sanning Är Allas / Universal Truth ("Ingen Sanning Är Allas" = "No Truth Is Everyone's")
8. Banemannen / The Garroter
9. Kontinuerlig Drift / Continuum
10. Allting Tar Slut / All Things Will Pass

That does sound interesting tbh.

Sabaton did that first :)

That Lingua Ignota track took me a few listens to get into, but is pretty amazing imo. High hopes for this album.

I love the Nocturnus AD. The guitars and keyboards aren't quite as in rhyme as on The Key, but it's hard to believe that this isn't Nocturnus proper

do we talk about how good the Big Brave album is here or somewhere else

alright then, I shall go outside and shout it to the sky cause it's really fucking good.

anyway looking forward to the new Tristengrav:

TRISTENGRAV hail from Patras, Greece and released their first demo, Incendiarism of Nous in 2018 Now, roughly a year later comes Nychavge, a four-track (plus one outro) recording featuring their unique blend of black metal with gothic rock. Imagine GISM crossed with Rozz Williams-era Christian Death or later Anti-Cimex covering Mighty Sphincter and you have some glimpse into the ever-growing madness that is TRISTENGRAV...

https://caligarirecords.bandcamp.com/album/ii-nychavge

Their demo is quite good, ferocious black metal with crust influence but lacking the gothic element.

The new Dreadnought should be right up my alley, and ephemeral bits of it rival The 3rd and the Mortal, but it still comes across as a structural mess for the most part. Perhaps I need to spend more time with it.

so there are two Batushkas now?

https://sphieratz.bandcamp.com/album/-

I’ve been loving the Big Brave. Also listening a lot to new Helms Alee.

I will be interviewing Carl Canedy tomorrow and although he was never inaccessible or anything, I am still looking forward to it. He is someone whose name I saw on records by Anthrax and Overkill who played in The Rods so it goes back to one of the earlier recognizable-names-on-album-jackets in my metal fandom.

Also, he played on the first Manowar demo which I found out about many years later.

Haven't played the Big | Brave record yet, but really digging the Helms Alee one. They've always been a band I've liked, but this is the first album of theirs that I've really loved. Also been spending a lot of time with some recent RidingEasy releases, especially The Well and BUS. The former might be their best yet, I like the post-punk darkness they swirled into the doom and the latter is a surprisingly solid mix of psych and doom. I'd never expect to hear Primus (as a positive, no less) in a RidingEasy album.

every year there's one tour that attracts all of yr city's biggest meathead assholes, and every year I dodge their combat boots. this year that tour is

https://exclaim.ca/music/article/harms_way_jesus_piece_to_play_toronto_on_summer_tour

Any thoughts on the new Deathspell Omega? I've followed them since the beginning but something clicked (or broke) with me on this one and I can't stand them. Sold off my entire discography in the last week. As mentioned upthread, I may just be done with dodgy BM. The music just isn't enough to engage with bad politics.

I haven't gotten around to it yet but I've always found them to be somewhat overrated (except for Paracletus) so there's no emotional connection to reassess on my part.

The Big Brave LP is awesome btw.

Parts of BB remind me of like Fushitsusha or C. Brotzmann Massaker or something. Very good.

Had my first listen to the DSO tonight. The music's good but it's hard to get over the feeling that Paracletus was their peak and they're never going to do anything that interesting again. Anyone uh read the lyrics to this one?

I don't know if my mood changes significantly between the two different times I spend listening to the Big Brave, but I thought the first three tracks were amazing but the last two really didn't grab me.

Frankly terrifying:

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/slipknots-corey-taylor-says-he-blew-out-his-left-testicle-while-singing/

how is that even possible?! by "fucking around" does he mean he was prancing in a field of scissors?

he was just joking

Listening to the new Deathspell Omega while looking at the lyrics, and while they're definitely from a position I don't agree with - they conflate basically every political movement there is - I don't think they're 'dodgy'. I honestly think it's pretty brilliant, not really fascist, just absolutist in the Sadean, Bataillean, Nietszchean sense. I like them a lot more than what was going on on 'The Synarchy of Molten Bones', which was... muddy, and could easily be seen as dodgy. I mean:

The mere existence of conflicting opinions means that the Truth has yet to triumph. Diversity is an outrage, freedom of thought will be terminated. Everything is a lie but that which we feed you, believe me. If your thoughts collide with what we say, these thoughts can not be yours. We will rip your mouth open and stuff you with Truth, like a goose. The Truth will blossom in the end, be it over your swollen corpse

new Darkthrone is v satisfying

^^^ yes it is

I'm really liking Bethlehem's Lebe dich leer. Onielar's vocals are right up my alley – she is a thespian of pure despair.

I see they've been around since 1991. How is the rest of their discography?

I countersign DSO, Darkthrone and Bethlehem, too. (And I had no idea that Bethlehem's (and Darkened Nocturn Slaughtercult's) singer was female, which both doesn't matter and is interesting.)

i had no idea she was in Bethlehem, can only help them imo.

pomenitul just to help very slightly: the early Bethlehem stuff is great, kinda black metal and doom in equal measures. Dark Metal is my favorite but check out Dictius Te Necare if you like absolutely unhinged vocal performances.

Thanks GP!

There are a lot of incredible female vocalists on the extreme metal front at the moment. See also: Turia, Xenoblight, Venom Prison.

Xenoblight is a name I keep running across, gonna check 'em out. Already love VP!

Unsure what to make of the new DsO. Ignoring the political ambiguities for a second (and I'd say, having read the lyrics, that it's probably fine, albeit crazed), the music is this kind of impressive wash that I can't really latch onto. It feels like punishment. I know it's black metal and all but there's no sense of ritual, of incantation or magic here - it's didactic in sound as well as content. You WILL suffer. You WILL behold the incessant towers of sound. I'm aware that coming from a Jute Gyte fan, this may sound somewhat hypocritical, but there's a wit and a sense of surrender to mathematics and technology that somehow sublimes the latter act into something bewildering and Other - this simply feels like a bunch of pissed-off humanities professors inflicting their revenge on the idiotic world. While I would agree with much of their analysis, and even their methods, I don't necessarily want revenge - I want transcendence. There's only so much fast-fingered atonal rage I can listen to before I wonder how else these ideas can be approached, and how else this amount of musical talent and ingenuity can be manifested.

I haven't listened to it yet but your assessment echoes my own experiences with their previous albums.

I kinda think 'atonal rage' is exactly what I want from black metal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Or hatred, it's supposed to be hateful. I've been really delving into the satanic trilogy, including all the eps, and they're much more faceted than this, filled with allusions to Bataille and Hegel and Pascal, coopting so much of catholic thought and ritual. It's just a more interesting subject. But as far as political black metal goes, I'm really impressed by it. It's absolutely raging and hateful and out for blood, and I'm honestly kinda impressed that it still doesn't feel fascist, you know? I wasn't sure it could be done...

Having just heard The Furnaces of Palingenesia for the first time, imago otm x2. Also: I can only take so much Finnish street preaching.