Rolling Metal 2019

Imprecation's Damnatio Ad Bestias is one of the better death metal albums I've heard so far this year.

As usual, Esoctrilihum delivers the esoteric goods:

https://i-voidhangerrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-telluric-ashes-of-the-o-vrth-immemorial-gods

It's at least on par with last year's Inhüma.

On the tech death end of things, I'm really enjoying Sinners Bleed's Absolution:

https://war-anthem-records.bandcamp.com/album/absolution

I should probably check out their debut.

:(

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/megadeths-dave-mustaine-diagnosed-with-throat-cancer/

do your best Dave, hopefully you've got years of recording albums i have no interest in hearing ahead of you

In a way it's a real shame since their last one Dystopia had a couple of really excellent songs but man those lyrics. I'm not easily offended but it's just facepalm after facepalm.

I don't want him to get cancer but I would like it if he wasn't such a right wing tool.

exactly

btw Siegbran if you remember the track titles could you post them, I'd be interested to hear them

For example The Threat Is Real is a pretty awesome song but I dare you to sit it out.

Well the music's good

There are several ways to interpret the lyrics and I don't think I like any of them

Not sure how long this has been floating around out there, but I just found out about it today - not so excited about anything new from Vektor any longer.

DiSanto's wife's appeal for help got RTed by Kim Kelly but I don't think it mentioned Vektor so I'm just figuring this out too. Yeah, horrifying and I'm done with them.

Yep, that's exactly how I found out about it. Awful story.

from what I gathered, he was the only remaining member.

The new Organectomy album, Existential Disconnect, is out today on Unique Leader.

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2958267555_10.jpg

So are Meads of Asphodel sketchy? I hope not. I always thought they were genius weirdos and the new one out today doesn't change my mind.

They're pretty sketchy, yeah.

meads of asphodel, whose song titles include the lovely "jew killer" and "children of the sunwheel banner"

— machine girl kelly (@mulchlord) June 12, 2019

Are Meads of Asphodel one of those problematic acts? I honestly need to start keeping a spreadsheet.

— Jeff Treppel (@JeffTreppel) May 20, 2019

That Treppel tweet begins a thread to which I contributed.

I know you're gonna "BUT DA RIFFFFFS" anyway, but hey, at least you asked. That's something.

That thread doesn't really say much. The band was asked about Sonderkommando:

What is the story of Sonderkommando? From what I’ve read, it’s taken from the point of view of the individual who takes the bodies from the gas chambers and searches their bodies for valuables before finally putting them in the incinerators.

The story is of hatred and how racism can create such horror. The album deals with Hitler and the German war machine that cloaked the racial elimination of the Jews. It tells of most European countries being complicit to the crime of murder where women and children were slaughtered because of a twisted ideology. Anti-Semitism, no matter what your view is on this subject; can be no excuse for killing children and treating a race of human beings like vermin. Hatred is the key lesson the human race needs to learn as it is hatred that drives us to obscene cruelty and illogical acts of brutality. The Sonderkommando were the unfortunate Jews who dragged the naked corpse covered in piss and vomit from the gas chambers. They pulled out the gold teeth of the dead and cremated the remains. It was mass murder unlike anything else in history. Maybe not as vast as Stalin’s crimes, but the deliberate European scale of an industrial death machine that involved vast logistics and efficiency is beyond comparison.

The Grim Tower

Also, kindly keep your self-righteous snark to yourself.

I snark because we've done this dance before, and we'll do it again. You always come down to "separate the art from the artist" (even when the art is called "Jew Killer") and "but the music's good" (as though there's not multiple lifetimes' worth of good music in the world without the taint of Nazism on it) and "I know I'm not a Nazi, so it's OK". So whatever. Be happy with what makes you happy. So far as I know, Miles Davis beat every woman in his life at one point or another - I'm not throwing away any of his records.

You haven't been paying attention but that's okay. I don't have the ego you do so I don't take it personally.

Invisible Oranges contributors put together Top Ten lists for the best albums at the midway point of the year.

Here is mine.

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9mmaJIW4AI8-YX?format=png

i know i'm a few years late but the last Raspberry Bulbs album, Privacy... phew. Like Bone Awl but with catchy melodies and arena rock riffs. A little like Okkultokrati but from a different angle.

Blackened funeral doom from Aalborg, Denmark:

https://hethe.bandcamp.com

Angry Metal Guy hates it so you know it must be good.

Add 'drone', 'trip-hop' and 'Stuart Dempster-ish' to the list of labels. It's quite the trip.

Nature Ganganbaigal from Tengger Cavalry has died.

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/tengger-cavalry-frontman-nature-ganganbaigal-has-died

I wrote about his band that I saw twice. We hung out a lot when I ventured to Brooklyn a while back for a panel when Brian Slagel's book came out and he was there; we went over to Saint Vitus and talked all night about music. He was engaging and friendly.

He had a somewhat public suicide attempt some time ago but the prevailing thought was that he was doing much better. Perhaps not. Mental illness is a bitch.

Revolver Fans' Top Five Albums of 2019 (so far)
http://www.revolvermag.com/music/fan-poll-5-best-albums-2019-so-far

1. Rammstein
2. Motionless in White
3. Whitechapel
4. Baroness
5. Death Angel

man that news about tengger cavalry is so sad.

I wasn’t interested in this Rammstein record at all but I saw them live last week. They absolutely killed it and the new songs sounded great so I probably should listen to the new album.

scathing doom-sludge w/an ex-Moss member

https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/nightfucker

Is this a band that people know? Sounds kinda like shoegaze-y black metal.
https://yelloweyes.bandcamp.com/album/rare-field-ceiling

hell yeah

i played their last album a lot

er, next-to-last, i guess! i knew there was one in 2017 but i wasn't really feeling it like 'sick with bloom' so i just gave it a pass

yellow eyes are great. New Slough Feg album just arrived

at least based on the first couple tracks, this Ashbringer album is really great. post-black-metal stuff with hints of 70s prog. also a weirdly appealing collision of ambitious songs vs. not-too-polished production

https://ashbringermusic.bandcamp.com/album/absolution

Wtf Delta

http://www.metalsucks.net/2019/06/29/delta-airlines-employees-robbed-high-on-fire-sleep-frontman-matt-pike/

that's f'ed up hope he gets his pedals back

hey there's a new Valborg for anyone who likes weird industrial metal with a guy screaming in German

https://valborg.bandcamp.com/album/zentrum

This one's less caustic than Endstrand (which was like the guy screaming in German was also punching you), a little more gothy vocal presence here and there.

This is delightfully nasty

http://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/black-nuclear-magick-attack

Black/death/war metal vibe but some nice moments of creepy ambience that remind me of Temple Nightside or early Disembowelment.

The new Organectomy is great, if you like broooootal death metal. I reviewed it.

Riffs for days, and a paragon of 'this fucking rips':

https://listen.20buckspin.com/album/the-anatomy-of-unholy-transformation

At the other end of the spectrum, Floyd-esque psych-doom couched in pretty melodies:

https://fleshofthestars.bandcamp.com/album/mercy

The Chinese secret service doesn't like Japanese grindcore:

However, the surveillance app also searches for information on a range of other material – from fasting during Ramadan to literature by the Dalai Lama, and music by a Japanese metal band called Unholy Grave.

Come to think of it, I doubt I've ever heard any Chinese metal.

https://pestproductions.bandcamp.com/album/past-evil

is good

Thanks, I'll check it out.

God dammit. I actually liked the first two Tau Cross albums a lot.

Relapse has dropped Tau Cross for thanking a Holocaust denier in the liner notes to their upcoming album.

Over the weekend the German magazine Ox brought it to our attention that a person named Gerard Menuhin was prominently thanked in the new Tau Cross album, and specifically credited in the liner notes for inspiring Rob Miller. All Relapse records go through a vigorous proofing process–checking for spelling and punctuation mistakes, mostly. We all read this name, but didn’t recognize it or think that it was anything other than a personal friend of the band’s, that we did not know. Ox however recognized the name as a far right conspiracy theorist, focused specifically on Holocaust denial. Suddenly the lyrics and themes of the new record were cast in a new light, for me. I spoke with Rob Miller, who is the individual in the band who Ox was interviewing, and while he denied being a Holocaust denier, I cannot comfortably work on or sell a record that dabbles in ideologies such as these. There are certain issues that rise above mere political differences and this is one of them. I spoke with the rest of the band on Monday, and NONE of them had any idea who Gerard Menuhin was, and were as shocked by these references in the record, as we at the label were. I firmly believe that these references and mentions in the record do not represent the band as a whole. but rather just Rob Miller’s. In light of all this, Relapse swiftly decided we cannot move forward with this album–we gave the masters back to the band, together with the rest of their catalog.

Apparently his father is Yehudi Menuhin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Menuhin