What's going on with High on Fire?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_u7kfTw8W4

A) Holy shit Matt Pike looks great
B) These guys have unsurprisingly good taste

Was not expecting to see Pike pull out a copy of Live-Evil. Awesome.

i want to see a clip of him getting his hearing checked.

lol just imagining 30 minutes of them playing the test tones for him and him turning around and saying "are you going to start the test soon?"

HoF shows are some of the loudest I've ever been to. I remember trying to train a class the day after one in 2015 and I was pretending to hear 33% of the words my class was saying.

I saw them play for the first time in 1999 at some weird show. I want to say they mostly cleared the room, except for one lunatic standing ten feet in front of the stage, grinning like a madman.

was that one person...you?

def woulda been me had I known who they were back then.

saw them in '02, certainly top 5 in the loudest bands i've ever seen.

Psycho Las Vegas was about the only time I ever saw a venue swallow them up, and that's cos they had the misfortune of being stuck in a 10,000 seat convention center and the guy running sound was clueless the whole weekend. had they put them in the HoB, it woulda been a mass of sound bouncing every which way.

I’m just listening to these guys for the first time, Electric Messiah, and wow I’m into it. I’ve made a habit out of avoiding a lot of metal and hard rock because I just hear straight dude language and I’m averse to that. But realize it’s a little surfacey. Anyway this really rips ass and is suitably freaky. Very compellingly crafted.

Awesome! Def make sure you work your way back to the early albums, those are so good too. Surrounded by Thieves, Blessed Black Wings or De Vermis Mysteriss would be my next recommendations.

Thanks!

electric messiah has sort of taken over my listening lately, it's extremely effective workout music. i'm really in love with how everything sounds in the mix.

checking some more out in backwards order. luminiferous is cool but definitely lower-key / not as accomplished as em

Bands ruuuuuuules. Currently without a drummer, though, iirc.

was electric messiah a big deal when it came out? it has a lower discogs rating than some of their other releases for some reason maybe because it's a bit more maximalist / polished / commercial. 'drowning dog' is like an emotional song maaann

for real though it makes me cry sometimes lol

I need to revisit EM. I remember it being...fine, but I'd liked Luminiferous better. If I had to rank their albums right now today, it'd probably go

Blessed Black Wings
Snakes For The Divine
The Art Of Self Defense
Luminiferous
Surrounded By Thieves
Death Is This Communion
Electric Messiah
De Vermis Mysteriis
(The two Spitting Fire Live albums are really good, but splitting them up is a cheat; it should have just been a 2CD set.)

i think they've been kind of on a holding pattern/decline for the past couple (plus live ones). mystery worms was the last one where it seemed like they were really on their thing

was electric messiah a big deal when it came out?

i dunno, i thought the consensus was that it was pretty dang good but maybe i was just projecting my opinion out into the world in general. i felt like it was kind of a return to the Blessed Black Wings/Art of Self Defense era, albeit not as catchy.

lowest rated on Metal Archives, 3rd lowest rated (by 0.01) on RYM for what little that's worth

ok cool i'll keep going in backwards order then

De Vermis Mysteriis is pretty sick, love "MAdness of an Architect".

so i finally went back to "blessed black wings". i remember seeing the buzz back in the day but it wasn't my thing. it's a really great album but it sounds like a different band, probably different vocalists? (too lazy to check rn), hazier and more true cult but great songs and melodic sensibility. i still feel like electric messiah is the culmination of something they've been working towards over the last few albums. it's almost cartoonish compared to what they used to be because the production is tricked out to the max to make the songs sound insanely balls-to-the-wall but that makes it sound more like "real metal" tbh. there's so much heart in it. glorious album tbh.

Pretty sure Pike sings on BBW.

I wanna listen to it now. Excellent album.

I don't know if it's just me but Art/Surrounded/BBW sound like a triptych and they changed their sound a little bit after that and got more like... i don't know how to describe it, but more metallic in a different way? more riffs that sounded like they were descended from thrash? am i crazy?

nah, yr right, they totally did. the riffs from mid to late career really hit you in the fuckin' face, which is why I know lots of people who aren't into the whole doom/stoner aesthetic love them.

i'm listening to electric messiah and de vermis mysteriis like all the time practically. the sound that they shifted to, is that in a thrash vein? i'd love to check out more metal that sounds like this. i know reign in blood but never really spent any other slayer or classic metallica or megadeth. basically i just want to find more stuff that has a similar aura of all-consuming violence and machismo with like mythical overtones and more chromatic / jarring riffs along with more melodic stuff.

there are thrash elements in it, increasingly so over the years, but it's not full-on thrash. which is kind of what makes it neat, it's a very thick gumbo of sludge/stoner, and Pike's favorite elements from other genres like thrash, maybe occasional death.

trying to think of other stuff in this vein....uhh.....hmm. was gonna say Junior Bruce but they steal a wee bit too much from HoF for me to put them in the same league. have to think on it a bit!

You would probably like Power Trip, and you might like Lair of the Minotaur.

good call on Power Trip

ty

Power Trip is PERFECT

lair of the minotaur might be even more perfect. THANK YOU. sorry i was rude to you on that other thread unperson.

discogs brought up nile - loving the sound of "vile nilotic rites", might fuck with that too

good album, pretty much comfort food Nile. possibly seek out the songs "Kafir", "Black Seeds of Vengeance", or "Barra Edinazzu" (each from diff albums" as well.

thumbs up. digging into mastodon too.

if you want heavier Mastodon, Remission and Leviathan are the more primitive punch you in the mouth albums, though I like almost all of their eras.

remission would definitely fit that bill

early baroness too esp the 1st 2 sludgey EPs

Power, machismo, mythical overtones: clearly you need some Manowar.

i've got a playlist now with power trip's nightmare logic, lair of the minotaur's war metal battle master (great title), mastodon's remission and emperor of sand and the two aforementioned high on fire albums.

first impressions:

power trip basically wants to sound like reign in blood, which is cool. singer obviously came up through post-hardcore but everything else screams rick rubin producing slayer in 1986.

lair of the minotaur album is pretty fun, very impassioned, i dig the vocal style switch-ups, but is a little clumsy and amateur. i bet they're a lot of fun live.

the mastodon albums i'll probably spend some more time with. i think i like the sound and 80s metal / progressive rock feel of emperor of sand more than remission which sounds a little more like post-hardcore to me. they're definitely more of a progressive rock / post-hardcore band with metal elements blended in. the drummer is a little too busy for my taste. i never really jibed with this kind of prog sound so idk about these guys yet though there are some undeniably cool songs.

as far as high on fire goes, hearing these other bands kind of underscores how excellent they are imo.

a very thick gumbo of sludge/stoner

lair of the minotaur album is pretty fun, very impassioned, i dig the vocal style switch-ups, but is a little clumsy and amateur. i bet they're a lot of fun live.

hahahah i mean, you should listen to 7000 Dying Rats (dude's former band) ... it's more "funny" than minotaur. I vaguely remember a friend of mine touring with them as the drummer at one point

If concerts ever come back, HoF are one of the best live bands I've ever seen. Hollow your ears right out but you'll smile while it's happening

oh man i would love love love to see them live. i was just thinking about that this morning! like for the first time i really want to see live music again and it would be hof.

I've only seen them live once -- place was packed, hometown show fwiw -- totally worth it.

HoF is up there with MBV and Sunn O))) as a band you can feel.

I wasn't even a huge fan when I saw them the first time! I had many of their albums (most, actually), but more a casual fan. I had a ticket to see their Orlando show and was free the Friday before and decided to see them in Tampa. was a bit surprised by how much more I was into it than expected, and Pike's guitar leads were so fluid and clear and I felt like I could almost *see* them.

so I go again on Sunday, exhausted, tired, and cranky, and figure it's not going to be as good. the sound was overwhelmingly loud yet paradoxically clear, and Pike was pretty much holding his guitar like a literal weapon, couldn't believe the sounds he was getting out of that thing that night. probably a crowd of like 100, and everybody was going nuts, me included. didn't get to sleep until like 2 or 3 am cos I was so wound up about how great the show was, it far exceeded the first one, and for a while was my favorite show ever. when he got to the "Snakes for the Divine" encore it was like a gigantic victory lap.

became much more a fan, went back and bought the albums of theirs I didn't have.

only one time I saw them where they didn't destroy, and that was at Psycho Las Vegas last year. they were in a 10,000 seat convention center that swallowed them, and the sound was awful. Pike was visibly upset by it.