Rolling 2020 Metal Thread

Barnes/SFU blocked me from posting on their page after I insulted them on it the other day.

Lord, is Chris Barnes one of the thinnest skinned weenies alive. they also blocked comments on Youtube, and yet he regularly insults and harasses other bands on Twitter.

lol how long has that dude's career been running on fumes now?

an old man was on death row, but on the day he was to be executed, he's visited by the Attorney General, who promised to drop all charges under one condition - he listened to every Graveyard Classics album.

The man was pronounced dead that evening at 4:13 pm

in other news, uh, not that I was the hugest Morta Skuld fan (hell, I actually...forgot what they sounded like), but I picked up the new one out of curiosity, and...it's pretty dull.

weirdly commercial in a sense in that every chorus from a vocal perspective is nu-metally, not sonically, but in the sense that the lyrics are simple, inane, very "base emotion" focused, and are repeated frequently over a riff that is much dumber than the riffs that preceded it.

it's just odd. there's nothing really amazing about the non-chorus parts of the songs, per se, but the verses are your standard 'good' death metal fare, blasts, well-written tremolo riffs, and then they just kinda halt forward progress at the chorus.

vocalist is also just underwhelming in general, feel like there should be a Death Metal Idol or something to find these much-needed amazing, distinctive death metal vocalists that are lacking lately. Are you the next Sylvian Houde? show us if you have what it takes.

Man I was a Morta Skuld fan since their demos but somehow didn't feel like a 2020 MS album was something I needed to hear; sounds like my instincts were correct.

You'd be right. I do wanna revisit Dying Remains, tho, which i recall liking

Bête Immonde is a strange album from Griiim, a side project for Maxime Taccardi (also of K.F.R).

http://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2538237594_16.jpg

http://griiim.bandcamp.com/album/b-te-immonde

Sometimes it makes me think of Zeal & Ardour except way more minimalistic, way less song oriented, way less bombastic, way-way-way stranger. Sometimes it is cloud rap dressed up in corpsepaint. Sometimes it's like Captain Beefheart if he grew up on black metal instead of the blues. It's pretty intriguing.

Captain Beefhjerte

The production is indeed intriguing but his voice is kinda wheezy, impacting the delivery of his ridiculous lyrics, almost all of which would benefit from the usual unintelligibility (this won't be a problem for everyone, obv.).

Yeah, I think that's a feature, not a bug (though one that I concede is an acquired taste).

This is a really disgusting story about a major behind-the-scenes figure in the metal scene (I'm pretty sure I met him when Nightwish were signed to Roadrunner) and I never thought I'd say this, but kudos to MetalSucks for putting in the work to do the story properly. This is serious journalism, handled carefully and professionally.

Indeed, very well written and handled.

Impressive stuff, yes. What a piece of shit.

Everything is awful about him from what it seems, but beyond the typical horrors of a harrasser and abuser, the detail that he taunted Nature Ganganbaigal of Tengger Cavalry a year before the latter's suicide...yeah, hell isn't hot enough for him.

holy shit.

my only run in with him was something innocuous - his stupid booking system somehow booked a second ticket for me by mistake, and I told him, but he refused to refund me the money, insisting I purchased it, and then threatened to get his legal team involved eventually. even got my chargeback reversed from Bank of America, he felt he was so entitled to my money.

i had thought him just to be a swindler and a dick, I had no idea about any of THIS shit.

75% of way through an my word, it's like a demon's resume

What amazes me (not really) is that it took this long for his behaviour to be called out as fucking monstrous.

Jesus Christ, I worked with Finberg many years ago. Well, not with him like co-workers. But when I was a booking agent in Raleigh, NC he was the only guy who would deal with the smaller indie metal bands. He booked almost all of them - if you were a baby band signed to Metal Blade, he was the only guy who would book your tours. There weren't many other options even though every label and band had a horror story.

None of them were what is in this piece that I will be digging into shortly - Usually they involved just being bad at his job, i.e. he would book shows 600 miles apart on consecutive days, and good luck getting your deposit money from him.

I ran into him in person a few times - at the first Ozzfest tour date in Manassas, VA outside of CD where he mooned everyone, at a Milwaukee Metalfast where I booked Extreme Noise Terror and Grief and he likely had half a dozen bands playing as well. Spoke to him on the phone a lot because I used to do what was called "middling dates." Back in the dat a booking agent would handle regions for national agents spo they could book a run of dates through one person. This became less and less needed as communication made it easier for a guy to just do it all himself and cut out the extra pound of flesh, and in fact it was pretty dead even then, but he was lazy so I would book a week of dates in NC, SC, VA, and GA for Stuck Mojo (who were big in the southeast back then) and take a cut (from the band, not from him of course).

He was obnoxious and overbearing. Everyone on that side of the industry hated him but considered him to be a necessary evil because, like I said, there wasn't anyone else doing it at the time. So I am not at all shocked he was also a piece of shit in other ways. Yuck.

welp Chris Barnes now has me blocked on Facebook AND Twitter, and he reported my Tweets.

god, what a weenie.

xpost and he's hiding in Thailand now, apparently, though apparently he's lived there off and on over the years

Southeast Asia, eh? Getting Jim Watkins vibes from this guy.

Many bands, including his cash cows Nightwish and Amorphis, are publicly firing Finberg:
http://loudwire.com/nightwish-amorphis-fire-booking-agent-john-finberg-sexual-assault-harassment-allegations

Better late than never, I guess.

I sent Tweets to a few of his other clients - Hammerfall, Nervosa, Nile, and Obscura - asking them if he was their booking agent (all of their contact info on line indicates that he is) and linking to the original story. Hopefully they will all respond "not anymore."

New Skaphe is up and PWYW (for the time being at least) on Bandcamp:

https://skaphe.bandcamp.com/album/sk-phe-3

Haven't had a chance to listen yet, but if their track record is anything to go by, I'm sure it slays.

After a formidable collab with Mare Cognitum as Spectral Lore and a first LP as Mystras, both of which are bound to make my metal top 50 this year, Ayloss goes dungeon synth on his latest (and last?) 2020 release:

https://spectrallore.bandcamp.com/album/ontrothon-saga-of-the-ancient-glass

Exciting. Will check it. Mystras might make my top 5 tbh, definitely top 10, which is saying really quite a lot

preordered the new Fuck the Facts album without even listening to the single first

unexpected to me and great news, thanks. listening to the single rn, they're playing to their strenghts here and plus! like they're branching out. once more. these weighted dynamics and movements that ebb and flow and grow and crushes! her vocals unsurprisingly killing it. it's really good

New Isengard out tomorrow.

Re: Fuck the Facts, is it just me or is her voice inexplicably buried in the mix on that first single? Good stuff otherwise.

Further Finberg fallout

https://www.metalsucks.net/2020/10/01/insomnium-omnium-gatherum-iced-earth-and-u-d-o-release-statements-about-john-finberg/

That said:

Meanwhile, several of Finberg’s biggest clients, such as Overkill and Kamelot, have remained silent on the matter.

ugh, c'mon, Overkill.

Blitz is a Trumper fwiw, he might be "examining all sides"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7vbyGUt5zE

Some good news to light up my inbox this morning. New albums forthcoming later this year from Lie In Ruins and Undergang:

Lie in Ruins:
https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/floating-in-timeless-streams

Undergang:
https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/aldrig-i-livet

Amaranthe, Enslaved and Anaal Nathrakh all out today. Something for everybody! Sort of.

Kamelot and Overkill came around, finally.

http://www.metalinsider.net/news/dark-tranquillity-kamelot-and-overkill-issue-statements-on-john-finberg

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/EjiQZMwXsAA7CqI?format=jpg&name=large

The new Spirit Adrift albumEnlightened in Eternity, which comes out next Friday, is excellent. I liked the last one, but not as much as this.

I’ve found their previous albums only mildly enjoyable, but I’ll check it out.

Speaking of more or less imminent releases, the new Necrophobic utterly slays. Proof positive that all it takes for a return to form is rekindling your faith in Satan.

the Gorephilia is good.

Didn’t get much out of it at first pass, maybe I’ll try again since Dark Descent Records can do no wrong.

from Ifernach's Bandcamp:

-USA ORDERS ONLY-
If you are from Europe or Mexico, we are not shipping to your country.
I am dealing with 9 lost packages, until then, no shipping overseas.
That is why it's 200 for shipping (maximum rate on bandcamp)
This time I won't refund. Don't be an idiot.

-If you are from Canada you can still buy a copy-

Available until I leave for hunting in 7 days”

lol

Mentioning Canada as an afterthought is a bit odd.

I saw a similar *US ORDERS ONLY* notification on, I think, Bill Laswell's Bandcamp page this week.

After many long hours and painstaking work, DeathOrchestra - a collaboration by Russian Death Metal band Buicide and the Olympic Symphony Orchestra - are proud to present the upcoming full-length Symphony of Death. The album captures a live performance from May 4, 2019 at the Opera Concert Club in Saint Petersburg during which DeathOrchestra performed covers of songs from the legendary Death.

Have to admit after reading the first part I didn't see the bolded part coming.

can't wait for Evil Dead, that shit must sound ferocious with cellos