Rolling 2021 Metal Thread

Half expected there to be "You've Got Even More Things Coming" right after

Victim of More Changes

"Living After One A.M."
"Ram It Down Again"
"Love Nibbles"
"Painkillers (Refill)"

Savatage Frontman Jon Oliva Arrested for Cocaine Possession and DUI

http://consequence.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Jon-Olvia-mugshot.jpeg?resize=1031,580

http://consequence.net/2021/10/jon-oliva-arrest-cocaine-dui/

Yikes.

Sirens iirc

fuck pic.twitter.com/UYbzrJBnpc

— 𝐤𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐚 ⛓ 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐰 (@afroxvx) October 3, 2021

this year's record from spain's graveyeard of souls...
https://graveyardofsouls.bandcamp.com/album/infinity-equal-zero

sounding a bit like katatonia's brave murder day songwriting at discouraged ones (mid-)tempos to me. the way the soaring guitars and keys bounce of each other also bringing blut aus nord's memoria vetusta ii (a personal favorite).

a cryptic message on their fb page seems to indicate that this project has recently come to a stop. too bad but there are still quite a few records in the back catalog that I still haven't even heard. and the ones that I have are of comparable quality. then there's the guitarist's other releases from this year...
https://ornamentosdelmiedo.bandcamp.com/album/ecos
https://massburialdeathmetal.bandcamp.com/album/souless-legions

love the body big/brave so much. as mentioned above, not going with any Chip King screeches was a cool show of restraint that I think this album really benefits from

Listening to the new Trivium album, which is called In the Court of the Dragon and has this cover art:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81nVd9p+83S.jpg

Their current drummer, Alex Bent, used to be in Battlecross and Brain Drill, and he's really lit a fire under them on their last two albums and this one. They're doing some of their most aggressive material with him, though it's still got big melodic choruses 'cause Matt Heafy's a giant dork. Anyway, if you're a fan, this is just as good as the album they put out last year, which I liked a lot.

Scott Koenig died from COVID. I knew him back when he was still in New York and I was an up and coming metal journo type. He was always really nice to me back in the day and I never heard a bad word about him. Legend has it that he turned Rick Rubin onto Slayer (and Trouble) and he also managed Fear Factory and Biohazard along the way. Terrible loss.

Xxxpost yay for new Blood Red Throne todayyy

Another entry for the Disappointing Metal Band Name list: this better-than-decent death metal duo opted for Swelling Repulsion when Repulsive Swelling was RIGHT THERE.

https://swellingrepulsion-scp.bandcamp.com/album/the-severed-path

Superdigging the new Fluisteraars. It's rough and raw but its a lot more than that as well. Love the variations in vocals. The little instrumental flourishes, the stretched out guitar parts.

― black dice live ft. jerry garcia (rizzx), Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Finally got round to hearing this - excellent stuff, easily the best thing they did since the debut.

Not sure if Primeval Well has come up yet, I haven't seen them. And I may have missed and thus need to circle back to Panopticon if this is the sort of thing I've been lacking in life, but great god almighty, pass the fucking jug.

https://primevalwell.bandcamp.com/album/talkin-in-tongues-with-mountain-spirits

if you were hankering for a converge record about the end of the world this year, the new every time i die will do in a pinch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIdHbo4qdKE

New Massacre slays.

It's not the bullshit lineup from 2014. This is Kam Lee. He sounds like a demon on vox

Grand Cadaver are a Swedish death metal act fronted by Mikael Stanne of Dark Tranquillity. All the other dudes have been in other bands, too, but I've never heard of any of them. Anyway, their debut album Into the Maw of Death is out this week and it sounds like...Swedish death metal. Grinding, fast, plenty of guitar distortion.

https://grandcadaver.bandcamp.com/album/into-the-maw-of-death

New album from 40 Watt Sun: https://svartrecords.com/product/40-watt-sun-perfect-light-album (can't see a release date unless that 27.5 = May 27 2022)

okay, it actually is May 2022 - says so in the text below this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2knzupwDrk

Probably stupid question, but I had a new 1914 track come up on Spotify yesterday and kind of dug it. But that whole war metal thing from that area of the world can attract some, uh, more right leaning elements. Basically, is 1914 fashy? Or just big into World War I?

They have an album called Für Kaiser, Volk und Vaterland. I'd steer clear.

Ha missed that particular EP. Kinda thought the Napalm co-sign might indicate they weren't really, but that title says a lot.

A statement from Neige of Alcest:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FC0EbOMUcAAfshA.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FC0Eb9_VQAAOGgx.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FC0EcpbVQAAs5rl.jpg

After a few minutes of research, I'm provisionally concluding that Dmytro Kumar of 1914 is a WWI scholar, not a nazi.

xpost I'm always worried about stuff like that, especially with metal. There was a time I was listening to a bunch of Opeth and I suddenly got scared. Like, what if Akerfeldt was a far right nut? But I asked a friend of a friend of his and he assured me he's a cool dude and it made me feel a lot better, as did interviews I've subsequently read.

Any thoughts on the Cradle of Filth that came out last week?

I have not been able to spend quality time with it but I find the band to be fun usually.

Got kinda burned out on them tbh, haven't checked in in awhile.

Excited to get the new Mastodon today, also the new Kayo Dot is supposed to be amazing (but not sure just how "metal" the new one might be yet).

Hyperdontia's second album Hideous Entity comes out November 12 and for the most part it's extremely pounding old school death metal (think Incantation), but as the album goes on some subtle prog-death bits pop up and it works really well. Wes Benscoter cover art, too!

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0113804339_10.jpg

https://darkdescentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/hideous-entity

I didn't like everything on the new Cradle of Filth equally, but the high points seemed high enough to me to be pretty happy with it.

I liked the Neige statement. Alcest is the only band I can think of who I bought records by and paid to see in concert that ended up having such close ties to that stuff, so I'm relieved to see such a strong statement (even though I am not really a fan anymore).

I like how Benscoter seems to have tried to subtly insert as many teeth as he could into that Hyperdontia cover.

He understood the mission.

HE UNDERSTOOD THE ASSIGNMENT!

Malcolm Dome passed away. Legendary metal scribe who was there at the genesis of being a metal scribe. I met him a few times and he was always smiling, outgoing, enjoyed metal and enjoyed writing about it. A good bloke, if I may steal the British vernacular. He'll be missed.

http://landoftreason.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/electric-wizards.jpg

Anybody read this book yet? Thinking of buying because, of course. I've seen a lot of mixed reviews, though most of the negative ones come down to more grousing about who or who is not included, not so much about the actual quality of the writing. I don't think any book of this sort is going to hit on every important band.

There's a savage review on Amazon:

Neatly sidesteps having to have any knowledge of music or writing ability by getting the exceedingly well worn and trite "heaviness is objective" spiel in as early as possible. Just about as misinformed and lazy as a music writer could get. Continues with a statement that "very nearly" negates the influence and achievements of every stream of jazz,blues, rock & roll, classical music and every other genre pre 1961 in favour of the man who wrote The Frog Chorus. Riddled with mistakes, omissions and line after line of over trodden tedium, there is barely an original thought or statement in nearly 450 pages. I would heartily recommend avoiding this book as strenuously as is possible. Get everything said here the same way this author did - just skim through a few hundred Google search results and read the first line. If you are tempted, pop down to my local Oxfam where I deposited my copy within two days of receipt.

That makes it sound kinda like that drone book, Monolithic Undertow, which had some decent stuff but was absolutely jammed with typos and factual errors (band names misspelled, musicians credited with the wrong instruments, real basic shit like that).

Wow, yeah, that's some review.

The best book I've ever read on metal is probably Albert Mudrian's Choosing Death, with Daniel Ekeroth's Swedish Death Metal (though it's more narrowly focused, obviously) in second place. I wanted to like Ian Christe's Sound of the Beast more than I did, and the recent oral history, Louder Than Hell, probably sucks just 'cause it's an oral history.

Going back to the 1914 discussion from a few days ago, this 2018 interview from Echoes & Dust with the lead singer seems to be a pretty clear statement about it:

E&D: You’ve recently released the single ‘Stormtrupp 1917’. Can you tell a bit about that? Maybe what its about and what it signifies to you? And is it related to the 1934 movie?

Dmytro: This a first single from our upcoming album. About this song, we received different feedbacks, but mostly positive. The song is about German assault troops, and it’s neither about their glorifications, nor about propaganda or ode to Stormtrupp. No, it’s just a story from the first person, German’s soldier who loved to kill peoples and war. Because at the Western front this Stormtrupp were the most horrible and successful assault brigades. The same we have about Italian, British, Ottoman, Ukrainian troops. And yes, I wrote this song with a strong influence of this propagandist movie and book Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger, he was a German’s assault trooper, he was fought on the Western Front during the Great War.

I even receive a letter with words like this – song about German soldiers with iron crosses, why? Are you a Nazi band? What could I say? Just no, it`s about human nature, Homo sapiens behavior, history, and war. And – fuck Nazis and all kind of totalitarian shitheads.

New Moon Tooth single: https://smarturl.it/MoonToothMusic sounds pretty epic, hopefully a new album coming soon.

Ugh.

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/exodus-singer-rails-against-socialist-vaccine-mandates-defends-his-support-of-donald-trump

Putting aside whether I want to give that guy any of my money, if they're going to be stirring up anti-vax/anti-mask sentiment in their audiences, I'm not sure how safe I'd feel going to their upcoming show.

new Mortiferum is sounding great

xpost not as worried about the money part, but I have had legit fear that i'd wear a mask to a show and someone in the band would put a 'bounty' on me for being a sheep, though thath asn't happened at the shows I've been to yet.

Yeah, I could see something like that in some crowds. I'm in the Bay Area, so it's probably more likely they'd be boo'd off the stage, but who knows at a metal show.

here, they'd be cheered and worshipped as gods

Putting aside whether I want to give that guy any of my money, if they're going to be stirring up anti-vax/anti-mask sentiment in their audiences, I'm not sure how safe I'd feel going to their upcoming show.

Ah, I did not realize it had been postponed. I never really cared much for the other two bands, so I would have gone mostly for Exodus anyway.

Screw all that, listen to the new Mystras. Ayloss' songwriting makes all the bad stuff not matter

new Archspire is extremely good