Random old metal you are loving

So many things to check out on this thread. Crypt Sermon and Mortuary Drape coming right up.

xp Dorian rules.

I went to Lee Dorian's record shop in North London the other week (Rise Above Records), he served me and was very nice! We talked about Ashra records.

Ché - Sounds of Liberation. It rips.

Yeah, that Ché album is great. I was reminded of it because I've just started getting into Fu Manchu, a band I heard a song of two by over the years but never really put any time into. And honestly, I don't need more than two or three albums (they've got about a dozen), but at their best they're really good.

Another cool one-off from that scene/era is the self-titled album by Brant Bjork & The Operators, which adds some New Wave synths to the baked-out desert rock sound.

http://brantbjork.bandcamp.com/album/brant-bjork-the-operators

Fu Manchu is kind of new to me too, actually. One of those bands that have just been out there, churning out albums, but which I’ve sort of just ignored. But I’m on a desert rock run these days, so have been checking out various stuff. Will check out the BB & the Operators album

Fu Manchu's In Search of is the one I return to the most, absolutely massive guitar tone. Coincidentally, I'm listening to the pre-FM band Virulence rn, very much a late Black Flag tribute but still good.

Yeah, In Search Of is pretty rad

Love Fu Manchu! In Search Of... is all time for me. I saw them on that tour in a sweatbox in King's Cross. Magnificent.

Nebula (featuring members of early Fu Manchu) are even better. Fu Manchu went really off the boil with the really bad 'California Crossing' and never touched the greatness of what came before after it

Brant Bjork - Jalamanta, is the one of his I return to most but he's pretty consistent.

Colour Haze - Los Sound de Krauts just got a vinyl reissue and its one of the great stoner rock albums. There's quite a few ilxors who will stan for them iirc

Boris - Heavy Rocks (the 1st one with the orange cover from 2002) is highly recommended stoner rock if anyone wants to check it out. Wish it would get a vinyl issue.

Colour Haze is absolutely terrific.

What I'm looking for more than anything is a band that's kind of right in the sweet spot between Nebula and Earthless. I like instrumentals, but I like big hooky riffs; I like bands that jam, but sometimes 10 minutes is better than 30. Got any recommendations?

Definitely try Colour Haze then if you haven't already!

You might dig some of Wo Fat, Truckfighters or Ufomammut. They don't always tick all of those boxes on every song (some vocals, etc) but they might land in that realm.

or Lowrider. Early Dozer comes to mind too

Monster Magnet - Spine Of God is another album I'd recommend. Its quite different to the (also great) stuff that came after, but the McBain era was something else.

Another brilliant but not so well known album is Tumuli Shroomaroom by Acrimony. It came out in '97 but did get reissued a few years back
https://open.spotify.com/album/12XvsurHh60DXJCz2heaLz?si=14cYvPG-T9qxoUCvLURHQw

Hymns to the Stone is a good track in the vein of the epic Kyuss songs like 50 million year trip.

Been picking up some Original Album Series comps, they are such a godsend. Seen Overkill's The Atlantic Years and some reviews complained it was quiet, surely this can be cured by turning it up?

hard to believe any metal album mastered after 2000 could be described as "quiet"

Maybe I should be more cautious than buying these sets because there has been a handful of metal classics I just didn't get at all but I'm very intrigued about Overkill

Overkill rulz

Hypocrisy - pretty much most of their catalog, sans a few bummer albums in the early 21st century.

it's weird in that nobody really rates Hypocrisy's albums as classic (those that do are usually talking about Obsculum Obscenum), but they write consistently good music, even if they peaked in the late 90s. I have a soft spot in my heart for them as The Final Chapter was one of my first 25 metal albums when I was a late teen.

so tonight i'm listening to Abducted, and "Roswell 47" is so badass, but I love how "Killing Art" is an extremely aggressive follow-up. Hypocrisy weren't afraid to rawk while also doing the melodically sensible stuff.

also here is me and Pete Tagtgren

https://i.ibb.co/ynpMgJj/55726307-10156483007442981-6167874324716847104-n.jpg

The Fourth Dimension is one of my favourite Death Metal albums of the 90s, just before they started to incorporate the melodeath influences.

Hehehe. Great picture.

In the same way that ducks must get sick of people doing duck noises whenever they see them, do you think death metal band members tire of having to look cadaverous and make devil horns? I reckon (and hope) it's a no.

There's my next metal symposium paper: Duck noises and the erosion of affect: iconography fatigue in death metal frontmen.

Oh I'm sure there are days where they're like "ugh, I gotta do caveman face AGAIN?"

I do remember the Opeth frontman talking about feeling embarrassed when he did these sorts of poses (once with a sword), it didn't come naturally to him

I mean it *is* performative, like, when I'm drunk it comes easy but I'm more self-conscious about silliness like that when sober.

trying to imagine what Mikael is thinking during those pics

"man, I wonder what Steve Howe is doing right now?"

Maybe not strictly 'metal' but Scott Seward was a big fan of this band as was I, and I know LJ & TT, Simon and Brad will be interested, and I just want to say that after all this time Gospel have finally dropped a follow up album to The Moon Is A Dead World, and its brilliant.

https://gospel.bandcamp.com/album/the-loser

oops wrong thread

Whenever I'm in Fopp looking at the metal section I wish I had Neanderthal and Siegbran over my shoulder advising me on albums because I find the titles hard to remember, a bit like martial arts films, so many similar titles. But I got...

Overkill - Atlantic Years
Saxon - Wheels Of Steel
Cryptopsy - None So Vile (been on my wishlist forever)
Exodus - Bonded By Blood
Voivod - Synchro Anarchy (doesn't count because it's new)

And I just started listening to Testament's The Legacy

None so Vile rullllleees

Wheels Of Steel the song has the best riff

Voivod - Synchro Anarchy

Seeing them tonight (my first concert in 2.5 years). Maybe I should listen to the album.

um YES. it's fantastic. not quite The Wake but up there.

Saxon - Wheels Of Steel
Cryptopsy - None So Vile (been on my wishlist forever)
Exodus - Bonded By Blood
Voivod - Synchro Anarchy (doesn't count because it's new)

Pretty nice haul tbh I would blast any/all of these

Now speaking of that Saxon choice, enjoy this from former board denizen Jeff T.

https://theshfl.com/guide/NWOBHM

Absolutely digging EF Band lately, super hard rocking Swe/UK band and the second track on this is a go-hard instrumental on the level of Pink Fairies' "Raceway"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJdCv5yr4PE

that's great! any more greasy hard rock in the Motorhead vein that people can recommend? I think it was unperson who mentioned Edgar Griffin's Late for an Early Grave. I would add The Men of Porn's Experiments in Feedback, more psych but very hard rocking in places, e.g.:
https://smallstone.bandcamp.com/track/capp-street

Might wanna check out Zeke's Till The Living End (Motorhead but faster and punker) or maybe the band Man-Eaters, who have kind of a Detroit rock meets Motorhead vibe.

nice one, thanks, will do!

Oh and Zadkiel from Japan are old school speed metal heavily indebted to Motorhead.

Thread seems to have lost map

Zeke are dope. I love how all their songs sound the same, it actually works for them.

A little cock rock influence amidst the Motorhead too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23rnAs9BHkk

only really started getting into death metal last year, getting into the classics after the fact has been really wonderful.

Gorguts - Obscura
Such an insane tech death onslaught. The drumming on this album is something else.

Demilich - Nespithe
Just classic tech death here, what an amazing album.

Incantation - Diabolical Conquest
Death brutality!!

**Bonus random non-DM im into rn***
Hell - Hell
Sludgy kinda raw doom.. vocals get raspy/kinda BM-y

I guess this is as good a place to put this as any. (Could also almost go in the 50 plus thread on ILE.) The other night I went to see Voivod backed up by Prong with Hirax opening. I don't really like the hassle of going to shows very much, but I've been making time for a lot of legacy metal acts that have come through town. Last year I saw Carcass, Sacred Reich, Immolation, and some others. Before COVID, I was able to see Iron Maiden, which was a lifelong bucket list show for me. None of these bands have come anywhere close to being disappointing. Just great shows across the board. They can all shred in their sleep at this point. Just total professionals.

One thing I've found amusing is this expectation from all of the bands that have come through here (especially Prong) that because it's The Bay Area, people should be moshing like the old days. Tommy Victor was trying so hard to get people to mosh and I was looking at the people who did try to get a pit going and... Bless them for trying. Most of the audience looked old enough to have attended Voivod's earliest shows. "The pit" was a handful of people very carefully walking in circles while gingerly headbanging, and the audience gave them a wide berth. I have Tinnitus so I am generally pretty hesitant to come down to the front, but I had to for Prong (I always wear earplugs now). No moshing for me... though I did consider it for a few minutes.

All that said about audience participation, I hope the ticket sales and enthusiastic applause after each song should show these bands how much people still love them. I'm sure they get bigger pits in festivals in Europe, but here it really does feel like the tail end of an era. At least the one I grew up in.

Out of everything Voivod performed, I think I most enjoyed the performance of the more recent track "The End of Dormancy", which has sneakily become one of my favorite songs by them. Prong did a cool cover of Killing Joke's "Seeing Red" and later on in the set of Rush's "Working Man" which I see they have released as a single. As a result of the show I've been going through both of their catalogs since the show.

- Marilyn Haggerty

I love Prong to an almost unreasonable degree, and never having seen them live is a real nagging disappointment for me. I'm almost certain they're never gonna play Montana.

lol beard papa, I find nothing sadder than bands begging people to mosh. first of all, you can't command a pit - it happens or it doesn't. sometimes it doesn't even have anything to do with how much people like your music.

really glad you got to see Voivod! i haven't seen them in a while and need to rectify that

He was good natured about it, though. Kept saying "C'mon, mothafuckas!" but was smiling the whole time. I honestly was kind of surprised by Tommy Victor on the whole. I guess I had assumed he would be super intense guy, but he had a gregarious presence. Really seemed to be enjoying himself. He was flawless, too. I've always enjoyed his playing. Both Prong and Voivod are 3-man bands who sound way bigger.

I hope you get to see them, unperson! Not too far to Seattle or the bay from there... maybe the stars will align some day.

speaking of shows, I caught Necrot, Ghoul, and Municipal Waste last night. or rather, the first two - I'm not a MW fan, think when it comes to thrash revival, they're my least favorite of the big'uns (Toxic Holocaust is more my jam).

Necrot were great, though really they could use a second guitar player live. those solos are great but shouldn't be played over bass, and it does render some of the riffs murky if you don't know them (which fortunately I do). but they still had a great energy and I'm stoked for their newest album.

Ghoul were kinda the surprise for me, I've seen em and listened to em before but mostly as an afterthought, I just knew them as the dorks who wear sacks on their heads. they've really leaned into their inner-GWAR, with full-on goofy costumed characters, voices and storylines, and the music itself is a bit more than the 'good surfy thrash' that I remembered, there's a lot more grindcore in it (which makes sense considering the source bands for Ghoul). sound-wise, they sounded phenomenal, the energy was incredible, the goofy theatrical sideshow was entertaining as hell, plus they insulted Joe Rogan which was a plus.

I had entertained staying for MW just to get my money's worth but had enough fun watching Ghoul that I felt satiated.

I saw MW last year as well and would have left during their set if they had been headlining. Sacred Reich, who were never one of my favorite thrash bands, played before them and blew them off the stage.

love SR! i can imagine - i saw them live once and they were fantastic.