METAL for ART-metallers

umm, Sleep, Boris, Lightning Bolt...

Ruins rule!

Paradoxally it seems like it's never the "art" style (or "avantgarde", "experimental", "open minded" or whatever label they're marketed under) bands that kick off any real innovation, somehow all of them tend to fuck around with one or more styles in various interesting ways but never really progress. Napalm Death/Repulsion develop grindcore: three years later we have Naked City. Winter slows Celtic Frost down to a thick bleak sludge: a decade later, Khanate/Sunn 0)). NY hardcore emerges in the early 80s and borrows thrash riffs somewhere along the lines: Meshuggah twists and turns the concept nicely half a decade later. Possessed/Death/Morbid Angel establish death metal: Pan.Thy.Monium plays bizarre DM riffs with a saxophone six years later.

On the other hand, nothing really new has come out of metal in the last five, six years (compared to the abundance of new ideas in '85-'95) so maybe these kind of bands can live up to their promise of taking metal in a radical new direction.

But I can see why for lots of people 'real' metal isn't very interesting: invariably it is based on the presumption that the whole darkness/evil/long hair/beer/spikes&denim&leather/"Bang your head for Satan" paradigm is GOOD and should unapologetically be celebrated (explicitly or implicitly). Throughout the years the music has changed pretty dramatically, but every band keeps insisting it's all still done in the spirit of (insert old 70s/80s metal band X). If that's a turnoff (and face it, it IS for most people who did not grow up thinking at some point in their life that Black Sabbath/Iron Maiden/Metallica/Morbid Angel is the coolest band on earth), it's not surprising that if they like the aesthetic side of metal, they'll go for bands that operate outside of the traditionalist metal paradigm but use its techniques, melodicism or structures.

N.P.-Killing Technology!! art metal 87-style

www.Maudlinofthewell.com

Yeah, I know I'm supposed to have some ironic stance etc, but no way, I'm going to enjoy music because it moves me in some way, not because it's totally ironic, like, woah, where's my white belt.

As for art metal, hrmm, I'm surprised to see Gorguts maligned, as "Obscura" is one of my favorites as far as this is concerned.
As is Cynic's "Focus", which is a truly beautiful album, strangely enough, considering the band started out as yet another Florida death metal band. Be warned that this album has some "robotic vocals" that many people find absolutely disastrous.

I'll gladly second Maudlin of the well.
I know a lot of people who'd say Agalloch, so I'll mention them, though I personally find them about as interesting as Accept.

Sigh deserves a nice big mention, particularly the HAil Horror Hail and Ghastly Funeral Theatre albums. Take simplistic 80s metal ala Venom etc, then add a curious penchant for progrock and experimentation. It shouldn't work, but it does quite well. The latest album is quite good too, though it's more hardrocky, but chockful of "vintage synths", as ol' progists would put it.

Another pair that I personally don't care for, but that might be worth mentioning are Korova (now Korovakill) and Angizia.

But screw it all; just get some Bolt Thrower! *performs thrashing, headbanging and general stereotypical 'hessian' moves*

I honestly don't know if any of these bands will intrigue you mister, err, Snoom, given that most of the bands you mention tend to veer closer to hardcore, or at least doom metal and sludge.

Perhaps CSSO (clotted symmetric sexual organs) will tickle your fancy. Grindcore meets psychedelia.

Sorry for the dreadfully scattered style of this post, but it got written in increments while doing other things.

as for agalloch...can't stand the vocals. that's the problem with most metal bands with non-shrieking/growling vocals, they're just awful. ved buens ende i like, despite the vocals.

I feel sort of silly for being part of this thread, as I realized that I'm not quite sure always what people mean when they're talking about art rock etc.
For me Morbid Angel's "Blessed are the sick" is much more artistic than say something like Converge or Boris (though I love both of those bands)

As for the "does REAL metal hold secrets of time signatures & psychedelic mentalisms?" question of the initial post.. Undoubtedly, though mainly the former... Psychedelia often strikes me as the opposite of what most metal bands want to do. Though bands like Esoteric certainly have delved into that direction.
I still say someone should send a bunch of Gong, Amon Düül II etc to Gorguts!
Come to think of it, to go back to Morbid Angel, I often find a lot of Trey's solosections to delve into psychedelia in a way. That guy is plain weird.

how about we send them a muffin basket with some CDR copies of "yeti," "you," "tago mago," maybe the silberbart album. see what happens.

Don't like Ved Buens Ende, but definitely check out Fleurety - just as weird, but more developed and more interesting.

I love Isis, Orthrelm, and have even warmed up to the new Locust CD (though I don't think that's metal in any sense, but I love the keyboards).

Also, for non-metal noise-guitar kicks, check out the last CD by Raoul Bjorkenheim's Scorch Trio (can't remember title; it may not even have one).

Enslaved's new Below the Lights CD is total art rock black metal, complete with flutes. Really excellent cut-up of high-speed rage, pompous ghostly folk, and prog breakdowns.

Solefald are a pretty great Jethro Tull-influenced post-black metal band.

Secret Chiefs 3 are barely metal, but Zappa-possessed ex-Mr. Bungle guys (not the annoying ones) pulling a virtuoso art-rock take on the fake mysticism of old Murat temple "oriental" bands.

Yeah, Tarantula Hawk are like a slacker Magma, and their latest is good.

As for Khanate, the members' splinter groups like SUNN are more experimental, but more about drones than ROCK.

Ulver's gone all the way from black metal to bad techno to blipcore, complete with a Fennesz remix on the new one.

Pan-thy-monium are heavily psychedelicized metal from Sweden in the mid-1990s, sort of like Acid Mother Temple landing atop Entombed.

Burzum's Filosofem could be compared to Mark Rothko, so I guess that's art metal.

The last Mayhem studio album, Grand Declaration of War, was arty in a bad but not worthless Flock of Seagulls kind of way.

Arcturus were the first metal band to use amen breaks.

Do the No-Neck Blues Band count? Their founding drummer was in the Texas metalcore (80s metalcore) band Angkor Wat.

And everybody's favorite Chris Burdon-inspired performance metal act AC has reunited, to the delight of reconstructive surgeons everywhere.

I thought Mayhem's last album sounded like Laibach.

actually, hasn't one of Bolt Thrower just put out a very arty jazz metal album??

Heresy! HERESY!!!

Sigh!!!

Heresy! HERESY!!!

I take that back, I take it back! Or at least they're a less reliable beast in the golden Earache stable of Morbid Angel, Carcass, Napalm Death, Godflesh, Cathedral... And by now haven't they fought one crusade too many?

Hope it gets released on vinyl

Really getting into Agalloch, thanks to the metal poll. The band achieve exactly what I always thought Black Metal should but never previously has for me, ie vividly evoking snow-bound forests and mountains.

hurrah!! Success for the metal poll!! I hope everyone discovers lots of good stuff because of it.

Is there any other BM I might like? Basically nothing too lo-fi. And I don't like blastbeats.

You should ask on the actual poll thread, I think there's others more qualified there to help you. Do you like Absu?

Absu has blast beats iirc - amazing band, amazing drummer

I've just checked out a couple of tracks, they sound interesting. Thanks. I'm cool with blastbeats in moderation actually. It's only when they go on for an entire song without variation that I find it tiring, like in lots of first wave BM stuff I've heard.

youre looking for more atmospheric BM? Try Drudkh.

New Drudkh is a bit more post-rockish, so I dunno if you would prefer that or the other stuff.

Yeah, they sound kind of like what I'm after. Plenty to be getting on with, cheers.

Tried real hard w/ the Vlevet Cacoons, but couldn't get into em. Sound great as background music, like having a thousand amplified cats purring at you, but there's no there there. It's just a pleasant tone, carried out for forty-some minutes. I have way too many "pleasant tone" records.

goddamnit this sounds so fucking incredible ^^^^

must seek out now

http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001759430

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/25/8840233/art-metal

Not sure how 'arty' High on Fire are. Not that that's the article's biggest problem.

But now I know this thread exists I might use it to dump any and all weirdo-metal bands I discover that don't fit on the Branca-metal thread to the resounding indifference of all.

Why didn't you?
What are the best Art-Metal albums of 2016 then?

Aluk Todolo - Voix
Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
Schammasch - Triangle

what else?

http://www.themonolith.com/music/review-schammasch-triangle/

New Dysrhythmia is great: http://clrvynt.com/dysrhythmia-the-veil-of-control/

I've ordered that but dunno when it will arrive. a couple of weeks I think so not gonna listen to a stream and will wait for the CD but as I own all of their albums and liked them a long time I am looking forward to hearing it!

Does it differ to the other albums, sund4r?

Ha, I don't know their other albums tbh. I have one of Kevin Hufnagels' solo albums, which I like a lot. (Need to get the new one.)

oh! Ive been a fan of them since the 2nd album. Mr HCI loves to annoy me with pics of his demo cdr he got when it came out. Ive never ever seen one on sale anywhere

btw that Schammasch album I managed to get Mark S intrigued enough to listen to it a few months ago and he seemed to like some of it. So I really really recommend giving it a shot. It might be a bit over-ambitious but I find it quite rewarding to listen to.

It does help of course to listen to the album in 3 different sittings.
I have the triple lp so have a break inbetween each side so it feels more like listening to 3 different albums (which tbh it is)

https://schammasch.bandcamp.com/album/the-maldoror-chants-hermaphrodite

"Swiftly following their Triangle triple album, Schammasch return with the first of a number of releases exploring the 19th century poetic novel, Les Chants de Maldoror by Comte de Lautréamont. Centred around a protagonist who opposes God and renounces morality’s conventions, this long-prose poem certainly lends itself thematically to an ambitious metal act"

It has a bit of an industrial feel to it. Its short (32 mins) but very good.

black metal jazz! https://whiteward.bandcamp.com/album/futility-report

can we make this a rolling thread from 2020 onwards

with a more palatable title

rolling metal can be wall to wall genre exercises and brutal death and 'this could have come out in 1982!' and we can all be happy

Sure, why not? Although now you're tempting me to start a rolling thread per metal subgenre, that I may forever be exempt from -core-related hype.

<snooty voice>genre exercises</snooty voice>

you're probably underestimating how snooty I felt as I typed that

I've begun to think of the metal I like as soundscape metal. That thing where I mostly love how I get images in my mind of winds and demons and fjords. Lots and lots of beautiful icy fjords. My faves this year has been stuff like Inter Arma, Abyssal and Pissgrave.

ok plan abandoned

i saw my friend's little brother's band the other night -- Apprentice Destroyer -- kinda kraut-y. Nice kids!

Apprentice Destroyer

Awwww.

here's a nice article about them:
https://cvltnation.com/erase-your-mind-apprentice-destroyer-permanent-climbing-monolith-exclusive-full-album-premiere/

So I've just discovered Murmuüre :D

they probably didn't need FOUR guitarists to pull this sound off but it rules anyway!

Murmuüre were amazing. I have their CDr but missed out on the vinyl issue when it came out a few years later as it sold out instantly and has been selling on eBay/Discogs for silly money ever since

Even the CD is £85 on here https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/2500715?ev=rb

Not sure if they are arty enough for this thread, but the new White Ward is awesome lounge-jazz black metal. Also, if you want more cool arty metallic stuff their recommendations at the end of this interview are all very cool: https://kvlt.pl/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Interview_with_WHITE_WARD_wwwKVLTpl.pdf

Shit, the last post before the revive was a plug for... White Ward. Now I feel dumb.

Don't sleep on those recommendations though: Genghis Tron, Cult Leader, Valborg, Hybrid... so much goodness.