Metal

He's not wrong you know.

edited 20th Aug '16 5:13:59 PM by StillbornMachine

Going back to the song I linked: what is anyone supposed to get out of that? It's deafening.

Whatever it is they want really. Please don't come here just to whine and vent.

That was kind of over the top of me. Guess I'm just trying to "get it" and find out what the draw is

That varies from person to person but generally, the rush of energy, the craftsmanship involved. the sense of immensity and power, and well, heaviness is what I tend to notice generally speaking.

That in a nutshell. Personally, Lacuna Coil's not a band that I'm really into, but I do like her vocals.

Twentington, my advice would be to steer clear of modern metal and try some old Black Sabbath, like "Black Sabbath", "N.I.B", "Paranoid", "Sweet Leaf", or "War Pigs". If that's past your tolerance point, then I'd say give up trying, because you're just not wired for it, and that's not a bad thing.

I liked "Hard Wired", but that production is way too Death Magnetic for my liking...and looking at the Wikipedia article for the album, Greg Fidelman is one of the co-producers. Fuck.

edited 21st Aug '16 7:38:25 PM by Willbyr

I'm willing to be lenient on the production if the rest of the album stays at least at this level of quality songwriting wise. Sure, it's not perfect but this is an immense relief to hear one way or the other. On a thrashy tangent, I've been liking the new Paradox album lately which joins Exiled On Earth, Ripper, and Vektor as the thrash bands releasing the genre's keepers this year. Unlike the others, Paradox's sound is very vanilla, at best power metal tinged, and a return to the melodic mid to late 80's post-Metallica/Megadeth sound. However it does this really well with a great grasp of how to embed melodies within autocannon rhythms and vocals that while rough edged can carry the tune as well as some concussive force as well. It's a case of a band being plain jane on paper but devastating in action.

As far as stuff in the vein of Paradox goes, I frankly can't wait for the new Helstar. "Black Cathedral" frankly sounded very A Distant Thunder-esque and (discounting Multiples of Black), they have a proven track record as one of the most consistently strong acts in power metal.

I'll be reviewing it later and I will say it more or less is a return to their late 80's sound. Word of warning: the opening track isn't quite what you'll be expecting. I enjoy it and if you enjoy Helstar you'll enjoy that kind of metal too 99% chance, but it's not what we think of when someone mentions their name. I would say as a whole it's more of power/speed that touches on thrash. However compared to its two predecessors, it's nowhere near as pugilistic or crunchy. Have you heard Ancient Creation's Moonlight Monument by the way? Came out in 2011 and pretty much is a proggier, more overtly neoclassical version of A Distant Thunder/Nosferatu era Helstar albeit with much rawer vocals. Really cool lead riffing!.

edited 22nd Aug '16 5:43:24 PM by StillbornMachine

I've heard that about the opener. Gonna go out on a limb and guess that it's straight-up epic doom metal, which honestly is pretty fitting for the subject matter even though Cauldron Born did the whole "USPM doing an epic doom song about vampires" thing first.

@Twentington: Catharsis, novelty and ecstatic energy.

Not really talking about Lacuna Coil here as I'm not big on them, but that's why I listen to dark, heavy, intense and noisy music in general.

I thought that Cauldron Born song was about zombies.

Also, new Ulcerate preview track is up. I almost didn't recognize them at first; this is much more melodic compared to the prior material and black metal influence (and not in a DSO kind of way either). Gets pretty doomy halfway through.

Naw, "Unholy Sanctuary" is pretty clearly about vampires haha. As for the new Ulcerate, it honestly reminds me a fair bit of what Beyond Terror Beyond Grace was doing on Nadir right before they broke up. Also very much looking forward to seeing them in November, they're fucking intense live.

Members from the now defunct war metal band Diocletian have a new project, Solar Mass, on the way. It'll be released on cassette by Iron Bonehead (CD and vinyl to come). Compared to that band, this is much slower and doomier, hearkening back to a strange mixture of Voivod (punk and prog era), Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, and Blasphemy, for a sound that combines a doomy weightiness with the feral nature of the first extreme metal practitioners. All of this is wrapped up in deceptively complex songcraft where layers of basic, reductive riffing gradually split at the seams to allow weird semi-dissonant lead work and structural breakthroughs to emerge. Think of it as an advanced proto war metal sound.

Could somebody explain to me what war metal actually is, precisely? I hear the term oft bandied about but I don't think I've ever listened to a war metal group knowingly, so I'm always just a touch confuzzled.

EDIT: Looking it up, the basic idea seems to be a crossover between the sloppier, gnarlier, grind-adjacent part of death metal and raw black metal of the same manic stripe. Which is a nifty idea, and seems like something I'd dig. But by the same token, I wouldn't mind a primer from y'all more obsessive folks. :P

edited 28th Aug '16 12:49:10 AM by JHM

War metal is basically a continuation of the pre Scandinavian second wave style of black metal and derived heavily from grindcore, Beherit, Sarcofago, and perhaps the most important band to this style, the Canadian band Blasphemy. It intersects with death metal often although this is typically incidental rather than deliberate due to the more rhythmically minded and chromatic nature of war metal. It minimizes much of the melody and ambience typically associated with black metal in exchange for pure near atonal chaos.

Blasphemy's Fallen Angel of Doom is typically seen as the first war metal release. Conqueror's War Cult Supremacy is another influential release for the style. Blasphemophager, Deiphago, Bestial Raids, Proclamation, and the now defunct Diocletian are also well known modern examples. Nuclear War NOW! productions tends to have quite a few war metal releases on its roster too.

edited 28th Aug '16 6:24:43 AM by StillbornMachine

I'm not big on War Metal, but I quite like Sacramentary Abolishment's River of Corticone album, a really interesting concept album. They reformed as Axis of Advance who are a bit more well-known. Revenge IIRC are also a well-known-ish War Metal act.

I think I'd probably appreciate that album more with a remaster; yeah, I can enjoy rawness as much as the next guy but their debut is unfortunately muffled to the point it feels as feeble as fly buzzing sometimes. Which is a shame because they had this weird hybrid sound that made me think Infester as a ROSS BAY CULT 666 type band with occasional forays into funeral doom. I've been digging the second Sacramentary Abolishment album recently although it's basically a really rough rehearsal for Axis of Advance's Strike.

I wouldn't call Axis of Advance (up to the second album) or The Distracting Stone war metal though even if it does take some of its ideas - not based so much on a grind or SARCOBLASPHERIT mayhem as much as a weird mix of thrash, Swedeath, Scandinavian BM, and Angelcorpse-isms.

edited 28th Aug '16 7:45:35 PM by StillbornMachine

Yeah, war metal is basically the sound created by raw black metal acts like Blasphemy, Von, and Beherit mixed with some grindcore elements and occasionally also raw Midwestern death metal as played by Nunslaughter and Embalmer. It's essentially the spirit of early black and death metal turned into a distinct codified sound.

Good call on Embalmer and Nunslaughter - while they are very different from war metal bands from that style definitely enjoy them. Are you aware of Order From Chaos and Abhomine? Personally don't see them as war metal but they're hugely associated with it as well.

Yes, along with Helmkamp's various other ventures. Angelcorpse itself has also definitely had some influence even though everything post-Hammer of Gods was far too technical and polished to be anything even close to war metal.

I wouldn't call Angelcorpse at any era technical as much as technically competent. A lot of their riffing isn't too far from say, Mutilator or classic Slayer and they never really focused on odd rhythms or complex lead work.

edited 31st Aug '16 4:35:21 PM by StillbornMachine

Definitely technical in comparison to a lot of the bands that they influenced. They're hardly comparable to most of their death metal peers in that regard, but a lot of the riffing definitely demanded more technical ability than the average black metal act that would have been into them ever really displayed.

edited 31st Aug '16 5:49:05 PM by HasturHasturHastur

I don't know a whole bunch about metal, but I recently discovered Rhapsody of Fire and I've been enjoying them. Can anyone recommend any similar sounding bands? Not necessarily with the fantasy influences, though that's definitely not a turn-off, but anything similar for me to try out.

Oh yeah but the skill level of most black metal wasn't too far away from a lot of punk but it's only around the time of groups like Emperor, Dissection, Sacramentum, and Enslaved that it started to rise. Like, what would be technical in black metal would be considered elementary for a lot of death metal. Not that technicality was really the point in either genre though to be fair.

Thy Majestie, Dark Moor, and Ancient Bards make pretty good Rhapsody esque sympho-power.