Sheol

Well if it's any consolation I think it's better to commit to this change sooner than later, even if you feel that 31 is perhaps a bit late. You're wiser for it and there is actually a lot of time left in your life to maybe reach the things you wish for. 31 is still quite young.

I too like colored vinyl, gimmick or not. I've consigned to the fact that my hearing, and signal chain, isn't advanced enough to really blindpick an audible differences between black and colored vinyl. I think the production and mastering are much more likely to affect my experience. Picture discs are known to be dicey though, since the manufacturing process isn't the same as when you just press a regular vinyl puck into a disc. But I've heard that has gotten better as well now.

I like when there's an etching or screenprint on the last side of a vinyl, this is often done when there's only music to cover 3 sides so the 4th is left blank. Good examples include Hail of Bullets - On divine wings

and Rheia Gorecki - VV

13 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

I'm a Tool fan. I own Undertow and a picture disc version of Lateralus. I would have bought Aenima the last time I went to Ft. Myers to buy records, but the edition he had of it was $60 and didn't even feature color vinyl or a lenticular cover (which remembering the Aenima CD, I would really like something with a lenticular cover if they can do that with a vinyl jacket). I've paid ridiculous amounts for albums before (I paid $52 for Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk on green vinyl recently and $45 for a color vinyl version of Nokturnal Mortum's "Goat Horns") but although I do like Tool, I cannot justify paying $60 + tax for Aenima when I can just listen to it on Spotify.

That was most likely a bootleg too. The last vinyl pressing of Aenima happened some time in the 90's and now they go for hundreds of dollars. The median price for an OG pressing is $600 and the 1997 repress is currently for sale on Discogs for a cool $1400! There's a plethora of bootlegs of all Tool albums because for some reason, they seem to hate vinyl. Not even the latest album has gotten a vinyl release.

This wasn't bad. Never heard of it before but it sounds like if early Metallica had tried to play death metal instead. Which is high praise. Pro: audible bass. Con: The bass-sound. But as you said, big riffs and good songwriting. I like!

On 11/1/2021 at 3:00 AM, NokturnalBoredom said:

Hopefully it does not combine the mumble-rap trend with metal to create a sort of Nu-Metal 2.0

Gee, thanks for that nightmare vision.

I agree, mumble rap is the dumbest fucking thing I've heard. I even have a hard time with Jay-Z because he doesn't. Fucking. Enunciate!

Anyways, it's clear that what's "modern" is very dependent on your age group. In some circles of Instagram vinyl community there's a huge nostalgia for what they refer to as the "MySpace bands", usually being mathcore/grind/deathcore bands I've never heard of but obviously were instrumental in shaping those guys lives. I'm guessing they're 10-15 years younger than me so that checks out. Same with all the djent and deathcore bands who have now kind of grown up and are seen the same way we regard Morbid Angel and Entombed, i.e. foundational classic bands. So Vildhjärta, Whitechapel and Fit for an autopsy are now "legacy bands" according to today's 25-30 year olds, and Lorna Shore is the saviors of metal. 🤷‍♂️

As of this second, in no particular order:

• Archspire
• Pink Floyd
• Erzfeynd
• Spider-God
• The Ocean

3 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Home with my son today so any frame of mind is hard to come by.

On 10/29/2021 at 6:39 AM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

The reason Norway "jumped ship" and turned to black metal was because being trve kvlt elitist cunts even then, they felt that death metal while still relatively unknown to the mainstream masses was already old hat or passee in the underground metal circles so they came up with their version of black metal just to be different and edgy and original. And elite.

And we are all indebted to them for it, bless their blackened little hearts🥰

On 11/1/2021 at 3:18 AM, FatherAlabaster said:

Kayo Dot - Moss Grew On The Swords And Plowshares Alike   ...sneaking in under the wire today. It's fair to say this one blew me away, it feels like something I've been looking for in heavy music for a while now. I listened to it twice in a row and I can't wait to put it on again. Love it when that happens.

Is that the new one? It's been ages since I listened to Kayo Dot, can hardly remember what they sounded like. I know that my enthusiasim was tempered by how they were not as cool as their predecessor Maudlin the well. But maybe I'd be more receptive to it now.

My Top 3 albums this week:

Zornheym - The Zornheim sleep experiment

Symphonic death metal with incredibly infectious hooks, great vocals both growls and cleans, and a captivating storyline that seems inspired by the creepypasta The Russian sleep experiment.

Archspire - Bleed the future

Just tech death perfection. I don't see any band in the genre topping this.

Hippotraktor - Meridian

Some mix between posthardcore, rock, and something that I can only describe as "The Pelagic records" sound.

I'm really glad to hear that you're drug free now NB. That shit is not to be underestimated. Glad you got your diagnosis in order too, I'm assuming going undiagnosed is another type of hell.

I always feel kind of melancholy about this awfully sappy powerballad by Timo Tolkki & Sharon den Adel. I used to listen to it on then train every time I went to visit my long distance girlfriend. Things ultimately went to hell in multiple waves but I can't help but feel a bit of nostalgia mixed with sadness when I hear it, especially the guitar solo. Also, I don't know if Sharon ever sounded as good as she does in this song.

Timo Tolkki & Sharon den Adel - Are you the one? (btw that has to be the most Christian album cover I've ever seen)

This one, on repeat all weekend. The best 80's heavy metal/AOR I've heard in ages. Feels like I'm listening to Europe, Whitesnake and Foreigner all rolled into one.

Nestor - On the run

Also, this amazing Black Sabbath cover by Erik Grönwall (ex-HEAT). The guy has amazing pipes, his cover of 18 and Life is also spot-on.

Erik Grönwall - Headless Cross

On 10/25/2021 at 12:28 AM, FatherAlabaster said:

Just said goodbye to my grandma as a family yesterday. Almost nobody at the service was Catholic, so it was a little awkward as well as being totally bizarre. I let it just sort of wash over me. A few of us were really broken up anyway. Honestly I still haven't let her go, in my head, I still imagine giving her a phone call and telling her about all this. But it was great to see everyone. More than great, it was healing. I haven't been around all of them at the same time in 15 or 20 years, haven't experienced that give and take of the family conversation rolling around the room. It made me feel more like myself in a way that's hard to describe.

That's good to hear, man. Familys can be an infinite source of joy, or perpetual fucking headache. I'm glad yours seem to bring the former, rather than the latter haha.

Grot - Hymns of the woodlands

Asagraum - Dawn of infintie fire

Hulder - Godslastering: Hymns of a Forlorn Peasantry

Ieshure - Phantom

Yxxxan - Satanic fortification overbalance (Straddles the line between BM and war metal)

Vermilia - Kätkyt

On 10/30/2021 at 3:25 PM, FatherAlabaster said:

Just went out to see Dune last night. I'm a huge fan of the books and I wasn't disappointed - I liked it a lot - but I left hoping that they'll release a director's cut with a few more scenes. It's a two and a half hour movie, it only went through the first half of the story in the novel, and the narrative still felt compressed and almost rushed at times. I get the sense that they cut some character development to keep the plot moving; I think a little more character development would have helped the plot feel more emotionally coherent. I guess that's a testament to just how much is really going on in the book, and how much of it is difficult to film. Ultimately my feelings about all of it will be determined by how they finish it up in the next film.

But there's a lot they got right! The visuals and sound were beautiful, stunning, shocking at times. There were a couple curveballs in the casting but they all worked. Jason Momoa made a surprisingly great Duncan Idaho. I wonder if they'll make another 10-15 Dune movies starring him as they cover the rest of the series? I bet that green light is just around the corner...

That's good news, I have pretty much accepted that there's parts that will be cut due to how complex the book is. The sequal has been green lit though, so there's that! I think Villaneuve has afantastic visual sense and a good understanding of human drama, so that's what I most look forward too. The movie will show up on HBO Max soon, so I'll watch it there, still don't think it's safe going to the cinemas. I think the virus-rates will continue climbing towards Christmas, but sine Sweden has decided to not test people who are vaccinated we'll never know (very conveniant!).

13 hours ago, Dead1 said:

SexMag - Sex Metal

So not a glam album - think early crusty speed metal/first wave black metal with really larynx shredding vocals.

Posted here cause I know the goaty types might like it.

 

 

 

I love the very eastern European feel of this band, feels like Root or Master's Hammer.

16 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

All I know is that I never caught Polio or Measles, Mumps, or Rubella; diseases I was vaccinated for as a child with vaccines that were much less "sophisticated" than the ones that are produced now.

Well that IS where herd immunity actually is a thing. The reason you didn't catch MMRP is twofold. 1. Such a large majority of people have been vaccinated against those that herd immunity has kicked in, the only ones that are really susceptible  are infants not yet vaccinated, and perhaps people coming from other countries where vaccination against MMRP isn't as common. This means that when there is a case of Mumps, so many are vaccinated that the virus can't really take hold and spread. This leads us to 2. The lack of viable hosts means that the viruses are almost extinct, also reducing the risk of you getting it by a lot.

If say only 75% of the population was vaccinated against MMRP, the risk of it spreading and gaining momentum is a lot higher, and so is the risk that even those vaccinated might get sick (because remember, no vaccine is 100% protection for 100% of the people) because of lack of herd immunity.

Which is where we're are with Covid. Add to that that there's large parts of the world where vaccination rates are below 50%, increasing the risk of mutations that will muck up the vaccine efficiency further.

20 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

My bank shut off my debit card for purchasing stuff from Osmose the other day because they said it "looked like fraud".

Uhh, what? How is that possible? It's not like Osmose isn't a legit, taxpaying company.

This has nothing with being "woke" or whatever you mean by that, you're wildly mixing anecdotal stories, and personal opinions with statistical facts.

10 minutes ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

Women do not play drums very often. Do women drummers exist? Of course, but they are more of the exception than the rule.

This is stating a fact.

Quote

Women do not like to play drums because they often cannot be seen behind the kit and because of the stereotype that drummers are dumb, sweaty, and sloppy.

This is just anecdotal experience and guessing, I argued against this interpretation because I felt it was simplistic and frankly kind of insulting to all the women, musicians or not, that I know. You make it sound like they're some kind of shallow morons or something?

I think the main issue is that playing drums is fucking hard and quite difficault to master to a degree where you can play (extreme) metal. Few people make it that far, and the quota of women (who probably are fewer to start with given the genre) shrinks exponentially faster as well. And this is not counting all the other hurdles I mentioned in my previous post. I think these things have a greater effect on the outcome than the notion that "women don't like to be seen as dumb and sloppy". But I guess we can just agree to disagree.

That said, check out Asagraum, they're really fucking good!

1914 - Where fear and weapons meet

First spin, and so far it sounds pretty fuckin' legit. A bitmore polished than "Blind..." which is to be expected with them moving up to Napalm Records.

I've also been privy to a promo of Archspire - Bleed the future and fuck me dead, this is top 3 AOTY easily. Tops Relentless mutation on all areas. If you liked RM you won't be dissapointed.

1789 - Champ de Ruines

A new black metal band with members of Tattva and Till.

Trhä - Novej Kallhnjenno

I was initially not too impressed by this, seemed like the internet hype machine had just found a new, undeserving cock to suck. But it's been growing on me, like a veiny throbbing love-truncheon. I especially appreciate the punky drums together with the raw black metal.

19 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

It's backed up by real-world examples and numbers though. You can find female bass players and guitar players, keyboardists & vocalists definitely but female drummers are rare. None of the women I know who play music (and I know scores of them, like upwards of 30 different women in music) ever wanted to play drums, not even in high school marching band... it was always a guys instrument and the girls would play either woodwinds or brass. Girls tend to like orchestra more anyway in my experience, because it's more... idk, "refined" than marching band. I know one girl who played drums in marching band and she never got that into it enough to play behind a kit. The only female drummers I can think of offhand are Mercedes Lander and the girl who was in Nekromantix for a while when I saw them tour but that doesn't change the fact that female drummers are in the extreme minority because drums are typically seen as a guys instrument due to the fact that pretty much all of the renowned rock and metal drummers are men.

My sister works in the music industry and has brought it up before that women do not generally like to play drums because of the fact that the drummer is hard to see behind the kit. Which is why they tend to play guitar or bass (or in my sister's case, violin). Drummers tend to be men because of the jokes that we've all heard about drummers being dumb, sweaty, etc. (How do you know if the drummer's riser is uneven? Check which side of his mouth the drool is coming out of).

I have noticed that women tend to be bass players in a lot of cases. Never figured out why this was but I have my guesses based on the same reason why I prefer to play bass than rhythm or lead guitar... Women also tend to be keyboardists and piano players on a much higher incidence than men. I don't know how that's reflected in metal, because I can only think of a handful of them but this information comes directly from my sister who is a working musician as we've had this conversation before at holidays when she would tell me about the projects she was working on. She knows one woman who plays drums and says that she's good enough to get by in a punk band, but can't do much aside from the very basic patterns that punk music requires.

Female musicians don't generally tend to be that represented in metal anyway outside of vocalists. There are tons of them in indie rock, emo, alternative rock, hip-hop, punk and whatever else but metal is still a man's game for the most part based on what I know of the industry through my sister's stories. A lot of women who get into music are either session musicians or become idols/pop stars and that's just an undeniable fact because we can name them all off of the tops of our heads: Madonna, Lady Gaga, Kylie Minogue, Allison Goldfrapp, Jennifer Lopez, Pink, Avril Lavigne, et al. I know like two metal bands that are all women: Astarte and Kittie. The music is generally seen as too aggressive for a lot of women who want to make music, so they don't get involved in the genre because they'd rather make something more mellow.

Sounds like a pretty shallow and surface level view of women, and their motivations. So women don't play drums because they don't get enough attention? Wtf? You could argue that one reason there's generally few women in metal is because it's historically been a boys club with women receiving very little encouragement to pick up an instrument and join, but receiving a hell of a lot more unwanted, sexist attention, belittling and outright hostility. Things that will actively drive most sane people away from engaging in a subculture. And when they do join it's usually as an afterthought to fill in on the instruments that's "left over" like bass or maybe keyboards. It's gotten better in the past 10-15 years but that's such a short amount of time it's hard to compare to the pop/soul/RnB world that have had a long and dominant history since at least the 60's. It was only a decade or so ago when the general consensus was that women wouldn't or couldn't sing in metal unless they did the "sweet" soprano thing over some dude growling. Women growling? Forget about it, they're not made for it. Now it's a lot more common, no one really bats an eyelid. But it took some really big stars like Angela Gossow and Alissa White-Gluz to give weight and credibility to it and to inspire young women. Were they the first? No, but they were certainly the most famous and well-known female growlers in the 00's.

There's also something to be said of positive role models. There's a reason there's more female mainstream artists, it's partly because they have seen themselves reflected in artist growing up, sparking the dream to themselves become an artist, and instilling the self-efficacy and confidence that that dream is within reach. Don't underestimate the power of sexism and preconceived notions on peoples motivations and what they think is their options in life.

On 10/21/2021 at 9:58 PM, NokturnalBoredom said:

I think that women just don't like to play drums.

I think that's a dumb stereotype, it's more likely that its not an instrument that women are actively encouraged to pick up and keep playing long enough to get good. It's also a quite tricky instrument, regardless of gender, both in terms of cost, loudness and size (not counting digital kits who only recently have gotten affordable/good). Not to mention the challenges of actually playing.

I enjoy A. Morthaemer's work with Asagraum, she's got solid chops and never overplays the songs.

Asagraum - Leviathan.

Also Luana Dametto (Nervosa/Cryptae) is a sold fucking drummer, both for thrash and death metal. Just look how precise and relaxed she is.

Nervosa - Never forget never repeat.

Cryptae - From the ashes

Exercises in futility and With hearts towards none are their best albums by far. Where Mgla shines is the incredibly interesting drum-patterns/grooves in combination with the slightly hypnotic, very riff-centered guitar work. WHTN in particular is an album to get lost in.

15 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

Thankfully it will be a quick job because hanging out in the bulls paddock is not something we take lightly, but it's better than getting the 1250kg beast into the race and trying to get him on a truck.

1250kg? Holy shit. What an absolute unit. I've met some 4-500 kg elk and they were scary enough!

On 10/18/2021 at 3:51 AM, FatherAlabaster said:

Driving playlist today:

Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik - Hugsjá

Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik - Skuggsjá

Wardruna - Kvitravn

Katatonia - Dead End Kings

Katatonia - The Fall Of Hearts

Katatonia - The Great Cold Distance

Someone's feeling the autumn huh? 😀

I got a kick out of the Foreteresse album I posted in the Black Metal subforum (why are there so many subforums, it's insane! Just collapse them into a "Metal music discussions" thread) and went on to the glorious Ferriterium.

Ferriterium - Calvaire

8 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

Rotting Christ, Varathron,

If you want to get your feta on I suggest Empire of the Moon - Eclipse and Kawir - Adrasteia. Both great Greek bands.

Quote

Emperor, Immortal

For classic Norwegian black metal I think Ild - Fandens Lykteskjaer is a great new band that pays tribute to the sounds of yore. Also Moldé Volhal - Into the Cave of Ordeals

Witchery and Destroyer 666 is more black/thrash so I guess bands like Aura noir and violent thrash like Dreadful Fate might work.

Quote

Melechesh

If you like the middle eastern scales on top of your black metal I think Akvan and Nader Sadek are good starting points.

Quote

Marduk

If you like Marduk, particularly the later albums then Funeral Mist and Triumphator are essential. Both feature Marduks singer Mortuus/Arioch and especially Funeral Mist is amazing. FM are even among the top 5 best black metal bands ever IMO.

For the raw stuff, I think there's some real gems. The Suns journey Through The Night is a band I never get tired of promoting; he masterfully blends cosmic ambient synth and raw black metal into a suffocating, glorious whole. Just listen to "Crawling Nebula of Dismal Light"

Also recommended:

Trhä - Novej Kalhnjënno

Forteresse - Themes pour la Rebellion (one of the best BM albums of the past decade!)

Malakhim - Theion (a brilliant blend of Norwegian second wave, 00's orthodox (think Ofermod and Watain) and modern slightly chaotic BM like Akhlys and Deathspell Omega)