Sheol

Well, no I didn't mean it has to carry a specific, vocalized intent. Just that our actions have a political meaning and can be analyzed as such. In other words, there is no such thing as a non-political person. There are however many people not actively engaged in politics. Maybe that's more clear.

And I do think that the kind of vocalized politicization you're talking about seems to be a lot more common in USA than Scandinavia.

For what it's worth, Nuclear War Now has a pretty giant online store, and many of the record labels usually have a US store. Or you could do what us Europeans do and bite the bullet and pay extortionate shipping and VAT fees 😂

On 10/17/2021 at 10:56 PM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Seems like nowadays politics has infiltrated or been injected into nearly every facet of our lives. It's almost like you can't do or say or buy anything anymore without some political motive or ideology being attached to that action or decision

Always was that way, same with capitalism, only now people are getting pretty good at disseminating the politics behind the message/action. As much as it may annoy you, everything we do has a political and societal effect, even saying "I don't care about politics" is a political statement because it implies that you're so comfortable and secure that you have the option to opt out.

Välkommen!

Finally another Swede, we've been sorely outnumbered by the yanks and the brits and even the bloody Australians.

5 hours ago, Thatguy said:

I used to listen to those ISIS albums every morning on my way to hospital for morning rounds when I had a poor sod in ICU for 2 months with total skin failure. Somehow this got me in the right head space...

Total Skin Failure is absolutely a Czech grindcore band somewhere

On 10/14/2021 at 10:46 PM, NokturnalBoredom said:

I also am not a fan of RABM as I do not like politics being injected into the music I listen to, because at that point it just becomes propaganda and political messaging rather than an escape from all of that stupid, pointless shit

Quote

Goatmoon,

🤔

I like most stuff, but with age I've sort of lost interest in many of the more mainstream BM bands, usually because they've been going for so long that they've lost the spark, or have evolved too far from what I consider good BM.

I've moved more towards the xeroxcore one-man band raw stuff like Lamp of Murmuur, The Suns journey through the night, Black Cilice etc., even though there's a huge signal to noise-ratio in that scene. A good middle ground between raw and polished bands are Spider-God and Reign imo. Atmospheric black metal (is that the same as Cascadian black metal??) can be good too, as long as they don't forget the riffs.

What's fun is that black metal has really become huge and diverse in the past 5-8 years, there's something for everyone. I'm particularly happy about the wave of indigenous black metal that has started to pop up. I think that's a interesting and viable way to move beyond the standard christ-raping themes and onto more socially relevant themes but still staying grounded in the rebellion and defiance of the second wave bands.

Sons... is having its 20th anniversary next year. Expect 50 different color options for the reissues by then.

On 10/14/2021 at 10:26 PM, NokturnalBoredom said:

I'm listening to Watain's "Casus Luciferi" right now actually. I got one of the 300 crystal clear copies that were remastered just the other day and have been listening to it a lot. I previously had Trident Wolf Eclipse but I didn't care for that one very much. I haven't dug too deep into Watain yet but if this album is any inclination of what they sound like, I'll go back and pick up their other clear vinyl remaster next week when I'm off.

Watain went off a cliff after Lawless Darkness. There were moments of greatness after but they blew their creative load on that one and Sworn to the Dark. Rabbit Deaf Hearse is cool for it's unhinged ambition, but it wasn't until Casus that they really started to figure out how to write compelling songs, imo. They're massively overhyped, but they 100% are important as an inspiration for the whole Orthodox Black Metal movement and igniting interest in black metal to a new generation.

On 10/13/2021 at 2:11 AM, zackflag said:

Celtic Frost - Monotheist 

Hea-vy!

18 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

Not a lot of people seem to know Arallu or Abazagorath, which surprises me because they both did some pretty interesting things like the former mixing Middle Eastern music with black metal and the latter writing a concept album that seems to lift ideas from Salman Rushdie's controversial novel "The Satanic Verses". I mean, I don't know if either of these bands are not well known (Arallu has some music videos on YouTube) but I actually can't think of any real obscure bm bands off the top of my head aside from two LPs I own: No Sun Rises "Ascent/Decay" and Jotnarr "s/t", the former being more along the lines of post-rock influenced bm & the latter of which sort of mixes like powerviolence/real screamo with bm elements. I got these two both from an independent record label that used to be based out of my area.

Haven't heard of any of those, but Jotnarr sounds pretty sketchy. I don't know how PW would marry with black metal?

I was introduced to Emanation recently, apparntly it's one of the guys in Teitanblood's sideproject from way back. It's really cool in marrying hypnotic backwards guitars, ordinary bm and general chaos. Feels like music to enjoy in a darkened room.

Emanation - The Emanation of Begotten Chaos from God

I think most black metal fans seems to hate Ulver's "Themes from William Blake", even those that like the current sound of Ulver. I how ever think it's great, definitely the logical end-stop for the avantgarde wave that seemed to possess BM around the 00's (looking at you Arcturus, Ved Buens Ende, Fleurety, Solefald). It doesn't get much more pretentious than Garm citing 19th century poetry, and I love it.

18 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

I hear people talk about Peste Noir all the time, I just can't seem to get into them for whatever reason (even though that doesn't make sense really).

I mean, I've listened to individual tracks by them before. I can see how people would be into them, but they just don't seem to really move me at all & I have no real valid reason as to why.

That's me and Dissection. Objectively they tick many of my boxes, but they just leave me cold.

16 hours ago, NokturnalBoredom said:

Varg Vikernes is nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake, but it has to be said that he created some of the best black metal of all time. I'm not really sure exactly how he pulled it off either, because he doesn't seem to have that much musical talent or ability on the surface, having seen some of his YouTube videos.

Don't underestimate the power of fanatical obsession and having no friends as a teen as driving force. I've never cared for Burzum, the white supmreacy is an instant turn-off, I'll never give him the time of day, but there's no denying that him and Mayhem are some of the cornerstones of all black metal and dungeon synth as we know it today.

I know next to nothing about the man behind the hair, so I just hope he's got a personality that comes through in text (even though it will undoubtedly be ghost written) so it's entertaining. Very few musician biographies are interesting imo. It's either a glorified CV or rambling debauchery.

3 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

On that fateful night in 2002 it wasn't Cult of Luna's fault. They suffered from opening band syndrome where they all, including drums, were pushed to the front of stage. I have plenty of respect for those guys and they've stood the test of time.

Last gig of theirs I saw was great. 

Considering they're like 40 ppl on stage that must've been crowded 😂

Fun fact, last gig before Covid was CoL in Umeå. T'was massive.

2 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Isis really was a goddamn force of nature live. They put on an excellent show. I miss them a lot. I had enjoyed their earlier stuff but Oceanic hit me like a ton of bricks when it came out - right place at the right time for me, I guess - and it remains my favorite of theirs.

And yeah, all of my various experiences and opinions listening to Palms, Sumac, and Old Man Gloom line up with yours. I am looking forward to giving them another shot... except for Palms, I think I tried hard enough with that project. There have been a lot of times where I've come back to something with a fresh perspective and really had it click, so I guess I'm holding out hope that might happen here.

Plams really suffered from Chinos vocals, the man is more limited than Tobias Forge, but at least Forge knows how to play to his strengths. You can say a lot about Deftones but saying Chino is a brilliant vocalist is not one of them.

I've never seen Isis live, but I've never walked away from a Cult of Luna concert dissapointed. Even in their early days they spent the extra cash to have a dedicated light guy and it showed.

For some reason I got the urge to listen to R.E.M.'s "New adventures in Hi-Fi" yesterday and now that's almost all that's been played here since yesterday. Me and a friend used to bond over this record and "Ok Computer" a lot in high school. I had a big crush on her for a while, which I funnily enough I think was fueled by our intense discussions about music, not us being in anyway a good match otherwise.

Leave is still such an amazing song. love the droning guitareffect that runs through the whole song.

On 10/6/2021 at 1:33 AM, Dead1 said:

We literally don't even have budgets anymore.  Instead they have a rolling budget that they adjust as you spend money.  And this isn't even based on your exact expenditure or forecast - it just goes up and down randomly, sometimes monthly, sometimes quarterly and then the big end of year adjustment where they make some services under budget, some on budget and some over budget all for no apparent reason.

So that sounds like a fantastic opportunity to grift/corruption. Like, what the fuck man?

On 10/6/2021 at 12:00 AM, zackflag said:

Häxanu - Snare of All Salvation

Cénotaphe - Monte Verità

Now we're talking!

I just ordered this piece of Spanish weirdness. By a member of Teitanblood. Unholy black metal/noise/ambient horror. Perfect autumn music.

Emanation - The Emanation of Begotten Chaos from God

7 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

We should all live by the old saying "it's better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt."

This is double true for musicians. Another hilarious moment was when everyone was up in arms over Set Teitan of Watain throwing a Nazi salute in a picture. The band put out a statement basically saying it was taken out of context but for peace' sake Set would step down, but he was absolutely not a Nazi.

Set goes on to play with Absurd.🤣🤣

13 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

The ones I find funny, and there's been a few over the years, is when a keyboard warrior slags the crap out of some album only to have a band member come and ask them what the problems were and suddenly the keyboard warrior goes all quiet. I've seen a few band members loose it on forums because people didn't like their output, that's kind of funny too.

One of my favourites was when Monstorsity recived a medium review from a webzine I was on, and the bassist lost his shit and started sending badly spelled hatemail. This was a webzine with few readers that no one except those involved really cared about. The guy could barely string two sentences together, but he was really pissed. He was also quite racist/antisemitic from what I can remember.

14 hours ago, MarkhantonioYeatts said:

GLOOSH - Sylvan Coven

 

Huh! That guy follows me on IG. I never realised he had a band. This was good stuff!

I've been listening the shit out of the new Archspire singles. I have no idea how anyone can write that fast, technical, dizzying music and still be so damn catchy and memorble. Incredible.

Archspire - Drone corpse aviator

Other than that I think LLNN's new album will end up on my top 10 this year. They are kind of in that sweetspot between Godflesh, old Neurosis, Swe-death and Author & Punisher.

LLNN - Division

7 hours ago, navybsn said:

The long term effects of COVID are pretty scary from a medical pov. We just don't know enough at this point, but I think that it may end up worse than the initial infection or even dying from it. I read somewhere a while back that COVID is creating a whole generation of people with long term disabilities who will require increasing resources as time goes on. The drag on society as a whole could completely alter the way we live.

It's kinda fascinating that a new disease can alter our way of life not just by becoming a pandemic, which of course have had enormous secondary consequences on our behaviors and lifestyles, but then come again a second time and fuck us over with longterm effects after the disease has left the body. Scary, but fascinating. This should really be a humbling moment for mankind, but instead we're arguing over a piece of cloth over our faces or "personal freedoms" to go out clubbing.

I think the longterm effects of Covid will indeed be vast, given how many people have been infected world wide. It would be funny if American insurance companies decides that symptoms of long term covid (which are vague and general) counts as pre-existing conditions and voids you of your insurance. That would be fucking evil.

There was a record fair last weekend, first one in almost 2 years for obvious reasons, and I scored some great stuff. All vinyl except for the last two which are cassettes.

• The Ocean - Fogdiver

• Ghost - Prequelle

• Dødheimsgard - Kronet Til Konge

• Terato - The Morbid Wraiths

• Woods Of Ypres - Woods III: Deepest Roots And Darkest Blues

• Vinterkrig - Härskare Över Stjärnorna Och Mina Drömmar (MC)

• Incarnated - Choirs Of The Dead - The Complete Works Of Incarnated (C´MC)

On 9/28/2021 at 4:33 PM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Fuck off Johan! I sadly agreed to go see Jinjer and Suicide Motherfucking Silence in Brooklyn in November so you'd better drag your lazy ass down to that show. Do it for me. The General commands you. Mörk and Afsky?!? I'd find that pathetic tour sneak backstage and kill every member of Jinjer and Suicide Silence with my bare fucking hands if I thought there was a slim chance they could get Mörk and Afsky to replace them.

Hahaha ah well, I shall do as the General commands then