Iceni

That's gotta be a horror move tagline from something.

Sure, and I agree. I think I said something similar about heaviness to someone else, saying I still really liked Spiral Architect and Twisted Into Form even though they weren't exactly full-bore overdriven. I'd wholeheartedly say it's important to revisit bands where you thought 'I'd like them but for X or Y' because maybe your tastes have evolved...I've probably become a massive fan of at least ten or twenty bands via that process. Hell, I recently enjoyed Colored Sands even though I don't remember liking it upon last listen.

'Dead Letters' by Katatonia.

'Nightwraiths' by Sectu. This is pretty good but for some reason it's not clicking. Should probably give it a shot some other time.

I can get the first part of this but I think the second is a little harsh for someone starting out, anyway. I completely sympathize with looking for very specific music and I think it's worth helping get folks started with stuff that's similar - but maybe also has the elements of stuff they might not typically like. I got comfier with death growls after listening to Battlelore and Svartsot and have slowly but surely opened up to a much wider variety of harsh vocals, but finding those gateway bands was the way I did it.

The odd thing is that I hated the first one, loved the second...and then the rest slowly declined from OK to crap again. And the weirdest part is that my gripe with the last one I went to was exactly the gripe I had with the first one; they kept trying to induce integrity as if they thought it was like vomiting or something. Most of all, however, they just seemed like a bunch of happy-go-lucky witless BSers who were so dumb they weren't even aware of how completely useless they were about helping anyone.

My friend is impossible to get hold of nowadays, it's driving me nuts.

I dunno, I really like Troldhaugen but I suspect the rest of you wouldn't care for them all that much. Yeah, I'm surprised I forgot him.

Oh cool, what kinda prog d'you like?

Well, here's the funny thing...technically to most people it stands for Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and is a federal agency. However, for me it's Acquire the Fire, which is a sort of concert/motivational speech for Christian youth that lasts two days. I went something like four, five times in high school and it didn't improve one single solitary facet of my faith, except perhaps to make me a little less gullible to hype. This guy's got some other funny stuff too on his channel.

Parody is most amusing when it closely resembles the truth. To wit, a fellow with what appears to be a fair dose of talent poking even-handed fun at an assortment of metal (and kinda-metal) genres. Some are funnier than others; I will certify that the joke about 'Christian metal' is 100% true, I've been to enough ATFs to know that. -rzKu8rag8w

Try Pan.Thy.Monium and Amorphis for easily understood growls.

Well, Beyond Creation and Obscura aren't bad even if they are kinda the same band. I have to agree, though, nothing else looked all that great.

Probably my favorite on that album.

'V Bezumii Velichie Tvojo' by Revelations of Rain.

^Midi actually left a post saying he was gunna depart. I'm a bit worried as to why, he was pretty vague about it other than to say it was due to personal issues.

I really love it, it's one of the first things that allows me to tell in a split second if I'm listening to you vs. any number of the other dissonance-heavy blackened DM groups out there. Albums with audible bass are always a nice change. By the way, 'Father Alabaster' was interesting this time around, I heard a LOT of the Yorkshire doom paragons Solstice, of all bands, in the song.

The weather is so much nicer now, it's gone all cool and overcast for some reason. Maybe Scotland's having a heatwave or something, because this is not early June DC weather...

'Ingrate' by Black Harvest on Bandcamp. I've never listened to this one in its entirety. I don't know why. I've got the title track on now, and it's a deeply enjoyable song, the combination of clean vocals and acoustic sections (uptempo! engaging! not gunna tranquilize your ears! why the hell are there not more bands understanding this?..) are some of the best I've heard. I can hear the Katatonia loud and clear here...and I don't know if this is the bass or the guitar tone, but there's some really heavy rumbling humming on the non-palm-muted stuff that really hits the spot.

Listening through the 'Gloria' album by Disillusion whilst during research and editing.

Apparently my TA for Political and Social Thought will be finishing up his dissertation and will then go work for a think-tank in Utah. It's funny because last I checked the guy is libertarian, swinging toward anarchist. His wife's a metalhead, too, which is pretty cool...

7/10 it's good as far is it goes but it's a bit repetitive and I'm not a fan of thrash. 7DWb7BlS40w Time for some weird French fruitiness.

Finished 'Chernye Teni' by Revelations of Rain and on to 'Dekabr II' from the same album. Some good chilly Russian doom. This really does feel geographically appropriate - a large, freezing wasteland in sonic terms. If Mordor were in Antarctica this is the kind of theme music that might play during the lonely, desolate and back-breaking descent up the slopes of Mount Doom as the listener wonders whether the Ring really will be destroyed but knows that regardless the summit must be reached.