What Are You Listening To?

[AlSymerz]

Kyuss Lives! live @ Pinkpop Festival 2012

[AlSymerz]

Blaze Bayley - The Man Who Would Not Die

[FatherAlabaster]

Blut Aus Nord - 777: Cosmosophy

[AlSymerz]

Lich King - Necromantic Maelstrom

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Pretty quiet in here today, huh?

 

Wampyric Rites - The Eternal Melancholy of the Wampyre, Ecuador 2021.

 

Feral Spirit - Invoking Spirits of Ethereal Madness Part I, Canada 2023

 

Feral Spirit - Invoking Spirits of Ethereal Madness Part II. These two EP's played together make a very nice 45 minute album. I might even put them on my year end list together as an album even though part 1 actually dropped on Christmas Eve last year, 8 days before the official start of 2024. But rules are made to be broken, right? My old buddy Doc would hate this of course, but that's because all his taste is in his mouth.

 

[AlSymerz]

14 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Pretty quiet in here today, huh?

Quiet is good. Been up half the fucking night helping to clean up the road after some stupid fucking drunk cockhead decided to turn our road into a demolition derby track last night. Gum tree 1 Human 0

NP Airbourne - Boneshaker

[markm]

Aight GG:

• Undeath/More Insane (2024) 
• Naught(as Jay used to write)  metal but some have argued proto punk-"you really got me"....etc. and working class grit-The Kinks, whom have grown in my estimation over the years in terms of shear scope and volume of Ray Davies' astounding songwriting chops- massive 5 box set I picked up in 2020 and is really f'ing great: 

 

[Thatguy]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

that's because all his taste is in his mouth.

I don't think this is an expression we use in the civilised world but I suspect it means I have no taste for music, only for what is in my mouth. If so it is a scurrilous misassertion.

FERAL SPIRIT - Invoking Spirits Part II. For an EP there is a lot of pointless ambient wittering. The actual metal is quite good  but there is just not enough of it.

NP - EMMA RUTH RUNDLE - Marked For Death

[GoatmasterGeneral]

13 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

I don't think this is an expression we use in the civilized world but I suspect it means I have no taste for music, only for what is in my mouth. If so it is a scurrilous misassertion.

FERAL SPIRIT - Invoking Spirits Part II. For an EP there is a lot of pointless ambient wittering. The actual metal is quite good  but there is just not enough of it.

NP - EMMA RUTH RUNDLE - Marked For Death

Scurrilous indeed. But you know I'm just having some fun with you mate, seeing if I could get your goat as it were. Good morning!

Far as the Feral Spirit is concerned, I really liked it. I didn't mind the 'wittering' whatever that might mean. But weren't you the guy who was into ambient music, or do I have you confused with someone else? I can't really take entire albums of wall to wall ambience (too much of a good thing) but I don't mind some ambience in between tracks, I find it often enhances the atmosphere. Black metal's all about atmosphere. And surely each of those Feral Spirit EP's contained more metal than anything you'll likely find on an Emma Ruth Rundle record? As a bona fide metal snob I'd say there was more than enough metal there to satisfy my primal urges. But I knew it wasn't gonna be your thing, and I said as much. I'm honestly a bit surprised to see you say you liked the metal parts, maybe your musical taste is actually improving down under there finally. If you keep going at this rate pretty soon it won't just be in your mouth anymore. Who knows, maybe by this time next year we'll be two old curmudgeons bonding over evil lo-fi filth.

 

Arzacq - L'espiar Maishant (Demo) France 2020. I didn't really find the Feral Spirit to be all that lo-fi, but this certainly is. 

 

Arzacq 2021 - La Nueit Escura (Demo) 2021

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, markm said:

Aight GG:

• Undeath/More Insane (2024) 
• Naught(as Jay used to write)  metal but some have argued proto punk-"you really got me"....etc. and working class grit -The Kinks, whom have grown in my estimation over the years in terms of shear scope and volume of Ray Davies' astounding songwriting chops- massive 5 box set I picked up in 2020 and is really fucking great: 

 

Not too enamored with the new Undeath tbh. My buddy Cody said he sees it as essentially Cannibal Corpse worship, and now I can't unhear that. It's OK, I'll have another listen at some point, but I doubt I'll be purchasing this one like I did their last one.

I respect the Kinks, or at least Dave Davies, the guitarist who infamously cut the speaker cone of his guitar amp with a razor blade to create the distorted guitar sound for their hit song "You Really Got Me." Distortion in the guitar sound is something we all take for granted now obviously, but back then in 1964 it was revolutionary. Visionary even. I've always been turned off to music where they use clean guitar tones. U2 and the Police and shit like that. I mean I get that in the 60's they didn't have the technology for heavy distortion yet. But since the mid 70's why would you want to play clean when distortion exists and it's so easy to get a properly nasty filthy dirty guitar tone now? Makes no sense to me.

So I respect the Kinks for having a hand in inventing guitar distortion, but I can't say that I'm a fan of their music. I don't really like any of their songs other than just this one and All Day and All of the Night both from 1964. So the box set anthology would bore me to tears. Lola is bad enough, but especially their later era radio hits, like Superman, Apeman, Celluloid Heroes, Come Dancing...they were absolutely atrocious! But as always totally cool if you like them man, have at it my friend. I could probably dig an ELO box set though. Or at least I wouldn't run from the room screaming. ELO was one of the only normie "classic rock" radio bands from my youth that I thought had real songwriting talent.

You Really Got Me

 

All Day and All of the Night

 

[Thatguy]

3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I didn't mind the 'wittering' whatever that might mean. But weren't you the guy who was into ambient music,

'Wittering' means 'to speak at length about trivial matters'. I picked up this word when I lived in Leicester where it was used quite a lot. It's what we do a good deal of here too, but there's no harm in that.

I do like well done ambient music and have written a good deal myself, but the use of the italics and the word wittering signifies that what I heard was just pointless filler. 

I agree about the Kinks. They always looked the part of the swinging England boys though. The two songs above are the ones worth listening to, but I do have a soft spot for 'Waterloo Sunset.'

And no, ERR ain't metal, but music is an open sky and there are more things in heaven and earth, GG...

[RelentlessOblivion]

Sinister - Cross the Styx

[AlSymerz]

Torrefy - Necronomisongs

[GoatmasterGeneral]

3 hours ago, Thatguy said:

'Wittering' means 'to speak at length about trivial matters'. I picked up this word when I lived in Leicester where it was used quite a lot. It's what we do a good deal of here too, but there's no harm in that.

I do like well done ambient music and have written a good deal myself, but the use of the italics and the word wittering signifies that what I heard was just pointless filler. 

I agree about the Kinks. They always looked the part of the swinging England boys though. The two songs above are the ones worth listening to, but I do have a soft spot for 'Waterloo Sunset.'

And no, ERR ain't metal, but music is an open sky and there are more things in heaven and earth, GG...

Yeah alright, but my point was you were complaining that there wasn't enough metal on those Feral Spirit EP's, but then you turned around and posted a non metal record you were listening to. I get that everything doesn't always have to be metal, no issue there, but then why complain that the EP's didn't have 'enough' metal parts? You're not being consistent Doc. I suppose there probably is a limit to how much ambience a band can employ between tracks, or even in the middle of them, before it becomes a real problem. But the FS records never even came close to it, they were 90% metal. But I think Blood Incantation goes way way over their limit, which is why I have no plans to listen to their new one.

Well if that's what wittering means then yeah without a doubt, I'm a chronic pathological witterer from way back. The king of the witterers. 

And honestly Doc, how would I be supposed to know that's what the italics signified? How can you differentiate the pointless ambience from the purposeful ambience? Silly me, I thought it was all just pointless filler. Please teach me Doc, I really want to understand. I'll probably never really be able to understand the point of dissonance, but if I could at least understand ambience I'd feel like I was somewhat ahead of the game.

 

Odious Devotion - S/T, Finland 2018. This could be my favorite use of ambience on a metal album. I do sometimes skip the first intro track, (I can be a tad impatient) but I usually let the other ambient tracks play through. Funny how I don't want an album to begin with ambience right off the bat, but I welcome some in the middle. This album came out right at the tail end of 2018, and I played the ever lovin' shit out of it all winter long. Was a wee bit chilly today, I even have on a sweatshirt over my t-shirt, 47° right now (8°C) at 1:15am, we'll be getting deep into black metal season pretty soon. 

 

 

Feketefagy - Kaosz, Hungary/UK. I can't resist clicking on albums with log cabins on the cover. I buy a cabin in the woods wall calendar every year and hang it in the kitchen. I should probably order my 2025 one pretty soon. I don't really care that much what day it is, but I need somewhere to mark down which days there's no school and which days he has early dismissal. And I love daydreaming about those cabins in the woods. When I'm not swatting flies. That's what I mostly do when I'm in the kitchen. Bought a 6-pack of fly swatters for $8 on Amazon, and I keep them strategically placed in key spots around the kitchen so I'm never more than a step away from one in case I have a clear shot at one of those fuckers. The flies were really terrible this year. Swarms of them some days, I have no idea where they come from. But now today was just slightly cooler and there were no flies in sight when I was cooking dinner. It was wonderful. This turned out to be a great album, I'll have to grab this one. Shit it's not even out yet. I'll have to write it on my cabin calendar so I don't forget.

 

[AlSymerz]

Gravehorror - Indifference of Death

[AlSymerz]

Raider - Guardian Of The Fire

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Infected Thoughts - Innocence is the Price We Pay, Russia

 

Ave Satanael - Regimento del Armagedon, Mexico

 

Abysmal Desecration - Total Extinction of Humanity, Argentina

 

Goatkrieg - Hanging God, Germany

 

[AlSymerz]

Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal For Life

[Thatguy]

14 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

And honestly Doc, how would I be supposed to know that's what the italics signified? How can you differentiate the pointless ambience from the purposeful ambience

Like many things, you know it when you meet it. The italics were to signify that I was using the word 'ambience' ironically. Is this a common usage of italics? Don't know, don't care - it's what I do. And what the dudes gave us was not even ambience. It was just pointless wittering.

14 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I can't resist clicking on albums with log cabins...

This was wittering, but entertaining enough so keep it up.

 

14 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I think Blood Incantation goes way way over their limit

I gave the new one a listen as I did their last one and I don't find the mix of elements successful and the proggy bits are trite. So it's a no purchase from me again.

Oh, and good morning from me.

[AlSymerz]

13 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

 The italics were to signify that I was using the word 'ambience' ironically. Is this a common usage of italics? Don't know, don't care - it's what I do.

 

Isn't that what people used to do before we needed emojis to tell people what to feel and how they should react?

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, Thatguy said:

Like many things, you know it when you meet it. The italics were to signify that I was using the word 'ambience' ironically. Is this a common usage of italics? Don't know, don't care - it's what I do. And what the dudes gave us was not even ambience. It was just pointless wittering.

This was wittering, but entertaining enough so keep it up.

I gave the new one a listen as I did their last one and I don't find the mix of elements successful and the proggy bits are trite. So it's a no purchase from me again.

Oh, and good morning from me.

No, I think italics is usually used for emphasis (personally I use bold for emphasis) and quotation marks might be used to indicate irony. But you can do it any way you want to if you must insist on being different. In this case I honestly didn't think to infer irony from your italics. But now that I know, I'll be onto your shenanigans next time. As much as I do understand quite a bit of Aussie and Kiwi slang, there's still a bit of a language barrier between us sometimes. Because some of it is generational, and I learned most of mine from my late wife who was 27 years your junior. Boomers and Millennials do tend to speak a bit differently. Yes, I do understand these are solely American terms for the generations. But surely you've figured out what they mean by now. If not you can Google them.

But anyway, I really don't see the point in throwing a perfectly good metal album out just because they started it off with 3 and a half minutes of pointless "wittering." Because you can easily just skip ahead, and the rest of the album was all music. Yeah, it's annoying that so many black metal bands feel the need to do this now, but what am I gonna do, stop listening to music? I've gotten pretty used to starting albums and then immediately skipping ahead about two minutes. If two minutes is too far or not far enough, I'll just back up or go forward a bit 'til I find where the music starts.

 

Code - Neurotransmissions, demo UK 2002

 

Sverdsveit - Blizzard of Hate, Canadia 2022

 

[RexKeltoi]

 Dunwich - The Plague Physicians

 

 

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[AlSymerz]

Dream Theatre - Night Terror

It's new, but there's not really much new there.

[Thatguy]

8 hours ago, AlSymerz said:

Isn't that what people used to do before we needed emojis to tell people what to feel and how they should react?

I thought so, but maybe not in the US of A it seems.

Italics have many uses to be fair.

5 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

Dream Theatre - Night Terror

It's new, but there's not really much new there.

Thanks for taking one for the team - not that I was going to listen to it anyway.

[AlSymerz]

22 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

Thanks for taking one for the team - not that I was going to listen to it anyway.

I wasn't going to be it's been hyped so fucking much I thought I'd give it a shot.

 

NP: Sodom @ Maryland Deathfest 24