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Advanced search at GoogleTuesday 21 December 2010 at 9:02 pm Google now lets you select a "reading level" to your searches, from basic to advanced. What happens when we search for "death metal" in advanced reading level mode?Death Metal <3 Google Best Metal of 2010Saturday 18 December 2010 at 11:07 pmMelechesh - The Epigenesis Power metal band Melechesh make a riff heavy, fast and technical metal that sounds like Helstar and The Haunted colliding in midair. Middle eastern influences are subtly done, reminiscent of Nile in the way they are worked around the heavy metal aggregate of styles. Energetic and introspective. Graveland - Cold Winter Blades Continuing an attempt to join black metal, Dead Can Dance and epic movie soundtracks, Graveland throw more of the metal back into their music with several remixed tracks and one new that presents perhaps the most "metal" and aggressive voice for the epic yet conceived. Another way to view this: if power metal were black metal, this would be topping the charts. Divine Eve - Vengeful and Obstinate Stygian onrushing doom-death with a Swedish guitar sound, Divine Eve follow up on 1993's As the Angels Weep with a new EP of mid-1990s songs reworked and restructured that make good on the promise of that early work. Although these songs are doomy, they are mid-paced and run the gamut of death and doom styles artfully. Herpes - Doomsday 2010 Demo Old school death metal in the Autopsy style, with more punkish/grind influences like Cianide, Herpes keeps the "partially formed" feeling of early death metal while churning out riffs that fit together like chain links swinging toward the skull of a deserving victim. Avzhia - In My Domains If you can imagine Graveland and Summoning combined and rendered in a style like that of early Rotting Christ, with inspiration from Emperor, you can envision this sweeping, melodic and unabashedly sentimental album that evokes the spirit of early black metal. A sense of life being full of wonderful things, mostly evil, emerges from this dark musical epic. Decrepitaph - Beyond the Cursed Tombs Building on the death metal of two decades ago, Decrepitaph paste together Swedish riffs with the intensity of American mid-paced death metal bands like later Master and Malevolent Creation. The resulting primal battering encourages the old school death metal form to breathe again. Malevolent Creation - Unreleased 1987 CD Before they joined the legions of percussive death metal bashers, Malevolent Creation were a speed metal band sounding a lot like early Forbidden, Exodus, Artillery and Assassin thrown into a blender. Expect grandiose topics, ripping riffs and purely satisfying metal from these three tracks resurrected from the vault. Krieg - The Isolationist Chaos black metal band Krieg combine their early neo-improv punk-influenced black metal with post-rock, creating a simple but effective organization that uses post-rock technique to make music in the bolder, braver, less self-pitying style of black metal. Salem - Playing God and Other Short Stories After years as a Hellhammer-influenced black metal band, Salem have joined the modern metal bandwagon and in doing so, found a voice that fits their style much better. In fact, this is one of the few modern metal releases that makes sense from start to finish, with jaunty syncopated riffs dropping into sync with vocals like later Samael. Cruciamentum - Convocation of Crawling Chaos Attempting to make music in that seminal intersection between old Incantation and Profanatica, Cruciamentum render a dark churning through this short demo that conveys the old school death metal spirit and its contemplative alienation. Into Oblivion - Creation of a Monolith Most of the progressive or experimental metal out there simply repeats experiments in other genres, which are "new" to metal but only aesthetically; Into Oblivion attempt an instrumental metal approach working through layers of motif-based riff clusters. Reminiscent of Black Flag's "The Process of Weeding Out" if executed by Profanatica and Averse Sefira on shore leave. Prosanctus Inferi - Pandemonic Ululations of Vesperic Palpitation This album could well be a tribute to Fallen Christ, Dark Angel and other blistering speed bands who throw in dozens of riffs and stitch them together somehow into a single entity. High speed riffs that often use similar progressions clump together and form a super-high energy death/black metal hybrid with enthralling percussion. Truppensturm - Salute to the Iron Emperors Someone had to inherit the throne of Angelcorpse, and this low-tech phalanx of gnarled high-shock riffs fulfills the role and picks up in the process some of the murk of occult bands like Beherit and Blasphemy. The result is less martial organization than an exploding of raw Id, overrunning the social conditioning by which we normally live. Celestia - Archaenae Perfectii This flowing black metal suffers from "Kreator syndrome": with at least two powerhouse riffs per song, it stands out during those riffs but the rest of each song is disorganized supporting material which adulterates the impact. Yet some of the more interesting black metal this year. Overkill - Ironbound Many metal fans out there if waterboarded would admit that they just want 1980s speed metal to return. Never fear, as Overkill brings us a collection of carefully-polished songs in the middle-period Metallica style, with small elements of Slayer and Exodus worked in. Nothing old but nothing particularly new, just a more experienced ear for songwriting re-approaching these concepts and making a modern version in the older styles. Trophic levels in metalSaturday 18 December 2010 at 7:29 pm From the forum:
- razorfield9 61% of metalheads also listen to classical musicFriday 10 December 2010 at 10:27 pm The "20something neckbeards who get paid $60k/year to lardass around 'programming'" on Reddit did a metal survey, and the results were interesting. While not much was revealed about how people enjoy metal, the data on what other genres are also enjoyed was a nice wake-up call, with classical music coming in second place to classic rock.According to the Reddit metal survey, 61% of metalheads out there also listen to classical music. You can see the full results of here. A flourish of SlayersTuesday 30 November 2010 at 08:55 am Sent by a friend -- compare San Antonio Slayer to LA's Slayer (the famous one) using these two live concert recordings. (SA Slayer versus LA Slayer, Rapidshare)Pray to SatanTuesday 30 November 2010 at 08:15 am From the forum:
Satanism in metal is so 1980s. Back then, a revolution: discover the occult under the slick modern skin that was really only three decades (one generation) old. So when people head for the safe, you remind them of death, mutation, disease, suffering, defecation, sodomy, and occult insistence that Evil is as important as Good, and that's another way of saying both are human perspectives only. Nature doesn't care whether it does evil or good, it just does what it must. But now, in the 2000s, everything is permitted. We need a new mythology, not a negation. If you have Satan, you need God; if you have God, you need Satan. Now, we all know that Jesus Christ is a liberal, a Communist and probably a free-market anarchist or at least free-love hippie. But he's sort of immaterial, he's a popularization of the Old Testament message. Whatever God we have, it's the same God, much as we say the word God in many different languages; every religion describes the same world, the same God, and struggles with the anthrocentric concepts of Good and Evil. If you have Evil, however, you must have Good and vice versa. So it's time to reinvent the mythology from within. If you want to destroy Christianity, take it back to its Pagan (Greek) roots and admit the archetype for Jesus Christ was Socrates. If you want to destroy modern soulless Judaism, embrace the original demi-gnostic hermetic Judaism. We are all together in each of our nations fighting for the same world, and different interpretations of the same truth. Metal needs to embrace the futurist aspects of science joined with a mysticism of logic that doesn't depend on a dualistic god or inherent meaning. How to get that Malevolent Creation 1987 CDWednesday 24 November 2010 at 8:38 pm Use this handy form to order the Malevolent Creation Unreleased 1987 CD, which may not stay in print forever:This hooks you up with Jim Nickles/Shredly Studios. Malevolent Creation - Unreleased 1987 AlbumTuesday 23 November 2010 at 3:47 pm Malevolent Creation - Unreleased 1987 AlbumProduction: The first three tracks showcase the studio work of Jim Nickles, and make the latter three, which are awful tape-grade garage production, sound like a middling 1990s studio with moderate volume, good tone, and reasonable bass. For the most part, he's album to separate the instruments, which avoids the kind of washout frequent in recordings of this era. Review: Before they were a thunderous death metal band, Malevolent Creation started out as a late speed metal band in the style of Slayer's "Aggressive Perfector" matured a few years with influences from Metallica, Massacra and Sepultura. Unlike most early death metal bands who sound like primitive chromatic punk making warrior metal, this three-song 1987 garage recording shows us a sound comparable to Artillery, Devastation and Nuclear Assault or any other second-tier bands that lacked the rock sensibilities of Metallica but borrowed their technique to mix into a Slayer/GBH fueled frenzy. Riffs are short and use rhythm more than phrase in the death metal style, and like other speed metal bands, Malevolent Creation use catchy bouncy choruses which repeat the song title multiple times. Their verse riffs are more in the Slayer school, and their choruses more the Metallica style of broad intervals permitting harmonization, which creates space for lead guitar and vocal melody. Had they continued in this direction, Malevolent Creation would be a promising power metal band today. The first track, "Sacrificial Annihilation," is a pure speed blur that calls to mind early Nuclear Assault; "The Traitor Must Pay" follows with familiar pieces of music from Malevolent Creation's first album, and sounds like Slayer crashing into Massacra; finally, "Confirmed Kill" borrows a Metallica chord progression and puts it to good use. It's good to see this historical document riding again so the rest of us can explore the genesis of Malevolent Creation. You can buy this album from Jim Nickles' Shredly Productions here via Paypal. Transcending "metal" as it is nowMonday 22 November 2010 at 12:05 pm Black metal is in the process of being legitimized. This is what Until the Light Takes Us and Hideous Gnosis represent. This is not inherently bad, as long as we remain critical of these outsiders. Its growth will allow for us to split off again and continue down the dark path. Black metal's path to transcendence is in leaving metal behind.Black metal's real problem originates in its desire to stay true to its roots. The reason for this is that the roots transcended metal, but bands are over and over again attempting to recreate that by following the exact same musical structure. This is absolutely the wrong way to approach it. What made black metal great was not distorted guitars and gremlin vocals, but the spirit that led to those musical choices. I think the problem isn't too much black metal, but too much metal. The "metal" that most people know is bought and paid for, an image sold to them by Hollywood movies, satellite radio, and record labels. With the existence of the internet and file-sharing we are now able to reach a whole new niche with music, the ordinary educated middle-class person. Let this new crowd reject the leather jackets, drug dependency, and zero social mobility of the metalhead primate. If we want for metal to transcend what metalness means in the hands of those groups, we need to take two steps: First, the music itself needs to change. This is not nearly as complex as it may seem. All the arts are simply sets of limitations; the artist works within the limitations to create something profound. The limitations of the art-forms drastically change the potential of the works within. These limitations are referred to as structures, such as the verse-chorus structure of rock, or the strict syllable rules of a haiku. A simple enough change will completely alter the genre of black metal. Let us remove percussion entirely. This is not a superficial fix. In fact, its tendency to take away the value of vocals and percussion is what originally gave black metal its power. This was the path Darkthrone took in the simplification of its percussion in Transylvanian Hunger. Let's continue down this road and remove the drums entirely. Listen to Burzum's Dominus Sathanas or Judas Iscariot's The Clear Moon, and the Glory of the Darkness. Both songs greatly transcend most of the other works of the artists. By removing drums, artists are forced to compensate by improving the other elements of the songwriting and make them more complex, and in this way this kind of music will further focus upon and emphasize where it shines in the first place and that is in melodies and atmospheres. Alongside this it will clearly distinguish itself from those metal artists who are not capable of creating powerful music without the use of drums. This will distinguish the fans since most of the meatheads in the metal crowd wouldn't be able to appreciate such music. The next step is to create a backing mythos. This is absolutely necessary to allow the genre to gain steam and helps the artist to enter into the transcendental creative state. What I mean by backing mythos, is something, anything that can exist behind the work itself, giving it depth. Dante had the cosmology and widespread acceptance of the Bible. Tolkien had history, maps, and languages behind the adventures of his characters in Middle Earth. Lovecraft had the hostile cosmic worldview that allowed for entities infinitely different from us, of which nature equipped us with no means of comprehension. Black metal has a rich mythos of crimes and political statements backing the music. It doesn't matter what it is, but there needs to be something behind the music if it's going to really stick. I personally feel that the best backing mythos for this new transcendent offshoot of black metal should be intense philosophical discussion of some sort. With the internet we now have a platform for giving and receiving enormous amounts of information. This could allow the artists to explain and discuss their works and the works of others to try and penetrate the meaning and discover which works have real power and which don't. Also this sort of discussion will captivate the imagination of the audience who wants something real. If they see that the artists actually care enough to participate in philosophical observation of their art-form, then they will be much more inclined to take it in at a deeper level. Metal turned away from the conventional path of music. It decided to be adventurous instead of entertaining, and that led it to some strange places. Then black metal took hold, and it was no longer about adventuring in the fun, dangerous places; it was now about stepping into the cold, dark, and hostile unknown. We can continue on that path if we'd like. We must now reject the comforting foundation of percussion and see where that takes us. It will undoubtedly touch upon even more powerful extremes of horror and beauty than black metal ever did, but will also take more effort from us to comprehend and integrate (not to mention for the artists to create). Transcending black metal will only happen by our own effort and bravery. by Andrew Why an undergroundSunday 21 November 2010 at 4:08 pm So there's a bit of a flap because Scion/Toyota has sponsored a number of metal shows over the years, and because corporate sponsors have to be careful, they've rejected a number of bands on grounds of content. One metal musician opined:
Indeed it is painful, but not unexpected. After all, the underground is dead. When record distributors embraced the indie around 1996 or so, the small labels began appearing in record stores. They were often available on Amazon anyway. Where it used to be that Roadrunner was available in stores, but Earache, Century Media, Olympic and Peaceville were special issue, now all were present. This continued for about a decade before record stores collapsed. Even more important is that the golden years of underground metal occurred in a little pocket. The cost of producing CDs fell, with desktop publishing and disc-pressing technology converging. The DIY labels of the seventies graduated from tapes and cassettes to CDs of a quality that could be sold in stores. Industry had none of the distribution channels ready, but thanks to the rising power of databases and automated ordering, soon the middlemen took over. The underground disappeared in the 1995-1997 era as industry accepted it, and the rising interest in black metal propelled more fans to seek it out. The money opened new doors.
Someone needs to explain the industry to the musicians. Use small words. Industry operates on trends. This is because, all people being equal, few people have any idea what to do and nothing to seek except social approval. As a result, they gather like grains of sand in the waves of time, eddying in currents -- they do not move independently. They react, rather than act. Industry as a result likes trends. Catch a trend early, and you buy it low and sell it high, and make a ton of profit. Then you're the Christ genius individualist superstar. The new metal audience wants the "cred" of metal, but they don't want to leave what they know. So they want industry to take the same mainstream/indie/alternative/post-rock and dress it up as "extreme" metal. That's how you get metalcore and nu-metal, which from a distance are one and the same. And now that metal is "aboveground," it's no longer competing on quality. It's competing on trend status. So alternative metal was big in 1997-2000, metalcore has been big 2001-2008, and now sludge, drone and indie-metal are huge for about another 18 months. Then what? They don't know. If you make yourself a commodity, you will be bought and sold and the whims of the market -- that is to say, the whims of the majority, a kind of economic democracy -- will determine whether you succeed or fail. If metal is to thrive on its own, it needs to step out of that rat race. Bring back the underground, where we aren't cool, aren't hip and make no one any money. We can do that simply by being true elitists and rejecting music that is of low quality, doesn't understand the spirit of the metal art, is of compromised style or integrity, or simply is whoring pandering crap like Cradle of Filth. What's killing metal is the trend factor. People want to appear extreme, but they want it all delivered in a momentary burst. They don't want a lead-in, or to have an attention span, or the kind of epic composition that truly makes epic music. They just want the same old crap with whatever sound seems "epic" this week. Last year it was Braveheart, maybe next year it will be the tribal thing Sepultura does again. The underground was more than a place where we "could" get our music published. It was a place where we could publish music without the corruption of the world getting in the way. The happiest underground musicians made their art, then left it behind and went on to other careers, or made their art and stayed satisfied with a small but loyal fan-following. Metal can provide this like no other genre. Instead of trying to be like everyone else and go for the gold, we should stay in the underground, and destroy anything that threatens it. That includes the false underground of people who reject any band that more than ten people have heard, or anything that does not rigidly conform to what they have heard before. All of these are dead paths as well. Archives01 Mar - 31 Mar 200801 Apr - 30 Apr 2008 01 May - 31 May 2008 01 Jun - 30 Jun 2008 01 Jul - 31 Jul 2008 01 Aug - 31 Aug 2008 01 Sep - 30 Sep 2008 01 Oct - 31 Oct 2008 01 Nov - 30 Nov 2008 01 Dec - 31 Dec 2008 01 Jan - 31 Jan 2009 01 Feb - 28 Feb 2009 01 Mar - 31 Mar 2009 01 Apr - 30 Apr 2009 01 May - 31 May 2009 01 Jun - 30 Jun 2009 01 Jul - 31 Jul 2009 01 Aug - 31 Aug 2009 01 Sep - 30 Sep 2009 01 Oct - 31 Oct 2009 01 Nov - 30 Nov 2009 01 Dec - 31 Dec 2009 01 Jan - 31 Jan 2010 01 Feb - 28 Feb 2010 01 Mar - 31 Mar 2010 01 May - 31 May 2010 01 Jun - 30 Jun 2010 01 Jul - 31 Jul 2010 01 Aug - 31 Aug 2010 01 Dec - 31 Dec 2010 |
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