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Today marks the anniversary of my birth to the sum of 40 years! While in one sense it's somewhat frightening that things have got this far out of hand, I'm also consoled by the dark lords who have gone bravely before me into the 40s realm. Those people know who they are, and I salute them. Ave. Spent most of the day at an athletics relay carnival where my eldest vampire daughter performed admirably in the Under 9 Mixed Relay Team for her club, making it to the finals and giving it a great shot. A proud father, I nearly had tears of blood as I saw my little killer helter-skelter around the track, strong, tall, powerful. Was I the only person out of thousands in a Taake shirt? Yes I was. Last night the Countess and I went out to a great steak restaurant in the city where I was in absolute bliss with the beef. It was amazing. I could cry (tears of blood) just thinking about it now. Tonight, however, will be a more standard family restaurant experience, and I'm still tossing up between Indian and Italian. At this stage I'm leaning towards the evils of Maha Kali and the Indian deathcults (armageddon). Time shall tell. I have spoken. 40 years of history echo through my words. Hail to you all.

Obsequiae established a very well-defined style on their first record, and they've stuck with it ever since. The Palms Of Sorrowed Kings is their third album, and much like the second one, it offers subtle refinements and expansions of their sound, but no big surprises. If you haven't heard them, it's a great place to start; if you have, you know what to expect. That's not a bad thing at all. If you like what they do, you'll like this album. It's chock full of flowing, triumphant medieval-European-flavored melodies and dual guitar interplay, reminding me of certain parts of Opeth's Orchid along with some other 90s melodic death, black, and folk metal. The songs remain generally mid-paced and propulsive, with the occasional blastbeat or meter shift, but nothing outlandish; the expected harp interludes are pretty-sounding, moody without being gloomy. The sense of atmosphere is well-realized and pervasive. A caustic vocal rasp echoes from within, I dunno, monastery walls? Tombs of ancient warriors? Something. So, what's different this time around? More complex, layered songwriting and musicianship; more prominent and interesting bass lines; a detailed, full-sounding mix that's a lot more clear than their debut and more powerful than the sterile sound of their last recording; a couple of sections with clean vocal harmonies that fit in nicely, and even a spoken word bit. The details add up to a compelling experience. My one real complaint about this band has been how homogeneous their stuff is. Every song tends to sound like a variation on the same couple of ideas, and that can make it all come across as a bit of a gimmick. I'm a fan of melodic metal and I love medieval Western music, so it's a gimmick I've enjoyed. This album doesn't feel like a gimmick. It's not some great departure, but it's not a mere rehashing, either; it's deeper, clearer, more varied and nuanced than their other material. I have a special place in my heart for the energy and rough edges of their debut, and there's plenty of nice stuff on Aria Of Vernal Tombs, but this might actually be the best thing they've done.

I frequent all the beaches on my island frequently, but maybe we can have a sand sculpture season each year. We will take turns hosting it. I make a mean up-turned bucket castle. One bucket’s unfortunately my limit (unless it’s full of fermented coconut milk). NP: Vltimas - ‘Something Wicked Marches In’ Strange title, paraphrasing Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ like that. Great album though. So good.

Titan Force - s/t Vltimas - Something Wicked Marches In

Obsequiae - The Palms Of Sorrowed Kings

Cannibal Corpse - Butchered At Birth

Grave Miasma - Odori Sepulcrorum

Disma - Towards The Megalith

Burzum - Belus

Mgla's entire discography Trying to somehow survive work today. 🙄

Slayer - Angel of Death

Flux Capacitor required?

I guess it's already December 6th where you are? Oh to be living in the future... I'll be checking it out tomorrow.

Finally bought 'Eleven Burial Masses', the Peaceville re-release of 'Live Bait for the Dead' from their 2001 Nottingham Rock City show. Great live album. 75 minutes of classic era Cradle with a crystal production, guitars up front, Dani sounding great, faultless song choice. Great line-up too: Dani, Allender, Gian Pyres, Robin Graves, Martin Powell, Erlandsson. The booklet contains a cool essay from journalist Dom Lawson, and a few small and admittedly unexciting live photos. Get around it if you want the songs with a slightly wild abandon in the live setting.

World’s laziest cat

Very strong coffee this morning.

The Burning Halo is actually their first of their material I bought. Like you, I faithfully bought more convincing myself I should be more interested... Been giving Hooded Menace's 'Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed' a fair bit of air (earphone) time this week.

Megadeth - Peace Sells....

Oh Req you truly are a Pom at heart. Seems the all-conquering Australians have another Pakistani pummelling in mind and I doubt even mother nature can prevent a 2-0 series victory. Nice warm-up games for the real series against New Zealand.

Ear candy. I stand by my review of it. NP: Hooded Menace - Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed

NAS - New York State Of Mind

Borknagar - Winter Thrice

Obituary - Slowly We Rot

Helmet - Unsung

The other local landlord tyrants from families ancient and terrible are gathering for a work dinner tonight. I’m having a pre-dinner pint. Gotta love the work dinner. 10 or so colleagues all getting together to talk about work. I’m just going to talk about black metal and see how it pans out.

I think that they changed their styles over time, but, then again, I am also not an avid listener of their music. That being said, I tend to think of their music as more humorous than offensive. The deliberate extremism in content, when blended with live performances that are downright hilarious, make their music appear to be an attempt to make fun of prevailing standards of both morality and music. I never heard of that documentary before, and it sounds really interesting. I will have to look and see if I can locate a copy/place to see it.

@Grievous just gave me an ironic horns up. Good lad.

I thought this thread was about when people like Kim Kardashian and Avril Lavigne do the horns up... like, it's fake cause they're falses. I think the whole Horns Up thing on this site isn't great anyway. Yeah, it's sort of cool to show your appreciation for a post, but I'd rather see them discontinued. It screams teen social media to me.

Does anyone know any drone metal bands other than Sunn O)))?

Ultravox- Vienna. Just a great song.

Testament started out strong. The Legacy and Practice What You Preach (and a couple songs from Souls Of Black) are absolutely excellent for some classic thrash. They only sold out when they adapted a death metal sound in Dark Roots Of Earth or Formation Of Damnation. Overall, they have some excellent melodies, solos, and songs. I'd rate them good, in fact, maybe even my favorite Thrash bands.

Holy Moses - Finished With The Dogs

Who thought that was a good idea? Was this ever even considered good animation? Sent from my SM-S327VL using Tapatalk

The next two are pretty cool, just as original as Welowie, but Welowie has the better song writing. Pusty Wieczor can be really strange, synths drowing out the guitars. Very original sound, the synths are so loud and then vanish, can be very odd but cool. Krew Naszych Ojcow has a lot of weird ambient things and sound effects going on as well. But yeah, Welowie is the one you fall in love with.

Cannibal Corpse - Butchered At Birth Cannibal Corpse - Live Cannibalism The Chasm - Spell Of Retribution Gutted - Bleed For Us To Live Six Feet Under - Haunted Morgoth - Ungod

Gutted - Bleed For Us To Live

The only one I know of theirs is "Welowie" - great record. How's their other stuff?

I ate the last of my frozen hash brown patties with some eggs this morning, but I do have a bag of chopped roasted potatoes with peppers and onions in the freezer too. I'm the Jeffery Dahmer of the potato world.

Not yet but at the local farm shop yesterday I bought 3 big ones. The domestic life vampire I live with says they are for baking only at that size but I will be making chunky chips from them to accompany the flat iron steak I also purchased. SMASH THE SYSTEM!

Monstrosity - Millennium

Slidhr - The Futile Fires Of Man Slidhr - Deluge

I'm repulsed and amazed in equal measure. And both are at high levels.

I've really gotten into alestorm atm. Would really like to start a tribute. Even have a band name approved by the landlubbers themselves!! Get in touch if your interested.

Vader - The Art of War

Motorhead - 1916

Mayhem - 'Daemon' In the car today: My Dying Bride - 'Trinity'

Big Ass Lubed Dong RATS

I don't mind lo-fi album covers, but those particular ones are clumsy and devoid of skill. There's no atmosphere there for me, no marriage of form and function, they're just bad. That's ok though, like I say it never affected my enjoyment of the music. Here's a stupid, poorly done painting. I don't love Deteriorate's Rotting In Hell but I like it a lot. The best I can say for the image is, at least it's memorable...

Crabcore is a kind of crustacean metalcore that scuttled sideways to hide in the depths of musical irrelevancy. It's tough and scary-looking on the outside, but inside it's just a bunch of mush. Most of the crabcore you can buy at the store isn't even real crab these days - it's completely fake. Pretty sad, really.