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Show last night. Hardcore kids playing death metal. Little heavier on the DM side than the core side, so it was ok. Local, weekend, $12. Works for me. Tombstoner (NYC), Accursed Creator (FL), and Skulldozer (MS). Tinnitus is cranking this morning. NP: Blind Guardian - Nightfall Helloween - Walls of Jericho Sepultura - BTR As an aside, the daughter's boyfriend comes over yesterday. Cool kid, into all sorts of music, vintage audio and vinyl. Likes most everything but usually turns up his nose at metal despite my best efforts. We usually meet at post-punk and psych/garage rock. Shows up in a Mortician shirt. I was like damn, just jump in the deep end of the pool. Talked for a bit and he had just picked up Hacked up for Barbecue and Chainsaw Dismemberment. Also Deicide - Once Upon the Cross. Realizing my opportunity, we went to the music room and took junior to school. Turned him on to a bunch of stuff and even a bit of black metal. All the goods. He left with some Dissection, Inquisition, Obituary, Morbid Angel, Bolt Thrower, Opeth, and a few others. Next lesson will be some grind. Kid's alright.

Fucking great stuff. Caught them live a few years ago and that was pretty special. Coroner - No More Color Coroner - Mental Vortex Coroner - Death Cult

No idea dude. That's quite a leap. He also name dropped Agoraphobic Nosebleed when we were talking. I was a bit shocked, like how the hell does he even know who these guys are? Not exactly household names and he doesn't have any metal friends/relatives other than me. And I don't exactly listen to either on a regular basis, maybe once or twice a year. Best guess is a youtube rabbit hole or the like. Funny thing though, last show I took him too (ASG & Red Beard Wall) i was telling him he needed to up his black t-shirt game since he only ever wears a tour shirt from The Church. Next time I see him... At least it's not some shitty death-core nonsense.

New Darkthrone day is always a good day. Darkthrone - It Beckons Us All

Electric Wizard - Witchcult Today, UK 2007 Dopethrone - III, Monreal Quebec 2012

Opeth/My Arms, Your Hearse-Ok, after several spins of the rather gloomy and rainy Morningrise, this is starting to sound more like the Opeth I came to know with BWP and Ghost reveries.

Iced Earth - Something Wicked This Way Comes

NP: Dolmen Gate - Gateways of Eternity ▶︎ Gateways of Eternity | Dolmen Gate (bandcamp.com) Marcolin era Candlemass is pretty easily identifiable as the primary source of influence. You could probably point to a little Trouble or Pentagram here and there. I do enjoy some of the Marcolin Candlemass albums, so this is a pretty easy going listen for me. The songwriting is excellent on this, even if I'm not a fan of echo laden Solitude Aeternus style production. The vocal layering is frustrating since the singer clearly has the pipes to carry her weight through the style. It's the same sort of frustration I feel when I hear the early Fates Warning albums with John Arch. They should really just trust their vocalist enough to leave the mix a little rawer and pick up a lot more of the inflections that the production seems to smooth over. Still definitely my kind of doom. B+ from me. Mayhem have had such an interesting career. I'm one of those nutcases who will actually defend A Grand Declaration of War onward era Mayhem. This album in particular seems to love making use of rests and what I would call very loud silences in the guitar work. It tends to push Attila's rangy growls a little further to the front, but in return we get erratic quick lashing riffs that actually finds me listening to the rests as intently as the notes themselves. You don't get into the listener's head like that without long years of experience and high confidence in your songwriting.

Mayhem - Ordo Ad Chao Naked City - Leng Tch'e

Scorpions - Animal Magnetism (1980)

Morningrise was where I discovered Opeth. Love it to pieces, but BWP is their pinnacle which extends through the twins of Deliverance and Damnation. @markm, id hesitate to reconsider your back catalog rule with any other band, but Opeth is different. Everything they did from the first album through Ghost Reveries is worth your time. My Arms and Orchid both have some real gems. The Baying of the Hounds, Face of Melinda, The Moor... just so many great tunes.

Paradise Lost - Gothic (1991) Fuck yeah!

Enslaved - "Heimdal" My Dying Bride - "For Lies I Sire" Vitriol - "Suffer & Become" Exodus - "Blood In, Blood Out"

Opeth - Morningrise (1996)

Slough Feg - The Lord Weird Slough Feg

Judas Priest - Priest Live '87 Never met a Darkthrone album I didn't like. Never met a Deicide album I did.

Nunslaughter - Goat (2003)

Ondfødt - Norden (2021)

Was Playing (suggestions for albums similar to Dissection - The Somberlain) Dawn - Slaughtersun Unanimated - In Light of Darkness Necrophobic - Hrimthursim (I gave up on this after the 3+ minute intro... could never get into this band even in the past when I gave them a chance) Sacramentum - Far Away From the Sun Sarcasm - Burial Dimensions Thulcandra - Under a Frozen Sun Vinterland - Welcome my Last Chapter Call me a picky bastard but none of these albums did much for me even though a few were pretty good and similar to The Somberlain. The most similar were Sacramentum & Vinterland, and both albums are solid, esp the 1st half of Sacramentum which does a lot of interesting patterns esp with the drums. Sarcasm were very cool with the raw production and interesting guitarwork. I just didn't hear hardly any evil melodies in any of those albums. Not so say Dissection's melodies are all evil, cuz Somberlain has some wussy melodies too. But nothing in any of those bands, except maybe Unanimated, ever gave me that menacing dark sound I'm after. Instead they were all the kind of melodies that evoke feelings of sadness, epicness, grandness, or deep thoughtfulness, and I'm not a fan of that style. What's the point of black metal if it's not evil sounding? Also I know it's hard going up against Dan Swano but the production on The Somberlain sounds way more dynamic and punchier to my ears than any of those albums. NP: Mayhem - Ordo Ad Chao I checked this out after seeing @FatherAlabaster's post. Still enjoying it thoroughly after 3 or 4 listens. Very dark. Lots of evil-sounding riffs that come out of nowhere and you never hear them again. "Erratic quick lashing riffs" is a great description. Unusual song arrangements featuring strange instruments / sound effects. Lots of slow hypnotic sections. Just a nice overall dark vibe and very different from what I was expecting. It was exactly what I needed after not finding anything evil on those Somberlain suggestions. Will be spinning this one more! P.S. I also enjoyed Grand Declaration of War when it first came out. It was different and stood out compared to what was happening in the scene at the time. Hellhammer's drumming was insane on it. Might need to revisit it soon.

Morsch - S/T demo https://morschband.bandcamp.com/album/morsch

Slugdge - Esoteric Malacology (2018)

MARTIKOR - Acedia DODHEIMSGARD - Black Medium Current

Immortal - "Damned in Black" Immortal - "War Against All"

DROPTHEHAMMER - Greed Misery

Fantastic choice! Such an underrated band. I really enjoy the albums Ripper is on, but Barlow is a great singer in his own right.

Accept - "Humanoid" Judas Priest - "Invincible Shield"

Ulcerate - promo tracks from the new one Vauruvã - Por Nós da Ventania

OBITUARY - Live

Witch Vomit/Funeral Sanctum-I've been listening to this one a lot. It's my favorite so far. One wonders when the market for OSDM will be completely oversaturated, on the other hand, I find OSDM one of the most enduring forms of extreme metal. This is just 30 minutes of melodic well done OSDM that hits the right notes for meat and potatoes death metal for me. I've been spinning this one a lot. It will probably end up being one of my favorite albums of 2024. Slimelord/Chytridiomycosis Relinquished-this will absolutely go down as a highpoint for 2024 extreme metal. What an interesting take on doom death. For one thing, the production is clean, or at least clear, but not slick. This is not cavern core. There is death metal and there is doom but there is also so much more going on. For starters, this is weird ass metal. Sure, there's a death doom center, but it shifts and morphs into an oozing cesspool of creativity: chaotic hints of black death with prog leanings (just check out the bass playing) reminding me of Ulthar's output last year, and maybe a hint of Lord Mantis. Gorguts is an obvious reference point. There's psychedelic influence, there's plenty of dissonance. The production brings in various gurgling effects creating a sound of liquid slime swampiness with the tracks oozing and shifting into different shapes. This is somewhat of a technical album without being tech death. You just can't pin this fucker down. And it's a concept album about a fungal disease that apparently kills large numbers of amphibians. Whaat? One of the things that keeps me in the death game is the way new artists emerge with creative boundary expanding takes on staid, seemingly limited definitions of metal genres. Death metal is a never ending steam engine lava flow that wont' be stopped and won't be hemmed in. Carry on.

Amebix - The Power Remains the Same DVD Live Minneapolis 5/27 2009 After the Bombs - Relentless Onslaught, metallic crust Montreal Quebec 2007 Swordwielder - System Overlord, 2019

KRIEGSHOG - Love & Revenge

Swordwielder - Grim Visions of Battle, Swedish Crust 2013 Amebix - Sonic Mass, UK 2011

THE DARK - Sinking Into Madness

G.B.H - City Baby Attacked by Rats (1982)

Venom - Welcome to Hell (1981)

Amebix - Arise, UK 1985 Swordwielder - Wielding Metal Massacre, Swedish Crust Punk 2023 Dödsrit - Spirit Crusher, black/crust Sweden 2018

Rush - All the World's a Stage

Ihsahn - Ihsahn (2024)

I don't listen to Crowbar enough. I find their earlier albums better than their later albums but they have some great stuff in their catalogue. NP: Electric Wizard - Come My Fanatics

Tsjuder - Kill for Satan (2000)

Woods of Ypres - Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light (2012) Katatonia - Brave Murder Day (1996)

Bon jour Ari. Every morning you come and I think maybe I should listen to some French bands. Never realized how many French metal bands there actually were 'til you showed up here. I've noticed tonight that all 3 of these bands are from various towns in the eastern part of France, not far from Switzerland. Would you say this is probably just a coincidence, or are the people from eastern French just more grindy for the most part? I know they have to grind the mustard to make dijon (the only type of mustard I'll eat) maybe that grinding mentality has spilled over into their music. You're down in the southwest part of France near Bordeaux right? I love looking at European maps and seeing all the various names of places we've adopted here in America. I see you have a Bayonne over there in Aquitaine, we have one too right here in New Jersey, also a port city. And even "Jersey" is the name of a place in France. We're practically brothers! It's funny my ex's father was French so she used to always ask if we could go to France one day. And I always told her no because I never had any desire to see France. We hear stories here in the states about how the French hate Americans because we come over there acting all loud and pompous and entitled and uncouth and idiotic and none of us speak a word of French, we just expect you guys to cater to us. Shit, I don't want to be one of those stupid Americans. I've always wanted to see Spain or Greece or Scandinavia or even the UK could be cool, but never France. But now that I've found all these French bands I've become a little bit curious about France. Not gonna ask my ex though, she got tired of waiting for me and finally made it to France with her sister a couple of years ago. Chiens - Vultures Are Our Future, crust/grind from Nancy France Warfuck - Diptyque, grindcore from Lyon France 2023 Whoresnation - Dearth, deathgrind from Besançon France 2022

Bolt Thrower - Realm Of Chaos

Seconded w/ gusto

Chris Poland - Return To Metalopolis

HAUNTER - Discarnate Ails NP - OLIVIER MESSIAEN - Et Expecto Resurrectionem Mortourum

Dude this album is awesome, I fucking love it. And not just because big Ed and the boys are from Red Bank New Jersey. Although that helps, and Ed was after all a founding member of both The Atomic Bitchwax and Monster Magnet, two of my favorite non-extreme rock bands. Even though Ed only guests on three tracks here, it's still a good album, I'm sold. Solarized - Neanderthal Speedway, Red Bank NJ 1999 Unida - Coping With the Urban Coyote, another cool stoner rock album from 1999 in much the same vein, featuring John Garcia of Kyuss fame on vox. You're gonna get me on a whole stoner thing now.

Necrophobic - The Nocturnal Silence, Sweden 1993 Necrophobic - The Third Antichrist 1999

Thanks, I'll give it a spin along with the others. And thanks @navybsn for the recs. I'll add those to the list. I'm sure there will be some more awesome stuff to find in addition to that Unanimated album I'm currently enjoying.