Requiem

Haha, lucky as a sad goth the loneliness suits me...

Just on bands' release schedules: as I mentioned somewhere earlier in this thread, I think it often comes down to economics too unfortunately. With album sales plummeting since the rise of file sharing and youtube, it just isn't possible to drop tens of thousands of dollars each year on studio time and expect to see any of it back. Let's use the My Dying Bride release schedule history, but this time I'll add more recent years: 1990s Releases: 1992, 1993, 1994 (EP), 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999. = 7 studio releases in 8 years. Later 2000s Releases: 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015. = 4 studio releases in 10 years. Bands who want to scrape together a career in music, however impoverished that will leave them, have to do so through touring and a few sales of merch. There is no cash coming back from album sales to spread around management, the members, the studio staff etc. It's all on a shoe-string budget these days. If it costs a band like My Dying Bride $10,000 to record and release an album in a semi-professional studio, and they only sell 10,000 copies, and the band only gets maybe ten percent of the revenue, to then divide between five or six members, well it clearly isn't cost effective. Back in the 80s and 90s a band like MDB would sell over a hundred thousand, maybe more, and there's cash coming in. Not a lot of it of course, but enough to justify getting back into the studio. So I think it's a combination of differing expectations from punters as well as the almighty dollar. Basically, if people were buying albums we would see a lot more put out than one every three years, complex music or not. It must be sadly infuriating for bands to see their youtube clips gain millions of views but hitting actual album sales below 10,000. There are more people than ever listening to the music, but no one (except us) paying for it. It sucks. And as everyone knows, true geniuses need proper studios. Just ask Jari from Wintersun...

INRI - Sarcofogo Great proto-black metal (joke).

My semi-local metal pub, front bar. The skull theme is everywhere - they have a couple of large animal skulls up above my head (I'm taking the photo of course) on the wall we can't see. Their house beer is called Skull Lager and it's simple and delicious. To the left next to where I'm sitting is the entrance, and to the right of those figures at the bar is the door through to the band room where they hold gigs. Through the band room is the entrance to the beer garden. They have original metal bands play at least three times a week, often more, and the PA in this front room here plays metal at all hours. They have amazing speakers and play a good variety, favouring the classics like Dio and Black Sabbath, but you're just as likely to hear Mayhem etc. I like to get here early before it fills up a little more as I'm sitting in a very comfortable armchair when I took this shot. There's a warm and cosy vibe here that this photo seems to miss, but I guess it's enough to get a sense of the place.

That Johnny Cash version is great. I'll also throw these affecting hats into the ring: Ozzy Osbourne - Life Won't Wait Anathema - Angels Walk Among Us Paradise Lost - Beneath Broken Earth

Pints of cheap house beer at the pub.

Not as bad as the abyss of excruciating exes. Am I right?!

Metal pub. There's a punk gig on later so they're playing punk music on the PA in anticipation. It's actually pretty fun at the moment as most of the songs sound like Motörhead and I listen to punk exactly never, so it sounds fresh. I walked through the band room and one of the bands is getting ready in there, full studs and spiky hair. Looks pretty cool.

This sounds like hell!! Hahaha

Motörhead - You'll Get Yours best of

Elegy - Amorphis

I just had a rush of blood to the head and ordered that Sacramentum album, so impressed was I by the description. Hard to believe I've never heard it before. Im not going to check it out on YouTube either.

Hey Salmo, do you think there are bands out there that we could define as proto-proto-black metal?

Alright, I'll try this again and see if I get shit from RelentlessOblivion again.... 1. Novembre - 'Australis' 2. Motorhead - 'I Got Mine' 3. Novembre - 'Fin' 4. Ozzy Osbourne - 'Slow Down' 5. Iron Maiden - 'Death or Glory' 6. Insomnium - 'Nocturne' 7. Black Sabbath - 'Behind the Wall of Sleep' 8. Motorhead - '(We Are) The Roadcrew' 9. Arcturus - 'Rodt og Svart' 10. Guns n Roses - 'Perfect Crime' Pretty mixed bag here. I actually don't have that many albums on my phone, so it's no surprise that I get repeats. I really only buy CDs and now my macbook air doesn't have a CD player so I can't load em up... My phone is stuck in a permanent 2015 timewarp...

Cradle of Filth - 'Heartbreak and Seance' from the new album. This is fantastic and I have a really good feeling about the new album coming up. See, this is what happens when you actually get two talented guitar players on board and get rid of a guy who just ain't that great a songwriter (see my Cradle post in the Top 10 Any Genre thread). If this album is as good as 'Hammer of the Witches' then we can really relegate the 2003-2013 decade to the 'mediocre but thank god it's over' draw, as this band has now bookended their career with grade A quality. I can't be more happy about this, let me tell you. I was 23 years old when things started going sour, and I'm now 37. Waiting paid off.

Thyrfing - 'Hels Vite' One of my favourite bands, I was devastated when Thomas Vaananan left as he is one of the greatest vocalists metal has ever seen. I think he's my all time favourite growler/screamer. Then imagine my surprise when Jens Ryden joined... He's not quite as good but he's amazing nonetheless. What a great band and criminally underrated. True viking metal.

Very odd, but I found myself actually quite liking it as it went on. Sort of catchy and enjoyable. 6/10

That's a really nice thing to say. Thanks man.

Requiem's (Epic Post) Top 10 Cradle of Filth Albums Few bands in the metal landscape cause such division as the evil elf Dani and his band of interchangeable knob-jobs. Here are the lows to highs as seen by (out of the closet) goth Requiem, a fan of the band for 22 years. 10. Damnation and a Day (2003) / Darkly Darkly Venus Aversa (2010) / The Manticore and Other Horrors (2012) Oh dear oh dear. Firstly, 'Damnation...' is the band's Sony debut and swansong, and it's dire. There are two men to blame for this: the first is Doug Cook for one of the world's worst production jobs, (check out the velvety patter of the kick drums and the power-tool-through-a-wet-blanket guitars). The other is guitarist and riff-writer Paul Allender who turned a once lush band into the driest desert imaginable. For years I struggled to find a proper adjective to describe this guy's riffs, and believe it or not, I found it in the youtube comments section when someone referred to his riffs as 'dry'. I thought, that's it exactly. They're dry. More on him later. 'Damnation...' is bloated at 77 long minutes of boredom. Even the orchestral interludes are shite. What a disaster. The other two albums here are almost completely forgettable and offer nothing much to anybody. 'Manticore' is pretty well produced, and 'Venus' has the fairly happening 'Persecution Song' but god, would someone get rid of Paul 'bland riff' Allender. Riffs so dry I need a glass of water just thinking about them. 9. Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder (2008) The only reason this album doesn't sit in the same cesspool as the ones mentioned above is because the first two songs 'Shat out of Hell' and 'The Death of Love' are bloody marvellous. The album cover is an abomination (check it out - it's terrible), and the rest of this is poor to below average. Partly composed by computer-orchestra stool sample Mark Newby-Robson, who isn't even in the band, these are works of mediocrity. Seriously, how Paul Allender lasted so long in this band is anyone's guess. He seems a competent enough guitarist, but his riffs are just dry, chugging, and banal. 8. Thornography (2006) This is actually not a bad album and I do enjoy parts of it. Its best moment is 'The Byronic Man' with Ville Valo from HIM providing guest vocals. The fact that he's turning up on this album says a lot about where Cradle in 2006 were = pretty lost. 'Lovesick for Mina' (as in Mina Harker from 'Dracula) is also very impressive. This is a decent collection of songs, and well above the albums listed from 9-10. 7. Nymphetamine (2004) A surprisingly good album in parts, but oh so boring in the long-run. The title track is killer with Liv Kristine (ex Theatre of Tragedy) providing guest vocals, and more gothic songs like 'English Fire' sound romantic and beautiful. Opener 'Gilded Cunt' is absolutely amazing if you ask me. Great song. There's plenty of filler material on this though, don't worry about that, and at 75 minutes you're going to want to top yourself before you reach the end. Cool cover. 6. Hammer of the Witches (2015) A huge breath of fresh air with the two new guitarists, this is a fantastic album. It would be much higher on the list but we're coming to classic Cradle so it stays at number six. The twin guitar sound is back and the orchestration is fitting and artistically honest. God it makes a difference. This album is really really good. Great song about the Crusades too in 'Onward Christian Soldiers'. One of my favourite moments in dark music occurs twice in 'Deflowering the Maidenhead...' during that quiet keyboardy moment with the line "This judgement has come from on high". Spine-tingling. 5. The Principle of Evil Made Flesh (1994) The debut gets a lot more praise than I think it really deserves. It's exciting as hell, no doubt, and those keyboard interludes back in 1996 (when I first heard the album) were stunning. The roughness is a bit of a problem though, because I've never considered Cradle a black metal band, and I don't think they really do the blackish thing very well. Still, credit where it's due, and for a bunch of teenagers to manage to create something so iconic (check out that unmatched cover art) is quite something. 4. Midian (2000) The last great album before they chased the Sony dollars (well, pounds I guess). This has a new drummer in Adrian Erlandsson, and Paul Allender isn't able to ruin it because Gian Pyres is still here from 'Cruelty' keeping the riffs hot. There are some magic moments on this album. Check out the interlude/bridge narration in 'Lord Abortion', or the end of 'Tortured Soul Asylum'. Just an amazing album. 3. V Empire (1996) Supposedly an EP, but at 36:25 it's longer than 'Reign in Blood' and 'Rubber Soul', so I'm calling it an album. This is the first I heard of the band when it just came out and my friends and I were floored. 'The Forest Whispers My Name', much improved since 'Principle..' launches into 'Queen of Winter, Throned', and there is just a sense of excitement and quality to the whole thing. I remember hearing this for the first time, clear as day. 2. Cruelty and the Beast (1998) This isn't just a fantastic Cradle album, it's a British metal classic. Nick Barker's last album with the band (gosh he would be missed), the epic scope of this album is virtually still unmatched to this day. If there's a better gothic metal song that 'Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids' then I've yet to hear it. The 'Bathory Aria' is also a masterpiece. 1. Dusk and Her Embrace (1996) Their meisterwerk. From the haunting album artwork to a production so delicious you can lick it up, this is the true gothic metal classic. 'A Gothic Romance', 'Funeral in Carpathia' and the title track. Wow. This album is all tangled up with great memories for me, but even now when I put it on the quality shines through. When those opening gothic keyboards of 'Humana Inspired to Nightmare' begin I'm transported. Special mention to Dani Filth's lyrics. He cops a lot of crap - perhaps rightly - for his odd gnomish ways, but if you're into dark poetry check out 'Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids', 'A Gothic Romance' and 'Lord Abortion'. The rhymes, the puns, the play on words that incorporate cheeky Shakespearean and Byronic phrases all suggest a genuinely gifted writer. An example: "I should compare thee to a warm summer's day, but to the letter, it is better to lichen her name to a grave". First we have the basic line from a Shakespearean sonnet, then the rhyming of letter and better, then the pun of liken/lichen, with the implication of this person's name being inscribed on a mossy tombstone. I mean, christ, it's brilliant.

Paragraphing function not working either? Let's see now. Apart from Celtic Frost, Bathory and Venom, I own Morbid's 'December Moon' that Dead made, and I've got the Fenriz compilation with a lot of those bands. I think that's about it for me when it comes to ownership of first wave material. I'm really interested in purchasing 'INRI' by Sarcofogo, the Tormentor album ('Elizabeth Bathory' is one amazing song. Dissection did a cover of it - which I have - but it's nowhere near as good as the original) as well as early Destruction and Sodom as I mentioned. I'm familiar with Sad Ex and don't care much for them - at least I didn't back in the day. I've heard a lot of this stuff over the years and it's never really done a great deal for me, but if I'm in the right mood it's great. I'll definitely forever be a second wave poser though. Calm down, no one's redacting these bands from history, and we're all familiar with the history of black metal. I did get a chuckle from your cunning re-editing, however

There's everything to like about that! Good to see some Melbourne weather getting out and about, seeing this fine country of ours. Here it's "a black winter day. No, darker than that. Gloomier than an autumn night."

There was also some random British band who had an album called 'Black Metal' I think. Not sure about that though... I do actually want to expand my first wave collection a bit. It's very Bathory/Celtic Frost/Venom heavy at the moment. Tormentor, for instance, are amazing but I've only got them on compilations. Same with early Destruction and Sodom. I think they'd sit nicely in the 'proto-black metal' section of my CD collection.

I see Slayer written up on that board. Great black metal band, Slayer.... Also, I wasn't claiming that the Norwegian scene was the first of the second wave to appear - I was suggesting that when it came to calling things 'black metal', the naming took place by people in the 90s looking back at the 80s. I don't really care who it was who did the naming, but I'm trying to point out that no one was calling the first wave bands "black metal" in the sense that we know the name now. I think BAN misinterpreted what I was trying to say on this, and I was going to let it go, but I see Salmonella is now running with it. This doesn't mean that bands weren't black metal, but it was a minor point in my post that I wanted to clarify. Black metal (any era!) is varied, and that's definitely to its credit. Even taking the Norwegian bands, look how different Burzum, Darkthrone, Satyricon, Emperor and Mayhem all were from each other. Just amazing.

Equal second in the primary school Christmas themed trivia/silent auction, which isn't bad considering all the rounds are about 'name that pop song' and 'what's the movie'. Our table was tighter than late 90s Meshuggah.

I'm really disappointed that I keep missing the cool Rhapsody tracks. I'd give them both a good 7/10. I've got a real soft spot for those nerdy Italians. Haha nice. I sincerely love HIM, but that video is so over the top I still can't believe what I'm seeing. It's just too much. You're a sensitive guy under that tough bike rider veneer, Relentless, and I think if you gave the music of HIM a chance you'd find yourself enjoying it as a guilty pleasure