GoatmasterGeneral

Utzalu - The Grobian Fall, Portland Oregon 2020 Serum Dreg - Lustful Vengeance, Portland Oregon 2018 Profanatica - Crux Simplex, Connecticut 2023

Well that explains it, I have no more use for Edge of Sanity than I do for tech death, or tech anything really. I know everybody and their brother seems to worship Swanö and certain EoS albums are heralded as great works, but they never really did much for me. When it comes to death metal I have pretty specific tastes, I gravitate toward the Incantation school. This Molten doesn't conjure up any thoughts of EoS for me, but I haven't listened to any of that stuff in years, so you'd know better than me. I won't bother finishing the album this time though, think I'll go with.... Ignivomous - Contragenesis, Melbourne 2012. Can't believe this is 12 years old now. Cemetery Urn - Barbaric Retribution, Melbourne 2018.

You really liked this? "Really" as in a whole lot? I listened to the whole thing on your reco. Not terrible or anything by any means, but if it hadn't been for your reco I would have just listened to a song or two and found something else. Kept hoping it would get better toward the end, but it never did. Seemed kind of plodding and uninspired. Monolord - Your Time to Shine, Sweden 2021

Kvele - Frostbitten Apocalypse, Greece Upon the Altar - Descendants of Evil, black/death Poland Is it just me or is the advent of the one-woman black metal project like the coolest thing ever? She's got like 10 other bands too. Gesundheit

Black Sabbath - Neon Knights

Pestkraft - Ancestral Sounds, Spain Sort Sind - I Skyggen af Livet, Denmark 2023

Irityll - Schlafes Bruder, Austria 2023 Black Forest - Black Forest, Germany

Rhaug - Rhaug, Argentina. Says progressive black on the video, symphonic black on M-A, but it's not all lame and cheesy and OTT, just in a few brief spots, I actually like this. XaosViscera - Works of the Devil, Greek black metal

Nattarvet was my introduction to the band Wormwood 5 years ago, but I think their first album Ghostlands from 2017 was even better. Frequently play the two of 'em back to back, I've been hittin' them pretty hard the last couple of weeks after having not heard them for awhile. Wasn't real big on the 3rd album in '21, but this new one The Star is a bit better. But not as good as the first two. At least it's not yet after just 1.5 spins anyway. They might have overdone it a little bit with the choir, and I'm not at all fond of the whispering. But the actual music and the lead vocal dude are top notch. I get some Amorphis vibes at times from the melodies and clean production. But this is much better than Amorphis for me without all those melodic clean vocals. Wormwood - The Star, apparently the third album in a trilogy about death that began with "Nattarvet" (“The Night's Heritage”) which deals with the famine in the Nordic regions of the 19th century. "The Archives" deals with the inevitable demise of humanity and "The Star" tells the story of the end of the universe.

Mavorim - Aasfresser, Germany 2019 Shylmagoghnar - Transience, Netherlands Wormwood - Nattarvet, Sweden 2019

Today's temperatures down under in the dead of winter. This is bitter cold? Even a soft pampered Aussie bloke such as yourself couldn't possibly think this is bitter cold. Even chilly Canberra will be 46°F today, and Adelaide will hit 60° that's t-shirt weather. I see Darwin will reach 86° this afternoon, that's a bit too warm for my blood. That's 4°F (or 2°C) warmer than we had here today in the dog days of summer. We did have several days of around 94° (34°C) last week and I thought I was gonna die.

Don't pay any attention to anything Vic says, it's worse than trying to argue with my ten year old who seems to think he's 18. Every post Orca makes along these lines he apparently either thinks he's making some kind of a joke, or he's being contrary just for the sake of it, or he'll say something completely ridiculous and then when you respond he'll tell you not to take his nonsense so literally. This is how he entertains himself on a slow boring day with the cows I suppose, but he keeps you guessing, you never have any way of knowing which one of these possibilities it might be each time. "Everything from day 1 has been a copy of it's predecessor" is a completely nonsensical statement on its face, so I won't even bother to respond. Nothing good could come of it. He's probably just trying to get a reaction out of me anyway. I think the Orca really just needs more black metal in his life. That's what keeps me so happy-go-lucky. All thrash and no black makes Vic a dull boy. He might find it cathartic. Or maybe he just needs to take a good long shit or go in for a colon cleanse or something. Maybe he just needs a good blowie to empty the tank and then he'd come right and we could reason with him. I have seen him engage in reasonably normal convos without playing all his games a few times over the last 3 years, so I know it's at least theoretically possible. Fuck if I can remember the last time that could have been though. But anyway, nice to see ya there Blivvington, I'd been wondering where you've been. How're you goin' mate, you find yourself a job in the kitchen yet?

None of these other metal sub-genres copied thrash, they were influenced by thrash. Big difference. In the mid 80's thrash was the shit. It was on the cutting edge of heaviness, aggression and ferocity. By the 90's not so much. It had been surpassed. These other more extreme sub-genres took their foundations in thrash and added lots of other cool shit to the recipe which ended up improving it drastically. Not unlike how thrash took Sabbath and NWOBHM added some hardcore punk aggression to it and came up with thrash, which was a drastic improvement over the NWOBHM it had been based on.

Thrash can't be the best because black metal exists. And death metal. And war metal. And crust punk. And Mongolian throat singing. Thrash doesn't even crack the top 5.

Nocturnal Sorcery - Captive in the Breath of Life, Finland Commander Agares - Legions of Descending Twilight, Finland 2021