GoatmasterGeneral

I'm a bit older than you so Tool has never been too much on my radar. I was already 35 when Enema came out, and not paying any attention to nu-metal or any of that alternative stuff that got so big in the 90's. I have heard some of their songs on the radio back in the day and I've listened to two full albums just a few years ago to satisfy some Tool lovers in my life that I'm not unfairly criticizing them without even having heard their best stuff. But they describe it as dark and intense and I can't see it that way. To me it just sounds pretty much like all the other 90's BS nu/alternative that I can't stand. They get upset when I call Tool 'nu-metal' and say that just shows how I must not know what nu-metal is. But that's just my catch-all term for all that 90's alternative radio rock crap that people like to insist is metal. I get that they just don't want their beloved Tool lumped in with what they think of as those other inferior bands, but I can't see what it is they think separates them. They're fucking nu-metal, get over it. My problems with Rush started in my Jr high school days of the mid 70's when the rock press was marketing them as the 2nd coming of Zeppelin. Being a big Zep fan at the tender age of 14 I walked down into town after school one arvo and spent my very limited funds to buy Caress of Steel, only to get it home and discover it sucked. Bummer. Then the following spring still 14 I fell for the marketing and all the glowing reviews once again and bought 2112 which also sucked. I might have liked one song between the two albums, Bastille Day. It was prog rock at a time when I wanted every band to be Black Sabbath. I really wanted every band to be Metallica or Slayer, but I had no way of knowing that yet in 1976 because of course those bands didn't exist yet being that those dudes were only like 12 in '75-'76 when Caress of Steel and 2112 came out. Rush only went downhill from there in my eyes, they became a rock radio staple in the early 80's and one of those bands I always made sure to turn the dial when one of their songs came on because I can't listen to Geddy's voice for 10 seconds. But luckily I did discover the Ramones later that year and they became my heavy metal saviors. Because even though they were labeled "punk rock" they were still the fastest heaviest band I knew of in North America at that time. Which is pretty pathetic really when you think about it, but that's the 70's for ya, we had no heavy metal and soft-cock rock ruled the airwaves. I know the Scorpions existed and had records out by '75 - '76 but I didn't discover them til I went away to college in '79. Ditto Motörhead, they had an album out in '77 but I didn't discover them til 1981 when No Sleep Til Hammersmith came out and they got a lot of press on that, supposedly the UK's best kept secret. Priest existed back then in the mid 70's too of course, but I can't stand any of the 70's Priest albums that came before 1978's Hellbent for Leather, and I don't consider any of their stuff to be metal until that point in their career. But I didn't discover them until '79 when Unleashed in the East came out anyway. Maiden existed in '76 as well but didn't get their first album into the stores until 1980. The 70's was a hard decade for a kvlt metalhead to grow up in man. NP: Necroxifer - Acheron, Chile

Sounds badass man, would go great with a cheesesteak. Finally some rando comes from out of the blue and posts something of theirs that doesn't suck! I knew this day would eventually arrive. I'm not sold on the vocals, but the riffage is indeed sweet.

My friends think I'm insane for any one of a number of reasons haha. Not like batshit crazy, just you know, I have my own ideas about things which I'm not afraid to share and often go against the prevaiing winds, and I just don't care what anyone else thinks. The way my mind works I would never think someone's nuts for not liking some music that I happened to like. Because there's enough stuff that I don't like to where I understand you can't just make yourself like something that for whatever reason just hits you the wrong way. There are almost an infinite number of reasons someone might not like something that are personal to them and I don't think it's anyone else's business to question that. Because we're really just taking about sound waves hitting your ears and how your brain interprets them. I don't feel like we really have that much control over what we don't like and what we're drawn to. We certainly don't have much control over what repulses us. I hate tech and prog and the avant-garde as well as sissy power metal, inane LCD commercial metal and disposable pop music. And there's nothing that's ever gonna change that. It's a visceral reaction, when I say that stuff is cringe, it literally makes me cringe, or at least wince and let out an "ugh" noise. I just assume others have similar reactions to stuff and that's simply their taste. No point in dissecting it or criticizing it if they have no control over it. Same as if someone just doesn't like a certain vegetable or the color purple or chick flicks or bungee jumping or D&D or Star Wars or being handcuffed to the bed or something. We each have crap that we just don't like. On the other hand I admit to having thoughts like "What do you mean you like XYZ band? They're fucking terrible!" which I know is stupid but I do. Much more likely to question someone's judgement for liking something I hate, than I am if they don't like something that I do. Which is why it never bothers me at all when someone says they don't like stuff that I love. I'm used to people not liking my music, I've even come to expect it most of the time, so it doesn't phase me at all. I get that goat filth is not for everyone. You don't have to like all my music, we can still be friends. But yet my friends do this to me all the time. I have this one friend in particular Bob that's kinda like Navy in that he prides himself on being open minded and having very broad musical tastes across a multitude of sub-genres both metal and non-metal alike. So he's always hitting me with utter incredulity over not liking stuff that he loves. The main ones we've butted heads on over and over through the years are Rush and Tool. He loves them, I hate them. I don't care that he likes them, that's up to him. But it bugs the shit out of him that I cannot appreciate these bands that he loves. There are plenty of other bands too, dozens of them, he always likes to tell me I'm 'missing out' by being so closed minded. But he can't seem to see my logic that you're not really 'missing out' when it's something you'd hate anyway. Like saying someone's missing out on an ass whooping. I've heard more than enough Rush and Tool to know I hate them, listening to more of them is not going to change anything. The fact that maybe they're unbelievably gifted musicians is completely lost on me. I just don't care about any of that, to me it's completely besides the point. Because I separate superior musicianship from the ability to create music that I want to listen to. Two entirely different skill sets that don't seem to have as high of a correlation as some might think. So back to Hooded Menace, yeah I think a veil has been lifted. I listened to two of their albums late last night and now 3 more today as I've been alternately typing and talking to the kid. (less than 3 weeks til school starts I can't wait!) I am now prepared to take Hooded Menace out of the can't stand them category and place them into the pretty good category. Not the clit-touching or ninja boner categories which I reserve for the best of the best stuff that I love the most. But they're pretty good. I enjoyed their 2018 album the most, and so far I've been pretty cool with all the rest of them. I've made it back as far as their 2nd album now Never Cross the Dead from 2010. So I guess maybe you could say that I've been judging them too harshly for many years, but you'll be happy to hear I've corrected that mistake now. I'd still stop short of saying I've been 'missing out' because doom is just one of those things I really need to be in the right head space to enjoy. I'm digging these records today, but I'm not gonna run out and buy them all because by next week I might not even give a shit about them anymore haha. I'll probably grab that Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed though because I liked that one the best. And maybe even this Cross the Dead which is much catchier and the riffs more memorable than I had remembered or given it credit for 13 years ago. Hooded Menace - Never Cross the Dead, 2010

Dude compared to most people, you know I spend a lot of time combing the interwebs for metal, and there is just no way to get it all. I'm constantly finding shit I missed and never heard of before from all eras old and new. It's getting to be less of the older stuff from the 90's now as they're not making any more of it and by this point I guess whatever is out there on youtube and RYM and metal blogs and M-A reviews and wherever else to be found is what's out there. There's only gonna be so much available to be found especially when you're usuallly looking in all the same places. Which means there's probably good stuff that will just fade away into obscurity without being rediscovered by subsequent generations of metalheads because no one ever thought to upoad it to youtube or put it out there somewhere to be found. But yet I still find older stuff fairly reguarly, like every 2 or 3 months I'll stumble over some old 90's album where I'm like "How did I never even hear about this band?" I also think it's pretty cool that even on the forum with dudes we've posted with for several years we can still occsasionally show each other an old band or two that the other guy's maybe never heard before. Glad to hear you liked the Deteriorot. With the newer stuff it's understandable that we'd constantly be discovering stuff we missed as there's just so much more of it that's being produced these days and even over the last 15 or 20 years. I think you'd need a team of 50 dudes working round the clock 24/7 doing nothing but scouring the internet for good recent metal albums to catch even 75 - 80% of what's coming out and there'd still be the other 20% that got by all 50 of them. But maybe it's good to leave some stuff to be discovered in another decade or two if I'm still around then. Which reminds me, merci to Le Cabbage for the heads up on the God Disease, I'm really digging this. They're from Finland and everything. It only just came out in March but I definitely missed it. Glad you liked the Evoken, and I hope you've got your power back on by now. I know what that's like, we lose ours fairly frequently here in northwestern Jersey with all the trees that fall and bring down power lines every time the fucking wind blows. God Disease - Apocalyptic Doom, Finland. 2nd time through tonight/this morning, yeah this is good shit. Death/doom but not painfully slow, just kinda midpaced and melancholy (the Finns sure know how to do those melancholy melodies) with some random slower passages. Not too clean like some doom can be, I do like my death/doom on the gnarlier side. This isn't super ultra filthy like the D'bowelment but it'll certainly get the job done. It occurs to me now that I'm in death/doom mode here I reallly should take this opportunity to revisit Hooded Menace. Everyone seems to really like that band, I see them mentioned all the time as a pillar of modern death/doom but I've never been able to connect with any of their albums. They're all so painfully slow, I've always found them boring AF. Maybe I have a window where I might be receptive to them now, let's see. Hooded Menace - Ossuarium Silhouettes Unhallowed, Finland 2018. Their last two albums have the highest scores on M-A, and I know I never liked their first two records because I bought them when they were new, that's how I know I don't like the band. Right away here in the first song there's some speedier riffage that's not painfully slow at all, and some nice changes with some cool riffs so I think maybe we'll be Ok here and I'll be able to turn the corner on HM finally. On those early albums it always seemed to me like they'd just play one boring slow-ass plodding riff after another and stay on each one without variation for like 5 minutes each til I was ready to fall asleep. This album is much different than how I remember them, it's like they learned how to write good songs now or something. Shit I might even pick this up if the varied riffage continues like this. Bienvenue mon ami. Bon retour dans notre petit groupe. I was just wondering earlier today or maybe it was yesterday what's happened to Arioch? Glad you're back brother.

Deteriorot - In Ancient Beliefs, 2001. Such a great album, I think these dudes have been unfairly overlooked, you never hear them mentioned, ever. I guess that's what happens when you only get 3 albums out in 23 years. Classic death metal debut. Nunslaughter - Red is the Color of Ripping Death, Cleveland Ohio 2021. Ripping death is right, this is easily one of their best albums. Their first full length in 7 years, these dudes live on releasing dozens of splits EP's and live albums. Not gonna count up all their releases, there have gotta be 70 or 80 of them since they started in 1987, but only 5 full lengths.

I'm not usually a big death/doom guy either, normally when I want death metal I want something a little bit faster than this. But every now and then I'll get into a real doomy mood. This is the album that sparked my current death/doom binge, I posted it last night when I discovered it and now here it is again tonight. A one-man affair from Belgium, slow and heavy as you could want with plenty of atmosphere and some nice understated background guitar work. This is at least my third or fourth time through this today, it's only 30 minutes long so it goes by really quick. Gateway - Galgendood Deteriorot - The Rebirth. Not quite as slow, these dudes rev the RPM's all the way up to midpaced at times, but it's mostly still slow enough to be death/doom. And it's killer. They used to be from Patterson NJ 20 years ago but now they've relocated a bit south to Charlotte in JT's home state of NC. I should probably check their 2nd album out sometime, I've only heard their classic 2001 debut In Ancient Beliefs and now this new third one.

That's metal? I don't think so my dude. A name like 'Riot of Doom' puts thoughts in a man's head. But then I struck out, there was no riot, no doom, no balls and no metal. But I suppose I can handle some generic repetitive dad rock, so setting all that other stuff aside, what I'd really like to know is what was the purpose of multi tracking those vocals? There must have been at least 3 on there. Was it just an attempt to hide the lack of vocal ability and pitch control? Think it would have been a lot better with just one vocal track. You don't need to be any kind a virtuoso singer, this is rock & roll. And maybe ease up on the reverb. No worries, rookie mistakes. Thanks for sharing! Come back and see us when you've made these corrections.

Was getting some Testament vibes from this "Remnants of Pain" except just a bit more modern, fake and pastic sounding. But then the chorus came up and I couldn't do it man, I couldn't hang. Wasn't terrible though I should think if you're one of those modern thrash kinda guys (which obviously I'm not) certainly can't be any worse than that plastic sounding Havok band Deadovic likes. Betcha this would give our thrash master Orca a half-chub. OK that's enough for my 15 minutes of thrash on a Tuesday night, going back to the safe haven of my death/doom now.

More post-metal from the doctor. What is it you like so much about this sub-genre that I'm missing? This is not horrible (unlike the avant-classical Boulez) but why this when you could listen to actual black metal? I did enjoy that Quiet Man record you posted yesterday with the Easter bunny on the cover though, at least for a little while until I got bored with it after about 30 minutes. Might revisit that one sometime. That was post-metal too, but at least there was some sludge and aggression in there to make things interesting. Worm - Foreverglade, the death/doom parade continues...

No my friend, I wasn't saying that at all, I liked the Sanctuarium. But you opened the door to this line of questioning when you brought the legendary Disembowelment into it. Seeing your post gave me the idea to compare the two head to head and report my findings. But I wasn't trying to discredit the Sanctuarium, I thought it was good. Just nowhere near death/doom titans like D'bowelment and Evoken. If you like that Transcendence into the Peripheral album even a little bit do yourself a favor and check out some Evoken. Crushing death/doom from right here in New Jersey with a lot more death than most in that sub-genre, just played very slowly. Transcendence was a one-off album by a band that broke up soon after, but Evokern has taken that sound as their inspiration, cleaned it up a little bit, added even more crushing death atmosphere and really made it their own. I'm not even the biggest doom guy because I prefer faster music most of the time. But Evoken is the exception, they're in a class by themselves. I flew across the country to see them at the Denver Doomfest in Oct 2013 because I just kept missing their shows back east. Was a good move, Jayke (a former poster and mod here) introduced me to John Paradiso, who said he felt like he owed me money for flying out just to see them. They were cool low key Jersey dudes and then they proceeded to absolutely blow the roof off that little club on South Broadway. Was so loud you could feel that crushing bass vibrating your internal organs, it was fucking awesome. Evoken - Antithesis of Light, 2005. This is the one you want.

Disembowelment - Transcendence into the Peripheral, Melbourne Victoria 1993. Your Sanctuarium can't touch the filth level of this. Although I do really like the idea of more faster sections being peppered in, you can't let that breach the integrity of the filth. Once the filth has been compromised it's all over. On the other hand I find the filth as we have here to be lacking something without many faster sections. There are a few but not enough. I liked Inverloch better than this as I recall. But this is still better than Sanctuarium. Especially when they veer into Evoken territitory like on track 2. Even though clearly Evoken got their sound from 'Bowelment since Evoken's earliest demos were '94 and this was '93. I'd say Evoken does it better though and has basically perfected it, although I know 'Bowelment has a very loyal cult following. Which probably just stems from the fact that they broke up right after this their one masterpiece came out and thoughts of what might have been.

Well it's a good thing you were only going as far as Milky Beans! Or you'd still be sitting in Crewe Station. Or you could just grab an Uber. Just want to get something straight, I read it twice but I'm still confused. Are you saying that neither band had any bass? Not a 4-stringer on the entire bill? That's unusual. Wouldn't say it doesn't matter, bass is awesome. The only band I've seen live without a bass that pulled it off successfully was Inquisition. Don't know how he did it. Other than them I'd prefer to have bass. I assume some of these bands use bass in the studio but maybe just not live. Because I know less than nothing about the Russian Circles so I'm checking out their 2022 abum Gnosis, and there are definitely low frequencies being reproduced here, having no hard info I'd have to assume it's a bass guitar. This isn't what I was expecting, I think I checked them out on Youtube once many years ago, but this is almost metal and almost listenable. For post-rock. Might even be cool live, what were they a two-piece, guitar and drums? No vocals? Be better with vocals. Didn't think they were actually Russians, but I never knew they were from Chicago. They have a bass player listed on M-A, Brian Cook, says 2007 til the present. Maybe he just couldn't make the trip for some reason, or he's a convicted felon and they wouldn't let him into the country. Who knows he could be sitting at Crewe Station waiting for a ride to Liverpool or Manchester, not realizing the next gig was in Londontown. Gnosis

Нет. I love raw black metal as much or probably more than almost anyone else here. But there's definitely a limit to how amateurish it can be and still let anyone except the artist himself want to listen to it. The best raw black metal sounds raw as fuck to the listener but it's been carefully crafted to sound that way down to the finest details. There's an art to gettig rbm to sound just right, they don't just turn on a recorder in their bedroom, slap their thighs, call that "drums" and hope it will all sound alright once they put the guitars on it. Because it won't. Not saying you need to go pay for an expensive studio, lots of people manage to record shit right on their computers and it sounds pretty decent. I'm no recording engineer, but however you're micing the instruments or whatever needs improvement, especially the drums. But keep trying, brother. I respect the passion and the desire. And shit man, I didn't know I could type all that in cyrillic.

Eternal Rot - Moribound, death metal UK/Poland Eternal Rot – Putridarium, 2020 Gateway - Galgendood, death/doom Belgium

I'd never heard Soulfly before tonight believe it or not, so I figured why not take a little listen. This is much better than I was expecting. Like much much better after all the crap I've heard about them over the years. I'm not tempted to buy this or anything, it's not really my thing and I might never have reason to listen to them ever again. But I really don't see how you could classify this as anything but metal. It's a long way from kvlt black metal but it's a long way from Twivium too. I think it's even a long way from Roots. It's somewhat groovy, but this does not seem to have any super melodic screamo choruses like Twivium do, nor does it sound super duper plastic and commercial like Twivium does, (not on most of the tracks anyway) and I think we've established that even Twivium are most likely a metal band. Even if Blivvington might disagree.

No, not slowly. I think the production and especially the drums sounded amateurish to the point of making it hard to listen to and take seriously. I had no real qualms with the music itself as raw black metal is one of my favorite sub-genres. But there are limits to how raw something can be and still be listenable. So I think you're on the right track, but keep practicing.

Coming back from where? Have they been inactive? Or do you just mean coming back to Australia? Metal Archives has them listed as "death metal/grindcore" which in this case I'd have to agree with. Also from their Metal Archives page: "The band took its name after the song "Terrorizer" by Master." [Master being a very infuential early US death metal band] "Terrorizer was one of the first bands that producer Scott Burns got to work with. The sound on World Downfall would later be known as the "death metal production." Because of his work, he later went on to be a well-known death metal producer." So I would say it's really not up to them, it's up to the listeners to decide. But I have no doubt they'd agree they're both grindcore and death metal. Don't see how they could disavow themselves from either genre. Their last album Caustic Attack from 2018 which I happen to have playing right now, leans a bit more towards death metal than World Downfall, which I listened to earlier when making my Terrorizer comments an hour ago.

I was a bit confused for a minute until I looked them up on M-A and realized there's this Black Sorcery from Providence Rhode Island, a raw black metal band formed in 2020, and then there's aslo The Black Sorcery from Edmonton Alberta, a black/death band who released one of my favorite albums/EP's from 2018 ...And the Beast Spake Death From Above. Yeah this DTTM album you've posted here is pretty damn good. The combination of their raw sound (which is largely provided by the vocals) with the melody and competent musicianship is most appealing, think I'll be picking this up. Don't care much for Russian Circles or Deicide, but I'd be all over that Wiegedood, good band they're killer. Unlikely pairing but have fun man! Or...I see it's already 11:30 pm where you are so I guess the show's probably just about over if you're not even on the train home already. So I hope you had a gay old time and enjoyed both bands. Cool when that happens, you get into something and then just a few days later you realize oh shit they're playing TONIGHT.

Interesting discussion I missed. The main thing I would just like to add to this discussion is that when it comes to the entire genre of what I'll call 'commercial metal' which would include Trivium and 'Knot and KSE and Shadows Fall and Motley Crue and a thousand other bands in addition to the ones being brought up here, I would say that's really a genre unto itself and it's up to each of us to decide which side of the rock/metal line we'd prefer to think of these bands as. I don't see how there's really a right or wrong answer for any of them. Metal is already by definition a sub-genre of its overarching genre of rock music, so you can't ever truly be wrong to call any of these metal bands rock. The heaviest most brutal black and death metal bands you can think of are all still technically rock bands as well. There are so many bands that straddle the line and have elements of both rock and metal, that it seems to me like a pointless losing battle to try to definitively categorize each and every last one of them as either one or the other. If Trivium's metal riffage leads you to think of them as a metal band, fine. Forced to choose one or the other I would say they're a metal band. If in your mind the uber melodic choruses negate any of these band's metalness and you think that makes them just rock bands, then that's fine too. I really think for some of these bands it could go either way. I can understand some people's frustration with having these super commercial bands lumped in with their precious metals, because they don't want any metal-ignorant normies they may come across thinking that's the kind of crap they might be listening to when they tell them they listen to "metal." But I think it's pretty silly to declare any metal band with too much melody in the vocals is not really metal. Led Zeppelin, Rush, Aerosmith and AC/DC are exampes of rock bands. Bands like Trivium, 'Knot, Pantera, KSE and Shadow's Fall are clearly not that. I get that most of us don't like these bands at all and maybe we even wished they didn't exist. But like it or not they do exist, so just get over it and move on with your lives people. I can tell you from experience that it's easy as shit to go through life without ever having to listen to any of these kinds of bands if you so choose. So why argue over shit none of us even listen to? Who fucking cares? Isn't it enough that we all agree we don't like these commercial bands? And if there are any dissenters here who might actually like a few of them then that's fine too, nobody cares what you listen to. I say we forget about these low-hanging fruit bands that are too easy to disparage (it's almost like grown-ups beating up on weak defenseless little kids) and go back to shitting on iconic legacy washed up has-been bands like Priest, Maiden and Megastaine which imo is exponentially much more fun. Also before I click submit I have to say that anyone claiming that Terrorizer is not a metal band needs to clean the shit out of their ears. Whatever other influences are to be found in there (grindcore) don't negate them being a metal band. Lots of the early big name grindcore bands we all know and love are metal bands, Carcass, Napalm Death, ENT...all of them are metal bands. Because grindcore is just as much a sub-genre of metal (maybe even morseso) than it is a sub-genre of punk. Just like we needed punk to have thrash metal, we needed metal to have grindcore. By the 90's metal and punk were so closely intertwined that it's really impossible to say a lot of extreme bands were just one or the other. Grindcore and crust are fusion genres, every bit as much metal as they are punk. It doesn't have to be either-or.

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Maybe if you took off the farmer's outfit and scraped some of the cowshit off your shoes you might be able to pass for a crew member at least. I know you try to step around and avoid the cow pies but it's gotta be impossible when there are so damn many of them. Either way wtf are you doing backstage anyway dude, don't tell me you're a groupie?

I don't either man, I'm the only black metaller I know. But I know we're not at Maiden concerts offering blowies to the band for a job well done and their catalogue of brilliance. We would only do that at Archgoat shows.

Not even a laptop or a Chromebook, a tablet, nothing? That's wild. You come on the forum just on your phone if you're not at the office? But how, if you don't have wi-fi? How were you playing Red Dead Redemption that time a couple years ago, on a console? Man I'd be lost without my computer, it's where I've kept all my music for the last 20 years. I do everything on my computer. I have a TV here as well 1 meter away from me but I don't even turn it on, I don't even have the cable box hooked up to it. If I watch anything I'll generally do it on the computer.