markm

I have not...will keep that in mind tho!

Great gig report Jon!

LOL-I ordered that one too. It was insanely expensive on Amazon, and finally found a used copy at a good price. Should thank you for the reco earlier. I waited til the price was right.

I just purchased two Swans comps to add to my collection..... first one came yesterday 3 CD set of White Light from the Mouth of Infinity / Love of Life Album . This was, apparently a turning point from their 80's No Wave, goth rock and even neo folk before they broke out with their current era starting with the brilliant Seer. I'm much less versed in post punk than Marko and Navy, but this has a decidedly blissful, glistening Joy Division kind of vibe for me so far....was out of print for many years Wo Fat /The Singularity-one of the better stoner psyche blues jams of 22 IMO....don't miss out!

Europe as in The Final Countdown?

Wow. I remember reading an anniversary blog article about Through Silver and Blood. Part of the article described the intensity and darkness the album and subsequent tour took on the band. Performing it took a toll. Those shows were legendary. Basically like they were brilliant, damaged individuals that had to find a different direction for the band to go after TS&B. Sometimes it seems that the majority of great artists are tortured and probably lead toxic lives. I saw the Van Gogh exhibit recently. Made me wonder how many great artists suffer from mental illness. I imagine Tom Warrior isn't easy to live with. I'm sorry for his family.

Profane Order/Slave Morality-one of Hungus' influences on my listening-a bestial pearl cast amongst swine and a veritable knife's throw margin away from war metal....this just rules. Blackbraid I Devil Master/Ecstasies of Never Ending Night Need to check out that new Sigh album. More raiding the lost bin of CDs from 2015-16...kind of a time capsule of my listening: Mistur/In Memorium-did not really like this when I first bought the CD, but it's grown on me. 2nd album-Viking/melo-black. Clean and harsh vocals (both black and death), heavy synths without sounding like a Dimmu Borgir album, production that is neither too polished but not raw enough prolly for team goat. Viking metal is as ineffective signifier as stoner metal....it always makes me think of period costumes from Game of Thrones. I've been listening to these 2015-16 albums on repeat in my car...I must have listened to this 4-5 times. Quite tasty. Plenty of great solo guitar work in a trad HM vein. Calling this Bathory inspired kind of metal with clean vocals alternated with harsh vocals BM is a stretch. Obsequiae/Aria of Vernal Tombs-Must have been in quite the Renaissance Fare mood in 2015.

Horns for these two. Another confession-I have never listened to a single Strapping Young Lad or Devin Townsend album. I'm not really looking to break the streak. Call it knee jerk pushback.

I will give my horns to these three albums.

High West Double Rye!

I'm late to this conversation and I don't have the patience to wade through all the post, but excluding charts, it seems to me all the poster needs to do is go to any online list of the best metal albums or songs and get tracks like Crazy Train and War Pigs, Holy Wars, Breaking the Law, Master of Puppets, The Trooper and be done with it. To the poster, this is a site for people who are genuinely into metal rather than skim the surface for commercially viable hard rock.

Of course I do! I love that album. It's actually one of my favorites after they mellowed into their Americana era. They seemed to try to return to some of their earlier, chaotic sound in some ways. Not that they'd ever be able to torture themselves to go back to Through Silver and Blood or Enemy of the Sun....but after The Eye of Every Storm, I think they wanted to put some teeth back into their sound. OK FA and Relentless (wait....that's a really good Pentagram album) Oblivion, I will accept your homework challenge. Guess from hearing in in passing the sad boy vampire goth thing-which I have absolutely nothing against.....felt like they were a time and place kind of band whose time has come and went but will give a listen.

Well, I feel out of the loop. In all honesty, I have never heard a single Type O Negative album.

Yeah, I reckon how we approach different art forms differs but for me with the Shakespeare thing, I was already heavily into theater in college. A proff that also directed plays had this popular class-Shakespeare Tragedies-what you came to college to learn-sort of thing. I went on to act in plays he directed. He eventually started a theater company with one of my college peers that continues to this day in Staunton VA and is quite successful. His mission was to take Shakespeare off the lofty pedestal which keeps many people at arms length-and make it accessible in the way Shakespeare intended. I presume like most university classes, it really comes down to the professor inspiring students and he was riveting. Ralph Cohen had a way of making it real and breaking it down-he talked a lot about the conventions of the time and that it wasn't high end art-it was meant to be seen live not read. He explained how the blocking or action of the actors impacted your understanding. Of course with Shakespeare, the language is rich with illusion, metaphor and multiple meanings, and for that it really helps to have an expert dissect the language but there is also a lot of crude humor, dick jokes, etc. that appealed to the commoners. BTW, I'll be curious how LLNN was live!

Sibelius Symphony # 3 YOB/Our Raw Heart-YOB is one of my favorite bands in the 2000's starting Catharsis in '03. The Illusion of Motion is one of my favorite albums of all time. Raw Heart suffers the issue of high expectations following-arguably- two of the most transcendent YOB albums- Atma and Clearing the Path to Ascend -for all the pushback at the time about Schmidt's voice, and less aggression , I still think this holds up as a pretty good doom album. Anthrax/For All Kings-benefits from low expectations-and I found enjoyable after a few years but pretty meh.

Fair points, but OTH, there is some amazingly complex mindfucks in metal that for me are worth trying to unravel. Imagine if we all took that attitude to all art. I'm glad I took a Shakespeare English class in college. It changed my life and inspired me to want to act in Shakespearean plays. Like, would I ever have struggled through King Lear otherwise? I'm sure I wouldn't and I only comprehended a fraction, but I learned to appreciate the genius of the bard in a way I never would have otherwise if I only stuck to immediately accessible books of the time like The Vampire Chronicles and Salem's Lot-both of which were pretty awesome in their own way....just sayin'

So many albums I hated on first listen and grew to like.... Metallica/Ride the Lightning-WTF? Yep one of the greatest albums of all time...first time I heard it, thought it was hardcore punk which I erroneously disliked in my formative years. Luckily I grew to see the error. Ulcerate-Shrines of Paralysis and The Destroyers of All-When I picked up Destroyers, I could just not get into it. It was like nails on a chalkboard. Shrines was more accessible and I finally broke the mental dissonant code and the beauty unfolded like a beautiful wild flower. Emperor/At the Welkins at Dusk and Nightside Eclipse...couldn't get pas the production first time through, now Welkins is a favorite Cryptopsy/Once Was Not-this one was hard to get into for a while Darkthrone-I don't even remember if it was Blaze or Funeral Moon, but I do remember the first time I heard DT I thought it was unlistenable.... Nile/ Ithyphallic and Behemoth/ The Apostasy-two of my first forays into non melodeth....took me some time. Radiohead /OK Computer-when I finally forced myself to listen to on eof the supposed greatest art indie albums of all time....I was pretty underwhelmed. They still suck but I ended up with several of their albums-haha

Very sorry for your loss, was there with our dog recently....it's so hard....yet sometimes you know the sands of time are running low. Watching our pets pass sucks.

Can't go wrong with those two. Chopin's music be da bomb....was just listening to his first piano concerto----it rocks.

Sibelius/Complete Symphonies and Tone Poems/Boston Symphony Orchestra-Sir Colin Davis Sibelius/Violin Concerto Annie-Sophie Mutter If you don't do the classical musical composer thing, Sibelius is one of those respected second tier composers that come after the big names. Not really a metal connection like some of the composers-check out Mahler if you want metal-haha-but here goes...like many of Finland's outsized metal output, Sibelius based much of his material on Finnish mythology. After buying the must haves, I went through late 19th and 20th century composers. His 2 and 5 symphonies and violin concerto are a big part of the accepted repertoire apparently. Didn't really strike me when I first listened amongst the horde of 20th century composers, so I'm cycling back and very much enjoying his work while I work. The violin concerto is excellent and his symphonies are definitely good. Thing is with these complete sets, 7 symphonies is a lot to digest and really put your finger on......someone to spend more time with for sure when I'm in my velvet smoking jacket and slippers mode.

Oh man, I would love to see Boris.

The Wolfe Brigade/The Enemy Reality (2019) -came across my Bandcamp feed pretty sure this one of Zack's purchases...recognized the name as their current 22 album is in my wish list and I should probably get off the pot and buy it-totally dig this crust punkish Motorhead adjacent metal. Serpentfyre/Baptism of Shadows-on high goat reco, probably not for me tho. Thulsa Doom/Baptism of Shadows-well the jokes on me. The Thulsa Doom I know is a hidden gem of a Norwegian somewhat jokey stoner band from the early aughts that had some great vintage stoner albums, but apparently there is a newer Thulsa Doom from Italy that is 100% DM and, crickey but I kind of like the pre released track. Inidan/ From All Purity-Navy's festival post reminded me of this 2014 release-similar to sludge gods like EyeHateGod-Primitive Man with even more caustic unrelenting harsh sludge noise-but there is defo a purity of extremity going on here. It's not exactly enjoyable but I dig this.

Love the play by play Navy. I enjoyed an Indian album at one point-From All Purity-had to look it up-2014-should listen again-in fact maybe I'll YT 😆--it's been a minute-sludge/doom/noise/drone almost metallic HC kind of thing...yeah def more my style than yours. Speaking of such things, I'll be curious your thoughts on Miznor. I thought that dude didn't play live....

Dang, that's a pretty good lineup!

Good points. There's also the notion that some of them equate Trump with a savior Christ figure-which has got to be one of the biggest ironies of all time----love your neighbor-do unto others-hahaha! If they have God on their side and anyone with different opinions is evil-Satan to borrow from a recent thread-than who cares about democracy? These are the great crusades 2.0. And I cycle back-crusading for what? Deregulation of all weapons and environmental concerns, disbanding the the DOJ, FBI, -any institution that gets in Trump's way.....oh wait, that's fascism.