JonoBlade

Been listening to the new Aseitas (Eden Trough) quite a bit. I dig these guys. It goes in many different directions from a base rooted in some kind of deluded black metal.

Stabbing the Drama!? That's a title I haven't heard in a long time. Must've jumped off the soilwork train at a similar time to you, but I do remember liking that one.

Great origin story. Welcome.

On 5/15/2024 at 1:07 PM, FatherAlabaster said:

Agree with all of this. It's funny that Various Failures is now tough to track down. It used to be the only one you could find, and Love Of Life and White Light were out of print and massively expensive. 

@JonoBlade, one other rec. The "Swans Are Dead" live double album is all from sets in the mid to late 90s, and it's intense. .

All of these are on BC so no problem with sourcing Swans.

I don't normally go for live albums but I imagine it will work well in the context I am going to listen to it: zoning in and out while working.

17 hours ago, navybsn said:

 I go to local shows to support the scene. Don't always like the bands, but having a good local venue willing to support this kind of music and people willing to risk their money to bring these bands in is worth it to me.

This. There's a local venue to me that I respect the hell out of for their support of the scene and making ends meet through COVID etc. I'll go and see anything remotely metal even if I don't know the bands.

NP Swans - Soundtracks for the Blind

(Actually I'm currently sitting in a webinar about body image for mental health week. One of the speakers is transgender. I'm so progressive! But will go back to swans when it's over)

Wanted to follow up with @markm and @FatherAlabaster about how much I am enjoying this album. As promised I first listened to it on a 17 hour flight to Perth. I fell asleep but kind of welcomed that at the time.

It works great as music for my working day.

I seem to like it more than The Seer, which is already good.

Anymore recommendations on which to pick up next?

11 hours ago, navybsn said:

Dude Rob looks his age plus 10 years. Moves around the stage like a old timey Hollywood Frankenstein, but he still sounds great. He can't sustain the high notes like the glory days, but he gets the point across with authority. Little sustain on his voice doesn't hurt either. Like Klaus from the Scorpions, he is convincing and effective although you can tell there isn't much time left. Ritchie is a fine stand in for Glenn, Andy is a good compliment. It was a good show. Would have been better in the 80s, just never had the chance.

Also saw Gatecreeper and Creeping Death on Saturday. Hardcore kids playing death metal. Wasn't impressed but $12 and local. Walked out about halfway through Gatecreeper's set. Couldn't take any more. The plus however was I was just about the oldest dude in the crowd. 95% were under 25 with quite a few under 18. I may not like their shit, but the kidz do and that's a good thing for heavy music.

He's moved like that for more than 10 years. At least since the Nostradamus tour. But that was one of my favourite gigs of all time 

I'd only go and see priest now if they were literally playing next door at the Girl Guides camp.

Glad to hear your gatecreeper report. I notice a real mix at local shows. A lot of potbellies and tattoos no matter the age, but they seem to be enjoying themselves.

18 hours ago, navybsn said:

Gotta side with FA here on Still Life. Amazing album and that bass player was my favorite of those that have been in the band. But it's splitting hairs on early Opeth. Everything through Deliverance is so damn good. I thought Ghost Reveries is where it started to trend down, but I do still like that album. In fact, the only one I haven't liked so far is Heritage. I could live without Watershed too, but I don't hate it. One thing I would say is that all the stuff works very well live. Such a tight band. Just picked up tickets to see them again in October.

In other words @markm, you're going to need to just pick up everything before BWP. Don't worry, I promise the money will be well spent.

I quite like Watershed even if there were a lot of line up changes and presumably turmoil in the lead up to it.

The opening track with the chick singing is very different and sounds great. I especially noticed on that one how bad the lyrics are, but musically it is solid.

It's the last proper opeth album anyway.

Still Life has Martin Mendez on bass who's been in the band ever since, so yeah he is the best of those that have been in the band.

Far as I can tell there was only one other bass player, on the first two albums. And Mike played bass on MAYH.

17 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

RIP Steve Albini. 61 years young. Might need to listen to Songs About Fucking now.

I only know him via Neurosis. He recorded most of their albums and got a fantastic sound.

RIP

3 hours ago, Thatguy said:

INTER ARMA - New Heaven. Noisy, varied, interesting. Fits the bill for new metal for me in 2024.

This, guy.

And single LP running time! They've cracked it.

2 hours ago, AlSymerz said:

Chris Poland - Return To Metalopolis

It's a shame Chris and his brother never put together a proper thrash band to rival Megadeth back in the day, because I listened to this album on repeat for weeks when it came out.

21 hours ago, JamesT said:

Oh man, I'm disappointed to hear that!  I'm just getting around to checking it out and have been looking forward to this one for awhile now.  Been a fan of these guys for about 17 years now.  Does this new one lean more toward the doom side i.e "Like Gods of the Sun" and "Angel and the Dark River" or the death/doom end of the spectrum i.e "The Dreadful Hours" and "Songs of Darkness, Words of Light"?

Don't worry man. You'll love it.

I couldn't tell you whether it is more doom or death/doom. It sounds like everything else MDB have done in the last 20 years.

Their output is generally very consistent and a bit interchangeable so I tend to distinguish by production choices. I hated the drum sound on Feel the Misery which is an otherwise decent album. I didn't think the layered vocals on The Ghost of Orion were right for it, even though they sounded good 

I can't fault the production (or at least nothing stands out) on the new one so, since it otherwise still sounds exactly like what I would expect of MDB in 2024, it's a win.

Notable perhaps that I didn't think the lead single/video a few weeks ago was anything special... but I've been enjoying listening to the whole album the last few days.

https://mydyingbrideofficial.bandcamp.com/album/a-mortal-binding

Listened to this a few times today. I liked it more immediately than The Ghost of Orion, which I came to really like eventually.

A bit more stripped back and hits the spot as MDB always does.

There was an announcement the other day that they pulled out of MDF for some cryptic reason, but they are pretty reliable for being unreliable. I was considering going to the Icon 30th anniversary gig with them opening a few months ago but they pulled out.

NP: cattle decapitation - death atlas 

6 hours ago, Arioch said:

It's going to be thrashering in my ears this morning!

"The Thrashering" would make a much better band name than the lame Kings of Thrash. Or Kerry King for that matter.

11 hours ago, markm said:

Thanks Jon, I appreciate your being open.  I should say yes, this is a really fucking weird album, but to heavy music fans who try to expose themselves to a reasonable share of "weird af metal" it may not seem that weird since the album came out in 1996 and a lot of weird shit has come out since then.

The album is interesting on multiple levels, but is a challenging listen, so be forewarned. It's "a lot" as the kids like to say. From what I can tell, it's become kind of a cult classic in expero-weirdo-droney music. It's nearly 2 and half ours long. I find it best let the whole thing wash over me. I'll put in a queue on Sonos or play it in my car and listen to it shorter sessions.

There is no grand concept or over arching theme other than the what you, the listener bring. Some people describe it as a dream. I find the first disc makes more sense to the way I process music as tangible; very diverse. The second disc, gets more, well, weird and abstract sounding with more extended ambient drone pieces and to my sensibilities, is the sound of madness. But Gira states that it's just a collection of assorted material spanning 1981-1996. His liner notes states Soundtracks’ song sources included  “hand-held cassette recordings to found sounds, to samples, to loops, to finished multitrack recordings.”

I found this quote just now: Wider and craggier than the Grand Canyon, as epic in scope and testament as the St. James Bible, as weirdly and quirkily diverse as the Beatles’ White Album—that’s the description I gave to producer/multi-instrumentalist Rieflin, who said, “Yeah, that about wraps Soundtracks up nicely,” he says with a soft laugh. “Plus, it seems to go on for-fucking-ever. It’s as if it never ends.”

 Gira would later go on to say that when they reunited and recorded the Seer in 2012 (my entry point and one of my favorite albums of all time), the Seer was the culmination of everything they had tried to do. 

Listening to Soundtracks for the blind in the last 24 hours makes me appreciate the evolution from SFTB to the trilogy (The Seer, To Be Kind and The Glowing Man). The trilogy is more cohesive. I love the trilogy , but I also really dig this earlier, cruder, more rudimentary attempt to distill Gira's vision. It's just a special album I come back to once a year or so. It's also significant to me in the influence I hear in the other experimental artists like guitarist Tim Hecker and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

Swans have such a diverse discography and sound palette. This is one important piece of the Swans Rubik's cube. Masterpiece or self indulgent crap? We each get to decide. I think it's pretty rad. 

Ok. Ok. Bought sight unseen/ sound unheard off bandcamp because I'm going to have to download it for the plane.

I have The Seer and like a lot of it. But as @Thatguy says... They go on a bit.

Sometimes I wonder if this stuff is really for people that smoke a pipe and wear a cravat, but I like to be involved and not miss out on a cool soundscape.

I had that Neurosis + Jarboe in my wishlist but never made it to a purchase, which is weird because I'd typically get anything with the neurosis name on it. Although, apparently not Scott Kelly anymore.

6 hours ago, markm said:

Swans/Soundtracks for the Bind (1996)-It's been said by many, that in a career of making weird albums, this is the weirdest album Swans ever made. love it or hate it-and fans fall on both sides of the fence (I am on the love side) there is nothing like this album. The album that was the final straw breaking the Swans for 14 years. They reformed in 2010'ish and they came to more general notoriety in 2012 with their massive trilogy beginning with The Seer in 2012 which garnered a great deal of praise in all music internet sites that cover left of field experimental music, which is when I discovered them. 2012 was when I got into headfi and hifi gear, put together a proper listening system and started following the machinations beyond metal.

At any rate, Soundtracks for the Blind (2 discs, 4 LPs) and 26 tracks is a herculean listen at over 2 hours.  It's long been a favorite for fans of experimental rock music. Some would say it's been eclipsed post 2010 in terms of what Gira strove to achieve-some kind of transcendental music that pulls from many genres. It's an album that requires patience, there is over indulgence and bloat to be sure, but I find the entire experience utterly compelling. 

The roots to Soundtracks predates 1996 some 10 years to the beginning of the Swans existence and is as you might guess, conceived to be the soundtrack to movie that never existed. There's quite a bit ambient music and overall vibe of ambient drone on this album, but also explosive music and  field recordings, and creepy, voyeuristic voice tracks. I believe Gira and Jarboe both recorded people in their lives with mental and physical health problems to create a sense of watching a film designed to give the listener a feeling of discomfort. The album is unsettling and beautiful. Much credit has to go to Jarboe, Gira's long time collaborator who has one of the most elastic, powerful, beautiful and at times brutal female voices in experimental music. 

In fact, the entire album has a combined effect of surrealist experience-reminiscent of a bizarre David Lynch movie and other worldly experience beyond the capacity to explain in words. 

The voice overs create a sense of watching a haunting documentary of some corner of the underbelly of twisted human existence-ne'er do wells living sordid, utterly depressing lives-something that draws me in, repels me but I just can't take my eyes off the screen--- or perhaps, turning to look at the multi car accident on the other side of the highway-traffic backed up for miles, emergency vehicles, cars burning, bodies on stretchers....and you just can't restrain yourself from slowing down to look at the carnage. 

There is nothing that I've heard that sounds like this album. 

That is some write up and endorsement. I am soon to be taking a 17 hour flight to Perth and it sounds like this will get me most of the way there.

12 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

You know that Wode album is from 2017, right? Love the first two Wode albums. The last one from 2021 not so much. Not aware of any new one incoming, but I miss a lot of announcements like that.

I remember now... I got the first two Wode albums and like them well enough, but the 2021 one is (still) £666 on bandcamp to download, so fuck those guys.

8 hours ago, JamesT said:

I saw your comparison of Verminthrone as being similar to PanterA, and that's all I needed to hear!  Checked them out immediately and I now have "The Cull" in my library.  Fantastic album with sick, heavy groove.  Doesn't get better than that for me!  I also hear some similarities to one of my top 5 bands of all time - the mighty Crowbar!

Oof. You're gonna hate me (as if, you are incapable of hate in your heart), that Crowbar played at the same local pub where I saw Verminthrone last Monday and I didn't go! I was keen to see the local opening band Abraxian but, since I don't know Crowbar at all, the ticket price was just a little too much to be worth it.

Kind of regret it, but I'll get over it.

23 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Saturday AND Sunday posts from Johnny Blade?!? To what do we owe the pleasure of your weekend company sir? Has your wife left you? Or maybe she just left you alone with the daughter to go visit family, or she went out shopping with the girls and they stopped off for wine spritzers or lattes or something?

On Saturday my flatmates were watching rugby. I set up a new audio interface and switched to Windows 11 to solve some problems it was having. Finally started working. I then went to a gig in the evening, but not quite worth reporting. A local band Verminthrone, (The Cull | Verminthrone (bandcamp.com)) which sounds like it would be black metal, but closer to Pantera. Meat and potatoes. Decent. The opening band was Electric Wizard worship (Industrial Nightmare | Voidlurker (bandcamp.com)) but just a little too simple for me. The guitarist lost his pick before the last song and played with a credit card. You couldn't tell the difference. My favourite part was the knob twiddling guitar effects feedback over drum and bass that they finished with. That was pretty cool.

Sunday was fairly uneventful. Played mini-golf. Point being, I found occasion to write something on this here forums.

Oh, big name drop, on Friday night I had quite a long chat with Karl Sanders from Nile. It was like we'd been buddies forever. Nice bloke.

3 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

▶︎ Metaphysical Engines Approaching The Event Horizon | HADIT | I, Voidhanger Records (bandcamp.com)

Time Ghoul riding My Little Pony

4 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I'm gonna need your list though Jon-O. What's your best of Preest compilation track list?

I don't really do compilations. I'll just have to choose a roughly favourite from each album.

Winter

Dreamer Deceiver/Deceiver

Dissident Aggressor

Heroes End

Hell Bent for Leather

Steeler

Desert Plains

Fever (yeah, I know)

The Sentinel

Out in the Cold

Blood Red Skies

Night Crawler

Cathedral Spires

Feed on Me (scraping the barrel, but I always thought this was pretty catchy)

Loch Ness (the most ridiculous song in a career of absurdity, but musically cool)

Nostradamus 

....I don't have any favourites after that because they all blend into one amorphous mass of generic, if perfectly serviceable, filler.

Nostradamus and Future of Mankind would have been a pretty reasonable way to go out.

5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Alright then, so taken from across their whole catalog?

Living After Midnight

Hot Rockin'

All the Priest I could ever need in roughly 74 minutes, so it should fit on a CDR. (remember those?) If the Ripper fits you could throw that on there too.

Oof. I actively dislike those songs. Always seemed like they were trying too hard to write hits in those moments and definite album low points for me (which on Point of Entry is saying something). The writing team in Priest were too influenced by external trends and a dream of being popular (which is hard when you are as ugly s they are), whereas you can just tell that someone like Iommi wasn't interested in what others were playing. He's still in business, so would rather be popular and successful than not, but stayed truer to original mission statement.

I take issue with @markm piling on Ram it Down though. That came out just as I got into Priest and, as such, was amazing/life changing. And it was obviously better than Turbo, even for someone who'd been into Bon Jovi the year before. Turbo was Priest trying to write Bon Jovi songs and failing so bad, mainly because no one (and certainly not a Halford and a KK) can be as dreamy as Jon and Richie.

17 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

So you guys are saying (metaphorically of course) that the album is all tits and no ass?

In this respect I'm definitely an assman. Gotta save the best 'til last.

Np: Ahab - The Coral Tombs

I was talking to someone the other day about The Cart & Horses (because they lived round the corner) where Maiden played it's first gig. Although for years I thought it was The Ruskin Arms. I even played there years ago.

Anyhow, reading today about the literal birthplace of metal, where Sabbath first played. Turns out it is closed down but is still standing.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/mar/15/the-crown-pub-birmingham-grade-ii-listed-black-sabbath-heavy-metal

41 minutes ago, navybsn said:

Had the same thought. Album lost steam about halfway through. Still a solid effort for a bunch of geezers.

@markm had me about to pick it up, but I guess I'll wait a little longer. It will appear to lose steam because it's too long. Or at the very least if it is soon over you won't feel you had to endure too much filler.

I was looking at logistics of driving to see them on Tuesday because the current set list does look pretty cool. But I doubt I will be able to drum up the enthusiasm.

12 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Well I'm no Cath-O-lick, but I believe the Priest is usually the dude who hears the confessions, not the one doing the confessing. But you can still make your confession to a slaughtered priest you know Jon. He won't hear you obviously because he's dead, but you can still unload your burden on him. We know you have much to confess Jon. And the best part for you Jon-O Blade, the real silver lining here, will be that the dead priests reportedly don't give much penance at all, they're notoriously very lenient. Couple-a Hail Marys and a genuflect or two and you'll be right back to your evil sinful ways

 

That's a fair point. Although don't priests have to confess to someone further up the hierarchy? Only the pope would be unable to confess but presumably it is a perk of office to be autoabsolved.

You're wise not to go licking Cath without consent.

11 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Slaughtered Priest - Confess Your Sins, Greek black/thrash speed metal attack 2012

How would a slaughtered priest confess his sins? It's a little late for that.

5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

As much as I love Superunknown (and I do love it, one of those handful of normie albums I will defend til the death) but as much as I've always loved that one I could never really get into Badmotorfucker. And I had that one first too. I liked Feeling Minnesota and Rusty Cage I guess, but that's about it, you can keep the rest. I liked a few songs off Down the Upside too (but just a few) and then did they even do anything else after that? Weird to me though how so many people seem to wanna rank Badmotorfucker ahead of Superunknown. 

I think I'm gonna need to dig out both from the garage and have a listen, because it has been a few years. Superunknown is probably the definitive Soundgarden masterpiece, but I still enjoyed the hell out of Badmotorfinger at the time. I guess it was the wailing Jesus Christ Pose which played (overplayed) endlessly on a student TV station I had a show on - which I love but old goats will hate.  

Edit: nope, I'm full of shit. Turns out I had both CDs in a pile behind me. I must have got these out a year or so ago...probably on a prompt from the last time Soundgarden came up.