Nasty_Cabbage

NP: Hypoxia - Defiance

▶︎ Defiance | HYPOXIA | Selfmadegod (bandcamp.com)

Seeing this had Michael Poggione on bass duty is what piqued my interest. Dude's been a bass mercenary for a while, and you've likely heard him play on something if you've been on a death metal diet for a while. I kind of like this because taken at face value it's about what you'd expect; brutal death that would be at home on Unique Leader or Razorback, but it's not brutal death with a capitol B. Primary influence I'm hearing is early Suffocation with just the slightest nod toward melody. Don't take me the wrong way though. You wouldn't mistake these guys for At The Gates in any universe ever, but it's presence does keep things interesting.

2 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

No issue, no need to defend. I'm surprised that you love it. Knowing how demanding and analytical you are in your listening, it seems incongruous to me. I feel like if you heard the musical equivalent of something this derivative and poorly executed, you'd have a scathing review ready to go before the end of the first song. 

I do think there's a very broad spectrum of "good art", and something doesn't need to be technically impressive to be impactful and meaningful, and being a good illustration is outside of both of those considerations. But even with that in mind I think this cover art sucks. It flaunts a lack of effort. So many other images in the genre are just way cooler and better done. I don't really put a lot of stock in cover art either way but this makes me a bit less likely to want to listen to the music.

So yeah, I'm a little surprised to see your high standards for music juxtaposed with genuine enjoyment of this piece. But I'm also not telling you what to enjoy... if this works for you, then great. You are the target audience. Love wins.

Fair enough I suppose even if I think "demanding" is a little strong. I should probably profess my love of gritty hand drawn artwork more often, and especially if it's sub sword and sorcery b-grade fantasy related. I'll occasionally criticize some of it for having very poor depth of field (that new Cirith Ungol still hurts my eyes), or trying to mimic Dan Seagrave and ending up just looking too busy.

Also musically maybe I am a little harsh on certain bands. If I'm being pulled both toward the extremely technical end of things or the simpler exposed raw nerve feeling over execution school, I probably resist the simpler one a little more. Still some of my personal favorites do come from that side. It might be that higher levels of complexity to my ears allow for a ton more variance and personal style. I can completely understand how somebody might hear Decrepit Birth and just hear later era Death worship. What's more they'd probably be correct to say so, but because of the abundance of musical choices made in the course of a given Decrepit Birth song I tend to listen to how and where they deviate from Death's style, and that's a little harder to do with a band that worships Under The Sign of The Black Mark era Bathory. When it hits me though, it hits hard.

NP: Overpower - Becoming the Tyrant

Becoming The Tyrant | Overpower | Mercenary Press (bandcamp.com)

Nifty little EP. Crunchy guitar tone. The pace changes edge a little too close to crossover thrash/hardcore for me to rave about it.

1 hour ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Really? Unironically?

Ummm... yeah. It doesn't all have to be Frazetta, but the influence is pretty clear, and if there's been some editing done to clean it up a little it doesn't take anything away from the hand-drawn feel. Wait, why am I defending my admiration of 'evil guy on a throne with a sword and fire' #3,041? I've got nothing against simplicity being used where simplicity works. What's the issue?

NP:  HÄXÄNKING - Pogani Spjevi

▶︎ Pogani Spjevi | HÄXÄNKING (bandcamp.com)

Love that cover. Something tells me if I asked him what optimization settings he was running his pc on he'd say "Crush Enemies = MAX, See Enemies Driven Before You = MAX, Hear the Lamentation of their Women = MAX."

1 hour ago, AlSymerz said:

Fuck! I thought there was something seriously fucking weird going on with the last three songs. There was extra instruments and shit that shouldn't have been there. Then in the last song started hearing an instrumental of Hotel California. It was then I realise the cooking videos I was looking at had sound and YT wasn't muted! Sounds much better without YT

😆Ha. I think we've all done that once or twice, but you got through at least two songs? Did you think the band had fallen off the deep end and gone full experimental modernism John Cage on everyone? That's actually really funny. I can see something like that causing some one's great grandparent to stroke.

Disclaimer: Don't be offended. I know you're not foolish, but that really is funny to me.

2 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Master - Master, Chicago 1990. Yes this is more like it. I think a large part of Deicide's popularity is mostly because Benton's an animated caricature of a satanic death metal front-man with the inverted cross branding, and the outrageous statements that have garnered some low-key publicity. While Speckmann just plays music. I'll take the first two Master albums over the first two Deicides any day.

Agreed. The self titled Master album deserves it's vaunted place in the history books. Deicide to me, can be pretty good, but you're right about the attention seeking. I feel really split about them. On just a strictly musical level they're a little above average, especially for how long they've been around. Benton is the textbook definition of what a lot of people would call a tryhard though.

44 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

I play Scrabble.

I'm such a nerd!

Scrabble's fine for a day in with a few other people. It's one of those games that nearly everybody can play so there's not too many super-involved mechanics. Board games are strange in how willing or unwilling people are to learn them. I own a couple of board games that I've pretty much had to admit to myself I'll never get to actually play. Even fairly streamlined two-player games like Twilight Struggle seem especially difficult to get anybody to learn. Oh well.

Currently enjoying a really casual puzzle/platformer called Worldless. It's pretty good for what it is, but the abstractness of the whole thing sometimes gets in the way of getting any kind of solid instructions on some of the mechanics. For a lot of people who are really into the whole hidden mechanics thing that probably sound like somebody complaining that Mario Bros. NES doesn't tell you how to sprint, but there's really no reason for some of the vagueness here. The abstraction is pretty well preserved in the few bare bones story elements (there's almost none that I can tell so far) without having me wonder what the hell the weird interactable object I came across actually does. On the plus side the combat is a really great mix of older combat ideas and innovative new ones. It's not a full on rhythm game, but that does play a part. It's turn based, but actually fairly quick between turns using the timing elements to their max. Really good example of 'the bosses are the puzzles' philosophy of design that works really well for me.

5 hours ago, AlSymerz said:

There is a couple of songs on it that I skip and (without any hard evidence) I think there was some of the lyrics written as a kind of 'fuck you' to Dave Mustaine and the media. It's definitely not an album I listen to often but I don't mind a few of the songs now and again.

Well Mustaine was never known for his even temperament. At this point he's responsible for making just as much bad Megadeth as good Megadeth, and burning every bridge he crossed along the way. That ratio doesn't look to reverse in the future either.

NP: Slakpest - We All Shall Fall

▶︎ We All Shall Fall | Slaktpest | Salute Records (bandcamp.com)

Cool. The label made sure to emphatically state at the bottom of the bandcamp page that there is no website for this band, which is something of a headscratcher. I can understand the counter-mainstream attitude, and nobody's saying you have to employ a whole pr manager, but not even an MA page seems a bit much. Eh. Music's pretty good. Seems like it was recorded and mastered over a number of years so the production values being a bit different from track to track makes sense.

14 hours ago, AlSymerz said:

Dieth - To Hell And Back

Gotta say man, I despised this. I realize there's always going to be a discrepancy between what the general herd thinks represents extreme metal and the random outliers being cantankerous and seemingly not liking anything, but goddamn this album sounded supremely lazy and ineffective from the basic designed for radio single (something serpent something or other) to the rest of them. The whole bloody thing was flat, unimaginative, and safe.

NP Dominus Sathanas - The Black Hordes of Lucifer

▶︎ DOMINUS SATHANAS - The Black Hordes of Lucifer | BlackcrowneD Records (bandcamp.com)

There's that Venom influence I was looking for. Somewhat less punk (and more on beat, but that's a low bar to clear) than Venom, but the spirit's there.

57 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Well it's working for me.

Yeah. Probably just a case of just not hitting that particular mood for me today. We'll be back on the Scandinavian death train soon enough, though. Immediately after that I did manage to get on the same frequency as some Australian black metal so after a little course correction I'm good.

NP: Pestilential Shadows - Devil's Hammer

Devil's Hammer | Pestilential Shadows (bandcamp.com)

It's making want to go back and dig up some Cirith Gorgor for some reason.

NP: Cryptworm - Oozing Radioactive Vomition

▶︎ Oozing Radioactive Vomition | Cryptworm | Me Saco Un Ojo Records (bandcamp.com)

Honestly pretty middle of the road for having such a cool name and cover art. Definitely some non-Gothenberg Swedish influence (Entombed, Gorement, etc.) in the overall sound. Might hit the spot tomorrow or the day after since I do like a ton of this sort of thing, but today it just isn't working for me.

NP: Cercenatory - GoreSphere

▶︎ GoreSphere | CERCENATORY | Comatose Music (bandcamp.com)

Good stuff.

2 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Was on a forum about 15 years ago with this dude who touted Bethlehem incessantly. So I listened to part of their infamous second album one time (couldn't make it through the whole thing) and I never went back. Life is too short to waste time forcing yourself to like shit that you hate.

In general I agree. There are cases though, where curiosity gets the best of me and I end up finding out I was really trying to get at an album or artist from the wrong mindset or just happened to have some negative associations with them that I'd allowed to cloud my listening. It doesn't happen super often, but it does happen. I just wish whoever's managing that tiny little office in my brain would email me a memo or something when they decide to change their position like that.

NP: Drowned - Idola Specus

▶︎ Idola Specus | Drowned (bandcamp.com)

Archive keyword roulette again today. This one's a little odd. Coming out of Berlin with a string of shorter demos and singles, they supposedly formed in '92, but didn't record a full length until this album came out in 2014. The members seem like some of the same people from the demos, but they're abbreviated is such a way that I don't know who's an original member and who isn't. It would certainly be difficult to have the same exact people together for an album over twenty years later, but who knows. Stranger things have happened.

34 minutes ago, Necrolord said:

 

My bad @Nasty_Cabbage, I was thinking of Bethlehem when I wrote that, not Beherit! Bethlehem is dog shit. Tabernacle is a funny word. 

 

Bethlehem's an acquired taste, for sure. Took me a while to come around to them, but I got there eventually.

4 hours ago, Necrolord said:

Fascinating that you seem to care about which band is 'mainstream' or not and somehow this affects your judgment of their music? I don't care one bit about anything other than the pure music. I don't get distracted by the other stuff. It's odd that you even mention that. You should ignore everything except for the music. 

We probably have huge tastes difference re bm. I've been listening to all kinds of bm for over a decade. Everythng from Abigor to Zyklon, limbonic art, summoning, everything in between, even crap like Beherit etc etc..... I've delved into the deep end, don't worry... 

 

The ministry of jovial skeletons would not hear ye speak ill of Beherit, good sir.

Seriously though, this might be one of my favorite black metal compilations/album cover combos ever. I love how they all look like they're walking home from black mass talking casually, ready to sit back in their doubtless equally decayed recliners and put on the game.

NP: Adversaion - Dejection of the Malign Tabernacle

▶︎ Dejection of the Malign Tabernacle | Adversaion (bandcamp.com)

Death metal right out of the older playbook. Doesn't go too hard on the gore theming either, but lets it serve it's purpose. Love the riff work and the brief utilitarian solos that show just enough instrumental capability without a hint of ego or flash. Just a hint more Autopsy influence and  get rid of the spoken word bits that pop up now and then, and it'd be all aces. As it is, though, still excellent.

NP: Udad - s/t

▶︎ UDAD | UDAD | Peaceville (bandcamp.com)

Nice production value that's very much in the comfort zone for black metal of this sort, but not deliberately indiscernible at all. Organic sounding drums as well. Everything on here has a very DIY feel, but DIY like the handyman was actually really skilled. Nothing completely unfamiliar on the musical front, but the riffs and song craft have a suitably eerie quality. Don't mistake me, this isn't Venom or the first two Bathory albums by any means. That level of raw punk energy is not what you're looking for from an album like this. I'd say it's closer to A Blaze In The Northern Sky or some other form of low-key hedonistic primitivism in the atmosphere. A suitable soundtrack to whatever pagan misdeeds strike your fancy on a chilly evening. I'm honestly fairly impressed.

3 hours ago, Arioch said:

Dimmu Borgir - Enthrone Darkness Triumphant (1997)

 

 

I remember around the time that Death Cult Armageddon came out this and Spiritual Black Dimensions were fairly well regarded, and they even got a small live tour stateside. I went to see them in St. Louis in a smaller club on the East side ( St. Louis East side at the time had some major gang issues, and was generally regarded as unsafe) and wondering how they intended to pull off the more orchestral sounding material in a live setting like that. The truth unfortunately proved that they kinda couldn't. I get they wanted to go for the truly "symphonic" sound, but overall it just didn't carry in a smaller venue. It's understandable considering you're just not going to get a professional orchestra jammed into that kind of setting, but I had to wonder if maybe the extra spice on the album was due to them moving away from the much more synth oriented material, or perhaps the material itself was just weaker. either way this one and Enthrone... played much better in a live setting.

NP: Miasis - Consumacion Humana

▶︎ Consumación Humana | MIASIS | Nebula Forest Prod. (bandcamp.com)

If you're going for brutal death, this is probably how you want to do it. Distinct and clear, but still with a foul enough sound to wilt the local plant life. Pretty good.

NP: Misotheist - Vessels By Which The Devil Is Made Flesh

▶︎ Vessels by which The Devil is Made Flesh | Misotheist | TERRATUR POSSESSIONS (bandcamp.com)

Don't know the band, but I feel like their label (Terratur Possessions) has a pretty good nose for this stuff, so we'll see. For those not sent running for the hills by the "disso" tag, there are Deathspellesque moments and use of dynamics. Their tone and mood is rooted slightly more in traditional black metal than others.... At least the first couple minutes, or so it would seem. I've got no beef with dissonance or most of Deathspell Omega's work so it works for me. Your experience may vary.

1 hour 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.

Damn. You are correct. I've got the one from 2021 and it's a personal favorite of mine. Ah well. It'll be new Wode to me anyway.

11 hours ago, navybsn said:

 

Wode - Servants of the Countercosmos

 

New Wode. Hell yes. Hanging my do not disturb sign outside my door for the next few hours and I do mean it this time... No I don't care that the entire ground level had been overrun with rabid mole-rats. Do not disturb means do not disturb... Yeah I know they ate Craig, but he was always late on rent anyway.

NP: Fabricant - Drudge to the Thicket

▶︎ Drudge To The Thicket | FABRICANT | Fabricant (bandcamp.com)

I'm going to be kind of a dick here and call attention away from that striking cover art for a moment to their band photo on MA

Why? Why would you include that? Is Weird Al going through a beatnick phase? Never mind those two poorly disguised cenobites behind him. Was this taken in a church basement? Is the body of a high school senior who was about to have his yearbook photo taken splayed about in a half eaten bloody puddle behind that screen. Just please please tell me Weird Al Beatnovick sounds exactly as I imagine he does. Like listening to Steven Wilson talk through a word problem in an artsy and all too self serious whisper. He has to sound that way. This is like an entire David Lynch film in one photo.

The music's good by the way. They've got a cool way of gluing riffs together that sort of tumbles and lurches along unpredictably.

3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Thank you Cabbaronious for the explanation. Now if you could please explain what 'resolve' means in this music theory context, because I've heard that before, and I have absolutely no idea what that's supposed to mean, I don't understand the concept of resolution at all. I'm not a musician or music theorist so explain it to me like I'm 8 years old.

Ah. This one's pretty easy as it's about how our brains process music. A musical phrase "resolves" usually when it ends on a note that more or less demarks it's conclusion as a single musical statement within the song like a single sentence in grammar. So if you were to take Twinkle twinkle little star / How I wonder what you are, the resolution is the note that the word "Are" is sung over. Note we're going one syllable per beat. Line one line goes up three times in a row so: twinkle/up twinkle/up little/up, star/middle, and the second line goes down how I/down wonder/down what you/down are/down, with the fourth down breaking pattern from the first line and resolving the phrase (and for what it's worth I wasn't choosing a children's song as some sort of taunt. It's just a melody everybody knows). Of course it's music so there's all manner of complications that can and will come into play, but that's the basic idea. It's also possible to create songs without neatly resolving melodies like Nina Simone's rendition of Langston Hughe's poem Strange Fruit.

Note that the piano behind Ms. Simone here begins with a relatively simple four chord series that moves and shifts as the song goes on because it needs to be malleable and not static or neatly timed out to use the exact cadence the poem necessitates.

I hope that helps some. The way human pattern recognition works, whether we like it or not, is moment to moment, and a big part of our enjoyment of music is following this kind of thing (often subconsciously) with it's surprises and it's predictability going hand in hand. I also think you're perfectly fine enjoying music on a much less analytical and much more visceral level. Bringing the music nomenclature into it just helps me with articulating some of this stuff a little more exactly. I don't need anybody to think that I'm insulting them by throwing that kind of language around. It's really more for my benefit than anyone else's.

3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Excuse me but could you elaborate on what "tonality" means as you're using it here? I'm afraid I don't understand. I'm a little rusty on music theory. Or no not rusty, but just ignorant I guess. I will say from my perspetive that black metal's not a musical style, it's a concept, a feeling, an attitude. Has nothing to do with tremolos or phrygian scales or whatever.

Sure I suppose. The easiest way to think of it is to think of an 'X' sounding melody that might be regional or representative of a certain time or place. Phrygian scales in particular tends to be associated middle eastern sounding tones and melodies. You could probably make up a really simple melody using notes entirely on a Phrygian scale, but if it doesn't sound like it you will likely not associate it with that particular tonality. I was getting black metal vibes specifically from the way the melodies are written in a consciously minor key format where the chords shift down or up by a measure at certain points. When discussing meter and rhythm those points in a given song will largely use a sustained (i.e. holding the note longer) moment when they're about to shift creating tension. That's of course not exclusive to black metal, but it's just one of those "you'd know it if you heard it." things.

The thing about it being an attitude and not a style can seem to hold water for a time, but the ear when you're hearing a melody is constantly searching for a way to for that melody to resolve regardless.

1 hour ago, Kristiko said:

Static X - Cult of Static (album)

One of the very first concerts I ever went to. It was a massive radio-rock festival, and well... They were Static-X. Not a whole lot going on below face value for them. Still glad I saw them though. I'm pretty sure most of us liked some bands in high school or junior high we'd be embarrassed about now. I definitely gave myself heat stroke at that show. Outside temperature was 103 degrees without being in an angry overstimulated crowd. They finally got spray water to us about halfway through the set, and I felt like one of those peasants at the start of Mad Max: Fury Road when he shouts "Do not become addicted to water." When I got home parents freaked out because I was apparently near delerious and purple from heavy strain on my circulatory and respiratory systems. The moral of the story is clearly: If you want to enjoy static-X the way they're meant to be enjoyed, be sure to push yourself to the absolute brink of death, and then the music isn't so bad.

NP: Gorod - A Maze of Recycled Creeds

A MAZE OF RECYCLED CREED | GOROD | LISTENABLE RECORDS (bandcamp.com)

What more can be said about these guys. One of many almost perfect albums from one of the best bands kicking it out there right now. Every time I go back to this one in particular it shocks me how well rounded it is. There's no stacking of 'good' songs on the front or back. Just incredible quality nose to tail.

3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

It's pretty damn good Cabbarella, would buy if I had my computer. But it skews much more death than black. I don't even hear much black at all here really. This is death metal. Not complaining about that, and it doesn't really matter, I'm just pointing it out to be a dick. I'm generally happy to take my black/death mix in whatever ratio it comes in. I'm curious though, what about this says black metal to you?

 

Necrophobic – In the Twilight Grey, new one, now this skews more black, or maybe 50/50. Love Necrophobic, but they might be starting to repeat themselves. It's good, obviously, but I can't say I'm too excited about it. I guess this album from a 30 year legacy band to me is like the new Pweest is to the mainstreamers.

 

The tonality was pretty clearly within the range of black metal for me. The percussive elements of death metal are partially there, and that's not to say that death doesn't work within a tonality of it's own that can also at times stretch into black metal's turf. I found myself noticing the rhythmic elements were very often on open resonant chords that would descend in scale by a half step (or a flat/sharp if you prefer) of the major key root note and work back and forth between them to springboard from riff to riff. Death metal does this as well from time to time, but not to the point where I'd consider it a defining characteristic of the sound. In fact I've been to a point before where I was very tired of typical death metalish guitar solos that almost always slip by default right into Phrygian scales because it just works better. To be fair there's definitely a slight lean away from tremolo picking and a few other elements that you'd expect of black metal, but to put it simply, if the music was played as a contest between death and black metal the team with home field advantage felt like black metal to me.

Necrophobic is a band I've only ever encountered in a fly by passing or two through the years. Never really felt one way or another about them, but given their age may be worth a bit of a deeper dive this time around. Wouldn't want to short them their due diligence.

Now as far as lyrics/music and their interaction with the listener is concerned, this is one of those areas I've softened a bit on over the years. I used to be firmly planted in the camp that thought lyrics really don't matter at all, not just in extreme metal, but in music all together. I mean if your primary musical appeal has to do with something physically corporeal, or even being "about" anything observable it just seemed like a wasted effort. The notes, rhythms, tones, and nuance of the performance are what truly matters, and finding words that describe the expression fittingly within the meter of the song it could be argued aren't a musical expression at all. I felt this way for a long time because I thought people in general had a hard time communing with anything abstract largely due to a cultural decline in what once seemed like an absolutely pivotal part of being human: the imagination. This has softened somewhat not because I've noticed any abatement in the devastation of the modern imagination. We are still a slothful and blissfully unaware sounder of penned swine to be sure, but more because even though the subjugation and crippling of the raw envisioned image continues, the answer is not to beat people over the head with abstractions. That only serves to drive others away; people who still have that potential and simply struggle to put it to use through no real fault of their own. The answer is to acknowledge it where it's executed skillfully and gradually use it as a bridge to the abstract we've lost touch with.

That probably reads like a bunch of conceited faux-intellectual bullshit, but putting things that way sometimes keeps me from falling into pure nihilistic defeatism, which is not healthy for me. I don't want to play gatekeeper to anyone's enjoyment of music on any level. So you'll have to forgive my pretentiousness from time to time.