Iceni

"Universum" album by Nishaiar. Ethiopian atmospheric black metal. I think the guys could work on their riffs and make their production more consistent and come out well because otherwise they're decent.

That being said, they certainly do not sound at all Ethiopian. Russian, maybe, but nothing particularly African in this sound. At the moment, kinda like a poor man's Aquilus.

10 hours ago, dilatedmind said:

Good game, although played more h1z1. Rust was a gateway game though for me!

My brother's trying to get me to play Fortnite since everyone and their dog seems to have hopped on PUBG at the moment.

Wow. Awesome...I absolutely love A Sense of Gravity. The market's lousy with progressive/death/prog-death bands in the mold of BTBAM lately, even some good ones (Last Scattering come to mind). In that field your band's tireless attention to detail and howling intensity absolutely blow the doors off all but the choicest of your competition. I'd easily rank ASOG with Native Construct. "Atrament" was magnificent and that album art is some of the best-looking I've ever seen. Your profile picture is lovely too. Welcome to the forum!

Welcome to the forum man.

12 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Spasme - Deep Inside   ...Mathieu Marcotte's band before Augury. Somewhat technical Canadian DM with a moody, mid-paced overall vibe. @Iceni, maybe you'd like it, maybe not off-the-wall enough?

 

I'll give it a shot. Don't remember liking Augury but I might have warmed up to them. Hell, I don't even hate Khanate any more, it's worth a try.

Welcome to the forum!

17 hours ago, Requiem said:

Why are people fixated on the originators of a genre to determine Big 4 status? Did Metallica et al invent thrash? Just name the four biggest/best/important bands in your opinion. I refuse to read another post in this thread unless this is done.

I mean I did that for tech-death. Butter said it could be originators or just the most influential.

Cool, I loved Blood Revolt. Welcome to the forum.

Welcome, what sorta new stuff are you into?

I listen to a lot of French metal, a little less so since I got off my brief black metal kick. But yeah, Gorod, Kronos, 6:33, Kalisia, DarkTribe, Fractal Universe, Carnival in Coal, Ogarya, Trepalium...il y a tellement de bon materiel!

I gotta get back to that one, I was enjoying what little I heard.

This post will have a lot of cursing and anger.

Just remembering that a friend of mine liked this status and accompanying photo. This kind of idiocy is why I wanna do African Studies, so that I can help crush this vile festering tankie shit. Fuck dictators and fuck the dipshit Westerners who support them, be they cynical conniving neocons trying to maintain an American empire or racist partisan SJWs with no ambition beyond being contrarian attention-seekers. A few years ago, wouldn't this have been dismissed as the kind of fringe nonsense spouted by a paid regime shill lurking around YouTube? The fact that these abject partisan self-appointed iconoclasts actually command some amount of respect in any credible academic circle is just nauseating, and it's one of my main reasons for wanting to get into this field and join other Africanists (for there are a fair few) in comprehensively rejecting this arrant bullshit.

Before I go nuts, let me specify that Gaddhafi did do a lot of good for Libya, particularly in ensuring parts of it became well-developed. His sheltering Chadian refugees is also to be commended. He also decided to reject his country's nuclear weapons program. For anyone who liked Gaddhafi, life was good - but then that's always the case in all but the most incompetent dictatorship.

For those of you who are joining us, Gaddhafi also ran a one-party state and held power for 40 years, making him the longest-serving despot in Africa. The man severely restricted the press and ruthlessly suppressed all opposition to his rule, including during the Arab Spring where his troops gunned down protestors in droves. This is a pretty good article that shows the rebels did their fair share of lying but which also states there were human rights abuses by government forces (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/amnesty-questions-claim-that-gaddafi-ordered-rape-as-weapon-of-war-2302037.html) - and that's just in 2011 before he got pulled out of power. Other abuses that year can be seen here (https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2012/country-chapters/libya and here https://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2012humanrightsreport/index.htm#wrapper and here http://www.refworld.org/docid/4fbe392b5.html) Most heinous of all, however, is that this guy sponsored terrorism in Europe. He funded the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/14/world/4-guilty-in-fatal-1986-berlin-disco-bombing-linked-to-libya.html) and more importantly gave weapons to the IRA (https://jamestown.org/program/libyan-state-sponsored-terrorism-an-historical-perspective/). Finally, lest anyone forget, he sponsored the Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people in an airplane over Scotland.

This makes me particularly angry because the guy who liked it is one of the warmest, friendliest people I've ever met. He's a smart guy too - fellow Georgetown alumnus, landed himself a Fulbright to study religious conflict in Nigeria, and is currently studying for a Masters at a divinity school in Ireland. I wonder if he knows anyone with a family member who was killed by the IRA. He likes this page and has commented on other statuses here, so I know it wasn't an accident. I still don't hate the guy; he must know better. He doesn't seem to have said anything disgusting on his own over Facebook, yet - but I have lost an immense amount of respect for him.

This whole thing really does encapsulate the heinous impact this election season had on everyone. A number of people who I'd consider largely morally upright individuals have gone so apeshit over trying to signal their uprightness and resist evil that they've become apologists for any kind of foul murderous scum as long as they're purporting to defend the common man. Well, folks, the tyrants, despots and butchers of the world are laughing their guts out at you. The kind of mirror sheen your spit polish puts on their iron fist vastly exceeds the capabilities of even their most talented governmental spin doctors. Come forward to the dais and claim your degree in useful idiocy - you graduated with fucking honors.

32 minutes ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Setentia - Darkness Transcend

I remember liking that one...

"Empire" by Serenity. Naw, looks like they're still critically mojo-deficient. This one is decent but man this production makes the album feel so weak. It lacks the lush symphonic backing I remember on "Fallen Sanctuary" and "New Horizons".

Schindler's List

"He says he likes your 'magic picture', but he prefers the resolution of 35mm transparencies. He also says that your lenses are dirty, but he has the equipment to clean them for you."

Is Serenity finally back with Lionheart, after completely screwing up with the utterly forgettable Codex Atlantica? Boy howdy, I hope so...

I'm concerned though. Sounds like they took influence from Kamelot, a band to whom they are definitely superior. It's not bad but these guys should be more or less the undisputed kings of symphonic power metal. Cmon, I remember "Tannenberg", it was only two albums ago and that song kicked massive amounts of ass!

...hell, why not go back to your roots from "Fallen Sanctuary"? The world needs more top-notch prog-power and that one was a gem.

Welcome to the forum, I'm always happy to see metal parents!

Are you one of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rangel It's something of an unexpected move for you to come here after the House, but I don't blame you for wanting to get out of the Rotunda before anything really ridiculous happens. Well, anything more ridiculous than what's already happened, of course.

In any case, welcome to the forum.

4 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

A playlist containing all the death metal in my collection, on shuffle. This should soothe that DM itch I've developed this week.

I know the feeling, my love of tech-death tends to come in strongly punctuated bursts where I just can't stuff my face with enough of it. The last couple years have been pretty conducive to this habit.

13 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

DSBM has always had an extremely negative influence on me. It's strange considering I adore funeral doom but I suppose it's how that bleak atmosphere is created where the two genres differ. Funeral doom being generaly more mournful where DSBM is hateful and hopeless.

That's a pretty astute distinction, I think I'd agree.

Listening to Steorrah just now, not bad. Reminds me of Dark Suns.

Metallica were arguably my into to metal as well, heard Enter Sandman on the radio and thought "well geez, if this is what metal music sounds like it's nowhere near as goofy as I imagined." - and here I am today listening to dignified bands like Amaranthe, Archspire, Mr. Bungle and Volbeat...

8 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

No, I hadn't heard of them, also please no Street Fighter I admit to sucking horribly at that game.

That's weird, I've heard that the later games in the series are some of the easier fighters to pick up. My friend certainly shills pretty heavily for them.

I've only ever played Super Smash Brothers Project M as far as fighters go. It's a great modification of Brawl that more or less fixes all of its mistakes. Got reasonably good at it but my friends are better, perhaps because they drill movement and combos and I couldn't be bothered.

Welcome to the forum.

"Flesh Eater" by Crypted.

Promising young fellas from Chennai in India, I'd like to hear a full debut from them. I love the catchy drums on this one. Even if the middle of the track gets repetitive, the song still has some recent variation and the riff 30 seconds in is absolutely awesome.

4 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Not to mention you'd probably burst into flames in direct sunlight.

A reading from the Book of Heavy Metal, Chapter 7 verse 3-6.

"It was at the twelfth hour, around midday that Ghouly was seen to emerge from the dwelling; and upon her egress the beams were found to reflect from her visage and pierce the clouds. And Helios was afflicted with blindness, and he was laid up for a time on medical leave. Thus it was that the heavens were overcast on the outskirts of San Fran in the land of Cali, for seven days and seven nights. And amongst the Katatonia fans there was much rejoicing."