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khaos

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On 1/7/2018 at 4:26 AM, BlutAusNerd said:

Old Katatonia is some of my favorite music ever, so I tend to like bands that play in that mould pretty well. I wouldn't say that Rapture is any more rock-based than Brave Murder Day-era Katatonia, but they do sound a lot warmer, more upbeat, and happy even. The bleak and dreary feeling is what does it for me, and Rapture doesn't really embody that. I still enjoy Songs For the Withering, but not as much as, say, Daylight Dies.

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Glad you mentioned Daylight Dies. They're a funny one for me. 

I've got maybe three of their albums and I really can't get excited by them anymore. I guess I never really did. I like the idea of Daylight Dies more than the actual music. Some songs are really good, but I find myself getting a bit bored with them after 20 minutes. I hardly ever put them on anymore. Their drummer used to moderate the My Dying Bride forum if I recall correctly back in the early 2000s. Or was it Katatonia? 

NP: Eldamar - 'A Dark Forgotten Past'

One of my top ten albums of the year (not that anyone noticed or commented *sigh*). This and the guy's first album are just magical moments of escapism, like a mixture between Summoning and (good) Burzum. 

 

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Dismember - 'Massive Killing Capacity'

So catchy and fun. I've had this album since its release and it's my first death metal album. Probably also my favourite. I remember going to this black metal guy's house with a friend of mine when we were teenagers and he had a huge flag of the cover art over his bed. He lived in the next town over. This was a guy totally committed to black and death metal, living with his very non-metal parents. He was smoking drugs in there and everything, it was bizarre. We walked through their living room which was totally 'normal', saying "Good evening" to his parents who were sitting there watching TV, then entered this cavern of doom which was his bedroom. I sort of feel sorry for those parents, but man, that bedroom was insane. That night was also the first time that I heard Dissection's 'Storm of the Light's Bane' and I'll never forget it. 

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Dimmu Borgir - 'Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia' 

Forget black metal, this ain't it. What it is, however, is some of the greatest melodic and symphonic metal you'll ever hear, and one of the most perfectly produced albums courtesy of Fredrick Nordstrom. The older this album gets the more I'm convinced that this is not just Dimmu's masterwork, it's a landmark in symphonic metal full stop. 

There is still no better string sound than those opening strains of 'Fear and Wonder'. Don't bother listening on youtube. Buy the disk and glory in it. Bonus is the hilarious and cool band member shots in the booklet. Also contains THE greatest Dimmu Borgir line-up ever: Shagrath, Mustis, Vortex, Nicholas Barker, Galder, Silenoz. They would never get close to this standard again. 10/10. 

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12 hours ago, BlutAusNerd said:

I was hoping that would be closer to Lykathea Aflame, but it's still pretty great.

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It's an interesting listen, and yeah, I like it. There are a lot of recognizable elements. I can't help but compare the albums. When I listen to "Elvenefris" I get the sense that all of the musical twists and turns happen for a reason, and I don't get that same sense of focus from Appalling Spawn.

NP: Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris

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Glad you mentioned Daylight Dies. They're a funny one for me. 
I've got maybe three of their albums and I really can't get excited by them anymore. I guess I never really did. I like the idea of Daylight Dies more than the actual music. Some songs are really good, but I find myself getting a bit bored with them after 20 minutes. I hardly ever put them on anymore. Their drummer used to moderate the My Dying Bride forum if I recall correctly back in the early 2000s. Or was it Katatonia? 
NP: Eldamar - 'A Dark Forgotten Past'
One of my top ten albums of the year (not that anyone noticed or commented *sigh*). This and the guy's first album are just magical moments of escapism, like a mixture between Summoning and (good) Burzum. 
 
It sounds like we favor different sides of Brave Murder Day, so bands that emulate different sides of the album will either scratch that itch for you and not for me or vice versa. The strummed Gothic style 8th note chord progressions are far from my favorite aspect of BMD, but that seems to be the side of the album that Rapture favors, whereas Daylight Dies seems to focus on the bleak atmosphere and melodies. I also like that Daylight Dies uses a less linear song structure with shifting accents/time-signatures, and still retain a reasonably dark atmosphere contrasting the lovely melodies.

These discussions are always stimulating for me, so I hope that doesn't sound critical in any way. I think it's cool to figure out what it is about different sounds that does it for different people, especially since it helps me understand what I like about the music I'm listening to myself more fully.

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Dismember - 'Massive Killing Capacity'
So catchy and fun. I've had this album since its release and it's my first death metal album. Probably also my favourite. I remember going to this black metal guy's house with a friend of mine when we were teenagers and he had a huge flag of the cover art over his bed. He lived in the next town over. This was a guy totally committed to black and death metal, living with his very non-metal parents. He was smoking drugs in there and everything, it was bizarre. We walked through their living room which was totally 'normal', saying "Good evening" to his parents who were sitting there watching TV, then entered this cavern of doom which was his bedroom. I sort of feel sorry for those parents, but man, that bedroom was insane. That night was also the first time that I heard Dissection's 'Storm of the Light's Bane' and I'll never forget it. 
That was my first Dismember album as well, but I hated it and returned it to the record store the same day that I bought it. I had a much different impression of what they would sound like than what I was hearing, and it didn't jive with me at all. That was probably 12 years ago and I haven't heard it since, so I should probably give it another shot since I've softened up to the "death n roll" sound a bit.

I used to work with a guy at a record store that sounds a lot like the guy you're describing. He wasn't into drugs, but was a total black metal nut and still lived with his Mormon parents when I met him in his twenties. The feeling you're describing of walking into a normal looking house and saying "hello" to normal looking parents, and then stepping into his dungeon of a room filled with black metal flags and albums everywhere reminded me of him a great deal. The guy looked a lot like Mortiis, and his girlfriend was even more ghastly looking, with a permanent frown on her face making her look like she was in her 50's. They were "the gruesome twosome", and I wasn't sad to see them move away.

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15 hours ago, BlutAusNerd said:


Well, we can agree on this part at least, lol.

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All of your posts here are cool. 

There must be 'black metal guys' all over the world who have turned their rooms into shrines to the dark art in isolated little pockets of suburban normality. I envy them in some ways, but sometimes I want to wake up in a regular looking room, you know? 

As for Daylight Dies, you've hit the nail on the head. I love that repetitive linear style and tend to find the more progressive changes less interesting. 

NP: Moonspell - '2econd Skin' EP. I actually lived without this for years and years but finally got my copy just a couple of years ago. And for some reason I have two. One is the re-release by Icarus with a shiny, glossy, package, while the other is the original Century Media edition which I think I bought second hand (sorry, 2econd hand), but I'm pleased to report that the Century Media edition is practically in mint condition and actually feels newer than the Icarus version. The Century Media version also has a matte finish which is much more pleasing to the touch and looks better too. 

Icarus have re-released several of my favourite albums but I tend not to love them because they plant a huge logo on the back cover which annoys me. 

The highlight of '2econd Skin' is the cover of Depeche Mode's 'Sacred' and the second disk (sorry, 2econd disk) which is of a live show from 1996, music's greatest year and comprising mostly of 'Irreligious' material. 

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16 hours ago, BlutAusNerd said:

That was my first Dismember album as well, but I hated it and returned it to the record store the same day that I bought it. I had a much different impression of what they would sound like than what I was hearing, and it didn't jive with me at all. That was probably 12 years ago and I haven't heard it since, so I should probably give it another shot since I've softened up to the "death n roll" sound a bit.


 

I forgot to address your Dismember comment. 

If I had to make a bet, I'd put my money on you still not liking it. It's basically a melodic death metal album with those delicious Stockholm sounding guitars. Which is why I like it - nicely melodic, verse/chorus/verse, cool almost singalong lyrics. There's really no savagery or violence to it. It's death metal ear candy.

I don't think it's really going to float your boat. 

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Marduk - 'Frontschwein'

I used to think that the best era for metal was over, but I think I was wrong. The standard of metal from bands like Marduk, Amorphis, Moonspell, Katatonia, and Wintersun to name but a few, is as good as anything I've ever heard in 28 years of listening closely. 

This is a new golden age. 

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I forgot to address your Dismember comment. 
If I had to make a bet, I'd put my money on you still not liking it. It's basically a melodic death metal album with those delicious Stockholm sounding guitars. Which is why I like it - nicely melodic, verse/chorus/verse, cool almost singalong lyrics. There's really no savagery or violence to it. It's death metal ear candy.
I don't think it's really going to float your boat. 
I love a lot of melodic death metal, but I tend to prefer the stuff that still sounds like death metal and not that poppy sort of power/thrash/gothic metal that adopted the name. Dismember released some of my favorite death metal albums, so I need to give it a try either way.

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