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What Are You Listening To?


khaos

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55 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Devoting tonight to going back to revisit a few recent albums I was on the fence about buying or not.

What's the verdict? I quite liked the Kankar album but haven't heard most of the rest.

 

I've been re-reading Dune by Frank Hebert this weekend so not too much music going on, thus the only thing really has been:

SUNNATA - Burning in Heaven, Melting on Earth

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39 minutes ago, ratpfink said:

What's the verdict? I quite liked the Kankar album but haven't heard most of the rest.

 

I

The verdict is: Black Raptus, Kankar, Mork and Szary Wilk all got the thumbs up and are now residing in my BC cart. 

Ninkharsag and Occultum got the thumbs down and were killed.

Sarkrista I haven't quite made up my mind yet tbh and so far I haven't located it digitally anyway so looks like these Germans will live to fight another day to win my affections. I really liked their last one from 4 years ago, it sounded so Finnish. But the songwriting on this new one is not up to that level of quality imo. But it's not bad either, we'll have to wait and see what happens. Now that I have accumulated so many hundreds of these 2nd wave type black metal and norsecore albums I'm trying to be more discerning and not just buy every god damned thing that's decent.

That Sunnata sounds pretty cool at 2am but it's very mellow and spacey so obviously not my usual thing. I'll have to make a note to come back to this tomorrow during the daytime see how it sounds to me then.

 

 

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5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

The verdict is: Black Raptus, Kankar, Mork and Szary Wilk all got the thumbs up and are now residing in my BC cart. 

I enjoyed Mork some time ago when Navy recommended it. That might be a pick-up for me.....note to self: revisit. Looking forward to checking out some of these other releases some of yous'ns have been posting. I was lukewarm on Panopticon....listened last night on speaks but may need to give it the Audeze treatment that tends to sort out what I perceive as the difficulties of accurately presenting black metal on stereo with room acoustic issues-death fares better for me. 

Speaking of stereo, I  picked up Ophiochi/Shibboleth which sounds great on my speaks. I think Navy referred to this band as post doom. I've seen them tagged progressive sludge. Regardless this kind of weird, some might say artsy fartsy-hipster-hard to categorize metal has long been one of the most compelling reasons to follow metal for me.....you know when non metal friends say, metal? REALLY? is that still a thing, I'll often retort that there exists plenty of interesting, creative, often experimental genes of metal that might defy non-metal expectations if they can get beyond the extremity....beyond the often worn out tropes of black and death there exist weird and interesting worms to find crawling in the muck.

Back in the early 2000's when I started hunting down new heavy music after wife/kid/mortgage and before I was willing to listen to any extreme vocals, I went through a lot stoner and doom and then it was bands like Neurosis and Isis and CUL until post metal got tired (except for Neurosis who continue to stun) and then after opening up to black and death, hard doom and weird blackened sludge a la Lord Mantis, Mizmor and so on impressed and to this day just when I think some of these off genres get stale, ROB, Orannssi-Pazuzu and Black Buddha Rising upend my expectations.....long after my initial infatuation with Electric Wizard and YOB seems like 100 years ago in metal years.

All that said, the appeal of this odd mishmash of styles that Ophiouchi present reminds me (I'll throw in some Cobalt and maybe Tool) of all of these bands yet sounds like none of them-certainly the tag-tribal metal works for me.

Shibboleth will divide fans, such as we are (all 50 of us or who knows) the blackened elements are dialed down and the doom elements are dialed up and it's less immediate-took me several spins-but has won my heart at this point. 

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I don't think Ophiouchi are all that divisive Marky Mark. I gave their last album a whirl when you and Navy were discussing them a couple of weeks ago and I didn't hate it or even dislike it at all. Didn't give me a huge throbbing Ninja boner either and make me wanna sing their praises from the rooftops but we all have our different ideas about taste.

FWIW I don't think there are 50 of us here who are invested and involved though, maybe half of that number. Still hopeful that Marko and Surge and Jon stop by though, as they all said they would at some point. I even sent PM's to Cornhole and Sea Wolf but I have no idea if they saw them before the board went dark last week.

 

@Navy and Salmonella, gave that Këkht Aräkh Swordsman album (Ukraine) a shot last night, and I was totally into it right from the start, good album and then it turned out it was NYP to boot. Always a nice surprise.

@Johnny5 that dude from Saille looks like the blonde dude from Hall & Oates after a 5 day bender.

@Sheol/Johan the Whoredom RIfe track sounds promising but not spectacular. Think I'll reserve judgement until I've heard the rest. They've not equalled Dommedagskvad yet imho so I'm being cautious. I always wanna think they're Finnish for some reason and then get surprised to learn they're Norwegian. Guess that makes more sense as they don't sound particularly Finnish. Also while you know I'm quite fond of you personally, I fucking hate your new name. You should've gone with Vittra or Diabolical. Pariah even. Sheol just doesn't roll off the tongue.

________________________________________________________________________________

 

I had been cruising along on autopilot for the first few months of this year, not really paying too much attention to new music, just trying to spend some quality time with my 2020 favorites before I'd have to get back to work on the hamster wheel. As always January was consumed with critical listening for my listmaking endeavors (and shoveling snow) but then as usual the late winter Feb/March and into April was my downtime from the rat race. But holy shit things have exploded a bit for me here on the new black metal front, I'm being hit with quality shit from all sides it seems almost daily now these last few weeks. Not that I'm complaining, but it's just funny how these things seem to come in bunches. For the longest it seemed like Spectral Wound's album was standing alone at the top, head and shoulders above everything else I'd heard this year. But now with some recent discoveries and additions it finally has some real legit competition in the black metal sweepstakes. Still my frontrunner but we're nowhere near the stretch.

This is my latest crush, a sophomore full length from some young Belarussian black metal band I know nothing about. They seem to have chosen a name that's a mashup of Cryptopsy and Hospital. Belarus is one of those former Soviet nations that lacks some unique identity for many westerners. People I've known from Minsk I've usually thought of as "that Russian guy" because I'm ignorant. Sandwiched in as it is between Russia, Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania, I can kinda hear a little of each of those in their sound. Getting some Havukruunu vibes in spots, definitely some Drudkh in here as well among many other influences. This thing brings some atmosphere, some doom, some raw bm, some epic riffs, some synth interludes, some 80's cheese... It clocks in at 57 minutes on the button but doesn't feel like it, I never feel like it drags, which is how I know when something's good. Where's Jon to tell me he will not buy or even listen to anything over 49:59? This won't be weird or unusual enough for some of you but that's OK, I'm digging the fuck out of it. It's not just another WN Norsecore special or some lo-fi exercize in Satanistic minimalism either, it's good so give it a shot.  

Cryptospital - Scythe of the Black Death

 

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