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What Are You Listening To?


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5 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

I've  been seeing other people talk about it on non-music related forums and I gave the song they released before the album a go and saw nothing fascinating about it.

Do the socks make a difference to the music? Maybe they do since I'm wearing Kmart socks and didn't get into Archspire.

Megadeth - Youthanasia

 

My son gave me the socks and that makes all the difference. It is enjoyable music and sometimes that's all you need.

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Yeah Zack, I grabbed it about a month ago. I don't like to sleep too long on new Finnish black metal releases lest they start piling up. Whether Hypocrisis Absolution is the best Finblack album of this entire year so far in my book is still up in the air, but it's most certainly a contender. Let's take a look at who else is in the running. As has become the norm, Finland has put in another strong showing in the black metal category this year. I'll have to do some listening and get back to you.

Besides Malignament we have:

Hautakammio - Pimeydem Kosketus

Marras - Endtime Sermon

Malum - Devil's Creation

Kirottu - Deity Embers

Warmoon Lord - Battlespells

Sombre Figures - Streams of Decay

Havukruunu - Kuu Erkylän Yllä

Diaboli - Awakening of Nordic Storm

Azazel - Aegrum Satanas Tecum

Svartheim - Black Metal Finland 

Clandestine Blaze - Secrets of Laceration

Sielunvihollinen - Teloituskäsky

Knife - The Eye of Infernal Wisdom 

Korpituli - The Ancient Spells of the Past

Hexerei - Ancient Evil Spirits

Vritrahn-Werwolf - Vritrahn-Werwolf

Wolves of Perdition - Ferocious Blasphemic Warfare

Qwälen - Unohdan Sinut

Ondfødt - Norden

Commander Agares - Legions of Descending Twilight

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And now for something completely different...

KAYO DOT - Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike.

Now this is art and not simply entertainment. It's eclectic -as you'd expect, it's beautiful, it's full of musical interest and it is certainly metal. What a time to be alive that music like this is offered to us.

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I beg to differ Doc but it's all art, isn't it? My goat metal as well as you're "eclectic" avant-gardery and everything in between. Thing is art is mostly in the eye of the beholder. One man's art is another man's filth and visa versa.

I tried your Kayo Dot, reborn from the ashes of and also supposedly a continuation of Maudlin of the Well (Boston/NY). Needless to say I didn't make it too far. It is as you said most certainly metal, it was just a bit off the wall (or maybe off the deep end) for me. I'm not as smart as you Doc, I need a more starightforward approach.

 

 

Morte Incandescente - Vala Comum, deliciously nasty shit from Lisbon

 

 

Black Spirit (Spain) - El Sueño De La Razón Produce Monstruos, Spain, still loving this one, this is about as "artsy" as I get.

 

 

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2 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I beg to differ Doc but it's all art, isn't it? My goat metal as well as you're "eclectic" avant-gardery and everything in between. Thing is art is mostly in the eye of the beholder. One man's art is another man's filth and visa versa.

Yep. We actually agree. Yer goat filth is art, as is ARCHSPIRE. I was actually playing with anyone snobbish enough to dismiss ARCHSPIRE just because they have been hyped by someone or other.

And I knew you wouldn't like the KAYO DOT as surely as I knew you would feel you had to give it a go.😉

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3 hours ago, Thatguy said:

Yep. We actually agree. Yer goat filth is art, as is ARCHSPIRE. I was actually playing with anyone snobbish enough to dismiss ARCHSPIRE just because they have been hyped by someone or other.

And I knew you wouldn't like the KAYO DOT as surely as I knew you would feel you had to give it a go.😉

Always amuses me when people presume to ascribe motives to why others have dismissed something. It harkens back to that old tired standby "you just hate them because they're popular/successful." I can't speak for anyone else but I can tell you I dismiss the Spire and their ilk because musically they are everything I hate about what I'll call this anti-filth movement in metal. While they're clearly quite skilled and proficient musicians, I find their sound soulless, robotic, artificial and abhorrent. It literally makes me wince, and that is not what I want from my music. Which doesn't make it any less "art" but we all know I'm looking for dirt, filth, grit and grime. I want my music to be raw, undisciplined, spontaneous, reckless and haphazard, and your Spire boys are the polar opposite of that.

Actually I believe I will speak for someone else. I look at it this way. When someone eschews a band or an album because it has received acclaim & accolades from some particular quadrant of the metal world it's because that acclaim has given them a clue as to what they're about. For all of us obssessives who spend so much time and effort sifting through new releases to find the hidden gems, we need to make some educated guesses to help narrow the field. No one has time to listen to everything that comes out (Goldy proved that) so we all have to come up with our own personal narrowing down processes and procedures. We've all found places where we have learned we can successfully find new music. And we've all found other places where we can be reasonably certain we won't have much luck finding anything. Obviously we could quite possibly be wrong occasionally, and I'm sure we are, but we're playing the odds.

Like when I post an album Doc, you see that it's me and you see the name and the cover and immediately you make certain judgements about it before you've even heard it, if you even bother to click. We all do this. From previous listening experiences I have learned enough to know that I don't have to actually hear any new Archspire product to know I will loathe it. In their case I don't even have to hear anything about the album from Zack or you or anyone else or know who's hyping it or who's slagging it. The Archspire brand is all I need to know. Their reputation preceeds them, they're a known quantity now like Toyota, Honda or Mitsubishi.

 

NP: Каландар (Russia) - ДОМОК О ШЕСТИ ДОСОК (Demo) 2021

 

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You are off down a rabbit hole of your own making GG.I made what I thought was a joke comparing the  - to me - fun but lightweight music of Archspire vs the more - to me - refined article from Kayo Dot. I don't care who likes what and I never expect or really care if anyone agrees with me. It wasn't you I aimed the 'too snobbish' comment at - as I wrote above, I know you will give most things a go.

I was gently ribbing all of us here because no-one else seemed game to admit they enjoyed Archspire...

Sigh. You needed to see the look on my face to know not to take me seriously. Outside the context of medicine, 90% of what I say is tongue in cheek, or as we say, bullshit.

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5 hours ago, Thatguy said:

You are off down a rabbit hole of your own making GG.I made what I thought was a joke comparing the  - to me - fun but lightweight music of Archspire vs the more - to me - refined article from Kayo Dot. I don't care who likes what and I never expect or really care if anyone agrees with me. It wasn't you I aimed the 'too snobbish' comment at - as I wrote above, I know you will give most things a go.

I was gently ribbing all of us here because no-one else seemed game to admit they enjoyed Archspire...

Sigh. You needed to see the look on my face to know not to take me seriously. Outside the context of medicine, 90% of what I say is tongue in cheek, or as we say, bullshit.

Yeah well generally I'm somewhere around 94% myself Doc, and a lot of my "ribbing" and facetiousness can be quite subtle which is why I enjoy your participation so much because you're cut from that same sardonic cloth. A brother from another hemisphere. You just do it a bit more succinctly, much more dryly while maybe a bit more transparently than I do. All those times I've feigned ignorance in a response to you going for a laugh when you were being facetious, did you really suspect that I didn't realize you were being facetious? C'mon bro!

But my little tirade last night was something I needed to get off my chest just in general Doc, that wasn't really aimed as much directly at you as it was just something that had been building up in me over time. Believe me my good Doctor, I always know exactly where you're coming from, your explanation as usual was redundant. Please don't ever think I'm going off on you, trust me we're all good. But understand that your initial Archspire mention had already stirred up all those "you just hate it because it's popular" thoughts which tbh are always bubbling just under the surface. And then the snobbish comment...I know full well you weren't aiming that at me sir. But yet that was the straw.

It had been quite awhile since my last treatise/outburst on the subject so your post simply provided me with the catalyst that my whiskey and "edible" addled, not to mention sleep deprived brain needed to form those exact sentences and paragraphs in my head right then at 5am. Because we all know (except for you apparently😉) that Archspire is the perfect band with which to illustrate the flaw in that "you just hate them because they're popular" theory. Like 'em or not there's no escaping the fact that their music just has the propensity to rub some people the wrong way. There's nothing fun about them, 'Spire is a love it or hate it proposition, there's not much middle ground. Many of us would find their music repugnant regardless of whether they were rock stars, underground scene darlings, or completely unknown starving musicians playing in the subway for spare coins tossed into their open guitar cases. 

And at 5am Doc as my Saturday overnight metal binge was winding down to a close, I just had to get those thoughts and paragraphs out of my head and typed out and sent on their way before I retired to my bed so they wouldn't be stuck in there rattling around for hours as I tried to think of better ways to word things, potentially preventing my peaceful, untroubled drift into slumber on a lazy Sunday morning as the sun rose above the trees and let its golden rays gently caress my pillow. (how's that for a fucking run on sentence?)

 

Could ya maybe post a pic of yourself in your running gear including your "stay tech" socks for us Doc? I think we'd all get a good chuckle out of seeing that.

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