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khaos

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Temple of Void - Summoning the Slayer, Detroit, I really didn't like their last one "The World That Was" from 2020, found it to be quite the departure from their excellent 2017 release Lords of Death which had been my overall #1 album of 2017 narrowly beating out Phrenelith. And to be sure this new one is not Lords of Death part II either, but I think they have redeemed themselves here afaic. This one is a good record, albeit rather slow paced. It'll undoubtedly be too straightforward by the numbers for all the cerebral prog guys who seem to require just a little more joie de vivre from their death metal (youze know who youze are) but for a simple man like me this totally works.

 

Before ToV I had myself a little mini Morrigan marathon in honor of their resurrection. These dudes seem to be a very well kept secret despite my meager efforts to promote them over the years. Any fans of any era of Bathory should look into this pair of Deutchlanders as they manage to combine the influence of both eras to great effect. So great that I have to rank Morrigan higher than Bathory on my overall favorite bands of all time list. Which I'm sure will be blasphemy to some as Bathory of course was an originator. But Morrigan is just that good.

 

Morrigan - Plague, Waste and Death, 2001

 

Morrigan - Celts, 2003

 

Morrigan - Enter the Sea of Flames, 2002

 

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2 hours ago, Dead1 said:

Sepultura - Machine Messiah - sure it's not even as 10% good as Max era Sepultura but this is the first Green era Sepultura album that I found listenable.  It only took them 21 years to find their feet...and even then there's tacky shit bits like track 3 Phantom Self

I thought Quadra was decent, just a bit too long. Sepultura is a solid creative unit but just never managed to recapture the lightning in a bottle of early albums. 

Roots had a few moments but I find it fairly unlistenable now. Max went in a direction I wasn't interested in after being ousted. So, musically, Sepultura wouldn't have been any better had he stayed. Every now and again he does something which holds my interest... I even bought the last Cavalera Conspiracy. But its not the same.

All that said, it is quite possible that a reunited line up really could make something great. But that would be because they have all come full circle, not because the nearly 30 intervening years would have yielded something worthwhile. 

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3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Temple of Void - Summoning the Slayer, Detroit, I really didn't like their last one "The World That Was" from 2020, found it to be quite the departure from their excellent 2017 release Lords of Death which had been my overall #1 album of 2017 narrowly beating out Phrenelith. And to be sure this new one is not Lords of Death part II either, but I think they have redeemed themselves here afaic. This one is a good record, albeit rather slow paced. It'll undoubtedly be too straightforward by the numbers for all the cerebral prog guys who seem to require just a little more joie de vivre from their death metal (youze know who youze are) but for a simple man like me this totally works.

Good to know. I don't think I ever listened to the last one (probably heard one track and dismissed it) but really liked Lords of Death. 36 minutes. Tick.

Cued it up now. And wishlisted new one.

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Mortiferum/Preserved in Torment-Surge's comment about them sounding better live made me throw this fucker on-think it's pretty good on disc actually-appropriately dirgy for the genre giving me lovely feelings such as existential dread similar to what I imagine being buried alive would be like, beaten to near death by a pick axe with dirt slowly filled in over my corpse as I bleed out. I get a distinct sense memory of the smell of fresh dirt. It's this kind of soothing comfort that makes me love death metal so much.  And, to think when I was a kid I was told I had an active imagination. Absurd. 

Genghis Tron/Dream Weapon

Wolves in the Throne Room/Primordial Arcana

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7 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Joie all day. Joie de mort, of course. We're not listening to any of that "life metal" pap.

NP: Sisters of Mercy - Some Girls Wander By Mistake 

I have always regretted never having gotten around to seeing SoM live back in the day even though I'm sure they played plenty of shows in NYC during the late 80's early 90's when I was a big fan playing their records to death.

And yeah what the hell was I thinking, none of that uplifting life affirming crap for us. Gimme decomposition, darkness and despair all day. Joie de souffrance.

 

 

Disma - The Graveless Remains, 2017, because I can't find the new one that dropped today.

 

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24 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I have always regretted never having gotten around to seeing SoM live back in the day even though I'm sure they played plenty of shows in NYC during the late 80's early 90's when I was a big fan playing their records to death.

And yeah what the hell was I thinking, none of that uplifting life affirming crap for us. Gimme decomposition, darkness and despair all day. Joie de souffrance.

 

 

Disma - The Graveless Remains, 2017, because I can't find the new one that dropped today.

 

....I don't think they ever played NYC shows....I saw them in Boston back in the early 90's with PUBLIC ENEMY and GANG OF FOUR....I believe WARRIOR SOUL opened that show....

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16 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

I thought Quadra was decent, just a bit too long. Sepultura is a solid creative unit but just never managed to recapture the lightning in a bottle of early albums. 

Roots had a few moments but I find it fairly unlistenable now. Max went in a direction I wasn't interested in after being ousted. So, musically, Sepultura wouldn't have been any better had he stayed. Every now and again he does something which holds my interest... I even bought the last Cavalera Conspiracy. But its not the same.

All that said, it is quite possible that a reunited line up really could make something great. But that would be because they have all come full circle, not because the nearly 30 intervening years would have yielded something worthwhile. 

I agree Quadra was decent.

 

I like Roots probably more now than when it was released!

I also prefer Max's outputs in more recent years even though he is still very inconsistent.  Soulfly has shed its numetal tendencies and is now a decent if not consistent thrash metal band with some groove and death metal tendencies.  First couple of Cavalera Conspiracy were good, especially the first album which is in my opinion Max's best work since Chaos AD.

 

Bruce Dickinson - Accident of Birth

Along with the Chemical Wedding this is one of my favourite albums of all time.

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17 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Temple of Void - Summoning the Slayer, Detroit, I really didn't like their last one "The World That Was" from 2020, found it to be quite the departure from their excellent 2017 release Lords of Death which had been my overall #1 album of 2017 narrowly beating out Phrenelith. And to be sure this new one is not Lords of Death part II either, but I think they have redeemed themselves here afaic. This one is a good record, albeit rather slow paced. It'll undoubtedly be too straightforward by the numbers for all the cerebral prog guys who seem to require just a little more joie de vivre from their death metal (youze know who youze are) but for a simple man like me this totally works.

OK, I will listen. Doom and death metal generally go well for me like chocolate and peanut butter. Actually doom/death and all their variants are among my favorite of death metals. 

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One of only two Khemmis songs I like and it's a cover - they need a better vocalist but his style works here:

 

 

 

Cave In - Heavy Pendulum

Surprisingly I am quite liking this  - kind of like early Mastodon (which I really enjoy) with progressive and post rock bits (which I generally don't like).  Guitar has massive crunch when  it kicks in.

 

EDIT: So good I've just asked my CD shop to order it in for me!

 

 

 

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5 hours ago, Thatguy said:

HEAVING EARTH - Darkness of God. Tastes of Ulcerate slowed down. Good but.

Best non sequitur of the year. But I know what you mean.

As someone who needs that little something extra from his music of course you knew what I meant Doc. I thought about changing that to "oomph" at one point but then didn't because I liked the irony of pairing life with death. At the end of the day I do believe most of us who claim to appreciate and derive joy from death metal (either progressive or otherwise) are actually in fact alive at the time, at least technically speaking. (not going to address the possibility of removeable heads at this time or how that might affect one's being able to be counted as among the living or not) 

I think the phrase I was actually searching for though was 'je ne sais quoi' it just eluded me right at that moment because believe it or not I am not a native French speaker. I haven't even studied it in school, I took 6 years of Spanish which I actually use quite a bit in daily life since I rub elbows with a lot of native Spanish speakers here in the states. While the only French speakers I've known personally were my ex's father who was Bretagne and spoke his own unique brand of Frenglish, and a Vietnamese woman I used to work with many years ago, but her French was only the slightest bit better than her English.

And not for nothing but those insufferable twats Ulcerate can bugger off right back to Auckland. So sick of hearing every band with a convoluted or off-kilter approach to death metal being compared to them. I shouldn't complain I suppose, they do provide a valuable service. When anyone compares a band to Ulcerate I know right away I can safely disregard them and won't be missing out on anything I'd be in any danger of liking. DSO and Gorguts also provide this same service.

 

Vile Invokation - S/T Demo

 

Severe Torture - Fisting the Sockets EP

 

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1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

When anyone compares a band to Ulcerate I know right away I can safely disregard them and won't be missing out on anything I'd be in any danger of liking.

I'm not sure you are correct about Heaving Earth though.

(And is Thatguy being drily funny - in his own mind -and having a lend of you, or does he actually believe that you might not dislike the album? There is only one way to find out without seeing the look on my face at this moment.)

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1 hour ago, Thatguy said:

I'm not sure you are correct about Heaving Earth though.

(And is Thatguy being drily funny - in his own mind -and having a lend of you, or does he actually believe that you might not dislike the album? There is only one way to find out without seeing the look on my face at this moment.)

Well here's the deal Doc. I'll let you in on a little secret. I might at certain times when the underlying conditions are just right be maybe a modicum more open minded than the character I play on the internet. So I can sometimes see that something could be considered "good" without actully being interested in hearing the whole thing myself.

But I mean right away I see the album is on the Odium Nostrum channel and that tells me something. First comment: sounds like Immolation, Ulcerate and Beneath the Massacre adopted a child. That tells me something. Dude is running up and down the fretboard with slightly off-kilter scales and the tweedly-deedlies deffo tell me something. Tells me to turn this shit off and put on something that doesn't make me agitated.

I need some groove and toe-tappability in my death metal, some catchiness if you will as well as some evil or malevolent atmosphere. I don't appreciate exercizes in music theory or displays of superior musicianship just for the sake of it. That's not what I come here for.  I think music should be both aggressive and musical at the same time. While these dudes are undoubtedly very accomplished musicians their end product is not very musical to my ears and as such this holds no interest or value to me. But I can see why someone else might could dig 50 minutes of this. Me I'm tapping out at 28 minutes and have now put on Monotheist, an album I consider to be essentially comfort food.

Conclusion: Doc did not actually believe in his twisted, sardonic heart of hearts that I might be keen to tolerate this noise for 50 minutes much less actually enjoy it. He was having a go at me in that dry laconic way of his. I did not even need to see his smugly quarter-smiling face to deduce this. But in the end I guess he wins dunny? Because he got me to waste a half hour of my precious time on this wanky drivel. Touche sir.

 

Heaving Earth - Darkness of God

 

 

CF - Monotheist, the real deal

 

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6 hours ago, Dead1 said:

Cave In - Heavy Pendulum

Surprisingly I am quite liking this  - kind of like early Mastodon (which I really enjoy) with progressive and post rock bits (which I generally don't like).  Guitar has massive crunch when  it kicks in.

 

EDIT: So good I've just asked my CD shop to order it in for me!

 

I really like the new Cave In also. I have an older album of theirs, Perfect Pitch Black, which I never go back to. When the reviews came out as strong as they were, I listened and thought, not bad but too long. Went back and the songwriting is too damn good to pass on and yes there is a good mix of styles including very strong guitar work. Also the hardcore influence is one place we share some commonality. I also enjoy some crust and metallic hardcore like Trap Them as well as Haunted that you mentioned in a subsequent post. 

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11 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Because he got me to waste a half hour of my precious time on this wanky drivel. Touche sir.

😉

11 hours ago, markm said:

I listened and thought, not bad but too long

Which remains my first impression since I haven't gone back to it. But I will.

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