What Are You Listening To?

[Nasty_Cabbage]

47 minutes ago, navybsn said:

On an unrelated note, I had to visit with the Dean of the Nursing program at the local Christian college. For those stateside, the second largest evangelical Christian school behind Bob Jones U. For those outside the states, yes those people. The ones most of us don't care for. The militantly anti-abortion, anti-women's rights, anti-anyone but them being able to decide what should be allowable. I would have rather had a hemorrhoidectomy. Save for the General, I've not met you folks in person. I'm a regular looking guy. Save for rather obvious and extensive tattoos, you probably wouldn't notice me in a crowd. Trust me when I say I stuck out like a sore thumb on this campus. Meeting went better than expected, but only because they didn't meet me at the truck where I was aggressively listening to a choice album they would have been unfamiliar with.

Ugh. I've never had to deal with that particular sect, but I have had my dealings with Bob Jones U. extensively during my upbringing. It's really not worth taking them to task if you have to confront them in any type of formal or informal discourse, because they really like to make you go issue by individual issue, and it's exhausting. Most of their textbooks, authored, edited, and vetted by the U. of course, are loaded with such unbelievably outdated and in many cases outright false information it genuinely made me feel bad for those kids I knew who'd been raised and cloistered away from any actual real world experience, and held in thrall to their lunatic proselytizations. A lot of the outdated stuff isn't even in the areas you'd expect either. Some of it was like reading the ramblings of a senile old hermit who'd decided to publish his own farmers almanac.

Pro-tip though, in case you do end up in a debate with these people: most of them haven't actually read the Bible and simply took 'ol Bobby's textbooks at their word. If you have any experience with scripture AT ALL you can flick these intellectual gadflys off you with stupid amounts of ease and they'll usually leave you alone. Most of their zealotry is just to mask their insecurity in their own faith. Again, I'm moved more to pity than to anger.

Now, as to these lovely gentlemen of leisure I'm betting that at a concert their little corner is probably the safest pit in the place. My moshing days are behind me now, but as a bony younger man, I often found that even though the fat guys had momentum and taking a direct hit could cause some harm, but they just can't get moving fast enough in a closed space to do real damage and you'll almost always glance off them.

2 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Last naked lady the 'Cocke had featured on one of their covers was 20 years ago, so no. And even she was turned the other way. The best one was the Goat cover of course, but I feel I should point out that there are definitely much better places to see naked ladies than 'Cocke covers. Unless you look like one of these guys (The Misfats) and then yeah, an album cover might just be your best hope.

 

Swordwielder - Wielding Metal Massacre

A.) I read that Swordwielder album title as Welding Metal Massacre, and was prepared to declare it as the greatest PSA ever created.

B.) I know there are better places for female nudity, but part of me just wants to respect the tradition. So I'm disappointed they're not doing that anymore. There's probably better places to see a story about a philandering secret agent saving the world than a James Bond film these days, but dammit, I still like the Bond films best. Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt can go in the bin.

[Thatguy]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Pull yer head in Figjam, I've forgotten more about metal than you'll ever know.  😘

Forgotten being the operative word...

I was sincerely and honestly agreeing with you, old cock.

[Nasty_Cabbage]

NP: Soreption - Jord

Jord | Soreption | Unique Leader Records (bandcamp.com)

Underrated tech death.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

2 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

Forgotten being the operative word...

I was sincerely and honestly agreeing with you, old cock.

Left handed compliments won't kill me. I can laugh at myself, so don't take me so seriously ya geezer. You of all people who prides himself on being the drollest of dickheads should know better than anyone I'm just taking the piss same as you are. Was just trying to impress you with my adept use of Aussie slang...for a Yank anyway.

 

NP: Blackbraid - Blackbraid II

 

[JamesT]

On 8/7/2023 at 7:37 PM, Dead1 said:

I'd agree they were redundant.  I am glad they didn't fuck the production up by making it too plastic.

First 5 are godly thrash albums.  Can't remember I Hear Black - time for a revisit.  W.F.O. has one of the most irritating production jobs ever.  I cannot listen to that album.

The classic era is fantastic!  "I Hear Black" is one that would still rank near the bottom of the catalog for me - but this is Overkill we're talking about, so it's still a great album!

I absolutely love "W.F.O.".  It's unapologetically heavy, and DD's bass is just pounding.  I can definitely understand why the production wouldn't be everyone's taste due to the bass being turned up so prominently in the mix, but I've never been bothered by it.  

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about "I Hear Black"!

[Nasty_Cabbage]

NP: Blackthorn - The Rotten Ways of Human Misery

▶︎ The Rotten Ways Of Human Misery | Blackthorn | Living Metal Producciones (bandcamp.com)

Death thrash out of Mexico. Archives says they're still active despite only producing one full length (see above) in 1993, and forming in 1989. Love the old school sound. Might be worth a buy for me.

[navybsn]

2 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Ugh. I've never had to deal with that particular sect, but I have had my dealings with Bob Jones U. extensively during my upbringing. It's really not worth taking them to task if you have to confront them in any type of formal or informal discourse, because they really like to make you go issue by individual issue, and it's exhausting. Most of their textbooks, authored, edited, and vetted by the U. of course, are loaded with such unbelievably outdated and in many cases outright false information it genuinely made me feel bad for those kids I knew who'd been raised and cloistered away from any actual real world experience, and held in thrall to their lunatic proselytizations. A lot of the outdated stuff isn't even in the areas you'd expect either. Some of it was like reading the ramblings of a senile old hermit who'd decided to publish his own farmers almanac.

Pro-tip though, in case you do end up in a debate with these people: most of them haven't actually read the Bible and simply took 'ol Bobby's textbooks at their word. If you have any experience with scripture AT ALL you can flick these intellectual gadflys off you with stupid amounts of ease and they'll usually leave you alone. Most of their zealotry is just to mask their insecurity in their own faith. Again, I'm moved more to pity than to anger.

Now, as to these lovely gentlemen of leisure I'm betting that at a concert their little corner is probably the safest pit in the place. My moshing days are behind me now, but as a bony younger man, I often found that even though the fat guys had momentum and taking a direct hit could cause some harm, but they just can't get moving fast enough in a closed space to do real damage and you'll almost always glance off them.

A.) I read that Swordwielder album title as Welding Metal Massacre, and was prepared to declare it as the greatest PSA ever created.

B.) I know there are better places for female nudity, but part of me just wants to respect the tradition. So I'm disappointed they're not doing that anymore. There's probably better places to see a story about a philandering secret agent saving the world than a James Bond film these days, but dammit, I still like the Bond films best. Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt can go in the bin.

I was raised in an old school Southern Adventist church. I know enough to not engage these types to avoid the expenditure of mental energy. You will never win a point with them regardless of how true your arguments may be or how glaring the mental contradictions in their argument. I've learned through the past 48 years how to artfully dodge better than Ben Stiller in Dodgeball. Not worth the time. I did however go rocking tattoos on full display and black metal on the stereo. You want the truth? You can't handle the truth church boy. They also chose not to engage on my obvious Christian shortfalls. They aren't changing my mind and I'm not interested in changing theirs. (This was Pensacola Christian College purveyors of the Abeka homeschool indoctrination books that are pervasive in the far-right community and peddles the sort of small world view drivel you refer to on children as young as 4. Gotta start selling your bullshit early if you want that shit to gel into close minded fascist youth).

Not all elitists are triggered by my artful mispronounciations @GoatmasterGeneral, for sophisticated metal snobs such as yourself good sir, I sometimes have to resort to positions like Hysteria is the superior Def Leffard album, Sabbath was better with Dio, or Rust in Peace is the best thrash album ever made. That strategy usually works if the first fails. An antagonist of my caliber never relies on a single strategy.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

23 minutes ago, navybsn said:

I was raised in an old school Southern Adventist church. I know enough to not engage these types to avoid the expenditure of mental energy. You will never win a point with them regardless of how true your arguments may be or how glaring the mental contradictions in their argument. I've learned through the past 48 years how to artfully dodge better than Ben Stiller in Dodgeball. Not worth the time. I did however go rocking tattoos on full display and black metal on the stereo. You want the truth? You can't handle the truth church boy. They also chose not to engage on my obvious Christian shortfalls. They aren't changing my mind and I'm not interested in changing theirs. (This was Pensacola Christian College purveyors of the Abeka homeschool indoctrination books that are pervasive in the far-right community and peddles the sort of small world view drivel you refer to on children as young as 4. Gotta start selling your bullshit early if you want that shit to gel into close minded fascist youth).

Not all elitists are triggered by my artful mispronounciations @GoatmasterGeneral, for sophisticated metal snobs such as yourself good sir, I sometimes have to resort to positions like Hysteria is the superior Def Leffard album, Sabbath was better with Dio, or Rust in Peace is the best thrash album ever made. That strategy usually works if the first fails. An antagonist of my caliber never relies on a single strategy.

None of that would get to me. You wanna push my elitist kvlt buttons I think only telling me bands like Fen and Deafheaven or NY bands like Krallice, Liturgy and Yellow Eyes are "black metal" would be enough to do the trick, then I'd blow because I can't keep it in. Same with the Jesus people, I just don't have that kind of restraint around ignorance that severe that runs that deep. Drop me into the fishbowl of southern evangelical culture and I don't know what I'd do. I'd probably engage with them and make things worse on myself even while thinking to myself that it probably wasn't a very good idea. This is not something we had to contend with up here in NY. We had reigious people but nothing like the southern evangelicals. Where I grew up mostly we had a lot of Irish and Italian and Polish Catholic families that pretended to be religious but besides wrangling up all the kids into the wood paneled station wagon and heading down to church on Chritmas and Easter because they thought that was expected of them, didn't seem like they gave their faith or religion much thought the other 363 days. Even though their parents sent all those kids to the local Catholic school, that was literally only because they weren't going to let them go to public school with black kids, nothing to do with religion. I was the lone WASP kid on the block and we didn't even pretend to be religious. We put up a Christmas tree each December and took the Lord's name in vain year round, I think that was just about the extent of our "religion." 

Human Pancake - No Cowards, Pennsylvania goregrind. I like this, as goregrind goes this is great. I really don't mind the pig grunt vox as long as they don't start doing squeals and the breeee breeee stuff then I'm out. But 45 tracks 72 minutes might be just a little too much goregrind for me. There's a reason most of the albums in this sub-genre are 25 minutes long. Now deathgrind would be a different story. Good deathgrind I could listen to 10 albums in a row and never get tired of. These guys edge close to death metal here and there but never quite reach it.

 

Ósserp - Els Nous Cants de la Sibil·la, deathgrind Barcelona Spain, 2022. Oh yeah this is more like it. 

 

[Dead1]

1 hour ago, JamesT said:

The classic era is fantastic!  "I Hear Black" is one that would still rank near the bottom of the catalog for me - but this is Overkill we're talking about, so it's still a great album!

I absolutely love "W.F.O.".  It's unapologetically heavy, and DD's bass is just pounding.  I can definitely understand why the production wouldn't be everyone's taste due to the bass being turned up so prominently in the mix, but I've never been bothered by it.  

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about "I Hear Black"!

A real mixed bag of an album.  Some of it's good, some of it meh and some is what the fuck (eg falsetto in Undying).  Bizarrely some of it reminds me of modern Metallica but with Blitz on on vocals!

I'd need to listen to it on a proper stereo to see what production is like.

I would say it's like many commercial "thrash" albums of the era - confused and struggling to find direction and relevance in a world dominated by grunge and where metal is fading away.  

And Testament did it better on albums like The Ritual and Low..

 

[Dead1]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Where I grew up mostly we had a lot of Irish and Italian and Polish Catholic families that pretended to be religious but besides wrangling up all the kids into the wood paneled station wagon and heading down to church on Chritmas and Easter because they thought that was expected of them, didn't seem like they gave their faith or religion much thought the other 363 days. 

 

Dunno if they are anything like Croats, but religion for Croats is more about keeping up social appearances "look I go to church, I am a good Croat." 

It was certainly like that when I last went to Croatia and the local community was very much like that whilst it existed. 

Give me the atheism of socialism any day.

 

Annihilator - King of the Kill

Actually never listened to this one before.  Starts off weird as shit with a song that sounds like an intro that never quite develops into a song.

 

EDIT as a whole this is one of the most amateurish "post thrash" albums I've ever heard.  

[Thatguy]

5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I can laugh at myself, so don't take me so seriously ya geezer.

😁

But figjam? Where does that come from?

THE SLOW DEATH - The Split Album

GAEREA- Mirage

MY BLOODY VALENTINE - mbv

[GoatmasterGeneral]

10 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

A real mixed bag of an album.  Some of it's good, some of it meh and some is what the fuck (eg falsetto in Undying).  Bizarrely some of it reminds me of modern Metallica but with Blitz on on vocals!

I'd need to listen to it on a proper stereo to see what production is like.

I would say it's like many commercial "thrash" albums of the era - confused and struggling to find direction and relevance in a world dominated by grunge and where metal is fading away.  

And Testament did it better on albums like The Ritual and Low..

I think The Ritual is a great album. Once I got past the idea that it wasn't going to be a furious thrash assault I played that one a lot back in the day. Gonna have to revisit Low because I never bought that one so I don't know if I've even heard the whole thing all the way through. Just chucked it on, I definitely remember the title track at least. Let's see how it stacks up against IHB.

I admit to being biased though obviously in favor of the NY band which sounds "heavier" to me (yes even on IHB) so I don't give it much chance of winning. But I will say as I'm on track 3 I made a mistake by not buying this one back when it came out. It's not quite up to Overkill standards for me but it's light years ahead of Youthanasia which I did buy in '94 and then almost never listened to after the first couple of times.

Agree about WFO, it's uneven. There are a few really good songs on it, What's Your Problem, Supersonic Hate, Bastard Nation, Gasoline Dream (because almost every Overkill album has at least 2 or 3 stone cold bangers) but that's only 4 songs out of 11. A lot of it's a bit tedious and samey sounding and I always found the production to be a bit distracting. But yet the high points here are higher than Testament's for me perssonally. Low got tedious for me towards the end, I made it about 35 minutes and then started skipping ahead through the last 12 minutes to see if there was anything god there.

I Hear Black though is almost flawless to me. I know it's not thrash but that's ok, I love every single song on this album. It's kept itself in the regular rotation for 30 years now. Sometimes when it's over I'll let her go 'round again. I'd say I listen to this one more often than Under the Influence or Years of Decay from the infamous first 5. But not as often as Bloodletting or Killbox. Those two are even more special to me.

The 90's was tough for me when so many of my old 80's go-to bands had started to fizzle out and fade, but I hadn't discovered black and death metal yet. As I can remember at the time in '94, in addition to my full-blown Overkill, Paradise Lost and Motörhead addictions, I was also fairly obsessed with Superunknown, Alice in Chains, Social Distortion, Circus of Power, TON and Sacred Reich. Which is crazy because now when I scroll down my MusicBee to see what I have from 1994, there's a shitload of more extreme metal albums I love. But I didn't have hardly any of these back in '94, I discovered them a decade or more later.

 

Testament - Low, 1994

 

 

Overkill - I Hear Black, 1993

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

5 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

😁

But figjam? Where does that come from?

THE SLOW DEATH - The Split Album

GAEREA- Mirage

MY BLOODY VALENTINE - mbv

Butterfingers - FIGJAM (Fuck I'm Good Just Ask Me) white boy Aussie hip-hop chocka with Ozzie slang. Quite catchy.

 

NP: My Bloody Valentine - MBV

 

[Thatguy]

9 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Butterfingers - FIGJAM (Fuck I'm Good Just Ask Me) white boy Aussie hip-hop chocka with Ozzie slang. Quite catchy.

Oh. Well who knew?

And yep, it was fun.

[Innominate]

Brutal Truth - Sounds of the Animal Kingdom

Embalmed - Brutal Delivery of Vengeance

[Nasty_Cabbage]

On the concept of familial savantism I'm inclined to believe that circumstance comes into play as much there as it does in anything else. That's not to say that talent doesn't exist or even that I could blame anybody for using their influence to try and give their offspring a leg up in the world. It's often discussed in literature in regards to the Bronte sisters or Henry and William James (although in that case only Henry was a novelist and his brother was a psychologist and philosopher). There's no question that it does occur from time to time. The main problem seems to be that in most cases, regardless of nature or nurture, it's nearly impossible for a child who shows exceptional aptitude to completely embrace and utilize that aptitude without diverging completely from the path the father took.

I remember being in Austin visiting friends one night carousing the bars when Ziggy Marley was playing. Of course people showed up to the show just by virtue of him being Bob's kid, but he was playing what sounded to me like the exact same style of reggae that his father would have with a little hip hop mixed in, and I think the crowd was pretty widely disappointed. Say what you will about the Greeks and their weird rapacious deities, the part of the Oedipus myth where he murders his father has some ring of truth to it in the metaphorical sense. 

NP: Crocell - Prophet's Breath

▶︎ Prophet's Breath | Crocell | Deepsend Records (bandcamp.com)

Interesting choice for an album cover here (and I don't mean to damn with faint praise. The music's good too). A lot of death metal bands in this style go with something otherworldly or supernatural or, at the very least, cartoonishly unrealistic in it's depiction. It sort of lets potential fans know that it's death metal, but not grind, and in it's reverence to the often hand drawn covers and posters from the past will probably carry that reverence into the music. So... not slam basically. Here we get a destroyed city-scape in what appears to be textile. Kind of a neat approach if you ask me, and it got my attention for sure.

 

[Kristiko]

Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind (album)

[FatherAlabaster]

Killing Joke - Revelations

[JonoBlade]

22 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Akercocke Irish BBC TV Interview...

That BBC program was the best publicity they ever got.  I guess that (Christian indignation) is what shock rockers' business model is based on. 

Yet, the last 'Cocksterpiece had nary a satan on it. I think they've moved past that gimmick, although the side projects are quite blasphtastic. 

NP: Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion

This has proved not to be a fly-by-nighter.

Last few days I listened to a lot of Led Zeppelin while driving around Shropshire with my dad.  While the rest of the northern hemisphere seems to be burning, it has been bloody wet and cold in old Blighty.

 

[FatherAlabaster]

4 minutes ago, JonoBlade said:

Yet, the last 'Cocksterpiece had nary a satan on it.

It sounded like the aftermath of a divorce. But in a good way. A wiser and more mature 'cocke.

[CumBloodSucker]

Today's top ten artists: 

Beherit - At the devils studio '90, Drawing down the moon (43)

Mystifier - the Wicca (18)

Diaboli - Kirous, the Antichrist (16)

Purtenance - the Rot within us (16)

Graveland - Creed and iron (14)

Satanic warmaster - Carelian satanist madness (14)

Akitsa - Grands tyrans (12)

Ruumisto - Saatto ja syntymä (9) neofolk

Archgoat - the Apocalyptic triumphator (6)

Knife - the Eye of infernal wisdom (6) Werwolf (SW) side project 

I also got this as a bonus cd via mail order. Does this ever happen to any of you guys when you order your stuff from the internet? 

Hymnr - Far beyond sanity, russian black metal

 

[FatherAlabaster]

Wardruna - Kvitravn

[MacabreEternal]

White Ward - Love Exchange Failure (2019)

 

[FatherAlabaster]

Ivar Bjørnson & Einar Selvik - Hugsjá

[Serpentboi1992]

decided to give this band a try. was not impressed. they weren't terrible, but it was very generic and bland sounding black metal in my opinion 🥱