What Are You Listening To?

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Necroholocaust - Holocaustic Goat Metal, Vancouver BC 2014

 

Necroprofanator - Bestial Evil Devastation, Italy 2020

 

1 hour ago, Thatguy said:

DODHEIMSGARD -  Black Medium current

BIZARRE - Invocation Codex

NECROPHAGOUS - In Chaos Ascend

Bizarre 👍

Necrophagous 👎

Dodheimsgard 😕

[AlSymerz]

Chemical Breath - Fatal Exposure

[Nasty_Cabbage]

NP: Nefas - Seven Times Seven

▶︎ Seven Times Seven | NEFAS | Bones Brigade Records (bandcamp.com)

Boy did this take me a minute to hunt down online. The band seems to have been fairly well established as well. I liked the demo I had access to before this, but this one took a little longer than I anticipated seeing as they had been with a few different labels through their career, and neither label nor the bands online presence itself was willing to give up the ghost quite as easily.

Also, music's good. The Summerian/Babylonian myth theme is very suitable and very refreshing considering all the renaissance themed metal out there. Sometimes the ol' Sword and Board style doesn't quite gel when it comes to death metal. This fits right in with some of the more obscure mythology from a time period we know precious little of save for the rise and fall of a few empires in world history. Now give me a full concept album based in Hindi mythology and the Rakshasa please.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Kings Rot - At the Gates of Adversarial Darkness, Calgary Aberta

 

Death of a King - Antimatter

 

[Nasty_Cabbage]

2 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Kings Rot - At the Gates of Adversarial Darkness, Calgary Aberta

Man am I a sucker for this album art style. Music strikes me as being a little over reliant on keyboards in places for you. Still they have some nice build to their songs. Is it just me or is there a glut of Canadian bands doing bm this way. Any case I like it. Just leave me out of the Dragon/Drake/Wyvern debate. I really couldn't even venture a guess on the taxonomy of a mythical creature.

[JonoBlade]

On 9/27/2023 at 1:18 AM, JamesT said:

I never think of greater length to be a downside of an album.  I actually wish “Firepower” was even longer!  But I completely understand where other fans are coming from when referring to certain albums dragging on a bit too long.

Friday can’t come soon enough!  I don’t listen to singles - I wait for the full album to be released so I can enjoy it and spend time with the complete product.  So I’ll be throwing on “The Sinner Rides Again” with a fresh ear.  The new Nervosa album drops that same day, and that is one fantastic all-female blackened thrash juggernaut!  What a glorious day Friday will be!  How could it get better for a metalhead than that?  Two brand new releases from two of your favorite bands!

Geez. You must love Metallica. 

I recall James Hetfield quipping (around time of AJFA or TBA) that "you could fit two Megadeth albums on a Metallica record" which just seemed so profoundly dumb. So Far So Good So What is every bit as good as or better than AJFA, and in half the time. Even with the stupid Sex Pistols cover.

Album length was something that I started thinking about more a few years ago when I noticed new albums were all being released as 2LP sets, but all the dusty old vinyls on my shelf were only ever one disc, unless it was a career defining concept album like Electric Ladyland, The Wall or Quadrophenia. Or a live album. To me a live album that ISN'T a double album makes no sense. A headlining gig is at least an hour and a half, so the album should be too. 

I'll happily watch the new release videos of a band I am into before an album comes out. I'd never buy a single (can you even do that now?) but the advanced singles serve a purpose. I did pre-order The SInner Rides Again, so it will be available tomorrow morning. 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Man am I a sucker for this album art style. Music strikes me as being a little over reliant on keyboards in places for you. Still they have some nice build to their songs. Is it just me or is there a glut of Canadian bands doing bm this way. Any case I like it. Just leave me out of the Dragon/Drake/Wyvern debate. I really couldn't even venture a guess on the taxonomy of a mythical creature.

They can't all be winners. I'd been meaning to I listen to that one, I'd sampled a minute or two of it when Surge posted it the other day and it met the minimum tropes requirements for a spin. Turns out it was just OK, nothing special, not a purchase on my end. But like you I liked the cover and Canada is one of the approved countries for black metal.

I haven't often had much luck with full color black metal album covers, there's a reason I mostly tend to stick to the black and white ones. That has definitely been changing though over the last couple of years, so now I've had to start checking stuff that I never would have bothered with 5 years ago. Because you never know when some band is gonna go with something out of left field for their cover. And I like the colored covers, it's just harder to guess what might be inside. Used to be black and white Baphomets with goat horns, or the all red with black cover were like the Satanic dog whistles signaling that I'd come to the right place.

Had to look up taxonomy, and I had no earthly idea what a drake or a wyvern was either. So I looked them up too and now I know. That appears to be a wyvern on the cover, difference being dragons have 4 legs wyverns stand on two. Google tells me a drake is a duck bruv. And apparently a Canadian rapper. I never knew there were Canadian rappers. Been to Canadia but I'd never seen one. Musta been looking in the wrong places. Those Canadians are an odd but very polite bunch.

And now I'm left wondering why Zack has ghosted us. You don't know Zack but he was a regular here, came here with us in the mass exodus of April '21 from our old now defunct Metal-Fi forum. He posted from his igloo in Whitehorse in the Yukon Territories. Good dude, a few years younger than you, had damn good taste in music too. But in a 10 day stretch of February we lost him along with Navy and FA. Navy and FA have both since returned to the fold after extended time away thank the dark lord, but Zack has not and I don't have any contact info for him. I hate to lose touch with the black metal guys. Just hope he didn't freeze to death or get hit by a falling chunk of ice or something. I remember him telling us they'd had a stretch of 40° below 0 last winter up there, which very interestingly is where Fahrenheit and Celcius converge. -40° in one is -40° in the other as well.

I know, I'm a big pussy, or a mother hen I guess, I worry when the regulars ghost us. Kayak instructor, audiofool and snappy dresser Marky Mark is currently on the lamb, but I don't worry about him he'll be back around. He'll disappear for a few weeks here and there when he gets preoccupied, that's just his M.O.

[JonoBlade]

On 9/26/2023 at 10:01 PM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

That's the problem with these kind of things, we all have our own personal moments, but we see the other guys moments and can't help thinking wtf is this dude smoking? Had to quick search up a video because I couldn't remember Jaded. My Draconian Times cassette got unceremoniously binned in 1995 because I couldn't accept my favorite band selling out. Still a little salty about it now 28 years later tbh even though I've mostly made my peace with the album.

The Writ is your favorite track from Sabotage?

I remember arguing with Carlissimo on the old forum about The Writ. He claimed it was a mish-mash of disparate thrown together ideas that didn't work together and he cited it as the main reason he couldn't rank Sabotage higher than he did.

I love 80's Slayer but Seasons (1990) not so much. Always thought that was their sell-out album where they got just a little too commercial and civilized for my liking. I certainly wasn't buying Slayer albums for civilized commerciality. Skeletons of Society was the track that really turned me against them. It was practically radio friendly. I still love everything up through South of Heaven though. So I had to go refresh my memory on this song too. The opening build up makes you think something really big and heavy is coming and then the song breaks down into total mundanity and it's just so disappointing.

I can't even remember what most of Jaded sounds like. I just recall it was one of my favourite solos. 

The Writ is everything a closing track should be. It's a complete journey that puts together a mish-mash of disparate ideas - and works perfectly. Carlos is wrong. 

Mind you, as you say, "we see the other guys moments and can't help thinking wtf is this dude smoking? " but it applies equally well to what are considered by other guys as dud moments. The riff after the Seasons jangly intro is awesome. I never thought too much about whether Slayer was trying to be melodic and therefore should be excommunicated from metaldom. South of Heaven had some odd vocal choices which I presume were an effort to try something melodic but they came off a bit flat. Spill the Blood is a great song (those drums....creaming jesus) but it was weird in the vocal department. It always seemed to me that Seasons was getting the vocal drone thing to be more palatable.

Slayer is only dead to me when Lombardo left. 

[Arioch]

31 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I know, I'm a big pussy, or a mother hen I guess, I worry when the regulars ghost us. Kayak instructor, audiofool and snappy dresser Marky Mark is currently on the lamb, but I don't worry about him he'll be back around. He'll disappear for a few weeks here and there when he gets preoccupied, that's just his M.O.

It's a shame to see how many people arrive on the forum in 'guest' mode.

I know that these days, social networks are the main thing for a lot of people, except perhaps those who log on to this forum to share their taste in music, say what they're listening to and pay attention to what others are listening to.

These guests only 'take', never 'give'. That's a shame.

You can make great musical discoveries by listening to what others are listening to. It's so easy these days to miss out on something wonderful just because someone else is talking about it.

So don't be a guest any more! Come along now!

[Kristiko]

Soulfly - Primitive (album)

Gojira - From Mars to Sirius (album)

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, JonoBlade said:

I can't even remember what most of Jaded sounds like. I just recall it was one of my favourite solos. 

The Writ is everything a closing track should be. It's a complete journey that puts together a mish-mash of disparate ideas - and works perfectly. Carlos is wrong. 

Mind you, as you say, "we see the other guys moments and can't help thinking wtf is this dude smoking? " but it applies equally well to what are considered by other guys as dud moments. The riff after the Seasons jangly intro is awesome. I never thought too much about whether Slayer was trying to be melodic and therefore should be excommunicated from metaldom. South of Heaven had some odd vocal choices which I presume were an effort to try something melodic but they came off a bit flat. Spill the Blood is a great song (those drums....creaming jesus) but it was weird in the vocal department. It always seemed to me that Seasons was getting the vocal drone thing to be more palatable.

Slayer is only dead to me when Lombardo left. 

Melodic might have been the wrong word. The chord progression they chose to use in the Seasons chorus irritates me, especially the ascending part at the end "Frozen eyes stare deep in your mind as you die." Little things can just ruin a song or an album for me. But yeah the intro is cool and the first riff after the intro is fine. It's just the chorus I can't stand. 

Agree Spill the Blood is a great song. But I have to admit I just don't like Araya's vocals in general. Spill the Blood was probably one of his better attempts at singing. But overall I'd have to put Slayer in the category of bands I like in spite of the vocals I can't stand. Vocals and lyrics where he crams too many syllables in. I'm only there for the guitars.

It's funny to me how everyone seems to absolutely love Lombardo. I don't notice drumming. It's just drumming to me, it's all essentially the same. I do want there to be drumming, I'd notice if it wasn't there, but I mean I've never noticed any specific differences between the different drummers. What makes one guy a great drummer and another guy not? They're all professional drummers, right? They all sit on a stool and hit the skins with their wooden sticks. I reckon a monkey could be trained to do that.

Who did they replace him with, Bostaph? Or have there been more drummers in between? I don't even know who plays drums for most of the bands I listen to and I don't really care, it all just sounds like drumming to me. Bostaph's not good? Wasn't he in Testament as well? Can't be too bad if he's in demand by two bigtime thrash bands that could probably get just about anyone to play with them. Many people say Lars sucks as a drummer too, but again I don't get it, it all just sounds like drumming to me.

My problem with post 80's Slayer is the songwriting just went to shit. There are some decent songs to be found here and there but as complete albums I have no desire to sit through any of the ones past South of Heaven. I think when Kerry's hair went his songwriting ability went with it.

[SurgicalBrute]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Google tells me a drake is a duck bruv

https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-dragons-wyverns-drakes-and-wyrms

A drake is dragon with no wings...essentially an overgrown lizard

 

...and Zack is still kicking. I see him pop up in my Bandcamp feed every once in awhile.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

40 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-dragons-wyverns-drakes-and-wyrms

A drake is dragon with no wings...essentially an overgrown lizard

 

...and Zack is still kicking. I see him pop up in my Bandcamp feed every once in awhile.

I was going to include that very same picture in my post, but then my a drake is a duck or a rapper joke wouldn't have worked. 

Good to know Zachariah's still alive and kicking. Tell him to bring his ass around and say hi.

[JonoBlade]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

It's funny to me how everyone seems to absolutely love Lombardo. I don't notice drumming. It's just drumming to me, it's all essentially the same. I do want there to be drumming, I'd notice if it wasn't there, but I mean I've never noticed any specific differences between the different drummers. What makes one guy a great drummer and another guy not? They're all professional drummers, right? They all sit on a stool and hit the skins with their wooden sticks. I reckon a monkey could be trained to do that.

Who did they replace him with, Bostaph? Or have there been more drummers in between? I don't even know who plays drums for most of the bands I listen to and I don't really care, it all just sounds like drumming to me. Bostaph's not good? Wasn't he in Testament as well? Can't be too bad if he's in demand by two bigtime thrash bands that could probably get just about anyone to play with them. Many people say Lars sucks as a drummer too, but again I don't get it, it all just sounds like drumming to me.

My problem with post 80's Slayer is the songwriting just went to shit. There are some decent songs to be found here and there but as complete albums I have no desire to sit through any of the ones past South of Heaven. I think when Kerry's hair went his songwriting ability went with it.

Aha!! Kerry still had hair on Seasons. It was definitely on its way out but the bald headshot didn't appear until Divine Intervention.

As for drummers. I really like Forbidden so it's not Bostaph who I don't like. It was just some of the life and soul went with Lombardo.

Perhaps AC/DC was on the decline anyway, but there was something about Phil Rudd's drumming that glued them together. The man is practically a vegetable now, but he can still play drums.

[Nasty_Cabbage]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I was going to include that very same picture in my post, but then my a drake is a duck or a rapper joke wouldn't have worked. 

Good to know Zachariah's still alive and kicking. Tell him to bring his ass around and say hi.

I'm putting Canadian rapper on my evolutionary chart of mythical creatures anyway.

1 hour ago, JonoBlade said:

Perhaps AC/DC was on the decline anyway, but there was something about Phil Rudd's drumming that glued them together. The man is practically a vegetable now, but he can still play drums.

Rhythm sections are almost always underrated. I am not going to look up Phil Rudd. That'll just make me sad if he really is looking that poorly, and of course the fate of Malcom Young is well documented. Time is cruel indeed. I'm glad they all made it to the age where they could successfully dodge the moralizing "well that's where the hard party lifestyle leads you" crowd over their sugarless cornflakes. 

NP: Thorybos - Monuments of Doom Revolved

https://soldeviantrecords.bandcamp.com/album/thorybos-monuments-of-doom-revolved

 Can't say I'm crazy about the title, but the music's good. Very straightforward. The songs are not thrashy at all, but the undercut of blasts, capable vocals, and 'don't fix what isn't broken' attitude is good. If I were playing this style of music I can guarantee I'd ruin it with timing change ups and a wider musical palette, so it's a good thing I'm not. 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

NP: Thorybos - Monuments of Doom Revolved

Can't say I'm crazy about the title, but the music's good. Very straightforward. The songs are not thrashy at all, but the undercut of blasts, capable vocals, and 'don't fix what isn't broken' attitude is good. If I were playing this style of music I can guarantee I'd ruin it with timing change ups and a wider musical palette, so it's a good thing I'm not. 

This is black metal of the Blasphemy, Black Witchery variety. Makes me so sad to see that Monuments of Doom Revolved with its atrociously muffled production seems to be the standard now, but it's actually a 'live' in studio re-recording of their highly superior 2012 debut album Monuments of Doom Revealed for Iron Bonehead. Fortunately I have the original version which does still seem to be available, but it's only on YT in individual videos. Revolved does have 3 extra tracks, 5, 9 and 11 (a Black Witchery cover) but the production and performance on Revealed was so much better. This is why I hate re-recordings. Here's a couple of tracks from the original for comparison. You can hear the production is so much clearer. Like night and day.

 

02. Thorybos - Bones

 

04. Thorybos - Orgiastic Rites of Bacchanalia

 

[SurgicalBrute]

Here...Revealed is on Bandcamp in its entirety

https://thorybos666.bandcamp.com/album/monuments-of-doom-revealed

 

Immortal - Pure Holocaust

 

[Nasty_Cabbage]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

This is black metal of the Blasphemy, Black Witchery variety. Makes me so sad to see that Monuments of Doom Revolved with its atrociously muffled production seems to be the standard now, but it's actually a 'live' in studio re-recording of their highly superior 2012 debut album Monuments of Doom Revealed for Iron Bonehead. Fortunately I have the original version which does still seem to be available, but it's only on YT in individual videos. Revolved does have 3 extra tracks, 5, 9 and 11 (a Black Witchery cover) but the production and performance on Revealed was so much better. This is why I hate re-recordings. Here's a couple of tracks from the original for comparison. You can hear the production is so much clearer. Like night and day.

 

02. Thorybos - Bones

 

04. Thorybos - Orgiastic Rites of Bacchanalia

 

Interesting. You're not kidding about the completely different vibes you get depending on which version you listen to. As to rerecordings I think it has to be just about the easiest thing in the world to issue a rerelease of the same recordings (unless they lost the original masters somehow, but even then there's a way to get it done. You just have to start with the complete product as it came out and kind of work your way backwards through the recording. More difficult but far from impossible). So for a complete re-recording of an album there has to be some kind of fundamental flaw in the eyes of the band with the original. It's not unheard of.

If you take the two different versions of Nevermore's Enemies of Reality, for instance, I think Andy Sneap's remaster pretty much exposes a ton of problems with the original. Then again, I consider Sneap to be metal nobility at this juncture. I still have yet to find any live album that sounds even remotely as good as Obituary's 'Dead'. I still listen to it to this day and you can almost smell the blood and sweat from the crowd, and the music itself is absolutely pristine sounding.

So in this case obviously the band had their reasons to rerecord it, but it's tough to imagine what those reasons might be. Those tracks you posted are much more appropriate for their era, and they sound like you're standing in the center of a single room hearing the band play with each element coming from a different corner. The "revolved" versions seemingly don't have this effect because everything sounds closer and pressed together like they're still playing each from a corner, but the room itself is too small to make much of a difference. The best I can think of is that they were going for that very claustrophobic and violently breathy sound some bands seem to prefer because it makes the song sound more personal and whole, like you can feel their instruments breath, heedless of the damage it does to clarity and space. 

It's all just guess work though. Who knows why these things happen. I can still enjoy either, but I definitely agree that, given the option, I'd take the recordings you posted almost nine times out of ten.

EDIT: I try to avoid discussing Blasphemy entirely, because man did I get take to task by a couple people for expressing even the slightest admiration of their music. I had no idea what they were personally about, and Blasphemy is an innocuous enough name. I don't look up bands personal beliefs outside of their music when I listen to something due largely to my lazy indifference as I can't go through life checking under my bed every night for Nazis. Whatever the case there's a few people in the metal scene around New Orleans who have sworn to inflict physical violence on me if ever I should happen to attend a house show down there.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Nasty_Cabbage
Side note added.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

5 minutes ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Interesting. You're not kidding about the completely different vibes you get depending on which version you listen to. As to rerecordings I think it has to be just about the easiest thing in the world to issue a rerelease of the same recordings (unless they lost the original masters somehow, but even then there's a way to get it done. You just have to start with the complete product as it came out and kind of work your way backwards through the recording. More difficult but far from impossible). So for a complete re-recording of an album there has to be some kind of fundamental flaw in the eyes of the band with the original. It's not unheard of.

If you take the two different versions of Nevermore's Enemies of Reality, for instance, I think Andy Sneap's remaster pretty much exposes a ton of problems with the original. Then again, I consider Sneap to be metal nobility at this juncture. I still have yet to find any live album that sounds even remotely as good as Obituary's 'Dead'. I still listen to it to this day and you can almost smell the blood and sweat from the crowd, and the music itself is absolutely pristine sounding.

So in this case obviously the band had their reasons to rerecord it, but it's tough to imagine what those reasons might be. Those tracks you posted are much more appropriate for their era, and they sound like you're standing in the center of a single room hearing the band play with each element coming from a different corner. The "revolved" versions seemingly don't have this effect because everything sounds closer and pressed together like they're still playing each from a corner, but the room itself is too small to make much of a difference. The best I can think of is that they were going for that very claustrophobic and violently breathy sound some bands seem to prefer because it makes the song sound more personal and whole, like you can feel their instruments breath, heedless of the damage it does to clarity and space. 

It's all just guess work though. Who knows why these things happen. I can still enjoy either, but I definitely agree that, given the option, I'd take the recordings you posted almost nine times out of ten.

Not exactly sure how the legal aspects work but my guess would be it's an issue of rights. Original album was on WTC Productions and they probably owned the rights to the masters or whatever and there was likely a dispute over money, so they re-recorded it with some producer named Marco Morselli for Iron Bonehead so they can sell their own version that they do own the rights to. They tacked on a couple of extra tracks so fans might have a reason to buy it. Wouldn't have a probem with it other than the fact that it sounds like they either recorded it with the microphones up their asses or maybe they put them out in the lobby and recorded the band through the wall or something. Can't believe they couldn't hear how bad it sounded and then maybe give it another shot.

[Serpentboi1992]

[MarkhantonioYeatts]

BOOTSY COLLINS - Live

 

[Dead1]

10 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

Carlos is wrong.  

Thing is I don't think Carlos liked metal.  He was an indie rock guy that pretended to be into metal.  He was a latte leftie ie middle/rich guy pretending to be left wing.

I miss him but he did piss me off.

 

Quote

 South of Heaven had some odd vocal choices which I presume were an effort to try something melodic but they came off a bit flat. Spill the Blood is a great song (those drums....creaming jesus) but it was weird in the vocal department. It always seemed to me that Seasons was getting the vocal drone thing to be more palatable.

I found the vocals in Spill The Blood off putting at times.  They're disjointed and sound atonal in context of the song.  I love rest of South of Heaven.

3 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

 

If you take the two different versions of Nevermore's Enemies of Reality, for instance, I think Andy Sneap's remaster pretty much exposes a ton of problems with the original. Then again, I consider Sneap to be metal nobility at this juncture. I still have yet to find any live album that sounds even remotely as good as Obituary's 'Dead'. I still listen to it to this day and you can almost smell the blood and sweat from the crowd, and the music itself is absolutely pristine sounding.

I prefer the original of Enemies of Reality.  Sneap's remaster didn't ad anything to it.

As for Sneap and metal nobility, his problem is he essentially applies the same sound to every band he produces.  He is very good at what he does but he doesn't vary it.  

I also condemn Andy Sneap for paving the way for modern Nuclear Blast/Century Media style overproduction.  He was never as bad as what these two labels do now but he was a pioneer for that type of production.

 

Oh and irony, NP Kreator - Enemy of God  produced and mixed by one Andy Sneap.😁

[Thatguy]

1 hour ago, Dead1 said:

Thing is I don't think Carlos liked metal.

My head that banged at metal gigs with Carlos and will do so again disagrees.

[AlSymerz]

I haven't been paying attention. Who the fuck is Carlos and why does he matter?

[Dead1]

The Haunted - One Kill Wonder

33 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

I haven't been paying attention. Who the fuck is Carlos and why does he matter?

He used to be this architect dude from NSW on old Metal Fi.

45 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

My head that banged at metal gigs with Carlos and will do so again disagrees.

I've known non metal people who came to gigs and headbanged despite not listening to anything heavier than Queens of the Stone Age and Foo Fighters.

 

Carlos always displayed so much more passion for indie and alternative rock than he did for anything metal.  He even played in indie rock bands.

His responses to metal was usually one liners  ("this is good") whereas any time he talked indie/alt rock it was lengthy passionate paragraphs and occasionally essays