What Are You Listening To?

[GoatmasterGeneral]

4 hours ago, Thatguy said:

Really? I found it dreary. Nothing happens that we don't expect and that we haven't heard 1000 times before, and at such dreary length.

It is dreary Doc, that's the whole point. I don't listen to music looking for the unexpected, I don't even want the unexpected, you know that by now. Stick to the template. This is crust, I'm just looking for crust. I don't care if it's something I've heard 1,000 times before, or 10,000 times before. If it's well done, it's well done, I don't give out extra points for originality. I look for the feelings music inspires in me, not groundbreaking originality or accomplished musicianship. That's why I can't stand prog and tech, I like a stripped down more basic approach. In this case the bleakness and the raw emotion is what's interesting and appealing to me, as compared to most crust albums that just crust it up full speed ahead. I like that too though of course, and a lot of the time that's all I really want. Seems to me some people expect too much from their music sometimes. I don't want bands to reinvent the wheel, I just want the wheels they make to roll really good. As far as the excessive length it's 3 albums on one video. It is technically a trilogy, but that doesn't mean you have to listen to all 3 albums in one sitting.

 

 

S.D.S. - Past and Future Disc 1,  Societic Death Slaughter is Japanese Crust/Punk

 

S.D.S. - Past and Future Disc 2

 

[Arioch]

Loudblast - Disincarnate (1991)

 

[Thatguy]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

If it's well done, it's well done, I don't give out extra points for originality. I look for the feelings music inspires in me, not groundbreaking originality or accomplished musicianship.

Dreary can't be the point. Dreary is never a virtue and it's not well done, that's the point.  It's soulless and the long songs don't say crust to me. We will agree to disagree, though. Yer S.D.S is just 'orrible and I am sure that's what you expected me to say but at least the songs are short and to the point.

 

[Kiry70721]

Sortilege- Sortilege 1983

 

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

55 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

Dreary can't be the point. Dreary is never a virtue and it's not well done, that's the point.  It's soulless and the long songs don't say crust to me. We will agree to disagree, though. Yer S.D.S is just 'orrible and I am sure that's what you expected me to say but at least the songs are short and to the point.

 

Hold up, am I hearing, from literally the only other Funeral Doom fan here, that dreariness can’t be the point of something? My guy more than half that shit is slower than a geriatric snail on muscle relaxantsmore than half that shit is slower than a geriatric snail on muscle relaxants, more dreary then English weather, ok clearly I’m just poking a little bit of fun, but dreary can totally be the point of something. I mean, how is that any different to weirdness being the point of Portal?, 

[JamesT]

Saxon - "Lionheart"

Saxon - "The Inner Sanctum" 

[Nasty_Cabbage]

9 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

At the end of the day it's still crust man, and I love crust. Except this is some of the best and most interesting and most dynamic crust I've ever heard. It's a little weird to me that they're staunch vegans and that these three are concept albums based on the 1972 novel Watership Down, because I don't pay any attention to that kind of stuff, I just listen to the music. And I love sad music, it's the other powerful emotion I can connect with through music besides anger/aggression. I hate happy upbeat music. So much doom metal would probably appeal to me except that most of it is just too damn slow for me, I don't have the patience for it. So this gives me the bleak sadness and the aggression together in a more uptempo (somewhat raw) crust presentation which works much better for me. I'm actually surprised that you know Fall of Efrafa, because you're not a punk or hardcore guy at all I thought.

Interest piqued. As an unrepentant carnivore myself I just try to avoid the topic all together. That book is excellent though (as was the animated motion picture which has taken it's place alongside The Brave Little Toaster, Jurassic Park, and the Secret of Nimh as one of the great titans of childhood trauma inducers) and I'd be very interested to hear what they took from the book and how they chose to use the themes and story through a metal filter. It's a really interesting choice to take on as a musical concept. I'll check it out.

I was actually just thinking yesterday of how (outside of maybe power or trad metal) metal really has a lack of Arthurian concepts. Most extreme bands go to Lovecraft, which is the most natural fit for the music. You've also got Tolkein bands and plenty of Dark Souls exclusively themed bands, but surprisingly few bands go after the Arthurian stuff. Maybe it's the religious or saintly aspect of Arthurian lore that turns bands away, but you'd still think there'd be a few metalheads who found inspiration in The Once and Future King or even reached all the way back to La Mort D'Arthur.

NP: Sovereign - Altered Realities

▶︎ Altered Realities | Sovereign | Dark Descent Records (bandcamp.com)

I'm enjoying this one. They keep their foot on the gas pedal for pretty much the whole album. Good stuff.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

8 hours ago, Thatguy said:

Dreary can't be the point. Dreary is never a virtue and it's not well done, that's the point.  It's soulless and the long songs don't say crust to me. We will agree to disagree, though. Yer S.D.S is just 'orrible and I am sure that's what you expected me to say but at least the songs are short and to the point.

 

Yeah well the S.D.S. was just some random shit I clicked on Youtube at 4am last night. I spent the 90 minutes with it because I do generally tend to like Japanese hardcore. But while they sounded like they might have been a cool live band, those recordings left much to be desired. But still not nearly as horrible as some of the crap you listen to and actually think is music.

As far as the Fall of Efrafa goes you're just dead wrong on this one Dock-a-block. It's considered a genre classic for a reason. It's intentionally dreary and bleak and it's most definitely crust at the same time. I get that you're not a crust guy or a hardcore guy and that's alright, to each his own. But that trilogy was far from soulless, quite the opposite really. I don't honestly know how anyone could hear that music and come away thinking it's soulless. That's the one criticism you leveled here that didn't make any sense to me at all. I want to go listen to the whole thing again now but I'm enjoying my Type O too much to stop.

 

Type O Negative - Dead Again, 2007. Doesn't seem possible that this could be 17 years old and Pete could be gone 14 years already now. Time flies.

 

5 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

surprisingly few bands go after the Arthurian stuff. Maybe it's the religious or saintly aspect of Arthurian lore that turns bands away, but you'd still think there'd be a few metalheads who found inspiration in The Once and Future King or even reached all the way back to La Mort D'Arthur.

Real metalheads leave the Arthurian lore to the D&D nerds. There's a reason power metal has lain claim to all that shit.  I'll watch movies about it though, I'm always up for a good knights of the round table swashbuckler where the hero gets the girl.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Sovereign - Altered Realities. Going by the brightly colored cover I was figuring this for BDM or slam. But it's on DDR and he doesn't really do BDM or slam. So I had a little listen and found that it's essentially Autopsy worship. But mid-level Autopsy worship, I think I'd rather just listen to Autopsy.

 

Warvictims - Scarred For Life, 2008, Swedish crust of the non-dreary variety. Yes this is what I'm in the mood for today.

 

[AlSymerz]

Black Flag - Damaged

[GoatmasterGeneral]

The Sisters of Mercy -  Live 1985 Royal Albert Hall

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

43 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Sovereign - Altered Realities. Going by the brightly colored cover I was figuring this for BDM or slam. But it's on DDR and he doesn't really do BDM or slam. So I had a little listen and found that it's essentially Autopsy worship. But mid-level Autopsy worship, I think I'd rather just listen to Autopsy.

 

Warvictims - Scarred For Life, 2008, Swedish crust of the non-dreary variety. Yes this is what I'm in the mood for today.

 

Yeah I stumbled across that Sovereign album a couple of days ago. Honestly, I made it a couple of tracks in before getting bored and moving onto something else s

[Thatguy]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Real metalheads leave the Arthurian lore to the D&D nerds

And so they should. The whole Arthurian schtick is deeply and drearily Christian.

 

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

it's most definitely crust at the same time.

If you say so, but a 16 minute crust song is just too much of a 'good' thing.

 

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

intentionally dreary and bleak

But my ears say it's just repetitive and boring.

 

7 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Hold up, am I hearing, from literally the only other Funeral Doom fan here, that dreariness can’t be the point of something?

Well played! And since I have declared myself an anti-dreary absolutist I will have to come up with an alternative word for it or admit that there is bad dreary (a three chord crust song going on and on at tedious and pointless length) and then there good dreary (exquisitely timed musicianship and maintaining an anticipation of change that may not come). Bugger.

I'm going to listen to my collection of the not-at-all-dreary-but-something-else-I-haven't-found-the-word-for-yet recordings of WALK THROUGH FIRE this morning while I contemplate this. I may be away for some time.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, Thatguy said:

And so they should. The whole Arthurian schtick is deeply and drearily Christian.

Well I know I don't have to reiterate my feelings on that tired old subject. 

If you say so, but a 16 minute crust song is just too much of a 'good' thing.

Don't think there can ever be too much of a good thing, IF that thing is actually good enough. I just listened to those amazing crust albums in their entirety last night, I wanted to fully immerse myself in the bleak dreariness. I wasn't checking for song titles or to see when one song ended and another began. Placement of song breaks is irrelevant to me when listening to a powerfully emotional album like that. I just take the whole thing in.

But my ears say it's just repetitive and boring.

I think it's just your ears that are are old and boring. Need I remind you that repetition is a key component of most music? If nothing repeats, then it's nothing more than a bunch of noise innit. (see Ad Nauseam, Krallice or Pyrrhon) So the trick is to have enough repetition to where you can get into the groove, but change the riffs and/or tempos and/or intensity up just often enough that it doesn't get too boring. I think FoE accomplished this feat rather well. I found the music on those albums very dynamic as compared to the majority of music I listen to, and especially the crust genre which typically just does one thing.

Well played! And since I have declared myself an anti-dreary absolutist I will have to come up with an alternative word for it or admit that there is bad dreary (a three chord crust song going on and on at tedious and pointless length) and then there's good dreary (exquisitely timed musicianship and maintaining an anticipation of change that may not come). Bugger.

Quite an interesting concept you've touched on here Docka, this anticipation of change. I go into most music hoping that things won't change (too much) and they'll just continue on as they are. I don't want too much change or unpredictability when it comes to my music, I take great comfort in predictability. To me music can be a lot like food, in that once I decide what I want to eat and take a bite of something, I want it to taste exactly like what I'm expecting it to taste like. I don't want my food to change flavor profiles in mid chew, ya know? So this idea of musicians crafting a prolonged anticipation of change that may or may not come sounds like absolute hell on earth to me. I don't want that. I want too much of a good thing.

I'm going to listen to my collection of the not-at-all-dreary-but-something-else-I-haven't-found-the-word-for-yet recordings of WALK THROUGH FIRE this morning while I contemplate this. I may be away for some time.

Let us know when you find a word for it Doc. We'll probably still be here.

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Yeah well the S.D.S. was just some random shit I clicked on Youtube at 4am last night. I spent the 90 minutes with it because I do generally tend to like Japanese hardcore. But while they sounded like they might have been a cool live band, those recordings left much to be desired. But still not nearly as horrible as some of the crap you listen to and actually think is music.

As far as the Fall of Efrafa goes you're just dead wrong on this one Dock-a-block. It's considered a genre classic for a reason. It's intentionally dreary and bleak and it's most definitely crust at the same time. I get that you're not a crust guy or a hardcore guy and that's alright, to each his own. But that trilogy was far from soulless, quite the opposite really. I don't honestly know how anyone could hear that music and come away thinking it's soulless. That's the one criticism you leveled here that didn't make any sense to me at all. I want to go listen to the whole thing again now but I'm enjoying my Type O too much to stop.

 

Type O Negative - Dead Again, 2007. Doesn't seem possible that this could be 17 years old and Pete could be gone 14 years already now. Time flies.

 

Real metalheads leave the Arthurian lore to the D&D nerds. There's a reason power metal has lain claim to all that shit.  I'll watch movies about it though, I'm always up for a good knights of the round table swashbuckler where the hero gets the girl.

Perhaps, but Summoning and Rivendell pretty much exclusively write about Tolkien…

 

NP: Overkill - Horrorscope

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Walk Through Fire - Hope Is Misery (2014) sludge | doom metal | post metal | dark ambient...Oh sweet Jeezizz my enigmatic lord and savior I call upon you now to please help me. Talk about too much of a good thing. My dilemma here is do I listen to 80 minutes of this agonizing misery or just kill myself now to bring a swift and merciful end to the pain? 

 

29 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Perhaps, but Summoning and Rivendell pretty much exclusively write about Tolkien…

NP: Overkill - Horrorscope

Summoning, although they're alright in small doses, is nerd metal for the Renn Faire crowd. And who the fuck are Rivendell? I dunno, but they sound like Renn Faire nerds to me too.

Big horns up for the Horrorscope spin though!

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Barrage - S/T  2023 French crust punk, fantastique

 

Recedant Somnia - Incoming Nightmare, 2023 more French D-beat crust.

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

56 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Barrage - S/T  2023 French crust punk

 

Recedant Somnia - Incoming Nightmare, 2023 more French D-beat crust.

 

Haha fair, but you’re talking to the guy who read the Hobbit and LotR by age 10 so unashamedly nerdy…

 

NP: Sykdom - Under Krigen (2006) {Norway}

something else, I forgot I owned, very reminiscent of Bergtat by Ulver

[FatherAlabaster]

21 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

At the end of the day it's still crust man, and I love crust. Except this is some of the best and most interesting and most dynamic crust I've ever heard. It's a little weird to me that they're staunch vegans and that these three are concept albums based on the 1972 novel Watership Down, because I don't pay any attention to that kind of stuff, I just listen to the music. And I love sad music, it's the other powerful emotion I can connect with through music besides anger/aggression. I hate happy upbeat music. So much doom metal would probably appeal to me except that most of it is just too damn slow for me, I don't have the patience for it. So this gives me the bleak sadness and the aggression together in a more uptempo (somewhat raw) crust presentation which works much better for me. I'm actually surprised that you know Fall of Efrafa, because you're not a punk or hardcore guy at all I thought.

Straight up punk rock, no, can't stand it. Hardcore sometimes. And hardcore-influenced bands like Neurosis and old Isis, I love them. I got into this Fall Of Efrafa trilogy 15 or 16 years ago when I was listening to more grindcore and some crust stuff. I think I found them when I was looking for more bands like Oroku. The cello is what drew me to it... and I guess I would have figured that would put you off, now that I think about it. When I'm in the right mood I enjoy it, otherwise I kind of feel like Thatguy.

As far as sadness in music, I love it, it's probably the quality I connect with most readily, buuuut so many bands fail to get it right (in my worthless opinion) and just trudge over the same ground. Pretty much every "gothic metal" band comes off like this to me. 

NP: "Crazy Strings" Gypsy jazz compilation

Hamlet Gonashvili - Georgian chant compilation

[GoatmasterGeneral]

13 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Haha fair, but you’re talking to the guy who read the Hobbit and LotR by age 10 so unashamedly nerdy…

Yeah I think to a large extent it's really a generation thing. When I was a kid in the 70's it was not at all socially acceptable within the kid social structure hierarchy to be a nerd like it is today. There was no such thing as 'unashamedly nerdy' in the 70's. If you absolutely insisted on being a nerd then you'd get picked on unmercifully and risk having your ass beat on a regular basis, and who would want that? Although 'nerd' did have a slightly different connotation back then as we didn't have video games yet or a lot of the pop culture stuff nerds are known for being into back then yet like D&D or Harry Potter or anime or anything like that. The first Star Wars film had just come out when I was in high school and it hadn't become associated solely with nerds yet, it was just another movie. So to some extent 'nerd' frequently just meant uncool or socially awkward.

But yeah the LotR and the Hobbit books existed already obviously, but I don't remember them being popular and well known yet with kids back then the way they are now. I used to like to read quite a bit back then as our entertainment options were quite limited compared to what we're used to today. There were no dvds or dvrs or 'on demand' we didn't even have vhs tapes yet. My family had one TV set with rabbit ears (no cable) and it was tuned into whatever dad wanted to watch, which was sports, sports and more sports. So I'd stay in my room a lot in the evenings and listen to my hard rock music or read. But I've never read fantasy or LotR or anything like that. Just doesn't interest me. I couldn't even make it through one LotR film without falling asleep 30 minutes in, tried 3 times and gave up, I've still never seen the rest of it, and I don't really care.

As a teen I'd read political spy novels, murder thrillers, true crime gangster books and western fiction. A little bit of sci-fi but only if it was reality based, futuristic shit set on earth that could possibly happen one day. Time travel was cool, as long as there were no made-up fantasy species like elves, orks hobbits or spaceships/aliens, nothing like that. All characters had to be humans living on earth, no exceptions. I really enjoyed post-apocalyptic fiction, (like The Postman for example) and there was a lot of that kind of stuff written back then when we thought the Russkies were getting ready to nuke us any day now. I still enjoy the genre, but I look for post-apocalyptic films now. Because I can't read books with this noisy unruly chaotic kid here in the house, I need absolute silence and the house all to myself to be able to read a novel. Otherwise I get distracted and end up reading the same paragraph over and over again then just put it down. The boy will be 18 in just 8 more years, maybe he'll move out one day and then I'll be able to read again. I do have a pile of books here I've collected here and there over the years that I'd really love to read, maybe one day I'll actually get to do that.

[RelentlessOblivion]

Evil Angel - Unholy Fight For Metal (2007)

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Straight up punk rock, no, can't stand it. Hardcore sometimes. And hardcore-influenced bands like Neurosis and old Isis, I love them. I got into this Fall Of Efrafa trilogy 15 or 16 years ago when I was listening to more grindcore and some crust stuff. I think I found them when I was looking for more bands like Oroku. The cello is what drew me to it... and I guess I would have figured that would put you off, now that I think about it. When I'm in the right mood I enjoy it, otherwise I kind of feel like Thatguy.

As far as sadness in music, I love it, it's probably the quality I connect with most readily, buuuut so many bands fail to get it right (in my worthless opinion) and just trudge over the same ground. Pretty much every "gothic metal" band comes off like this to me. 

 

Oroku - Living Through the End Time, 2006 Lawrence KS. Dude this is fantastique. I have no problem with cello, I fucking love cello, I think it's an inherently sad instrument. I hear it in classical usually, not in metal, but it works just fine here. Just no banjo please or synth-violins.

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

38 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Yeah I think to a large extent it's really a generation thing. When I was a kid in the 70's it was not at all socially acceptable within the kid social structure hierarchy to be a nerd like it is today. There was no such thing as 'unashamedly nerdy' in the 70's. If you absolutely insisted on being a nerd then you'd get picked on unmercifully and risk having your ass beat on a regular basis, and who would want that? Although 'nerd' did have a slightly different connotation back then as we didn't have video games yet or a lot of the pop culture stuff nerds are known for being into back then yet like D&D or Harry Potter or anime or anything like that. The first Star Wars film had just come out when I was in high school and it hadn't become associated solely with nerds yet, it was just another movie. So to some extent 'nerd' frequently just meant uncool or socially awkward.

But yeah the LotR and the Hobbit books existed already obviously, but I don't remember them being popular and well known yet with kids back then the way they are now. I used to like to read quite a bit back then as our entertainment options were quite limited compared to what we're used to today. There were no dvds or dvrs or 'on demand' we didn't even have vhs tapes yet. My family had one TV set with rabbit ears (no cable) and it was tuned into whatever dad wanted to watch, which was sports, sports and more sports. So I'd stay in my room a lot in the evenings and listen to my hard rock music or read. But I've never read fantasy or LotR or anything like that. Just doesn't interest me. I couldn't even make it through one LotR film without falling asleep 30 minutes in, tried 3 times and gave up, I've still never seen the rest of it, and I don't really care.

As a teen I'd read political spy novels, murder thrillers, true crime gangster books and western fiction. A little bit of sci-fi but only if it was reality based, futuristic shit set on earth that could possibly happen one day. Time travel was cool, as long as there were no made-up fantasy species like elves, orks hobbits or spaceships/aliens, nothing like that. All characters had to be humans living on earth, no exceptions. I really enjoyed post-apocalyptic fiction, (like The Postman for example) and there was a lot of that kind of stuff written back then when we thought the Russkies were getting ready to nuke us any day now. I still enjoy the genre, but I look for post-apocalyptic films now. Because I can't read books with this noisy unruly chaotic kid here in the house, I need absolute silence and the house all to myself to be able to read a novel. Otherwise I get distracted and end up reading the same paragraph over and over again then just put it down. The boy will be 18 in just 8 more years, maybe he'll move out one day and then I'll be able to read again. I do have a pile of books here I've collected here and there over the years that I'd really love to read, maybe one day I'll actually get to do that.

I was already getting bullied for the whole vision impaired thing, so being the nerdy metal head who liked the wrong sports team couldn’t really do any more damage to my high school social status. I guess for better or worse I’ve never really seen the point in hiding the person I am, probably could have spared myself a considerable amount of trauma if I had done but equally, I doubt I would have the same, don’t you tell me what I can’t do attitude if I had bow down to oubut equally, I doubt I would have the same, don’t you tell me what I can’t do attitude if I had bow down to out side pressure.

 

NP: Motörhead - Bomber

[JamesT]

Saxon - "Into the Labyrinth"

[RelentlessOblivion]

Rapture - Aeons of Devestation (2023) {Chile}

Damn Chile is pumping out a heap of Death Metal. This is clearly influenced by Morbid Angel, pretty cool stuff.