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What Are You Listening To?


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26 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

Thatguy rather liked this, of course, but it won't be making the list.

All hail Thatguy's list.

I’m with the goat on this, I want more melancholy in my atmospheric doom, something like Lethian Dreams.

 

NP: SubRosa - For This We Fought the Battle of Ages

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8 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Darkher - The Buried Storm, UK. I figured there'd a be a chick singer involved, but ok sure why not, I think I could go for some dark folky doom right about now so let's go...(10 minutes later)...Alright I'm gonna have to abort, must have missed the part about them not being metal. There's no guitar riffs or much of anything happening here, it's largely just ambient and minimalist with the chick singing. She has a nice voice and all, but I'm not a big fan of ambient. I don't want to have to fill in some missing guitar parts with my imagination, I'd prefer them to bring in an actaul guitar player for that.

l won't argue that Darkher is really metal, but I did caveat metal adjacent and will say to the goat gentleman from NY that with a modicum of patience there is some low and slow doom guitar styling. The Buried storm is her/their 2nd album. The first is a bit heavier,

She belongs to a handful of female fronted doom lite acts like Vouna but even less metal-more along the lines of a slightly more metal leaning Chelsea Wolfe or doom(ish) slice of acts like Sylvaine -but here I go making word salad twisting myself into pretzels for the various female fronted bands that have an obvious dark or heavy atmosphere but are lite by metal standards...I think you either have a soft spot for the witchy femme bands or you don't....we can all recall the female-occult-witchy-stoner doom bands that were a thing a few years ago-I'm recalling Witch Mountain and Royal Thunder-both bands I have spent time with....and yes, heavier than the more ethereal Darkher.  

1 hour ago, navybsn said:

I liked it, but I agree it's not list-worthy and doesn't hold much replay value.

 

I missed their earlier albums but I recall Negative Plane had a following. I tried it twice and I agree-it's just aight. 

Bjork-Fossora

 

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45 minutes ago, markm said:

I missed their earlier albums but I recall Negative Plane had a following. I tried it twice and I agree-it's just aight. 

Quite a following on another forum I peruse. I dig their stuff in general, but it's just ok. Wouldn't go out of my way for anything.

A.I.D.S. - The Road to Nuclear Holocaust

ETERAZ - Villian

Grave Axis - Dismal Aeon

Phantasia - Ghost Stories - @FatherAlabaster - you may dig this. The warbly vocals are borderline for me, but the music is pretty good.

French Police - Onyx - another one you may enjoy FA. Short 12 min EP

 

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5 hours ago, markm said:

l won't argue that Darkher is really metal, but I did caveat metal adjacent and will say to the goat gentleman from NY that with a modicum of patience there is some low and slow doom guitar styling. The Buried storm is her/their 2nd album. The first is a bit heavier,

She belongs to a handful of female fronted doom lite acts like Vouna but even less metal-more along the lines of a slightly more metal leaning Chelsea Wolfe or doom(ish) slice of acts like Sylvaine -but here I go making word salad twisting myself into pretzels for the various female fronted bands that have an obvious dark or heavy atmosphere but are lite by metal standards...I think you either have a soft spot for the witchy femme bands or you don't....we can all recall the female-occult-witchy-stoner doom bands that were a thing a few years ago-I'm recalling Witch Mountain and Royal Thunder-both bands I have spent time with....and yes, heavier than the more ethereal Darkher. 

 

Yeah well, you know me. I actually do have patience for many things in life, but sitting in traffic or waiting in lines and waiting for ambient intros or passages to be over so we can get back to the music aren't among them. I'm not trashing your witchy occult ethereal female micro-genre, not saying it's shit or saying theres's nothing of value to be found there, just saying the whole ambient thing is really not for me. I like my music with more defined structure. Problem is I can often forget that other people listen to music without guitar riffs front and center, so when you say "metal adjacent" I'm still thinking there will be some guitars, just maybe rock n roll guitars but not metal. So when I get there and there's basically no guitars at all, then I'm at a total loss as for what to do, I don't know whether to shit, piss, or go blind.

So while I may enjoy some of the elements present in a Darkher or Chelsea W album, without the heavy guitar riffs it's all just wasted on me. I happen to love darkness and heavy atmosphere in my music, but without the heavy guitar riffs what's the point? I need both of these things together. Even with a band like Messa who could be described as a doom metal band and actually has distorted guitars with a sublime tone to boot (and the Italian chick's earthy voice is to die for) it's too slow and too sparse. Even though they call that "metal" I still get bored waiting for the cool crunchy guitar parts to roll around. Because that's mainly what I'm there for.

To me the heavy guitar riffs are the meat & potatoes, while the ethereal witchy dark occult vibe serves as the herbs and seasonings. So an album like this Buried Storm to me is like sitting down at the table expecting a full lamb chop dinner and just getting little piles of salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme and some minced garlic on my plate. Maybe a tbsp of butter and a squirt of dijon. All things I love the taste of, wouldn't want to eat my food without them, but I want them on the meat, they're just not a satisfying meal all by themselves.

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6 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Yeah well, you know me. I actually do have patience for many things in life, but sitting in traffic or waiting in lines and waiting for ambient intros or passages to be over so we can get back to the music aren't among them. I'm not trashing your witchy occult ethereal female micro-genre, not saying it's shit or saying theres's nothing of value to be found there, just saying the whole ambient thing is really not for me. I like my music with more defined structure. Problem is I can often forget that other people listen to music without guitar riffs front and center, so when you say "metal adjacent" I'm still thinking there will be some guitars, just maybe rock n roll guitars but not metal. So when I get there and there's basically no guitars at all, then I'm at a total loss as for what to do, I don't know whether to shit, piss, or go blind.

So while I may enjoy some of the elements present in a Darkher or Chelsea W album, without the heavy guitar riffs it's all just wasted on me. I happen to love darkness and heavy atmosphere in my music, but without the heavy guitar riffs what's the point? I need both of these things together. Even with a band like Messa who could be described as a doom metal band and actually has distorted guitars with a sublime tone to boot (and the Italian chick's earthy voice is to die for) it's too slow and too sparse. Even though they call that "metal" I still get bored waiting for the cool crunchy guitar parts to roll around. Because that's mainly what I'm there for.

To me the heavy guitar riffs are the meat & potatoes, while the ethereal witchy dark occult vibe serves as the herbs and seasonings. So an album like this Buried Storm to me is like sitting down at the table expecting a full lamb chop dinner and just getting little piles of salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme and some minced garlic on my plate. Maybe a tbsp of butter and a squirt of dijon. All things I love the taste of, wouldn't want to eat my food without them, but I want them on the meat, they're just not a satisfying meal all by themselves.

Hey man, I'm sorta shell shocked you listened to Darkher, but I need to give you credit as you do often try stuff that's out of your wheelhouse when people take the time to post, so  kudos on that front. Totally get it's not your thing. 

I like that we have different tastes but respect each others listening space. Like you always say, it's just music. Not that I'm Darkher's PR man but I think what you're calling ambient is what the band refers to on their Bandcamp page as ethereal vocals, guitars, and added strings conjuring iridescent cinematic scenes in which it becomes hard to tell whether there lies beauty in darkness or if it is the other way around. There's a folk thing going on here that borders on new age.

So yeah, there's a sea of of bands often in doom, sludge and post metal intersections that use extended atmospheric passages. For the sake of argument, I decided to re listen to the first track and there is definitely doomy guitar, albeit not super heavy at approximately 4.30 minutes with post metal(ish) tremolo. And from there on out, it's largely atmospheric. It's not a metal album. 

I compartmentalize my music into categories in a way you probably don't and have large chunks of non metal interspersed with heavy music.  

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Speaking of lists and ambient metal, I've seen  Kardashev-Laminal Rite on a bunch of lists and listening now. It blows. 

Chat Pile is an interesting animal. When I first streamed God's Country, I lasted about two tracks and bailed. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood to have someone scream at me but I've gone back and as I have the habit of doing have done a 360. I like it. They get tagged in part as sludge metal and maybe there is a thin Eyehategod influence, but the riffs have more in common with noise rock, hardcore, post hardcore and industrial.

This is experimental social protest music. I like a fair amount of experimental rock and metal. I'm reminded of Daughters/You Won't Get What You Want album from 2018 which also reminds me that one of Daughters members was allegedly the dude that abused Kristin Hayter/Linguna Ignota, one of my favorite experimental artists who sometimes also ventures into noise,  so fuck them. 

But as far as Chat Pile, I bought the album and have been listening to it. You need the lyrics to really get them. Abrasive and pissed off about a lot of shit partially because of the environmental toxins where they live near the "chat piles" in Oklahoma but the album IMO is quite inventive even catchy within the confines of their sound. 

Frankly, I need some heavy music out of the death and black box which I enjoy but get tired of and this certainly fills that void....

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1 hour ago, markm said:

Hey man, I'm sorta shell shocked you listened to Darkher, but I need to give you credit as you do often try stuff that's out of your wheelhouse when people take the time to post, so  kudos on that front. Totally get it's not your thing. 

I like that we have different tastes but respect each others listening space. Like you always say, it's just music. Not that I'm Darkher's PR man but I think what you're calling ambient is what the band refers to on their Bandcamp page as ethereal vocals, guitars, and added strings conjuring iridescent cinematic scenes in which it becomes hard to tell whether there lies beauty in darkness or if it is the other way around. There's a folk thing going on here that borders on new age.

So yeah, there's a sea of of bands often in doom, sludge and post metal intersections that use extended atmospheric passages. For the sake of argument, I decided to re listen to the first track and there is definitely doomy guitar, albeit not super heavy at approximately 4.30 minutes with post metal(ish) tremolo. And from there on out, it's largely atmospheric. It's not a metal album. 

I compartmentalize my music into categories in a way you probably don't and have large chunks of non metal interspersed with heavy music.  

 

Yeah well, it seems I use the word 'ambient' when maybe you'd use 'atmospheric.' But the way I see things lots of music can be atmospheric or create atmosphere either with or without the use of guitars or riffs, so the word atmospheric is in my mind inadequate for what I'm trying to convey. Atmosphere and guitar riffs are not mutually exclusive, lots of what's considered "atmospheric" black metal has tons of heavy guitar riffs for instance. There are lots of different ways one can approach writing music, and many different ways in which guitars can be employed to play that music. I prefer riffy guitar based music with riffs that repeat and traditional elements like verses and choruses and bridges and what not.

Whether it's rock or blues or metal or punk or folk, 99.9% of what I listen to has guitar riffs as the main focal point for me to follow along with. So when I listen to an album and report that there were no guitars, what I really mean is no guitar riffs. When bands go off the rez and decide to make music that sounds more like a collection of various sounds, even if they're using guitars to make some of those sounds, but they deliberately avoid using traditional guitar riffs that you could hum along to, to build the song around, then I'll usually call that music either ambient, prog, avant-garde, experimental or noise. And by now you must have deduced I'm not a fan of any of those genres.

There's lots of good music I enjoy that's not metal, but almost all of it still has either guitar riffs or at least keyboard riffs as the basis or just some kind of musical instrument playing riffs in the traditional sense of the term riffs. Again, I'm not saying that music can't be 'good' or have any value to someone even if it's completely devoid of riffs, I'm just saying that's not at all what I'm looking for from the music I listen to. Even within my preferred genres of metal and punk I tend to gravitate towards stuff that gets described as "riffy." I prefer to leave the 'iridescent cinematic scenes' where I feel they belong, at the cinema.

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