What Are You Listening To?

[Arioch]

Savage Grace - Master of Disguise (1985)

 

[Arioch]

Death - Spiritual Healing (1990)

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

22 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

Most immigrants aren't starving and have no hope especially from eastern Europe but even third world (eg all the Indian doctors and other professionals at my work).  Poor starving peasants seldom have the resources to apply for a visa or are able to afford a plane tickets.

Between 1991 and 2000 Croatia's population shrunk by 200,000 (4%) despite a massive brutal war going on between 1991 and 1995.

Between 2000 and 2023 Croatia's population shrunk by 500,0000 (10%) of population despite the country not only having peace but joining the EU.  Oh and that rate is accelerating.

See in Croatia, the youth think, "why work for 1000 Euro in Croatia, when I can work for $4,000 Euro in Germany?"

It's a vicious cycle too - as young people leave, birth rates fall which means fewer young people.  Country's becoming a pension

Same applies for Bulgaria, Albania, Slovenia, Latvia, Romania, Estonia, Lithuania etc.  Only Czechia, Poland and Slovakia maintained populations.    They got rid of Communism so their kids could abandon these countries and move to Germany.  It's almost hilarious.

"Yes I've got freedom.  Now I will use that freedom to fuck off somewhere else."

My favourite one is Bosnia where over one period of time they trained around 5,000 new nurses and doctors and nearly all of them left for western Europe.  Net gain for wealthy Germany: 5000 medical professionals whose training was paid for by impoverished Bosnia.

Little wonder most Eastern European countries have actually not achieved that much since 1991.  They're being abandoned by their brightest and best.

By the way I am in Tasmania where we have the same problems.  Most of the young fuck off to the mainland and no they're not starving and lacking hope.  We spend millions training people who fuck off to the mainland.  And from the mainland we get impoverished pensioners who can't afford to live in the big cities

It's typical human self destructive behaviour. To enrich themselves your average human is willing to let the world burn.

When I said 'starving' and 'no hope' I was really talking about the great 20th century migrations up until the 1950's or 60's. Like my exes father we were talkng about in '59. There weren't as many rules and regulations at one time so people were able to migrate a lot easier and they did. I assume most of them came by ship back then as it was probably the cheapest way to get here. Almost everyone I knew growing up in NY in the 60's and 70's had grandparents if not parents born somewhere in Europe and they all had stories of some kind of hardship (sometimes including hunger & starvation) in the old country.

My first wife herself was born in Greece as were her 2 older brothers and her family came over here when she was 2, which would have been 1969 so then her 2 younger siblings were born here. I don't think most of those 20th century migrants were trying to "enrich themselves" as much as they were just hoping for a chance at providing a decent life for their families. The self preservation instinct is strong in most humans as is the need to protect and provide for your immediate family. When you're going through tough times it's just not normal to look at the big picture and worry about the impact your actions will have on society first, you feel like you're fighting for your damn life. If you don't look out for yourself ain't no one else gonna do it.

But no I don't think too many are literally starving today in most European countries unless maybe they're fleeing a war and become refugees and get stuck at the border in between countries where no one will let them enter or something like that. Still the conditions in some of these impoverished eastern European countries like Bulgaria for instance (my best friend has been talking with someone in Bulgaria for 20 years so I hear all the stories) are shocking compared to what we consider typical in the west. They're not starving or anything but they lead much more austere lifestyles than we've become used to and will often have several generations living together under the same roof out of economic neccessity.

And I'm not sure what's wrong with Poland but we seem to get a lot of Polish immigrants. Not just lately but for the last 30 or 40 years. I know they're technically Eastern European but I've always thought of Poland as more economically stable and more "westernized" than most of these other eastern Europen countries. Maybe it's because at 38 million they're a bit bigger than some of these other little eastern European countries so at similar percentages of migration it could seem like there are more of them coming here than there really are.

At one time in the 90's it seemed like we were getting an awful lot of Bosnians and Serbians but that's understandable because they'd  just had a war over there. We get a lot of Russians the last 30 years too (especially in NY) along with migrants from other former Soviet republics and the Baltics, but we tend to lump all those other ones in together with Russians because most of us Yanks can't tell Ukranians or Belarussians or Lithuanians apart from Russians anyway. They generally all speak Russian and if you ask them if they're Russian they'll just say yes because they know we don't know the difference. But unlike the Poles I totally understand why the Russians, Ukranians and Belarussians come over, they'll tell you themselves, it fucking sucks over there. I like most of the Russians and eastern Europeans I've met, they're friendly people for the most part.

I miss that about living in New York, I enjoyed meeting people from all over the globe. Where I am now I might only be 2 hours away but we have a mix of farmers, rednecks and mostly white suburbanites. I rarely meet anyone 'off the boat' from Europe, Asia or Africa up here, only the occasional central Americans.

[Dead1]

Death Angel - The Dream Calls For Blood 

Paradise Lost - Faith Divides Us, Death Unites Us

 

System Of A Down - System Of A Down

[Arioch]

Crown of Thorns - The Burning (1995)

 

[Nasty_Cabbage]

Schavot - Kronieken Uit de Nevel

WPCD045 | Schavot | War Productions (bandcamp.com)

Black metal very much in the German style (I don't have enough patience to really go through "waves". Simple sounds like x-band is enough for me). It's vicious but measured, so not as stolidly paced as Drudkh, but definitely not as much of a throttling forward blitz as say early Beherit. I like the keys being kept in the background, and that it avoids the prolonged acoustic passages of something like Satyricon's Dark Medieval Times. There's still enough here in terms of songwriting and dynamics to keep me interested and listening if not completely awestruck and enthralled. It definitely has the potential to grow on me though. A few repeats over the next few weeks will tell the tale.

[Arioch]

Nocturnus - The Key (1990)

 

[Arioch]

Napalm Death - Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism (2020)

 

[Kristiko]

Aphex Twin - Drukqs (album)

[GoatmasterGeneral]

8 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Schavot - Kronieken Uit de Nevel

Black metal very much in the German style (I don't have enough patience to really go through "waves". Simple sounds like x-band is enough for me). It's vicious but measured, so not as stolidly paced as Drudkh, but definitely not as much of a throttling forward blitz as say early Beherit. I like the keys being kept in the background, and that it avoids the prolonged acoustic passages of something like Satyricon's Dark Medieval Times. There's still enough here in terms of songwriting and dynamics to keep me interested and listening if not completely awestruck and enthralled. It definitely has the potential to grow on me though. A few repeats over the next few weeks will tell the tale.

This is in the 2nd wave style but that covers a lot of ground. To get more specific this would fall under the category of melodic black metal. Drudkh would be atmospheric folk/black. Beherit is one of the pioneers of bestial black metal filth. 

This isn't bad, all the elements are fine but it's not really doing it for me. I have so much of this similar type of 2nd wave melodic black metal now that I've been starting to get more selective lately. I wait for stuff with the memorable riffs that makes me sit up on first listen and think oh yeah this is killer. If I'm just so-so about an album from the beginning then I know I'll probably never play it after the first week or so because I'll be reaching for stuff that I like a lot more. It's been another really good year for black metal so I have plenty of killer shit to choose from. I'm almost halfway through this one now and I think I'm fixin' to dip.

 

Kaevum - Natur, Norway 2011, new Kaevum dropped the other week and it's fantastic so now I have to go revisit their first album from 12 years ago. Sounds a bit different with drastically different production but I guess that'll happen when you wait 12 years to make a new album.

 

[Thatguy]

9 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Schavot - Kronieken Uit de Nevel

Listening now. Pretty good so far but I'm only on the first track. NOT the last track. The last track comes up as the sample track on Bandcamp and Thatguy hates that. Last tracks are last tracks for a reason and should not be listened to first. This is one of Thatguy's Laws - do not listen to the last track first.

Another of Thatguy's Laws - just for your edification - is, think twice about the banjo, then think again. Do you really want to do this?

[Nasty_Cabbage]

1 hour ago, Thatguy said:

Listening now. Pretty good so far but I'm only on the first track. NOT the last track. The last track comes up as the sample track on Bandcamp and Thatguy hates that. Last tracks are last tracks for a reason and should not be listened to first. This is one of Thatguy's Laws - do not listen to the last track first.

Another of Thatguy's Laws - just for your edification - is, think twice about the banjo, then think again. Do you really want to do this?

Album ordering is tricky. There's some albums out there where it really doesn't matter since it's meant to be digested as a group of single songs, and then there are some albums meant to be taken as a whole divided up into parts where the ordering is meticulous and deliberate.

 

...And as for the banjo, I dream of a raw Appalachian black metal band played entirely by coyotes on withered sticks and rabbit skins, for whom the movie Deliverance is a light hearted family comedy, so yes, I do want to do this. You should join me. It'll be a real hootenanny.

NP: Rana - Richtfeuer

Richtfeuer | Rană (bandcamp.com)

The clean vocals feel a little out of place, but otherwise pretty neat. This might be another one that skews a little too toward mid-paced stuff for ye O' Master of Goats. I like it though. They seem to really stand out in their guitar tone, which I usually appreciate even more than well executed drumming sometimes.

 

Oh, and I love just everything about Beherit's Oath of Black Blood, and most of Drawing Down The Moon, but for some reason, when I go seeking out that same sort of raw sound I always end up listening to bands that take way too much from punk and crust, and end up falling off a cliff for me. Keeping a steady hand on the punk influence proves to be very tricky for a lot of raw black metal bands it seems.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

2 minutes ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Album ordering is tricky. There's some albums out there where it really doesn't matter since it's meant to be digested as a group of single songs, and then there are some albums meant to be taken as a whole divided up into parts where the ordering is meticulous and deliberate.

..And as for the banjo, I dream of a raw Appalachian black metal band played entirely by coyotes on withered sticks and rabbit skins, for whom the movie Deliverance is a light hearted family comedy, so yes, I do want to do this. You should join me. It'll be a real hootenanny.

NP: Rana - Richtfeuer

The clean vocals feel a little out of place, but otherwise pretty neat. This might be another one that skews a little too toward mid-paced stuff for ye O' Master of Goats. I like it though. They seem to really stand out in their guitar tone, which I usually appreciate even more than well executed drumming sometimes.

Oh, and I love just everything about Beherit's Oath of Black Blood, and most of Drawing Down the Moon, but for some reason, when I go seeking out that same sort of raw sound I always end up listening to bands that take way too much from punk and crust, and end up falling off a cliff for me. Keeping a steady hand on the punk influence proves to be very tricky for a lot of raw black metal bands it seems.

No, I like midpaced. Never understood why some people seem to have such a big problem with midpaced. It's the really slow dirgey stuff like Blivvie digs so much that I can't get into. Varied tempos would be the ideal, but in lieu of that midpaced is fine. Better though when they can mix it up and offest it with a few faster and/or some slower sections. I do like a fair amount of fast music I guess too, but I really don't listen to a ton of stuff where they're just straight up blasting out of their minds the whole entire time. Most of the stuff I dig usually mixes the tempos up at least a little bit. 

I like punk and crust more than most. Almost all the black metal I enjoy will have a healthy amount of crust punk flavor to it. The more it has the better I'll like it. No such thing as too much crust afaic. Without that crust influence in either black or death metal I tend to lose interest very quickly. I think this is why Doc and myself have such a small amount of overlap in our black metal selections, because like you he really doesn't want too much crust punk in there. He goes more for dissonance which is a no-go for me. But I will agree with him that banjo and I'll add saxophone have no place in black metal. No Panopticon for me thanks.

Clean vocals though are very often a total deal breaker for me when they appear in black or death metal. Occasionally I'll come across some perfectly placed and understated cleans that actually sound cool and add something to the music, but these occasions are very rare.

Also, I care very deeply about guitar tone but not at all about drumming. Drumming is drumming, as long as there's some kind of drumming or percussion or even a drum machine keeping the beat, providing it's not that plastic clickety tech death sound or a retarded too loud garbage can snare sound, that's all I care about. I only notice drumming when it's absent.

[Serpentboi1992]

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Forteresse - Thèmes Pour la Rébellion, Québec 2016. So damn good, how many times can I play this in a row? I'm on my third go-round already now. Still waiting for that one great Canadian black metal release we get just about every year. And what about these guys, it's been 7 years, are they gonna give us a follow up to this masterpiece soon or what?

 

[AlSymerz]

Mechanix - History Re-Rotten

[Arioch]

Atrocity - Todessehnsucht (1992)

When you listen to this album, right from the intro you're plunged into an atmosphere that won't let you go until the end. One of my favourite Death albums of all time. I can listen to it over and over again.

 

[Thatguy]

7 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

I do want to do this. You should join me. It'll be a real hootenanny.

It would be cultural appropriation for me and not appropriate. 😉

 

6 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Drumming is drumming, as long as there's some kind of drumming or percussion or even a drum machine keeping the beat,

There is so much more to drumming than just keeping the beat. Bad drumming is a deal breaker for me. Good drumming elevates the music, and live it's the drummer who drives the band.

[Hungarino]

7 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

I dream of a raw Appalachian black metal band played entirely by coyotes on withered sticks and rabbit skins, for whom the movie Deliverance is a light hearted family comedy

This is awesome. And I don't think it would be too much cultural appropriation considering parts of Oz do make Deliverance look like a lighthearted family comedy, amiright?

[Arioch]

Atheist - Unquestionable Presence (1991)

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

55 minutes ago, Hungarino said:

This is awesome. And I don't think it would be too much cultural appropriation considering parts of Oz do make Deliverance look like a lighthearted family comedy, amiright?

What happens in the Outback stays in the Outback.

 

 

Windhand - Windhand, Richmond VA

 

Windhand - Eternal Return, don't know what's wrong with me today I've listened to this one 3 times in a row as well.

 

[DarkMetalGeek]

 

[MacabreEternal]

Anathema - Serenades (1993)

 

[DarkMetalGeek]

Sentenced - Ever frost (2005)
 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, Thatguy said:

There is so much more to drumming than just keeping the beat. Bad drumming is a deal breaker for me. Good drumming elevates the music, and live it's the drummer who drives the band.

Yeah lots of people are into the drums but I don't care. I'm only hearing the drums with my peripheral hearing (is that a thing?) anyway because I'm lazer focused on the rythym guitars, and to a lesser extent the vocals, and then the bass. The drums are last on the list. I do want them to be present and to keep going and not stop without having to consciously think about them, like my heartbeat. There are some songs where there's that one specific drum fill that stands out to me and I'll be looking for it whenever I hear that song, but that's only a handful of songs out of thousands. I could probably be happy if they released albums with just the guitar tracks though.