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I don't watch enough YT to get decent new recommendations, I also run tracking blockers which makes it harder for sites like that to recommend things. I do use band camp a bit for new bands, but it's not great for actual news, interviews etc. I still like reading metal news, for the bands l listen too, but don't always have to time for YT interviews.

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I suffer from burnout too when trying to keep up with new releases and this year is the first one in a while where I have bothered to try and keep up.  Now I am curating content for my other website that I frequent I am needing that drip feed of new releases and so I tend to go off what I see posted here as well as on aforementioned other website.  I get a decent update of releases on Spotify provided I don't just let it play me any old shit and let it know what I do and do not like.

I hit Invisible Oranges a fair bit as well but am a lot less hot on the blog trail than I used to be.  YouTube for me tends to be the last resort of being the place to go if I cannot find an album on streaming service or Bandcamp.

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I definitely get burnt out on new releases too. I've also noticed that I can get sucked into the rat race of only listening to new stuff and often neglect albums in my collection as it there's always a plethora of new ones to check out and only so many hours in the day.

As far as sources go for new releases my bandcamp feed and reddit are probably my go-to's these days. No Clean Singing is only blog/website that I check with any regularity as they generally post some pretty cool stuff. I really do miss the new releases thread back on Metal-Fi as the crew there was pretty diligent with posting new stuff and there weren't too many albums that flew under the radar. I've definitely had to work a lot harder to find the good stuff since that forum shut down haha.

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47 minutes ago, zackflag said:

As far as sources go for new releases my bandcamp feed and reddit are probably my go-to's these days. No Clean Singing is only blog/website that I check with any regularity as they generally post some pretty cool stuff. I really do miss the new releases thread back on Metal-Fi as the crew there was pretty diligent with posting new stuff and there weren't too many albums that flew under the radar. I've definitely had to work a lot harder to find the good stuff since that forum shut down haha.

Same, for some reason having the "new albums" thread here buried somewhere among 500 sub-directories makes it really hard to find it and fill it up with new albums. I usually check out No clean singing and Invisible oranges, sometims Angry metal guy, but try to stay away from the gossip/news. Other than that I follow a bunch of vinyl nerds on Instagram that keeps me up to date on the underground.

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22 minutes ago, Sheol said:

Same, for some reason having the "new albums" thread here buried somewhere among 500 sub-directories makes it really hard to find it and fill it up with new albums. 

Good point. I pinned this year and 2022 to the top of "General Chat". 

I expect to see lots of great albums posted in there forthwith. :)

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I hate the gossip/news sites, but they are a convenient way to find full interviews. Those sites make a living out of shitty commentors and arguments in their comment section. They also manage to make a single headline into 20 paragraphs by rehashing old shit for the majority of each article. But usually they also link to the full article or news piece which is where I find the information I want. I'm not so much on using them for new releases and shit like that because most of their reviews are as bullshit as their articles but the source material is often worth finding.

 

50 minutes ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Good point. I pinned this year and 2022 to the top of "General Chat". 

I expect to see lots of great albums posted in there forthwith. :)

Guess that rules out all the albums I've bought :P

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At this point I don't even bother to try and follow new releases - apart from a select few bands.  The trend towards limited editions/buy-now-or-cry-later hype releases makes it easier to just ignore what is being released, rather than find something good that is impossible to find.  That's why I never bother with Vothana, for instance.

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4 hours ago, Balor said:

At this point I don't even bother to try and follow new releases - apart from a select few bands.  The trend towards limited editions/buy-now-or-cry-later hype releases makes it easier to just ignore what is being released, rather than find something good that is impossible to find.  That's why I never bother with Vothana, for instance.

This. 

Every onslaught of limited edition splatter vinyl just smacks of desperation. 

I do keep an ear out for new releases and band names that get positive mentions a few times so might be worth checking out but there is just too much stuff out there to really get worried about missing something.

Year end lists are a joke, so I just sit back and observe and see what shit floats to the top.

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I read No Clean Singing fairly regularly and would say they are the only site who's year end lists tend to be pretty good. I always find a few gems on Neal Jameson's lists he does for them. I check out Heavyblogisheavy and Last Rites occasionally they have some decent stuff. For interviews, I only read Bardo Methodology once in a while. That guy gets some decent interviews. The tabloid sites aren't even worth the time. I see enough of that shit on facebook and reddit when I'm suffering insomnia.

My go to's for new music are this site, Youtube, Bandcamp feed, and friend recs. That said, I'm in the same spot as others. I made a conscious decision to jump off the new music carousel this year. It's just a bit overwhelming and not rewarding enough for the effort required. For every great new band/release I find, there are 20 more I wish I hadn't bought or never spin more than once or twice. I've even backed off buying vinyl at the moment save for a few bands because 1) the prices+shipping are just getting stupid at this point and 2) I've been burned a few too many times of late. I'm spending money on cd's and digital at the moment and eyeing an equipment upgrade for my newly remodeled play room/home office. Looking to upgrade my server, amp, and speakers in the coming year while juggling costs for the 4-5 fests I have planned for 2022. None of the above is cheap by any means, so adjusting the music budget is really the only way to get it done. Besides, I rarely spin any of the 3-400 vinyl I have at the moment these days for various reasons, so something really has to jump out at me to drop $30-50 or chase the cool kid limited release shit (Vothana is a joke. Shit's not even that good at regular prices much less +$200). 

I find that changing my attitude towards new releases to what I call the @markm approach has allowed me to enjoy music much more than I have over the previous 5-7 years when I got caught up in the new release cycle. Finding good shit from the past I missed out on or bands I never got into (like Enslaved for instance). And Jono is right, waiting a while to see what shit floats to the surface is much easier and less time consuming.

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I'm personally just much better off when I let myself be captivated by one or two releases at a time. That's how it was when I first fell in love with music as a teenager, I only bought a handful of albums every month or two and I'd hammer on them all the time. It still works if I do it right. I'm not well suited to the constant firehose of new releases. And it does seem like there's always another great band from 25-30 years ago that I have yet to hear of or appreciate.

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4 hours ago, navybsn said:

I find that changing my attitude towards new releases to what I call the @markm approach has allowed me to enjoy music much more than I have over the previous 5-7 years when I got caught up in the new release cycle. Finding good shit from the past I missed out on or bands I never got into (like Enslaved for instance). And Jono is right, waiting a while to see what shit floats to the surface is much easier and less time consuming.

Haha-yeah, got off the new daily release hamster wheel a while back. There's just an oversaturation of music for me to keep up. I still like metal, but I listen to a lot more non metal across different genres now and other competing interests and hobbies not to mention demands at work. I'm lazy and not willing to spend hours on YouTube channels. I'll usually check the blogs listed on Metal Bandcamp pretty randomly. I'll see what people are listening to here and check my feed. But I mostly start paying attention after Thanksgiving and let the dust settle on what the better releases are....

Plus I feel like there was some interesting genre developments in the aughts and lately it's mostly trying to find bands that take a fresh approach to old tropes because I don't see new innovations or trends....across the cultural divide really....we're in the age of looking backwards sadly....nostalgia....make metal great again-wink, wink. 

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2 hours ago, markm said:

Haha-yeah, got off the new daily release hamster wheel a while back. There's just an oversaturation of music for me to keep up. I still like metal, but I listen to a lot more non metal across different genres now and other competing interests and hobbies not to mention demands at work. I'm lazy and not willing to spend hours on YouTube channels. I'll usually check the blogs listed on Metal Bandcamp pretty randomly. I'll see what people are listening to here and check my feed. But I mostly start paying attention after Thanksgiving and let the dust settle on what the better releases are....

Plus I feel like there was some interesting genre developments in the aughts and lately it's mostly trying to find bands that take a fresh approach to old tropes because I don't see new innovations or trends....across the cultural divide really....we're in the age of looking backwards sadly....nostalgia....make metal great again-wink, wink. 

I've been wondering about how our era of media will look in hindsight. It feels like we're in a weird place where media products now are so high-fidelity that they won't "age" in the same way that stuff from last century did. Old movies, old recordings, old photos... I was watching some Marx Brothers stuff with my son and realized it was about 90 years old, and it looks it. It's decrepit. I have some recordings from the early 1900s that sound like they're echoing down the halls of time. 200 years from now, people will be able to watch our TV shows and count the pores on someone's face, and hear every polished whisper on every pop album. I'm sure stuff will feel dated as fashions change, and new technology will make what we have pretty outmoded, but everything is so available and so accurately reproduced that we're just kind of drowning under the weight of it, and all those peculiarities of media from the past are available now as stylistic choices for new creations. You can get that 1960s film quality or that 70s drum sound. It's no wonder people look backwards under these conditions. And I think the concern with "authenticity" in a lot of metal creates another pressure to look backwards.

Having said that, I do think there's new stuff happening, even if it's only incrementally new, even if marketable retro heavy metal and thrash and throwback DM and 2nd wave nostalgia acts are everywhere you turn.

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I've thought of that too, how the fidelity just doesn't degrade like it used to so 50 or maybe even 100 years from now anyone who chooses to will still be able to find and listen to music from the 2000's/10's/20's...

But I must say in response to your final point that I don't think of it as looking backwards as much as I believe that some of us just figure if it ain't broke then there's no need to fix it. Seems to me almost everyone kind of selects an era and style(s) of music that speaks to them the loudest and that's gonna be different for everyone. Not that anyone need ever be locked into only liking that one thing, but you know what I mean. I do realize I've always been well outnumbered in every group of metalheads I've ever been associated with where most of the group will genrally seek out new, innovative and forward thinking bands while I just want throwback caveman DM and 2nd wave Darkthrone and Finnblack clones. I like what I like and I give no bonus points for innovation or originality, that stuff doesn't even enter into the equation for me. 

Got into a little friendly argument with some friends via text just last night about "classic rock" and more specifically we were talking about albums like Pink Floyd's The Wall and bands like The Who that my buddies mostly all hold in high esteem but I have absolutely no use for. They seem to think because I'm 10-15 years older than the rest of them I'm supposed to be all gung-ho nostallgic for any and all classic rock from 40 - 50 years ago because that was my era. Now there are a small handful of things I still really dig from the pre-metal days way back in the 70's like Sabbath and Zeppelin and Skynyrd and ZZ Top and of course I still love the Beatles and The Ramones but there's not too much more from those days really. It's as if they don't believe me when I say I only listened to some of that stuff when I was a kid back in the 70's because they hadn't invented actual metal yet so that's all there was available. Not saying it's "bad" or that they shouldn't listen to it just that I'm not into it.

I jumped from hard rock in the mid 70's to punk rock in the late 70's, to heavy metal in the early 80's then thrash metal, hardcore & crossover in the mid to late 80's then eventually I found death metal and then black metal and "crust" in the oughts when I was in my 40's. I now finally feel like I've found the music that speaks to me the most profoundly and that I'm most comfortable with and I've pretty much settled in at this point and have stopped looking elsewhere. Not looking for anything progressive or innovative or original or different, at this point I just want more of what I like.

I will check some different stuff out every now and then out of curiosity I guess, but these days little to nothing ever comes of it. And because as you say these throwback bands seem to be everywhere you turn, I'm thinking this means I can't be the only one who feels this way. Which is not to say I believe I'm/we're right and that everyone else is wrong, not at all. Just that having all this insane amount of musical choice of stuff that doesn't age the way music used to means there's something out there for everyone and we all need to follow our guts and embrace the shit that makes us feel the way we like music to make us feel no matter what it is and what era it might be from. I certainly don't feel like I'm drowning under the weight of it all. Because I reckon I only have to shoulder the weight of whatever resides in my little corner of the metal world.

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I'd like to make a different point here... not saying "looking backward" is a necessarily bad (or stagnant) thing. It's not even uncreative. There's plenty to be inspired by and expand on. Just trying to put it a different way, think how much of a signifier mix styles have become - all the purposefully retro-sounding heavy metal stuff, murky OSDM mixes, lo-fi black metal, the clean but dated sound of more commercial stuff from the 90s, djent sterility, whatever. More and more it's all become a palette for everyone to play with as they choose, rather than just a product of the available technology. Not making a choice about that is a choice in itself anymore. That's what I mean by "drowning under the weight of it" - every goddamn thing means something now and it's almost impossible not to be conscious of it. And it does often turn into a template. That reverb on that snare sound means 80s nostalgia, that guitar tone means Sweden in the 90s, those sounds go with these particular playing styles, etc. I used to be able to tell when something was made by the way it sounded, for the most part, but I can't anymore. So I wonder what kind of connection our future culture will have to the past, when the past is available to them in such detail. I'm trying to imagine what it might be like to live in a world where you have hundreds of years worth of pristine detail. I wonder how homogenized language will become. I wonder what "new" or "modern" will even mean. But that's all just idle speculation for me, as much as I'd like to find something intelligent to say or do with it in an artistic context. 

The new Worm album is a great example of something backward-looking that puts familiar things together in a creative way that I find compelling. It's not a breath of fresh air but it's not supposed to be. Plenty of other stuff from the past few years has struck me that way too. They might be picking a suit off the shelf, but they're getting it tailored. I dig it. Obviously there's a ton of stuff out there that doesn't go anywhere near far enough in that direction for my taste, so I hear a bit and turn it off because it's not for me. The stuff that hits me as truly "new" (which is subjective, of course) holds a special place in my heart because that's where I feel like I'm learning something, getting past my own expectations, actually growing somehow. It's a rare treasure, that feeling.

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19 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

This. 

Every onslaught of limited edition splatter vinyl just smacks of desperation. 

I do keep an ear out for new releases and band names that get positive mentions a few times so might be worth checking out but there is just too much stuff out there to really get worried about missing something.

Year end lists are a joke, so I just sit back and observe and see what shit floats to the top.

There is nothing wrong with limited edition - IF it fills the demand that is there.  But the artificial scarcity just benefits flippers.

I have never done year end lists either.  I am still (and will always be) coming to grips with the classics!

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2 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

I'd like to make a different point here... not saying "looking backward" is a necessarily bad (or stagnant) thing. It's not even uncreative. There's plenty to be inspired by and expand on. Just trying to put it a different way, think how much of a signifier mix styles have become - all the purposefully retro-sounding heavy metal stuff, murky OSDM mixes, lo-fi black metal, the clean but dated sound of more commercial stuff from the 90s, djent sterility, whatever. More and more it's all become a palette for everyone to play with as they choose, rather than just a product of the available technology. Not making a choice about that is a choice in itself anymore. That's what I mean by "drowning under the weight of it" - every goddamn thing means something now and it's almost impossible not to be conscious of it. And it does often turn into a template. That reverb on that snare sound means 80s nostalgia, that guitar tone means Sweden in the 90s, those sounds go with these particular playing styles, etc. I used to be able to tell when something was made by the way it sounded, for the most part, but I can't anymore. So I wonder what kind of connection our future culture will have to the past, when the past is available to them in such detail. I'm trying to imagine what it might be like to live in a world where you have hundreds of years worth of pristine detail. I wonder how homogenized language will become. I wonder what "new" or "modern" will even mean. But that's all just idle speculation for me, as much as I'd like to find something intelligent to say or do with it in an artistic context. 

The new Worm album is a great example of something backward-looking that puts familiar things together in a creative way that I find compelling. It's not a breath of fresh air but it's not supposed to be. Plenty of other stuff from the past few years has struck me that way too. They might be picking a suit off the shelf, but they're getting it tailored. I dig it. Obviously there's a ton of stuff out there that doesn't go anywhere near far enough in that direction for my taste, so I hear a bit and turn it off because it's not for me. The stuff that hits me as truly "new" (which is subjective, of course) holds a special place in my heart because that's where I feel like I'm learning something, getting past my own expectations, actually growing somehow. It's a rare treasure, that feeling.

I agree with the palette to play with thing 100%. Technology has come so far that anyone is free to choose any type of sound they like whether it be a sound from the past or the present or their imagination or whenever and it can sometimes be hard to tell what's actually 20 or 30 years old and what has just been made to sound like it. Doesn't seem that long ago when most stuff from before about 1995 or so gave itself away but that's not the case anymore. There was a time when advances in recording and amplification technologies were the limiting factors in what a band could expect their records to sound like, but we have long since obliterated those barriers. Obviously there will be technological advances yet to come but the farther we progress the less of a difference they will make.

That said I guess maybe I am more optimistic than you because I don't believe that giving artists more freedom to fine tune their sounds to recreate precicely what they hear in their heads down to the very last detail could possibly be a bad thing. This is what we've been striving for ever since they invented a way to record music and play it back. I don't believe new and modern will cease to have meaning and I don't believe language, culture, music or art will ever become completely homogenized or literally timeless and impossible to date. And with regards to music specifically I believe at least as long as there are humans involved people will always look for new ways to set themselves apart, if not by the mix or the instrument sounds then I'm confident they'll find other ways. It's simply human nature especially in creatives to want to feel unique and special and to stand out even as musicians and artists will also always look to pay homage to their influences by emulating/immitating them. Which might seem at first glance to be a contradiction, but I really don't think it is. I suppose there could come a day when they've created computers that can write and generate music as well or better than humans, as well as truly self driving vehicles and no contact procreation (curbside pickup custom configured babies) but I'd just as soon not be alive when that day comes.

The part of your thesis I have trouble understanding our Father who art Alabaster is the part about learning and growing by way of listening to music. Not that I can't understand what you mean, of course I get it, I've heard this 1,000 times.  I just don't understand how or why this feeling has become so widespread and common as to be nearly universal. Or maybe I should just flip that around and say that I can't understand why I don't share such a commonly held sentiment among my peers. Seems to me like that's a lot of pressure to put on bands to ask them to make music that will not only make me bang my head but also teach me something and make me grow as a person. I'm not saying learning and growing are in any way bad things, they're obviosuly good, desirable and necessary things for all of us. But I guess I just don't require them from my music. I look to get my learning and growing from other places and experiences in life.

For me music is more of an escape, a catharsis and a wind-down. It's relaxation and entertainment and an adrenaline rush and an endorphin release. Pleasure for pleasure's sake. More visceral than cerebral. I don't really do drugs (save for the occasional late night thc gummy) so I suppose I use music as my drug. As a person who could describe himself as an overthinker, I think music is one of the few areas in life where I'm content to suspend that constant, chronic pensiveness and just let myself feel it. I don't need my music to mean anything, or to stand for anything, or to teach me anything. I think it's nice to be able to put my brain in neutral as it were and just enjoy music without pretense, prerequisites or expecatations.

Always confuses me when I hear/read people dismiss perfectly good music as too predictable, too boring, too derivative, or too static, or not adventurous enough or not forward thinking enough or whatever words they might use to express thoughts like this. And like these peope who use phrases like "it doesn't reinvent the wheel" as some kind of an apologetic disclaimer, as if to imply that music should by default be expected to inform or invent or reinvent anything and must be devalued and diminished if it doesn't. I mean it certainly can at times, and there's nothing wrong with that, that's totally fine. But my point is it shouldn't always be expected or required to at all times. I really think that sometimes music should be allowed to just sound good and make you feel good and nothing more.

 

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7 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I agree with the palette to play with thing 100%. Technology has come so far that anyone is free to choose any type of sound they like whether it be a sound from the past or the present or their imagination or whenever and it can sometimes be hard to tell what's actually 20 or 30 years old and what has just been made to sound like it. Doesn't seem that long ago when most stuff from before about 1995 or so gave itself away but that's not the case anymore. There was a time when advances in recording and amplification technologies were the limiting factors in what a band could expect their records to sound like, but we have long since obliterated those barriers. Obviously there will be technological advances yet to come but the farther we progress the less of a difference they will make.

That said I guess maybe I am more optimistic than you because I don't believe that giving artists more freedom to fine tune their sounds to recreate precicely what they hear in their heads down to the very last detail could possibly be a bad thing. This is what we've been striving for ever since they invented a way to record music and play it back. I don't believe new and modern will cease to have meaning and I don't believe language, culture, music or art will ever become completely homogenized or literally timeless and impossible to date. And with regards to music specifically I believe at least as long as there are humans involved people will always look for new ways to set themselves apart, if not by the mix or the instrument sounds then I'm confident they'll find other ways. It's simply human nature especially in creatives to want to feel unique and special and to stand out even as musicians and artists will also always look to pay homage to their influences by emulating/immitating them. Which might seem at first glance to be a contradiction, but I really don't think it is. I suppose there could come a day when they've created computers that can write and generate music as well or better than humans, as well as truly self driving vehicles and no contact procreation (curbside pickup custom configured babies) but I'd just as soon not be alive when that day comes.

The part of your thesis I have trouble understanding our Father who art Alabaster is the part about learning and growing by way of listening to music. Not that I can't understand what you mean, of course I get it, I've heard this 1,000 times.  I just don't understand how or why this feeling has become so widespread and common as to be nearly universal. Or maybe I should just flip that around and say that I can't understand why I don't share such a commonly held sentiment among my peers. Seems to me like that's a lot of pressure to put on bands to ask them to make music that will not only make me bang my head but also teach me something and make me grow as a person. I'm not saying learning and growing are in any way bad things, they're obviosuly good, desirable and necessary things for all of us. But I guess I just don't require them from my music. I look to get my learning and growing from other places and experiences in life.

For me music is more of an escape, a catharsis and a wind-down. It's relaxation and entertainment and an adrenaline rush and an endorphin release. Pleasure for pleasure's sake. More visceral than cerebral. I don't really do drugs (save for the occasional late night thc gummy) so I suppose I use music as my drug. As a person who could describe himself as an overthinker, I think music is one of the few areas in life where I'm content to suspend that constant, chronic pensiveness and just let myself feel it. I don't need my music to mean anything, or to stand for anything, or to teach me anything. I think it's nice to be able to put my brain in neutral as it were and just enjoy music without pretense, prerequisites or expecatations.

Always confuses me when I hear/read people dismiss perfectly good music as too predictable, too boring, too derivative, or too static, or not adventurous enough or not forward thinking enough or whatever words they might use to express thoughts like this. And like these peope who use phrases like "it doesn't reinvent the wheel" as some kind of an apologetic disclaimer, as if to imply that music should by default be expected to inform or invent or reinvent anything and must be devalued and diminished if it doesn't. I mean it certainly can at times, and there's nothing wrong with that, that's totally fine. But my point is it shouldn't always be expected or required to at all times. I really think that sometimes music should be allowed to just sound good and make you feel good and nothing more.

 

Believe it or not, I, too, enjoy it when stuff sounds good and makes me feel good, which is why I like the music I like. I love the sound of a nice baritone acoustic guitar. I played a song with some baritone acoustic for an old bandmate and he hated it because the guitar sound reminded him of stuff he disliked when he was younger. I've heard the standard 2nd-wave BM tonic-to-minor 6th chord progression so many times it's like nails on a chalkboard to me unless something different happens pretty quickly, I will literally grit my teeth, but give me sad-rock Katatonia songs where the key of the chorus goes up a 4th and I'm happy all day long. There's a part near the end of Opeth's song "Moonlapse Vertigo" where the guitars go from the I to the V, but when they hit that V chord, it's an add 9, and the first time I heard that I thought I was in heaven. Harmonic minor sucks. Dorian mode is what the angels use. I have friends who feel the opposite.

I didn't know what to call most of that when I first heard it, I just knew how it made me feel. Later, I tried to grope my way to an understanding of how it worked. Some of the magic has faded with familiarity, but a lot of it is still effective. Part of what moves me - what "sounds good and makes me feel good" - is those things themselves; part of it is that added frisson of an experience that feels "new", like those experiences did when I was younger. 

Part of why it matters to me is that I've been playing music and trying to write songs since I was a kid. I never wanted to play other people's stuff; music was magic to me, and I wanted to figure out how to cast the spell myself. That led to a lot of gaps in my understanding that I would have gotten past way sooner if I'd been a little more humble and open to learning through lenses other than just my own taste. But whatever... the point is, a lot of what I really value about the experience of music is the opposite of "putting my brain in neutral". I do that with other things. I watch murder mysteries with my wife at night to unwind, or read novels to escape for a bit. And yet I'm still a sucker for songs where the chorus section goes up a 4th. I'm just like you. I like what I like.

I love how much our options for recording have expanded, even if I'm annoyed sometimes when (if I go back to the clothing analogy for just a minute) the choices that bands make feel like the musical equivalent of going down to the thrift store and buying some old hi-tops and a denim vest. Not that I didn't do the same thing when I was a teenager. What I really want to hear isn't necessarily "new" so much as just "personal" - idiosyncratic, alive to its own emotional content, more than just a template. I don't think I'm as pessimistic as I think you think I am, but it's part of human nature to be a sucker for convenience, and it's never been more convenient to pull a style off the shelf ready-made and churn out some pablum. And, I hasten to add, even the pablum can actually work out fine, some of that stuff is good and enjoyable.

The thing I'm wondering about with language is how much it will drift, in the future, with so much recorded spoken language available. "Homogenized" doesn't fully capture what I was trying to say - more like, it seems like there's an awful lot of inertia now that will keep speech patterns and pronunciation in place. I'd love to hear what spoken English would sound like in 600 years. Totally idle, I don't even want to make an analogy to music with that. And no, I don't think people will stop wanting to make something new, unique, or different, I just wonder how it'll be signified. 

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I guess I am still not "settled" in my music tastes (within metal as a whole).  I find a lot of stuff speaks to me on different levels at different times or moods.  Nostalgia also plays a huge part in me revisiting stuff I have most certainly moved on from in my listening trends in recent years.  I find myself putting on an Iron Maiden album more out of the need to remember how good life was when I first discovered them living at home with my parents with zero responsibility or fucks to give.  When they release a new album I make no effort to pursue listening to it, they have had their day with me now and I know I will not ever get that same impact from anything else they release now.

I will never feel the same about music I discovered growing up by way of comparison to more modern/current output because I have been on this shit for 30 years plus now and I ain't that young, dumb and full of cum teenager anymore, most certainly (although there are days when I am dumb as fuck still).  Hell, I don't even feel the same way about some of the music I listened to for days on end back then (how did I listen to Chaos AD so much?  Why?  Oh why?)

I have come to understand in recent months how many of my less then desirable moods are actually linked to depression and the positive I can take from this realisation is the music I have discovered in trying to find a connection with something that helps with that awareness.  I doubt I will ever find my "niche" and that is fine.  I am just as comfortable with that as I am with maybe one day finding that plateau and sticking with it. 

 

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I tend to agree on much of that O Eternal Macabre one. I go through phases. Classic Rock/Punk/Thrash/Post-Punk as a teen, death metal as a young adult, black metal and prog after, goat metal (anything rough, nasty, abusive, and evil) over the past 5 years or so. Most recently I have been cycling through all of these with some regularity. What sounds good to me varies every day. I just like music, so I fill my day with whatever the current mood suggests be it bluegrass or war metal. I'd say my pallette has become well developed. Once in awhile something gives me that feeling I had way back when I first heard one of my favorites, but it's exceedingly rare these days.

I guess the one thing that has changed is that I could no longer give any fucks whether or not anyone else likes the stuff I do. At various times that was somewhat important to me because I wanted others to see and feel what I did out of the stuff I really loved. These days I realize that it's just not in the cards. Once in a while something clicks for somebody and it does bring me happiness (my wife discovering acoustic Opeth and Anathema last year for instance). Everyone's different and that's cool. If it happens it happens.

As an aside, I was listening to NPR on the way home today and it struck me how the little interludes between pieces reminded me of some newer Anathema. I don't know if that's an indictment of the band or an endorsement of the show.

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6 hours ago, MacabreEternal said:

(how did I listen to Chaos AD so much?  Why?  Oh why?)

 

 

 

Cause it's a great album!

 

----

Decibel's online portal tends to throw up good recommendations that suit my tastes.  I like the writing style - proper journalistic writing instead of "high school hack" or "wannabe philosopher" ala AMG and Heavy blog crap you get with blogs.

Up to recently I was buying Zero Tolerance (you can't get Decibel locally and subscription system collapsed when COVID hit and USPS still doesn't post to Australia).

Problem with Zero Tolerance is the format - small writing which would be fine except for sometimes you get dark text on a dark backdrop which makes it really hard to read.  That and the covermount CDs are shit.

 

I also occasionally binge on Youtube New Wave of Old School Thrash Metal and New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal  channels though to be honest these are seldom anything I want to buy,,

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD5Ny_jQ8cs9JXVPWXg9iNw

https://www.youtube.com/c/NWOTHMFullAlbums

 

Finally I do occasionally binge Gimme Metal radio and get some good stuff from there.

I still go to Blabbermouth but it's becoming more about how much Lars sold his house for or which celebrity said what regarding COVID.

 

 

 

 

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16 hours ago, Dead1 said:

I also occasionally binge on Youtube New Wave of Old School Thrash Metal and New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal  channels though to be honest these are seldom anything I want to buy,,

I agree with that. It wasn't that long ago that I'd find the occasional band that required a further look on those channels but I think these days there is just too much of the same thing. Good on them for keeping it running but I can go months without looking at it then skim through a dozen bands that sound almost identical.

 

16 hours ago, Dead1 said:

I still go to Blabbermouth but it's becoming more about how much Lars sold his house for or which celebrity said what regarding COVID.

It's funny what that site actually thinks is metal or music news. Metal Injection has terrible writers and is always slow with news and Bravewords is slightly better than both, but at least they generally stick to metal and hard rock, Blabber is the TMZ of the webworld. The comments section of Blabber is real life emanating my mother's words when I was a kid. "There is always someone worse of that you!"

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A hilarious footnote to my previous rant on wife's ridiculous spending:

Our credit card got hacked (luckily only $8 transaction before I reported it and had it blocked).

My wife looked at bank balance and said "I think they hacked the main savings account too cause there is not much left there."

To which I said, "nope, that is the actual balance."

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On 12/2/2021 at 5:04 PM, MacabreEternal said:

I guess I am still not "settled" in my music tastes (within metal as a whole).  I find a lot of stuff speaks to me on different levels at different times or moods.  Nostalgia also plays a huge part in me revisiting stuff I have most certainly moved on from in my listening trends in recent years.  I find myself putting on an Iron Maiden album more out of the need to remember how good life was when I first discovered them living at home with my parents with zero responsibility or fucks to give.  When they release a new album I make no effort to pursue listening to it, they have had their day with me now and I know I will not ever get that same impact from anything else they release now.

I will never feel the same about music I discovered growing up by way of comparison to more modern/current output because I have been on this shit for 30 years plus now and I ain't that young, dumb and full of cum teenager anymore, most certainly (although there are days when I am dumb as fuck still).  Hell, I don't even feel the same way about some of the music I listened to for days on end back then (how did I listen to Chaos AD so much?  Why?  Oh why?)

I have come to understand in recent months how many of my less then desirable moods are actually linked to depression and the positive I can take from this realisation is the music I have discovered in trying to find a connection with something that helps with that awareness.  I doubt I will ever find my "niche" and that is fine.  I am just as comfortable with that as I am with maybe one day finding that plateau and sticking with it. 

 

Those of us who migrated from Metal-Fi have been having these dialogues for what seems forever. I tend to think in analogies. Back in my "acting" days, I lived in L.A. between 94-2000 and then got married, had a child and moved back east for a larger home and a teaching position in Maryland.

I used to go to these casting director audition classes in L.A. They were somewhat of a racket for all the unknown, unconnected plebeians trying to get a leg up. You were basically paying for the opportunity to meet a casting director. You'd give them your headshot and resume, do a reading and they'd give you feedback, but what you were paying for was exposure with a casting director who you hoped might bring you in for an actual audition. 

One of the takeaways from the classes was that casting directors didn't always know what they were looking for. They had a problem and they were hoping you were going to walk in the room and be the solution. Often actors would try to emulate a known star who they thought was their type, but the trick in auditioning was having about 10 minutes to prepare and bring something unique to YOU to bring to the few lines of script you were given, not to try to show off your impression of playing a goofy sit-com bro or young married guy or cop or street thug or whatever the role was. You have to "be you" in whatever the situation was not play to the stereotype in you head.

To me this directly relates to the oversaturation of music we're exposed to today. When I started paying attention to heavy music online it was fairly late-about 2002 or so and I was pushing 40. I always liked heavy music but didn't really have a crew and was more of a solitary listener and didn't really hit shows-having been in a relationship a year after graduating college and given my acting circles (alternative rock fans all the way), kind of listened to mainstream metal until plugging in. 

Even now, I tend to look for consensus and research everything from the latest black metal albums to a new kayak or weed eater for my yard. My tastes have changed over the years and I'm certainly not biased to mainstream, slick production, but often go for the more popular albums in metal and tangential heavy albums slightly off the beaten track. Really, just don't have the time or inclination to spend hours each week going through YouTube channels and blogs. 

Back in 2002, I was burnt out on my old classic albums and not ready for extreme metal. I was looking for something new-for me that was riffy stoner rock which reminded me of the hard rock I'd grown up with and doom. I added harsh vocals at some point and those early 2000's had an explosion of exciting material to me. At first, I found hardcore influences along the lines found in post metal and bands that were tagged with metallic hardcore like Converge. But there was a great wealth of exploration:

  • millennial updates on second wave black (Gorgoroth, Marduk, etc.)
  • experimental drone, doom and stoner gneres (SunnO))), Mastadon, Electric Wizard, YOB, etc.)
  • Dark Tranquility inspired Melodeth
  • Opeth and the hordes of 70's prog death
  • Hail of Bullets/Asphyx opened the gates to OSDM
  • DSO and the explosion of avant-garde and dissonant metal.
  • more mainstream death which at the time would have been Nile, Behemoth, Kataklysm and the l
  • sludge and the variations of blackened sludge a la Lord Mantis, Mizmor, Primative Man etc. 
  • and perhaps my favorite slice has been the tearing down of walls and genre and the tendency to utilize whatever a band wants-unclassifiable bands with a penchant for "weird-ass heavy music" 
  • Crust

I found terms like caverncore/Incantationcore, Entombedcore and so on. I liked both newer albums by both Incantation and Entombed, so that sent me eventually chasing after classic DM. 

But lately, things have been stale for me. This is where the General of goats and I usually part ways. Circling back to my original point, I'm feeling there has been a lack of movement or innovation and more of a looking back.....

I've got enough music, that I don't want another OSDM or blackened this or that that is indistinguishable from the dozens of other albums. Because then what you have is simply mimicry. It's almost like bands are auditioning for ears in specific genre. But, if I have 50 doom death albums, I don't need another one to merely have the 2021 version of more of exactly the same. 

Just like my old acting days, I couldn't try to be, MIckey Rourke or Daniel Day Lewis or Tom Hanks or whoever, I had to bring my stamp. And that's really what I look for-a band certainly isn't expect to reinvent the wheel or innovate at this point-but to get my attention they need to put their own stamp on all these tired out tropes-or at minimum present an authentic sound.

 

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I think it's obvious that we're all gonna tend to collect more stuff from the sub-genres and types of sounds that are the best fit for us or speak to us the most. Metal is not a one size fits all thing like it was 40 years ago when it was still in its infancy. What works for one guy ain't gonna work for the next. Certainly while we have some overlap the bulk what Mark and even the other Mark for that matter are into doesn't work for me and clearly the bulk of what I'm into isn't going to work for them or for most of you. That's the beauty of this fragmented metal landscape of 2020 as I see it, there's a million different things to be found so a little something out here for everyone.

I would never suggest that anyone else should just go by the shit I post and not look any farther. Go find your own shit that makes you feel good. As much or as little as you need. Use whatever methods work for you. No one ever has to spend as many hours each week as I do hunting down new releases, that's just something I do to relax because I happen to enjoy it, yes even as I'm quite aware that it's a little insane. Truth be known I'm actually a little jealous of those former addicts that have been able to successfully pull themselves off the hamster wheel.

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I am happy with good distinctive song writing, great riffs, decent production (ie not overproduced) and a degree of energy/intensity.

 

However these are surprisingly rare in this day and age and most bands can only manage 1 or 2 of the above (and universally good, distinctive song writing's not one of them).

 

I can listen to meat n potato death, speed and thrash all day but at some point I will zone out. 

 

I still want there to be some sort of memorable listening experience and I still want to find albums that will bring me joy through repeated listenings and bands I will care about.

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