Twilight of the Guitarist?

It is a harsh truth that all things in our finite world will end at some point or another.  I was fortunate enough to learn this lesson at young age, with friends moving out of state and death claiming some of those closest to me. But there are many who are not so lucky to experience the cruelty of life during their youth and are now struggling to adapt to the harsh political and cultural upheaval that is sweeping the world at large.

This failure mainly stems from a cultural and educational system that leads us to to believe none of the beloved things in our safe American bubble will ever see massive change and upheaval- that our world and lives probably won’t be much different than that of our parents and teachers. But already, we are witnessing the death of malls, the value of college degrees, major retail chains, cable television, Hollywood movies, mainstream media, atheism, and an the age of idealism.

And sadly for fans of rock and metal music, the final hour may be at hand for a beacon of our pride and culture: the guitar hero.  With the impending bankruptcy of Gibson and now the imminent bankruptcy of Guitar Center, it would be foolish for anyone to still proclaim the immortality of the “guitar god.” For all things of this world must one day end, and dare I must ask… could the twilight of the guitarist truly be at hand?

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Analysis of Immolation’s “Christ’s Cage”

Immolation are legends in Death metal and rightfully so, though their heydays were after the initial burst that characterized the NYDM scene and have cemented their place with the likes of Cryptopsy and Immortal for prolonging the lifespan of that classic period of metal. Longevity seems to be the forte of the band’s centerpieces Dolan and Vigna and while they released a few decent albums, none of them quite hold up to Here in After. Black Sabbath and Slayer stretched the palette for what was possible in metal and introduced endless possibilities whereas Immolation took one closed approach and pushed it to its limit on this album. Though Close To A World Below took experimentation further, the whole was not as cohesive or powerful. Let us look as the closing track which truly concludes the album.

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Slugdge – Esoteric Malacology (2018)

When you have nothing of substance to fuel the creative urge necessary for musical catharsis, the artistically bankrupt are forced into invention. Here, the muse for this act is a fictional slug overlord that has somehow provided a modern metal band with enough tongue-in-cheek material to spew out four records so far, so at the very least you can’t accuse Slugdge of not sticking to their guns. Bad ideas however tend to foster quicker and more permanent results, and I’m failing to see the inspiration of this act yielding anything further than superficial amusement, so perhaps this is the perfect modern metal product seen from start to finish.

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Some Thoughts on Nature

I enjoy camping. Solitude. Enjoying primitive conditions. Witnessing the power and beauty of nature. It helps one keep a good Hessian frame of mind. I try to go as often as is possible and there is one location near me that I frequent rather often. After a bit of a drive over old logging roads through the hills I stop and pull my car off the side of the road and put on my pack and get my rifle at port arms. To get to my favoured camping area it is a 5 mile hike that for a short while follows an abandoned narrow-gauge railroad that some logging company built to expedite the extraction of resources from the area many years back. The place I like to set up camp is a tiny, elevated clearing in the pine trees next to a small creek from which I can get water. The area is a temperate rain forest of sorts, so there are 3-6 foot tall ferns everywhere, and in old-growth areas that have not fallen prey to logging, you can see the triple-canopy growth that is common to all rain forests. However, most of the forests around have been logged at some point so this sight is rare. I use a small shovel or a machete to clear out the ferns so I have a nice place to build a camp fire and an area to lay out my sleeping bag. The chopped down ferns double as a nice mattress.

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Norway’s Wordless Abyss

Studies have shown that listening to instrumental music while writing, studying, doing accounting, or any other productive task can increase stimulation without the distraction that the words of vocals provide.  But for Hessian, Templar, Heathen and other true metalheads instrumental works can be difficult to come by as extreme metal has not dabbled much into the realms of instrumental savagery.  But thanks to the necrophiliac obsession that many have had with Norwegian black metal and its culture, there are a few enjoyable demos and early rehearsals from Norway’s finest that can provide a motivational grim instrumental experience without demanding too much from the attention of the listener.

Join me if you will for a vocal-less adventure through some of Norway’s best kept foreboding hidden secrets.

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Antestor Re-Release of Return of the Black Death Out Today!

Fuck yes!  Legendary Norwegian black metal band Antestor have re-released their timeless classic Return of the Black Death via the Nordic Mission label.  If you’re too much of a sodomite pussy to know, this album was the best release (and probably only good one) on the famed Cacophonous Records, who gave us the earliest works of Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir- those fucking scumbags!  This album was also the precursor to the depressive/suicidal black metal genre that immediately became gay when Xasthur first put on his little makeup kit and started doing blek majick.  Yeah, I bet you thought Sortsind and Burzum started that shit-NOPE!  It was all a second rate ripoff of Antestor’s sorrow metal!

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Goath – II: Opposition

Great Goath!  First impression is, this new output from Goath is pretty darn good. The artwork seems excellent. Some of their other releases didn’t quite do it for me, but this one hits the spot. There is a nice mix of basic time signature riffs. The main thing is that the high level of aggression in all the instruments and vocals works on this one, whereas the other stuff I heard before was boring and lower pitched, like war metal kinda, with some Deicide. The whole thing sounds really old school underground, not aiming for total show-off or the best production, but instead going for authenticity and aggressiveness.
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The Musician’s Guide to SJW Values

Metal, like punk, once a lawless wild west where no attitude or ideology was unwelcome or too extreme.  But after hipsters unifed the masses of 90’s counter cultures into one mainstream culture, a far left ideology was adopted by and heavily policed within nearly every sub/counter cultural music genre (metal included).  Despite this being the exact opposite of what metal has been about for many decades, the desperation to fit in has left many of the aging neckbeard social outcast fake metalheads to adopt this heinous bastardization of music’s most honest genre and collectively enforce these new mainstream social rules.  And just like in the mainstream culture of today, breaking any of these rules (or having broken them in the past before these social norms were instituted) is designated with a swift lifetime band from showing yourself in public in the U.S.

Lately, a lot of metal bands have  been getting in trouble for doing things that progressive liberal culture finds unacceptable.  Many bands have been confused by the rules, as progressive liberal logic is absolutely nonsensical,  and therefore musicians struggle with the details behind this new social paradigm.  Having fought the left in our culture war for several years now and being often confronted with these nutcases, I determined it would be in the best interest of metal’s very badass musicians understand what crimes and behaviors are okay.  Please find below, a very thoroughly researched look into the disturbed mind of Social Justice Warriors:

Chart 1: Individual’s Morality

Crime/Behavior                                                                                  Acceptable?

MURDER                                                                                                      YES

ASSAULT (MALE VICTIM)                                                                      YES

ASSAULT (FEMALE VICTIM)                                                                 NO (Unless you’re signed to Profound Lore)

THEFT                                                                                                           YES

BESTIALITY                                                                                                 YES

PEDOPHILIA                                                                                               NO (Unless you write for MetalSucks)

GRAVE ROBBERY                                                                                      YES

SAYING MEAN THINGS ABOUT MEN                                                 YES

SAYING MEAN THINGS ABOUT WOMEN                                         NO (Unless you write for MetalSucks)

SAYING MEAN THINGS ABOUT WHITES                                          YES

SAYING MEAN THINGS ABOUT ANY OTHER RACE                     NO (Unless you’re signed to Profound Lore)

SAYING MEAN THINGS ABOUT CHRISTIANS                                 YES

SAYING MEAN THINGS ABOUT ANY OTHER RELIGION             NO

SAYING MEAN THINGS ABOUT LGTBTQ                                          NO

 

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Nightworld (2017)

At the final level, every object or idea in our world becomes reduced to a single line said in passing between people. This usually consists of a quality assessment plus a scope, such as, “The FIAT 500 is a great car for driving between your garage and a repair shop.”

If we were to do this for Nightworld, a movie featuring the charismatic Robert Englund of Freddy Krueger fame, our summary would be, “It is a good first chapter for a horror novel.” (more…)

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