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Sadistic Metal Reviews mini-feature – Vargstuhr – Howlings (2015)

by Staff on January 21, 2016

vargstuhr

Article by David Rosales

Musical genres work very much like languages, transmitting information at an abstract level, albeit simultaneously at a much more intuitive and unconscious level, hence its surfacing in the form of emotions. Unfortunately, many musicians fall into the trap of taking forms and cliches merely as that: a formula that is interpreted either as a constraint or a shortcut. Neither approach correctly assesses the real value of so-called cliched forms and expressions.

Vargstuhr’s Howlings presents a pop opera variation of this thinking by making a wolf-pack themed album whose center are the lyrics. All music revolving around it is incidental and it tends to twist around in its particular emphasis while roughly remaining in the area of a third-grade black metal act with very poorly thought-out interactions between the vocals and the music. Like any opera-like production, it tries to keep its eye on themes of some kind, but the music is still too secondary and plays more like an excuse for a soundtrack.

Besides its poor structuring, Howlings also fails at a local performance level, managing to sound awkward in almost each of the instruments at least at some point. We normally do not complain at all about production, but here the music is so bad that the excessively out of balance mix emphasizes the flaws of the album. The only prize Vargstuhr will be winning here is an award for one of the most uncomfortable albums to listen to in recent memory.

1 Comment

Tags: 2015, Black Metal, howlings, sadistic metal reviews, underground metal, vargstuhr

Gojira goes flute metal?

by Gabe Kagan on January 20, 2016

One of the long-running metaphors here at DMU is the metal or grindcore band that adds flute parts to their music in an attempt to seem progressive and intelligent, but in doing so adds nothing of value of interest to their music beyond a slight hint of aesthetic novelty and a couple laughs for those of us who can see through their attempts. The fact that the flute solo that takes up most of of Gojira’s latest brief studio teaser has nothing to do with the rest of the video (some brief scratchings that may become indie-metal songs) only reinforces our understanding.

Most of our coverage of Gojira hasn’t quite been about their musical exploits, but there are certainly some sadistic exceptions if you trawl our archives.

6 Comments

Tags: 2016, crypto-indie, failure, gojira, lame metal, post-metal

Sadistic Metal Reviews mini-feature – Cauldron – In Ruin (2016)

by Gabe Kagan on January 11, 2016

cauldroninruincd

This is, without any subtlety, an exceedingly middle of the road work of traditional heavy metal. It’s not particularly ‘heavy’, containing little more than a set of rudimentary melodic rock riffs played at a middling pace overlaid with an exceedingly generic frontman. It bears more than a passing resemblance to the ‘glam’ metal (read: harder radio rock) of the ’80s, although Cauldron’s visual aesthetic is closer to a generic metalhead look. Nothing is particularly offensive here – the vocals are a bit lamer than average for reasons that are hard to quantify, but otherwise this is a vaguely competent albeit unremarkable recording that I am already forgetting as I write this album. You, on the other hand, are probably wondering why I would choose to cover something that’s so devoid of positive or negative qualities. It turns out that listening to this sort of recording places a few important ideas in my head.

By now, our readers should be familiar with how quickly our species as a whole forgets about the… lower tier of media works that are quickly forgotten once something more novel comes along. A sufficient amount of effort and/or financial wizardry can distort this phenomenon, occasionally resulting in an artist who refuses to leave the public eye due to radio payola, or personal misconduct, or whatever reason. Cauldron, to my understanding, is not thusly blessed, although they and associates presumably have enough business resources to create some buzz for a while. Maybe they’ll become one of those “moderately successful” metal bands I talked about earlier that can live comfortably, if not glamorously off their money. I highly doubt, however, that a band this generic is going to make any serious impact on most listeners, though and will probably fade quickly whenever they call it quits. There are two important corollaries here – the metal fanbase Cauldron has to fight for will turn over with time, and similarly so will the metal bands competing for mindshare. There’s definitely a lesson to be learned here about the state of the metal world, although you can also make a case that it’s better studied through either a more notorious band, an objectively worse one, or some combination of the two.

4 Comments

Tags: 2016, cauldron, in ruin, lame metal, mainstream metal, sadistic metal reviews, traditional heavy metal

On Metal Transcriptions and Metal Music Percussion

by Staff on January 6, 2016

Article by David Rosales

This very entertaining cover of Iron Maiden’s song ‘Hallowed be Thy Name’ as performed by a bass clarinet quartet was posted on Youtube a few years ago. The instruments take on the melodic lines of the song, which was aptly selected as it is rich in them. This experiment is not only fun to listen to but interesting in how a different instrumentation highlights one aspect of the music while utterly losing a whole dimension exploited by the original composition.

The clarity of melody and harmony is quite enhanced here and so their study and appreciation by the guitar student seeking to learn and emulate this aspect of the song will greatly benefit from this adaptation. However, the loss of the power chord, and particularly the power chord played on the distorted electric guitar means the loss of an ocean of artificial artifacts that form the bulk of the richness of sound of the instrument and which lend metal and hard rock music one of its distinctive aural characteristics.

The necessary absence of the drum set is seen by the more classically-oriented music fan or musician as, perhaps, negligible, but this is only because of the widespread ignorance (either through pop culture or academic music indoctrination) about the relevance of percussion in metal. Contrary to the now-traditional view of percussion as a less important aspect of music (which, in fact, flies in the face of many traditional folk musics around the world, where it is recognized and studied by academicians yet still seen with derision as “primitive”), this reliance that metal has exhibited in increasing amounts is not a measure of scarcity of content or artistic deficiency, but rather the appearance of an unknown variable.

Metal percussion in its most advanced states, that is, in its use in the more artistically (as opposed to technically) developed subgenres of death and black metal shows a usage and expansion that just does not exist in traditional or experimental classical music. As such, academicians have no precedent by which to measure or qualify this. They should perform field research, they should listen, but they are too comfortable and busy feeling self-important. This is the sad state of the intellectually self-gratifying (and ‘morally’ bankrupt) art that results from two centuries of overarching materialism, corruption and decay.

Many would point to the obvious origin of metal percussion in traditional rock, and that is factually right, yet its use and direction has gone far beyond it and in some cases taken cues even from electronic music (especially in the case of some black metal)and jazz music (in the case of some death metal). Metal percussion incorporates aspects of these and has built a whole new art out of it that could be considered the more spiritual child of the pleasure-oriented and technically-nuanced jazz (Editor’s note: DMU has written about this very hypothesis in the deep past).

The future and refinement of metal this metal percussion should not to reside in the empty groove explorations of fusion as seen in djent nor in the facetious exercises of tekdeth which may even borrow directly from genres such as samba in their search for “entertaining and interesting” bits to play, regardless of how this may affect the character of the music. Also defunct inside are the dead-end and superficial attempts at applications of abstract concepts in nu-black metal and war metal. As in all other aspects of the already-cemented, fully-formed language of metal, the role of its percussion and its abstract concepts have been made known implicitly in the music of the classics. Go, listen, study, learn, apply.

3 Comments

Tags: iron maiden, jazz, jazz fusion, jazz metal, musical analysis, percussion, recontextualization, traditional heavy metal

Sadistic Metal Reviews- Mendacious Stork Edition (End of 2015 Series)

by Staff on January 5, 2016

loosestool

One list of albums dictated by the masses of sheeple apparently does not provide enough self-indulgence and emotional masturbation for the hordes of mental weaklings that yearn to be called metalheads in order to disguise their lack of direction or ideals. Hence, here we are, clubbing away at one of these sorry piles of shit for the amusement of hessians. However, we also hope that the attentive unawakened reader may start to see a glimpse of the truth through outright disrespect for the inherently contemptible. (We have skipped some items in the original list as to not incur in much unnecessary repetition of releases, thus the odd numbering of the items herein.)

swallow the sun

2. Swallow the Sun – Songs From The North I, II & III

The term “doom metal” is again used to justify slow-coming boredom and lack of originality. Swallow the Sun compile alternative metal slow and simple grooves with the alternation of growls and the clear vocals typical of post-cuckolded Amorphis Scandinavian gay ‘hard’ (ha!) rock. There is an obvious pseudo-progressive intent here as discreet radio moments pass us by in a series of haphazardly-stitched, disingenuous grimaces. Radio emotional pandering for the pretentious.

3. Draconian – Sovran

Apparently radio gay doom is popular at MS’ website. Only here we have a much more straightforward, perhaps more honest, attempt at the same run-of-the-mill pop rock opera. Draconian switches between male and female vocals, with duet episodes, themselves interrupted by long harmonized guitar lines reminiscent, at least superficially, of Funeral’s early work. However, Tragedies did not fall into popisms and rather took a more traditional popular music approach to vocals and applied it to a quasi classical level which may make one think of European early music. Draconian, on the other hand, stink of Barbie sex.

Shape-of-Despair_Monotony-Fields

4. Shape of Despair – Monotony Fields

Mediocre and dull ‘doom metal’ seems to be extremely popular. It may be that since the average music listener is a terrible one, and that they seek these sounds as stimulus for a purely sensual experience and so can only identify with very simple-minded works, however contorted their outward forms may be. Shape of Despair provide the pop listener with the ‘doom metal’ experience in the same way that Cannibal Corpse provides him the ‘death metal’ experience. Of course, this is the sort of listener that “listens to all kinds of music”. All is imbecility.

galneryus

5. Galneryus – Under the Force of Courage

One day little guitar Syu wanted to find a place for his neoclassical wanking and so created the power metal band Galneryus. Galneryus released a couple of comically-endearing and childish albums until the inevitable sellout moment came. After trying their hand at pandering to a more mainstream audience and wisely switching to writing lyrics in Japanese (realizing, perhaps that their main market was inside Japan after all, and that foreign fans would always be attracted to the sound of a strange and unique language), the band took a wide turn back to a firmly European style inspired on the likes of Manowar-inspired streamlined power metal with augmented structures that balance a manner of unpredictability without ever feeling unsafe and, of course, always remaining singable. Clever and winky, empty as fanservice-crammed anime.

8. Leprous – The Congregation

Groovy, syncopated, modulations disguising poorly-presented repetition, weird clean vocals, just enough electronic noodling and laid-back but ‘cool’ drums. This is the recipe par excellence for the multiculturalist wet dream presenting all forms and nothing but insecurity and hollowness at its center. Here is where the worst overproduced radio pop is peppered with jazz fusion gimmicks. Metal? Music or public obscenity?

moonspell extinct

9. Moonspell – Extinct

A horrible blend of modern industrial tropes and a sissy euro-rock basis, accompanied vocals angsty enough to seem edgy but just safe enough as to not scare away the wimps who listen to this garbage. The high school poser solos do not really redeam this first-world, spoiled-kid, macho pretension.

Enshine_Singularity

14. Enshine – Singularity

Basically, the sonic representation of the sparkly, clean-shaven assholes of fans of these music ready to be sodomized by real metal music. Lacking in all natural self-assertion or distinct personality, this is music for the bottom who craves to be dominated. In other words, music for social justice warriors.

anthropocene extinction

15. Cattle Decapitation – The Anthropocene Extinction

This is as ridiculous as pseudo-progressive core pandering can get. What is worse, this band is playing a dangerous game in which they may lose all of their audiences, or perhaps score with New York hipsters. Crammed in under two minutes you may find explicit deathcore and alternative rock passages, power metal leads, nu-black metal runs lead by duets of inhaled low growls and Chester Bennington’s evil twin brother’s whining, without excluding the use of high squeals. Basically, a puddle of diarrhea that clearly gives away the cause of ailment. Unbearably disquieting in its stupidity.

10 Comments

Tags: 2016, cattle decapitation, draconian, enshine, galneryus, moonspell, sadistic metal reviews, shape of despair, swallow the sun

Metalcore manager Derek Brewer talks touring and finance

by Gabe Kagan on January 5, 2016

Preparing_to_teach_GIs_personal_finance_at_Guantanamo

Finance and accounting skills are useful life skills for everyone, not just Derek Brewer.

In response to the “popular” deathcore act Thy Art Is Murder losing their vocalist over finance, an employee of Outerloop Management, a company that handles the finance of several modern popular metal bands, wrote up a budget analysis of a metal band’s touring budget for our competitors over at MetalSucks. Derek Brewer claims that with sound budgeting techniques and by avoiding expensive luxuries like cocaine, a “mid-level” band can make enough money through touring and merchandise to survive and maintain an okayish standard of living while arguably contributing more to society than a retail drone.

There are a few holes you can poke in Brewer’s assumptions, but overall his numbers give me the impression that a band that gets big enough to receive regular coverage on heavily trafficked news sites can reach some degree of financial security. My real emphasis here is on the idea that getting to the point where your band is even moderately successful to the point of even potentially being fiscally self-sustaining is going to be the difficult part. Barring enormous luck (or a potentially lucrative if musically dubious gimmick like adding a flautist to your grindcore band), building up a fanbase for any sort of creative content requires an immense and persistent amount of work over time. Society in general knows that by now, and by traveling this path you’ll also be in competition with an enormous amount of other bands who think they’re going to be the next big thing and are also working long hours to get noticed. The competition isn’t necessarily going to improve the quality of metal works released (at least by our standards, since most bands aren’t writing specifically for our tastes), but it is something to note if you look at Brewer or similars’ figures and think that someday, you could make it as a metal rockstar.

3 Comments

Tags: finance, lame metal, management, managers, metalcore, money

Death Metal Underground’s Best Albums of 2015

by Staff on January 3, 2016

It took some time, but despite the deluge of content constantly bombarding us and aspiring metal fans worldwide, we’ve been able to reach some level of consensus on 2015’s worthwhile metal music. Not to say that we’re in perfect harmony (If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll note that there’s some room for dissonance in our musical language), but the hope is, like what our recent reinspection of 2013 revealed, that some of this material remains interesting for more than the year it was released.

Album of the Year

Kaeck

Stormkult

A wrathful reminder of what war metal should have been: a melodically-structured, chromatic holocaust to the god of this world. Jan Kruitwagen’s leads awe listeners and are optimally placed to hold attention just as each rhythm riff runs its course. An impenetrable mix rewards repeated listening to an album that may surpass Kruitwagen’s work on Sammath’s Godless Arrogance. March to Kaeck’s martial heartbeat or revel in shit.

Reviews:

Kaeck – Stormkult (2015) – Another Perspective, by Gabe Kagan (August 28, 2015)
An Impression on Stormkult, by Tom Devereux (August 19, 2015)
More on Stormkult, by David Rosales (July 4, 2015)
Kaeck – Stormkult (2015), by Brett Stevens (July 2, 2015)

Recommended Albums

Desecresy

Stoic Death

Bolt Thrower meets ritualistic black metal. Rather than cathartic bending into climactic oriental leads, Desecresy diffuse tension by methodically varying into bizarre melodies with carefully placed, otherworldly leads to a steady metronome.
Mid-paced riffing in the style of Bolt Thrower builds tension with melody and drifts off into space with variations and well placed leads. Where Bolt Thrower themselves shoot a rifle at the ballon using rhythmic change to introduce another riff or dramatically bending the riff into a climactic, oriental short solo, Desecresy insert ritualistic blackened leads for dramatic contrast with the rhythmic, power chord riffing.

Review and Interview:

Desecresy – Stoic Death (2015), by Brett Stevens (December 1, 2015)
Interview: Desecresy (2015), by Brett Stevens (August 1, 2015)

Tau Cross

Rob Miller returns from blacksmithing to his previous metallic occupation with an album of catchy post-punk in Motorhead and Metallica song formats. Thankfully free of the Godsmack and other MTV influences present on Amebix’s swansong.

Review:

Tau Cross – Tau Cross (2015), by Brett Stevens (July 1st, 2015)

Worthwhile releases

Cóndor

Duin

An effective album of mid-paced death and heavy metal riffing. There is no psychedelic rock pretending to be Black Sabbath “doom” here. Highly structured; the opposite of the random tossed riff salads of most modern metal. This band takes an approach more like that of classical guitarists toward melding death metal with progressive rock, blues, folk and other influences: it mixes them in serially and adopts them within the style, rather than hybridizing the two styles.

In other words, most bands that try to sound like progressive death metal try to act like a progressive rock band playing death metal, or a death metal band playing progressive rock. Cóndor takes an approach more like that of musicians in the past, which is to adopt other voices within its style, so that it creates essentially the same material but works in passages that show the influence of other thought.

Reviews and Interview:

Cóndor – Duin, by David Rosenberg (sometime in January, 2015)
Profile: Cóndor, by Brett Stevens (December 8, 2013)

Morpheus Descends

From Blackened Crypts

This vinyl 7” single features two new, well constructed death metal songs from one of from one of the few truly underrated bands in the genre. Those foresighted enough to purchase the identically-titled CD boxed set version received the band’s entire catalog in one of the rare remasters that sounds better than the original releases.

Interviews:

Interview: Morpheus Descends (Rob Yench), by Brett Stevens (June 12, 2013)
Interview: Brad Moore, who designed legendary Morpheus Descends cover, by Brett Stevens (October 9, 2013)

Motorhead

Bad Magic

One last Motorhead album of mostly Motorhead songs. Nothing “new” is introduced for those in the non-metal audience who disdain metal and wish to feel intellectually superior to the common headbanger. The final work from a relentless machine of a band.

Review:

Motörhead – Bad Magic (2015), by Gabe Kagan (August 31st, 2015)

Reissues

Grotesque

In the Embrace of Evil

Slaughter of the Soul‘s 20th Anniversary of Awfulness, by Daniel Maarat (November 14, 2015)

Immolation

Dawn of Possession (Listenable Records)

Listenable Records reissues Immolation – Dawn of Possession, by Daniel Maarat (November 19th, 2015)

Order From Chaos

Frozen in Steel (Nuclear War Now! Productions)

Order from Chaos – Frozen in Steel (2014), by Daniel Maarat (August 29, 2015)

Carbonized

For the Security

Carbonized – For the Security re-issue, by Brett Stevens (February 9th, 2015)

Sammath

Strijd

Sammath’s debut now on Bandcamp, by Gabe Kagan (September 10, 2015)

Arghoslent

Arsenal of Glory and Galloping Through the Battle Ruins (Drakkar productions)

Arghoslent’s Arsenal of Glory and Galloping Through the Battle Ruins reissued, by Daniel Maarat (January 3rd, 2016)

Blasphemy

Fallen Angel of Doom (Nuclear War Now! Productions)

What thrived and what died from the 1990s (Part I), by Brett Stevens (September 3, 2015)
Blasphemy – Fallen Angel of Doom (1990, 2015), by David Rosales (June 11, 2015)

Gorguts

Obscura

Obscura and Osho, by David Rosales (May 3, 2015)

Those Left Behind

Zom

Flesh Assimilation

Crusty death metal of the better than braindead Benediction but worse than Cancer category.

Satan

Atom by Atom

I’ve possibly heard too much but Hanger 18. I know too much. Although not as degradingly vulgar as Surgical Steel, Atom by Atom results in a pretty tacky affair. Vocals are as emotional as in the first album, except that in here they seem even more disconnected from the music as the music veers into some sort of progressive speed metal akin to Helstar’s. (Editor’s note: I liked it, but David Rosales was critical)

Sarpanitum

Blessed Be My Brothers

The band shows promise with their Unique Leader-style rhythmic riffing and soaring heavy metal leads. While being above par for technical deaf metal, aping a different one of your heroes every few verses doesn’t make for particularly enjoyable repeated listening.

House of Atreus

The Spear and the Ichor that Follows

Fredrik Nordstrom’s Arghoslent.

Denner/Sherman

Satan’s Tomb

Technical power metal carnival music.

Iron Maiden

The Book of Souls

Nobody is allowed to edit themselves or turn on their bullshit filters in Steve Harris’s band anymore (Read a full review here).

Kjeld

Skym

Kvist meets the randomness of metalcore. Indistinct riffing and songwriting mix with pointless shoutout verses to past greats that makes listeners wonder why they aren’t just playing Sodom and Mayhem in the first place.

Malthusian

Below the Hengiform

Where are the riffs?

Throaat

Black Speed

Every Teutonic speed metal band gone Voltron.

Ares Kingdom

The Unburiable Dead

The band has no need to repeat half the song just so the guitarist can get over his refractory period and play another solo. This is also an extremely distracted riff salad in which the individual riffs can be brought in from sources as different as galloping power metal to thrashy death metal to alternative nu and groove “metal”. This is headbang-core for beer metallers and other social metalheads. This recording received two reviews in 2015.

Obsequaie

Aria of Vernal Tombs

A collection of interesting renaissance faire riffs written into songs that quickly wear out their welcome as metal, becoming RPG background music.

Sarcasm

Burial Dimensions

A few strong songs on a demo do not warrant a two CD set of Swedish death with limpid keyboards anticipating the steps black metal took towards mainstream goth rock in the late nineties.

Mgla

Exercises in Futility

This is the type of black metal as repetitive rock music that ignorant hipsters will praise as “ritualistic”. The album’s title sums the quality of its musical content: futile. (Editor’s note: I wanted to give this album a chance. It didn’t age well.)

Horrendous

Anareta

Gothenburg cheese and Meshuggah licks are less appetizing than a lead-laced Mexican lollipop.

Cruciamentum

Charnel Passages

Grave Miasma returns. This time with 1993’s atmosphere.

Crypt Sermon

Out of the Garden

Candlemass meets Soundgarden.

Vorum

Current Mouth

Every Teutonic speed metal band gone Voltron.

Exhumation

Opus Death

Solid underground metal in the spirit of Sarcofago that is perfectly well-written but does not amount to more than the sum of its parts; does not conjure up any long-lasting message.

27 Comments

Tags: 2015, best of, best of 2015, Black Metal, condor, death metal, desecresy, Heavy Metal, kaeck, mainstream metal, morpheus descends, motorhead, reissues, Speed Metal, Stormkult, tau cross, underground metal

Sadistic Metal Reviews – Loute Vire Edition (End of 2015 Series)

by Staff on January 3, 2016

zombies

Popularity contests are good for one thing only: determining the degree of decadence the mentality of a certain group. Given the state of sedation and apathy of the general public, it is no surprise that this list shows the contemptible character and inability for self-criticism and assessment the average man is aflicted with. Also, like anything mainstream, very little here is actually metal, even in spirit. Loute Vire especializes in democracy, bringing the average stupidity back to the average person, feeding them their own filth.

1. Iron Maiden – The Book of Souls
Free us from Glam-rhythm Maiden. Character-wise, this nu mid-paced Iron Maiden is a combination of eighties hair metal, power-doom-epic metal in the vein of Candlemass but with the emphasis of catchy Murican posturing. Structurally, it manages to be both formulaic and pointless in its overextension, basically taking the worst from both worlds. Iron Maiden have become the kings of posturing, and even if butthurt fans complain, one must say that this downfall was evident ever since Somewhere in Time and was pretty evident with Seventh Son of the Seventh Son. Stick to 1985’s Live After Death as a synthesis of the band’s golden era and you’ll be fine. Stop feeding Steve Harris’ ego machine.

Ghost

2. Ghost – Meliora
Caricature music that disguises carnival thinking by providing a steady, unchanging background. Ghost know how to fool the enemy, the audience is hooked, distracted by fireworks to the right and to the left, without realizing they are paying for an empty but colorful cardboard box. Ghost, master deceivers, everything is so in your face, that the decadent masses love the fake but safe entertainment that ironic bullshit provides. Surely this would also be released in vinyl format, that’s what hipsters do. They need to keep piling up appearances and hip products. The best thing you can do with one of these is break it and use the shards to cut the throats of Ghost fans.

Tribulation

3. Tribulation – The Children of the Night
This hard rock-ish outfit is probably what Opeth would sound like if they focused on their weirdo rock side instead of jumping around genres without musical justifications or proper transitions, or if Ghost took itself seriously and had a little talent. Tribulation’s may be the best album on this list, as pop and hook-based as it is, it retains the basic decency of proper music in its continuity and coherence. The focus is completely on the guitar lines. Unfortunately, songs do lapse as they are overstretched for the false ‘complexity’ appearance that hipsters, high school nerds and college SJWs like. Worthy of from radio airtime, not more, no less.

(Editor’s note: You know a band is bad when it gets double-SMR‘ed.)

Amorphis-Under-the-Red-Cloud

4. Amorphis – Under the Red Cloud
I may not have been paying enough attention but, when did this originally Finnish death metal band turn into American high school rock balladers with queer Scandinavian leads? (Editor’s note: It began in 1994.) Amorphis seems to have abandoned all sense of pride for a couple of more greens. This is selling out clearly exemplified. Bands, this is what you should not do. Fans, you will only find plastic here.

Enslaved-In-Times

5. Enslaved – In Times
Progressive rock for those who lack the subtlety for progressive rock. Black metal for those too soft to brave the intellectual challenge of not being a sheep. This is long-winded pop and rock artificially styled to appear complex for insecure posers.

Coma_Ecliptic_cover_art_by_Between_the_Buried_and_Me

6. Between the Buried and Me – Coma Ecliptic
Dream Theater meets Avenged Sevenfold with a strong Pink Floyd influence. How do these guys manage to sound exactly the same again yet be so vague in content? All semblance of continuity here, apart from tonality, is only maintained at some cerebral level in the imagination of the band or of the fans who will like any catchy & ‘complex’ turd that distracts them from their monotonous lives. The music itself is a disparaged parade of funny moments.

high on fire - luminifierous

7. High on Fire – Luminiferous
Speed metal on the outside, borish NWOBHM on the inside. This gets old quick and leaves no mark. Like many others, it tries to be an updated, more tough version of Motorhead, and use the old excuse of just “wanting to play good ole rock”. Forgettably redneckish.

queensryche - condition human

8. Queensrÿche – Condition Hüman
It is difficult not to laugh when listening to this macho-man bullshit for young, white posers. However bombastically pop and girly these songs are, they flow well. On the downside, the band never develops or resolves songs, meaning they are only good as groove and hook inducing. Radio garbage.

Paradise-Lost-–-The-Plague-Within-01

9. Paradise Lost – The Plague Within
Boring as ever, or perhaps more than ever, Paradise Lost is still trying to make the album they almost achieve with their earliest music. Never rising above potential mediocrity, this band is a collection of dull moments peppered with pleasing leads. An unexpected heir to this hooky combination of candy and nutrition-less filler is Sylosis. Anyone looking for a casual hit may dig into some of the tracks here, otherwise, refer to classic underground so-called doom metal.

TDOLT_Cover

10. Intronaut – The Direction of Last Things
Alternating angsty with pretty boy vocals, the mark of immaturity. Groove-based music without a clear thematic line, the mark of an empty mind. So, this is basically unthinking, puerile nonsense for people who want to “feel” metal but do not actually like metal. Destroy not only any copies of this but the factories and corporate buildings in charge of producing this mindless heap of catchy garbage.

10 Comments

Tags: 2015, amorphis, between the buried and me, Enslaved, ghost, high on fire, intronaut, iron maiden, lame metal, paradise lost, queensrÿche, sadistic metal reviews, tribulation

Saxon frontman discusses changes in the metal industry

by Gabe Kagan on January 2, 2016

Louder Noise recently interviewed Biff Byford, the long working frontman of the famous NWOBHM band Saxon, about his opinions on how heavy metal music has changed since his band’s commercial peak in the early-mid 1980s. Some of his insights are fairly obvious (the return of vinyl, fashion trends have changed, new genres); although others are more interesting – for instance, he mentions that Saxon experimented with early digital recording methods even earlier in their career. Building off the previous interview we linked featuring Steve Wilson, you could begin to make a case that many professional, successful metal musicians are particularly interested in keeping abreast of aesthetic trends in the genre. You’d need more evidence to back that up properly, but the local corollary that applies is that the composition process need not change as much with time.

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Tags: aesthetics, biff byford, interview, mainstream metal, NWOBHM, saxon

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