Speed metal effectively died once Sepultura mixed it with nü-metal and punk on Roots, but that also uncovered a new style by revealing that speed metal mixes well with tribal, folk, and classical influences, something Aztlan explores on Legión Mexica, a feast of Spanish- and Mexican-themed folk styles mixed with Pantera/Metallica style bouncy speed metal.
Sadly, it looks like Jon Schaffer from Iced Earth is going to jail for the Capitol riot:
Jon Ryan Schaffer pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding and entering a building with a dangerous weapon. He admitted to carrying bear spray into the Capitol complex during the formal certification of the Electoral College votes.
Some laws being used against Capitol rioters have never been used like they are now, to target individual members of a mob on federal grounds. Some defendants are disputing the Justice Department’s interpretation of these laws, and Mehta alluded to potential “legal challenges down the road” while questioning prosecutors about the specifics of Schaffer’s landmark plea.
Schaffer was initially charged with six federal crimes. He was ordered to stay in jail while his case moved through the court system, because a magistrate judge was alarmed by his potential ties to Oath Keepers extremists and by the fact that he brought bear spray inside the Capitol.
When you charge people with sedition and insurrection for what is basically vandalism and trespassing, while letting the race rioters of the summer off with barely any consequences, expect ongoing legal challenges as well as an unpopular public image.
Bottom line: next Iced Earth album is delayed by about three years while Jon works on a cover of Tool’s “Prison Sex” in a federal daycare center.
So much of life involves filtering out what people tell you, which is what it is convenient for them to have you think, and getting to the core of an issue: despite being sold as a Necrophobic-style band, Nkeromanthieon instead thinly disguise Testament and Obliveon style speed metal within a death metal aesthetic.
War metal like old intensely rhythmic death metal lives within the chromatic scale and only offsets that with bookends of broad leaps in riff, often whole tone scale with a melodic leap in the middle, to interrupt the codex of texture it unleashes to maintain a mood of energy and penetrating beneath surface appearance.
Coming to us from the wilds of Sicily, Morticula Rex derive their influences from classic heavy metal and death metal, but create a style of doom-death with the same heavy metal influences that drove the Greek and Sardinian scenes to have unique voices, even if hybridized ones.
Back during the primordial 1980s, which really seem like a different world compared to the post-millennial era, stores sold a wider variety of tobaccos including an English import named Three Castles, a light gold Virginia which came in a thin ribbon cut.
Not realizing that death metal focuses on confronting the illusions behind which we hide in a social bubble instead of accepting that life includes death and lies like equality, democracy, and consumerism lead to group suicide, Cambodians expressed outrage that a death metal band borrowed the name of the most notorious Khmer Rouge death camp: (more…)
In theory, on Sunday all the world relaxes. Some go to church to try to revive what they believe in the Old Faith, others putter around the house, knowing that eventually the Old Ways will return and bring their faith with them. Humanity needs to see more good in normal existence for that to happen, however.
Heavy metal proves hit-or-miss for most death metal fans; it too easily slips into what pop and rock are, which is a musical utilitarianism that likes color notes, melodic minor slips, and bouncy rhythms. The rare band captures both a mood and a transition through contrast.
As the death metal genre becomes buried under layers of history, the details of its creation gradually emerge, with the most recent being North From Here: The Sentenced Story by Matti Riekki, now available in English: