Cornell & Diehl – Billy Budd (2015)

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This enterprising blend combines a raft load of Latakia with a base of Burley and bright Virginia, then salts it with Maduro cigar leaf. This presents a challenge because the Burley and cigar leaf both present dark, rich flavors, in contrast to the sweet of the Virginia and the spice of Latakia. Like lower sounds, however, these dark flavors are stronger than sweet or spicy, which means that bowls of this burn in three levels: first, a friendly but slightly overwhelming Latakia spice; then, a smouldering Burley sensation with undertones of cigar leaf; finally, a merging of the flavors into a pleasant hum of lower registers, with the Latakia emerging as a slight alkaline flavor.

While Billy Budd has its charms, the Burley flavors dominate this blend after the Latakia boils off, which gives it a different flavor than its smell and breaks the balance established by harmony of its ingredients. Cornell & Diehl’s Burley is second to none, and many of us enjoy its rich and nutty flavor, sort of like a cedar-roasted chestnut. In theory, the higher flavors of Virginia and Latakia would balance this out and hide the cigar leaf so that it retained a “condiment” status, but in actuality, the cigar leaf becomes too present and the Burley dominates everything else. The rough cut of this blend, which has big chunks of moist Latakia in with shredded Burley and semi-ready-rubbed Virginia, means that flavors do not occur in a smooth transition as they do with the thinner ribbon cuts from, say, Dunhill. Further, little marriage of the flavors has occurred as happens with blends from Peterson for example. Those little “maturation” processes can make a huge difference, and here it is definitive. This blend has a good start but needs improvement.

Quality rating: 3/5
Purchase rating: 1/5

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Supuration posts new track “Ephemeral Paradise” from album Reveries…

French progressive/indie/death metal band Supuration has posted a new video, “Ephemeral Paradise,” from its upcoming album Reveries…. This showcases the firm blend between alternative rock of the indie variety, death metal and grind, and progressive notions of concept albums and harmony that has propelled this band since its inception, and its peak with 1993’s The Cube.

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Nan Elmoth / Maldicion – Live at Festum Tarnis 2015

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This live split contains two lengthy songs from Nan Elmoth and five more conventional ones from Maldicion. These two bands could not form a greater contrast: the prog-oriented, folk metal informed Nan Elmoth with long discursive songs, and Maldicion with fast gripping songs like Mayhem meets Terrorizer.

Nan Elmoth kicks the set off with “Unleash the King of Wolves.” This lengthy song shows what is good about this band and what it needs to work on. Nan Elmoth is confused in both genre, and trying too hard. This song mixed Graveland with folk metal and power metal influences, then tries to cram it into a lengthy death metal tinged song. Perhaps a better approach would be to synthesize those voices into one of the band’s own, and then to not use method as a substitute for content; let the content lead you to an epic song or lengthy instrumental if it can, but forcing it creates a disconnect. These songs hold up well with rhythm and repeated motifs, and stand as some of the more deliberately “pushing the envelope” in extreme metal at this. The next iteration may bring more fluidity and allow them to breathe a bit. Nan Elmoth covers wide ground on riffs and themes and pulls them all together in this song, and a longer second song, “Nan Elmoth,” in which the variation sometimes seems pro forma but some excellent riffs stand out. This fades out into somewhat repetitive violence and then segues into Burzum “The Crying Orc” for a hint at what the past wrought.

Maldicion takes over with its songs which are dark like Mayhem, and feature periodic powerful internal collisions, but mostly seem to be more in the vein of fast death/grind. The result generates a lot of energy, gives it mystique, and then leaves it hanging about half the time. Songwriting is more proficient than most of metal but it could use some editing to determine the parts sufficiently relate to one another. Nonetheless, the raw aggression and vitality of this band outpaces most of what underground metal is doing now. Together, these bands create a set that is varied and strong, and point to future evolution of their sound that could push them farther in the world of underground metal.

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Vociferian – Princess of Violation (2014)

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Vociferian comes to us from the European sprawl through members who are originally French, but now reside in Belgium, and make a type of death metal/rock hybrid that rumbles in the right places but never really gets enough direction beyond drone to make a point. The songs do not ramble, but also never reach that moment of really wrapping around what the riffs have unleashed and transforming it into a new energy. In addition, many of these riffs are clever variations of very well-known types, which makes one wonder what is being said.

Although the band lists “crust” along with its other influences, the main focus here is droning doom metal of the hard rock variety, more like Crowbar and Sleep than Neurosis or Amebix. Unlike funeral doom bands like Skepticism, the songs do not gain momentum from the increasing layers of atmosphere but move in a circular pattern much like Sleep Holy Mountain. The result is a pleasing veneer on background sounds of collapse with more aggression than most of these bands can muster, wandering into sludge territory with rock/punk patterns.

Princess of Violation presents an album that falls far from bad, and has some interesting twists, but for death metal fans will not be internally varied or purposeful enough to seek again. Like most music, it has found a method without a cause, and so while this band scrupulously avoids randomness or wandering, never gets to its end point. Now that Vociferian has mastered its basic style, one can only hope for greater expansion of content and internal dialogue for the next work, as that would give this fertile style the power it needs to cruise forward.

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How SJWs destroy lives

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Many do not understand why MetalGate and GamerGate have so determinedly resisted the SJW incursion. There are several reasons, but the first is that if you do not resist invasion, you become replaced as SJWs have tried to do to metal fans. The second is that most people are inert and will simply allow it to happen. The third is the most troubling: SJWs and people like them destroy the lives of innocent people, just so that SJWs can get popularity points on Tumblr.

For example, consider the case of UK scientist Timothy Hunt:

In 1983, the British biochemist Timothy Hunt discovered cyclins, a family of proteins that help regulate the life of cells. Eighteen years later, in 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Between June 8 and June 10 of this year, the 72-year-old Hunt went from being a universally respected and even beloved figure at the top of the scientific establishment to an instant pariah, condemned everywhere for antiquated opinions about women’s role in science that he does not, in fact, hold.

In only 48 hours, he found himself compelled to resign his positions at University College London and at the august Royal Society (where Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke once fought petty battles) after being told that failure to do so would lead to his outright firing.

But what were these “antiquated opinions”? (“Antiquated” seems to be an easier way of getting rid of things than disproving them, so it seems one of those suspicious terms that indicates lazy reasoning). Ah, here’s an explanation from the petition to have Dr. Hunt reinstated:

His jocular observation, at a conference in Korea, that men and women tend to distract one another when working together in laboratories:

“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls… three things happen when they are in the lab… you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry!”

Source: The Guardian, Article by Robin McKie, 13/06/2015

He then continued: “Now seriously, I’m impressed by the economic development of Korea. And women scientists played, without doubt, an important role in it. Science needs women and you should do science despite all the obstacles, and despite monsters like me.”

Source: The Independent, Article by Heather Saul, 24/06/2015

Aside from the jokey, self-deprecating context, another deliberate irony everyone seemed to miss was that Sir Tim met his own wife whilst working in the lab! Not to mention the broader picture: “No one seems to mention his main speech in Korea in which, according to the ERC President, he was ‘very supportive towards women in science and he said that he hoped there was nothing that barred women from science” (Dame Athene Donald).

His crime: a joke about falling in love with his wife in a science lab.

His punishment: total destruction of his career with no trial and no chance of re-admission. In short, exile.

How was this done? SJWs raised a hue and cry which was then picked up by journalists, a group which overlaps significantly with SJWs because they have the same audience — people who cannot stop themselves from buying products and clicking “like” on Facebook if social guilt is involved.

As the original article observed:

The Timothy Hunt affair represents more than the gratuitous eye-blink ruination of a great man’s reputation and career. It demonstrates the danger of the extraordinary, almost worshipful deference that academia, government institutions, and above all the mainstream media now accord to social media. It is yet more evidence of the way moral panic and (virtual) mob rule can be accelerated and intensified by the minimalism of Twitter, with its 140-character posts and its apparently inherent tendency to encourage snap judgments, prejudice, and cruelty.

Fortunately, the story did not end on June 10. In the weeks following the initial assault, some of Hunt’s most ardent persecutors have been exposed as liars or blinkered ideologues, abetted by cynical hacks and academic rivals on a quest to bring him down or use him as grist to a political mill.

Across our society, people who have slept through the past three decades of thought-crime being used as a reason to destroy someone’s reputation, career, family and friendships are waking up and opposing the cancer of SJW-style persecution. In metal, the same thing is happening: we are realizing that SJWs are not helpful voices but immoral enemies who take joy in destroying the lives of innocent people. And we are pushing back.

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Mainstream media gets skittish about headbanging again

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Those who have followed heavy metal in the news know that we seem like an odd crowd to the mainstream journalists who write about us. This sometimes takes on a weird dimension where they offer us health advice. In an otherwise excellent article about photograph Jacob Ehrbahn documenting heavy metal hair at European metal fests, WIRED magazine waxes neurotic:

The risk of injury is real. Several musicians—Slayer’s Tom Arraya, Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine, and that dude in Slipknot who does the sampling—have been injured by their headbanging, and studies have linked the practice to all manner of head and neck issues. So Ehrbahn was wise to be wary, because a Canon 1D Mark IV isn’t something you want to get whacked in the face with. For that reason, he generally avoided peering through the viewfinder and instead held the camera beneath his subject and moved in sync to avoid collisions.

The whole thing is worth reading, as most likely is Ehrbahn’s book Headbangers, which is light coffee table reading for anyone who wants to admire the lengthy locks of Euro-metal devotees in full headbang.

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SJW journalist backpedals on “signal boosting”

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SJW journalist Kim Kelly, who was just yesterday talking about “signal boosting” outrage over alleged actions by Deiphago guitarist Sidalpa, is now backpedaling and claiming she was only “commenting on a couple friends’ Facebook posts” even though we all know that “signal boosting” is an SJW dog whistle for joining into an attack mob via that armchairest of armchair activist zones, the internet.

Like many SJWs, Kelly hides behind her role as a journalist and its overlap with her personal life as a way to claim that her actions were innocent, when she was participating in group calls for violence, boycott and public defamation of Deiphago and anyone who defended their right to a fair examination of facts. Kelly, fitting right into the SJW mindset, knows that her strength consists of summoning many perennially unhappy internet people to attack and use guilt to cow and browbeat others into submission.

Needless to say, normally SJWs can get away with it, but they have pushed too far. Many on the internet are making a similar observation to the following:

The point is that before we go destroy someone’s life, we should make sure they in fact did what they are accused of and that there are no mitigating circumstances. According to SJWs, demanding actual facts and legal process is fascism, racism, sexism and other Very Bad things.

SJWs swarmed at first to attack Deiphago, and then got the predictable vague apology, but the band later removed it after realizing that the SJW monster had become defanged. First it became common knowledge that Kelly and other SJWs have faked news stories to advance their ideological agenda, and that at least some SJWs were previously trying to be toughguy internet Nazis before realizing there was an audience out there who is afraid to not eagerly support any article, band, or person who wields guilt as a weapon.

The pushback has been gratifying. Metalheads are tired of the invasion of SJWs, who bring both their doctrinaire politics and their bad indie-rock derived metal-flavored (but not metal) bands, and are starting resistance by doing what should have always been done: making fun of SJWs for the self-perpetuating victims them are, and openly mocking their presumed legitimacy and their dishonest and manipulative attack. One user posted the following which seems to summarize the situation:

anti-kim_kelly

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Trench Warfare – Perversion Warfare (2015)

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War metal was born when worship of Blasphemy, Zyklon-B, Sarcofago, Impaled Nazarene and Beherit merged with the newly-simplified post-Nordic black metal, but many of us noted that Blasphemy and Sarcofago in particular had more in common with their punk and grind ancestors than black metal as it evolved. Trench Warfare cuts to the roots of war metal by making grindcore with metal rhythms and intensity, and by breaking out of the stop-start patterns of most war metal produce an unrelenting assault that bears down with the intensity of full-bore death metal.

Perversion Warfare consists of three tracks which build high-energy primitive riffing in the Blasphemy style and expand to more traditional grindcore and death metal forms, commenting on the riff that forms the bulk of each song with a series of complementary and oppositional motifs that keep the momentum rolling through rhythm and pattern. Layered on this are urgent martial drums that comment extensively on the change in material, sort of like Destroyer 666 given a technical tune-up, and chanting defiant vocals which resemble a cross between Blasphemy, Blood and early Mika Luttinen. Songs do not relax the strident attack but do come to clear peaks and have a form shaped around that, which avoids the formless grindcore glaze-over that occurs with many bands attempting this style.

Three tracks do not give enough of an impression to tell where this band will go in the future, but it provides an insight into how they intend to make war metal both interesting and militant. Riffs here evoke Napalm Death and Immolation as often as Vulcano or Conqueror, and the way riffs comment on one another to build songs is more death metal than war metal, despite the general approach to riff-writing being more welcome to acknowledging its roots in grindcore and expanding upon them. The result is surging combat energy which creates a narrowed and critical view of the human experience, reducing our social pretense to the practicality of open battle, but infuses into that a delight in survival which — as with all good metal — gives life new meaning through darkness merging into light.

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Panic in SJW-land over being made accountable for their behavior

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Kim Kelly, the SJW journalist caught faking stories for metal magazines, expressed outrage that DeathMetal.org would do basic research about her and publish an article forcing her to be accountable for her past statements and activity. You can see the full Twitter drama here including white knighting by internet tough guys. Notice how research becomes “stalking” when someone else does it, but it’s “research” when Kelly does it.

Kelly, who has no criticism for her fellow Vice NSBM-wannabe-turned-SJW-journalist Neil Jameson, has made a career of using lack of compliance with SJW issues to tear down careers of musicians. That is, of course, after she broke herself into the business as PR flack for notorious provacateurs Anal Cunt. MetalGate — inspired by GamerGate — was the first coherent resistance to the SJW invasion of heavy metal.

It is typical for SJWs to be hypocritical. For them, ideology is social and also how they hope to attract an audience which will feel guilty for not listening to them, therefore will feel a compulsion to buy SJW propaganda, like Chinese under Communism buying the Red Book or even a Czech grocer putting a sign in his window. This is about audience, and replacing the metal audience with a new group, which is why SJWs get upset when called out on that. They are not here to bring accountability. They are here, like any other lobbyist or corporate group, to sell products. And they really, really do not want you to look behind that curtain.

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Thevetat releases Desecration of Divine Presence

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Thevetat (ex-Ceremonium) has unleashed its most recent record Desecration of Divine Presence on vinyl for metalheads who like the kind of immersive, cavernous death metal and black metal that Incantation, Profanatica and Immolation made famous. The band issued the following press release:

Another day to spread death! Clearly, it is evident this effort attracts a vile kind. Good deeds unpunished… Fellow wolves, send a message to this page for your orders.
Two color variations are available.
Experience the madness.
There is much minded from beasts. Ave Satani.

Some people need a reminder. “Desecration of Divine Presence” is available now and orders are being taken on this page. This is merciless death devoted to the end of the world. Make your desires known to the devil. Speak for the dead!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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