Peterson of Dublin – Irish Oak (2015)

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The first flavor that rises off the burning mulch of Irish Oak is a vinegar taste merged with the sense of fresh-cut vegetation, but that rapidly gives way to a deeper almost chocolate taste of strong tobacco. Like a good English blend, the flavors in this mixture support each other without overdominating, and while they separate over time unlike some of the more refined English conglomerations, they work together to form a gestalt which brings out inner conflict as a type of balance. This blend from Peterson will not be an immediate favorite, but can win over a smoker over time as its strengths become apparent.

The official description reads, “A rich blend of Brazilian and African Virginia leaf with Cavendish and rare Louisian Perique,” but the end flavor is more like a rich Cavendish with hints of Perique and the Virginia having picked up a more vegetative flavor, perhaps from the sherry barrels in which this blend is supposedly matured. While this tin is generally classified as a “luxury” tobacco, in our broken times “luxury” means merely not botched. It is not a flatterer or fancy hugbox to avoid confronting tobacco in its feral state. Irish Oak balances its elements while keeping them wild, and offers a challenging palette of flavors for the experienced smoker. In a market flooded with various English and English-inspired tobaccos, this offering from Peterson of Dublin keeps its head up and stays idiosyncratic, delivering a complex smoke as a result.

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Prince Albert – Prince Albert

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The pouch note of this tobacco summarizes the experience; in the words of one noted taster, “It smells like a brownie.” Rich burley mixes with a faint touch of vanilla and a dose of cocoa, which manifests in a smoke in which the nutty burley flavors form a continuum with the chocolate.

Prince Albert belongs to that predominantly American genre of semi-aromatics, meaning that while it has flavoring, it is more like a top casing than the soaking of fluid given to aromatics. A working definition of aromatic: any tobacco blend where the flavoring essentially overwhelms the tobacco. Semi-aromatics on the other hand — like Prince Albert — feature mostly tobacco flavor, complemented by a top note. This distinction, while seeming fragile, nonetheless conveys what this blend is about. If you like the taste of well-matured burley with a hint of sweetened cacao, Prince Albert will provide hours of complication-free — the dominant trait of over-the-counter (OTC) blends like this one — joyful puffing. It is worth taking the time, since this perennial favor packs relatively light nicotine, albeit more than many aromatics.

This blend is designed for all-day puffing by people otherwise busy at everyday tasks who enjoy keeping a pipe in the mouth for little sips of nicotine with a wholesome flavor. Some have noted that this rather dry tobacco mixes well with other blends, and this reviewer can confirm that the introduction of another more powerful seasoned burley makes for a flavorful and more sustaining experience. At its heart, however, Prince Albert stands alone as a whole experience: a packet you can grab at just about any drugstore, easily packed and lit, that burns evenly and exudes hours of gentle flavor and quietly excellent smoke.

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#metalgate: why SJWs became hipsters

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The hipster has one salient trait: ironism. Whatever everyone else is doing, he is not. He uses this trait in a passive-aggressive way to force acceptance through provocation. Where normal people gather, the hipster will show up looking as weird as possible, hoping that someone will say something because he knows that social pressure is on his side. If he is criticized, he can use the dominant paradigm of our age (individualism) as a weapon and claim the other party is bullying him, when in fact it is the hipster who is starting the argument by deliberately being unusual, different and “unique.”

This approach combines some of the ugliest aspects of human behavior. First is bullying, because the hipster is waiting for criticism so he can say, “Look boys, it’s just like in Napoleon Dynamite, the popular kids ganging up on all of us accepting and tolerant freaks! I’m just different, why am I the victim here?” and have an instant army of angry complainers to attack the critic. He has government on his side, which supports being freaky any way you want to so long as you pay taxes and don’t murder, and popular opinion. Second is egomania. The hipster is not concerned with truth, the future, the past or fact; he is concerned with social appearance, which serves as both his justification for existence and his weapon against others.

SJWs arose when people realized they could politicize this hipster approach. In addition to looking freaky, they took extremist positions within the dominant leftist+consumerism individualist ideology of the West. This attitude combines the liberal social attitudes of the left with the market-oriented attitudes of the right, and creates a nasty hybrid which supports freedom above all else, so long as profits (and taxes) are made. SJWs are not “different”; they are a different variety of the same. This allows them to style themselves as unique and deep thinkers without offending any of the current attitudes of society, but because they manifest these ideas in physically odd appearances and extreme versions of those accepted views, they provoke criticism and can then attack, increasing their own power in the process.

When SJWs decided to adopt metal, their first goal was to style the rest of us as aggressors. That way, the hipsters could passive-aggressively claim to be victimized and begin the group counter-attack. Their problem has been that metalheads use apathy as a weapon. We view this society as moribund and on its path to self-destruction, and so tend to consider SJWs irrelevant drama. On their second assault, SJWs refined their attack to “if you do not participate in our crusade, you are bad and must be destroyed.” This is why we now have articles on a regular basis talking about how metal is not accepting enough and must be reformed.

All of this comes as metal struggles with its own refinement, namely the smooth fusion of hardcore punk, progressive rock and heavy metal that was underground metal (death metal, black metal, grindcore and doom metal). The SJW hipsters do not like this fusion because it is too far from the warmed-over 1960s protest rock that they favor — let us face facts and admit that emo, and anything tinged with it, is basically Bob Dylan worship. Metal rode on a wave of energy caused by the need to make such a fusion, but once it was achieved, had no idea where to take it further. There were no further (coherent) extremes, nor new musical developments to occur. As a mature style, it is still waiting for fresh energy to revitalize its lexicon of techniques and conventions and put them into a new language, and while some bands have forged a path in this direction, most continue to either re-hash the past or re-hash other genres with metal flavoring. For this reason, SJWs infest it, because they sense a dying trend they can turn into something they control.

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#metalgate: SJWs make clear the agenda is making you OBEY

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To succeed in modern society, it is best to style oneself as a victim. We live in a time of victimhood politics where the person who successfully portrays themselves as being harmed finds that society steps aside to let them ahead, handing out freebies in the process.

Rape victims — whether a rape occurred or not — become overnight celebrities. Politicians gain stature for having been opposed, not for having been right. Every celebrity and actor has a story of how life harmed them early on. In a society of equals, the only way to be more equal is to be perceived as having been made less equal, thus a recompense — and rise in moral stature to “hero” — is deserved.

For most of their careers, SJWs have stayed behind the cloak of victimhood. In their view, someone out there is harming them, despite living in the nation with the best quality of life on earth, having government incentives for their hiring and renting, and being generally privileged college students working in easy media careers. They portray their crusade as correcting injustices.

But, as any cynic or observer of human behavior knows, those who perceive themselves as victims are usually simply manipulating others. Grackles — small brownish-black birds known for raiding dumpsters — will fake an injured wing to cajole extra treats from people eating at open-air cafes. This behavior is older than humanity itself. The difference with humans is that once given power, SJWs become insatiable attackers demanding that everyone else be cleared from their way. Their agenda is revenge against anyone having a better life than they are, which — since SJWs are the cause of their own underlying misery — is anyone who is not miserable.

We can see this pathology in a recent article by Laina Dawes (who unfriended me on Facebook for having a different opinion than she did) about “Heavy Metal Feminism”. Here’s the pitch:

Despite the global appeal and presence of heavy metal culture, widespread online distribution, and increasing awareness among a diverse audience, there remains great resistance to discuss ongoing sexism, racism, and other issues that can potentially dissuade fans from actively participating in the subculture. “I don’t know why it is so hard for people to understand that not everyone is just like them,” Phillips told me. And Phillips isn’t alone; other artists and journalists are questioning the pervasiveness of discriminatory practices and beliefs within a musical culture that, ironically, not only boasts of its “inclusive community” (in which membership is predicated on fandom and not gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation), but also, because of its underground status, places an emphasis on fan participation and economic support in order to create and distribute music that will never, and doesn’t want to, receive true mainstream commercial attention.

At this point, the true message emerges: agree with us or you are bad and must be destroyed.

Never mind that what is popular is almost always wrong and corrected by the next generation, or that heavy metal might have its own way of dealing with this issues.

Despite all the citation of academic articles here, Dawes’ approach is fundamentally unscientific: cite lack of tons of female heavy metal bands as “proof,” then claim that only that will rectify the “problem,” and demand that everyone else drop everything they are doing in order to get ahead.

And throughout it all, no one answers the real question: what have these female-fronted bands done to make themselves important to metal?

After all, Lita Ford, Jo Bench, Lori Bravo, Mythic/Derketa and others have had no trouble being metalheads who also happen to be women.

But that shows us the real agenda that Dawes is pushing: she does not want women in metal, she wants propagandists. She wants women who agree with her to be shoved to the front of the line so they can drown out that bad old white male music.

Never mind that metal has never been exclusively white nor male. Never mind the legions of women who have been in bands, worked as journalists (including the underground zines that mainstream media refuses to mention), run labels or otherwise contributed vital things to metal.

They claim they are anti-fascist, these SJWs, but while they are not fascist they are authoritarians. Their goal is to replace metal with propaganda rock with the “right” opinions to cure a “problem” that is not a problem. And if you need any more reason than that to kick them to the curb, you have not been paying attention.

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#metalgate was right: SJW journalist Kim Kelly caught faking stories

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We know they coordinate stories to present the same trends/fads, and that they are fast and loose with details, but now #metalgate-involved journalist Kim Kelly has been caught faking a story. Or rather, from a couple years ago, as Metal Illuminati observed:

Do they really expect us to believe that two Seeds of Iblis members immigrated to post-war Iraq to start the band? Especially since Anahita has stated on record that they’re actively trying to score a record deal. (I doubt many A&R’s hang out in Baghdad — where Anahita claims Iblis have played concerts)

Ms. Kelly, how did you not notice that???

At the end of the day, there’s little reason to doubt that Anahita, Janaza, or Seeds of Iblis are anti-Islamic metal musicians. However, their Acrassicauda 2.0 backstory of currently living in Iraq and covertly dodging “religious authorities” as Kim Kelly’s (supposed) reporting describes just doesn’t add up. And since that was their main claim to blogosphere fame, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to promptly give them the Milli Vanilli treatment.

When we see the media darlings being introduced as “important” with nothing of note in their histories, and all of the chattering classes of supposed “metal journalism” gathering in a cult-like clique to support them, our warning signal should go off: this isn’t journalism, it’s advertising, both for the fake journalist SJW herd and their pet ideologies. While the stories being fake is not surprising, it’s good to see such solid evidence gathered against them.

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Rigor Mortis vocalist Bruce Corbitt facing health challenges

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Sometimes the people with the biggest hearts find those organs in trouble. Rigor Mortis/Wizards of Gore vocalist Bruce Corbitt has undergone a series of medical procedures to correct a misfiring heart, and has embarked on a grueling schedule of benefits to fund these costly undertakings.

As the Dallas Observer reports:

But last week, two heart complications in less than five days changed Corbitt’s reasoning. At the ER, Corbitt found that his heart was misfiring, which caused his blood pressure to skyrocket. The doctors told him that he would need heart surgery. After months of living healthy, even changing his diet, he finally agreed. He couldn’t take the chance of dying on stage like his late guitarist and friend Mike Scaccia, who died playing at Corbitt’s 50th birthday bash at the Rail Club in Fort Worth.

“It became very evident that I can’t live a normal life anymore without doing the surgery, without fixing the problems,” Coribtt says. “It’s not fair to me, my wife, my family and my band to have to worry. It’s no way to live: ‘Oh we can’t go out of town without worrying about his heart messing up.’ Nah, it’s worth the risk of surgery to live a normal life again. I feel like a walking time bomb.”

Fans can support Bruce through a crowdfund, shopping at the Rigor Mortis store, or attending a benefit show on October 17 in Forth Worth, TX.

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Altar / Cartilage split re-issued as 2CD on XTREEM Music

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During the heyday of death metal, Swedish band Altar and Finnish band Cartilage banded together to release a split album entitled Ex Oblivione / The Fragile Concept Of Affection . Long sought-after by collectors, it is being re-issued by Xtreem Music as a 2-CD set with other early recordings. The label made the following statement:

It was in 1992 when two promising bands from the swedish & finnish Death Metal scenes, released a split album, that now, 23 years later, it’s one of the most cult splits ever released in the early 90’s. Unfortunately, CARTILAGE never recorded anything after that and although ALTAR did a few demos later on, they disbanded shortly after.

But the legacy still lives here and this split album originally released through former Xtreem Music label Drowned Productions, gets a re-issue in form of a double CD with 7 bonus tracks by each band taken from their early demos, a total of 14 songs (60 min.) from each one.

All songs have been remastered (not remixed!) for an optimal sound, preserving the essence from the originals and this release comes with a new cover artwork, a remake of the original one made by cult finnish artist Turkka Rantanen. Of course, original cover art is included on the release and booklet comes with extra photos, flyers & demo covers to complete this cult re-issue. However, we know that purists won’t be satisfied with this release, so they can always go and pay a fortune on eBay to get the original (if they can). No hard feelings! For the rest, here you have a new chance to get this gem in an improved and extended way at a reasonable price. A vinyl version with the original split album tracks, will follow in the future.

Release date for the ALTAR/CARTILAGE “Split Album” 2-CD is set for August 20th and in the meantime, you can listen to one track by each band on the following links:

ALTAR

CARTILAGE

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Hammerheart Records re-issues At the Gates Gardens of Grief

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Hammerheart Records has re-issued the classic of Swedish death metal Gardens of Grief by pioneering progressive death metal band At the Gates. The label issued the following statement:

At the Gates are one of those Swedish bands that doesn’t really need an introduction for anybody really eager enough to dig as deep as their first EP, Gardens of Grief, which was released in 1991 on Dolores Records.

Being one of the more distinct sounding bands from the whole original Swedish death metal scene, they have managed to spit out a couple of really great albums in the 90s, the pinnacle of their career being 1995’s “Slaughter of the Soul”.

What we have here lads is a chaotic mix between great song composition, one of metal’s best vocalists (in my humble opinion) screaming his shit out and pure maniacal death metal the way its supposed to be played. Right from the start of the first track you will get nothing less than a punch in your face, to the groin and to the balls. Tempo changes along with the massive output of riffs used work perfectly to create a unique atmosphere that sends you right to hell. This is one of those birth moments of a band that further defined the typical “Swedish sound” that most of us know as being a kind of mix between crunch and white noise. Every song has a very mature approach towards composition, not sounding very melodic, but dark, vicious and awestruck. This is fierce, ruthless death metal played by people who had a spark in them and wanted to play crazy music.

This EP is a very good example of how a rough start can prophesy a band’s great career with no absolute low point whatsoever and be a marker for good things to come.

For fans of: Grotesque, Dissection, Watain

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