Graveland to play live dates

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Flowing black metal band Graveland will play its first live dates ever in August of this year. Composer, guitarist and vocalist Robert Fudali announced his intent to play live on Facebook with the tantalizing detail that most of the set will be older songs with several new ones thrown in the mix, “more or less.”

To longtime underground metal aficionados, this represents a sort of holy grail as like many early black metal acts, Graveland never played live. Formed of a hybrid between grinding Oi and melodic black metal, Graveland distinguished itself early on for its landscape-like melodies and ambient atmosphere, but has since developed its sound to be more like movie soundtracks with layers of instrumentation and composition inspired by ancient traditions in European music, as well as epic soundtracks such as those from the Conan movies by Vangelis. To hear the full evolution in a single show would be of great interest to most black metal fans.

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Why heavy metal fans are well-adjusted

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Where previous studies have shown that heavy metal fans are smarter than some thought, newer research suggests they are more well-adjusted too. According to the original study, heavy metal fans have happier times of youth and end up as “better adjusted” adults as well.

The authors of the study give several reasons for this, notably that heavy metal fans have a stronger support group than most other types of teenager and that having an identity protected them against getting lost in the ego-death of adolescent anonymity, but the study might look at another factor: heavy metal is dedicated to reality and against authority for its own sake. This keeps teenagers away from the manipulations of others and simultaneously point them toward the only thing that ultimately makes any person well-adjusted, which is a strong outer realism and thriving “inner self” or core of personality adapted to that realism.

The study did hit a dark note regarding survivorship bias however:

The research comes with a caveat: The study featured “relatively high functioning individuals who volunteered to participate and report on their lives.” If some people really were so drawn into a dark lifestyle that they became drug addicts or suicide victims, they’d obviously not be around decades later to take an hour-long survey.

In other words, because metalheads pursue life to its extremes, the only metalheads left today to report these positive results are the ones who did not self-destruct during their youth. One might be able to get the same results from a group of octogenarian heroin addicts. However, study results also showed that fans from other genres faced similar struggles but did not have as positive of results.

With the above in mind, as well as the inherent musicality and artistry of the music, it is no wonder that heavy metal attracts the most loyal audience. This recent research helps obliterate past shoddy research seemingly designed to malign heavy metal and defame its fans.

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Bride of Jaws torments sharks with metalcore

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Sharks love death metal. Or so we are told by the title of the video below, part of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, but those who have watched the video have reported that instead, the poor sharks were subjected to metalcore.

This artistic and ethical travesty must be rectified immediately. Metalcore uses rock-styled repetitive song structures layered in random influences from metal and other genres, and can potentially cause these sharks to experience existential fatalism. Death metal, on the other hand, knits together disparate riffs into a nihilistic narrative of denial of human illusion. Sharks do indeed like death metal — many of them participate in the comments on our posts — but are, like all good things in nature, opposed to metalcore, nu-metal and other “modern metal” excremental distractions.

Luckily, Discovery Channel is interested in the ethical side of this equation:

To contact the Ethics Hotline in the U.S. and Canada, please dial (800) 398-6395.

Outside of the U.S. and Canada, please dial +1-800-398-6395 and use the appropriate toll-free access code listed below.

In addition, you can contact Discovery Channel online through their Viewer Relations page.

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The “metal bubble” bursts

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Humanity follows this pattern: someone breaks away from doing the same stuff everyone else is doing, does something different and it resonates with smart people, so everyone else starts doing it but they use it as a new flavor for doing the same stuff everyone else is doing. They think this will let them be both new and familiar at the same time, and it attracts an audience who thinks like them, and then the different thing is destroyed.
(more…)

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Khand to release two new upcoming works

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Necrotic dungeon synth/cosmic ambient band Khand plans to release two upcoming albums. The band issued the following statement:

This hasn’t been announced yet, but there will be two albums released right around the same time: the aforementioned space/Mars concept album, and also one with Medieval/Fantasy elements. I have been working on both at the same time; recording the Mars album slowed down as I had to purchase some new equipment and and a new rig. But alas, I hope to have both of them out soon. As always, thanks for the support. There are still cassettes available as well, please contact me here if you would like some.
Album arts and/or newer track to be released soon.

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Desecresy selling past albums

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Spacious death metal band Desecresy are selling copies of their past albums for anyone who has discovered them late and wants to capture all three, which are reviewed here. The band writes:

Still available from us:

Arches of Entropy CD 10 €
The Doom Skeptron CD 10 €
The Doom Skeptron LP 15 €
Chasmic Transcendence CD 10 €

and the last Arches of Entropy t-shirt 15 €

Shipping will be added to the price

Contact via Facebook or desecresy@hotmail.com

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Requiescat in Pace: Jaime Gonzalez, Hogwild Records, San Antonio, Texas

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It is our sad duty to report that Jaime Gonzalez, manager at San Antonio, Texas, metal record cavern Hogwild Records has passed away on July 4, 2015 after a long battle with cancer. For those who remember Jaime, he was an affable man who adored heavy metal and did not hesitate to extend a kind word to fellow metalheads. He will be missed.

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