Grindcore

A further evolution of the sound hardcore punk created and thrash developed, grindcore slams together abrasive riffs in order to achieve a release from intensity at the end of each song. Its name comes from that grinding, caused by fast alternation between chromatic notes and the contrast with rigid whole note patterns that lift the listener up from the directionless thrashing. Where purest, grindcore celebrates individual life and rejects social mores by reminding us that we are mortal, frail and the clock is ticking, so we need to cast aside the pointless and frustrating (grinding) in life and replace it with open spaces of our own imaginations.

House recommendations: Repulsion, Bolt Thrower, Carbonized, Carcass or Godflesh.

 

1 Comment

Tags:

Death Metal

Death metal uses tremolo strummed power chords in phrasal riffs, creating an internal dialogue of melody to project a narrative which takes us from a starting point through internal conflict to an ending radically removed from the start. This often complex music relies heavily on chromatic scales and solos that resemble sonic sculpture more than a reliance on scales or harmony, and use “modal stripes” or repeated interval patterns (such as a half interval followed by a whole) to maintain a mood. Inherently structuralist, death metal can be recognized by its “post-human” perspective, seeing the world through biology, history, warfare and mythology instead of the “I/me/mine” viewpoint of a modern society.

House recommendations: Morbid Angel, Slayer, Monstrosity, Cryptopsy, Suffocation, Therion and Vader.

BEST EVER

1. Massacra – Final Holocaust
2. Deicide – Legion
3. Morbid Angel – Blessed Are the Sick
4. Therion – Beyond Sanctorum
5. Sepultura – Morbid Visions
6. Incantation – Onward to Golgotha
7. Morpheus Descends – Ritual of Infinity
8. Necrophobic – The Nocturnal Silence
9. Obituary – Cause of Death
10. Suffocation – Effigy of the Forgotten
11. Atheist – Unquestionable Presence
12. Dismember – Like an Ever-Flowing Stream
13. Amorphis – The Karelian Isthmus
14. At the Gates – The Red in the Sky is Ours
15. Demilich – Nespithe
16. Asphyx – The Rack

COMPILATIONS

Projections of a Stained Mind (C.B.R. Records)
Harmony Dies Vol. 1 (Slayer Magazine)
Pantalgia (MBR Records)
Live Death: Vol 1 (Restless)
Sampler Volume I (JL America)
Deterioration of the Senses (Morbid Metal)
Book I: Induction (Hits Underground)

Reviews have mp3 sound samples for each album, coverscan, tracklist and label contact information.

2 Comments

Tags:

Black Metal

Black metal took the lawless extremity of death metal and added a greater use of melody, creating swelling surges of sound that sweep the listener away with raw emotion and then arrive in a wasteland devoid of inherent value. Songs fashioned from primitive elements end up telling complex tales, embarking on a journey where the greatest human fears — meaninglessness, predation and violence — end up being salvation from the frustrating world of entropy-bound stagnation. Thematically black metal represents an assault on the pillars of modernity, namely egalitarianism, consumerism and tolerance.

House recommendations: Burzum, Emperor, Ildjarn, Graveland, Summoning and Sacramentum.

BEST EVER

1. Burzum – Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
2. Immortal – Pure Holocaust
3. Emperor – In the Nightside Eclipse
4. Darkthrone – Transylvanian Hunger
5. Graveland – The Celtic Winter
6. Bathory – Blood, Fire, Death
7. Ildjarn – Det Frysende Nordariket
8. Summoning – Dol Guldur
9. Gorgoroth – Antichrist
10. Beherit – Electric Doom Synthesis
11. Enslaved – Vikinglgr Veldi
12. Havohej – Dethrone the Son of God
13. Mayhem – De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
14. Sacramentum – Far Away From the Sun
15. Mutiilation – Remains of a Dead, Ruined, Cursed Soul

COMPILATIONS

Under the Pagan Moon (Cyclonic Productions)
Nordic Metal Compilation (Necropolis)
Firestarter Compilation (Century Media)

Abruptum
Absu
Absurd
Abyss, the
Ancient
Angelcorpse
Antaeus
Arcturus
Auzhia
Avenger
Averse Sefira
Axis of Advance
Bathory
Behemoth
Beherit
Belial
Black Goat
Blasphemy
Blazemth
Blood
Burzum
Celtic Frost
Conqueror
Cultus Sanguine
Dark Funeral
DarkThrone
Dark Tranquility
Dawn
Deinonychius
Demonic
Demoncy
Dimmu Borgir
Dissection
Emperor

Enslaved
Eucharist
Frozen Shadows
Gehenna
Gorgoroth
Gotmoor
Graveland
Grotesque
Havohej
Hades
Hellhammer
Ildjarn
Immortal
Impaled Nazarene
Infernum
Inquisition
I Shalt Become
Katatonia
Krieg
Kvist
Lord Wind
Manes
Marduk
Mayhem
Merciless
Mortiis
Mütiilation
Mysticum
Necromantia
Niden Div 187
NME
Ophthalamia
Pentagram
Pervertum
Profanatica
Resuscitator
Rotting Christ
Sacramentum
Samael
Sammath
Sarcofago
Septic Flesh
Setherial
Sodom
Sorcier des Glaces
Sort Vokter
Summon
Summoning
Swordmaster
Tha-norr
Thorns
Tartaros
Throne of Ahaz
Ulver
Ungod
Urgrund
Usurper
Varathron
Vilkates
Von
Watain
Xibalba
Yamatu
Zyklon-B

Reviews have mp3 sound samples for each album, coverscan, tracklist and label contact information.

1 Comment

Tags:

Heavy Metal

Heavy metal started when Black Sabbath merged heavy guitar rock with the soundtracks from horror films. They did they by exclusively using power chords, which because they do not contain the notes that mark them as major or minor chords, lend themselves to moving in streams, like a melody played in chords. The result is that Black Sabbath structured their songs around the interplay of these melodies, instead of focusing on a transition between points of fixed harmony like rock music, and invented a new style of music that took nearly thirty years to grow into the musical ideal first suggested back in 1970. Lyrically, Black Sabbath rejected the flower love delusion of the hippies and replaced it with hard knowledge: the obliviousness of individuals creates a mythological form of evil that manipulates and destroys us.

House recommendations: Cathedral and Helstar.

1 Comment

Tags:

Interview: Devolved (Are You Morbid? death metal radio show)

From 1995 to about 1999, the old underground tried to live on in a new modern form. Then it collapsed, and what took over was an indie/alt-rock hybrid of metal that lost the raw aggressive spirit of metal and replaced it with self-pity. Starting in 2006 or so, the revival of the underground began. A new radio show is helping blast that door wide open with a solid diet of underground death metal, black metal, grindcore, speed metal, thrash (crossover), and hardcore mixed in with dark ambient and possibly classical music. Meet Devolved, the voice and choice of music behind the show.

What name do you use on the air?

Devolved. Devolution is real!

Why did you pick an old school death metal, black metal, thrash, grindcore, speed metal, heavy metal and dark ambient show?

Metal helped me see the world in a new light, or at least provided a soundtrack. Perhaps it will affect a few of the listeners in the same way. My generation (what they call the ‘Y’ generation) certainly needs a new light and a new path.

Do you think these genres offer something artistically or politically that doesn’t exist anywhere else?

I can’t say that with certainty. But the best metal does contain a spirit which is hard to find elsewhere. A real love of life, and of death. And that youthful desire to analyze all aspects of reality, even if unpleasant.

What’s a typical playlist?

Mostly death metal with forays into other genres. Autopsy, Suffocation, Massacra, Immortal, and Slayer are perennials. I discover more metal music all the time, both modern and old-school, and incorporate what I find stimulating.

How has response been so far?

A few locals have called in and voiced their support. People also listen to the show online; how many is hard to know.
Do you think there’s a difference between old school underground metal and what’s going on now? If so, what is that difference?
Obviously, but I really don’t know much about the modern ‘scene’. It seems that most of the good releases of the past few years have been composed by musicians who have been around since the formative years. It’s possible that people of my generation are simply incapable of creating quality metal, either for innate reasons or because attention is focused elsewhere.

What defines an underground genre, like old school death metal?

Shared ideals through a shared artistic method. The “underground” aspect is probably a conscious choice to avoid decay and assimilation.
Why do you think there was such a peak in output of old school death metal and black metal in the late 80s through early 1990s?
Seems like intelligent, alienated Westerners finally realized that the rot had reached to the very core of our society, and that by that point halting Kali was impossible. Certain individuals had realized this long before, but it takes a critical mass of aware people for an artistic movement to form around such an idea.

Is something similar going to happen again?

That would be cool. What I see with my generation these days is that they’re either totally lost in their own narcissism, or are working their butts off to rise above the masses of this overpopulated planet. That doesn’t leave much time for art.

What advice would you give someone interested in learning about these genres?

Find people you respect and see what they say influenced them (this is why band interviews are great). Death Metal Underground and DLA both introduced me to a lot of good stuff; frankly I often just trawl through Youtube vids until I find something interesting. Learn more about the craft and composition and don’t be afraid to be critical, selective or ‘elitist’.

I was watching the Combat Records Live at Studio 254, NY tape with Venom, Slayer and Exodus. Slayer were getting loaded and talking about how they liked Bach and Tchaikovsky. When I interviewed Quorthon, he was heavily into Bach as well. Do you think there’s a connection between metal and classical?

Absolutely! The simple explanation is that classical (and baroque) music will deeply affect anyone with intelligence and taste and love of art, or even one of those three qualities. Metal bands were not the only musicians affected, but they incorporated these influences into their own compositions in a way that no one else did.

http://radio.deathmetal.org/

No Comments

Heavy metal religion

Interesting source:

Industrialization and modernization have had a drastic effect on the Western world. The combined effects of urbanization, commercial consumerism, modern science, and a host of other factors have “left us cold, alone and naked in an uncaring universe. It has stripped us of our ability to commune with the transpersonal, robbed us of our freedom to choose, and forbidden us to look inside our own minds for any kind of release (Schroll 2005:60).” Compartmentalization of the aspects of one’s life in modern society furthers a sense of incongruity and separateness. Professional life is often separate from family life; social life is often separate from religious or community activities. The multicultural and ever globalizing nature of the modern world creates its own difficulties. And strong sense of culture and community are rarely based on geographic location, but more often around a sense of one’s history and the beliefs, ideas, habits, morals, and aesthetics it affords. Thus, to find a sense of commonality one must often leave the neighborhood in order to gather with like-minded people. – Dave’s Metal Blog

He goes on to explain how heavy metal forms an ad hoc culture/religion/values system in the above vacuum. Good stuff.

No Comments

Tags: , ,

Jeff Wagner – Mean Deviation: Four Decades of Progressive Heavy Metal

Human progress will forever be linked to those most primal memories of our species, wherein there emerged that intrepid curiosity that formed the crux on which history could be built. Moreso than the will to merely survive and subsist, it was the will to forsake the paradise of safety and pursue instead the harsh, untamed dusklands of the unknown, where intense tribulation could reveal the fiercest potentials of the few that could overcome. Within the realm of music — that most iconically Romantic of arts — this sentiment persists as a striving to expand the capacities of willful expression into an all-encompassing whole, swelling into symphonic full bloom during the 19th Century. But now, in the dreary modernity that constitutes post-World War II planet Earth, Metal music has proven to be an improbable successor to this upward-climbing composing ethos, and its 40-year history itself resembles less some linear development than it does the genealogy of a warrior race: evolving as one from troglodytic Rock origins, but then splintering into variegate subdivisions as established kingdoms become ever stiflingly overpopulated. If it is those most radical of subdivisions commanded by wildcat eccentrics, hermitic technicians, and sadistic savants that best define the nebulous label that is “progressive metal”, then ‘Mean Deviation‘ — the new and exotic pet project of Metal Maniacs veteran Jeff Wagner — is the one book ambitious enough to fasten a historical yoke around such a chaotically polymorphous Metal strain.

It’s a ridiculously exacting task to try and chronicle the entirety of a musical subgenre that isn’t really a subgenre, and whose content cannot be readily identified by formal analysis alone. And yet Wagner, being the dauntless historian that he is, enters the Nocturnus Time Machine® with naught but the earnest objective of highlighting whichever works were exceptionally bizarre, brainy, or both. Placing his starting coordinates in the late 1960′s when progressive rock and early ambient music had already begun to explore more neoclassical avenues, Wagner narrates the concomitant emergence of heavy metal, and oversees its unprecedentedly rapid appropriation of prog complexities. The most non-canonical, wildly erratic career choices of Black SabbathKing Crimson, and especially Rush receive extensive coverage, and upon this foundation of classic radio giants, Wagner uncovers many of the grandiose intellectual motivations that would plant the seeds of ambition in the burgeoning ’80s underground — an explosive era that Wagner veritably lived and breathed throughout.

From this point is of course where the bulk of the book begins and where divergent paths are most numerous and dramatic, starting with an initial divide between what is now commonly known as Progressive Metal proper — Fates Warning, Queensrÿche, Crimson Glory, and [must we mention them?] Dream Theater as examples — and the more abrasively progressive styles that were set in motion by speed metal aberrants WatchtowerVoivodCeltic FrostCoroner, and a small conglomerate of other leaders whose names consistently haunt the chapters further on. The subsequent outgrowth of extreme metal within the following decade then takes the spotlight for what seems like a third of the book, and the magnitude of its proliferation logically finds Wagner having to document deviance on a steady, region-by-region basis. But in this manner, he is as remarkably thorough in his examinations of familiar prog-extremists as he is with some of the more impossibly obscure names, reliably identifying which recordings showed noteworthy marks of ingenuity. A study of Finland, for instance, seizes Demilich by the tentacles and takes special interest in Beherit‘s darkwave transmogrification. Norway’s chapter highlights Mayhem‘s early adoration of Swedish prog band Änglagård and of course German synthpop and kosmische musik, and goes on to investigate the growth of Manes, Burzum, Enslaved, and Neptune Towers. Continental Europe reveals a constellation of luminaries ranging from Supuration to Atrocity, whilst the melting pot frontiers of the Americas yield regional anomalies as diverse as Gorguts and Obliveon up in Québec to Atheist and Hellwitch down in Florida. And, wherever possible, Wagner takes great efforts to cite any intellectual influences or achievements on the bands’ parts; tellingly, Classical and ambient music is a frequent subject here, as are academic degrees in a surprising array of fields.

It is surely impossible to write a “progressive metal” book that will be accepted in all circles of the culture, as controversy and even widespread disapprobation seem to be taken for granted in the music itself. But for the particular minority who identify themselves as hessians, it is certain that many will lose interest as the final hundred pages close in, simply because almost all of the so-called cutting edge Metal bands of the late ’90s and onwards fail to contribute anything significant to the genre; but in Wagner’s defense, there are many instances where he does bring attention to the growing problem of entropy. The more philosophical among us may further object to the very grounds for Wagner’s criteria for “progressive-ness” — that is, how much the work in question defies convention and expectations. To build from an early example, Wagner argues that Voivod’s ‘Angel Rat‘ — an album widely lambasted as a sell-out for its regression to verse-chorus, consonant indie stylings — is in fact a progressive step for the band because it was so utterly unlike any of the albums that preceded, or anything else in the scene at the time. But this is nothing if not the most prostrate kind of optimism, which accepts an undesirable antithesis — in this case, total artistic decline into meaninglessness — as a necessary part of a dubious process towards some ideal of absolute artistic freedom or whatever. It’s true that to speak of “progress” we need to postulate an objective or end of some sort to move towards, but externalities like novelty and individuality alone are insufficient; something more intrinsic to Metal’s being must be identified, otherwise you allow for a flood of the same self-obsessed, irrelevant music-as-product to garner the association simply because it’s clever enough to imitate the distorted aesthetic. Therefore it is best to assert as an axiom that for the subject to be Metal, it must have as its essence that visceral if rather elusive-to-define spirit of vir, whose amorally creative will to power is partially outlined in the introduction to this review. From here, determining progression in Metal is only a contextual (and decidedly more limited) matter of whether the subject meaningfully transmits its central motivation using methods previously unexplored, for any number of nuanced reasons ranging from technical breakthroughs to conceptual maturation to ingenious angles of arrangement; of course, the ironic consequence to progressive forms is that they are often seized upon by the majority and ossified into standard forms over time. So, based on these tenets, you would have to re-evaluate progressive-labelled, impostor Metal bands like Opeth as actually not effectively progressive as a band like Morbid Angel, who were significant not only for innovative technique, but for using their talents towards representing death metal philosophy with hitherto unheard-of imagination and perspicuity. Take this same critical hammer to the “progressive eras” of Enslaved, Amorphis, Death, and all related corrupted prodigies who allowed themselves to be domesticated into entertainers, and suddenly ‘Mean Deviation’ is chiseled down from a bloated tome to a slim pamphlet.

Now it’s apparent that ‘Mean Deviation’ surely has its points of contention, but then again the book’s stated aim isn’t to illustrate a concrete and ontologically-sound definition of what progressive metal is, nor is it out to namedrop every single band that may have garnered the label through whatever happenstances of popular delusion. Essentially, the book’s aim really is as simple as what its title conveys: to reevaluate the Metal timeline with a specific interest in whatever was outstandingly highbrow and/or shunned by the hypothetical average headbanger. It is a scholarly, well-referenced, yet personable inquiry of metallurgical innovation, which harbors aspirations towards objectivity and acceptance amongst society’s intellectual elite, but never mistakenly reduces the art to a mere science. Rest assured that trivia in abundance is here to tantalize the reader’s inner nerd; just remember to take it all in with a sizable grain of sodium chloride.

Written by Thanatotron

1 Comment

Tags:

Site map

No Comments

Tags: , , , , , ,

Rites of oblivion bathe in execrable light

Gontyna Kry – Welowie

One of the best works of Polish black metal, Welowie has the craftmanship and melodic sophistication of Sacramentum’s best work but marginalizes the death metal influences, instead filling that loophole with the post-Discharge melodic hardcore that Graveland had a niche for carving out in their earlier work. Distant screams amidst a melancholic plethora of notational sequences reveal a sense of emotionally fraught catharsis not unlike a more musically ‘learned’ take on Mutiilation’s best works. The eight tracks on here run at just over 26 minutes in total but still in such a limited constraint manages to make the most of epic scope and artful expression within a time constraint that would more traditionally fit a death metal band. In some ways calling this work merely a ‘demo’ does it little justice. –Pearson

War Master – Chapel of the Apocalypse

A young Texan war squad shows you don’t need advanced technique or labyrinthine compositions in order to succeed at pulverizing death metal hostility, as the palm muted chainsaw grind slugs onwards with the determination of a German panzer advancing towards certain death upon the Stalingrad plains. As with most young death metal bands, their earnestness sets them apart from most of the older colleagues and the primitive, architectural weight of “Awaken in Darkness” convinces one of morbid intentions unlike a thousand Necrophagists. Dark atmospherics abound in these documents of fear and rage in chthonic shade, bringing reminders of Amorphis’ and Incantation’s early Relapse days , the five musicians being able to build a solid tribute to their influences on this demo and generate a fiendish excitement for a capable followup. The success of the band in creating an esoteric sensation out of their simple source material is worthy of praise. –Devamitra

Witchblood – Witchblood

As if possessed by the ritual thrall of Walpurgis night, this mostly solitary creation of an individual called Iron Meggido is a clash of smoothly feline aggression of Nordic Black Metal with the Romantic architectural use of Heavy Metal riffs that characterized the occult metal of Celtic Frost, Samael and Therion. Alongside the suggestive and provocative riff stand the invoking voice of an Erinys caustically timed with the bludgeoning tempi of guest drummer L’Hiver. Underlying the beauty of this demo is the illuminated fire of an artistic vision in its birth-throes, painfully struggling against the bounds of convention in order to express the ultimately inexpressible: the twilight zone of fever and mythos where the ‘supernatural’ influences the evolution of man and mind. Hopefully their talisman is effective in order for the legion of Witchblood to fly even higher on these wings of rapture.

Devamitra

No Comments

Tags: , , , ,

Classic reviews:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z