Dream Theater to play in Belo Horizonte

dreamtheater-retard

Article by Jon Faugustus.

Dream Theater will be presenting themselves in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, at the Teatro Minascentro. This event adds to one more high-grade theater venue being defiled by the conformist pop this bands sells out to insecure young adults, and ex-Motley Crue fans going through middle life crisis.

Brazil, like Japan, is one of the go-to countries for any mainstream band seeking international recognition. The metal fandom there is as unoriginal and undescerning in their tastes as in the metal the artists produce. This is why it is not surprising to find 1/10000 bands worth listening to occasionally arising from such geographic locations.

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New Periphery album on July 22

periphery-misha-producing

Article by Jon Faugustus.

Djent band Periphery to release new album, Periphery III: Select Difficulty, on July 22nd, 2016. This upcoming album further consolidates Periphery’s reputation as the leading non-metal hipster band.

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Standing out as an out-of-the-closet Pantera tribute band, Periphery has made a name for itself in the Pro-Tools community and the Mac users forum. The band has come to be known for their anti-establishment, anti-genre-classification, anti-gender-classification, anti-making-sense postures that sets them appart from anything in the rational universe, fitting perfectly in the make-believe world of millenials and the pampered liberal youth.

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The Difficulties of Folk Metal

Anders_Zorn_-_Hins_Anders_(1904)

Article by Johan P.

I’ve never been overly impressed by the folk metal phenomenon, which emerged in the middle of the 1990s and began to gain popularity some years later. I do not mean to imply that there isn’t any good folk music out there. On the contrary, there’s a lot of rewarding traditional music to discover. Many musicians – metallers included – have realized that their respective countries’ folk music reservoir is a gold mine for potential ideas to integrate into more modern forms of music. It was on these premises that folk metal was born. However, if the source material is to be successfully re-animated and be brought into metal or any other genre, it requires some serious work from the composer and performer. Most folk metal bands fail at this point for a variety of reasons, with the end-result often sounding like bad heavy metal adorned with folk-melodies that have been stripped of all subtlety to fit into a rock-based harmonic and structural environment.

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Sadistic Metal Reviews (07/04/16)

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Why write bad reviews at all? Good music is rare, and bad is everywhere, but if you do not explicitly identify the failings of bad, most people will find it appealing because it does not interrupt their steady stream of self-centered thoughts and is easier than seeking good. If you like good music and want more of it, you must bash as well as praise, as Machiavelli would tell you. And with that, the latest installment of the Sadistic Metal Reviews

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Ghoulgotha – To Starve the Cross (2016)

ghoulgotha - to starve the cross

Article by Corey M.

To Starve the Cross sounds like the result of having chopped up a dozen good death metal songs and pasted the bits back together in such a way to eliminate any sense of continuity. Ghoulgotha is obviously made up of experienced and skilled players including the drummer of Ascended Dead and the guitarist from Father Befouled and Decrepitaph (among several other projects).

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Morbid Angel – Altars of Madness Full Dynamic Range Edition

Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness cover

Morbid Angel recorded what was supposed to be their debut album in 1986. Compositionally excellent and novel, Abominations of Desolation was a Manhattan project of death metal as a truly musically distinct sub-genre. However, band leader Trey Azagthoth and then producer Dave Vincent were unhappy with the recording. Azagthoth quickly fired drummer/vocalist Browning and bassist John Ortega, and shelved the album, which Ortega later released as a bootleg. Vincent and Azagthoth had a point though: Browning’s drumming was shaky and he sounded like a wimp. His drumming lacked power, never making use of blast beats while his vocals could have come out of a whiny fourteen-year-old.

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Absurd’s Der fünfzehnjährige Krieg Reissued

absurd rerecordings reissue

Absurd‘s Der fünfzehnjährige Krieg CD of old tracks rerecorded by the current line up is being reissued by Hammer of Damnation for everyone who wishes Absurd’s older material had a sterile metalcore production. Hopefully the reissue is better than the horrible Asgardsrei one.

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The Mythic and the Mystic

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Article by Lance Viggiano.

Burzum and Beherit each represent two summits of black metal’s many perspectives – in particular its looking back to look ahead ethos. The work of Laiho is exploratory and spiritual while the work of Varg is seeking and religious. Each composer followed a similar trajectory of mapping this landscape through metal first, then ambient. Each phase reveals strengths and weakness in each of their aims which results in a somewhat complementary synthesis between two highly individual bodies of work.

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Manilla Road – Dreams of Eschaton Released

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Manilla Road‘s unreleased “Mark of the Beast” album, recorded between Invasion and Metal, has been pressed to CD and LP by High Roller Records as Dreams of Eschaton. This is the highest fidelity version yet, pressed from a collector’s tape that originated from Mark Shelton himself as detailed on the Nuclear War Now! forum:

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