Dark Symphonies is reissuing Absu‘s debut Barathrum: V.I.T.R.I.O.L on CD from Proscriptor’s original DAT.
3 CommentsTags: absu, Black Metal, compact disc, Dark Symphonies, death metal, news, reissue, remaster, texas, texas metal
Politics of Heavy Metal
As MetalGate is renewed under a flood of censorship targeting the “Alt Right,” confusion prevails as usual, this time about whether metal has any politics at all, and whether those politics support the Alt Right.
65 CommentsTags: article, heavy metal philosophy, heavy metal politics, kickass, metal philosophy, metal politics, raging realism
Roots of Evil: The Origins of Metal
With the fiftieth anniversary of metal music around the corner, forthcoming years will witness an increase of publications dealing with the history, legacy and defining characteristics of the genre. This could finally resolve the lack of consensus that still exists regarding the definition and origins of heavy metal.
25 CommentsTags: Ambient, article, black sabbath, cream, electronic, Genesis, hard rock, Heavy Metal, heavy metal history, heavy rock, metal history, origins of heavy metal, progressive electronic music, progressive rock, proto-metal, psychedelic rock, punk, tangerine dream, the stooges
Music, Musick and “Ick”
by Andreas Languetus
Music serves many roles in our lives, but the one closest to our sense of well-being is a rediscovery of beauty and purpose in the world. While neither is universal, or experienced by all people, the former is closer to the objective, meaning that it concerns the world itself, and the latter is closer to subjective, in that we each find our own path and so our purpose — while a descendant of broader purpose like adaptation, excellence, or knowledge — reflects our discernment and choice of that path in the moment.
24 CommentsTags: art, article, artistry, crypto-indie, ick, lame metal, music, music quality, musick, o9a, occult, Occultism, order of nine angles, richard moult, Satanism, the mutilator, wallpaper music
Autarcie, Black Death and Other Sicknesses
Autarcie could be easily dismissed for being assembled from the elements we expect from narcissistic yet generic post-black metal or “modern metal.” Instead, it presents to us a transition between black metal and either assimilation or a new form which is organic and local, and yet while the band does more with the elements of modern metal than that genre, its failure to conquer the modern mindset within precludes it from achieving the ancient sensibility and sensation of black metal, leaving it as identifiably “post-metal” in spirit but second-wave black metal in form.
4 CommentsTags: article, autarcie, Black Metal, disco, france, Les Légions Noires, modern metal, peste noire, post-black metal, post-metal
Aversion to Advent Parallax
Article by Lance Viggiano. Read his take on Transilvanian Hunger here.
I was essentially swindled into purchasing the gorgeous gatefold edition of this Averse Sefira LP which showcases some rather magnificent and captivating artwork as well as an above average execution of the band’s themes, concepts, and symbolism in visual form.
31 CommentsTags: 2008, Advent Parallax, article, averse sefira, Black Metal, boring, counter-review, death metal, jeff tandy, lame metal, lyrics, modern metal, re-review, review, techdeaf, tek-deth, texas, vapid, wanking
Interview: Jechael of Amon
Interview conducted by Max Bloodworth.
There has been a lot of interest surrounding the Hoffman brothers after their departure from Deicide. After some time under the radar, they reformed Amon with Jechael on bass and vocals to once again make death metal. Amon’s album, Liar in Wait, sounds like a mixture of old and later era Deicide with a different vocalist. Judging by how Deicide has pretty much rendered themselves irrelevant after the Hoffman’s departure, the potential for good death metal is in the Amon camp more than the Nu-Deicide camp. Below is an interview with Jechael, the bassist and vocalist of Amon.
22 CommentsTags: amon, death metal, Deicide, eric hoffman, extraterrestrials, Glen Benton, interview, jechael
Metal-Archives’ Marxist Mania
Article contributed to Death Metal Underground by Richard Sullivan.
Western civilization is currently gripped in a culture war unlike any that preceded this one. You may ask what makes it so different than the others, considering the West witnessed a similar one of its kind back in the late 1950s with the emergence of the New Left. Arguably, there’s never been a real difference in the left’s rhetoric. For as long as anyone cares to remember, white, heterosexual, “cisgender” men, who maintain the “capitalistic, racialized, cisnormative patriarchy” have always been at the center of their ideological attacks. The only thing that has changed has been their ability to have said rhetoric heard beyond the confines of university lecture halls. It was rare to encounter an enlightened™ human™ bombarding you with vitriol and threats of violence – because you failed to recognize the intersectionality between race™, gender™, and sexuality™ – outside a gender studies class. Of course, these things still occur, but with greater frequency, and to the point where a flash mob of overweight, hipster beta males twerking in tutus in a school’s atrium is viewed as them just “expressing themselves”, but, more boldly, as an act of defiance against conventional norms of masculinity.
50 CommentsTags: alt-lite, alt-right, attention economics, beta males, capitalism, communism, communists, democracy, economics, feminism, gender identity issues, hippies, hipster invasion, hipsters, human rights, identity politics, idiots, internet drama, mental retardation, metal forum, metal-archives, metalgate, political correctness, politics, sjws, social justice warrior, social justice warriors, social realism, special snowflake
Tau Cross Regresses On “Deep State”
Tau Cross previewed the cover art and a track of their upcoming Pillar of Fire album on Relapse Records. “Deep State” sees the supergroup headed by Rob “The Baron” Miller regress towards a hybrid of crust, thrash, and modern rock as seen on the final Amebix album, Sonic Mass. While free of the overt Brit pop and Godsmack of Sonic Mass, “Deep State” is still almost static like a rock song with riffs around a static chord for catchy rhythms and vocal hooks to be arranged around. The instrumental music is a tired retread that I have heard at least a few dozen speed metal band do better before.
5 CommentsTags: Crust Punk, hard rock, mainstream metal, new track, pop, relapse, relapse records, rob miller, tau cross, upcoming release
Revisiting The Days When Black Metal Died
“Nothing gold can stay,” reminds us the poet Robert Frost, and this applies to black metal. Its gold occurred between 1991 and 1994, when its progenitors innovated a new style and took it to great heights, but after Burzum – Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, it became clear that black metal was not content to be a normal, rock-style music genre.
13 CommentsTags: Black Metal, Enslaved, epitaph, gorgoroth, Heavy Metal, immortal, impaled nazarene, nuclear war now! productions, NWN/FMP, selling out
