Solitvdo – Hierarkhes (2016)


Article by Lance Viggiano.

Solitvdo are yet another epic sounding sing-along, rootin’ tootin’, arm swingin’, marble-pilled good time with yer ole partner melancholy. Think Vikinglider Veldi with riffs about a quarter of the length, half the inspiration and none of the thoughtful placement. Riffing on Hierarkhes is mostly inspired by nu-Rotting Christ but with triumphant melodies echoing swords and sandals epics, song structures are mostly sing-along vocal driven black ‘n’ roll about the Romans, culminating in solos by someone just learning to play whose guitar god is not Jupiter Optimus Maximus but Slash from Guns ‘n’ Roses.

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Gorefest – Mindloss (1991)

Before lapsing into embryonic death ’n’ roll on their second LP False (1992), Gorefest were among the earliest Dutch proponents of solid bread-and-butter death metal with a sense of melodic contour joining the many rhythm riffs into coherent songs which reach a point of focus in their cycles, forcing re-interpretation of its parts. The early style more or less complete on their demo recordings was brought to a fuller and more refined form on the 1991 debut album Mindloss.

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Upcoming Abhorrence Live Album

Finnish death metal band Abhorrence are releasing a live album of their comeback performance at the 2013 Tuska Open Air Festival. Totally Vulgar – Live at Tuska Open Air 2013 is coming out February 10th on Svart Records. Svart released an earlier anthology of the band, Completely Vulgar, that was some of The Best Underground Metal of 2012.

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Streaming Now The Primary Method of American Music Consumption

Streaming is now the primary way Americans listen to music according to a year end report by Nielsen, replacing downloads of individual singles.

It’s official: according to a new year-end report released by Nielsen, over the course of 2016, streaming became the primary mode of music consumption in the U.S. Overall on-demand audio streams surpassed 251 billion in 2016 — a 76 percent increase that accounts for 38 percent of the entire music consumption market. Plus, “the on-demand audio streaming share [of total music consumption] has now surpassed total digital sales (digital albums + digital track equivalents) for the first time in history.”

Streaming is the public consciousness recognizing that most of what the mainstream music industry has to offer is disposable. The labels can’t even find or develop potentially good new talent anymore as due to gutting their artists and repertoire departments and what revenue they make flowing upwards towards executives and shareholders. Average consumers never possessed high-fidelity playback chains of dedicated gear to take full advantage of the compact disc and vinyl records anyway; they only had mediocre integrated receivers hooked up to poorly performing speakers and headphones. Furthermore everyone truly into underground or once underground music genres now digs deeper, purchasing releases with zero quality control which commonly have print runs of only a few hundred to a few thousand copies. Classical continues to do okay too as classical listeners still buy the physical album and tend to have marginally better equipment.

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Veneror – Percussimus Foedus cum Morte (2013)


Article by Lance Viggiano.

Veneror create long, flowing, compositions in the style of Sacramentum which carry a melancholic but sinister emotive pallet through melodious arpeggiated twin guitar harmonies. Structurally these songs cycle in between two or three motifs yet eschews a sense of heightened dynamics while coarse vocals ride atop giving a sense of continuity rather than circularity. This is further reinforced by the chromatic development which carries itself into reprieves which close each section with sparsity before jaunting into the next. The resultant unbroken sequence of phrases is not unlike what Revenant would use to great effect on their infamous and only full length album.

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Google Censors Almost A Billion Search Results

google-censorship-dmca

Google has censored over 900 million search results due to receiving DMCA takedown notices from rights holders’ legal representatives. The media conglomerates are fighting a losing battle against the widespread sharing of mostly mediocre content that nobody is willing to pay for more immediate or legal access to for good reasons. The quality of movies, music, and games has tanked over the past decades to placate the ape brains of a lowest common denominator third world audience.

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#MetalGate: The MetalSucks Manifesto

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Nu-metal and metalcore website MetalSucks posted the “The MetalSucks Manifesto” today, reaffirming their stance as communist social justice warriors. Donald Trump’s triumph in the 2016 United States presidential election apparently did not dishearten their leftist delusions. A neighbor to the MetalSucks headquarters in Axl Rosenberg’s Brooklyn tenement apartment has revealed exclusive insider information to Death Metal Underground about the activities of the MetalSucks politburo of Axl Rosenberg, Vince Neilstein, and Emperor Rhombus during the week following Trump’s victory.

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