Metalhead pipesmokers unite!

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The old saying goes that those who love to use tobacco smoke cigarettes, and those who love tobacco smoke cigars and pipes. The cigarettes give you a quicker hit because the lungs, with their much vaster absorption area, deliver nicotine to the brain within about three seconds. The cigarette ends within three to seven minutes and the craving subsides momentarily. With pipes and cigars, the nicotine slowly oozes in through the mucus membranes in the mouth, tongue and (sometimes) throat, creating a stronger dose of nicotine but without the sudden “falling off a cliff” sensation. Many metalheads smoke cigarettes, but more are branching out to pipes and cigars for the flavors, more intense dosage and less damage to the body.

Please do not read this as an anti-cigarette rant. They are wonderful, in their own right, and much less work than cigars or pipes. However, burning any leaves and inhaling them directly into your lungs 10-20 times a day would cause some kind of long term health problem as gunk — tar, ash and irritants — builds up on the alveoli. On top of that, our industry and lawmakers have decided to mandate all sorts of processing of the tobacco, so who knows what else is being inhaled. If you would not mind going into a fast food joint, taking home their lettuce, dehydrating it and sitting next to a giant pile of it burning all day, cigarettes might not bother you. And keep in mind that there are brain-boosting benefits to nicotine in addition to resistance to neurodegenerative disorders, an effect which you do not get with the charred salad.

Cigars are beyond the scope of this article, but pipes are its focus. Pipes are essentially little wooden, stone or clay cups for burning tobacco with an inhalation tube attached. The smoker fills the pipe loosely with tobacco, then ignites it with some of the many means available to us ex-hominids, inhaling the smoke into his mouth and savoring it before blowing it outward into the personal space of those around him. While the topic of smoking pipes merits a full book, this article provides an introduction to pipe smoking designed to be as simple and low-cost as possible.

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To get started, you will need:

  • A pipe. Generally between $35-$65 for a good starter pipe. Look for 0.7inch diameter bowls and filterless stems. This tool may help.
  • Tobacco. This comes in tins and bulk, usually found at Brick and Mortar (B&M) shops, and Over the Counter (OTC) usually found at drugstores and supermarkets.
  • Pipe cleaners. Each time you smoke, you will want to clean your pipe. Pipe cleaners have two ends, so that is two smokes per cleaner. It is not a terrible habit to include a bundle or package of these each time you buy tobacco.
  • A pipe nail. Demystifying this tool: it can be as simple as a key. You use one end to cut up tobacco, allowing it to collapse into an ember, and the other to tamp it after you light it for the first time. Tobacco rises like a demon unleashed when touched with fire, but compressing it allows it to smoulder so you can sip the pipe.
  • Fire. I favor the compressed cardboard matches in matchbooks, but you can use anything. For some, lighters and zippos taste horrible, so they prefer the match. The only trick is to burn off the tip before lighting.

To avoid the usual drama, let us launch into the process of smoking:

You go to some place with little wind, but some air circulation, where you have a comfortable chair. Sitting in it, you take out your tobacco. Holding the pipe over the tobacco container, let the shreds of tobacco fall into the pipe. When it is half-full, gently tamp with a finger. When it reaches the top, pinch from the center to one side and then the other, compressing the tobacco and letting it fall back into place. (Much has been written on this topic, usually under the unfortunate appellation of packing a pipe, when the correct word to use is fill: put tobacco into the pipe so there are no fully empty spaces, but fall short of compacting it so air — necessary for fire and smoke — can flow through. Ignore all other advice.)

Put the pipe in your mouth, holding it gently with teeth and firmly with lips. Light a match, and hold it vertically at a slight angle so the flame climbs the stalk of the match, then when the head has burned off, move the match over the tobacco in slow circles while inhaling. Take the smoke into your mouth and the top part of your throat if you wish, but try to avoid it leaking further down toward the lungs. You can compress it by gently blowing out the air from the front of your mouth, which draws in smoke from the pipe. The best way to inhale that I have found involves flaring the nose and drawing in air slowly but steadily.

My favorite cycle runs in seven second increments. For bigger mouthfuls, draw in your smoke, then keep it in your mouth for three seconds, then exhale and wait another four seconds. For slower sips, take one for about a half-second, then wait at least three seconds before the next. It helps to have a slight background circulation of air to keep the pipe oxygenated and smouldering well.

Many smokers do a “char and light” where they torch the top layer of tobacco, then tamp it lightly because it has risen up as it burned, and then light again to get the resulting compressed tobacco to blaze. At two-thirds through the bowl, it may be helpful to use a poker or the pointy end of your pipe nail to chop up the resulting ember and set it ablaze again. The lighting requirements vary between tobacco types, which will be addressed below.

When no more smoke comes out of the pipe, and you sense that the tobacco has been converted mostly to ash, tap it out into convenient bushes or a metal trash receptacle without a plastic bag. The ash will be hot and melt plastic. To tap out, hold the pipe in your hand and swing it downward to shake the ash out of the bowl. You may have to stir it with poker or nail beforehand.

Then comes the most important part of the ritual. If your pipe lacks a filter, run a pipe cleaner from the mouthpiece into the pipe and leave it there for a few minutes to absorb both direct and ambient moisture. This will keep your pipe fresh-tasting for its next use.

Pipe smokers vary. Some are hard-hitters who blaze through a bowl quickly, where others are sippers who have a pipe going all day for an hour at a time. If you re-light too frequently, or smoke too fast, the pipe may get hot; if this happens enough and to a great enough extreme, it may cause a condition known as “burnout” where the material of the pipe chars and cracks. To help avoid this, smoke on the seven-second method and also, allow some nice thick gunky tar to line the bowl, especially on the bottom. I always smoke some OTC aromatics, which are full of sugary flavoring that bonds together the goo and forms a kind of tar cement, down to the bottom of the bowl to layer it with a nice thick coating of glop. This glop chars over time and becomes a sort of pipe creosote that insulates against extremes.

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Tobacco originates as leafy plant in the genus Nicotiana, which when cured, dried, pressed and shredded becomes a delicious flammable method of nicotine delivery. The great variations in what are called generically tobaccos occur in the different strains of tobacco plants, and the different methods used to grow, cure, dry, press, and cut the leaves.

That process produces a number of tobacco types, which are then combined in varying amounts into different blends, which you might think of as “tobacco recipes” because they achieve a unique flavor through the ingredients — different types of tobacco — mixed within them. These blends are also distinguished by their cut or how they are sliced, which is related to the flavor and tobacco characteristics in each blend. Many blends are then coated in flavoring known as “aromatic”; if the primary flavor to the smoking blend is the flavoring and not the underlying tobacco, the blend is referred to as an aromatic tobacco.

For the end user, tobacco is then shaped by another force — the consumer market — and placed into the following silos:

  1. Over-the-Counter (OTC). OTC tobaccos are designed for convenience. They are usually either aromatics or a type of shag-cut tobacco that is also used for Roll Your Own (RYO) cigarettes. These burn most easily, cost about $2 an ounce, and are generally mild in both flavor and nicotine level.
  2. Luxury. Like most things in our society, the good stuff only starts when you step off the mainstream and pony up some more cash. You would not buy Budweiser to drink, nor Marlboro to smoke, so you will choose a pipe tobacco made under the brand name of an established firm. A handful of producers make these tobaccos now, but they tend to be stronger and rely more on the flavor of natural tobacco, although many are also aromatics but with a wider variety of flavors than OTC.
  3. Boutique. A cottage industry has sprung up in making this variety of luxury tobacco which aims for unique and intense flavors, sometimes combining aromatic and unflavored tobaccos. These are more expensive than “regular” luxury and are made by a handful of blenders who also own mail-order tobacco shops.
  4. Vintage. In the past, everything was better. People have been saying that for generations, and apparently each were correct: the tobaccos of only 20 years ago were stronger and more flavorful. Luxury tobaccos, once considered regular tobacco, have been stored in sealed tins (if you buy one on eBay, make sure it is also “unopened” as opposed to re-sealed) and are now much sought-after.

I recommend starting with a solid OTC like Carter Hall, Prince Albert, Captain Black, Five Brothers or even Drum. These are the easiest to learn to pipe with, and give you a feeling for what mild levels of nicotine and flavor are like. In addition, they are low-cost so you will not howl and scream if you accidentally ruin a bowl or spill some.

You may find that these are pleasing enough for you and that you are content to smoke them for life. There is nothing wrong with this; many have done so and it provides the least fetishistic and complex smoking experience. Five Brothers stands out from most of these because it does not use aromatic flavoring or propylene glycol (PG), a moisturizing agent added to many OTC tobaccos. If your OTC tobacco comes out of the can or pouch and seems damp, it probably has a good dose of PG. Many aromatics, including those sold at the luxury level, also have this treatment.

From that point, the next stop is an entry-level luxury tobacco. I suggest going with a Dunhill blend because they are widely available, not overly flavored, and tend to be sliced for easy burning. You can generally get a tin of 50g/1.76oz for about $9 online or $15 in the real world, if you are in the United States; this will vary with local tobacco taxes. You may notice that you are paying quite a bit in taxes throughout this whole process, and wonder if that is in fact the impetus for the whole societal jihad against tobacco. Keep wondering. In places like Canada and Europe, they pay multiples of what you pay here. Scary.

At this point, I would stop moving up the ladder. Boutique blends are a variety of luxury blend that costs more and has more unique, ironic, oddball, quirky, and otherwise off-the-beaten path blends. However, it tends to be lower in nicotine content and it is unclear whether these weird little blends are actually that distinct from their archetypes. There are only so many types of tobacco and while many different combinations can be made, most of them resemble a few fundamental types. I have never ventured into Vintage tins and can say that, while undoubtedly these older blends were of a finer quality, that may not have been preserved over the years. Nicotine levels especially degrade. To my mind, the piping experience cannot be separated into “taste” or effect but must include both, and so the fetishism with flavor — even if grounded in science and experience — strikes me as perhaps being a mistake.

Tobacco comes in several cuts which reflect how the leaves are presented:

  • Shag. Cut laterally across the leaf, leaving an interlocked mess like peat moss that loads easily and burns well.
  • Ribbon. “Normal.” Thicker slices that seem to be vertically up and down the leaf.
  • Flake -> Ready Rubbed. Flake occurs when tobacco is pressed in blocks and then sliced; Ready Rubbed is the result of “rubbing out” those slices.
  • Plug. Tobacco is pressed together and allowed to mature that way, then cut into little pucks.
  • Cake. Like a plug, but loosely packed, resulting in a crumbly “coffee cake” style.
  • Cube. Cross-slicing the tobacco produces tiny cubes; sometimes hard to keep lit.
  • Twist -> Slices. Tobacco is twisted in plugs or flake is re-twisted in tubes, then cut into little “coin” shaped bits called slices.

The above simplifies a fairly complex process. You might also enjoy these viewpoints from P&C blender Russ Ouellette and Lane Limited manager Leonard Wortzel.

Multiple types of tobacco dot the landscape. These refer to the strain of tobacco plant and how it was cured and prepared. These are:

  • Burley. Think cigar leaves. This air-cured tobacco has a nutty flavor and higher nicotine and oil than most others. It is used to complement other tobaccos in blends, and is known for its tongue “bite” from high alkalinity.
  • Virginia. High sugar content and sweet natural taste make this type a favorite in many blends. Although this tobacco comes in many colors, its flavor stays within the mild range and makes it the basis of many blends.
  • Cavendish. This term applies to any tobacco that has been aged and cured with a heating process that brings out a fuller taste.
  • Latakia. This is Oriental tobacco which has been cured with smoke from burning oak, pine, juniper and yew wood to give it a bittersweet taste.
  • Oriental/Turkish. Sweet and low in nicotine, this is tobacco grown using the Eastern method of low soil nutrients and plenty of sun, which produces its fragrance and flavor.
  • Perique. Fermentation in its own juices after Burley tobacco is pressed into barrels gives Perique a spicy-sweet flavor. This is generally an additive to other blends to give them some spark
  • Dark Fired. Leaves are cured with smoke under carefully managed heat and humidity, producing a blend both strong in nicotine and flavor. It is used as an additive more than a main ingredient because of its intensity.

For more information, check out Russ Ouellette’s descriptions.

These are used in the following blends:

  • English. Mostly Virginia, with Latakia for body and Oriental tobaccos to provide spice.
  • Scottish. Similar to an English blend, the Scottish blend uses less Latakia and more Virginia, with little or no Orientals.
  • Balkan. Strong in Orientals and Latakia, this tobacco blend uses Virginia to balance those dominant flavors.
  • American. Although there are some similarities to the English, the American blend uses more Virginia with possible Cavendish or Kentucky style tobaccos.
  • Danish. These resemble the English, but with a deeper flavor and less spice, using more Burley and Cavendish but emphasizing stronger, more balanced flavors.

You will probably find yourself shopping by blend, which could be a substitute term for flavor. What type of smoke do you wish to taste tonight? There are several indexes for ranking different blends:

  • Harshness. How much acridity and bite there is. Strong smoke can be hard on the smoker, and “bite” is created by the alkalinity of the tobacco, which raises the pH and increases absorption of nicotine but may also cause a tangy burning sensation on the tongue.
  • Strength. You are smoking a nicotine-bearing plant. How much nicotine is delivered? A tobacco with high nicotine may be worth pounds of low-nic fruity aromatics.
  • Note. This refers to the smell left behind after the tobacco is burned. This influences both your taste of the tobacco, and what your friends, family and coworkers experience.

The de facto standard for tobacco assessments is Tobacco Reviews. Like other crowd-sourced sites such as Wikipedia and Metal-Archives, or reviews on Amazon, it is good for basic factual information and opinions from people whose judgment you have verified and who — as a result — you trust. It is not good for randomly reading reviews because most of them are written by twitchy, bitchy and queeny internet consumers who complain about all the wrong things, like all the irrelevant, and miss the point. Some of the tobaccos rated highly by this site’s users are excellent, but others are simply quirky hipster fodder. Tread carefully, and consider using the various pipe forums out there: Puff, Pipes, Smokers Forum, and Tamp and Puff. The private reviews at this location have endured because they are frequently strikingly accurate. The main point is: find someone whose opinions you respect and tastes who align with yours, even if the exact opposite of yours, and you can figure out what you will like.

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A word on lighting pipes: some prefer magnifying glasses and sun, others coals from the fire, still others matches and apparently, most like either butane lighters or Zippos. As a diehard match user, I can say that matches fail in the wind, and there is more wind that you might think, but that they seem to create the least influence on taste. Perhaps a laser is appropriate.

The pipe world is full of both facts and lore. Lore refers to anything passed on by groups of humans in social circumstances; the idea is that if it survives a dozen generations, it might be true. In the meantime, you will be wading through mountains of nonsense and worst of all, unnecessary complexity added by people who wish to seem profound or wise. Pipe-smoking is simple: you are lighting dried leaves in a tube and inhaling. The rest is mere adjustment.

The following resources may be helpful for those seeking to know more:

Here are some good places to go shopping for pipes and luxury tobacco:

Places to buy OTC tobacco, which online is sold in bulk:

Resources for those who wish to grow or blend their own tobacco:

Tobacco blenders and brands:

If you do not see your favorite blend, it is probably an imprint licensed to and manufactured by a larger group, or a boutique variety manufactured by one of the tobacco shops linked above.

For kicks, here is a list of famous pipe smokers. You can add me on there when I get famous, but be sure to mention I detest wimpy tobacco and think it should leave the hall.

Finally, the best metal for pipe smoking…

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Antaeus – De Principii Evangelikum (2002)

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After a very promising debut album which the band explained as consisting of a collection of demos and other recordings, Antaeus released their first “proper” album in 2002: De Principii Evangelikum. Antaeus play a saturated black metal that foreshadows the developments of Sammath and shares with it an antecedent in Uranium 235 Total Extermination. For all the violence expressed here on the face, the riffs ride very short melodies that make up for the constant percussive assault. The more one gets familiar with the album, the more this balance is perceived. Like most black metal albums, the front assaults or deceives the listener (some albums present a saccharine front that actually contains very thoughtful and detailed music, even if not reflected in quantity or variation of patterns) that only reveal their whole worth after both repeated listens and emotioal immersion in the music.

De Principii Evangelikum does sound like a consolidated Antaeus, insofar as they choose a very particular approach narrowed down from their previous album, Cut Your Flesh and Worship Satan. In a Faustian gambit, Antaeus ripped all pretension of ambience and took the frontal assault that only figured as one aspect of their earlier music. As such, this is a condensation of that style that even if it limits the expression range of theband, it allows it to refine a very particular language and also sets it in a track in which a band attempt to perfect a sound until they get it. A parallel would be Sammath’s more-than-a-decade long efforts that finally culminate in 2014’s Godless Arrogance, a kindred spirit of De Principii Evangelikum.

As a first full-album effort, De Principii Evangelikum show us a highly focused band that knows what they want and that have matured musically. It is the realization and not the concept that is still being experimented on. In De Principii Evangelikum this is practically realized in potency and convincing excellence. The question is, is this all the band is aiming for?

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Twilight Fauna/Jennifer Christensen Split 2015

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That good music makes its way to the promo stack occasionally is not a huge surprise. We do not expect it to happen in more than one in twenty or thirty occurrences, but sooner or later, something good does come. And then, we expect a great album (not a true classic, but perhaps a highlight in the year) to arrive at an expected rate of about one every two or thee months. What we do not expect is a two-track split in which the first is a modernist piece composed for strings in the manner reminiscent of Górecki’s 3rd String Quartet or Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time.

The second track, “Crossing the Threshold” by Twilight Fauna, is one of those supposedly black metal ambient pieces that amounts to little more than sounds here, noises there, sometimes violated by a heavily distorted guitar that adds nothing to what’s going on. All for the sake of ambience. It falls into the same category of poorly-done but pretentious music like Ulver’s and Sun O))), themselves a parody of what Robert Fripp did much better in The Gates of Paradise or his work with Brian Eno in Evening Star. I’d recommend these guys to study the work of early Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, the master. If what they want is actually something more black metal, but elongated and that does not sound like some sort of pointless intro, they should check out Paysage d’Hiver’s work. Because the track has not been made public, we can only share their own release earlier this year through bandcamp for reference.

“Sickness Unto Death”, by Jennifer Christensen, is a patient work that I would venture to describe as minimalist. But rather than the circular pop minimalism of Philip Glass, this is more of the religious and dark nature typical of Górecki’s music. Clearly structural in construction but never rushed, motifs pass you by and interleave as passing scenes and a whole flora and fauna of a world evolved from a single primeval cell arise in distinguishable affinity. Now, as much as I not only enjoy but appreciate the higher quality of Ms. Christensen’s work here, I am wondering why would she release this in a split with a dark-ambient-going-on-black-metal band.

If she is somehow planning on turning her efforts in this direction, her classically trained mind and obvious talents for dark minimalist music would be interesting if applied to the whole spectrum of ambient instrumentation. Or even to two guitars, drums and backbone bass — that kind of black metal with a solid musical base would be much appreciated. After listening to her track many times, we know that the attitude and the spirit for this kind of music is definitely not missing. But the question is, does she actually understand the black metal spirit? Independently of this, I am looking forward to listening to more music composed by her, metal or not.

https://www.facebook.com/jenniferchristensenmusic?fref=ts

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Interview: Funeste

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1. How did Funeste come into being?

Yannis: Well me and Léo met through my work. As a tattoo artist I get to know people rather quickly since we spend long hours together. We realized that we had a lot in common, especially music. Our passion toward the raw and the bleak immediately spawned an interest for us two to collaborate musically. We started Léo playing drums and me on guitar duty and started to incorporate other members as we progressed. But eventually the project died of its own. A couple of years later we were still involved in musical projects together. While I was mixing a common project Léo threw at me the idea to start a black metal project. At the time I was overloaded with family and work but, the idea stuck in my head and we gave the project a go. And thus Funeste was born. From there things started to moved rather quickly. After writing a couple of songs I already had test visuals for the mood of the project. But it was just for fun since we didn’t have plans to release anything serious. But the more we listened to the tracks and the more people gave us feedback on it, we realized that we had something special. So we decided to release the Ep as a demo since it wasn’t mixed at all. And then it exploded, people started to respond very positively to it and it hasn’t stopped since.

2. Funeste plays a style of black metal which although firmly standing on a modern conception of the genre also does a very good job at keeping a smooth continuity in the music through paying attention to the consistency of material. How conscious a decision is this? Do you think a choice in style matters a lot?

Yannis: Like you said although I enjoy the traditional aspect of any genre, I think it has to move forward. To me heavy metal has always been about being extreme and subversive. Personally I think these two things can only be quantized by the era we live in and what was done before. So yes I think our style of black metal is a more modern interpretation of the genre. That said I don’t think what we do is especially new.

As far as the consistency of the material goes, I think we don’t think to much about it. I personally hate music that is too linear and safe. Even super technical band can get boring if there’s no contrast in their music. So in terms of mood I think we’re pretty consistent but, sonically wise I like I’m not so sure. I don’t want us to be coined to a specific genre, that’s why we change things a lot from song to song. Most of this is pretty much done on intuition.

Lastly, the choice of style was important at first to give us a foundation to work on, and draw inspiration from it. But like punk, black metal is more an ideology than a specific sound. It’s music that is very emotionally driven and that wants to leave the listeners scarred In every way possible. At least that’s my interpretation of it. So based on that frame of mind, I think we thrive to use all our influences to emphasize those intentions which creates a black metal with a richer spectrum of nuances.

3. In that same vein, do you think that musical genres have inherent powers or strengths and that they can be especially useful at channeling specific messages?

Yannis: I think so. I always found Black metal very introspective in nature. Delving into the roots of the honest and darkest human emotions, this music can be vessel to all sorts of messages. To me it’s one of the few styles were a musician can expose self-hatred, awe and fear of the world, spirituality to its fullest. Although this music is most of the time executed to be a hard listening experience, i think it is a very positive outlet for the musician and the listener because the themes in black metal are very universal and in the end, it is very easy for people to relate to it.

Léo: I agree with Yannis and think it can go even further than that. Music that touches me is music that was made by someone feeling any kind of emotion, positive or negative, and transcripts these emotions through sound. Or at least this is how I make music. And link with the previous question, this is not constrained to any music genre. Some black metals songs can be transmit hope or relief, and pop songs can be depressing. Anyway, I guess this is why we like having vocals that melt into the instrumental part. Funeste is all about hearing a dark gloomy violent overall sound, and relating to melodic lines in any way that fits with your mind when you hear it. It could destroy your mood or strengthen it depending on who you are and what you

4. Would you care naming your main influences in metal?

Yannis: Oh this could be long hahaha! Well I know it’s not metal but, I grew up listening to King Crimson and Genesis and I think that at that era was the metal of their time. Intense, intricate and creative. When it comes to metal I started with the basic, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath then in my teens got a NuMetal phase but I was always looking for darker more punishing music. At the time I was living in the suburbs of Montreal and the only place I could dig for music was Archambault, a big record store like HMV. So I would spend days there listening to anything with a cool album cover. That’s where I discovered Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir, Immortal, Darkthrone. These we’re my first contacts with extreme music. Than when I moved to Montreal thing’s got better hehehe. I had more friends into extreme music, listening to death metal like Deicide and Cannibal Corpse, Macabre, Converge, Katatonia, My dying bride, Dark Tranquility. And then the internet started blooming. Oh the glory! Like most kids my age It was a revelation. And it really allowed me to find music that was tailored to my standards.

But to answer your question more specifically, the metal bands that really influenced me to carve the music I do with Funeste would be bands like Weakling, Twilight, Leviathan, Converge, Brutal truth, Cryptopsy, My dying bride, Buried at Sea, Gaza, Deathspell Omega, The body, Abandon. I also draw inspiration from any genre, weather its Massive Attack’s Mezzanine, all the discography from Songs ; Ohia, Van der Graff Generator or the classical music of Alfred Schnittke. Listening only to metal makes really narrow minded records I find.

Léo: Appart from the bands that Yannis cited as direct influence for Funeste, we both listened to many genres which (I hope) gives us some diversity when we compose. My father has a pretty big vinyl collection, and I listened to literally every kind of music that he could find. Later on I developed my own tastes and started to listen to slipknot like many people, which quickly got me interested in more extreme metal bands such as vader, amon amarth, cannibal corpse, gorgoroth, and a lot of punk-hardcore and crust bands like converge, black breath, defdump, etc. There are so many bands that make awesome music that I kind of feel bad to name only a few of them, but I love listening to any band that makes me feel some emotion. Although, music playing with darker emotions will get to me more easily.

5. What about influences outside metal? What about outside music, perhaps in literature or cinema?

Yannis: I guess I answered parts of that question in the last question. For the music we create I focus more on reality. I watch a lot of documentaries on war, poverty and other bleak subjects. Lots of true crime shows. But mostly, what inspires me the most is my own personal experience. I’ve been dealing with Generalized Anxiety disorder for a good while now. Living constantly with feelings of dread generates a lot of anger, which in the end make for good heavy metal hehehe!

Léo: Well, I like making music by myself, so I guess I’m mostly inspired by what goes on through my mind when I let it slide alongside with the music. But what you live everyday is an inspiration. If you have a bad day have a beer and you will most likely write fucking angry music. As long as it concerns me, I like watching movies a lot and taking pictures. I think I’m always writing music with a graphical environment in my mind, but I couldn’t really tell, as my composing process is mainly based on letting everything go, get in my personal bubble and plug my guitar.

6. What is your composition process? Would you care detailing it and commenting on what you believe are its strengths and weaknesses?

Yannis: We’re only two in this project and tough we live in the same city we don’t jam together. I think of us more like a two headed one man project than an actual band. The way it goes is we both compose riffs and we send them to each other, than we build unto them. And then we trim the extra fat, the stuff we don’t want or like. Then I add the bass and the lyrics and vocals. I think it’s a great way to work. We can create on our own time that way we don’t have to go through the hassle of make everyone’s schedules fit. And there’s no downside because we’re always calling each other for input and we meet for beers on a regular basis.

7. Does Funeste have a goal, a message or an intention? Does the music attempt to transmit something in particular or is music “just music”? I am not referring to music in service of an ideology, necessarily, but as music as a communicator of aspects of our condition as human beings.

Yannis: For me it’s a way relieving myself of a lot of anger and frustrations towards that I’ve been repressing for a long time. I guess my main goal is to make music that I enjoy while keeping metal relevant and as far away from the cartoonish travesty it can become. I try to write lyrics that are close to my heart. I know I should be signing about nature, satan or the fact that I wanna go back to our old Viking ways with my iPhone in one hand and my credit card in the other but , this is just not me and its not part of my heritage. I’m a city boy and always been. And the city is a very demanding and stressful place, where the well-off cohabitates with the homeless. With anxiety and depression on the rise, people losing their religion and values and replacing it with careers and selfies. This is all very bleak to me and pushes me to create music that reflects that. Also all the lyrics are written in French which was really important to me. Here in Montreal, the French Canadian underground is not very strong. Very few band writes their music in French. They’d rather write everything in English because there’s a better chance for them to ”make it” in the music business. I think we shouldn’t be ashamed of our heritage and we should promote the hell out of it, even to places that don’t speak french. If the music is good there will be ears all over the globe that want’s to listen to it.

Léo: We started Funeste with no specific goal other than make music and “evacuate” some energy through that. Also, we didn’t expect the attention we get now at all, so we don’t have specific goals related to that. But if people listen to Funeste and enjoy it in any way this we are very thankful. And we will continue making music in the same mindset.

8. Do you have a vision for the future of the band in terms of its growth?

Yannis: Create new music, grow as a musician, meet people. I’d like for us to do splits in the future as well. I still don’t know what our next release is gonna be. Another Ep? LP? who knows. One thing is for sure we’re writing new music as we speak, and it should see the light of day in the next 6 months or so. Eventually I think we’d like to get a proper line up to do live shows but this is still in discussion at the moment.

11. Is Le Triomphe du Charnier Funeste’s first release or is there anything else fans of the band should check out?

Yannis: The Ep is our first outing. Me and Léo also play in a Electro Post-Rockish band called St-Petersbourg. Our new ep that I personally mixed, is coming out this summer. Other that’s pretty much it on my side.

12. What would be the best way in which the audience can get into contact with Funeste?

Through our email: funestemtl@gmail.com

Facebook: https: www.facebook.com/funestemtl

Black element Production: blackelementproductions@gmail.com

13. Is there anything in particular you would like to let the metal world know about the band? Is there any particular reason why the audience should keep an eye on Funeste?

Yannis: Well, if you like bleak, unforgiving black metal, give us a try. There’s a good chance you’re gonna enjoy our EP. And keep in mind, the next song are gonna continue pushing our own boundaries to create music more and more punishing.

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Det Som Engang Var: Significance and Merit

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Much like Darkthrone’s Under a Funeral Moon preceding Transilvanian Hunger or Immolation’s Herein After before Failures for Gods and Close to a World Below, Burzum’s Det Som Engang Var(roughly translatable as “What Once Was”) before Hvis Lyset Tar Oss(“If the Light Takes Us) puts on display all of Varg Vikernes’ faculties as a composer in a way that is still relatively easy for a listener to make out the different things he is doing, unlike the next album where a convergence and purification that only a minority are able to grasp in all its excellence and magnificence. As Brett Stevens commented not so long ago in reference to Immolation’s Close to a World Below, some bands make the same album again and again until they are able to solidify their vision in a magnum opus.

Many metalheads who respect this album may do so out of a respect for how influential it is, without truly understanding that even if this album came out today, after all the others they are said to have influenced, it would still be as impressive and worthy of high praise — but perhaps it would not be noticed by the same people who today profess to appreciate it. Contrary to common belief, its worth is musical, not historical only. This is not very different from people who “enjoy” Black Sabbath or Celtic Frost, but fail to see the monument that works like Master of Reality and To Mega Therion are. In great part this error lies in associating or equating technical prowess on the instrument and an apparent “complexity” of notes with  a complexity of thought and excellence in composition. These albums display an astounding clarity resulting from the exquisitely fused elements of music (harmony, melody, rhythm…) in a way that may strike the unaware as “simple”. Confusing intelligibility with limitation/blandness/simplicity is the greatest sin one can commit against masterworks of music, because the greatest works all share this as a common trait.. While this is even more true of Hvis Lyset Tar Oss, it bears bringing into question the undue musical disrespect of which Burzum in general is the victim.

The album contains tracks that make use of abrasive and extremely dissonant intervals, very consonant and relaxed harmonizations of melodies, synths as support and synths as the main instrument in ambient tracks all together and mixed in different ways and given the spotlight in different tracks. It is, perhaps, this up-front “complexity” of having so many distinct colors that at least attracts the attention of and mention by even those who do not understand black metal. The composition itself is technically nuanced but like any proper work of art, comes off as intelligible to the point of being confused with “simplicity” in its negative connotation. The complexity of the works like Burzum lies in the seamless unfolding of a story, a masterfully woven tapestry blending all sorts of disparaged puzzles and meanings within its frames not unlike Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. The importance of discussing Det Som Engang Var is that it is here that his thinking  is most easily and obviously seen. Without understanding this album, monumental works like Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and Burzum’s stepping-into ambient(or as he described it, Anti-Black Metal) territory, Filosofem, can never be truly appreciated.

Regarding its little-mentioned lyrical topics that are actually worth mentioning in any integral metal work, they consist on a mixture of melancholy and longing for a grand and fantastic past that exists more in the mind of a romantic than in historical reality (but which makes the values and traditions it longs for no less meaningful or real), and an existentialist questioning of the self’s position in a world of men that makes little sense and which launches the brave man in search of truth behind, or rather past, human constructions. In addition to that, the tendency towards nature worship and an attraction towards the forest as the archetypal home of homes, a safeguard from the evil of men and their perversions motivated by greed and thirst for power, is ever present in Varg Vikernes’ language and allusions. These have also been the target of cynical contempt by the petty minds of postmodernists who are unable to make a connection with nature and are rather too fond of themselves as creatures of a decadent society, leading them to denounce anyone pointing at obvious truths about its breaking-apart.

Restoring the pride and respect that Det Som Engang Var has never had in truth, just as Burzum hearkens to a grand past that has never existed here on Earth but that through an evocation of opposites rather points to an idealist future, so we attempt here to find a direction for future metal to grow in undreamed of ways that do not diverge from the essence of metal and that stand on the firm example of the greats that did exist but have never been duly studied.

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Funeste – Le Triomphe du Charnier (2015)

funestetriomphe

Funeste play black metal with a tendency to emphasize atmosphere through the creation of spaces, voids within the music in a treatment of the style that is very modern. In Le Triomphe du Charnier
one is able to identify great potential, as some of the elements in the music are very well-written, solid and balanced musically, consistent while not forgetting to create the movement necessary to give life. On the other hand, there are also more regrettable decisions here that can lead a fan of the old school to cringe. What the reader needs to understand is that those who understand the old school have this sort of reactions to many methods of the “new school” because the latter tends to lack a center, favoring whims that border on an experimentalism that is little more than ignorance of composition in its complete sense (and not just attending to its most basic and superficial necessities like playing in a key or using a particular mode).

On Le Triomphe du Charnier, Funeste often use arrangements in which three guitars playing distinct parts may be recognized. Sometimes there are only two or even as little as one guitar present. The transitions between these are reasonably smooth although sometimes tend to verge towards the modern tendency of lazy contrast excused as surprise. When the guitars are treated like melody lines, sometimes collaborating, sometimes providing accompaniment and counter-melody, sometimes just forming a mega-riff, Funeste show us the amazing arrangements that can be applied to metal guitar styles without having to sound superficially “neo-classic” or to resort to jazz-mongering.

There is a particular element on this album that stands out as the rotten apple in the barrel: the drumming. While in the three-part guitar sections a guitar may sometimes engage in some indulging and completely unjustified (musically unjustified, that is, not connected to the rest of the music very clearly, but just floating as an extra appendage) decoration takes place, the drumming patterns seem disconnected from the music most of the time. It is not enough that the drums play in the correct tempo and time signature, but this instrument also has to blend in with the rest of the music in a way that subordinates it to the whole and not as a self-important and self-agrandizing member. I am sorry if the traditional metal’s balance consisting on having the drums play a supporting role hurts the ego of drummers but mindful and reserved composition should come before anything else.

Neo-metalists of recent times take this to be a kind of close-minded imposition on their creativity and will try to release drumming from its subservient role and let it run around unchecked, affirming its presence and new-found freedom as a child who’s been chastized for the least of things throughout his life and grows up to suddenly find himself free of limitations and now runs amok performing actions of painfully self-referential significance. So it is that we find the drumming in this album attempting to take over dominance, fighting it out with the rest of the music, and accounting for the unnecessarily busy feeling of the music that is taken by neo-metallers as “creative complexity”. In truth, this is no more than lazy self-indulgence, this so-called complexity being no more than an increased quantity of notes. The drums should work from within the nature of the movement of melody and harmony to enhance the whole, adding to it not as something else occurring besides the rest of the instruments but as an indispensable breathing apparatus.

Here the main thing was to understand the combination and opposition of the three great factors in music- rhythm, melody and harmony; to understand, for example, that the cadence that is harmonically and melodically perfect will have a weaker effect if it does not occur simultaneously with the rhythmic cadence
— Johannes Brahms

Commending Funeste on its overall music-organization and especially on its very promising and mostly controlled guitar arrangements is in order. The band’s drummer is more than obviously technically gifted and definitely has talent but he or she must make decision here and now: will you write music as a “musician” looking for technical performance perfection or as a “creator” — a composer trying to give birth to an artistic expression? As a black metal drummer trying to achieve balance, it is recommended that one should first study the work of Fenriz in the albums released with Darkthrone around Transilvanian Hunger, trying to understand how and why he plays what he plays. After that a hard and long look at Adrian Erlandsson’s work in At the Gates’ The Red in the Sky is Ours will prove to be an invaluable lesson of drumming giving life to music in creative, varied yet reserved manner as well. Even though to simple minds it might seem that he is just being limited, others might understand his intention towards affording music with the necessary percussion while retaining proportion and a semblance that does not diverge too greatly from the intended concept.

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Cult of Endtime – In Charnel Lights (2015)

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Cult of Endtime play a music that is actually both “melodic” and death metal. Taking the road of modified and expanded verse-chorus-bridge approach to music construction, this mid-paced death metal with a clear aftertaste of traditional metal maintains motific links within songs that ride clear phrasal riffs not unlike the manner of the early but already mature Black Sabbath. Although DMU does not usually hand out stars to shiny, mainstream packages because they usually are just uncreative or mediocre turds hidden under slick production, In Charnel Lights has definitely earned theirs.

A very well-performed and accomplished example of this style, the music stays within the boundaries of its chosen paradigm while introducing a variety of ideas without haphazard changes. This does imply a limited variation, a clutch of its chosen pop-format approach, which supports and defines it but cripples its movement at the same time. The nature of the music, then, reduces In Charnel Lights to a collection of songs. The result is pleasing and solid but can be repetitive in terms of musical ideas and in its adherence  to its center it fails to bring enough variety to artistically justify a second half beyond the urge to produce more of the same.

In spite of this, the variation it does introduce is not only used gracefully and properly but is both meaningful and powerful. Each variation of idea or new idea included, each slightly differing approach to a riff was probably very carefully considered and integrated with an attention to detail worthy of praise. Cult of Endtime are extremely consistent in style although they bring different techniques under its umbrella and produce strongly coherent riff-variations with a relatively wide range of character.

Sounding like a Black Sabbath reborn into death metal, Cult of Endtime build their music on phrasal riffs with a basis on heavy-sounding support and featuring melodic passages that emphasize clarity of expression and musicality rather than technique itself, although anyone paying attention to such things would not deny the professional-level musicianship of the band. Probably one of the best, if not the best, we are likely to get out of the mainstream this year, In Charnel Lights is extremely recommended to fans of metal.

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Sadistic Metal Reviews 06-20-2015

SMR

Besides being on the look out for promising bands and nurture them as the future of metal, there is also a place to examine the living corpses of decadent and useless products release by the emotionally needy and artistically impaired. Sadistic Metal Reviews to put the pretentious wankers, the clueless “experimentalists” and the postmodernist “intellectuals” in their place: in line and ready to be disposed of.

 

acrania
Acrania – Fearless (2015)

Latin jazz deathcore featuring conga breakdowns, sax solos, bass slams, gang chants, tough guy
empowerment lyrics, and At the Gates. This is Elements with ear gauges for those who enjoy the
bongocore of later Sepultura. To improve their future releases, I recommend the band overdose on
artificial opiates cut with chemicals usually found in anti-dandruff shampoos.

Vattnet-Viskar

Vattnet Viskar – Settler (2015)
Vattnet Viskar are screamo in the same vein as Deafheaven. On Settler they could have attempted to use careful melodies and riff progressions to emotionally convey to the listener the existential nihilism of an ordinary woman attempting to transcend her earthly existence only to be brutally splattered upon the Earth’s surface. Instead they disingenuously pander to a liberal hipster audience for whom Mayhem and Burzum are verboten by pretending to be an acceptable “black metal” band. Major scale tremolo riffs, sludgy hard rock, and hardcore breakdowns are randomly arranged in songs grounded by emotional choruses and vocal hooks. This is not shoegaze; Vattnet Viskar and Deafheaven are as far from My Bloody Valentine as they are from Darkthrone. Post-hardcore with comprehensible screeching as the primary emotional vehicle is screamo. Those who eat this album up and genuinely think it is true black metal are just deluding themselves about progressing beyond their whiny teenage musical tastes.

gyre
Gyre – Moirai (2015)
Gyre exploit the misguided nu-metal commercial revival driven by millennial ex frat boys wishing todefend their shitty taste as mall-dwelling tweens. Moirai is a nu-metal album with djent chugging and afew speed metal solos just in case a member of the target audience is the air guitar type. PreventingGyre from achieving financial success with this artistic failure is their lack of name recognitioncompared to Fred Durst and Serj Tankian. Thus Gyre are best advised to run back to the brostep clubs and never return.

ysengrin
Ysengrin – Liber Hermetis (2015)
Arranging simplified, slowed down Megadeth riffs around boring acoustic interludes doesn’t make for effective thrash and doom metal. Claiming to be blackened death metal as you play those riffs through distortion pedals into crappy solid state amps to get a more fuzzy than bestial guitar tone means you fail two more genres. Go listen to Rust in Peace again instead of subjecting yourself to this unnecessary career retrospective.

nightland
Nightland – Obsession (2015)
Slaughter of the Soul riffs? Check. Hit people breakdowns? Check. Random songwriting? Check. Metalcore with orchestral fluff played by guys in leather dresses is still metalcore. This time it’s just marketed toward fat Nightwish goths and frilly-shirted Fleshgod Apocalypse fans.

Cult-of-Fire-
Cult of Fire – मृत्यु का तापसी अनुध्यान (2013)
Here Cult of Fire randomly mix stolen Bathory, Immortal, and Emperor riffs with Abba keyboards and pointless eastern music into a pathetic failure of black metal. This album is yet more proof of how easily the basic compositional requirements of the genre can escape even the most technically accomplished musicians.

klamm
Klamm – Ernte (2015)
Blackened folk singalongs played by German hipsters? This music is the result of too much cuddling and too little beatings. Dumb to the point of being exasperating, Klamm tries to fulfill ideological cliches of what both folk and black metal represent. Press stop to leave the beer hall.

horrendous
Horrendous – Ecdysis (2014)
Steal Heartwork riffs, run them through a Boss HM-2 pedal, and throw in some random Journey to pad out the tracks. Contrary to the title and cover art, this pretentious pseudo-Swedeath fails to shed its melodeaf skin. The only thing this album transcends is listeners’ patience when it assumes they are intellectually disabled by building multiple nu songs from the riffs in one very popular older song called Heartwork. Horrendous prove themselves musically no better than Archenemy and far inferior to them when it comes to musical common sense.

Örök – Übermensch
Örök – Übermensch (2015)
Coming from the spiritual-minded ambient “black” metal camp, this self-absorbed music is so ego-centric it somehow manages to be unaware of its stagnancy, vacuity, it’s lack of proposal and direction. As the title indicates, rather than an excellent specimen’s product, this is more of a diva’s self-appraisal. Untermensch.

Dismember – Massive Killing Capacity
Dismember – Massive Killing Capacity (1995)
After the commercial success of Entombed’s Wolverine Blues, money-grubbing record labels pressured the rest of the big Swedish death metal bands to pander to the Pantera crowd. Dismember turned down the distortion and gazed back to seventies rockers Kiss and Deep Purple for inspiration. Unfortunately, downtuned and distorted butt rock riffs coming out of JCM 900 heads are still butt rock riffs. A few songs that rip off Dismember’s own prior good work and Metallica’s Orion make this slightly more listenable than the aforementioned Wolverine Blues but do not come close to alleviating this death ‘n’ roll turkey’s massive shitting capacity. This is Highway Star death metal.

Nebiros
Nebiros – VII (2015)
Mellotrons and makeup do not paint your metal black. These overlong songs are structured around
deathcore breakdowns and stolen Gothenburg riffs. This is more Heartwork for subhumans than a Pure Holocaust.

Archaea-Catalyst-2015-
Archaea – Catalyst (2015)
One could say this sounds like Unleashed only if Unleashed were one of those deathcore bands from five years ago with the token female keyboardists. This is a stereotypical blend of polka beats, breakdowns, Gothenburg candy melodies, and keyboard leads. Listening to it makes me want to lay my head down upon the train tracks just so an overweight man in a jumpsuit embroidered with his own name will be forced to power wash my brains off to the sweet voice of Kenny Rogers.

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Triguna – Embryonic Forms (2015)

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Triguna is a band that plays underground metal in that vague intersection between death metal, black metal and the phrasal speed metal of Slayer. Their independently-released Embryonic Forms is both an honest and musically-aware artistic offering that falls short for technical reasons. “Technical reasons” here should not be underestimated. The band’s instrumental skills are just enough to play he music they wrote, but it is the technical side of composition that is loose.

Technique in composition is believed by the populace to mean how many chord progressions and scale names you have memorized or how many contrasting sections you can pair up. In truth, what technical composition ideally affords is an experience and insight into musical forms, elements and their relations and effects along with historical reference points that help the composer distill the purest elements of music. Surely this can be derived by talented and innately perceptive musicians, but they are still building most things from the ground up.

To be fair, given Triguna’s apparent technical level, their decision to make varied yet deliberately dirty, simple and straightforward passages was a realistic one that allowed them to concentrate on the coherence of the pieces as wholes. So while individual sections, riffs or solos are not altogether overwhelming, the songs are solid, enjoyable and meaningful. Creating fulfilling whole music that is not minimalist, Embryonic Forms is a perfect example of the extreme case of a vision superseding technique to achieve a musical triumph. The album garners at least honourable mentions alongside the likes of Manilla Road or early The Chasm (not that I am equating them, just classifying them), and is very much recommended on my part.

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