This attitude was spawned after reading positive reviews of the new Psycroptic album, The Inherited Repression (yes, I agree that's a stupid title). I gave it a spin and guess what? It's fucking boring. It's basically an exercise in guitar masturbation, and I could barely get through half of the tracks before I had to turn it off and spin some Thou to remind my brain what real metal sounds like.
Psycroptic aren't the only band guilty of hate fucking their listeners to death with widdly-woo solos and hyper blasting drums. Decrepit Birth, Origin, Neuraxis, and countless others have all succeeded by basically doing the same shit. What blows my mind is the fact that a lot of tech death bands get rave reviews from rags like Decibel and BW&BK, but never have I read a tech death review that points to the obvious; this shit is basically impossible to reinvent.
When I think about it, the only tech death band worth listening to is Ulcerate and that's because they abandoned their fappish shred tendencies in favor of slowed down, well paced songwriting. That's really what it comes down to, songwriting. Ulcerate's last album, The Destroyers of All, was great because it was a sludge album with blast beats. They reached outside of the genre box they occupied for years and became something totally different. When I look at bands like Psycroptic I see the same album repackaged and re-released over and over. We get it, you know how to play sweeping solos. How about writing a fucking hook? I know a lot of you might think I "just don't get it," but I do (or at least I'm going to pretend like I do, because fuck you). It just bums me the fuck out that people jump on board with this style.
This is my opinion, take it or leave it. Also, go buy the new Thou 10" To the Chaos Wizard Youth.
While making the list of upcoming 2012 releases I'm excited about, the Enth/Amarok split album -- due out in March -- completely slipped my mind. But low-and-behold, I was pleasantly reminded today with the pre-release of the entire album on the Orca Wolf Records Bandcamp page.
Amarok released a killer debut album in late 2010 that featured a veritable vocal assault with three pretty intense vocalists, coupled with some slow, trudging, sludgy doom -- albeit a little rough around the edges at times. Their latest split maintains the raw intensity of their first album, but also shows a compositional maturity. The nearly 20 minute track is never rushed and allows for the large swelling guitar harmonies to slowly develop.
The flip side is a crushing 18 minute song by the Polish funeral doom band Enth called "Caverns of Advices". While their 2011 self-titled album was decent, it wasn't particularly spectacular. There was excessive guitar "chugging" that detracted from the droning and "dirgey" atmosphere that the genre is known for -- leaving it feeling kind of boring. This new track is a complete 180 to their previous material, sounding more like an Asunder song than anything they had previously done and making me excited for any future releases they may have.
After a killer year of metal in 2011, it's time to start getting stoked on metal in 2012. This year will see releases from some pretty killer bands, and we want you to know what's giving us a half chub.
Pilgrim - Misery Wizard After having a hugely successful buzz surrounding their 2011 demo, these Rhode Island doom slayers have already been picked up by Metal Blade and have an album coming out at the end of January. Here's hoping that they continue writing songs about Zelda.
Pilgrim - "Astaroth"
Ufomammut - Oro I love listening to the evolution of Ufomammut. Every album they release has consistently been better than the previous. It's hard to imagine that they could top 2010's Eve, but here is hoping. Best of all, after touring Europe with Neurosis this past year, they have been signed to Tribes of Neurot in the US. Here's also hoping for a US tour to go with it.
Samothrace 2008's Life's Trade feels like it came out just yesterday. It was hands down my favorite release of the year (this is Matt talking, but Beardo agrees). After surviving a relocation from Kansas City to Seattle, lead guitarist and vocalist moving from Seattle to California, Samothrace is finally releasing a new album. It was recorded in Seattle in late 2011, and from what I have heard will only be 2 songs. But with how crushing Samothrace is, 2 may be all that is necessary.
Ahab Entering the studio later this month is Ahab, Italy's funeral doom power house that made quite a buzz in 2009 with their amazing album Divinity of Oceans. I can't imagine that there upcoming album could possibly disappoint. The only thing I'm particularly hopeful for is a US tour to go along with it.
Arcana Coelestia Speaking of Italian funeral doom, Arcana Coelestia's bandcamp page claims their new album was supposed to come out in the autumn of 2011. Someone must have forgot. Hopefully 2012 will be the year for it instead. And judging by the audio sample they've left for us, it is going to be good and notably heavier than their 2009 Le Mirage de l'Ideal (which I loved).
Pallbearer - Sorrow and Extinction Traditional doom metal has never been something I've been particularly fanatical about, but Pallbearer's 2010 demo struck all the right chords with me. In particular I loved their rendition of Gloomy Sunday, but I've always had a soft spot for that song. Sorrow and Extinction is due to be released in February on Profound Lore.
Pallbearer - "Gloomy Sunday"
Asphyx - Deathhammer Asphyx fucking destroy. I was a huge fan of their last album, 2009's Death...The Brutal Way, and I cannot wait for a new slab of Swedish style death metal (even though these dudes are from Holland). Also, the new album is called Deathhammer, which is about as metal as it gets.
OM - title tba I love this band. They are the perfect soundtrack for sitting around and zoning out, and their last full length, God is Good, was fucking great. It was reported in May of 2011 that OM were in the process of tracking the follow-up to God Is Good, and the album is slated for a 2012 release. Get stoked/blazed.
Marduk - title tba I used to think of Marduk as a lackluster black metal band that would occasionally hit its stride and churn out a solid album here and there. After 2009's Wormwood I no longer think of Marduk as anything but fan-fucking-tastic. The band is currently recoding their as yet untitled new album with plans for a spring 2012 release.
Blut Aus Nord - 777: Cosmosophy The third installment of the band's epic 777 trilogy, and I couldn't be more stoked. I loved the first two installments and the third promises to be a mindfuckingly good slab of angular/discordant/fuck all the rules black metal.
That's enough gushing, don't you think? As always, we will do our best to keep you updated on what bands/albums we are excited about.
I know I posted about Doctorshopper's 2011 demo a few weeks ago, but they just dropped a new album and are giving that shit away for free so you can either cry about repeat posts or you can shut up and grab some quality noise for the low low cost of $free.99.
If you don't know shit about Doctorshopper you should probably use those nimble fingers of yours to scroll back a few pages and read my impression of their 2011 demo PaxPharma. Get it done? Good. Now all the shit I'm about to reference will make total sense. If you recall, I am a big fan of what Doctorshopper did on Pax Pharma; their brand of punishing blackened noise was a welcome change from all of the doom/trad black metal I listened to last year. This is why I was a little shocked by the band's recent full-length Degenerate Utopia.
Degenerate Utopia shows a huge progression in Doctorshopper's sound. While their demo showed a lot of potential, the new album delivers the goods. This thing is a blackened slab of crusty doom that I am quickly falling in love with. Seriously, Degenerate Utopia is fucking killer. I think Matt might even like it, and we all know that he hates just about everything. Do yourself a favor and grab a copy of this beast (for freesies), even if you hated Doctorshopper's demo, you might be surprised.
lololol! I never understood what all the fuss was over Disma, the death metal super group that took 2011 by storm: appearing on a bunch of people's top10 lists, streaming on NPR, getting all sorts of nods outside of the metal world. The world was their oyster, and I didn't get it.
But now at least I can laugh at all you people that held this mediocre band in such high regard. It has come to light that their lead vocalist was (is?) a closet neo nazi, once releasing this gem of an album under the name Sturmfuhrer. Even better is this interview that has been circulating on the interwebs that the now Disma vocalist gave. Its full of great quotes such as, "I think Germany was defending itself from the plague of world usury/Jewry and was unfortunately beaten with the help of world Jewry, between Amerika, CCCP and Britain "OUR" kind was seduced into believing Hitler was a mad man.".
On top of it, even after getting Disma booted from the Chaos is Tejas fest because of his questionable past, he is remaining silent on the issue instead of publicly disavowing his past racist babbling--leaving many to wonder how much, if anything, has changed in his politics.
This attitude was spawned after reading positive reviews of the new Psycroptic album, The Inherited Repression (yes, I agree that's a stupid title). I gave it a spin and guess what? It's fucking boring. It's basically an exercise in guitar masturbation, and I could barely get through half of the tracks before I had to turn it off and spin some Thou to remind my brain what real metal sounds like.
When I think about it, the only tech death band worth listening to is Ulcerate and that's because they abandoned their fappish shred tendencies in favor of slowed down, well paced songwriting. That's really what it comes down to, songwriting. Ulcerate's last album, The Destroyers of All, was great because it was a sludge album with blast beats. They reached outside of the genre box they occupied for years and became something totally different. When I look at bands like Psycroptic I see the same album repackaged and re-released over and over. We get it, you know how to play sweeping solos. How about writing a fucking hook? I know a lot of you might think I "just don't get it," but I do (or at least I'm going to pretend like I do, because fuck you). It just bums me the fuck out that people jump on board with this style.
