Be Excellent To Each Other

Hey, how do I get that Chang stuff?

Also, legit lol at ruy san.

Email [email protected]. The postage might be a bit steep, mind...

Well, Nickelback started it! They were a band long before the fans threw rocks at them (wot? no bottles'o'piss? Shameful.)

To all the people that like Slipknot and do not like Pantera......I.....

CRY.

If it's any consolation, I don't really like either of them.

My Dying Bride is where it's at, if we're talking 90's.

Oh yes!

I'll tell you what does suck. Modern metal. I'm so very unfussed by metal these days as 99% of the stuff I hear is fucking terrible now. Mainly from watching Headbanger's Ball on the off-chance that I'll see at least something good.

The thing with this new metal shit is that it's not heavy. Take something like 'Trivium'. They start their songs with the usual lightening fast kickdrums and guitars that are crunchy and loud... but it just doesn't move you at all. Then it usually descends into a bent-as-fuck melodic chorus that sounds like 80s hair metal before going into a very techy guitar solo with the emphasis on cheesy harmonised sections.

Or bands just do that Dillenger Escape Plan thing but by the numbers. Spazzed out sections, the usual chromatic bits and silly jazz things that sound contrived.

Eesh.

I certainly don't like where lead guitar is going these days.

Anyway, for what it's worth.

Best metal album = Carcass: Necrotism

Everyone knows Trivium are crap. But there's a lot of good stuff around now. If you like early Carcass, Davydd or Dimrill can give you more grind than any sane man could ever want.

Me, I prefer the slower stuff mainly, and there'sa hell of a lot of great doom about now. Headbanger's ball may not be the place to find it though...

Necroticism isn't grindcore, you crazy fool!

Yeah! Quit your jibba jabba!

And yet whenever I say something isn't grind, you tell me it is - are you messing with my head?

Bah, I'm off to listen to Khanate - that makes sense. To me, anyway...

I'm a big fan of Bill Steer. I remember watching Red Dwarf one evening when Carcass were on as some sort of bar band and so was jumping up and down pointing at the telly. Napalm Death were funny live, I think I saw them with The Stupids in 1988 at the Clarendon Ballroom in London. Now *that* was a venue. Probably the best in Europe, every time I saw a band there I thought I was going to die.

I saw Death Angel, Holy Terror, DRI (most violent, loudest, nastiest gig I ever saw), Nasty Savage and a whole range of classic American thrash there in the 80s. Amazing shit. God I'm old.

Hmmm Khanate, great band.

I agree with you. But i don't mind Trivium. At least they just try to make good songs and have a good time. I prefer that than Dillinger copycats that just want to look all technical and cool.

And another :worship: for early my dying bride. Songs of darkness was an awful album tough. To me they're dead since then.

I don't mind that one, there's some good tracks on it. A Line of Deathless Kings, now that's poor. But they'll have to do a lot more than that for me to stop liking them - hell, I still like Paradise lost!

A Line Of Deathless Kings isn't that bad, man! But then, Like Gods Of The Sun is my favourite of theirs.

I wish Paradise Lost had continued on with the Host and Believe in Nothing sound, personally. Although Symbol of Life was an amazing album, I can't get in to the last 2.

yes!

Bill's one of my guitar heroes. His stuff with Carcass was amazing and he was phenomenal live when I saw them supporting Bodycount, who were terrible.

There were only a handful of us getting into Carcass that night. Everyone else was booing them. Cunts.

I love The Stupids as well. For a UK hardcore band they had some really tasty riffs.

Currently I'm struggling. The last thing I've really liked was Poison The Well. I don't what they are classified as but musically they are really interesting and the singer has a great shouty voice. I think they have a touch of the emo about them but not offensively so.

I sort of like one song by a band called Devildriver. But past that they seem shit.

I've struggled with Doom/Black metal stuff because I need some sort of hook behind it rather than Black Sabbath style sludgery or incessant blast beats. Interesting discordant guitar is what I'm looking for.

Still can't get better than Killing Joke's 1982 'Revelations' album. It's still the heaviest most unsettling piece of work ever. But in a subtle kind of way.

You liked 34.788% Complete best last time, you fickle fellow!

Burzum's Filosofem album is for you. Even though he's politically dubious.

One of my favourite all time albums. He doesn't refer to politics in the lyrics, you have to find that in interviews.

Amusingly-naive-'I'm not a Nazi, I'm ODINIST!' FTFY

I'll check it out - although I read a book about them blackmetal fellas from Norway (all about the church burnings) and whilst it was quite entertaining I'm not sure how much I can get into their music.

parallel: I've been told that 'The Thick of It' is hilarious but I can't make that leap because... well... you know... Langham...

where's death metal up to these days? I was a huge fan of Death and the like. I'd be surprised if anyone's made anything more amazing than Cynic's 'Focus' album or as groovy as Obituary's 'Cause of Death' but again I'm open to suggestions!

Emptydemic Degree are pretty good, scarily brutal French death metal. No too tech, there's some groove in there.

Nile "Sacrifice Unto Sebek" = bostin. DON'T LISTEN TO DAVYDD! Terribly compressed there, though.

SACRIFICE UNTO SEBEK CAN FUCK OFF

Nile, except not shit.

And Death Breath again to even up the old school Swedish quota.

Your death metal faves are the exact same as mine. good stuff! Human by Death is just so utterly perfect, and Focus still sounds like nothing else on earth 15 years on.

I too have not followed Death Metal at all since the 90's (cos it went really shit and I got very bored of it all) but this last year I have REALLY enjoyed the new Blood Red Throne album on (surprisingly) Earache. Like classic era Carcass/Death/At The Gates/Deicide all mixed together, superb record. That and the new Obituary album (no, seriously, check it out, its brilliant) is all I've got into in the last couple years. Other than that, best death metal I heard this millennium is Creation is Crucifixion. Morbid Angel on crack with filthy production, YES!

I really don't get on with all this BROOOOTAAALLL Death Metal stuff. All a bit too macho steroid skinhead mosher for me. Give me heart wrenching Chuck Schuldiner guitar solos and At the Gates melodic ferocity any day, ta.

I likes a bit of BROOTALITY, I do, despite being a wussy, terrified girly-man. It's all abiut the music, not the grunting idiots making it.

Anyway, grind is better.

Hmmm, dunno, just doesn't really work for me. I know my biggest preference with music is more the production style than the actual musical style. Hence why I completely went off Black Metal in the mid 90's when they all started signing to big labels and having nice polished production. After In The Nightside Eclipse, I have no interest in Emperor at all, just far too polished, took all the beautiful character out of the music. Hence my total love for Filosofem since it just has so much incredible depth to its really stripped and minimal music. The Vocals are perfect. Only when I started hearing bands going down that road in the last few years did I get interested again.

Same with Death Metal, I really hate most post 95 Death Metal productions, just sounds so utterly over-produced, especially the BROOTALL stuff, just has no character left in the sound, toooooooo much compression, so totally one dimensional. It does take a lot to please me though when it comes to music as I have pretty damn eclectic tastes, rarely does a band doing the standard whatever thing interest me these days, probably why the Mosh1-100 Earache releases were so life changing for me since you had bands covering every conceivable type of Extreme music at the time. Bands like Old were just incredible and so utterly unique.




I dunno why I just typed all that, brain needed stimulation I guess...

I'm certainly not arguing that pristine production is a plus; I love Darkthrone and dislike Decapitated.

Have you guys seen Metalpocalypse? Bruuuuuuuuutal.

Oh yesyesyes, Transylvanian Hunger FTW. I think with BROOTALL death maetal, the whole emphasis is on it being really tight and heavy, so the way its always done is through the production being compressed to within an inch of its life. Meshuggah with a production like symphonies of sickness would just be a sloppy blurry mess, which is fair enough why they dont do it like that. But I just don't like everything sounding that tight and clinical, sounds soulless to me. Unless your Dream Theatre of course, then thats COMPLETELY different!

My current faves are Furze (his "Necromanzee Cogent" album is one of the best of all time imo but a total head-fuck) and Deathspell Omega who are just complete post-rock genius. I would ignore both of those for now as they're very demanding if you're coming to it fresh.

If you want *seriously* hooky and commercial Black and/or Doom you cannot go wrong with Satyricon's last record which basically sounds like AC/DC in corpse paint:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQQdsKH3Qt8

...or for more of a commercial Doom vibe check out Sahg's debut:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7FRUTRhekk

Both from Norway but going down the commercial route. If you want older-school Black Metal then check out Israel's Tangorodrim. They're fabulous. Maybe Japan's Coffins but they might be a bit too sludgey for you. For hooky Doom there's a lot of excellent stuff, old-timers Pentagram and any of the Wino projects (esp. Spirit Caravan) being the obvious first points.

agreed.

There are so many bands that would be better now if it were not for this "return-to-roots" bullshit. Dark Tranquillity for example.

"like gods of the sun" is teh ghey

"light at the end of the world" gets my vote, as the best mdb album no one cares about. "turn loose the swans" is better tough.

Comedy FTFY.

Oh, you're right about The Light at th End of the World, too.

As for Paradise Lost, much prefer the last two to anything since Draconian Times - couldn't get on with their "experimental" stuff...

the problem is that if i try to listen to the last 2, i think to myself that i should be listening to draconian times instead

Cynic fans would do well to check out Behold... the Arctopus. Not as ohmigodseminal, but there's a similar melodiovirtuosity to it.

In terms of general DM, I like the Black Dahlia Murder (though many here wouldn't) and loved Rune. There's not much going on at the moment. You had Mithras a few years ago, but that was more prog than anything else if you ask me. Actually, Coffins rules pretty hard.

turn loose the swans = ultimate sensitive teenage mosher album. your river is just perfect! MrMarsh will agree (where are you?)

I lost my virginity to The Angel And The Dark River. Wahey!

I like a good bit of metal stuff. I've been getting back into Meshuggah and Norma Jean recently.

I've rediscovered cLOUDDEAD. Oh, it's good. Next, I'll be digging out The Bug and Four Tet. Not metal, but who cares?

I CAST YE OUT, YE TRAITOROUS SCUM!

Oh wait... you downloaded Clouddead off my soulseek last night didn't you? .... errr, nevermind. As you were.

The Razor X Productions, Bug vs Rootsman 2CD is by FAR the best Bug stuff. That and his new 12" on Planet Mu, Skeng. Download the Maida Vale Bug vs Soundmurderer live set that's widely available on slsk. Probably the best ragga vs jungle set ever! Soundmurderer is the MAN!

True for the self-titled, I think In Requiem has a character of it's own, rather than being a step backwards. Anyway, you should be listening to Gothic

That first album was absolutely amazing (but one of those albums you love but rarely listen to, if you know what I mean). Second album not so much, but the Boards of Canada remix on the 'Dead Dogs Two' 12" was sublime.

Agreed, Gothic is definitely my favourtie. I stopped listening after Icon, way too Metallica-ey after that. I haven't listened to Paradise Lost in about ten years though, I may have to download Shades Of God for nostalgia sakes now.

How's about old Cathedral, anyone? The Ethereal Mirror is brilliant.

Let's Groove, Sonic MotherFucker!

Absolutely THIS. Agree with everything you say here. Best Clouddead thing has got to be their remix of Closed Shoulders on the Boom Bip, Corymb record, that is just incredible. Why more people aren't making gushing/droning/ethereal downbeat hip hop like that, I have no idea. Incredible track, big inspiration to some of my more recent stuff.

gothic after Draconian Times. Gothic gets double points for having one of the best guitar sound ever.

Both are my favorite PL records anyway.

There was a big thing back in the day, 2001-3, about the 'Undie' movement. There was cool stuff going on, like Boom Bip & Doseone, Hood, or Fog's Ether Teeth... and that could be extended to stuff like Cannibal Ox or Dälek (the two hiphop crews I would wholeheartedly recommend to a metal fan, as I desperately try to steer back on-topic), who were crushing, bleak and smart.

Interesting times.