One of the best parts about being a reviewer, honestly, is getting a hold of records that you’d've never thought to buy on your own and really enjoying them. 2010 hasn’t actually had a lot of those for me. The year has gone pretty much as expected (and a little worse for certain bands, unfortunately). But one of the big disappointments has been the number of bands that I’ve gotten who I’d never heard of that just never pan out to anything. Because obviously it’s newer bands that keep things going and some of my favorite records of the last few years have been from bands that I didn’t even know existed until I got the record to review (Istapp for example, or In Mourning). Gloria Morti is one of those bands that I’d sorta gotten wind of, but never really heard before. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I received Anthems of Annihilation but I was pleasantly surprised. Continue reading
So, Iron Thrones‘ new EP The Wretched Sun which I made the Record o’ the Month and raved about in my review came out yesterday (the 27th of July, 2010). You can order the record from the band via their website (actually, through their store, but go to their site, too) and over at their Band Camp you can download the EP for $6 and you can still download the particularly excellentVisions of Light (the band’s first LP) for as much as you want (i.e. free, if you don’t want to contribute to the band’s well-being).
Oh yeah, it’s also available on Amazon, iTunes and any other number of sources where you can probably find the thing.
Listen to that song above (I hope you’re already doing so) and tell me that it isn’t worth your six bucks. Or wait, it is worth your six bucks. So fucking buy it already.
Edit: Oh right. My friendly competitors over at The Number of the Blog (who shall lose righteously in the Pigskin Destroyer 666 Fantasy Football League) are also sponsoring a tour for the band as well. If you click that link up there, it will take you to their vastly inferior website for the details. Or you could stay right here in the comfort of AngryMetalGuy.com and look at the tour dates.
7/29/10 — Chicago, IL @ The Double Door w/ The Alaya Conscious, Hessler 7/31/10 — Columbus, OH @ The Summit w/ The C.O.A.S.T., Artillery Breath 8/01/10 — Aliquippa, PA @ The Fallout Shelter w/ Sathanas, Dethlehem 8/02/10 — Brooklyn, NY@ The Charleston w/ East of the Wall, Name, & more! 8/03/10 — Allenstown, NH @ Ground Zero w/ TBA 8/04/10 — Worcester, MA @ Tammany Hall w/ Irepress, Frozen 8/05/10 — Philadelphia, PA @ The M Room w/ Monolith, Willing Swords 8/07/10 — Spartanburg, SC @ Ground Zero w/ TBA 8/10/10 — Clarksville, TN @ The Coup w/ Evolve or Die 8/11/10 — Nashville, TN @ The Muse w/ TBA 8/12/10 — St. Louis, MO @ The Firebird w/ Ashes and Iron 8/13/10 — Marshalltown, IA @ The American Legion w/ Anno Domine, Tony Rocky Horror
Here we go again. I have in front of me the new album Into the Crypts of Blasphemy by long, LONG time members of the old school Swedish death metal scene, Interment. These guys existed in the late 80’s/early 90’s alongside the forefathers of the genre like Entombed, Grave and Dismember, but other than a few demos and such, this is their first real release. So where are we going again exactly? Bear with me and all will be revealed. Continue reading
Update 25/07/2010: K. Philipson has posted this on the appropriate thread over at Global Domination: “STOP THE DONATIONS UNTIL I SAY OTHERWISE! SOMETHING JUST HAPPENED AND UNTIL WE KNOW THE EXACT STATUS OF THIS – DO NOT DONATE! I WILL SHARE INFORMATION AS SOON AS I CAN.
(don’t sweat it, I am not stealing your donations or anything)
Update July 24th: I wish I could spill the beans right now, but the important thing is that none of you donate for the time being. Hopefully everything can be explained next week or the week after. All of the money that’s been donated is safe and sound in the PayPal account and will be returned to their owners when the time comes. Keeping them for now is just a precautionary action in case it actually has to come down to donations in the end anyways, but now I doubt it.
Just hang in there. I will explain everything asap.
This Saturday is a day of celebration anyways. Now let’s just hope everything goes as planned and promised.”
So it has come to my attention today that Örebro’s finest The Project Hate MCMXCIX (Myspace here) has made a post about recording their next record. Funding is a serious problem, as we’re all aware, in the music industry in 2010. There are any number of reasons for this and it can be easily said that most of the readers of this blog are probably at fault for this in a way because free music has become the standard now, and bands are finding it harder and harder to keep on doing what they love because while the consumption of music has changed dramatically, the production of music is still very much mired in the old ways—labels, recording studios and so on. Continue reading
When I was doing my interview with Ed Warby last November, I reached the end of the review and he mentioned that I hadn’t asked about Demiurg. Embarrassed, I admitted that I hadn’t heard Demiurg and was quickly informed as to its nature. To paraphrase Warby (who plays drums in this band, in case you didn’t know that) this is the “Rolls Royce” among vocalist Rogga Johansson’s bands and a real juggernaut of Swedish death metal. He hooked me up with a copy of The Hate Chamber, the band’s second record, and I was duly impressed. The band, made up of Rogga (Bone Gnawer, Paganizer, Ribspreader, The Grotesquery), Dan Swanö (maybe you’ve heard of him), Johan Berglund (This Haven, The Grotesquery) and Ed Warby (The 11th Hour, Gorefest, Hail of Bullets, and more), has come back in 2010 with a new take on their already well-developed and unique sound. Continue reading
Allegaeon // Fragments of Form and Function Rating: 4.0/5.0 — Colorado by way of Sweden Label: Metal Blade Websites:myspace.com/allegaeon Release Dates: EU: 19.07.2010 | US: 07.20.2010
I read somewhere recently that music reviewers who cite to other bands as a means to explain what an album sounds like do a disservice to themselves as writers by taking shortcuts and a greater disservice to the band by depriving them of individual creative identity. Upon reading this, I felt anger, then shame, then finally, acceptance. I pledged my very next review would be entirely devoid of such pathetic comparisons and my writing would thereby ascend to new heights of greatness. Then I listened to my assigned album and that went out the fucking window. Before me I have the debut album Fragments of Form and Function by Colorado’s own Allegaeon. It’s very good and I like it plenty. However, there is no way I get through this review without the crutch of comparison and I apologize to all who read this forevermore.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, no matter how immersed one becomes in a specific music scene, you simply can’t be aware of every band in that scene and part of the fun in life is discovering new bands and eagerly delving into their discography. I was unfamiliar with the work of Diabolic although they have been cranking out extreme death metal since 1998 in relative obscurity. Around that timeframe, I was in my “all death is good death” stage so I’m surprised these guys got under the radar, but so be it. After a four year absence since their last platter, Diabolic now unleashes their fifth album, Excisions of Exorcisms and with this album, I’m getting onboard the Diabolic bandwagon, although not necessarily due to this album. Allow me to explain. Continue reading
Into every reviewer’s lap, some crap will surely fall. Now, I can’t complain too much since I’ve had a pretty crap-free run so far as a scribe for the mighty and esteemed Angry Metal Guy. Sadly, that run has now come to a sudden and painful end with Arise, the second album from Germany’s Fimbulthier. I had never heard of these gents before but apparently their 2007 debut was some kind of viking/death metal hybrid, which by the looks of online reviews, didn’t exactly warm the cockles of the metal minded among us. Arise however, is about as viking as Pee Wee Herman in drag. No, seriously, maybe I misread the band description and it said Tricycling metal because there is nothing remotely close to viking metal here. What there is plenty of however, is awfulness and dreck. Continue reading
Severe Torture // Slaughtered Rating: 3.0/5.0 — Severe torture, unless you like it ugly and brutal. Label: Season of Mist Websites: severetorture.com | myspace.com/severetorture Release Dates: EU: 28.06.2010 | US: 06.29.2010
I have to admit right up front that I wasn’t overly familiar with Severe Torture and their cadaver of work prior to getting tasked with this review. I had heard bits and pieces of previous albums but nothing about them ever really grabbed my attention or made me feel the need to track down their material. So as I got familiar with Slaughtered, this Dutch death metal band’s fifth platter (or should I say splatter), I was pretty shocked by the quality of the material on display. Maybe I simply missed the boat on their earlier stuff but this is a solid enough release that I plan to go back to investigate much more carefully in the near future. Continue reading
Those of you who have been reading Angry Metal Guy since the beginning will remember that I lauded heavy praise on a Minneapolis, Minnesota based band called Iron Thrones last year after I downloaded their record (for free) and had myself a little Angry Metal Hernia™. The band was incredible. Like some kind of unholy cross between Opeth and Jesus… or whatever. I promptly declared the record amazing, gave it five stars and then took a cold shower. In any case, Visions of Light, the debut, still ranks as the best unsigned act I’ve ever heard and I have had very, very high hopes for the follow up record—The Wretched Sun—which will be self-released on the 27th of July after the very talented band went and won the No Label Needed contest and got sent to a pro studio. Continue reading
One of the best parts about being a reviewer, honestly, is getting a hold of records that you’d've never thought to buy on your own and really enjoying them. 2010 hasn’t actually had a lot of those for me. The year has gone pretty much as expected (and a little worse for certain bands, unfortunately). But one of the big disappointments has been the number of bands that I’ve gotten who I’d never heard of that just never pan out to anything. Because obviously it’s newer bands that keep things going and some of my favorite records of the last few years have been from bands that I didn’t even know existed until I got the record to review (Istapp for example, or In Mourning). Gloria Morti is one of those bands that I’d sorta gotten wind of, but never really heard before. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I received Anthems of Annihilation but I was pleasantly surprised. Continue reading
