Blackwater Park

Haunted Shores – Void Review

Haunted Shores – Void Review

By Carcharodon on March 10, 2022 in Reviews, Death Metal, Djent, Progressive Metal, 15 comments

“Washington, D.C. progressive instrumental duo Haunted Shores returns after a seven-year absence with second full-length, Void. This is the follow-up to 2015 EP, Viscera, and 2011’s self-titled debut album. Haunted Shores members Mark Holcomb and Misha Mansoor are better known as members of Periphery, where both handle guitars and Mansoor is also responsible for programming, synthesizers, orchestration and drums. And once you know that, you can’t unhear Periphery in what the duo turn out.” Crawling eyes and void fanciers.

Yer Metal Is Olde: Katatonia – Last Fair Deal Gone Down

Yer Metal Is Olde: Katatonia – Last Fair Deal Gone Down

By Angry Metal Guy on August 1, 2021 in Blog Posts, Yer Metal Is Olde, 54 comments

“The year of our Angry Metal Overlord 2001 was a “very good year,” to quote the everyone who has ever spoken about wine in a movie. Indeed, the year that produced Opeth’s epic and scene-changing Blackwater Park and Propagandhi’s Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes, also gave us Mutter by Rammstein, Awakening the World by Lost Horizon and Laundry Service by Shakira. But is Last Fair Deal Gone Down the best album released in 2001?”

Yer Metal is Olde: Opeth – Blackwater Park

Yer Metal is Olde: Opeth – Blackwater Park

By Carcharodon on April 23, 2021 in Yer Metal Is Olde, Progressive Metal, 147 comments

“There are very few albums that I consider to be 5.0s or, in AMG money, ‘iconic.’ There are even fewer that I can actually picture the moment I first heard. One of those, however, is Blackwater Park. Opeth’s fifth full-length album probably shaped my extreme metal tastes more than any other single record and I cannot believe it is already 20 years old.” Park of the beast.

Angry Metal Guy’s Best Heavy Metal Songs of All Time 10-1

Angry Metal Guy’s Best Heavy Metal Songs of All Time 10-1

By Angry Metal Guy on June 25, 2011 in Blog Posts, 82 comments

Well, here it is folks. The final 10 [Here’s the first 40: 50-41, 40-31, 31-20, 20-11 and Steel Druhm’s: 50-41, 40-31, 30-21, 20-11, 10-1]. And this is going to ruffle a bunch of feathers, I guarantee it. These are, for the most part, not widely considered “favorites” and would never make fan-voted lists, but these tracks all got onto this list pretty easily. I’m not as angry about the whole Gibson list anymore, and I’ve lost a bit of steam because of that, but these tracks are all fucking fantastic, top-o’-the-line kind of shit. I hope you enjoy the list and I look forward trolling you soon. U MAD BRO!?

Barren Earth – Curse of the Red River Review

Barren Earth – Curse of the Red River Review

By Angry Metal Guy on March 31, 2010 in 2010, 4.5, Death Metal, Progressive Death, Reviews, Death Metal, Doom Metal, 5 comments

Barren Earth took me completely by surprise. As a rule I do not post reviews of records from labels that do not send me promos of them. I think it’s a disincentive for them to do so and generally bands don’t deserve the promotion. However, sometimes bands come onto the radar that I can’t ignore, as is what happened when I picked up this new Barren Earth record on a total whim. In fact, I didn’t even know that this band had ex-members from Amorphis, the drummer from Moonsorrow, the guitarist from Kreator or the vocalist from Swallow the Sun involved, or that it was mixed by Dan Swano. I guess I should have expected that this would be a great record…

Orphaned Land – The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR Review

Orphaned Land – The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR Review

By Angry Metal Guy on January 8, 2010 in 2010, 5.0, Century Media, Folk Metal, Progressive Death, Progressive Metal, Reviews, Death Metal, Folk Metal, Progressive Death, 9 comments

Few bands will ever make their own mark on a genre of music. it’s just a statistical rarity. Someone once told me that there are something like 5 million bands on MySpace, if that gives you an idea of the breadth which exists when one is thinking in terms of how many musicians there are out there. Of those, most of them probably last longer than a year, never produce much of a demo much less get signed to a real label, and how many ever produce a real step forward into a new decade with a statement of great things to come? The chances of becoming a professional musician are basically NIL and then of the number that do, how many ever produce something that will be remembered and affect enough listeners to ever influence any? That number is even smaller. Orphaned Land is one of the few bands that will ever exact change in metal and they are doing so now with their new record The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR.

Angry Metal Guy Lives!

Angry Metal Guy Lives!

By Angry Metal Guy on November 18, 2009 in Blog Posts, 0 comments

Wow. Things have been busy around here, honestly. One of the downsides of doing this for fun is that one makes no money doing it and has to come up with other ways to pull together an income. I’ve been trying to do that, plus, other things. Anyway, this is the stuff that I’ve been up to and listening to in my freetime (of which there is actually very little). In this time, however, I have pieced together a list that I would call the “best albums of the 2000s.” I don’t know if I’d actually call them the best, so much as the ones that have really stuck with me. As a guy who thinks that it was actually the mid/late 90s that were really the defining point in heavy metal for the modern era, and that what we’re dealing with is very much the outcome of this, this list was actually very difficult for me to produce.