Angry Metal Guy

Spiritual Beggars // Return to Zero
Rating: 4.0/5.0 — Who said doom couldn’t be fun?
Label: InsideOut [EU | US]
Websites: myspace.com/spiritualbeggars
Release Dates: EU: 30.08.2010 | US: 10.12.2010

A wise and Angry Metal Guy once said (earlier this week) that “retro is the new new” and the trends in the angry metal world are surely proving those prophetic words true. We are up to our collective arses in retro thrash, retro power and retro retro. While new is always great, even the “new” new can be mighty fine as with the latest release from Sahg and this wicked mother, Return to Zero from Sweden’s own Spiritual Beggars. This is the seventh full length from Michael Amott’s long running side project and respite from the melodic death metal world and although it’s as retro as retro gets, this is one slamming, jamming slab of heavy stoner/doom rock n roll! Continue reading

Sahg // III
Rating: 4.0/5.0 — The Norwegian scene is dead, long live the Norwegian scene!
Label: Indie Recordings
Websites: sahg.no | myspace.com/sahg
Release Dates: EU: 30.08.2010 | US: Unknown (09.14.2010?)

Retro is the new new, apparently. Everyone and their dog is doing retro bands doing old school things with better (or at least louder) production and with the sensibilities of generations who have listened to a lot of music and decided that it’s time to come back to the thing that really seems to unite them: the 1970s. I, myself, have been listening to a lot of stuff from the 1970s lately, and especially the progressive rock movement that influenced many of the musicians from Scandinavia seems to be rearing its head in an interesting combination of traditional hard rock, heavy metal sensibilities and dudes who used to play black metal. Sahg‘s III embodies this movement sonically—and does it very, very well. Continue reading

Some may have read recently the post that made it on Blabbermouth, but was sent to anyone who was on Indie Recordings’ list about the restructuring and the fact that Borknagar and In Vain are going to have their records pushed back until 2010.  Of course, this is a bit of a shame as I was really looking forward to the new Borknagar record.  However, what I thought was definitely the coolest thing was getting to see the release list for 2010, honestly.  This is seriously fucking awesome.  Next year is going to kick ass for those of us who dig a lot of the Norwegian bands and the bands on Indie’s roster.  Here’s the list that was included: