“It’s not easy being John Cobbet, legendary underground guitarist of Vhöl, ex(ish)-Ludicra,] ex-The Lord Weird Slough Feg, and mastermind of Hammers of Misfortune. Along with his long-collaborating partner Sigrid Sheie (also of Vhöl), Cobbet has, at his own pace, pumped out eclectic success after eclectic success with his rotating Hammers crew.” Hammers time.
“Solo projects are somewhat fascinating to me. They offer a fresh perspective into what makes an artist tick yet, for whatever reason, are seldom ever as good as the musician’s root project. The obvious takeaway here is that a band is only as good as the sum of its parts, and isolating one of those parts is bound to result in a lesser product. What makes 1000 Bone Cylinder Explosion an interesting case, then, is that the founder is already the primary compositional voice behind his greatest claim to fame. We are already acquainted with Peter Hraur’s vision; we have Lör. So what new wonders, then, can 1000 Bone Cylinder Explosion offer.” Bone collector.
“At what point does death metal qualify as “old-school?” It’s odd to think that an entire sub-genre is predicated, in part, on how long it happens to have existed, and in this world of hyper-convenient immediacy, surely that span is shrinking at a rapid pace. One day, some poor fuck will be mooning over a Suicide Silence record telling his mates how the classics are always the best, and I will spin in my grave so fast I’ll bore into the center of the Earth. Rather than simply exhuming the dead, fortunately, Oakland’s Extremity lean more towards the Frankensteinian school of science.” Build-An-Abomination.
“YOB, Oregon’s modern purveyors of epic, cathartic doom, have crafted a unique and powerful body of work across a long career, solidifying their status as one of the genre’s great artistic forces. Long form doom songs with gradual builds and subtle shifts is generally not my cup of tea when seeking my doom fix, but there’s something profoundly special and intriguing about YOB’s crushingly intense yet beautiful music.” Yob’s yer uncle.
“Steel Druhm‘s black metal appreciation days have largely come and gone as we’ve grown apart and developed irreconcilable differences. Because I’m such a self-aware, introspective gent, I give the genre a wide birth when it comes to promo pluckery lest I savage a band for my own lack of interest. But a strange thing happened on the way to the sump recently. Madam X was sampling new arrivals and I didst hear such a compelling cacophony that I simply had to know who was responsible.” Risky blackness.
“Crust punk is an interesting beast. Stylistically speaking, its bludgeoning, relentless nature is closer to metal than perhaps any other style of punk, but only a handful of metal acts have dabbled in the genre. Vhol and modern Darkthrone have made admirable attempts at bringing crust to the metal masses, but ultimately the genre has flown under the radar of most fans.” Run with the crust pack.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m genetically predisposed towards some kind of Pavlovian response when faced with a death metal band called Extremity flaunting an album entitled Extremely Fucking Dead. And, frankly, if a package like that doesn’t pique your interests, then you, sir, are a swine and a cad, and no friend of mine.” Extremity in defense of fucking death is no vice.
“Longtime AMG readers may recall my excessive worship of guitarist John Cobbett and his various projects. His main endeavor, Bay-area prog-metallers Hammers Of Misfortune, has been dormant since 2011’s 17th Street, and with good reason. Vocalist Joe Hutton was involved in a near fatal motorcycle accident, Cobbett and wife/bandmate Sigrid Sheie welcomed their first child and released an album with Vhöl, and the Hammers themselves went through several lineup changes. Five years later, the band returns with the heavier, more direct Dead Revolution.” Let’s get hammered.
“Last year our very own El Cuervo started rating a consensus list based on the releases that were mentioned in various lists. Giving each release a score, we then tally the point totals for each release. Each of our unique lists has a number of releases that simply come nowhere close to the top list. But it’s cool to see that we do actually seem to rally around a few great releases and some releases that I am a little bit more shocked to see. Regardless, this final “meta-list” will round off the year of AngryMetalGuy.com’s list season.” Lists, man.
Twenty-fifteen has been a hell of a ride. It’s been one of my favorite years for music in quite a long time, and I’ve been struggling to prune this list down to 10(ish) records that I really love. But in some ways, the top 5 has never been easier for me to choose. What I find most fascinating about this list is how completely out of step I feel with what I see as being touted as the coolest parts of the underground. I seem to be pretty far afield while everyone else seems to be fawning over the latest ’70s retro doom phenomenon, hope drones, or the latest example of black metal kids missing that intensity not 15 minute songs was the cool part of black metal. This is what it feels like to have been left behind by a scene; to have lived long enough to be that old guy shaking his fist at new trends in metal.
