“With the worldwide influence of Sweden on two fronts in the metal world and their universally hostile furniture-based takeover through Ikea (complete with Pictionary instructions and oddly tasty meatballs), it’s almost funny to see Sweden cheekily stealing from the initially British-led style of old-school heavy metal and RAM it down all of our throats with a record called Svbversvm.” Svbmit!
“Hardcore largely exists as a reaction to things in the world that invoke the ire of an angry singer. This can range from society as a whole (Pro-Pain), the government (Sick of It All), or some unnamed person who wronged the narrator so often and so consistently that it literally must be their job to anger the guy (Terror).” More music for Leg Day at the local gymnasium.
“If you’re feeling a combination of bored, Aristotelian, churlish, and are unwilling to leave your house, Form and Matter: Metal Edition is fun for the whole family. It’s a simple game where you make the “form” (the “definition”/record title) match the “matter” (the music) of a record. Some examples: Your Weird Drunken Uncle Makes an Edgy Hard Rock Record; Alestorm but Not as Good, and Eight Strings, Zero Riffs.” And that brings us to today’s contestant.
“Writing press releases for regular ol’ death metal must be a tedious job. Brutal only has so many synonyms, and it seems every fifth album that comes out is supposed to rip my face off or dig out my entrails with a rusty melon baller. My face is still here, I’ve never touched either end of a melon baller, and death metal reliably carries on.” Melon baller awaits!
“Semantic satiation is what happens when a word is repeated over and over again, causing it to briefly seem devoid of meaning. I’m no cognitive psychologist, but it seems to me that the same thing can happen with death metal. Brazilian death squad Pathologic Noise don’t make terrible music, but repeated listens to it was the brutal equivalent of semantic satiation.” Sounds like someone needs a trip to the nervous hospital.
“Grab your plush Cthulhu, throw away your textbooks on Euclidean geometry, pack a few snacks, and look reanimated, folks: the Dissonance Train to R’lyeh with a temporary stop in Obscura-ville is now boarding. If there are two things that seem to captivate plenty of minds in modern metal on the extreme side of the fence, they’re H.P. Lovecraft stories and how to translate the outer reaches of sanity into music via an incredible amount of dissonance.” Cthulhu 2016.
“The pulsating surge of the retro wave has turned music reviewing into what’s essentially the Antiques Roadshow. We listen like the appraiser examines a piece, looking for authenticity, craftsmanship, and the overall condition of the music. We then describe our findings and you lovely folks read about them, some of you coming here every day, some once a week, and some seduced now and again by the masterful and sultry click-baiting some of us excel at.” Just look at that veneer!
“No amount of misdirecting ledes or rhetorical flourishes can hide the fact that you already know Belgium’s Serial Butcher is a death metal band and Brute Force Lobotomy is a death metal record.” Thus endith the lesson.
“Sloth. is the one man doom machine piloted by the UK’s Blake Caverly, and you have the project’s debut full-length Slow as Shit. If that’s not a welcome change from doom’s usual dour titles, I don’t know what is.” With a name like, we have little to add.
“Black metal seems to, borrowing an excellent phrase from Erving Goffman, have been “permanently Wittgensteined” into meaning anything with screeching vocals, tremolo melodies, and blast beats that sounds a little chilly. The indie-black-gaze of Deafheaven, whatever Liturgy is, the poppy trappings of Alcest-core, and a lot of other nonsense seem to land under the umbrella that some of the best releases of the 90s and arguably metal in general built.” Join Diabolus as he tries to prove that black metal is rich and diverse.
