“‘There are few things in this world as pleasant as raw black metal.’ What foolish KenWords those were. I was young then, impressionable and naive. Akantha has since extinguished the innocent light from my eyes. In my newfound wisdom, I now believe that raw black metal is one of the ugliest things in this world.” Ugly is as ugly does.
“Hard rock. Alt-metal. Post-grunge. These were the things I listened to back in high school. Breaking Benjamin and Disturbed in particular satisfied my desire for a bit of harmless aggression in my angsty youth. To be fair, I still hold a soft spot for the stuff, with Phobia and Ten Thousand Fists rising above the rest as the two albums from this subset of artists that I still regularly revisit. Los Angeles’ Hyvmine emerge from the same gene pool, fully intending to rock the world with their sophomore effort Retaliation.” You have hives.
“There are few things in this world as pleasant as raw black metal. The kind that barely registers as music to the ears of the unwashed. The kind that gives all of your family members doubts about your competency. The kind that elicits concerned glares from passers-by. You know what I’m talking about. So it was with great anticipation that I plucked Finland’s Celestial Grave from the AMG promo vault for a look-see.” When the void plucks you.
“Every once in a while the metal scene collectively pisses on a band or record and someone needs to step up and defend why they like it. We normally don’t spend a lot of time defending shitty records, but sometimes genuinely interesting or good records get lampooned by an overly conservative heavy metal scene and that calls for a professional contrarian to defend it! If ever there were professional contrarians, it would be the staff of AMG.” Cred and buried.
“Instead of focusing on a general trend of social injustice and political bullshittery that all too many grind bands pursue, Lifes are all about stumbling throughout the various lives in which we involve ourselves on a daily basis, failing at most of it, and doing whatever we can to keep our shit together. According to their bandcamp bio, “Music can’t save us, but it can help us cope.” I’ve heard music described this way countless times before, but for whatever reason in this instance it resonated.” Life is a grind.
“Everything is retro nowadays. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a thing. I’ve heard people say that reviving significant trends from previous decades is the result of a complete lack of originality in the current one. But I think it’s simply a law of human nature. People in any given decade become fascinated with aesthetics from anywhere between 30-to-50 years ago—presumably because they’re just now (re-)discovering them—and for a while the cultural landscape morphs into this weird amalgam of modern ideas squeezed through a retrospective filter. Or, sometimes people simply mimic whatever popular thing from whatever decade they have latched on to at the time.” Living in the past.
“I am ashamed. Why? Because I almost let this badass record slip through my greedy clutches. You see, my good friend (who we know as Septic ’round these parts) randomly pops in now and again to apprise me on some of his choice metallic discoveries. He introduced Irish/German/Dutch quartet Ascend the Hollow to me and I was instantly hooked. Like, so fast my head spun. I needed to share my excitement for Echoes of Existence with as many people as possible, but how? It would’ve been grand if we received promo, I thought. Then, all of a sudden I received a virtual sucker punch while rooting around the bin—the thing’s been sitting there since the end of April! How in the actual heck did I miss that??? And lo I experienced great embarrassment. I nearly neglected one of the coolest new bands to materialize out of absolute nowhere this year.” Finder of nearly lost things.
“The Summer of Slamcore and Other Slammy Things™ continues for this guy right here. So far, my choices from the promo bin failed to impress or rapidly soured after the initial bout of Shiny New Thing Disorder lifted. But there must be light at the end of the tunnel. As soon as I saw New Zealand’s very own modern slam juggernauts Organectomy peeking out from under all of the mediocre black metal dreck littering the place, I knew I had found that light.” Wham, bam, thank you, slam!
“Life kinda sucks. Or, I suppose more accurately, the realization that I have no control over how everything changes despite my every last effort to keep things stable kinda sucks. Unexpected alterations to my goals and plans abound. I question decisions I once thought sound, only to later circle back after realizing the alternatives were ill-fitting. Those close to me change in ways I fail to anticipate. Introducing further complications, I change and impact others in ways they can’t anticipate. It is because of the relentless fickleness of life that I appreciate the things that remain consistent. Thank the abyssal lords who art burning in the depths of hell, death metal is often one of those things. And Gravefields, an Irish/French/Egyptian (respectively, one guy from Ireland, one guy from France, and the band as a unit operating/recording mostly out of Cairo) death metal band supply ample evidence supporting this claim.” Death adds life.
“It has become all too apparent that I do not learn from my mistakes. People warned me since childhood never to trust a snake, and yet Python will mark the second time I picked promo based solely on my love for those slithery danger noodles. I’ve learned my lesson this time for sure, though. Never in my life have I encountered a shit-tastrophe as rank as Astrological Warfare, the band’s ill-conceived sophomore record.” Twice bitten.
