“The 25th of July was a day of air conditioning, Danish Christmas cookies, and Christmas Vacation. Those days may be gone forever, as the family no longer exists as it once did, but a new tradition exists for old Grier. One that sees a year-end release that has, for two straight years, made my heart race in anticipation. A year later, almost to-the-date, comes another Second to Sun release. Lo and behold, the greatest annual tradition of them all. My present to you: Legacy.” Season’s beatings.
“It’s been quite a long time since I thought about ‘Portlandia,’ the I-have-to-assume wholly accurate depiction of life in Portland, Oregon. But reading the promo material for GoatHawkBuffalo’s full-length debut, I was put in mind of the particularly curious ‘We can pickle that’ sketch. Not because GoatHawkBuffalo are from Portland – the five-piece is based in Copenhagen, Denmark – but because of this statement from guitarist Asger Abel Sørensen, talking about how the band live-recorded Come to Temple but “subsequently recorded various crazy overdubs – we’ve had microphones in empty Jack Daniels’ bottles and buckets of water, we also ran a guitar signal through a pickle …”” Brine and brawn.
“The Night Watch bill themselves as “violin fronted instrumental progressive folk metal,” which certainly isn’t inaccurate. However, An Embarrassment of Riches feels first and foremost like a soundtrack album. It’s just one that adopts folk and metal as part of its sonic palette, in the vein of some of Bear McCreary’s work. As an instrumental concept album, it’s looking to tell a story.” Telling tales.
“If you’re familiar with Hallmark Channel Christmas movies, The Christmas Dream by holidazzle super group The Wizards of Winter is the metal equivalent. I myself am no stranger to these cinematic fruitcakes, as Mrs. Cherd and my jolly old father-in-law take perverse pleasure in subjecting me to them every Yuletide. It’s become such a tradition that we’ve devised a game of Christmas movie trope bingo, and it’s easily adapted to this brand of metal holiday album.” Nice snow globes!
“Sometimes metal is addictive in its brutality. Sometimes it is so technically impressive that we come back to it time and time again. Other times, it’s catchy, burrowing its hooks into our helpless brains and infecting us from within. But, in my own opinion, the best metal is simply compelling; it has an abstract quality about it that draws you in and becomes increasingly rewarding with every subsequent listen. So it was with Drei Deita (Three Foreboders), the second full-length release from Vinsta, a solo project from Austria’s Christian Höll.” Resurgence intensifies.
“Hailing from the bovine infested English Channel island of Guernsey, Byzanthian Neckbeard combine sludgy stoner metal with old school-minded death doom. Yes, these styles come from very different places and mindsets, but the rather large overlap on this Venn Diagram of Doom is labeled “big riff energy.”” Big, neckbeards mean big riffs (and cows).
“Cherd hides his immense adoration for my skills when he mocks the way I lob pun grenades into the middle of serious conversations in our backchannel communications, but that’s only because he hopes his dad joke skill is up to the challenge of his avatar ascending into toddlerhood. When I saw Rank and Vile in the bin, I couldn’t resist the beautiful play on words in the name. Just look at how ‘Rank’ is doubly punned — genius!” Thinning the ranks.
“I don’t know what makes something “avant-garde.” I remember going to an avant-garde art museum in Santa Fe, NM, where there was a movie exhibit of a haircut. Literally, two men and one woman get an identical buzzed haircut in the shade of a gazebo in the mountains of China. There’s new age music plucking around back there, walls are lined with identical shots of their new haircuts, and shadow boxes of locks of hair covered the floor. It was weird and challenging and difficult to understand, but I think about it a lot. So, if that’s what’s avant-garde, Messora ain’t it.” Hammer, don’t hurt ’em.
“The sound of birds chirping is, for me, both calming and therapeutic. My response to birdsong is not an unpopular one. Sound experts claim that ‘people find birdsong relaxing and reassuring because over thousands of years they have learnt when the birds sing they are safe, [and] it’s when the birds stop singing that people need to worry.’ Thus, I truly felt relaxed and at peace listening to the chirping birds, soft synths, and gentle acoustic guitar in the opening moments of Arx Atrata’s new album The Path Untravelled.” When the road forks, take it.
“Back in the primordial days of this here blog, we attempted something called “AMG’s Unsigned Band Rodeo.” The basic idea was to select a bunch of unsigned bands and give them the collective review treatment to find the most worthy buried gems. It was our humble effort to remind folks that the metal underground is still an important part of the world of metal.” We’re baaaack!
