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Record(s) o’ the Month – November 2018
“By almost any measure, 2018 has been a pretty solid year for music. November has once again left us with a list of excellent candidates for the best of the month. But while this month, we had some pretty big names put out some pretty big albums that, frankly, lived up to their reputations, I think we need to go a different direction. So damn the plebs and the lowest common denominators, here’s your Record o’ the Month!” Trench feet.
Soen – “Rival” Premiere and Lotus Review
“Surprise! Today we’re giving you an AngryMetalGuy.com first: an exclusive song premiere! You may have heard the news that Swedish progressive metallers Soen will release Lotus on the 1st of February, 2019 on Silver Lining Music. Well, I’m incredibly stoked to present to you two exclusives today. First, we have an exclusive listen to album’s first single “Rival,” which you’ll find embedded here. Furthermore, to give this song premiere that distinctive AMG feel you’ll find my full length, in-depth review of Lotus below.” Aw, snap! A song premiere!? Soon Angry Metal Guy will be referring to the readers as “little people.”
Record(s) o’ the Month – September 2018
“Twenty-eighteen is shaping up to be a remarkable year. September alone had nearly a dozen records that staff writers wanted to nominate for the Record o’ the Month. I can say with certainty, having been at this for a while, that few months have been as contentious behind closed doors at Angry Metal Guy Amalgamated Blogworks, LLC. Dozens of verbal spats escalated quickly into an Anchor Man-like brawl, featuring fighters lining up to shout each other down about Voivod’s legacy, reviews written by fanboys, and Satan’s novelty before someone—possibly Dr. Fisting—attacked Steel Druhm with a trident. After I single-handedly dispatched the opposition to avenge Major General Steely D, however, it was clear that there could only be one choice for September’s Record o’ the Month.” What’s the best soundtrack for a backstreet brawl among metal reviewers?
Record(s) o’ the Month – July 2018
Below you have my Record(s) o’ the Month for July of 2018 drawn from July’s embarrassment of riches. Normally, July is a throw-away month. It’s the heart of festival season—everyone is torturing me with their pictures from Wacken and GenCon right now—and labels are careful about releasing new stuff. So it was a happy surprise that there was an intense crop of stand-out records that we enjoyed here at Angry Metal Guy Industries, LLP. Alas, we can only choose so many and—alas (for everyone but me)—my will is law.
Angry Metal Guy Speaks: On Putting the -core in Genres
“In September of 2017 I made the awesome tech-death band Archspire the Record o’ the Month. One commenter responded: “Archspire is not death metal in any way. Amazing the way the hype goes around this ridiculous deathcore band.” To this day—despite years of touring with bands like Cannibal Corpse and Suffocation—people still refer to The Black Dahlia Murder as a metalcore band. While some people do it to troll little ol’ me, it’s also something which shows up more seriously. Yet, if Archspire is deathcore and The Black Dahlia Murder is metalcore, can please explain to me what’s “-core” about these bands?” Rotten to the core.
Angry Metal Speaks: Advice from an Angry Reviewer, Updated and Revised
“AngryMetalGuy.com is a popular blog. We receive hundreds of thousands of hits every month and we continue to grow at a rate that I find difficult to believe. Our readership spans the globe and continue to grow. The only countries we have never received hits from are Chad, Morocco and, to my great disappointment, North Korea. For no profit at all—actually, we run at a loss—we produced 835 posts (that’s 667,499 words) in 2017. That’s an insane amount of writing that we produce in our free time. The vast majority of those were music reviews, because none of us has the patience or desire to be part of the Metal News machine, we’re all too lazy to do feature pieces, and we love reviewing music. On top of that, the posts we produced last year had high engagement. We had an average of 46 comments on every single post, and we all know that people put their money where their mouth is when it comes to the stuff we love. Just ask Wilderun, Lör and Trials. If I do say so myself, we’re pretty fucking awesome.” Free advice costs money.
Angry Metal Speaks: On the Album, Its Length, and What We Review
I’ve written fairly extensively on my opinion about album lengths. I, rather infamously, gently panned the new Iron Maiden album because it was delivered totally unedited. I wrote about how the CD was the death of the album, and I wrote about why I think that a quintuple LP has failed from the outset. This has since taken on the name “The 45 Minute Rule.”
Record(s) o’ the Month – March 2016
What’s this? Record(s) o’ the Month posted on the last day of March? This can’t last!
AngryMetalGuy.com’s Top 10(ish) of 2015: Aggregating the Lists to Create MOAR Lists!
“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.
