“We’ve come a long way from “No Core No Mosh No Trends No Fun” haven’t we? Straying incredibly far from Euronymous’ proposed attitude for black metal, we now have a record from Root guitarist Blackosh’s eponymous solo project about three things that I like: Whores, Booze & Black Metal. Combining good things doesn’t always work though; have you ever made a steak, scotch, and hamburger shake? I haven’t either, but it would probably be repulsive.” But this has whores!
“Hailing from the Czech Republic, Pandemia is a bit like the death metal equivalent of Everybody Loves Raymond; it’s been around a while appeared alongside plenty of important things, but you’ve never met anyone who really knows much about it. Maybe you’ve run across it once and stuck around for a few minutes, but something else caught your attention pretty quickly.” But everybody LOVES Raymond! War metal, maybe not so much these days.
“Death is perhaps the most interesting subject to me. Though I don’t study it, don’t have any sort of education in it, and don’t have any right to expand on or analyze it, I just find the human intrigue and fear of death fascinating. Some embrace death and live their lives knowing that everything could end today, others accept but fear death, and many avoid discussion of it (and even the thought of it) more than anything else in the world.” Want to learn more about death? Then this is the best source since the Mondo Cane videos.
“I’m always up for hearing music from bands who are pushing envelopes, crafting daring, original soundscapes of sheer genius that leave people slack-jawed and awestruck, inspiring young, budding musicians to pick up an instrument and pay homage to their ancestors. Morbid Angel was (at one point) one of those bands.” If you’re going to mimic someone, old Morbid Angel isn’t a bad way to go.
“Black metal has become so diverse that the tag has practically lost all meaning. What does it refer to these days? The post-black style first whisked from Cascadia in 2007 with Wolves in the Throne Room’s seminal Two Hunters? Or the stomach-churning dissonance of Deathspell Omega? Or maybe legacy acts like Mayhem, still trudging on and attempting to rekindle the fires that burned so fiercely in the early 90s?” Black metal has been seriously wounded, but the fire still burns.
“A divine mother to the enlightened and a ferocious killer to those fearful of death, the Hindu goddess Kali is a figure of reverence and terror alike – a being that is by all accounts complex, mystical and arcane. What better genre to pay tribute to the Divine Mother than the fearsome majesty and ritual violence of black metal? Cult of Fire, hailing from the Czech Republic, move away from done-to-death “orthodox” Satanism obnoxiousness on their second album मृत्यु का तापसी अनुध्यान (Ascetic Meditation of Death) in favor of focussing on Hindi mythology, creating an album that is entirely dedicated to this most fearsome of Hindi goddesses.” Czech black metal dealing with Hindu concepts? What could be more American??
Lord Doom tells you about Zatokrev’s Candlelight debut The Bat, the Wheel and a Long Road to Nowhere which is, conveniently, a doom metal record. We’re smart around here.
Eccentric. That little word can apply to avant-garde, cutting edge music just as easily as your crazy uncle Barnaby. You know, the one that collects cats and built the time machine out of used exercise equipment and urinal cakes.
The world of music is so big and this Angry Metal Guy is really so very, very small. This is my excuse for having never listened to Silent Stream of Godless Elegy before receiving this record from Season of Mist. And really, I think I probably should have at least checked them out before. Having formed in 1995 they’ve been playing a variety of folky, doomy metal that, to be honst, I’m surprised wasn’t picked up by Napalm Records back in the day when they were on their kick of picking up every female fronted band ever. But I digress [What? Me digress? – AMG].
