Shining has been a consistent favorite of mine since I discovered the band. Since V:/Halmstad: Niklas angående Niklas I have reviewed every one of their records and have witnessed a change in the band that I think is hard to ignore. Starting with V, the band has continued an Opethian evolution away from the raw, gut-wrenching emotional black metal into something less raw, more catchy and proggy (Marillion prog not Dream Theater prog). Having now dropped the numbers and donned instead an English title, (what would have been VIII) Redefining Darkness continues the band’s evolution away from its gut-wrenching roots. Were we looking for a redefinition? After the mighty VII: Född förlorare I sure wasn’t
Halmstad
Shining – VII: Född förlorare Review
>Shining is about as hip as it gets among so called “underground” black metal bands, though really at this point, what with being signed to Spinefarm now, I guess they’re not super underground anymore. But whatever, success does not make a band sucky by its very nature—no, it’s Angry Metal Guy’s Law of Diminishing Recordings™ that does that. And with the anticipation building around VII – Född förlorare (English: Born Loser[s]) due to the myriads of issues that surfaced in the process of recording, mixing and getting the album even out, it pretty much should go without saying that I’ve really been looking forward to this record. Haven’t you been looking forward to it? Damn straight.
Angry Metal Guy’s Top 15(ish) of the 2000s
It’s hard to make this kind of broad list, I just want to say that from the get-go. How do you do this? Do you choose your favorites, or do you choose the genre defining records? Because saying, for example, that some of the following records are really genre defining wouldn’t be true. On the […]
Angry Metal Guy Lives!
Wow. Things have been busy around here, honestly. One of the downsides of doing this for fun is that one makes no money doing it and has to come up with other ways to pull together an income. I’ve been trying to do that, plus, other things. Anyway, this is the stuff that I’ve been up to and listening to in my freetime (of which there is actually very little). In this time, however, I have pieced together a list that I would call the “best albums of the 2000s.” I don’t know if I’d actually call them the best, so much as the ones that have really stuck with me. As a guy who thinks that it was actually the mid/late 90s that were really the defining point in heavy metal for the modern era, and that what we’re dealing with is very much the outcome of this, this list was actually very difficult for me to produce.
Shining – VI/Klagopsalmer Review
As a matter of full disclosure, I must say that I am a huge Shining fan, but a fairly new one. I totally got turned onto this band because of their opus V:/Halmstad which was easily the best record I bought in 2007 and which blew me away. I then went back and got their […]