“Much like the Olympics, every four years Apostle of Solitude reawaken to deliver us another tasty treat of traditional doom. This isn’t hipster doom, performed by men in suits with perfectly coiffed beards lamenting in coffee shops. This is doom of the Sabbathian brand, with big guitars, bigger riffs, sometimes lumbering and ponderous and sometimes not, and (happy times!) short album lengths — and unruly beards.” Beard-core > java-core.
“While many of my writing colleagues hunker down amid inches of snow and ice, wallowing in gloom, I’m enjoying a haphazard but sporadically scorching Australian summer. The closest I’ve got to such frosty atmospheres recently was on an evening sitting outside where I outrageously had to retrieve a jacket in the middle of fucking summer. As such, my musical appetite generally stays on the lighter side at this time of year, in extreme metal terms that is. However, as it turns out, January, and life circumstances have forced my hand to embrace the darker, doomier realms of metal.” Faal for every season.
“Labeled as “Orchestral Doom Death” in AMG’s top-secret promo vault, I figured this Australian act would at the very least make for an interesting listening experience regardless of quality, and with Eigengrau being their second LP, it’s more likely that they’d have their ambitious sound already dialed in. Indeed, Eigengrau is far from boring, and even quite good at times, but Rise of Avernus’ identity crisis makes it a regularly frustrating listen.” Symphony of frustration.
Another year, another 12 chances to get the Record(s) o’ the Month in on time. Sure, it’s January, the time for fresh starts. And sure, this is on time. But don’t lose hope, not only will I continue to troll you by having excellent taste as compared to your banal, trendy, and/or pretentious opinions, but I will continue to be arbitrarily late and inconsiderate of groupthink when I choose my Record(s) o’ the Month.
“Hamferð plays a style of doom that is thankfully impervious to serious trendiness. Truly excellent funeral doom is pretty rare, and I have developed a bit of an aversion to the doom genre because my promo inbox is populated by a glut of stoned, raw-water-drinking hipsters trying to play Black Sabbath riffs as though they were interesting and/or novel nearly 50 years after they were first written. But when done well, doom metal can be an intense, beautiful, and crushing genre. And Hamferð does it well.” Welcome the end.
“Barren Earth may be the only band I ever forgive for not giving me an audition to be their vocalist. After it was announced that Mikko Kotamäki (Swallow the Sun) was leaving the band and that they were publicly searching for a singer, I screwed up my courage and dropped them an email with some songs. Being that I am “the standard by which all should be judged” (which is why I started a blog), I was duly shocked, dismayed and offended that they never even sent me a kind rejection letter.” Bitter and jilted, can Angry Metal Guy ever forgive this Finnish super group their taste in singers!?
