Ihsahn

Loch Vostok – V: The Doctrine Decoded Review

By Angry Metal Guy on October 12, 2012 in 2012, 3.0, Melodic Death Metal, Progressive Metal, Reviews, Swedish Metal, ViciSolum Productions, Progressive Metal, 1 comment

So last year (that’d be 2011 for everyone reading this review in 2013 and forward) I discovered Loch Vostok’s record Dystopium a few months after it was released and did a Things You Might Have Missed entry about it. But given that it was last year, I was surprised when I saw that the fecund Teddy Möller and crew had already produced a new record and that it was sitting in my inbox. Now, granted, I didn’t get to it nearly quickly enough (since it’s already out), but I thought I’d drop in and let you know that a) it’s out and b) what I think of it. I like it, but not as much as Dystopium. There, now you don’t need to read any further!

Ihsahn – Eremita Review

By Angry Metal Guy on June 4, 2012 in 2.5, 2012, Candlelight, Norwegian Metal, Progressive Metal, Reviews, 23 comments

Post-Emporer, Ihsahn has kicked a lot of ass, but After was a controversial record without a doubt. While I gave it my thumbs up at the time, I feel like it hasn’t aged well—with the saxophone performance being my biggest complaint. Sure, jazz and metal have histories of solo players who push the boundaries of what is “acceptable,” but the saxophone performances get pretty taxing after a while. So for me, the thing that I’m looking for from a new Ihsahn record is that it lives up to the songwriting and groove-oriented riffing from The Adversary and especially angL which is one of my favorite records of the last 10 years. So, as you can guess, I approached Eremita (Latin for “hermit” and the root of the English word “eremite” if you weren’t aware) nervously.

Interview with Mirai Kawashima from Sigh

By Happy Metal Guy on April 22, 2012 in 2012, Avante Garde, Black Metal, Candlelight, Century Media, Interviews, Japanese Metal, The End Records, Black Metal, 10 comments

Enigmatic and uncomfortably cheerful, gregarious and ambitious Happy Metal Guy managed to catch up with Mirai Kawashima from the Japanese avant-garde black metal band Sigh. He bombarded him with positivity, amusing anecdotes and uncomfortable questions about steel phalli until Mr. Kawashima relented; answering the questions and talking about… flowers? This fucking blog gets weirder and weirder every day.

Anaal Nathrakh – Passion Review

By Angry Metal Guy on May 23, 2011 in 2011, 4.0, Black Metal, Candlelight, Reviews, Black Metal, Grind, 10 comments

So this is one of those bands that I really know nothing about. Back when I started reviewing I got the record Constellation of the Black Widow and I remember thinking it was pretty good, but it was a few months old at that time and so I never did a review of it. But in a world full of shitty black metal that bores me to tears by being repetitive and uninteresting, Anaal Nathrakh definitely appeared to be ahead of the game by, actually, not boring me to tears. I was reasonably interested to get around to reviewing Passion when I got it a while ago, but what with my busy schedule and everything I’d hardly even gotten around to listening to it until lately. And let me say, I’m impressed.

Angry Metal Guy’s Best Heavy Metal Songs of All Time 40-31

By Angry Metal Guy on March 31, 2011 in Blog Posts, 26 comments

After Steel Druhm’s fine addition to this discussion about awesome metal songs, here’s the continuation of my ridiculously superior list. No need for a rant. Just jump right on into the joy contained below. Here’s the first one.

Angry Metal Guy’s Top 15(ish) of the 2000s

By Angry Metal Guy on December 22, 2010 in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, Blog Posts, 55 comments

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’s Top 10(ish) of 2010

By Angry Metal Guy on December 13, 2010 in 2010, 2011, Blog Posts, Reviews, 24 comments

2010. Wow, man. 2010. We’re counting months now until we all die in 2012. So how do you think it’s going to happen? Do you think that terrorists will get a nuke and fuck up the world? Or do you think that a meteor will hit? Or should I wait until the end of 2011 to ask that question?

Aspera – Ripples Review

By Angry Metal Guy on January 18, 2010 in 2010, 3.5, InsideOut, Progressive Metal, Reviews, Progressive Metal, 4 comments

Progressive metal isn’t an easy place to be. Let’s face it, much of the world of progressive metal is a tussle between an old guard of old fans (the Neanderthals of Metal) who really like bands that sound like Dream Theater, Queensryche, and so forth, and then there’s kind of everyone else. It’s disparate, difficult to define and often pretentious as hell with little logic as to what is in fashion with which group. This is the natural outcome of genrefication, in my opinion, and part of that is a question of where a band can actually progress to. You’re either not heavy enough or you’re too heavy and you never please anyone. Few bands ever really manage to fall outside of these well-worn ruts in the road, but there are some fantastic bands in those ruts, Aspera is one of those bands.

Ihsahn – After Review

By Angry Metal Guy on January 12, 2010 in 2010, 4.0, Black Metal, Candlelight, Progressive Metal, Reviews, Black Metal, Progressive Metal, 8 comments

Easily one of the most anticipated records of 2010 for me has been Ihsahn’s new offering. While I was a passing Emperor fan, really just a fan of In the Nightside Eclipse and Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk-era, I was taken by Ihsahn’s solo stuff. The Adversary felt fresh, progressive enough, a step away from the later Emperor material of which I wasn’t a fan, and it captured the sonic styles and textures that he was never quite allowed to explore while in Emperor. The record didn’t stick with me as I had hoped, while I listened to it occasionally it didn’t hold a steadfast position in my discography. On the other hand, angL blew me away. Probably the finest record of 2008, angL has maintained a steady place in the rotation and is a record that I’ve showed to dozens of people. Perfectly produced, perfectly composed and smartly written, angL contained everything that I wanted out of a new progressive metal record. So, of course, when I heard that Ihsahn would be releasing a new record in 2010, I became justifiably excited.

Angry Metal Guy Lives!

By Angry Metal Guy on November 18, 2009 in Blog Posts, 0 comments

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.