Mayhem

Angry Metal Guy Speaks: On the Consequences of Copyright Fights and Ownership

By Angry Metal Guy on October 5, 2012 in Blog Posts, 11 comments

Recently Steel Druhm outlined with some bittersweet memories the evolution of the music industry away from the prized formats of the CD and the LP (and cassette – but let’s not kid ourselves, liking cassettes is basically just proof that you’re trve ’cause you’re using the shittiest technology possible). But one of the things he didn’t touch on was the societal implications of the process he was talking about. Now I understand that this is a metal blog and that if I wanted to start AngrySociologyGuy.com I am free to do so; but bear with me, because I don’t feel like starting a new blog just to hash through the concept of ownership.

Angry Metal Guy’s Indefensible Positions: Mayhem – Grand Declaration of War

By Angry Metal Guy on July 31, 2012 in Blog Posts, Indefensible Positions, Black Metal, 15 comments

Every once in a while the metal scene collectively pisses on a band or record and someone needs to step up and defend why they like it. I normally don’t spend a lot of time defending shitty records, but sometimes genuinely interesting or good records get lampooned by an overly conservative heavy metal scene. And that calls for a professional contrarian to defend it! If ever there ever a professional contrarian, it would be me. So here I am to re-hash a record from my past that I still love that everyone else seems to have soured on (or never liked in the first place).

Retro Reviews: Trelldom – Til et annet…

By Angry Metal Guy on June 30, 2012 in Black Metal, Norwegian Metal, Retro Reviews, Reviews, Black Metal, 2 comments

Angry Metal Guy (hey, that’s me!) and Steel Druhm have long had it in for black metal. Indeed, one can hardly look upon the pages of AngryMetalGuy.com without hearing a cranky metal guy bitching up a storm about how black metal isn’t what it once was; how it’s boring, overly conservative (not necessarily in viewpoints, but in musical approach) and mediocre. Hell, even the new girl is in on the “black metal is boring” thing. So, tonight, when a friend of mine was showing me some of his tracks and they reminded me of Trelldom and I was suddenly struck with a bit of nostalgia and broke out Til et annet… a great record which maybe hit a tad too late for the trve black metal folks.

Master’s Hammer – Vracejte Konve Na Misto Review

By Steel Druhm on May 3, 2012 in 2012, 4.0, Avante Garde, Black Metal, Reviews, Black Metal, Progressive Metal, 8 comments

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.

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.

Things You Might Have Missed 2011: Nader Sadek – In the Flesh

By Angry Metal Guy on January 10, 2012 in 2011, Death Metal, Reviews, Season of Mist, Things You Might Have Missed 2011, 4 comments

For me 2011 was a year devoid of a death metal record that really knocked it out of the park. While Vomitory produced a pretty damn solid album, and Diocletian and Ulcerate were really good, but they didn’t exactly get me writhing around on the ground in ecstasy like a lot of other people seemed to have experienced it. So when I was digging through my unopened promos, I stumbled upon Nader Sadek’s debut record which came out in 2011 from Season of Mist Records. And let me just say that I wasn’t even mildly prepared for what I was going to get. I’ll give you a hint though: it was 100% win.

Woebegone Obscured – Deathstination Review

By Lord Doom on January 20, 2011 in 2011, 3.0, Black Metal, Doom Metal, Reviews, Black Metal, Doom Metal, Funeral Doom, 0 comments

Doom metal is a sub-genre that gets a lot of flak from orthodox metal fans for being “boring” or “too slow”, even more so for the processionary pace of funeral doom. Enter Denmark’s Woebegone Obscured, self-described as a “blackened funeral doom” band, with their debut full length Deathstination (self-released in 2007 and now re-released by I, Voidhanger records) – a crushingly slow doom album punctuated by high-energy black metal flourishes and a very apparent progressive mentality.

Demonic Resurrection – The Return to Darkness Review

By Angry Metal Guy on August 3, 2010 in 2010, 3.0, Black Metal, Candlelight, Reviews, 5 comments

As world metal takes the stage, something that is happening more and more frequently these days, we’re going to be seeing more of these bands coming from places where metal just hasn’t ever shown its face earlier. Demonic Resurrection, as those of you familiar with Sam Dunn’s documentary Global Metal already know, are a band from India who play symphonic black metal. The third record in a trilogy The Return to Darkness is being released (as I understand it) as the band’s first international release via Candlelight Records. That Sam Dunn is a rockstar creating machine, it turns out. Though, when it comes to Demonic Resurrection, their music speaks for itself and if you give that music a stage that myriads of metalheads have access to, it’s not hard to see how they managed to break beyond their borders.