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Stories from today:

* Cathedral launches new album The Last Spire
* Heavy metal linked with classical, academia
* Autopsy to release The Headless Ritual in June
* The war on hipsters is accelerating

What hit me so unexpectedly was this barrage of music coming from just two men, which hurled me back into about 1987's fetid Brazilian tape-trader jungle metal, but at the same time carrying a dominant genetic stamp throughout it that was distinctly Bode Preto’s. That usually just doesn’t happen — new bands are usually so hyped up and full of their own bullshit, sporting ripped off cover art and/or bastardizing someone else’s logo and when it boils down to the main body of their “art”, the music, well, to me it’s a meaningless string of riffs and rhythms sewn together to make a “song” with no conviction and leaving the listener feeling shafted and devoid of feeling.

That might be OK for some, but not for me — and that’s where Bode Preto comes to play so solidly. I feel Bode Preto — and that’s what I want from music. It’s this way with any medium, or should be. These guys simply let their art do the talking and we garner from it what we will. I don’t think hell is supposed to sound this good though. The song “Elytron (Succubus)” for me denotes a truly classic release. I urge you to tap into that drumming which was not recorded in any studio, but simply a plain room, and absorb the feeling, and you’re on the path which has at least as many layers as Dante’s Inferno, if not more.

Bode Preto - Inverted Blood

A Short History of Underground Punk and Metal Music

Three threads ran alongside each other: punk, metal and progressive rock. All three are on the edge of being metal, since the type of progressive rock in question is raw and disturbing and not of the “everybody be happy love friends” hippie style. This is music that thinks our society is disturbed, and that therefore many of the values we reject are worth a closer look.

Read A Short History of Underground Punk and Metal Music

Good reading material!

Interview with Goatcraft

Like guitar, the piano is a highly versatile instrument. It can serve in a pure rhythm role, or apply melody, and can easily chord and shape an atmosphere out of harmony. However, it can do one thing the guitar cannot: stand on its own while amplified and be a credible one-person band.

Solitary musician Lonegoat, who has recorded intros for Druid Lord and Demonic Christ, mounts the stage in isolation to create singular pieces of piano music that reflect the infinite loneliness and emptiness of existence. From this nihilistic background, the music branches to a dark storming Nietzschean vibe balanced by a sense of demonic playfulness.

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Interview: Karl Spracklen of the International Society of Metal Music Studies

"Heavy metal is an important part of modern culture and everyday life, so studying heavy metal enables us to understand both of those things. For me, the interesting thing about heavy metal is the tension between metal’s strong sense of being part of a non-mainstream subculture, and metal’s place in the industry of modern pop and rock music. That’s because I’m essentially a sociologist. Other heavy metal scholars might be interested in the way the music is constructed, or the meaning behind song lyrics, or the history of the scene, or the use of heavy metal as a philosophy or ideology of life. Heavy metal is just a subject field, a lens, through which we can think about problems in other academic diciplines." - Dr. Karl Spracklen

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Interview with Ara

Whatever the changes that have been wrought in metal over the past 20 years, Ara roll back some of the tendencies toward excessive form and pointless technicality, and return the focus to songwriting.

Ara presents a challenge to what metal has become and to what many conceive of as metal. We figured we would go deeper for the whole story, and were fortunate to speak with guitarist and band cofounder Jerry Hauppa, who helped clarify the situation and told us about the inspiration and musical vision behind Ara’s latest, The Blessed Sleep.

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Chris Reifert of Autopsy reveals details of The Headless Ritual

Famed for their contributions to late-1980s death metal and its continued guidance through the 1990s, Autopsy arose as a band playing a chaotic, filthy, organic sounding form of death metal, which was in contrast to the more rigidly technical “Morbid Angel” inspired bands of the day. In many ways, Autopsy was a bridge between the more structured death metal and the more chaotic but more melodic bands from the grindcore world like Carcass and Bolt Thrower.

Fresh from the studio, Chris Reifert (drums) was able to give us a few words on the nature of the new album, its style and the future for Autopsy.

Read more of... Chris Reifert of Autopsy reveals details of “The Headless Ritual”

Slayer

Most of us just “attend” to things, like jobs and families, and hope for the best. The giants among us are driven onward by some belief in something larger than themselves or than the social group at large. They are animated by ideas.

For Jeff Hanneman, the idea was both musical and a vision of what that music should represent. He peered into the dystopia of modern times with one eye in the anarchistic zone of the punks, and the other in the swords ‘n’ sorcery vision of a metalhead. When he put the two together, he came up with something that makes Blade Runner and Neuromancer seem gentle.

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Põhjast – Matused



Unlike most entries in this sub-genre, Matused is not campy hard rock with metal licks and prolonged droning riffs. Instead, it cuts back to the core of what made heavy metal great, with the amazingly adept vocals of Eric Syre guiding a guitar-driven, riff-based band with a sense of how to create and nurture mood like a doom metal band.

Syre’s vocals highlight these riffs with melodies but do not merely duplicate the notes, but instead serve as a separate instrument, winding around the progressions that guide the song and by carefully choosing where to go in that space, both accentuating consistency and foreshadowing change. Like serpents in the trees of an enchanted garden, vocal melodies slowly enwrap each riff and then merge with it, urging the song on to new dimensions.

Read More Of... http://www.deathmetal.org/news/pohjast-matused/