My understanding was that his works were hard to find and I actually bought the book without realizing it was part of a trilogy at first. I usually don't go to Amazon for books. Just wanted to try something of his to see if I even liked it at all. I'll probably try and find some of his other work at a later time and maybe I will use the internet next time for it. I bought this at a local indie shop and I dig supporting those places - the only other thing they had of his was also part of a trilogy, and I bought the one I got now thinking it was a stand-alone one. Joke's on me I guess... I was too deep in to back out by the time I realized.

Well, yeah! I think we all love finding cool used books locally. I didn't suggest taking it back, just buying up the first one that will give you some chance at enjoying the world he's created.

Sometimes I just jump into things headfirst due to not wanting to wait around or research any longer. I have a tendency to get so caught up in trying to find the right starting points sometimes with these things, that I never get to it (i.e. why I never checked him out before now). I dig it so far and I am sure I'll read more of his work.

Enjoy. Easily my favorite writer of all-time. If at some point you decide to purchase a few books from the internet (They're literally dirt cheap) I would strongly recommend: The Demon Prince series, The Lyonesse trilogy (his ridiculously successful stab at "high" fantasy), and both Cugel novels. From there you can go in any direction. He has some stupidly fun pulpy novels like Five Gold Bands that you can read in a day.

I'm due for a re-read of The Lyonesse Trilogy. I let a friend's girlfriend borrow them forever ago. I might just re-buy them.

Fair enough... I'll look forward to checking 'em out. It's good to get out of my comfort zone. I've been reading mostly a lot of modern thrillers and crime fiction the last year or so and needed a bit of a change.

Order from Chaos were a very special band. I fucking love the way Chuck Keller was riffing back then. It really doesn't sound like ANYTHING else. The "Similar Artist" tab is a joke. I don't think there's a single tremolo riff in their entire oeuvre? It's all so bulldozing and brash. It sounds like the distant child of Voivod, punk, and...?

Bit of a rant.

So, I go to Hardcore and Metal shows, and like to mosh both styles. I know when and when not to throw a fist, what bands dig it and what bands dont, and what fans are cool with it and what fans aren't. The thing is, is that you go on to some YouTube comment section of any hardcore/beatdown/powergrind band, and you got these metalheads on there just filling the comment section with "DATS NOT MOSHING! NO KARATE IN DA PIT!". Take this Nails video. If you've seen any video of the hardcore scene in Philly, you'd realize very quick why the crowd reacts the way they do. But oh- "I guess it's not up to metalhead standards" and "derp they look retarded"

Look, folks- if it's not metal, if it's Hardcore, then you need to shut your fucking mouth about how to and not to mosh. It's not like Iron Maiden was going to punk shows and was like "NO spitting!". They just created a band that didn't involve themselves with the punk theme- that simple.

fuck crowd killing
Do you like Trapped Under Ice?

There's your problem.

Jungle Rot is my Cannibal Corpse.

valid point.



They're ok, but I do like bands generally like that, usually tilting more towards the metalcore/grindcore side. Knocked Loose, Bury Your Dead, Nails, etc. What I've noticed with the term "crowd killing" is that what one person defines as "crowd killing" the other doesn't. For me, showin' off your karate moves in the middle of the pit isn't crowd killing, but going to the side of the pit and throwing your fists into whoever is crowd killing. If you make sure your away from the mass on the edges, you won't hurt anyone unless they're moshing or just stupidly oblivious.

It's like that guy SpectreSounds who made that vid about this issue and brought up the example of the girl in Colorado who lost her tooth in a pit. This is where I live. I know people who were there. I've seen this same exact girl at multiple shows, and she would "crowd kill" like the rest of them. Instead of taking personal responsibility for being at a hardcore shows, being a small girl, she victimizes herself, and guys like SoundSpectre who already hates this form of mosh gobbles the shit up.

I saw Nasty and Lionheart a year or so ago, and there was a dude (people who go to metal shows around Chicago know him, he's part of Dano's crew) who was like, skip-moshing from side to side the entire time and just killed all the momentum of the crowd. Nobody could get out there and do their hardcore thing because he's just so much bigger than everybody else and would just knock them over if they tried. You don't realize just how incompatible metal style moshing is with hardcore until you see somebody doing it wrong. When a massive breakdown or two-step breaks through and nobody can get out there and two-step, it's just wrong. Let the people do their thing when the music is appropriate. If some guy is spinkicking during Overkill, run him over, but if he's doing it during Knocked Loose, fucking let him.

That said, crowdkillers can all be sent to the fucking gulags. They're like 90% of the reason I don't go to more hardcore shows. I got rocked in the head really hard at a Deicide show like seven years ago and I think I got a minor concussion so I just stay out of the shit nowadays, but hardcore shows are just so full of meatheads trying to pick fights with everybody that I just don't want to fucking bother. Like, I get it, if you're on the edge of the pit you've got to keep your eye out for errant body parts, but that doesn't include fuckwads trying to sucker punch anybody they can. I barely dodged one at Rotting Out and the chick next to me got blasted instead, I almost started a legit fistfight at Backtrack because some kid took an unprovoked swing at me, a buddy and I both punched a guy in the head at the same time during No Zodiac because he came at us for no reason (he sat out the rest of the show and I don't even feel bad about potentially giving him a case of the Crosbys).

Keep that shit the fuck away from me. Crowdkillers are absolute fucking scum.

More morons who think slow tempo = doom metal.

should go without saying, but the funny thing is that hardcore dancing requires so much more grace, balance, momentum, and general "skill" than metal push moshing does. Throwing your arms around, leading into a spinkick, slowing down into a twostep... well, it takes some practice, but it's genuinely interesting to watch with 5 people going at it simultaneously. It's a lot of fun to dance if you know the song/band, I never understood the visceral hate it inspired.

Well, obviously getting clocked in the face sucks. Then either stay in the back...orrrrr, the best defense is a good offence the times I got hurt most at hardcore shows were when I wasn't giving it as hard as I got it.

I ain't heard the new album but TUI is tight. Saw them two years ago at Gilman, record release for the Twitching Tongues album Disharmony. Some annoying sound issues, but they played True Love and Skeleton Heads so it was fucking lit.

It takes up a lot of space, and it's usually done by complete morons unaware of their surroundings.
They take the crown of annoyance, beating even Tablet holders and overly enthusiast crowd surfers with New Rock boots

There is nothing i hate more that going to a show and spend half of the time keeping eye contact with a potentially dangerous spinning dude, instead of like.. watching the band, jumping around, headbanging and the usual stuff that people do.

The fuck are you on about?

Sounds like you have some kind of poor taste in whatever this "modern metal" nonsense is you speak of. What in the hell is "modern metal"? Is there now a new sub-genre?

He sounds like an old fart who refuses to believe that there's plenty of good stuff around today.

Heh, most of the time I'm in the mood for a style of a certain subgenre (i.e Swedish death metal) but since the last few weeks I've mostly been in the mood for Blind Guardian and My Dying Bride. That's pretty bizarre.

BG and MDB? Pretty much the same band.

Isn't that all rock music with chuggy guitars. Often played by older guys trying to be hip by mimicking the worst parts of grunge. Dude is right, that ain't no good.

It can be depending on how good the songs are.

It's either metal or it's "modern metal".

Obviously, I love this site. I may not be around as much as I used to but it's been one of my favourite places on the web since -- 2003 or -04, I guess. I always defend MA when people feel the need to trash it for one reason or another. But there are times ... times when certain consequences of it are unfortunate.

My band is scheduled to play a show at the end of march, in Toronto, with the Slovaks known as malokarpatan. I'm happy about this; they're really fucking good actually. Now I have no idea about their lyrics really as it's all Slovak, and from what I know about their image and such, I think they're going for a kind of "seedy rural" (thanks xlxls) mystique, a bit like Lugubrum.

Well, the owner of the venue that was supposed to be hosting the show, which is one my band has played many times in the past, and which I frequent as a patron (they're pretty much the best place going for metal and punk shows in the city), contacted the promoter a few days ago, saying that they didn't want to do the gig. Why? Because, possibly having some "sketchy" feelings about this particular promoter, he went to Malokarpatan's metal-archives page. Right there in the "lyrical themes" field, someone wrote "national pride". Did the band approve this? Probably not. They probably don't care. Anyway, I feel fucking weird about all of this. I know "national pride" is a hot button issue, but apparently this is all it takes to get your show fucked over nowadays. Just a couple of words written on an internet page. I should mention that this venue has hosted "Canada Day" celebrations before. So I guess only Canadian national pride is ok, then.

Anyway, I'm not actually all that upset by the owner. I'm not a fan of nationalism most of the time, and unfortunately these days European "national pride" seems to have very negative connotations in a lot of circles. It's upsetting because of how easy it is to convey an impression and get people jumping to all sorts of conclusions based on so little data. Yeah, I speak from a position of privilege, but to me, this isn't punk rock and I think a metal band singing about ancient Slovakian culture and farming or what-ever-the-fuck has to be treated with a whole different set of standards. I don't think it's really about politics, and I think most metalheads know this. Who the hell are we to judge someone on another continent, whose language we don't even understand, for their politics, anyway?

Sorry for venting a bit. And it's alright: the gig will still happen elsewhere.

Malokarpatan are awesome but yeah, just having the word pride is a hot topic now since a lot of people with the "[country] pride" usually mix with the NS movement now more so than "hey, check out some of the cool stuff my country has". Could there be a better wording now that any sort of pride in a country is down the shit hole to show the difference between "My country is great, all immigrants get out" and "hey, look at the cool stuff my country has like [examples], just want to share!" Maybe. Idk what side Malokarpatan is but they do make some damn good BM.

(Also, just saying, as the guy who submitted the band, the lyrics page was a copy-paste from their bandcamp page when the debut album was released)

Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. Neither of us knows, and we like their music, and I doubt anybody else over here at least (as in in my neck of the woods) knows any better than that. It'd seem like the more logical thing, to just give them the benefit of the doubt. Most bands who are really dicks about this sort of thing are very overt about it, using all the requisite symbols, including words, visual iconography etc.




Ah, fair enough, then.

Just to complete the picture as a guy from Slovakia - Malokarpatan's lyrics are pretty much about Slovak folklore. Plenty of stories about strange creatures in the woods next to the village, people going mad in the village and a fair bit of alcoholism. They even use a dialect/archaic language from the southwest area of the country. So - they are very patriotic in a way, but no more than bands who sing about, for example, Norse mythology or the Kalevala.

I've heard some not-so-pleasant things about one member of Malokarpatan, but it is gossip, and it is beside the point, I don't know them personally. In their music and their presentation, nothing I'd call problematic is present. So yeah, I think that the whole "National pride" thing is unfortunate and not quite correct.

Got King Crimson tickets for July. I hereby declare 2018 my personal year of the crimson king.

I've only just found out about the connections between remmirath and malokarpatan, hadn't expected this. I like the general weirdness of remmirath, maybe I'll have to check out malokarpatan too.

Yes, see I think that sort of thing is very cool. It'd be unfortunate if metal bands were not able to exalt these sorts of subjects.



Exactly. One of the guys might be an dick. That hardly makes the band a bunch of nazis.

I've continued to miss King Crimson every time they've come round. I was especially kicking myself after the last time this happened. I don't think they're going to be doing this forever. I should get on it, really.

I just saw King Crimson last night. Fucking amazing show, one of the best I've ever attended from a purely musical perspective.

Oh Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

King Crimson is still a band?

King Crimson is eternal.

I don't think it's metal-archives' fault that some promoter jumped to the wrong conclusions, really. If the info was copied/pasted from another source, then the promoter would have found the same "national pride" phrase written elsewhere anyway.

Yeah and a VERY good one at that. The King Crimson cosmos is not a rehash of former glory days, but an ever-developing project of fully dedicated musicianship. The glory days are right now, which to my knowledge is completely unique in a band that was formed that long ago.

Just read that a new The Prodigy album is coming out in January. Can't wait!

I can.

This band claims to be a mix of depressive black metal and brutal death metal.
https://sorrowrealm.bandcamp.com/releases

Hmm. Interesting mix.

hahaha are you talking about Zach? He doesn't legit crowd kill ever. He'll only do what he did that day if he's super wasted (we were pounding peppermint schnapps before the show, so you can guess what level he/we were on), and even that's just running into people. Basically super aggressive moshing.

Totally relevant to Abom's post:

<3 <3 <3

This is absolutely godawful. Not even an attempt to mesh the two parts' elements or make it anything other than a riff salad. Boo.