^ I thought the same. All the OPs look exactly alike in format, too.

Hmm, I'll have to give Resurrection a spin and see how his newest stuff gets on. Ulf Soderberg, eh? Never heard of him, will have to look him up. I've got the Stealth 2xcd from SRF, but haven't had a chance to really give it a fair listen. Same with Koner's latest. And yeah, the "theme" riff from "Territory of Witches...", not so much the actual end.

@Scorntyrant: Any opinions on best albums from all those artists mentioned? I definitely hold Nordvargr/Drakh's Infinitas In Aeternum in pretty high regard, though I've never heard the debut. When it comes to MZ, I'd have to go with Nordik Battle Signs and Domine Rex Inferum.

The conspiracy website WorldNetDaily is promoting a company in Idaho that sells bullets coated with "pork-infused paint" that are supposed to "deter Islamists from martyrdom."

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/religion ... ot-muslims

It's called Jihawg ammo.

Is the Testament LP significantly different from the cd release? How do you guys feel about the albums that preceded that one? Originally I was really bored by his extremely minimalist sample approach, but I've grown to really love a lot of those songs. Really hypnotic stuff if I'm in the right mood.

And with this all satire has finally become completely redundant.

The LP version is the same one that appeared on The Final Testament cd version, I believe, though that cd also included a couple bonus tracks at the end. I recall the original cd version had some different tracks that really didn't fit the mood and the whole presentation was a lot more scattered... the LP version is really seamless and flows really cinematically, very poignant and haunting stuff, definitely one of the best martial ambient/neofolk albums I've yet heard. It really captures the sort of atmosphere I hope to hear with material like that. It's very evocative without going tasteless/overboard with the typical drum/marching samples, which can usually be pretty tedious. Europe is Dead and Those Who Do Not Remember the Past... are good but not AS good. The split with Arditi is also pretty cool.

hmm, I guess I'll have to be wary of that when I eventually order a copy.

But yeah, it's kinda useless to even compare it to his first two, they strike me as having completely different aims. Testament is much more in line with the "typical" martial ambient sound, whereas EiD and TWDNRTP are extremely straight-forward re-contextualizations of military pop recordings (or at least I pretty certain that's what's going on, I could be completely wrong). They remind me a lot of some of the earlier military industrial experiments that I've picked out as sort of precursors to the subgenre. In particular, they remind a lot of a Laibach song that was featured on their "Occupied Europe Tour" live release, wherein the band plays a military pop recording in the middle of their show, leaving the recording equipment to pick up both the record that's playing and the ambient chatter of audience members. Really incredible song, that one.

I gotta listen to more of Testament though, my impressions of it are based on a few scattered youtubes. Who are some of your other favorite martial industrial groups?

Yeah I think if you just order The Final Testament you should probably be good. Cool artwork on that, too. The only thing is I don't think anything from that version is on YouTube, so you can't really sample it. Even the tracks "Testament I, II, etc" may be completely different versions. It's actually kind of confusing. Anyway, the file version I have only has two unnamed parts, both of which are of corresponding length to the two Parts of the LP version and The Final Testament on Discogs, so I'm assuming they both match the version I have, whichever one that is.

As for other favorite martial industrial acts, I don't really have hardly any, because I find it's a subgenre that people often manifest in ways that don't appeal to me very much. Other than the few we already covered (primarily Arditi), Les Joyeaux de la Princesse would be the only other one that comes to mind, though a lot of his stuff is more period/political rather than explicitly martial, evoking that time period but not necessarily hitting you over the head with WWII. Triarii is cool but he's more neoclassical-ish, not very ambient. Scorntyrant could probably help you more with this, personally I don't think there's a whole lot of excellent material out there. Just my taste, though.

Yeah it's a rather stagnant, cloying subgenre on a whole, imo. I do really like some of it though. Triarii may well be your definition of "going tasteless/overboard with the typical drum/marching samples", but I really feel their song-writing is pretty airtight, particularly on their more recent works. Early Derniere Volonte is another I'll definitely swear by.

Edit: Just realized I skimmed past your assessment of Triarii, yeah he definitely represents a real shift in the genre towards more propulsive rhythms and overt bombast.

I just received a religious text message from one of my friends. I'm sharing it for its purely comedic value (originally in Spanish, translated by me)

By that logic, if I ask God to turn me into a poverty stricken dumbass he'd solve all my problems and throw money in my general direction. I like it!

Nah, Triarii's pretty legit. His stuff is tasteful and very well composed in comparison to a lot of people in that general field. There's some genuine power there, even if the aesthetic isn't anything groundbreaking. Just look at a track like "Birth of a Sun" and tell me that ain't some sweet shit. I feel like he's got his own style, and a really, really clear vision of what he wants to present. Pretty admirable overall, plus it's neat to see someone composing all-VST orchestrations that actually don't sound like shit. Too bad his vocals don't always support the music very well.

You should give MZ 412's Nordik Battle Signs a shot. It's more eccentric than something like Triarii, with a wider variety of ideas going on. Darker and more aggressive. But it's quite interesting and well done, and pretty damn intense in the more blackened/power noise-influenced passages. More of a "satanic" vibe going on there, which relates to their quasi-BM-oriented beginnings... but more like the Satan of the Reich, if you get me.

The only thing I get out of that is that God likes to fuck with people.

Yeah, Triarii's top-notch. I agree with all your compliments and will add that his albums always have the clearest, most monumental sounding production jobs. His music truly sounds huge, something that some other highly neoclassical/pompy acts don't quite get right (I'm mainly thinking Puissance, though I've only heard their early works).

And yeah, Nordik Battle Signs is good. I like the application of a ritualistic/Satanic aesthetic to harsh power electronics stuff. That's really well produced too, some of the songs on there are fucking powerful; great to listen to on nice bassy speakers. Give Le Syndicat a listen if you want something else in the vein of MZ.

I'm not really the praying type myself, but the logic people apply to prayer and how they interpret it makes me want to headbutt a tree.

This reminds me of...

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds," James 1:2

I mean, IMO that's the overall message of Christianity. Your power-tripping boss, your psychopathic political leaders, and your junkie relative you caught pawning your shit off can all point back to this passage and quote it to their benefit. This kind of bullshit contradicts "the pursuit of happiness", doesn't it?

So I live next to a frathouse (I'm living in one next year, but that's another story) and I can see through their basement window when I go up the stairs. Someone there was wandering around their basement completely naked with a beer in his hand, on a Monday night no less.

As for the praying thing, what really bothers me is when something bad happens and someone is in need and while most people offer help, that one really Christian dude will be like "I'll pray for (insert person in need here)" as if that would fucking help in the real world. Kind of a cop out to doing any real work if you ask me.

That's called 'leveling' your character.

Not that they'll even do it anyway. Loloz

@ThrashingMad For more along that powerful, martial-esque, post-industrial vein, you could also check out Sophia's Deconstruction of the World. It's by the main guy from Arcana, pretty scathing and overwhelming but simultaneously rather elegant. Really nice release. Unfortunately I don't think the earlier releases are very good, but at least that disc is a real standout.

I've got Obeir et Mourir on file, I'll have to give it another go...

Yeah. Christians like to train their endurance stat in particular, no wonder they made good knights back in the middle ages.

Yeah I've heard good things about that Sophia project, I'll have to check it out soon. Thanks for the heads up.

Interesting that we got through so many posts about Martial music without Der Blutharsch coming up. While I really don't like what they turned into with the prog influences etc, his early stuff is probably the most "musical" of artists in the genre. I agree that with a few exceptions (Derniere Volente for example) it's a bit of an evolutionary dead end as a genre, but I still love it as very heavy mood music while I'm doing other things.

Yeah, Der Blutharsch is pretty great, some of the better "song" writers in the genre (as opposed to ambient/soundscape type compositions), probably part of the reason why they're such a good rock band now. The funny thing with them is that while they helped pioneer the genre, I don't feel like they ever sounded like what the genre would turn into, whereas an act like LJDLP is closer to what is now referred to as the martial industrial sound, imo. Which is actually kind of nice in a way, as I'm not sure it's ever beneficial for a band to sound "archetypical".

btw, ST, not to bring the subject off martial industrial, but what's your favorite Scorn album?

"Jihawg" pork-infused bullets meant to deter Muslim terrorists. What the actual fuck?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=ZbNCwvyQ2zA

I've been enjoying some martial music lately as well. Downloaded some songs from the Syrian civil war. The gov seems to have put some good money into making some better than average arabic pop to support their cause (as well as some good music videos). Quite a few catchy tunes. My favs are "All of Syria are with you, Bashar" and "Abo Hafez Ya Bashar".

Also worth mentioning is the anthem of the Syrian Socialist Arab Baath Party. Fine tune.

That's cool, I should look into actual martial music someday (heh). What's the general tone of the stuff you mentioned; is it mostly poppy, exuberant sounding stuff?

I actually own pretty much every SCORN album on vinyl, just missing a few mid-period earache albums which were only ever released on CD. I'm going to go with Gyral - I've gone through 3 CD's over the years. Closely followed by Evanescance. I'm really fond of the Overload Lady collaborations as well. I counted all the Mick Harris releases in my collection once, I think there were nearly 30.

Quite the opposite - grim, dirgelike, sombre music made out of drones, orchestral loops and vocal samples.

Holy shit! That's amazing, I couldn't trouble you for a picture of a few of them could I?

Anyway, I can't get into some of those earlier albums like I can his later stuff (although I've only heard select tracks from Gyral). I feel like he really hit his stride around 96 and on, with Zander being, imo, near perfect in terms of tone, pacing, and technique. That was also the first album of the project that I heard, so take that as you will. I also love some of his more experimental, initially alienating work like Plan B.

But yeah, he's quite the musician. I gotta get myself a few Lull releases sometime soon.

Why would there be a bias toward that opinion? Sure, there are vocal minorities out there, but there was nothing about the thread that in particular baited people with those sorts of preference into posting.

Huh? What are you on about? Way to take a simple remark and complicate it. In no way did I think people were being baited into posting, I never implied that in any manner.

‘Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped’ Edward Snowden

Let's hope so, more than a few questions to be asked over here to.




Cindy Sheehan

There's one other name I would add to that.

99.9 % of what I print is black & white text for uni. Yet my cyan and yellow cartridges got sucked dry at alarming rates. It seems that when printing b/w my Brother inkjet actually combines all colours by default instead of only using the goddamn black cartridge. Not because there are any benefits to it but simply because those fuckers can sell colour ink at higher prices.

It's high time we put the whole goddamn printer mafia into jail

Yeah I'm getting the impression printer inks are some of the most overpriced things in existence. And they wonder why people sometimes prefer to buy substitutes which cost half the price or so

I remember hearing somewhere that printer ink was one of the most expensive liquids in the world; here in Australia, they started a (presumably ineffectual but nonetheless entertaining) consumer investigation after someone worked out that Chanel No. 5 and (genuine) champagne cost less per litre.

Is it just my headphones or does Devourment's Butcher The Weak re recording sound like a terrible piece of shit?
A real shame because the original is an ungodly brutal death metal gem.

About printer ink, my printer said I was low on black ink and needed to change immediately... 7 months ago. I've printed constantly since then and I still have black ink. Robbers.

Definitely, I did the math once, and completely restocking the ink supply of my printer costs more than the actual printer itself. The black ink may be next to gone, but the printer is still able to produce black ink by mixing other inks together. You should only get new ink after your copies are physically getting bleaker.

Maybe time has come to invest in a laser printer?
The price per page can be as low as €0.02 when using high capacity cartridges, and the toner never dries...

My printer has only one large ink cartridge (it's a black-only printer).