Kampfar - Mare (the song)

I swear, if the vocals had been the growling voice of Rob Darken, this could easily have been a Graveland song, only a lot better. Immortal Pride is one of my favourites, but after that I think Graveland got a bit stale to say the least. A song like Mare is what Graveland could be doing.

Tholomat - Jaheem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GedruGlDTDs

I urge every BM fan out there to check out this album. It just blew me away.

Love the middle eastern vibe blended into the Norwegian BM sonority. Easily top 3 on the BM list this year.

this album is more or less perfect imo. It might be extreme to call it a masterpiece but it's just done as well as an album like this could be done. It has great dynamics and atmosphere, and championly grand riffs. And some violin and somber bits. Everything about the sound and music is successful.

Hexecutor- Poison, Lust and Damnation.

This is one of the very best thrash metal albums in at least the last 5 years, if not the whole decade. I don't know how more people aren't talking about this band. Basically the sound is a little Destruction, a little Whiplash, and even a little Iron Maiden, most particularly in some of the solos and more mid-paced moments. Worth of particular note is the vocalist, who has this great gruff cackle that sounds like a combo of the vocalists from the 2 former band; he's also capable of these piercing, violent shrieks that would make King Diamond and Mark Osegueda in their primes blush. Anyone with even a passing interest in thrash ought to hear this one.

Sear Bliss - Phantoms (full)

I dig the warmth of the riffs but the melodies are way too predictable and tire me really fast. I expected much more

Malevolent Creation - Retribution

Haven't played this one in forever. Have been spinning it regularly since Brett's untimely death.

"legitimate black metal"

I.e. sterile repetition thirty years too late passing itself off as orthodoxy.




Really fun sound to this, thanks for the rec.




Great atmosphere to this one as well, really harsh and it makes the death metal bounce later on really run away with it.

A couple from last year that I've been going back to in the past week are: 'Through the Marrow of Human Suffering' by Nephilim's Howl. The long build through the entire album to explode in such a huge blast by the end is like a hypnotizing uphill journey until finally getting thrown off a cliff.

Also, Norse's 'The Divine Light of a New Sun' is the kind of unnerving intensity expected from Xasthur being eviscerated by Benighted in Sodom, really good hooks in "Supreme Vertical Ascent" and "Drowned by Hope" that get absolutely brutalized throughout each song.

Opeth - Karma

I feel kind of sad that I barely registered that "Credence" had been playing prior. This one is cool though.

let's see how much you know.
define the meaning of this term with respect to black metal, and then explain its origin.




anyways
Now listening- Kawir- to Cavirs 12" mLP

still the best of their older work, love the flow from track to track

Zeal & Ardor - Don't you Dare

Honestly I didn't expect much. Black metal mixed with sounds from African American spirituals? It was bound to go horribly wrong. but it didn't! Great soulful vocal delivery and the two genres blend well. No real suprise considering the dark and serious history behind spirituals. The black metal just makes it pack an extra punch. I heard their first album was pretty meh, but this second album is definitely worth listening to. Just try to look beyond the meme and see what you think of it.

It amuses me that what black metal calls 'orthodoxy' is, by definition, cacodoxy.

Between the Buried and Me - Desert of Song

Some pretty stuff here.

Black Sabbath- Johnny Blade

Giving Never Say Die a proper once over. I would usually only listen to three or four songs, and this was definitely the evilest of the bunch. Plus Bill tears up the drumkit something fierce.

Black Sabbath- Over To You

I like Billy Joel and all, and I think a goofy one off live collaboration would have been entertaining, but bringing him into to help write the album at the last second was a bridge too far.

Well, you see black metal started when Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth decided to jizz on their own faces and scream into microphones after watching Kiss play "Detroit Rock City" on VCR
/s




So I guess the ball's in my court (as it should be) to define a word I used as jargon to describe elitism in black metal because you decided to go elitist about it. But it wasn't enough to feel elitist, it had to be a knowledge contest as though there are stakes to this exchange when all I did was joke that you wouldn't like my opinion on a band you enjoyed.

Alright, which definition do you prefer? Do you like the one having to do with the original black metal bands and the new breed that upholds the style initially created, one that is totally irreverent, plays their black like thrash, and still so many bands play their music with huge variations in order to keep up the 'trve' idea created a decade after those beginning bands? Are Venom, Sodom, and Bathory enough to call things orthodox when the '90s showed that thrashy sensibilities into their blend were only a stepping stone to something far more intense and branched into so many greater areas?

Do you like the overwhelmingly anti-religious idea that becomes a religion on its own? The one perpetrated by Satanists and Luciferians who play their black metal as hymns to an inverted god so that they may show their defiance toward the Semitic roots of modern European civilization and prefer to play their songs as tributes to the new almighty they view as a way to worship yet also, sometimes without irony, deride the idea of worship itself and "false" deities. Do you like how Gaahl complains about the Semitic roots in "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey" despite the fact that he fell from grace in the community? His words worked for such an idea despite the direction so derided by many that he took with Gorgoroth. Did you like that guy on the review discussion board who complained that a review of his band didn't understand the worship in the music as that reviewer described how they didn't like the music simply for being dislike-able music? Does Deathspell Omega ping on this radar in the sense that it provides grandeur and incredible bouts of insane worship to a malformed god created only by the Semitic roots that Europe has dealt with for so long?

Do you like the idea of pagan revival, the glory brought by Odin to so many Scandinavian ancestors, and called to a new triumph by Bathory, the orthodoxy given to an attempt to reaffirm the ancestors' words and sounds, the way to understand them with modern, more Western, instruments as well as to show the grandeur of 'Blood, Fire, Death'? Does Deathspell Omega ping on the radar in this sense, the worship given by bands like even Beherit, belief in deities as inversion in order to survive an ancient cultural shift rather than see it as true, a new atheism that may at least through art define a new culture?

Or, and I know this isn't the play you're going for, the orthodoxy of lo-fi sound and terrible production in spite of the genius occurring below the blending. Everyone knows this as the staple idea but is it really so worthy to recreate in a crisp computer program now when you can make glory flow beautifully without digitally ruining your sound? Wouldn't you rather hear 'In the Nightside Eclipse' embrace its harmonies than tearing your ears no matter how many woods walks you've taken to enjoy "Cosmic Keys to My Creation and Times"? Couldn't it be a time and place situation and now that technology is past that it's impossible to recreate it without coming across as contrived?

Still, feel free to embrace the reality that the word orthodoxy doesn't work in a black metal sense, feel free to tell me your version of something so subjective and so well-versed in corrupting prevailing dogma in order to play music that is digitized nowadays or puts ideas to vinyl is riding on wings in order to further free itself from chains that it has already embraced. Feel free to assume that a book like 'Lords of Chaos' is the definitive answer to a word as subjective as "orthodoxy" in black metal when really I was just using the word as another placeholder for, essentially, a one and the same dogmatic principle heard too many times that flies in the face of a style supposed to be individualistic.

Orthodoxy was a term I used, yes it wasn't "kvlt". I failed as a writer to get my meaning across in that sense, but I still knew what I meant by it because the new black metal bands, plenty of them, do attempt to replay the same jargon, the same notes, the same tropes, and the same style of bands that were supposed to be railing against a defined movement and the repetitious idiocy they saw in modern music. This was a style that was set up to invert cultural sensibilities, to not be defined, to do well by ancestors in some respects, but to deride ancestors for their weakness in other aspects while upholding the strength of the modern individual and make good on their failings when greater powers overcame them. Black metal is difficult to paint with a single brush the more you listen and learn. That is how black metal is in so many ways, so many bands play it that way, and because they push into so many other aspects of music it keeps the sound fresh. "Orthodoxy" is limiting and that is what I saw in Runespell, another of many attempts to be the same as so many.

The "trvth" of the black metal "kvlt" is angst and the reality is a bunch of kids playing guitars and drums. Some of them committed crimes, some were smart enough to find different ways to incorporate interesting elements in their music. Orthodoxy is something that came up in the past few years and it assumes genius in teenage angst where stupidity got Euronomous killed, stupidity burned those churches, stupidity got kids like Absurd heiling Hitler, and stupidity gets kids now playing the same shit that has already been done a few thousand times over and calling it new. Talent is not always genius and a good listen to Burzum is hearing, especially in "Jesus Tod", a hook that catches an ear like a pop song with simply a bunch of noise due to bad production. Why is this genius or genuine when the dude wrote some catchy songs and tried to push back on aesthetic? It's not genius, it's a pale attempt at seeming different when his real difference was his own idiocy and the fact is that he showed how much you can separate an artist from his crimes. I like 'Fallen' better, there's the opinion, but that's all it is. It's just a preference.

A great black metal opera can still fit the standard dynamics of an opera, but that is not where greatness lies in an irreverent and counterculture movement that is now so well defined as honoring its ancestral roots and denying the anti- that was on the tops of those musicians' minds. Satyricon, Emperor, and Enslaved saw symphony and opera their own ways and they utilized that courtly and gentlemanly vocation as an outlet for hatred, rage, and anger. They could well be orthodox in their own rights for inverting what was once the sound of kings and courts but Satan forbid that is the orthodoxy that some elitist black metalheads get into. However, those elitists, do they realize that they're doing nothing but dividing like Protestants in the 1400s, though on the Soundcloud and bandcamp rather than pitchforks in towns, when realizing a schizm in their own "sacrosanct" ideology?

Deathspell, Darkthrone, Demonaz, you can call each of them orthodox in their own ways for the fact that they play (or have played) "legitimate black metal" but how do you define "orthodoxy" in black metal? There isn't a central text to this term and there is one reason for that. If there truly were, would it be the irreverence that is black metal?

Does orthodoxy mean "you don't understand it like I do"? Black metal is supposed to fly in the face of orthodoxy because orthodoxy is a system meant to unify people under one banner and a singular version of customs. If it were so, then obviously I don't know "legitimate black metal" for its "orthodoxy" because I like a band that can do something new with a prevailing sound and see how individuality can come through. Doesn't the individualism of black metal defeat the purpose of orthodoxy in black metal to begin with in that sense?

"Orthodoxy" is really another word for "kvlt" or "trve" and it's "bvllshit".

Please, don't try to play me for a fool. At the end of the day every time you're talking to me you're on a computer like every other metalhead on this forum and it doesn't matter how big your arms are or how well you can squash a douchebag's face. If you're so deep into the "kvlt" and know the ins and outs of being so incredibly evil and so well-versed in the sound, then how is this the place to complain about someone who didn't like an album that you did like when you could give a far better-versed summation of the same music? I gave my opinion and made a joke, that was it. I said what I said, it was a bit douchey, but at least I put my thoughts down and had the balls to put them out there to your "elite" derision.


Just to stay on track, I've been listening to Burzum's 'Aske' and 'Belus' through this ridiculous rant.

Black Sabbath- Swinging The Chain

Actually a fairly decent closing track, but I'm still suffering from PTSD after that Sabbath just served as a backing track for a bunch of saxophone solos.

Overall, part of me actually wants to say this is slightly better than Technical Ecstasy, but man those bad moments are baaaaaaad.

Goatwhore - Baring Teeth For Revolt

Hard choice between them and Municipal Waste at Metaldays 2018. Think I'm gonna go with Goatwhore since I haven't seen them previously.

Pagan Altar - Samhain Absolute mastery

I think the mix of those things sounds great. I liked the first one... got to get to that new one soon.

Omen - The Axeman

This was one of the songs that made me love metal very early on, when I was maybe 15. Just iconic. Great riff and super catchy chorus.

while to be fair, I myself kind of used a meaningless and self-chosen descriptor (legitimate) to mock your high rankings of commercial tourist/hipster pablum like Wolves in the Throne Room and overly synth heavy Hecate Enthroned over things like Runespell/etc.....


from you, the (clipped for brevity) that was a really long winded way of saying "no".
I will assume, based on your winding deflection that you aren't aware that the answer is in fact simple.
https://www.discogs.com/Countess-The-Re ... ase/412926

The fact you are posting on M-A (of all places) and don't know the legacy of Hartmuth , Orlok, etc around this terminology is really kind of sad, but--- it is what it is.
I know BlackGoat wasn't active much here after around 2005 like he was at the start... but still...

Anyways, resume your reviews, you're free to like what you like, and that's fine. It's just pretty sad you write in so much detail but don't seem to know what it is you are writing about.




NP-
Countess- "The Shining Swords of Hate"
the best countess album, but that's like picking a diamond out of a box of precious gems.

If I gave you a single answer you would have shut me down for not getting the 'point'. Giving you this "winding deflection" lost you the leg on which you could have stood, so instead you chose to go after a review I wrote back in 2010 and told me about even more underground bands in an already underground genre. Thanks for the recommendations.

Thank you also for looking so deeply into my review catalog. I hope I didn't disappoint with what I wrote back then and I'm glad folks, even when looking for flak for an online argument, are actually reading what I write here and there.

I've listened to a lot of underground stuff, sometimes it's fun, sometimes bands aren't to my liking. In spite of my "deflection" you gave me a band that does honor a definition I described while defying convention in its own way, showing the irreverence for which black metal is so well known.

Countess reminds me of a time when I was hanging out with some friends in a van. We put all the seats down in this soccer mom van, it was ten below zero Farenheit outside with snow blowing, (the kind of weather that Immortal would nakedly rape a village in) and had a great time setting up a hookah and passing around a bong. It was a ton of fun and my friend who owned the van decided to put on some tunes. He's one who is into Nine Inch Nails and Diary of Dreams, really synth-laced 'dark-pop'. I introduced him to Agalloch, Ulver, and he even got down with a few Burzum and Mayhem tracks. Well, he put on a song by a band he found and I was stoned off my balls describing the music. Somehow in my baked and drunken state I was able to actually say the name of the song by describing what I heard. It was fun, a bit validating, but really just a funny moment showing how a band, no matter what it plays, can get its point across through its music alone.

That Countess example was a funny one to include because that band was exactly the sort of uniqueness that I didn't see in Runespell. Runespell is another a one-man band and he wasn't very original, he's no Horn. Like I said in my first review for the band, "another average Australian aimlessly appreciates the already accomplished and aggravatingly avoids anything atypical." (I'm a bit proud of that ridiculous alliteration)

Maybe I learned a bit in the eight years following that Wolves in the Throne Room review, maybe I still enjoy the Hecate Enthroned albums I wrote about back in 2009, maybe I have different views now nearly a decade later. Keep reading my reviews and you'll find out because even an unhappy reader is still a reader. Sorry to disappoint.

Expect more disappointments in the near future!



Also, keeping the real purpose of this area, Satanic Blood by Von is sick and easily considered a stripped down "orthodox", "mandatory", "kvlt" and "evil" song. (Man, it's just goofy saying a SONG is orthodox or mandatory, they don't even give you unleavened bread)

the point went over your head, I see. The term was coined by the label/band in question, used on promo/flyer material over 25 years ago, and was printed on the booklet of the release I linked you to almost 25 years ago. That is its first known usage. The term as used had(has) a specific meaning, origin, and implication. All other use is bastardized and incorrect. The fact you are oblivious to this rather well known information simply confirms my point.

Anyways, have a good day; hope you manage to learn more about things in the future.




Now playing: Deicide - Legion. We need more death metal like this; less like caverncore.

Alright, sorry I didn't get your point. You got me and you're right, I have gaps in my underground Dutch version of orthodox black metal knowledge from 1994. You have a wealth of knowledge I'd like to tap. I'll PM you. Thanks for the information and take care.








Also, if you want to rock like the Chippah listen to "The Virgin of Nuremberg" by Brodequin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAtN18BOFZw

One last Now Playing for now.

Once I was hanging out with a roommate. We ran out of beer so we pounded a box of Franzia and I, in my drunken state, threw on Death's 'Leprosy' album.

When the words in "Open Casket" came, "touch, the flesh it is so cold", my mainstream heavily-acned roomie, who liked me only because I knew Blink 182s discography from before I got into metal, was laying in his bed, arm over his face, trying not to die from a box of wine nightcap and too many bong rips while I beat him down with obnoxious and loud death metal in a very smelly room, (I'm so glad the RAs didn't care because the entire hallway was a bunch of potheads) decided to pipe up when the beatdown was going on.

He asked me, defeated by the hammering snare and drunken by milking too many rips and solo cups of vino, "is he gonna fuck it?"

I was so happy in that moment, disturbing a well-mannered dude to the point that his own sickness came out while I full-on belly laughed until I almost puked.

Every time I hear that song, I still hear, "is he gonna fuck it" when that part comes up.

So here goes.

Death, "Open Casket": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxI1yz1gx-E

Manilla Road - Avatar

Epic stuff, as MR always manage to deliver!

Ex Mortus - The Sound of Steel

Look, Conan, I get it. You're a very skilled guitarist. Stop jerking off into my ear and write something with even half the fire of In Hatred's Flame. Nothing you've done since has come close to it.

Bethlehem - Dark Meta --> Perfection & Dictius Te Necare --> Perfection

Summoning - Let Mortal Heroes Sing Your Fame

Umbra Nihil - Gnoia

Animus - Poems for the Aching, Swords for the Infuriated

Manowar - The Lord of Steel

So they still got one album in them. Hope they'll do anything right this final time. Because the best Manowar songs - also of their modern era - are the fucking best.

The last few months have been totally draining physically and mentally so I haven't the energy to listen to metal in a while. Been pretty much stuck on all things Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV/Genesis P-Orridge related.

np: Psychic TV - Dreams Less Sweet, alternating between bittersweet pop laments and nightmarish soundscape.

Black Fast - "Famine Angel" (from the new album!)

I think this album is my favorite of theirs. The integration of the moody blackened stuff and the neck-shitting thrash metal is more clearly achieved here. For example on the last one, "The Keep" was a ripping thrash song and then some other songs were distinctly less thrashy, not slow exactly but rhythmically much less intense. On the new album it's an excellent middle ground, all songs have a similar feel and mood (not in a bad way). I often listen to "The Keep" from the last one, but rarely make it through the whole album. No such problems with this one. Excellent!

Brilliant story!

Sodom- Proselytism Real

Draconian - Earthbound

Some nostalgia time tonight.
"Would you help me slit my wrists... see me cry, help me.... DDIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!!!!"
Okay, it's a bit melodramatic and cringy at times, but it's a great atmosphere, and the part that follows is heavy as fuck doom.

Diocletian - Doom Cult

First time. Not as chaotic as expected.

Iron Maiden - Judgement of Heaven

The X Factor is a great album. Darkest of Maiden's for sure.

Ulcerate - Chasm of Fire

Tbh, the 1st time i heard Ulcerate a few years ago I was like, meh. I'm glad I didn't gave up on them, they've grown into one of my favorite metal bands ever. These guys really know how to make awesome music.

Embrace of Thorns - In Our Image, After Our Likeness

I recall hearing an album (or two?) of these guys years ago and disliking what I've heard, but sounds very promising. Riff-y blackened death metal filth that has a bit of an epic quality to it.

Dream Theater - The Root of All Evil

Starting to concretely dig into prog metal... my knowledge about it is quite limited, especially concerning this band.

Ezra Brooks - Wielding the Mirrored Gauntlet (Escape the Labyrinth)

It surprises me this band hasn't got any more recognition.

Orden Ogan- "Vampire in Ghost Town".

Good stuff; catchy, hard-hitting power metal. Just the way I like it.

Judas Priest - British Steel

Learned to really appreciate this record lately. Rapid Fire, Metal Gods, Grinder, The Rage, Steeler et cetera. Deserves all the praise it gets from random people.