My trip to Manchester to see Kyuss was the prompt to spend a lot of time listening to bootlegs from the tour. Another Manchester trip to see My Dying Bride had a similar effect. And whilst the new Morbid Angel album was the catalyst for their appearance at the top of the chart, it was mainly from listening to the first three albums as ear bleach.

It occurs to me that I increasingly use Clementine to listen to things that are not on my primary hard disk, which is why Coroner do not appear here, and somehow my Megadeth binge on the iPod didn’t get scrobbled either.

And here are some comments on particular albums.

Golgotha – Dangerous Games (1984)

This is my big discovery of the year so far. I have a copy of their Unmaker of Worlds album mouldering away with the rest of my vinyl collection; some prog-metal stuff that I never really got into at the time. But it’s their other records I have recently fallen in love with, thanks to their decision to make them all available on their website. Symphony In Extremis is a spectacular symphonic metal album that I believe was way ahead of its time, but it’s their first EP, Dangerous Games, that has really captured my heart. 4 tracks; the first a nice take on a spot of Bach; the second a top-notch NWOBHM scorcher; the third a fantastic folk/NWOBHM fusion, and the last a wistful folk tune. It’s spectacular.

The Howling Wind – Into The Cryosphere (2010)

Yet another project from the ever-prolific Ryan Lipynsky, this time around it’s bleak, slightly doomy Black Metal. I am instantly reminded of December Wolves’ classic Completely Dehumanized in that you couldn’t mistake this for a Scandinavian release inspired by frostbitten mountain forests—this is unmistakeably gritty, urban music.  Amongst gourmets, terroir is the term describing how the specifics of local environment influence the product, and this album is steeped in Brooklyn terroir.

David Rock Feinstein - Bitten by the Beast

This album is an example of middle-aged musicians trading in the edginess and exuberance that are the trademarks of rebellious youth for the effortless accomplishment that comes with long years of practice. Bitten By The Beast springs no surprises, pushes at no boundaries, and is unlikely to change the world. Without straying from any ageing metalheads’s comfort zone, it’s still worth a listen. It’s a very well-made record. Highlights include the opener Smoke on the Horizon, which is essentially a Judas Priest song and a good one at that. Metal Will Never Die has a pronounced bass-line reminiscent of Heaven And Hell, and sure enough Ronnie James Dio himself pops up to provide a guest vocal – one of his last recordings.

Alcest – Écailles de la Lune (2010); Souvenirs d’un Autre monde (2007)

Alcest must be one of the most hyped bands of recent years, but I think this must be the first time I’ve listened to them. Because I don’t think I’d make the same mistake twice. Ooh, burn. Alcest’s vision is usually described as a combination of shoegaze rock with black metal, but to me it comes across as a sea of sentimental dreck with occasional splashes of superficial black metal aesthetics. It seems and odd decision to interrupt the dreamy shoegaze/postrock soundscapes with bursts of incongruous malice. Whilst Neige has a excellent voice when shrieking, the rest of this is for the most part cloying and obnoxious. Not my thing at all; I’m still looking for the perfect Black Metal Lite.

Amon Amarth – Surtur Rising (2011)

My first reaction to this was “Meh, nothing new on this one,” perhaps in line with some reviews I’d read before listening, but you know what? This is the band’s ninth album. How many bands can say they’re innovating on their ninth album anyway? Where were Iron Maiden on their ninth album? Saxon? Black Sabbath? (Er, OK, that’s a special case…) Metallica? It’s not reasonable to demand innovation from a band of Amon Amarth’s vintage; with notable exceptions, a band at this career stage has an established sound and songwriting patterns, and achieves longevity by trying to hone their songwriting so that each new album keeps up the quality and adds at least a couple of songs to the catalogue that stand a chance of becoming old favourites in years to come. This is achieved here. The energy is high from the beginning, and if some of the songs are overly reminiscent of earlier works, that just means the previous songs were memorable. The cover of Systm of a Down’s Aerials is lamentable; the one of Accept’s Balls To The Wall for the deluxe edition not much better. Maybe death metal bands just shouldn’t bother with covers at all.

Argus – Boldly Stride The Doomed (2011)

After drinking with the guys in Würzburg, I eventially got around to hearing the new album. It’s even better than their first. Heaviy riffing, poignant leads and clever harmonies, and some incredibly powerful vocals from Butch, who at times is reminiscent of Robert Lowe at his best. Classic heavy/doom metal performed as well as is possible.

Morbid Angel – Illud Divinum Insanus

I wrote this track-by-track on livejournal and might as well copypasta here. It seems unfair to give this more space than the good music, but whatever.

Track 1: Omni Potens
Intro.
Track 2: Too Extreme!
OMFG what is this shit? I felt exactly like Hitler in the clip.
Track 3: Existo Vulgoré
This is more like it; a decent if not outstanding Morbid Angel song, marred only by the absurd Hetfieldisms in the vocals-ah.
Track 4: Blades for Baal
CD skipping? No, apparently it’s supposed to sound like that. Lapses into an adequate filler track.
Track 5: I Am Morbid
Starts with stupid crowd chanting, then the first riff sounds like classic Morbid Angel – catchy but twisted in that special way that only they do. The second riff breaks the spell and the song degenerates into one of those brainless fist-pumping anthems that Samael and Rotting Christ can churn out by the dozen when they’re in an unimaginative mood. Decent guitar solo but I do not want Morbid fucking Angel to be writing anthems!
Track 6: 10 More Dead
Similarly dim-witted, simplistic and repetitive; not so anthemic but not much better,
Track 7: Destructo something something
This is some god-awful sub-Rammstein hooey. Utterly abject and there’s more than 7 minutes of it. Nobody can possibly have thought this was a good idea.
Track 8: Nevermore
This is closer to proper Morbid Angel fare. I don’t like this business of just shouting out the title of the song 4 times and calling it a chorus, but I’m possibly just being crabby at this point. The middle eight is strangely limp, with some risible “woah-oh” parts, but the song isn’t completely terrible. It’s kind of what I expected when I hear there was an attempt to have more commercial appeal on this album.
Track 9: Beauty Meets Beast
This one’s OK too. It’s decent-enough Morbid Angel lite at the beginning, lapsing into some kind of super-tuneful melodic almost power-metal sensibilities. The first solo really reminds me of something completely incongruous that I can’t place.
Track 10: Radikult
Sounds like they borrowed Lars Ulrich’s metal folding chair for the drums on this one. This is the one where Hitler hated the “Kill A Cop” lyrics, and sure enough it sounds like Cop Shoot Cop and other dance-floor oriented rock of that era, perhaps mixed with a bit of Marilyn Manson edginess. I guess it’s well executed for what it is, but what’s it doing on a Morbid Angel album? And why is it nearly 8 minutes long? Because it has a stupid chanty outro, for one reason.
Track 11: Profundis -Mea Culpa
Oh god is that a drum machine? Fuck it I don’t care any more.

I’ve been annoyed that Manchester is just too far away for me to be happy to drive to for a night out, and that the trains stop too early for me to get home from concerts. For this one, though, I racked my brain a little bit harder and came up with the plan of parking the car at the station in Liverpool, since the last train back to there is at 23:27, and that drive home is quite doable.

The next major thought process was: “do I want to go”? For years, I carried with me the notion that the title for “best live band I ever saw” was held jointly by Kyuss and Slayer. I’m not 100% sure all these years later that I can still say that’s true, I’ve enjoyed a lot of great concerts, but how can a reunion compete with long-cherished and probably distorted memories? There have been some very successful reunions of old favourite bands in recent years — At The Gates were probably better at Irving Plaza than any time I saw them in the 1990s; Carcass were hot and cold but held up well, especially at Wacken. Dissection came back with a radically different sound and were differently good. But there’s always a fear that a poor reunion might taint the memories of particularly blissful memories.

So I downloaded a few shows from the European leg of the tour and was instantly transported to May 20, 1994, in a packed, hot and sweaty Borderline club. It was finals week, and I was determined to have a quiet evening ahead of the following day’s big exam. They opened with Thumb and somehow, before the vocals had even kicked in I had found myself transported from the back of the room to the front of the stage, with an upside-down person on my head. There was an intensity to that night that I think I’ve only experienced otherwise at Slayer shows (and was replicated perfectly by Kyuss at LA2 in 1995).

So I was listening to these bootlegs, and during the intro I was all “I don’t know if I should go” and about 10 seconds into the opening song Gardenia I was buying a ticket.

I roped in Pete for the hell of it, thinking he’d probably like Kyuss, and off we went. I haven’t been to the Academy very often, and I kind of assumed we’d be seeing Kyuss in the same room as I’d seen Cathedral a year ago, but no, it was the Academy 1, a much bigger venue with a capacity of over 2000. It was packed. That’s an amusing thing about reunions – it’s hard to compare the show with the original because the context changes from a tiny basement club to a large venue or festival stage. I must confess I always resent the loss of intimacy. (An exception to the rule involves another of John Garcia’s former bands, Karma to Burn. As I remarked to their main-man Rich after seeing their post-reunion show in NYC a couple of years ago, the audience had declined in number approximately 1000-fold since the last time I saw them).

So, Kyuss Lives! How was it? They opened with Gardenia and blasted through most of their best songs, for the most part keeping it fast and furious, with enough drawn-out jams to keep it varied. There was little crowd interaction apart from a little comedy part comparing British beer favourably to American; the focus was entirely on the music rather than the musicians. On that note, Bruno Fevery is a perfectly suitable replacement for Josh Homme. They could quite easily leave the latter to whatever he’s up to and call Bruno a full-time replacement in Kyuss. Let it really be about the music, not the personnel.

That said, the guys in the band are all roughly my age; the halcyon days of Kyuss were nearly half their lives ago and none of us have the energy and exuberance we used to. They’re probably holding up better than I, but between me, them and the larger venue, this event was never going to recapture the “most intense musical experience of my life” magic of those London shows. Instead, it was “merely” a set of great songs, performed wonderfully by some great musicians. It was a fantastic night out, and if I were in the habit of awarding marks, I’d probably give them a solid 9/10. I won’t hold it against them that they used to go to 11.

Gardenia
Hurricane
One Inch Man
Thumb
Conan Troutman
Freedom Run
Asteroid
Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop
Fatso Forgotso
Tangy Zizzle
Odyssey
Whitewater
El Rodeo
100°

Spaceship Landing
Green Machine

Metallica’s last good album is 25 years old. OMG, how old am I then? This album has stood the test of time in a way that “…And Justice For All” didn’t. In 2011 it sounds more—what’s the word?—sedate than it did to me as a teenager, but let’s not forget that it was out  a good six months before “Reign In Blood” and that’s when the world changed.

The title track now sounds a little stodgy to me, and with hindsight shows some signs of the bloatedness that would define the next Metallica record; indeed the mean song length on this one is 6:51. The album doesn’t overstep the limit, however, and remains something I can listen to all the way through.

Maybe in the future my internal Metallica opinion recalibration engine will tick over to set this one to “meh, just skip to Damage Inc.” but it might take another 25 years.

I’ve been digging the Valkyrie this month, both the official releases and various live stuff from SHODX, Declaration of Doom and around YouTube. They combine Thin Lizzy style harmonies with Iron Maiden gallops and an infusion of doom that I have seen nowhere else. I’d love to catch up with them again some time.

Primitive Graven Image: Celebrating Impending Chaos

I first encountered these guys at the Show No Mercia festival last December; playing shorthanded, they were still the band I enjoyed most that night. Nice chaps too, hailing from Chesham so we were able to discuss the Thai food at the Queen’s Head.

Anyway, this album is hard to describe: it’s well-executed middle-of-the-road Black Metal. Not too fast, but not slow; clear production but not polished. I like it.

Splendid NYC doom. It was interesting watching the development of these musicians while I lived there. I should dig out some Agnosis too, I guess!

Watain

Shining

Aosoth

Posted mostly as a way to work out how to post flickr slide shows on here, but it was a nice walk and the kestrel and sheep were pleasant company.

Instructions for future reference

And more.

Test-post from flickr, but I think it’s not a bad picture for a point-and-shoot camera!

Actual live music:

- Watain + Melechesh + Dew Scented.

- Some band at the Fox with a lead guitarist who had a hook.

Both events were “Wobbly Bob incidents”.

This compilation was one of the very first heavy metal records I ever bought—not when it was brand new in 1980; probably in 1984 or thereabouts. It was my first introduction to so much of the great heavy metal of the late 1970s. Here it is in the form of a Youtube playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CC511ECBCEE28621

And here’s somewhere you can download the whole thing!

http://hearrockcity.blogspot.com/2010/01/attack-of-mad-axe-man.html

New Releases

Burzum: Fallen

Essentially a mashup of “Det Som Engang Var” with the Moody Blues? Yes, something like that. I’ve never listened to all that much Burzum, being all too easily put off by the chap’s politics and the whole murdering thing. Now that I’m older and less idealistic I’m giving this a fair crack, and find myself wavering between admiration and giggles.

Motörhead – The Wörld Is Yours

Arguably their finest album to date! Every song is a bona fide rock’n'roll masterpiece. There’s nothing more to say.

New To Me

Tormentress - Thrashing Disorder Enjoyable old-school thrash from this Singaporean, all-girl combo. Sparked some less enjoyable ‘discussion’ on the interwebs. however

Kvelertak – High on many people’s end-of-year lists, this is some high-fun black’n'roll. They ought to do the world a favour and change their name to Darksomething so they can fit in the gap between The Darkness and Darkthrone on everyone’s shelf.

Upwards of Endtime Solid Doom.

Old Favourites Revived

Alice In Chains – Facelift. Back in the mood for some of that Love/Hate/Love

Annihilator. Just ’cause.

Overkill – The Wrecking Crew / Sacred Reich – Ignorance is the tape in Mum’s car.

Iron Maiden Flight 666 was on TV, plus I watched the concert video from that tour too.

Gillan Lovefilm sent me The Glory Years DVD from 1981 – I feel a major flashback coming on.

Also of note:

Ghost Still not sure what to think of this.

Ludicra – The Tenant. Amazing band; amazing album.

Slough Feg – The Animal Spirits. Another incredible band; I’ve been trying to play it often enough to combat my disappointment with Scalzi’s comments on a certain night out in Manhattan.

Astriaal – Anatomy of the Infinite My favourite Swedish-black-metal-from-Australia

Howlin’ Wolf I spent a day on this before Maiden kicked in.

In Flames The Jester Race

Melechesh and Nile because I’m off to see them next month.

Valkyrie discography, Youtubes + SHODX bootleg. Man the vocals were off-key that day, but awesome anyway. What a band.

Black Anvil - Time Insults the Mind nice.

WINTERFYLLETH (Eng)

Heritage Black Metal On Candlelight Records

CNOC AN TURSA (Sco)

Symphonic Black Metal On Lone Vigil Recordings

BURIAL (Eng)

Black Death Metal On Lone Vigil Recordings

EIBON LA FURIES (Eng)

Industrial Black Metal

PRIMITIVE GRAVEN IMAGE (Eng)

Progressive Black Metal

OLD CORPSE ROAD (Eng)

Folk Black Metal

Youtube Playlist

On the weekend of the heaviest snow ever, it was time to forge away across the grim and frostbitten plains of Lancashire for this Pagan/Black extravaganza in Manchester’s Satan’s Hollow, which is to iD Software’s level designers as NYC’s Limelight was to H. R. Giger. Also in attendance were Jimmer, and a bunch of people I vaguely knew from his Livejournal and/or lj metal_community. Beer was Tetley’s, but hey, at least it wasn’t Boddington’s.

On to the music: Old Corpse Road kicked things off and were perhaps the most to my taste of the whole evening. Primitive Graven Image, next, were also good, and were a man down with one guitar player having to switch to bass. They apparently value their harmonies, and I suspect that with a full troupe they might have stolen the show. Eibon La Furies were ridiculous Victorian Gothic metal who managed to be a bit silly without being annoying in the slightest. Stylistically they were the least up my street of the evening, but even so enjoyable.
Burial provided a death metal interlude, and a welcome one at that, and then it was on to the short-haired dudes who looked like they were in the wrong nightclub. Great music, but come on lads, grow some hair and buy some black clothes!
Victory feast was adequate Chinese.
Hotel was barely adequate place called Mercahnts.
Train service home was not even close to adequate and took HOURS.

Photos of the evening, swiped from Yolanda’s Facebook: