it's about time

First off apologies are in order. I'm sorry I haven't been posting lately but hopefully that will change soon. In other news, I made the grueling drive from Fargo, ND to Austin, TX for SXSW in march and had a killer time. Salome and Coffinworm were easily the best bands I had the chance to see. Here is a video of Salome from the Profound Lore/20 Buck Spin showcase at Headhunters. If you look to the left you might catch a glimpse of my bearded glory.

Salome at Headhunters on 3/19/10 during SXSW
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Something I missed in 09

Teitanblood - Seven Chalices

Here's a little gem that I downloaded a while back but didn't get into until now. Teitanblood are a band from Spain who play brutally fast and filthy death/black metal. I think the main reason I put off listening to this record has to do with the lo-fi production, but now that I've given it multiple spins I am totally in love with it. The dirty sound is quite fitting and really enhances the overall atmosphere of the album.

As far as comparable sounding bands are concerned I would place Teitanblood somewhere between Celtic Frost and Entombed. The riffing on Seven Chalices sounds like a rock slide of old school death metal technique, while the drums pummel away in the background at inhuman speed. The vocal performance by NSK is absolutely menacing and ads a thrashy old school swedish death metal vibe to the album.

I am more impressed every time I listen to Seven Chalices. For a two man band to produce an album this suffocating and desolate in an age where crystal clear production is the norm is a breath of fresh air. This album isn't for everyone, but those seeking something that pushes the boundaries of black/death metal while still sounding strangely familiar should give Teitanblood some attention.

LINK

xoxo
beardo

Best of the Decade

First off, Happy New Year! I thought it would be fitting to enter this new decade by offering my personal favorites from the last 10 years. Making this list was especially fun for me because it gave me the opportunity to see how my tastes have evolved and which albums from my youth still fuck shit up today. Without further ado...

Beardo's Top 20 (metal) Albums of the Decade

1. Hammers of Misfortune - The Locust Years
2. Electric Wizard - Dopethrone
3. Deathspell Omega - Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum
4. Agalloch -Ashes Against The Grain
5. Yob - The Unreal Never Lived
6. Arcturus - The Sham Mirrors
7. Pig Destroyer - Terrifyer
8. Primordial - The Gathering Wilderness
9. Tragedy - Tragedy
10. Converge - Jane Doe
11. Nasum - Helvete
12. Immortal - Sons of Northern Darkness
13. Ahab - The Call of the Wretched Sea
14. Reverend Bizarre - In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend
15. Enslaved - Below the Lights
16. Dismember - Dismember
17. Sunn O))) - Black One
18. Leviathan - Massive Conspiracy Against All Life
19. Blut Aus Nord - The Work Which Transforms God
20. Opeth - Blackwater Park

There you have it. I am super excited for 2010. Expect to see a lot more content and download links for all of the albums I review. Spread the word and keep it metal.


xoxo
Beardo

The 20 Best Albums of 2009

20. Orcustus - Orcustus - Southern Lord aren’t typically known for Black Metal Releases, but this album came out of nowhere are totally killed it. Really great beefed up BM that is equally planted in traditional style and with some thrashy guitars thrown in to round things out. Definitely worth checking out.


19. Goatwhore - Carving Out the Eyes of God - I’ll be honest, I really didn’t like Goatwhore until I heard this album, and even then it took me almost a dozen listens to admit I was into it. A lot of people call this “Southern Black Metal,” but I think that’s a little generous. I would say it’s about 75% thrash and 25% BM. The real star on this album is the guitar work; some of the best riffs of the year.


18. Drudkh - Microcosmos - I love this band. They play BM that’s lo-fi but in a very likable way. Couple their tr00 sound with a great knack for song structure and great atmosphere and you’ve got a winner. Microcosmos is as epic an album as I’ve ever heard, and definitely one of the best in BM in the last 5 years.


17. Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Agorapocalypse - A lot of people tried to hate on AN for slowing things down on this album, but they can all fuck off. AN was borderline painful to listen to on previous release, but Agorapocalypse highlights all of the band’s strengths. Scott Hull is a total badass and can shred like no one else.

16. Lord Mantis - Spawning The Nephilim - I love this record. It’s super sludgy, doom, death metal. It’s brutal and never lets up. This album is all things metal. Check the review posted a while back for more details.

15. Kylesa - Static Tensions - This is the album I’ve been waiting for ever since Damad broke up. Kylesa’s last few albums were good, but not great; Static Tensions is great. Easily the best sludge album of the year, and contender for best of the decade. If you like sludgy metal with a D-beat hardcore influence then look no further.


14. Urna - Iter Ad Lucem - This album took me a little while to get into because it takes a long time to get through all of the tracks in one sitting, but once I invested the time I was blown away. Inter Ad Lucem is a stunning mix of funeral doom and black metal. Musically, Urna do a great job creating an eerie atmosphere but the star for me are the vocals, which are BM through and through and round out the sound of the album beautifully. A must own for doom fans.


13. Wodensthrone - Loss - I reviewed this album recently so I won’t say much about it. I love this record and feel it’s one of the strongest BM releases to ever come out of the UK. A stunning debut for sure.



12. Culted - Below the Thunderous Upper Deep - The most amazing thing about this album is the fact that these musicians have never played together in person. BtTUD is a crushing slab of blackened doom that gets more infectious every time I listen to it. I’m surprised how much I like this album now, because I didn’t really care for it all that much at first. A grower for sure.


11. Sunn O))) - Monoliths and Dimensions - The most accessible Sunn O))) album ever, and it’s totally great. This is Sunn O))) doing what they do; heaps of atmosphere that switch between suffocating and vast. If you like Sunn O))) then I’m sure you already have this and if you never liked them I doubt this will change your mind.















10. YOB - The Great Cessation

FUCK YES! I love YOB. They have been one of my favorite doom bands for the last 5 years, and I was really bummed when they split-up, so imagine my joy when I heard they were reuniting and putting out a new studio album. The Great Cessation plays on everything YOB did well on their first two records, but it sounds meaner this time around. A killer album from beginning to end.














9. Asphyx - Death…The Brutal Way

Another recently reviewed album, Death…The Brutal Way is a real barn burner. This is the epitome of the Swedish death metal sound, and it’s coming from a Dutch band.














8. The Gates of Slumber - Hymns of Blood and Thunder

If you like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, or even relatively new bands like Pharaoh, but want less annoying vocals then you should love this. Classic metal with a kick. Killer riffs, great grooves, and songs about dragons = Awesomeness.

















7. Funeral Mist - Maranatha

Arioch (Daniel Rosten) is probably the best black metal vocalist working today. Pulling double duty between Funeral Mist and Marduk, this guy just sounds like the devil. Maranatha is only slightly eclipsed by the new Marduk album.


















6. Marduk - Wormwood

I never took this band seriously until now. Wormwood is stunning black metal that pushes the boundaries of the genre. The great thing about this album is its pacing; switching between slow and grating, and high octane shred-fest. A truly great album in a year filled with excellent BM releases.

















5. Burnt by the Sun - Heart of Darkness

This is BBtS’ swansong, and it is magnificent. I posted a more in=depth review a month or so ago in which I gave praise to the attention to groove present on Heart of Darkness, and I stand behind my initial reactions wholeheartedly. Math metal can be good!

















4. Nile - Those Whom the Gods Detest

Nile finally delivered on the promises made on In Their Darkened Shrines. If you love death metal go get this album, if you don’t stay far, far away.















3. Napalm Death - Time Waits For No Slave

The band who basically invented Grindcore deliver the best grind album of the year…go figure. This is probably the catchiest grind album I’ve heard since Nasum’s Helvete. Time Waits… is brutal, unrelenting, and altogether fantastic.

















2. Krallice - Dimensional Bleedthrough

Nerd metal album of the year for sure. This is black metal for people who think too much. I liked Krallice’s debut, but I never imagined that a year later they would come back with a monster like Dimensional Bleedthrough. Listen with headphones.


















1. Ahab - The Divinity of the Oceans

Here it is, my pick for the best album of 2009. This was a stellar year for metal releases, but the one album that stands above the rest is Ahab’s The Divinity of the Oceans. A modern funeral doom classic, TDotO is a gorgeous album that builds layers and layers of texture and engulfs its listeners. The audio mix on this album add a lot of extra punch, and helps translate the band’s talent for songwriting. A fantastic example of funeral doom, and a must own for any self respecting metal fan.

Anyone Remember Post-Metal?

Amen Ra - Mass IIII

This album came out a while ago so this review will be brief.

The reason I wanted to post something about this record has to do with my annoyance with the genre known as post-metal. Bands like Isis, Pelican, and Cult of Luna all put out some absolutely stunning albums early in their careers, but as post-metal continues to grow into a legitimate genre, with numerous bands offering up slabs of pretentiously artful doom, the music has become stagnant. The major players of the genre are still pumping out decent work, but I feel like no new ground is being tread. Enter Amen Ra. Hailing from Belgium, this band are the new darlings of post-metal.

Mass IIII is a dark and corrosive beast. All of the fundamental aspects of the post-metal sound are here, but Amen Ra have thrown them in a meat grinder and spit out a vitriolic combination of early screamo, hardcore, and Through Silver in Blood era Neurosis. The guitars are sharp and build to massive peaks of distorted dissonance, and the drums keep the guitars in check with simple yet effective tribal rhythms.

I haven't cared about the post-metal movement for a while, but Mass IIII has reignited my interest. If you like this style then there is no reason not to get a copy of this amazing record. I know I'm gushing, but it's better then ranting about Pelican's shitty new album, right?

xoxo
Beardo

What the new Wolves in the Throne Room album could have been

Wodensthrone - Loss

Black Metal is by no means an easy genre to love. The style itself requires a lot from its listeners, but beyond that is the fact that about 80-90% (subjective estimation) is total shit. I have been a huge BM fan for quite a few years and lately I've been frustrated with the way bands have been "reinventing" the style. This is not to say that there haven't been any stellar releases recently, quite the contrary if one looks at bands like Krallice, Drudkh, Marduk, and Funeral Mist; but it feels like for every shinning example there are 10 pieces of shit trying to pass as tr00 or kvlt.

I am pleased to announce that Wodensthrone have outshined their competition with a stunning debut. To say that this has been a good year for BM would be an understatement. Along with releases from the bands listed above, 2009 has seen exceptional work from Horna, Culted, Orcustus, and Deathspell Omega, and in my opinion you'd be hard-pressed to find a better BM release than Wodensthrone's Loss.

As the title of this review states, Loss is what I expected to see from Wolves in the Throne Room's Black Cascade, which was good but not great. Wodensthrone play what they call English Heritage Black Metal, which totally falls into my pet peeve of stupid and unnecessary sub genres, but I'll let it slide because at its core Loss is traditional BM with hints of folk music added for atmospheric purposes. The success of this album lies within its atmosphere. Wodensthrone do a bang-up job of combining relentless BM riffage with traditional folk music. The result is cold and bleak, just the way BM should sound.

Another aspect of Loss that adds to the overall effect are the vocals. The desperate howls of Brunwulf coupled with the lower and more guttural vocals provided by Wildeþrýð round out the bands sound and add enough depth to keep the vocals from getting monotonous. There is a slight symphonic element present, but it's buried in the mix enough that it doesn't sound cheesy.

In a year spotted with fantastic BM releases, Wodensthrone have made their mark. For me it's a toss up which BM album can be credited as the "best," but right now Loss is at the top of the heap.


xoxo
Beardo

Waaaay better then I expected

Lord Mantis - Spawning the Nephilim

I'll be honest, I have a very special place in my heart for quality doom and sludge metal and Lord Mantis play music that I can't help but love.

I was late getting this release but thank god I finally did, because it is one sludgy beast.Lord Mantis hails from Chicago and features members of Indian, Avichi, and an ex-member of Nachtmystium, which might have you expecting to hear complex soundscapes and experimentation, but you'd be wrong. Spawning the Nephilim exists for the sole purpose of kicking your fucking teeth in, one riff at a time.

From a an unbiased point-of-view, which I am forcing myself in to, this album doesn't do much to expand the sludge genre on the whole, but that's not really a bad thing. There are plenty of bands trying to recreate doom and sludge and, frankly, I'm getting a little tired of it. That's not to say that I don't love bands like Kylesa and Baroness (less so for the latter), but every now and then I just want some straight forward, no frills sludgy doom metal that's free of pretension and all about being brutal as fuck. Guess what? I just described Lord Mantis.

This album plays like a wrecking ball. It's filled with huge riffs and grooves, and each track has a very distinct feeling that adds to the atmosphere of the entire album. The vocals are guttural lows and screeching highs layered on top of one another, which really helps the album stand apart from a lot of other doom/sludge bands working today. The guitars are chunky and fuzzy, while the drums focus heavily on keeping the grooves going, and at times even take on a tribal feel.

For me, Spawning the Nephilim is a winner, and most definitely holds a place on my "Best of 09" list. I can't say that the same will be true for everyone. I understand why I love this record, it's nostalgic and represents pretty much everything that metal is about. If you fancy yourself a doom or sludge fan, I urge you to check this out.



xoxo
Beardo