We’ve added our imeem.com NotMetal.net playlist to the right side of the site. The playlist will be constantly updated with our recommended tracks as well as any tracks relevant to what we’re reviewing, writing about, etc.
Enjoy and let us know what you think!
Massive Brooming!
If “thrash band A” leaves the gig on “tour bus B”, and “thrash band C” with the same looking logo leaves the gig at the same time only with more cases of beer on “tour bus D”, how many more times do you need to listen to “thrash band B’s” record before you start to remember how good D.R.I.’s records were?
How many goddamn bands have spawned in the past couple years sporting the same spiky neon infused logos? Are we experiencing a thrash revival overload? Maybe. But goddamn, if there isn’t a band among them all whose material starts to leave a lasting impression on me like Municipal Waste does.
For six songs less than a minute you have seven others more than two minutes that actually are worth the riffs put into them. The reason being is that each song longer than 1:30 has an extra minute of song to allow it to breathe. (Yeah, I know I just said “breathe” in a description of a thrash band) There is some great variety in the songs they let slow down for a passage, speed it up a bit, really speed it up, add gang vocals, then throw in a good short solo for spice. These are the elements to a few songs on this record that make them memorable and digestible. See “Wolves of Chernobyl” and “Relentless Threat” for an example of these fine points.
"Acceptable grafitti!" - said in weekend nachos vocal style
So then my crusty metal friends: how many riffs does it take to get to the center of the good riffs?
Answer: about 154 in 7 songs. Which would bring us to “Upside Down Church”. Where upon first listen, sounds like the album literally blows its thrashy hot beer foam all over the walls. The song is fucking thrash metal defined. The rest is downhill from there.
Stupid Internet hype! This happens from time to time and it never surprises when it does. The blog-o-sphere, this little skid mark of a site included, gets its panties real wet over a single put up on myspace by a band that that is defunct or soon to be from an album that is coming out in a couple of months. I have a theory that if people know that the upcoming album in question is the last of its kind they tend to think higher or get more excited about it. I guess everybody just wants to remember things in rose light rather than the harsh light of reality.
Heart of Darkness by Burnt by the Sun is a great example of this phenomenon in action. For at least three months leading up to this there were sporadic posts on various sites when new songs were put up. “This is a great definition of brutality” or, “this is the heaviest thing I’ve heard recently” were typical descriptors. I didn’t actually go over to said myspace and listen to these songs, but I was anticipating this album a great deal from the recommendations coming out. So on release day I head up to Colfax and one of the three record stores up there and pick up this little nugget of great album art, get home, put it on and turn it up as it was 2 PM and none of my neighbors were home.
Under whelmed is a one way to put how I felt. Another way to put it would be like going out with a super hot girl for like three months before she lets you see her naked. You have endured dating nightmares like craft fairs and farmers markets, helped her give her annoying dog a bath, and maybe sat through a episode or two of Lost. The only thing keeping you going is the fact that you are going to get in there and tear shit up like it’s the Graf Orlock pit. And then it turns out that she has been wearing body-enhancing clothing the whole time. Boobs and booty are not as cool as advertised. You are still getting laid, but it’s nowhere as cool as it was anticipated.
BbtS bring the atonal metalcore like it’s still the early 00’s. There are breakdowns, the guitar tone is perfectly Grey and boring, and the lead singer talks slowly in parts and enunciates every syllable like spazzes do when they are really angry. He also whispers in parts. Christ, remember when nu-metal bands did the same thing? It wasn’t brutal then and it is not brutal now.
With all hype aside this album is competent and totally generic. “A Party to the Unsound Mind” has a really good riff and “The Great American Dream” actually picks the pace up from the usual out-of-shape-white-dude metal pace. Two decent songs do not an album make unfortunately and I would have a hard time telling anybody that they needed to buy this. Or should buy it even.
I didn’t gain much from hearing this besides learning that I need to download more before buying.
Pathologic Tech-Death Insanity
Autopsies Rule
As their myspace indicates, Viraemia (pronounced Vi-ray-me-ah) is the presence of a virus in the bloodstream. Which is appropriate, because these guys have some infectious music. This is some insane, complex and compelling stuff. The guitarist and bassist shred with immense precision, proficiency and intensity. It’s as if Eddie Van Halen and Necrophagist had a baby with 8 hands, 2 guitars, 1 bass and an insatiable urge to tap and sweep pick. Check this vid of the bassist tearing apart his 10-string for a taste.
The vocalist is also good, alternating between death growls, black-metally screeches and grind chirps and pig grunts. And the drummer is good enough to keep up and add to the cacophony.
Also, the influence of early Carcass is apparent, not only from the autopsy art album cover, but also with medical text song titles such as “Disseminated Intravascular Coagul” and “Necrotizing Fasciitis”.
They only have a self-titled EP out which only has 5 songs (3 of which are streaming on their myspace) but is good enough to warrant attention.
Yes. That is a human fetus. No. He is not a biologist.
Notmetal.net‘s very own Terrie Hill has made history by becoming the first Notmetal contributor to make himself sound credible by being featured in Decibel magazines’ October ’09 “Reader Of The Month” column. When asked to comment on this astonishing turn of events for one of Notmetals’ own employees, the sites’ overall “worthiness” in things metal related, and life in general, Viking Beard had this to say:
“I always knew that kid would quit his job as an engineer and do something sleazy like write about metal!”
Amen. Raise a glass of cheap dirt beer for one of our own. If you don’t have a subscription, easy access to a newstand, or are just lazy, he’ll gladly send you one of his free 100 copies he now owns…
Also, here’s hoping we don’t get sued for publishing a page out of the magazine.
There isn’t a single song on here that holds a candle to “Conquer All”. Go buy Demigod and put “Conquer All” on repeat.
You have just made a Behemoth album that is better than Evangelion.
Congratulations.
Mortal Kombaaaat!
It’s new to me, and new to you. Here’s a review of two new songs from Revocation’s forthcoming full-length, “Existence Is Futile”.
Bottom Line: If you’re into tech-death metal give this band a shot. You can tell these songs apart, which is saying a lot for most tech-metal bands that just fill each song with a flurry of speed picking sweep solos in every song. Bonus points for having Baraka included in the album art.
A Companion Piece to the Previous Article
In the previous post, my notmetal.net cohort Viking Beard mentioned that he is, “more inclined to like doom metal bands with singers who do super low guttural growls.”
I concur, and with that in mind, I want to introduce three of my favorite doom metal bands who employ this type of vocals.
Draconian: Despair Ridden, with a hot chick to boot
Draconian: These guys are doomy enough to make you want to slit your wrists and drown in the blood. Not only are they doom metal, but they are funeral doom (as are the other 2 bands mentioned in this post), which is obviously metal as fuck as implied by the referencing of death. Check out the wonderfully titled track “She Dies” from the album “The Burning Halo”.
Mourning Beloveth: Now these are some sorrowful and morose motherfuckers. Slow and doomy as a train headed for Auschwitz in the early 40s. Check out the song “Disintegrate” from the album “The Sullen Sulcus” for 10 minutes and 38 seconds of slow, doomy goodness.
Funeral: Could a band be more aptly titled? Their songs are like any good funeral procession: slow as molasses, has some bitch screaming and some guy growling. At least, that’s how I want my funeral to go.
I gotta say I never really got into these guys that much. I’m more inclined to like doom metal bands with singers who do super low guttural growls or the screaching bellow of Electric Wizardry. I think the best thing and difference I hear in the mix of this song is more bass. As a trio, I felt their last record really pushed the bass lower into the mix.
Your dad is here to pick you up from school.
Let’s hear that fucking thing rumble! I want the doom to split mountains many leagues away! I want to hear reverb and echo and a big fat viking doom tone that was given life from the very after birth of Tony Iommi himself!
I hear all of these traits in “The Bringer Of War”.
It’s posted up on their myspace. The “Blue Record” art is of course, of the highest quality (courtesy of the talented Mr. John Dyer Baizley). The new song has a sweet wailing guitar lead that is something new to the Baroness sound. I’m getting a really good Thin Lizzy vibe from it. Which is awesome because I love Thin Lizzy.
Oh, and here’s a G.I. Joe video.