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Changed thread title (placeholder was "Metal thread IX: Equilibrium"). Thanks for explanation of the current one, WhamBamSam!
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Insert metal here.
Changed thread title (placeholder was "Metal thread IX: Equilibrium"). Thanks for explanation of the current one, WhamBamSam!
Previous Threads:
Spoiler
Man - a new thread after THREE years! I gotta love it.
On my way home from Psycho Las Vegas now... highlights included Vhol, Yob, Subrosa, Swans, Subrosa, Warning, Subrosa, Gatecreeper, Subrosa, Zeal & Ardor, Mothership, Wizard Rifle and of course, Subrosa
Oh hey, new thread. It's been so long, I don't even know what to do with this. Post metal? Okay.
My latest discovery: Manetheren (okay, I knew them from before, but only just realised that they had put out another album. Kinda atmoblack? I guess. Also, despite the name, doesn't have much to do with the Wheel of Time books.
Holy ****, this is excellent. Been listening to all of their previous stuff and I'm hooked. Immediate buy. Kinda sounds a bit like Kuolemanlaakso, another Finnish death/doom kinda band. Check them out.Quote:
Originally Posted by thirsting
Also been jamming it old school with some Rammstein. Forgot how good their old stuff is. Herzeleid is killer.
Metal To The Pedal To The Other Metal is a Futurama reference. The character putting the pedal to the metal is a robot so the foot stepping on the gas pedal is metal. As to its relation to this thread, it has the word "metal" in it a lot, and pedals are something of a thing in metal as well, as are cars as a lyrical subject to an extent.
Not all that new, but something that I don't think has been mentioned here yet that I've been enamored with this year is Replacire's Do Not Deviate. It's basically the album that I've always wanted The Faceless to make without even realizing it.
Some groups I am enjoying right now.
Faith No More
Korpiklaani
Forest of Shadows (they wrote Eternal Autumn, which is an amazingly good song for such an unknown band).
Duuuude so much this. Replacire are stunning. I just wish they all lived close together so they could tour more!Quote:
Originally Posted by WhamBamSam
Man, I have no clue why it took me so long to check out Mithras's album from last year, but I'm kicking myself for it now. It's pretty rad.
New Botanist is out. It's... something
From the other thread:
Thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by Narmoth
Tour was a desaster, though.I'm currently doing a rant-style writeup that I'll post here later.I don't know if I'm the only participant in this thread who has his own band, but I think it'll make for an interesting read anyways. Here's the writeup:
Spoiler: A tale of despairAllright, here it goes:
First, let's set the stage, shall we?
Dramatis Personae
BA - Booking Agency: The Guy who booked our shows.
IS - Inner Sanctum: The 2nd Band on the billing. Friends of ours from waaaay back.
VG - Venue Guy: The owner of the venue.
PG - Promo Guy: The local promoter. Sometimes the same as VG.
SG - Sound Guy: Sound technician. Sometimes the same as PG and/or VG.
SB - Support Band: The support band for any given gig.
History Lesson
We contacted BA to do a small tour through Czech republic in January to see if we would get along with IS in a touring situation. After all, if you're stuck with five guys in a van for the better part of ten days, better make sure you get along, right?
Turns out that yes, we did in fact get along rather well with IS. However, of the three gigs we had booked in January, one fell through because VG was sick, and another one was hastily put together a week before the tour after the first iteration got cancelled. Also, we found out when driving the tour that literally NO promotion had been made. Even though we provided flyers, posters and various facebook headers about two months in advance.
Well, **** happens. We chalked that up to misfortune and still had our fun, even thóugh we only had around 15 people on our first gig, and a whopping 4 (!) on the second one.
The Setup
So, we decided to do the promo work ourselves, since we made quite a few contacts on our first run. But still we were missing connections to venues etc., so we contacted BA again, this time to solely book the shows and accomodations. We gave him a rough outline of our preferred route as to minimize driving between venues, and he went on to procure said gigs.
The Prelude
As time went on and the tour grew ever closer, we had most of the venues names, but no word on support bands, door times or entry fees, which we needed if we wanted to do our flyers and promo work.
So we contacted the various venues ourselves, since BA did not really respond to our inquiries. He flat out ignored uncomfortable questions. He answered quickly enough if he had an answer to a question, but anything else he'd simply ignore. No "I don't know yet" or anything.
Of the nine (!) venues we contacted, only two responded. One was the one where the gig in January had been cancelled due to sickness, and that guy was eager as hell to make everything work. Kudos to him - for now.
The second Venue replied to let us know that they did not know of any concert on that day. BA didn't answer for a week, only to inform us later that yes, the gig in said venue was off, but he had another venue.
We packed an electronic drum kit, just in case, although the deal was that BA would organize a basic drumkit for each venue, either via support acts or from somewhere else. He agreed.
Tour preparations went on, and about 3 weeks before the tour we STILL did not have all the informations on any gig bar one. At this time a third venue answered ym inquiry from weeks back and told me that they'd LOVE to have us, but that we couldn't play on the date our BA had told us since there was already another event booked and they didn't know BA. Long story short: BA had arranged this through PG01, and the venue didn't even know which bands playede on this "external" event. Well, again, **** happens, right?
At this point we should have aborted, but this was three weeks before the tour, we had drummed up a bit of promotion through various channels and taken our vacations at the various workplaces, so we stuck to it.
Eppur Si Muove
Day 01
The time had come. T minus zero. Judgement day. Armageddon. We were off. After 8 hours in the van we arrived at the first venue. PG01 was nice, SB01 was nice, Venue was nice. So far so good.
Enter SG. Didn't speak a single word of english, which is... weird... give that the he was from the venue and they had big-ish international metal acts there semi-regularly (e.g, Belphegor). To my surprise he did speak a bit of german, so I made do. Didn't like the all-digital setup we had, hated my Shure SM58 and adamantly insisted on me using his crappy Samson (a cheap chinese SM58 knowck-off), because it presumably had less feedback than an SM58.
Two minutes into the soundcheck proved him wrong, and another 5 minutes proved that the guy had no clue what he was doing.
The Amps were too high output for him to handle, to the point were we had to lower the outputs that much that my Kemper literally could not get lower without shutting the outputs off. I found out later this was because he cranked the gain on his PA all the way to the max, not engaging a pad and quite possibly hitting the signals with compressors on the way in.
At this point my temper was quite mellow, so I basically humoured him and went along with most of his crap (apart from the SM58/Samson question). He was, after all, the SG of the venue, so he should know sound at his location, at least, right?
Wrong!
During SB01 everything went swell, since they had only one guitar and no bass, but IS reported that our sound levels were all over the place during our 2nd slot. When they played the 3rd slot, I saw that SG had pulled the second guitar WAAAAY down, to the point where you couldn't hear it, not even in the slightest. Well, long story short:
I told our bassist to pull up the channels while I distracted SG on one of his many, MANY smoking breaks during the slot. Sound was OK afterwards, and he didn't even notice, or at least he didn't change anything.
So, all in all the gig was OK, a few people were there, and we were content. Until we saw the accomodation for the night.
A completely run-down, quite spooky hostel with moldy as hell showers. At least the sheets were halfway clean.
Day 02
Mediocre night, breakfast at a supermarket nearby, but hey, the first night was OK, from the photos the accomodation for the second gig looked quite good, and VG for this gig was quite enthusiastic over this gig, so we took off with quite a good mood.
The accomodation was, in fact, quite nice once we arrived. The venue was damn hard to find, and when we got there quite before the agreed get-in time no one was there. Once the time arrived, still no one was there. Once the SB for the night arrived, still no one from the venue was there. Once the first guests arrived, STILL no one was there.
About 1.5 hours too late, VG finally arrives. Turns out his club is a quite well-known underground club with TONS of charme. Turns out also that VG didn't speak english nor german (this would get to be a pattern), was also the SG for the night and was, in the pathological sense, a choleric. Still, we set up the stage, I found someone to translate, the choleric told me to do our own sound, and the gig of SB went great. The 2nd slot this night was filled by IS, and it wasn't great, it was GREAT! The crowd was absolutely crazy. And to my surprise, most of them were even here explicitly for my band! We sold quite a bit of merch before our slot even started, which makes what comes next all the sadder:
We enter the stage, play our first song, crowd goes wild, we start the second song, and suddelny - SILENCE!
The PA had crapped itself. Queue the choleric VG who alternates between telling me that this hasn't happened once in the last eight years, that his reputation was at stake and that this was somehow the fault of our Amps. Wouldn't hear that this was, in fact, physically impossible, because our modellers and DI interfaces didn't have a power stage, and even IF by some weird fluke they put out too much voltage, it'd be his Mixer that'd crap itself, not his power amp.
So we had to cancel the rest of the show. I could still scream when I think of the faces of the people who ****ing KNEW OUR SONGS, standing before the stage and looking sad.
VG mellowed up once the brunt of his choleric attack faded (And I mean that literally - the guy was notorious for his choleric attacks, as in "he has this medical issue"...), we got drunk as hell and went back to the hostel.
Day 03
Breakfast, and off we go. We left Czech republic for the time being and headed to Slovakia. The mood is down, especially among my guys. IS is down because they had a great gig, and we didn't, even though the guests wanted to see us more, and especially because we did all the work both before and during the tour, barring carrying equipment and driving.
BAD still hasn't sent us any info on the last gigs, so we joked around how the next gig will get cancelled. An hour later, the news arrives: Gig is, in fact, cancelled! But at least we got a better accomodation since originally we would have to sleep in the venue.
Good food and quite the binge concluded this evening, but still a bad taste remained. Of the three gigs so far, which itself was a third of the whole tour since one of the 10 days would be a day off anyways since BA hadn't found a gig for that day, only one was what you could call "successfull".
Day 04
Wake up, check out, find out that in spite of BA telling us everything is payed, his credit card bounced or was invalid or something, so we had to pay for the accomodation ourselves. Keep in mind we already paid BA for this, for every night where he had a gig for us. At this point this is par for the course, but still it grates.
Hangovers all around we made off to the next stop. This gig was a bit special. See there were not one, ut to off-days in the schedule, because BA couldn't secure a gig here, either. So about two weeks before the tour we booked one ourselves. If we can do it, from germany, with no connections, one would think that BA could do it, too, but then I'll have my say about him at the end.
So, Krakow, Poland. Third country on our list. Nice Hostel, but then we booked this one ourselves, too, so no surprises there. We had booked a third band as SB under the condition that they'd bring a drumset. The deal was we would bring the rest of the backline, and they'd help with promotion and would maybe pull a few guests.
We would set up doors, door money would go to us and IS to alleviate accomodation, SB would get free drinks, and all parties agreed.
Enter the venue - No promotion had been done by the venue whatsoever, they didn't even share the facebook event. It was like they didn't care at all if anyone came to the concert. Same for SB - No mentions on FB, no shares, nothing. Well, [i]SG[i] turns up, looks at our setup, gets a stupid grin on his face and proceeds to give us a killer sound. That guy knew what he was doing, and spoke english more than well enough. MVP of the tour, really.
SB turns up - sans drumkit. We were mightily pissed at this point, especially after their drummer wrinkeld his nose on the electronic drum kit. Well, if you don't ike it, why didn't you bring your own kit like you were supposed to do?
Next thing is that we have to be done with the gig at 10 pm. Afterwards the sound needed to be less loud. IS agreed to cut their set to 35 mins, we did the same, and SB agreed to cut their set to 45 minutes and then proceeded to take an extra 45 minutes to get the drums up to their code. Brought 4 friends who watched their gig, didn't drink anything and went off before IS even began. Even with IS only playing 35 minutes (in front of us and the club owner. No one else was there) we didn't even START until 10 pm, but thank god no one turned our sound down. SB meanwhile stood upstairs, smoked, didn't watch jack **** of any one of the other bands and drank beer from the neighboring club, then ****ed off to god knows where somewhen during our set.
So: No promo by either the club or SB, no drumset by SB. We should've just played without them, then we wouldn't have had to cut both our and IS's set and had the same effect.
Day 05
Back to slovakia it is. Hostel is a hellhole in the worst district of the city, no place to (legally) park the van anywhere near it. Well, screw this, and screw everyone if we get a parking ticket.
Venue is a maze of underground corridors, patrons don't give a **** for anything that's going on, but the food is great, VG and his wife are more than nice, SG at least has a reasonable idea of what he's doing, even though the concept of "mix low, then, once your mix is ok, turn up the volume" is way beyond him. Gig is again in front of us and IS, plus three or so patrons who poke their head into the corridor where the bands played.
Still, here we had gotten FLYERS and POSTERS, so VG chalked it up to the gig being on a wednesday. SG tells us that the venue we'd be playing the next day had a big core audience and quite the scene behind it. That's something, at least.
Back to the hell hostel.
Day 06
After a 30-minute drive to the next city (shortest distance on the tour) we arrived at the hotel we were supposed to be accomodated in. Looked really nice. Only they didn't have any booking for us and were completely booked out.
At this point we googled the phone numbers of the remaining venues to contact them and see if the rest of the gigs were in fact taking place, since BA basically stopped communication. Only thing we got out of him was "VG told me he booked", and we knew that to be fake because the hotel staff KNEW VG and told us that he TRIED to book, but they were booked out.
The venue itself was closed, we saw a few posters of gigs MONTHS in the future, but nothign about our gig and concluded that there wasn't any promo being done here either.
So we booked a nice hotel, tried reaching VG via phone and decided that we would show up on get-in time, ask VG if he thought anyone would turn up, and make playing the gig dependent on his answer.
Queue us arriving ath the venue: VG tells us he'd told BA about the failed booking (which I'm inclined to believe, given BA's track record so far), says he didn't do any promo, but there'd be people showing up anyways.
So we set up shop, only to encounter for the second time on this tour a broken PA with no backup. VG barely speaks english, SG is only marginally more fluent, and it takes us an hour to figure out that his cables are faulty.
At this point I've had it, pulled the cables and mixed the room over two spare ports on our InEar-mixer, and just give him stereo out to his PA. IN addition to being vocalist, guitarist, tour manager and stage-tech for two bands, I've become the FoH-Guy, too. Great.
Gig was as expected: 3 club patrons watching us, clapping along with the music. So we pack up and get back to the nice hotel we booked.
Day 07 | Day 08
We had reached the other two venues remaining. The first one told us that they knew nothing of any gig whatsoever, the second (which would be the last gig of the tour) told us the gig was on. So we decided to skip town for the first gig, just drove to Prague and had two days off there.
While there we met with a few friends that we played with back in january. Remember the PA from Day 02? That hasn't failed once in the last 8 years? Well, those bands had played there, too, a while back. Turns out the Power Amp tends to **** itself regularly if you give it more than one or two vocal mics, so VG from Day 02 did not only lie to me, he slandered us to avoid taking the blame for using bad hardware and not having a backup.
****er.
Day 09
We were supposed to sleep in the venue, which we voted was not going to fly since we'd have an 9 hour drive home before us on the following day, so we booked a nice hotel a few minutes drive away.
Arrived, chilled out a bit, got a bite to eat and onwards to the venue!
What we expected was some small club. What we found was a cellar hole with surprising good sound, once I set it up, booted their SG guy out and we replaced the partial drumset with our e-drums. No food and no drinks, but that was par for the course at this point, really. We played our sets and headed home, but not before catchiong **** for playing with e-drums. Well fine, if you guys brought a complete drumset we wouldn't have, so **** you then. You should be GLAD to get two bands from another country, and for free nontheless, and with a passable sound for a change, but hey, I bet real drums sound really good if you've got your head up your asses!
Day 10
Drive home. Nothing to report.
The Aftermath
So, to summarize:
- Small czech, slovakian and polish clubs tend to not have sound guys that know their **** (with some exceptions)
- No matter if you're hosting international bands, as a club owner in czechia, slovakia or poland you don't see the need to at least passably UNDERSTAND english (or german, given it's a neighbor, but I'd say english'd be more useful)
- To be a booking agency, you don't need to keep your customers informed and never tell them anything bad unless it's basically way too late.
- Promotion is for chumps. If I open my small club, people will come. Or not. It's not like I care.
A few pointers to take away from this:
- Don't depend on others. Not your booker, not the support bands, not the venues. Do your promotion, accomodation and if possible booking yourselves. At least in the braket my band is in.
- Bring your own PA, or at least a pair of active speakers. Bring your own sound tech. Tell the local tech to suck it and do it yourselves.
- Do not, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, do business with Bird Rain Agency. Seriously. Don't. Guy still owes us the money for the various accomodations, food buyouts and cancelled gigs. Comes together to around 600€, of the 880 we payed him up-front. It's a mystery to me how that guy is making money. My guess would be he isn't, and we'll have to see if he'll con us out of the cash or if he'll pay up. If he pays up, he's not a cropok but simply too incompetent to waste your time and money with, and if he doesn't, he's a con artist.
Thanks for letting me vent this.
The bright side: My self-built guitar held up magnificiently and got quite a few curious questions about where I got it and how it looked so good. That's something :D
Now that is a RANTQuote:
Originally Posted by Whoracle
Unfortunately that's something I see far too often in the music industry. There are a lot of sketchballs out there. That's part of why it pays off to be deep in the scene and inquire. Even when you do do that, which I'm sure Whoracle did, there is still a good chance of getting screwed over.
Yeah. Even if you inquire, there's a lot of **** going on. The thing with the broken PA on the second gig: Technically, we were paid to keep our mouths shut about that, for the venue to save face. But then the guy didn't speak english, and we only inferred that from his gestures and stuff, so...Quote:
Originally Posted by grimbold
The BA did a few tours with other bands that we asked about their experiences, but we haven't heard from them. I'm not even saying the guy did it intentionally, he just seems incompetent.
Well, we've got another agency knocking at our door right now, which claims to mange and book various known bands (Namely Negura Bunget, Dominanz and Heller Schein among others), and we've reached out to those, but the bands don't even mention the guy on ntheir websites and have their booking adresses on their own domains.
We'll see. Not all promoters and bookers are crap, not by a long shot, but especially when starting out it's better to just say "screw this" if something seems dodgy and try again with another agency. After all, money shouldn't flow before the tour, so all you're missing out is a bit of time and a lot of nerves.
Been enjoying some of Kronos's work and thought I'd share for those unfamiliar with them. I'd recommend them to anybody who's interested in brutal death metal but finds most of it too abrasive or atonal; they're very melodic for a brutal death metal band and don't even tune all that low, either. Hardly the finest brutal death metal around, but good stuff.
Don't like covers of classics usually, but...
He even makes Justin Bieber's songs sound good :p
So do any of you guys know about Throane? I'm kind of obsessed...
That's certainly something. Can you please pm me the name of the promoter and the venues, so that we know who to avoid? We're doing some gigs in Europe in April (one in Austria, rest in the Balcans) and hope our promoter isn't as bad as the one you had.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whoracle
I asked the bands he has worked with, and things should be okay, but I'm still a bit nervous about him.
Also, seems your band at least handled it quite professionally. Would love to play with you sometime. I can't offer anything in Tromsø, the scene here is rotten, but I might be able to arrange something in Bergen with a band called Cretura, who are locals there
edit:
I found the venues on your bands facebook, and you wrote the name of the agent in the end of your post, so I think I know all I'll need to know. The part with bringing a PA sucks. Drums take up enough space, and hauling a PA should be redundant
Oooh... where in Austria? Maybe I can somehow make it :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Narmoth
Would absolutely love to, but alas, we're too expensive for any sane promoter to book that far away unless on a prolonged tour. Flying the band over there alone is about 10k kroner, and on top there's the equipment, which runs another 1k or 2k (no matter if we rent it on premise or bring it with us. I checked. The first draft of the tour was for Finland...). And I highly doubt that anyone would make 20k+ kroner of profit on a show of ours. And driving up there would take us at least 3 days one way and would at the least cost 15k kroner, too.Quote:
Also, seems your band at least handled it quite professionally. Would love to play with you sometime. I can't offer anything in Tromsø, the scene here is rotten, but I might be able to arrange something in Bergen with a band called Cretura, who are locals there
If we ever get a tour up north together, I'd be mroe than honored to play with y'all, though :)
Well, a solid state PA isn't that heavy, and we're hauling our own mixer anyways due to the in ear monitoring. It's just extra expense to rent one, and in 99% of cases you shouldn't need one. But in that 1% when you do, you REALLY need it.Quote:
edit:
I found the venues on your bands facebook, and you wrote the name of the agent in the end of your post, so I think I know all I'll need to know. The part with bringing a PA sucks. Drums take up enough space, and hauling a PA should be redundant
Currently we're looking to buy or rent a pair ov big active speakers and a subwoofer. Since we already have a mixer that should be more than enough and cuts out even the last unknown variable out of the equation: What if you bring your own PA and the speakers are too weak? :)
Graz, the 12th of April 2018. I have no name for the venue yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Whoracle
The venue would have frontline, and I think between us and Cretura we would be able to have a decent backline as well, so your expense would be the travel. The pay wouldn't be great though. It would probably be a door split, the same we would expect at any show we could join to play with you in GermanyQuote:
Originally Posted by Whoracle
Since we fly to any destination except in northern Norway or northern Sweden, that's still a pain in the behind. Renting could be an option thoughQuote:
Originally Posted by Whoracle
I don't know if behringer is roadworthy, but if their products are, I would go for that. They're dirt cheap. I've almost only used their mixers and I'm very happy with themQuote:
Originally Posted by Whoracle
So, any love for older, more obscure bands? There are several bands that emerged first in the late 70s that did some form of proto-doom. The bands I'm thinking of are Cirith Ungol, Pagan Altair, Witchfynde (first album).
*flaps*Quote:
Originally Posted by Narmoth
Yesyesyesyes!
I got to see Cirith Ungol the other day at Psycho and it was insane! I also recently saw Denner-Schermann (The other half of Mercyful Fate) and that was equally nuts. I'm super into a lot of old stuff. I've been on a big Angel Witch kick lately.
Also I manage that proto-doom band BANG, so that's something :smallwink:
I have Opinions here. And that is Behringer is inconsistent. You can get two of the exact same units, one will fall apart and be noisy as hell just by looking at it funny, the other will be a tank that will survive a six story fall and a keg of spilled beer. I have a fair bit of behringer gear because, well, it's cheap and can serve until you can upgrade. My synth rack has a behringer line mixer in it right now. Considering their new analogue poly synth too; it won't be, say, a prophet, but it's also half the price.Quote:
Originally Posted by Narmoth
Also, playing to a sold out room is astounding and I hope I do it again someday! No one was there to see me (no one KNEW me), but everyone paid attention, got a great reception and lots of compliments after the show (my favorite: "I don't even know what genre to call you") and my Suicide cover absolutely killed! The Dead Milkmen are super nice folks, and their crowd is one of the most open minded I've ever played for!
Behringer gets less roadworthy the more moving parts the unit has. Their speakers are aboslutely cool if you pack 'em into flight cases (which you should do with any road gear, anyways). Their mixers tend to get loose faders etc. However, the X32 rack version is a beast, mostly because it has like 7 or 8 rotary knobs and a few buttons. Not much that can go wrong there.
tl;dr: If you buy gear that's roadworthy by design, behringer is good enough. If you want to take something fancy with you, behringer will break before the competition.
Yeah, Angel Witch are great. Haven't seen them live, but I like their albums.Quote:
Originally Posted by grimbold
Since you like Cirith Ungol, you should check out Pagan Altar. Their signer died unfortunately two years ago, but they are doing some shows to support the album they recorded while he was still alive. I'm going to see them at Hammer of Doom together with Cirith Ungol (who I've already seen at Keep it True).
Speaking of Keep it True: I discovered Manilla Road there, which is a kind of old proggy heavy metal band and I'm amazed that I have never heard them before! They're really, really underrated. Probably because of the vocals on their first albums
link please?Quote:
Originally Posted by grimbold
Yes, I'm a bit sceptic to taking a Behringer mixer on the road. However, active speakers by them should be okayQuote:
Originally Posted by Whoracle
Yes, many say that. And yet I haven't had a behringer product breaking down on me. Messed up a V-amp (my fault) since I've started on behringer products 14 years ago, and that's itQuote:
Originally Posted by JoshL
Sounds really nice. Where did you play?Quote:
Originally Posted by JoshL
Personally, the only Behringer gear I had actually crap out on me was a little tube preamp (which never sounded as good as the ART one I had anyway) but a friend of mine went through 3 or 4 of the WiFi mixers before he got one where all the channels worked. So I guess the moral is buy from a place that will excange defective units!
Show this weekend was at the Grog Shop in Cleveland. Rodney of the Dead Milkmen grabbed some backstage video of my first song, not sure I'd the Facebook video link will work, but let's give it a shot. sound is not great of course, but just looking at that audience paying so close attention makes me happy!
Wow, this is most excellent!Quote:
Originally Posted by Narmoth
I have failed you cookie monster - i have loved this band for years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dallas-Dakota
I have loved Pagan Altar for a while - they rule. If you're going to Hammer of Doom be sure to check out my fav's - Pilgrim!Quote:
Originally Posted by Narmoth
Enjoy :smallwink:Quote:
Originally Posted by Narmoth
Wow, so many people here. Awesome :smallbiggrin:
Yeah, Manilla Road are old-school cool. And they're still going! Their latest album came out like... last week; and it's actually pretty damn good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Narmoth
I've listened to that before, yeah. It's... interesting. It's a bit French for me :smalltongue: French metal seems to always be a bit weird. But I like some of it!Quote:
Originally Posted by grimbold
So... what happened recently. The new Myrkur came out. I really like it. And actually, the less metal parts are more interesting than the black metal parts. I wouldn't be too disappointed if she turned into the new Chelsea Wolfe or whatever.
I don't hear proto-doom really. Rush was the first band that came to mind. Not bad though.Quote:
Originally Posted by grimbold
Something that hasn't been mentioned yet here which will almost certainly be at the top end of my AotY list is In Forgotten Sleep by Lor. Excellent prog/power with folky bits that remind me of some of my favorite video game and fantasy soundtracks, and at least one candidate, if not more, for riff of the year.
I'm also just now listening to Aether Realm's Tarot for the first time. Admittedly, I'm at the exact level of whiskey drunk to best appreciate this sort of thing, but if first impressions hold up to sober reflection, I'm not sure I've heard a melodeath record that I've liked this much since at least Surgical Steel.
Oh man, I loved Eidolon, the first song they released off the album, but then I completely forgot to look up the rest of it when it was released. I'm excited to see if the rest of the album is as good.Quote:
Originally Posted by WhamBamSam
Good calls on both ends!Quote:
Originally Posted by WhamBamSam
Out of curiosity - how did you find out about Lor? I've known those guys personally for like 3-4 years (They played my birthday party one year actually!) just from being around the Philadelphia scene. Graham is a buddy.
Aether Realm also ****ing r00l. I just love their rags to riches insanity - and love for Kesha :smallwink:
"Eidolon" is my favorite track off the album, but it's pretty great the whole way through.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fadal
They got a glowing review over on AMG a month or so back.Quote:
Originally Posted by grimbold
Upon a second listen, I will say that Tarot does have some fat that could've been trimmed, but the first impression largely holds up. I'm still not sure I can think of a melodeath record that I've liked this much in recent years. Xoth might count, but you can't really pidgeonhole them into an existing subgenre without having tentacles sticking out of the opening.