Friday the 13th, the final installment

The final installment of my extended Friday the 13th album dump. Take a listen, let me know what you think!

After the Burial - Rareform


Every summer I make it a point of going the the Summer Slaughter tour, which has in the past had such awesome headlining bands as Necrophagist, Vader, Dying Fetus, Suffocation and more. However, the line-up usually includes a good amount of up-and-coming bands which get to play in front of a large audience drawn in by the more well-known acts. Whoever is selecting these newcomers has (generally) a pretty good ear, and I've been pleasantly surprised each year I've gone. After the Burial is one of those surprises from this past summer. Their name and album art give the appearance of a run-of-the-mill deathcore band, but take a listen and you will discover a very talented and technical death metal band (with no squeals!). Keep an eye on these guys, it sounds like they're going places.

Favorites: Ometh, Cursing Akenaten

Get it here.

The Meads of Asphodel - The Early Years


I have posted in this blog before about The Meads and how amazing I think they are, so if you're curious check out this post for more info. The Early Years is a compilation of the band's EPs, their half of the Jihad split with Mayhem, as well as miscellaneous covers and other songs they have done. Great as an introduction to their music or an addition to their discography if you've heard them already.

Favorites: I'd heard most of this already, but I really enjoyed the synth-heavy cover of Bulldozer's 'Neurodeliri' as well as 'Og's Last Stand' and 'Bleed for Me'

Get it here.

Viraemia - Viraemia EP


Another young, up-and-coming band from Phoenix, Arizona of all places. Viraemia is an extremely technical brutal death metal band that was recommended to me by my friend Will because of a link he clicked on accidentally while reading a different blog. I don't have too much to say about these guys, except that they're an interesting band and, if they keep up this kind of intensity in their music, they'll go far. Also, points for not having the cadaver on the operating table be obviously female-bodied - there can be brutal death metal without misogyny!

Get it here.

Fluisterwoud - Langs Galg En Rad


Black metal from the Netherlands, Fluisterwoud is one of those bands that I hear recommended often but only bothered to get their full-length debut, Langs Galg En Rad, in the past year. This album is very good - the band plays fairly straightforward 'raw' black metal, but tracks like the introductory 'Een Sinister Schouwspel' and the closing title track add some creepy atmosphere. Also, the album art is badass. Like many great bands, Fluisterwoud put out a single excellent album before breaking up (with another, post-mortem release which came out this year). Are they worth the hype? You'll have to check them out to answer that question.

Favorites: Langs Galg En Rad (the outro!), Hoer Van De Zeven Hemelen

Get it here.

David Bowie - Station to Station


Probably my favorite David Bowie album of all time. Flash back to 1976. David Bowie is an effete, coke-addled mess whose persona "The Thin White Duke" makes controversial allusions in support of fascism. I quote Wikipedia at length:

According to biographer David Buckley, the Los Angeles-based Bowie, fuelled by an "astronomic" cocaine habit and subsisting on a diet of peppers and milk, spent much of 1975–76 "in a state of psychic terror".^[6] Stories—mostly from one interview, pieces of which found their way into Playboy and Rolling Stone—circulated of the singer living in a house full of ancient-Egyptian artefacts, burning black candles, seeing bodies fall past his window, having his semen stolen by witches, receiving secret messages from The Rolling Stones, and living in morbid fear of fellow Aleister Crowley aficionado Jimmy Page.^[4] Bowie would later say of L.A., "The fucking place should be wiped off the face of the earth".

Out of this maelstrom comes Station to Station, one of his most acclaimed albums. Containing such classics as 'Golden Years' and 'Wild is the Wind', it's a must-have.

Favorites: Station to Station, Wild is the Wind.

Get it here.

Orgy - Candyass


This one takes me back. Candyass by the band Orgy was one of the first cd's I ever bought, and was definitely one of my most played of all time. Readers may remember these guys from their popular cover of New Order's 'Blue Monday'. That track came off of this, their debut album, which was released in 1998. For those who have not heard them, Orgy is synth rock which incorporates elements of industrial, New Wave and goth music into their sound and appearance.

Favorites: love the whole damn album

Get it here.

And that's a rap! I hope you enjoyed these posts, and please give me some feedback (these posts took some time and energy). Until next time...

Friday the 13th, part II

By popular demand, here are 5 more albums for the weekend of the 13th. I plan on sharing the rest tomorrow!

Immortal - Sons of Northern Darkness


I don't have many albums from bands which can be considered 'traditional' black metal from Europe, but this video made me go out and get this one. Immortal is an band which you can tell had a lot of influence on the creators of Metalocalypse - everything from the corpsepaint and ridiculous videos to the obsession with being as 'grim and frostbitten' as possible. Indeed, Sons of Northern Darkness is an album which contains such over-the-top song titles as 'In My Kingdom Cold', 'Antarctica', and of course the title song.

Favorites: One by One, In My Kingdom Cold

Check it out here.

Napalm Death - Time Waits for No Slave


Napalm Death is a fantastic grindcore (lately more death-influenced) band from England. They're probably one of my favorite metal bands going, especially given their consistent political ideology of anti-fascism, anti-authoritarianism, and even good gender analysis! If you're political at all (and maybe if you're not) and you want to get sold on these guys, check out this interview with current lead singer Barney Greenway where he talks about not having to be a fascist to listen to metal and getting into a brawl with a Russian hate band before a show. Time Waits for No Slave is their latest album, and a very good one. They are one of the most energetic and heaviest bands in their genre in my opinion, and this album is a testament to that.

Favorites: Fallacy Dominion, Larceny of the Heart

Get it here.

Anaal Nathrakh - Hell is Empty and All the Devils are Here


A recent find for me, Anaal Nathrakh is an industrial/black metal band also from England. Brutal stuff, much of their music is centered around apocalyptic themes and features screams, guns firing, explosions, and more. The vocalist himself is screaming much of the time, combined with some clean vocals interspersed throughout. They do what they do very well and I would consider them one of the more intense and dark bands of today. AN has put out a lot of music, all of it good, and is even starting to play live. I would consider Hell is Empty... to be a good example of their music, including songs like 'Until the World Stops Turning' which begins with the firing of a chain gun that is then backed by the guitar and drums. Very, very good.

Favorites: Virus Bomb, Genetic Noose

Get it here.

Agalloch - The Silence of Forgotten Landscapes


Folk/Ambient-ish black metal from the Pacific Northwest. Agalloch is one of my favorite metal bands, many of their songs dwelling on darkness within the human spirit and its reflection in the grandeur of nature. They also feature some of my favorite uses of clean vocals in the genre (check out John Haughm's voice in the album version of In the Shadow of Our Pale Companion). The Silence of Forgotten Landscapes is a live album ripped from a DVD and has a mix of songs from their very early work through Ashes Against the Grain), so you get a good mix of different music. If you're already a fan it's still worth checking out for curiosity value and hearing a little, though not too much, innovation by the band in their performances of studio songs.

Favorites: it's all pretty good!

Get it here.

Clint Mansell - The Fountain OST


A great score to a great film! The Fountain is a sci-fi/romance/fantasy directed by Darren Aronofsky which tells the story of a man's obsession to save his wife from her cancer which takes them through time and space. It's kind of hard to describe, but besides my endorsing it through this blog I think the score makes a great recommendation as well (I actually heard it before I saw the film, and once I did I knew I had to see it). Beautiful orchestral work composed by Clint Mansell (of Requiem for a Dream soundtrack fame) and performed by the Kronos Quartet (who also performed on Requiem's OST) and Mogwai. The score ranges from bombastic and fast-paced to depressed and lamenting, usually hovering somewhere around sad, fragile and contemplative.

Favorites: Holy Dread!, Death is the Road to Awe, Together We Will Live Forever

Get it here. (if it asks for a password, it's www.mediaportal.ru)

13 albums for Friday the 13th, pt. 1

Hey Kids,

Long time no talk. I've been pretty busy of late, of which I will get into more detail in a later post, but in the meantime here's some music. It's Friday the 13th, so I'll post two albums that I've been listening to lately. Get excited. Here are the first two!

Brand New - Daisy


Brand New's fourth studio album, Daisy continues in the noisy direction of their previous effort, The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me. BN is a band whose sound has varied considerably from album to album, and Daisy I think represents a harder, more 'mature' tendency. Lyrics are dark and well-delivered by Jesse Lacey, who also does a fair bit of yelling throughout the tracks. I know some of the people who (may still) read this blog will be shaking their heads at this more mainstream, pop-like entry, but give it a chance. Would recommend: Noro, Bought a Bride.

Download here

Paramore - Brand New Eyes


I figured I'd get both of the pop albums I've been listening to lately out of the way (or maybe there are more and I just don't want you to catch on). I think Paramore's a very decent/good band for its genre - their catchy songs and honest, straightforward lyrics have often reminded me of Jimmy Eat World around the time of Bleed American. This album seems to be a bit harder than All We Know is Falling and Riot!, as was signaled by the first single - Ignorance. Hayley Williams's vocals are great as well, and even though I don't have too much to say about the artistic merits of the band (capable as they may be) I'd recommend them if you're looking for something not too involved and pretty entertaining.

Favorite tracks: Careful, Playing God

Get it here

Moar to come!