Sonny's Forum Replies
My suggestions for April, Ben:
Emperor - "Cosmic Keys to My Creations & Times" (6:06) from "In the Nightside Eclipse" (1994)
Darkthrone - "Kathaarian Life Code" (10:39) from "A Blaze in the Northern Sky" (1992)
Gorgoroth - "Begravelsesnatt" (2:33) from "Pentagram" (1994)
Total runtime: 19:18 mins
Hey Ben, I see your excellent review of Master of Puppets is featured on RYM's front page today.
Hi Ben. Could you add New York stoner metal band King Bastard please.
Now having listened to the band properly I don't believe there is enough metal here to justify inclusion in Metal Academy. Far more stoner / space rock and only very brief bursts of metal. Please disregard my original request.
Interesting. I have no problem finding both of those Neurosis albums on Spotify from Australia. They must have an alternate streaming service agreement in the UK.
Yeah, Times of Grace isn't on there either. Seems strange that their highest rated albums wouldn't be available. Must be some sort of licensing issue or maybe Neurosis are protesting Boris Johnson (and why wouldn't they).
I'd be interested to know if any of those albums are on Spotify in the US or elsewhere in Europe.
Has anyone had any issues with playlist tracks not being available in their area?
Hi Ben. Could you add New York stoner metal band King Bastard please.
Here are my submissions for the April playlist Sonny:
Ahab - "The Hunt" (from "The Call Of The Wretched Sea", 2006)
Paradise Lost - "Gothic" (from "Gothic", 1991)
Neurosis - "Through Silver In Blood" (from "Through Silver In Blood", 1996)
Seems like Neurosis have some key albums missing from Spotify as Through Silver in Blood isn't on the streaming service (at least here in the UK) along with Enemy of the Sun from last month.
However, the track Through Silver in Blood is on there as it is on the Relapse 30 Year Anniversary Sampler, so at least this month there is no need to change your selection Daniel.
Sorry, Ben. Another one for you. Could you please add US death / death doom band Night Hag.
Celeste - Assassine(s) (2022)
I am not at all familiar with Celeste, so cannot speak for their earlier releases, but Assassine(s) inhabits the shadowy borderland between black metal and atmospheric sludge metal. The blackened vocals add a savagery to the lush-sounding atmo-sludge that lends the music a desperate edge and the oftimes intense riffing can make it sound rawer than you would expect to hear from the likes of Cult of Luna or Isis. It does lack the extended build-ups and crescendos that some of the more successful atmospheric sludge acts excel in and, in truth, perhaps sounds a bit one-note for it. Although I appreciate the skill on display here and can hear why this could be very popular indeed, it doesn't exactly tick all my boxes and so I can't engage with it on the same level as I'm sure many others may. That doesn't mean it's not a good album, indeed I did enjoy it quite a bit, but only really on a surface level and I must admit that it didn't get under my skin the way I suspect it may for others more susceptible to it's charms.
3.5/5
Discharge - Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing (1982)
Local heroes and inventors of D-beat, Discharge, with one of the greatest punk albums ever released.
March 2022
1. Spirit Caravan - "Dead Love / Jug Fulla Sun" from "Jug Fulla Sun" (1999) [submitted by Sonny]
2. Anathema - "Radiance" from "Eternity" (1996) [submitted by Daniel]
3. Worm - "Empire of the Necromancers" from "Foreverglade" (2021) [submitted by Ben]
4. Cult of Luna - "Cold Burn" from "The Long road North" (2022)
5. Crowbar - "Like Broken Glass" from "Broken Glass" (1996) [submitted by Daniel]
6. Lethian Dreams - "Shades" from "Red Silence Lodge" (2014) [submitted by Ben]
7. Internal Void - "Utopia of Daze" from "Standing on the Sun" (1992) [submitted by Sonny]
8. Melvins - "Vile" from "Ozma" (1989) [submitted by Sonny]
9. Converge & Chelsea Wolfe - "Blood Moon" from "Bloodmoon: I" (2021) [submitted by Daniel]
10. Khazad-dûm - "Transmuted" from "Hymns from the Deep" (2020) [submitted by Ben]
11. Candlemass - "The Well of Souls" from "Nightfall" (1987)
12. Swallow the Sun - "Keep Your Heart Safe From Me" from "Moonflowers" (2021)
13. Abandon - "Pitch Black Hole" from "The Dead End" (2009) [submitted by Sonny]
14. Windhand - "Woodbine" from "Soma" (2013)
15. My Dying Bride - "A Doomed Lover" from "Songs of Darkness, Words of Light" (2004) [submitted by Ben]
16. Ufomammut / Lento - "Infect Two" from "Supernaturals - Record One " (2007) [submitted by Daniel]
Hi Ben, could you add Japanese funeral doom band Fragments of Lost Memories please:
Oh, and the new Shape of Despair album, Return to the Void. Thanks.
Hi Ben, do you think it would be feasible to allow searches on the releases page for albums with multiple genres? What I mean is, would it be possible to select say, death metal and black metal and only show releases that are tagged with both genres, not just either of them. RYM (sorry for bringing them up again) has a tick box for "must contain all genres" thus, in the above example, allowing the search to return results for blackened death metal releases. I feel this would add a degree of flexibility when searching for clearly defined, yet not officially tagged genres: blackened doom, progressive death metal, deaththrash for example.
There are four albums I use as a yardstick to judge exactly how close friends I can become with people. These are Reign in Blood, A Blaze in the Northern Sky, Watching From A Distance and this month's feature release, Still Life. If you love all four of these albums then we are virtually bloodbrothers. If you hate them all then call me Nemesis. Opeth may have made better written, performed or whatever albums, but for me this has an emotional edge over those others that the band never matched before or after. Oh, and Serenity Painted Death absolutely fucking kills! I will try to conjure up a review over the next few days (or weeks) but suffice to say, this is an exemplary 5/5 album for me.
The greatest black metal album ever recorded, A Blaze in the Northern Sky, is thirty years old today - fuck!!
Just look at that cover. This album IS black metal.
At the third attempt, my partner of some 15 years and I will be getting married in October. I proposed back in 2019 in New York and we have had to move dates twice already because of COVID. This is going to be my second marriage and her first with both of us well into our forties. This means that I am currently spending most weekends at Wedding Fayres listening to sales people sell me things - as a sales person myself, this really is hard to digest for me, but needs must - as we try and get prepared ahead of October (providing Putin doesn't kill us all by then of course). Today's fayre attendance saw me hire two casino tables and croupiers for the evening (no real money being used of course with there being kids around). There's only two things left for me to sort, my suits and my stag do. Nice and simple.
A weekend in Edinburgh should cover the stag do. I am not letting my best man sort it because - good mate though he is - he is useless at life in general. Can also see the suit fitting day ending up in a pub crawl around Liverpool - well would be rude not to, right?
Congrats, Vinny. That said, I don't pity you having to get it all organised!
I am no longer a number... I'm a free man!
So that's it, my last day of work completed and now I can get on with the rest of my life.
Quoted Sonny
Congratulations, both my parents retired recently and they've been doing great, so I can see how freeing it is. Keep up those hobbies obviously, boredom is the true killer even though we have so many things at our fingertips nowadays.
Sadly my work's just starting as I have to study for my PE exam (Principles/Practice of Engineering) for the next...8 months or so on top of all my other work. Gonna be a real long process.
Thanks Xephyr. Boredom shouldn't be an issue now I've actually got time to do the things I've wanted to for a long time. The real boredom for me was sitting around unable to start much whilst waiting to go to work.
Good luck with the exam and wishing you much success.
Could you please add another Chilean thrash band, Parkcrest Ben.
Thank you all. Sometimes it seems like a miracle I've made it this far, yet here I still am, bowed but undefeated. Looking forward to spending a bit more time with the monthly features and those pesky playlists now so don't expect me to just fade away!
I am no longer a number... I'm a free man!
So that's it, my last day of work completed and now I can get on with the rest of my life.
I'm free, free I tell you!!
Am I the only one who thinks that there should be more acknowledgement of the two distinct types of death doom metal. There seems to me to be a world of difference between the gothic style of death doom practiced by MDB et al and the more heavily (heavenly) death metal vibes of Cianide, Rippikoulu, Asphyx, Atavisma and Coffins. Is a fan of My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Draconian and Paradise Lost necessarily going to get off on Autopsy and Winter? I'm not saying they wouldn't, but surely there is enough of a separation in overall sound and atmosphere to justify a gothic or maybe even melodic death doom tag. They sound as different to me as black metal and melodic black metal do, so if the purpose of tagging is to direct fans of a certain style to further releases or bands they might like why should these two quite differing styles be lumped together.
Anyway it's just a thought, I'm trying to take my mind off the imminent destruction of the European way of life by focussing on the important issues!
I guess it comes down to the same old question. What is Death Doom Metal? Is it simply bands that mix death metal and doom metal together? Or is it an actual style / sound of metal music? If it's the former, then you could argue that bands like Asphyx might belong. If it's the latter, then they have no place at all under the current death doom subgenre.
Either option has major flaws to be honest. I mean disEMBOWELMENT don't sound anything like My Dying Bride, nor do they sound anything like Coffins. But they definitely mix death metal techniques and doom metal.
I haven't answered your question at all. Sorry about that.
Actually Ben you have answered the question and quite succinctly indeed. So if I understand your reply, the melodic and gothic-toned variant (to use a topical term) should be tagged as death doom as it has a distinct style separate from death metal to a degree and the Coffins, Hooded Menace, heavily death metal based style would best be tagged as both death metal and doom metal separately and the death doom tag discarded for these releases. That actually makes a huge amount of sense. The implication of this for Metal Academy and the clans of course, is that Draconian, Katatonia and the likes would reside solely in The Fallen and Cianide and Ripikkoulu would have both Fallen and Horde residency. I like this solution as it removes confusion and would better serve those looking for music in either style.
So to this end, on the releases page where you can select the clan and genre, if you select multiple choices, ie Fallen and Horde releases or death and doom metal, could we have an option for the results to display only releases that have both the selected genres and/or clans as at the moment it only displays releases that fit either criteria. This would also work for discovering stuff like blackened thrash or blackened death metal etc. and would give the release search function a greater flexibility.
Am I the only one who thinks that there should be more acknowledgement of the two distinct types of death doom metal. There seems to me to be a world of difference between the gothic style of death doom practiced by MDB et al and the more heavily (heavenly) death metal vibes of Cianide, Rippikoulu, Asphyx, Atavisma and Coffins. Is a fan of My Dying Bride, Katatonia, Draconian and Paradise Lost necessarily going to get off on Autopsy and Winter? I'm not saying they wouldn't, but surely there is enough of a separation in overall sound and atmosphere to justify a gothic or maybe even melodic death doom tag. They sound as different to me as black metal and melodic black metal do, so if the purpose of tagging is to direct fans of a certain style to further releases or bands they might like why should these two quite differing styles be lumped together.
Anyway it's just a thought, I'm trying to take my mind off the imminent destruction of the European way of life by focussing on the important issues!
Wow. Sabbath are AOR!! Let's move this one to the "unpopular metal opinions" thread.
Hi Ben, could you please add Chilean thrashers Dekapited.
It seems to be increasingly obvious to me, as we get into the third year of clan featured releases, that my own metal tastes are possibly not as broad as a number of other Academy regulars. A case in point is power metal, or more specifically European power metal. By and large I can't stand it - it literally makes my ears hurt. I guess my preference is rawer when it comes to metal - funeral doom, conventional black metal, OSDM and thrash being favourites, so I tend to struggle with the more bombastic styles such as power and symphonic metal. Hammer King most definitely fall under the european power metal umbrella and while I could stomach a track or two, by the album's midpoint I had had enough and come the end I felt like puking from excess cheese consumption. Too much... too much of everything. I just could not stand another harmonised chorus or neoclassical lead break. I'm not even sure how many songs are on the album as they all just blurred into one coagulated fucking mess. Power metal must be one of the great misnomers in metal because to me it is the musical equivalent of WWE wrestling when all I really want to see is bare-knuckle pit fighting!
I'm feeling generous so I'll give it 2/5.
I too am getting really long load times on my shitty laptop and on my tablet - I would say more than 20 seconds, maybe even double that. I've begun entering the site via the forums too, especially on the tablet where I can stay logged in. I hadn't thought of it before, but that could be a contributor to people not sticking with the site, we all know how impatient people can be nowadays.
I'm not at all versed in the ways of deathcore (or almost any-core to be honest) and I'm not even sure I know what breakdowns or gravity drops really are - sorry I'm just exceptionally ill-informed (or possibly uninterested) in that respect. I think this is probably a generational thing and, being an older metal fan, deathcore, metalcore etc. have never played a huge part in my listening habits and I'm perfectly happy to leave it to you younger whippersnappers. In truth any kind of djenty chugging immediately puts me off, but hey, good luck to you if that's your thing - I don't consider it a lesser form of metal, it just isn't my thing, so shoot me. Consequently I have no idea if this is any good or not in the deathcore pantheon, but I didn't take against it anything like as much as I thought I might. Sure, by album's end I was glad it was over but at least I made it that far which is pretty good going for me when faced with a -core album and OK it's only 34 minutes so that helps. The band's personal beliefs are irrelevant to me also but I guess if they are christians it may well have hindered their popularity in the metal scene as a significant number of metal fans are kind of weird that way. I'm not sure if comparing the vocalist to Phil Anselmo is any great advert for the band either, it certainly doesn't make me any more sympathetic towards them and yes, Daniel, the accusation of Kroegerness is valid as regards the clean sung vocals on My Light Unseen.
So that's all I have to contribute really and essentially Baptised in Filth is an album I am mostly indifferent to, but at least I didn't hate it, so there's a plus!
2.5/5
Having approached this from a position of knowing the sum total of zero about the band and their roots, I have to confirm that there is no metalcore to be heard here. Also, despite not professing to be any kind of authority on death metal or it's subgenres, I would be loathe to ascribe a melo-death tag to it either. To me this sounds more like tech death taken to another level and given the whole progressive nine yards. Although it initially felt a bit dense to my ears, after a couple of listens it's appeal is beginning to open up to me and I think I am beginning to hear why Daniel holds it in such regard. In truth, due to my own preferences and struggles with technical death metal, I doubt this will ever achieve classic status for me but it is definitely an album I will have no problem returning to time and again. I would rather listen to a progressive metal album like this that still has some balls than the kind of drab and banal releases that former favourites like Enslaved are churning out nowadays.
The vocals are great with a gruff, pit-dweller growl, the leads are extravagant, yet controlled enough not to irritate and the songwriting does indeed show plenty of promise. It doesn't have the hooks of prime era Opeth, but the tracks do seem to develop really nicely and have more than satisfactory resolutions. They do occasionally suffer from the old tech death issue of random leads and inorganic time changes, but not enough to radically upset the flow of the album. Overall an interesting and involving death metal album that I enjoyed far more than I suspected I would.
Is this band still a going concern and if so how come they've not released an album in ten years? And how the fuck can Metal Archives claim any kind of legitimacy if they don't allow an album this good onto their site?
4/5
I would also support an extreme progressive metal genre tag being implemented as there is quite a bit of difference between this and Dream Theater-type progressive metal that may not necessarily appeal to both sets of fans.
Yet another quality Pit playlist this month. Plenty of classics to enjoy, but I particularly enjoyed the run of tracks from the new Vio-lence to the Hostility track - some lesser known stuff that seriously kicks ass. I can honestly say there wasn't a single track that I disliked. Shout out to the Iron Reagen track - not heard it before and it's the best I've heard from the band yet. Well done Vinny!
Released in 1994, Allegiance's debut was a bit late to the thrash metal party. By then the binmen were carting the empty bottles away and cleaners were mopping the pools of puke up from the moshpit floor. There was an explosion of exciting and blasphemous new shit coming from the icy wastes of Scandinavia and doom was spreading over the world. To release a debut of pretty standard sounding, albeit fairly well done, Bay Area worship at this point in time meant that Allegiance were never likely to make much of a splash beyond their own shores and prove the old adage that "timing is everything".
The album's temporal misfortunes aside, it is very well done and all involved are impressively competent musicians. The vocalist, for the most part, seems to utilise the intonations of Hetfield and Chuck Billy for that authentic Bay Area sound and the rhythm section is solid. It is the guitar work that makes this worth listening to however with some cool riffing and impressively executed guitar leads.
On the downside there are of course the sparsely used, but ridiculously out-of-place death growls which I'm surprised they stuck with because they sound so jarring in this context. Furthermore, I'm sorry to say that the songwriting didn't exactly overwhelm me either. Although each track is well perforrmed and is inherently fine, I didn't feel as if anything jumped out and grabbed me by the throat and at album's end I struggled to recall anything truly killer.
If it had been released six or seven years earlier it may have been able to stand proudly alongside second-rung stuff like Exodus, but even the titans of thrash were disintegrating into mediocrity or reaching beyond the genre's borders at this point in time, so D.e.s.t.i.t.u.t.i.o.n was always destined for relative obscurity it seems. I would love to be able to claim it is some kind of undiscovered and ill-ignored gem, but in truth I found it to be well-executed but unexceptional Bay Area worship that would struggle to find much purchase outside that scene's most ardent devotees.
3.5/5
In regard to "Death", I actually don't think it needs both War Metal & Death Metal tags. War metal is essentially a combination of Black Metal & Death Metal anyway so I see no reason to add the Death Metal tag to this release when it will so clearly appeal to the War Metal audience. I've been tempted to post a Hall entry for it actually.
I agree. Even though it does lean towards the death metal side of war metal, it is still primarily a war metal release and I'm not sure it would appeal to a death metal fan who doesn't like war metal and as such, I don't believe it needs any further tag than war metal.
It's one of my favourite war metal albums too actually Sonny. I held it in pretty high regard when it first came out & my feelings haven't changed all that much to tell you the truth. You're certainly right about Spain not exactly being black metal central though. This record is probably the most significant Spanish black metal release I can think of at the moment.
Obviously I nipped over to RYM and had to produce a Spanish black metal chart and indeed Teitanblood are responsible for three of the top four. I did notice though that Altarage are also up there and I know you thought a lot of Succumb, Daniel, although it seems like more of a death metal album than black metal to me. Another war metal album is at #5, Proclamation's Execration of Cruel Bestiality which I will definitely now have to check out. Other than that, there doesn't seem a whole lot to get excited about.
On a more general theme, I find it hard to consider war metal as a purely black metal genre as it is so heavily influenced by death metal and Teitanblood's Death certainly seems to contain a significant amount of death metal. In the same way I guess that a band like Autopsy straddles death and doom metal yet is mainly considered to be a death metal band. It kind of illustrates how difficult it can be to ring-fence certain genres within a specific clan as it feels like a small number of clearly defined subgenres straddle multiple clans. It's only an observation and is unimportant in the scheme of things, but feels a bit like an itch in a hard to reach place that is sometimes difficult to ignore.
Teitanblood - "Death" (2014)
You can expect to experience pure chaos & extremity from this Spanish outfit's 2014 sophomore album which beautifully combines the pure war metal sound that Blasphemy originally intended with the chunky down-tuned death metal riffage of bands like Entombed, Autopsy & particularly 80's Carcass. I absolutely love the screaming war metal vocals & there's even a brilliantly executed four minute death doom piece right in the middle of the album. The drums can sound pretty messy at times but frankly who gives a flying fuck with this style of metal. It's simply not intended to be over-analyzed & this is definitely one of the stronger war metal releases you'll find.
4/5
Yeah, came across this one during a war metal binge late last year (I think I submitted a track from it for one of the North playlists). One of the best war metal albums I've heard in recent times. The extended track lengths are unusual for war metal, but the band really make them work. Not exactly a hotbed for black metal Spain is it, but this is an impressive record, which I still need to buy a copy of.
While black metal has come on immensely over the years and is now as diverse a genre as any, I have reservations. Some modern black metal releases feel a bit like menthol cigarettes or alco-pops or those weird toffee-flavoured coffees that have become popular in recent times. Me, I prefer high-caffeine, full-strength, 40 degree proof black metal and (much as I enjoy a lot of the hybridised black metal releases) I still love that straight-up, raw blasting style of the nineties and that, essentially, is what we have here. I sometimes get a feeling that black metal is straying too far from it's roots with bands like Deafheaven and Alcest making inroads into the world of the RYM hipsters on regular occasions, so it's great to know that there is still plenty of room for second wave-style blasting and (small "m") mayhem. Chuck in a war theme and I'm pretty much sold. It's not quite as unremittingly pulverising as Panzer Division Marduk but it is certainly likely to appeal to the same people who love Marduk's best. That closing track is a bit odd though, basically just a list of dictatorial mad men's names in place of lyrics spoken over a repetitive refrain, but it doesn't distract massively from the rest and with it being the last track you could always end the album early and pretend it isn't there!
Ultimately, anyone who sticks a flag in the ground in an attempt to reclaim black metal from the grasping mitts of the hipsters and "trendsetters" is going to get a thumbs-up from me.
4/5
Thanks Ben. Khazad-dûm eh? I thought I was the only one who liked that album (although not many people have even listened to it!)
Sorry Vinny, but I haven't been listening to a lot of Pit-related stuff this month, so I'll just go with:
Destruction - "Release From Agony" (4:43) from "Release From Agony" (1987)
Holy Terror - "Blood of the Saints" (3:47) from "Terror and Submission" (1987)
Metallica - "Seek & Destroy" (6:54) from "Kill 'em All" (1983)
Hi Ben, apologies if I've missed it, but do you have any suggestions for the March playlist as I have started knocking it together and would like to complete it at the weekend.
Hi Ben, could you please add US stoner/sludge band Sky Pig and stoner doom crew Tar Pit.
I have just been putting some tracks together for the March Fallen playlist and realised that this will be my fifth playlist now and I don't really have any idea how they are being received. I would like to be putting together playlists that A) do The Fallen justice and B) make people want to listen to them. To this end, I wonder if any of you who have listened to any of the four previous Fallen playlists could do me a bit of a solid and let me know if you have any thoughts. I would be particularly interested to know if you think that the genres covered are a good representation of the clan and if each of the eras are covered well enough. Also are the tracks too obscure, too popular or is there a decent ratio of familiar and unknown? Are there too many recent releases or not enough? As there are quite a lot of genres under the Fallen umbrella and it spans a lot of years it is difficult to know if the mix is right and actually compiling the lists makes it hard to look at them critically. I don't want to just produce lists I like myself, but I would like them to be a good advert for the site and for my favourite clan and be of some interest to fans other than myself, so if you could help I would appreciate it. Please be as honest as you can as I just want to improve the playlists and any feedback, negative as well as positive, is good. Anyway, cheers in advance.
Internal Void - Standing on the Sun (1992)
As you may have guessed by my last couple of posts, I'm currently on an early nineties doom metal trip and in Standing on the Sun I think I may have found one of my favourite examples of that genre. If you dig on the grooves of The Obsessed, Saint Vitus or Pentagram then you really need to get onto this.
Congratulations Sonny. That's an exciting lifestyle change alright.
My family are taking one ourselves actually. We sold our two bedroom apartment on the Northern Beaches of Sydney a week & a half ago & then bought a five bedroom house with a big pool on the Gold Coast in Queensland. We'll be moving up there in early April.
That sounds fantastic, Daniel. That sort of place us ordinary folk can only dream about in a cramped island like Great Britain. I sincerely hope you and your family will be happy there - and why wouldn't you, it sounds like heaven!
So, I've finally decided to get out of the rat race. Been giving it a lot of thought for a while now and then I got into a blazing row with my boss on Wednesday and thought "Fuck it, I've had enough of this shit" and put my notice in today. Gonna give early retirement a chance and see how it goes. Looking forward to it now!
Penance - The Road Less Travelled (1992)
Debut album from Penance, a Pittsburgh traditional doom band formed from the ashes of legendary thrash/doom outfit Dream Death. Crunchy, Sabbathian riffs with a vocalist who sounds surprisingly like Tom Araya. Not the most sophisticated album ever, but pretty cool if you are a doom metal fanatic (like me).
Glad you enjoyed them Andi. Alive in Athens is surely one of metal's most awesome live albums and deserves to be even more popular than it is.
Upsidedown Cross - Upsidedown Cross (1991)
An album that is every bit as unhinged as it's cover suggests. Doom/sludge/noise with huge fucking helpings of acid, smack and coke to boot!
If you haven't listened to it Andi, I would heavily recommend Iced Earth's double CD, Days of Purgatory. They re-recorded 21 tracks from their first four albums with their best singer, Matt Barlow. It is my favourite power metal release and one of my absolute go-to albums. The Alive in Athens triple live CD also has a lot of the same tracks on and again features Matt Barlow on vocals - one of my favourite live albums ever. These two, along with Something Wicked This Way Comes, are all you ever need Iced Earth-wise.
In truth, you won't really get an accurate polling of the most popular bands from internet music websites as most participants are likely to be music nerds to a greater or lesser degree and popularity is overwhelmingly determined by the undedicated. I just thought it might make for an interesting talking point is all.
Here are my March submissions:
Ufomammut/Lento - "Infect Two" (from "Supernaturals - Record One", 2007)
Converge - "Blood Moon" (from "Bloodmoon: I", 2021)
Neurosis - "Lost" (from "Enemy Of The Sun", 1994)
Hi Daniel, it appears "Lost" and the whole "Enemy of the Sun" album are not available on Spotify in the UK.
Do you have an alternative selection?
An ultra-slow, funeral doom sea shanty from one of the greatest metal albums ever made.
When people talk of atmospheric metal releases they usually point to atmospheric sludge or atmo-black albums and it is true, these can both conjure up marvellous atmospheres. I particularly enjoy the natural world atmospherics of atmospheric black metal, be it the icy coldness of bands like Paysage d'Hiver and ColdWorld, the sweeping highland majesty of Saor or the awe-inspiring cosmic metal of Darkspace or Mare Cognitum. However, nothing expresses the atmosphere of the most fundamental forces of the natural world, such as heaving tidal forces, than funeral doom. At it's best it is overwhelming and implacable, either smothering or sweeping away all that stands before it in the same way that lava flows or tidal waves are capable of doing. German four-piece Ahab and their debut album The Call of the Wretched Sea, based on the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville from whence they get their name, is one of the great albums for summoning up the sensation of being out on the deep ocean and it's immense tidal forces, along with the interaction of Ahab with it's most huge and implacable denizen, the white whale Moby Dick himself. As we all know, Mastodon released their classic Leviathan album two years prior, but the fact that they both draw on the same source material is the only real connection and I don't think Leviathan had any influence on Call of the Wretched Sea at all. The Mastodon album is a straight-up narrative of storytelling whereas Ahab's aims for a more immersive and overwhelmingly tactile experience.
Funeral doom metal is not really for the impatient and will most likely always be a niche genre, particularly with the modern world's obsession with instant gratification and ADHD-like impatience in it's junkie-like hunt for that next dopamine hit. However, for those willing to invest the time and to surrender themselves to it's all-pervasive heaviness, funeral doom is ultimately one of the most rewarding of metal genres. Call of the Wretched Sea is one of the greatest examples of why and is one of the absolute peaks of funeral doom metal in my opinion. There is a genuine sensation while listening to this that forces way beyond our ken or ability to control are at large and that ultimately men are at the whim of these vast, unknowable forces. Whilst listening to this and indeed any truly great funeral doom, I feel like it registers on a physical level and can almost feel it's ebbing and flowing within my own bloodflow, such is the power of this music for me.
Despite being over an hour in length Call of the Wretched Sea never gets dull or overly repetitive as there is more than enough going on to keep things interesting, but it is never hurried and the tracks are allowed the time to develop in a natural and organic way. Funeral doom gets a reputation for being monolithic and eschewing riffs for huge chords, which can certainly be true, but here there are definitely some great riffs, albeit they are exceedingly slow, smothering, and crushingly heavy - check out the riff to The Sermon, it is basically an ultra-slow, mega-heavy sea shanty. Keyboards are used fairly subtly, but they add an extra layer to the already thick atmosphere that increases the cloying nature of the music and adds to the sensation of being dragged down to a watery grave in the lonely isolation of the vast and unforgiving ocean. Daniel Droste's subsonic growl further adds weight and sounds like some Cthulhian elder crooning into a drowning man's ear to just let go and surrender to the ocean's lure.
This is not just one of my favourite funeral doom albums, but one of my favourites of any genre, metal or otherwise and stands as testament to sheer unadulterated heaviness and almost palpable atmospherics.
5/5 classic status.