Sonny's Forum Replies

My favourite band Darkthrone announce their new album called Eternal Hails...... out on 25th June.

Five tracks from seven to nine and a half minutes and according to the blurb on Bandcamp should be a bit more doomy than usual.

 "With the highly revered Norwegians remaining ever-dedicated to the art of the riff after 35 years of existence, Darkthrone return for album number nineteen and a new dose of metallic godliness. On the back of 2019’s triumphant ‘Old Star’ opus, the duo of Nocturno Culto & Fenriz present a 41 minute maelstrom of Epic Black Heavy Metal across five sprawling compositions. Organic and dynamic, the album is an exploration of the very finest vintage metal and the best of doom, all delivered in the unmistakable Darkthrone style, whilst also incorporating instruments such as the Moog to further expand upon these soundscapes."

 Can't wait...

I'm only just hitching a ride on the Incantation bandwagon since Diabolical Conquest was the featured release a couple of months back so I will definitely check this (and the rest of their stuff) out.

My favourite track from possibly the 21st century's best thrash album.

Combining old-school death doom and thrash, Steel Bearing Hand's Tombspawn is awesome:

"I'm very surprised Steel Bearing Hand haven't received more attention as this is unquestionably the best 2020's thrash metal release I've heard to date" is dead right indeed. In fact, I didn't register at first that it was a new release at all. I was convinced it was early 90's through and through. Thrash, death, black metal and best of all filthy-sounding Autopsy-style death doom. At 26 minutes it's a short, sharp shock like a dagger between the ribs that packs as big a punch as Mike Tyson on Angel Dust!

Here, here Vinny, "detachment of the art from the individual is key in metal I find" is dead right. Metal artists have no end of unpalatable beliefs and have done no end of unpalatable acts, so if you can't separate art from artist then metal is probably not for you. The obsession with so-called celebrity lives (including metal musicians) and subsequent cancel culture is bordering on some kind of mass mania. Personally I couldn't give a damn what these people do or believe, as you say, within limits (no Lostprophets played here either) but why should we care what goes on in these people's lives just because they have some kind of minor celebrity? Let's focus on the music and ignore the bullshit.

By the way, I wasn't defending Schaffer in any way, but I feel he and his cohorts have been horribly manipulated by those with vested interests. The real culprits for the situation at the Capitol building will never find themselves anywhere near a courtroom and will continue to sow hatred and division unchecked. Just saying, as a bemused onlooker from the UK.

What a great playlist this month guys, possibly my favourite to date. Some fantastic stuff on here, the only drop-off being tracks 6 to 8 and even those weren't too bad - I've always loved Christina Scabbia's voice, despite not being Lacuna Coil's biggest fan and even the Within Temptation track was OK. I was already familiar with a lot of the material, but the tracks by Corrosion of Conformity and Paradise Lost are new to me and require further exploration. I've also never listened to Sunn O)))'s Black One but the track Báthory Erzsébet is dark as f**k and I will now definitely be checking that album out. I will certainly keep this list saved on Spotify and will probably spin it up from time to time because it's just so good. Nice one!!

Jon Schaffer's biggest crime was being taken in by the rantings of a malignant narcissist and his right-wing idealogue enablers in the media. He probably believed what he was doing was patriotic (the US constitution allows for the overthrow of a corrupt government by the people) as he and the rest of the people who stormed the Capitol building that day had been horribly exploited by cowardly pundits and manipulators. This isn't even close to the same as the heinous acts of Ian Watkins. There's also no chance Schaffer will get 30 years.

One of my absolute favourite Italian Doom tracks. I just can't stop playing this mutha at the minute!

From Doomraiser's 2006 album Lords of Mercy:

Hey Ben, could you please add the following:

Zaklon - Belarus

Wounds of Recollection - US

Wampyric Rites - International

Vindland - France

Utstøtt - US

Hi Ben, please add Oakland's War Cloud.

Sorry, but enough is enough and I heard more than enough of Within Temptation and their ilk back in the early 2000s. This month I am afraid I'm gonna pass on listening to the Fallen featured release as I've already tried re-listening to one album that I despise (Inhuman Rampage) and I can't pull that trick off twice in a month - life's far too short for that! Needless to say, my memories of this (and the many others like it) are not good and not an experience I wish to repeat any time soon.

Agreed, Xephyr. I've currently got it sitting at #1 on my albums of 2021 list on RYM.

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Sonny92/a-new-day-dawning-2021-releases-previewed-ranked-and-rated/

Agreed, Xephyr. I've currently got it sitting at #1 on my albums of 2021 list on RYM.

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Sonny92/a-new-day-dawning-2021-releases-previewed-ranked-and-rated/

My suggestions for May's playlist:

Selvans - Clangores Plenilunio (9:26) from Clangores Plenilunio EP (2015)
Archgoat - Black Crusade (3:31) from Whore of Bethlehem (2006)
Morbid - My Dark Subconsious (4:40) from December Moon (1986)
Wode - Lunar Madness (6:12) from Burn in Many Mirrors (2021)
Total Runtime 23:49

Hi Ben, I've been doing a bit of tidying up so could you please add:

Yidhra - US
Yearning - Finland
Wretch - US

World Below - Sweden
Woorms - US
Plaguewielder - US

I have submitted a review, but in summation:

At first listen I was underwhelmed by another slab of Kreator-worship, but by the fourth listen-through there were certainly elements that appealled to me - the production is stellar, I love the moments when the bass is allowed to shine through, the energy level of the tracks is high, and tracks with a bit more to them like Dead Souls and Tunnelratten are actually very good indeed. On the downside there are too many songs that feel like filler and, as Vinny points out in his review, Daniel Altwegg's vocals are a bit monotonous and a track like Dead Souls really needs a more varied vocal delivery to reach full potential. I now judge how good an album is by whether I would buy a physical copy or not and I have to admit, in ...On Chains Of Doom case I would not (unless I get it for a couple of quid second hand). Even saying that though, there is enough in this album for me to be optimistic that TA have a great album in them yet - this just isn't it.

My suggestions for the May playlist:

Cathedral - Stained Glass Horizons (5:29) from Supernatural Birth Machine (1996)
Hell - Mourn (18:08) from Hell III (2012) [sorry!!]

Total runtime: 23:37

My suggestions for May's playlist:

Megadeth - Into the Lungs of Hell (3:22) from So Far, So Good, So What.. (1988)
Protector - Holocaust (3:46) - Misanthropy EP (1987)
Sepultura - Nomad (4:59) from Chaos AD (1993)
Vio-lence - Eternal Nightmare (6:11) from Eternal Nightmare (1988)
SSS - 3:06 (0:56) from The Dividing Line (2008)
Municipal Waste - The Thrashin' of the Christ (2:30) -from Hazardous Mutation (2005)
Razor - Behind Bars (2:14) from Violent Restitution (1988)

Total Runtime: 23:58

A nice strong start to this month's playlist with the first five tracks, but it died off for me with the next few and the more folk metal-related material, even the Bathory track is one of my least favoured of his. Picks up again with the Аркона track again and is very consistently high quality from thereon in, albeit with one caveat - I still can't get to grips with Bethlehem the way other black metal fans do. Several less familiar bands I've come away interested to discover more of include Yoth Iria, Malokarpatan, Barathrum and Dark Fortress. Also a reminder that I need to go back to the Suffering Hour album and spend a bit more time with it as it's a very interesting record.

After having DF rammed down our throats courtesy of the metal mags of the mid-2000s, I took the plunge and bought a CD-r copy of Inhuman Rampage from a guy at work who dealt in dodgy CDs and DVDs. Possibly the biggest waste of a quid-fifty I have ever suffered! I have never felt the compulsion to explore further, but on the strength of this Transformers of an album, Dragonforce are the Michael Bay of metal music - all flash and zero substance. I can just imagine that on countless spare room shelves there are 6" plastic action figures of the band all laid out among the Power Rangers and Star Wars figures.
That said however, in the same way that Mr. Bay's awful movies may perform some service by getting youngsters into cinema, then Dragonforce may act as an M&M trail for some disaffected teens to get into more substantial metal - and for that they should be applauded!
However for me, who never wanted to hear this album ever again, I gave it a go and got as far as second track, Revolution Deathsquad, when I realised I was glad an advert had popped up on Spotify to give me some respite. When that happens it's time to switch off. Absolutely not my thing at all and I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but I have tempered what I really wanted to say a little!
1/10

One of my all-time favourite proto-metal tracks:

THis band are so much more than Don't Fear the Fuckin' Reaper!!

I'm starting to feel a bit spoiled by black metal releases this year. This weekend has seen another terrific album released.

This time it's a band fairly local to me and a band I feel are heavily underrated - Manchester's Wode with their Burn in Many Mirrors album.

I've put together a Spotify playlist of tracks from my favourite black metal albums of the year to date (although I couldn't access the Pan-Amerikan Native Front album unfortunately, so i've had to give it a miss).

Black Metal of 2021 playlist

Another great album from Andy Marshall (Saor), his second under is Fuath alter-ego.

Also, I'm a bit late to this one, it being released in early February, but this is a fantastic black metal album that tells the story of the Battle of the Wabash, a massive victory for the Western Confederacy of Native Americans against the American Army in 1791.

Hey Vinny, Spectral Lore has actually done a couple of collab / splits with Mare Cognitum - 2013's Sol and last year's Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine, both of which are really great, especially Wanderers. Both bands are extremely accomplished at the whole cosmic black metal thing, don't you think?

I've just posted a review, but to summarise: this is an absolutely original and demented black metal release that genuinely feels like the band have poured something of their own souls into it. With a guitar tone borrowed from early 90's death metal and one of the most insane-sounding vocalists out there, this is a real diamond standout and a dagger to the heart of cut-and-paste black metal acts. The sheer variation of pacing and atmosphere on each of the five tracks is impressive and the ritualistic drum rhythms add another layer of unease to the whole occult-ridden shebang.

With this from Vinny and Ben's cracker from last month I'm now getting worried about letting the side down with my pick when it comes up for June - the pressure's building!

I must admit that I tend only to listen to the playlists I'm interested in (North, Pit, Fallen, Horde - usually in that order). I would never be able to take 2 hours of the Gateway or The Revolution in all honesty and I find the Guardians tough to get through with so much symphonic and power metal. Those I do listen to I tend to listen to in two one-hour sessions as my listening time (especially streaming) has become fairly limited recently. Nice long weekend this week though, so managed to have an uninterrupted listen-through to The Pit playlist on Friday which felt like a real luxury!

...oh, and could you also add Pan-Amerikan Native Front.

The picture on the Immortal page was fucking hilarious.

Pretty good playlist this month. Some obvious old favourites and a few surprises - Mr. Bungle and Cryptosis particularly are both new to me and impressed. I haven't listened to the latest Sodom album yet because I was worried that it would disappoint too much, but I enjoyed the track here, so I think I'll risk it now.

On the downside, I still can't get excited about Overkill and I didn't really like the Angelus Apatrida track. The production on DRI's I Don't Need Society made it stick out like a sore thumb too on such a meaty-sounding playlist.

But overall, a neck-wrenchingly awesome way to spend a couple of hours on a Good Friday afternoon, so thanks to all.

...could you also add Yith's latest, Passage, too please (also a Fallen release).

I was hoping to choose this truly awesome slab of planet-killing drone metal for my (sole) suggestion on May's playlist, but wouldn't you know it - it's not on Spotify.

So here it is - listen and weep, oh fragile humanity!!

Ben, please add the new Aara album Triade I: Eos.

PS: Sonny, I'm sorry to hear that your clans have a shorter time limit for your song submissions, but I wish the best for your songs to be worth those 24 minutes in each clan!

I'd better make them count then!

Damn right guys. This is a great record from a fantastic talent. I feel it's got a bit more bite than his more cosmic-sounding earlier releases. My amber vinyl copy was waiting for me when I got home from work today, so looking forward to spinning that up this Easter weekend. It's a really nice gatefold package that looks almost as good as the Wanderers: Astrology of the Nine vinyl release.

My new favourite album of 2021 from french black metallers Les chants de nihil.

Another example of french BM acts trying to push the genre forward:

Daniel, Ben and Vinny you should all probably give this a listen.

... Another classic with an anniversary today, though. Drudkh's best album Blood in Our Wells is 15. One of the greatest ever atmospheric black metal releases and an important influence on many later (and less talented) atmo-black outfits. 

As most of you who listen to my bullshit know, I much prefer 70's era Priest over their later releases. Sad Wings was the first album of theirs I bought, presumably about 43 years ago now, and is still my second favourite album, Stained Class just nudging it off the top spot. I'll always have a soft spot for SWoD though because me and an old mate of mine, who is no longer with us, used to get hammered and sing along to tracks like Tyrant and Genocide at the top of our voices, pissing the neighbours off no end! I've still got that original (and quite battered) vinyl copy even now. Great days...

My favourite track from Belgians Wolvennest's latest album, the imperious Temple:

Hi Ben, please add A Storm of Light (US) and their split with Nadja, Primitive North.

I must admit to having a shit start to this weekend as I'm suffering from the side effects of my Corona jab last week, but all that has now become inconsequential as this muthaf***er blasts it's way through my brutalised earbuds, re-energising me as it does so!

As you all probably know by now, I have a somewhat on/off relationship with death metal, loving the old-school cavernous sound but shying away from the technical and overtly brutal sides of the genre. Some of it's proponents' obsession with sexualised violence I find particularly problematic. When I was originally discovering the genre I only really had the likes of Metal Hammer and Terrorizer as guides, so was subject to whoever their current darlings were, which meant whoever the labels were pushing at the time, resulting in some very unsatisfactory listening. When joining Metal Academy I would never have chosen The Horde as one of my original three clans, in fact even when considering a fourth clan I tended towards The Guardians. In recent times that has changed though, as through the featured releases and recommendations from others, I have discovered some truly awesome death metal releases such as Incantation's Diabolical Conquest and Blood Incantation's Hidden History of the Human Race.

To that list I can now add Dead Congregation's Promulgation of the Fall. The Greeks have perfectly captured Incantation's all-pervasive, cavernous sound that so appeals to me. The album varies from menacing, brooding death doom to an all-out, wall-of-sound aural assault that weirdly reminds me of Marduk's Panzer Division Marduk in it's blitzkrieg of an attack on the listener's ears - and all usually within a single track, the imperious Immaculate Poison for example. The riffs on this album are truly awesome and are of such intensity that if you listen to them too loudly I'm convinced they'll shake your teeth loose! Vocalist A.V. has the low-pitched growling down perfectly, but has less of a gurgling to his sound than some of the classic DM vocalists, with a drier, more dessicated timbre to his vocals - more Egyptian mummy than zombie!

So yet another awesome death metal discovery for me, thanks to MA (and Vinny in particular), that has only increased my affection for death metal as a genre and is helping me make up for lost time.

4.5/5

I must admit, I'm looking forward to this one. I've got it lined up for this weekend.

Hey, you can't keep a good song down!

For an album released in 2004 this has some serious early second wave credibility, which is not so surprising when you discover that despite only releasing their debut album Light of a Dead Star in 2002, they had originally formed in '92 (although they had split in '95 after releasing a demo which would later become that debut, ultimately reforming in 2000). There's a Lovecraftian aesthetic theme running through the album with it's songs of unknown threats and elder gods and in keeping with the creeping terrors of HPL's work, this isn't a monotonous blastathon, but rather, the band isn't afraid to slow it down and allow the music to reflect that crawling feeling of dread. For proof check out the superb The Elder Gods Awakening, the claustrophobic feeling of being stalked by an unnamed terror is excellently realised as you feel the darkness closing in. Don't misunderstand however, when it blasts it really kicks ass too, believe me. The first half of In the Mists of Orion's Sword is as taut as a piano wire and may well tear your fuckin' head off (fans of Darkthrone's classic trilogy prepare to salivate!)
I can't express exactly how impressed I am by this, so thanks Ben for bringing it to everyone's attention. Although black metal is viewed as a Scandinavian phenomenon, the French have certainly carved out an impressive niche for themselves within it's boundaries and Requiem Tenebrae is a great example of Gallic BM. This is the very definition of an underground classic and I'm gonna give it an unapologetic 5/5.

My submission for April's playlist is the title track from Trivium's In Waves album.

My submissions for April's playlist:

Anthrax - Got the Time from Persistence of Time (1990)
Crucified Mortals - Behind the Lurid Mask from Psalms of the Dead Choir (2016)
Merciless - Denied Birth from The Awakening  (1990)
Onslaught - Demoniac from The Force (1986)
Wraith - War of Aggression from Absolute Power (2019)

I have very little patience for wholly instrumental metal and I don't hear anything here that will change my mind on that score. Saying that, I imagine that if it did have vocals then they would almost certainly be of a kind that I would hate, so it's probably better off without. Although there is plenty going on, I can't help but wonder what the point is other than for the musicians involved to feel they have showcased their technical proficiency for all us inferior humans to listen to in awe and bow deferentially to their superiority. This left me feeling nothing at all, I don't hate it as such, but I certainly don't love it and would never seek it out again. For me an empty and soulless experience and a mere placebo of a record.

1.5/5

I am a huge fan of d-beat, particularly local heroes Discharge (I live in the north of the decaying corpse of the North Midlands city of Stoke-on-Trent, the town that spewed forth the punk legend genre progenitors). Sacrilege took the aggression and diy ethic of Discharge's best work and married it to the aggression and heaviness of thrash to produce a vital and immediate album of the kind that really makes me feel alive. You can keep all your technical proficiency and sterile songwriting, underground albums like this that feel like they come from the gut and with which I can make some kind of connection are, for me, what I seek most in metal music. Tam's vocals are great - I love aggressive female vocals and she is, unfortunately, one of the very few female thrash vocalists, which is another big plus for this album. This is a savage, primal, middle-finger-to-the-man type of album that we hear so few of nowadays.
I agree with Daniel's assertion that, for the purposes of Metal Academy, the album should be classed as crossover thrash despite not being what is traditionally considered such, because the punk elements are so integral to it that it needs to be differentiated from straight-up thrash metal.
And, as I've stated before elsewhere, I can't believe for one minute that Kurt Cobain had never heard Shadow of Mordor before writing Nevermind's Negative Creep.

5/5

Sometime in the late 2000s, back in my pre-internet days when I still paid attention to the music press, one of the metal mags, Terrorizer or Metal Hammer probably, ran a doom metal special. In this issue, they got several reasonably well-known musicians to name their favourite three doom metal albums. Somebody (I forget who but it must have been someone I had time for) listed Winter's Into Darkness, Warning's Watching From A Distance and this, Solstice's second album. Deciding to investigate further, I tracked down CD copies of all three (no streaming or downloading for me back then) and fuck me if they didn't become three of my all-time, rock-solid five-star faves. So thank you eternally o forgotten metal muso.

I have already reviewed the album, so I'll not go on, but Solstice are a band who revel in their Englishness and particularly the medieval, battle-worn myths of heroes stood atop wind-blown keeps and riding among the rolling hills of forgotten history with their huge white chalk figures - an aesthetic which, being a bit of an English history nut, appeals to me immensely.

The songs themselves are, for me, the apogee of "traditional doom metal" and in particular the more epic side of the genre as exemplified by The Sleeping Giant, Hammer of Damnation and Cromlech, where Rich Walker and Hamish Glencross' dual guitar attack brings a Maidenesque bite to their massive heavy metal-derived doom riffs. For those looking for slower "true" doom there are the imperious Cimmerian Codex and the crushing New Dark Age II. Amongst all this metal madness, particularly in the heart of the album, are a number of folky acoustic arrangements, which are exemplified by the wistful and reflective Blackthorne.

The rhythm section of Rich Budby and Chaz Netherwood are the deep-dug foundation in which these monstrous metal edifices are built and their contribution is not to be underestimated. I also really like Morris Ingram's vocals, even though he is a little reedy. He wavers in a couple of spots but the backing vocals that track the lead provide a splint that prevents them becoming off-putting (I also kind of expect doom metal vocalists to be imperfect - Albert Witchfinder or Lee Dorrian for example). Finally there are the lyrics - Rich Walker must have swallowed a thesaurus before he wrote them as they are as dense and arcane as any you may find. "Ice locked the nexus, an empire awaits, Axiom abhorrent, protean triumvirate". Indeed!

For me the exemplar of traditional doom and a great example of a truly English metal album. I must have listened to it seven or eight times this week and I never tire of it. 5/5 definitely.