Sonny's Forum Replies

Here's my suggestions for Noirvember:

1. Cultus Profano - Towards the Temple of Darkened Fates, Op. 19 from Accursed Possession (2020)

2. Panopticon - Killing the Giants As They Sleep  from Kentucky (2012)

3. Darkthrone -  In the Shadow of the Horns from A Blaze in the Northern Sky (1992)

Onslaught -  Angels of Death  from Power From Hell (1985)

Razor - Hypertension from Violent Restitution (1988)

Megadeth -  Liar from So Far, So Good... So What! (1988)

Sorry Daniel but I'm not massively into tech thrash or speed metal, I've not listened to enough crossover thrash to be any kind of authority and I'm not even sure I know what groove metal is other than Pantera are supposed to be one of the best and I can't do with them, so it's classic thrash all the way for me! Feel free to ignore any or all suggestions if quotas are full.

We've had nothing from Reverend Bizarre yet, so how about The Devil Rides Out from II: Crush the Insects?

Hi Ben, could you add German drone/doom duo Father Sky Mother Earth please?

Ben, please add Enslaved's new album, Utgard. North / Infinite clans.

Thoughts (Part Two):

12. Acid Bath – “Dr. Seuss Is Dead”

Another sludge band I can usually take or leave. I'll take this one - I especially like the thrashy tempo change. 7/10

13. 16 – “Candy In Spanish”

Angry-sounding sludge as a father hopes for a better life for his young daughter than the one he's had to endure himself. So actually quite a positive message, albeit tinged with regret and some bitterness, despite the aggressive tone of the track. 8/10

14. Tristania – “Beyond The Veil”

Sorry, but I truly cannot stand this symphonic shit, just sounds like Disney-metal to me. 2/10

15. The Ruins Of Beverast – “Surtur Barbaar Maritime”

Oh man, did I need this after that Tristania track! Proper doom metal that doesn't make me think of anthropomorphised, animated rodents! Blackened doom with an almost ritualistic slant. Superb stuff. 10/10

16. Colosseum – “Towards The Infinite”

I know I'm biased and this was one of my choices, but this shit is what I live for. What a sublime downer of an ending to the playlist. 10/10

All in all an enjoyable playlist - a couple of bands I will be exploring further, a couple of surprises, only one dud and some stone-cold classy tunes.

Thoughts (Part One):

01. Neurosis – “No River To Take Me Home”

I've mainly avoided Neurosis a lot after listening to Times of Grace many moons ago and being unimpressed. This, however, is fantastic and I must revisit the band if this is indicative of the quality they usually put out. 9/10

02. Pagan Altar – “Judgement Of The Dead”

Blatant Sabbath worship - and nothing wrong with that. 7/10

03. Black Flag – “Nothing Left Inside”

Better known as a hardcore band, they actually played many shows with The Obsessed opening for them and you can definitely hear Wino's influence on the guitar sound here. The genesis of the bastard child of doom and hardcore punk known as sludge metal. 8/10 (influence-wise 10/10).

04. Acid King – “2 Wheel Nation”

Lori S, frontwoman of Acid King is a seriously no-bullshit person and this is a great, catchy slice of stoner metal hailing the biker lifestyle she embraces. 8/10

05. Elder – “Dead Roots Stirring”

With each consecutive release Elder move further away from their metal roots and further into heavy psych / progressive rock territory, but on this 12 minute centrepiece of their second album, Dead Roots Stirring, despite touching on both of those genres, this still retains enough stoner metal content to justify it's inclusion on a MA playlist. 8/10

06. Stillborn – “I, The Stillborn”

Gothic metal that's kind of OK, but still not really what floats my boat I'm afraid 6/10

07. Type O Negative – “Creepy Green Light”

Holy shit! A T-O-N track that doesn't set my teeth on edge! The best I've heard from them yet (by a f***ing long way). 8/10

08. The Angelic Process – “Dying in A Minor”

Again, not a band I'm familiar with. This begins as seriously low-energy stuff, bordering on catatonic at times, before erupting into a majestic roar. I've got a feeling that this may be a band I will become quite fond of. 8/10

09. M.S.W. – “Humanity” (from “Obliviosus”, 2020)

Another of my own submissions and an emotional, vulnerable and at the same time crushingly heavy and angry track dealing with the horrors of drug addiction from my album of the year to date.  10/10

10. Solitude Aeturnus – “Scent Of Death”

Suitably bombastic epic doom from the Texan doomster's last album. I haven't actually heard this album before, but this track is great, so I will be checking it out. 8/10

11. Thou – “Grissecon”

For me, Thou can be a bit hit and miss, but this I like. Bayou-sludge thick guitars, plodding tempos and desperate-sounding vocals all add up to a slab of southern sludge that feels like drowning in a swamp. 8/10

I'll come back to the remainder of the playlist later...

Definitely a classic example.

Absolutely - I can't believe I forgot that one!

Can definitely hear what you mean about the Rush sound - that bass is just so Geddy Lee! As a massive (early) Rush fan, I gotta say I like it. I've not listened to Carnivore prior to this, so I'll check out their albums as part of my current endeavour to fill in any holes in my 80s/90s thrash experience!

Darkthrone - Panzerfaust  (1995)

Despite the strong Celtic Frost vibe to this I still find it a howling piece of BM that never ceases to entertain.  At least they were honest about wanting to focus on CF on this and the job they do is respectful and not just a gratuitous regurgitation of that band.  One of my favoured Darkthrone releases.

5/5

Hear, hear! Darkthrone are probably my favourite BM outfit and Panzerfaust my second favourite album of their's after A Blaze in the Northern Sky. It's massively underrated.

As I've referenced elsewhere, I am not a big fan of Overkill and the debut is unlikely to change the view of anyone of like mind. I think it's a poorly produced and uncommitted record, as if the band are caught between Iron Maiden / Mercyful Fate style classic metal and thrash metal and were hedging their bets. Some parts of this sound like demos for Maiden's Powerslave  album, yet they prove that when they put their mind to it they can thrash for sure - listen to Hammerhead for proof! To address Saxy's point, I can only express what I see from a euro-centric point of view, so I don't have any insight to how the band were perceived in the US. In those pre-internet days word of mouth was key to a band's exposure and standing and in Europe at least I would say that Overkill were a little late to the party, perhaps not getting the label support they needed. Let's face it, to really put this album in context it was released in the same year as Hell Awaits, To Mega Therion, Spreading the Disease, Endless Pain, Seven Churches and Bonded by Blood against all of which I think most thrash fans would agree it pales by comparison. I even think minor albums like Onslaught's Power From Hell, Sacrilege's Behind the Realms of Madness and Razor's Evil Invaders piss all over it, to be honest. At a time when music wasn't cheap - certainly not in England anyway - fans had to be more discerning in what they bought and I just don't think Overkill cut it, especially with this album and as Saxy says, you only get one chance to make a first impression.

Just discovered this drone/funeral doom outfit and their 2018 album, of which this track is the major proportion.

Funeral doom perfection:

Sorry, Ben could you please add short-lived Norwegian death doom outfit Black Lodge.

I'd be happy to. I bought their album when it came out and have a soft spot for it.

Yeah, it's kind of a unique album that whilst primarily being death doom is something so much more too. I think it's a record that really deserves much more widespread acclaim.

One of the great stoner metal albums is 25 years old today - Cathedral's Carnival Bizarre, along with it's brilliant single Hopkins (The Witchfinder General):

Sorry, Ben could you please add short-lived Norwegian death doom outfit Black Lodge.

I've not listened to these guys before and I'm a little disappointed to be honest. Seems like they are trying to sound like New Dark Age era Solstice, but don't have the songs.

Ordinary.

Really solid traditional doom metal from one of the great under-rated female-fronted doom bands.

This is the album that fulfills all the hysterical paranoia of late twentieth century parent's fears of drugs influencing their offspring's minds and causing them to turn to more drugs, sex, satanism, even more drugs and insanity - Reefer Madness brought to life. I'm sure it gives Jus Osborne a warm feeling inside to think what a record like this must do to the sensibilities of the so-called moral arbiters of the world as he feeds on their hypocritical outrage like some kind of mental vampire.
Musically it takes the original template for stoner doom laid down by Sleep, slows it down, makes it exponentially heavier and lyrically more outrageous to produce the standard against which other stoner doom albums are measured. Funeralopolis, Weird Tales, Dopethrone and I, The Witchfinder are the very epitome of what stoner metal is all about. It's been a long, long time since I last got stoned, but all I have to do is put on a pair of headphones, turn out the lights and crank this up to take me back there again.

Just taken delivery of my vinyl copy of this superb album. The opening track is breathtaking:

Too late for October I know, but for future reference I would like to suggest Solitary White Ship from The Drowning's 2008 album This Bleak Descent along with The Bastard Wind from the amazing collaboration album between Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin, The Stygian Bough Volume I.

Ben, could you also add The Crooked Whispers (US) please?

Ben, could you please add the following when you get chance:

Abske Fides (Brazil)

Amaranthine Trampler (UK)

Arcana Coelestia (Italy)

Ennui (Tbilisi, Georgia)

Funeral Moth (Japan)

Funeris (Argentina)

The Funeral Orchestra (Sweden)

Illimitable Dolor (Australia)

Murkrat (Australia)

Noctu (Italy)

Ben, please add French gothic doom duo Lethian Dreams, Finnish funeral doom band Towards and US traditional doom band Cruthu.

Another album out September 18th is a very different proposition from Finntroll. The UK's Infernal Sea has a primal, savage album of UKBM entitled Negotium Crucis out that same day. Video for the title track:

The humppaa-influenced, folk metal trolls Finntroll had their new album out September 18th and it is a lot of fun. One of the few black metal albums you can imagine people dancing to!

In light of the new rules I will replace Esoteric's Descent with Rotting in Dereliction which is also from A Pyrrhic Existence.

Also we don't seem to have stoner metal covered so would like to suggest Acid King's 2 Wheel Nation from III.

I guess we're coming from differing viewpoints on this one, Daniel. It never even crossed my mind that Funeral Doom was considered a niche sub-genre within The Fallen as, to me, it is probably the purest expression of Doom Metal. I suppose I must accept that the more palatable sub-genres like Gothic Metal will dominate the clan and adjust my view of what that means accordingly. And yes, there are definitely plenty of quality Funeral Doom tracks under twenty minutes in length. 

Secondly, are we also assuming that most people are put off by long track lengths or are they equally as likely to have their mind blown by them? I never really hear classical music fans complaining that Beethoven's symphonies are "OK, but a bit too long". Bell Witch's Mirror Reaper made an impressive degree of crossover into more mainstream acceptance and that's over eighty minutes long.

Lastly, I never considered that anyone would think I was trying to dominate the playlist by suggesting a lengthy track or two and if that is the case I apologise, that was never my intention. Anything I have suggested, as with yourself and the Pig Destroyer track, is because I think it is awesome and believe others would be stoked to hear it too. As I said earlier, I don't listen to the playlists to hear stuff I'm already familiar with - I can listen to that any time - I want to hear something unfamiliar that lights my fire such as the Pelican and Cult of Luna tracks on August and September's playlists and my suggestions are based on that desire for others and nothing more.

The latest single from Pallbearer's upcoming Forgotten Days album:

Daniel, whilst I understand why you have implemented a twenty minute rule for track durations, I feel that you are arbitrarily limiting the playlist, especially in a clan like the Fallen where I believe most adherents have to have a more patient approach to their listening due to the very nature of the music they favour. Surely it would be better to judge a track's impact on a case by case basis without applying pre-determined restrictions. Isn't extreme metal about defying accepting norms, not being restricted by them? Is a nineteen minute track really more acceptable than a 23 minute track if the longer is better? Funeral Doom and Drone especially rely on lengthy compositions to create an atmosphere and would be least well-served by the rule. Of course you couldn't include something like Mirror Reaper, but surely common sense has to be assumed. 

That Pig Destroyer track was always going to be controversial as I think you knew when you included it in the playlist, but by adding it at the end of the list anyone could say, I've heard enough and just end the session. I know I made a negative comment about it, but that was unrelated to it's length, unfortunately it was just too experimental for my taste, but I don't regret listening to it. I am much more interested in hearing tracks I'm not already familiar with on the playlist and would prefer to find one thirty minute killer than half a dozen meh tracks. There's no need to include ultra-long tracks every month, but why not occasionally if an individual track merits it? You can't please all the people all the time and not everyone will love every track, but why should they? If the purpose of the playlists is to showcase the clans then why ignore the fact that The Fallen often involves lengthy compositions? Sorry to go on, but as you may guess I am extremely passionate about doom metal and I think it needed saying.

A band new to me is Canadian doomsters The White Swan, who feature alt-metal band Kittie's drummer Mercedes Lander on vocals, guitar, keyboards and drums.

They have  a four-track EP called Nocturnal Transmision released September 18th that is pretty damn good:

Hi Ben, please add Canadian doom band The White Swan.

Three things I have learnt / relearnt from the playlist:

1. I really love black metal.

2. I really dislike folk metal.

3. I actually like Shining a lot more than I thought I did.

There's a couple of well-respected albums on there that I've not checked out yet and I definitely now intend to - Fluisteraas and Oathbreaker.

That Aquilus track was very interesting to. I'm intrigued to listen to the whole album now.

I'm with the consensus on this one. Being a cover artwork junkie I too am enjoying finding covers I may never have come across whilst checking back with the gallery every few days. Great feature to be able to filter covers you haven't rated yet - saves delving through them all again.

Another decent album released Sept 11th - trad doom with a 1970's hard rock swagger from Michigan's Cruthu.

Ben, please add Void Rot's new album Descending Pillars.

Brazilians Jupiterian release their third full-length, Protosapien, Sept 11th on Transcending Obscurity Records.

Crushing death doom / sludge that comes from the abyssal depths.

Void Rot's debut album, Descending Pillars is cavernous and menacing old-school death / doom similar to Atavisma with whom they shared a split earlier in the year.

Released September 11th on Everlasting Spew:

Could you add Ieschure (Ukraine) and Ovnev (US) please Ben.

Hi Ben, please add Purification's new album Perfect Doctrine.

I notice you haven't rated this one yet Sonny. I'm keen to hear your thoughts on it as I've always thought it was a very solid piece of Bay Area thrash.

Missed this rec, sorry. Yeah, a lot of Exodus, including this, I hadn't listened to in years so haven't rated them yet.

Played this again today and enjoyed it. It still thrashes pretty damn hard. 4/5.

I've posted a review, so here's an edited version:

As with many visionary metal bands, Venom were derided mercilessly in their early days. I remember the UK music press (including Kerrang!) lambasting them at every turn as a band that couldn't even play their instruments properly. Of course, those same people have no recollection of ever having done so and claim to have been supporters of the band from the outset - hypocrites. Of course Welcome to Hell sounds sloppy, but that only adds to it's charm. The album took the speed metal of Motörhead, added some cartoonish satanic imagery (that later bands took FAR too seriously) and then went at it with a youthful enthusiasm born of the UK DIY punk scene. Bold, brash and full of balls, this was an album that was made by a band who clearly did not give a damn what anybody thought about them. Often lumped in with the NWOBHM, I would argue this has far more in common with Discharge, GBH and The Exploited than Iron Maiden or Saxon, but they were too punk for the metal crowd and too metal for the punks, so for a long time had to plough their own furrow with only their diehard fans for company. The band's outsider cred is what probably endeared them to the even younger up and coming bands they influenced including Metallica, Bathory, Mayhem and the band probably closest to them in term of attitude, Darkthrone. I would argue that without Motörhead there woud never have been a Venom, but certainly without Venom there would not have been a black metal scene as we recognise it.

Hi Ben, please add Italian post-metal project Angela Martyr.

Hi Ben, could you add the Hoffman Brothers' pre- and post-Deicide band Amon please.

Already out of 30 possible choices we have 24 different tracks.

As I suspected, Sabbath wrote so many classic songs there is a huge number of contenders and everyone's list will almost certainly be different.

Once more, great playlist Daniel. That DJing experience is really coming in handy! Although I must admit the ending had me a bit flummoxed.

Anyway here's a few random thoughts on the tracks:

01. Cult of Luna – “Finland” (from “Somewhere Along the Highway”, 2006)
Atmo-sludge, post-metal, whatever you wish to call it is still a relatively new musical discovery for me apart from Isis, but with this and last month's offering from Pelican I am finding myself drawn to it more and more. Properly atmospheric.

02. Sleep – “Dragonaut” (from “Sleep’s Holy Mountain”, 1992)
The stoner doom pioneers wreathe Master of Reality / Vol.4 Sabbathian riffs in dopesmoke and force them straight to the mid-brain.

03. Cathedral – “Schizoid Puppeteer” (from “Serpent’s Gold”, 2004)
Originally only available on the 1996 Rise Above sampler Dark Passages II, this is one of Cathedral's great unknown tracks. Stoner metal songwriting ambition that Lee Dorrian excels at.

04. Boris – “Introduction” (from “Akuma No Uta”, 2005)
Wall of sound drone as Boris seem to do better than almost everyone else. Like it.

05. Pallbearer – “Foreigner” (from “Sorrow & Extinction”, 2012)
After a gentle strummed intro Pallbearer kick in with a crushing riff for ten minutes of ultra-heavy "pure" doom metal that the band have never bettered.

06. Trees Of Eternity – “Gallows Bird” (from “Hour Of The Nightingale”, 2016)
Despite not being a big fan of this album I actually really like this when heard in the context of the playlist, particularly after the cataclysmic heaviness of Pallbearer.

07. Draconian – “The Apostasy Canticle” (from “Arcane Rain Fell”, 2005)
As I've said before, I'm not a big fan of Gothic Doom, but this I like and will certainly be giving this album a spin.

08. My Dying Bride – “She Is The Dark” (from “The Light At the End Of The World”, 1999)
See above, although in light of the last couple of tracks, maybe I'm better disposed to gothic doom than I suspected!

09. Shape Of Despair – “Reaching The Innermost” (from “Monotony Fields”, 2015)
Funeral doom is one of my absolute favourite genres and this is one of the (many) reasons why. Bleak and claustrophobic as layer upon layer of melancholic atmosphere are built up to envelop the listener in a lightless blanket of doom.

10. Pig Destroyer – “Natasha” (from “Natasha” EP, 2008)
OK, I'll have to get back to you on this one!?

Demolition Hammer - Carnivorous Obsession from Epidemic of Violence (1992)

Machine Head - Imperium from Through the Ashes of Empires (2003)

Exumer - Shadows of the Past from Rising from the Sea (1987)

Mystras - The Murder of Wat Tyler from Castles Conquered and Reclaimed (2020)

Esoctrilihum - Exh-Enî Söph (1st Passage: Exiled From Sanity) from Eternity of Shaog (2020)

Armagedda - Deathminded from The Final War Approaching (2001)

Too right! One of my favourite albums of the 80s.

Consider me a fan of the playlists, I enjoyed listening to this even more than I expected. A couple of old favourites and plenty of really good stuff I hadn't heard before. Nicely done, Daniel.

Some thoughts on the actual tracks themselves:

1. Boris - "EVOL" (from "LφVE & EVφL", 2019)
8/10. I love Feedbacker, but aren't super-familiar with Boris other than that.
Love this - will check the album out soon.

2. Pelican - "Last Day Of Winter" (from “The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw”, 2005)
10/10. Never heard these guys before. This is great - right up my alley!

4. Paradise Lost – “Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us” (from “Faith Divides Us – Death Unites Us”, 2009)
6/10. I'm no big fan of PL and I don't feel this changing my mind.

5. Crowbar – “Planets Collide” (from “Odd Fellows Rest”, 1998)
7/10. Another band I'm unfamiliar with. Not bad at all, it's sludge has a kind of grungy vibe to it.
Great guitar tone.

6. Om – “Bedouin’s Vigil” (from “Bedouin’s Vigil/Assyrian Blood” split single with Six Organs Of Admittance, 2006)
6/5. I like Pilgrimage. This is OK, but sounds a bit weak and just sort of peters out at the end.

7. Domovoyd – “Domovoyage” (from ”Domovoyd”, 2015)
8/10. Gets off to a slow start but builds nicely. Has a rocket-fuelled space rock vibe to it that I'm quite keen on.

8. Candlemass – “Mirror Mirror” (from “Ancient Dreams”, 1988)
8/10. From my least favoured of Candlemass' first four albums, this is possibly it's best track.

9. Graveworm – “Scars Of Sorrow” (from “Collateral Defect”, 2007)
5/10. Sorry, not my sort of thing at all.

10. Skumring – “De glemte tider” (from “De glemte tider”, 2005)
9/10. Love this album. Love this track - ethereal and melancholy.

11. Saturnus – “Starres” (from “For The Loveless Lonely Nights” EP, 1998)
8/10. I like Saturnus' brand of death doom, but haven't heard this before. Like it.

12. Corrupted – “Inactive” (from “Northgrush/Corrupted” split, 1997)
7/10. Another band I'm totally unfamiliar with, but this is some seriously ultra-heavy shit. Pity the production is also shit, but I'll definitely be checking these guys out further.

Never heard these guys before listening to the MA playlist.

This track is amazing: