LP Review: "Óreida" by Juseph

Óreida

In times of crisis, it's worth retreating back into ourselves in order to calm and recoup our losses.

I cannot be the Lone Ranger when I say that it's easy to get my fill of extreme metal. Any reader can look at the passages and ebbs and flows on this very site to see that.

There was nearly a six month break where it was all doom, stoner, and sludge because a break was needed.

Lately, I've been retreating into Pink Floyd because of the outlandish soundscapes that build into otherworldly pictures.

What if, there was a metal band that could do something quite similar? Portugal's Juseph does just that.

Yes. Juseph was just compared to Pink Floyd. The former is nearly as progressive as the latter, but the latter isn't nearly as heavy as the former. Because I'm tired and my words are growing thin, the easiest path is the best...

Juseph is Pink Floyd if Waters and Gilmour:

1. Were Portuguese.
2. Decided that Black Metal was better than progressive synth rock.
3. Also figured neither of them should sing.

RELEASE 2/1/19 BANDCAMP FACEBOOK

LP Review: "Hadal Ascending" by Ichor

Hadal Ascending

There's a lot of talk out there by old farts who're long divorced from the actual music scene, Gene Simmons, who want to say rock is dead.

Well, he's old and wrong.

In the world I live in, there's more new music than could ever make it into my world. The vast majority of it though, isn't kitsch  music for the masses.

The music I find attractive in 2018 is new. Take Ichor for example. They're death metal right?

In 1992, Death Metal had hard and fast rules. Your drummer had to be basically a force fed automaton pounding out surgical beats. The guitars had to be fast. And blastbeats. No matter what. Blastbeats.

Of course, Ichor has all of these things, but they don't stop there. Why should a band's expression stop at an imaginary, though clearly delineated place? Hadal Ascending won't convince anyone who's not already among us, but they'll entertain many a metalhead who's grown tired of well worn formula.

Release 12/7/18 PREORDER FACEBOOK

LP Review: "No More Conqueror" by Cortez

No More Conqueror

Did you watch the Clerks Cartoon show? In the first episode, after the first flowerpot gag, Randall, my personal hero, threw their ropes over the edge of the building.

"When Cortez arrived in the New World, he burned his boats to inspire his men," Randall Graves.

This album, while using the name of the fabled Conquistador also has an anti-conquietador title, so color me a bit confused by that.

No More Conqueror is a hardcore tour de force that punched me square in the intestinal fortitudes.

This Swiss hardcore/mathcore/not quite so grindcore trio come in with all guns blazing. Imagine if someone was put down in a chair, under a bright white light, and then told, we know what you did. Why don't you make it easy on yourself and tell us everything from the very beginning.

This album is precisely the result of the questioning. The only thing...it seems that Cortez feels justified in everything they did and they'll tell you everything. Just sit back and listen.

Release: 11/09/18 BANDCAMP FACEBOOK

EP Review: "Innen Aussen" by Tarasque

Innen Aussen

The first bit of housekeeping that needs to be discussed is whether or not this is an LP or an EP. The disc clocks in around 27 minutes which puts it slightly under one Reign In Blood.

Slayer's masterpiece clocks in at just under 29 minutes. So, that's the minimum. These delineations are here for the readers! Some of us, like me, know what it's like to buy an EP when you were expecting an LP....

Second bit of housekeeping. Tarasque are listed under the post-metal heading. Does anyone out there refer to anything as Post-Anything?

They're also listed as sludge metal. Each time a post-metal record is reviewed here, we ask for help defining this term. As no one's stepped up, my personal definition of Post-Metal will be this now and forever: It's metal that doesn't simply tick the boxes off and adds in non-metal elements. 

So it is metal and it's not metal at the same time with a tendency for the avant garde.

LP Review: "Viscères" by Bind Torture Kill

Viscères

In an attempt to move forward and explore different genres today we're looking at Post-Hardcore.

This is new to me, so an exploration of what all of this is feels essential.

Hardcore Punk is punk rock that's harder and more aggressive than regular punk rock.

OK, this all seems rather simple and understandable. Punk Rock though, is pretty aggressive, so in my head, it would appear that Hardcore Punk is the link between Punk Rock and Grindcore.

Now, let's move onto Post-Hardcore.

It's described as something more creative and artistic than Hardcore and Punk Rock that incorporates essences of Post-Punk and Noise-Rock.

Album Review: "Terminus" by While Sun Ends

I was recently contemplating the demise of nu metal. 

I understand why it has come to be reviled, as many metalheads regret the intrusion of funk, rap and grunge into metal.  Still, I think it is to be commended for bridging the gap between more prolific periods of metal history, and for giving Americans some version of metal shows to attend during a ten year span when there was not much else happening in the American metal scene.Plus, there were a lot of excellent bands from this era which do not get the credit they deserve, such as Coal Chamber, Sevendust and Godsmack.  I also secretly like Limp Bizkit, but know better than to admit this in a public forum.  

“Terminus” by While Sun Ends is not nu metal, and  hopefully no one reads this paragraph and avoids the album thinking it is.  Being an Italian band, and nu metal being an almost uniquely American phenomenon, it is unlikely While Sun Ends were even influenced by nu metal.  Yet when I first heard the album to me it sounds as though While Sun Ends have managed to take all the best elements of the nu metal subgenre, eliminated all the elements which derailed it, infused it with traditional progressive metal and created something new and interesting.  

Album Review: "Death Poems" by The Fifth Alliance

Death Poems

When people ask me what kind of music I listen to....

Well, I think of myself as a metalhead, because once you go metal, no one else will accept you. So, hopefully my little piddle patch here will show some others that just because we listen to extreme metal doesn't mean we can't rock out to some dance pop too.

But anyway, I didn't want to talk about that. How do you define metal?

Black Sabbath has zero in common with Metallica. Metallica has zero in common with Napalm Death. Napalm Death has zero in common with Ahab. Ahab has zero in common with Babymetal.

Metal has wound itself around so many things that it's created a forest of sub-genres, many of the devotees even see these as separate genres unto themselves.

So, today I'm telling you about an upcoming metal album that I find has zero in common with any of the aforementioned bands.

Album Review: "Purveyors of Death" by Souls For Sale

Purveyors of Death

Before the world changed, EPs were a legitimate form of release for music.

I've had EP's by Slayer, Metallica, Faith No More, and countless others.

Something changed though. The EP kind of died out. The argument could most likely be made that the iTunes era really changed all of that.

With a full album only costing between seven to ten dollars, why would anyone drop the money on an EP I suppose....

An Extended Play though, it's a great way to meet new artists and really get a feel moreso than a single. Today we are reviewing the very first 7" vinyl EP sent to Glacially Musical...it's by the German metal band, Souls For Sale.

Album Review: "Grim Love" by Grim Van Doom

Grim Love

Music is the great healer and it always stirs a memory or seven.

Just hearing the name of a metal sub-genre, like Doom Metal, will immediately open all sorts of locked doors in my mind.

I will then begin to reminisce over several different times in my life. Like once talking about Black Sabbath on the side of a small pond fishing, and how we decided they were more Acid Rock than Heavy Metal.

You have to remember that this was before the factioning of heavy metal. During these days, it was just heavy metal. Thrash Metal existed of course, but it hadn't made it into the lexicon yet.

Today's reviewee is Grim Van Doom all the way from Germany. As our friend and spiritual leader, Bender B. Rodriguez would say, Grim Van Doom transcends genres as they reinvent them.