Monthly Archives: April 2024
Terry Riley – In C (1968)
Terry Riley’s groundbreaking work of minimalism is a backwards trek through musical consciousness, illustrative of how something resembling music can arise from the most fundamental constituents of the sound phenomenon. Music after all is nothing more than a collection of … Continue reading →
Metal ballads?
The metal ballad is an oxymoron to some. The intransigence we associate with metal has a hard time being reconciled with the painfully self-conscious and melodramatic nature of the traditional ballad. Metal is all intrepid thrust, the epitome of the … Continue reading →
Posted in Heavy Metal, Thoughts
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Tagged Armored Saint, Isolation, Metal Ballads, Queensryche, Raising Fear, The Lady Wore Black
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Abigor – Taphonomia Aeternitatis (2023)
Taphonomia Aeternitatis has moments of transcendent quality in light of which the intricate web of sounds the band have made its calling card begins making sense or at the very least stands out in greater relief. It is the latter … Continue reading →
Crucifier – Led Astray (2024)
On at least half of Led Astray, Crucifier want to play and transmit the idea of dungeon black/death like Incantation, Demoncy, and Prosanctus Inferi but ever so often step into minor key progressions, guitar solos, and a jauntiness of rhythm … Continue reading →
Ares Kingdom – In Darkness At Last (2014)
Ares Kingdom have always been the natural successors to the Bathory sound on Blood, Fire, Death, which makes the criticisms leveled at them on account of their speed metal roots a little hard to understand, especially when said Bathory album … Continue reading →
Posted in Heavy Metal
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Tagged alex blume, Ares Kingdom, Chuck Keller, In Darkness At Last, mike miller
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Judas Priest – Invincible Shield (2024)
It feels churlish to call the new Judas Priest disappointing. It makes all the right noises, the band feels rejuvenated, Halford’s in top form, and the music makes no concessions to modern trends, at least none that the band themselves … Continue reading →
Metal as tactile sensation
Tactility is associated with the sense of touch or that which is physically and intimately tangible. This would naturally seem at cross-purposes with music which, other than the medium producing it, exists on an altogether different plane than the material. … Continue reading →
Posted in Heavy Metal, Thoughts
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Tagged Consciousness, heavy metal, Keep It True, manilla road, Tactility
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Trouble, All Is Forgiven?
Trouble are rightly considered doom metal legends, Christian roots notwithstanding. The evangelical hectoring might get overbearing if you have little patience for such things or are concerned with maintaining a pose for your peers or even for the coherence of … Continue reading →
Old Disgruntled Bastard 