Black Metal.

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Promo pic from Eurovision Song Contest 2010 with KOK. This will be hilarious, hope they will blastbeat the shit out of everything.:lol:
 
Wow, I have TOTALLY gotten into THORNSPAWN's "Wrath of War" album. That shit is fucking killer! Thats what black metal should sound like, production-wise. Its necro, gritty, and kvlt, but its still CLEAR enough that you can discern instruments and actually HEAR guitar riffs, rather than a big blurry buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz with sss-sss-sss-sss-sss-sss-sss-sss blast beats and Darkthrone vocals.

Their "Bloody of the Holy, Taint Thy Steel" album is pretty good, too...but the production isn't near as good as "Wrath of War". Its good, though; you can actually hear A BASS GUITAR!!!! I couldn't believe it. The production is a little lacking... it has no bottom end or OOMPH, really, the way "Wrath of War" is really full and thick in its kvltness. But it gets IMMEDIATE points for the audibility of bass guitar, and I really like the drum sound actually; the kicks sound great and you can really hear them clearly when they go into a double bass groove; the hi-hat and snare really drowns them out in blast beats, though.

I don't get how these guys aren't more popular, unless its because they never put out stuff... their last few releases have been all live stuff, but apparently there is a new album debuting next year at the Sacrifice of the Nazarene Child Fest.


but yeah, fucking THORNSPAWN!!!!!!!!




Oh, and I finally got Kult ov Azazel's "Triumph of Fire" after hearing a lot of hype about it... and boy was I disappointed. The songwriting is just... not there. Its like Behemoth... really bad attempts at being technical and the guitar riffs are so bland and repetitive. I donno... I was just expecting a lot of violent sickness like Thornspawn.


OH! and have any of you heard the Amputator/Baphomets Horns split?!? WOW!!! Amputator didn't impress me at all, but Baphomets Horns is absolutely fucking INCREDIBLE!!!! If you're looking for some fucking VIOLENT crazy USBM, you HAVE to check out Baphomets Horns. The production on their side of the split is absolutely crushing, and the music equals it. They're from Connecticut, and I can't get enough of them.

The album is called "Satanic Forcefucked Annihilation" and you can get it at Pathos Productions:

http://www.pathosproductions.com/releases.aspx

its at the top of the page. No, I do not work for them. I just want to help promote a fucking SICK band/album that actually deserves your money.

I think I'm going to have to go ahead and say, though, that the drummer for Baphomets Horns has THE fastest blast beats of ANY black metal drummer, even Horgh. Yeah. Its serious shit man. And he ISNT doing the gravity blast ala John Longstreth from Origin. its fuckin incredible
 
Rating a metal drummer for his blast beats is like rating a car for how good the tires are. It's expected that a metal drummer can play fast blast beats, and it's so much of a staple and so overdone that it shouldn't be a standard to judge by anymore unless the drummer is noticeably bad at them or times them very well in terms of song structure (as does Aran in Lunar Aurora).
 
I agree with Trey's assessment of Triumph of Fire though. My sister gave it to me as a Christmas present a couple years ago and it was neat at the time because I'd only been listening to black metal for a year and the conventions were still new to me. Its lasting impact is negligible though.
 
I just got back from seeing Until the Light Takes Us, and it was very good. it was different than I expected to be. I was afraid it was going to be another Black Metal 101 doc. but it really wasn't. Sure, they spent a decent amount of time on the "big" topics, being the church burnings and the murder of Euronymous, but outside of that, the time spent with Fenriz and Vikernes (who are he main subjects of the film)was interesting.

The biggest surprise and perhaps greatest strength of the film was its mood and atmosphere. I actually left the theater feeling rather down and depressed. The film really shows a side of Fenriz most people are not familiar with. Gone are his jokes and goofy singing and in their place you get to see a man who seems to be feeling a great sense of loss at seeing what is becoming of something he has dedicated his life to. He is very quite and withdrawn the a majority of his time on film and re-living some of the events of his life via sharing them with the directors seems to take a toll on his attitude. It makes you think about the fact that we as listeners sometimes seem to forget that the people killed and imprisoned within the scene where friends to people like Fenriz. Vikernes comes across as very intelligent and not really all that crazy.

The film does have a small arc involving Frost of Satyricon that is mostly forgettable and does not really add anything besides one hilarious scene. If this is playing near you I would recommend checking it out. Unless you are very unfamiliar with the BM scene you probably won't learn anything but it is interesting hearing certain things directly from those involved and it grants a certain insight into there feelings on everything.
 
I wasn't able to make it out tonight, or I'd have probably checked to see when you'd be going. I think I'll make it for one of the showtimes this weekend, though.

But yeah, you pretty much summed up the impression I got from the trailer: there's nothing really new to be learned, but it should be interesting to witness a more firsthand account of things. In general I'm pretty bored with all the stories about what went on back then (simply because, it's old news and life goes on), and I'm far more interested in what's going on with the more relevant artists in black metal these days, but this film looks like it might be a form of closure for that era. With the timing of things -- particularly Varg's release and upcoming album -- this seems fitting.
 
thanks for the review Evil. I saw a trailer for it on the Apple website a few weeks ago and was wondering what it would be like. I'll definitely keep an eye out for it
 
I just got back from seeing Until the Light Takes Us, and it was very good. it was different than I expected to be. I was afraid it was going to be another Black Metal 101 doc. but it really wasn't. Sure, they spent a decent amount of time on the "big" topics, being the church burnings and the murder of Euronymous, but outside of that, the time spent with Fenriz and Vikernes (who are he main subjects of the film)was interesting.

The biggest surprise and perhaps greatest strength of the film was its mood and atmosphere. I actually left the theater feeling rather down and depressed. The film really shows a side of Fenriz most people are not familiar with. Gone are his jokes and goofy singing and in their place you get to see a man who seems to be feeling a great sense of loss at seeing what is becoming of something he has dedicated his life to. He is very quite and withdrawn the a majority of his time on film and re-living some of the events of his life via sharing them with the directors seems to take a toll on his attitude. It makes you think about the fact that we as listeners sometimes seem to forget that the people killed and imprisoned within the scene where friends to people like Fenriz. Vikernes comes across as very intelligent and not really all that crazy.

The film does have a small arc involving Frost of Satyricon that is mostly forgettable and does not really add anything besides one hilarious scene. If this is playing near you I would recommend checking it out. Unless you are very unfamiliar with the BM scene you probably won't learn anything but it is interesting hearing certain things directly from those involved and it grants a certain insight into there feelings on everything.
I'll be glad when that movie comes out on video, Until The Light Takes Us isn't showing in theaters anywhere here. Is it similar to Lords of Chaos?
 
Shit, where the fuck did you come from lol. Haven't seen you in ages. I have no idea if it is similar to Lords of Chaos. I heard that was rubbish and avoided it.