Controversial opinions on metal

[Balls McHoolihan]

Hey bro, who do you think was better, Priest or Maiden?

Not gonna go there.

 

[ASD]

aaaaand unsubscribed.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Hey bro, who do you think was better, Priest or Maiden?

Opeth

 

[Dak]

Slayer

 

[KafkaX]

Chris Barnes

 

[EffigyForgotten]

Nasty pig dick.

 

[divine_torture]

Larry The Cable Guy

 

[Kara-Shehr]

I'm a lesbian.

 

[skeptik]

California has produced more than its share of quality black metal over the last few years.

 

[EffigyForgotten]

Shits getting real.

I'm a necromancer from hell sent to earth too eat the brains of the living.

 

[LuminousAether]

California has produced more than its share of quality black metal over the last few years.

I'm not overly fond of BM from California. Ludicra was decent but I got tired of them real fast. I'd say further North is more quality, especially Agalloch and Alda. Weakling was fucking amazing though, for their one album.

New York has some good black metal with Castevet. Don't really see their name thrown around on metal forums but they are absolutely amazing. And of course, everyone's most incorrectly hated band Liturgy. One of NY's finest, awesome mixture of math rock and black metal. I think people get too hung up on their singer's pretentious writings, but I think they are fucking hilarious and are endearing. If I was going to hate a band based on the guy behind them, I'd hate Burzum. But I still love Burzum because I distance music from the musician.

 

[divine_torture]

California has produced more than its share of quality black metal over the last few years.

Leviathan, Weakling, Agalloch, Xasthur, Abruptum, Draugar...that is not contreversial. Just fact...

 

[Psychonaut]

Agalloch is Oregon.

 

[skeptik]

I'm not talking about any of those bands. In fact, I don't like any of them except Weakling (Agalloch is from Oregon). I'm talking about:

Volahn
Kuxan Suum
Tukaaria
Odz Manouk
Blue Hummingbird on the Left
Arizmenda
Kallathon
Muknal
The Haunting Presence
Dolorvotre
Axeman (not really properly classified as black metal, but part of the same scene)

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Leviathan, Weakling, Agalloch, Xasthur, Abruptum, Draugar...that is not contreversial. Just fact...

I would add ASh Borer, Dispirit (for Weakling fans, this is blackened doom from Gossard) and Ludicra. Lake of Blood and Deafheaven are decent. In general the West Coast releases the best USBM.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

I'm not talking about any of those bands. In fact, I don't like any of them except Weakling (Agalloch is from Oregon). I'm talking about:

Volahn
Kuxan Suum
Tukaaria
Odz Manouk
Blue Hummingbird on the Left
Arizmenda
Kallathon
Muknal
The Haunting Presence
Dolorvotre
Axeman (not really properly classified as black metal, but part of the same scene)

Haven't any of these. If you had to pick 2-3 releases that need to be heard from the lot of these, which would they be?

 

[skeptik]

Haven't any of these. If you had to pick 2-3 releases that need to be heard from the lot of these, which would they be?

Volahn - Dimensiónes del Trance Kósmico
Odz Manouk - Odz Manouk

The latter (in addition to Tukaaria's "Raw to the Rapine", which would probably be my number 3 here) were reissued by Profound Lore, so they should be fairly easy to locate. Of the other bands that I mentioned, none of them have been released on CD, but Muknal and The Haunting Presence have been picked up by Hell's Headbangers and have some vinyl out. Kuxan Suum and Axeman were also fairly recently released on vinyl.

Actually, Ajna released a CD of Dolorvotre's album as well, now that I think about it, but it's not one of my favorites.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Do they have a particular sound or style? It sounds like these bands are associated in some way.

 

[skeptik]

Have you heard of the Black Twilight Circle? Pretty much all of the bands that I mentioned are related to the scene and share members. Volahn (the musician) is involved in probably most of them. A number of the musicians, if I understand, are of Mexican heritage, so a few of the bands (particularly BHOTL and Kuxan Suum) incorporate some 'tribal' elements, for lack of a better word, but for the most part it's very raw and lo-fi straight ahead tremelo-driven black metal. Muknal and The Haunting Presence have a lot more death metal influence, whereas Axeman is hard to really classify as black metal at all. They're more of a crust/thrash/death metal band that takes a lot of cues from Amebix.

The Black Twilight Circle and the Crepusculo Negro label rightfully have a shitty reputation, but once I looked past a lot of the silliness that I read about them, I found that a lot of the music that they actually put out I found to be quite rewarding. I think the 'scene' is kind of dead at this point, but there's another, seemingly more responsible label called Rhinocervs (which originally released the Tukaaria and Odz Manouk albums) that seems to pick up a bit where they left off. The label is owned by two musicians in the scene, I believe, but I don't know who. They release collaborative recordings under the label's name on untitled tapes. I've heard excellent things about these tapes, but I haven't heard any of them myself.

 

[EternalMetal]

Arizmenda's Within the Vacuum of Infinity and Volahn's Dimensiónes del Trance Kósmico are fantastic and probably the best of the BTC that I have heard. Especially Arizmenda's though. That Rhinocervs compilation Odour of Dust and Rot released last year has some decent tracks as well. LLN is better though imo.