NEW SOLSTAFIR IS OUT NEW SOLSTAFIR IS OUT NEW SOLSTAFIR IS OUT

[MFJ]

agree or die please

 

[Ellestin]

let us all agree that masterpiece of bitterness is one of the 5 greatest metal albums ever

What would be the other four then?

 

[einride]

agree or die please

finally, the sweet release of death is upon me

 

[NAD]

I dusted it off today, and I'm starting to like it (finally) but srsly that first song fuckin' drags and needs to be cut by about 5 minutes. The rest is damn solid.

Not even in my Top 500 at all but I do enjoy it. I will be listening to more often for a spell because giving shit a 293u85p7th chance is my nowadays jam.

 

[einride]

srsly that first song fuckin' drags and needs to be cut by about 5 minutes

could not disagree more

it needs the space, much like the icelander himself, lonesome in the vast desolate plains of the land of fire and ice

 

[NAD]

I'll report back after I visit Ísland some day.

 

[einride]

i did, btw. not sure if i ever wrote about it here.

it was really cool, we drove around the whole thing

 

[NAD]

Yeah I saw your photos of the Troll Van on the socialized media, pretty neato. It sure seems like a magical place.

Last year I was planning to spend a week there living out of a rental Jimny, but life got in the way so the trip was delayed until 2021. Of course now a US passport isn't worth the paper it's printed on, so who knows when I'll actually get a chance to visit.

 

[Ellestin]

here a few pics I took this week. Not exactly Iceland but maybe worth sharing cause I sure enjoyed hanging in them spots

 

[einride]

those are really awesome pics man, where were those taken? near home i presume?

we took so many fuckin photos in iceland that two years later i still haven't sorted and edited all of them haha

 

[Ellestin]

Neat pictars too these are!

those are really awesome pics man, where were those taken? near home i presume?

Not exactly, they were taken in the Pyrenean range, close to Spain. Except the last one which is the castle of Montségur, famous place where more than 200 cathar heretics got barbecued by the holy church in 1244... This is a real place of power, I've rarely sensed "magic" like I did climbing this rock and see these empty walls appearing in the morning fog.

 

[NAD]

5 stars * 5 stars = 25 stars

Not Iceland either, but this is my usual haunt in them thar hills:



1,000,000 acres of forest burned in California this past week. Alas.

 

[einride]

Neat pictars too these are!



Not exactly, they were taken in the Pyrenean range, close to Spain. Except the last one which is the castle of Montségur, famous place where more than 200 cathar heretics got barbecued by the holy church in 1244... This is a real place of power, I've rarely sensed "magic" like I did climbing this rock and see these empty walls appearing in the morning fog.

ah yes, montsegur, of course

#everythingiknowabouthistoryilearnedfromironmaiden

 

[MFJ]

What would be the other four then?

It's kind of a revolving door, but for me the timeless classics are:

The Jester Race
Bergtatt
Pale Folklore / The Mantle (counts for one)
Storm of the Light's Bane
Masterpiece of Bitterness

 

[Ellestin]

yeah that's one of the good lists

I don't think I've ever heard The Jester Race. I know it's a classic but In Flames turned into a steep slope for me with subsequent horrors

 

[Ellestin]

#everythingiknowabouthistoryilearnedfromironmaiden

what's funny with this song is, apart from being a bloody good song, that they took an artistic leap from history by including the phrase "Kill them all, God will know His own", that was allegedly pronounced 35 years before Montségur by a crusader-in-chief at another siege, at Béziers, prior to the 14,500 some inhabitants of that city being actually massacred to the last one, women and children alike. Fun times. Apparently the king of France wanted to make an example. Way to go.

By comparison, the fall of Montségur was relatively humane, considering the merciless months of siege that led to it: repeated failures at assaulting the "impregnable" castle, a super harsh winter (it is recorded that dozens of soldiers had to have limbs amputated from exposure to the cold), and the decisive push half-trickery, half Rambo-style military feet on Christmas Eve... I say humane cause yeah, 200+ people burned alive, but it could be argued, and that added to the romanticism surrounding the whole story, that they condemned themselves willingly, since the terms of the reddition stipulated no pillaging, no raping, and that everyone abjuring their Cathar faith would be allowed to go free, along with all the non-Cathar castle dwellers and what remained of the defending soldiers, mostly Catholic mercenaries. During the two-weeks truce leading up to the pyre, it is said that about 15 more people embraced Catharism just so they could be burnt along with their friends... Makes you pause.

Yeah sorry for the smartass post, just rehearsing for an article on Montségur I'm writing for

Spoiler

a brand new fanzine I'm doing solo to be released sometime between year's end and sometime afer year's end

. Anyway the whole thing has kinda fascinated me since childhood but it was my first time travelling to the place and no disappointment!

 

[NAD]

^^^ I put on Montségur by Maiden to accompany my reading of that post, and it was the right thing to do.

Pale Folklore / The Mantle (counts for one)

Counts for ALL.

I don't think I've ever heard The Jester Race. I know it's a classic but In Flames turned into a steep slope for me with subsequent horrors

The Jester Race and Subterranean are outstanding. Lunar Strain is almost as good.

 

[einride]

I don't think I've ever heard The Jester Race. I know it's a classic but In Flames turned into a steep slope for me with subsequent horrors

it's not the same band

i don't care what the tire fire bearing the same name represents today, and i did not care twenty years ago how much shit anyone gave me for listening to them, nothing anyone says will take away the fact that the jester race is Art and Poetry and it just hits so fuckin hard. if you listen to moonshield and feel nothing you are dead inside. i don't know if it's possible to Get It™ if you listen to it for the first time as a grown-ass man in 2020 but:


I lie in your soothing arms, lord Hypnos
your garment alive with your song
I lie in your soothing arms, lord Hypnos

Steep the spiral to your far abode,
in the wake of slumber, on visions I rode
and fell like history through the chasm of ages
into the charged, forbidden zones

How I have searched
through a million worlds and faces
yet unaware, I have not found
my own true face, traceless and profound

So, find me in these grandiose halls
where long ago summers eternally fall
and tune the strings of truthful longing
to the frozen music of gods


i mean come the fuck on

 

[Ellestin]

thx guys I'm sold on giving it a good try

 

[einride]

you will not regret it i'm sure

also let me just say that i'm very satisfied that bumping a thread to half-heartedly talk about some new music ended as always with the entire old cynical fart gang reiterating how all of our favorite albums from 1995 are clearly superior to whatever tuneless trash the kids listen to these days