RC June Lunacy (Lilies Once Black)

[einride]

satyricon is so shit that it's not even funny. well it is actually because people praise overly pompous egos like satyr's. if i saw that fag on the street id stuff his shitty albums down his cocksucking throat

satyricon is awesome, but i'm not going to get too worked up about it since i know you'll probably figure that out in three years and buy their entire discography while starting threads about "BANDS THAT SOUND LIKE SATYRICON???" as is your usual rather comical modus operandi

 

[J.]

eh, already heard their "classic" material. it was equal to current tiamat

 

[Vittra]

you're asking me if i am confusing a tiamat thing with another tiamat thing. no offense, but i know absolutely everything there ever was to know about tiamat and they are probably my favourite band of all time.

sumerian cry is like the absolute fucking ARCHETYPE of what black metal is and was. listen to it again, and when you're at it, listen to things like SAMAEL and MAYHEM and BATHORY? hear how this does NOT SOUND LIKE DRUDKH AND ALCEST (?)

there is one thing that is "death metal" about sumerian cry and that is the guitar tone. nothing else! TOTAL 100% BONAFIDE BLACK METAL, like if i was to tell a person "hey, you know what? this is a genre of music you have never heard. this is black metal." this is a candidate for an album i would play.


edit: oh yeah and don't be fooled by the guitars being tuned to C either, if you want to prove my point you can play these same riffs on a guitar tuned to E and enjoy what sounds right at home next to other first wave/early second wave black metal bands

Just put it on again right now when typing this! Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to be insulting. As I mentioned, this would be the only album I've heard by them so I have no frame of reference, and as such I just wanted some clarification. I had asked a few other people what they thought of the album after listening to it and they had agreed it felt like a DM album and never saw it as anything else. I can definitely see what you mean by the tone and tuning swaying opinion though. I still can't shake the feeling that it reminds me of, say, "Left Hand Path" though. If anything, of the bands you mentioned, Samael bridges the gap and merges the sound between Tiamat and Mayhem/Bathory (Who were undeniably what they were around this period of time, 1990.). Tiamat --> Samael <-- Mayhem/Bathory, so to speak.

Anyways, that's just my perspective. Right? Wrong? Whatever.

 

[einride]

you have to look at it in the perspective of what was black metal in 1990-1991 before the whole norwegian thing took off, i.e. you had "deathcrush", you had "passage to arcturo", "worship him" and a few other things that basically took the more primitive bathory/frost/grotesque/mefisto stuff one step further into something based more heavily on atmosphere (mayhem, of course, already had the quintessential "no rock" black metal songs like "funeral fog" around at this time) but the "sound" wasn't standardized to such a degree as it has since become. in 1990, tiamat was unmistakably and definitely a black metal band. if you listen to it for the first time today, you have to sort of remove your 2009 preconceptions about what bm is.

"sumerian cry", although in primitive forms, has all the things you associate with northern black metal: lyrics about satan, occultism and nocturnal funerals, atmosphere-based tremolo riffs, intentionally primitive drumming, corpsepaint & spikes. treblinka/tiamat was a black metal band entwined with the stockholm death metal scene, they would play gigs with dismember, unleashed and nihilist a lot in the early days, so undoubtedly there was death metal INFLUENCE as far as tuning down to C and recording in sunlight and whatever, but the philosophy behind it and the musical outlook was totally different.

you can play it at 45 rpm if you want and maybe that will help but honestly, really listen to the riffs and structures of "the malicious paradise" or "nocturnal funeral" while reading the lyrics and tell me this is not textbook black metal


edit: as far as the other tiamat stuff goes, this is the only pure black metal album, but the second treblinka demo has three of the same songs that went on the album and is one of the most blatantly evil recordings you're likely to ever hear. arguably "nocturnal funeral" does even better with a rehearsal style bm sound

 

[skeptik]

Sumerian Cry is both black metal and death metal, from my perspective. This is distinct from black/death metal; it's not a combination of both, but rather simply both at the same time.

 

[Reign in Acai]

I may revise this after further deliberation.


Therion - Of Darkness
Tiamat - Sumerian Cry (As Erik pointed out, the lyrics on ...Of Darkness automatically disqualify them from advancing further in this round robin. As much of an eco-fag I may be, I don't appreciate being preached to with grammar school prose.)


My Dying Bride - As the Flower Withers (The quintessential embodiment of death/doom)
Bethlehem - Dark Metal


Amon Amarth - Once Sent from the Golden Hall (Pillaging for pesos, cash loving Jewthens)
Blind Guardian - Battalions of Fear

Anathema - Serenades
Paradise Lost - Lost Paradise

Cemetary - An Evil Shade of Grey
Samael - Worship Him


In Flames - Lunar Starin
Dimmu Borgir - For All Tid


Amorphis - The Karelian Isthmus (Always been indifferent to Amorphis)
Green Carnation - Journey To The End Of Night


Satyricon - Dark Medieval Times (Most competitive pairing of round 1)
Katatonia - Dance of December Souls

 

[Plastic Nathrakh]

you're asking me if i am confusing a tiamat thing with another tiamat thing. no offense, but i know absolutely everything there ever was to know about tiamat and they are probably my favourite band of all time.

Tiamat were a death metal band with black influence(barely). Sumerian Cry isn't even that great of a death metal album either.

I'm also pretty sure by how you explained black metal, Deicide are an essential band as well. No.

 

[Plastic Nathrakh]

Clouds is better

 

[einride]

Tiamat were a death metal band with black influence(barely). Sumerian Cry isn't even that great of a death metal album either.

I'm also pretty sure by how you explained black metal, Deicide are an essential band as well. No.

see the problem here with you discussing music is that you almost literally don't know anything at all so i don't care about anything you say

tiamat has NEVER, EVER been a death metal band. there are death metal influences on "the astral sleep" and some on "sumerian cry". there's like three songs with something approaching death metal style growling on "wildhoney" too. big whoop. i don't know how completely fucking deaf you would have to be to call any one tiamat song death metal though (possible exception: "sumerian cry pt 3" off astral sleep but when it goes into that whole hammond thing i dont know if its all that dm anymore)

deicide is a death metal band because they play death metal, tiamat has never written a death metal song, i know this is a very difficult concept

 

[EricT]

I like how people call Tiamat death metal while most classify Treblinka as black metal.

 

[Plastic Nathrakh]

You seem to be under the idiotic impression that in order for something to be labeled as death metal, the band must be playing at a faster pace.

Either way, it's labeled death metal on the Metal Archives and I don't wish to discuss this because you always have your thumb shoved up your ass when talking about Swedish bands like they're so special and different when American death metal would beat the shit out it.

 

[Plastic Nathrakh]

Tiamat plays death metal with atmosphere. Get over it. I'm not so deaf as MANY others agree. You on the other hand are a douche.

 

[swizzlenuts]

I'm going to have to listen to Sumerian Cry (something terrible I know), because I thought it was easily black metal. Kind of like how Varathron, Root, and Samael are black metal.

 

[EricT]

Haha Metal-Archives being the say all end all of metal...

Funnily enough, I was looking on metal archives at Tiamat and saw this:

""Death metal," says the description here on Metal-Archives. Hogwash, says I. Really, what possesses everyone to call this album death metal? The fact that it was recorded in Sunlight, and that the band used to play gigs with DISMEMBER, NIHILIST, MORBID et al in the infamous Stockholm death metal scene in the beginning of the 90's? Ha.

This is black metal. I mean, if tiny hints such as the Satanic lyrical content, two inverted crosses, pentagram and wings in the logo, tremolo riffing, corpsepaint, spikes, blastbeats and songwriting focusing on atmosphere rather than brutality weren't enough for you, here it is again in capital letters: THIS IS A BLACK METAL ALBUM; early 90's black metal in the vein of early MAYHEM, and perhaps most obviously, SAMAEL.

Now, for some reason (perhaps the radical changes in style TIAMAT took with just about every album after this one) people don't talk about this album much when discussing black metal, when the fact is that in 1989, TREBLINKA (pre-TIAMAT -- they only changed name after this album was recorded) was together with GROTESQUE and BATHORY (who had already strayed from their black metal style at the time) pretty much the only purely black metal act in Sweden, and even so, GROTESQUE was musically much further from the second wave style of black metal, leaving TREBLINKA as one of the true innovators of the genre in Sweden.

Looking at the world at large, what other bands were around playing something resembling modern black metal in 1989? Now many! The aforementioned MAYHEM and SAMAEL of course, NECROMANTIA and VARATHRON perhaps, VADER's "Necrolust" demo is pretty close? DARKTHRONE was still a death metal band, EMPEROR members were probably about 13 years old and not even in THOU SHALT SUFFER yet, Mr. Vikernes was happily death metalling away in OLD FUNERAL most of the time... Yet almost everyone always forgets "Sumerian Cry"!"

I said to myself "didn't I just read this argument", and sure enough, written by Erik in 2005.

 

[einride]

I like how people call Tiamat death metal while most classify Treblinka as black metal.

ironically, the closest treblinka/tiamat ever got to doing pure death metal is treblinka's first demo "crawling in vomits" but like "deathcrush", even though it has a lot of elements of the genre it's too bizarre, primitive and unconventional to even be dm. no one questions that the second treblinka demo is bonafide black metal to the absolute BONE, but when they re-record the same songs in sunlight studio it's suddenly "death metal". everyone's an idiot.

everything after "sumerian cry" is useless to even try and categorize, but i will concede that i would maybe not murder someone for calling "the astral sleep" something stupid like "atmospheric death metal" if they absolutely need to pigeonhole it. i mean, it's not a death metal album, but the term works in the same sense that you might call opeth "prog dm" and dark tranquillity "melodic dm" and not be wrong as such, even though opeth and dt do not play death metal. it is a descriptive term that sort of applies even if it's not correct. if that makes sense.

 

[einride]

Tiamat plays death metal with atmosphere. Get over it. I'm not so deaf as MANY others agree. You on the other hand are a douche.

i don't care what you call it but if you call it anything other than black metal you are very simply wrong and there is NO room for interpretation or differing views there at all

you listen to anaal nathrakh

 

[einride]

I said to myself "didn't I just read this argument", and sure enough, written by Erik in 2005.

it's a very shitty review

 

[Plastic Nathrakh]

Saying 'The Malicious Paradise' or 'Necrophagious Shadows' are anything but Death metal is absolute lunacy. Eric, I read that review too BTW, which is why I referenced metal archives. The only opinion opposing death metal out of those reviews. Fuck you Erik, I'm not deaf. You're thumbing your bum.

 

[einride]

Saying 'The Malicious Paradise' or 'Necrophagious Shadows' are anything but Death metal is absolute lunacy. Eric, I read that review too BTW, which is why I referenced metal archives. The only opinion opposing death metal out of those reviews. Fuck you Erik, I'm not deaf. You're thumbing your bum.

look man, there is no question that i know what i am talking about and you do not, so i would stop now. i KNOW. you DO NOT KNOW. the problem isn't that you know nothing, the problem is that while knowing nothing you pretend to know everything. i don't care! i don't care! you're wrong forever and always! there is no way i will ever bend on this point because you are arguing that something absolute, something utterly set in stone and completely static forever is something other than it is. it will not work. if you accept that there is such a thing as a musical genre called black metal, then this album is it. no question, ever. not even one shred of doubt anywhere in the whole wide universe.

 

[Plastic Nathrakh]

you listen to anaal nathrakh

I'm not sure if you're bringing this up to downplay my knowledge of black metal or to downplay me in general. Great band. I buy merch.

Anyway, I'm listening to Sumerian again just to be sure, and I'm wondering how the fuck you'd call these songs black metal. 'Apothesis of Morbidity' is another death metal song. Just skip to 2:35. Are you nuts?