I really do love seeing your photos and videos Amando. Where I live, there aren’t too many live acts worth seeing, less heavy metal acts. Being able to vicariously see it is the best I can manage. I basically live in a town filled with old people and away from major metropolitan areas. I’m very jealous. Arkona sound different. I can’t see myself putting them onto a playlist anytime soon but the music is oddly hyponotising.
Real? Who knows? Entertaining, at any rate.
Growing up in rural eastern Tennessee, trust me, I sympathize. One of the things I was most excited about when I moved to Boston for college was the concert scene up there. Except that meant taking the commuter rail for an hour and a half long train ride to the bleak industrial hellscape of Worcester, MA to visit the infamous Paladium music venue up there. . . and then running out of the show before most bands played their encore tracks to make it back to the train station in time for the last train outta town at 11PM (next one not till 8AM!).
Raleigh, NC and the surrounding towns (Durham and Chapel Hill) get a very decent amount of shows I’m into, but I also drive a lot. I end up in Richmond, VA, Greensboro, NC, and Charlotte, NC about 8-10 times a year (about 2-3 hours away apiece). Baltimore, MD, Washington D.C., Spartanburg, SC, and Atlanta, GA (more in the 5-6 hour span) are rarer, but still probably 3-4 times a year.`
Worcester sucks now. They’re trying to gentrify the area around Palladium. There’s no where to hang out and have a good beer before a show anymore. The place next to it is some hipster foodie bullshit that charges $15 for shitty craft beer and doesn’t have nachos OR wings. WTF. On the other side is a coffee shop that closes at 2pm.
Last time I went to Palladium, to see Hammerfall, there was a high school prom entourage hanging out nearby, waiting for their prom. I tried to talk to them and none of them liked heavy metal music. Fuckin kids this days.
Worcester has always sucked. It just sucks in new ways now :)
Aether Realm, the bois behind one of my top albums of the year last year, Tarot, got themselves signed to Napalm Records last week. They’re playing a big blowout show tomorrow night at the little metal club like half a mile from my apartment. Needless to say, I will be there to celebrate and catalog :)
November 2018 AotM
Things calmed down a bit in November after the October deluge. Still plenty of great music to unearth, though, with 1914 and Dire Peril in particular coming out of nowhere with incredible albums. On the other hand, old favorites didn’t fare nearly as well, with Haken, Evoken, and to a lesser extent Witherfall, The Ocean, and In the Woods… delivering new releases that fell well short of their last efforts for me. Anywhere, here’s what stood out to me – what did you guys find?
Steel
- 1914 - The Blind Leading the Blind
- Striker - Play to Win
- Dire Peril - The Extraterrestrial Compendium
Iron
- Sylvaine - Atoms Aligned, Coming Undone
- Abstract Void - Back to Reality
- Veonity - Legend of the Starborn
- Decembre Noir - Autumn Kings
- Unreqvited - Mosaic I: L’amour Et L’ardour
Bronze
- Eneferens - The Bleakness of Our Constant
- Witherfall - A Prelude to Sorrow
- Arsis - Visitant
- The Ocean - Phanerozoic 1: Palaeozoic
- Orion’s Reign - Scores of War
- NanowaR of Steel - Stairway to Valhalla
- Sigh - Heir to Despair
- In the Woods… - Cease the Day
The Algorithm has new stuff out, if anyone is into EDM/metal hybrids.
But mostly I’m still listening to October’s Sirenia and Amaranthe releases.
My picks
Ophidian Forest - votIVe
Einherjer - Norrøne Spor
Corpsessed - Impetus of Death
Um… Pat, what you doing m8?
They’re actually touring right by me here in Raleigh early next year. One of my favorite local acts, Datura, is opening, so I am definitely gonna try to be there. Thanks for the rec!
Yeah, I fired these guys up, and it immediately made me want to throw on my old leather jacket, dig up my steel-toes, and then throw my rickety 4[x]-year-old-body into the nearest pit. Instead I just jacked up my speakers as loud as I could and did some fist-bang mania
So…it’s probably weird for me to post this here, but I’m going to anyway. This a friend of my little [younger] brother, filmed by another friend of my little [younger] brother. They were both here over Thanksgiving.
-xtien
He’s really good. As a former drummer- that guy is going places.
Yeah, no kidding. Lots of talent there, and obviously a lot of practiced skill, too :). It’s actually pretty interesting to get some insight into a guy who’s at the stage where those little flips and spins and other flairs are doable, but require just enough concentration that it’s probably ill-advised to lean super hard into them. Right on the cusp of nailing that skill as much as the rest of it, though.
Also, man, when did A7X get to the point that M. Shadows’ vox were the worst part of their music? That’s. . . now how I remembered things being back in the day!
My favorite thing–apart from the footwork, which I freaking love–is his super smooth recovery of the drop at the end.
He’s a really good dude, too. Which is nice. He had an audition for a pretty big tour thing earlier this year and they loved his work, just wanted him to work on his stage presence. To his credit, he took it to heart.
-xtien
That is super impressive, and I can see him going places in the near future.
I saw Ghost tonight in Boston. They played from 8:00 to about 11:00 with a 20 minute break. So almost 3 hours of performing. Awesome show, I highly recommend catching them if they come through your city!
So Machine Head recently imploded losing Phil Demmel and Dave McClain, which is a shame. I’m not surprised after the lackluster most recent album and apparent rejection of Flynn’s increasing political slant. (Don’t get me wrong I’m all about politics in music and agree with him on most things, but I think it was a detriment to their music.)
The upside is that McClain has rejoined Sacred Reich to record their first new album in 25 years. I’m super excited as SR is one of my all time favorite thrash bands. Maybe I’ll get to see them tour! The American Way seems especially relevant even today:
Another vote for GOROD, because tech prog death is TRVE METAL