Wherein joanismylover takes issue with one of my reviews.
The issue on appeal is whether Inter Arma, as evidenced on Sky Burial, is “boldly combining influences in new ways, or do they lack identity?”* The rule applicable is whether the release kicks enough ass to make the listener say, “Whoa, this some good fuckin’ shit.” (hereinafter “the kick ass good shit rule”).** Respondent argues in essence that the length of the release, combined with its allegedly mis-placed acoustic interludes and discordant influences present a confused but potential-laden release. We granted this writ because it presents an issue of first impression – i.e. significant disagreement between FMA and joanismylover. Because real-party at interest – Inter Arma – despite some minor mis-steps, ultimately satisfy kick ass good shit rule, joanismylover will, as explained below, give Sky Burial an improved rating.
I decided to check out Reflection of the Negative because half of the split is from Cough. A couple years ago, I nearly gave Cough’s Ritual Abuse a perfect score, stating that the record takes Black Sabbath to its logical extreme.
And Cough does a perfectly serviceable job on their half of the split. It’s not nearly as good as their last full-length, but if you love it slow, heavy, and sludgy, you could do a hell of a lot worse. The big surprise, though, is the contribution from fellow Richmondites Windhand. Their half of the split does what Cough could and should have. In other words, it takes Black Sabbath to its logical extreme.
I’m not quite sure what to make of Virginia’s Inter Arma. The band’s sophomore full-length Sky Burial defies categorization while sounding completely familiar. They combine a lot of different elements, but primarily they take the sound of current-day U.S. black metal (e.g. Castevet) into the tempo and song structures of an arty kind of groove metal. It reminds me a great deal of France’s Eryn Non Dae, with some caveats.
Are they boldly combining influences in new ways, or do they lack identity? That’s largely a function of how good you think it is, and in all honesty it’s little of both, but I’m leaning more towards the lack of identity.
I like Obituary as much as the next metalhead. At least when they are doing something entertaining. Unfortunately at times, Obituary gets bogged down in a groove and refuses to let it go. The result is extremely tedious. At least having Ralph Santolla around to make things more interesting with a blazing guitar solo evens some of that out.
Now why in the hell did I open an Unburied album review with a discussion of Obituary? Because Unburied sound like Obituary. At their most ridiculously boring. That is not a good sign by the way. Imagine an entire album full of Obituary-stuck-in-a-groove with absolutely no release. Does not sound like much fun does it? After hearing this album I can attest that no, no it is not much fun. I happen to like death metal with a fair amount of groove (I love Jungle Rot), but Unburied really takes it way too far.
This is not a new release, rather this is the reissue of Deceased's fourth album. The more I hear from this band, the more I love them. Which is saying something because I have been completely on board with their style since the first time I heard them a few years ago. How this band continues to put out terrific album after terrific album with almost no notoriety whatsoever is completely beyond me. But we are not really here to discuss that. What we are to do is to take a look at this release.
I have not heard everything released by this band yet, but this is probably the most melodic album that I have heard yet from them. The guitar leads in particular are incredible. The beginning melody to opening track "The Premonition" grabs the listener right away and refuses to let go. It is a harbinger of things to come on this release because the album never lets up. Deceased plow through this album like a rampaging beast. The album is fast and furious.
Do you want some more of that dark Americana? Of course you do.
16 Horsepower: Secret South (2000)
(5 out of 5 stars)
Good Lord, do I love 16 Horsepower. After their incredible debut record (reviewed here) they released more of the same, with only slightly less excellent results. Until Secret South, that is. The record retains everything that made the band great, the proprietary blend of dark Appalachia/country/grunge/punk/etc., but in retrospect it clearly marks a shift for David Eugene Edwards and company. Its focus is more on the sound, less on hook-oriented songs, and it jettisons the occasional upbeat moments of its predecessors. The songs themselves are still each worthy in their own right, though. As a complete experience, they never exceeded it. It's fitting, then, that it would be the band's last record of new original material, and is a perfect segue into Edwards' Wovenhand.
Look, if you're a regular reader of mine and you haven't checked them out yet, get on it right now. Check out "Strawfoot," "Cinder Alley," and the incredible rendition of "Wayfaring Stranger."
Lamb of God's Ashes of the Wake was an important record for me when I began the transition from a mostly mainstream metal fan to a more extreme metal fan. The band's combination of an extreme sound with accessible songwriting was just what I needed at the time. But despite my love for that album, I've paid no attention to them since. I have no idea what "Redneck" sounds like, despite that being (apparently) their best-known song.
I am a different person since then. Then, I had no kids, I was still in school, I was renting, and the only really extreme metal I had came from Opeth, Meshuggah, and Death. Now, I have three kids, am in a career, am about to buy my second house, and I'm more likely to listen to a self-released record than a Roadrunner one. So, I think it's not them, it's me. I've changed, but Lamb of God hasn't. I couldn't even get through the record, stopping it at the instrumental cut halfway through and thinking, "I don't think I can listen to this same song seven more times."
In the 1970's, heavy metal was heavy metal, plain and simple. There just weren't enough bands out there to justify dividing it into subgenres. But by the early- to mid-1980's, heavy metal was separating into a number of distinct subgenres.
On the one hand, you had your commercialized glam metal. But in the true metal camp, you had the thrash metal scene which was just beginning to explode, taking punk influence to speed things up. You also had bands like Fates Warning making metal more progressive and complex, and bands like Venom making it fast and raw while keeping it simple.
Almost universally, metal was losing either its simplicity or its slow tempo. But to the nascent doom metal scene*, the key to heavy metal was to make it slow and keep it heavy, and to write a few really good riffs instead of writing 100 riffs and playing them so fast that (hopefully) no one will notice if you wrote a bad one.
*To call it a "scene" is a bit of a misnomer. Doom was (and generally always has been) an outsider genre even by metal standards, so there have never been enough doomsters in one place at one time to form a regional scene.
Black Sabbath (the original metal band) has often been labeled a doom metal band, making doom arguably older than so-called "traditional" heavy metal. So, in a sense, doom metal is the purest expression of the metal style. So, let's take a look at three of the bands who brought the slow and the heavy back into metal, bringing it back to its true roots.
Pentagram: Pentagram (Relentless) 1985
Originally released as a self-titled album in 1985, and re-released as Relentless with a different track order in 1993, the debut from Virginia band Pentagram is one of the most important early doom records. Pentagram played simple riffs at a slower pace than most of their metal contemporaries, and they played it heavy. The vocals were generally clean, in contrast to the harsh yells or growls of thrash and proto-black metal, although the occasional gruffness has been added for emphasis. There are even some Ozzy-esque embellishments here and there (check the "Yeah!" in "All Your Sins"). Like Sabbath, there are some slightly faster songs ("Death Row" or "Relentless"), but Pentagram shines the most with the slow and the heavy: "Sinister" is a perfect example. The recording is not the best, and doesn't fully capture how heavy the music should be, but the songs are so good it's worthwhile anyway. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.
Candlemass: Epicus Doomicus Metallicus (1986)
While Pentagram could be considered a traditional heavy metal band, or proto-doom, Sweden's Candlemass is undeniably doom metal. With its slow, dramatic riffs, keyboard embellishments, and vibrato overdrive vocals (provided by Johan Längqvist in his only appearance for the band), this album sparked the sub-sub-genre of "epic" doom metal. It opens on "Solitude", a depressing masterpiece and easily one of the best metal songs ever recorded, then goes through five more great tracks before it's done. "Black Stone Wielder" is another highlight, featuring a cool discordant riff in the verse and a climax where the riffs speed up under the solo. This album is a must-have, and earns 5 out of 5 stars. You'll never get the chorus of "Please, let me die in solitude" out of your head.
Saint Vitus: Born Too Late (1986)
LA's Saint Vitus is sometimes cited as the original doom metal band, and it's easy to see why, given that the music is clearly doom metal, they formed in 1979, and released their debut before anyone else in the style (1984). While Candlemass is credited with being the original epic doom metal band, Saint Vitus's style is much closer to stoner doom, with a fuzzy, mellow sound and use of weird guitar sounds and psychedelic solos. Born Too Late is the first album to feature the legendary Scott "Wino" Weinrich. His husky voice wasn't nearly as good as it is in his older age (as evidenced on his recent confessional-style singer-songwriter work I discussed yesterday), but it was already very strong. The riffs on this album aren't nearly as good as what's on the Pentagram or Candlemass releases above, but the atmosphere makes up for it. The highlight is probably closer "The War Starter", with lyrics straight out of Sabbath's playbook. I give it 4 out of 5 stars. I just have to wonder: Why the pink cover?
If you like these, you may also want to check out Trouble's Psalm 9. They may be the only Christian band to ever be influential in starting a new metal genre (other than metalcore).
It seems I'm still on my big doom metal kick. Today, let's talk about Virginia sludge/doom metallers Salome.
Salome is a band which writes their sludge/doom with a very minimalistic approach. Simplicity is, of course, a hallmark of all doom metal, but they take it to extremes. The riffs are just about as heavy as anything else out there (perhaps even the equal of Electric Wizard), and generally as slow as anything but funeral doom (although they go funereal a la Corrupted on "Epidemic"). The drums, too, are simple and slow, but the beat is kept perfectly, something that's more difficult to do at a slow tempo. The vocals are both strained screeches, provided by Katherine Katz, and very deep, slow death growls (I think those are from guitarist Rob Moore CORRECTION: Katherine Katz has informed me she does ALL the vocals--those are crazy low for a woman to be doing!); sometimes both vocal styles are present at the same time. There is no bass.
It sounds like it should be too simple to work, but for their absolute mastery of dynamics. They have a completely organic, unprocessed sound. It's incredibly sludgy, and they always make room for feedback to ring out, sometimes accompanied by sound effects. In fact, the 17 minute "An Accident of History" is driven almost entirely by feedback, with a few notes barely creeping into the song well after the five minute mark.
There are brief sections of faster tempo and the occasional guitar lead (see "Master Failure"), but mostly, this is sparse riffing and screeching. And every second of it is worth listening to. No matter how many times they play a riff, it sounds different each and every time.
The Verdict: Somehow Salome manage to make listening to feedback enjoyable, even to someone completely sober. Maybe it's because the riffs are worth waiting for, or maybe it's because they know how to manipulate the feedback in interesting ways. Maybe both. I recommend listening to it on some headphones with killer bass (might I suggest the Sony MDR XB-500). I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Cough is a sludge/doom band from Richmond, Virginia, and their sophomore release Ritual Abuse came out last month.
Cough's overall sound is fairly typical for the sludge/doom genre. But like fellow Relapse sludge/doomsters Unearthly Trance, the quality of the music is far above the typical.
The riffs are extremely heavy, and slow, with a dirty tone. Feedback is used judiciously, and there are some drugged-out passages here and there. The bass generally tracks along the same riff as the guitar, but not entirely. The vocals go back and forth between a nasal, pained clean vocal and a cross between a caveman yell and a black metal rasp.
The pace is more or less steady throughout the album, but the number, variety, and power of the riffs is astounding. The shortest track ("Crippled Wizard") has an especially great one that recalls "Love Hate Love". They play the notes emphatically, and let them ring out just long enough. And they never let a riff outstay its welcome. On top of that, the songs tend to have multiple solos, which tend toward the simple and slow, and each of them has a distinct personality ("A Year in Suffering" has two of the best).
Even the mellow stoner-style, psychedelic track ("Crooked Spine") has enough going for it (slight echo to the vocals, clean notes and a bluesy solo) to keep it interesting, which is more than I can say for some of Electric Wizard's more hazy passages.
The Verdict: Cough seem to have taken the idea behind Black Sabbath to its logical extreme. It's slow, heavy, ominous, and built on the strength of riffs and great lead guitar work. I'm tempted to give it a perfect score, but I'll hold back just a bit from that. I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.
The issue on appeal is whether Inter Arma, as evidenced on Sky Burial, is “boldly combining influences in new ways, or do they lack identity?”* The rule applicable is whether the release kicks enough ass to make the listener say, “Whoa, this some good fuckin’ shit.” (hereinafter “the kick ass good shit rule”).** Respondent argues in essence that the length of the release, combined with its allegedly mis-placed acoustic interludes and discordant influences present a confused but potential-laden release. We granted this writ because it presents an issue of first impression – i.e. significant disagreement between FMA and joanismylover. Because real-party at interest – Inter Arma – despite some minor mis-steps, ultimately satisfy kick ass good shit rule, joanismylover will, as explained below, give Sky Burial an improved rating.
I decided to check out Reflection of the Negative because half of the split is from Cough. A couple years ago, I nearly gave Cough’s Ritual Abuse a perfect score, stating that the record takes Black Sabbath to its logical extreme.
I like Obituary as much as the next metalhead. At least when they are doing something entertaining. Unfortunately at times, Obituary gets bogged down in a groove and refuses to let it go. The result is extremely tedious. At least having Ralph Santolla around to make things more interesting with a blazing guitar solo evens some of that out.
16 Horsepower: Secret South (2000)
Lamb of God's 
was an important record for me when I began the transition from a mostly mainstream metal fan to a more extreme metal fan. The band's combination of an extreme sound with accessible songwriting was just what I needed at the time. But despite my love for that album, I've paid no attention to them since. I have no idea what "Redneck" sounds like, despite that being (apparently) their best-known song.
, 
making metal more progressive and complex, and bands like 
Originally released as a self-titled album in 1985, and re-released as Relentless with a different track order in 1993, the debut from Virginia band 
While Pentagram could be considered a traditional heavy metal band, or proto-doom, Sweden's 
LA's 
). I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.
. They play the notes emphatically, and let them ring out just long enough. And they never let a riff outstay its welcome. On top of that, the songs tend to have multiple solos, which tend toward the simple and slow, and each of them has a distinct personality ("A Year in Suffering" has two of the best).
to its logical extreme. It's slow, heavy, ominous, and built on the strength of riffs and great lead guitar work. I'm tempted to give it a perfect score, but I'll hold back just a bit from that. I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.