Career Advice

I just got an e-mail from a student at a top-tier law school* wanting some advice for

a young man covered in tattoos who never wants to say to a character and fitness committee that he enjoyed, say, Craft’s Fuck the Universe? Should I wear my Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses shirt to law school, and when? And how do I steer myself to a job that doesn’t make me want to retch?

Most of this will apply to any metalhead who wants to enter a professional career, but I'm going to focus on lawyers.

So, first of all, your musical taste is not going to come up unless you bring it up. Nobody asks that question, and only music snobs care. (And yes, all metalheads are music snobs.)

Tattoos, on the other hand, might be a problem. Thankfully you'll be wearing a jacket any time it matters. If that doesn't cover up your tattoos, I can't help you. I'm sure there are places and specialty areas where it won't matter, but I'm not knowledgeable about what those might be.

As far as your clothing choices in law school, I think you have to get a sense for the culture of your school. If most people are wearing T-shirts, then wear whatever T-shirt you want. It won't matter, at least not unless you're wearing something particularly offensive. Law school is interesting in that you won't be able to simply remain silent in class. You will be called upon to speak, and your intelligence and thoughtfulness will be what informs your cohorts' opinions of you. Certainly more than the shirt you're wearing.

In your professional life--which starts for real after your first year of law school, for most--your work and your attitude are going to speak for you. If you have the right attitude and put out solid work, then people will like you. Don't start blasting Destruktor on your first day, though. Get comfortable in the office first, and then, if you think it's OK, and people already have a sense of you, you can play music in your office. At a reasonable volume of course. And if someone comes in to talk, have the decency to turn it off so you can listen to them without distraction. If someone hears your music, but they already like you, they'll find it curious or weirdly charming.

Now, on to what I think is the most difficult question: How to get into a job that you don't hate. Oscar Wilde famously said, "The study of law is sublime, and its practice vulgar." I found that to be true in most cases. There is probably a positive correlation between vulgarity and pay, too. The more ambitious you are, I suspect, the more disgusting your ultimate career is likely to be. As for me, I landed in a small firm in a relatively small town (Lincoln), so it wasn't terrible by any means. But the private practice of law is always going to involve two things: counsel and salesmanship. The counseling part was fine. I often enjoyed it. But ultimately I found any kind of salesmanship to be too distasteful for me. And that's why I landed in government.

If I said any more on the topic, I'd only be speculating. I believe you can get a feel for the culture of an office through an interview. But any place where they demand top-tier law school students and work everyone 80 hours per week is going to be a soulless hellpit. If you want to make six figures out the gate, that's what you're looking at. If you want to love your job, find some area that's meaningful to you and try to work in that field.

There is one piece of advice I can give that I know for certain is good: Don't let law school or your career take over your entire life. My law school cohorts told me, after our first year, that I had the right idea. I made time every day to read for pleasure. You need to keep a hobby and make personal time every single day. Firstly, because it's just not worth it if you can't. And secondly, because you really don't need to work that hard to succeed in law school. You're probably more intimidated than you need to be. You got in, and that means you're smart. You can handle it. Maybe not if your goal is to be in the top ten percent, but if that's your goal, you're asking the wrong person.

I hope this helps.

*Incidentally, in looking at school rankings so I could remove the name of the school, I realized that based on LSAT scores, I likely could have gone to a top ten law school. Oh, well. I prefer where I am in life now.

"Metal Lifestyle" Products

I was contacted by someone who is starting a line of "metal lifestyle" products. Naturally, I was curious about this. What are "metal lifestyle" products? I thought, perhaps, since most of us can't collect Nazi memorabilia like Lemmy does, because it's just not practical, maybe it's Paula Deen cookware. (Get it? Because . . . oh, never mind.)

So I clicked through to find that it's a blog (a combination of a metal blog, BuzzFeed garbage, and marketing tips, I guess). It's also a clothing line. The clothes feature the logo of the blog. And immediately, I was annoyed.

It is a cool logo, yes. But it's not going to support the people who actually make the music we love. We don't wear band T-shirts only to show the world we are metalheads, but also because buying it pumps a little money into the coffers of the bands and labels that need it. I don't have a problem with people who don't make music making money off metalheads. You can write all the metal-related books and movies you want. Really, any other products are fine. But when you start horning in on the profits of the people who make music, that's a problem. Shirts, beanies, and hoodies are one of the last revenue streams that bands can still make money from. Every shirt this "metal lifestyle" blog sells is $24 that doesn't go to Pallbearer or the many fine artists of Hells Headbangers. (Not to mention, that's pretty pricy. You can buy shirts straight from Profound Lore or HH for $14-$17.)

I had the same issue a while back with someone who was posting in a Mercyful Fate group on Facebook. This person was making shirts that evoked images associated with MF and King Diamond, but didn't quite infringe on copyright. I called them out then, and I'm calling this guy out now. Though, I'm not doing it by name, because I don't want to send any traffic his way.

Don't support this kind of bullshit. Spend your black T-shirt money on the bands.

"You are using your guitar in metal as a weapon. It is an axe, literally, and you should be wielding it, right? Zhi-di-di-di-GA! Oh, yi-di-di-GUH, ERR! You're just chopping at these Middle Earth creatures with your axe, di-GA!"

--John Roderick

Mastodon: "The Motherload" Video

Social Justice Warriors at It Again

So, Mastodon recently released a video for "The Motherload." Now, as I've said before, Mastodon had already released my two favorite songs of the last decade--"Curl of the Burl" and "Colony of Birchmen." Well, "The Motherload" is number three on that list. Just so you know where I'm coming from.

The video, in the band's long-standing practice, is silly. It's a parody of a 90's metal video which somehow turns into a dance contest (or really, a twerking contest) among a bunch of big-bottomed girls. Then it goes psychedelic in one of the funniest moments of music video history.*



So, what's the deal? Apparently, some people found it sexist. Or, more properly, one guy put himself out there to say that it was sexist in an effort to get attention. Maybe others have followed suit, I really don't know.

First of all, to that claim, the only real answer is "Fuck off." It's a metal music video. What exactly do you want out of it?

But I'll bite. If you're a regular reader, you already know where I stand on claims of social injustice in metal. No, I'm not a misogynist, but there is simply no place for social justice warriors in metal. Not only does metal not have a unifying agenda, but it's often transgressive. No one should be telling any metal band what they should or shouldn't do. Metal is not here to follow and reinforce ideal social norms.

Putting that aside for a moment to address the actual claim, it's impossible to back it up.** OK, yes, it does have women shaking their asses. A lot of them. But you'd have to be an idiot to watch this video and think that it's exploitative. It parodies exploitation, and the combination of sheer excess and overall tone make that quite clear. And if you're still not convinced, just look at the women's faces. Do they look like they feel exploited? On the contrary, they look empowered, and they look like they're having fun.

The only mistake Mastodon made was by responding in a slightly defensive posture. They should have just laughed it off, and all would be right with the world.

Only an adolescent would be turned on by this. Only a moron would be offended by it. For everyone else, it's just funny. So just knock it off already.

*I am really not qualified to make that claim. I don't really watch music videos much. But it is funny.
**See what I did there?

On the Passing of H.R. Giger

Man is nothing

What is finite and transient has relevance only in relation to what is infinite and eternal. Man can make nothing of himself, if he draws only on his own forces . . . . Led astray by humanism and blinded by the belief that man is the centre of the universe, he fails to recognize his true place in the order of things. He forgets the basis of his existence, and therefore he must perish.

--Excerpt from "Panderma 4," Carl Laszlo, art collector/publisher

The artist in 1972, when he was the age I am today.

By now you may have heard the Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger has died. The mainstream reaction is, of course, "The guy who designed the monster from Alien died." I don't think a law school colleague of mine will mind if I quote his reaction, which I think is a fairly typical one:

His stand-alone art, without the context of a backstory (such as in Alien), was disturbing, but only to the extent that a Metallica t-shirt appealed to me as a high-school student. Weird and grotesque just for the sake of being weird and grotesque.

This attitude toward the works of Giger bothers me much more than it would seem is rational. He is, after all, just one artist. So what if people don't get it?

In case you can't already tell, this is going to end up being about a lot more than just Giger. This is about the purpose of art, or at least one purpose of it, and what that means to me.

Painter, sculptor, filmmaker, designer, and more, his work has spoken to me on a primal level since my youth. So I will agree with the popular sentiment that there is a juvenile appeal to his work. But art that is disturbing--even disturbing for the sake of being disturbing--is almost the only kind of art that I care about. It's why I care about metal, it's why I care about Lovecraft or Poe, and it's why I care about Giger.

Metal Doesn't Give a Shit

No Masters. Not Even Liberal Ones.

On my first day of law school, my class was all gathered in a room to hear boring people talk. One of them made a joke about everyone there being a type A personality, which got a chuckle from everyone but me. This was absolutely news to me, a guy who spent undergrad surfing the Internet until 3:00 a.m. and finishing everything at the last minute.

Now I occasionally come across offhand references to metalheads being mostly liberal. I feel about the same there. I suppose I'm liberal on a few things, and conservative on a few others. But that's not really the point.

My impression was always that real metalheads don't give a shit.

So, You Want to Do Metal PR

I received a lovely e-mail not too long ago from a lady doing PR. It's simply, just, lovely. This is the whole spiel:

Hello, I came across your website and was very impressed with everything you are doing. It would be an honor if you would consider [this band] (formerly known as [whatever]) for an album review.

[Their] debut, self-titled CD was recorded, produced and mixed by the legendary [somebody] ([he worked with three household names in rock/metal, a famous rapper, and a famous R&B singer). [The band] combines classic hard-rock roots with the creativity and energy of today’s contemporary metal. Their music is heavy and exciting with an abundance of groove and a touch of melody.

[The band] Southern California based metal band that was established in 2012. [The band] consists of [a dude] (Lead Vocals), [another dude] (Guitar), [a dude who shares his name with a guy I went to college with] (Bass) and [another dude] (Drums/Percussion).

I would appreciate if you would give them a listen and let me know what you think.

[Drop Box Link]

Album release date is Jun 25, 2013 and is now available on iTunes, CD Baby, Sound Cloud

I thank you in advance. And if you should need anything else, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Looking forward to your reply.

Best regards,

I remember checking them out because the bass player has the same name as a guy I went to college with, who was into Slipknot at least, so I just wanted to see if it was remotely possible it was him. It wasn't. Anyway, the music was about as weak as you'd expect.

More Entrails, Please

I wanted to draw your attention to "A Very Dirty Lens: How Can We Listen to Offensive Metal." It's a very long article, but I've summed up what I take to be the most important parts.

I've written fairly extensively on the topic in the past, and, to pull a quote out of this one that describes me as a hypothetical person:

"They might argue that it doesn’t matter when you can’t decipher the lyrics anyway… it’s simply about the stirring sounds. Putting aside the contentious to enjoy the transcendence from the mundane that black metal provides is a stance taken by many, but it’s also a position that others would see as weak, and there’s an entire red and anarchist black metal scene backing that view."

The article quotes some academic as saying that even INSTRUMENTAL music is political if the artist has said that an idea inspired it. That should be laughable, and it ignores the entire history of art criticism, which holds that once a work is created, it's no longer controlled by the artist. But the article seems to agree, and take the stance that simply by doing anything in the world you are doing something political.

The article also claims that it's contradictory to support freedom of speech while also claiming that politics doesn't matter. How did that get past the editor? That's nonsense, on its face.

Five Albums That Changed My Life

History

"[T]ell us about the five albums that changed your life," says Islander. It sounds like the kind of question an amateur interviewer would ask. Because it's exactly the kind of question most people want the answer to. After I read the original post over at No Clean Singing, my first thought was to whip up a quick list and blast it out there in the comment form. But the question deserves more thought than that.

This isn't, "What are your five favorite albums?" That's pertinent information, yes. But it only tells of current taste. It doesn't tell you anything deeper. But this question asks for your history, your personality, your memories. It invites you to tell a story.

I've already done a thorough explanation of every aspect of my metal history, but how many people are going to read all of that? This breaks it down into something a little more digestible, in chronological order based on when it changed my life.

1. Metallica: Metallica (1991)

8th grade. Sleepover at my friend's house. He wanted me to hear his dad's tape, but he didn't think we were supposed to be listening to it. The first heavy chord of "Enter Sandman" forever changed me from the kind of person who did not care about music in the slightest to the kind of person who would eventually write several album reviews a week. I really can't overstate the impact this had on me. It was the first CD I ever bought, and while I don't hold it in such high regard today, nothing will ever be more significant.

The Future of Digital Albums: Art, and Beyond

Digital music doesn't have to have static album art. With advances in technology, there are some who will take it even further, beyond the art.

These days, one of the main selling points of physical media is the possibility of highly-detailed packaging. Graf Orlock's Doombox, which can be transformed into a cardboard boombox, is only the pinnacle of examples. Most of them have album art that unfolds in unusual ways, plus detailed liner notes. But there's no reason similar attention to detail can't go into a digital package.

Many people seem to think that the digital age is destroying album art, because it's been reduced to thumbnail size. As I've noted before, that's not really the case. There are plenty of reasons it's not true, such as the resurgence of vinyl as a collector's item, the fact merch sales aren't going anywhere, and the abundance of attention given to art in the blogging community. I mean, you can't really have a blog post about an album without any pictures, right?

I've somewhat considered the possibilities of album art in digital media, but South Africa's The Ocean Doesn't Want Me is the first band I've known to begin to take advantage of the possibilities. (Despite their douchy name that screams metalcore, they're clearly not a metalcore band--more Intronaut meets Russian Circles, which ends up being too hopeful-sounding for my tastes.) As the Dust Settles has a true album cover, but after the first song, each track has its own art, a photograph of some natural scene. I hope that this is only one of many.

What's in a Name?

What makes a good metal band name? What makes a bad one? What does it matter?

Like it or not, a band's image matters. How they dress, how they interview, the album art they use, all of these are part of what is, in a sense, a marketing package. It's not quite so crass as pure marketing, in the same way that music is not precisely a "product" as much as it is "art," but at the core the two are hard to differentiate.

Perhaps the single most important element of that identity is the band's name. After all, you can't talk about a band without mentioning their name, and given the way that you find out about metal bands, their name is the first thing you'll know about them. Not their sound, their philosophy, or anything else, but their name. According to a recent poll on this site, at least 78% of you admit the name is important. Some of the rest of you are lying to yourselves. A full 11% will most likely avoid a band with a stupid name, unless you are thoroughly convinced of their excellence.

Wrest, TTTW, and Sexual Assault Charges

True Evidence, True Law

There's been a lot of discussion about Leviathan's recent album, True Traitor, True Whore, and what that says about Wrest's current legal predicament. In case you're not aware, a former girlfriend has accused him of sexually assaulting her with a tattoo gun. (Wrest is the sole member of Leviathan, and a tattoo artist.) I don't intend to go into questions of guilt, innocence, truth or falsehood of the allegations, or what really happened. What I do want to talk about is what Wrest is facing, and how his latest album could bear on those charges. It's an unusual intersection of two areas of my interest: metal and law.

Given the charges he's facing, many are shocked at the album's quite frank comment. The title itself displays a possibly misogynistic attitude, and with song titles including "Harlot Rises", "True Whorror", and "Every Orifice Yawning Her Price", that doesn't appear to help matters much. Everyone knows that "what you say can and will be used against you in a court of law". But does this really get admitted into evidence?

My Take on the Ozzy and Sharon Split

You've probably already heard it somewhere else before coming here, but Ozzy has announced that, after nearly 30 years of marriage, he has filed for divorce from wife/manager/puppetmaster Sharon. I know plenty has already been said on the subject, but I wanted to add my two cents.

I can't help but speculate that maybe, just maybe, with the "digital bitch" gone, that the forthcoming album might actually be worth something. Here's hoping.

Exhumed: Blue Öyster Cult

Legends of Heavy Metal?

Blue Öyster Cult is widely considered to be one of the progenitors of heavy metal by non-metalheads. They have been covered by metal bands a number of times, perhaps most notably by Metallica and Iced Earth, and they introduced the metal umlaut that has been used by so many bands since (reportedly inspired by the Wagnerian aspect of heavy metal). They are also one of the first groups in hard rock to seemingly endorse the occult, adopting a suggestive name and obscure symbolism.

But why don't metalheads claim the band, even if everyone else seems to think they're one of the genre's founding fathers?

Blue Öyster Cult (1972)

Listening to this with today's ears and today's expectations, it's hard to understand how the band was ever considered heavy metal. Only "Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll" could fairly be called metal. Maybe it's because their most well-remembered hits were the metallic songs. Other than that one, only opener "Transmaniacon MC" could even remotely be considered metal, and that's under the broadest definition of the term. Aside from those, you'll find plenty of decent blues-rock and psychedelic rock. While there's nothing wrong with that, most of it doesn't grab me, and it's definitely not metal. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

They Betrayed Their Fans

The Delicious Invasion

As far as video games go, I have become the guy who buys the hit Keith Urban album at Wal-Mart three years after it came out. I used to be up on video games, buying some on the release date after months of anticipation. Now, I'm playing old Wii games.

But that hasn't stopped me from reading Penny Arcade. Tycho's prose is so compelling to me, and I'm sure it's influenced my writing more than a little. I know nothing about his subject matter, but I understand the discussion nonetheless, and the comics still make me laugh.

On Friday, he was discussing the third game in the Mass Effect series. Apparently there has been an uproar about how the story ends, with fans feeling personally violated. I was intrigued by how his discussion applies to metal, specifically to any situation where a band "changes direction" or a venerated label signs a commercial act. I know I've said things about Century Media and The Haunted that fall into this same category. Here is the crux of what he had to say:

When it comes to Mass Effect 3, certainly they have the "right" however vaguely enumerated to make what they want, and those who consume it have the "right" however vaguely enumerated to say that what they have done is wrong/bullshit/authentically evil. These "rights" don't necessarily overlap: they exist as perfect spheres, bouncing off one another in space. Creating or critiquing is just a way to pass the time until you die. I won't say ne'er the twain shall meet, but they might not, and they don't have to.

Ownership is a very complicated business when it comes to cultural product, though. They succeed by virtue of the fact that we, as players, incorporate these stories into our lives.

How much "ownership" do we have in our favorite bands? Do we really have any "right" to be angry with a band for selling out? Does it make any difference that the fans put them in a position to make selling out possible? I don't know. I feel like we do, in my gut. But then I asked the corollary question: Does a band have a duty to please the fans who invested in them? I don't think so. And if they don't have to please us, then why are we offended?

But then I consider Ozzy. Our cultural investment in him is profound. My personal investment equally so. I can't help but feel betrayed by what he's become.

Music Production and the Loudness War

Magnetic Death to Your Ear Drums

 

 

The vast majority of my music consumption is through headphones. There are many advantages to this--it reduces outside distractions, clearly reproduces every detail of the songs, and allows me to pick up on production that plays with the stereo channels. But there are also disadvantages, the biggest of which is that, from album to album I have to adjust the volume. That's even worse when playing my entire library on shuffle. I've tried options such as the "Sound Check" on my iPod, but that just makes everything flat and shitty-sounding.

You would think that by now there would be some kind of standard or technology to make sure that everything is at the same volume. Sadly, that's not the case. And things keep getting worse.

A recent promo from groove/technical metal band Misguided Aggression is a particularly bad offender. Upon playing it, I quickly had to turn the volume down, literally all the way. Even so, it was an unpleasant listening experience, and despite two attempts I couldn't make it through more than a couple songs. As such, I issue summary judgment against the band. (With a cheap pair of ear buds you wouldn't have that problem so much, because they lose a lot of signal between the player and the speakers.)

The Why

Why do people want to make the production louder in the first place? The simple fact is that people like their music loud. It sounds better when it's loud. When you have your own volume control, you can turn it up yourself, but this problem began with jukeboxes, where no one adjusted the machine's volume between songs. If your song was louder than the one that preceded it, then it sounded better, at least in an environment where there is a lot of background noise or the speakers are of low quality. This resulted in labels, producers, and musicians engaging in an arms race to make their recordings louder, to sell more singles.

Metal Political Endorsements

By now you've probably heard that Dave Mustaine endorsed Rick Santorum for President, which is pretty weird when you think about how he has been critical of Republicans in the past. The best commentary on this issue that I've read was from Jay Leno. I don't watch him, and I think he's generally a has-been, but even a broken clock is right twice a day:

Well, a lot of celebrities are now coming forward with their political endorsements. This week, the lead singer of the heavy metal band, Megadeth, says he's endorsing Rick Santorum. That's what he said. Me, I'm going to wait until I hear what Lemmy from Motörhead has to say.

Giving Blood Is Metal

I just got back from giving blood a few minutes ago. I plan to give as often as I can this year, for the first time. Let me tell you why.

Upon my return to blogging after the birth of my twins, I only hinted at what happened, saying that we were "moments away from 'exsanguination' being more than just a cool band name".* That's quite literally true. After the C-section, my wife kept losing blood. Copious amounts of blood. At one point she lost consciousness, and her blood pressure was so low the machine could not get a reading. The nurses had to hold her legs up to force blood into her brain. Luckily, the hospital's rapid response team arrived, and her doctor was nearby, so she was rushed to her second surgery of that day. Today, she is perfectly healthy.

She wouldn't be alive today if it were not for the six units of blood she received.

I shouldn't have to go into why blood is metal. There are 392 bands with "blood" in their name as a separate word, according to Metal Archives. It goes up to 764 if you also count "blood" in a compound word, such as Bloodbath. But why is giving blood metal?

1. They will check the iron level in your blood, to give you a scientific measure of how metal you are. My level is always quite high.

2. If you're too scared to get stuck, you have no business listening to metal in the first place.

3. If metal truly flows in your veins, as it does mine, then you are transferring a little bit of that metallic quality to some other person. If you could find that person right after they get your blood, and play them some Maiden, they would become an instant metalhead. True story.

4. Anything involving blood is metal. Period.

If you have a job, check with your boss, because they may give you time off to do it. If not, do it anyway on your own time.So, get the fuck out there and start donating. You will feel awesome about yourself. Seriously, you will feel like you could be on a Manowar cover.

Also, know that if you're going somewhere to sell your blood, instead of giving it away, then you're a sellout.

(*Exsanguination is a death/thrash band from Japan, apparently.)

Metal Art: The Eye

Morbus Chron: Sleepers in the Rift

Eyes. Nothing else so everyday is so enigmatic. They are said to be the windows to the soul. They are a major part of human attraction and interaction. But they can also be strange and alien to us. Just look at the eyes of someone like Charles Manson, and they will tell you how insane he is.

A single eye, in isolation, is a common motif in metal art. Divorced from the rest of a human face, it's eerie.

The Return of the Cassette, Part 2

A Deposition of a DIY Label Head, Lifetime Black Metal Fan, and Cassette Enthusiast

Mike, the mastermind behind Fallen Empire Records, contacted me to share his thoughts about the cassette format and its revival. The label specializes in vinyl and cassettes, and according to Josh Haun it is "a label to watch". This is how the conversation went.

Full Metal Attorney: I'd like to know your reasons for choosing the format [cassettes].

Mike: OK so, I feel like this will make the most sense if I tell you a story rather than just list some bullet points.

I've been listening to metal since i was 13 and black metal primarily since I was 15. I'm 22 now, so that's the majority of my life. When I was younger I used to buy CDs all the time because that's all I knew. I probably amassed 150+ CDs before I was 16 or 17. Around that time I discovered torrenting via private sites (at the time, it was OiNK, and then Waffles once OiNK was shut down). This really opened up my world to a totally new way of discovering music, and I slowly bought less and less CDs.

After a while, I decided that I still wanted to buy and collect music, so I switched my focus to vinyl. I was always intrigued by the record player in my living room that my parents never used anymore, and I loved the fact that the art was several times larger than the CD format. I bought a few used metal LPs at a local shop, and found a few favorites on eBay (Dissection - Storm of the Light's Bane was an early purchase) and started paying attention to vinyl. For a while, I didn't really listen to my vinyl much, it was just a physical collection, but as time went on I decided I wanted to listen to the stuff I had, and I started to pay more attention to my turn table and also started buying more vinyl. This was probably around 2007-2008.

From this point forward my music philosophy was this: find music via torrent sites/blogs and buy my absolute favorites on vinyl. However, there was still some aspect of music buying that I loved that was missing: going into a record store and buying 'blind'. I used to do this with used sections of CDs all the time. Go into the store with 30 bucks, leave with 6-7 CDs. Vinyl is expensive, you can't do that with vinyl. So at Maryland Death Fest 2009 I bought 2 tapes from a distro (Paragon Records) that was set up. Raate - Sielu, Linna and Xul - Demo I. Cost me $8.

Raate: Sielu, Linna (vinyl)

Raate turned out to be tremendous, and Xul turned out to be in interesting, mechanical (almost like Thorns s/t) exercise in cold northern black metal. At this point I was intrigued by cassettes, but still didn't take to buying them often. It wasn't til Paragon Records had a sale (I think summer 2010), and I purchased about 20 cassettes from them for $60 bucks that I fully became interested in cassettes. The thrill of cheap, blind buying was back again.

I began to take notice that a lot of my favorite bands released demo tapes in between, or before they started releasing full lengths on bigger labels. I wanted to hear these releases. From that point on, I started seeking out cassettes more and more. In 2011 I definitely bought more cassettes than anything. I think the format fits underground black metal perfectly, from a sound and aesthetics standpoint.