Remember with no sadness … the final request
Slack-assed am I this week, so in deference to Marty and Jake who actually contributed reviews tonight I’ve taken the reins of the update introduction. This time Marty describes his experience with Siberian-temp Black Metallists Hagl, while Jake brings it back Scott Candey-style with the powerviolence of Pharmakon to ponder over. What more could you ask for (aside from additional review material, courtesy yours truly)? Ah well, next week I’ll get back on the horse with … well, something; possibly a cult Dutch death/doom album from 1994 that’s about to be reissued…try and guess what that will be (no googling!). Anyway hope all of you had a Memorial Day worth remembering. If you’re in Chicago, I’ll see ya at Bolt Thrower Saturday night (Jake will be there as well). Buy us a fucking beer!!! \m/
Jim Clifton Playlist
Misery’s Omen – S/T
Bölzer – Aura (amazing shite)
October Falls – The Plague of a Coming Age
Burialkult – A Call From Beyond the Grave
VHOL – S/T
Agalloch – The Mantle
Mötörhead – The Iron Fist
Bolt Thrower – Realm of Chaos
Bathory – Blood Fire Death
Panopticon – …on the subject of mortality
Marty Rytkonen Playlist
Tartaros – The Grand Psychotic Castle
Hagl – In The Heart
Autopsy – Macabre Eternal
Manilla Road – Atlantis Rising
Sacramentum – Far Away From the Sun
Slayer – Show No Mercy
Gamma Ray – Land of the Free
Carcass – Heartwork (It has been a while since I’ve spun this, but it hasn’t held up well. Hugely overrated! Go ahead and HATE!)
Puissance – Mother of Disease
Cruciamentum – Convocation of Crawling Chaos Demo
Jake Moran Playlist
Bölzer – Aura
Circulation of Light – Acheiropoieta
Wreathes – S/T
Kinit Her – Storm of Radiance
Burial Hex – Eschatology II
Gorgoroth – Pentagram
Gorgoroth – Antichrist
Trust – TRST
Forgotten Woods – The Curse of Mankind
Symphonia Sacrosanta Phasmatvm – Path to Yirah
Worm Gear 
A dutch doom/death cult album from 1994? Oh man, I’m curious… Creepmime – Shadows? Mourning – Greetings from Hell? Phlebotomized – Immense Intense Supsense?
Marty> Heartwork hugely overrated?? I beg to differ sir! Still dripping with venom that one me thinks! I do agree on that Cruciamentum though.
Playlist:
Vredehammer – 4. September & Pans Skygge
Way to End – Desecrated Internal Journey
VI – De Praestigiis Daemonum
Weapon – From the Devil’s Tomb
Begrime Exemious – Impending Funeral of Man & Visions of the Scourge (fucking hell this band is GREAT! Especially Visions of the Scourge should be heard by all of you that dig filthy blackened death. It’s so fucking METAL!)
Suffocation – Pinnacle of Bedlam
Immolation – Kingdom of Conspiracy
Incantation – Vanquish in Vengeance
Absu – Absu & Abzu
Oniricous – Ritos Diabólicos (again, recommended)
Cannibal Corpse – Butchered at Birth
Mongrels Cross – The Sins of Aquarius
Vader – The Ultimate Incantation
Hypocrisy – Penetralia
Portal – Vexovoid
Re: Carcass Heartwork, I wouldn’t even give that album a second, so shame on the both of you. hahaha! Carcass stopped being Carcass when they stopped the wonderful filth that was on the first two albums AND also started rehashing riffs from Symphonies of Sickness. In my mind, they died from that point on. Blah blah blah…
Hate it is !
Oh, playlist:
Here is is one that surprised me and I was wrong about from the start:
Lantern ‘Below’ – I love this album now. Man, was I wrong on that one. Just excellent. I love it when that happens.
Occultation – Three and Seven – Jake I think you would really dig this, and all of you actually. http://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/three-seven
Skeletal Spectre – Voodoo Dawn – new one. First great female BM/DM vocalist I have liked! Mix of Necrocurse meets Wolverine Blues.
Empty Whale – That Grey Place We Go
Cianide – Gods of Death (fucking rippingly awesome heavy Celtic Frost Death worship!!!)
Venenum EP
Bones from Belgium – Demo
Dishammer – Vintage Addiction
Excoriate – On Pestilent Winds
Arckanum – new LP (to lazy to find the name)
Bolzer – i don’t have my fucking Aura record yet you assholes! So I can’t techincally put it here, but if i did, it would go right fucking here. hehehehe
Just got my mailing list update from Doomentia Records and I think I know now which doom/death cul album reissue Jim’s talking about… It has been reissued before (in 2011, but only 500 copies) but this reissue is something to be very glad about!
Eviltails> Just reveived both Kingdom and Bones in the mail. \m/
Re: Carcass, come on man, you don’t even like Necroticism? Insane… Agree with you on Cianide though!
‘Heartwork’ slipped a lot in my eyes over the years too. Still like a few songs on it, but ‘Swansong’ is their only album that still gets any spins around here, and even that one has slipped some w/ time.
Playing This Week:
-Been on the go and doing lots of yard work this week, so there’s been little time for listening:
Critical Mass- s/t. Long-lost 80s US metal band.
Iron Claw- s/t. Killer collection from an early 70s Proto-Metal band. Some reel heavy tunes on here considering they were all recorded between ’70-’74.
Beastie Boys- License to Ill. ‘Cause Mutiny on the Bounty is still what it’s all about 🙂
Freek: good! Those are two very fun and excellent CDs. Haha, yeah I have pretty unchangeable opinions about Carcass. I even gave their releases post-Symphonies one more try about 2 years ago, and I felt equally disgusted with them. That is just me though. I think most people would disagree.
Especially Kingdom is very infectious, I don’t know what it is with the Polish but they keep amazing me (Gortal, Stillborn, Vader). And I dig the production of that Bones CD a lot; guitar on the right, bass (what a monster!) on the left, drums and vocals in the middle, and no overdubs during guitar leads. Just like the first Ramones LP hahaha…
Re: Carcass: you’re all halfwits. Nuff said. (wink)
Just got a mailinglist update from a label I like; I think I know which cult doom/death reissue Jim is talking about… \m/
Freek: what do you think of that Entombed cover on the Kingdom album? I thought it really didn’t fit and sounded a bit weak, but just curious what others thought. Covers are really hard to pull off in ones own style and still make it as powerful.
Hatespawn did an awesome Morbid Angel cover that I thought was fantastic.
Regarding Heartwork…. a handful of good songs, but it’s just too slick and “COMMERCIAL METAL” for me. With a name like Carcass, I want the riffs to be inventive and filthy. The sound ragged and frenzied. Both Symphonies and Necroticism are really perfect albums in my eyes. The riffs and songs are formed and inventive without sounding like cookie cutter metal bi-product. Heartwork is just too perfect. The tunes too rockin’. It’s fucking Carcass, not mall metal. I realize these older guys in the scene just want to evolve as musicians and actually attempt to live off their music, but if you’re going to drastically alter your sound or style, change the name. It’s simple.
Surgical Steel…. I’m anxious to hear it, but I’m sure it’ll be Heartwork and Swansong united with a tweeked out pro tools production. Prove me wrong Carcass!
Eviltails> yep, you’re right about the Supposed to Rot cover (actually a Nihilist song). Doesn’t fit in with their sound and the blastbeat totally ruins it (D-beat motherfuckers!). Ah, that’s why there’s a “next” button on the remote…
Marty> The tunes are rockin’ but I think they still breathe the same vile sickness, the subject matter is in a way even more sick than the pathology stuff I think. And although mostly mid-tempo, the guitars shred IMO. And Jeff is still Jeff. But hey, to each his own.
What does bother me is that fans often seem to think that when a band changes style or evolves they sell out, they do it to make a living, they turn their back on the fans. Bullshit. Why can’t Heartwork just be the record they really wanted to make because they had enough of their previous style? Carcass has been constantly evolving from grind to sick death metal to more melodic death metal to Heartwork and Swan Song and I applaud them for it, they do what they want to do. Just like I applaud Abominant and Cianide for sticking to what they know and love.
Change the name? Because they changed the recipe and you don’t like the taste they can’t use the brand anymore?
Heatwork is a really good album, although there are a few duds towards the end of the album. The one thing I really miss is Bill’s vocals. I thought how they mixed with Jeff’s were perfect on the previous three releases.
I guess I’m missing the “commercial metal” sound. Yeah the production is cleaner, but the songs are good (in my opinion), so that has no bearing on my judgement of the album. I would think any musician would want that for their art. Maybe it seems commercial due to the obvious influence over the years. And with no offense intended, it’s their band, they don’t have to change the name for anyone.
Jake, good call on that Trust album. It’s one of my favorites from last year. As for Heartwork, it’s the first album I reach for when I’m in a Carcass mood. I think the production on it is still kind of filthy, especially on the drums, and the vocals were just as gnarly as ever.
Not sure I’d call ‘Heartwork’ commercial since that implies it was designed to have broader sales appeal and get more airplay. This is no Black Album; it was never intended to draw in jocks and yo-yos. Now it certainly has a more streamlined sound than earlier albums and goes in a different direction from a songwriting standpoint, but the end result is still a sick-sounding death metal concoction. I’ll go out on a limb and draw a parallel to RUSH here; both bands went over the top in their early days just to show what they could do (Rush w/ 20+ minute prog convolutions, Carcass with pathological sickness), but both later streamlined their formulae to go with new sounds while maintaining their overall integrity (Rush was always thinking-man’s prog rock, Carcass was always sick death even when it became slick death). Wile I may not be nuts about some of their output, I can respect the changes they made. This is different from, say, SACRED REICH or METALLICA, who changed their sounds strictly in accordance with popular emerging trends with the clear goal of boosting MTV coverage, airplay, and selling outside the traditional hevy metal fan base.
Enough of that; time to go rawk out with some more IRON CLAW while sorting ‘Magic: the Gathering’ cards…. ’cause D20 is how I roll 🙂
I don’t think Marty was implying that Carcass was seeking to vastly grow their consumer base, but rather Heartwork is too clean for, well, Carcass. Change and development is good. But we all don’t have to like it. I don’t understand what is special about this album. A lot of it is rehashed riffs ala bill steer. but, i’ll stop. this conversation, as fun as it has been has been pounded to the ground..
and freek, yes technically nihilish. yeah yeah…
Nightsblood> Rush! Love that band! Don’t think Sacred Reich meant to hop on the money train though… Anyway, guess Eviltails is right. We’ve al made our point. Oh and Eviltails; yeah, yeah, I know, sometimes I just can’t help myself…
New Burzum and Arckanum just arrived! \m/
oh dude, let me know what you think of the burzum. tell us a little about it. i have yet to listen to it on youtube (all songs posted).
FYI – if you want to hear carcass done the right way – check out Eisenvater ‘ I ‘ and Ghoul ‘We Came of the Dead!’
How those two albums are fucking excellent. Heavy and nasty.
I had only time to listen to a couple of tracks today. First impression; I don’t find it so immediately gripping as his previous electronic albums. Stylistically it seems to fall in between Hlidskajlf and Daudi Baldrs; heavy on the atmosphere, some melody but not much. Deserves closer inspection, with undivided attention, on headphones, in a darkened room hehehe…
The Arckanum kicks ass! Heavy heavy crustpunkblackmetal with the usual mysterious atmospheric touches.
Eisenvater and Ghoul, will check out. For old school Carcass worship, swedish style, be sure to check out General Surgery!
i will on general surgery. never gave them a chance.
yes, the arckanum is so fucking good. been on my record player ever week now.
Eisenvater I, II, and III are all excellent. Super super underated buried band from Germany. shame