Time weighs heavy on shoulders of the brave
A week of absence has inspired a renewed inspiration. Maybe it’s the promise of spring? Whatever magics have brought us this eve, we gather in the Northland again, sans Mr. Clifton, to share with you another week of critical reviews. This is a special week, for not only has “Seldom seen” Jake returned, The Worm realm would like to introduce Jack Hannert to the fold of friends/writers that you folks journey from near and far to read every week. We are pleased to have his vast musical knowledge here for all of you to enjoy and exploit. He is one of us and we look forward to having even more talent to contribute to this weekly forum when either Jim or myself is unable to contribute.
This week we pose the question of sound quality. As we hang out at Mr. Jack’s this evening, spin beyond lo-fi black metal recordings, and unanimously agree that crust and anti production values is still a good thing. How do bands get modern recordings to sound so bad? It is a cult mystery. What are your thoughts on horrendous (on purpose) recordings? Keep it slick? Crust is a must? Or is it a non issue, just focus on the music? We want to know. Oh yeah… your playlist would also be required or do not entry! -Marty
Jack Hannert Playlist
Falls of Rauros – The Light That Dwells in Rotten Wood
Ulaan Passerine – Byzantium Crow
Galdr – Ancient Lights From the Stars
Wardruna – Runaljod – Yggdrasil
Master Musicians of Bukkake – Far West
Forteresse – Crepuscle D’Octobre
Wolvserpent – Perigaea Antahkarana
Blood of the Black Owl – A Feral Spirit
Waldteufel – Rauhnacht
Steven R Smith/Ulaan Khol – Ending/Returning
Jake Moran Playlist
Armanenschaft – Psychedelic Winter
Tim Hecker – Virgins
Skogen – Vittra
Graveland – The Celtic Winter
Horrid Red – Nightly Wreaths
The Caretaker – Patience (After Sebald)
Ulaan Passerine – Byzantium Crow
Rudi Arapahoe – Double Bind
Teenage Panzerkorps – Games For Slaves
Conjuror – Left Hand Path Of The Conjuror
Marty Rytkonen Playlist
Slough Feg – Atavism
Ifing – Against this Weald
Stilla – Ensamhetens andar
Astrophobos – Remnants of Forgotten
Bak De Syv Fjell – S/T
Doomsword – My Name will Live on
Drowning the Light – The Fading Rays of the Sun
Drowning the LIght – An Alignment of Dead Stars
Arghoslent – Incorrigible Bigotry
Passage d’Hiver – S/T
Jim Clifton Playlist
Woman Is The Earth – This Place That Contains My Spirit
Howls of Ebb – Vigils of the 3rd Eye
Beyond – Fatal Power of Death
Black Sabbath – The Mob Rules
Skelethal – Deathmanicvs Revelation
Overkill – Taking Over
Thergothon – Streams from the Heavens
Thulcandra – Fallen Angel’s Dominion
Dokken – Under Lock and Key
Celtic Frost – To Mega Therion
Worm Gear 
Nice SLOUGH FEG reference, Marty.
Haven’t commented on these lately since I realized my listening moves in monthly cycles (or greater). Would hate to bore anybody to bloody tears. Here’s a few anyway:
MINISTRY — With Sympathy (random find, random recommendation. I can geek to cheese-synths no problem.)
SLOUGH FEG — Traveller; Down Among the Deadmen
HELSTAR — A Distant Thunder
DOMAINS — Sinister Ceremonies
JUDAS PRIEST — Defenders of the Faith
MYTHOS — Pain Amplifier (I used to tote this as a quasi-classic, but it didn’t ring so true this time.)
MYSTIC FORCE — Shipwrecked with the Wicked (Check this out on Youtube. Almost 100 percent Awaken the Guardian worship…bizarre.)
And tippled heavily for heavy metal sing-along. Hell yeah.
Cheers
And to answer the QotW: Render unto the necro that which is necro. Keep it organic always.
Black metal already had its reformation and counter-reformation circa 1996-1999. After that schism that question in particular was settled as far as I can tell once the necro-Catholics made it doctrine.
Rokken with Dokken Jim…nice!
That Ifing album sounds promising and I’m really having a hard time waiting for the Falls/Panopticon split.
Svolder – Desecration of the Five Holy Pillars
Morbus Chron – Sweven
Death – Human
Cynic – Focus
Legend – Death in the Nursery (A fav NWOBHM album of mine)
Believer – Dimensions
Rainbow – Rising
Waldgefluster – Meine Fessein
Vspolokh – Sorrow of the Past
GWAR – Scumdogs of the Universe
I think there is a time and a place for a raw, crusty production and a time and place for a clean, crisp production. Just depends on what style the bands are playing and what they are trying to convey with their sound.
Sound quality rarely plays a part in my consumption of music, from a production standpoint that is. Some bands sound better with a full on production while others sound better with a crusty lo-fi approach. Where quality does come into play for me is in mp3s at low bitrates. There is a distinct difference in quality if you ask me and since my main form of music consumption is digital I tend to go for the highest quality mp3 or audio file I can get.
Katatonia – Brave Murder Day
Katatonia – Dead End Kings
Morbus Chron – Sweven
Cara Neir – The Overwatch EP
Gwar – Scumdogs of the Universe
Cormorant – Earth Diver
Fluisteraars – Dromers
Massacre – Back From Beyond
Sargeist – Feeding the Crawling Shadows
Dark Tranquility – A Memory Construct EP
Thou – Heathen
Sun Worship – Elder Giants
Krigsgrave – Lux Capta Est
Chuck Ragan – Till Midnight
Heretoir – Substanz
Triptykon – Eparistera Daimones
Thränenkind – The Elk
Carpe Noctem – In Terra Profugus
Angist – Circle of Suffering
Galdr – Ancient Lights From the Stars
Gorguts – Colored Sands
Vspolokh – Sorrow of the Past
Falls of Rauros – The Light That Dwells in Rotten Wood
Woods of Desolation – As The Stars
Oak Pantheon/Amiensus – Gathering Split
Obsequiae – Suspended in the Brume of Eos
@Neil…I’ll check out the Mystic Force. AtG is one of my favorites, so kinda curious to listen based on your comment.
Dub Buk – Taking you On! & Rus Above All!
Scanner – Terminal Earth. Inferior to Hypertrace…but still fun
Morbus Chron- Sweven – Like the Tribulation album from last year, I enjoy the long periods of instrumental sections on this. Too many bands today sing over everything.
Cult of Fire – The Sanskrit title one…
Desecresy – The Doom Skeptron
New Light Choir – Volume II
Morbid Angel – Domination – Otherworldly and Supreme Solos from Mr. Trey…
I tend to favor the lo-fi “warmer” productions. Although I do like quite a few of the newer hard-hitting productions on some of these tech-death albums I find the sharpness of the tones is hard on my ears after a while. The volume I’m listening to them at may have something to do with that as well 🙂
Asgard – To A Golden Age
Gigan – Multi-Dimensional Fractal Sorcery & Super Science
Lunar Reign – Magnum Opus
Theory In Practice – Colonize the Sun
Philosopher – Superior to All Experiences
Buddy Rich – Stick It!
George Russell – The Essence of George Russell
Aurora Borealis – World Shapers
Fluisterwoud – Langs Galg En Rad
Sammath – Godless Arrogance
Sacramentary Abolishment – The Distracting Stone
Medicine Death – As A vigorous & Lustful Figure
Embrionic Death – Regurgitated Stream of Rot
Awesome to see someone mention Sacramentary Abolishment – The Distracting Stone. I love that album. Often interpreted as messy, ‘forced’, etc. I think it just screams HONEST, raw, and unbridled. The track MIST is an all-time favorite.
Ok, here we go …
While I would be the first to admit that a ‘proper’
production has the ability to elevate great material to
amazing levels of profundity, I would never be so foolish
as to say that a recording cannot be great without a
‘proper’ production. Looking back at a lot of my favorite
music of the past couple decades … much of it has what
many would consider to be ‘horrible’ production, even when
genre standards are taken into consideration.
The music I enjoy seems to have more to do with the actual
painting and not so much to do with the perfect
canvas/frame. I would have to say, if made to choose,
that because I prefer a more rustic and natural sounding
production … tally one more for crust / anti-production.
Which leads me to the first item in my recent playlist:
Vilkacis
Owl’s Blood – all
These need to get pressed again. Larger quantities, on CD please.
Winds of Garden – Dusze martwych drzew
Great demo from ’99. A quick glance at YouTube only
shows one clip, with very poor sound when compared to the
CS I have. It at least gives a shadow of an idea for
those who might not know them yet. Although I transferred my to CDR years ago, I’d love to see someone officially release this on CD.
From the same circles, also spinning:
Minas Morgul – Wilderness Shrouded in Winds
Same here. Someone please officially issue a CD of this raw ‘time capsule’.
Perunwit- all early works
Night, All. Until next …
Glad you appreciated the Dokken hail 😉 Great voice from DD, great guitar playing from George Lynch; the cheesy lyrics just add to the Friday night fun! Also, always love to see any Death album on the list; I remember hearing “Lack of Comprehension” for the first time and being completely blown way by where Chuck had taken his sound and musicianship. Ballsy move that alienated some, but I loved it from the first \m/
That Mystic Force was awesome … I started the full album video up, and listened to the entire thing nonstop. Great call!
As for production, for the longest time (mostly in my more ‘mainstream’ period), I really appreciated a ‘pro’ production, but as I delved deeper into the darker realms, my focus on the music over ‘studio magic’ – and the freedom from ‘studio money-grubbing’ that colder and/or organic recordings gave to musicians – conspired to tweak my tastes to the raw. I still love clean production in the classics (ie, ‘Rust In Peace’, ‘Reign In Blood’, ‘Painkiller’, etc, etc) but these days – unless the music tickles my fancy to the nth degree – the sharp, compressed, modern approaches ache my earholes. \m/
Jim you were nearly coined as Jim “rokken with dokken” Clifton in that playlist last week, but i stayed my hand 😉