Obsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vain …
Last week while standing on the beach at Canaveral National Seashore, I watched in silent awe as the gathering clouds wrenched themselves to dark gray. The foam atop the waves began to roil with fervor, and the few people amongst the shell-sand that feared such things gathered up their belongings, heading up the wooden walkway to the safety of their wheeled machines. My brothers-in-metal resolute, together we basked in the incoming natural ferocity and the then-emptiness of shoreline, appreciating the sea’s hatred of our flesh, the power in its solemn pulse.
‘Spring break’, indeed.
Returning home, the snow has finally begun to recede, leaving the brown of rebirth in its wake. The difference in climes is jarring, and as we at Worm Gear adjust to melt both real and imagined, we skip tonight in favor of tax preparation, my son’s fifth birthday and vacation cleansing. In its wake we leave playlists, and thoughts on the Sun and its effect on mood and mind; thus, our entreaty is this: if you could choose one metal album and one non-metal album to celebrate Spring seasonal fever, what would each be, and why? Post and proselytize! See you next week, reviews of Impetuous Ritual’s upcoming and more are pending …
Jim Clifton Playlist
W.A.S.P. – The Last Command
Kiss – Animalize / Asylum
Skogen – I Döden
Motörhead – Iron Fist
Ifing – Against This Weald
Mastodon – Remission / Blood Mountain / Leviathan / Crack the Skye
JJ Grey – Orange Blossoms / Georgia Warhorse / This River
Mad Season – Live at the Moore
Arghoslent – Galloping Through the Battle Ruins / Hornets of the Pogrom
Lustre – Wonder
Ozzy Osbourne – The Ultimate Sin
Marty Rytkonen Playlist
Skogen – Svitjod
Skogen – I Döden
Sacrilegium – Sleeptime
Sacrilegium – Wicher
Grom/North/Maroth – Sovereigns of Northlands
The Ruins of Beverast – Blood Vaults
Panopticon – Collapse
Vinterland – Welcome My Last Chapter
Evilfeast – Lost Horizons of Wisdom
Obsequiae – Suspended in the Brume of Eos
Worm Gear 
Spring has broken early here in the lowlands (to make up for the lack of real winter this year?) which perfectly suits my breezy, jubilant mood: last week our first son was born!
The music machines have mostly been silent this week as my attention lay elsewhere but I did find some headphone space during resting breaks…
Smaga – My Lands
Glorious! Thanks to Unaerth (Perun’s Arrows, indeed!) for the tip and Tommi/Dark Moon Productions for the swift shiiping and the cool ‘zine (Dark Moon #10) that came with it. Check it out: http://www.darkmoonzine.net/
Decomposed – S/T & Devouring
Checked these out a while ago because I loved their artwork and ended up buying both albums; best old school swedish death metal I’ve heard in a long time. Entombed/Dismember worship (alas missing a vocalist as characteristic as LG Petrov or Matti Karki) done the right way!
Wyrd – Huldrafolk & The Ghost Album
Great for late night listening, the repetition and beautiful leads/melodies make for a totally immersive atmosphere. Perfectly suited for short rests in between diaper changes and baby bottles…
What do you guys think of I Döden? I love their first two albums, never checked Eld though because those dicks at Frostscald records won’t respond to my emails.
Spring usually brings out a need for more singalong, rock ‘n roll, grin-from-ear-to-ear while drinking beer in my backyard stuff: Motörhead (nice choice Jim, Iron Fist is unjustly underrated compared to Overkill and Ace of Spades in my opinion), early Aerosmith, early AC/DC, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kiss (Alive I & II!). Gotta reach for some Ozzy too sometime soon…
Picking one album? Gotta think about it, don’t know…
Right, back to the diapers! \m/
Congrats on the new addition to the family! No greater joy, in my opinion. I’ll definitely check out the Smaga, getting lots of love around here \m/ Glad you agree about Iron Fist, I absolutely love that one (“You know me, prepare to die …” haha!). Kiss is great Spring/singalong music; I listened to much of their catalog while hanging with my family & friends in FL (“Loud, wanna hear it loud, right between the eyes!”)
Just got dumped on here so not feeling particularly spring-like at the moment. Spring is one of those seasons that barely registers for me emotionally; I just want it to end.
Instead of my recreational playlist I’ll post what I played in the store last weekend when I was manning it alone and had free rein. Basically the same thing I would’ve played at home otherwise so I’m only kidding myself.
SLOUGH FEG — Digital Resistance
SLAUTER XSTROYES — Winter Kill (the best!)
BRUTALITY — When the Sky Turns Black
AVENGER — Fall of Devotion, Wrath and Blasphemy
VORE — Gravehammer
MORGION — Among Majestic Ruin
CENOTAPH — Epic Rites
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM — Doomsday for the Deceiver
FATES WARNING — Night on Bröcken, The Spectre Within
FLESHCRAWL — Impurity
DEATHROW — Deception Ignored
RAZOR — Evil Invaders
Something like that anyway. Cheers!
Neil…. Deception ignored is such a technical metal masterpiece! A sadly overlooked classic. We’re just wheels in great… machinery!
Agreed! Such German weirdness. Never lose your humor, man!
Congratulations, ikbenfreek, on the new addition to your
family. Best wishes to you and yours for the years to
come! I am glad that you are enjoying the Smaga release!
Marty, your playlist looks like it could easily be one of
my own. Ha!
Very cool to see Vinterland there. I remember thinking
very highly of that album when I picked it up years ago. I
really need to dig it out and give it a fresh spin.
I posted ‘late in the game’ on last week’s topic, so that
is what I am mostly still spinning at the moment:
Vilkacis – The Fever of War
Owl’s Blood – all
Minas Morgul – Wilderness Shrouded In Winds
Winds of Garden – Dusze martwych drzew
Perunwit – all early demos/releases
Ectovoid – Fractured in the Timeless Abyss
Crows – The Dying Race
One metal, and one non-metal, album to usher in Spring?
Without ruining it by thinking too much …
Metal:
Alda – Tahoma
A tumultuous amalgamation of authentic heathen spirit and
raging, root-deep emotion. Pulsing chords, coursing with
enough strength to lift this corporeal mess into
transcendence. Building solidly, then at 4:20 the waves
of positiveness batter any ‘wintry doubt’ into sea-foam.
“There are mountains in our bones, and rivers in our
veins.”
Non-metal:
Red Temple Spirits – Dancing To Restore An Eclipsed Moon
Call forth the elder spirits … then begin leaving your
body at 1:30
Congratulations on the newborn son ikbenfreek.
I did a couple preview listens of the new Skogen on youtube and enjoyed it. I will probably pick up a copy. Hopefully Bindrune gets some in soon.
I’ve been in a little more of a “rocking out” mood with my music lately.
Vspolokh/Vikhr – Amongst Mossy Stones
Panopticon – Kentucky
Enslaved – Blodhemn
Morbid Saint – Spectrum of Death
Overkill – Feel the Fire/Taking Over/Under The Influence
Black Sabbath – Vol. 4
St. Vitus – Hallows Eve
Kadavar – Abra Kadavar
Earthless – From The Ages
I don’t know if spring really puts me in a mood for any particular type of music. I would probably say I go for more classic stuff like Priest, Maiden, Sabbath, and others that are a little more on the lighthearted rocking out side of things. I guess like some of the stuff on my current playlist.
Thanks guys!
Unaerth> Keep those recommendations (with accompanying youtube fragments) coming, they’re right up mu alley! Now listening to Alda, sounds promising (nice picture; the yearly springtime salmon run, of great importance for the ecosystem). Oh, and Ectovoid: \m/
Shawn> I just received that Vspolokh./Vikhr split, the Vspolokh half is absolutely stunning, that endless maelstrom of riffs… The Vikhr sadly sounds a bit run-of-the-mill to me.
Neil> Brutality – When the Sky Turns Black is an underrated monster!
Ikbenfreek, I totally agree with you. The riffing on the Vspolokh material is majestic. So much so I can overlook the awful sounding snare drum. I too was not overly impressed with the Vikhr material. It is not terrible by any means, but a bit of a drop off from the Vspolokh stuff. A little more generic.
And I meant Hallow’s Victim for the Vitus on my playlist. I guess I didn’t drink enough coffee this morning when I typed this.
Morning Luvs~
Geez, is this site becoming a Black Metal corn haven or what? For fuck sakes boys, grow a sack. Yup, I am gonna be ostracized for this, but I had to get it off my furry pounding chest. haha : )
I have no emotional / musical attachments for Spring. I just like change. So from rain and cloud comes Sun and warmth today in this fine place called the San Francisco Peninsula.
At this very moment I am listening to the new Opium Warlord promo – ‘Taste My Sword of Understanding’, and it is very very nice.
As for other shiz on the block of my record player, cd player, cassette player and or Itunes player, I am all over the place:
Triptykon Breathing 7″ EP – both songs are good Marty and Jim. So there, infinity!
La Piramide Di Sangue – Tebe
Jacula – Tardo PEde in Magiam Versus
Grevlar Demo
Spectral Lore – III (fucking amazing)
Cauldron Black Ram – Stalagmire
Sonne Adam – Transformation
Tongues – advance MLP
NightSatan – NightSatan and the Loops of Doom
BrandX – Missing Period
Brain Corrosion – Sleazy Supremacy EP
Cryptopsy – None so Vile
Dark Budda Rising – Dakhmandal
E-Musikgruppe Lux Ohr – Spiralo
Encoffination – Ritual Asecnsion Beyond Flesh
Galatic – Live stuff
Magma – Udu Wudu
Malhkebre – Revelation
Mayhem – Ordo Ad Chao – okay, this album is really something special. So I take back my old saying “no Euroynmous, no Mayhem”. Yup, I’ll eat my words on that one, yet again, Sigh…
Nile – In Their Darkened Shrines
Queen Elephantine – Scarab
Ritual Chamber – The Pits of Tentacled Screams
Unit Black Flight – Tracks from the Trailer
okay, i’ll change my name back. I didn’t mean that. : )
You guys really pay a lot of attention to the weather, huh? 🙂
Non-Metal Spring Album: Counting Crows- August & Everything After. It hit big my sophomore year of college and was the soundtrack to that spring, which was the only year while I was in college that northern Ohio had a real spring; every other year we just had more winter.
‘Bat Out of Hell’ and ‘New Miserable Experience’ also work well in spring.
Metal Spring Album: Geez, what metal album goes with sunny days, green grass, fuzzy bunnies bringing you chocolate eggs, and all that? Summer, sure- it’s hot and sweaty, full of adrenaline as you patrol concrete corridors looking for trouble. Fall? No problem- darkness descends and daylight wanes as all life withers and dies. Winter? Definitely. Long, cold nights that never end bring an icy stillness that grips the hearts of all living things. But Spring? I dunno…. hairspray bands partying in Fort Lauderdale?
I’ll randomly pick ‘Necrotism’ since Carcass first came to my attention during spring of my senior year in high school.
Basically, I got nothing.
The steel of Spring is not tr00.
I can understand where some of you are coming from; but I see and feel as much natural power and violent grandeur during Spring as any other time. Just a slightly different angle …
The changing climate … building momentum, expressed in the chaos and savagery of thundering windstorms. Watching the elements vie for dominion is nothing short of primal ecstasy for me.
My early-season hikes into the mountains often put me face to face with the newly stirring wildlife of my region. Recently awakened from cold slumber, they are possessed with the renewed urgency and voracity of the hunt. Surely something to behold, and respect.
The following song, by Enmerkar, always reminds me of this time of year. It is a moment frozen in time, for me. It embodies what was flowing through my ears/mind a few years ago during one of my longer treks. After three days of backpacking into the further reaches, I found myself atop a far western range. As I pushed my way to the final destination I was pummeled by fierce winds, the cruel barrage simultaneously promising destruction and ‘elevation’. Once I reached the peak, enrobed in the full force of the vortex, I received a ‘gift’ much greater than the breathtaking view. Spring can be ‘king’.
Listen loud, let it absorb you, and envision …
Another spring memory. Accidentally approached too close, and ended up having to fend off a surprised bull-elk. Tines held high amongst an angry, burning sunset … then pointed directly at me. I was dwarfed by his majesty, and reminded of my insignificance. Lucky I am still here.