Archive for the ‘Ron’s Furnace of Limitless Hate’ Category

That’s the opener of Divinity’s new album, “The Singularity”. It’s also the only song I like from the record. Why do any of the other songs not sound anything like this? Fuckers.

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What the fuck?

Is there no good metal music coming out anymore or is it just me? If you’ve listened to most of the more recent shows, you are already familiar with this sentiment of mine. A couple of years ago it would seem that every few months a band that I liked would release a new album, and it was good. I even enjoyed going on random metal hunts for new bands and would find myself pleasantly surprised with what I would unearth (Uaral, Sikth).

But now all of that seems gone. All of my favorite metal bands have already gone to shit (Symphony X, what happened guys?). Some are even into their second shit installment (Sonata Arctica, Porcupine Tree), and some are so far beyond shit that they have lost every sense of what good music sounds like, but keep going at it anyway (Dream Theater). Then you got the uncomfortable middle ground where bands release new albums that even though aren’t complete garbage, they’re nothing particularly interesting or fresh either (Devin Townsend, Behemoth, Ensiferum). Now I understand it is the natural way of things for bands to lower the quality of their musical output over time, so I guess the first part of this paragraph is perfectly justifiable, and I should instead focus my energies on finding new bands that tickle my fancy. But that’s the other part of the problem; There are no worthwhile new bands either.

So I repeat the question. Is it just me, or is metal music going to shit? I wanna know you guys’ opinions so post in the comments. And if you have some good suggestions for bands to check out, please do so. Otherwise I’m just gonna sit here and enjoy some old Adagio while I wait for metal to completely die.

I saw this referenced by a post about a “Juggalo” festival MetalSucks.

I mean, I know that for some reason that defies life, Insane Clown Posse are still around, making “music”. And I know that they have a particularly rabidly moronic fanbase that call themselves “Juggalos” (much in the same way as the Slipknot “Maggot”). But the fact that they have their own 3 day long festival to celebrate their extreme retardation is something that escapes the boundaries of what you may call “reality”. Holy shit.

There are simply no words. See for yourself:

What the shit is Periphery? It’s one of those bands that me, Ron, is the only person in the whole of Metalscape-dom likes (or knows for that matter). The other more popular example is Meshuggah.

A few years ago this band started as a bunch of (awesome) tidbits of songs by this dude, Misha Mansoor, more popularly known across the internets as “Bulb”. I came to know about him in my early years of partaking in the Search for the Ultimate PODxt Guitar Tone. While I was struggling with recording anything that resembled a real guitar this guy was producing audio that rivaled (and in some cases surpassed) professionally recorded bands. His Soundclick page remains to this day one of my favorite online spots to go for a good/original/metal/random music listening experience. As I’m sure was the case for a lot of other people out there, since his stuff was (and still is) incredibly popular among budding guitarists/amateur producers/metal musicians.

He eventually got a band running, Periphery; and a few years and a lot of line-up changes later, he’s finally inked a deal with Sumerian Records. They’re currently on the Thrash and Burn tour across the US and they’ll be recording their debut afterward (or something like that). You can check out some of their songs and awesome studio diaries over at their MySpace.

I love the guy’s music. While the Meshuggah influence is definitely palpable, he manages to forge a sound all his own. Great riffing, interesting melodies, intelligent songwriting and terrific drumming. It actually reminds me a lot of Sikth; a heavier, faster and more elegant sounding Sikth. Yes, instrumentally this band is awesome. Then the fucking vocals come in and shit on everything.

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