** Metal ** The Thread! II

For me it gets stronger with every listen. First listen was like a "this is a pretty solid follow-up to 10k days" to now i actually think it's really good and would say its an early AOTY contender. If i was to pick any weak point I would say the album dips a little bit with Culling Voices and Chocolate Chip Trip, not that either of them are bad but the album starts so strong with the first 4 songs and then 7empest is such a great closer.

 

I'm not a fan of any of those filler tracks. I listened to it fully 3x, and now I've just deleted them, so I only listen to the full songs, and I think the album flows much better that way.

It's not Tool's best album, but I like it.

 

Yeah, I skip the filler tracks now too. Don't need 'em anymore. "Culling Voices" is the only song where I feel the length, which I think is probably deliberate. The other five proper songs? ****in' brilliant, from top to bottom. The length just flies by.

 

"Invincible" and the title track are the most fun to play. "Pneuma" and "7empest" have timings I'm going to be struggling with for years.

"Descending" remains the emotional peak of the album. That song has the best tension and cathartic release of the record. I can't wait to hear it live.

 

New CoL dropped today and it's pretty epic. Probably their best, not counting the Mariner collab with Julie Christmas.

Surely an AOTY contender for me.

 

I'm hyped to check out the new CoL. I doubt they'll top Somewhere Along the Highway or Salvation but I don't think they've put out a disappointing album, both the collab with Julie Christmas and Vertikal were great so this should be too!

 

Never even heard of them before. They sound interesting. I’ll check em out on Spotify.

 

SATH is (was?) easily my favourite album from them. I'm not much into concept albums so I never got into their Vertikal albums. I think I liked one or two songs overall.

They play "atmospheric sludge metal", also known these days with a somewhat pretentious label called post-metal. Think of it as playing non-metal songs with metal instruments. The genre focuses more on creating sound landscapes and atmosphere than say vocals and choruses. Thus, songs usually feature crescendos and climaxes.

Like mentioned above, check out their album Somewhere Along the Highway. The last three songs sum up what the band is about. There's Mariner is you want female vocals in the mix.

Spoiler: CoL/Julie Christmas

If you like what you're hearing, check out Neurosis and Isis. They're pretty much the pioneers of the genre. If you want 100% instrumental, there are bands like Pelican and Russian Circles.

Spoiler: Neurosis

Spoiler: Isis

 

Neurosis are one of my all time favorites and I would rate Isis and Cult of Luna quite highly as well. I love post-metal in theory, and i'm a huge post-rock fan (GYBE, Sigur Ros to name a few) but sadly i think post-metal suffers from some of the same problems as post-rock which is a lot of bands aping off the success of the big bands in the genre without doing much interesting. I would love to find more post-metal bands I could get into but the few i have tried like Rosetta or Amenra I end up thinking "hey this is pretty good" without being mindblown.

 

I like Amenra, but I've never really given Rosetta a chance. I think I did listen to an album but that was surely over ten years ago.

As for post-rock, yeah, GYBE is great. Red Sparowes, Explosions in the Sky and Silver Mt. Zion are some of my favourite bands of the genre. Mono is pretty great too.

 

A B-Side from the new Opeth album surfaced via Decibel Magazine


It's great, how it didn't make the album is beyond me, but they keep doing that with B-Sides. The album is out this Friday.

---
Other random news;
Apocalyptica finished recording a new album in April, recently teased it as "coming soon".
Suns of the Tundra signed with Bad Elephant Music, and their new album "Murmuration" will be released November 15th.
Gojira are "more than halfway" done with a new album according to Joe, looks like it'll be out next year.
Scale the Summit were finished recording and into mixing as of July, so that shouldn't be too much longer.

 

New Borknagar album released yesterday. Pretty good stuff.



Oh and new Opeth is out too...

 

Apocalyptica's new album "Cell-0" will be released 10th of January.



Opeth's new album is fantastic. I'd say album of the year. And of the bands still to release an album this year (William DuVall, Jinjer, Suns of the Tundra), only Suns of the Tundra have a shot at matching Opeth's. Maybe Scale the Summit, too, if they get theirs out by the end of the year.

 

New Opeth is very OK i guess? Better than Sorceress, maybe on par with Heritage yet maybe not as good as Pale Communion. Yet far from their golden days. I will say that the swedish version is a pleasant surprise because it gives this album a bit of unique identity and helps it stand out from the others a bit. Still wish they did something more exciting than 70s dad prog now though. I mean they don't have to bring back the growls but I wish they were doing something a bit more modern sounding and forward thinking. If i want that 70s prog feel there's just plenty of better albums that they are basically homaging these days.

New Cult of Luna really slaps, liking it quite a lot. Revisited Tool recently and it still holds up as one of the best of the year.

 

I have to admit, I really enjoyed Opeth's new album. For me, it's their best album in their prog rock "era". The outro is fantastic and my favourite on the album.



Tomorrow will see two melodic death releases I've been looking forward this year: Insomnium and In Mourning.

 

I actually spun the new Opeth again after my last post and i am starting to warm up to it more.

 

Another new one from Jinjer. The album, "Macro" is out in 2 weeks.

Yeah, I'd say All Things..., Universal Truth & Continuum are my favourite at the moment.

It's definitely something that needs several listens to settle in.

 

New Alcest album released yesterday and it is pretty good.

 

Not sure how many of you are into Periphery, but I still think Reptile is probably my favorite metal track of the year, and P4 is AOTY for me. Even if you're not a fan of them, I cannot recommend this song enough if you like long, epic metal tracks or metal with symphonic elements:

 

New Periphery is great, I think Satellites is one of the finest songs they've made and Reptile is a fantastic epic as well. For me the album lacks 1 or 2 more songs on the level of those in the middle to truly make it an AOTY contender. I really like the album, but as a whole I find it hard to rank their discography. There's not really any album of theirs I would consider superb from start to finish but there's also no album of theirs that has disappointed me. Quality discography!

 

Yeah, I hear that. I think what I enjoy about the album so much is the variety. Every song kind of does its own thing and stands out. But I agree, Reptile and Satellites are the two stars of the album. I've been listening to the album a ton since it came out, and those two have yet to get old for me.

 

Suns of the Tundra's new album "Murmuration" comes out this Friday.
Title track:


Their Facebook page:
Suns of the Tundra

The album (CD or Digital) can be bought at their bandcamp page:


--Tracklist--
1.Murmuration
2.Each Of Us
3.Sunflower
4.Four Corners
5.Echo Of An Angel
6.Survive Just Fine
7.Pond Life

That last track, Pond Life, is actually a re-recording of an old ,unreleased Peach tune (Peach being the original band of Tool's Justin Chancellor).

 

That album art looks really nice! Haven't heard of them, what kind of music is it? I'd be down to check that out just on the artwork alone.

 

They're kind of a Prog Rock/ Metal vibe. If you listen to Tool you might recall them playing "You Lied" & "Spasm", which are Peach originals. SotT would be a continuation/evolution of what they were doing as Peach.

I'd recommend checking out their previous album "Bones of Braves Ships", I think it's their best (not heard Murmuration yet), and it's one of my favourite albums of this decade.

 

Apocalyptica's new album is out next month. The second and third singles are...:



Shaping up to be solid as f***.