Tagged: gmajewski

A look back at the forgotten post-metal favorite This is a content summary only. Click on the story to read the whole thing at InvisibleOranges.com

A review and stream of the new SubArachnoid Space project This is a content summary only. Click on the story to read the whole thing at InvisibleOranges.com

• brooklynvegan - Eight Bells - "Fate and Technology"

Lawlessness This is a content summary only. Click on the story to read the whole thing at InvisibleOranges.com

If you’ve ever been to the Pacific Northwest during the autumnal transition, you’d know that Fall Into Darkness is as appropriate a name as any for a metal festival in Portland. Every year, the region trips headlong into fall seemingly overnight. One day college kids are kicking back microbrews and tossing Frisbees, the next they’re huddled under the awning of the nearest café, smoking American Spirits and waiting out the deluge. No warning. “Hey everyone, hope you mentally prepared yourselves to not see the Sun for six months!” Unfortunately, the dark season was running a few weeks late for the [...]

When I contacted Sean Reynolds Williams on his artist Facebook page about possibly printing a poster version of his landscape for the gatefold 2xLP version of Pallbearer’s Sorrow and Extinction , I never thought that two weeks later we’d be cruising through downtown San Francisco on our way to a Cormorant gig at Slim’s. First off, I thought he lived in Arkansas. He doesn’t, at least not anymore. Williams moved out west with his girlfriend about a year ago to pursue a lead with a possible supporter who had connections in the Bay Area art community. That fell through, [...]

. . . 2006 was a year that saw doom metal in flux. YOB had just broken up, Electric Wizard were a year away from their best record since Dopethrone , Sleep wouldn’t be roused back into consciousness for another three years and the genre in general was a half a decade away from its true renaissance. It seems strange to say now that metal of all varieties is succeeding on huge festivals sponsored by car companies and seeing coverage in The New York Times , but halfway through the aughts, the heavy music landscape was [...]

. . . When Stanley Kubrick created the groundbreaking special effects required to believably send Dr. David Bowman into hyperspace in 2001: A Space Odyssey , grindcore wasn’t even a word yet, let alone a thriving, decades-old subgenre. The disturbing images and mood he conjured for the sequence were not only trippy, but “metal” before that term became a catch-all for anything batshit insane. If you were to take a time machine back to 1968 and tell Kubrick that almost 45 years after his Oscar winning masterpiece first blew minds, a graphic artist from Kansas City would [...]

. . . Samothrace may have inadvertently broken the secret for any doom act looking to become even heavier: move to Seattle. Apparently the land of constant precipitation, fresh fish and over-caffeinated hipsters (“yuppies” to those of you who came of age in the '80s) can wear on an already bleak band. 2008’s Life’s Trade was a dizzying first step, solidifying Samothrace’s trademark confluence of Bryan Spinks’ trachea-shredding yowl giving way to his piercing blues leads and evocative solos. Not long after, the quartet left Kansas for the grand Pacific Northwest, rhythm guitarist Renata Castagna quit [...]

. . . Can we take a moment to talk about how great this year's been for heavy metal of the prefix-less variety? Between Christian Mistress' Possession and Pharaoh's Bury the Light , those who worship at the altar of tradness should be thrilled with how this year's turned out so far. And now Dawnbringer swoops in and delivers the best record of the bunch. Pharaoh and Dawnbringer share a common entity in one Chris Black, a criminally overlooked metal luminary if there ever was one. In Pharaoh, Black simply hammers the skins (and by [...]

. . . It’s a gorgeous morning in Novato, California, and Cormorant and Invisible Oranges are stuffing our collective faceholes with breakfast at a swanky establishment simply called Toast . Between forkfuls of huevos rancheros, oatmeal with raisins (a healthy decision for which bassist/vocalist Arthur von Nagel receives light ribbing from his bandmates) and the tastiest Belgian waffle this side of Brussels, discussion turns to shows in the area, which turns to marathon outdoor event Outsidelands, which leads to drummer Brennan Kunkel and guitarist Nick Cohon’s preference for reggae festivals. From there, Coachella’s relevance is [...]

Either Drudkh suffer from a serious case of stylistic ADD, or they're in the midst of the most elaborate meta-joke in black metal history. Since the Ukrainian quartet don't grant press photos or interviews, we're gonna go with the former. Still, the fact remains that with each record, the mystery men have wavered between atmospheric black metal, dreamy post-rock, and even traditional folk. And so it goes, another year, another comment by Rush Limbaugh that will force a collective facepalm from conservatives nationwide, another NCAA men's basketball tournament that begins with everyone rooting for the Cinderella teams but inevitably ends [...]

. . . It's probably appropriate that I took an eternity to write this review. Like all great doom—a classification under which they most certainly fall—Pallbearer take their sweet time working into your skull. The Little Rock, Arkansas quartet traffic in a low and slow metallic pummeling that fits somewhere between the sub-glacial pace of funeral legends Skepticism and the more modern approach of labelmates YOB and Loss (on whose 2011 LP Despond Pallbearer vocalist/guitarist Brett Campbell made a cameo). It's what more conservative types would call "traditional", and what the more dramatic among us would [...]

The seeds for Christian Mistress's second album were planted before they were even a solidified band, through a chance encounter with sweet Swedish doom metal at soon-to-be vocalist Christine Davis' home. "We were friends but we didn't hang out that often," recounts guitarist Oscar Sparbel, "and we decided to go see a show in Portland one time so me and Ryan [McLain, guitars] caught a ride with Christine. We walked in the door and were like, 'What's this band?'" The band was Faith [ http://www.metal-archives.com/ bands/Faith/19930], and the song was "Possession", the B-side to the obscure quartet's even more [...]

. . . If Christian Mistress' second LP was a brand of cigarettes, it would be unfiltered and would contain a barely legal amount of nicotine. It'd come emblazoned with a label from the Surgeon General warning potential consumers that it may aggravate the conditions of those afflicted with Chronic Headbanging Syndrome and Air Guitar Disorder. And it would still be bought and compulsively ingested by every metal addict who could find a pack. I feel like I need a patch for this thing. The promo's been on my hard drive for three weeks now and listening to [...]

Sculptured's debut, The Spear of the Lily is Aureoled , is a prototypical forgotten gem. Released on then-upstart The End Records at a time when American death metal was all but dead itself, the album had more in common with European avant-garde and melodeath acts than anything on these shores. The years following its release saw founder and mastermind Don Anderson balancing his evolving guitar chops between his own band and another budding Pacific Northwest act known as Agalloch - which is where most listeners (myself included) come in. Agalloch gained a foothold in the [...]

. . . Take a moment to analyze the hand pressed against the cover of Leviathan's fifth album, True Traitor, True Whore . It's not just any hand; it's the left hand of lone Leviathan member Jef Whitehead. The hand he's used to make a living as a nationally renowned tattoo artist. The hand that has forged his prolific musical output as Wrest, one of the most important figures in American black metal. The hand he allegedly used to beat and sexually assault his former girlfriend in early January. Considering the growing claims from those close to [...]

. . . I know we’re not supposed to make a big deal about the whole solo black metal thing anymore, but seriously, this is one guy? The prototypical lone, hooded misanthrope slaving over his 8-track recorder with a drum machine and weathered guitar is one thing. He makes slow, depressive black metal because he’s alone and depressed; he’s alone and depressed because he can’t stand being around anyone else; he can’t stand being around anyone else, because, I don’t know, he’s an insufferable ass or something. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Arckanum’s [...]

. . . With Mastodon, Kylesa, and Baroness making concerted efforts to become this generation's Rush, Jesus and Mary Chain, and Thin Lizzy respectively, Black Tusk are pretty much the only Georgia metal act who still sound like they hail from the homestate of Sandra Dee and Uga. Let's explain that a little more . . . Mastodon have been moving towards a prog rock/hard rock sound over their last couple of albums, Kylesa have shown a heavy influence from the college rock bands of the early '90s on Spiral Shadow , and Baroness are incorporating [...]

. . . Before The Mantle , before playing historic Romanian opera halls, and before the "Album of the Year" accolades, Agalloch guitarist Don Anderson founded a progressive metal act called Sculptured in 1996 and completed the band's debut two years later. For one of the first records released on The End Records (which licensed it from obscure Polish label Mad Lion Records), it was an impressive start for both band and label. For an album written by a guy in his late teens, it's far more sophisticated than it has any right to be. [...]

. . . The story goes like this: two brothers from the Pacific Northwest form a black metal band and profess eco-friendly (to some, eco-terrorist) and anti-corporate DIY ethics, drop a few increasingly transcendental records, and then play a metal festival sponsored by one of the largest car companies on the planet. As a result, an army of Web warriors sling pejoratives like "hipster" and "poseur" like so much farm-grade topsoil. But let's ignore the "peace, man" hippie vibe and crust punk background for just a second and focus on the fact that, musically, what this Cascadian crew [...]