TODAY’S ACRONYMS: END. AND TNOTB

In this post, we’re really just showing our support for some metal bro’s who we care about, but we’re tossing in some music, too.

ERYN NON DAE. (END.)

Last year, we published no fewer than four posts about this band from Toulouse, France. Those posts included a review of the band’s 2009 album Hydra Lernaïa, an interview with the band, and two updates that included videos of live performances. The last post, from June 2010, includes links to all the others. We paid so much attention to them because the music was such a head-scrambling rush. To repeat yet again what we said in the review:

“Alternating between brutal headbanging heaviness and shrieking turbulent intricacy, the music has a very experimental, discordant, anarchic vibe. It’s dense, intense, grim, sharply angled, and often surreal. . . .Hydra Lernaïa is an adventure in the unexpected. It’s obviously the product of considerable thought, extensive work, and a high level of technical proficiency in the playing — nothing less could have succeeded in realizing on such an ambitious game-plan. This is dark math metal with brains as well as brawn, and emotional power as well as rigorous complexity.”

When we think of current bands that are pushing the envelope of metal, this is one that immediately comes to mind. Given our attraction, it was only natural to follow the band’s news, whenever there was news to be had. We haven’t had much for a while, but yesterday we learned that END. is now in the throes of creating music for their next album.

Still untitled at this point, we’ve learned that the subject of the new music will be metamorphosis. Song titles include “Chrysalis”, “The Great Downfall”, “Black Obsidian Pyre”, and “Scarlet Rising”. In August, the band will be ensconcing themselves in Mobo’s Conkrete Studio to record the successor  to Hydra Lernaïa. We be excite with anticipation. (more after the jump . . .)

Many of you weren’t reading our site in those days of 2010; our audience has expanded significantly since then. And since then, END. has made two songs from the last album available for free download on their Facebook page.

Here’s one of the two songs Eryn Non Dae. has made available for free download. You can get both at this location. If you like what you hear, then stay tuned.  We’ll have more to say about the new music as it continues to evolve.

Eryn Non Dae.: Blistering Hate

THE NUMBER OF THE BLOG (TNOTB)

We have many friends at the metal site that goes by the inspired name of The Number of the Blog. One of them, who we shall call Quigs (because that’s what he calls himself), has launched an ambitious project at TNOTB. He and his cohorts are going to compile the “100 Best/Essential Metal Albums of the last decade (2000-09).”

I don’t really understand what it is about metalheads and lists. I find the creation of lists about the best of anything particularly unattractive, because for me it’s so damned difficult and confusing. But there’s no denying the fact that people who are seriously into metal are drawn to lists like moths to a flame, except usually in the case of metal lists it doesn’t mean our eventual deaths and it’s not quite as seemingly ridiculous. Some day I will learn why moths spend so much energy flying around and into bright objects. There must be some evolutionary explanation, but fuck if I know what it might be.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Quigs’ list. So here’s the deal: He has invited metal writers, musicians, and fans to give him their personal lists of no less than 15 and no more than 20 of the best metal albums of the last decade, defined as albums that were first released from 2000 through 2009 — not later and not earlier. They do not have to be ranked.

Based on those lists, he and his comrades at TNOTB will tally the votes and publish a list of the best 100 albums of the decade, as they’ve defined it. There are two ways you can register your votes:

1.  Post your list as a comment to THIS POST at TNOTB.

2.  If you don’t want to take a public stand through a comment on that post, just e-mail your lust to Quigs at this address: quigs@thenumberoftheblog.com

This will either strike you as a worthy challenge, or you will think, “I can’t be fucking bothered.” I actually took the bait, sort of. I put up my own comment on their site with the first 10 of my list of 20, and then my brain went into a lockdown mode. I do intend to finish my list, though I’m actually not looking forward to it, because it makes my head hurt. Lots of other metal writers and fans have already posted their lists on TNOTB (more than 100 at my last count) — and that doesn’t include the lists submitted by e-mail.

I’m looking forward to seeing the final tally. If you want to influence the outcome, then go do it.

That’s it for this post. Adios motherfuckers.