PANTERA: REVISITING “VULGAR DISPLAY OF POWER”

 Mosh Pit  28 Responses »
Feb 212012
 

Thanks to an article at FULL METAL ATTORNEY, I discovered that today is the 20th anniversary of Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power. I agree that it’s an anniversary worth remembering, and not because it reminds me how fucking ancient I am.

Speaking of which, yes, I was alive and a partially functioning adult when Vulgar Display of Power was released. However, I was not then a metalhead. In fact, although I tolerated a bit of Pantera more than the vast majority of what I thought of as heavy metal back in 1992, I wasn’t a fan. I was still listening to punk and getting into grunge with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, and I brushed off Pantera as knuckle-dragging, simple-minded, cock-swinging mediocrity. There, I said it.

As the years have passed, and I’ve become more knuckle-dragging, simple-minded, and cock-swinging, I’ve come to appreciate Pantera more, though I’m still not a Dime worshipper or a Pantera addict. As for Vulgar Display of Power, it does seem to represent what was best and worst in Pantera’s music, though I’m not sure that makes much sense.

The Full Metal Attorney makes some provocative assertions about the album that I thought might generate some discussion here at NCS. He recognizes that almost as many metalheads despise the album as love it — perceiving it as something that was responsible for “ushering in nu metal, and the bad groove metal of the late 90’s” and blaming it for “the tough-guy posturing of metalcore bands like Hatebreed or hard rock bands like Drowning Pool.” He then goes on to respond to the criticism, arguing that it’s one of the most influential metal albums of all time; that it was one of the heaviest albums released up to that point; that it was an adrenaline rush loaded with dynamism and great songwriting; and that it made its mark in part because it’s not what people expected. Continue reading »

DOES LENGTH MATTER?

 Mosh Pit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  50 Responses »
Feb 112012
 

No, no, no.  This post isn’t about dicks.

Wait!  Where are you going?  Hang on for a minute and let me explain.  This may be interesting even if it’s not about penises, difficult as that may be to believe.

The subject of this post is one I’ve thought about before and discussed with others outside these pages. Here’s what finally prompted me to throw it open for NCS discussion — this Facebook status by Sweden’s Mordbrand, whose killer 2011 EP Necropsychotic we reviewed here and whose November 2011 split with their fellow Swedes in Bombs of Hades we featured here:

“It looks like MORDBRAND’s discography will mostly consist of EP’s and splits at the moment. We’re excited about all suggestions, proposals and offers we have in front of us. But here’s a question to YOU: If a band produces enough material on small releases – is a full-length then necessary? The way we see it: If we record a handful of songs, we can really focus on them and make them turn great. If we record full-lengths, we’ll have less time working on each track. This calls for an interesting discussion!”

Yes, it does call for discussion. As a fan, what would you rather see from the bands you like — shorter but more frequent releases or full-length albums that are more spaced out, e.g., a new one every couple of years? Do you tend to take a band more seriously, particularly a new band, if they release album-length material instead of EPs? Is it the meat or the motion? Continue reading »

OF ASSASSIN’S CREED, AYREON, ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS, AND AWESOME ALLITERATION

 Mosh Pit, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  35 Responses »
Jan 132012
 

(DemiGodRaven (ex-TNOTB) looks at the similarities between the Assassin’s Creed games and the albums of Ayreon, and speculates about how the latter may shed light on how the former is going to end.)

Anyone who has been aware of my writing for a while knows pretty well that I’m a pretty huge nerd when it comes to video games. They’re my second love, with the first being music. They’re also the two most expensive hobbies in the world, but that is a whole other subject for some other time. Occasionally, there is an incredible crossover between some form of metal and video games, and I can’t help but give it a knowing wink and nod. Or, in this case it’s a confluence of all sorts of things that just happen to share the same archetypal concept.

The thought for this article began to cross my mind as I wrestled my way through the latest Assassin’s Creed game, which if you haven’t been following the series has basically gone from a sort of Lost-esque conspiracy science fiction to batshit fucking insane within the span of two yearly iterations as Ubisoft (the game’s developer and publisher) attempts to strange as much money out of the franchise as possible.

What is funny about the story of these games is that it has pretty much evolved into the same story told by the Ayreon discography, with its dream sequencer experiments and the end of mankind. Of course, you also have to acknowledge that even though the elements of each story are as fantastic as can be, the bare guts of each one are fairly basic and recognizable. I’ll be analyzing this to some extent while also pointing out the ridiculous similarities between the game series and the concept behind most of Ayreon’s work.

As always this deserves warning: I am going to be spoilery as fuck in the following article. Just a note though, it’s not like you should give a shit. Judging by the latest Assassin’s Creed game, the writing team doesn’t. Continue reading »

YOU’VE GOT AN AXE. I’VE GOT A GUN.

 Mosh Pit  22 Responses »
Jan 092012
 

No, I Wasn't Drawn By Par Olofsson


By NCS contributor Rev. Will

The dusty wind blew across the frosted landscape with a ragged rasp. A clump of dust rolled by clumsily, slightly bouncing up and down as it traversed the bumpy forest floor (What the heck is dust doing in a frosty forest?!). Birds chirped their last call for their nest mates as the day drew to a close, with the sun turning a red-orange hue as it slowly descended beneath the horizon, disappearing into the ravenous maw of the icy cold night.

Snap.

Snow and freeze-dried twigs crunched beneath the feet of the brave warrior as he made his way to the designated duel point. It was time to show who was boss. Continue reading »

WE ARE THE 3%: RECORDING QUALITY v. SONG QUALITY

 Mosh Pit  59 Responses »
Dec 292011
 

(I got sort of caught up in all the year-end Listmania we’ve been feeding you on this site, and am therefore late in publishing this guest opinion piece by Jesper Zuretti of The Binary Code. Check this out and let us [and Jesper} know what you think.  Are we putting too much emphasis on recording quality?)

We Are the 3%: Recording Quality v. Song Quality
a novice attempt at history, psychology, and temptation

Many people hearing music in this day and age tend to put the quality of the recording in the forefront, even ahead of the quality of the composition and music. But how much does the music-hearing individual really understand about the quality of the recording they’re listening to? Should they need to understand anything at all? Should music be over-scrutinized and classified into the depths of genre segregation, with fine-tuning into multiple combinations of classification?

The best part about music, in my opinion, is the freedom you have with it, and yet people are probably pickier about music than they are the food they eat. The history of music proves to us that recording (although it’s the conduit to our musical stream) is but a small aspect of music’s place in the entirety of human existence. I’m no certified musicologist (although I’d like to think I am), but maybe we’ll open some minds – just bear in mind that I’m a long-winded typist! Stay with me:

Human beings have been making music as long as the species has existed. The human voice is considered one of the first instruments we ever used to make music. And beyond that, Humpback whales also spend a great deal of time creating music (and by “great deal of time,” we’re talking Frank Zappa amounts of time). So it’s very safe to assume that music was being created even before mankind came into existence. On that assumption, if you subtract the amount of time during which humans have actually captured music on recordings from the length of time whales have been on this planet (speculated to be 54 million years), you end up with less than 3% of music’s supposed development time dedicated to recording. Continue reading »

FUCK CHRISTMAS?

 Mosh Pit  28 Responses »
Dec 242011
 

Last year, I vented about Christmas — at length — in a post creatively titled FUCK CHRISTMAS. It seems to be getting a renewed surge of web hits this month, which I suppose proves that the sour taste I have in my mouth this time of year needs to be spit out by other people, too. Except this year I don’t seem to be feeling so bloated with hostility that I need to vent. I’ve been questioning myself, trying to understand what has changed.

ME:  So what’s going on with you this year? Are you feeling more charitable, more filled with love for your fellow men and women, more kindly and gushy and huggy?

MYSELF:  Fuck no.  Also, fuck you.

ME:  Well, that wasn’t a very nice answer. Let’s try this again: Have you changed your mind about all those nasty things you said last year about Big Business using Christmas as an excuse to guilt-trip people into spending money they don’t have on presents people don’t need?

MYSELF:  Nope, not at all. This year, like last year, retailers are still acting like a horde of vampire squid, sticking their blood funnels up your bunghole and trying to suck out all the cash you’ve got while pretending everything is happy and jolly. It’s tough to remember the event that Christmas is supposed to commemorate when you’ve got a groping blood funnel up your ass. Also, fuck you.

ME: Okay. Well, are you enjoying the Christmas season music more this year? Is it putting you in a cheerier mood?

MYSELF:  Surely you jest. Did you see this? Continue reading »

THE ISRAELI RANTS – OLD SCHOOL AESTHETIC

 Mosh Pit  39 Responses »
Dec 152011
 

(A new music video from a Long Island hardcore band called Stray From the Path provoked a discussion last night between me and TheMadIsraeli, and that in turn led the MadIsraeli to pen this post, which raises some interesting questions.  Comments please!)

Let’s take things back a couple of decades . . .

The 80’s.

When I think of the 80’s, I think of three things.  The best action movies, fucking Slayer, and the tape-trading scene.  I’m only 22 and had the misfortune of missing out, so I can only imagine how exciting it must’ve been to get together with some friends, swapping old demos of greats that were to come or underground legends that were never to be heard from again.

From what I’ve heard and read, there was real community there, the manifestation of the love of music through human interaction and true brotherhood, all with a common unifying purpose and affection: The metal.  Really, not just the metal, but heavy music in general.  Hardcore also had its own thriving tape-trading circuit.  So where is this taking me exactly? Continue reading »

A THOUGHT PIECE (or THOUGHTS IN PIECES) — AND “HERITAGE” IS NOW STREAMING IN FULL

 Mosh Pit  43 Responses »
Sep 122011
 

Opeth’s new album, Heritage, leaked at some point in the last week or two, I forget when exactly. The official release date isn’t until September 20, but lots of fans have already heard it — and as of today you can now hear the whole thing in a stream at NPR — and flame wars have already begun here, there, and everywhere. Mikael Åkerfeldt has been giving interviews about the album (here, there, and everywhere). Among other things, he has said (here) that although the album isn’t “a massive departure for me and for the guys in the band,” some of the band’s legions of fans may find it “different.”

In the same interview, he said, “We don’t make albums thinking about the fans too much. We have been fortunate to have people who have accepted what we put out so far. Because we were just doing what we wanted to hear and apparently other people liked it too. So I’m hoping it’s going to be the same for this album.” When asked about fans who shout “treachery” whenever a band decides to tread off the path they have beaten, he replied: “Well, they wouldn’t be fans if we hadn’t started as a band. We have fans because we did what we wanted. Our success, or whatever you want to call it, is based on the fact that we do what we want as opposed to doing what the fans want. So it doesn’t apply to us.”

Oh, I beg to differ Monsieur Åkerfeldt! You can’t so easily escape the ire of fans who are already up in arms over Heritage, calling it “boring”, or “lazy” or “70’s prog rock”, or worse. Of course, there are at least as many defenders of the Opeth faith who, while agreeing that it’s “different”, admire the music on Heritage and support the freedom of the band to do whatever it is they did on the album.

I’m not entirely sure what they did, because I’ve only heard the first song that premiered back in July — “The Devil’s Orchard”. I liked much of the instrumental music on the song, didn’t care for the vocals, and decided I probably wouldn’t listen to the song again (after the first four times). But that’s mainly because of my own taste in music. This just isn’t the style of metal (if it is metal) that I want to hear. But I wouldn’t say the song is bad, for what it is. Which leads to a few thoughts and a few questions about “music criticism” and fan response (after the jump). Continue reading »

ECCENTRICITY

 Mosh Pit  55 Responses »
Aug 252011
 

We all live in two worlds: the face-to-face world, the world of flesh and blood, populated by the people with whom we interact in person on a daily basis, and the electronically enabled world, in which we interact with people we’ve never met. In my face-to-face world, most of the people I know aren’t metalheads. The people I work with and most of my friends aren’t into metal, and don’t have any idea that I have this blog. They’d be terribly confused if they knew.

I do know people in the flesh-and-blood world who are into metal — people I see at Seattle clubs pretty regularly, a handful of musicians, and a few people I’m very close to, but in my circle of friends, they’re outnumbered by people who don’t get the attraction of metal at all. The truth is that I “know” far more people who are metalheads in the electronic world than I do in the face-to-face world, and I’ve “met” most of them through NCS.

The headbangers from those two worlds, as a group, aren’t a statistically valid sample, and I’m certainly not a trained sociologist, but when I think about all the metalheads I know and I throw in the ones I read about, I draw some conclusions about why I’m drawn to them. In most ways, I think they’re like most people. They’re not any smarter or dumber than anyone else — it’s basically the same Bell curve. They’re not any more or less fair, any more or less conscientious, any more or less moral or “deviant”, any more or less hard-working, no more immune or susceptible to pain or joy, no less needing of love and friendship, no more or less heedless of the feelings of others.

Despite the vaunted extremes of the metal scene, I don’t even think most metalheads are any more individualistic or independent than the average person either. Because, let’s face it, human beings are social creatures. We’re herd animals. We need standards and we conform to conventions, and most of us tend to be followers instead of leaders. It just happens that our herd is smaller than the big herds that swarm around us, and our conventions seem alien to the members of those larger herds. Having said all this, however, I do think metalheads are different in certain ways, and those differences are what draw me to them. Yes, part of it is that they use the words “fuck” and “fucking” more often than most people, but there’s more. (after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

PHRO MAKES GOOD

 Mosh Pit, Phro's Posts  17 Responses »
Mar 292011
 

To recap:

An earthquake of historic proportions hit northeastern Japan on March 11. That triggered a massive tsunami that flooded a wide swath of the Japanese mainland. Millions were left without power, and the loss of power also caused malfunctions at a nuclear plant, which has been leaking radiation ever since. More than 9,800 bodies have been recovered so far, another 17,500 are still missing; the majority of those are probably dead. Even now, more than 600,000 homes are without water, more than 200,000 still without power. Hundreds of thousands remain homeless.

We have a faithful reader named Phro whose frequent comments make me laugh or feel queasy (or sometimes both). He’s an American living and working in the Tokyo area. On March 16, at the end of one of our more widely read posts, called “Our World”, we passed along an appeal from Phro for contributions to the relief effort in Japan. And then, in an update to the post, we explained that Phro had offered an extra inducement: if NCS and its readers could meet or exceed the goal of raising $500 for Japanese relief, Phro promised to do something inappropriate and ridiculous (e.g., wear a maid skirt and dance around akihabara) and send us photographic evidence.

We exceeded that goal — and Phro has now paid off.  (details – and photos – after the jump . . .) Continue reading »

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