THE REARVIEW MIRROR (THE POWER & THE GLORY)

 THE REARVIEW MIRROR  5 Responses »
Sep 132015
 

The Power and the Glory-Call me armageddon art

 

(Austin Weber prepared this Sunday’s Rearview Mirror post.)

While I’m not the sort of music fan who usually pines for the “good old days”, there are certainly some sounds and styles in the realm of heavy music that are no longer “in”. I’m referring specifically to the early-to-mid-2000s when bands from Botch to Burnt By The Sun and a million others crafted highly volatile yet mercurial mixtures of hardcore and metal. This is the time period when I got into metal, and I was fortunate to catch many of those bands in their heyday.

Of all the bands crafting metallic hardcore crossbreeds around that time, one band still stands out for me, mainly because they never got the respect and appreciation their music deserved, unlike many of their much better known peers. That band, my friends, was the Atlanta based wrecking crew known as The Power & The Glory. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR

 THE REARVIEW MIRROR  4 Responses »
Sep 062015
 

Rearview Mirror

 

It seems that Immortal are no more. Last year Abbath declared the band at an end, and having lost a legal battle to secure rights to the name, he is forging ahead under his own. Meanwhile, Demonaz and Horgh announced last month that Immortal will continue without Abbath, and that the two are at work on a new album to be released by Nuclear Blast.

Who knows whether these now separate formations will create music worthy of the band’s past glories. Rather than engage in fruitless speculation, let’s listen to some of those instead. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (SLAUGHTER, SLUGATHOR)

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Aug 302015
 

Rearview Mirror

 

1984 wasn’t as bad a year as George Orwell imagined. The Canadian death/thrash band Slaughter was formed in that year. In 1987 they released their only studio album, Strappado. They released additional new music the next year and then disbanded. As far as I can tell from my researches, they recorded nothing new in the studio until briefly re-forming in 1995-1996 to record a cover of “Dethroned Emperor” for a Celtic Frost tribute album. The first songs in this backward-looking post come from Strappado.

The next song in this post was recorded by the Finnish band Slugathor. The song was recommended by our friend SurgicalBrute. Interestingly, I thought of Slaughter only because the autocorrect feature in my word processor insisted on converting “Slugathor” to “Slaughter”. Sometimes autocorrect is your friend.

Anyway, Slugathor were born in Finland about 15 years after Slaughter, and you can certainly tell the difference that 15 years makes. The song that SurgicalBrute recommended, which is one hell of a song, is “The Smoke” and it comes from the band’s third and final album, Echoes From Beneath (2009). Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR (PAVOR)

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Aug 242015
 

Rearview Mirror

 

(This is a second Rearview Mirror post for Sunday that is being posted on Monday because your humble editor was distracted and screwed up. The author is Austin Weber.)

In technical death metal circles, Pavor are a highly regarded name that sadly few still know. Which might have something to do with the band’s irregular output, shall we say. In the course of their existence, which started back in 1987, the band have released only two records and an EP, both of which have only gotten their long-overdue recognition with the rise of the internet spreading the word about their 1994 album, A Pale Debilitating Autumn, as well as 2003’s Furioso.

Since Furioso is their more accomplished work, I’ll post two tracks off it to give you an idea of what the record’s all about. Although I’m of the opinion that it’s flawless from start to finish, we’ll move on to the two songs at hand instead of ranting further. Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR

 THE REARVIEW MIRROR  4 Responses »
Aug 232015
 

Anomalous-Ohmnivalent

 

(DGR presents this Sunday’s edition of The Rearview Mirror.)

When the prospect of a new feature entitled The Rearview Mirror was broached on the site, the idea seemed interesting. I’ve always liked the opportunity to just delve deeper into a song, as I’m sure my reveiws have shown, since I try to focus on at least two or three in depth. But outside of having a news bit or an album to review, the ability to open a forum for full discussion is rare indeed.

Rather than just try to post “hey, check this shit out”, I know we’ve always tried to provide at least a little context — that, and the intended similarities to the Morning Wood feature from ye olden ashes of the defunct website I hail from, where we essentially posted a song every morning in this fashion, mean that I may be one of the best-equipped to actually contribute every once in a while. And honestly, who would I be if I didn’t take the opportunity to ruin your weekends every once in a while with my garbage music taste? Continue reading »

THE REARVIEW MIRROR

 THE REARVIEW MIRROR  13 Responses »
Aug 092015
 

Rearview Mirror

 

Though The Number of the Blog went to blog Valhalla long ago, I still stay in touch with its founder, Professor D. Grover the XIIIth. Recently he suggested that NCS might consider reviving the idea behind an old TNOTB series called “Morning Wood“. I thought it was a good suggestion, and so here we are… with the inaugural post of what I hope will become a weekly Sunday series, borrowing the “Morning Wood” idea but under a new name.

With very few exceptions, the music we write about at this site consists of recent, new, or forthcoming releases. In The Synn Report, Andy does provide monthly retrospectives about entire discographies of selected bands, and we’ve had a few other retrospective-style series in the past as well, but we mainly focus on the here and now. But the focus of this new Rearview Mirror series will be metal songs from the past. And I do mean individual songs — these posts are going to be short, but hopefully sweet. Continue reading »

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