As old-timers among the followers of our site will remember, I have a habit of grouping songs in the rollout of these lists in a way that makes sense to me. Part of the fun is in pairing up tracks that sound made for each other, sometimes because they share genre characteristics and sometimes because the flow of the mood just seems right. I had the feeling that combining the two tracks in this installment would be a good call — but you be the judge of that. I’ll add that both tracks were initially released with videos that I quite enjoyed; the first one in particular was one of the best of last year, in my humble opinion.
I should mention that if you happen to be encountering this series for the first time, you can go here to find out what it’s all about.
CONAN
Many metal bands have come up with unique descriptors for their own music rather than rely on conventional genre terms. Most of them are simply clever (or not very clever) marketing tools rather than labels that have any meaningful connection to the music itself. But Conan’s name for their own brand of sound couldn’t be more perfect: “Caveman Battle Doom”. And I happen to have a crippling weakness for those sounds, perhaps because the music itself is so crippling. Continue reading »