Butchered

Never judge a book from its cover. Bullshit. I for one cannot stand a book with a cover that is misleading or not fitting to the content. Of course the importance of the general 'artwork' is next to non existent when talking about books. But what about records? It's often that bad artwork makes me avoid listening to a record especially when talking about black metal. I have debated before about the importance of the image in black metal. It is the image combined with the artwork and the music that create the whole atmosphere that is an integral part of this music. In that context it is often that a cover can draw me to a record without having any idea of its music's value. The artwork can be enough for me to give a chance to a bad and then decide how good it is. Disappointments are not rare in such cases but that doesn't mean that the visual aesthetics of an album are not essential and at least a first indication about about a band's seriousness and philosophy. 

There are also plenty of cases that bad artwork appalls me from certain releases or from the whole of a bands' work. I can't think of a better example than Maniac Butcher, a band that the underground deems as 'legendary' but whose record covers and their image could make clowns like Immortal look as serious as college professors. Until recently I hadn't heard not a single song of the band. How could one listen to a band that shows such a band taste (or a complete lack of it) by choosing to cover its work with 'art'work like this? Is it possible that good music could hide behind such hideous visual presentation? Furthermore there is also that legendary status given to the band. Usually the underground appoints such titles with great ease. Bands that exist for many years are automatically 'legends'. Whether this is the superficiality that characterizes the people or just bad use of language, I don't know. A band is legendary when it has to show exquisite work during its years of existence. A band that counts many years of life and nothing more, could be described as stubborn or persistent or plainly annoying in cases of completely worthless bands.

Stubborn could a description fitting to Maniac Butcher. After almost twenty years they managed to make a cover artwork that is half a step above their previous excrement, though it is still badly painted (if at all) and childish. This is their first record I listen to and it is pretty decent black metal but nothing above average. This is a universe away from being the work of a legendary band. Especially when one listens to the new Weapon that is expected soon - and will be possibly the second best black metal record of the year, after Deathspell Omega - the Maniac Butcher LP can become unbearably indifferent.   

On a (not so) different matter...What the fuck is wrong with all those so called modern thrash metal bands that are promoted by the mainstream press like Terrorizer and such magazines. Who told them that thrash metal was just about beers, supposedly funny poses and stupid grimaces? Suddenly the world of metal is full of Tankard lookalikes competing about the most stupid pose smiling or laughing like demented imbeciles.

To think that my generation grew up listening to thrash metal and thinking that thrash was Slayer, Exodus, Destruction, Sodom, Razor, Sacrifice, Assassin or Protector and 25 years later seeing this music being degenerated to harmless and mindless fun is a pity. But who are we to judge? Terrorizer knows best. Thrash metal is endless fun just as gothic is the garbage served in this lame insert called Dominion.

Fuck you.

Real butchers...
Procession - The Cult of Disease
Integrity - The Blackest Curse
Dead Congregation - Graves Of The Archangels 

Neil Young - Le Noise
Unholy Lust - Taste The Sin Through The Fire

Time...what a sulphur

Time is precious. The more it passes the more precious it is. Moments are also precious. Some years ago I rarely felt the need to 'capture' moments, either by technical means (cameras and stuff) or by saving moments to my memory and thus to my heart and mind. As time goes by I feel this need more often. I don't know what it is with time and its whole concept that fascinates me but the fact is that I constantly find myself toying with ideas and facts that are relevant with time. The first thing that triggered my interest was some years back when I realized that time can by very relative. I remember the brief talk that me and my (drunk) group of friends had with a 10 year old kid. The kid was talking about a habit he used to have, 'back in the day'. When we asked when exactly this 'back in the day' was he told us that it was seven or eight months before. The general initial response was one of amusement and superficial 'teaching'. Which means a bunch of drunk elders explaining to a kid that eight months is as recent as yesterday. Yet it only took me a moment to realize that the kid was actually right. Or maybe both sides were right.  In the life of a ten years old, one year is 10% of his life, which is a lot.  In the life of a fifty years old, one year is only 2% of it. So the absolute amount of eight months time was really so much relative. Now that I summarize things I see that it took plenty of alcohol and a small kid to give me a new interest in life. 

                          _____________________________________________

     

The amount of new music I listen to everyday is threatening to burn me out. I don't know how things came to this point, but when you listen to at least three or four new records a day, your favorite habit becomes a race against...whom? The obvious fact is that the listening of music is superficial to say the least. There's absolutely no time to digest what you listen. The worst thing is that there's no time to listen to some of your favorites. The exact same thing happened to me in the late 90s and resulted to a six years withdrawal from the underground and music in general. So, less is more and I hope I will stick to this decision as I wish to take the full from the records I choose to listen. 

The thing is that this is also the problem with the music 'journalists'. (I always thought this term is ridiculous, hence the quotes). No one can write a record review after listening to a record just for a couple of times. I know none will admit doing so but I'm sure that 90% of them don't give more time than this to the records they write about. This also leads to the oversimplified and shallow reviews that plague the underground (and not only) that are plain descriptions of each song. Also the saturation of the scene with worthless and invalid subgenre tags cannot be irrelevant to this phenomenon. The shallow approach to a record leads the 'reviewer' to playing it safe by inventing his own genre like 'depressive ambient blackened doom death metal' in order to include everything he thinks he heard in 40 minutes and that's it. 

  


A brief reference to records I listened to and left a mark on me lately...

   

StarGazer - A Great Work Of Ages 

This is not the first time I refer to one of the greatest death metal bands of the decade. I had praised their first record and I will praise this one even more. This is much more mature and varied and it is also much more focused. It is actually so varied that now that the mainstream is discovering them I expect to read the most ridiculous descriptions a moron can invent. You'll see 'avant garde' or 'jazz' referenced a lot but fear not. This is death METAL with innovation and talent that is brutal as much as it is full of imagination.   

Wolfshade - When Above... 

This is a french band and their third full length is my first contact with their music. You'll see 'suicidal' or 'shoegazing' and other crap referenced a lot about Wolfshade but fear not. Their  black metal is maybe more doom metal at its core emphasizing to atmosphere and creating an aura of mysticism that is calm and relaxing in the outside but there's a sense of danger lurking in its shadows. Occult black metal you imbeciles.   

The devil will come...

Grave Miasma - Realm of Evoked Doom 

Hallow's Eve - Tales Of Terror

Griftegard/Count Raven - Split

Uriah Heep - Abominog

Hooded Priest - Devil Worship Reckoning

Satan is real...

Religion-spirituality-music

I had a great interest in religious matters from a very early age. The teaching of the christian religion is obligatory in the whole period of mandatory education in greece, so every kid is subjected to the 'truths' and 'superior' values of it from the age of 6 or 7 until 17. If I remember correct I was probably 12 years old when I started to question the thinks I was being taught. Some time later I started studying religious books other than the christian ones, starting with the coran and expanding to others the following years.

Anyhow, the result of those early, fairly immature attempts to explore religion resulted to a complete anti-religious stance that was obviously helped by the strict orthodox theocratic state greece is and the way it oppresses the ones that think in a different way. This anti-religious thing lasted for several years, although throughout these years I continued studying religious texts of any kind (including magical texts) especially focusing to the dark corners that passed unnoticed at first reading.

Things started changing maybe when I was 30 years old or something. It was the period of my life when Ι couldn't characterize myself as anti-anything. It just seemed a sterile and shallow way of dealing with serious matters. I also realized at some point that I couldn't view at religious matters cutting them out of the spiritual aspect. Most people tend to view religion under the aspect of the organized, distorted form that is prevalent today. Most people also view such matters being influenced by the way the herd face religiousness. Blind faith, fear, total submission, destruction of  any sign of self confidence and so on. All these can only lead a thinking person to an anti-religion stance. 

Anyhow, the way I see things is different. The fact that the herd sees religious matters in the superficial way it does, does not mean that those matters are really that shallow. Note that where I use the word 'religious' I could as well use the word 'spiritual'. For me spirituality is the very core of religiousness, yet it is usually absent by human belief. I have yet to confront a christian devout or not, that really is a spiritual person. Perhaps this is natural when talking about religions that are made and organized in a certain way, with the goal of attracting the more followers possible. It is also natural since religion is used as a tool to control massive groups of people. But is this religion's true nature? In my opinion the very essence of religion is that of a tool in the service of the individual. It is to be used for his enlightenment and spiritual ascension. 

All of the above things considered I now consider myself to be a religious individual. The path on which I walk is obvious by a brief browsing of this little lair. So, sterile anti-christian or anti-religion views does not interest me. Such rhetoric is fitting for imbecile viking wannabees but I am always unpleasantly surprised when I see such reactions coming from smart and thinking people. How can such people ignore the spiritual factor? Does the rejection of religion also mean they reject spirituality?

Some are skeptical about such matters believing in science as the answer to almost everything. But why should spirituality be seen as an answer to anything? I myself am a scientist studying and practicing my science for more than 20 years overall, yet I fail to see where science is against spirituality. The needs those two fulfill are quite different. In that sense does the rejection of religion/spirituality could possibly mean a rejection of ,say, philosophical thinking that is not always grounded on apt scientific proof? 

All in all spirituality for me is the tool for soul searching, self improvement and ascension, mind conquering over matter and flesh, establishing balance and communication with the multiverse. Linguistic difficulties force me to stop my rambling here.   

To connect all these with my favorite subject of extreme and violent music, it comes as no surprise that bands like Deathspell Omega, Watain and others are often being judged in the most negative manner because of views they have expressed in interviews. I still remember people being pissed off with DsO after this interview. I can understand that a plain metalhead is not the best example of a bright individual, so such things are beyond him. Lines like 'rape the anus of the virgin' and so on are more within such a person's mental ability, while DsO's lyrics are confusing but that doesn't mean that black metal should stay in a condition that suits people of the lower common denominator. Yet, deep inside I am satisfied when I see such bands being criticized for their philosophy even if this comes a result of malicious judgment, as it is a sign that black metal is much more than plain music made for instant consumption or entertainment. On the other hand bands like the aforementioned and some other (Funeral Mist comes first to mind) have made a poor choice of tool for their cause (that tool being metal). The odd mass we use to call metal community has not shown signs of liking intelligent individuals. The surprising thing is when otherwise smart persons choose to reduce a band's spiritual or theological or religious beliefs to a bunch of mumbo jumbo nonsense. This is surprising because I don't expect from a clever man to choose the easy path of mocking the other instead of confronting him. 

At the end of the day maybe it is not wise to connect spiritual matters with genres of metal music. The world of metal loves oversimplifications. Blastbeats and tremolo picking make black metal, a simple acoustic passage is folk, a drum machine is industrial, slow pace is doom and so on. Just like that. Just like fucking that. Alas, real music is a living organism much more complex than that. It needs soul, it needs to breath, it demands emotion. Either way it doesn't deserve to be defined in such a shallow manner. It doesn't deserve to be viewed as mere notes in a row. 

Hate and suffering for y'all.

This text was written under the company and influence of Esoteric's The Maniacal Vale.                   

A circle complete

'Paracletus, the last record of the trilogy, will be released November 8th in Europe.'

No.Ev.Dia.

The most important black metal artists of recent time are going to conclude the year with the final part of the trilogy that started with Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice. Unfortunately the hype around the band has brought a lot of parasites around them that started spreading their stupidity based on the band's new american label. I am ever amazed by seeing how many imbeciles there are around, always ready to drag everything down to their sub-basement level standards. 

Best thing they can do is stay the fuck away. There are always comedians like Immortal that are tailored made for them and their mind and spiritual capabilities. 

AMSG

...καί άλλον Παράκλητο δώσει υμίν, ίνα μένη μεθ' υμών εις τόν αιώνα

On November 9, the mysterious, meta-physical, black metal omega lords will unleash their fifth album, "Paracletus".

 

Cleanse your soul, body and mind.

Amen

Under the influence

I have never considered myself nor have I ever been a 'metalhead' in the sense that I've never liked plain old heavy metal. I used to find it boring, shallow and definitely not extreme enough for my liking. Plus the fans would best be described as fucking imbeciles. This is more or less my opinion until today. 

My interest in music started in early 80's with the post punk bands like Joy Division and Bauhaus and also bands like The Smiths, all three bands that are still some of my favorites. Sometime in 1985 or 1986 I got trapped into thrash metal's web and then it was a path of no return. Death metal, black metal in 1988 and the heavy involvement in the then burgeoning underground strengthened my roots in extreme music for good. When I started listening to thrash metal the only non thrash bands I had heard before were AC/DC and Iron Maiden's Powerslave. This means I still have a fondness for those bands although they are nowhere close to being my favorites.

These thoughts came to me recently when I was reorganizing my record collection. I filed the cds and LPs according to the genre the band belongs (Black metal, death, thrash, doom, martial/industrial, progressive, folk, post rock and so on). It was then that it became obvious that the category with the fewest records (by very very far) was heavy metal. In fact the heavy metals albums I own are so few that I could write all of them without being bored. Brocas Helm's three studio albums, Helstar's Burning Star, In Solitude's self titled debut, Mercyful Fate's, Iron Maiden's and Manilla Road's discographies, Satan's Court in the Act, Ram's Lightbringer and Running Wild's first two. This is pretty much all the heavy metal I can take. These few bands are the exception to the rule of shallow music, stupid lyrics, crappy and happy melodies that characterizes heavy metal. To put it simply it is not dark and brutal enough for me.

I usually don't talk about music when in the company of other people. It was always difficult for me to meet people that would share my extreme and twisted views in music or even my passion for it, so I stopped socializing (with the few persons I do socialize) on the basis of musical tastes. This has also made music a very personal matter for me. When I recently run into an old friend and comrade from almost twenty years back we had a long talk about the underground and 'the old days'. It is unavoidable when you get older to think of the older era as purer, better and in all senses greater than the present. So, we that lived the golden era of the underground in late 80's early 90's find today's situation pathetic. The things I would like to be different are many but what I miss the most are the printed fanzines. This was the purest indication of the fan's commitment and devotion to the scene. This was also the average fan's attempt to be a part of the scene and not just a passive receiver. The rise of the internet has led to a vast explosion of web zines which logically led to a great amount of rubbish being posted online with the internet acting as a huge dumpster that threatens to bury the underground under vast amounts of shit. I find it sad that the best web zines today are in fact indie music sites that give some space to black, death and doom metal. Sad in the sense that I have yet to find a web zine devoted only to said genres and worth even a couple of minutes of my time. 

Of course I am not the only nostalgic in the world. This means that printed zines still do exist, even in a smaller scale than before. The problem is that most of those that I happened to read suffer from baby diseases that are unacceptable in our times. What was charming in 1988 is annoying in 2010 at least for me as I am now 39 and have much higher expectations. When talking about an old zine the broken english of both the writer and the band featured were among others a sign of the times. Now I cannot stand a zine written in horrible english to the point were the reader cannot even understand the questions being asked and the answers given. I also cannot stand interviews that are anything but thought provocative. Another common feature of any zine was the overwhelming exaggeration and enthusiasm of the writer that led to the glorification of worthless bands and recordings. This was once bearable as this music was new and pretty much in its shaping so there wasn't really a point of reference and comparison so any exaggeration was excused. That's not the case today though. There are no more virgin ears, everybody is one click away from any music he desires so the last thing one needs is an uneducated shithead from the other side of the world ranting about how great is some demo that is actually worse than a pile of shit. 

It is obvious that there are some people that are confused. Making an amateur publication does not equal to making a bad one. Times have changed very much and the needs of the underground today are very different than twenty years ago. An imaginative layout that would not insult the reader's  aesthetics, proper use of the language, thoughtful and insight texts, be it interviews or any other text. The only zine I have read meeting the above criteria and many more is Oaken Throne, probably the best music magazine I have ever read. 

One great zine (and maybe a couple of others that I didn't happen to read). Can this make a difference?

The accused...
Profanatica - Disgusting  Blasphemies Against God
Lucifugum - Xa Heresy
Tortured Spirit - Arkham Sanitarium
The Secret - Disintoxication


Cut your flesh and worship SATAN

Backwards

Although I don’t have any particular problem with the constant evolution of technology there are some matters were I am extremely ‘old school’. One of them is cars. In general I don’t have any interest in cars. They are just tools that I use to do my job, as it requires pretty long travels. So when it comes to my car I keep things on a basic level. This among other things means minimum electronics, not even a cd player. So the old and faithful cassette player helps me staying in contact with my music roots as it keeps my tape collection useful.

Having to drive many hours due to job obligations normally doesn’t bother me. Except the other day when I forgot to put my tapes back in the car after I washed and cleaned it (after a couple of years). Under the circumstances the radio was the only alternative. Now, I have never been a friend of the radio and I could never share the affection a lot of people show for the medium. I find it to be shallow and with no real meaning. When I want to listen to music I will listen to my cd's instead of waiting from a radio station to play some music that is of my liking. If I want to be aware of what's going on there's always the printed press and the internet.

This basic belief of mine was cemented after hours of torture, wandering among the lady gagas and rihannas of the world and the awful and unbearable popular greek music, during that recent trip of mine. The lack of choice that I confronted was astonishing. Inevitably my mind made the comparisons with the situation many years before.

It was sometime in 1987 when a 16 year old discovered in awe that there was a radio show on the national greek radio that was specializing in extreme underground metal. I would never think there would be any radio station that would cover the music I was listening to, let alone the national radio. Yet, there it was, an hour every Saturday afternoon devoted to raw and brutal thrash and death metal. Back in the day this was the fastest and easiest way to learn about and listen to new releases as mainstream metal press didn't bother about the underground, fanzines were covering new records some months or years later and the internet was not in the people's vocabulary. The show used to present new records in their entirety as soon as they were released. I remember as if it was yesterday some of the LPs featured...Death's Leprosy, Protector's Urm the Mad, Axegrinder's Rise of the Serpent Men, Sacrilege's Within the Prophecy and Turn back Trilobite , Thanatos' Emerging from the Netherworlds and plenty more. The show vanished somewhere in 1990 or 1991 and with it vanished the one and only attempt of the mainstream media to shed light in the underground of metal. Some years later even mainstream metal disappeared from the greek radio as you couldn't even listen to an Iron Maiden song.

This way we come to here and now. As long as I know there are a couple of self proclaimed rock radio stations with a strange idea of what rock music really is. Metal is an unknown word in the cosmos of greek radio, so anyone can guess what is the situation with black and death metal.

The real problem is that this situation is not a result of business decisions or marketing plans made by the stations but it is what comes from the complete setback of the greek society that started from early 90s and continues until today. In today's context it is unthinkable for a radio station to play something like Leprosy, not because there is no audience but because there would be many that would protest if such music was played on air. We the greeks are fucked up, demented  and peculiar in many ways. I find it strange that the many problems (mostly economical) the average citizen of this shithole faces in his everyday life for many years now, do not result in rage or anything like that. Instead they lead to a strict conservatism and a stupid turning towards harmless and cheap entertainment that further stupefies them.

The league of extraordinary gentlemen

Thankfully we don't need no radio to point us towards two amazing new records that are the best things I heard lately.

Blood Revolt's Indoctrine is the best example of today's extreme metal. It is not black metal, neither it is death, thrash, doom, war or whatever stupid tag would anyone thing. It is all of the above and many more. 'This is the sniper filing down the pin before picking off innocents, this is the suicide bombers sweaty greasy hand on the ignition, dead bodies piled in the politics of the mass grave. Unforgiving and unrelenting elitism' in the words of A. Averill as spoken in an interview (read it here). It is one of those rare occasions where a band describes exactly its work with no exaggerating or falling into the web of megalomania.

This is by far the most brutal music Averill has put his voice along and his performance is stunning. In the same interview he says 'I’ve never done music this violent or brutal, so I just went back to my roots and the old school vocal performances from the likes of carnivore, holy terror, dark angel, slayer etc. this tight sharp thrash approach'. Picture this and add his talent on performing in a unique theatrical manner (spoken word, narration, melancholic passages) and maybe you'll have an idea.

On the other hand this is the most 'well produced' and professional recording C. Ross and J. Read have ever made and their performance is of the highest caliber. It is not often that a record is as complete as Indoctrine is, both in inspirational/compositional level and in execution.

I would also like to pay my respects to  Annthennath's States of Liberating Departure.

 The remarkable black metal records of the year have been enough. One of the absolute best is the debut from these frenchmen. Having formed a scene with strong personality to the point of being considered an established force, france now meets its new pretenders to the throne.

The members are all veterans with the most notable being ex Deathspell Omega vocalist and prolific underground figure Shaxul. His period of Deathspell Omega is anything but my favorite as I find it to be mediocre and uninspired both in musical and lyrical/philosophical levels. But I don't like to bite the hand that feeds me, and since I feed on hateful, raw and filthy black metal mostly, States of Liberating Departure is essential.

The guitars are along the lines of the french tradition, but with no fear in adding melody or being more free-form with leads appearing very often. After all, the guitars have all the freedom to do as they wish having the strong backing of the bass which here acts as another lead instrument almost equal to the guitars. Shaxul contributes his strongest performance ever and all these combined with the great cover constitute a work that is a mandatory listen.

Sometimes when reading comments of any kind on whatever subject interests me, I keep notes. Unfortunately it is often that I don't write down were I read each comment either out of laziness or because I am so naive to believe that I will remember the 'source'. Of course after four or five pages in my notebook my memory fails me. Such is the case with a comment I read concerning Nightbringer's Apocalypse Sun. I only remember that it was posted on a greek blog because I remember me translating it in english. In just two lines it summarizes every feeling and thought I have about this record but I could never manage to phrase myself. I quote 'Uncontrolled. Blatant.No outbreak. No emotional charge. No digestible passages. Black, almost not metal. Guitars built to slaughter'.

Amen