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Nature has been on my mind a lot these past few weeks. Blame it on a stressful year, but these days the idea of a solitary autumn morning amongst the trees sounds a thousand times better than another morning commute cross-city, and yet… and yet.
A few weeks back I had the chance to explore Red Rock Canyon just outside of Las Vegas–there were ravines and shattered chunks of rock bearing scars of ancient glacial trauma and water-worn grooves in the canyon wall that spoke to the slow but steady destructive power of time. It’s the simplest and most familiar of themes driven home by a billion tons of rock that you can mindlessly climb. A few hours scrabbling across boulders, leaping gaps, feeling the sun and wind and stone underfoot, occasionally leaning too far over the edge of a cliff and getting the faintest taste of death at the back of my throat—it went a long way.
In a similar vein, occasional contributor and friend of IO Stefan Raduta recently passed along a gorgeous, sprawling report of his time spent at the Stella Natura festival up in the Desolation Wilderness area of the Tahoe National Forest. Flipping through his pictures of bands and attendees gathered amongst trees and natural granite makes me immediately sad to have missed this opportunity, and instantly thrilled that something like this even exists. It’s well worth a look.
Not all of the releases this week strike me as music for reflection–but if the world is what we make of it, they’ll do just fine for my current purpose. This week, grab your iPod and head outside.
— Aaron Lariviere
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ALBUM OF THE WEEK (SHOULD RULE HARD)
This week’s top honor goes to Pig Destroyer. We’ve given this thing pretty extensive coverage already, in the form of an album review and an interview with J.R. Hayes , so I’ll spare you the rehash and simply remind you that the album is finally available for purchase.
Pig Destroyer – “The Baltimore Strangler”
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MIGHT RULE HARD
Let’s run through ‘em right quick: Bedemon finally, finally put out their debut album, after years of trying and after the death of the main songwriter. This is old-sounding doom from actual old men with ties to Pentagram; riffs galore! Behold the Arctopus continue to make progressive epileptic noise that hardly makes sense, though it’s still entertaining as hell. (Check out our recent track premiere for a taste.) I need to hear more of The Secret’s latest; it’s vicious Italian hardcore by way of Southern Lord with an anti-Catholic bent. And Witch Cross, lovely, Witch Cross. Hells Headbangers dug up this obscure nugget of early ’80s Danish heavy metal to rescue it from out-of-print obscurity. I’ve had a burned copy for years, and I can’t wait to snag this one on vinyl. Killer party record.
Bedemon – Symphony of Shadows [Buy CD] / [MP3] / [LP]
Behold the Arctopus – Horrorscension [Buy CD] / [MP3]
Bedemon – “Son of Darkness”
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Witch Cross – “Rocking the Night Away”
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no mention of Wintersun’s latest?
Yanni out of metal.
Huh? you’re comparing Wintersun to Yanni?
I believe that’s what I just did!
Seriously, I’ve always thought Wintersun was overrated, and the hilarious overproduction on the new one is positively Yanni-esque. (I’m not the first person to make the comparison.) But this is Aaron’s column, so you’d have to ask him why he excluded it.
Well, your opinion (and Aaron’s) aside, it’s a highly anticipated album for a lot of people this year. If nothing else, I’d say their 2004 debut was underrated, but I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I don’t really care if you like it or not. Give it a bad review if you don’t like it, but when I see it completely omitted… it makes me think someone’s finger isn’t on the pulse.
That said, the new Pig Destroyer is pretty awesome.
…but then again I suppose this column isn’t meant to inform the reader of EVERYTHING that’s coming out. If so, there’s a lot missing. I was just surprised that the author wouldn’t suggest that it even “MIGHT rule hard”.
But we just did a feature on Devin Townsend yesterday.
GOSH I WAS JOKING, STOP BEING ALL REASONABLE!
Seeing as I can’t actually cover everything, I make snap judgments each week as I sift the pile. Wintersun made the short list — sadly, it’s pretty weak.
From a time management perspective, I’ve had to streamline this column to make the listening (80% of the time involved) and writing easier to wrangle on a weekly basis. Perfect world — this is a jumping off point, a place to share cool new things and a place for readers to chime in and share what they’re excited for.
Understood. I mistook these “Albums of the month/week” columns as all inclusive. Meaning that even if you didn’t like or listen to something, it would at least be listed at the bottom of the post in an “Other” section. But since it seems to be more of a “Best of” column, if any given album didn’t grab your attention then it makes sense that it’s not listed.
no love for THE SWORD? New one totally rocks…
That omission surprised me as well. I’ve never even heard of 3 of the 4 bands in the “Might rule hard” section, but that’s not a bad thing. That’s the reason I check these blogs. To find stuff I haven’t heard.
totally agree, i love IO for that very reason, discovering stuff that i’ve never heard of. but nothin’ wrong with showing some love for a more established band, especially if it’s a great album, as the new one from The Sword is!
i think you mean THE BORED
good point
Very good point! haha ^^^
Love the Sword, thought Apocryphon was meh.
Remember when The Sword opened for Early Man years ago? Pretty weird they opened for Metallica a mere few years later…
Got the Wintersun yesterday. It’s awful. Where the first album was cool and engaging from the first notes, this just wanders without ever getting anywhere. It’s 45 minutes of intros and “sweeping, epic” crap.
Judas Priest released a BUNCH of albums before they went off the rails and risked boring their audience to death with Nostradamus. Wintersun did it after just one album.
I’ve got to say I’m disappointed with it as well. I don’t think it’s awful. I actually think it’s a good album. But I have to agree with you that it’s not at all cohesive, and an album that’s less than 45 minutes shouldn’t be half intros/outros. All in all I like it and it’s growing on me, but I feel like they had 8 years to come up with something as good or better than the debut, and in that they may have failed. But I’ll withhold judgement until I hear Time II. Who knows, maybe then it will all make sense.
100% agree. This sounds like he was trying to become the next Nightwish. All bombastic style, zero substance.
God Seed’s I Begin kicks ass.
The new Blood Duster rules. Except the vinyl version they’re selling is unplayable. No shit.
http://www.bloodduster.com/
Slomo ‘The Grain’ came out yesterday. Get it. It’s really good.
The IO folks called it, but given the band’s track record, we can’t really call that clairvoyance: the new Pig Destroyer is great. It’s loud, aggressive, angular, more than a bit unsettling, and about as energized (and energizing) as a grindcore record can be.
The bonus disc of covers AND J.R. Hayes’s short story make the “deluxe package” the way to go…
Witch Cross.. what a sweet tune. Thanks!
This week is all about God Seed’s I Begin. An excellent return for Gaahl and King.
I’m about 1/2 way through the new Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza, and much to my surprise/delight, it’s pretty kick ass. I’ve never listened to them much, but always hoped that a band with that name would destroy.
The Witch Cross is a real gem. Every time I think everything good has already been recovered, something I’ve never heard before gets reissued and blows my mind.
My initial copy of Witch Cross came on a burned CD from a friend. The back half included another crusty old NWOBHM gem from Holocaust. I think it was their first album, The Nightcomers. Well worth a look if you’re down with the style. Something tells me these are both Cosmic Hearse discoveries, in which case: thanks Aesop! (And thanks Adam, for giving me the CD!)
http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Holocaust/The_Nightcomers/7664
Cheers! While the Hearse was a safe assumption, I must give credit where it is due: Witch Cross came from Fenriz, the ancient one. Holocaust came from the omnipresent-yet-elusive Martin Depedro…
HHR has been reissuing that Witch Cross for well over a year now, but it must keep selling out. They also had the 4LP vinyl box set for a while (as well as Fit For Fight pic disc), not sure if they still do.
On that note, anyone relishing in tasty classic trad licks from the forgotten era – look no further than the almighty LOUDNESS from Japan. Start digging.
I went to order this from HHR after reading about in Decibel, but all they had listed at the time was the CD. Luckily, one of the handful of used record stores in town had a copy of the picture disc, which came with a patch. I am happy as hell to have it.
And yes, I definitely like the Loudness I’ve heard, though I can’t say I’m at all familiar with their more recent stuff.
Also still need to check out Holocaust, which I think Aaron was praising here before. So many bands . . .
Wow. A Loudness reference! I haven’t thought about those guys in a loooong time. Their minor hit in ‘85: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b4w08xusl8
YOU ARE THE HEWOOOOO!!! Awesome.
I saw Loudness last year less than a week before MDF. I was torn between seeing Nocturnal from Germany at this tacqueria, but I was like, FUCK! LOUDNESS! M!Z!A! I’m glad I went!
Ah, Fenriz and Martin. Go figure!
The God Seed is pretty good. Pig Destroyer did jack shit for me although I’m not much of a grind fan any how.
Totally with you—and others here—on the God Seed album. I was inclined not to like it because “Ov Hell” was such complete and total shite… but this is excellent.
I hear you on Pig Destroyer, but I’m a fan. Funny thing: can’t say specifically why I like it, other than it seems challenging on first listen and rewarding on subsequent listens… AND I think J.R. Hayes and Scott Hull are the (uh oh…) Jagger/Richards or Lennon/McCartney or (insert your favorite songwriting team here) of this genre.
And dammit if this isn’t the best packaging/special bonus material offering of 2012. A killer album PLUS a disc of punk covers PLUS a good short story written by a member of the band? YEAH!