Here are some awesome EPs and demos for y'all to boogie down to. Except, some of this isn't really boogie material. Nonetheless these all rule and you need them. Extra music in this post to make up for my horrible lack of postage over the past week. Titles are the download links.

Agalloch - Of Stone, Wind and Pillor



EP; Genre: Black Metal, Folk, Post Rock

It's Agalloch, need I say more? Basically imagine taking a cold shower but you're dry. This music makes you shiver and squirm, but leaves you wanting more. Catchy buzzy black metal riffs surround beautiful folk interludes, and shades of post rock can be distinguished among the tracks. Texture is the focus of the EP, the band's affinity for such evident in their use of acoustic guitar over walls of distorted riffs and their complementing of strings with horns and resonating bass vocal drones.

Summer isn't coming; Arise, Arise
- Kneel To The Cross


Mayhem - Deathcrush



EP; Genre: Black Metal

Mayhem isn't the best black metal act around, but their releases are all varied and worth a listen in any case. Deathcrush is a short and sweet burst of intense, raw black metal and is probably the band's second best release after the classic De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Plus it has a song called Chainsaw Gutsfuck. Worth it just for that.

Cruciamentum - Convocation of Crawling Chaos



Demo; Genre: Blackened Death Metal

Cruciamentum means "torture" in latin. Fuck yeah. This is an awesome slab of old school death metal with some black metal aesthetics. The drumming is absolutely mind-blowing and the production is murky and claustrophobic. Three bestial songs. 18 minutes. No bad parts at all.

Immolation - Hope and Horror



EP; Genre: Death Metal

Immolation proved this year that they were still one of the world's greatest death metal bands with the stellar Majesty and Decay, and fans applaud liberally the classic Close to a World Below but there is an oft-forgotten EP from 2007 which is very listenable indeed. Although the record it preceded was, by the band's standards, nothing special, this extended play is unexpectedly good. However it does lack the massive production from Close to a World Below, tending to come off as more tinny sounding.

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Irony Is A Dead Scene


EP; Genre: Mathcore

Best Dillinger release ever. Seriously. Vocals kick ass (Mike Patton), instrumentation kicks ass, music doesn't ever bore. Quirky, insane, jazz-influenced mathcore. Fucking yes.

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In late 2008, a little game was released known as Mirror's Edge. A lot of critics found the story lack and the gameplay somewhat forced; others found the parkour inspired first person action and responsive, intuitive controls refreshing and rewarding. I happen to be one of the people who fall into the second category; I absolutely loved this game for reasons that are beyond me, though my best guess is that it's the first game that makes me feel like the character I'm playing isn't retarded (think of how in a lot of games, you can't swim, or like... in Guild Wars, you can't jump). Basically, given any situation in the game, I always felt like I had the necessary abilities to do it. I loved the game for it's unique visual style, which had a mostly white palette with a heavy emphasis on primary colors for direction.

In addition to all this, however, Mirror's Edge had an absolutely fantastic soundtrack. Ambient and Low-Fi composed by the one man group Solar Fields (with the last two tracks composed by Lisa Miskovsky). The last song, Still Alive, is completely unrelated to the similarly named infamous song from Portal. All in all, the tracks combine city evocative ambience to pulse-
pounding techno, all wrapped up in a crisp, clean production.

Getttttttttt (it's big).

Also, you should play the game.

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Genre - Indie, Experimental

Bill Callahan is brilliant. Starting out as an artist whose music had a very experimental aspect to it, he recorded a lo-fi brand of mostly intstrumental music. After about 1993 his music increased significantly in sound quality. He is also now much more lyrically focused and possesses a baritone voice, singing without emotion. The lack of emotion in his voice is not a detriment to the music, rather it enhances the sense of singularity his music already has. His lyrics are also fantastic. Callahan utilizes repetition of simple melodies, chord progressions and so forth in his songs, tending to avoid the typical verse-chorus-verse structure. The tracks are quite sparse, but you'll hear occasional bursts of lushness, which helps keep the music from becoming uninteresting. The song "No Dancing" is a good example of this, laced with guitar fuzz, horns and violins.

Basically this rules and you should get it.

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Genre: Indie, Post Punk

There are lots of good singers in the world. Beyonce has a good voice, as does Chris Cornell. Jesse Lacey and Justin Vernon are also individuals to which this label applies (in my superior opinion).

To me, it's pretty special when a vocalist comes along who is truly great. Morrissey is one of them. Blessed with a voice possessing a sort of creamy quality and phrasing to match, his brilliant lyrics soar over the catchy and ingenious jangly guitar lines of Johnny Marr in a songwriting partnership that is extraordinarily hard to find fault with. It manages to s ound deliciously raw, but polished at the same time. People say that The Queen is Dead is The Smith's best. I agree. Everyone needs to hear this album. It's as close as you can get to post punk/indie rock perfection. The atmospheres and melodies contained within this are just beautiful, and you cannot help but be immersed in this record. Seriously man.

Seriously.

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Genre: Indie

Hot chip are an dance-y indie alt-rock band that have been making some waves for the past few years with their lovable melodic songs. A fuzzy tone gives them a dreamy, smooth sound that goes down easy, Infectious melodies and catchy lyrics give them an amicable sound that's easy to like but sometimes can be rather hard to take seriously. Lots of fun and rather relaxing, worth a listen over their allegedly average new material.

Get me nau!

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Genre: Black Metal, Crust

Darkthrone are one of the pioneering bands of the second wave of black metal. With three incredibly good albums (Transilvanian Hunger, A Blaze In The Northern Sky and Under a Funeral Moon) they helped shape the face of black metal to come. Wait why the hell am I telling you this. If you follow this blog of course you know who Darkthrone are.
Their later catalogue is sadly nowhere near as good as those three albums, however there are a few gems buried among the relative crap. A worthy ambassador of these oft-ignored records is The Cult Is Alive. At this time the band was combining black metal with liberal amounts of crust punk, which was always a fun listen. If you're not looking for anything deep or inaccessible, try this out. It's a great, catchy crusty black metal album because fuck you black metal elitists. Seriously this is such a cool combination. Black Metal-flavoured punk music with typical Darkthrone vocals is an imperious blend. If you thought black metal was already tongue-in-cheek in general, just check this out.

Also, lyrics are hilariously shit:

All right!
(I) first saw you at the graveyard
nice rack n' all
Creepy & lost in a fucked up head
aftershock dark woods and blurry lights
-"Graveyard Slut"
THRONE OF DARK

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Genre: Indie, Progressive

Mew have quickly become one of my favorite bands, and Frengers my favorite album by them. Shorter and more concise than the last album I posted (No More Stories), Frengers is basically happiness embodied in sound. It's just that awesome. I care about everything just a little bit less when listening to Frengers, it just takes me away.

Give it a shot.

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Genre: Progressive Death Metal

The Island is an awesome, awesome death metal band with progressive tendencies. They have this incredible guitar tone with groovy, melodic riffs that make you want to smash kittens. Or whatever. Anyway, knowing this, I figured: if their guitarists are so awesome, then other things they're involved with must be awesome. While this logic is somewhat faulty (correlation is not causation), I happened to be right this time: black metal band Klabautamann features one of Island's guitarists.

In the same vein as Island, this band is progressive, but KBMNN (lol) is black metal and has the soft-quiet dynamic utilized by tons of progressive bands. A word of warning, on the first track, the progression from loud to soft is awkward, but for some reason, every other one on the album is seamless and follows with what they had going. In addition, the quiet sections are more folk and ambient influenced than standard quiet acoustic sections. The riffs are just as retardedly awesome as they are in Island, with bearable black metal vox on top.

Get.




Because I love you, the fans, I will also include a link to Orakel, Island's devastating collection of several years of their work. It slays slays slays. Some of my favorite modern death metal, and it should be some of your favorite too.

Also Get.

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Genre: Electro House

You know what Canadia is great for? Nothing. I mean, sure, they gave us Cryptopsy (look how that turned out), they gave us Venetian Snares (except, Aaron Funk hates Canadia too), and apparently they gave us Deadmau5. You also have to remember, though, that they gave us Celine Dion, and that outweighs anything good they'll ever do for anyone, ever. That, and they can't even think of a good way to name themselves (come on, if you're from Canada, you're Canadan, or you're a Canadian from Canadia).

However, Deadmau5 is pretty awesome, despite that whole ear-shreddingly bad pop fiasco that was mentioned. Crisp production and smooth beats produce a strong backbone for the band's long song times. Personally, I think the first song is the absolute weakest on the album; all of the others are incredibly solid, and some of them dabble in Aphex Twin atmospheres and ambiance. In fact, why Deadmau5 chose to include the first song at all slightly baffles me. Definitely worth checking out if you like dancing or if you just want a cool album to chill to.

Also, Canadians are awesome.

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Genre: Metalcore

You want some awesome metalcore without the boringness? You got it bros.
Deadguy will show you the way. This is the best metalcore you'll hear today unless you listen to Converge or Botch afterwards.

CORE YO METAL

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Genre: Ska

I saw this obscure Indie movie called "Wristcutters: A Love Story" this weekend. It was pretty good; rom com with an unusual twist: all the characters have committed suicide and it's set in purgatory/the afterlife. Despite lacking a ton of information, it was good and had a sweet ending, and Phones is a sucker for a sweet ending. However, one of the characters, named Eugene, was styled after Eugene Hutz, frontman of Polka-Gypsy-Ska-Punk-Whatever band, Gogol Bordello. A few of their songs were played in the movie and sparked my interest.

Suffice to say, this is some of the most energetic, delightful and crazy music I have ever heard. Hutz carries the music with his lovable european accented swagger and catchy lyrics, as well as occasionally lapsing into just going blabalbalba (it's really funny every time, you'll know what I'm talking about when you hear it). Lively ska riffs and evident basslines form the backbone of the music, with eastern folk influenced violin and accordion lines adding a unique vibe to the core of their sound. Always upbeat and always incredibly fun, it's a blast and an absolute must listen.

Gypsy Punk.

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Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal

This is a strange release compared to Purity; instead of straight up oppressive, crushing black metal, there is a more atmospheric tinge to Battlefields. While Purity is more focused on crushing you with speedy black metal insanity, Battlefields is almost all slower-paced, doomy black metal. Of special note are tracks 3-6 that that cause the black metal tracks to bookend the album. All four are folk pieces, all sung, and as they progress, they get more urgent and depressing. By the third and fourth folk song, it sounds like a crying child singing. It probably is. It's really unnerving.

Get.

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Genre: Post Hardcore

Heavy like a train falling on you, catchier than heavy music should be and completely emotionally heartfelt, Refused released this album and punk was changed forever. Or so they say. Incredibly seminal, incredibly awesome, worth the mounds of hyperbolic claims it receives, bla de bler, get now.

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Genre: Death Metal

Timeghoul play pretty techy, thrashy death metal. So dirty. So good. Here's two demos for ya, in one file. Because of the new Immolation I've just generally been on a death metal kick, so expect to see a lot of death from me for a bit, with the occasional odd one thrown in.

If you don't like this you probably don't have ears or something. I dunno.

OBTAIN

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Genre: Death Metal (gonna start doing this since labels don't show at the bottom of posts.

When I stumbled upon Disma I almost shat myself. Reading the band's description, I saw that the band's members were from two of my favourite death metal bands: Incantation and Funebrarum. Naturally this demo rules harder than the lovechild of Stalin and Franco. Seriously if you're even a little into death metal this should be a priority for you. The drumming is superb, the riffs are inhuman and the vocals...well...the vocals are courtesy of Craig Pillard (Incantation, Disciples of Mockery) i.e. they destroy. I haven't enjoyed a demo this much in ages.

Die

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All symphonic black metal sucks a lot.
Except Goat Horns.
Get it.

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Folk metal is gay. (except Falkenbach)
Primordial isn't.
Get TTND.

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Metalcore sucks.
Coalesce don't.
Get Ox.

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Defeater

Ceremony

Cursed




Basically don't feel like writing a whole lot tonight, but where these three albums are concerned I'm lucky because I am not required to say much. This is because the albums I have here are so good they need no one ranting on about how good and listen-worthy they are. I mean if you're a hardcore nut you'll have them already.

Simple: If you want some INSANELY good hardcore here you go. And you're welcome.

Signed
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Qwe

Defeater - Travels
Ceremony - Ruined
Cursed - II

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Do you consider yourself a heavy metal fan? Have you listened to Black Sabbath? No? THEN STOP FUCKING LYING. Anyone who hasn't listened to these guys cannot consider themselves a metal fan. This was the band that started it all. Formed in Birmingham in the late 60s, they started as a heavy blues-rock band but became something more. The world's first "heavy metal" band.

Owing their newer, heavier sound to guitarist Tony Iommi's change in technique following a hand injury and also a change in publicity tactics (To quote Ozzy Osbourne: "We saw people coming out of the movie theatres after watching horror movies and we thought 'Why don't we do that, scare people?'") they released their first album, Black Sabbath in February, 1970, on Friday the 13th. Paranoid was released in October of the same year.

It's pretty laughable to think of Black Sabbath as a demon-summoning, blood-drinking bunch of incredibly evil necromancers when we now have Portal, Suffocation and the like, but just imagine what this must have sounded like back then. The down-tuned guitars and violent, creepy lyrical content combined with crushing riffs would have been awesome to behold. This was THE FIRST heavy metal band. I wish I'd been there.

Black Sabbath

Paranoid

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Portishead, along with Massive Attack and a few others, are one of the pioneers of the little known genre "trip-hop". Truth be told, I don't know all that much about the genre, except that it's incredible when done right. Third is Portishead's third (get it?) album, and their first in 14 years. Combining precision instrumental work, gripping atmospheres and incredibly beautiful (but haunting) vocals. The lyrics focus a lot on relationships and despondent emotions (Neon Smile is my favorite track, listen to the vox). This album makes the top 5 of Phones' 08 albums quite easily. Definitely an album to sit back and chill to, and we can always use another one of those.

Album here.

On a side note, me and qwe will try our hardest to post regularly, but as mentioned, many things have come up (women, school, work, women), so sorry for the lack of posting.

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Been away for awhile, posting sporadically. Both of us actually. We have our reasons, a lot going on etc. Hopefully posting will pick up in a couple of weeks when Phones and I have sorted everything out.

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I hate power metal. It's a genre full of boring, contrived acts repeating age-old melodies and harmonic ideas, not to mention the insanely stale lyrical content. It's always "PREVAIIIILLLL" and "FIIIIIIIIRE" and "HEAAAAAAAART" over perfect fourths, fifths or rising sixths. Basically power metal can go fuck itself.

This then, is a rare album. A bona fide good power metal album. And the best part is, this isn't just good. It's bloody INCREDIBLE. The vocals are passionate and soaring, but the production gives them a certain rawness that keeps them from entering "massive pussy" territory.
The music itself is stirring and catchy as hell, standout tracks being "Into the Storm" "Nightfall" and "Thorn" The album has a concept to it, which is based on J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Silmarillion."

Seriously this blog is so elite it will only post one power metal album ever. And it's this one. That means you should get it.


Trust me.

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Oh man oh man is this album awesome. What exactly "this" is is a healthy dose of German grind. Thrashy and fast enough to kill your whole family, but enough fun that you'll keep listening. 55 songs. 38 minutes. The drumming is insane and the riffs are deadly. If you're a grind fan this is a must.

Also everything's in German, which is pretty funny if you want it to be.

GET

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To be completely honest, my knowledge of the classics, musically speaking, is not very thorough. Truly, the only thing that leads me to post this is that I believe no matter who you are, no matter what you listen to, you must be able to enjoy music like this if you are going to call yourself a fan of music at all. Admittedly, I don't listen to classical music often, but it has always been one of, if not my favorite, genres to appreciate and listen to. A well written metal song might take a few days, a few weeks, maybe a year. A concerto, a symphony... these are years in the making, pieces of art reserved for people who have patience, who can enjoy effort. So, indulge yourself in this moving, beautiful artwork. Where it will take you is up to you and your willingness to give in to the passion of the music. This is where music came from; we are blind to the future if we are deaf to the past.

Indulge.

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