For a short while I investigated DSBM, particularly Subliminal Genocide from Xasthur. There was/is something curious about examining distant-sounding harsh noise with an oppressive atmosphere. Psychologically I wasn't on that path, but I had friends on my mind that were and unfortunately succeeded in their goals. How does one get to that point? What are they seeing that those closest to them can't? It was interesting hearing musicians attempt to aurally approximate that journey. I also tended to get caught up in its bleak imagery, but investigate too long and it can look cartoonish or showy. If you're going to go there then go there, though there's something to say about the entire operation as being cathartic.

DSBM/Blackgaze...nomenclature is so odd. I guess if The Grandeur of Hair was more gothy Goslings would have expanded their audience.

boilermaker wrote: Mon Nov 20, 2023 3:53 pm Do sludge and drone, although very different, fall under the doom label? In that case, doom

Yea I have to go with doom for this reason as well, not so much the drone, but if I'm going to listen to metal it's usually some form of stoner/sludge. Who am I kidding, I'll probably just throw on the same Eyehategod record I've been listening to for the past 20 years.

Gramsci wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2023 2:53 pm

Krev wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2023 9:04 am FM jakethesnake just articulated why nu-metal was so bad...post-grunge angst plus Helmet riffs. And thus Godsmack was born.

I also was around when this stuff started, and am pretty sure that first Korn album (and maybe Tool's Undertow) was ground zero. Obviously, the rap aspect came from RATM. Tom Morello and Jerry Cantrell were the Hendrix & Page of that movement; Paige Hamilton was its Chuck Berry.

Hamilton would hate that Poor guy, at the time Helmet toured with TJL, Melvins and GVSB etc. His entire thing was crossing Branca with AC/DC and in the end got most known for influencing fucking Coal Chamber.

Oh, and Thrash is really the only right answer, with Black a close second

It's not his fault, although he does tour with bands like Filter now. Even if Metallica quit after AJFA, they probably still would have influenced abject crap like Avenged Sevenfold.

rsmurphy wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2023 3:02 pm For a short while I investigated BDSM

is the first thing I read. thought ok yeah that's pretty metal.

Seriously though I didn't even know this acronym, but I know the music. A World Through Dead Eyes by Krohm is a favourite and is what hooked me on black metal. The way of laying down atmospheres, the darkness and vastness, and the solitary tendency of the style, all lend themselves well to those themes. Though I don't know if I experience the music as depressive, exactly. More like a concentration of all the elements I like in BM.

Got introduced by a guy who was very, well, DS. Hope his D is better now and he didn't S.

kokorodoko wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2023 3:45 pm

rsmurphy wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2023 3:02 pm For a short while I investigated BDSM

is the first thing I read. thought ok yeah that's pretty metal.

A Hardy Boys mystery

losthighway wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 9:56 am

M.H wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2023 2:20 am Also no glam, groove or nu metal options. For shame!

Glam metal is not really metal to me (I assume you mean Warrant and Poison), nu is not good, tell me more about groove metal. Really I'd add them but it kept deleting votes when I changed the options.

Dave Black is not just a solid metal player.

He is a solid player no matter how you are doing the math.

Never mind that self-titled Spread Eagle record. You can accuse it of many things, but not being "Metal..."?

That one is a non-starter.

Even when that record was making "Will This Make It Onto The Radio..." concessions?

Still pretty metal.

losthighway wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2023 1:10 pm Anyone here ever fuck with Goatwhore?

My friend and I walked into the Army Navy Surplus once and there was a gorgeous, tiny, heavily pierced woman wearing a shirt with an illegible metal font shirt blaring something heavy and guttural. She was magnificent and he's a perpetual bachelor who has an almost indie rock George Costanza type of presence. He was visibly trying to be nonchalant and said, "Whatcha listenin to?".

"Uh, Goatwhore..." She responded in the tone of someone introducing a troglodyte to sliced bread.

I’ve seen them live and hung out with them when they played a show with my friends in the sleepy hippie town of Woodstock, which was a total freak event in multiple ways. Great band but I prefer Ben’s other (currently dormant) band Soilent Green.

jakethesnake wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2023 7:51 am And when the mainstream stuff was like nu-metal which literally sounded like it was created by a particularly cynical A&R to tick in all the boxes of what "da kids" listened to (post-grunge angst? Check! Hip-Hop? Check! Helmet and/or Pantera riffs? Check!), while being neither forward thinking nor roots-conscious (the "metal" aspect of nu-metal practically never went further back than 91 and didn't dig deep either), you end up with stuff that IMO sounded painfully "time-period cynical"

I just fundamentally disagree that it was some kind of industry marketing thing from the off.

Korn in particular, I hear some 80s MTV metal kids (they were into the shredding scene and that's how they found the Vai signature 7 strings - unwanted and v. cheap at the time - also were aware of the DM bands using some 7 strings w/ low tunings) having many moments of revelation at the 1st 2 Lollapalooza tours, reading the writing on the wall and jamming it all together...

That debut from 94 is a musical paradigm shift on the same richter scale as the Sabbath debut - truly innovation without any precedent, but it wasn't until they made mega bucks, inspired their peers and forged an entire scene by 98 that the industry came around. They were treated with uncertainty by the press and promoters until then, they had to reposition themselves quick when it was clear where the money was...

jakethesnake wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2023 7:51 am To act like the mainstream and underground stuff was comparable seems like a very contemporary revisionist move based on how music is currently consumed/discovered s and the lack of importance of radio/MTV nowadays...

I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. The point I'm making is scenes behave in patterns - innovators, discovery, success, followers, inflation, stagnation. The fact this scene is somehow different because it was commercially successful (and much of this being based in circumstance - post-Nevermind music biz, air of new hybrid dynamics and a pre-internet MTV helping sell millions of CDs) is bizarre thinking to me.