[Redcarmoose]

I think it's interesting how some bands get worse over time while others continue to improve.

I just had a fish for dinner called "Nyat-Nyat" so it was both interesting and different, as it was a first for me. New music is the same, but when you hear what Korn did this year, it's even more special because it's like somebody making your old favorite meal, but truly adding excitement and vigor to the experience.

Kreator is going crazy right now and they have been around forever. Their early stuff is punk-rock but they evolved and kept the excitement going. Kreator maybe has a time when they didn't sound so enthuseastic but have been going strong ever since I started liking them around 2000. The songs I have heard from this new album show them not doing anything new but simply bringing aggression and their master skill to the table. Though we do notice many newer bands doing something else. Aluk Todolo are forging ahead and taking things a step farther with experimentation.

It's entertaining to see Metal expanded. And how many first albums or first three albums were an example of a band being inspired and pushing the genre farther into a new direction.

A band like Aluk Todolo are trying to mend a different unorthodox spiritual side of Psycodelic Kraut Rock other than standard esoteric themes. There album before this last record (Occult Rock), they went to a remote Indonesian island and lived with a tribe trying to understand and become inspired by the local spirituality. That in itself is pretty far from our standard black metal recording methodology. What it says to me is there is room for experimenting. The metal community is open enough and fluid enough to become interested in other non-Christian themes besides our genre normals and it's ways.

[VIDEO] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nWFwv_WAIn4 [/VIDEO]

 

[Music Alchemist]

A band like Aluk Todolo are trying to mend a different unorthodox spiritual side of Psycodelic Kraut Rock other than standard esoteric themes. There album before this last record (Occult Rock), they went to a remote Indonesian island and lived with a tribe trying to understand and become inspired by the local spirituality. That in itself is pretty far from our standard black metal recording methodology. What it says to me is there is room for experimenting. The metal community is open enough and fluid enough to become interested in other non-Christian themes besides our genre normals and it's ways.

 
(I know it's the album title, but...)
 
Occult rock...is that like pagan metal where there are no clearly defined stylistic elements that separate it from folk metal?
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan_rock
 
Hmm...like I thought..."it is more an umbrella term than a cohesive musical genre." Or you could say it's like a music scene rather than a specific genre, since it incorporates so many potential influences.

 

[bavinck]

(I know it's the album title, but...)

Occult rock...is that like pagan metal where there are no clearly defined stylistic elements that separate it from folk metal?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan_rock

Hmm...like I thought..."it is more an umbrella term than a cohesive musical genre." Or you could say it's like a music scene rather than a specific genre, since it incorporates so many potential influences.

I always understood pagan/viking/folk metal to all be the same just different names.

 

[Music Alchemist]

I always understood pagan/viking/folk metal to all be the same just different names.

 
Going from the info on Wikipedia, pagan metal seems to be a folk metal subset with no clear style that distinguishes it, whereas viking metal has clearer stylistic elements, though it's still vague enough to not be an immediately recognizable genre. Many of the bands considered to be viking metal are associated with black metal and folk metal. On the other hand, there are plenty of folk metal bands who are not associated with viking metal and black metal.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_metal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan_metal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_metal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_folk_metal_bands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Viking_metal_bands

 

[Music Alchemist]

So which metal album of 2016 gave you the most emotional experience?
 
For me, it's The Storm Within by Evergrey. Some of the songs nearly bring me to tears, mainly because they remind me of someone I haven't been able to get over...

 

[Tom Yum Goong]

  For me, it's The Storm Within by Evergrey. Some of the songs nearly bring me to tears, mainly because they remind me of someone I haven't been able to get over...

@miceblue?
 

---

Got the Earsonics ES3 today.
Fantastic IEM. Great for Metal. Have never heard an IEM that makes drums sound this good.
Probably my favorite IEM I ever tried.

 

[Music Alchemist]

  @miceblue?

 
What? No. Dude...

 

[Redcarmoose]

(I know it's the album title, but...)

Occult rock...is that like pagan metal where there are no clearly defined stylistic elements that separate it from folk metal?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagan_rock

Hmm...like I thought..."it is more an umbrella term than a cohesive musical genre." Or you could say it's like a music scene rather than a specific genre, since it incorporates so many potential influences.

Well. I'm not familiar with the bands early early work. But starting in 2012 the title Occult Rock is really fitting in my eyes. They may have started as a Black Metal band but " Occult " just comes from Occluded which means hidden from view. The aspect they are going for IS the psycodelic sound of Kraut Rock along with a rock sensibility in places. They also talk about trance states. Though maybe their music could cause Alpha brain states, but on most islands a trance state is really much more intense. I forget which island and which tribe they were with for Occult Rock but island trance states normally take place in the proximity of deities. Christianity calls the people heathens which is a judgment against their ancient religion normally with roots much older than Christianity.

Spirits can enter the people and cause a number of changes. The people can walk on hot streets in the middle of the day in bare feet and not feel anything. People in these trance states can make sounds like animals. They can see other visiting fellow spirits and identify them while seeing threw past solid buildings. The spirits will speak in the tongue of the local people though mainly using the highest level of vocabulary used by the best schooled. People can attempt to stab themselves and the knife blade will actually bend and not enter their body. Children in a state of trance can lay motionless for 6 hours straight. So just making music, even created at these special cultures is not nessessarily going to produce an actual trance state in the listener. Though much of the music will have a slightly hypnotic effect.


In the West primarily demons are understood to enter people, though on islands both good and bad can enter a human. Angels can and do enter pure entities like pre-pubescent girls, and curses can be performed where a demonic entity will follow and take over a person who has been subject to this form of Black Magic. I have witnessed demonic possession which only subsided after the sprinkling of holy water, just like the movies. It's all real, I'm sure.

As I understand it the word "Pagan" was a church world taken all over the world for christianity to teach about false gods. So it does not have to be Nordic. Any island God could be a pagan god hence it does fit the album, though we think Nordic normally.

 

[Zyklonius]

  So which metal album of 2016 gave you the most emotional experience?
 
For me, it's The Storm Within by Evergrey. Some of the songs nearly bring me to tears, mainly because they remind me of someone I haven't been able to get over...

 
Whatever you do, do NOT listen to 40 Watt Sun's Wider than the Sky. Even if I have embedded the Bandcamp player below for convenience. The most emotional and gut-wrenching music I heard this year.
 
 
<a data-cke-saved-href="http://40wattsun.bandcamp.com/album/wider-than-the-sky" href="http://40wattsun.bandcamp.com/album/wider-than-the-sky">Wider than the Sky by 40 Watt Sun</a> 

 

[damobananna]

whoops accidentilly clicked on it now sitting here racking my brain to who the vocalist reminds me of and crying at the same time time oh no

 

[damobananna]

 
 
nailed it !! I used to listen to this years back same dude, dude

 

[wrathzombie]

   
Whatever you do, do NOT listen to 40 Watt Sun's Wider than the Sky. Even if I have embedded the Bandcamp player below for convenience. The most emotional and gut-wrenching music I heard this year.
 
 
<a data-cke-saved-href="http://40wattsun.bandcamp.com/album/wider-than-the-sky" href="http://40wattsun.bandcamp.com/album/wider-than-the-sky">Wider than the Sky by 40 Watt Sun</a> 

I loved it

 

[markm1]

   
Whatever you do, do NOT listen to 40 Watt Sun's Wider than the Sky. Even if I have embedded the Bandcamp player below for convenience. The most emotional and gut-wrenching music I heard this year.
 
 
<a data-cke-saved-href="http://40wattsun.bandcamp.com/album/wider-than-the-sky" href="http://40wattsun.bandcamp.com/album/wider-than-the-sky">Wider than the Sky by 40 Watt Sun</a> 

 
It's one of my favorites this year. Tangentially metal, but a very compelling, cathartic album. 

 

[Music Alchemist]

  Whatever you do, do NOT listen to 40 Watt Sun's Wider than the Sky. Even if I have embedded the Bandcamp player below for convenience. The most emotional and gut-wrenching music I heard this year.

 
Just played it all the way through. It didn't really affect me at all. Wish I had taken your advice and just skipped it. I don't see how this snoozefest could ever be gut-wrenching. I was bored the whole time, sorry to say. Neurosis and Jesu are the closest thing to this that I like.
 
The lyrics (which I read afterwards) are beautiful poetry at least. My favorite line is "but the pain that I never rise above, I thought it the measure of my love."

 

[Music Alchemist]

We Wish You A Metal Xmas And A Headbanging New Year!