Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Thank you! I suspect that you somehow got your mitts on a bootleg copy of Howling in Helsinki which was recorded during the Spotbowserfido World Tour tour fiasco some time back. Some great material was recorded in Amsterdam and Antwerp, too. As for The Doors, they are a favorite band.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

As Oscar Wilde said, I can resist everything except temptation. The Doors? Damn, I can't quite name them as a band I loathe because they had too many songs that I really like. "The Crystal Ship," "Soul Kitchen," "Riders on the Storm," "Love Me Two Times." Good stuff. I could listen to any of those songs now for the 1,000th time with pleasure. So I'll have to narrow this down a bit and say I loathe Jim Morrison. The late, great rock critic Lester Bangs called Morrison "Bozo Dionysius," which is hilariously and precisely on the mark.

I was a big Jim Morrison fan when I was 16 or 17, but two things happened: I read No One Here Gets Out Alive, and I listened to An American Prayer. No One Here Gets Out Alive is a worshipful biography of Morrison that unintentionally reveals that he was far from the poetic genius he considered himself to be (the excerpts of his "poetry" are ridiculous); that he liked to be cruel to people just for kicks; that despite his pretensions he preferred drugs, booze, and celebrity to being any kind of artist; and that his increasing loathsomeness as a human being was increasingly affecting his music. Of course, none of this is unusual among rock stars, but Morrison took it to a repugnant level reminiscent of, say, Elvis Presley late in his life. I listened to An American Prayer twice. I can't explain why I listened to it the second time. This album contains pompous recitations of Morrison's mediocre poetry (such masterpieces as his lament for his cock) and way too much of Ray Manzarek's tinkly keyboards. 'Nuff said.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Except that Opeth has really become a parody of what they once were. Their last two albums I haven't even bothered with.

Also, have you looked much into the American metal scene beyond Mastodon and whatever nonsense graces the pages of Kerrang and those other junk metal magazines? The whole Pacific Northwestern region is producing some outstanding black metal acts (Agalloch, Wolves in the Throne Room to name a couple), and the east coast has one of the most highly regarded doom scenes in the world right now.

but I'll definitely agree with you on Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir...I forgot Cradle of Filth was even making albums still. Are they?

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Precisely, My Arms . . . and Blackwater Park were my favorite of their albums, but all that was released after Damnation were plagued by things like the changes in line-up, over-production, love of their own esoteric image and what-have-you.

Indeed I do know of and love Agalloch, in particular the Mantle, though that seems to be everyone's favorite of theirs.

When it comes to black metal my tastes are somewhat random, as they tend to be with most things. I really like the rough-around-the-edges folkish type material, like Opera IX's output back when Cadaveria was their singer like Sacro Culto and Black Opera, I am very partial to the incredibly harsh, dirty noiseyet technical- like various albums from Mayhem (De Mysteriis. . ., Mediolanum. . ., Ordo Ad Chao) and Khlyst's Chaos is my Name, but what I usually love most are those very unorthodox BM bands that really say to hell with conventional structure, such as Shining, Leviathan (preferrably his later releases) Deathspell Omega, and the like.

No, I cannot understand what everyone finds so impressive about Mastadon at all. As far as I am concerned they are merely ripping off the styles of two more talented bands whose output has long been waning lower and lower, as Opeth's has, Tool and Meshugga, and then unsuccessfully attempting to marry the styles.

I think almost everyone just likes to drop names to an extent, and a lot of these metalheads who can't drag their love out of the closet want a gawdy and pretentious band to showcase how metal is high art as well, which is in and of itself is about the farthest thing from what one could call high art or whatever. I think most of the bands I've mention are in some way or occasionally, in all ways more talented than Mastadon, but they're simply not going to be accepted by most crowds for being as talented as they are because most people say they want something 'challenging' or 'intense' in a pretentious way without understanding what those word mean, or rather can mean. I am fine with that. Hellhammer is literally, a HELL of a drummer, but most don't want something that truely qualifies as heavy.

I've no idea if Cradle of Crap or Dimmu Booger (I am sorry, childish, but it was there) are still recording but I see a lot of skater kids, the type of people I was often with in college, wearing their shirts, which is kind of sad since I knew who both bands were when I was in seventh grade! If one says they like metal, people think you either like the mentioned names, or the meathead bull#### like . . . . I don't even want to grant them acknowledgement, but I am sure you've an idea who I might be talking about.

Another band I could add to the loathe list is -Nile-, since they embody this silly trend in parts of the whole little scene, again worried about the outside world making fun of them for liking something it doesn't like, instead of just enjoying their passion.

The trend being that a band is extremely talented, but they dedicate this vast talent to showcasing their vast talent by weighing down each line with a ridiculously overloaded polyrythm of notes on differing extremes of every imaginable scale until the songs become lost in their own complexity. Gorguts did that on Obscura, which a lot of others seemed to like but drove me nuts.

Yes, you are talented, but you don't have to go to such lengths to prove you are talented. This is too often the case with death metal.

Albums like Sol Niger Within by Frederick Thordenthal's Special Defects, Grand Guignol by Naked City, and very few others make very effective use of some of the measures exploited by the former, and they have that imaginative insight that allows them to weave in those dynamics and flexibility into the chaos to keep it from getting over-cluttered by itself the way Nile does, that is, in my opinion. Obviously they're still better that what is fairly well-known.

Are Ahab, Ghost, and Swallow the Sun part of the Northeast Doom scene you were talking about? I am even more picky with Doom but I do like much of it very much as well.

My apologies everyone who may have read this by mistake. I should have preceded this response with the message - to be read by unknown, since many of you probably don't have a clue what we're talking about.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

haha. nice

the New England Doom Scene consists of bands like Revelation, Hour of 13, Pale Divine, Orodruin and bands of that nature...real doom metal bands very much in the old school way.

I really couldn't agree with you more on pretty much every point. I'm too tired to write a point by point analysis. but on the metal board I co-moderate, somebody had posted a message by Averse Sefira talking about how awesome it was that all the metal gods were coming back and death to posers and all this other nonsense, and all I could really think to myself is, "Really? Averse Sefira? I mean yeah they're decent but they haven't been around for more than 13 or 14 years." And we proceeded into this huge debate about the pretentiousness and over-righteousness of metal, black metal in particular. It was a mess. I think that had to do with your name dropping and taking things too seriously points.

I agree with you on Nile. I really could care less about them. There isn't really a whole lot in the modern death metal scene that amazes me, and what's even funnier is that old school death metal and its ascetics are coming back into fashion (Teitanblood, Archgoat, etc...), which to me only means that many bands are eschewing taking a risk on originality and instead playing it safe, but playing safely very well. This is why I haven't really been following the death metal scene these past few years. Instead, I'm actually just checking out demos from death metal bands that were around in the 80s and early 90s whose style is being copied. Bands like Negura Bunget, Deathspell Omega, Blut Aus Nord, and many many others are furthering the sounds of black metal while many of the elitists are clinging to the old traditions. I don't know. I've had a bit to drink tonight. If you'd like, the metal board I co-moderate is here if you want to check it out: General Metal Discussion - Ultimate Metal Forum

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

On BBC 4 tonight, there are several programmes about prog rock. :eek: My housemate intends to watch them. If I'm in the living room while they're on, they should give me plenty of fuel for posting to this thread.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Another good thread I discovered way too late. Anyhow, while I agree with many of the bands mentioned I need to add Weezer. *shudder*

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

Weezer, another band I don't know at all. Maybe I'm lucky not to know them.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

I don't think anyone has mentioned Nickelback yet. If it is trendy to cast hate and derision upon them, then for once I am trendy.

Re: Bands I Loathe
 

This is going to date me like an expired carton of milk, and probably temporarily damage my psyche, not to mention making kittens cry and toddlers #### their Huggies, but what the ehll, anything for a few kicks and grins, eh 'govner? Here goes... John Cougar Mellencamp, Heuy Lewis and the News, Madonna <gulmp>, Cher, The Artist Formerly Known as Prince <I can do this....Tsathoggua help me!....Can do...Can do!!!>, Barbara Striesand, Falco <whine...>, He-of-the-Sequined-Glove-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, that is to say, He-Who-Walks-Yet-Does-Not-Walk-And-Floats-Instead, aka The Dick-Grabbing-"He Heeeee"-er.

They say the most foul of these hath perished from this world, but I do not believe it is true. J.P.B. was wrong to say evil always ends. For some evils are so vile, so utterly heinous, so egregious in the fathomless depths of their through-and-through rotted squamous corruption of sheer reeking villainy, that they cannot ever be completely destroyed... until the last nauseous memory of them has been scrubbed from the minds of, er, everybody - preferably with Brillo pads steeped in a holy tincture distilled from the blood of Angus Young and a bucket of sweat from Jimmy Page (actually not that difficult to acquire, there is still at least a couple inches stagnating around the stage where Led Zep -={{{ Hail! All bow at the mention of the Masters of all Music! |m| *...* |m| All non-believers must die! Thus you are now subconciously programmed by the hypnogeist. i.e. you have no will of your own! Hail! }}}=- last performed (the faithful know where =8-P ).

Made it, whew! Knew I would, though ( 'cause I'm the best there is, baby... :cool: Just to prove what a badass I am, I'll even go one further. Ready? Watch me...: Mmmm... Mm..uh. Mm..uh, Mmmuh...orris, Mmmmmuhhh..horrisss...eeeeeeeeek! No!! This is so wrong! You people don't know what you're doing! Do not call up that witch ye canst put down <or something to that effect, I forget>!

Wait!.... You hear that....
<__<
>__>
<_>

It was only an owl, yeah? It couldn't be... AAAaaiiieee!!! The Sequined Glove!!!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

<Another one bites the dust>