🌶️ To The Teeth: The Blacklist, Mastodon, Hypocrisy, Aborted, Khemmis & more!
New albums
🌶️ Various Artists - The Metallica Blacklist
This is a lot of fun and I'm going to ramble about it. We all know Metallica used to be this closed bastion around the 2000's, more interested in pissing down on the rest of us from their ivory tower than standing shoulder to shoulder with their metalsisters and -brothers. But look: since 2016 we got a really good studio album (don't @ me) and a magnificent live album (@ me not!), and now we got The Blacklist. Metallica is done watching down, they're opening their doors wide open to anyone with talent to do whatever the hell they want with the Metallica material. That's a big risk for a big band, but the result is glorious. Of course, not every track is great (Idles what are you doing?!) and some will be too far from your tastes. But for an omnivore like me, this is a goddamn treasure: from Juanes to St. Vincent, from The Hu to Phoebe Bridgers, from Ghost to PUP - the guestlist alone is a sign of good will, of a big heart in music, and I think it's amazing Metallica gave carte blanche with their music to so many diverse artists. Kamasi Washington doing Metallica? J Balvin doing Metallica?? Mon Laferte?? Rina Sawayama??? Igor Levit???? Don't dismiss this as a cash grab or whatever wimpy brush-off. This is fucking great!
There's more: Aborted (death/grind from Belgium), Hail Spirit Noir (prog/psych/black from Greece), Inferi (tech death/black from the USA), Replicant (death from the USA), Chrome Waves (post black from the USA), Mehenet (🌶️ black from the USA), Lvcifyre (black/death from the UK), Anette Olzon (symphonic from Sweden - ex-Nightwish), Black Mass (🌶️ thrash from the USA), Pa Vesh En (🌶️ raw black from Belarus), Andrew W.K. (party metal from the USA - yes fuck it we're calling it party metal), If Nothing Is (avantgarde from Norway), Teeth (death/doom from the USA), Zaqqoem (black/death from the Netherlands),
New singles
There are songs out from: Hypocrisy (🌶️ melodeath from Sweden), Mastodon (🌶️ progressive sludge from the USA), Khemmis (doom from the USA), The Body & Big|Brave (🌶️ sludge/doom from the USA & post/doom from Canada), Alda (atmoblack from the USA), Glassing (post black/post-hardcore from the USA), Hippotraktor (🌶️ prog/sludge from Belgium), Opera Diabolicus (heavy/gothic from Sweden), Thoughtcrimes (hardcore/math from the USA - ex-Dillinger Escape Plan), Deviant Process (progressive death from Canada), Sunless (prog death from the USA), The Agonist (melodeath/metalcore from Canada), Confess (groove/thrash from Norway via Iran), Worm (death/doom from the USA), Unto Others (heavy/gothic from the USA), Emma Ruth Rundle (mumble folk from the USA), LLNN (post/sludge/noise from Denmark) and live tracks from Epica (symphonic from the Netherlands) and Suffocation (death from the USA).
Next week
Non-metal album of the week: Low - Hey What!
I’m looking forward to next week because of: Alien Weaponry, Carcass, Insomnium, Charlotte Wessels and Knowledge Through Suffering.
Have a great weekend! - Peter