2012

As I was compiling my "Top 10 of 2011" list for this blog (read Judge Dredd's here and Cate the Great's here, good stuff!!) I realized that I listened to a TON of terrible metal in order to find a handful of great albums. Yeah yeah, I know that that's part of the fun is digging through all the garbage that comes out every year to find some truly superb masterpieces, but it got me thinking...now that I'm no longer a Malicious Intent DJ and am not obligated to at least pretend to listen to all the new shit that's coming out, perhaps it's time to backtrack a bit.

Here's what I mean: I can't tell you how many obscure, bedroom black metal demos I've listened to (some of them great fun too, don't get me wrong), but it's pretty embarrassing when I admit to fellow metalheads that I've never actually listened to no-brainer albums like Morbid Angel's Blessed Are the Sick, or that I can't name any classic Motörhead songs other than "Ace of Spades" off the top of my head. Similarly, now that I'm finished with school and have spent a lot of my free time around my apartment here in Sydney reading and playing video games, it dawned on me as I was looking for books to check out at the local library that I've never actually read really anything by H.P. Lovecraft, nor did I know anything about Aleister Crowley, both of whom are extremely important in shaping metal's overall atmosphere, lyrical themes, and imagery.

There are a lot of other examples too, but I'm trying to not turn this into a rant. My point is that because 2012 is arguably the most metal year in the history of mankind (the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese calendar, the end of the world or whatever in the Mayan calendar, a potentially grueling American presidential race that is arguably going to decide the fate of the nation, global economic collapse, climate change, the God Particle at our fingertips, the History Channel and Giorgio Tsoukalos freaking out everyone with Ancient Aliens theories, Graham Hancock's compelling evidence in his book Fingerprints of the Gods of the existence of a pre-Ice Age advanced civilization and its relationship to 2012 (check out this interview as well, cool shit!), THIS guy, THIS shit, etc.), I couldn't think of a better soundtrack to the impending trainwreck of mankind's existence than classic metal albums that I've never listened to, great books and writers influential to metal's evolution, and exploring concepts relating to occultism, the paranormal, and other weird shit. So I guess aside from eating healthier and working out and stuff like that, this is going to be THE YEAR of having a blast getting into weird-as-fuck stuff.

Honestly, I don't really think anything's going to happen on December 21, 2012, but I feel like it's still as good as an excuse as any to explore some eccentric writers and solidify the foundation of my metal knowledge by listening out some essential metal albums (and other music I haven't bothered to check out in the past) for the first time!

Do I sound like a maniacal madman?? Is anyone else planning on getting WEIRD with me in 2012??

In Defense of Liturgy

Obviously, I'm sticking myself out here for tons of ridicule by white knighting for notorious post-BM upstarts Liturgy, but before I stick up for these guys I'd like to catch everyone up on all the basic drama via some embedded videos and links because I'm lazy:

The Video That Started It All:


HHH's Manifesto (most of it):
http://www.vice.com/read/not-fit-to-print-transcendental-metal

Obviously, it's these two things that have really caused the internet to take the piss out of Liturgy. As far as I know, it all seemed to come to a head when Chris Grigg of the USBM band Woe:
Without Logic - An Open Letter to Hunter Hunt-Hendrix - Metal Review Features and Editorials - Metal Review Community

You can find more interesting reviews, videos, and blog posts about Liturgy on your own, I'm definitely not trying to be exhaustive here.

Last, if you haven't heard Liturgy and you're too lazy to go on youtube or myspace or whatever to listen to them, I'm gonna embed one last video so you can hear them for yourself:


Obviously, for internet metal nerds like myself, this is very controversial stuff! These guys don't look or act very black metal!!

The reason why I feel bad for Liturgy and have some respect for them is because what they're doing is much more ballsy than most other metal bands out there attempting to be "controversial" by being anti-Christian, evil, or even racist! At this point, I feel like the whole "is it OK to listen to Burzum even though he's racist and a murderer?" is fairly played-out, and no one really gives a shit that Nokturnal Mortum or Graveland have strong NSBM tendencies. In 2011, if you really want to stir the pot, bring up Liturgy (or even better, Krallice, Wolves in the Throne Room, Nachtmystium, Deafheaven, etc.) to a bunch of internet metal nerds and watch the fireworks.
Anyway, another strength of Liturgy's is their originality. Obviously, these guys are competent musicians, and their style is unique both musically and lyrically. If you listen to their songs, you'll notice that their sound is very "high" compared to the typical grim, "low" sounds of BM's heavy distortion and thundering drums. Of course, something else to point out is Liturgy's lyrical themes. Sure, Hunter Hunt-Hendrix's "manifesto" is pretentious and a slightly arrogant, but aren't those characteristics that are usually embraced by the metal community? Read any interview with Peste Noire, Judas Iscariot, Deathspell Omega, it doesn't matter...it appears as if all this backlash truly stems from so-called post-black metallers' fashion sense, not music.