My Favorite Metal Albums For Different Situations and Settings

I'll own up to it...I have a problem with complete silence.  Whether I'm hanging out in my apartment, driving in my car, or working out at the gym, I always have to listen to music. The only time I DON'T feel compelled to listen to music is when I'm in the company of others.

I don't exactly know why I can't handle silence. On the obvious side of things, I'm just a humongous fan of music. However, I also experience a lot of "noise" in my head (as in, a rapid-paced cycling through various barely-connected thoughts) when I'm not focusing on one subject or idea, so I think music helps me concentrate and filter out this "noise".

Through constantly listening to music, I've found that there are perfect combinations of bands and/or subgenres of Metal with different situations and settings.

Thus, in this post, I am going to divulge my favorite albums/sub-genres for different situations and settings. The situations and settings will start out with more general, daily activities and then will get more specific.

Exercise

Bro, do you even RIFF?!?!  There is no FUCKING way that I am going to the gym without a fair amount of Metal on my iPod.  I'll always remember listening to "Reign in Blood" by Slayer while I was on the treadmill and feeling like I was a viking running into battle. I am not joking when I say that I felt a surge of adrenaline pumping through me at that moment. Runner's high? Could have been. Metal high? DEFINITELY.

It's actually really hard to narrow it down, but I would probably say "City", by Strapping Young Lad is the my favorite Metal workout album.  Nearly the entire album is fast-paced, intense, and over-the-top in every sense. I try to time it so I'm doing cardio for all of the faster songs at the beginning of the album, and then lifting for the slower tracks towards the end.  Or, if my workout is longer than 39 minutes and 22 seconds (it usually is, bro), I just put that shit on repeat...bro.

Driving

It really depends on when and where I'm going and for what purpose, but there is nothing that compares to listening to select albums/tracks by Isis and Cult of Luna while driving on the highway at night. And yes, "Somewhere Along The Highway" by Cult of Luna is usually my go-to in this situation. The relative silence and desolate sameness of the highway at night is really isolating in a sense, and for this reason, the often minimalistic and spacy sounds of bands like Isis and Cult of Luna is a perfect way to both somehow embrace and transcend that isolation at the same time.

Sex

None...

Now, admittedly, I once had sex to the song "The Last with Pagan Blood" by Amon Amarth...on repeat. And I'll never forget the story of our friend (who shall remain nameless) having anal sex with his hardcore Catholic girlfriend (they have long since broken up) while listening to Dying Fetus.

But, really? Is there any Metal that is "sexy"? None, in my humble opinion.

A long time ago, Wulf and I had a discussion based on this premise: "Is there any music less sexy than Metal?" The conclusion was that Noise Music (a la Whitehouse or Merzbow) was the only music less sexy than Metal. 

If you want to put on some brutal, guttural Death Metal or some kvlt Black Metal while doing the dirty, be my guest. But I will personally be putting on some chill baby-making electronic music, thank you very much.  My Bloody Valentine is also great for the sideways hokey-pokey.


Pre-gaming and Partying

Back in the good 'ol days (circa 2004-2008), we would throw Metal parties where everyone would dress in their most grim Metal getup, drink the cheapest of beers, and listen to Metal all through the night - corpse paint REQUIRED.  Seeing as how the majority of our friends are/were not Metalheads, this was a rather rare occurrence.

During these parties, there were SO many good Classic Metal and Thrash Metal albums that my friends and I threw on for some good 'ol fashioned Metal Party Madness™, that it's hard to pick one.  With that being the case, I'm going to come out of left field a little bit and say 'God Luck and Good Speed' by Weedeater was often a go-to party album for us in the latter part of the good 'ol days era.  This is partly because Weedeater would often tour through our hometown.  Not to be outdone by "Dixie" Dave, my friends and I would often get batshit-crazy drunk at their shows. My favorite memory of getting fucked up with Weedeater involved me jumping on stage and pouring PBR down Wulf's throat. The one time that I failed to attend a Weedeater show, my friends that went said that "Dixie" Dave set a bucket on stage for him to puke into. Good times.


Hiking

Damn, this is hard.  If I were more of a fan of Pagan/Folk Metal, I would most certainly go with something in that sub-genre.  It kind of depends on what mood I'm in, but I would probably say my go-to is Wolves in the Throne Room.  Stereotypical, I know, but listening to WITTR is practically a fucking pagan ritual in of itself.  Combine that with being alone in the woods, and you're basically transcending consciousness or whatever.


Cleaning

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of cleaning. I am certainly not the dirtiest person, but cleaning is usually on the bottom of my list of things to do. When I clean, I want to get it done as quickly as possible. For this reason, I've found that Math/Noisecore is fucking amazing for cleaning. It kind of makes sense too: Math/Noisecore is the aural equivalent of taking meth, and I'll be damned if methheads aren't amazing cleaners. It's all in the details!


Cooking


To be honest, I don't often listen to Metal when I cook. However, I can't get the idea of listening to Power Metal while cooking out of my head and I don't really know why. Is cooking really that epic? Maybe. Maybe because I just associate both fine cuisine and Power Metal with Europe. Who knows? Anyway, I'll raise my spatula to that.


When You've Had Just the Shittiest Day and Nothing Seems to Have Gone Right

For me, it's usually not one large thing that goes wrong (thankfully), but a series of really small things (thankfully...?). Unfortunately, I'm the type of person where it takes me a while to isolate these small things in my mind, and sort of laugh them off and remove them as barriers to having at least an average day.

On days like this, there is no better release than listening to KC Hardcore Overlords, Coalesce. For me, their later material has the perfect balance of groove and punch, noisy and chaotic, to really get out all of that negative energy built up from all of those small things going wrong.

I remember one time in junior high absolutely cranking "cowards.com" by Coalesce and stomping around my room while raging on a pillow. I can't quite recall what I was so angry about, but listening to Coalesce seemed to help out quite a bit.


When You're Momentarily Very Angry About Something

I know what you're thinking, but I really don't have much of anger problem. But just like everyone else, I will sometimes get very frustrated or angry about something relatively small (e.g. I just spilled coffee everywhere, my jacket zipper will NOT.FUCKING.ZIP.UP.) for a just a moment before I realize how ridiculous it is that I'm getting angry about something so small and I laugh at myself. But a number of small things like this can create a bad day for me, as previously mentioned. As illogical and possibly counter-productive as it might sound, listening to a band that is ludicrously angry is usually a great way to quell my momentary anger.

You probably knew what was coming with this one: Grindcore. 

I can think of only two or three times in the last few years where I was explosively angry about something for more than a moment. That's usually just solved the way my Dad always did: wait until you're relatively isolated (or as isolated as you can be) and just yell a lot until you're not angry anymore. Or listen to Grindcore. Whatever works.


That Sort of Existential Shame that Comes With a Massive Hangover

God, these mornings, afternoons, and (God forbid) early evenings are the absolute worst, and they are 80% of the reason why I don't drink nearly as much or as often as I used to.

Let's set the scene: you were out until 5:00 a.m. drinking, and then you wake up at noon. You've slept off your drunkenness, so there's no way that your brain can now hold off the coming onslaught of questions like, "What am I doing with my life?" "Why do I keep doing this to myself and expect a different outcome? Isn't that the definition of insanity?" "Is anything important?" "Is anything meaningful"?

It really just depends on how much further down the rabbit hole you want to go. I personally will start feeling anxious if I start listening to really depressing, somber metal like DSBM or most Doom Metal.

For these days, if I'm listening to any Metal at all, it has to be something unapologetically happy and/or triumphant. Something like the Kings of Metal, MANOWAR.

Manowar will lead you through the existential cesspool of your hangover to the glorious light.

*****

As you may very well be able to ascertain, there is an endless amount of situations and settings that call for different Metal bands and/or sub-genres. 

What are some of your favorite combinations?

Wulf's Official Response to Decibel Magazine's Top 100 Black Metal Albums (part 4)

70. "Scorn Defeat" - Sigh

I think it's pretty cool when bands start out super kvlt and then get all weird on everyone.  In a similar vein as Arcturus, Ulver, and Enslaved, Sigh's roots lie in evil black metal grimness.  I can't talk too much about it because I'm not very evil and have only listened to Sigh's later shit (starting with the classic "Hail Horror Hail"), but I'll bet it's still good stuff.  Just look at that promo pic!!

69. "Ravendusk in my Heart" - Diabolical Masquerade

I remember thinking this album was pretty good, but am completely baffled why anyone who is a fan of this band would choose ANY of their albums over "Death's Design", one of my favorite metal albums of all time!! Anyway, that doesn't mean this album sucks or anything like that, it's got its share of catchy riffs and good production (even though I hate drum programming that sounds obviously fake), but if you're going to check out this band I'd definitely recommend "Death's Design" over any of their other albums! The songwriting, production, concept, and overall quality in general is way better!  C'mon, Decibel!!

68. "Incipit Satan" - Gorgoroth

I'm actually in the middle of listening to Gorgoroth's discography right now, but unfortunately I haven't made it to "Incipit Satan" (surprise, surprise :/ ).  I guess is the first album with Gaahl officialy on lead vocals, and pretty much set the standard for what most people think of when someone mentions the band...even though it feels weird to call it the "classic" lineup.  Anyway, I'm not an expert so whatever!  I'm sure this is a cool album, as Gaahl's vocals are unique and this was back when Gorgoroth was still considered pretty controversial and evil.  This was before all the drama between Infernus and Gaahl and King ov Hell, the formation of two Gorgoroths, King ov Hell putting out the kind of shitty Ov Hell album, and Gaahl coming out of the closet, doing musicals, and becoming a goofy internet meme.  I'm excited to see what this one has to offer!!

67. "Casus Luciferi" - Watain

I've got this one on my iPod, but as usual I haven't listened to it yet and am only familiar with Watain's later stuff.  Ugh, maybe doing this response to Decibel's Top 100 BM Albums was a mistake!!  The only reason I started it was because Judge Dredd and Mark of the Beast were making fun of me for not participating very much in its discussion on our Facebook group chat, so I decided to show them what was up and make an entire blog series about it.  Now it's turning out almost as bad as the infamous Watain interview I did several years ago!
Speaking of Watain, this album is a kvlt classic and blah blah I'm sure it's evil as fuck, especially compared to this latest Watain album which has Erik Danielsson doing clean vocals (haha).

66. "Dark Metal" - Bethlehem

Back when I was a DJ at Malicious Intent that we had this album in the stacks, and unfortunately when I listened to it I wasn't that impressed. It's possible that I was intoxicated at the time or something like that and wasn't really paying attention, but I'll bet the real reason I was disappointed was because I was expecting it to sound like their following album, "Dictius te Necare". Hooooooooly SHIT is that a nuts album!! Obviously the most striking thing about it is Rainer Landfermann's completely batshit insane vocals, but there's all sorts of other interesting stuff going on at the same time as well. Anyway, this is supposed to be my take on "Dark Metal", so I guess I'll just have to risk sounding like a broken record and just say that I'll come back to this one soon.

65. "Telepathic With the Deceased" - Xasthur

Yeah!!  I know this one!!  What a creepy album!!  If you've ever watched Vice's/Noisey's black metal documentary "One Man Metal", you know that Malefic is a creepy dude.  Wrest comes off as just a super emo dude with a lot of anger, and Sin Nanna as a kind of weird, tripped out Aussie hippie, but Malefic seems like the most disturbed out of the bunch.  Even though his music is arguably the cheesiest and at times would work well as the soundtrack to a haunted house carnival ride or your local Halloween superstore, it definitely works well by itself as something to listen to in complete darkness as you contemplate the infinity of death or whatever.  Haunting keyboards, hypnotic riffs, this is a DSBM classic!!

Malefic is always a laugh riot at parties!!

64. "Blood Ritual" - Samael

I've always wanted to listen to Samael's black metal stuff just because I've always heard it was good and it's so different from what they put out now.  I don't really know much about their "current sound" other than what I gathered from their 2004 "Telepath" music video which was featured on some Nuclear Blast compilation DVD, but I do know that it was definitely not black metal!  Excited to give this a spin soon!!

63. ""The Book" - Root

I don't what to really say about this album because I've never listened to Root, other than I think they have a super lame name and I've never heard any good black metal from the Czech Republic.  That doesn't mean this isn't a bad album or that there aren't any good bands from there!!  In fact, it's because of this situation that makes me excited to check this band out!!  

Also, fun fact: "root" is Australian slang for "sex"!!

62. "Diadem of 12 Stars" - Wolves in the Throne Room

I've been a fan of Wolves in the Throne room ever since I checked them out after reading an interview with them in Metal Maniacs in like 2006.   What they were talking about at the time was like a breath of fresh Cascadian air for a stagnating black metal scene, ushering in a renaissance of great black metal art that transformed USBM from being the laughingstock of the underground into a powerhouse of subgenre.   By straying away from Satanism (which once upon a time were inexorably linked to the general philosophy of the genre as a whole) and instead injecting mysticism, environmentalism, and psychedelia, WIITR were one of the pioneers of this new school of USBM along with bands such as Nachtmystium, Leviathan, Agalloch, Xasthur, Ludicra, Krallice, Velvet Cacoon, etc.

Anyway, this is a cool album, but I feel like it's on their next album ("Two Hunters") when the band really starts to get good.  This is a great place to start though if you want to get into the band!  One of the greatest USBM bands of all time!!

61. "Black Arts Lead to Everlasting Sins" - Necromantia / Varathron

I haven't heard this split, but can am 99% sure that it's not better than "Diadem of 12 Stars" by Wolves in the Throne Room.  I guess I shouldn't hate, considering that I've never listened to Varathron, but I've always kind of been put off by Necromantia.  I know I need to listen to their classic stuff to really get an idea of their importance in the early Greek BM scene, but "The Sound of Lucifer Storming Heaven" sucked, and I also think it's goofy that for the longest time their sound has consisted of an 8-string bass, a regular bass, keyboards, drums, and no guitars (!).  I guess it would be cool if they sounded good, but from what I listened to I thought it sounded pretty whack.  Ah well!  I'm sure I'll get around to listening to this soon.

Album Review: "Becoming" - Abigail Williams

I don't know what the deal is with me wanting to defend shit that no one likes. I already white-knighted Liturgy in an earlier post on here, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I really like Celtic Frost's notoriously shitty "Cold Lake" ("Seduce Me Tonight" fucking rules) and brain-dead guttural slam (Cephalotripsy, Devourment, Cemetery Rapist)- shit that makes internet metal nerds freak the fuck out. Maybe I feel bad for the artists for some reason? I don't know. Obviously there's shit that's terrible that I'll 100% agree is lousy (such as the latest Morbid Angel album, Cryptopsy's "The Unspoken King", "St. Anger", etc.), but I feel like there are times when you can tell an artist or band is super into their shit and really, REALLY want people to like it. This kind of desperation is a turn-off for most people, but at the end of the day for me it has the opposite effect. I guess I'm one of those "it's not THAT bad" kind of people, but whatever.

My point is that Abigail Williams is one of those artists that I feel gets a lot of hate for superficial reasons. I should probably preface this argument by saying that I haven't really done my homework on this, I haven't read too many interviews with these guys and don't know too much about them, so this might just be a stupid argument to make. Anyway, here's what I know about them:
1. They started out as a shitty blackened deathcore or whatever group (I haven't listened to their early shit, so I'm going off of metal-archives).
2. They tried to establish themselves as more legit by putting out "In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns", a more "symphonic black metal" effort which featured Trym drumming on some tracks.
3. Still not being taken very seriously and compared to Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir, they decided to strip down their sound with a less-overblown, more "evil" atmosphere with their second album, "In the Absence of the Light". Still received mediocre reviews. At this point they've already gone through a shitload of lineup changes as well, and have been getting booed at live shows.
4. Recently put out "Becoming", which is one of the best albums that I've heard so far this year.

Wait, what?!

Seriously! I don't know if these guys started doing heavy-duty hallucinogens and/or just started listening to a lot of Wolves in the Throne Room or Altar of Plagues, but something's up. Whether or not these guys are totally ripping off this whole "post-black metal" trend or not is besides the point-- "Becoming" is an excellent album, and even though they've clearly jumped on a bandwagon, it's original enough to appreciate in its own way.

While there's plenty of "atmospheric" touches to Abigail Williams' new sound, conspicuously absent are the band's old trademarks of symphonic flourishes and polished production. Instead, while there are plenty of gorgeous melodies and beautiful string arrangements, the album has a gritty production quality to it that goes perfectly with its "dark" BM riffs and ominous ambient moments (listen to the beginning of "Beyond the Veil"!) and well-placed psychedelic moments.

I seriously would have never guessed this is Abigail Williams. I've listened to their two previous albums, and wasn't very impressed. I've read reviews of their live shows, and the general consensus I came across was that they were boring. My buddy told me that at the show he was at they got heckled by the audience. After putting out this album, I can't imagine these guys still sucking live since it's obvious that "Becoming" has the two essential ingredients for greatness the band has been lacking this entire time-- passion and inspiration. By listening to everything from Ken Sorceron's howling screams and growls (someone else mentioned Xasthur or Leviathan, I can see that) to the energy pulsing from the drums, it's obvious that these guys were FEELING this album. I have no idea what the lyrics are about on this album (I've noticed there's a significant lack of contemporary interviews), but clearly they're not phoning this shit in.

The musicians' performances are also all top-notch, and while nothing specifically stands out as amazing, it works to the music's advantage by maintaining the listener's focus on the music as a whole. I mentioned Altar of Plagues before, but that's who comes to mind most when describing Abigail William's musicianship. Personally, I didn't find "Mammal" to be a work of musical virtuosos, but they obviously don't suck either (the same could be said for Wolves in the Throne Room too). Saying they "get the job done" implies that they're kind of shitty at what they do, but that's not what I mean. When listening to "Becoming", you're not distracted by any musician in particular, just the "vibe" of the song. Eh, you know what I mean.

While I can see a lot of metal fans putting these guys down and not giving this album a chance (understandable, to a certain extent,) I'd say that by writing these guys off you're missing out. Obviously, I was blown away by "Becoming", and I hope by checking this album out you'll be as pleasantly surprised as I am. I can't believe I'm praising this album as much as I am, but as much shit as these guys have been through by internet metal nerds like myself, they definitely deserve it.

RIYL: Nachtmystium's newer stuff, Wolves in the Throne Room, Altar of Plagues, Deafheaven, Agalloch