Tempering metal in a Cthonic mood

From the people who brought you Bearsharktopus:

Put on some mood music.

And witness Jeffy's descent into MADNESS.









Even better: there's a whole string of them.  Hot damn!


On more somber, but no less MADDENING note, it brings me great pain to report to those of you who either don't care as much as I do or who already know that Mike Portnoy, considered to be perhaps the greatest drummer in the current rock/metal field, has left Dream Theater, the progressive metal quintet that he helped to found.  Portnoy's influence has graced the stage in a good number of contexts (drumming for a number of bands, playing the odd guitar or bass during onstage jam sessions at live concerts, writing roughly half of the music and words to Dream Theater's 10+ album repertoire, etc.), and by all rights, he seems to be a pretty cool guy who is very devoted to his work.  He is the most prolific bootlegger of Dream Theater's live performances, has released a number of DVDs on his own of studio sessions showing his drumming technique to those aficionados most interested, and was (when last I checked) organizing an annual concert geared toward progressive metal.  He is the second youngest person to be inducted into the Modern Drumming Hall of Fame (the youngest was Neil Peart of Rush) (most of this according to wikipedia)

The fact that the above paragraph reads kind of like an obituary is intentional.  Portnoy isn't dead, but his departure from Dream Theater does coincide with a mildly disturbing new merger.  It turns out that the drummer for Avenged Sevenfold (A7X) made it known to his band that Mike Portnoy was his favorite drummer (and who can blame him?).  Said A7X drummer, James Owen Sullivan (a.k.a. "The Rev") died of a drug overdose before the release of the band's most recent album.  Mike Portnoy was asked to take his place.  This means that Portnoy's progressive metal flair will be drawn toward a metalcore style, which is (for lack of a better word) weird.

Metalcore is something I've been meaning to comment on after I had heard more of it.  Now that I've listened to a decent selection of a few of the more popular metalcore bands out there (e.g. All That Remains, Bullet for My Valentine, Killswitch Engage, Trivium), I have made a conscious decision to be "on the fence about it."

Some background: if you add "-core" to any musical style, it means that it incorporates elements of hardcore punk.  Instrumentally, this means that guitars tend toward power chords or tremolo (i.e. fast) picking, fast bass, and fast drum beats that are relatively simple.  The biggest change that comes from adding hardcore punk elements to a style, IMO, is present in the vocals.  While modern metal will tend to focus on things that are brutal, unjust, or death-related, the subject matter of metalcore overlaps an uncomfortable amount with that of emo, which is so whiny, it's hilarious.  In addition to the change in subject matter, there is commonly a change in presentation, which mostly means that in addition to the abrasive vocals found in metal, you also get some very exaggerated screaming: go to 1:25.  This can be overlooked by the fan of the extreme metal types, but when you add in the style of clean vocals (singing that doesn't hurt your voice) that metalcore commonly adds to choruses, you've gone too far.

Just like most things in music, some people have found places where each of these elements can work, but their confluence can also be almost universally reviled.

Proponents of metalcore will cite that the style, obviously, takes the good elements from two disparate styles and lets them augment one another.  Clean vocals will juxtapose with hard shouts and create interesting dynamics, the subject matter of metal music can be bleak too bleak and that of modern punk is for sissies, all metal and punk fans have a thing for bands playing fast, and you get rocking solos to boot.  Everybody wins!

In my opinion, metalcore is done correctly when it is skewed toward the metal end: solos are intricate, double bass is plentiful, vocals strike a healthy medium without becoming whiny, and it's fun to listen to.  This, however, is HIGHLY biased.

So now you have me: decidedly not sure.  Here's why:

What concerns me about metalcore is what it means for the development of its component styles.  As we all know, music has a cultural component, and cultures are dynamic to a mighty degree.  Metalcore has come from a fusion of styles that have come from fusions of styles (notably metal coming from rock/blues and punk coming from rock/lack of technical skill/angst).  I like some metalcore, I dislike some.  If there is a musical style that I, or anyone, likes, then there will be parts of it that they don't like.  Before I say whether I like or dislike metalcore as a whole, I want to see what it leaves as its legacy.  I want to know if this is more of a trend of hardcore punk getting more extreme or metal getting more concerned about why its girlfriend broke up with him after he got drunk again the other night.

On the other hand, this style may remain fairly consistent, and I'll just feel lukewarm about it until the day I die.  For the time being, however, recent events have convinced me that I should give Avenged Sevenfold's new album a try and wait to see if there's more of a Portnoy stamp on their next album (if he stays with them for that long).

P.S. Honestly, though, it seems that some bands just think that if you do something more __________ than other bands do, it makes you good, but this is only sometimes the case.  Be warned, aspiring metal artists!  Exaggerated elements of stylistic trends abound.

P.P.S.  This post took long enough to write that it didn't go through the first time I tried to publish it.  Thank goodness the text was preserved in my history.

A professional courtesy

As I go through life, I find myself awed by the ability of music to induce emotions.  It is certainly a facet of our culture that merits research (and is producing it, little by little).  It is wondrous, this production of an emotional change based on hearing certain sequences of sounds that lack phonological meaning.  I certainly have some projects in mind should my path lead me down the research end of things.

However, there is another career path that I am currently entertaining: that of becoming a practicing physician or dentist.  This relates to the ability of music to induce emotions in that, for me, a playlist filled to the brim with red, hot METAL gets me pumped and ready to be productive.  It also does wonders for staving off boredom.  The problem is that metal isn't exactly the best background music for patient care.  Listen to an album by Children of Bodom, Dope, Soulfly, etc. and see if they can go through two songs (instrumentals don't count) without dropping the f-bomb.

Now, we know that wearing headphones when dealing with patients is considered rude and unprofessional, so I would have to listen to the metal over the office radio, which means that this would not be a good environment for children, so I cannot provide care for them.  I realize that this is shutting out two demographics of potential patients, namely: children and people who take their children with them when visiting doctors' offices.

This may actually be a plus!  Who likes being in a waiting room while noisy children who have nothing to do with you get all up in your bid-ness with their shouting, bawling, biting, sweet rave parties, toy-throwing, vomiting, and exclamations?*  Nobody!  There exists a specialization of medicine entitled "pediatrics" that cuts out the demographic of patients who are not children, so I propose to go in reverse: become an ADULT physician/dentist.

*Examples: "Mommy!", "Stop!", "Achoo!", "WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY", (the last one is representative of what my children will yell)

This idea needs some refinement, however, since whenever you put "adult" in front of anything, it means that it's pornographic, and that's just not the kind of ship I'd be running.  It would be so hawkward.

I don't actually plan on doing this.  I just wanted an excuse to post that image.

Bears and metal: what you read, what you expect, what you get.

It turns out that a lot of what I have to do at work is read about the machines that we use and look up articles in primary literature in order to determine whether the paths we wish to take with our research are viable.  This means that my eyes are occupied with reading, while my motor facilities and ability to feel sensations through my skin are occupied by typing notes.  This leaves olfaction (which affects taste), taste, and hearing free to do whatever they wish in the workplace environment.  Hot damn, it's multitasking time.

As such, it has been my (sometimes) pleasure to sample musical groups that have been recommended to me by sources such as friends, wikipedia, pandora, etc.  In addition, this is also a great time to rediscover bands that I already know are good, but perhaps have not explored to the extent that I should have.

Some recommendations!

For non-metal fans:
Images and Words by Dream Theater (Album) - the album that has received the best critical acclaim by the mainstream, also the only album of theirs that had an actual "hit" in ten studio albums (Pull Me Under).  If you like this album, then I highly recommend continuing to Metropolis pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory.  It is a concept album that picks up from Metropolis pt. 1: the Miracle and the Sleeper on Images and Words.

The Crooked Vultures (Band) - Josh Homme (from Kyuss) is frontman and guitarist.  Dave Grohl (from Nirvana and the Foo Fighters) drums.  John Paul Jones (from Led Zeppelin) plays bass and miscellaneous instruments.  They've got some fun songs.  How can you go wrong?  Warning: semi-hard rock.

Tl;dr: Images and Words by Dream Theater: Listen to it.
Them Crooked Vultures: Listen to them.

For metal fans:
Kyuss - borders the line between hard rock and stoner metal.  They get a nice thing going, though.  Fun to listen to, kind of groovy, not very loud.
Bal Sagoth - I especially recommend this one to Flask.  For black metal (black the metal style, nothing racial about this), they are surprisingly easy on the ears.  There is a lot of ham-fisted epicness to be found in their grandiose music and delivery of nerdy lyrics.  What can be better than album titles like Starfire Burning Upon the Ice-Veiled Throne of Ultima Thule or The Cthonic Chronicles?  Answer: song titles like Into the Silent Chambers of the Sapphirean Throne (Sagas from the Antediluvian Scrolls) and The Dark Liege of Chaos is Unleashed at the Ensorcelled Shrine of A'Zura Kai (The Splendour of a Thousand Swords Gleaming Beneath the Blazon of the Hyperborean Empire Part II).


Tl;dr: Kyuss - easy listening metal
Bal Sagoth - EPIC



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