I've been thinking it must be near time Bölzer released some sort of follow up to Hero, and I have very high hopes as it stands out to me as a bold and iconic statement in an often bland and samey death/ black landscape. Divisive in its overall positive message, Marmite vocals, bright and atypical artwork, clean and powerful production... pretty much every aspect has split opinion, yet it towers monumentally over most. Interestingly, I haven't noticed much of a move from other bands to follow in their wake even if the new Svartidauđi seems to have put a spin on a similar lyrical concept, leaving them as a somewhat anomalous and unique entity- what a priceless position to hold!
What other modern bands or albums are making equally brave statements?
https://youtu.be/WYeDJxWvA_I
I knew this would feature Hero, and it's hard to match on the terms defined. The Howling Sycamore album, for example, is utterly unique, but at the same time it's also a transparent mix of pre-existing elements.
In terms of marmite-like releases of an iconic nature though, I stick to my praise of the Gospel of the Witches debut Salem's Wounds. Love it or hate it, there's a creative force running through every aspect - music, lyrics, aesthetic, concept - that elevates it above the pack. And, similar to Hero, it explicitly plays with iconography in order to get right up into the face of the listener, for them to embrace or kick away, but unapologetically... as it should be.
I haven't heard either. I'll give them a listen.
The current Lingua Ignota is the one that springs immediately to mind. Number one in a field of one.
I'd probably say Vektor's Terminal Redux, great mix of a few different styles and while not really breaking too much new ground it's absolutely masterfully crafted.
Quote from: Pentagrimes on September 05, 2019, 10:53:40 AM
The current Lingua Ignota is the one that springs immediately to mind. Number one in a field of one.
I read an interview with her in the last ZT and it put me off checking her out. I'll give her a spin later and see.
Quote from: Eoin McLove on September 05, 2019, 11:16:46 AM
Quote from: Pentagrimes on September 05, 2019, 10:53:40 AM
The current Lingua Ignota is the one that springs immediately to mind. Number one in a field of one.
I read an interview with her in the last ZT and it put me off checking her out. I'll give her a spin later and see.
She is brilliant, like pentagrimes said her new one stands on its own.
Quote from: Eoin McLove on September 05, 2019, 11:16:46 AM
Quote from: Pentagrimes on September 05, 2019, 10:53:40 AM
The current Lingua Ignota is the one that springs immediately to mind. Number one in a field of one.
I read an interview with her in the last ZT and it put me off checking her out. I'll give her a spin later and see.
Why?Just curious, I don't read ZT
Not sure if it'll be your thing entirely Andy, definitely not metal. Think more Diamanda Galas, The Body, that kinda thing
I've been listening to it this morning after the snatch posting it elsewhere. Number one in a field of one, I don't know. It's very good, but it also sounds a lot like a psychotic Fever Ray.
Definitely don't get Fever Ray off it at all, but I'd be more familiar with The Knife.
You're probably closer with Diamanda Galas alright. There was an extended section in one of the earlier songs that had a definite Karin Dreijer sound to it. Anyway, I haven't gone past a first listen yet, and there's sure to be more to come.
I read a piece on her in the Guardian a couple of months back, and the tone of the piece was pretty off-putting, i.e. peak entitled millenial. Made it sound like music for people who think no-platforming and calling-out are the pinnacle of social action, that kind of vibe. That was down to the author of the piece though.
I'm more interested in her music that how journalists present it, but I've also never been on the recieving end of continuous physical and emotional abuse from a partner so it's not my place to judge how she deals with that in her work. I understand how certain journalists have seized on that as an angle to champion her for their own purposes however.
Quote from: Pentagrimes on September 05, 2019, 11:39:15 AM
Quote from: Eoin McLove on September 05, 2019, 11:16:46 AM
Quote from: Pentagrimes on September 05, 2019, 10:53:40 AM
The current Lingua Ignota is the one that springs immediately to mind. Number one in a field of one.
I read an interview with her in the last ZT and it put me off checking her out. I'll give her a spin later and see.
Why?Just curious, I don't read ZT
Not sure if it'll be your thing entirely Andy, definitely not metal. Think more Diamanda Galas, The Body, that kinda thing
Obligatory black metal reference that I'm guessing will be nowhere to be seen or heard judging from the rest of the description of her music and talking about nervous breakdowns on stage and/or in the studio set off various alarm bells. As I said, I'll check the album out later and may well be pleasantly surprised. I doubt it, though :laugh:
Zero black metal on there to my ears anyway bar the harsh vocals.
Anyway .. moving on, I expect I'll get shit for this but I reckon Blood Incantation's "Starspawn" might be an iconic one as well for a couple reasons, largely the fact that it was a tightly written and composed album that summoned a particular era of death metal (Roadrunner and Nocturnus/MA in particular) but somehow managed to put a fresh spin and self contained identity on it, particular as it came out in a period that felt like the beginning of the saturation point we're at now. It just feels very much ahead of the pack. The space theme seemed different, the attention to songwriting and quality alone was great, and it felt very different from what was going on in DM at the time.
I'm also aware much like Bolzer, many people just wrote it off as overhyped shite. But I genuinely think it holds up as a very special, unique record for the current era of DM. I still go back to it a couple times a month and still love it.
Quote from: Pentagrimes on September 05, 2019, 11:55:06 AM
I'm more interested in her music that how journalists present it
Absolutely, but you know how it is; so many things vying to be listened to, we end up relying on personal bias to deal with the fact that we can't possibly give time to everything and implicitly rely on the reverberations around true quality to build up until we decide something shouldn't be ignored any longer.
The track Day of Tears and Mourning isn't a million miles away from Burzum :laugh: :abbath:
I had a listen to a song on YouTube. Yeah, not my bag, but not what I was expecting. It's (the song I listened to at least) like the creaky parts of a Tom Waits song without the music with schizo Marilyn Manson vocals on top. Going more for a creepy, horror movie buzz than the dark electronic music I was expecting. I'm not interested in this sort of stuff so I can't really rate its quality but I'll take yis'r word for it ;)
I always found Madder Mortem to be a band who release quality stuff.
I can't think of any other band who sounds like them either. Their lyrics are great and they probably have one of the best metal female vocalists out there.
Blood Incantation - Starspawn. It's just too fucking good. I still listen to it weekly.
Quote from: blessed1 on September 05, 2019, 03:21:14 PM
I always found Madder Mortem to be a band who release quality stuff.
I can't think of any other band who sounds like them either. Their lyrics are great and they probably have one of the best metal female vocalists out there.
Aye there's hardly a bad song in their discography, couldn't pick a favourite album.
Ten Times Defeat is such a great song.
Quote from: Ducky on September 05, 2019, 04:24:35 PM
Quote from: blessed1 on September 05, 2019, 03:21:14 PM
I always found Madder Mortem to be a band who release quality stuff.
I can't think of any other band who sounds like them either. Their lyrics are great and they probably have one of the best metal female vocalists out there.
Aye there's hardly a bad song in their discography, couldn't pick a favourite album.
Ten Times Defeat is such a great song.
Yeah I'm actually going to see them in Oslo on Saturday for their 20th anniversary shows for their debut album.
Should be great!
This immediately comes to mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goqtqZKB50Q
Quote from: Pentagrimes on September 05, 2019, 10:53:40 AM
The current Lingua Ignota is the one that springs immediately to mind. Number one in a field of one.
Could be my favourite album so far this year, absolutely vicious and gut wrenching stuff. Actually started bringing me down I was listening to it so often so I had to give it a break this week. But unreal and very unique.
For other modern iconic works: how modern are we talking here? Within the last decade? Finding it hard to think of stuff that I would consider iconic, recent, and reasonably hard to pigeonhole.
Kayo Dot's "Hubardo" is one that comes straight to mind from more recent musical history. Completely chaotic, everything from synth pop to black metal and riddled with any manner of instrumentation, completely unique - even though it sits in a sort of prog-metal / post-metal area it is absolutely not either of those.
Yob "Clearing The Path To Ascend" is easily pinned to a genre, and fairly polarising in it, but I would consider it leagues ahead of most other doom in that vein from this decade at least. Genuinely could never get sick of that album.
Was thinking Dødheimsgard "A Umbra Omega" but I have no idea of the critical reception of it. It stands out as unique in its genre anyway, and it fantastically written. Long and labyrinthine songs, odd production, but completely perfect in itself and memorable start to finish. No filler. Doesn't sound like much else.
Swans "To Be Kind" is an inimitable high water mark too, fits the label of Modern Iconic Album very well. Tethered anxiety, heavy purely through the weight of its repetition, nobody else could come out with something like this and have it sound as good or warrant so many re-listens. Permenant fixture for me.
I might be off the mark with what you're after here but I'd consider each of those iconic. A couple of others sprung to mind but they're not as unique as each of the above so they're off the list.
Bolzer Hero for all the reasons mentioned above..amazing album. Iconic is a massive word and that´s the only album that comes to mind. The Howling Sycamore album is amazing. Is it iconic, I´m not sure, all in the eye of the beholder. Outside metal, the Gunship album is iconic, stands head and shoulders above everything that was released in the genre.
Quote from: ochoill on September 06, 2019, 09:42:50 AM
Swans "To Be Kind" is an inimitable high water mark too, fits the label of Modern Iconic Album very well. Tethered anxiety, heavy purely through the weight of its repetition, nobody else could come out with something like this and have it sound as good or warrant so many re-listens. Permenant fixture for me.
Think my love is Swans is fairly well documented at this point but I have to say I've found I really don't reach for the post reformation albums at all - I like them but live is where it's at for this recent incarnation, and for recorded the pre-"Children of God" stuff still makes up the majority of my listening. I'd waver between this and "The Seer" maybe for the definitive modern Swans.
New tune isn't doing much for me, even with the Von Hauswolff sisters involved. We'll see what the album is like.
I'd agree with Altar of Plagues, also Deafheaven Sunbather .....I know it is divisive but it certainly got me into a lot of new music that I would have missed
Quote from: Pentagrimes on September 06, 2019, 10:08:37 AMThink my love is Swans is fairly well documented at this point but I have to say I've found I really don't reach for the post reformation albums at all - I like them but live is where it's at for this recent incarnation, and for recorded the pre-"Children of God" stuff still makes up the majority of my listening. I'd waver between this and "The Seer" maybe for the definitive modern Swans.
New tune isn't doing much for me, even with the Von Hauswolff sisters involved. We'll see what the album is like.
I would have only got into them when they released the Seer, I'd be the other way around. Still love their earlier stuff on going back through it, and wish I had found it when I was younger but had never checked them out, even though they were listed as an influence for so much other shit I adore. Out of all their newer albums, "To Be Kind" is the one I go back to most and was a real right-place-right-time album for me. Must give the new song a go today, funnily after I posted above both new Swans and new Kayo Dot were recommended to me.
Quote from: blessed1 on September 05, 2019, 05:00:14 PM
Quote from: Ducky on September 05, 2019, 04:24:35 PM
Quote from: blessed1 on September 05, 2019, 03:21:14 PM
I always found Madder Mortem to be a band who release quality stuff.
I can't think of any other band who sounds like them either. Their lyrics are great and they probably have one of the best metal female vocalists out there.
Aye there's hardly a bad song in their discography, couldn't pick a favourite album.
Ten Times Defeat is such a great song.
Yeah I'm actually going to see them in Oslo on Saturday for their 20th anniversary shows for their debut album.
Should be great!
Damn, nice! Enjoy that! Not at all envious, not one bit! :abbath:
Quote from: Pentagrimes on September 05, 2019, 12:01:32 PM
Anyway .. moving on, I expect I'll get shit for this but I reckon Blood Incantation's "Starspawn" might be an iconic one as well for a couple reasons, largely the fact that it was a tightly written and composed album that summoned a particular era of death metal (Roadrunner and Nocturnus/MA in particular) but somehow managed to put a fresh spin and self contained identity on it, particular as it came out in a period that felt like the beginning of the saturation point we're at now. It just feels very much ahead of the pack. The space theme seemed different, the attention to songwriting and quality alone was great, and it felt very different from what was going on in DM at the time.
Gotta second this one. As grimes hinted at it didn't break any major traditions in DM, you can clearly hear who their influences are but they still managed to drop a record with a sound and aesthetic that's wholly their own.
If starspawn didn't cement their legacy as one of the greats the next record should stand up against any seminal death metal record.
Even if you not already a fan this write up about their new album dropping later this year should get the hype train rolling.
https://www.decibelmagazine.com/2019/07/10/studio-report-blood-incantation-the-hidden-history-of-the-human-race/
Extra creds for using some non Adam Burke spacey album art and the warmest DM production around.
Blood Incantation are cool but definitely not a band I'd be as frothy about as you lads. Still, it'll be interesting to hear the new one. I really like the album title actually. It's original.
Vektor Terminal Redux and Outer Isolation definitely iconic. What a pain in the hole they couldn't stay together.
Henbane by Culte des Ghoules might count. I don't see Blood Incantation as "iconic" myself, as much as I dig their schtick. I'd set Artificial Brain's Labyrinth Constellation higher up in terms of being iconic, simply because of how far out on its own it stood compared with both its contemporaries and what preceded it. That album takes you somewhere you've never been before when you first hear it, and it captured a lot of imaginations.
As much as I like CdG, apart from the last one which was boring as fuck, I'd be hard pushed to consider them iconic.
They certainly created a huge stir and managed to develop a whole mystique around them.
What about Grave Ekstasis then? I mean, what's more iconic than a fuckin' vadge as part of your artwork eh? Eh?
Haha, well I have that vadge t-shirt and IO are class but again, not sure if I'd consider them iconic like I would, say, DsO (despite rarely listening to them). I'm not sure what makes an iconic album actually, but I'd be confident that the criteria that make Hero iconic (unique, bold, divisive, focused and coherent) should be taken into consideration. I suppose holding up over time and having an impact on the scene would help, but then, Hero hasn't really spawned imitators.
I'm seriously tempted to put Funereal Presence 'Achatius' up for a nomination because it's so good but I'm not sure it is particularly divisive or daring- just exceptional in the field it operates within.
Deathspell Omega SMRC, a colossus of ambition and craft. So much modern BM is but a footnote to the thesis of this monster. In saying that, it's probably pushing it to call it modern now. Damn, I'm getting old!
As Black Shep said elsewhere about listening to Mastodon's Leviathan for the anniversary of its release, it's now 15 years old.
Never thought a metal forum would make the bus pass feel so close 😁
Swallowed's "Lunarterial" might be close if not for the sheer obviousness of the "Mental Funeral" influence.
I think Lunarterial brings a lot more to the table than mere Autopsy worship in fairness, and I love that album, but I'm not sure that it could be called iconic. It was well received within its field and, apart from maybe Vitriol, it hasn't had a massive influence. Or have we decided that influence is not a criteria? Even Antediluvian, whose recordings bend my mind and who have developed a sound that is utterly their own, I'm not sure I'd consider iconic. Maybe they both are and I'm over thinking it!
If we're going back 15 years then definitely Mastodon's Leviathan over their other work in terms of iconic. Cynic Traced in Air, another masterwork for the ages.
Blood Revolt might deserve this accolade. There wasn't an album released, before or since, that so unapologetically tore up the war metal rulebook yet delivered such ferocious, energetic and memorable results. Amazing production on it, too- dry, clear and ruthless. Alan's vocals threw a spanner in the works completely and you either went with it or were repulsed by it. Divisive, unique, visionary and still unmatched.
Absolutely agreed. Best and most interesting thing any of those people have ever leant their name to by some stretch.
I was hoping there'd be a second one but actually fuck it, one perfect record is enough.
Also , it came out when Primordial's more fist pumpy festival fare was wearing a bit thin with me, Blood Revolt was THE vehicle for Alan's vox then (for me), such a grimy, urban warfare feel to that record, if it has to stand alone as a one off then what a brilliantly conceived and executed moment in time for all concerned.
I wonder if they could capture that magic again. The vocals/lyrics were brilliant but the music was incredible too. The riffs were so memorable and catchy and insanely violent. And J Read... he's fuckin J Read! His drumming sounds like a landmine blasting through limbs.
Deathspell Omega's 'Kénôse' EP - the release that catapulted them into still-untouchable realms.
And the only one l ever feel the need to listen to as well. That's not to turn my nose up at their subsequent albums, it's just that they don't seem to hold my attention. Kénôse is so tightly focused and just about the right length for my attention span. An hour of chaotic DsO gear is too much for me to take.
Revisited the 'Drought' EP recently, too, with a pair of good headphones. Stellar work.