Messages

Most definitely.

Lots of great shouts in this thread. Will have to agree on the mentions of Thou (super heavy live as well), 4th of July (which Thou also covered, lol) and Slayer's Hell Awaits. I recently revisited Slayer generally after a while of not listening and teenage me was on the ball, they're heavy as fuck.

What's heavy is always a great question because it'll cover so much ground and so many people have a different idea of what it means for them. I'll always lean towards the sludge end of it though because that's really where it hits in my mind, "heavy" and "fast" need a hell of a lot of other things working to bring them perfectly together (see Full of Hell, Slayer, etc). There has to be some "hang back" in the  flow of the riff to really evoke that feeling. It's what drew me into heavy music properly and is to this day, my favourite kind to seek out.

I'm kind of surprised no one has mentioned this classic though (maybe too obvious?), because if I had to distill it to one answer to the question it's probably this. Just dripping with hate and claustrophobic in its sound/feel, it's the performance, production, the whole package.

Another big one at the moment for me would be Primitive Man. The word crushing is thrown about fairly liberally, but they really do just that, and it's very overwhelming live. Saw a comment on some video that said "Ethan McCarthy sounds like a dinosaur", and that's really the gist of it

This is in the buildup to the hit and like, it's in the fucking title, lol

ochoill mentioned Inter Arma, and I'd actually pick another track off that album, again with that dragging feel where the snare hangs back ever so slightly from around 3:53 on, then back on it for the chorus, just perfect, and the effect gets more extreme later in the song 

Shout out to our very own Slomatics and Nomadic Rituals as well, who frequently dish out the exact kind of stuff that comes to mind when I think of this

This'll do lovely for late night after work listening, looking forward to it

That's a fairly depressing listen.

Limerick was fucking class, really enjoyed that.

Absolutely unreal

The drummer was brilliant, was chatting to him after as well, very sound lad, seemed very happy to be over here playing.

They were indeed running fully direct which I'm usually suspicious of (it's fucking lame, amps are cool) but funny enough I thought it actually sounded great down the front, didn't feel it was lacking in that department, which surprised me.

Soothsayer and Bodydrinkers both top notch I thought, as good as I've seen them. Soothsayer sounded very sharp, a little less psychedelic than before but definitely no less interesting.

Why sugar coat anything? I just don't have time for shit music and I dont care about bands who run on"vibes" (apart from bad ones, obviously) . What I think doesn't matter anyway in the grand scheme of things, tis just my experience of them.

Incidentally,  it was them opening for Katie Kim.

Absolutely! I just find it good craic.

Give me recommendations for bad vibes bands though, always want more of that

Sidebar, Tra Paidin is one of the worst fucking bands I've ever encountered.

I do really enjoy that you never sugarcoat it 

Totally depends when/where you encountered them I guess, they tend to run fairly different lineups and sets, some work better than others.  Or if it's just the entire vibe of the band fucks you off, can't argue with that   

Yeah I'm a huge fan of her solo stuff, that album she put out, Pyrrhic, was may favourite that year I think and gets fairly regular listens. Cracking live band as well. Hoping she has another in the works. There's another member in this band who I'd apply that to as well, her other bands Ana Palindrome and Trá Pháidín I'd definitely rate more.

That said, I'm enjoying this much more than I did when they started, really didn't think they sounded of much beyond a linear jam but they've grown on me. And it's a pretty recording, lol

Katie Kim is actually playing at The Conncert near Ballina in August so hopefully that's her starting up the solo stuff more again rather than a one-off

Picked up the pôt-pôt album at the gig they played last night in Cork (very fun)

It's not reinventing the wheel by any stretch, the sticker on the cover states FFO Brian Jonestown Massacre, Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, Velvet Underground, and that's about right. It's a very nice listen on the turntable for a Sunday morning in this weather

Neil Young - On the Beach. Possibly my favourite Neil Young album, although that changes weekly.

It's prob between that and Rust Never Sleeps for me. Though he does have 6 or 7 contenders...

Well thanks for reminding me to give this a spin again

Re.  Wire - I also only know "Pink Flag" but must try out some other albums.  Enjoy it a lot.

Some non-metal highlights lately:

Boards of Canada - "Geogaddi"
Nothing to say here, love it, just rotating this and Tomorrow's Harvest still.

Aphex Twin - "Druqks"
Again nothing to add, love it, know it inside out, just back in rotation lately.  Savage album.

Fixity - "Assurance"
This is class.  Only know one other Fixity album and love it but saw this appear on Bandcamp and chucked it on.  Quick and tidy jazz, surely mostly improv by the sounds of it, plentygoing on but anyway it is great.

Listen to all Fixity's stuff, it'll be time well spent. Those who know know, but I think Fixity/Dan Walsh may be the most underrated/appreciated musician in the country, just consistently class. I was at the album launch for this in Cork and it was excellent, they had a string section so the stage was pretty packed.

I'd say Assurance is somewhat less improv than some of the earlier stuff, but that's definitely a big part of the Fixity project, the lineup is pretty fluid. This album (The Things In The Room) was done over in Malmö with 3 Swedish musicians and it's pretty much all improv around a few central ideas. It's one of my favourite albums of all time I think.

Great craic, and yeah, good to see so many out for it enthusiastically on a Thursday night

Muuntautuja by Oranssi Pazuzu.

Revisiting this for the first time in a while, had it on repeat for a good while after they released it before giving it a break. It holds up so well, no weak moment on it for me.

It's performative tough man shit, same as everything else they do