Modern iconic works

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

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 

[Eoin McLove]

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

[blessed1]

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.

[Ducky]

Blood Incantation - Starspawn. It's just too fucking good. I still listen to it weekly.

[Ducky]

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.

[blessed1]

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!

[Yung Led Zeppelin]

This immediately comes to mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goqtqZKB50Q

[ochoill]

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.

[Pedrito]

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.

[Pentagrimes]

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.

[Don Gately]

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

[ochoill]

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 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.

[Ducky]

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! 

[nukeabuse]

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.

[Eoin McLove]

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.