Post-Millennial's Guide To Metal (And Some Other Stuff)

Truly compelling releases only show themselves once and a while. Most albums I listen to usually garner a response similar to "Wow, this album really rips!" or "Man, that record's sick!" This record is something different. It is something grotesque, frightening and beautiful, as this sort of release is not put out into the wide world of underground metal every day. While I've said  Together to the Stars ' and  Ashbringer 's respective 2019 efforts were 'compelling', neither can hold a candle comparatively to  An Isolated Mind 's debut,  I'm Losing Myself ,   which is an intense album, to say the least. Lyrics about mental illness do not often make my listening experience an uncomfortable one, but the instrumentation aids the distorted vocals in conveying the haunting message this release tells. So what makes this album stand out among the releases this year, and is it good? I'm Losing Myself clocks in at just under one ho

Jacob Bannon is an extremely talented individual. Not only is he the creator and frontman of this band, but he also is the frontman of Converge , a former member of Irons , a prolific artist, co-founded Deathwish Inc., and he curated Roadburn Festival 2018. That is a lot for one man to accomplish in the last 25 years. The frontman of Baroness , John Baizley, has created artwork for numerous bands including Kvelertak , Darkest Hour, and Skeletonwitch , and as of last year, Converge  as well. He created a piece for Jane Live , the live-recorded version of their fourth and seminal LP Jane Doe,  which is as stunning as it is different than Bannon's original piece. A certain level of respect should be given to these artists and all of those not mentioned that are also immensely talented. So, in his many years of creating beautiful works of the visual and auditory mediums, where do we land with Wear Your Wounds ? Their (Bannon's) debut WYW  was released in early 2017 to my absol

When I reviewed Panopticon 's The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness I and II last year, I was unfortunately disappointed. The genre blend of Americana folk and atmospheric black metal was intriguing to me, to say the least, and from such a revered band no less. Alas, there was a gaping hole in the joining of those two separate sounds. That which needed to be filled by a "trve" black metal album filled with pretty acoustic guitar passages and rancid harsh vocals, all at the same time. While Paara 's Riitti  and Fluisteraars / Turia 's De Oord  were definitely able to satiate my atmospheric black metal hunger, the folk element was missing. Eneferens  created a magnificent doom-influenced black metal album with many acoustic passages and clean singing to boot, it did not match the aesthetic that Panopticon  was able to craft on TSoMotONW . Well, over a year after that album was released, statemates to Eneferens , Ashbringer  give us Absolution , an al

Yes, we are back once again. I would like to first off apologize. We here at PM really have not been consistent with our content for the last 6 months. It's been a review here, a review there; pretty simple. However, we strove to do much more than that and failed. This is a turning point. Seeing as the year is about to make its descent towards autumn and soon after winter, we need to get on our game. With school out of the way, the time comes for metal and lots of it. So we will strive to be better, for our 40 or so viewers per post. You keep this wonderful blog running, so your reading of this post right now is a huge hope. I love making lists and spreadsheets. It's really amazing. Whenever I find new music that interests me, I put it in a spreadsheet with so far over 200 cells this year. I make it a personal goal to listen to most of the music on this list. Impossible you say? I can refute. While I have not listened to EVERY album on my list in the past 6 months,