Brian: Ten Extreme Metal Albums

I've wanted to do a diverse metal post for a long time. This was originally gonna have some more well known names: there was gonna be some Death, or Slayer, or Nile, or some well known Scandinavians. But I decided to head right for the ditch - in all the best ways - with the onlyREQUIREMENT for inclusion being fucking intensity! I'm not a subgenre purist, so anything goes.

Here at Growing Bored, we've got the whole stoner metal end of things being held up well, but I've long felt we could use a bit more extremity. And take it from the guy who went through all the posts...nothing like this has been here before. And I'm not a sub genre purist: if it feels metal and kicks my ass, then it qualifies. 

While I'll try to describe the albums well and entertainingly, I wanted to tip my hat to Dear Spirit at the Opium Hum blog. Not only have his posts turned me on to a lot of great music - some of which is here - but his way of describing things in one paragraph, with serious wit, have long been an inspiration to me. So, with no further ado....

Shining - Blackjazz

This band is a recent find. When I did that Alice Cooper covers comp, I came across a band called Shining. Turns out, there a several of them. This Norwegian group started as a avant-jazz band, but slowly moved into a more proggy, jagged metal sound. This album, Blackjazz, marked a sea change for them. Complicated time signatures, Meshuggah-like tempo breaks, ferocious tech-y screams....all with the occasional saxophone shronking over it. Imagine Mudvayne hanging with the Knitting Factory crowd. And the whole nutty disc ends with their explosive, demonic cover of KC's "21st Century Schiz...". And I love the CD booklet's tag line: "Made by will alone, throughDEPRESSION, aggression, and caffeine."

EyeHateGod - Take As Needed For Pain

This album has much harder drugs on it's mind. Tortured, misanthropic, groove-heavy doom/sludge. EHG are one of my favorite groups. I posted their mighty album Dopesick a long time ago. This is the album before that, and it's just as fucked up! 

Deathspell Omega - Sí MonumentumREQUIRES, Circumspice

Holding a rarified place in the flooded Black Metal landscape, Deathspell are a French group who take their beliefs very seriously. And avoiding a lot of the straight slash 'n burn methods of their contemporaries, DO's albums are intensely structured, varied works. If K.C. was a black metal band, they'd be Deathspell Omega.

Chalice of Doom - Immemorial Nightfall

Chalice or a Jordanian doom band I found on the Old Oak blog. (Definitely check him out; a lot of international metal there). Not as feedback-drenched as other doom bands, but pretty good.

Projekt Misanthropia

This was one of the albums I found on Opium Hum. According to legend, the vocals for this were tracked by abducting several mental patients and recording them in an abandoned chapel. And it's interspersed with white noise, synth shronk, feedback, and some black metal atmosphere. More of a noise album than a metal album, but the spirit is evil enough. Imagine the cast of Tod Browning's Freaks being raped by a Wolf Eyes album! Apparently done with the intent of evoking the Holocaust, this thing makes John Zorn's Kristallnacht sound like Lawrence Welk.

Waking The Cadaver - Beyond Cops, Beyond God

Another recent find that I'm obsessed with. This group is an interesting mix: there's a meaty, thrashing guitar sound, death metal breakdowns, almost grindcore style vocals at times. I think they fucking nail it! And I love that cover....it's like a Paul Verhoeven movie on meth, even down to the Robocop font. Balls to the wall stuff, to be sure.

The Ravenous - Assembled In Blasphemy + Three On A Meathook

Don't be taken in by the cover - this is not a gore metal album. These guys incorporate several kinds of styles, with their only priorities are being SICK and heavy! Good head banging stuff.

Urgehal - Goatcraft Torment

When you want your Black Metal pure and unfiltered, you gotta go to the Scandinavians. Just rips from beginning to end! Good production, and just a savage tone. Best opening line of a metal album ever, maybe.

Lurker Of Chalice - self titled

Only album by a side project of Leviathan's Wrest. Amazingly diverse, with a black metal feel, but incorporating doom elements, dark ambient, and MBV-like post rock touches. Really, really good....and nobody talks about it. Great Halloween album.

Vomitoma - A Liquid Harvest Of PutrefiedSTOMACH

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Heh heh heh. Oh, what will you guys think of me now? Vomitoma is a one man goregrind project. I think he's from Ohio, but all his stuff comes out rare on tiny Mexican labels. A wall of blistered guitar chug, a drum machine having a seizure, the occasional fucked up dialogue sample (the one opening the album is particularly effective), and vocals that sound like ground up hamburger going down a sewer pipe. Imagine if someone ate a few early Napalm Death and Cannibal Corpse albums and threw them back up on tape. Something about it is compelling to me; give it a listen when you want to obliterate everything. Pardon the pun, but it's got more meatier production than these kind of bands usually do. And the titles....oh, man. Guaranteed to be one of the sickest things on your hard drive.

With a nod to Darkthrone, My Dying Bride, Masakari, Nile, Disinterested Handjob, and many other metal albums I wanna get out there in future posts.  While I won't make it the main focus - too many other blogs do a better job at that - it'll be something I indulge in now and again. 

And some of these come from long-archives CD rips, and are in m4a. I hope that's not a problem. They sound great....Oh, and do I have some cool covers projects coming up, kids. Some of my best work!!! Stay tuned for it.

And since I kinda started the contention about this blog's banner image (and I still kinda like Iggy), I'd like to contribute my idea of a hot gal to replace it....