High on Fire Wins the Grammy

I'm a little shocked by this.  High on Fire, a legitimate metal band that is not way past their prime won the Grammy for Best Metal Performance.  I still have not had a chance to listen to their latest album, but if it is anything like their last few, and I assume it is, I'm sure it was great.  I have been a fan of the band for about ten years now.

High on Fire was up against Trivium, Between the Buried and Me, Underoath, and Deafheaven.  I'll be honest, I'm shocked Deafheaven did not get it as they seem to be very popular with the Pitchfork set.  High on Fire was by far my preference as I don't care much for BTBAM or Deafheaven and I can't stand Underoath.  So anyway, congrats to High on Fire.

Top 40 Metal Albums of 2012: 20-11

20.  KREATOR: PHANTOM ANTICHRIST
There were a number of venerable thrash metal giants that released new albums this year.  A surprising number of them were very impressive.  Kreator is one of my favorite German thrash metal bands with a remarkably consistent output.  This release is not quite as powerful as their last couple of albums but still possesses that anger and razor-sharp riffing style that the band has perfected over the course of their long career.

19.  3 INCHES OF BLOOD: LONG LIVE HEAVY METAL
I have enjoyed a couple of 3 Inches of Blood's albums in the past, but after their second vocalist left the band, they seemed less exciting.  They kind of phoned in their previous album.  But on this one, the band sounds rejuvenated and possibly better than they ever have.  That is saying something in my eyes.  This album is a hell of a lot of fun, exactly what 3 Inches of Blood set out to do.

18.  OVERKILL: THE ELECTRIC AGE
Like Kreator, Overkill is another long-running thrash metal titan that released an incredible new album in 2012.  Overkill is quite possibly the most consistent thrash metal band going which is saying quite a bit.  Their recent albums have actually proven to be better than the Big 4 of thrash metal, not bad for a band that existed in their shadow for years.  Overkill never disappoints me.

17.  WEAPON: EMBERS AND REVELATIONS
Weapon is a band that I have heard great things about for years but never really checked out until this year.  Now I am kicking myself because I really enjoyed this one.  Weapon has a surprisingly original take on blackened death metal and can not easily be compared to other bands in their genre.  The music is ominous and powerful.  It is an album I come back to time and time again.

16.  ASPHYX: DEATHHAMMER
Martin Van Drunen has long been one of my favorite death metal vocalists.  I try to pick up every project that he is attached to.  Asphyx is one of the bands that is most associated with Van Drunen and their sound matches his psychotic roaring better than most.  This album is yet another reason why Van Drunen is one of the most influential death metal vocalists of all time.

15.  TESTAMENT: DARK ROOTS OF EARTH
The third longtime thrash metal band to release a strong album in 2012, Testament's newest is the best of the three and is also one of the best albums the band has released since Low.  It is one of the best thrash metal albums of the year and featured the terrific "Native Blood", a tribute to singer Chuck Billy's Native American ancestry.

14.  HIGH ON FIRE: DE VERMIS MYSTERIIS
High on Fire is one of the leaders of the stoner doom metal genre and they have once again shown why on this album.  Their last album had somewhat weak production but was otherwise a very strong release.  This album fixes the mistakes of the last album's production with a much meatier and heavier sound.  The strong production lead to an even stronger overall feel with this release.

13.  PARADISE LOST: TRAGIC IDOL
I have been a big fan of Paradise Lost for years, ever since I got Draconian Times for Christmas back in around 1996.  Unfortunately the band has not put out an album quite as impressive since that one including a long foray into gothic rock.  But unlike some bands that went that direction (ahem Tiamat), Paradise Lost has found their way back out of it.  This is easily Paradise Lost's best album since that one.

12.  WITCHCRAFT: LEGEND
Like Weapon, I have heard a lot of great things about Witchcraft over the years but simply never got around to checking them out.  I read great things about this release before deciding to pick it up as well, but I am definitely glad that I did.  This is another very strong album influenced mainly by the old school heavy metal masters.  It rocks, quite simply.

11.  CATTLE DECAPITATION: MONOLITH OF INHUMANITY
Wow.  I was not expecting to be blown away by a Cattle Decapitation album.  There were a ton of great death metal albums in 2012 and Cattle Decapitation was one of the strongest.  This was the first Cattle Decapitation album I ever checked out due to their politics and being a run-of-the-mill deathgrind band, but this album elevated Cattle Decapitation to the top of the pack.

Initial Impressions: High on Fire: De Vermis Mysteriis

I have been a fan of High on Fire since I first heard Death is this Communion.  Unfortunately something about their last album rubbed me the wrong way and I think it had to do with the production.  It just seemed too thin and clean for a band of this type.  The songs were great, the production was just kind of bad.  So I was hoping this time around for a meatier production to really bring out this band's strengths.  Luckily I got it this time around.

This is the High on Fire that I am a fan of.  Big, meaty, doomy-sounding riffs, rough and weathered vocals, and heavy pounding drums.  The band also does a very good job of keeping things interesting.  There is a lot of variety in the songs here.  One minute there will be a fast-paced crushing song and the next will be a much slower, but equally massively heavy track.

High on Fire has risen to the top of the stoner doom metal scene and with good reason.  They definitely show that reason here.  High on Fire do a great job of never really falling victim to some of the traps that other stoner doom metal bands do.  They change things up a bit and they never get into a long, drawn-out psychedelic segment.  They keep things interesting and therefore do not lose their listeners.

This is a return to form for High on Fire.  Their last album was good musically but was missing something on production.  This time around that issue has been fixed which has allowed the sound of the band to truly come through.  Definitely a good thing.

Initial Impressions: High on Fire: Snakes for the Divine

High on Fire's roots go back a little ways. The band itself formed in 1998, but frontman Matt Pike has been at this game since the very early 1990's when he was in the extremely influential stoner doom metal band Sleep. Pike brings some of the stoner doom elements from his previous band and blends them with Bay Area thrash metal influences to create the sludgy thrash sound of High on Fire. Nowhere is that more obvious than on this album, which amps up the thrash metal influences considerably more than on prior albums.

Musically, all of the elements that have made the band so critically successful (at least in metal circles) have returned. The sludgy, thrash-inspired riifs, pounding drums, and Pike's gravelly vocals are all in good, working order. The songs are complex, and often a little long and tell stories of monsters and fantasy themes. High on Fire has been doing this for years now without any hiccups in the road. Until now.

This is a good album, but it suffers from one glaring problem that decreased the overall quality of the album. The sound is terrible. One thing that has made High on Fire such a formidable listen has been their beefy low-end of the sound: bass guitar and heavy drums. Somehow, the producer robbed the band of this important element to the band's sound. This makes the sound too high-pitched it does not have the same earth-moving feel as the prior albums. The sound is also too thin. High on Fire normally sounds like a lumbering monster, this album sounds more like one trying not to wake its victims tip-toeing through the house. It's still ugly-sounding, but not as powerful.

It's a shame, because this would have been a great album. High on Fire does not sound like any other band, only Lair of the Minotaur is really close, and that band is a little heavier on the thrash side of things than HoF. It is amazing how the wrong production can sink an album, but that's what happened here. Maybe it will grow on me in time, it's just so different from their last album. I hope it does.

Weekly Recap: January 24-30

It was a busy week for work. I actually missed work on Monday. I was not feeling well Sunday night, which continued into Monday morning, so I stayed home. My wonderful fiancee took care of me. Thanks honey. When I got back to work, of course, I had a mountain of work waiting for me. Lots of phone calls to make and some big projects. I had four projects to do for one of the partners. Three involved drafting jury instructions, one of my least favorite things to do. Two of the cases were luckily virtually identical slip and fall cases. The third though was significantly more difficult, involving a breach of contract and fraudulent misrepresentation. The final project was to outline a breach in opposition to the Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment in the latter case. All very exciting.

This week, J.D. Salinger and Zelda Rubinstein died. I read The Catcher in the Rye twice while in school. I never cared for it. That said, Salinger was an interesting person. Zelda Rubinstein was the psychic medium in the Poltergeist movies and is notable for a squeaky voice and being very very short. The original Poltergeist movie is a classic.

As for the metal world, nothing going on this week. I already posted a couple of things I noticed this week. Other than that, very little to report.

Amorphis: Silent Waters
Apophis: I am Your Blindness
Atomizer: Songs of Slaughter-Songs of Sacrifice
Autopsy: Horrific Obsession
Blood Red Throne: Affiliated with the Suffering
Bloodbath: Resurrection Through Carnage
Candlemass: Candlemass
Coffins: Buried Death
Cynic: Traced in Air
Dark Fortress: Eidolon
Despair: Beyond All Reason
Destroyer 666: Cold Steel...For an Iron Age
Destroyer 666: Defiance
Destroyer 666: Phoenix Rising
Destroyer 666: Terror Abraxas
Destroyer 666: Unchain the Wolves
Destroyer 666: Violence is the Prince of this World
Devourment: Unleash the Carnivore
Dimmu Borgir: Death Cult Armageddon
Embalmer: There was Blood Everywhere
God Dethroned: Passiondale
Grand Magus: Iron Will
GZR: Plastic Planet
Hail of Bullets: ...Of Frost and War
Hibria: Defying the Rules
High on Fire: Death is this CommunionHollenthon: Opus Magnum
Holy Moses: Agony of Death
Hyades: And the Worst is Yet to Come
Iron Maiden: Brave New World
Lair of the Minotaur: War Metal Battle Master
Lost Horizon: A Flame to the Ground Beneath
Manticora: 8 Deadly Sins
Naglfar: Pariah
Nocturnal Fear: Code of Violence
Nocturnus: The Key
Nox: Ixaxaar
Nunslaughter: Hex
Omnium Gatherum: The Red Shift
Outworld: Outworld
Ozzy Osbourne: The Ultimate Sin
Paradise Lost: Icon
Primordial: To the Nameless Dead
Sarcolytic: Thee Arcane Progeny
Septicflesh: Communion
Slayer: Divine Intervention
Thanatos: Justified Genocide
The Gates of Slumber: Conqueror
Tristania: World of Glass
Vader: Impressions in Blood
Vader: Live in Japan
Vader: Necropolis
Vader: The Art of War
Within Temptation: The Heart of Everything
Wormed: Planisphaerium
Yyrkoon: Occult Medicine