Trollheart

And now let's kick off the 2015 Members' Top Ten Lists, with once again himself at the fore. Frownland of course likes some weird stuff, and I expected hist list to be full of avant-garde/experimental music. Mostly, I was not disappointed, or I was, depending on how you look at it. Which we'll do now. Look at it I mean. His top ten. Beginning with his number ten, which is this:

Thoughtless --- Man is the Bastard --- 2012

Oh just great. Two guys who used to be in a hardcore punk band. All I need! Well, from the off they sound like a really bad Sabbath rip-off band, with the vocalist (?) mostly shouting the lyrics. Bit boring to be honest. I can certainly see their punk origins in most of the music here. Just loud, fast, anarchic and a lot of it pretty formless. Nothing engaging me at all yet. Lot of shouting, sure. Much of this is like listening to Black Metal without the melody. Did I really say that? Did I really equate BM favourably with melody? Well, compared to this, it's catchy enough for daytime radio airplay! Okay, now it's like I've accidentally put on Merzbow! “Prepared Hammond”? Prepared for what: sacrifice? Noise and more noise. Meh.

Oh look! It's gone into another noise track, and not one single solitary fuck has been given. Now we're onto the last track, and it's a brief eleven minutes long. At least there's music of a sort in this. Not sure if that's a garbage truck reversing outside or if that beeping is meant to be on the album. Also, don't care. In fairness, it's the best of what's here, if exceptionally repetitive, though that's not saying much. Goes on too long of course.

Generally speaking, a terrible album that I got little out of. Probably how he planned it, the cunning so-and-so.

And on to his number 9. Oh wait: it's Paranoid, and I did an intensive review on that last year, also it's not as if anyone here wouldn't know the album, so on to number 8. What? It's Ulver? The same album as I just reviewed yesterday? Well, who woulda thunk it? I must congratulate him on his taste though (number ten excepted, of course) and so we swiftly move on to his number seven already...

Dopethrone --- Electric Wizard --- 2000

Supposedly described as some of “the slowest Doom Metal imaginable”, I have to say I don't get that from it at least from the opener: Conan is much much MUCH slower. Kind of an Ozzy vocal; it's not bad. Pretty sure I listened to some EW last year and quite enjoyed it. Yeah, Witchcult Today, I believe, courtesy of Janszoon. Superb dark riff in “Funeralopolis”, around the third minute. Interesting to read that some of the longer tracks are only extended by adding up to ten minutes' silence into them. I suppose if you're stoned you don't notice, but I'll know to stop them when they reach the proper end. Guitar is pretty hypnotic and driving on this and the next track. Is that organ in there? No?

I guess my only real complaint so far is that there's very little variety, but I don't think there's meant to be really, is there, in this subgenre? Wow! The long, long, LONNNNNG outro on the third part of “Weird tales” was really epic and hit the spot. I think it would be hard to review this on a track-by-track basis (so thank the gods I'm not trying to do that here), but as an overall experience I think you can really get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Still, you can't beat the naked hostility and honesty of “We hate you” and then “Mind transferal” is just chaotic to the max. Overall I'd say a great album, though you would probably need to be in the right frame of mind to listen to it. Another solid release from Electric Wizard, but the slowest doom ever, and the most putrid, horrible record ever (to quote Jus Osborn)? No, I don't think so. Quite enjoyed that.

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