Torture Division: The Worship

Since I discovered this wonderful Swedish band who give away killer death metal on the internet for free, waiting for their next demo installment has been an experience something like waiting for the next hit of some horribly addictive substance. In fact they should print shirts labelled "substance D" in reference to the Death drug from A Scanner Darkly. Only the expectation for and experience of hearing the latest album by The Project Hate MCMXCIX made the last 18 months easier. But anyway, now this has come out my iTunes tells me that Torture Division has 32 songs or 1.5 hours of music. That just keep getting better. If you have ever been anywhere near an album by Grave, Vomitory, Vader, Lost Soul and anything in between that sounds a bit like those bands - you want to get involved in this. The Worship is a good place to start yer worship.

The Heavy Metal Saloon's Top Ten Kvlt-az-Fvck Blakk Metuhl Records

I stole this from the internet. Thug life, bitches.

As the title may not suggest, I've actually gone out of my way to dream up several of my favourite albums which entirely put the lie to the sanctity of black metal as some sort of untouchable, frost-bitten ideal, beyond the ken of and forbidden to all but the most emaciated flaxen-mulleted dudes in Horna shirts. As the title may also not suggest, there are only nine picks here. Not ten.

These are albums released by bands seen as influential or somehow "powerful" in the early black metal scenes, yet who somehow got around to releasing records so wildly unlike their better-known manifestations you would need blood samples to confirm it was the same band. Records that basically aren't black metal. Records that are pretty damn good. And that seem to often have some pretty boner-inspiring cover art.

Spectral Blades: The Heavy Metal Saloon Symphonic Black Metal Special

Yeah you can ignore most of these logos.

Whatever happened to symphonic black metal? Time was it was all the rage. Now what is there - a new Dimmu album out later this year that's sure to be met with nothing less than waves of hate, the quite dull Vesperian Sorrow, and this very popular band Carach Angren who are even more boring than the people who really hate Dimmu Borgir say Dimmu Borgir are. Cradle were always more goth than full-blown symphonic anyway.

But where are the Anorexia Nervosas and Limbonic Arts these days? The Hecate Enthroneds? My feeling is that the whole occult or "orthodox" black metal thing has sort of taken over, and kids want to sound like Watain rather than like Emperor. Maybe? I mean, there is stuff - a lot of it from Russia - but it isn't coming across my field of vision so much.

At any rate, here are my top seven somewhat overlooked golden symphonic black metal artists, bands that do Emperor justice, that instill both fear and wonder. Properly symphonic, and properly black metal. There are seven of these and we start at six before counting down and going back to seven. Regular counting is for poser trendy mallgoth pigs yo, word.

Tengger Cavalry: Black Steed

When I talk about a country I tend to talk about food, beer, and metal. Now the People's Republic of China has some pretty good stuff going for it - I'm talking about steamed dumplings, Sichuan food in general, Harbin beer and those awesome Ip Man movies. But why in the fuck, when Japan, Thailand and Singapore crawl with underground extreme metal, and Indonesia produces almost as much brutal death metal as it does clove cigarettes (even if no-one outside Indonesia seems to listen to them), is the country with every sixth person on the planet in it so metallically insignificant? Myriad reasons, I'm sure, but to my own listening habits at least, it always has been.That is, until now! That's right bastards, this here is a PRC band that could well surpass the minimal international recognition the likes of Tang Dynasty and Screaming Saviour (nice guys by the way) have had, and deservedly so. And thank fuck, 'cause we like these sounds. All this Asian-sounding folky instrumentation. Give us more. Give us more stuff like Black Steed, this cool album here.

The Heavy Metal Saloon's Top 13 Gnarly Black Metal Songs

The Heavy Metal Saloon has lain dormant for some time, mostly because we hate you. Here, however, is a list of our top ten black metal songs - except, to be different and because we are better than other publications, this is from strictly 2010 and onwards (so none of the same old Bathory-Darkthrone-Gorgoroth lists), also focusing on blasting, aggressive stuff without really looking at experimental or more atmospheric material. And that's black metal, not black/ death, fuckface. Enjoy!

Epica: Requiem for the Indifferent

Epica reviews, not least those written by myself, really seem to spin out into essays. I think it's 'cause there's so much going on with these guys. So you can't easily write 'em off as the usual pop metal morass, and if yer going positive you still have to make a bit of a case.

So here's a try at a short-ish one for a seventy-three minute record stuffed with epic symphonic power metal that isn't afraid of big choirs, lots of pace changes, frequent death growls and stealing Hans Zimmer's ideas before he's had them.

The Balding Blogger's Top Five Zombie Films (and what metal songs should be on their soundtracks)

As a website catering for some of the more rotten up-pukings of the death metal underworld and the shambling carcasses of many doom metal outfits too, it seems only appropriate (and fun) to have a list of this writer's top zombie movies and series. Particularly since The Walking Dead is the most popular thing on telly next to Game of Thrones at the mo, and Brad Pitt's take on Max Brooks' brilliant book World War Z is coming to the cinemas soon (and looks to be an utter, utter disappointment in every way).

The article also lists which rock and metal artists should have been featured on the respective soundtracks. Because fuck you.

So, in no particular order...

Trail Of Tears: Oscillation

I've been following this gloomy Norwegian gothic death metal group fer many a year now, and their career isn't the simplest to sum up. Let's try shall we, since this'll be their lastest album. They've veered from their first two records of mournful epics uplifted by operatic vocals, to hate-fuelled, Dimmu-style melodic extremities with the next two, and recently to a more compact sound partway between Tristania and Penumbra. What about this swansong then, eh? Where each previous album was some development or growth of the previous album's agenda (even discounting the often drastically different line-ups) this is pretty much Bloodstained Endurance, Chapter II.

Jeff Hanneman and by extension Slayer is dead: RIP

"Slayer is devastated to inform that their bandmate and brother, Jeff Hanneman, passed away at about 11AM this morning near his Southern California home. Hanneman was in an area hospital when he suffered liver failure. He is survived by his wife Kathy, his sister Kathy and his brothers Michael and Larry, and will be sorely missed.

Our Brother Jeff Hanneman, May He Rest In Peace (1964 - 2013)"

-Slayer statement 

Lascaille's Shroud: Interval 01: Parallel Infinities - The Inner Universe

For a band offering their music on Bandcamp at the low price of whatever you fuckin' feel like, replete with lurid album art, Lascaille's Shroud are pretty damned great. All my prejudices and hangups about the shred-happy, time signature obsessed wankers overpopulating the so-called "progressive" metal universe were soon dispelled by this monster.

Interval 01: Parallel Infinities - The Inner Universe is a huge album, starring a throaty guitar sound that is pure death metal, a great harsh vocal performance that stays on the right side of guttural, chunky wandering bass lines, cunningly developed tempos and a whole ton of synths and keyboard atmospheres spun out over songs of between six and fifteen minutes. And absolutely zero percent high velocity shredding, wankery, scale runs, useless time signature changes and arpeggios. Fuck that shit. This is proper metal, grandiose, epic, complex and high-concept metal, but still very metal. And meaty!