134 – Getting Stale

Noyan
Podcast
I promise this episode title isn't about the podcast itself. I think this is one of the better episodes in a while, in fact! We discuss a bunch of new music, including Krisiun, Epica, Born of Osiris, Anaal Nathrakh, Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway, and Erra. Then some happenings, like Kvelertak getting a new vocalist, Matt Tuck of Bullet For My Valentine and his terrible hot take, The Ocean (not to be confused with Oceano, Eden) working on a double album, Eden's Alkaloid prognotes, and me meeting a fellow metal musician and discovering his awesome band Cartilage. Along the ride, we discuss how modern production is ruining death metal (I promise it's not "old man yells at clouds"), the DC cinematic universe, and more. Also, we do cool people time with Enter the Gungeon and Middle Earth: Shadow of War DLC, and me waxing poetic about puzzle games, including The Spectrum Retreat, (The) Portal 1/2, The Talos Principle, The Witness, The Swapper and more. Enjoy!

An Ode to Spring – Metal, Thematics and Politics

Heavy Blog
Deep Dive
Since the vast majority of Heavy Blog contributors fall on the left side of the map (shocking, we know), focusing on the latter seems like the way to go. Criticizing the other side of the political map is easy enough; taking a hard look at your own camp is where things get tricky. Thus, let us turn our eyes on one of the most typical leftist refusals to engage: the retreat. There are few places in the cultural world where this retreat is more obvious than in music and, more specifically, in metal. Even more specifically, the current throes which are black metal is undergoing are even more lucrative for our needs. There, leftist retreat is alive and happening right now, both because of the virility of the claims on the other side (read: the amount of black metal that's truly awful) and because the themes of black metal have already been declared by the larger, more abstract "left" as anathema in the past.