What Heavy Blog Is Really Listening To – 3/3/17

Scott Murphy
What We're Really Listening To
For those who missed our last installment, We post biweekly updates covering what the staff at Heavy Blog have been spinning. Given the amount of time we spend on the site telling you about music that does not fall neatly into the confines of conventional “metal,” it should come as no surprise that many of us on staff have pretty eclectic tastes that range far outside of metal and heavy things. We can’t post about all of them at length here, but we can at least let you know what we’re actually listening to. For those that would like to participate as well (and please do) can drop a 3X3 in the comments, which can be made with tapmusic.net through your last.fm account, or create it manually with topsters.net. Also, consider these posts open threads to talk about pretty much anything music-related. We love hearing all of your thoughts on this stuff and love being able to nerd out along with all of you.

Wiegedood – De Doden Hebben het Goed II

Simon Handmaker
Reviews
On May 21st of 2015, fellow Heavy Blog staffer Matt and I ran a set of Rapidfire reviews: he wrote two, one on the new album from OSDM act Entrails, and one on Swedish death metal group Gutter Instinct's new EP. Sandwiched between them was my review of Wiegedood's first album, De Doden Hebben het Goed. To reiterate what I said so many moons ago, Wiegedood is a decent black metal band for sure, albeit one too focused at the time on hitting all the right boxes for the atmospheric black metal genre listing, and losing themselves in the process. Of course, being the optimist I am, I tacked on a hope for the future: "If the band chooses to trim down and focus on the aggression... their next album could be an absolute doozy of a record."

Oathbreaker – Rheia

Jake Tiernan
Reviews
As Fenriz (of Darkthrone/now political fame) once said, the line between black and crust was inevitably erased with the release of His Hero Is Gone's monumental album "Monuments To Thieves". At first this blurring of genres was subtle as artists found success in one another's respective scenes. Then, as artists like Fall Of Efrafra and Nux Vomica began to emerge with the turn of the century what was once truly a line in the sand was fully erased. Black metal bands swarmed to crust stylings in force and vica-versa. Soon a whole new generation of artists had emerged and it became standard that no black metal album was complete with out a d-beat and no crust album without a black metal riff. It was during these years that West Flander's/Belgium's Oathbreaker began to find their footing with an abrasive, but often heavily melodic, blend of post hardcore, hardcore, and black metal. Like many of their peers at the time they leaned heavily into the more crust/hardcore oriented territory of their sound, but with Rheia Oathbreaker finally breaks free of this constraint, bringing their influences full circle to create an intoxicating, dynamic album.