HELL YES. That Slowbleed record is UNREAL. If you're into that one track, you really must check out the whole album -- especially if you're into those guitars. The lead guitarist of that band is a fucking wizard. He's literally all over every song, and whenever he breaks out with ANYTHING, I jump out of my seat. I don't mean to slight any other guys in that band, because they're all powerhouses and they just steamroll anything in their path, but that guitarist is the star of the show. And I'm pretty sure they all know it because he gets two solo instrumental tracks on the LP. I think the song I picked is the gnarliest one on there, but the track that follows it may beat it. Every song is a monster, though. If that's not a top-10 record at year's end, it will have been a pretty special year for metal. Truthfully I think every song I did this month coulda been #1. I love 'em all. And dude you rule for getting into Ethereal Shroud! That one is a MASTERPIECE, is it not? Check out "Lanterns," too, if you haven't already. He did two versions, and I have a really special place in my heart for the first one, but he said the second one is what he wanted the song to be. You can't go wrong with both of 'em. Enjoy!
I was originally writing about A Rose Dying In The Rain but I switched it out at the absolute last second. Both are incredible. Glad you checked out that one and are digging it!
(Incidentally I didn't mean to imply that Ian is an Endorama fan -- I'm not sure he's never really listened to it -- but I was TELLING HIM to listen to it, even though I had only foggy, bizarre memories of it. He's way more of a glutton for punishment with this stuff than I am. But I wound up cajoling only MYSELF into listening to it, and I found myself on such an insane fucking journey. I now genuinely unequivocally love that record, I listen to it for enjoyment, and I feel the world is a better place with Endorama in it.)
I went to a listening party at Duff's for The Wild Hunt, and I guess the label flew in Erik Danielsson just to sit there and listen along with us -- "us" being like maybe a dozen super-awkward metal writers, before noon on a Saturday at a dive bar in Brooklyn. He was obviously intense as hell. Anyway I didn't really want to look at him when the clean song was playing. What a weird, weird moment that must have been for him. Truthfully, it's not like he's that much worse of a singer than Quorthon or whoever, he just whiffed on the whole song somehow. Besides that, it's a pretty awesome record, although definitely their worst to my recollection.
I went through this whole thing with Ian not long ago about Endorama, and while I entered the exercise pretty ambivalent about Endorama, I now love it. (I'm a huge Kreator fan.) It's such a weird, unique record. I love it way way more than a lot of "good" or even "great" records. I didn't do my "most embarrassing" list (yet), but that would almost definitely be my #1, depending on how it works within Ian's methodology.
D'OH!
Where the fuck even is that guy anyway? Just, like, opining into the void? Having obstinate opinions but no bylines? Refusing to Voltron this shit up with his best buds for one sweet hot sec, before the apocalypse claims the lot of us? C'MON DAWG!
https://youtu.be/w-paPfnX1to
And if you REALLY want to hear how far Deafheaven have drifted from metal, listen to the other song on that same Sadness EP, "Your Train Is Leaving." This is BLACK METAL. And this one EP, with only two songs, pretty much immediately levels and reframes the entire "blackgaze" scene/sound/style as we knew it. And it's arguably the sixth-best Sadness release of 2021.
https://youtu.be/RIAGZ7oTl9o
And yeah also I would find it hard to take into serious consideration the opinion of anybody who dozes on that Ethereal Shroud record, because that shit is all-time fucking godhead. I was very fortunate that Joe Hawker sent me the full album after I wrote about the advance single(s) in the October Black Market column, because otherwise I wouldn't have heard it in time for our year-end list's deadline. (I believe it came out on 12/2.) It should no-question 100% be on everybody else's 2022 top-10 list, unless 2022 is the greatest year in the history of metal (and I hope it is!). The only reason Trisagion wasn't my EASY #1 is that it went up against a Jordan-like run by my favorite artist on the planet right now. Can't beat that. But it pretty handily beat everything else, for me, at least.
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