The Heavy Thread - metal, hardcore, and more

Mvsic
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This doesn’t really seem like the crowd for it, but just in case: if you have the opportunity to catch Blessthefall on the Hollow Bodies 10th Anniversary tour, I highly recommend you do it. Saw them last night in Denver at my second favorite venue in the world and they were fantastic. Fifth time overall since 2012 and they haven’t lost anything. They have such incredible live presence and energy; it’s such a bummer they never got bigger.

Anyway, they’re doing Hollow Bodies front to back and then a 5 song encore, ending with a three-song throwback to Witness: “2.0,” “What’s Left of Me” and “Hey Baby, Here’s That Song You Wanted.” That’s my favorite album and three favorite songs of theirs, so that was a nice little treat.

Going through Blessthefall’s discography today now. EDIT: Maybe. I can’t seem to take Witness out of the CDT. I’m annoyed that I forgot how good they are. They definitely have their own formula, but it works and never really gets stale. To me anyway.

Due to RTD light rail issues, we missed Dragged Under and Kingdom of Giants, but caught all of Caskets set. They are definitely not for me, but they still put on an energetic show. All in all, $25 well spent.

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Any He Is Legend fans here? Put on I Am Hollywood for the first time in a long time. This album is such a journey and holds up so well. This the title and final track on the album and my favorite of theirs:

FFO: Every Time I Die, southern rock-inspired riffs, concept albums

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The new Polaris record is out today. Listening through for the first time now and this song woke me right up!

EDIT: I don’t care much for the chorus of this later song, “Aftertouch,” but the rest of it…holy shit it is heavy. It hits SO HARD through my Eikon.

EDIT 2: Yeah, this album is great. Even better than 2020’s The Death of Me

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Not the biggest metalcore fan, but damn those are pretty nice songs. I’ll check out the album later today.

Also, some albums I’ve been listening to:

Reminds me a lot of Blood Incantation, similar sound and guitarwork with a more atmospheric vibe to it. Well produced too also, has a nice sound to it.

Re-listened to Beyond Creation discography after almost two years of not listening to them, personally it’s The Aura >> Algorythm > Earthborn Evolution.

The Aura is just a very, very solid album with possibly the best production I’ve ever heard on a techdeath album, I would say it even beats Lucid Collective Somnambulation by Archspire, which already is a really great sounding album that is clean, snappy and focused, but the Aura IMO is even cleaner, snappier and slightly more dynamic.

Will probably go on my AOTY list, I’ve enjoyed a lot their previous works like Detestor or Abyssal (less so with Valde but it was still solid) and this (Ashen) is at least on par with Abyssal. The major difference between the two is that Abyssal had better written lyrics while Ashen has better guitarwork IMO, I’ve found it to be more varied, but that’s not all.

I actually prefer the production on Ashen, despite many people not liking it because it’s “overly compressed”, IMO thanks to it the album manages to achieve an even greater density and weight, which really helps to settle the oppressive atmsophere. Doesn’t even sound that congested as one would imagine, still remains fairly well separated for what it is and retains some nice dynamics.

Also, the clipping felt purposefull, didn’t think it subtracted from the experience since it was still somewhat controlled, and actually I would say that at best it improved it and made me enjoy the album more.

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Really liking The Aura right now and plan on moving onto Ashen after this!

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Any King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard fans? I want to get into them but I dont know where out of their 50 albums to start.

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Lol I wouldn’t call myself a “fan” but I have one record that I bought recently and have heard a few albums when my guitar teacher was guest playing on a microtonal focused band. They are very prolific indeed!

I like I’m in your mind fuzz and Flying Microtonal Banana but those might be the only ones I remember/listened to.

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I have so many King Gizzard albums that I can’t remember which ones I like. Try ‘Nonagon Infinity‘

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Yooo I found this album last year and I couldn’t believe how good it was! Might be my favorite album of 2023. This was so good. Polaris absolutely hit it out of the park. The sense of melancholic anger and existentialism could really be felt throughout the whole thing, the message reminded me of Architects’ AOGHAU. Fast forward to the present and it is still one of my favorite metalcore albums.

I love the opening track and how it leads into the second track so succinctly.


RIP Ryan :metal:

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New The Anciients after an 8 year hiatus. I thought these guys were done but nah this is pretty decent.

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Love that opening! Gets all the feels. Season of Mist is great, I like a lot of the stuff they put out.

The new Northlane EP has been really infecting my ears. Nobody else is really making the unique signature sound they have at this point. It’s such a good blend of metalcore and edm/techno influences, they have such a futuristic cyberpunk feel, yet somehow manage to be very melodic and heavy at the same time.

These are my two favorite tracks from it. I remember when I saw them live despite not being as big as the main band that night (Parkway Drive) their performance was pretty catchy. I’m really excited to see the direction these guys are going.

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Haven’t listened to Northlane in years…since Analog Future came out in March 2018 (got 2 copies of that…I kind of thought it would’ve become a collector’s item since only 500 were produced and this band has a fervent fan base). I was a big fan of Adrian and did not care for the direction they were heading with Marcus.

But man, this EP is GREAT. It’s refreshing. I should go back to Node and give everything another chance.

EDIT: and speaking of refreshing, I have barely been able to stop listening to Bring Me The Horizon’s POST HUMAN: NeX GEn since it released at the end of May. It’s SO fucking good. Easily my album of the year and, honestly, it’s my favorite work of theirs, and I’ve been a fan since 2010.

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