Music I Liked – The Greatest Bits, Metallica, Hath, Pound, Árstíðir lífsins, Illimitable Dolor, Gloson

The Greatest Bits

As usual, I start with the outlier.

I dropped my daughter off at a birthday party and the venue was playing music just below the volume where it’s easy to hear. But it kept catching my attention, and finally I gave a hard listen. It was Metallica, but … it was all wrong. The Greatest Bits

record some enhanced versions of my favorite video game music compositions

On Master of Pixels they cover classic metal, too. I can’t actually say I enjoyed this. Part of me is offended by its existence. But this cheesy 8-bit version of a song I loved in my youth stuck in my head for a week. I apologize for what I’m about to embed.

Metallica

They are an okay indie band now, I guess, but when I was a teenager, Metallica was heavy metal. Not “Metallica played heavy metal.” They were synonymous with the genre. After the Greatest Bits, I had to go back and listen to the real thing. The self-titled album Metallica overlapped with my intro to grunge and was the last true metal album I listened to for years. Master of Puppets is still one of the greatest metal albums ever written.

Hath

Of Rot and Ruin by Hath has great mouthfeel – it’s both crunchy and chewy. It drives forward with great momentum then pulls you up short with bungee chords. And look at that gorgeous cover art. Ugh. This is so good.

Pound

I love metal, and I love the Seattle music scene, but for me those two loves rarely unite. Pound is a two piece experimental, instrumental grind, math, dbeat and sludge band from Seattle, WA and I can’t believe that .. is the first I’ve heard of them. Even if I do already have opera plans the next time they play locally, this won’t be the last time I hear them.

Árstíðir lífsins

The name Árstíðir lífsins always throws me for a loop because I discovered the folk band Árstíðir years earlier when they did an a capella thing in a train station. So when Árstíðir lífsins comes out with the historical-sounding title Saga á tveim tungum I: Vápn ok viðr and it absolutely crushes, I’m not prepared. I do like it, though.

According to the band

Entirely sung in Old Icelandic and twinned with its sister album ‘Saga á tveim tungum II: Eigi fjǫll né firðir’ to be released in late 2019, ‘Vápn ok viðr’ takes you on a journey to the brutal power attempts of (in)famous Norwegian king Óláfr helgi Haraldsson in the early eleventh century as it is portrayed in the vernacular medieval Scandinavian sources.

Bonus points for the saga connection. I have read Heimskringla. Unfortunately Norway and Denmark (and sometimes Sweden) took turns naming their kings Harald and Olaf. And except for the occasional short-lived ineffectual king, all of them were infamous for brutal power attempts. So, I don’t remember at all which king they are referencing here.

Illimitable Dolor

If the name Illimitable Dolor wasn’t enough to pull me in, you had me at “Atmospheric death/doom from Australia.” Leaden Light (my favorite kind) is as beautiful and stately as the video.

Gloson

I was almost done with this post when I happened to check No Clean Singing and hit play on their premiere of the track “Usurper” from the new EP Mara. It was really good, so I had to add it to the list.

So, that’s my week in metal. Find anything you like?