Hell

Micho, the Melvins are really coming to Bloom. We’re not missing out on anything. :D

Anyway, "Viva Emptiness" FTW.

<<a nasty metal band I didn't know>> Were those the 28 seconds of Cobalt that Barty played before I started rambling about Agalloch and Katatonia?

Anyway, the setlist was this Neurosis Concert Setlist at Spaziale Festival, Turin on July 20, 2011 | setlist.fm (already posted in the playlist, I'm reposting it here just to be a pain in the ass).

I'm thrilled!!! Despicable little piece of shit!

Anyway, anyway... Nothing, I just wanted to say that "Through Silver In Blood," with that mind-blowing ending, shook me to my core. And then Von Till, damn, VON TILL... The terror. THE TERRORRRRRR!

S T I C A Z Z I (period)

I don't know, Xasthur has always bored me to death and has never communicated anything to me... There was a rather brief period when I felt albums like "The Funeral Of Being," "Telepatic Witqualcosa," and this one; but after a few listens, it sank into the same oblivion that he tries to evoke with his music...

No, I wasn't referring to the MDB as a "little group," because I consider them essential too (even if only regarding the '90s). In general, I think all the goth-doom albums from the '90s are the only ones truly worth noting; some of them are really ballsy: Type O Negative above all, they managed to be gothic without sounding plastic, redundant, or overly affected like these Draconian... And with a good dose of humor that never hurts. Or the immense "Wildhoney" by Tiamat, way ahead of its time to simply be called gothic... As for the rest, there are ways and ways to artistically fade out: you can do like Tristania (or Sirenia), hiring a pop singer discarded from X-Factor auditions and auctioning off the band's backside, or you can play it safe and do like these shrewd Draconian, warming up the same broth of clichés and passing off a modest work of recycling your and others' ideas as coherence...

In the end, out of curiosity, I listened to a few tracks on YouTube and... I was stunned. Seriously, is there still someone in 2011 who has the courage to make an album like this? I swear I have rarely heard music so cold and expressionless... Even though it is excellently played/produced/packaged. I don't know, in these five interminable tracks that I tried to listen to, I only felt a grandeur that was so empty and plastic that it sent chills down my spine... And then they should stop with this 'beauty & beast,' this alternation between the dainty voice of the latest beauty and the powerful, fierce growl; fifteen years ago it may have been a novelty, but now it has become more predictable than the sunrise. Not to mention the riffs, the arrangements, the melodies... Oh my goodness. They stink of oldness more than my grandmother's slippers. All of this under the shadow of a stellar production that even more gives that sense of aseptic quality. These guys, in terms of lack of ideas and clichés, are in a competition with My Dying Bride and a few other groups from the scene. If they are the future of goth-doom, we’re in trouble... (I’m not rating the album because I haven’t even listened to it in full and I don’t want to do so.)