Engine

Welcome to a journal of heavy music.

Why? Because I am tired of reading about crappy, effete heavy music on this Web site. The imbalance ends now.

Attributes of the music this journal deals with:
1) heavy
2) good

What this journal is not:
1) a joke. Heavy music is serious. If you are not damaged deep inside stop reading now. Just kidding (I'm serious about the seriousness and the damage though )
2) democratic. I don't give a fuck what you think about what I say. Comment if you feel like it, at your own risk of humiliation.
3) planned. I give no shit about genre classifications or order of any kind. This journal reflects whatever pops into my mind whenever the thoughts pop. I know my History so don't bother arguing about things like who, what, where, when, and why.

Let's go


Siege were a band of teenagers from Massachusetts who played hardcore punk in the mid 1980s but they were unique. They didn't live in Boston and were not part of the typical Boston HC scene. They influenced many future bands who played extreme music.

The influence of Siege was far reaching in both time and space. Soon, a band from Birmingham, England called Napalm Death cited Siege as an influence. Napalm Death was a metal band deemed grindcore and they thought they were the heaviest shit around. They were probably right for a while and got quite famous. By 1990 they began making markedly slower and longer songs than they had before, such as this one..


When Siege were in high school, they performed at a Battle of the Bands, which is a contest among high school bands that is organized by the actual high school the bands attended, and the bands performed at their school. Possibly an 80s/90s-American-only thing. I don't know. When Siege played their set the bassist smashed his instrument at the end, which obligated the school administration to disqualify them. I imagine their set sounded something like this performance that was filmed for public access TV. In mid-80s America, public access television was the closest thing to the internet in that it's stations broadcast to the public without restrictions.

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Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

Trollheart

Welcome back Engine! Good to see you writing again!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Engine

Thanks!

now on to

HEAVY METAL HIPPIES

Part 1

Not musicians that are from the actual hippie era and are sometimes regarded as heavy metal. Rather, actual purveyors of extreme music who embrace hippie ethos in the pejorative sense. Heavy musicians who are vegetarian/vegan, or environmentalists, or embrace some kind of mystical beliefs. Stuff like that. These people are peppered throughout the world of heavy music.

Now, many people who make music of every sort make the decision to become vegetarian. On the surface that may seem antithetical to metal but it's really not. For instance, it's pretty common in the death/grind scene and has been for many years. Bands like Carcass are outspoken about it and it makes a lot of sense when you think about it because they are obsessed with gore, rotting flesh, and disembowelment - common themes of death metal. These things are glorified and are disgusting and... why would you want to eat stuff like that?

Here is a song they recently made about a tool for killing livestock


Naturally, younger bands have run with the idea. Cattle Decapitation like to equate human murder with the killing of animals for food. This video for their song called "A Body Farm" makes their point crystal clear.


And some of their peers love animals so much that they prefer to use their pets as vocalists than to do their own growling. Caninus is a band that was fronted by their two pit bulls..


So, yes, it's kind of a scene thing in death/grind to rail against meat and for animal rights. But other seemingly unlikely suspects are also animal lovers. Everybody's favorite gay black metal vocalist, Gaahl, is a vegetarian or possibly vegan, he doesn't go on about it in the press and generally doesn't share his lyrics.


Again, this is not really strange considering that many black metal musicians do what they do in order to completely reject modern Judeo-Christian society, and everything that it stands for. Giving up meat is a good way to say Fuck You, You Are Wrong. After all, meat is generally considered good and wholesome but is mostly derived from cruelty and arrogant disregard for life. Those are things that many sensitive black metallists refuse to abide. This is serious business, not to be made fun of, but this Black Metal Vegan Pad Thai recipe is too precious to keep to myself..

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Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

Anteater

If I were a heavy metal hippie, I'd probably be satisfied simply doing blastbeat-riddled interpretations of the Grateful Dead's catalogue....but whateverz, Cattle Decapitation and Carcass are all we need! \m/

Also, are you aware that there is a great metal band out there named after you hombre?

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Anteater's 21 Fav Albums Of 2020

Anteater's Daily Tune Roulette

The Batlord

Gaahl's gay? I'm sure that went up a storm in the Norwegian black metal scene. Even if a lot of their right wing crap is just a pose I imagine that a gay musician isn't going to get much love up there.

And great thread BTW.

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Engine

Thank you, sir. And, yes, Gaahl is homosexual. He also bankrolled a line of women's clothing and had a romantic relationship with his collaborator, Dan DeVero.


I'm not sure how this effected his black metal cred. I've read some hate on the internet but well.. it's the internet. Gaahl's own thoughts on the matter are predictably laconic.


No, I was not aware of that band. It's not really my cup of tea but I see that Armored Saint's bassist is involved so that's cool. And this is probably a good time to add that the thrust of this journal will not always be extreme music that is widely considered unlistenable (although I do expect it will mostly be that). For instance I like early Armored Saint. To me they fit my criteria (heavy/good).

ARE YOU IN THE MOOD FOR SOME CRAZINESS TONIGHT?!

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Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

The Batlord

Armored Saint and black metal? Why? Just why?

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Isbjørn

This journal, me like.

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Engine

Just kidding. I absolutely despise writers who address their supposed audience as "dear reader" - like Mister Nabokov up there, the master of arrogant blah blah. I assume that anyone who ever says Dear Reader at the beginning of a sentence must look like that.

Anyway, I'm about to talk briefly about one of my favorite heavy bands. This one is called Mare, now sadly disbanded. While you read the few words I will write about them about them, listen to this song


That, to me, is heavy. I view heavy music as cathartic expressions of intense emotions - typically the most detrimental ones. Fear, Hatred, Isolation, Greed, Love, Despair.. stuff like that

This band Mare was heavy. Nobody I know likes them. Not because they were *too* heavy of course but for reasons that nobody has told me. Not even the old time Hydra Head heads that I associate with like them. The band disappeared maybe due to lack of interest. This is a mystery to me. I used to despair over why they didn't make big waves but I've become used to it. Like all the human emotions, it passed.

I do wish they had made more music before disbanding but now Mare is just the name of an old band on a badge I wear, and I will die singing their praise.

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Like an arrow,
I was only passing through.

Primeval Scum

This journal is great. I love me some heavy music + witty writing.