onewinteronly's blog

Lord Mantis are Proper Metal. That should suffice, really. It's the sort of band that you either love or you're not metal enough to love. If you're into other Proper Metal acts like the mighty Lair Of The Minotaur or Unearthly Trance, then Lord Mantis' single-minded pursuit of sonic violence will feel instantly at home. It's strange how their 2009 debut 'Spawning The Nephilim', on Seventh Rule, went by largely unnoticed.

Oh, how the few of us who were into Don Caballero or Tortoise realized we were on to something special and unique, and how excited we were when Explosions In The Sky or Mogwai took things into another level and we all started calling it post rock. They had, amazingly, no vocals (even Karma To Burn had been forced by Roadrunner to go find vocals for their instrumental stoner), and songs were long and it was beautiful and intense at the same time, almost poetic.

Fuck yeah, as Louise ended the text on our last band of the day (the kickass Black Breath), is a good starting point for these guys, as the punkish, fuck-if-I-care attitude is similar to Black Breath's. Actually, it's worse. Hell, they even quote the most unfavourable bits of reviews (even from good reviews!) on their MySpace. Hailing from Atlanta, home of more than a few bands we feature on a daily basis, Gray Ghost (who might be named after a Batman character, or John S.

On the final date of a long and successful Down European tour in 2008, what better thing to do with two tired Southern metal legends than lock them in a room and force them to listen to songs? So, that’s exactly what we did. Few other pairs can pack as much of a metal pedigree as Kirk Windstein and Jimmy Bower, who can collectively boast their roles not only in Down, but also Crowbar, EyeHateGod, Superjoint Ritual, Kingdom Of Sorrow and many others, but during this grueling test, their listening talents easily matched their playing.

As I mentioned in the best of 2009 album list I posted last week here, it’s been such a great year for extreme music as a whole that I will be haunted by all the incredible albums that were left knocking on that top 20.

Three months away from Roadburn 2010, here’s a memory from last year’s edition: when Scott Kelly finished the fourth song of his set at Roadburn 2009, as his haunting acoustic darkness was still being felt in silence by each of the collected faithful in the Green Room of the labyrinthine 013 venue, the great man paused for a few seconds to tune his guitar. The silence was reverential, but then we realized that the ceiling was shaking. As that world to which Scott takes you in each of his songs dissipated a little further, we also realized we weren’t really in total silence after all.

Woe to you, oh Earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the beast with wrath, and because he knows the time is short, he doth send five beasts at once to finish up the list.

And at the third day, oh ye faithful, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth, mainly on account of all the gloom and doom the poor man listened to.