2023-11-24 | 13 | Metalite | "Aurora" | Aurora 6 | Or it sweeps us up and says you were never a leper |
2023-11-24 | 14 | Alterium | "Siren's Call" | Siren's Call +2 | and the dreamworlds where we are heroes are the real ones |
2023-11-24 | 15 | Nova Prospect | "Végtelennek tűnt" | single | and the difference between nostalgic joy and the regular kind |
2023-11-24 | 16 | Wij | "Lucyferyna" | single | is the willingness to believe |
2023-11-24 | 20 | Northlane | "Dante" | single | amidst private hells |
2023-11-24 | 25 | Maladie | "And I Die Alone" | For We Are the Plague | not the guardrail metrics of expiry. |
2023-11-24 | 26 | RüYYn | "The Flames, the Fallen, the Fury part II" | single | It sounds like fires are portals |
2023-11-24 | 27 | Fawn Limbs | "Black Body Radiation Curve" | Vestigial Spectra | from complacency into the gloriously indeterminate. |
2023-11-24 | 28 | Vredehammer | "The Joker" | single | We cast our rituals against the sun, |
2023-11-24 | 29 | Farsot | "Nausea" | single | against the cloying pompatus of anything, |
2023-11-24 | 30 | Necrowretch | "Numidian Knowledge" | single | against the disingenuous idea that the dead are lost to us. |
2023-11-24 | 31 | Valdrin | "Neverafter" | Throne of the Lunar Soul | The song says these are the last six and half minutes of the world, |
2023-11-17 | 1 | Madder Mortem | "Towers" | single | An American band might hesitate, even in 2023, to cast the bringing down of towers as heroic, |
2023-11-17 | 2 | Hellgroove | "Horizon On Hold" | single | but Madder Mortem are Norwegian, and anyway, if we had to retire every metaphor |
2023-11-17 | 3 | Amaranthe | "Outer Dimensions" | Outer Dimensions +2 | that ever had a tragic real-world referent |
2023-11-17 | 4 | Everdawn | "Century Black" | single | we would be wordless, and no safer or happier. |
2023-11-17 | 5 | Beyond God | "A Siren's Cry" | single | Pain cannot be allowed to merely accumulate, |
2023-11-17 | 6 | Phoenix Lake | "Fractured Wings" | single | even when it cannot be forgotten. |
2023-11-17 | 7 | Kobra Paige | "Under One Sun" | single | The total amount of pain is not reduced by the allocation of blame |
2023-11-17 | 8 | Septarian | "Gravity" | single | or the application of vengeance, |
2023-11-17 | 9 | Therion | "Ayahuasca" | Ayahuasca +2 | and the first transformative step of becoming human is learning to consider perspectives beyond your own. |
2023-11-17 | 10 | Veil of Mist | "Indelible" | Another End Is Possible | Of course this is the implicit challenge of every new song, |
2023-11-17 | 11 | CELESTE | "Plisse les yeux jusqu'au sang" | Epilogue(s) 3 | and every new day, |
2023-11-17 | 12 | Hiraes | "Through The Storm" | single | whether they noisily embrace or confront the past or not. |
2023-11-17 | 13 | Ihsahn | "PILGRIMAGE TO OBLIVION" | PILGRIMAGE TO OBLIVION +1 | How do we continue our own purposeful actions |
2023-11-17 | 14 | Helfró | "Traðkandi Blómin í Eigin Hjartagarði" | Traðkandi Blómin í Eigin Hjartagarði +2 | when the casualties of purpose surround us? |
2023-11-17 | 15 | King | "Mountains Of Ice" | Fury and Death | How do we understand the derivation of vividly apparent evil from mundane humanity |
2023-11-17 | 16 | Malist | "Ode to the Night" | single | without lapsing into a self-defeating taxonomy of otherness? |
2023-11-17 | 17 | DGM | "The Calling" | Life | We are, individually, capable of assigning internal rationalization to stark insanities: |
2023-11-17 | 18 | Myrath | "Child of Prophecy" | Child of Prophecy +2 | shooting people at a music festival in the name of freedom, |
2023-11-17 | 19 | Astral Experience | "Volver a Empezar" | Espiral, Pt.2 4 | dropping bombs on children in hospitals in the name of safety, |
2023-11-17 | 20 | Eternal Storm | "A Dim Illusion" | single | constructing obdurately dehumanizing processes in the name of equity. |
2023-11-17 | 21 | Draconicon | "Slumber Paralysis" | Pestilence | But we are also, collectively, capable not just of slow comprehension, |
2023-11-17 | 22 | Master | "Walk in the Footsteps of Doom" | single | but of evolution. |
2023-11-17 | 23 | Eldritch | "Handful Of Sand" | Innervoid | We often only think we mean, when we say "change our minds", that we choose a different answer |
2023-11-17 | 24 | Abäk | "Balam" | single | from among a set that already exists, |
2023-11-17 | 25 | Crecended | "Victory" | Wasting Away | but this is circular: every new belief exists once it is believed, |
2023-11-17 | 26 | Fifth Dawn | "The Day Brings" | The Day Brings +3 | but maybe only just in time. |
2023-11-17 | 27 | Skarlett Riot | "Hold Tight" | single | We change our minds by accepting incompletion as a premise, |
2023-11-17 | 28 | Dogma | "Pleasure From Pain" | Dogma | by thinking of the things we already know as pieces of a new structure we don't, |
2023-11-17 | 75 | Pollen | "Hive Mind" | Uncanny Valley | This is the same emotional truth when you reach out a hand to a single other human you think you know, |
2023-11-17 | 76 | Olumbe Falú | "The Albatross" | single | or an unseen multitude you can barely integrate as individuals. |
2023-11-17 | 77 | The Genotype | "Oneiromancer" | single | Towers will be put up and pulled down |
2023-11-17 | 78 | DEATH'S-HEAD AND THE SPACE ALLUSION | "Graceless Under Pressure" | Luc-II-Farul | according to constantly changing needs. |
2023-11-17 | 79 | Vaudlow | "Embrace" | single | We're making up songs about things that we've all heard before, like romance and engage and divorce, |
2023-11-10 | 16 | Ling tosite sigure | "狐独の才望" | single | I keep looking them up when I remember that I don't remember them, only to forget again. |
2023-11-10 | 17 | ELFENSJóN | "緋灼の魔女 / REINCARNATE Ver" | REINCARNATE | I do not love them in order to address each member individually, |
2023-11-10 | 18 | Divided Island | "Fragile World" | single | in a library or a quiet stairwell, |
2023-11-10 | 19 | Secret Sphere | "Aura" | Blackened Heartbeat | or to make a point to myself or the bannisters or chairs. |
2023-11-10 | 20 | Secret Rule | "UNInVERSE" | single | What would I say? |
2023-11-10 | 21 | Weightless World | "What We'll Become" | Sleepwalker | "We love you where I'm from in Boston, too.", |
2023-11-10 | 22 | Enigmatic Entrance | "Rise of The Mortal" | Rise of The Mortal +1 | but maybe it's just me, and I could check and that's why I haven't. |
2023-11-10 | 23 | Lodestar | "Shooting Star" | Polaris | I am a guest in their worlds, |
2023-11-10 | 24 | Shereign | "Visual Animals" | single | forgetting their names, forgetting most of the translations of their lyrics |
2023-11-10 | 25 | We Are To Blame | "I Want This To End" | Duality II | but remembering the structures: |
2023-11-10 | 26 | Purple Nail | "Calling" | single | juxtapositions of the real and the possible; |
2023-11-10 | 27 | Rioghan | "Sweet Death" | single | conjectural explanations of tangible feelings; |
2023-11-10 | 31 | PARTICLES | "Burn" | Гореть | but this is alt- out past alt-idol, |
2023-11-10 | 32 | Glasgow Kiss | "My Own Monster" | single | and loving maximalism isn't an infidelity to minimalism. |
2023-11-10 | 33 | Night Crowned | "She Comes At Night" | Tales | We are not measured by the distance from any point, |
2023-11-10 | 34 | Vanir | "Twisting the Knife" | single | not our home or your home or the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum. |
2023-11-10 | 35 | Eramaa | "Luunkehrääjä" | single | We receive joy when we are given joy, |
2023-11-10 | 36 | Hinayana | "Slowly Light Collides" | Shatter And Fall | but our hearts also swell when we trade sadnesses, |
2023-11-10 | 37 | Shylmagoghnar | "Convergence" | Convergence | or when a stranger wraps up a sadness in green paper |
2023-11-10 | 38 | Chronoform | "Mary Celeste" | single | and places it on a window ledge next to an important road |
2023-11-10 | 39 | Hyrgal | "Nihil Est" | single | in an unimportant town, or vice versa, |
2023-11-10 | 40 | RüYYn | "The Flames, The Fallen, The Fury - Part III" | single | and then all of the things that were foreordained to happen |
2023-11-10 | 41 | Vastum | "In Bed With Death" | Inward to Gethsemane | still happen except for one. |
2023-11-10 | 42 | Morbid Saint | "Bleed Them Dry" | single | How do we fall in love with people, |
2023-11-10 | 43 | Spidergawd | "Dinosaur" | Spidergawd VII | when they are singing, that we do not know? |
2023-11-10 | 44 | Maladie | "With One Voice" | single | Or how do we not? Isn't this what singing is for, to dilute the nitrogen very slightly |
2023-11-10 | 45 | Genus Ordinis Dei | "For A New God" | single | until our eyes just barely gleam? |
2023-11-10 | 46 | Tides From Nebula | "The Haunting" | single | This is what all songs are about, inherently and inevitably, |
2023-11-10 | 47 | Giuseppe Gilardi | "era moderna" | single | whether they embrace their elemental nature or pretend to be concerned only with mysteriously once-abandoned ships, |
2023-11-10 | 48 | Pollen | "Glutamate" | single | but it's different when every other emotional background hum stops |
2023-11-10 | 49 | The Dark Atom | "Ocean" | single | and you have to make a decision about what you choose to hear. |
2023-11-10 | 125 | Megan Thee Stallion | "Cobra (Rock Remix) [feat. Spiritbox]" | Cobra (Rock Remix) [feat. Spiritbox] +1 | Wait, ow, come back. Let me explain how metalcore and gothic symphonic metal and rap are all going to develop in different directions only to end up in the same place. |
2023-11-10 | 126 | Dimmu Borgir | "Perfect Strangers" | Perfect Strangers +1 | Let me explain how the singer of your 15th-favorite band is going to end up making one album as the singer of your 2nd-favorite band, and this is part of how some maybe-Satanic Norwegians named after a volcano in Iceland will do a magnificent cover of a song you already know in a style you can't yet imagine. |
2023-11-10 | 128 | Captain Black Beard | "Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)" | single | and how the bands you're slightly embarrassed to like |
2023-11-10 | 129 | Judicator | "Mandy" | single | are going to turn out to be part of the same history as the ones you dread. |
2023-11-10 | 131 | Lion's Share | "Life on Mars?" | single | Not only have we not landed on Mars yet, but we haven't even mastered the art of not turning against good ideas if idiots say them aloud. |
2023-11-10 | 134 | First to Eleven | "Run to the Hills" | single | They'll have their own songs, which you'll love, and vice versa. |
2023-11-10 | 135 | The Animal In Me | "Paint The Town Red" | single | Let me explain how borders exist to demarcate spaces of possibility, not separate incommensurate dimensions. |
2023-11-10 | 136 | Halocene | "Amaranthine" | single | Let me explain how you don't have to do everything in a completely new way. |
2023-11-10 | 137 | Rain Paris | "Summertime Sadness" | single | You aren't really listening, but it doesn't matter. You don't need an elaborate preview of a future you're about to make. |
2023-11-10 | 138 | Our Last Night | "Bring Me To Life" | single | Sorry for the way this started. I do have a favorite band. They're three women from Japan named Moeka, Yurika and Hiroa, and the band's name is the Japanese translation of "sheep literature". The music is slightly sad, but in a hopeful way, and that's something you'll learn to like without unlearning how to like heavy metal. |
2023-11-03 | 2 | Toehider | "Horse Song" | Horse EP 4 | with a combination of love and judo, |
2023-11-03 | 3 | Inculter | "Morbid Origin" | single | turning it through leverage and core strength |
2023-11-03 | 4 | Insomnium | "Flowers of the Night" | Songs Of The Dusk - EP 3 | and a tongue in its ear |
2023-11-03 | 5 | ANGRA | "Dead Man On Display" | Cycles Of Pain | so that it ends up facing towards something more alluring, |
2023-11-03 | 6 | Eluria | "¿Dónde Van?" | Detrás de la Cerradura | and then nudging it in the direction it now wants to go. |
2023-11-03 | 7 | Dominic Gebhardt | "Witches Of Eldrathia" | Witches Of Eldrathia 5 | I say "some", but maybe my definition of joy is itself tangled in chaos, |
2023-11-03 | 8 | Deep Sun | "Eternal Love" | single | and movements away from the edge are transient needs for something else, |
2023-11-03 | 9 | Liliumdust | "Midnight" | single | comfort or a safe reference state we can use to calibrate every other feeling. |
2023-11-03 | 10 | Shattered Vessels | "In Silence" | single | I suspect that our emotional polarities betray themselves in our supposedly stolid politics, too, |
2023-11-03 | 11 | Serenity | "Sun of Justice" | Nemesis AD | and thus that the inward-facing movements towards nationalism and tribalism and walled stasis |
2023-11-03 | 12 | Delta | "At Last" | single | are expressions of the same woundedness as staging increasingly complicated basement listening rooms |
2023-11-03 | 13 | The Last Martyr | "Burn It Down" | single | in order to listen to the same Steely Dan albums in fractally greater fidelity. |
2023-11-03 | 14 | Koburg | "Silent Voices" | single | The new Marnie Stern songs are vastly detailed, but there's a kind of detail that invites you to dream of stopping time |
2023-11-03 | 15 | NOVELISTS | "Prisoner" | Prisoner +1 | in order to wander among suspended soundstages marveling at the placement of each instrument, |
2023-11-03 | 16 | Crashing Atlas | "Fake It With Me" | single | and there's a kind that wants to show you that you can be blastingly displaced |
2023-11-03 | 17 | Stoned Mary | "PUSH" | single | by the concerted effort of tiny notes and gestures. |
2023-11-03 | 18 | Spiritbox | "Too Close / Too Late" | The Fear of Fear | Because I grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons, |
2023-11-03 | 19 | TRiDENT | "twinkle" | single | there's a part of me that insists on trying to reframe every set of potential moral binaries |
2023-11-03 | 20 | She is Legend | "How's everything" | single | into a new real-world Alignment grid. |
2023-11-03 | 21 | RAISE A SUILEN | "STRAY CERBERUS" | REVELATION 5 | Good/Neutral/Evil, I realized while I was still very young, |
2023-11-03 | 65 | Unprocessed | "Glass" | single | misery, like any other contagion, cannot be mitigated by tolerance. |
2023-11-03 | 66 | Boris | "om strutsar" | single | Our grandest adventures involve travel to edges, |
2023-11-03 | 67 | SATÂNICOS | "Remphan Rites" | single | but not in order to hack at unprotected frayedness in a region with looser sword regulations. |
2023-11-03 | 68 | Lovecrose | "Rossz utakon" | Végtelen mint az óceán | The dungeons in D&D are convenient fabrications |
2023-11-03 | 69 | Axioma | "Spectre in the Code" | Primal Descent 4 | of environments free of moral complexity, |
2023-11-03 | 70 | Voutsa | "Nyrkkisääntö" | single | but the dragons are a reminder that sometimes our imagination becomes real. |
2023-11-03 | 87 | Serenity | "Crowned by an Angel" | Nemesis AD | We release ourselves from being the people who had never heard them yet, |
2023-10-27 | 7 | Plini | "Ember" | single | and we will say "Hmm!" like Taylor does |
2023-10-27 | 8 | DGM | "To The Core" | single | when she's becoming herself again. |
2023-10-27 | 9 | Cvlt Ov the Svn | "Square Hammer" | single | There's a difference between extrapolation and growth, |
2023-10-27 | 10 | La Mer | "Hell Can Wait" | Tetrahedra | especially when the extrapolation is interpolation with a surprising demo and a marketing plan. |
2023-10-27 | 11 | Scars of Solitude | "Luna" | Luna +1 | The eager ease with which we are impressed is, of course, part of our charm, |
2023-10-27 | 12 | Breath Of Wind | "The Stars Above Us" | single | one of the thousand noble impulses that can be nihilistically exploited, |
2023-10-27 | 13 | Varathron | "Hegemony of Chaos" | single | grand gates into our ultimately unguarded cities. |
2023-10-27 | 14 | Sangdragon | "Curse Of Desert (The Black Dragon)" | Hierophant | The black dragon circles twice before landing in our plaza and saying "Why should I spare this town?" |
2023-10-27 | 15 | Sonus Mortis | "Among the Marrow and the Machines" | Of Red Barren Earth | with flames for a tongue, |
2023-10-27 | 16 | Doro | "Fire in the Sky" | Conqueress - Forever Strong And Proud | and we smile and say "Who sent you? |
2023-10-27 | 17 | Lucifer | "At The Mortuary - Halloween Edit" | At The Mortuary 2 | Who drew you? |
2023-10-27 | 18 | Jasmine Cain | "Attitude is Everything" | single | You were magnificent in the air, but altitude is everything." |
2023-10-27 | 19 | Dead Sara | "Violent" | single | Be gently led away by Anima Control, like the other beautiful imaginary beasts before you. |
2023-10-27 | 20 | Solarcycles | "Nature's Blessing" | Lunar | We cannot be spared by extraneity, |
2023-10-27 | 21 | Neperia | "Vritra's Garden" | single | nor consumed by our own multiplicity. |
2023-10-27 | 22 | Snow White In The Dark | "MADE OF STONE" | single | You are made of words, letters, bending lines. |
2023-10-27 | 23 | Exit Eden | "Run! (feat. Marko Hietala)" | single | What would you want, if you were real? |
2023-10-27 | 24 | Serenity | "The End of Babylon" | The End of Babylon +3 | Food trucks, new songs, somebody who waves when you land. |
2023-10-27 | 25 | Altersight | "День, когда..." | single | All these eons of imagining dragons, though, |
2023-10-27 | 26 | Liv Sin | "Synthetic Generation" | single | and you'll notice we never do change the building codes |
2023-10-27 | 27 | IKINÄ | "Kohti kuolemaa" | IKINÄ | to account for wingspans or scales. |
2023-10-20 | 1 | Sister Shotgun | "Fin Du Monde" | single | End of the world, but not quite the end of the year. |
2023-10-20 | 2 | Temperance | "Darkness is just a Drawing" | Hermitage - Daruma's Eyes Pt. 2 | I work on statistical algorithms at Spotify, so I know that "Fin Du Monde" may not catch up, |
2023-10-20 | 3 | Within Temptation | "We Go To War" | Bleed Out | in pure math, with some of the Emma Hewitt and Hitsujibungaku songs that had more of my calendar year to work with. |
2023-10-20 | 4 | Secret Sphere | "Confession" | single | I tweak equations, lovingly, and then give the speech, again, |
2023-10-20 | 5 | Delight | "Whale's Lungs" | Eternity | to myself if no co-workers are around, |
2023-10-20 | 6 | Walk in Darkness | "Across the Oceans" | single | that tracking your behavior is not the same as reading your mind. |
2023-10-20 | 7 | Valcata | "Archangel" | single | I once proposed that the Echo Nest's marketing slogan should have been |
2023-10-20 | 8 | Witchcraft | "Сердце вуду" | single | "We're the Echo Nest. We take your brain out of your skull while you sleep, |
2023-10-20 | 9 | Aqvilea | "New World Era" | single | lick it, |
2023-10-20 | 10 | A Dark Reborn | "Hopeless" | Last Echo | and then put it back in." |
2023-10-20 | 11 | Nekonomicon | "Race of Life" | single | You can see why I'm never left in charge of marketing slogans, |
2023-10-20 | 12 | Derdian | "THE GRIN OF REVENGE" | NEW ERA Pt. 4 (RESURGENCE) | but also how the whole enterprise of marketing breeds stylish dishonesty. |
2023-10-20 | 13 | Rage Of Light | "Opaque" | Opaque +3 | At the Echo Nest we never got to even touch people's actual ears, |
2023-10-20 | 14 | Elegy Of Madness | "Revelation" | XI | never mind their cortices, |
2023-10-20 | 15 | Dol Ammad | "Swans of Orion" | single | and even now at Spotify the emotional component of our emotional surveillance |
2023-10-20 | 16 | Gåte | "Hamløypar" | Vandrar 5 | is an anti-marketing invention no more literal than the marketing ones. |
2023-10-20 | 17 | Intra | "Last Born" | Transition 4 | We do not know whether you play a song because you cannot focus on anything else, |
2023-10-20 | 18 | Myrkur | "Blazing Sky" | Spine | or because it attaches itself selflessly to all other distracting noises and drags them with it over a precipice of disregard. |
2023-10-20 | 19 | HELGA | "Burden" | Burden +1 | We cannot tell that I'm turning "Fin Du Monde" up louder |
2023-10-20 | 20 | Cirith Ungol | "Relentless" | Dark Parade | because I'm trying to discern if there's a volume level at which the |
2023-10-20 | 21 | Ankhara | "La Tierra de los Sueños" | De Aquí a la Eternidad 5 | mordant background hiss resolves into individual cymbal crashes, |
2023-10-20 | 22 | Therion | "Ruler Of Tamag" | Ruler of Tamag 2 | at which the way-too-precise kick fills betray any timing nuance, |
2023-10-20 | 23 | Teramaze | "Blemish" | single | at which the song's implicit threat to tear a betraying hole in the illusory sky |
2023-10-20 | 24 | Winter | "Last Thing On My Mind" | Heroes | succeeds. |
2023-10-20 | 25 | Atlas | "One More Night" | Built to Last | I suspect that Sister Shotgun have heard HIM and Nightwish and In This Moment |
2023-10-20 | 26 | Astral Experience | "Hechizo" | single | and thought to themselves "Yeah, but Generation Terrorists and |
2023-10-20 | 27 | Isra Ramos | "Cross the Line" | single | William Gibson and what if Anaal Nathrakh were sentimental and beautiful?" |
2023-10-20 | 28 | Fenrir's Scar | "Ruins of My Sanity" | Love | Hate | Hope | Despair | We do not have to dance, tearfully, on the farthest beach, |
2023-10-20 | 29 | Zártosztály | "Éltem, ahogy éltem" | single | awaiting the wavefront's transit. |
2023-10-20 | 30 | Machinae Supremacy | "WARRIORS, Pt. 1 (Final Stage)" | single | We can run into it, and thus maybe straight through. |
2023-10-20 | 31 | 戮-Riku- | "赤い絲" | 赤い絲 +1 | The blazing sky invites us aloft, |
2023-10-20 | 32 | Dimmu Borgir | "Black Metal" | single | if we learn its orthography, |
2023-10-20 | 33 | King | "Into The Fire" | Into The Fire +1 | and the grace with which we descend again, burned ecstatically wingless, |
2023-10-20 | 34 | Allegaeon | "Inhumation" | single | wins us one more night at a time. |
2023-10-20 | 35 | Rivers of Nihil | "Hellbirds" | single | We do not have to wait for the robots to tell us how to spend it. |
2023-10-20 | 36 | Cailleach Calling | "Glittering Delusion" | single | We do not have to ask them to take the shape of opinions they don't have. |
2023-10-20 | 37 | NEMOPHILA | "Master Of Puppets" | single | Math collates, it doesn't transform. |
2023-10-20 | 106 | Kuggur | "Nattsand" | single | End of the tectonic plate, but not the playlist. |
2023-10-20 | 114 | Gåte | "Ulveham" | Vandrar 5 | and what we imagine must be precious, |
2023-10-20 | 115 | Temperance | "In Search of Gold" | Hermitage - Daruma's Eyes Pt. 2 | and how we make it precious by yearning for it. |
2023-10-20 | 116 | Ninja Sex Party | "Let's Save the Earth" | single | End of the week, but not yet the world. |
2023-10-20 | 119 | Soulvapor | "Never Gonna Give You Up" | single | and you wouldn't get this from any other sky. |
2023-10-20 | 120 | The Haxans | "Ways To Be Wicked" | single | So many ways to be not quite sure, |
2023-10-20 | 121 | Tulip | "Thriller" | single | but the air this morning smells like flowers, still, again, maybe long enough, maybe enough. |
2023-10-13 | 29 | ULTRA | "flashback" | single | hold even our strongest feelings entirely inside our own hearts. |
2023-10-13 | 30 | JIEMEI | "AISURU" | LUNA4 | They escape us, and are nurtured or abandoned in collective space, |
2023-10-13 | 31 | Air Drawn Dagger | "The Collapse of Mount Plethora" | Songs To Fight The Gods To 5 | so that we may make our way unencumbered |
2023-10-13 | 32 | Ankor | "Stereo" | Stereo +3 | but reencounter them by arranged chance. |
2023-10-13 | 33 | Seas on the Moon | "Truth In Veins" | single | I think of this as a natural property of the air, |
2023-10-13 | 34 | Secret Rule | "Shards of Time" | single | but the streets probably used to smell of horses, too. |
2023-10-13 | 35 | Everdawn | "Cassiopeia" | single | We know we can change a little, |
2023-10-13 | 36 | THE ANSWER LIES IN THE BLACK VOID | "Ataraxia" | Thou Shalt | so we should not assume our emotional stability |
2023-10-13 | 37 | Varg | "Tyr" | Ewige Wacht | or social morality |
2023-10-13 | 38 | Saltatio Mortis | "Heute Nacht" | single | are self-maintaining. |
2023-10-13 | 39 | Theocracy | "Flicker" | Mosaic | Maybe these songs we love today, Discord stem-trading glitchbops or evangelic symphonic metal, |
2023-10-13 | 40 | ANGRA | "Gods Of The World" | Gods Of The World +2 | are stream-coated with a slowly-toxic memory anti-coagulant, |
2023-10-13 | 41 | Jason Bieler And The Baron Von Bielski Orchestra | "Zombies & Black Swans" | Zombies & Black Swans +2 | and our hearts feel illusorily full |
2023-10-13 | 43 | Edge Of Forever | "The Last One" | Ritual | The forever whose last edge we stand on is an oblivion, |
2023-10-13 | 44 | Ronnie Atkins | "Ode To A Madman" | Trinity | an event horizon over which we will belatedly realize we have been lost. |
2023-10-13 | 45 | Care of Night | "Tonight" | single | Tonight, we will not have known, was all we would ever have, |
2023-10-13 | 46 | One Morning Left | "Neon Inferno (Paradise)" | Neon Inferno (Paradise) +2 | and we can repeat it but not remember or relive it. |
2023-10-13 | 47 | Merta | "Katso mua silmiin" | single | We look through each other. We look through ourselves. |
2023-10-13 | 48 | IKINÄ | "Tapa loinen" | single | The sponsors of the background insist on the glazed regard for which they have paid, |
2023-10-13 | 49 | Eramaa | "Saitamieli" | single | and what they have purchased for us is a foregroundlessness. |
2023-10-13 | 50 | Fortíð | "Vefurinn sem ég spinn" | Narkissos | Or, just to briefly entertain a counter-theory, maybe not. |
2023-10-13 | 51 | Furia | "Zamawianie Trzecie" | Huta Luna | We do not escape predicted dystopias by relying on their pessimisms turning out to be foolish, |
2023-10-13 | 52 | Mānbryne | "Suma wszystkich strat" | Interregnum: O próbie wiary i jarzmie zwątpienia | but by inhabiting their details until the fear collects on the surface as a thin sheen which may be gently skimmed off. |
2023-10-13 | 53 | Maladie | "For We Are the Plague" | single | It is exactly your job to not listen so deafly that songs do not register. |
2023-10-13 | 54 | Catafalque | "Infestation" | Dybbuk | It will become your turn to reject disagency. |
2023-10-13 | 55 | Sulphur Aeon | "Hammer From The Howling Void" | Seven Crowns And Seven Seals | Without scarcity to protect the fortunate |
2023-10-13 | 56 | XAAXAA | "DRAW" | DRAW +2 | and obscure the rest, |
2023-10-13 | 57 | AURORIZE | "CESTRAL" | single | you cannot wait to be told what to love |
2023-10-13 | 77 | Vajra | "Love Is a Battlefield" | single | The people who used to aspire to tell us we were wrong lost this battle. |
2023-10-06 | 11 | Risky Melody | "Risky Melody" | Reflection | and the news coverage of toxic hatred packed into metal cylinders |
2023-10-06 | 14 | Blood Stain Child | "2045" | 2045 +1 | My feelings for Ed range from ambient tolerance to sporadic enthusiasm, |
2023-10-06 | 15 | Rave The Reqviem | "Zero Solace" | EX-EDEN | mostly circling in on admiration that he has gotten almost as famous as you can get for having written songs |
2023-10-06 | 16 | Rave The Reqviem | "Exit Babylon" | EX-EDEN | without seeming to have become any less interested in writing more of them. |
2023-10-06 | 17 | RAVDINA | "Измеряя шагами небо" | single | They're usually not complicated, but they're reliably decent, |
2023-10-06 | 18 | Metalite | "New Generation" | New Generation 5 | both of which are the opposite of the prisals and reprisals bloodily yet again being exchanged between intransigencies |
2023-10-06 | 19 | Alterium | "Bismarck" | Bismarck +1 | in a small corner of our beautiful planet we've discovered to have the perfect climate |
2023-10-06 | 20 | We Are the Catalyst | "Daydreamers" | Daydreamers +1 | for the cultivation of invasive grudges. |
2023-10-06 | 21 | ADHARMA | "Porcelain" | single | Ed has a new album, which is unpretentious and objectively fine on its own, I think, |
2023-10-06 | 22 | DARLAH | "Trials" | Trials +3 | modernly produced but not post-modernly beaten lifeless, |
2023-10-06 | 23 | Elegy Of Madness | "Hybrid Love" | single | but the second notional "disc" of the extra-double-bonus version |
2023-10-06 | 24 | Night Crowned | "Flickan Som Försvann" | Flickan Som Försvann +1 | has living room versions of all 14 songs, one gifted to each of 14 fans, |
2023-10-06 | 25 | Cirith Ungol | "Looking Glass" | single | and just listening to them I'm OK, functioning, not crying, |
2023-10-06 | 26 | Eldritch | "Elegy Of Lust" | single | not hating human weakness unmanageably as I play them and debug complaints about the new Fans Also Like algorithm |
2023-10-06 | 27 | Myrath | "Heroes" | single | that almost always turn out to stem from emotional indignance that faking your fans |
2023-10-06 | 28 | Nik Nocturnal | "Tsunderella" | single | casts you into an unflattering association with other fakers exactly no worse than you. |
2023-10-06 | 29 | TEMIC | "Mothallah" | Mothallah +2 | People will make music, one of the few things that deserves to be treated as holy, |
2023-10-06 | 30 | Imperialist | "CALL OF THE VULCAIN" | single | and then fuck it up with greed and impatient jealousy, |
2023-10-06 | 31 | Misertus | "only just unfolding" | single | so of course we also fuck up nationhood and coexistence and hopeless imbalances of power, |
2023-10-06 | 32 | Heretoir | "Glacierheart - Nightsphere Part II" | Nightsphere | all of which are inherently mired in logistics and sediment from which a chorus cannot lift you out. |
2023-10-06 | 33 | Sühnopfer | "Nous Sommes d'Hier" | Nous sommes d'Hier | Ed's songs are fine. Part of the reason this series of fan visitations works, |
2023-10-06 | 34 | Svalbard | "Defiance" | The Weight Of The Mask | even though Ed is playing them new songs instead of the ones for which they became his fans, |
2023-10-06 | 35 | Dominic Gebhardt | "Whispers Of Eldrathia" | Whispers Of Eldrathia +2 | is that all of his songs have the same basic qualities. |
2023-10-06 | 36 | Nocturnal Abbey | "Funerals empty chairs" | The great blackened swan | You can find reasons to choose between them, |
2023-10-06 | 37 | Myrkur | "Valkyriernes Sang" | Valkyriernes Sang +2 | but that will mostly be about you. Ed seems to very earnestly love them all. |
2023-09-29 | 1 | Massive Scar Era | "Between Waves" | Between Waves +1 | In principle the notable thing about Massive Scar Era is that it is a metal band started in Egypt by women. |
2023-09-29 | 2 | Nikki Stringfield | "No Surrender" | Apocrypha | In practice, there's enough folk-heritage cosplay in metal, in general, that you could listen to them without the bio open and mistake diaspora for tourism. |
2023-09-29 | 3 | Amaranthe | "Insatiable" | Insatiable +1 | The pharaohs on the cover of Powerslave watch us with a minor Phrygian wink as we listen, |
2023-09-29 | 4 | Within Temptation | "Ritual" | Ritual | but Cherine Amr's relocation to Montreal was to escape power, |
2023-09-29 | 5 | Serenity | "Reflections (of AD)" | Reflections (of AD) +2 | and the Egyptian figures in "Between Waves" are less unfamiliar in a metal context than her vocal delivery, |
2023-09-29 | 6 | Secret Sphere | "Blackened Heartbeat" | single | the shouty parts lacking the usual cartoon-monster grimness |
2023-09-29 | 7 | Blackbriar | "An Unwelcome Guest" | A Dark Euphony | and the melodic parts more earnest than operatic. |
2023-09-29 | 8 | Arshenic | "Nocturnal" | single | Nikki Stringfield is from Texas, which is still maybe marginally easier to escape than Egypt, |
2023-09-29 | 9 | Neperia | "Minokawa" | single | but was in a band called The Iron Maidens, whose only streaming-available song is a cover of "Powerslave", |
2023-09-29 | 10 | Alkonost | "Оберег" | single | but I discovered that only after sequencing the two songs at the beginning of this list based on how the singing makes me feel. |
2023-09-29 | 11 | Genus Ordinis Dei | "Genesis" | single | The tourist, I am well aware, is me, |
2023-09-29 | 12 | Draconicon | "Thorns" | single | assembling shards of other people's cultures into hurriedly effigial collage. |
2023-09-29 | 13 | Primordial | "How It Ends" | How It Ends | Amr's story is a book. This is a playlist. |
2023-09-29 | 14 | Gaerea | "Dormant - Bonus track" | single | Egyptian scars, LA dreams, Europeans flirting with synthwave and metalcore as if those are a single audience; |
2023-09-29 | 15 | Fortíð | "Rotinn arfur" | single | Serenity are Austrian, and "Reflections (of AD)" falls conveniently into a week between advance tracks from the upcoming album by their Italian cospirits Temperance; |
2023-09-29 | 16 | Lightlorn | "Of Longing Spirit and Infinite Solitude" | single | we build cities precisely to place all of these selves next to each other, |
2023-09-29 | 17 | Wolves In The Throne Room | "Beholden to Clan" | Crypt of Ancestral Knowledge 4 | the gothic embrasures of converted custom houses |
2023-09-29 | 18 | Psychework | "Shape of a Ghost" | Spark of Hope | watching over the neo-brutalist apertures of what will soon be CBD dispensaries or bubble-tea imports, |
2023-09-29 | 19 | Stam1na | "Taivas" | X | the homeless and the vacant in an uneasy market standoff. |
2023-09-29 | 20 | Shiva | "ASTE-ROID" | ASTE-ROID +1 | In time, all our talismans will outlive their temporary oppositions, |
2023-09-29 | 21 | #2i2 | "BURNBURNBURN" | single | and we will strain to re-remember how it began and how it ends, |
2023-09-29 | 22 | Quubi | "Black out" | solid 4 | and re-forget the parts in the middle where we lost track. |
2023-09-29 | 23 | INUWASI | "Sacrifice" | Revive Your Faith 5 | All our legacies are rotten, |
2023-09-22 | 18 | Elegy Of Madness | "Crawling" | single | Or this is backwards, too, |
2023-09-22 | 19 | DIANNE | "Unleash the Siren" | single | and we hear songs how we are, |
2023-09-22 | 20 | Ewiniar | "Sister Moon" | single | caught out between certainties, |
2023-09-22 | 21 | Raven Tide | "Reach for Me" | single | close enough to touch the boundary between logistical despair |
2023-09-22 | 22 | A Dark Reborn | "Levitating the Void" | single | and restorative serenity |
2023-09-22 | 23 | Solarcycles | "Grows Then Dies" | single | with our own skin, |
2023-09-22 | 24 | Varg | "Eisenseite" | Eisenseite +1 | shivering to transmit catharsis inwards. |
2023-09-22 | 25 | Therion | "Twilight Of The Gods" | single | Everything goes through me, it feels like: |
2023-09-22 | 26 | Sulphur Aeon | "Usurper Of The Earth And Sea" | single | voices saying anything they've practiced, |
2023-09-22 | 27 | Heretoir | "Glacierheart - Nightsphere, Pt. 2" | single | guitars depicted in current or just magnets, |
2023-09-22 | 28 | Sgàile | "Lamentations By The Lochan" | single | any allegory of structure, |
2023-09-22 | 29 | Breath Of Wind | "A Natural Symphony" | A Natural Symphony +1 | anywhere in the measure to place a snare. |
2023-09-22 | 30 | Temperance | "No Return" | No Return +1 | It's reasonable to wonder, if you know of only two people with a given name, if they're related, |
2023-09-22 | 31 | DGM | "Unravel The Sorrow" | single | but it's even more reasonable to stipulate that we are all related, |
2023-09-22 | 32 | Subsignal | "The Art of Giving In" | A Poetry of Rain | and that we don't declare ourselves Ramones as much as acknowledge it. |
2023-09-22 | 33 | Apostolica | "Animae Haeretica" | Animae Haeretica | I am not, technically, either of two Australian soil chemists, |
2023-09-22 | 34 | 燐舞曲 | "夢想曲 -Träumerei-" | 夢想曲 -Träumerei- +1 | but I approve of their shed estimates |
2023-09-22 | 35 | Damian Hamada's Creatures | "The Beginning of the End" | 運命の支配者 | and mostly resist the impish urge to antagonize the sales representatives |
2023-09-22 | 89 | In This Moment | "ARMY OF ME" | ARMY OF ME +2 | Or this is backwards, and the reinforcements we represent |
2023-09-15 | 39 | IKINÄ | "Syvämeri" | single | that our love for music was never predicated on its scarcity or preciousness or acquisition cost or production expense, |
2023-09-15 | 40 | Stam1na | "Muistipalatsi" | single | and thus that it's exactly as possible to sequence fragments of love, |
2023-09-15 | 41 | Blackbriar | "Forever and a Day" | Forever and a Day +3 | one after another from wherever you are to any chosen horizon, |
2023-09-15 | 42 | ANGRA | "Tide Of Changes - Pt. II" | Tide Of Changes 2 | as to accept them only 8 or 12 at a time, |
2023-09-15 | 43 | Anaria | "Circle Of Love" | single | neatly divided into halves, |
2023-09-15 | 44 | Stream of Passion | "Tonight" | Beautiful Warrior 5 | except not so neatly in the LP era, because the sonic fidelity of spiral grooves |
2023-09-15 | 45 | Beyond God | "Aphantasia" | single | decreases as they wind in towards the heart, |
2023-09-15 | 46 | The Haxans | "The Dead And Restless" | The Dead and Restless | until "The Revealing Science of God" reveals that the god of LPs never reached out a hand to change the side for you, |
2023-09-15 | 47 | Never Obey Again | "What If" | single | and I reject any patronizing ploy to recast this as some kind of listening work-ethic |
2023-09-15 | 48 | Nungara | "Still Waters" | Reflections in Stillness 4 | unless you're going to follow through and claim that recorded music vacated the moral high ground, |
2023-09-15 | 49 | Doro | "Bond Unending" | Bond Unending +2 | in a time of floods, |
2023-09-15 | 50 | Apostolica | "Gloria" | single | once you no longer had to crank the victrola |
2023-09-15 | 51 | Altarage | "Enigma Signals" | Worst Case Scenario | with your own hands, |
2023-09-15 | 52 | Wolves In The Throne Room | "Initiates of the White Hart" | Initiates of the White Hart +1 | like joy is a worm you have to draw out of the intestines of its hosts, |
2023-09-15 | 53 | Iron Savior | "Curse of the Machinery" | Curse of the Machinery +3 | and then you have to answer for the ways the turntable changed music, |
2023-09-15 | 54 | Eunomia | "The Search" | The Chronicles of Eunomia, Pt. 2 | and later the separation of woofers and tweeters, |
2023-09-15 | 55 | Theocracy | "Mosaic" | Mosaic +1 | and earlier the factional schisms of clefs, |
2023-09-15 | 56 | Symphony Of Sweden | "That Night" | single | and the inevitable realization awaiting us |
2023-09-15 | 57 | Ronnie Atkins | "If You Can Dream It (You Can Do It)" | single | as we reason forwards and backwards between transformations |
2023-09-15 | 58 | Brother Firetribe | "Just Another Night" | single | is that all of these countless transitional eras seem significant from within them, |
2023-09-15 | 59 | Ronnie Romero | "Mountain Of Light" | Too Many Lies, Too Many Masters | in detailed contrast to whatever prevailing context we had most intimately internalized, |
2023-09-15 | 60 | TesseracT | "Echoes" | War Of Being | but by two or three revolutions later all the previous ones will have begun to blur together, |
2023-09-15 | 63 | Rides In ReVellion | "YOAKE SAIZENSEN" | YOAKE SAIZENSEN +3 | that has nothing to teach us, |
2023-09-15 | 64 | XANVALA | "本能" | single | and we have no time to go back and raise it out of savagery, |
2023-09-15 | 65 | Damian Hamada's Creatures | "The Beginning of the End" | single | as much as we pity its monolithic ignorance, |
2023-09-15 | 66 | Utsu-P | "いのちをそまつに (feat. 初音ミク)" | HAPPYPILLS | because we are needed at the cultural front in the war of sacred human agency against demonbot AI, |
2023-09-15 | 107 | Gridlink | "Pitch Black Resolve" | Coronet Juniper | and frenetic |
2023-09-15 | 108 | Shipwreck Karpathos | "SCENE IX: Almost Colossus" | single | and as often distended in our catharsis |
2023-09-15 | 109 | Explosions In The Sky | "Loved Ones" | End | as concise in our regard, |
2023-09-15 | 110 | Collapse Under The Empire | "Forgiveness" | single | because the new systems still convey the same love |
2023-09-15 | 111 | Divided by Design | "The Cosmological Constant" | The Cosmological Constant | into the same starlit spaces between us |
2023-09-08 | 22 | Kvelertak | "Krøterveg Te Helvete" | Endling | It will refine, at best, towards an unobjectionable anonymity. |
2023-09-08 | 23 | Uada | "The Abyss Gazing Back" | Crepuscule Natura | The tiny, sinisterly glowing eyes in the menacing abyss always turn out to be ours. |
2023-09-08 | 24 | Mānbryne | "Piach i niepamięć" | single | You are complicit if you facilitate joylessness. |
2023-09-08 | 25 | Morokh | "Coma" | Insomnia | You are complicit if you direct collective action towards the likelihood of facilitating joylessness. |
2023-09-08 | 26 | Mephorash | "I Am" | single | You are complicit if you are not willing to stand up, as routinely as necessary, |
2023-09-08 | 27 | Wolfheart | "Iku-Turso" | single | and say "Wait, what are we doing here? And why?" |
2023-09-08 | 28 | Shylmagoghnar | "Follow the River" | single | You improve the future when you increase tangible joy, |
2023-09-08 | 29 | Finsterforst | "Kapitel IV - Katharsis" | Jenseits | but this is perilously circular: |
2023-09-08 | 30 | Kuggur | "Muhit al ahlam" | Outlived | if you are writing about the qualities of a particular burrito |
2023-09-08 | 32 | Secret Rule | "Disorder" | single | then all you can do is care. |
2023-09-08 | 33 | ExWHYZ | "NOT SORRY" | single | The generative abstraction removes you from this moment, |
2023-09-08 | 58 | Nitrate | "All The Right Moves" | single | how they linger along eroded contours, |
2023-09-08 | 59 | Edge Of Forever | "Where Are You" | single | how they echo at first with tentative repetition, |
2023-09-08 | 60 | Frozen Rain | "One Mile from Heartsville" | single | how they twirl when they think nobody is listening, |
2023-09-08 | 61 | Florian Grey | "Destroying Kingdoms" | Destroying Kingdoms | how they roar to get our attention again. |
2023-09-08 | 62 | The Dark Atom | "Reconstruct" | single | Pick an endeavor whose outcome matters to you more than its process, |
2023-09-08 | 63 | Tempus | "Red Flag" | Vida Colorida | and then learn whatever you have to learn to convince the process that you are right. |
2023-09-08 | 64 | Kuggur | "The Misanthrope" | Outlived | This is how you apply love to industry. |
2023-09-01 | 4 | ASTERISM | "Sunny" | BESIDE 5 | that will be successful only as long as it takes the rich to hire better temporary security |
2023-09-01 | 13 | ASTERISM | "No Way" | BESIDE 5 | and power is always happy to cower behind proxies. |
2023-09-01 | 14 | Without Warning | "Dark Abyss" | single | The powerful tolerate pickpockets along their routes with fond bemusement |
2023-09-01 | 15 | Bergfried | "The Ordeal" | Romantik II | and mental notes about where to bus the homeless. |
2023-09-01 | 16 | Arshenic | "For you" | single | All these things further confirm the establishments. |
2023-09-01 | 17 | Nereids | "Symphony of Gods" | single | The rich and poor remain. |
2023-09-01 | 18 | Halekin | "El Canto del Eltuwe" | single | Still, pointless flashes of ill-considered defiance are preferable to disingenuous flashes of petty bullying |
2023-09-01 | 19 | Never Obey Again | "9:45" | single | thinly disguised as benevolent brutalism. |
2023-09-01 | 20 | Stitched Up Heart | "Thunder" | To The Wolves | Thus, for example, Universal Music Group's ludicrous proposal to cut the royalty payments of "non-professional" musicians |
2023-09-01 | 21 | Madame Mayhem | "Get It Right" | single | in order to pay (their own) "professional" musicians more. |
2023-09-01 | 22 | Maggot Heart | "Archer" | single | This is regressive by definition, |
2023-09-01 | 23 | Ofdrykkja | "Bergakall" | single | but the particular thresholds selected make it also both baldly cruel and absurdly ineffective. |
2023-09-01 | 24 | Ekyrian | "Ítaca" | Cuentos Junto a la Hoguera | The press-release fails to explicitly note the numbers of artists involved, |
2023-09-01 | 25 | Icarus Witch | "Rise Of The Witches" | single | which is a bad enough sign in itself, |
2023-09-01 | 26 | Primal Fear | "Bring That Noise" | Code Red | but triangulating from other numbers later in the text we can tell that the "professional" musicians, |
2023-09-01 | 27 | Soen | "Sincere" | Memorial | by this definition, already account for 98% of the streams. |
2023-09-01 | 28 | Revolution Saints | "Eagle Flight" | Eagle Flight | This is supposed, I think, to underscore their professionalism, but it also clarifies |
2023-09-01 | 29 | Toehider | "PACK IT UP" | Snapshots From Beacontown Spring Dance '85 4 | that the proposed redistribution would cut the royalties of "amateur" artists in half |
2023-09-01 | 30 | Seventh Crystal | "Silence" | single | in order to spoon an additional uniform 1% raise onto the already-moneyed. |
2023-09-01 | 31 | Nomy | "Break me" | Break me | As you probably do not know, but they really should and I |