Where The Slime Live

Last week, after listening to Baroness and being suitably impressed, I didn’t really know how to continue my heavy metal exploration. So I sought out a guide on the internet and I found (the now defunct) Stylus Magazine’s article Into the Void: A Beginner’s Guide to Metal.

It sounded perfect, and after a brief read through it seemed pretty promising as it broke heavy metal down into some of sub-genre’s I’d heard of: death metal, black metal, doom metal, etc… So I jumped right in and listened to their Death Metal list (at least, all of it that was available on Spotify).

Now, maybe this was a bit of a rash decision because I’ve subsequently learnt that death metal isn’t the easiest of genres to listen to. In fact, some might go so far as to describe it as the some of the hardest, ugliest (to use Stylus’ word), least pleasurable music you can find.

Well I gritted my teeth and over two days worked my way through the list. I got through it, and in the next day or two I’m going to put up some of my first impressions of death metal.

But before I do so, you should know that since I listened to that list I’ve researched the evolution of heavy metal. Really, just because I needed to clear up how you get from Black Sabbath to Mastodon in forty years. The result of this investigation is best served in diagram form. I therefore present the Shoveling Snow Evolution of Heavy Metal Flow Chart in all its pot-holed shoddiness:

Now before anyone says “that’s wrong, and that’s wrong too” – I know, this is a really, really, really rough sketch and is in no way definitive (or even right). But on the other hand If you want a copy of this gloriously error-ridden guide, send me a postcard with your address on the back and I’ll send you your very own hand-crafted copy.

Medieval Iceland

When Iceland’s first settlers emigrated from Norway in the ninth century, they took a number a things with them. They took their families and they took their slaves, but they also took their lawbooks.

For the first three hundred years of settlement, law became the central pillar of Icelandic society. In a new land, with no indigenous population and scant resources, the Icelanders did without a monarch. Instead they created a commonwealth with a detailed and complex legal system which guaranteed the rights of the freemen of Iceland. (This included the rapidly emancipated slaves)

Now, this wasn’t some idyllic, egalitarian society, women had few rights and bloodfeuding was common. However, medieval Icelandic society is interesting because when contrasted to the increasingly hierarchical political culture developing across medieval Europe, it is a historical anomaly.

In Jesse Byock’s fascinating book “Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas and Power” this Icelandic society is brought to life, yet it is also examined in an unusual way. Byock takes Iceland’s most famous literary product, the sagas, and uses them alongside traditional historical sources to illustrate how this society would have functioned. The result is a brilliant book that breathes life into an esoteric topic that few people would consider ever reading about.

All of Your Fears Are Well Founded and True

Baroness are from the states, they’re southerners and they make this badass mix of southern rock and bruising volume with a healthy dose of chug-chug-chugging guitars. Apparently this is progressive sludge metal. Ignore the label, it’s really groove laden and if I was to describe it I would call it heavy, heavy (really fucking heavy) rock.

Blue Record has two great claims to fame:

1. It has one of the greatest ever song titles – “A Horse Called Golgotha”

2. It has one of the most high-octane, fist-pummelling, horse-hoof-pounding tracks of the year – “The Gnashing”. Admittedly this is a rubbish title, but I challenge anyone to listen to this and not get some sort of kick out of the way it builds and builds before unleashing two verses of shouted lyrics in a storm of full tilt guitars and crashing drums.

Actually, I’ve decided I really like Baroness. I like their heavy, loud, groove laden onslaught. Plus, the instrumental interludes on Blue Record, where melodic riffs are teased out for a minute or two, give you little breathers between the heavier songs. What can I say, It’s my first taste of metal and I’m surprised that it rocks so hard, that it’s so much fun and that I like it so much.

“All of your fears are well founded and true, all my hands are callous and cruel, all of my arrows that riddle you through are bullets that fire me back into you.” – The Gnashing (Baroness)

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