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.

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.

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)

Myspace – Official – Last.fm

Ages ago, I wrote about Mastodon and their third album, Blood Mountain. I said that I would never like it and that I didn’t think I would ever understand metal’s appeal. Well, it’s time to eat my hat. But only half of it. For although I still have no clue about the sprawling genre that is “metal”, I’ve had a complete volt-face on Mastodon I’m really enjoying their latest album Crack the Skye.

In fact Crack the Skye has acted a bit like a gateway drug. As soon as I devoured it I listened to their watershed album Leviathan, and then I moved onto Blood Mountain. And now I’m looking for more, or maybe something similar…

The problem is that I still have no clue when it comes to listening to metal, but I think the time has finally come to explore the strangest of all musical genres.

Now, I don’t have a plan of any kind, I’m just going off the deep end. But I do want to come out of this knowing my progressive from my power, my black from my death, and my stoner from my sludge.

So, irregular Shoveling Snow service will continue as normal, just expect to be kept abreast of my voyage into the deep black of the night…

Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown was an English landscape gardener who lived in the mid-Georgian period and was notorious for creating fake wilderness’ by moving hills, damming rivers and flooding small valleys.

He earned his nickname ‘Capability’ because he would tell his clients that their estates had great “capability” for landscape improvement. Generally this improvement would involve ripping out old formal gardens and replacing them with smooth, bland acres of undulating grass and serpentine lakes.

In fact Brown was so fond of landscape improvement that Richard Owen Cambridge once quipped that he hoped to die before Brown so that he could “see heaven before it was improved.”

Paul Romano’s artwork for the past three Mastodon albums has been amazing.

Crack The Skye

Blood Mountain

Leviathan

I saw this cartoon setlist used by Ramona Falls at their recent gigs and I thought that it was a pretty novel way of remembering which song comes next. It reminds me those reusable sticker books kids play with.

Set goes:

1. Diamond Shovel  2. Russia  3. I Say Fever  4. The Darkest Day  5. Bellyfulla  6. Boy Ant  7. Going Once, Going Twice  8. Salt Sack  9. Always Right  10. Clover  11. Melectric

(image credit)

As Collection of Songs: 2006-Present is the closest that you can come to a Supernova Scotia album at the moment, I thought that I should mention that in his infinite generosity head-nova himself, David Sheenan, has made it available as a free download on Last.fm. Although it only runs to eight tracks, around 25 minutes, it goes beyond merely collecting some tracks from a bedroom electronica act. It provides a snapshot of some of Supernova Scotia’s best songs to date. ‘Capogg’, as featured on the old Analogue mixtape, is here, as is ‘Oxen’ and the wonderful ‘Worrying is Wasteful’. For fans there might not be anything new here, only Cave and Canvassers Pt. 2 were new to me, yet it’s still a great sampler for anyone unfamiliar with the band.

However I do have a bone to pick with this ‘collection’, for I know that Supernova Scotia have a load of other great tracks that they haven’t included here. Songs such as ‘Bad Party’, ‘Tron’, ‘Boredom Abroad’, some of my favourites, obviously didn’t make the cut. Maybe it’s because these tracks have a more prominent vocal element. Maybe these tracks have been trimmed from the discography with a bit of historical revision, weeding out those tracks that don’t fit in with Supernova Scotia’s currently more instrumental sound. Or maybe they’re being saved for something more professional to come… Either way, with promises of new tracks this October, I’m going to be keeping my eye on Supernova Scotia, hoping for a proper release soon.

Myspace – Last.fm

Every now and again, while watching a film or playing a video game, I suddenly get that really childish urge to go “omfg it would be so sweet to have that huge gun/rocket launcher/robotic arm in real life.”

Well, as you can probably imagine, lots of people have that same thought. Yet unlike myself, lots of people act upon that urge. Some turn to cosplay, others to larps, and some turn to prop making.

Hence, I just wanted to bring to attention Volpin Props, merely on the grounds that the handmade replicas this guy makes are absolutely amazing, even if you’ve never seen the original they’re based on.

Check out his flickr stream of completed projects. I particularly like the Daft Punk helmet.

(image: volpin props)

1. Since you’re already online, get your credit card out and book the next flight to Paris.
2. Once you land, get the shuttle bus to the city centre and get on a Line A RER train to Fontenay-sous-Bois.
3. Get off at and make your way to the recruitment centre at Fort de Nogent to sign up.

As long as you aren’t in serious trouble with the police, that’s it. Make sure you’ve got your pseudonym sorted out before you get there because you get to ‘declare your identity’ so that you can get a ‘fresh start’.