i need to reiterate something i've said a few times...

i don't think i've ever actually listened to a metallica record from start to finish.

if i have, it was at a party when i was young, and it was incidental; i don't remember it.

i mean, i have a general idea; enough to realize it's not worth bothering with.

but, i actually suspect i'd like their later material better than their early material.

so, interpret my reviews of self-identified metal-spectrum artists as you will.

there was, however, a show scheduled in detroit tonight that i may have made some attempt to make it to.

i think i've been crystal clear that i don't like the slightest thing about black metal - i don't like the culture, i don't like the music, i don't like anything about it. but, it's become this weird thing that you unfortunately have to deal with in some way or another if you listen to much of anything derived from punk rock, nowadays. i guess, in that sense, it's become the new emo - you can hate it to your core, and you can be right to feel that way, but you kind of can't avoid it. you just have to take it head on.

this is some kind of supergroup that is retreating away from the dumber aspects of the sound, and managed to integrate a cello player as an integral component of the band in the process. the strings are not a gimmick, as they usually are in rock music; the cellist is a part of the band. clearly.

i didn't find anything of interest on their first record. however, if you start with their second record and let it bleed into the third, it becomes progressively more interesting, as they slowly lose the cave man vocals and slowly embrace a more musical sound. they're kind of hamstrung by the fact that they're fundamentally a punk band, meaning they don't take compositional chances when they arguably ought to. but, put together, it's strangely compelling.

i don't know if my interest in this will be sustainable; if they realize they're losing fans and go back to being stupid, i could have missed my chance. but, this is strangely interesting to me as pop music. i guess there's been a few tries at something like this - we had deafheaven, we had liturgy and we had a bunch of other stuff trying to take the basic sound of this black metal scene (which has terrible politics.) and market it to people that aren't nazis, by mixing it up a little. out of all of the hybrid attempts, i think the only one i've found legitimately interesting is touche amore (who are generally not interpreted that way); this is, otherwise, maybe the closest to something i've heard that i can actually get into, and it's probably because it's focusing less on the avant garde and less on metal cliches and more on punk rock and musical romanticism, if not a little bit of baroqueness. it's melodic where those other bands aren't; it's coherent, where they're often not.

so, i think this would have been worthwhile to check out, if i could have worked it out in a way that made sense. it would have certainly been a good night to get out of the house on a bicycle and chill out in a park. alas.

https://chromewaves.bandcamp.com

i don't want to make it seem like i'm explicitly shunning music for small ensembles or something.

but a trio in a church is a little bourgeois for me, and none of these pieces really go anywhere interesting, although the brahms piece, which i'd argue is stronger than the beethoven piece, is again reminiscent of something, namely chariots of fire. i guess i'm just the last to know.

i just like my classical music a little more violent than this.