As a Hellbound reader, you may know (or not) that your friendly neighbourhood editor is also a university professor – one who makes no secret of her metallic musical taste. Around the university, I mostly encounter people who don’t know much about metal music, who are indifferent or, occasionally, who are outright hostile to the music so dear to my heart. But when I cross paths with another metal aficionado, metal opens another means of communication, and I can’t help recall the Rob Zombie bit from Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey.
This isn’t quite the clip – it’s close, but the best part didn’t make it the cut here. The part I’m thinking of is when he claims he’s never known the guy who claimed to be into Slayer for just one summer, only the guy who’s carved the name Slayer into his arm.
Really, this is all just a tangent. What I set out to write about here was the recommendations that sometimes come my way from my students and colleagues – reminders that, as immersed in metal as I am, there’s always more out there to learn about.
RECOMMENDATION #1
This one comes from one of my teaching assistants. He’s into the shoe gaze, drone and avant garde edges of extreme metal – we’ve compared notes on SUNN O))) more than once – and it’s thanks to him that I dug the promo for Black Cilice out of my inbox.
RECOMMENDATION #2
I was already aware of Periphery and dipping into there new album, but it was one of my students who convinced me to pay particular attention to their new double album. I forgot to ask if she made it out to their most recent Toronto show…
RECOMMENDATION #3
This one is a two-parter. Part 1 is a band I was aware of but, given a head’s up on some musical development, I was persuaded to listen to again.
Part 2 is a band I was not aware of before, and I likely wouldn’t have come across them on my own, not with my serious predilection for old school prog, doom and death metal. I listened, I dug it, so now I’m passing along the recommendation. Here is Silent Planet:
