There’s a time and a place for the simple physical pleasures of life. Ideally, anytime, any place. Don’t worry, we’re not going to start listing our favorite simple physical pleasures. This ain’t that kind of blog. And to be clear, we’re not inviting you to list yours either. Let’s be really clear: please do not list your simple physical pleasures on our web site. Thank you.
We will name one of ours (just one): Listening to big old fucking bass drops. We’re so happy that we know what to call those things now (one of many things we’ve learned from our readers). Just one simple, triggered note detonating someplace in a metal song like the musical equivalent of a sonic boom.
Any band with the right gear and the right sound sample can reproduce the effect. Its only purpose is to produce a kind of mindless, visceral response. So why do we like bass drops so much? Fuck if we know. Why do we like mashed-up black-eyed peas doused in vinegar? Some things just can’t be explained.
Our latest dose of bass droppage came to us by way of Sergeant D over at MetalSucks. A couple days ago he posted a note about a Chicago band called Demolisher, proclaiming that in his opinion they might just be “the heaviest band on the face of the planet.” Exaggeration is the meat and potatoes of all metal blogs (except ours), so we took this with a heaping of salt, but we still couldn’t resist listening to the Demolisher song that Sergeant D featured in his post. It was called “Decimated”.
There’s no point in debating whether Demolisher is in fact the heaviest band on the face of the planet. It’s enough to say that they’re plenty heavy — and that the “Decimated” song is a very nice fix for bass-drop addiction here on a Friday morning.
(more after the jump, including that song . . . and a vid from Ingested, since we’re now in the right mood, a link for a free music sampler from ARTERY RECORDINGS, and in our latest update, a song from Woe of Tyrants)
“Decimated” is one non-stop explosion after another. In between the explosions are bursts of hammering by fuzzed-out guitars tuned down to subterranean levels, a few hardcore gang shouts, and some deep, growly expressions of venom. Simple, visceral, physical pleasures.
“Decimated” comes from Demolisher’s 2009 debut release, World of Hatred. We haven’t listened to the rest of the album yet, but we will. Info about how to buy a digital download of the album can be found on Demolisher’s MySpace page.
Now here’s that song from Demolisher. Crank up the volume, enhance your bass response, and check it out:
UPDATE: Thanks to a comment below, we decided to add a little bonus to this post since Demolisher has gotten us thoroughly in the mood for more simple, visceral, physical music. How ’bout a little Ingested music? This song also links up quite nicely with our previous post today and how we felt after our web-hosting meltdown.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Just saw a press release announcing that Artery Recordings has made a 10-song music sampler available for free download at Amazon.com from now through Oct 12. It features music from the first five bands that the label has signed: Chelsea Grin, Bury Tomorrow, Attila, I Declare War, and A Bullet For Pretty Boy. Here’s the link to the sampler on Amazon.
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: We may just stop writing new blog posts and continue updating this one for all eternity. Okay, maybe not for all eternity, but maybe as long as we continue to get provocative comments. Andy Synn has provoked us to put up a song from that talented band of Ohioans, Woe of Tyrants.
This is a great song from the band’s most recent album, Threnody. It’s enhanced by not one, not two, but three bass drops. Yes, it would have been awesome without the bass drops, but they make it awesomer. Awesomer? Yes, that’s the only word for it.
41 Responses to “BASS DROPPAGE: DEMOLISHER”
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Goddam this makes me want to get my old crappy jalopy fitted with some serious audio equipment and blast this fucker out in my neighborhood. All we hear is boom and rattle from the wannabe gangsters playing their god-awful rap. This would be a nice retort to the crap that they blast.
I could do without the group shouting, but the bass drops and down-tuned guitar work were pretty good. And this is not the heaviest band on the face of the planet. I still think Ingested takes the cake on that one. Speaking of Ingested, they need to release a new album.
Check out our post again. Just added a little something you might like — and I sure like.
Also, the latest from Ingested, as of Sept 8, is that the’ve finished writing songs for the next album and will start recording late this year. That one automatically goes on next January’s list of the albums we’ll most be looking forward to in 2011.
*drools* And here would be an appropiate place for shout of joy ala Stimpy. Jooooyyyy!!
I miss that fucking show. It was sheer brilliance.
Goes without saying, but I will be picking that album out when it comes out.
And an extra blue star for working in Skinned and Fucked. You are racking those fuckers up. Keep up the excellent work.
Thanks for the good words, and for the Ingested suggestion. Such a felicitous song title. Not just “Skinned”. Not just “Fucked”. But “Skinned” AND “Fucked”. And a nice bass drop near the end of the song to boot.
I do have one issue with that video. How in the FUCK do you wear a GODDAMN POLO SHIRT in a video when you are the vocalist in one of the best EXTREME METAL BANDS on the planet. He looks like he should be going to some dewsh frat praty.
Just fucking wrong.
There’s some sort of emblem on the polo shirt that I can’t quite make out. Maybe it’s a pile of intestines.
Even if it’s for a metal band, I still consider it inexcusable. In the words of the Monday Night Countdown crew, “C’Mon Man!!!”
Speaking of which, now that College Football has started and with hockey just about two weeks away, plus the fact that my workload quadruples starting in October (here comes overtime for the next 5 months), and even though the frequency of my comments will become quite erratic, I will keep on reading. It’s been uncharacteristically slow here today, so I have been able to jump on.
Well, then I’m hoping for more slow days despite all those distractions to come. I can use all the support I can get.
Ingested?
Really?
I had a higher opinion of your musical tastes than that! It’s just so… ignorantly juvenile. With an awful drum sound to boot.
Anyway, my main point is – I hate bass drops (and I hate you). They just seem to be a crutch for bands unable to write a heavy enough transition with what they’ve got, so they draft in some trickery to “up the br00talz”. Woe Of Tyrant’s latest is compeltely tarnished by the unnecessary use of bass-drops on almost every-other transition between sections. Come on, there are better, more natural ways to suggest heaviness and to emphasise song-changes than jsut a one-note (and I mean that in every eay possible) sample.
Sigh.
You don’t understand: “ignorantly juvenile” is my middle name! Or rather two of them. They come right after “sappy,” “wordy,” “half-assed” and “retarded”. I don’t know what my parents were thinking. It made for a very long birth certificate and has caused me trouble trying to get a passport. And as I said about our affinity for bass drops, some things just can’t be explained.
Wow. Your name is MUCH cooler than mine. I’m just a cunt.
I am now suitably chastened.
Nah, don’t be chastened. With middle names like mine, I have a very thick skin. Oh, by the way, check out the latest update to this post. 🙂
Haha, nice. Dick move!
No, more publicity for WOT is always good as I definitely “dig” their sound. Previous album was better though, and not just because of the absence of excessive bass-droppage!
Sometimes “ignorantly juvenile” is beautiful in its simplicity. No one is saying that these guys are the best muscians or write the flashiest, challenging, or original songs. They can make great music keeping it simple. And in my opinion, that’s okay. Not everyone needs to break new ground, or prove that they are a virtuoso at their chosen instrument with every song in every album. I’m okay with that. I like to be challenged with my music, which is why I listen to a lot of technical musical. Then I have my moods when sometimes, simple is better. I have several bands similar to Ingested that I listen too. They fill that mood and for that I am grateful they are there.
It’s not about the technicality of their music… it’s just so limited, lol. Plus every other lyric is “anus”, “anal”, etc… suggesting someone has some issues he really needs to work out.
And i’m not against gore lyrics or anything like that, for example I love Aborted in a very special (and slightly weird) way, but they are at least quite clever and interesting in their delivery + whilst still being obviously aware of how amusing the whole “gore” thing can be. Cannibal Corpse (who i’m not a massive fan of, but do appreciate when I listen to them) are the same – vicious, brutal, gore-drenched (gore-obsessed?) lyrics which are done with an appreciation for how hilariously OTT they can sound at times.
They’re not being a parody, or mocking themselves or the genre, just being aware of how absurd metal can sometimes be, even when done fully seriously – conversely Ingested don’t seem smart enough to be doing that (however I accept that that is a generalisation and I don’t know them, or their thoughts and intentions), and seem hilariously serious yet with very bad gore lyrics. It’s a hard thing to explain, I hope i’ve got the gist of it across. Basically they seem to be of the opinion that just shouting as many nasty words in quick succession will do – and there IS still a bit of an art to doing it properly and effectively. At least I think so.
I guess that’s where we differ. I can appreciate Ingested’s version of art. You don’t. Each to his own.
This is very weird, but about two hours ago I sent a link for a Cannibal Corpse song to a very non-metalhead friend, explaining a reference to the song which I had included in an e-mail I sent just to make his eyes pop out. This live performance of the song includes one of the funniest song introductions ever, by Corpsegrinder of course.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2laVkn4kLks&feature=related
Late to the party, as always (due to my time zone). Re: some of the topics being discussed above:
@deaths_embrace – amen to the group shouting, that stuff is kind of bothersome in music like this (but I think strangely welcome in hardcore…?) Anyway, I was just going to add on and say that I enjoyed the song as well, but was especially annoyed at the whole talking bit at 2:16…They’re kids though and will grow up eventually.
On the whole, I very much enjoy bass drops, but I think I have a separate category of music for them: ignorantly juvenile (well put, Andy Synn). But seriously, I like to call it “easy listening.” Laugh if you want, but I definitely need a time for mindless metal. As Andy said, the tritone breakdowns with bass drops have been done over and over and aren’t creative…but sometimes that’s what I’m looking for. A band can be heavy for the sake of heaviness and I’m ok with sacrificing creativity for some pure headbanging glee…sometimes. But, with that said, there is a time and a place for that type of music, like driving any relatively close distance where I don’t have time to seriously listen and appreciate music. I just simply can’t do that with a band like Between the Buried and Me (who I love). I can’t just listen to one track on my way across the city and get enjoyment out of it. They’re a band that makes fucking masterpieces (like Colors and Alaska) and for me, they have to be appreciated in their entirety (also particularly good for solo road trips). So that’s why sometimes, if I just need to run out and get some 100% Angus beef for an 808Burger, I’ll just toss on some Oceano or Suicide Silence (two deathcore bands that are particularly polarizing) and when I get home, I’ll grill the fuck out to The Ocean where I have time to enjoy the whole album.
Well put. I think we all have different kinds of music for our different moods, or different kinds of music to help us change our moods from one place into a new place where we’d rather be. Even among 100% metalheads, I don’t know anyone who listens to the same style of music all the time. Fortunately, metal is such a diverse smorgasbord of choices that you can tune the sounds to suit what you’re feeling, or want to feel, without ever leaving the superstructure of the genre.
@Dan – I know what you mean. That’s exactly what I was trying to say.
I agree with you guys, anyone else remember when the word metal was preceeded by the word heavy? Bass drops and break-downs are “heavy” and I think that metal fans that won’t let themselves just feel the heaviness and enjoy it for what it is (not what they think it should be) take themselves too seriously. That said, they do have their time and place and I need my other metal too. Currently I can’t get enough Black and Sludge metal in my ears, matter of fact I’m off to listen to some Soilent Green now!
Speaking of sludgy southern metal, as part of another MISCELLANY experiment, I just watched a video of a song from a band called King Giant. Good shit! And heavy too.
What’s wrong with taking it seriously? There are artists and bands out there struggling to make a living out of this AND make a serious statement.
Remember, not taking it seriously often leads to ending up in the “ironically cool” category of fandom, where you CAN’T say you love something wholeheartedly (or so it seems to me), jsut in case it turns out not to be cool.
(None of which is to say you can’t enjoy what you do and have a laugh while doing it, but accusing people of “taking themselves too seriously” is a pretty weak defence of bass-drops and breakdowns – it just seems like another form of the “age-divide”/”you just don’t get it argument” often used to cover up basic deficiencies in song-writing and performance – and don’t get me wrong, I love tracks that just straight up make you want to leap out of your seat and tear someone’s throat out, but there’s got to be SOME integrity behind it. Doing something just because “yeah dude, that shit is sick/heavy/[insert platitude here]” just seems so pointless to me.)
Me, I LOVE certain bands, always will, love what they do and how they do it. It just doesn’t necessarily have to fulfil some base-line categorical heaviness for me to appreciate it, or to think that it’s “metal” (or not).
Heaviness comes from within. Or some other such pseudo-jedi bollocks.
I am with you on Soilent Green however, not usually a sludge-y sounding fan, but their shit is so fucking INTERESTING it blows my mind.
I didn’t mean there was something wrong with taking it seriously but it doesn’t have to be complex musicianship all the time to entertain all moods. As for some “age divide” I’m thirty five and started listening to heavy metal when I was seven. I listen to some bands in all sub-genres of metal, my point was judge it for what it is – based on what it is supposed to be not what it is compared to what we would rather it be. It (simpler heavier metal) also seems to be a gateway to recruit fans into the metal family where they’ll eventually support more “serious” bands, at least that’s how it seems to work to me. At least it isn’t Nickleback.
@Andy: I’m trying to decide whether I disagree with what you’re saying, and I’m not sure I do, even though we’ve clearly got different views about bass drops-and-breakdowns. I do take the music seriously, and it does take more for me to get into something than mere categorical “heaviness”. But as I tried to explain above, I like different styles of metal to suit different moods or to get me into a certain mood, and sometimes the kind of no-holds-barred, physical style of bands like Ingested is what the doctor ordered. By the way, I don’t think all bands who play deathcore or slam or brutal death metal are fungible. There’s good and bad, as in every sub-genre, and I happen to think Ingested and Demolisher are in the “good” category.
Hey Islander, I just checked out a King Giant song called 13 to 1 (I think). Not bad, even had some banjo in the beginning, that’s pretty rare in metal even here in Tennessee!
Yep — that’s the song for the new video I watched earlier today, which I’m including in our MISCELLANY post tomorrow. I’m not a serious aficionado of this kind of metal, but I really liked that song. There must be another metal song with a banjo in it, but nothing comes to mind . . .
You’re both cool people it appears. Just with terrible taste…
I kid, I kid.
Honestly, I like some bands in certain sub-genres (that shall not be named) that most people don’t seem to really rate. It’s all different tastes.
I think I was just trying to say something remarkably complex that even I don’t know how best to describe it… I think in many ways the deathcore/slam scene (such as it is) isn’t necessarily a bad thng, it’s jsut the one that (due to timing, coincidences, etc) has attracted a lot of legitimately negative attributes – not taking it “seriously”, excessive cross-pollination, lowest-common denominator approaches, etc – that could by the same logic have latched onto many other genres. It gets the worst press in many ways not because it’s legitimately bad (and I do like some of the bands in the genre, most definitely) but because it has achieved notoriety/popularity at a time when all aspects of culture seem to be at their nadir, when everyone is pseudo-ironic and superficial, and as such (with deathcore being what one might call the primary “youth movement” in metal at the moment) it suffers because society/culture as a whole seems to be on something of an artistic down-turn, and suffers more exactly BECAUSE it has the misfortune to have been the movement so closely linked with “mainstream culture” and/or accessability.
And my point about dumb vs clever music (if we can boil it down to that, which is still a stretch) is that I know of a lot of dumb, straight up blasters, great driving, drinking, working out in the boiling sun until you kill yourself-songs that are also very clever. I think bands can (and should) build in as many levels as they can into their music (like a good novel in many ways) so that when you don’t have time or the inclination yes you can just go for the straight up, brutal sound that accesses very primal parts of your brain, whereas you can lsiten to the same song and appreciate all the nuances involved if/when you really want to. But that IS just what I would do. I’m not telling other bands what to do, jsut telling them to expect shit when they don’t live up to my “lofty standards”. Ha.
That’s my issue with much of the music above, it’s ALL “surface” and can only be appreciated on the one simple level whereas Soilent Green (to steal your very good example) is dirty and filthy… yet underneath all that is actually VERY technical and interesting. Multiple levels of awareness there.
Oh, i’m also not saying every song has to be a tech-gasm, or anything like that (particularly with the faux-technicality exhibited by a lot of groups), as I appreciate good song-writing first and foremost these days.
I think you’re right about what has happened to deathcore. It has gotten such a bad rap among “serious” metalheads, including most critics and writers, not only because the music isn’t that difficult to play (which makes it an easy entree for wannabe bands) but also because it happens to be the most popular form of extreme metal among younger headbangers — and even in the comparatively small niche of extreme metal, “popular” is the kiss of death in the eyes of many fans and observers of the scene.
I also now follow your point about music that’s both cathartically heavy and primally appealing but also clever — and I agree, that kind of thing does separate the wheat from the chaff.
P.S. I’ll give you $5 if you’ll tell me about those un-named sub-genres you like. I promise I would never, ever print them in 24-point, bold-faced, multi-colored font in this blog.
Ha. I was mainly referring to the fact that I always seem to end up defnding certain bands/genres that, whilst I might not necessarily like myself (or at least only like parts of), usually get a bad rap for either no, or for the wrong reason/s.
Also it’s not even an issue of it being easy to play (not all of it is by a LONG shot) or it being popular – the problems it faces are in amny ways a reflection of the problems of society and “art” (in inverted commas, no less) these days:
I.E. – the obsessions with
– popularity and superficial cross-pollination of sound/style
– ironic “cool”
– celebration of ignorance
– excess (bling, aggression, even the colours and designs of artwork and t-shirt designs all scream “look at me, notice me, notice me!” – everything is ramped up to 11, not just the music, so there is no social or personal dynamic in play at all, not even basic differences in levels of aggression or anger, it’s all one-note petulance. Plus there’s no semblacne of “taste” or “restraint”, it’s jsut a sensory overload of “throw everything at it until something sticks or we have enough bright colours to distract people’s attention spans!”).
And these issues are reflected in almost EVERYTHING at the moment. Particularly the celebrations of ignorance and excess which are percolating through so many aspects of society (the desperation to be popular/famous and the need to never be “sincere” but always to be “ironic” have, in many ways, become the norm after all).
The current genres of music and metal music struggle with peer and pop-culture pressures and influences a lot more, particularly since recording and disseminating music has become easier due to the internet and technological advances, and these pressures are often to their detriment. Although one might say that our “voice” has gotten louder, it seems like the message has been lost and the undertones ignored so that the “surface” level is all that matters.
And this is unfortunate for the “deathcore” genre in many ways, particularly when you look at some of the bands and compare them with their fans. There’s such a divide between them that i’m not surprised we’re seeing more bands moving into different sounds, often to the loss of much of their fan-base (rather than simply attempting bad cross-genre mixing to expand their appeal), as these bands don’t want to be associated with their fans.
In essence there is “deathcore” played by “Bands” (it just happens to be the music they make) and there is “deathcore” played by “Deathcore Bands” (the ones who look and sound exactly like their fans and their influences, because that is all they know and all they want – an ever-decreasing circle of second-hand inspiration which allows them to promote ignorance and excess whilst grasping at fleeting popularity.
If you look at the earlier generations of “deathcore” (and I don’t just mean the progenitors who spawned it, but also the 1st and 2nd wave bands) you’ll probably noticed that, generally, they don’t look too much different from other metal bands (apart from being generally younger) – however the 3rd waves, etc, all do indeed look like their crowd, there’s no divide, nothing to separate the artist fromt he masses. Its around this time that external, probably non-musical pressures really took their toll on the genre, with appearance and regurgitation dumbing down the developing sound. On the plus side the sound most likely IS still developing somewhere, however there has been a mass-explosion of bands (and of fans) very much interested in trends who do not see there as being any other way of working.
Sorry about the rant. Food for thought though.
You sir are much better at getting your thoughts to words than myself as it would seem. The way I see much of the bad rap deathcore gets from the rest of the metal community, especially older more “developed” fans, is due to the public at large getting the most exposure to the “dumbed down” forms of metal that they themselves can’t tell apart from all the rest, thus making us all seem like neanderthals after all the time we’ve spent trying to convince them that our music is more than just noise. I remember reading a comment on Metalsucks one-time (I think it was concerning a Winds of Plague song) where the commentor said something to the effect of “I was enjoying that up until the bass-drop/breakdown ruined it”. I don’t understand how someone can let it ruin something they were otherwise enjoying and that is what inspired my earlier comment about people taking themselves too seriously.
I hope that I got that out in a way that made somesort of sense and to Islander: I’m pretty sure I’ve heard banjo in metal sometime before, maybe even in my collection somewhere. When I come across it again I’ll let you know.
Anyway, I’ve enjoyed the conversation. Where else can you talk about bass-drops, breakdowns, Soilent Green and banjos in one day?
Absolutely right — this has been a fascinating series of comments by people who take their music seriously, and I’m again grateful to everybody for taking so much time to add their thoughts. Once more, what came after the original post far surpassed the post itself. And I don’t mean to cut off this discussion either — just wanted to get my thank-you out there.
@byrd36: I’m also going to do some poking around for more banjo metal, and we’ll see what comes of it.
This isn’t exactly what I was thinking about, or what you were thinking of, but it’s kinda cool — electric banjo shredding through a RAT2 distortion pedal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HedG5sgCSs0&feature=related
Didn’t Byzantine use one at some point?
Or am I just being mad?
Both things could be true. 🙂 Byzantine were from West Virginia, and that increases the odds that you’re right. Now I have an excuse to listen to some Byzantine today! Though my hearing is so shot I may not notice a banjo if its sound is subtle in the mix.
No wait, it was The Absence.
Although I suppose that doesn’t discount the possibility that Byzantine also used one.
You got it! The intro to “The Murder” from THE RIDERS OF THE PLAGUE album. One hell of a song. Here ’tis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QWbUp7txCY
I’m really looking forward to hearing their new album.
i know i’m two years late…but you guys just became one of my favorite blogs… what a great discussion this was
Thanks Mike — I’m glad you found us. We do have a great group of regular commenters here.