I am really being very subtle with this post, because Subtlety is my middle name. I have to explain what I’m doing, because it’s so subtle that you wouldn’t get it otherwise. You see, Jason Roche over at LA Weekly has posted a list entitled “Our Top Ten Favorite Online Resources For Metal Knowledge”. And NO CLEAN SINGING is on that list.
I wanted to bask in the glow of recognition and wallow in the sweetness of what Jason wrote about our site, but I thought that would come off as self-centered, self-promoting braggadocio. So instead of just writing a boastful post about how wonderful we are, I turned it into a discussion piece by inviting you to share with the world what you, our readers, consider your favorite, go-to online sites for discovering new metal knowledge. Pretty fuckin’ subtle, eh?
To help you organize your own thoughts about which online sites are your favorite resources for metal knowledge, I thought it would be helpful to quote what LA Weekly had to say about one of the sites that undoubtedly will be on all of your lists:
No Clean Singing
This site lives up to its name by covering all things with very abrasive vocals. Due to its focus, it is very proficient at discovering bands in the death, black and doom metal genres that may slip under the radar of the bigger websites. It has also picked up steam over the last year in terms of music premieres for said bands that are still building their buzz. This is a great site to get in on the ground floor with the heavy buzz bands of tomorrow.
Although I have trouble believing that you have need of any other on-line resources for your metal knowledge besides the site discussed in the quotation above, I concede the possibility, however remote, that there may be more. So I am asking you to do one or both of the following two things so we can get a bit of discussion going and share some knowledge:
1. Take a look at the other sites listed in Jason Roche’s LA Weekly list HERE, and let us know in the Comment section of this post what you think of them, especially about how much you love and appreciate the site discussed in the above quotation from LA Weekly.
2. Share with us in the Comments what you think are the best on-line sites for metal knowledge, whether it be news or metal history or places you go to for the discovery of new music. It goes without saying that the site discussed in the above quotation from LA Weekly will be on your list, but possibly there will be one or two more.
Comments please!
P.S. The artwork at the top of the post is “The Carnival Bizarre” by Dave Patchett. It has nothing to do with this post. I just like it.
75 Responses to “YOUR FAVORITE ONLINE RESOURCES FOR METAL KNOWLEDGE?”
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Here’s what I wrote to Jason (besides “HOLY FUCK WOW :-D”)
Great writeup, the descriptions of the sites I know are spot on. One
thing about NCS: They have an amazing comment section / community,
pretty far removed from the MetalSucks & Blabbermouth ones. Engaged,
fun, rowdy, and wonder of wonders, totally troll free.
Keep it up (heh heh) man.
I love you, platonically. Also, congrats on Metal Bandcamp making that list!!
I, of course, use No Clean Singing for more extreme endeavors, usually when I’m looking for some blackened death metal. I also follow Heavy Blog Is Heavy due to their more progressive tastes, and Angry Metal Guy for indepth reviews on whatever they happened to find.
I follow(ed) Metal Sucks and the LA Weekly review of them is accurate. The doom band Sabazius reviewed MetalSucks as “the posts are kind of ok but the comments down below are great” which is the most accurate thing I’ve heard all day.
I don’t follow either Metal Injection or Blabbermouth or City of Devils, but I do like Encyclopedia Metallum’s coverage of such things as release dates, discography, and whether the band is still active, and Dark Lyrics is one of the best lyric websites around.
Don’t follow Mosh King or Lambgoat. I do follow Metal Bandcamp but I find a surprisingly low overlap between my interests and his.
I also use the Monolith, mostly because I try to follow Professor Grover around to see what he’s listening to. I think they blocked me in the comments though.
I follow Professor Grover around too, and wish he would write more. Ditto for Angry Metal Guy.
Speaking of which, I notice his name has disappeared from the roster at The Monolith. Is the esteemed Professor on a new journey? Because wherever he goes, I will follow.
Unfortunately, the esteemed Professor has retired from the blogosphere due to work and family commitments. He’s expecting his second child and decided to indefinitely hang up his hat. He still lurks around behind the scenes of The Monolith, but unfortunately will not be posting anything anywhere for a while. It makes me sad too 🙁
Hey Garksa
We’d never block you in the comments dude! Our spam filter is a little bit trigger happy unfortunately as I’ve seen a few of yours go in there which I’ve later retrieved. It happens to a couple of other people and I try to do my best to mark them as not spam if I see them. We’d never block your comments at The Monolith and we’re sorry if you felt that way!
Congratulations! This is definitely my favourite metal blog and I concur with MaxR, the comment section/community is also very strong. I’m afraid I’m naturally more of a lurker but I do read what people are discussing on this site with a lot more interest than most other metal pages. Dare I say it may be time to start thinking of opening an NCS forum?
Thanks Doug. I have no idea what creating a forum involves, though i do know if it requires any added effort on my part it’s unlikely to happen. 🙂
The site in a way exudes positivism both in content and comment section. And the commenteers (for lack of a better term) never resort to mudslinging that is unfortunately rampant in metalsucks and blabbermouth.This is undoubtedly my favorite site. I do take my interest in heavy blog is heavy as well. AMG and Sputnikmusic(one of the first review sites i’ve ever followed) as well.
It’s not a blog, but Metal Storm at http://www.metalstorm.net is well worth checking out
Ah yes metalstorm is great! completely forgot about them
The only three on that list that I use are Metal Bandcamp, Metal Archives, and NCS. I probably wouldn’t even have to seek out knowledge from outside sources, though (other than MA) because of the constant deluge of my e-mail inbox. I’m the exception rather than the rule, though.
The only other sites I use are Metallattorney, That’s How Kids Die, and Invisible Oranges, but IO has REALLY gone downhill over the last year. It’s pretty rare I see anything there that I actually read.
I’ve really fallen down on reading IO (along with a bunch of other blogs I used to read religiously) because messing with NCS eats up so much of the time I used to spend doing that, so I don’t have a good sense of the extent to which it has changed. I know they’ve still got some very good people writing there (including our own BadWolf). Of course, Cosmo is irreplaceable.
Yeah, That’s How Kids Die is a great reviewer. I’ve also found many solid Bandcamp links from Full Metal Attorney (and also a few you have told me to avoid :). I think it’s great that you’ve added three more attorneys to your lineup.
Thanks! There are actually only two additional attorneys, the other occasional contributor is a non-trad college student that has become an online friend.
I am always keeping an eye out for more people who can explain the significance of both Marbury v. Madison and Scream Bloody Gore.
Finding “people who can explain the significance of both Marbury v. Madison and Scream Bloody Gore” must be like looking for a needle in a haystack. You have a good needle detector. 🙂
IO does still occasionally post something good (today they have one), but the excellent editorial content is much more sparse these days. It’s mostly video premieres and such. That’s reflected in the much lower comment counts. It’s not like I blame them, because it’s fucking hard to keep it up day after day . . . but then again, with a staff list like theirs, it shouldn’t be that hard. I kept up a review-a-day schedule all by my lonesome for like two years before getting too burned out to do it alone. Cosmo’s only been gone a year and a half (I think), so 21+ contributors + everyone else should be able to do a bit better.
I guess two of those blogs I mentioned aren’t really for metal “knowledge” so much as “opinion.”
congrats!!!!! to NCS AND Metal Bandcamp!!!!! Im eternally gratefull for all the great bands I discovered in both blogs!!!!
Thank you man. You have been a great friend to our site. Hope all is well with you and your beautiful family.
Also, can’t agree more with the guys comments about Lambgoat. The site is full of some really hateful trolls, and truly nasty comments that make you despair of the human race as a whole. Avoid.
I’m willing to admit we’re pretty awesome.
Your unflinching objectivity is something I’ve always admired.
Clearly NCS (because I’m here) and MetalBandcamp (because I write for them) are the best. MetalInjection is pretty good, too, and I’ll probably always have a love-hate relationship with MetalSucks. Sometimes it seems like a good info source, but other times it seems more like a morass of trolling, meta-trolling, and multi-directional contempt for the writers, readers, and music that makes my head hurt.
If it weren’t for Metal Sucks, I’d never have been inspired to start NCS, and I still discover new music there that I like a lot (in addition to being entertained by some funny-as-shit writing). But what you say about the occasional “morass of trolling, meta-trolling, and multi-directional contempt for the writers, readers, and music” is also true.
Currently, this is the ONLY site I frequent for metal news, as I find it’s really all I need. From 2001-to about 2004, I exclusively read Blistering.com…but they just copied their news directly from blabbermouth.net. So, from about 2004ish-2011, I pretty much only looked at blabbermouth, but found they rarely mentioned a band I was in to and I was tired of reading about shit like UDO, Rob Zombie, Jon 5, and Five Finger Death Punch. Then I was doing a google search for something and this site popped up and I’ve read it almost daily, since. I can’t front…..I usually don’t know about 85% of the bands you pimp on this site. Up until I found this site, I thought I was soo immersed in the underground, but the discovery of NSC was a wake up call that I was no where near the underground. I’ve come to find that, in least in terms of death metal, my tastes are fairly mainstream. But NCS has become of a guide of sorts that has helped broaden my horizons and I continue to read because I’ve discovered so many bands that I wound up digging by reading articles about them, here. Keep up the good work.
Very, very cool to read this comment, which is much appreciated. I also used to read Blabbermouth religiously, but ultimately got to the same place you did: I realized that the vast majority of the news was about bands I just didn’t care about any more. It got to where the only posts I paid attention to were obscure bands I’d never heard of (made some great discoveries that way), but those kinds of posts are now a small percentage of the total.
NCS is the only site I have bookmarked at work. But as a metal DJ, I find Encyclopaedia Metallum and (to a lesser extent) Spirit of Metal to be indispensable. They’re perfect for little on-air tidbits like “That was one-man French avant-garde black metal project The Austrasian Goat with “In the Name of the Void” from the 2008 compilation “Piano and Stump.” Makes me sound like I know what I’m talking about. I also like Metal Sucks a lot. It’s clever, frequently updated, and their regular skewering of Dave Mustaine is hilarious.
To repeat a comment I left over at our FB page, I am so grateful for Metal Archives. It was a great concept when it started, and it has blossomed into something invaluable. I use it all the time to get details about the bands and discographies we wrote about here, especially bands I’m just discovering for the first time.
I use metal-archives all the time, especially their upcoming releases page. I’m also the type that likes to be very thorough with my song data in itunes, so the archives are a total gift when it comes to dealing with that. Of course, NCS comes in just about neck and neck with the archives in my most visited metal sites, along with metalsucks. I don’t get turned onto new bands through metalsucks as often as I used to, but I still enjoy it most of the time. I also check in on IO, Cvlt Nation and, though it’s not strictly metal, The Obelisk because I love stoner/doom. And yes, Metal Bandcamp is pretty sweet too.
I’m a CVLT Nation fan, too. I’ve probably found more extreme underground bands there and at From the Dust Returned than anywhere else over the last year.
CVLTnations Although their musical content is impressive, i’ve a few qualms about their writing. The reviews are just ok and they do have a lot of typos and errors creeping in. Constant updation and only two writers can get a bit tough i guess. But they are great overall, with some of the best track premieres to my knowledge.
Obviously I’m disappointed to not see AMG on that list, but I guess we’ve niched ourselves pretty hard on the long form review side of things. I appreciate your support Islander, and I will probably write more in the long run… write now I’m writing my master’s thesis. Makes it fucking hard, yo.
Anyway, I love this site, as far as ‘news and commentary’ sites go, NCS is pretty much the only one I read as I find most of the other ones to be completely terrible. I like Metal Bandcamp too, obviously. That’s a great idea. I also dig Spotify Metal quite a bit.
Congrats on making the list and on your certainly continued expanding profile. \m/
You are very kind, and I really meant what I said in hoping that you can eventually get back to writing reviews. I know you have to put your master’s studies first, but your reviews have always been in a league of their own in my opinion, and I miss them.
Thanks man, I appreciate that. I’m trying to write more these days. I went through a very, very long burnout. That the site even survived is pretty impressive. I have been writing more of late and you should go in and check them out. Thyring and Finntroll recently. I’m going to be reviewing the new Amaranthe and Hypocrisy as well.
Thank you Sir. Angry Metal Guy were an inspiration in starting Metal Bandcamp. Both because you and Mr. Druhm write so damn well (I’ve quoted/stolen so many bits from your reviews), and also because you used to never feature Bandcamp links in your reviews. Good luck with your thesis.
Is that all it will take to get you in the fold, Max? We can definitely feature more bandcamp releases.
Speaking of which, I just bought October Falls’ first metal record off Bandcamp. I like that band a lot.
In my opinion Lastrit.es (formerly metalreview.com…not “‘metalreviewS.com”…that site sucks) has the best reviews and forum on the planet.
And another devout follower of NCS speaks up. NCS currently holds the privilege of being on my bookmarks bar (though it be noted that I have some search shortcuts configured for Enc. Metallum) and I’ve not yet felt the need to explore more metal blogs. I absolutely love the reviews and the fact that nearly no post comes without some nice bits of music. Another major goody is that I tend to like a lot of what I encounter here; I’ve lost count of the bands that I first learnt about when they were covered here. Awesome!
It’s a bit hard to recall what I did to discover new bands cq. material before I first landed on the NCS airstrip last June. Probably just spinning my then-modest collection to dust, along with the occasional (and dreaded) YouTube search. I look no further for a good metal blog. Keep it going Islander and the rest!
My dear Lord, many thanks for your devotion and for taking the time to write comments.
It is only a respectful and sensible environment that can tempt me into commenting (the occasional self-mockery duly appreciated). NCS provides just that, and it’s (sadly) a distinguishing feat – there’s way too much BS out there already.
As for my name, I prefer it in full, or abbreviated as LF (at the time of moniker creation my young brain hadn’t sensed how condescending it can sound). Though no offence is taken should you forget ;). Finally, apologies for my love for parentheses :).
All that said, back to the metal already…
I was just joking, but henceforth LF or Lord Farin it shall be. 🙂
I use metal-archives, last.fm, wikipedia and even Facebook a ton when researching names/motiviations for album reviews. Blabbermouth and ThePRP have been great for being press release aggregates, though PRP does do its own editorializing. MS are still a quick hit for me though the comments are something of a snake pit. They usually catch me with one or two a day. Also love that Jason gave a shout out to Dark Lyrics as well, I’ve been using that site for a while too. Surprising how in depth it is – they get some pretty obscure stuff out there and its pretty quickly corrected.
Locally I tend to hit up Capital Chaos and Rock Hard Live on Youtube about once a day, they both capture a lot of live shows from out here and in the Bay Area. Takes a little while to get up but its usually pretty good for bootleg quality. There was a block of time where when I would do a show review, if I spotted the guy from RockHardLive at that show with a camera rig I would wait to do the review until he posted the videos up and then link back to his site because it was pretty cool to just show people what I saw and he usually has a good view of the stage.
The only ones on the list I read are NCS, Metalbandcamp, and Metal Archives. I also go to lastrit.es because I find their reviews are mostly spot on. On a side note, this probably is the most respectful community/ comment sections on the web, regardless of subject matter. At least that I’ve seen.
This is the second mention in this string for lastrit.es, and I hadn’t heard of it before. Now on my list of places to visit for sure.
NCS, Angry Metal Guy and Full Metal Attorney are all daily reads. I’m stunned no one else has mentioned From the Dust Returned, which is my other daily read. Autothrall is a staggering reviewer, especially in that he provides comprehensive discography reviews. His knowledge of the history and evolution of the genre is pretty much unsurpassed.
I’m with you about autothrall. I did mention From the Dust up under No. 12 above.
Sorry, man, missed your comment! I know you’ve mentioned loving his work before, but I wanted to try to get the word out more.
Congrats on making this list! Of course, NCS sits high atop my list of favorite sites. Others from this list are Metal Sucks, Metal Bandcamp and Encyclopedia Metallum (a truly invaluable resource). Faves not present are The Monolith and Death Metal Invasion.
The only sites on that list that are worth a damn are:
Encyclopedia Metallum – which is great for discography info and links for when you want to sample a new band.
Metal Bandcamp – while not always inline with my personal taste, has had enough hits to make it worth a visit
NCS – which, while I generally dont use for new music (youve definitely turned me onto a few bands though), I enjoy visiting for many other reasons..most notably a really solid group of commenters
Metalsucks is a joke and, besides the occasional Grim Kim post, has terrible taste in music. The only reason to check that site out is to burn off some aggression in the comments section
Blabbermouth is the Revolver magazine of metal blogs.
Sights worth visiting for new bands are CVLT Nation and From the Dust Returned…I also use DC Heavy Metal to keep track of tours coming through the Md/Va area. Last.FM is great for matching you to band similar to the stuff you like
..honestly though, one of the best ways to discover new music is to go to some of the label/distro websites and check out the new release areas. Dont recognize a band..think they have cool artwork…plug the name into Metal Archives and check them out.
Theres tons of music out there and metal blogs (even good ones like NCS) can only cover a fraction of it. The best way to find music is to put in as much leg work as you can…
Ironically, I think you’ve turned us on to more worthwhile bands than vice-versa. Speaking of which, I’m curious what you’ve been listening to lately in the way of new music.
Aww man, youre going to make me blush
…Honestly though, this is a very cool site youve got going, so if Ive turned you onto some cool bands, then Im glad to help.
Ive got a huge backlog of music I need to get caught up on, but a few of the bands Ive been checking out recently:
Aquilus – Griseus (neo-classical black/folk metal) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtU0orAniYY
Mold – promo (death metal) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAIO0jKTtpY
Vorum – Poisoned Void (death metal) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8Vig3KZQm0
Black Fucking Cancer – Summoning Aural Hell demo (black metal) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhG1ZoTTM48
..PS…While those are all good bands IMO, Id highly recommend that Aquilus album to everyone on this site..If you like the more ambient, atmospheric styles of black metal this should really appeal to you
Ha! I actually found Aquilus without you!
https://www.nocleansinging.com/2012/11/23/aquilus-griseus/
But the other 3 are new to me. I have a powerful instinctive liking for any band named Black Fucking Cancer.
In my defense I was out of town that week 🙂
…I’ll try and shoot you an email here in the next few days with a few more bands you might find interesting
I already included a little write-up about Black Fucking Cancer in this post this morning:
https://www.nocleansinging.com/2013/03/23/seen-and-heard-belphegor-blood-red-throne-and-black-fucking-cancer/
I’d say the Vorum album is the best DM release I’ve heard so far this year. Really good stuff.
That’s awesome, glad to see you guys getting the recognition you deserve. I get pretty much all of my metal news from a combination of NCS, Heavy Blog, and MetalSucks. If I’m particularly desperate for some metal news to read and I’ve exhausted my usuals I might hit up Blabbermouth but I can’t remember the last time I saw anything on there I gave a damn about.
You guys have definitely pulled me farther in the direction of extreme metal, I’m much more likely to click through on a link to an unfamiliar band here than elsewhere for reasons I can’t really articulate. On the flipside I’m more likely to look at MetalSucks just to see what they thought of albums I’ve more or less made up my mind about or alternatively be irritated that they’re running a review for an album that doesn’t come out for three fucking months and how can I possibly have any input on this or even remember this review by the time the album comes out. Seriously, what’s up with that?
I know that reading a review of an album months in advance of release used to frustrate the hell out of me. Usually, we post reviews relatively close to release dates, but when you get a promo months ahead of time, there’s a temptation to review it quickly so you can be one of the first out there. So there’s kind of a tension about timing that I understand better now that I’m involved in a blog instead of just reading what other people do.
Congrats – well deserved recognition. NCS is the one indispensable daily blog on my list, although I’ve enjoyed MS, IO, Heavy Blog, AMG, MetalBandcamp, From The Dust Returned, Last Rites and CVLT Nation as well. I’ve always found NCS to most closely match my taste out of all the blogs out there.
To throw in another recommendation, Lords Of Metal is a worthwhile Dutch blog (make sure to toggle the English translations on) with a monthly posting schedule. Their review section is pretty deep each month and usually includes embedded YouTube links. There are some amusing translation issues occasionally, but another good source for finding new records you can’t find in the States.The Deciblog is also a nice place to catch up with shorter pieces by their columnists.
I’ve been to Lords of Metal occasionally when looking to see what other people have said about an album we’ve reviewed but haven’t really explored it in depth. Agree about the Deciblog, and they also get the privilege of posting some killer premieres.
You already know Im down with the NCS4Lyfe!!!
Seriously though, now that I think about it, NCS is always my main stop for “serious” metal/music news primarily because your scope is international and crosses different genres (serious is in quotes because I came for the great insight and stayed for the Phro hijinks). What other metal site has the guts to seriously discuss bands like Death Grips? Who else devotes long running columns featuring non-metal that metal heads would dig? Who else would post about good clean singing metal bands when the name of the site says No Clean Singing? Who else would have the balls to back Hacktivist?? Nobody, thats who!! NCS rules.
So cool to see this. Sometimes I think you’re the only dude who always backs us to the hilt when we veer off the rails. Of course, we’re not going to stop doing that. Got to find the next Death Grips or Hacktivist!
I have AMG, NCS, PureGrainAudio.com, TeethoftheDivine.com and Wikipedia bookmarked. They’re all good metal resource sites, but for the really in-depth kind of research one might need for academic papers and investigative pieces, Metal-Archives.com and Wikipedia are the most vital ones.
Wow, I had the ambition to thoroughly read the comments, but there are so many! So I’ll pollute this site with my little story.
I’ve been actively looking for reviews, opinions and news of metal since approx 2006. At that time, I mainly checked out some Dutch sites, of which some weren’t all that good. Sometime around 2008 I actually found three sites I like and stuck with them, namely metalfan.nl, lordsofmetal.nl and blabbermouth.net (the latter indeed for the hilarious comment section). However, at this time I hardly look at those sites anymore. Blabbermouth covers only a small range of bands, and I started to very much dislike reading reviews in another language than English.
So I think little more than 2 years ago, just by randomly googling for a review, I found Angry Metal Guy, and I fucking loved the site for the completely different style of reviewing. I always hated it in the sites I previously read reviews on that all the ‘big’ bands automatically get a high score, though the more unfamiliar (both a lot of times much better) releases hardly got a review at all. This is a problem one does not find on AMG; if there’s a reason to obliterate an album, they do it.
And actually through AMG I found NoCleanSinging sometime in 2010, and since then both are sites I frequent almost daily. AMG for the reasons I mentioned, NCS because you guys post interesting articles daily and most of times multiple times per day, and over time I really started to like the positive take on music on this site. If an album gets reviewed here, then I know it’s good quality. And maybe the main reason why I like this site because this site covers my musical (metal) tastes spot on; I really don’t like metal focused on clean singing (so heavy, power, goth, metalcore etc).
Anyway, sorry for again a long post in this comment section, and keep up the good work!
Thanks for leaving such an extended comment. I want to also give a shout out to Full Metal Attorney, who commented above. Like AMG, he calls it like he sees it, and the writing and metal knowledge are both excellent. Even though we have our own philosophy about focusing on music we can enthusiastically recommend, as a reader I enjoy reading reviews that are critical if they’re thoughtful and well-explained — as opposed to just dumping shit on some poor band for fun.
I agree that Metal Archives is a great source for metal information, but their community is absolutely horrible. It’s filled with the most obnoxious elitist assholes outside of anus.com. I visit No Clean Singing because the commenters here are much more fun to be around. When it comes to metal news, I visit CVLT Nation, Lurker’s Path, and Guttural Death. It’s pretty hard to find news when it comes to really obscure bands.
Not really….Some of the best bands Ive found in the last few years have come from lurking forums where elitists hang out. Yeah, depending on your music tastes, they may come across as real assholes, but theyre really great for finding out about obscure music. Theres a reason theyre elitists snobs, its because a good chunk of them really know their shit.
Just dont engage them in conversation.
Congrats on the recognition! There’s already so many comments here that I’ll just second what many have said above – the tone of the whole site and the comments section really make this site stand out. It’s obvious there’s a lot of real metal fans here! And of course the fact that it features such sweet tunes and humour-filled write up doesn’t harm. For me, NCS has become a daily source of info.
I used to follow Metalsucks back in around 2009, and I don’ t know if it’s just me but while it was always a bit silly it just seems to have gone steadily downhill over the last few years to the point that they don’t even seem to try anymore. Goes without saying that the comments section there is just troll-city, as with Blabbermouth. Plus, the taste of music of most of the contributors doesn’t line up that well with mine. Corey’s ‘Bleeders’ lists were always an interesting piece, he was a guy who really went the extra distance to listen to almost everything that had come out, and tally it up into categories of how awesome it was. I never understood how one guy had the time, but he seems to have disappeared. The only thing I go there for now is to look over their ‘Shit That Comes Out This Week’ posts just as a useful list of new releases.
Also, I used to follow The Number Of The Blog before it went kaput, and have barely visited the Monolith, should really check that out more it seemed like a really interesting concept. I haven’t been visiting Heavy Blog Is Heavy as much as I should.
Metal bandcamp – good to see this was on the list as well. While my tastes aren’t quite as black as Max’s, I do stalk his bandcamp profile to check out new sounds every now and then (that’s right, long time stalker, first time caller).
Anyway, I’d just like to say thanks heaps to Islander for such dedication to exposing us to new bands and all things metal. And we don’t even pay him!
PS. Where’s Phro these days? It seems like ages since him and Islander talked dirty.
Thanks for the great comment. I had the same feelings about Corey’s “Bleeders” lists — found some great shit that way, and was tremendously impressed with the extent of his listening, and the variety in what he wrote about.
I miss Phro around here, too, but he has gotten very dedicated to his own writing at Phro Metal, leaving me both proud of him and slightly resentful. 🙂
Of the sites on that list this is the only one I visit regularly, when I need to find out who played drums on that one album, yeah Metal Archives is the place to go, but as it name says it’s an encyclopedia, not a site for news or well “news”.
I do visit metal bandcamp, but not as regularly as I should, and ever since Debemur Morti put most of their stuff on bandcamp my bandcamping wishes have been fulfilled
I haven’t really been reading a lot of metal stuff recently because of two things: my OCD issues and my current infatuation with Utada Hikaru’s music. Anyway, I visit a good number of sites regularly (if I’m not on a binge outside of metal or I’m not having OCD issues) including NCS, MS, IO, Metal Bandcamp, From the Dust Returned, Heavy Blog Is Heavy, and Metal Archives. I also visit others with a lower frequency.
But if I had to name the sites that I like the most and why:
NCS: my favoritististist metal blog of all, I’ve been reading regularly (for the most part anyway, for the reasons stated above) since probably… 2010 I think… the year after NCS started anyway. Since then I’ve made some great friends and acquaintances here that I count among the best of friends, regardless of the fact that I’ve never met them face to face and regardless of the likelihood that they do not see me the same way (I’m basically a quasi-hermit who moved away after high school). I love the people who comment here because they’re funny, intelligent and not-douchy. The posts are often high quality and present obscure bands that I have yet to hear of or hear little of, and I think there needs to be more sites like this one, also Islander lets us submit guest articles–very inclusive.
IO: I don’t know if I still genuinely like IO, or if it’s just the aftertaste of Cosmo Lee, but sometimes the people who write there present cool bands and write-ups as well. BadWolf wrote a nice piece about suicide a little while ago.
Metal Bandcamp: if we were to discount the fact that it’s run by an extremely cool dude, MBC is a buffet of metal where I know I can hear music and find labels that list releases from metal bands. I really feel that without Metal Bandcamp, I would be far less enveloped in metal music than I am today (the same goes for NCS). That list of metal labels on Bandcamp is invaluable. Keep it up Max!
Metal Archives: I like Metal Archives because you can look up nearly any metal band on there and come up with their releases, members, and other information about the band. I’m pretty okay with the community there, some of them are douches, but mostly I find them to be alright. I do think MA should expand its scope of what bands it includes, though.
Poetry of Subculture: while Helm doesn’t post that often, I think PoS is a great site with an interesting viewpoint on the metal subculture and the music it’s based on. I wrote about it here: https://www.nocleansinging.com/2013/02/26/blog-spotlight-metal-band-art-and-poetry-of-subculture/.
From the Dust Returned: autothrall is the busiest reviewer that I know of, the guy has posted a lot of reviews on FtDR, and even puts them on MA. But what I really enjoy is finding bands I hadn’t heard of on the site, and the reviews help to tell me if I’d be interested in them.
I’ll just limit my comment to one of yours — the one about finding good friends through NCS. As you know, the same thing has happened to me. I’ve “met” so many good people through working this blog, people I would love to meet in person some day, though since they’re scattered so far and wide that will probably never happen. But who knows? The world is a smaller place than it used to be.
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