At the risk of boring our longer-term readers, here’s a reminder about how this MISCELLANY game works:

We keep a constantly evolving list of new bands whose music we’ve not yet heard, based on various sources, including band e-mails we get, reader recommendations, press releases, and stickers left on urinals at metal clubs we frequent. Whenever I can manage, I pick a few names off the list, I listen to at least one of their songs, I write about what I heard, and then I stream the same track(s) so you can make up your own mind about whether to explore the bands further.

It’s a good way to discover new music, and I wish I could do it more often. But it’s a bit risky for readers, because even if I hear something I wouldn’t normally recommend to you, it still goes in these MISCELLANY posts. For today’s edition of this dice-roll, I listened to Deus Otiosus (Denmark), Shangren (Australia, I think), and Forever Revenge (China). Here we go . . .

DEUS OTIOSUS

This Danish band e-mailed us late last month and gave us the chance to check out their 2010 debut studio album, Murderer (the band also released a live album in 2010, preceded by a split and a demo). According to The Font of All Human Knowledge, the band’s name is Latin for “idle god” and refers to a “theological concept used to describe the belief in a creator god who largely retires from the world and is no longer involved in its daily operation.”

I’ve always thought this was an interesting concept, and it does provide an answer (if you’re a Deist at least) as to why the human world has been such a brutally fucked up place for thousands of years: The creator had some kind of inexplicable fun creating the earth, and then checked out.  (more after the jump . . .) Continue reading »