A nice coincidence: Last night I saw Enslaved perform at a bar in Seattle. This morning, Enslaved were nominated for Best Metal Album of 2012 in Norway’s version of the Grammy awards, which are called the Spellemann awards.
The other nominees in that category are Nekromantheon for Rise, Vulcan Spectre and El Caco for Hatred, Love and Diagrams. You gotta love a country where fuckin’ Enslaved and fuckin’ Nekromantheon get nominated for Grammy’s. Songs from each of their albums made our list of 2012’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs. Hell, last spring I even wrote about a song from El Caco’s album (here) — though the song is more hard rock than metal.
Contrast this with the American Grammy Awards: Although there were 81 award categories for 2012, there is no award for Best Metal Album. As close as we get is an award for Best Hard Rock / Metal Performance. And Halestorm won that award two nights ago. Uh huh. Continue reading »