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ACOUSTIC METAL FIX OF THE DAY, BROUGHT TO YOU BY MUSK OX

 Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 5:52pm by

musk oxI’m not really sure how the entirely acoustic music peddled by Ottawa’s Musk Ox could be considered metal… but yet, somehow, it unmistakably is. Musk Ox, whose self-titled Absurdist Records debut drops January 19th, beg the age-old question of what actually defines metal. Is it distorted guitars? If you answered “yes” then you’d have to bar similar bands like Agalloch and Daylight Dies from admission to the metal pantheon, yet surely this is not something you want to do. Like those bands are wont to do, Musk Ox pluck out neo-classical melodies on their acoustic guitars augmented by rainy-day strings to create a gloomy, dark landscape of desperation and despair that just screams metal, even despite the lack of distortion, drums or words. This is the kind of metal brutal Canadian winters must be made of.

-VN

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  • http://www.myspace.com/whiskeyrambleproject x101whiskey_ramble101x

    I fuckin’ dig acoustic metal…in fact I spend alot of my time trying to find an actual bone-fide way to make the acoustic mean when possible, firm believer that it can be done. thanks for the fix, and here’s a shameless plug to some of my attempts at acoustic ambient metal… http://www.myspace.com/whiskeyrambleproject

  • dthrasher

    Agalloch does have distorted guitars…

  • los

    metal or not? hard to say, harder to care.

    but even as a fan of ambientish instrumental music, i can’t really get into these guys. i like my instrumentals less acoustic and more post-rock. hello, pelican! hello, this will destroy you!

  • Spawn of Seitan

    Whiskey Ramble is a badass.

  • Fritz!

    Not that it sounds anything like this stuff, but it made me think of “Days of The New”. Kind of grungish, if i remember correctly they had some heavy acoustic riffage going on? What ever happend to them?

  • boob

    oooo thanks for throwing up a band from my hometown… the town that gave us Fuck the Facts…

  • http://www.myspace.com/embraceinashes Musk Ox

    Thanks so much Vince, I’m glad you like the music and I’m so happy that you addressed the issue of “Is this metal?” You explained it very well. It’s like when you hear a really bad metal band, I’m sure you’d be obliged to say “This isn’t really metal” at which point someone says “But it has distorted guitars?” and you respond “Yeah but…”

  • gammasperm

    if you like this you will like http://www.myspace.com/homelessyellow

    singer is canadian but moved to australia and used to be in a grind act called Beijing Tank

    saw them live and my jaw dropped… not what i was expecting

  • MorningGlory

    Well, there is one more (although a bit demo-sounding) acoustic metal project from Croatia
    http://www.myspace.com/uthovaravathar

  • http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/ Conor

    Holy shit, Whiskey Ramble Project rocks balls! Where do I send my money?

  • ClosetMetalHead

    Not that Musk Ox is not good, but I would not classify this band as “metal.” Musk Ox is not “heavy” nor do they use electric guitars. Agalloch and Daylight Dies both use electric guitars as well as acoustic, and both sound “heavy” to a certain extent.

  • Jesse

    @Fritz!

    I know exactly what you mean with Days of the New man. They had some genuinely heavy acoustic rock going on. I’ve always thought a down-tuned acoustic could be one of the heaviest sounding instruments if you play it right. A big handicap is the lack of palm mutes which usually add a lot to the thunderous feel of metal. But there’s just something about hearing someone be very aggressive on the acoustic that just screams metal to me.

    As far as what ever happened to them.. Tantric is what happened to them. They were pretty much Days of the New sans douchebag/prodigy Travis Meeks. Funny thing though, now the only original member of Tantric is the only guy that was never in Days of the New.

  • http://www.conorschaefer.com/blog/ Conor

    You spelled Agalloch wrong in the tags, dickface.

  • Fritz!

    @Jesse

    Thanks for the update man! I really liked that record with the tree on the cover! Some of the songs had some really heavy parts.

  • richard
  • jeff

    myspace.com/homelessyellow
    All metalheads playing acoustic songs..love it!

  • http://gsdfdfe.com/ andry

    uHBxet comment2 ,

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