Ides of Gemini
Constantinople
Label — Neurot Recordings / SIGE
Release date — May 2012

Much metal gains its extremity from lack of space: ear-bleeding guitars canvas the harmonic spectrum, drums fill every possible rhythmic nook, vocalist caulks the gaps with throaty sputum sealant. That totalness can get tiring, and it’s also pretty aesthetically limiting – maximizing speed, volume, denseness, etc. can blind a songwriter to the subtler, less traveled paths to intensity.

L.A. trio Ides of Gemini followed all aforementioned paths on their 2010 debut EP, The Disruption Writ. The EP’s four songs are all about space. Guitarist J. Bennett (who moonlights as a journalist for Decibel, Terrorizer and others) lays down imperial metal riffs swathed in so much reverb that they seem isolated from the rest of the world. Bassist/vocalist Sera Timms (frontlady of Black Math Horseman) layers her affectless voice in ghostly counterpoint, turning tales of spiritual discord into disturbing lullabies. Lethargic programmed drums rustle below like a big ol’ bag of bones. If something seems missing from Ides of Gemini’s sound, that’s exactly the point. Their accretion of small musical gestures inverts metal’s normal use of space. They imply terror without ever exposing it. Each song is an accumulation of outlines, a sort of sonic daguerreotype.

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Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli…

So, yesterday on the Deciblog we posted a long-ass Justify Your Shitty Taste on “Guns N’ Roses”’ Chinese Democracy, which your fearless co-leader Axl Rosenberg boldly cosigned, followed by, frankly, a surprising amount of you guys (which is to say, more than one). I’m not trying to be a dick here. I mean, I can get behind about 25 percent of this mess (the ballads), but I have fairly shitty taste in rock music. As in, I still think Eight Arms to Hold You kicks ass. Whatever. It was just interesting surveying our entire staff of about 20 writers in an effort to get Chinese Democracy written up, and the only person that responded with a modicum of enthusiasm was Shawn Macomber. Fair enough. But then, cue a minor avalanche of vehement, assured hell yeahs. That’s probably the most satisfying thing about this series — watching that groundswell of minority voices band together for a day or two with a shared “fuck you, I told you it was good!”

Anyway, scrolling through the new issue’s reviews section, I don’t really see any future JYSTs. (Just wait ’til May’s The Haunted review, though.) April is more about giving credit to things that don’t hopelessly suck. Hence, we gave Jonah Hegg his second solo cover (order here). I don’t think the other four Amon Amarth dudes are sweating it; they get their chance to Vike out (ahem) in the table of contents and the actual story. Elsewhere, if you’re a J. Bennett fan, this is your issue — he goes head to head with Glen Benton (I’ll leave the obvious jokes to him), bros down in Alaska with Every Time I Die and files a long-overdue Hall of Fame on Mercyful Fate’s Melissa. If you’re a fan of any other writer on staff, well, they do stuff, too: features on Trap Them, Drugs of Faith, Primordial, Rotten Sound and Subrosa — the latter of which being almost as good as Veruca Salt in their prime.

-AB

You can buy the April 2011 issue of Decibel here, or just get a full subscription to ensure that you never miss a review of a future “Justify Your Shitty Taste” entry.

Even this little kid can’t believe this shit.

Ever since The Deciblog started their weekly “Justify Your Shitty Taste” column — in which writers and musicians attempt to defend the indefensible — we’ve been joking that it was only a matter of time until someone stood up for Celtic Frost’s Cold Lake.

Ladies and germs, that time has arrived.

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Before there were blogs there were these things called magazines, and the only metal magazine we still get excited about reading every month is Decibel. Here’s managing editor Andrew Bonazelli.

While the free world breathlessly awaits the results of Decibel editor-in-chief Albert Mudrian’s NLCS bet with Exhumed frontman Matt Harvey — and even down 3-1, it’s way too early to start taunting the boss with “black black black black number ooooooone” — the rest of team dB has moved on to give you a Very Special December issue.

Yes, that’s one of extreme music’s most polarizing mugs on the cover. (You know what, let’s say “polarizing figure”; there’s nothing polarizing about Phil’s facial expressions, which all clearly fucking rule.) As usual, the man has a billion things going on. Sadly, one of them is not the fourth Down record (yet), although a new Arson Anthem slab and the 20^th anniversary of Cowboys From Hell are pretty sick placeholders. For a dude that’s been somewhat, um, contentious in interviews, Anselmo is crazy gregarious with our man J. Bennett. Like Mustaine or Lars, whether you love or hate the guy, he gives great copy. And I promise that the anecdotes about early Pantera — especially pertaining to Seagal-caliber bar pummelings — will do you right.

As for the rest of the issue, there’s plenty more radness that you can see for yourself on the cover, but one thing you can’t that I’ll spoil right now is Rod Smith’s review of the Amphetamine Reptile 25^th anniversary show. Shannon Selberg of the Cows is wearing mousetraps as earrings. ‘Nuff said. This fucker will be on newsstands next week, but we wouldn’t mind picking up our Secret Santa anal beads before Black Friday, so help us out by grabbing it early here.

Oh yeah, if you’re getting pumped about the Incantation Onward to Golgotha Hall of Fame shows that I’ve been babbling about the last month or so, the New York one just moved. It’s no longer at Rebel on November 20, but Club Europa, which evidently is here:

Europa Night Club
98 Meserole Ave. (corner of Manhattan Ave.)
Brooklyn, NY 11222

Shit will rule. Snap ’em up.

-AB

Like the man said, you can buy yourself a copy of the December 2010 issue of Decibel here. But we’ll love you better if you just go ahead and buy yourself a full subscription. Trust us, it’s totally worth it!!!

Here’s what I don’t understand about all these lists: why they make people so very angry. When we set out to make our 21 Best Albums of the 21st Century (So Far) list earlier this year, we pretty much knew from the outset that it would be unsatisfactory. For one thing, there were only going to be 21 albums on the list, which meant a lot of great records were going to get left off; for another thing, we made the decision early on to allow bands to have multiple albums on the list if that was the way the voting turned out, and that meant that even more artists who deserved recognition weren’t going to get it; and finally, there was the very issue of how you even go about compiling such a list – we thought it was exciting to solicit the opinions of a lot of prominent musicians and industry insiders (as opposed to just the MS staff), but that approach obviously had its pros and cons, too. I’m not apologizing for or disowning our list – I’m just pointing out what should be obvious, which is that it was meant to be a fun conversation starter, which, from our end at least, is exactly what it was. And who really gives a shit which albums did or did not end up on that list? You know which albums you love and which ones you hate, so you shouldn’t need MetalSucks, or any other media outlet, to validate your opinion. I think Albert Mudrian is a great writer and is way more knowledgeable about metal than I am, but my ego isn’t so frail that I need him to agree with my every assessment of every band and every album.

Which brings me to what this blog post is actually about: Decibel’s 100 Greatest Metal Albums of the Decade special, which you can order here. It’s considerably more comprehensive that our list was, but I imagine most intelligent metal fans will also find it just as infuriating, and just as fun.

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