Autumn

Autumn has hit with full-force here in Seattle. It’s funny how the seasons here seem to match the calendar exactly. September 20th hits and summer is over, autumn is here. Weird.

Skies are grey and the weather is chilly. Seattle cold is different from the bitter, frozen Midwestern cold that I grew up with. It is an insidious chill that crawls under your skin and remains there. When the temperature freezes, the cold is on your skin. When it drizzles and hovers just above freezing, as it does in winter here, the cold gets into your soul. Coffee helps, and/or tea in copious quantities.

Along with the cold weather is a desire, no, a need for all that which is epic. As with most years, I gravitate towards The Lord of the Rings once autumn hits. I started reading The Fellowship of the Ring again recently. Some years I don’t make it all the way through the 1000+ page story (though I’ve read the entire book probably five or six times now), but every year I at least get a taste of it. This year I’m really wanting to finish it, as it’s been a few since I made it all the way through the Scouring of the Shire.

Along with epic literature is the need for epic music. My epic, melancholic band of choice for these purposes and at this time of year is Summoning, the Austrian band comprised of Protector (also of Die Verbannten Kinder Evas and Ice Ages). So vast and majestic, like armies marching across the Pelennor. Expansive metal with orchestral execution. Perfect.

Tonight my partner and I carved our pumpkins and put them out on the step. The rains are here, but tomorrow we get a respite. I’m looking forward to the cool ride in to work.

Namárië.

Carcass live

I never got a chance to post about seeing Carcass a few weeks ago. Life has been too hectic. Or maybe I just haven’t felt like writing. Either way…

Despite some fairly serious technical mishaps (I was at the Seattle show, and Bill Steer’s guitar pedal kept fucking up, also there were some visual blunders), the show was great. Everyone had fun, and seeing some of my favorite songs ever played live was a real treat. Although not one of my favoritest Carcass songs, I have to say that the highlight of the set for me was probably “Incarnated Solvent Abuse” which just killed live. “Heartwork,” “Corproreal Jigsore Quandray” and “Exhume to Consume” were also great of course, and the ending with them playing the last bit from “Carneous Cacoffiny” was the perfect way to end the set.

I really can’t give much more in the way of impressions of their set as I just felt like the 14-15 year old me for a lot of the time (I got into Carcass around 1995) and it was just really… special for me to see. I’m really glad they did this tour, now I’m happy if they never do anything Carcass-related again. I always wanted to see them live but never got the chance until now. I got my badass “Tools of the Trade” t-shirt and everything (strange that they didn’t play that song…). Man, what a great night.

1349 played a great, albeit very short, set, too. I hadn’t seen them  before, but now the next time they roll through town I’ll definitely go.

Next show I go to… maybe Asunder? Not sure.

At the Gates

I saw At the Gates a couple of days ago. It was a great show. It’s been a really long week for me so I’m not going to say too much about the show, other than it was everything I was hoping that it would be.

All of the best songs were played (they were the same as on the setlist announced on Babbermouth awhile ago- no link for the moment because Blabbermouth appears to be down), the band was really tight and the energy from the band and the crowd was high and intense. Everyone was having a great time (except for the guy I saw pulled down from crowd-surfing by security). My only disappointment was Tomas’ vocals, which were a little more hardcore/screamy than his really grim screams from back in the day, but he delivered a very exuberant performance with good showmanship, so I can’t speak too harshly of his vocals, which he has obviously evolved over the last decade or so.

Aside from ATG themselves, I had perfect timing going to the show. I arrived just as the previous band ended and I scored an awesome place to stand to watch the show. Also, I got the news that motherfucking Carcass, the Gods of Grind themselves, are going to be playing in Seattle on September 21st. To prepare, I’ve already started going through the discography repeatedly. Seeing Suffocation for the first time in 11 years and 1349 will be great, too.

Arckanum – Antikosmos

I listened to the latest Arckanum album today, and was completely surprised that I would like it as much as I did. For those not in-the-know, Arckanum is a one-man black metal band from Sweden, the sole product of the troll/man known as Shamaatae since 1992. His first recordings were thrash-influenced, occasionally folkish black metal. Raw and untamed like the forests of Scandinavia, catchy as brutal as hell.

Well, Antikosmos is just like that, only much more musically mature and refined in its purpose. There are a lot of atmospheric, darkwave-y moments in between the metal mayhem, like punctuation to the black metal rituals. And, those atmospheric moments are very ritual-driven, with titles like Blóta Lóka (“Rite of Lóki”).

This is the first full-length Arckanum record in ten years. I have to say it was worth the wait.

Arckanum on MySpace
Arckanum Official Homepage

Samples available on both. Full-length found on torrent networks, p2p, etc. Since I saw Shamaatae on OiNK’s Pink Palace, I pretty much assume that he probably released the work on torrent sites. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I’ll definitely be buying this one.

Carcass

Honestly, I don’t really care about George Carlin being dead. He lived a fairly long time and had an awesome career. Everybody loved him. Let’s move on, shall we?

Well, that was easy, because MOTHERFUCKING Carcass is coming to the U.S.! Dear sweet Jeebus, it finally happened. Ever since Carcass’ reunion was announced, I’ve been obsessively checking the entire intarwebs to see if they were coming over here. Since I blew my overseas metal excursion budget last year on Hole in the Sky (which Carcass is playing this year), I couldn’t justify it this year, but it’s happening. They’re coming here. I feel like a kid waiting for Carcassmas or something.

They’re only confirmed as playing New York right now on Sept. 6th, but “more dates will be announced” according to Blabbermouth. This is just too cool for words.

As the almighty Beavis would say “Thank God! Heh hmm.”

For those of you who either don’t like metal, or who like metal but have lived under a planet-sized stone for the last 20 years, Carcass were one of the most influential and early contributors to the grindcore genre, and later became the very bestest melodic death metal band of all time END OF STORY.

A caveat (or three) about the title of this blog

The Blackmetal Librarian is, seemingly, a fairly straightforward title. It incorporates Black metal music, and librarianship.

Now, by taking this title of “Blackmetal Librarian,” some might think that I claim to be the most knowledgeable, most “true”, “nekro”, or “kvlt”. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I don’t have long hair anymore. I don’t wear Darkthrone shirts to work every day (some days, though…). I don’t keep up that much about “the scene” and I certainly don’t care about what other metal fans think about anything. That brings up another issue: although black metal is my preferred flavor of metal, due to its rawness, complex simplicity and straightforward aggression, it is not the only type of metal that I enjoy. I also love grindcore, death metal, folk metal, drone doom, and even some of this “metalcore” stuff (although I must say that most of the time I honestly can’t tell the difference between so-called “metalcore” and many death metal bands). I also love a lot of other types of music, including world/roots music, rock, riot grrl, some “indie rock”, bluegrass, neo-folk, darkwave, synthpop, power industrial, etc.

So, basically the “blackmetal” part of this title is due to my love of the genre, and for metal in particular.

Now, on to the “Librarian” part. I’m not trying to be a “librarian of black metal” but rather a librarian who totally loves black metal. Make sense? There’s a caveat there, too, actually: although I do have an MLIS degree, I don’t hold a job that has the word “librarian” in the title. I do consider myself a librarian, however, and I do work in the library industry and work, ultimately, for other librarians. I love my job and my profession. I consider it quasi-sacred.

So, the main focus of this blog isn’t “how to incorporate metal into librarianship” (although there might be some of that), nor is it “how to ‘librarianize’ blackmetal” (although there may be some of that as well), but rather, simply bringing together things that I love, and highlighting two of those: metal and libraries (or information professionalism, if you will).

So, think critically, learn, and horns up! \m/

Cheers,
The Librarian