Fragments

• Manilla Road is the greatest band of all time. I'm not entirely sure why or how. But they are. Crystal Logic and The Deluge are particularly amazing, but above all Open the Gates is probably my favorite album of theirs, maybe my favorite album of all time. However, I'm not really sure how to write about Manilla Road, since all my interest and training so far has been in extreme metal. I think the way to study and understand extreme metal is pretty much totally different from how to study and understand non-extreme musical forms, even heavy metal.
• At some point (too lazy to check right now), brutal death metal album covers switched from old school dark art to this weird semi-cartoony brightly-colored stuff - compare Disavowed, Pyaemia, or Disgorge to most stuff coming out now on the big BDM labels like Inherited Suffering, Amputated Vein, Coyote, and Lacerated Enemy. Or see the difference between Abominable Putridity's first and second albums, or the old and new covers for Iconic Vivisect's "Monument of Depravity". I think this coincides maybe with a shift of imagery from gore to bizarre creates/absurd sci-fi shit. Sort of a weird shift, not sure how to understand it quite yet.
• I'm currently interested in seeing where BDM/slam will go - innovative bands utilizing slam and regular old BDM with technical or experimental structures seems the way to go. Above all this is 7 H. Target, and also maybe Iconic Vivisect, whose album I enjoyed immensely. But even those two bands are going in very different directions, since the latter use slams but I wouldn't call them a slam band by any means. 7 H. Target on the other hand is pretty much the outer extreme of coolness I've seen possible with slam so far. A lot of BDM came out last year, but I haven't seen too much yet this year. I wonder what is to come.
• I feel like sludge/atmospheric/blackened/whatever is getting pretty popular, based on some of my feeds. What's the appeal?