I picked up the new Built To Spill album over the weekend. All the tracks clock in around 7 or 8 minutes, and are al excellent...veering towards instrumentals. Epic and proggy with great hooks thrown in. Doug Martsch is the epitomy of balding guitar goods with none of the crapness that usually comes with that.

For some reason makes me think of J Mascis, another guitar hero who doesn't suck.

Check it out.

Awesome! I've been waiting for something new to come out! I didn't know about this. Thanks for the info!

Cool COmet - glad to see that BTS are getting some love from the vinyl hordes!

Mascis rules! Years ago I saw J Mascis and the Fog in florida, and he did like a 20 min long guitar solo. Usually long ass guitar solos are cheesy, but he made it work, it was amazing! It was also probably one of the loudest shows I've seen too.

1st concert I ever went to was a Dinosaur Jr. show up in Portland back in 1995.

Great, some DJ love too! Dinosaur were huge in the late 80's in Britain...I think I sw 'em first in 1988 in a pub called the Fulham Grayhound - great place, but hotter than Hell. I remember the guitarist from Ozzie punkers the Hard-ons fainting during a set - and those boys were tough!

I also saw them last August in San Diego, and they are still one of the loudest bands I have ever seen, and that includes Motorhead! I missed out on tix for the shows in a few weeks, but I can tell u that the reformed original line-up is excellent...as good as back in the day! But J's hair is entirely white now, plus when I saw him do an instore about three years ago, he seemed like he had lost his mind somewhere along the way, he answered questions with a grunt - and "signed" my CD with a cross!

I like both bands in discussion also

Skylar, you just lost scenester points for liking Built to Spin...

WHAT?! wait, which scene? the metal scene? because I would think in the indie hipster scene I'd gain points for liking BTS.

what if I told you I like Nocturnus, does that make up for it?

Probably not...but please keep trying.

I've given up with Chad since he said he doesn't like cookie monster vocals

atheist? pestilence? immolation?

SUFFOCATION?!!!

Exactly pfft Chad is just anti-scene

really? I had no idea he didn't like cookie monster vocals.

what metal do you like, Chad?

Isis, Old Man Gloom, Sunn O))), Boris, Kylessa, Lair of the Minotaur, Jesu, Goatsnake, Celtic Frost...em, how's that for a start?

Sigh, all great bands.

You ever seen Isis live? I was dissapointed with them. They seemed to mail it in. The support band Dozer blew them off stage.

I have seen Isis live several times. I really dig'em, so even if they weren't spectacle a time or two, I'd still have a good time.

We only get bands like that round every blue moon. just a shame they weren;t firing on all cylinders.

At first I thought Skylar was insulting Chad.

ANyway, we are in the age of eclecticism. I like that poeple here like all kinds of music. One thing tho, there does seem to be a large swing towards metal, which I haven't come across since I was a kid.

I come from the Metal North of England, and when I moved to London in 1983 I was considered uber-uncool for liking metal (mind u I really liked Saxon, so fair enough), but as a result I also had my eyes opened to alternative (read Goth at the time), and from then on everything else.... BTS are awesome guitar gods with nary a stud nor a growl in evidence. Anyone who likes rock music with guitars should check em out.

The new Built To Spill is indeed awesome.

But Saxon? That is just wrong. Couldn't you have at least lied and said you liked Maiden.

You like Venom Muton?

I must confess to owning a Saxon album.

Muton, metal was my gameway drug to the musical underworld...and back again.

Also, I think the scene of metal and punk has integrated, for lack of
a better word, and that wasn't always the case back in the day...If that makes any sense.

Venom has a new album out, Metal Black. Cronos is the only original member. The first two songs are really good, with about 4 more decent tracks. But there's a handful of not-so-greats...

chad,
bein g from new orleans you must dig crowbar...no?

Crowbar is okay. Once upon a time, I got to go to a crawfish boil at a member's house to interview the band for Terrorizer magazine.
I just saw them live with Corrosion of Conformity right before Katrina went down...they certainly have longevity.

For Nawlin's Metal, I likes EyeHateGod bestest. Plus members of this band have gone on to do a host of other music projects.

see, I'm not a big fan of a lot of this new lean toward slower, sabbath style doomy metal. I'll stick with my tired, old grunty brutal death metal.

but to each his own.