Tuesday, November 12, 2013

So it begins...


Hello, and welcome to my blog. If the completely black backgrounds and the really metal blog title font didn't do it already, allow me to break something to you; I am not a professional blogger. Yes, I know. Someone under 25 years old and completely terrible at the internet. Something of a marvel isn't it?

Given that the blogger info section is a little small, I figured that I would do a proper introduction for my first post. Like the short blurb says, I'm somewhat of a metal noob if you will. My first metal album was Metallica's Master of Puppets. I bought it almost immediately after hearing "Master of Puppets" on a local radio station when I was in either fourth or fifth grade. I listened to the shit out of that CD over the summer. It didn't even dawn on me to look at their other albums until sixth grade. By then I had an iPod and had no need for CDs, or so I foolishly thought, and so I proceeded to purchase Metallica's discography through Metallica on iTunes. I ended up hearing about Rammstein at some point during middle school and for almost a year I listened exclusively to Metallica and Rammstein. Pretty badass, I know.

Then, during the summer between eighth and ninth grades, some relatives from Norway came over to visit for a couple weeks. One of them was a teenager who I found out also listened to metal. He asked me if I had heard of Amon Amarth. I hadn't and in my attempts to be cool in the eyes of my older cousin who I'd never met before, I proceeded to download The Avenger. Holy fuck. That album blew me away. The intensity and sheer awesomeness was something I had never experienced before and I loved it. I downloaded every single one of their albums that summer and when school came around I had discovered that Amon Amarth wasn't the only awesome band out there. I listened to Bolt Thrower, Wintersun, Ensiferum, and while searching for more music to listen to, I came across Immortal. At the time they had just released All Shall Fall and there was a lot of talk about it. I downloaded it expecting to hear something similar to what I was already listening to. Man was I wrong.

For the second time in my life I had a "Holy fuck" moment where the music just took my breath away. It was so different from what I was used to and it almost scared me as much as it excited me. I remember how my heart started pounding when the guitar kicked in during the title track. It sounded so evil... I loved it. That album essentially sealed the deal for me. I plowed through Immortal, Emperor, Burzum, Ulver, Darkthrone, etc. within a year of hearing All Shall Fall.

Fast forward three years from hearing Immortal and that brings us to today. I still listen to mostly black metal, but I'll occasionally listen to some melodic death metal or folk for some variety, and within the past month or so I'm starting to check out power metal. Of course, since I've only really been listening to black metal for a couple years, I still have a ton to listen to. I have changed my listening habits though. Due to a computer crash I lost about a hundred albums that I had only in digital format. I do not intend to go through that again, so now I only buy  physical releases. Not only for back-ups, but also because there's something infinitely more enjoyable about inserting a disc or a tape into a player than simply hitting 'play' on an MP3 player.

Well, that's me. Hope it wasn't too long a read.

VT


No comments:

Post a Comment