Struck By Lightning - Serpents

'sup. I'm back after a bunch of months not posting on here. But nobody reads this or comments, and that chat box or whatever is fucking lame, so whatever fuck you guys what the hell am I even doing trying to rain enlightenment down on you who aren't even there. Talking to a goddamn wall.


Coffins played tonight over at Earthdom. Terror Squad and Barebones were on the bill, too, so I was all giddy and excited, and then there was the headliner with a name I had never heard of that's too long and is like 75% of the way to being cool but definitely not there yet, Struck by Lightning... Nouns are totally the way to go, guys. Electric Immolation? I don't know.


From the depths of the moss-consumed and dungeonous caves of brutal informatics, the Metal Archives:


"First thing's first - Wow. Now that I've got that out of the way, I heard about these sludgy, hardcore death metal band when I heard they were lining up behind Weedeater in a new tour. I had never heard the name, so I decided to check them out, and I'm so happy I did. I instantly fell in love with the band. This whole release fit so many sounds that I liked, it was hard for me to put it down for almost a week. I think in the month or two I've had it, all 11 songs on the album have at least 15 plays each in my ITunes.

Serpents is the debut release by this band, and it was an interesting improvement to the scene that they are in. I can say that aside from a few hardcore bands, I detest the scene for the reason that it is just so fucking boring. This band hits sounds that remind me of Samothrace, Nihilist, Malevolent Creation and the Cro-Mags. I was astounded at the immense amount of weird, intense death metal influenced by punk on this record.

For a punk influenced band, the instrumental parts of the record were phenomenal. So much passion was in the music. The guitars fit well with the bass, which was amazingly heard, unlike a lot of death metal or punk. In fact, I think the bass was the highlight of the album. It was really loud, very atmospheric, just all around a lovely sound that just makes you sit back in awe. Drums on the album were slightly easier then I would have put on there though. As a drummer myself, the fills were slightly slower then the average punk plays and the songs themselves follow a sort of doom metal feel at times, but it's a good feel to the album. I'd sit back and chill to this album any day.

Vocals were ASTOUNDING. For a band that uses the crust/hardcore style of singing, it felt so right. I didn't know what to thing when I heard the song "Silent and Still". It was honestly like the Cro-Mags met Kataklysm. It was so crushing, that my chest felt heavy, yet so soothing my spirit felt at ease. I even felt a sense of passion in them that I have not heard in a long ass time. Another good thing about the album is that it's so angry, yet so focused. I hate it when bands just sound like chaotic messes due to their anger, which is why Anaal Nathrakh pisses me off a lot of the time. This band feels so channeled, that it the album is just right."

This guy is a fucking idiot. There is no death-metal influence. The "crust/hardcore style of singing" he mentions belongs in this kind of music. That's like saying you were surprised at how natural a chicken with feathers looks.   No matter how many live plucked chickens running around clucking their goddamn heads off you look at, it NEVER starts looking like something I should be proud of doing.

You know Cursed? What about Disfear? His Hero is Gone? Throw a bit of recent Converge and rarely, VERY rarely something that makes you remember that "oh, yeah, there IS a band called Baroness. Didn't they used to be way awesomer?" into those memories of me drinking beer at the roboto project in high school, and you've got yourself this band that should probably seriously debate whether to keep their name or change it to something cool. 

Final verdict? It's a'ight. Inexplicably, I kept finding myself thinking about The Atlas Moth, who I'm really not all that keen on, while listening to these guys. Aside from that, I probably would've enjoyed drinking beer and running around while they played, but I did that, drunk on high art, conversation and (mostly) 

too much whiskey, in Kabukicho, at probably 4 AM, by myself last night, so I wasn't really up to it. Instead I just crossed my arms, didn't talk to anyone, drank pepsi, and dicked around on my phone while pretending, hoping, praying to fucking GOD in his Silver City that I was cool because I listen to music way better than everyone else and am in general just better than other people, watch INTERESTING movies, pretend to be an artist but RARELY overcome crippling self-doubt that siphons the willpower out of my shriveled soul, survive natural disasters in a most excellent, Bill-and-Ted kind of way, and yet I'm still not president of the world. What the fucks up with that. 

I'm better than you, right???