Flush it Friday: The Ancient Empire Edition
Shitpost away the good, the bad and the ugly before the start of the weekend, and also get angry with me.
The Good: Ancient Empire. Have you heard of Ancient Empire? Of course you haven’t, they’re signed to Stormspell Records. But you extremely hecking should. They play a riff-heavy, guitar driven heavy/power metal concoction that packs a whole lot of punch, and the gruff but not Tornillo-raspy vocals bring just enough melody to the game. In other words, absolutely nothing you’ve never heard before, but the band is extremely good at what they do. And they just put out a new album, from which you should listen to this awesome closer.
The Bad: Like I said, the reason they’ve been flying below the radar is not entirely their own fault. Stormspell Records, kids, is not a label you want to sign to. As far as I know, they’re a good label, run by a legitimate enthusiast, as in they don’t fuck their bands, steal money or do any other of that sketchy shit either. But they also don’t promote your band. Practically at all. And the only way anyone’s going to be able to buy your records is through CDBaby. Yes, really (actually, not really, they seem to have opened a Bigcartel store since we last met). It is not possible to acquire any music through their Bandcamp page, as no physical OR digital copies are on sale, and regularly only two or three songs are even streaming. You don’t need any kind of a budget to match the effort the label would appear to be making to promote your band (and I would delightfully publish an apology piece if I were to be proven mistaken even after years of keeping an eye on the label) and you’d have a better reach through your own Bandcamp page (which, Ancient Empire, fortunately, has since made their material digitally available from). It legitimately seems like bands would be better off independent than signed to Stormspell and that is an alarming sign.
The Ugly: Seriously, want to know how much this label cares? Ancient Empire’s debut was re-released last July and mistakenly labeled as self-titled on Stormspell’s Bandcamp page, despite very clearly being titled “When Empires Fall” on the cover art. This mistake was only corrected a couple of months back (and I’m surprised that it was). Or take Masquerage, a Finnish melodic metal band featuring Kimmo Perämäki, the current vocalist of doom metal legends Spiritus Mortis, a band whom few in the Finnish melometal circles seem to remember or have heard of. They released a new album last year, but it failed to make any waves, and how could it have, IT’S STILL LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO GET THAT ALBUM IN FINLAND, it is sold absolutely nowhere outside this label’s CDBaby store. Stormspell, step your game the fuck up.
While you’re stewing in my anger and jamming Ancient Empire, take a look at this week’s highlights as well.
Leif Bearikson took a look at the new Blood Incantation, which is out today by the way.
Review: Blood Incantation – Hidden History of the Human Race
Lacertilian premiered some kick-ass Paraguyan death metal.
Brandon Corsair sat down to sprechen aus Unaussprechlichen Kult.
Unspeakable Horrors: An Interview with Unaussprechlichen Kulten
GWAR made a jibbjabbing move onto the pages of a comic book (and other podcast noises).
Galaxy, as it turns out, is some real nice speed/thrash if Ancient Empire’s five full-lengths aren’t enough to slake your thirst.
Ben Senpai Grey likes his noise with a bit of punk.
Porkins and Bork aren’t the brightest writers we’ve hired, so they dove headlong into the moldiest cheese orchestral metal has to offer.
Tuba or Not Tuba: Reflections on Life, Loss, and Orchestral Metal
Spear threw some wild The Bad, The Dead and The Poorly Built jokes in the latest edition of Tech Deff Thursday.
Tech Death Thursday: Odious Mortem – “Condemnation Foretold”
And I premiered some French cinematic metal of the grandest scope.
You know what to do,
S H I
T P O
S T E
r.
