As you will probably notice listening to this week’s show, Kyle seems to think he has broken the space/time continuum, putting us a week ahead at episode 43. But, alas, he does not have some special super power, and we are back at…well, currently at…42. And, in this week’s episode, we managed to scrape up four brand new album reviews, hitting a few different metal stylings, including one we aren’t entirely sure we can still count as metal…not in a bad way though. We also hit the G+ Spot and tell you about the future plans for the actual Episode 43, which will be all about the albums you asked us to check out. (Feel free to keep giving us more suggestions! We’ll keep going back to them for future episodes.)
Reviews: Baroness – Yellow & Green ; Bury Tomorrow – The Union of Crowns The Contortionist – Intrinsic; A Hero A Fake – The Future Again
A Hero A Fake – The Future Again: Brian – Try; Kyle – Try; Nick – Skip
Baroness – Yellow & Green: Brian – Buy; Kyle – Buy; Nick – Buy
The Contortionist – Intrinsic: Brian – Try; Kyle – Buy; Nick – Buy
Bury Tomorrow – The Union Of Crowns Brian – Buy; Kyle – Try; Nick – Try
The Sideshow Podcast 
-Great point about the process failing the album, as I too am finding that it is difficult to form quick impressions of some recent albums that are quite long. I like the term “marinate”, as if an album is a steak that needs to be dry aged for 21 days before it gets served at Peter Luger’s. It seems like I’ve bought some long albums lately. I’m only now starting to be able to judge Portal of I by Ne Obliviscaris (I’m loving the more instrumental stuff on the second half of the album). So with Baroness and even Periphery, there seems to be too much music on it for it to sink in with me yet. That’s not a criticism, it is just that music this complex needs to breathe and the time I spend with the music needs to expand.
-I think you need to add any mention of Korpiklaani to the drinking game. For some reason, you guys somehow seem to squeeze in a mention of that band in every episode, even though I don’t think you’ve ever actually reviewed anything by them. Maybe they’re just the band that Kyle loves to hate.
-What time is it? As Nick said, 4:30. It’s not late. Just early.
-Don’t pull any punches next week on “You asked for it.” If you don’t like Sabaton because it’s power metal, then let’s hear it. If you don’t like Dyscarnate because it’s traditional death metal, so be it. Bring it on!
-To further expand on the reason for having a “you asked for it” episode to begin with, after reading the latest Decibel (Testament cover) and assuming that Decibel is about a month ahead with their reviews, August looks to be a VERY weak month for releases, especially considering how solid this year has been so far. When the only album I had been anticipating in August (Katatonia) gets a 6 from Decibel, and 75% of the other stuff reviewed in Decibel this month is from bands I haven’t even heard of, it really seems like a good opportunity to let some of these July albums really sink in.
– I totally agree that some of these longer albums definitely take some time to really sink, for better or worse. I have found that some albums that initially impressed the hell out of tend to get old quick, where the albums that I am a little indecisive on at first tend to be more impressive given the time to really let them sink in. This is the very reason we started doing the Let Me Try That One Again segment. If we all have very different opinions on something, I make a note of it and save it in a shared file for us to take a look at again.
– Yeah, Korpiklaani is Kyle’s go-to hated band. I hadn’t realized that they always get mentioned, but I think you’re totally correct. We may have to amend the rules!
– Thank you for getting that. It went right over my cohost’s heads.
– Don’t worry. I won’t. Though, I’ve been surprising myself on some of the albums we’ve picked for next week. ….not all of them though.
– Yeah, August is BLEAK. We’re going to be rolling out some more “You Asked For It,” “Let Me Try That One Again,” and probably every other segment we’ve ever done in order to get by. The only album I’m looking forward to is Katatonia. Something tells me these next few shows may actually hit that golden 45 minute mark that we NEVER manage to wrap up by.
Fun fact: when we first started planning on doing this show we were worried about not having enough to talk about and our target was to put out a new 30 minute episode every week. We quickly amended that to 45 minutes. ….since then we’ve had exactly one episode come in under that!
Four Thirty. Yeah!