At the Speed of Grind
We have some long-awaited follow-ups this week! Well, we haven’t been really been “waiting” for two of them, but Brian has been anxiously waiting almost five freakin’ years for the third. The question we are here to answer, though, is, “Are any of them worth the wait?”
Reviews:
Fallujah – Undying Light (Nuclear Blast)
Misery Index – Rituals of Power (Season of Mist)
Noisem – Cease to Exist (20 Buck Spin)
The Sideshow Podcast 
I would certainly call myself a fan of Fallujah (though not a huge fan), but all the negative reviews have led me to skip their latest album Undying Light.
Thanks for recommending Prokopton by Aephanemer on Instagram. I’m enjoying the heck out of this album. I usually enjoy more contrast in my music, but Prokopton has a steady driving tempo to the whole album from start to finish that I find really energizing. I have several thoughts/comments/questions on this album.
First is that since Brian recommended it on Instagram, I’m assuming that you are not going to review it on the show. Did you think Nick wouldn’t like it? I can totally foresee this album showing up somewhere on a year end list, as I’d be hard pressed to think that 20 albums can top Prokopton in 2019. So since Brian is clearly listening to more albums than are being reviewed on the podcast, it begs the question if those additional albums can/will appear on a year end list. As I think about it, I can’t see how it couldn’t.
Aephanemer stole the main riff of the second half of the song “Bloodline” from “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Savatage, who stole it from Edvard Grieg.
Another note about Aephanemer is that the metal archives lists their most similar artist as Kalmah. I know that you guys have listened to some of Kalmah’s albums, but I have not. Is this what I’ve been missing?
Ya know, that is a very good question we have not addressed yet. Our cursory thought is that if it released in 2019 AND Nick went back to check it outlaw e can count it. If we don’t include that latter half, our Year End list will be a shitshow. And no, I didn’t think Nick wouldn’t like it. It is just that we are going to have a hard enough time doing timely reviews of albums we want to cover, and I have more time to go check out other things, so I am sharing the best of those findings on Instagram. it also gets me using social media a tad more.
Kalmah has similar driving tempos and guitar work, but they don’t have the symphonic element. There are some keyboards, but they are not used in the same fashion. I enjoy Kalmah and think they are very under appreciated. We both liked album ‘Palo’, but maybe listen to ‘The Black Waltz’ first if you wanna give them a shot.