Just saw the Eagles of Death Metal open for Mastodon. You'd think that sounds like an awesome show. But EoDM was simply annoying, and I realized I never really liked Mastodon. Honestly, I liked loud noise as music when it had a point other than simply making loud noise. Mastodon is very good at what they do, but let's face it, my artistic appreciation for what they do is rooted in the fact that they create art. Beyond that, they're just a collection of pop hooks played at excessive volume without any discernible artistic relationship beyond, "Is it heavy? I think that's heavy." (sigh) Yeah, that's me getting old. I remember when heavy had a point. Of course, maybe we can blame this on the audience; I wasn't told until after I was already into the show that the price was putting an app on my iPhone. Such disasters damage family relations; I don't expect I'll ever trust my own brother after this. There were all of three things he told me tonight, and not a single one of them was true. In the end, tonight was not about hanging out with friends, it was about getting me to download someone else's app. Tragic as it is, EoDM and Mastodon will pay a price, too, as theirs are the names associated with this debacle. That their shows score well over nine out of ten for technical merit is what it is, and means exactly nothing. The experience was as fucking rotten as anything else. So, you know, don't do that to your friends. It changes everything when they catch on to what a sick fucking con you are. Honestly, family relations will survive. But I'm certainly done trying to convince myself to like EoDM or Mastodon for their musical merit.
i wonder if heavy with age is more about using the scalpel rather than the chainsaw. while young it seems funny to watch or use a chainsaw on something that requires a scalpel, but as age comes, 'expereince'... and the knowledge of what is eternally lost every time you use a chainsaw when you could have used a scalpel instead... and with greater efficiency comes greater learning opportunity and more time & availibility to expereince greater things... heavy can be fun, but its the cocaine of emotions. use it too long and it will ruin your life, assuming you survive long enough to enjoy what ever it is you have created that is fastened to the immovable object of "heavy".
It could simply be the fact that in 2018, in terms of Metal, nothing even comes close to Panopticon's The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness (Parts 1 and 2):
