| 2016-07-22 | 1 | Anno Domini | "Inner Dimensions" | The Cold Expanse | I basically believe that it is always a great time for music, because music is the thing humans are best at, and there are still humans. But this is a better time for music than ever because the tools for finding music are evolving at an unprecedented rate into previously impossible forms. To find new metal I used to read a bunch of magazines and carry long laser-printed itemizations of my curiosity with me to record stores to refer to while I slowly flipped through bins full of shrinkwrap-silenced plastic. If I found anything it was a good week. Now I have internal tools at Spotify that feed me new music at essentially any rate I can tolerate. And, more astoundingly, can even feed me highly-specific subsets of new music at effectively the same arbitrary rate. I would never have known about this Australian symphonic metal band in the pre-streaming era. I've been an obsessive metal fan on and off for more than 30 years and I'm not sure I knew of an Australian "metal" band other than AC/DC. |