2010-02-03 Since last week, many strange events have kept our writers busy handling their heavy duties. The strangest of all, let's face it, must have been when AGM gathered its crew on to conquer YOUTUBE! No, you're not going blind, avantgarde-metal.com can now be found on youtube.com, where the most AGM videos we can discover will be displayed. If you find something missing on our otherwordly channel, never hesitate to tell us about it on the forum or directly to our writers! This is a project we strongly believe in. We want to present the most thorough cybernetic AGM Video Club online, which will be specifically dedicated to the bizarre and cinematic experiments in relation with Avant-Garde Metal music. Join us on our quest! Back to business, we also have a great, multi-forms slice of reviews to share with you today. What is it that we're hearing, uh? "You can't listen to this noise!" "This is no music any longer!" "That album is no fun, it just hurts!" – Well, our writer Thor got used to arguments like these while talking with friends and metal bro's about SHINING's fourth album Black Jazz. When noticing the "professional" German metal media's reactions on this marvellous album, he felt the urge to answer back. And we're glad he did! After three days living exclusively under the Ancient Celtic code of mental behavior, underground traveller Adam McAuley has not only reached new esoteric planes of existence with PRIMORDIAL's 2005 album, The Gathering Wilderness, but he has gently reviewed his experience for us. Finally, his critical sarcasm zoomed on to the recent and quite over-hyped documentary on Norwegian Black metal, Until The Light Takes Us, radical freelance writer James Slone brings his grain of salt to an otherwise rather popular plate. Go on for a voyage among the highways to visual and hearing expansion...

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2010-01-27 It seems like we never stop discovering new pearls among the weekly junk. This time around, we have decided to serve you another plate full of new AGM space mutants. A few weeks ago, programming Spanish overlord Adryuu gently informed you about FLUORYNE, this new, expressionist quintet from Germany, a band he got so interested in that he now has a mind-revealing interview with mastermind Falk for you to enjoy. Simon Brand, forever faithful to his sniffing nose, kept his eyes wide open to witness the wordly fall of icons, which under the influence of he suddenly felt like he had to investigate further into the latest IKUINEN KAAMOS - the first 2010 album, by the way, to be featured on our website. Last but not least, as there's not much snow left in his living area, for three nights in a row Oliver Side literally believed that summertime was back in town, so only wearing bermudas he pulled out his BEYOND THE VAULT series, went subconscious and ended up in an emergency room, almost completely frozen to death, where he managed, against his nurse's controlling insistence, to write the blueprints for this article. The series has never been reviewed before anywhere online so this is a rather exclusive offering. Keep the Weirdness Out of Tune...

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2010-01-20 Once again, another special update is on its way towards you! It's getting harder every year to discover newcomers in the AGM scene who do not simply sound like newcomers. As it is, even the AGM scene is becoming full of traps one has to avoid in order to move further from the genre's clichés. So Oliver Side was very determined to get in touch with ORANSSI PAZUZU from Finland, a fresh new AGM band only busy doing their own thing. First off, he did interview them and then felt like he definitely had to review Muukalainen Puhuu, their first album from 2009. We hope you will enjoy this most alien entity! Also, continuing the tradition established between agm.com and metal.de, Tentakel P. was equally enchanted by GRUENEWALD's II as Thor, and as he found nothing else to add to Mr. Wanzek's praise of the album on metal.de, he limited himself to translate it. Finally, to put a dreamy end to this week's dream sequence, Simon Brand traveled to an Electro Jazz Metal dimension made of structured diamonds and odd timings to review CANVAS SOLARIS' last tornado-album from 2008, The Atomized Dream. Until next week, try pushing yourself beyond the limits of humanity.

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2010-01-13 Still relaxing from the many hours of work which went into the most popular POLL in the history of agm.com, we come back stronger than ever with a very special Wednesday's delivery. To begin things with, Adam Matlock is back from the grave with a fresh new interview with Japanese gentleman Mirai from SIGH. Needless to say, we are very excited to feature such an important band for the avant-garde fields of metal music. Come find out about their upcoming deranged album, Scenes from Hell. Long live Japan! We also have new reviews for you to enjoy. Spending his darkest hours under the Spanish snow falling, Adryuu tells a chronicle of a Black Old Journey he regularly takes still nowadays accompanied by BLACKDRONE INC., an international formation originating from Cesena, Italy. While his last few months were close to comatose sleep and depression, Oliver Side could barely hold a pencil when he discovered LUUSIFERIININ ARMOSTA, the band which literally saved his life and got him back on track, at least until his next visit to the local asylum. Open your nimble ears to what frightens you!

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2010-01-06 Ladies and Gentlemen, not only a year has passed, but also a whole decade. So today we present you the BIGGEST AVANT-GARDE METAL POLL EVER. Thanks a lot to all the participants. You did a great choice. This day is fully dedicated to YOUR favourite bands and YOUR favourite albums. Enjoy what moved you most during the past year as well as during the past decade. Never stop the Freak Show...

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2009-12-30 LAST CALL FOR VOTES! The annual agm polls will close this Saturday. Drop your vote and help deciding about the highlights of the year, the decade and the eternity! Today we have the joy to introduce a very promising agm newcomer to you: Adryuu falls deep into a German Expressionist landscape turned to black metal, courtesy of FLUORYNE. We are also happy to welcome back our old fellow: David, formerly known as Trident, returns from a year long journey without music and sees the future of metal music in DARK AGE’s new masterpiece! Suleiman enlights his rocket pipe for HYPNOSIS. Kevin jumps beyond the border for HAYLEY JANE. In reaction to Dr. Liguano's top-notch journalistic coverage of Metallica's discography, Oliver Side answers with an appreciation of the first, second, third and fourth Megadeth albums, which he considers to be their magnum opuses. Indeed, Mr. Side favours Megadeth over Metallica. Is this the starting point to a new rivalry between two of our writers? How suspenseful!

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2009-12-23 LIGNANO IS DOCTOR! Mr. Jonny Lignano, one of our most foremost writers, celebrated his University promotion last Saturday. Now you have to call him "Dr. rer. soc. oec. Jonny Lignano” or simply "Dr. Lignano”. So it’s time for a big reading party. Tonight the Doctor himself shares his overwhelming scientific intellect with us: ”Jingle Hells”, "Merry Antichristmas”, skull Angels and Christmas trees with pentagrams and inverted crosses – this is what you would have found here if Lignano was a normal metalhead writing for a normal metal magazine. But he isn’t. Instead, as exquisite Christmas presents, he brings you two contemplative specials with all in all 14 (!!!) new articles! In the first special he introduces a legend of countertenor avant-garde pop to you: (Santa) KLAUS NOMI. And in the second special he deeply investigates the life work of METALLICA (as deep as it can get...). Enjoy this trip beyond the border. And don’t forget to send Dr. Lignano your salutes & congratulations!

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2009-12-16 With snow flakes dancing in the wind and J-Christ's death rebirth process getting closer every day, we think it's the right time to once more bring you some fine instances of AGM lunacy. That's why we have four new reviews to feed your outborn souls with, hoping to keep your hunger for the AB-NORMAL worlds of Metal music quite fully satiated. Also we want to remind you to keep participating to our READER's 2009 POLL! Out of the blackest of cosmic black holes, poet aVoid follows JHVH into the dark cellars of the soul, where everything is turned backwards. On her return from Nowhere Zero, veteran Jobst regressed back in 2001 to unfold the great mysteries of ENSLAVED's classic album Monumension. Then the Troll of Thor, due to his most recent transhuman mutations (which we didn't quite expect, to put it bluntly), encountered the strange vellum-bound bones creature and/or spectre of the new BERGRAVEN album. As if that wasn't enough, Tentakel P. checked out the New Kids avant the Block, NEBELKRÄHE, and tell us why we should keep an eye or two on them. Don't be afraid, it's not going to hurt you - or is it? Snow flake picture © David Goering.

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2009-12-09 Ladies and Gentleman, once again another year has nearly passed. This ripes the time for our ANNUAL READER’S POLL – YOUR AGM HEROES OF THE YEAR. Not only 2009 has nearly passed, but also a huge decade full of information, a decade that turned our lives into screens – the ”Twothousandzeros”. So this year we are not only searching for YOUR TOP 5 AGM ALBUMS 2009. We are also looking for YOUR TOP 10 AGM ALBUMS OF THE DECADE 2000 – 2009 and, to complete the trinity, for YOUR TOP 10 ALLTIME AGM BANDS. Click the banner above to read more about it. Of course you can also find some exquisite reviews this week: aVoid goes for a walk in the dark parks of life, until he finally reaches a Crossroad. Then nothing is left in him but confusion and despair, which he kind of likes, though. Simon dances Sitaki in a Zorro costume with ZORRAS. Our friend Ulv returns from the wild south with PROD. And Kevin dompteurs MY FLEA CIRCUS.

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2009-12-02 Now that we're calming down from the huge Ulver update we have published last week (thanks for your great comments!), it is time to relax with another well-known Norwegian band among the AGM circles, BEYOND DAWN. If there ever was an ex-metal band paving the way for the post-metal regions, that was it. In fact, Oliver Side got in touch with their guitarist and singer, Espen Ingierd, who also happens to be the mastermind behind TWO TRAINS, another great band, to dive into his mostly secret history as a musician and also to know a bit more about his current and future activities. For those of you who are going to read the interview with Espen, there is a VERY SPECIAL treasure to download somewhere along the way. Find it yourself! We also have three reviews by three different writers: James Slone explored BEYOND DAWN's 1999 classic album, "Electric Sulking Machine", Suleiman worked his way into the new RED SHYFT album, and finally Adryuu shared a trip with a most underground agm album by KARABOUDJAN. Unlock the Uncommon Doors of Perception...

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