The Common Grackle is anything but common. When I see a yard full of grackles, I know for sure the seasons are surely changing: winter to spring, fall to winter. An augury I've followed all my life. Yesterday I watched a field of them singing - a sure sign of spring. 💚 #FolkloreSunday #augury

We should have stopped
and heeded the foreboding
#augury prophesies
of the ancient sages

Not to mention
the skulls and bones
that littered the way
were a telling indication
that doom awaited
those foolish enough to traverse
this hazardous path
we could have easily bypassed
if we weren't so damn arrogant

#fromoneline #vss365 #poetry #poem

The Ancient Order of #Augury Oracles
convenes monthly in the basement
of a New Jersey Bakery
to discuss old and new business

All the latest soothsayer craft upgrades
are demonstrated regularly
with an eye toward practical application
in a world where knowledge
of tomorrow is power

#vss365 #poetry #amwriting

Lessons in #B2B #Sales from The #Illiad

#Divination #Augury #SacrificesToTheGods #Death #Classics #Fate #Destiny #Homer #Fatalism #BronzeAge
https://youtu.be/GLNe7Z-rQAA

#TheMetalDogArticleList
#BraveWords
MERFOLK (One Man Band From AUGURY’s Patrick Loisel) Unleashes “Castaways” Video From Sundaland Album

https://bravewords.com/news/merfolk-one-man-band-from-augurys-patrick-loisel-unleashes-castaways-video-from-sundaland-album/

#MERFOLK #AUGURY #OneManBandFrom #PatrickLoisel #album #video #BraveWords #metal #music

A lot of religious practices seem kind of silly, but taking the auspices makes sense. #Birds are hyper aware, and they are in such a great position to observe us, they clearly know what's going on.

#fortuneTelling #augury #birdwatching

And this is the saved image foretelling the crow art id get on that date 3 years later from June 15, 2019.... #augury

Oracle Of The Ocean is available tomorrow! There is only one of this handmade deck, so put it on your calendar! Tuesday, May 13th, 8am Central Time (9am Eastern, 6am Pacific) Available only on Etsy (link in bio). Raising money for coral reef restoration through @coralgardeners 🐚🌊🧜‍♀️🩵🪸🫧 #OceanLover #Seashells #Conchomancy #Ornithomancy #Augury #FeatherAugury #OceanMeditation #Cartomancy #Divination #OracleDeck #IndieDeck #SacredWater #OracleOfTheOcean #OceanConservation #GulfOfMexico #HandMade

Unboxing “Oracle Of The Ocean” with @KamilleWalksWithSpirits7 🐚🌊🩵🪸🧜‍♀️🫧
https://youtu.be/MtTM-VtRCuQ #OceanLover #Seashells #Conchomancy #Ornithomancy #Augury #FeatherAugury #OceanMeditation #Cartomancy #Divination #OracleDeck #IndieDeck #SacredWater #OracleOfTheOcean #OceanConservation #GulfOfMexico #Florida #HandMade #MadeByHand #HandMadePaper #RecycledPaper #CoralReefRestoration #ArtReveal #BeachVibes #OceanGoddess #WaterGoddess #Yemaya #MamiWata #LaSiren #MermaidVibes #MermaidEnergy

The most common auguries in ancient Rome were predicting the future through birds. Oscines (ravens, crows, owls, hens) gave auspices via their singing while alites (eagles, vultures) gave auspices via their flying. The black woodpecker was both an oscine and an alite.
🎨 Jacques Grasset de Saint Sauveur

#WyrdWednesday #Mythology #ClassicalMythology #RomanMythology #Folklore #ClassicalFolklore #RomanFolklore #Rome #Augury #Divination #Occult #Bird

#OceanLover #Seashells #Conchomancy #Ornithomancy #Augury #FeatherAugury #OceanMeditation #Cartomancy #Divination #OracleDeck #IndieDeck #SacredWater #OracleOfTheOcean #OceanConservation #GulfOfMexico #Florida #HandMade #MadeByHand #HandMadePaper #RecycledPaper #CoralReefRestoration #ArtReveal #BeachVibes #OceanGoddess #WaterGoddess #Yemaya #MamiWata #LaSiren #MermaidVibes #MermaidEnergy

Remember that hand made recycled paper project that I was working on a few weeks ago? Well, it’s finally complete and I can’t wait for you to see! This is a really special project that was whispered to me by the sea. It is sacred and whimsical and I don’t think there’s anything like it in existence. Check back in tomorrow for the big reveal! 🐚 🌊🩵💕 #OceanLover #Seashells #Conchomancy #Ornithomancy #Augury #FeatherAugury #OceanMeditation #Cartomancy #Divination #OracleDeck #IndieDeck #SacredWater

A few weeks ago I got to sit and be still in this beautiful place. As I mediated by the water, a realization came to me. I’ve been working on it every day since. I can’t wait to show you when it’s done! New work reveal coming soon! 🧜‍♀️ 🐚 🩵🌊 #OceanLover #Seashells #conchomancy #Ornithomancy #Augury #FeatherAugury #OceanMeditation #Cartomancy #Divination #OracleDeck #IndieDeck #SacredWater #OracleOfTheOcean #OceanConservation #GulfOfMexico #Florida #HandMade #MadeByHand #WorkInProgress #WIP

My husband & I delight every year when the incredible Swallow Tailed Kites begin to soar over our neighborhood! These pernine raptors are so beautiful! Very rarely will you ever see them flap their wings - instead, they soar on the wind currents! Always a wonderful augury! #FolkWitch #Augury

Frogg – Eclipse Review

By Dolphin Whisperer

It’s a bird! It’s a plane? No! It’s a Frogg! Hailing from the festering urban sprawl of New York City, the upstart amphibian clan skews modern in influence and modernER in attack. Pulling the rip to progressive twist of Between the Buried and Me with the focus of tight structures and virtuosic play, Eclipse as a debut full-length, spins scales and riffs in only the way that a driven tech death band can. In this day and age, of course, tech alone can’t make the only splash. But something’s in the water where Frogg dwells, something laced with all the fidgeting whirr and tongue-out gambol for which a thirsting prog fan could ask.

In sweeping flair and uptempo character, Eclipse displays a corona of youthful exuberance around its core of high-practice death metal. Death metal via aggressive, riff-based drives and scratchy, barked vocals anyway—Frogg does not play the straight and skanky vomitous mosh tunes of olde. Rather, the swamp that Frogg inhabits spews a funk that curls senses around the Cynic-enabled rumblings of Augury or the ever-flowing melody of prime Neuraxis. And though the sounds of heavy chord chugs (“Life Zero”) and tricky-picked sweeps (“Interspecific Hybrid Species”) exist along that thought pattern, in bursts of individuality Frogg tears in equal abandon from ethereal jazz fusion (“Walpurgisnacht”) and metalcore-coded guitar fury (“Double Vision Roll”). Ambient long enough to let its gasping audience realign for another round of progressive tumbling, Eclipse barrels from jumping jack percussive runs to full layout fretboard gymnastics to chirping keys alerts all in a steady and vigorous breath.

Dense and meticulous, and through a love of screeching guitar histrionics and high-spirit guitar and synth work, the splatter of Frogg’s patchwork renders clear as a Klimt through virgin eyes. Despite the seeming excess, founding mind (and primary throat) Sky Moon Clark (The Mantle) and Brett Fairchild, while displaying their talent for hyperspeed, harmonized arpeggio runs (“Dandelion,” “Wake Up,” “Interspecific…”), maintain firm drops back into developed melodies and shrill inclusions—squabbling whammy flutters, clanging pick rakes, harmonic pings—to attach madness to memory. Wearing a strong relative compression,1 layers upon layers of these dancing guitar melodies stack atop pummeling kick runs and sputters, and lockstep counterpoint bass runs,2 to construct a shifting, shuffling mass of amplified chatter that never loses momentum. And with breaks both into hand-percussion and piano-led dance moments (“Walpurgisnacht,” “Wake Up,” “Sun Stealer”), full-blown mosh bridges (“Life Zero,” “Omni Trigger”), and guitar hero antics, keeping the feet and neck and fingers still throughout Eclipse is no easy task.

Though the tech lineage waves proudly in every Frogg leap, an attachment to human touches in production keeps Eclipse from feeling like another sterile outing in the crowded genre. It caught me by surprise the first time I heard “Dandelion,” Its introductory tap-sweep bustling with a clacking dryness that exposed its slight imperfections while creating an allure of reckless speed and challenge. Many look to technical expressions of metal to be effortless, but this particular patina about Frogg’s escalating scale runs, which swirls through screaming, bent peaks and note-stuffed solo explosions, transforms the feeling of étude into an extemporaneous romp. In this playful platform, Pat Metheny-imbued guitar whimsy can crash against glitching djentisms to gentle resolve (“Interspecific…”) or even force an end-of-range guitar squeak to take center stage after an exercise of finger envy (“Sun Stealer”). Boisterous might be the default loudness setting for this kind of saturated work, but in Frogg’s and seasoned engineer Jamie King‘s hands, Eclipse finds wrinkles along its dialed lines.

Yet, Eclipse isn’t perfect. Its extreme dedication to complex construction will pose an issue to the unprepared—digesting this kind of technicality-positioned music is never effortless. The volume of riffage, the speed of every rollicking bar, the force of every abundant fill present loaded and crooked in smile, though the shorter-form execution lowers the threshold for repeated exposure. In a rose-colored vision of what progressive death metal can be, Frogg finds a freedom in fanciful melody, brief poppy breaks, and unrestrained (but not all encompassing) musical showmanship. And if a debut can unwrap as fresh as Eclipse does, Frogg may very well find the world entrapped in their sticky wiles.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self Release
Websites: froggofficial.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/froggband | tiktok.com/@froggband3
Releases Worldwide: March 7th, 2025

#2025 #35 #AmericanMetal #Augury #BetweenTheBuriedAndMe #Cynic #Eclipse #Frogg #IndependentRelease #Mar25 #Neuraxis #PatMetheny #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveMetal #ProgressiveMetalcore #Review #Reviews #SelfRelease #TechnicalDeathMetal

I found a birdie out walking today. A sign, perhaps? #augury

Misanthropy – The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance Review

By Kenstrosity

Apparently, Chicago progressive tech death quartet Misanthropy used to play thrash metal. Once I learned of this shift, it felt like I could suddenly hear a thrashy thread running through their newest release, The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance. Having no prior experience with Misanthropy’s back catalog, I walked into their third record with an open mind, ready and willing to be probed by the wild and the wacky. Sometimes, unexpected changes make for unexpected pleasures.

You’d be forgiven for mistakenly clocking Misanthropy as boilerplate tech death based solely on outward appearances. You’d nonetheless be incorrect. For the longest time, I struggled to nail down exactly what amalgamation of sounds and styles Misanthropy represented. But then I started writing this piece and it hit me. Imagine a dirtier Augury fed through an Atrae Bilis filter and finished with a proggy Atvm glaze, and you have a roughly accurate blueprint of what to expect from current Misanthropy. Twisting, gnarled compositions, motivated by Paul’s multifaceted kitwork, mesh and morph against guitarists Kevin’s and Jose Valles’ unending cavalcade of mind-shredding riffs. Mark’s burbling bass and vicious vox form both the throbbing underbelly and the piercing voice of the record, propelling The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance through its forty-five-minute tale with gusto and gravity. In totality, The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance represents a fierce and furious affair. Yet, countless stops and swaps between blistering grooves, manic freakouts, mind-melting churns, and ground-shaking stomps leave me mostly rapt throughout.

Highlighting standout moments on The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance proves a challenge, as Misanthropy penned so many killer passages into these seven songs that it’s hard to pick favorites. Even so, massive pit-opening grooves and slithering riffs elevate thrashier songs like “The All-Devouring” to the top of the pile. An eerie, waltzing dalliance with jazz rhythms allows opener “Of Sulking and the Wrathful” to shine in its back half as well, showcasing Misanthropy’s knack for oddball transitions that work deceivingly well in the context of their chosen style. At first I struggled to appreciate “Condemned to a Nameless Tomb” and “Descent” for their unorthodox combination of Veilburner stream-of-consciousness writing and Artificial Brain shimmer, but with time I grew to appreciate their place in the lineup as the next-door-neighbor monstrosities that they are. Unafraid to get down and dirty, “Sepulcher” offers just the right amount of funky Alkaloid intelligence to offset filthy Incantation tones and harmonized riffing, expertly juggling straightforward and slimy with weird and wretched.

Impressive though it is that Misanthropy managed to cover so much stylistic ground without sullying their unique new character, The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance remains a touch disjointed as a whole. Tonally, Misanthropy play fearlessly with rough-hewn textures inside a more clinical environment, but there are moments of mild uncanny valley associated with that experiment, as certain elements of Misanthropy’s flexible sound clash rather than coalesce (“A Cure for the Pestilence”). Misanthropy’s willingness and ability to throw everything but the kitchen sink at their compositions without totally destabilizing everything deserves great respect, but it sometimes comes at the cost of fluidity and cohesion (“Consumed by the Abyss”). This, therefore, makes certain sections of The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance somewhat difficult to listen to casually, as I often lose details or miss quality segments when not listening intently. Additionally, the occasional abrupt switch between unexpected change-ups make already lengthy tracks (most soar past the six minute mark) feel even lengthier.

Thankfully, listening intently is quite literally my job here, and I spend lots of time with my charges. Consequently, I can assure you that The Ever-Crushing Weight of Stagnance represents yet another killer in Transcending Obscurity’s lineup of crazy beasts. It may not be everyone’s favorite creature, but if you aren’t careful, it’s liable to sink its teeth into your flesh and rend it from the bone regardless. Some, if not most, of you would probably love that, I’m sure. If so, Misanthropy’s third unleashment is a fine selection for your sick kicks.

Rating: Very Good
DR: 5 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s mp3
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Websites: misanthropychicago.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/MisanthropyChicago
Releases Worldwide: December 13th, 2024

#2024 #35 #Alkaloid #AmericanMetal #ArtificialBrain #AtraeBilis #Atvm #Augury #DeathMetal #Dec24 #Incantation #Misanthropy #ProgressiveDeathMetal #ProgressiveMetal #Review #Reviews #TechnicalDeathMetal #TheEverCrushingWeightOfStagnance #TranscendingObscurityRecords #Veilburner

Top ten (new) posts in October 2024

https://library.hrmtc.com/2024/11/01/top-ten-new-posts-in-october-2024/