General Chat

In other news, I have been out working on a job for my brother for most of today (unpaid I might add) and this is the first day in fuck knows how many years where I have listened to NO metal music at all!

Here they are:

Two Guardians albums from when I was in the power/symphonic metal zone as a young teen nearly a decade ago. The Stratovarius album is a twilight zone kind of release in which it marks the entrance of their longest-standing current member Timo Kotipelto while also being the last album with drummer Tuomo Lassila, their remaining member from when the band formed in 1984 under the name Black Water. The Trans-Siberian Orchestra album is a classical-music-goes-metal concept album, and I'm sure the title gives away what the story is about.

Sure, Vinny. Here's the updated roster for May, with your name added to The North for June (and swapping yours and Sonny's places in The Pit back to where they were before the original update for May, so sorry about the confusion):

THE FALLEN: SONNY, Vinny

THE GATEWAY: SAXY, Andi

THE GUARDIANS: SONNY, Karl, Andi

THE HORDE: VINNY, Sonny, Karl

THE INFINITE: ANDI, Saxy

THE NORTH: KARL, Vinny, Sonny

THE PIT: VINNY, Sonny

THE REVOLUTION: ANDI

THE SPHERE: ANDI

Having listening to the new Mechina album Bellum Interruptum, I realized the first minute of its opening track sounds practically similar to that of the RichaadEB/Cristina Vee cover of "Bad Apple!!" When that first verse hits, I almost feel like singing "Ever on and on, I continue circling, with nothing but my hate and the carousel of agony..."

I don't think Budgie were ever a metal band, at least they weren't on the releases I've heard from them which equates to the first four full-lengths & 1980's "If Swallowed, Do Not Induce Vomiting" & "Power Supply" records. They did throw in the odd metal track here & there but no more than other artists like Deep Purple, Randy Holden, Flower Travellin' Band, Lucifer's Friend or Sir Lord Baltimore did at the time. None of those one-off metal songs appear on the debut either as it predominantly stays in hard/stoner/blues rock territory throughout. I know I've said it before but I honestly doubt that anyone would talk about Budgie in terms of metal if not for Metallica having covered a number of their songs.

“Information is not knowledge.

Knowledge is not wisdom.

Wisdom is not truth.

Truth is not beauty.

Beauty is not love.

Love is not music.

Music is THE BEST.”

― Frank Zappa

This is one of those cases where an idealist has to have every little thing be perfect without realizing that "evil" itself is based in justifying a low opinion of a whole group by pointing out something they often do that may be perceived as "wrong."  There is no such thing as "perfectly evil" or "perfectly good," thus there's no merit to attacking a persona's musical abilities along with their beliefs in many cases.  He's doing the same thing that Burzum's doing, stereotyping.  Evil keeps placing blame and then justifying cruelty.  And zealousness is a form of cruelty, as it's built on drastically low opinions of people.  The way he's thinking, it's like saying "You can't say Hitler was good at strategy!  He's evil!"  But if he wasn't good at strategy, then he wouldn't have been a major dictator.  Basically, the lie that a person needs to either be good at everything or bad at everything is a disappointment, and I honestly believe people who think like that shouldn't even be allowed to vote...

I would say all of this to this person and then reply with, "and how do I know you don't support something evil?  Did it ever occur to you that someone you support could be doing something evil and hiding it?  Don't tell me you can confirm that none of your favorite artists do that."  Then I would block him.  People like that tend to focus on the last thing said, which will either make this person more mad or plant a seed in the head that might grow larger or both.

We definitely don't need to worry about that now. Seems like RYM is aware of the scene/genre situation and will fix the issue in a later update. Here's what they had to say:

"For the moment Scene and Movement voting is still mixed in with genre voting on this page, even though they are now displayed separately. The voting UI for this will be improved at some point in the future.

"For Scenes and Movements the primary/secondary vote distinction is irrelevant, it is recommended to just vote them up in the Primary section but in the future the voting data for these will likely be combined. Again this is something that will be improved in future site updates."

After revisiting all of the local demos of the 1980's that I used to have in my tape trading collection over the last few months, I've managed to put together a very accurate Top Ten Australian Extreme Metal Releases of the 1980's list that I feel might expose some people to a number of hidden gems because most of this stuff has flown completely under the radar of most international metal freaks. You'll notice that there's not a Mortal Sin record amongst them too which should tell you that there's some high-quality shit here:

01. Persecution - "Tortured Existence" demo (1989) [Death/thrash from Seaford, Victoria]

02. Nomenclature Diablerie - "888" demo (1988) [Sydney death metal]

03. Hobbs Angel of Death - "Angel of Death" demo (1987) [Melbourne thrash metal]

04. Bezerker - "Laugh at the Light" demo (1988) [Adelaide thrash metal]

05. Hobbs Angel of Death - "Virgin Metal Invasion from Down Under" demo (1988) [Melbourne thrash metal]

06. Depression - "Thrash Till Death: Studio Tapes" (1988) [Melbourne crossover thrash]

07. Addictive - "Pity of Man" (1989) [Sydney thrash metal]

08. Depression - "Australia, Australia" E.P. (1985) [Melbourne crossover thrash]

09. Depression - "Ultra Hard Core Mega Heavy Punk Metal Thrash" (1987) [Melbourne crossover thrash/hardcore punk]

10. Hobbs Angel of Death - "Hobbs Angel of Death" (1988) [Melbourne thrash metal]

Fuck Yes! Cheers!

This is extraordinarily difficult for me to find.  The only band of this example with more four albums that I can think of is Boston, and they aren't even metal.  Yes, each one did get gradually worse, and they only have six.

The music fuckin' kills it too:

It's not a perfect process, but then there really isn't one. It's the one that I enjoy using and feel happiest with the results.

That's the only thing that matters.

I think the Ulcerate, Oranssi Pazuzu & Knocked Loose records were kinda no-brainers. I'm skeptical about the Critical Defiance one's claims but at the end of the day it comes down to how much the entire site has enjoyed a release which is always going to favour the more well-known artists.

Daniel, I love you brother, but we look at the genre in very different ways. The good news is there is room for both points of view.

I know I said I didn't know if any of the novels I read capture the metal spirit, but they do now! I was reading this graphic novel adaptation of Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith:

While listening to all the industrial/cyber metal tracks I've shared in this page of the Sphere Track of the Day thread: https://metal.academy/forum/15/thread/193?page=9

Star Wars can really capture my cyber metal spirit. I guess the most suitable metal genre for Star Wars would be Mechina-style epic symphonic progressive cyber metal.

Idea I've had for a minute. Spotify has a jam feature that lets you start playing music then other people can come in and add theirs. I see potentional in it for this site. It might be sloppy at first, but only way to refine it is to do it. 

So...

If you got nothing better to do hop in here, and put your tracks in: 
Spotify Jam 01.21.25 12:50 EST

I'm gonna try to have this up for the day, so jump in even if it's been a long time since it started.

I don't think that rotating all nine clans will appeal to some, certainly not Andi, but I do think there is a lot to be said for rotating the three clans I am going to be running, giving a new playlist every three months for each clan and I think I may go with that. I will still try to get all three out for 1st February, then rotate them on a monthly basis thereafter. I will think on it and then repost the details in the specific clan list suggestions threads.

In no particular order:

Motorhead - Overkill

Slayer - Raining Blood

Darkthrone - In the Shadow of the Horns

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

Diamond Head - Am I Evil?

Iron Maiden - Phantom of the Opera

Autopsy - In the Grip of Winter

Jurassic metal.  Sounds like a doom sludge hybrid with apocalyptic classical undertones and deep reptilian growls.  I like the idea.

This year I'm going to try not to sleep on new releases and aim to do 52 new releases this year. It's a drop in the bucket of course, but at least it's a drop compared to the very little I've had the past few years.

I really don't need to worry about the things most people do resolutions for since, well, I already do most of them. One could always do better on them, but something like getting fitter or learning a new language don't really have concrete endgoals. I guess get better at guitar, but that's something I've been slowly working on for a few months. I guess sticking to these things requires you not just do them because it's a new year...

I thought I would start this thread for general chatter about the Metal Academy charts. I don't know if this will be of interest to anyone else, but it's the sort of shit that I get to thinking about sometimes!

I thought it might be interesting to track the charts over time to try to gauge how The Academy is developing. To this end I have made archiving lists for the Top 100 with a minimum of 15 votes and the Top 50 with a minimum of 20 votes as of 1st January 2025 and hope to use these for comparison with future charts to track any changes and trends. 

Links to the lists:

Metal Academy Charts Top 50 With 20+ Ratings 01/01/25

Metal Academy Charts Top 100 with 15+ Ratings 01/01/25

The top 100 chart as an even spread of clan representatives for 6 of the 9 clans although the Gateway and Revolution on 2 each and the Sphere with a lone representative are lagging, quite expectedly I suppose. The others rank as:

Horde & Pit - 20 each

Guardians - 19

Infinite - 18

North - 17

Fallen - 15

(This adds up to more than 100 due to dual-tagged releases)

There are a total of 173 releases with 15+ ratings. 21 releases scored a higher site rating than clan rating.

There is a larger gap, percentage-wise on the Top 50 chart. The Gateway still has 2 representatives and the Sphere one, but The Revolution has no representation at all.

The others rank as:

Infinite - 15

Pit - 13

Guardians - 11

North - 10

Horde - 8

Fallen - 6

So a big drop-off for the Horde between 15 and 20 ratings.

There are 63 releases with 20+ votes.

I think the only major change is how much power metal played into writing my debut.  My second book had nothing to do with power metal, but as I was proofreading the final stages, I played Type O Negative's Paranoid a lot.

I think in little ways, the clan system got me interested in exploring other areas for conversational purposes, which is likely why I like TON so much now, as well as Septicflesh.

Just watched these videos and, sadly, I'm not really that surprised. So many people on social media wish to project an image of themselves that is duplicitous, why wouldn't it infect the extreme metal world too? Like the guys on the videos say, it's not that the drummers in question are poor musicians in the first place - I wish I was one tenth as talented - but society demands perfection whether in looks or ability, so dishonesty has become the norm. 95% is no longer good enough, 101% is the minimum requirement now that everyone is under the microscope. 

What is really sad is that knowing they are being duplicitous must have a detrimental effect on their esteem and mental well-being.

So I'm on the power metal Reddit, browsing through my various subreddits for something to do.  There's a discussion on Gloryhammer called, "Am I the only one who thinks Gloryhammer doesn’t actually embrace the 'cheese?'"  Part of the conversation pertains to Gloryhammer's later album.  My response to one guy criticizing the overall post, saying that it looks like the OP's trying to say that the older albums are better.  I reply to him saying:

"I do agree that the new album doesn't hold a candle to the first three (of course I've heard asstons of power metal so by this point it should come across as fairly unoriginal), but they know what they want to be. Bowes has always been a joker. Ever hear his original experimental stuff? Yikes. On top of that, they originally stole the logo font for the Dark Crystal for their own logo, and jagged it up (probably to avoid a lawsuit IMO). They know what they are, and they know who they want to be."

Apparently, the guy I replied to was Christopher Bowes.  And instead of letting this embarrass me, I'm gonna own this bit like a good bar story, because that's actually a hilarious and very cool thing that happened in my boring-ass life.

Got to see Blood Incantation recently, fantastic show with incredible sound compared to what I'm used to out of this venue. Either the band is very picky with their live setup, or they have a stellar sound guy who goes to bat against the venue sound guys. They legit walked onto the stage, played "The Stargate" in its entirety, got up on the mic and said "Alright here's the rest of the album", played "The Message" in its entirety, and said "Well guys that was our new album I hope you enjoyed it". Absolute legends. 

I never realized how much the crowd needs those 30 second or a minute breaks in between songs though, this was the most tired pit I've ever been around. People were STRUGGLING, given they played three 20 minute songs in total I think? 

This was easily one of the best, if not the best, technical Metal performances I've seen, the entire album was stellar and the Metal parts hit so much harder live than on the album that it made the conflicting 70's prog vs the tech death metal that much more enjoyable. It's definitely reinforced Absolute Elsewhere as a massive album for me personally, these guys know what they're doing.