General Chat

The automated bots don't succeed in actually creating an account here as it would have to select clans during the process. We've only ever had a small amount of successful fake users created and I'm convinced it's done manually (as in a person actually bothered the manually create the account for the purpose). Anyway, I've deleted the user and review. It just takes a bit to disappear off the front page.

Thanks Ben. Once more your dedication is admirable.

Bummer! Get well soon, all.

Update for September:

THE FALLEN: SONNY, Vinny

THE GATEWAY: SAXY, Andi

THE GUARDIANS: KARL, Andi, Sonny

THE HORDE: SONNY, Karl, Vinny

THE INFINITE: ANDI, Saxy

THE NORTH: VINNY, Sonny, Karl

THE PIT: VINNY, Sonny

THE REVOLUTION: ANDI

THE SPHERE: ANDI

Original Iron Maiden & eventual More front man Paul Mario Day has died at the age of 69.

Hmm, I didn't notice that, I'll have to see if I think that when the next one comes around. Cornell sounds more like Robert Plant to me, albeit with a grunge tint, whereas Tice didn't really remind me much of anyone.

A couple more of my favorite metal YouTubers I've been watching lately include Steve Terreberry (definitely in the "funny" category) and Jared Dines. For the latter, Jared hosted a contest for vocalists to write their own chorus to perform for a song he wrote for his project with Howard Jones (ex-Killswitch Engage, Light the Torch), Sion. The winner would have their chorus added to the final product. NO, I didn't participate. I may be good at clean/harsh vocals, but I'm so not ready for the spotlight. Still I had a blast listening to around 150 vocalists sing and scream their hearts out. However, that's not all of them. It's only around 5% of the total, because Jared had actually received 3000 ENTRIES!!! Wow! This proves that there are still so many vocalists with confident passion this year besides the professionals out there. And it might just be the biggest metal vocalist contest in YouTube history! Anyway, the contest is over, and while the winner has gotten what he earned, we can still appreciate what other people have submitted, 100 of whom can be found in this video (quite a long one, so you don't have to watch it all if it's too much):

Here's a list of all the singers I enjoy from that video (consider this a list of who I would recommend listening to if you can't sit through the whole thing):

1:23 JOHHNY CIARDULLO (known for his Lorna Shore clean-sung covers, I enjoy his melody towards the end)

3:18 SPENCER (DAMAGEJOY) (quite some killer vocals here)

5:07 SAM POWER

6:22 ZSANI

7:36 MARIJE

8:51 HEAVY HOLDEN

9:31 YULIYA

11:32 DRYSTAN BARNETT (some of the most natural vocals here)

12:45 LAUREN

15:20 BENNY MARSON KHONGWIR (from delicate air to deathly fire)

17:32 SPRING HOLLOW

18:10 KURT WONDRELY

18:47 KOTTI (despite not winning, he had some potential)

19:23 LINUS

23:50 DANNY CHAVIS

27:03 NICOLAS GONZALEZ

30:05 JEREMY GRAHAM (such an impressive vocal range)

33:43 DAN ROHDE (Bring Your Pet Dog to a Vocal Contest Day)

39:27 MATTEO MAGAZZINI

42:26 PATRICK RUSSEL (that metal synthwave guy)

43:03 CHRIS HUFF

50:03 ASTRID CAROLINA (beautiful voice and beautiful hair, my personal favorite in the female category)

50:46 BOGDAN HASAS

51:24 BRANDON RENEGADE (probably the closest sounding to Howard Jones here)

52:00 BRYCE GARLAND

52:37 CAM HESSELBROCK

53:16 CAM WALCH

54:37 BEING HUMAN

56:41 CURTIS BLAND

57:28 DOOMICK THE PANCAKE

58:03 THE STEPMOMS (interesting band name)

58:40 EMIL SKOLD

59:20 EMIR BEKBOLOTOV (my personal favorite in the heavy category)

59:59 FELIPE QUEIROZ

1:04:50 JORDAN HOUGHTON (the most pop-ish one here)

1:06:40 KASEY KARLSEN

1:08:04 LINUS (SAWCON) (the German lyrics really pack a punch)

1:08:41 LOGAN GAMESON

1:16:31 NIGHTFARER (reminds me a bit of Issues)

1:17:49 PETER MITCHELL

1:22:45 LEO KRACK (amazing blackened-ish screaming, but hard to hear the song)

1:26:55 YELLOWSTAR

1:28:58 ZOKZO (my personal favorite in the melodic category)

1:29:39 DARIO SAVINO

1:30:55 SOHEIL AVAKH (my personal favorite in the category that blends heavy and melodic)

1:31:30 ADAM R

1:40:42 JOEL DICKSON (excellent, but why did he only do the first half?)

1:43:48 CHRISTIAN O'NEAL (impressive highs, close to post-hardcore category)

As much as all those vocalists deserve their time to shine, of course, there could only be one winner. I won't spoil who won, but I'll say he's easily one of my top 10 in the list. If you'd like to know the winner, see this video at 15:40, 21:20, and 23:40:

Good list, Rex! I enjoy the opening tracks for those Neurosis and Killing Joke albums as well.

It's just a bit disappointing when there literally doesn't appear to be anything beyond a blurry 150 x 150 image that's cropped badly anywhere on the internet, which happens from time to time.

Sounds awesome. I can't wait to get this release into my Walkman so I can reach a level of superiority that sits above literally everyone while fantasizing about moving out of mum & dad's place & finally losing my virginity.

The addition of several of my judgement submissions into the Hall has ended up creating a wild coincidence involving 3 different cover arts:

As you can see, the Sonic Violence cover art consists of a drawing of an Iron Giant-like silver robot dude, and the Cryptopsy cover art consists of a futuristic post-apocalyptic dystopian wasteland. The Conflиct cover art looks like it has combined those other two artworks and made it better, by making the silver robot dude more realistic and adding him to a more detailed dystopian wasteland. Now that I think about it, I can kind of say the same about the music itself! In that Conflиct album, they take the electro-industrial of Sonic Violence and some of the death metal of Cryptopsy, then add in some melodic groove for a much better stylistic mix. At least that's what I'm hearing...

My death metal band Neuropath was originally called Coprophagia which is the condition you have if you eat feces.

It would appear that I’ve rated every one of the releases with over twenty ratings which is perhaps more of an indication that I really should get a life more than anything else.

Do any of us really have lives?

Not being Lynchian here, we're music nerds.

Looks like I'll be active in the Sports Countdown on MoFo as well.  Right now I'm on Pride of the Yankees.  So far, the only flaws I can see are that the direction isn't "amazing" but works well enough, and that Cooper's a bit too old for the younger Lou Gherig.  I'm really liking the character drama.  Everyone bounces off each other beautifully.

This is based on the number of their albums in my top 100.

1. Guardians (29) - This was the metal spirit that introduced me to the genre as well as the world.  Songs like Dazed and Confused would influence many later songs that lured me in, oftentimes by bands such as Scorpions or Metallica or Dio.  And then you add the symphonic stuff, much akin to the artist that my father introduced to me at 15: Meat Loaf, changing my world, and suddenly you've got the perfect clan for me.

2. The Fallen (23) - I feel like the Fallen has a bit of an unfair advantage with so many subgenres under its belt, but taking influence from the Sabbath side of things can in fact go a long way.  There's metal that sends lightning through your veins, and then there's the stuff that crushes your soul.  I can't deny that Neurosis had a big say on expanding my metallic horizons.

3. Infinite (19) - While most post-metal hasn't had much of a say in my metal affairs, the progressive and avant-garde stuff is the kind of thing that really gets my brain pumping.  Starting with Dream Theater, I eventually moved to Tool, Symphony X and similar bands, and I especially love how it can move into practically any genre with ease, from power to death.

4. Horde (15) - As with many, my first venture into death metal came through Symbolic, and it wasn't long after until the heaviest shit imaginable was not but pussy to me.  Although there aren't very many death songs or albums I could call favorites, they keep managing to find my way to my top 100 albums

5. North (14) - Sometimes you need to just sit down and embrace the darkness, or the sadness, whichever you prefer.  Folk metal and viking metal are quite fun on their own, but the black metal easily outshines it on my charts.  Nevertheless, Moonsorrow, which encompasses all three, is one of the finest examples of each of the three as well.  It just sends you back in time the way LOTR does.

6. Pit (9) - Thrash was a pretty slow venture.  Believe it or not, when I first heard Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning, I didn't really get into them beyond a couple songs.  But further ventures into heavy, power and death helped me to overcome that.  Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning have both spent time as my number 1 metal album of all time, although speed metal struggles to keep up with thrash's output IMO.

7. Gateway (5) - There is very little alternative metal that I'm in love with.  The only example I can think of right now is Dirt by Alice in Chains because I went on many grunge binges in my early days online.  Otherwise, quality alt-metal is something I appreciate critically rather than being engrossed in personally.

8. Revolution (5) - I love almost all kinds of punk.  I went through various binges in a variety of punk genres, but metalcore isn't one of those that I've been able really grip beyond a few key bands.  Especially when the subgenres like deathcore kick in, metalcore's more of a guilty pleasure rather than a serious venture.  Still, I found that alt-metal can be much more imaginative in the whole, hence albums like Lateralus and White Pony.

9. Sphere (1) - Although I consider Killing Joke's Extremities an industrial metal album as well, there is extremely little industrial metal in my chart because much of it gets more monotonous than it needs to be, even the much better ones.

Alright so I even tried this:

1. Delete the whole review.
2. Past as Plain Text to Notepad
3. Put nonsense text in the review
4. Submit the nonsense.
5. Reopen the review, and resubmmit the original review as plain text.

Still in tiny ville. Not sure what's up. Gonna see if I can figure it out after work this afternoon. 

Check out for consultation my (AMM) All Metal Music! On Quora: A playlist designed to serve as a database of accessible audio of all metal genres. Very authentic and uncompromising! 

https://allmetalmusic.quora.com/

That's good to hear, Daniel. Hope things will continue working out well and you can stay healthy.

Here's my newly created Top Ten Australian Extreme Metal Releases of 1990 list:

01. Spectral Birth - "Raze" demo [Melbourne thrash metal]

02. Bezerker - "Lost" [Adelaide thrash metal]

03. Martire - "Demo 1990" demo [Adelaide blackened doom/death]

04. Sanctum - "To Dust" demo [Melbourne brutal thrash metal]

05. Iron Sheiks - "Do You Fancy Me?" [Adelaide crossover thrash]

06. Inflictor - "Jesus Wept" demo [Adelaide thrash metal]

07. Acheron - "Eternal Suffering" demo [Melbourne death metal]

08. Redeemer - "The Light is Struck..." [Sydney power/thrash metal]

09. Necrotomy - "Cranial Dismemberment" demo [Melbourne death metal]

10. Armoured Angel - "Communion" demo [Canberra thrash metal]

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.

“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."

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

I have every single issue of Heavy Metal magazine and 2000 A.D. (digitally). I've dipped in and out (particularly Judge Dredd), but maybe when I retire I will actually get around to reading through them.

Let's also not forget the awful cover songs on early Megadeth albums with Boots and Anarchy... both being especially loathesome.

I’m very much the opposite to be honest. I came to Maiden through “Somewhere in Time”, “Seventh Son of a Seventh Son” & “Live After Death” before heading back to their esrlier work & I have to admit that the Dianno albums always seemed to be a step down (a couple of steps down in some cases) from the Dickinson ones for me personally. In fact, the only Dianno record that I regard as being essential is the “Maiden Japan” E.P. & I consider “Killers” to be the least impressive of Maiden’s 80’s full-lengths. I guess the huge variety in opinions on what Maiden’s best & worst records are is the strongest representation of just how consistent & relevant they were during their prime.

Yeah, I think with Maiden, more than with any other metal band, it all comes down to what albums meant most to you when you got into them. Sure, I can appreciate that the later albums are technically better and better written, but they don't mean as much as Killers because that album captured a period of time, for me personally, that transcends mere grooves on records. That is one of the things I find endlessly fascinating about music - it's ability to capture a time and place in a listener's mind better than any photograph. I think that if we dismiss that and judge music solely on it's technical merits then we are much poorer as individuals for it.

This only half-surprises me.  From what I understand from my old days there, RYMer's on the forums were generally disdained with the amount of metal albums throughout each modern yearly chart.  But this also means the raters are generally metalheads themselves.  Taking a look now, the new Blood Incantation is number 5 for 2024 at this time, and the charts have been like this for years.

I decided that I'll stop doing my monthly playlist total ratings in this thread, because they're all pretty much the same and haven't caused much discussion. All I'm gonna say about this month is, my playlists and songs I've listened to from Saxy's playlists have paid off again with a rating of 4.5 stars each. I recommend them to any fan of the clans' respective genres and anyone who isn't into those genres but wants to get into a great start in enjoying them. Thanks, Daniel, for accepting these playlists, and good work all!

Let's see,  first four Metallica albums, Sepultura with Schizophrenia through Arise, Drudkh from Autumn Auroa through Blood in Our Wells. 

Ulcerate are still on a golden run on their last four albums.

Maiden for me would also match Ben's opinion and I would also go with that Opeth run too.

I would throw in Judas Priest from Sad Wings of Destiny through Stained Class.

I considered that Sepultura run. I need to revisit Schizophrenia.

eh any time, I guess... don't really have anything going on at home

Like Ben, I haven't really focused on metal labels since the 1990's. Back then I used to religiously follow labels like Earache Records & premier Aussie extreme metal label Warhead Records but these days that's limited to ones that are a little closer to home like Sphere of Apparition (Oni, Neuropath, Unholy Redeemer, etc.). It's far easier to find good music in the internet age than it was when all we had to go on were magazines & word of mouth. Labels served a stronger purpose as a reliable provider of music that fit their particular niche. You can simply Google that stuff these days.

You know you're in the right clans when you actually struggle to come up with 10 bands you truly love outside of them. Here's my shot at it...

Faith No More (Gateway)

Iron Maiden (Guardians)

Black Sabbath (Guardians)

Opeth (Infinite)

Arcturus (Infinite)

Mr. Bungle (Infinite)

Meshuggah (Infinite)

Godflesh (Sphere)

Ministry (Sphere)

Red Harvest (Sphere)

Have no fear, your resident new music sap is here!

1. Ulcerate - Cutting the Throat of God (Technical Death Metal)

2. Pallbearer - Mind Burns Alive (Doom Metal)

3. Dvne - Voidkind (Atmospheric Sludge/Post-Metal)

4. Big Brave - A Chaos of Flowers (Post/Drone Metal)

5. Vorga - Beyond the Palest Star (Black Metal)

6. Judas Priest - Invincible Shield (Heavy Metal)

7. Ihsahn - Ihsahn (Progressive/Symphonic Metal)

8. Dissimulator - Lower Form Resistance (Technical Death/Thrash Metal)

9. Hoplites - Παραμαινομένη (Paramainomeni) (Avant Garde Black Metal)

Sorry for not including a whole lot of black metal so far this year; scheduling adjustments have made finding new black metal really difficult. These are just some of the albums that I went through my list and found albums that we have not mutually reviewed yet. I also kept the genres pretty close to ones that I know you'll be more interested in checking out.

What better way to commemorate the 20,000th Metal Academy post with a new album from one of my outside-world friends who's a talented metal musician? No it's not Danny Ultrawiz, he's been out of the metal picture for years now. It's my new friend Arezz who goes by the name "Rust". He made his own album titled U Suk! It's a really awesome work of art inspired by classic speed/thrash/first-wave black metal bands. I think it would be really helpful if any of you can please check out that album and spread the word about it. With all you guys' help, maybe he can gain enough exposure to have more fame and confidence and even join this site, and it would all be thanks to me and fellow supporting Metal Academy members. Here it is:

Also available on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/34ZKHMMeM0IAf6uHH1Bsk5

Here's my updated list, and since we already have a "metal in 2024" thread, I don't need the "albums I'm looking forward to getting" thing in this thread anymore:

Beginning oldies (1975-1989)/B.M. (Before Metalcore):

1975: Scorpions - In Trance

1976: Judas Priest - Sad Wings of Destiny

1977: Riot - Rock City

1978: Scorpions - Taken by Force

1979: Riot - Narita

1980: Scorpions - Animal Magnetism

1981: Riot - Fire Down Under

1982: Scorpions - Blackout

1983: Metallica - Kill 'Em All

1984: Voivod - War and Pain

1985: Watchtower - Energetic Disassembly

1986: Dark Angel - Darkness Descends

1987: Voivod - Killing Technology

1988: Voivod - Dimension Hatröss

1989: Voivod - Nothingface

Golden hit classics and millennium transition highlights (1990-2004)/Metalcore's humble beginnings and light of day-seeing classics:

1990: Rorschach - Remain Sedate

1991: Coroner - Mental Vortex

1992: Sadus - A Vision of Misery

1993: Alchemist - Jar of Kingdom

1994: Circle of Dust - Brainchild

1995: Waltari - Big Bang

1996: Red Harvest - HyBreed

1997: Illdisposed - There's Something Rotten... In the State of Denmark

1998: Embodyment - Embrace the Eternal

1999: Madder Mortem - Mercury

2000: AP2 - Suspension of Disbelief

2001: Eternal Tears of Sorrow - A Virgin and a Whore

2002: Norma Jean - Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child

2003: Kayo Dot - Choirs of the Eye

2004: Turmion Katilot - Hoitovirhe

Modern favorites (2005-2019)/Rise of the full Revolution:

2005: Trivium - Ascendancy

2006: Mercenary - The Hours That Remain

2007: Becoming the Archetype - The Physics of Fire

2008: In This Moment - The Dream

2009: Trail of Tears - Bloodstained Endurance

2010: High on Fire - Snakes for the Divine

2011: Trivium - In Waves

2012: Tremonti - All I Was

2013: Alter Bridge - Fortress

2014: The Acacia Strain - Coma Witch

2015: Intronaut - The Direction of Last Things

2016: Insomnium - Winter's Gate

2017: Unleash the Archers - Apex

2018: Alien Weaponry - Tu

2019: Northlane - Alien

The best of the most recent (2020-present)/A greater new uprising:

2020: Code Orange - Underneath

2021: Trivium - In the Court of the Dragon

2022: Lorna Shore - Pain Remains

2023: Mutoid Man - Mutants

2024: Ryujin - Ryujin

I think it was One More Light, their final album with Chester Bennington, when the band dropped pretty much all of their rock/metal aspects and sounded like a boy band, though they still played their greatest hits in the final tour.

Definitely with you regarding samples, Karl, unless done very well.. and yes, those "sex-act" vocalisations are just plain embarrassing - as is screaming accompanied by the sound of power tools.

Did somebody say power tools !?