What has the biggest negative effect on your enjoyment of an album?

Listening to Whitechapel's A New Era of Corruption this month provided me with the revelation that metalcore is actually something I could get behind if the vocals weren't so annoying (to me). While pondering this I realised that the one thing that can put me off an album more than anything else is the singing.

So what is it that causes you the biggest rating deduction? Now I don't mean albums of a genre you wouldn't like anyway, but albums that you would really enjoy if this particular aspect wasn't so shit, or at least not to your taste - I mean I can't say that metalcore's shouty vocal style is objectively shit, but it isn't to my taste at all.

My weakness is definitely when bands go in a cheesy direction. This is the reason I struggle so much with subgenres like folk metal, trance metal, power metal, etc. I also find the going hard when an artist takes a quirkier or humorous approach to their metal as I prefer a more serious brand of metal.

I can generally deal with poorly executed or dull vocals as long as they're not regularly out of key. I can also tolerate sloppy guitar playing to an extent but what I can't seem to overlook is out of time drumming. It really irks me.

I've just given the new Mental Cruelty album Zwielicht some listening and a review. It's one of the most epic albums of this year, but what's stopping me from giving it more than a 4-star rating? Well, the vocals of Lukas Nicolai are so powerful and diverse for the most part, yet the weakness lies in his attempts to imitate Lorna Shore's Will Ramos. I also would've liked the album a little more if it's not too heavily reliant on black metal in a couple songs. So that Mental Cruelty album is a prime example of a couple weaknesses that prevent an album from reaching total perfection for me; when the vocals try to purposely sound too much like someone else, and too much reliance on a genre I'm not usually up for.

While it could hardly be said I'm the biggest fan of death/black metal, I find that my distaste these days stems less from the vocals and more how everyone seems to have this habit of going full one note aggression. It irks me less in black metal since that tends to be the whole point, and thus bands tend to work it to their advantage, but death metal seems to have it bad. I have especially come to loathe any song in which the drummer just hammers the drumkit, regardless of genre. Funny thing, I wouldn't describe this endless aggression as exclusive to metal or punk, I heard some Mexican music not too long ago as I was in a Mexican fast food place, which basically just consisted of a dude singing fast over some fast acoustic guitar. Basically, have some variety.

Vocalists trying to sink outside of their range hits me pretty big too. I'm not talking like King Diamond, I'm talking like someone singing at the top of their range and you can hear their voice, and possibly your windows, cracking.