General Chat

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.

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.

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

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 !? 

Exception 2: Theatre of Tragedy - And When He Falleth from Velvet Darkness They Fear (1996).
Even though the follow-up to the their debut full-length (which I hold dear to my heart) was quite a letdown for me, I have a soft spot for this track and I cannot imagine it without the lengthy dialogue samples taken from the 1964 classic The Masque of the Red Death.

Caution! Contains beauty and the beast vocals and some questionable gothicy recitations.

I used to be a fan of the more melodic gothic death-doom bands like Theatre of Tragedy, and this was one of my favorite songs by the band. I agree that the lengthy dialogue samples are the best part of the song. The only other time I've heard Vincent Price in a song is that spoken-word outro of Michael Jackson's "Thriller".

I was in a gaming club back in the Eighties playing Iron Crown's Rolemaster system which I much preferred to D&D. I think I may still have some of the lore books in the attic somewhere.

Nice!

Battle jackets look awesome, but all I can afford is band T-shirts.

Go to a thrift store, and get a cheap denim jacket. Then you order the patches seperately and sew them in. Patches are mostly cheap except for rare and tour patches. Authentic Bolt Thrower patches are very expensive and sought after.

This here is the Heavy Metal Hound Himself Mr. Louis (a.k.a. Bloober)

Thank you. I keep it ever growing. I periodically go through and prune it too. Please do enjoy. 

Today I came across this video with a topic that I think is worth discussing in this site:

I've listened to a lot of perfect releases with the best highlight for each one being the title track. It was hard choosing which ones would make my top 10, but here they are:

1. Trivium - In Waves (2011)

2. Make Them Suffer - Neverbloom (2012)

3. Converge - Jane Doe (2001)

4. Voivod - Killing Technology (1987)

5. Code Orange - Forever (2017)

6. Earth Crisis - Firestorm (1993)

7. Lorna Shore - ...And I Return to Nothingness (2021)

8. Sikth - How May I Help You? (2002)

9. Sleep Token - Take Me Back to Eden (2023)

10. Trail of Tears - Bloodstained Endurance (2009)

So what are your top 10 albums with the best title tracks? Discuss!

They cite a “noticeable uptick” in submissions of bands with AI generated music.  They also acknowledge that this is a “work in progress”.  No names mentioned.

Here are a few more hidden gems for me besides the ones in my earlier list:

Dethklok - The Doomstar Requiem: A Klok Opera (2013) - Melodeath/symphonic metal opera soundtrack to that Metalocalypse special

October Tide - The Cancer Pledge (2023) - Melodic death-doom

Hinayana - Shatter and Fall (2023) - Melodic death-doom

Mercenary - Everblack (2002) - Melodeath with power metal influences

Becoming the Archetype - The Physics of Fire (2007) - Progressive melodeath with metalcore influences

Yeah, I guess you're right, Daniel. But it was worth a good experiment. I don't think my packed schedule both here and in the outside world would let me do just one album/clan per week anyway.

In other words, you'd make an average deathcore album :P

Ambient: Imagine if King Crimson and Tangerine Dream got together.  It would be a little jazzy, occasionally folksy, throw in an emotional rollercoaster with some chamber and black ambient, and maybe include a Philip Glass cover.

How would you make a folk pop album?

Dragoncorpse - The Drakketh Saga. Sure this album leans towards symphonic power metal, but deathcore is the more dominating genre there. Maybe a little too extreme for the kids, but at least the lyrics don't have any swearing.

Kawaii metal is a little more of a "scene" genre, being almost entirely based in Japan, and some of us have struggled with where those kinds of genres stand here, which is why I don't count Neue Deutsche Härte as a subgenre in my Sphere playlists.

I'm not sure I agree to be honest. I think prime examples of genres being more "scenes" than genuine subgenres are the NWOBHM & (to a lesser extent) US power metal. The NWOBHM didn't have a well-defined sound with bands like Venom, Saxon & Witchfinder General all sounding vastly different to each other & arguably sitting in different genres altogether when considered outside of the movement. US power metal is similar but not so extreme in this respect. The other major issue with those subgenres is that only bands from those locations are eligible for entry due to their naming which is silly in my opinion.

I don't see Kawaii metal or Neue Deutsche Härte in the same light as they're generally used to group together bands with similar musical attributes. I mean, you certainly know Kawaii metal when you hear it & I always felt that the Neue Deutsche Härte tracks on The Sphere playlists stood out pretty obviously & sounded very similar to each other. Neue Deutsche Härte definitely suffers from being poorly named as it falls into the same camp as NWOBHM & US power metal in that it can really only be used by German bands but there's certainly a Neue Deutsche Härte sound that clearly differentiates itself from industrial metal as far as I can see so it'd work fine with a slight name adjustment.

Thanks for this, Xephyr! I've just tested out that website and CSV-downloading technique with my upcoming February Revolution and Sphere playlists (still in the works). However, I find Excel a little too complex for me, and anyone who doesn't have Skiley Pro can only do it 3 times for free. I prefer the old-fashioned way of typing it all out, but there's a twist in my technique. After making my sneak peek suggestions in the Revolution and Sphere playlists, I copy them into Notepad and type out all the other tracks in the playlists in the same format (artist name, track name, track length, album name, album release date). Then when I send them to Daniel before the middle of the month, I set the tracks I've typed out to the order that they run in the playlist tracklistings and remove the track lengths that are only needed to keep track of their two-hour total lengths. And finally, when the first day of the month comes, I just copy the playlist tracklistings and paste them to their respective forum posts. Anyway, I still appreciate your suggestion and understand your technique, so you do you.

I'll definitely be starting Album Cover of the Year conversations in the coming weeks.

Now here's something that hasn't been brought up as much in this site as it really should; special collaboration projects by record labels, featuring various bands and their members. Impressive projects like this are very rare nowadays, but checking out the ones that exist are a great way to explore material made by different members of different bands, often altogether, and even get interested in some of those bands. Any musicians from at least one metal band you love and enjoy? Those albums have it all! Here's perhaps the most famous example:

Roadrunner Records is one of the most famous and diverse metal/hard rock record labels of all time. Famous and infamous bands signed to the label like Slipknot, Trivium, Fear Factory, and Machine Head have made the label as big as it is. And the then-core members of each of those 4 bands were chosen for ambitious project conceived by ex-vice president of the label Monte Conner. He wanted to do a special thing for Roadrunner's 25th anniversary. He wanted 4 members of different bands band together to make an album dedicated to the label. But then he decided to upgrade his idea into something more ambitious... The 4 chosen ones, ex-Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison (RIP), Trivium frontman Matt Heafy, Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares, and Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn were tasked in each recording 4 songs (though one captain would have a bonus 5th) and choose any member of a Roadrunner-signed band past or present to record with them. The end result is a massive 18-song 77-minute album featuring 57 artists from 45 bands! Here's to another impressive project like this in the future, hopefully in Roadrunner's 50th year, 2030. Anyway, this release is currently tagged as alt-metal, but you can't deny the metalcore, thrash, groove, and to a lesser extent, death/black metal appearing here. Here's my genre analysis for the 14 tracks of the album:

1. The Dagger - thrash metal/groove metal/metalcore

2. The Enemy - death metal/thrash metal/metalcore

3. Annihilation by the Hands of God - death metal

4. In the Fire - heavy metal/speed metal

5. The End - hard rock/alternative metal

6. Tired 'n Lonely - blues rock/hard rock

7. Independent (Voice of the Voiceless) - thrash metal/groove metal

8. Dawn of a Golden Age - black metal

9. The Rich Man - nu metal/alternative metal

10. No Way Out - alternative rock/pop rock

11. Baptized in the Redemption - groove metal/nu metal

12. Roads - acoustic ballad

13. Blood & Flames - groove metal/sludge metal/metalcore

14. Constitution Down - groove metal/thrash metal

15. I Don't Wanna Be (A Superhero) - hardcore punk

16. Army of the Sun - heavy metal/alternative metal

17. No Mas Control - groove metal/nu metal/metalcore

18. Enemy of the State - gothic metal/doom metal

Primary genres: Alternative metal, groove metal

Secondary genres: Thrash metal, metalcore

The alternative metal tag will still be kept on for this album as a general genre for many of the songs covering alt-metal, nu metal, and alt-rock, but it's as dominant as groove metal there. I'll make a judgement submission for this album soon. Anyway, does anyone here know any special releases similar to this, with dozens of members from different bands in the same record label for a special occasion? Discuss!

Sorry to hear, Xephyr. It is sad and painful to lose an essential part of your music life. It's times like this when it's good to enjoy and appreciate what we have while we still have it.

Especially since my mouse is acting up a little.

Another new list added. This one is for Felipe Machado Franco whose distinctive art adorns many power metal album covers:

https://metal.academy/lists/single/255

Hi Ben, has there been any movement on adding "Various Artists" releases to the site, such as "Metal for Muthas" or "Hell Comes to Your House"? I appreciate that the site's set-up doesn't really allow for it, but could we not just have VA set up as a band name and add releases accordingly, or would that screw something else up behind the scenes? "Metal for Muthas", especially volume one, was just so important to the spread of the NWOBHM and the popularity of bands such as Iron Maiden and Angel Witch that it seems to be a gaping omission that it isn't included here.

I just discovered something.  If there are two conjoined albums two numbers apart, like 13 and 15, if you press up on the lower number or down on the high number, the numbers will be connected properly, say 13 and 14, or 14 and 15.

Thanks for telling me how to fix this.

Yeah, it's always perplexed me that people don't care for it since it's a great piece of Fates Warning-inspired prog metal. Guess it's just because it's not quite the sound they would become.

Yeah, I think it's a little more accurate personally but would throw Nintendocore in under the Electronicore banner too if I was them as it's simply too specific.

I think nintendocore used to be under trancecore but they removed it a couple years ago.

Personally, I'll downrate anything that feels too monotone.  Length itself is only a common factor in this, but even a 20 minute album can feel samey and unimaginative.  This is part of why I consider Reign in Blood inferior to South of Heaven, and more appropriately, Pleasure to Kill under several Kreator albums.  Of course, length itself is an element that can be used properly, if the musician is good enough, like on many slower metal genres such as doom.  My favorite example of this would be The Dreadful Hours.  Or course, the absolute best I can think of is William Basinski's Disintegration Loops.

My favorite last time I listened to it is Hell - Curse and Chapter, while something that reflects more of what I listen to is Doom - Human Noise. Well-crafted technical, often veering into controlled chaos is more my forte than something that's just a perfectly crafted album of metal.

Different Hell than the one I've heard.  Classic heavy metal from the modern day is always welcome.

Oh, totally Ben. I was gonna raise that one too.

To be fair, I'd listen to his death metal opinions above mine. We often disagree, but then I find myself coming around to his way of thinking more often than I'd like to admit (ssshhhh... don't tell him I said that).

I'd suggest that people make an exception with melodic death metal Ben. I think we both know that I can't be trusted to provide a fair judgement in that space.