General Chat

I think you can rate on one listen because, to be honest, ratings can often be quite fluid anyway. I do agree though that it is impossible to review an album in any meaningful way without several listens as to do so without delving into it further does the music (and the artist) a great disservice. This is often why I will submit a rating initially but not a review, the rating acting as a placeholder until I get round to giving the album the attention it deserves. If I can't be bothered to go back to it for whatever reason, then I am plenty happy enough for the rating to stand. For this reason I view unsubstantiated ratings as more of a rough idea of how an album is considered, whereas a review is far more relevant as to how a listener considers a release.

To return to my original point, maybe not everyone does have a subconscious bias, but I still think it is a very special critic who can put all internal biases to one side when passing judgement on something as subjective as music. Maybe I feel this because I have no musical ability whatsoever so the technical aspect of music is as impenetrable to me as quantum mechanics (which some dickheads say is why I listen to so much metal) and for this reason I have to judge a release on how it affects me personally and that will always inevitably butt up against personal bias.

It's rare that a day shares two massive anniversaries, but today, Electric Wizard's Dopethrone turns 20 and Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss turns 30. When an album that Daniel and I owned on release turns 30, it really makes me feel old!

I actually bought "Seasons In The Abyss" on pre-order from The Metal Factory in Parramatta which was run by Mortal Sin front man Mat Maurer. I used to buy from Mat quite regularly because he'd ship the imports to me before other record stores even got any stock on their shelves. Slayer were my favourite band at the time & I absolutely flipped out on first listen. Over time I've come to regard the album as the last truly classic studio record from Slayer's peak period although I don't think it quite matches the two albums that preceded it which both sit in my top three for thrash overall.

So, I went and got me a proper turntable and speakers set up and also a new PC to boot which means that as well as having a soundcard again that works I also have a vinyl player to play all the wonderful records I hear on Bandcamp again.  I opted for Bluetooth on my speakers though so I can stream from my PC on one side of my lair and still connect up to the turntable easily and save space on my desk.

It's an expensive hobby vinyl collecting though and takes a lot of patience to balance the turntable perfectly as well as level the cartridge.  So far though blasting my vinyl collection has made me smile muchly.

In no order, I'd bash out the following list of 25:

Mizmor - Cairn 2019

Immortal - Northern Chaos Gods 2018

Deathspell Omega - Drought 2012

Behemoth - The Satanist 2014

Portal - Vexovoid 2013

Hooded Menace - Never Cross the Dead 2010

Dying Fetus - Reign Supreme 2012

Autopsy - Macabre Eternal 2011

Disma - Towards the Megalith 2011

Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog 2018

Black Breath - Sentenced to Life 2012

Gorguts - Colored Sands 2013

Gorguts - Pleiade's Dust 2016

Ulcerate - Shrines of Paralysis 2016

Deftones - Koi no Yokan 2012

Condor - Unstoppable Power 2017

Akhlys - The Dreaming I 2015

Inquisition - Bloodsher Across The Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith 2016

Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper 2017

Author & Punisher - Ursus Americanus 2012

Grand Magus - Hammer of the North 2010

Electric Wizard - Black Masses 2010

Bolzer - Aura 2013

Aosoth - The Inside Scriptures 2017

Cultes Des Ghoules - Henbane 2013

Two-Week Quarantine (All That Remains COVID parody about the risk of quarantine)

Sonny92 started his own thread "What Are Your Favorite 10 Original Lineup Sabbath Tracks?", but it wouldn't work for me because I don't listen to Black Sabbath. So to make it easier for myself and others, I decided to make this thread; what are your top 10 favorite songs from band's "classic lineups" as in their longest and most well-known lineups? I'll start with mine:

10. Revocation - Anthem of the Betrayed

Classic lineup (2000-2010 (including their time as Cryptic Warning)): David Davidson (lead vocals, guitars), Anthony Buda (bass, backing vocals), Phil Dubois-Coyne (drums)

9. Septicflesh - Mystic Places of Dawn

Classic lineup (1991-1999): Spiros "Seth Siro Anton" Antoniou (lead vocals, bass), Sotiris Vayenas (rhythm guitar, keyboards, clean vocals), Christos Antoniou (lead guitar, orchestrations, samples)

8. Sólstafir - Pale Rider

Classic lineup (2002-2015): Aðalbjörn "Addi" Tryggvason (guitar, lead vocals), Sæþór Maríus "Pjúddi" Sæþórsson (guitar), Svavar "Svabbi" Austmann (bass), Guðmundur Óli Pálmason (drums)

7. Type O Negative - Love You to Death

Classic lineup (1993-2010): Peter Steele (bass, lead vocals), Kenny Hickey (guitars, backing/co-lead vocals), Josh Silver (keyboards, piano, effects, synthesizers, programming, backing vocals), Johnny Kelly (drums)

6. Draconian - The Gothic Embrace

Classic lineup (2005-2012): Anders Jacobsson (harsh vocals), Lisa Johansson (clean vocals), Johan Ericson (lead guitar), Daniel Arvidsson (rhythm guitar), Fredrik Johansson (bass guitar), Jerry Torstensson (drums)

5. Opeth - Bleak

Classic lineup (1997-2005): Mikael Åkerfeldt (guitars, lead vocals), Peter Lindgren (guitars), Martín Méndez (bass), Martin Lopez (drums, percussion)

4. At the Gates - Blinded by Fear

Classic lineup (1993-2017): Tomas Lindberg (lead vocals), Anders Björler (lead guitar), Martin Larsson (rhythm guitar), Jonas Björler (bass guitar), Adrian Erlandsson (drums)

3. Vektor - Forests of Legend

Classic lineup (2008-2016): David DiSanto (vocals, lead and rhythm guitar), Erik Nelson (lead and rhythm guitar), Frank Chin (bass guitar), Blake Anderson (drums)

2. All That Remains - Two Weeks

Classic lineup (2006-2015): Philip Labonte (lead vocals), Oli Herbert (lead guitar), Mike Martin (rhythm guitar), Jeanne Sagan (bass guitar, backing vocals), Jason Costa (drums)

1. Trivium - Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr

Classic lineup (2004-2009): Matt Heafy (lead vocals, guitars), Corey Beaulieu (guitars, unclean backing vocals), Paolo Gregoletto (bass, clean backing vocals), Travis Smith (drums)

Are there any instrumental songs you think would work better with lyrics? Let's start with the discographies of a few instrumental progressive metal bands; Plini and Conquering Dystopia, plus a couple instrumental songs from Wintersun's Fantasy Metal Project. Once again, I'm testing out my lyric-writing skills, and I'm quite curious about what those bands' songs would be like with lyrics. Now some of the lyrics might have graphic themes and (censored) swearing, so you might not wanna proceed if you can't handle them. They also might've been copied for other lyrics, so please let me know if you can help me change. And finally, remember that the straight brackets ([]) tell you what goes on in the music not meant to be sung, and if a line has quotation marks (""), that's meant to be spoken. Anyway, enjoy the lyrics in these links:

https://metal.academy/forum/23/thread/1058

https://metal.academy/forum/23/thread/1059

https://metal.academy/forum/23/thread/1373

https://metal.academy/forum/23/thread/2331

I was thinking about what Tymell said about shuffling songs in albums, and I decided to shuffle songs in one of my recent favorite albums, Trivium's What the Dead Men Say! But it wasn't randomly shuffled, I just manually arranged the songs into a different order that would be more suitable for any first-time Trivium listeners who want to build up slowly from mild fun to wild chaos. My new order for this album is: 1, 2, 5, 3, 8, 6, 4, 9, 7, 10. Or to be more specific:

1. IX

2. What the Dead Men Say

3. Bleed Into Me

4. Catastrophist

5. Scattering the Ashes

6. The Defiant

7. Amongst the Shadows & the Stones

8. Bending the Arc to Fear

9. Sickness Unto You

10. The Ones We Leave Behind

See, while I made sure the order still follows The Perfect Metal Album Storm (intro/beginning track, middle track, ending track), all the other songs are rearranged in a way to more appropriately test the intensity of the album. The "IX" intro and the title track both tell you what to expect in this album. "Bleed Into Me", "Catastrophist", and "Scattering the Ashes" are the cleaner melodic trio; two slower clean songs (NOT ballads, I wouldn't put ballads in the beginning of a metal album) with a nicely heavier song in between, to test the mild side. Then "The Defiant" is a bridge between the two sides to both recap the journey so far and hint at the next part. Up next, "Amongst the Shadows & the Stones", "Bending the Arc to Fear", and "Sickness Unto You" are the heavier aggressive trio; two heavy chaotic songs with the darkest of them all in between to test the wild side. That kitchen is open for those who can stand the heat! On top of that, those three songs sound quite similar to one another; same tempo, same tuning (6-string drop D-flat), and tons of progressive aggression. They can be connected together to make a 3-part 16-and-a-half-minute suite! Anyway, "The Ones We Leave Behind" is the epic final song that recaps the whole journey and congratulates you for passing that test.

I would try the same thing with other albums in a different thread called "The Perfect Metal Album Storm II: The Shuffling", but it would take too long and it might bore some members, so this is what I got. If you have any specific order for an album that is differently arranged from its original order, please discuss!

OK, so this is absolutely impossible but here's my shot based on my all-time favourite records:

01. Slayer - "Angel Of Death"

02. Burzum - "Dunkelheit"

03. Deathspell Omega - "II"

04. Pig Destroyer - "Natasha"

05. Sunn O))) - "Báthory Erzsébet"

06. Isis - "Poison Eggs"

07. diSEMBOWELMENT - "Cerulean Transience of All My Imagined Shores"

08. Metallica - "Blackened"

09. Morbid Angel - "Immortal Rites"

10. Death - "Lack Of Comprehension"

Here's a few of my favourites:

Deathspell Omega - "II" (from 2005's "Kenose" E.P.)

Pig Destroyer - "Natasha" (from 2008's "Natasha" E.P.)

Isis - "Poison Eggs" (from 1998's "The Mosquito Control" E.P.)

Nine Inch Nails - "Happiness In Slavery" (from 1992's "Broken" E.P.)

Slayer - "Haunting The Chapel" (from 1984's "Haunting The Chapel" E.P.)

Update on my 2005 list, but with a different twist! I was inspired by Ben's "anniversary section" idea (15 years today) to update my list to the top 4 albums per clan.

And yes I know, I've included The Horde, not The Guardians. Since The Guardians has a huge array of power metal bands from my earlier epic metal taste, it would cause some unfair competition against my other clans in which most of them suit my current heavier modern era. Hence replacing The Guardians with my former clan The Horde! Anyway, here's my best of 2005 for each of those clans (plus I'm ranking the clans themselves):

Clan #4: The Horde

4. Children of Bodom - Are You Dead Yet?

3. Scar Symmetry - Symmetric in Design

2. Arch Enemy - Doomsday Machine

1. Dark Tranquillity - Character

Clan #3: The Fallen

4. The Ocean - Aeolian

3. Paradise Lost - Paradise Lost

2. Charon - Songs for the Sinners

1. Draconian - Arcane Rain Fell

Clan #2: The Infinite

4. Nevermore - This Godless Endeavor

3. Meshuggah - Catch Thirty-Three

2. Gojira - From Mars to Sirius

1. Between the Buried and Me - Alaska

Clan #1: The Revolution

4. God Forbid - IV: Constitution of Treason

3. Demon Hunter - The Triptych

2. Bullet for My Valentine - The Poison

1. Trivium - Ascendancy

I finished my May 22 extra credit album challenge!! Here's my stat check:

My Dying Bride (the two extra credit albums) - 4.5

Mystic Prophecy - Fireangel - 3.5

Neaera - Omnicide: Creation Unleashed - 4

So yeah, that's it with my unofficial Metal Evolution band challenge, 3 months after I created it! Amazing, right?! But in July, I actually have one more bigger band challenge to more properly test my interests in all metal genres I've enjoyed, past and present. I'll make and post that challenge for anyone to try, but I won't start doing it myself until July because of my break throughout the rest of June. Coming tomorrow....

Here's a metalcore concept album about the fall of future civilization that seems kinda appropriate for the situation right now, that shows what would happen if the world ends up collapsing in the coronavirus. Fortunately the virus is currently in the process of being controlled out, but it just seemed like sh*t was about to go down on us last month when I was writing my review for this album that I'm referring to, God Forbid's IV: Constitution of Treason.

Ben, I took some time to think of your comment about a slogan that would fit better with the site's inclusive aspect, and I just came up with I think is a better but slightly cliche slogan. I was in a "teaming with autism" webinar the other day (I have autism), and I was put into a group where we came up with a team name and logo with a "United We Stand Divided We Fall" kind of theme. Hence my idea to make this better slogan, "United We Stand for Metal"! The new slogan is in an edited version of the first post above.

I'm also not a fan of genres like country, hip-hop, or R&B, but if that's what some of my friends in the outside world are into, I'll go with it. And the band that I like from that small list of "favorite bands" is Blind Guardian, which was from my earlier epic metal taste, but I might come back to listening to that band someday, now that I'm in The Guardians. Thanks again for that clan change, Ben!

Well as much as I love Travis Smith's artworks, there are two other metal album cover arts by other artists that are my actual favorites. This is my favorite "epic" cover art:

And this is my favorite in the "brutal" category:

When I was in a science class two years ago, we had to dissect a goat's heart. Most metal science project EVER!!! I decided to recreate that This is Love This is Murderous artwork by stabbing the heart with a penknife and taking a photo of it. It was just a wimpy penknife and there wasn't a lot of blood, but worth a try. Here's my recreation:

Look who's popular saxy!

For me it was Nightwish. My mom is definitely stuck in the 80's but I put on some old Nightwish and that was our driving music. This was in high school and Dark Passion Play just released, but we went through Once as well. Mom didn't notice the singer change as much as I did, but Annette still did a good job and was glad to have something newer that we could listen to over holiday trips. 

I also like to feel my rating system is absolute, in that it holds for all genres of music, so a rating of 0.5 is for absolute shit that I really can't stand, probably the likes of Justin Bieber, Crazy Frog or some other crime against music. A 0.5 or 1.0 is only meted out to metal albums on extremely rare occasions ( Adema and Atreyu are the only metal bands that I've ever given 0.5s to).

My feelings exactly. I remember having a debate with a couple of mates about the fact that my scoring tends to be in a bell curve with 3.5/5 at the centre. One believed that 2.5/5 should be the centre of the bell & the other thought that my rating distribution should be equal across the various possibilities. My argument was pretty simple really. I know what I'm likely to enjoy after all these years so I expect that I won't be selecting too many releases that I'm gonna hate. In reality I expect to enjoy the stuff I listen to more often than not & that naturally leads to an average of around 3.5/5.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. After all, most of us are usually listening to things we think we'll enjoy. Occasionally something will be a letdown, or we might be trying something different on a whim or because it got a lot of attention elsewhere, or we might be reviewing something for a publication, but or the most part I don't listen to stuff without expecting to at least somewhat enjoy it.

Looking at it, my most common rating is 4 (though 3.5 is close behind) so I guess I lean on the generous side :p

That's the one! Also Powerwolf and Metallica shirts, and all from both her and her (very cool) mother too.

I listened to about 260 albums from 2019 so expect many more releases in the Clan specific top 10's. 2019 was such a fantastic year for new metal in all sub-genres.

1. Inter Arma – Sulphur English

2. Devin Townsend – Empath 

3. Wilderun – Veil of Imagination 

4. Avantasia – Moonglow

5. Cult of Luna – A Dawn to Fear

6. Funereal Presence – Achatius

7. Twilight Force – Dawn of the Dragonstar

8. Runemagick – Into Into Desolate Realms

9. Weeping Sores – False Confession

10. Blood Incantation – Hidden History of the Human Race

I've heard some of you aren't really fans of song covers, but I think there are some other members of this site (such as myself) who are tired of hearing the same boring radio pop frappe practically everywhere. So I found a couple YouTube playlists of some of the best metal covers of pop songs. These covers are the best (at least for me) because now you get to hear some of the most popular songs in the world in a genre you really love like metal, and like I said before, NOT the song's original style. The first playlist is for metalheads in the "Epic Side", and the second playlist is for those in the "Island of the Revolution" (metalcore) and the "Rebel Sea" (post-hardcore/screamo):

COVERS (POP to METAL): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdtc350h7ULOz4-56IEfbFWABeMJTzi24

Best metal covers of pop songs: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-eqYqo4XkD8_laSN7ENp6n7qFPOGo0Hk

Metal Academy clan map (if you don't know what I'm talking about when describing the playlists): https://metal.academy/forum/25/thread/25?page=1#topic_1144

If there's a metalized pop song cover you like that isn't in one of the two playlists, please let me know. Enjoy!

Glad you like them! Anthrax and the W.A.S.P. was the main reason I made all this. I was writing a list of songs from popular metal bands as a metal playlist for a movie or something, and the first two bands listed were Anthrax and W.A.S.P. Hence the Metal Cinematic Universe!