Daniel's Forum Replies
Here's my submission for the October playlist Xephyr:
Amebix - "Chain Reaction" (from "Monolith", 1987)
Here's my submission for the October playlist Saxy:
Northlane - "Carbonized" (from "Obsidian", 2022)
Here are my track submissions for the October playlist Sonny:
Lord Vigo - "Memento Mori" (from "Danse de Noir", 2020)
Sore Throat - "Phase I" (from "Inde$troy", 1989)
Dystopia - "Control All Delete" (from "Dystopia", 2008)
September 2022
01. Immolation – “Noose of Thorns” (from “Acts Of God”, 2022) [Submitted by Vinny]
02. The Halo Effect – “Shadowminds” (from “Days Of The Lost”, 2022)
03. Pestilence – “Soul Search” (from “Spheres”, 1993) [Submitted by Daniel]
04. Xysma – “One More Time” (from “First & Magical”, 1993)
05. Desultory – “Silent Suffering” (from “Swallow The Snake”, 1996)
06. Alien Fucker – “Arabic UFO Party” (from “The First Rape In Space”, 2014)
07. Amon Amarth – “The Serpent’s Trail” (from “The Great Heathen Army”, 2022)
08. Suffering Hour – “Crawling Embers” (from “Time’s Withering Shadow”, 2022)
09. Duma – “Angels & Abysses” (from “Duma”, 2020)
10. The Chasm – “Travelling Through Chaos (I, The Pastfinder II)” (from “Conjuration of the Spectral Empire”, 2002) [Submitted by Daniel]
11. Torture Killer – “Forever Dead” (from “Swarm!”, 2006) [Submitted by Vinny]
12. Arch Enemy – “Deceiver, Deceiver” (from “Deceivers”, 2022)
13. Psycroptic – “A Fragile Existence” (from “Divine Council”, 2022)
14. Imperial Triumphant – “Merkurius Gilded” (from “Spirit of Ecstasy”, 2022)
15. Asphyx – “Forerunners of the Apocalypse” (from “Incoming Death”, 2016) [Submitted by Vinny]
16. Katakomba – “Embalmed in Concrete” (from “Katakomba”, 2022) [Submitted by Vinny]
17. Brutal Truth – “Birth of Ignorance” (from “Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses”, 1992) [Submitted by Vinny]
18. Jarhead Fertilizer – “Product Of My Environment” (from “Product Of My Environment”, 2021) [Submitted by Vinny]
19. Bölzer – “The Great Unifier” (from “Aura” E.P., 2013) [Submitted by Daniel]
20. Go-Zen – “Goronyaaaan” (from “Hitoshizuku”, 2012)
21. Internal Bleeding – “Prevaricate” (from “The Extinction of Benevolence”, 1997)
22. Suffocation – “Anomalistic Offerings” (from “Breeding The Spawn”, 1993) [Submitted by Daniel]
23. First Days Of Humanity – “Fashioning Weapons Out Of Bones & Sinew” (from “Caves” E.P., 2019)
24. Phyllomedusa – “Gulf Inertia” (from “Fijian Fantasies”, 2019)
25. Nasum – “Scoop” (from “Helvete”, 2003) [Submitted by Daniel]
26. Terrorizer – “Storm of Stress” (from “World Downfall”, 1989) [Submitted by Vinny]
27. Wormrot – “Hatred Transcending” (from “Hiss”, 2022) [Submitted by Daniel]
28. Knoll – “Callus of the Maw” (from “Interstice”, 2021) [Submitted by Vinny]
29. Cerebral Incubation – “Gastrointestinal Rape” (from “Asphyxiating On Excrement”, 2009)
30. Devourment – “Unleash The Carnivores” (from “Unleash The Carnivore”, 2009)
Seems like a lazy attitude to me. I'd like to suggest that you add all demos, singles, radio broadcasts, video clips & live performances immediately along with full tracklistings, liner notes, lyrics & instrumental transcriptions.
Rehearsals can come later (see I'm reasonable).
I'm not sure why you'd close your comeback album out with this travesty of musical justice to be honest.
A short blast of crusty Californian sludge metal goodness.
Dystopia - "Dystopia" (2008)
I've been a big fan of Californian sludge metallers Dystopia's 1994 "Human = Garbage" E.P. & 1999 "The Aftermath" E.P. for some time now so I've had their sole full-length album on my radar for a number of years but have somehow managed to avoid giving it my full attention until yesterday. This self-titled comeback release came after a gap of nine years from Dystopia's last record & is generally regarded as somewhat of a classic for fans of crusty sludge metal but I have to admit that my first few listens have been.... well..... a bit underwhelming if I'm being honest.
The themes are clearly centered around drug addiction with the use of some decidedly negative layered spoken-word samples being somewhat of a trademark for the band by this point. The filthy crust punk production is certainly appropriate but somehow Dystopia have always found the genuinely heavy production job they so sorely require to be quite elusive in my experience. The delivery of dual vocalists Matt Parrillo & Dino Sommese is even more overthetop than ever before, at times bordering on the ridiculous in their sheer insanity & I think that goes a long way to explaining the appeal of a record like "Dystopia" as it really does push the threshold of drug-fueled depression & depravity. There are a couple of problems here that weren't visible on the band's short-form classics though. There really aren't any genuine belters with the two-minute "Control All Delete" being the only one of the proper songs to really get me going. There are also a few clear duds included, particularly the grindcore-inspired "Illusion of Love" & the God-awful waste of space that is the untitled closing track. I find it hard to see how anyone can rate a release like this one the full five stars after listening to that closer to be honest. Surely common sense has to prevail at some point, doesn't it?
Dystopia are certainly at their best when they get their doom on & you can clearly see that during the first half of lengthy opening track "Now and Forever". I also enjoy it when they go for broke in a crusty hardcore direction like they do on the before-mentioned "Control All Delete" but when they start to tail off significantly for me is when they employ groovier riffs &/or bouncier beats & there are a number of those moments scattered across the tracklisting. It would seem to me that Dystopia have made a huge effort to take their strengths & to amplify them in the hope of maximum appeal for their underground fanbase but I don't think it's had the desired effect because the creativity & focus that I found so appealing on their previous material doesn't seem to be here. Sadly, I can't help but think that Dystopia's day in the sun had already run its course & they would have been better off leaving their 1990's legacy untainted.
For fans of Tragedy, Sea of Deprivation & Damad.
3/5
Atmospheric blackgaze from San Francisco, USA.
Deafheaven - "New Bermuda" (2015)
Last month I found myself revisiting San Francisco blackgaze legends Deafheaven's fourth full-length "Ordinary Corrupt Human Love" & being really impressed with what I heard so I immediately popped the previous album "New Bermuda" into my Spotify playlist for this month so that I could see how it compared. I remember thoroughly enjoying it at the time of release & not much has changed in that regard as it's yet another quality release from an extreme metal band that simply couldn't produce a dud if its life depended on it. For the follow-up to 2013's classic (& heavily divisive) "Sunbather" album the band opted to reignite their black metal passion with this record being perhaps their most black metal release however that's not to say that Deafheaven's signature blackgaze approach has dropped off the radar by any means as they tend to skip between the two sounds quite often. There's a little post-metal here & there but I wouldn't say that the post-rock influence is anything that isn't covered by the blackgaze tag. The screaming vocal performance of front man George Clarke is a highlight as usual, as is the blasting drumming of Daniel Tracy. I guess it's fair to say that everything that Deafheaven touch is pure class. They could fart in my face & I'd probably praise the complexity of the fragrance & the textured & melodious tonality of its song. In saying that, the last track "Gifts for the Earth" does see the quality drop a touch & I'm not sure "New Bermuda" ever threatened to enter my Hall of Metal Glory with one of my more prestigious ratings. It just pips out "Ordinary Corrupt Human Love" for the highly sought-after honour of being my second favourite Deafheaven record these days though & I think most black metal fans would really dig it if they gave it a genuine chance.
For fans of Lantlôs, Numenorean & Alcest.
4/5
I'm afraid I've already got enough Metal Academy-directed listening to do every month between the nine feature releases, the Hall of Judgement releases I'm consciously trying to contribute to & the subgenre deep dives I've been conducting in the interest of site integrity. I might leave this one to everyone else for the time being or I'll never get the opportunity to explore my own passions.
I wasn't aware of this until now but Scott is one of my absolute favourite vocalists of all time, probably in my top three actually. In fact Neurosis sit amongst the greatest of all time for me too so this is.... well....... very annoying from a selfish musical perspective. Not to mention very sad in others.
I'd hate to be the mastering engineer on that one.... unless of course I was paid by the hour.
Korn have sold over 40 million records so I think saying that Linkin Park have one-way traffic is a major overstatement even though Linkin Park have sold over 70 million.
Although Godflesh are clearly the best industrial metal act of all time in my opinion, surely Fear Factory sell more records than them by a significant margin, don't they?
And also, I don't know how up to date Wikipedia is but it says that Queensryche have sold over 20 million records to Dream Theater's 12 million.
It's probably also worth me highlighting that swapping a clan will remove your impact on the clan you're dropping too so things like clan ratings & clan charts will immediately see your contributions disregarded, not to mention the logistics of repeatedly changing the monthly feature release & playlist rostered & allocations.
I can't say I agree with this approach. A member's clan assignments are intended to play a strong role in their identity at Metal Academy so I would discourage repeated swapping of clans. It's important to remember why we have clans in the first place which is to ensure that anyone that's voting on a release's clan or subgenre is well qualified & to do so & that there's an easy avenue to differentiate between a devoted & a casual listeners feelings on a release. The Hall of Judgement is such a small part of the site in the grand scheme of things so I don't think we should be diluting the fundamental intent of the site in order to better facilitate fast outcomes there (& in doing so risk the integrity of the voting just quietly too). Remember, not being a part of a clan doesn't restrict you from enjoying the releases & sharing your thoughts on the releases it contains in any way so I can't see why anyone would want to swap to a clan simply because they feel like listening to some releases from that clan. I'd suggest that I have one of the broadest taste profiles at the Academy but there's no doubt that everyone has comfort zones where they're more knowledgeable than others & I'm well aware of what mine are. That doesn't mean that I don't love a whole bunch of releases from each of the other five clans & I don't feel in any way restricted. I know perfectly well that there are people that are more qualified than I am to select the feature releases & nominate the playlist inclusions for the other clans & I treat it as an opportunity to discover new things while I can do the same for others within the context of my own clans.
Thanks for your suggestions Rexorcist. Ben & I have often discussed this topic & I think it's worth highlighting a couple of things. Firstly, we have no visibility of who has submitted votes on the Hall entries. All we can see is the number of votes so we wouldn't be able to allow or disallow votes from our various members without opening the Hall up completely as a free-for-all. Regardless of that, I think it's important that we maintain the integrity of the clan system. If you're not a member of the affected clans then I think it's important that you can't impact the releases in that clan as that's kinda the point of the clans system. Secondly, I have strong evidence that leads me to believe that we have at least one member who religiously votes on every available Hall entry without ever having heard many of the releases attached to them. I have no way of proving that as I can't see who has submitted the votes & have no way of knowing whether they've actually given the releases in question a few spins either but I have a pretty good idea given the clans that it happens on, the obscurity of some of the releases I've submitted, the swiftness of the votes being submitted after being posted & the lack of any other ratings on these releases in our database. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put two & two together. As long as that sort of thing is happening I'm reluctant to reduce the pass requirements too much as it has the potential to skew the result one way or the other. I'm certainly open to closing entries out if it's obvious which way they're going to go though (e.g. a score of 6 or 7 to zero for example). We have a number of those situations at the moment which I've highlighted in the "Hall of Judgement submissions that are close to a result" thread I posted in the root "Hall of Judgement" folder. My preference is that we try to get to the required vote numbers wherever possible but (as is always the case at the Academy) we're open to the thoughts of the wider community. What does everyone else think?
I've always been open to demo recordings due to my having spent many years in the underground tape trading scene. They're certainly not for everyone but personally I find some of these crude self-funded releases to contain a level of freedom & authenticity that a lot of bands fail to ever achieve again. Of course, a good portion of demo tapes are complete balls too so you've gotta take the good with the bad.
There were a few reasons we elected not to include demos at Metal Academy. The visual component of the site is very important to Ben & I believe that we have one of the best looking metal websites on the web as a result. Including obscure demos would surely have diluted the site aesthetics given how difficult it can be to secure high quality images of the cover artwork, not even considering how low grade a lot of the artwork is in the first place. Also, the task of adding all of the releases to the site is huge enough without throwing in the zillions of demos & singles as well. I think it was the right decision but that doesn't mean that we can't add the more significant demos on occasion if they're deemed to be important enough to the development of the scene.
Early 2000's brutal death metal from Austria.
Broken Torso - "The Ultimate Abhorrence" (2000)
I was particularly late in the game in discovering this underground release given that it didn't confront my ear holes until around 2009 but I shouldn't feel too ashamed because it really has been one of those records that's built its reputation over many years & kinda crept up on the competition very slowly through word of mouth. This sole album from Austria's Broken Torso now seems to be regarded as somewhat of an unheralded classic amongst brutal death metal aficionados however I can't say that I see it quite as positively as that to be honest.
Despite "The Ultimate Abhorrence" being universally claimed as a brutal death metal release, it's definitely not as cut & dry as that. You see, Broken Torso have a few other strings to their bow & tend to balance out the brutal blast beats with more melodic riffage that's similar to the more accessible sounds of Swedish bands like Edge of Sanity & Dissection. The vocals are super-deep & ultra-dark which adds a nice contrast to some of the more melodic riffs. There are no guitar solos included & I tend to think this may be due to the technical deficiencies of guitarist Alex Mayrhofer because he's obviously the weakest link for Broken Torso. Whereas some fans refer to his guitar work as unhinged & psychotic, I tend to think of him as lacking control & timing because he struggles to stay in time with very capable drummer Thomas Breiteneder throughout this short 27 minute album & this is somewhat of an obstacle for me to be honest. You see, while Breiteneder does a fantastic job at blasting away with genuine precision, it almost sounds like Mayrhofer is having trouble his monitor speaker & can't hear what's going on around him with the other musicians in a live environment. This is particularly noticeable during the middle of the record where things start to fall apart pretty noticeably during weaker inclusions like "Thrill of Terror" & "Unforgotten Sins". Thankfully the quality level picks up significantly over the last couple of tracks & I'm left with a generally positive feeling by the end of the album.
"The Ultimate Obhorrence" may not be the unheralded classic that it's made out to be but it's definitely worth a few spins for those extreme metalheads that don't mind a bit of melody amongst all of the blasting violence. It reminds me very much of bands like Slovakia's Nomenmortis & France's Kronos in that way while the both ways bet Broken Torso take in regard to the more brutal & more traditional styles of death metal should appeal to fans of bands like Dying Fetus whose original band logo the band have so clearly ripped off.
For fans of Kronos, Nomenmortis & Dying Fetus.
3.5/5
Interesting thread Sonny. Here's a few off the top of my head:
Viking metal - Bathory
Gorenoise - Phyllomedusa
Rap metal - Rage Against The Machine
Neue Deutsche Härte - Rammstein
Djent - Meshuggah
Good call. I've been meaning to ask Ben about exactly that as it probably affects me more than anyone given that I've submitted so many Hall entries that I can't remember which ones were mine & which ones aren't.
If you join a clan & then find that your interest diminishes over time then you can always ask to be removed from that clan & undertake another clan challenge for the opportunity take up a new fourth clan.
Hint: If you're genuinely unable to decide between multiple clans that you have identical amounts of interest for, it will always help the site more if we have more people in the less populous clans. You'll also have more opportunity to contribute to activities like the monthly feature release nominations & playlist track submissions when there are less active members.
It's completely up to you though of course.
Participation in the Hall of Judgement only helps if the member understands & appreciates the clan well & are willing to explore the release in question with an open mind. Otherwise it can just as easily be a hinderance to the accuracy of our genre tagging. There's no point in someone that doesn't really like or understand the symphonic metal genre making calls on a symphonic metal record & that's the whole point of the Metal Academy clan philosophy. It's actually our differentiator over the competition.
It's fair to say that the clan challenges aren't something that's achieved all that often which is kinda the point. Most of our regulars have achieved them & earnt a fourth clan at some point although some of them have since voluntarily dropped a clan or elected not to chase a fourth in the first place due in the interest of keeping the integrity of the clan concept intact.
Oh, I see what you’re saying. Sorry. I forgot you have to complete your existing clans before attacking a fourth. Consider it locked in.
Well you're already a member of The Guardians so I'm not sure what you're expecting here Rexorcist.
Even though we decided not to add Southern Metal to Metal Academy, I decided to create a Top Ten Southern Metal Releases of All Time list for anyone that's interested in checking out what the movement's all about.
Note: I've included some releases that I don't consider to be genuine Southern Metal but that are generally regarded as being included within the genre. I didn't include the Pride & Glory record I investigated because we decided not to add it to the site.
01. Glorior Belli - "Meet Us At The Southern Sign" (2009)
02. Down - "NOLA" (1995)
03. Down - "Down II: A Bustle in Your Hedgerow…" (2002)
04. Alabama Thunderpussy - "Open Fire" (2007)
05. Corrosion of Conformity - "Deliverance" (1994)
06. Floodgate - "Penalty" (1996)
07. He Is Legend - "Suck Out The Poison" (2006)
08. Hank Williams, III - "Hillbilly Joker" (2011)
09. Fireball Ministry - "Their Rock Is Not Our Rock" (2005)
10. Black Label Society - "Mafia" (2005)
Yes, that's true. As you can probably tell, I've been trying to drum up some interest in the Hall of Judgement of late as it's an integral part of the site.
An epic sludge metal marathon from these Californian grindcore kings.
Nails - "You Will Never Be One Of Us" (2016)
I really enjoyed Nails' third record back at the time of release but was perhaps too preoccupied with the Metal Academy podcast at the time which didn't allow me to fully grasp just how much hardcore violence it contains because these guys are kinda unparalleled in that regard. Look, I love albums like "Unsilent Death" as much as the next extreme metal nut & 2013's "Abandon All Life" sophomore album is my all-time favourite grindcore record but I honestly have no idea how this release can be seemingly overshadowed by the band's previous work because it's an outstanding example of the genre with a ridiculously powerful production that could not possibly be better for this style of music. The 22 minute run time is dominated by the eight minute sludge metal classic that is closer "They Come Crawling Back" which perhaps goes part of the way to explaining it but the bass guitar & drum sounds are absolutely immense on this record with Todd Jones' vocals sounding utterly monstrous. Don't believe me? Check out tracks like "Friend to All" or "Into Quietus" & tell me you can sit still, let alone stop flailing your arms around & fly kicking anything in close proximity with complete disregard for your own or anyone else's well-being. With the exception of "Abandon All Life", I've struggled to rate a grindcore release higher than a 4/5 on Metal Academy but "You Will Never Be One Of Us" has come within a bee's dick of achieving that feat with this revisit to what is an outstanding release for the genre.
For fans of Full Of Hell, Dead In The Dirt & Trap Them.
4/5
This doesn't sound like much of a problem to be honest. We'd simply swap out the album in the list & there'd be no implications of doing that. If someone had already completed a review of the album in question then we'd simply accept that as we're not here to nit-pick over technicalities. The intent of the clan lists was always to a) prove that someone has a reasonable understanding of a fourth clan before allowing them to take on membership & b) to promote activity on the site (particularly early on in the website's existence). Whether one of the releases changes doesn't really impede the process much at all & in the case of "Rising" it's still an important release for the early metal scene even it may not technically be metal enough to convince me that it's not more of a hard rock record than it is a metal one.
I've decided to pass the Hall entry to have Sólstafir's "Svartir Sandar" removed from The Fallen due to the fact that it would no longer qualify for inclusion in the clan if it was to be added to the database today & also because it has a clear majority of 5-1 voting YES in the Hall of Judgement.
Ichiko Aoba - "0" (2013)
Chilled-out Japanese contempary folk with super-sweet female vocals. It was well up to the task on a lazy Saturday afternoon.
OK. I've added you into the roster (shown a few posts above this one).
Rexorcist, are you wanting to participate in the monthly feature release nomination roster? Let me know & I can add you in for October.
Still, whatever speed tracks are on that album might be very good, but stylistically they're market brand.
It's probably worth mentioning that "Heavy Metal Maniac" was the first genuine speed metal record ( along with Acid's self-titled debut) so I'm sure it didn't sound particularly vanilla at the time.
Hahahaha... I'd suggest that "enthusiastic" is a pretty good description of our early impressions of you actually Rexorcist. :)
Yeah good point Morpheus. That's something we've spoken about before as I always liked that about the Terrorizer forums.
Cryptopsy - "Whisper Supremacy" (1998)
Here's a hot take for ya. This is my Cryptopsy album of choice these days. I know that might sound strange given the almost unanimous love for the Canadian's first couple of records & the fact that brutal death metal is my subgenre of choice but I honestly never saw the attraction that others seem to & consider them both to be significantly overrated. I actually don't have any time for "Blasphemy Made Flesh" & even though I quite like "None So Vile" I've never thought of it as anything particularly special. For their third record though we saw Cryptopsy dropping a little bit of the brutality & adding a significant amount of technicality with a more professional production job & a new vocalist who actually attempts to enunciate his words even if his delivery is more serviceable than it is impressive. Extreme drumming legend Flo Mounier still blasts away at ridiculous speeds but he still doesn't have the endurance or precision to fully pull it all off & I maintain my position that there are much better death metal drummers out there. Despite the consistent blasting though, this is definitely more of a tech-death record than a brutal-death one. New front man Mike DiSalvo sounds quite a bit like Cannibal Corpse/Monstrosity legend George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher here & in fact I'd suggest that the whole album comes across as a more brutal & technical version of the world's biggest selling death metal band. There's not a weak moment on "Whisper Supremacy" though with a very consistent tracklisting. Unfortunately it lacks the highlights to be considered for my higher scores & it probably doesn't help that the individual tracks can tend to sound pretty samey as they lack a bit of identity. Still... I love this style of death metal & have always found Cryptopsy's third effort to be a really enjoyable experience.
For fans of Suffocation, Wormed & Cannibal Corpse.
4/5
It's an interesting suggestion thanks Vinny. I assume that the idea will also encompass the polar opposite functionality so that I can filter the forums to show only my beloved genre-tag related threads? :) Would the ability to simply filter out the Hall of Judgement forum suffice?
I'd suggest that a decent portion of "Heavy Metal Maniac" was slower heavy metal numbers too actually. Off the top of my head I can remember "Holocaust", "Iron Dogs" & "Black Witch" all falling into that category.
Loving this beast of a post-sludge B-side from Converge's "I Can Tell You About Pain" single from 2017. Why in the actual fuck wasn't this track on the "The Dusk in Us" album??
Converge - "I Can Tell You About Pain" E.P. (2017)
This short two-track single from the Massachusetts-based metalcore kings' ninth album "The Dusk in Us" is an absolute belter, mainly due to the inclusion of the seven-&-a-half minute post-sludge epic "Eve" which is some of the band's best material. The two-&-a-half minute title track is a short burst of mathy hardcore that's pretty fun to bop along to but it's certainly overshadowed by the beast of a B-side with its tribal drumming & tense atmosphere.
For fans of Isis, Trenches & The Dillinger Escape Plan.
4.5/5
Take bands like Exciter. Each song is basically an attempt at being a fast and energetic hard rock song, which is basically the most generic form you can takes.
I have to admit that I disagree. Exciter always had a few slower heavy metal tracks included (at least on their first three records which are ones I'm most familiar with) & those were usually the ones I liked best as I generally find heavy metal to be more appealing than speed metal. I always found Exciter to be a combination of Venom, Motorhead & Black Sabbath & albums like "Violence & Force" & "Long Live The Loud" offer almost as much heavy metal as they do speed metal in my opinion.
Besides, we already have one clan taking five genres, I don't think we need another.
I'm pretty sure that was a consideration when we originally made the call actually Rexorcist although it has to be said that The Guardians includes Neoclassical Metal which pretty clearly isn't a genre in my opinion & is probably in need of sorting out more urgently than speed metal does. Speed metal is possibly the most poorly used genre tag in all of metal in my opinion with even some of the most popular releases in the whole genre being simply mistags. The first two Venom records are prime examples of this as neither include more than a couple of speed metal tracks each. You'll often find speed metal used simply as a logical descriptor to cover releases that really include 50% thrash metal & 50% heavy metal tracks when there aren't really any genuine speed metal tracks included on the release. Even genuine speed metal records aren't consistent across the whole tracklistings as there's a need for variety of tempo so they'll inevitably have a couple of slower tracks included that fall into heavy metal territory & that muddies the water a bit. To me there's a fundamental difference between speed metal & thrash metal in that thrash is driven by the riffs which is why they're usually more complex in order to command the audience's focus. Speed metal is driven by the vocals which sees the riffs & song structures being simpler & more of an accompaniment to the vocal or lead guitar melodies like they are in heavy metal. The links between speed metal & European power metal definitely give The Guardians a strong case but if you look at many of the top speed metal releases you'll find that plenty are also tagged with thrash so I could honestly go either way on this. Perhaps Andi is right & it needs a detailed deep dive to come up with an informed decision.
Ben & I gave this a lot of thought before deciding on our current arrangement when we were originally building the clan philosophy. We opted for the current arrangement because in our experience speed metal had a stronger stylistic crossover with thrash metal. I'm certainly open to revisiting this but are interested in everyone's feelings. I'd really like everyone to be aware that RYM is a very poor guide though so we have no intention of blindly following what they're doing.
My prediction is that they'll take the cash-grab option of every other old-school band that's reformed in the last decade i.e. they'll steer clear of the "Grin" sound as it was too divisive.