Rexorcist's Forum Replies

Hard rock

I'm not the biggest Behemoth fan myself, but I'm not gonna lie: I was really looking forward to this one.  After a busy day of work and some heavier shopping than usual, I needed to rest.  Somehow, their brand of death metal really did the job for me.  Something about the quality of their music put a part of me at ease.  I checked out a few Behemoth works before just because I wanted to get some blackened death under my belt, even though these guys are largely pure death, and even though they didn't live up to the legend I had heard about, I was eager to check out more and more, but didn't get to this album until months after I put them aside to focus on a bunch of other acts.  I chose this one specifically because I felt an obligation to them after hearing all their early works.

There seems to be the occasional switch between melodeath and typical death.  There are moments that are more focused in the blastbeats and moments more focused in the rhythm.  Other than style, there really aren't very many similarities between these songs.  Each song is about maintaining a presence that never really wavers while adding a little something new to each entry, although originality does wane a little by the end.  But among the weaker, less fleshed out moments are some serious bangers like the extremely melodic intro and the more blastbeat-focused Mysterium, constantly maintaining that menacing atmosphere and never losing strength.  I have to wonder how much methylene blue these guys put in their coffee before recording this album.  But I'd say the real star of this show belongs to Inferno Prominski, whose creativity on the percussions is displayed at incredible force.  Demigod shows several of his best performances so far.  The guy's a whirlwind that keeps switching from one drum to the other and even overshadows the rest of the band.

I think people who are more into Behemoth will get a stronger kick out of this album, but I'm still really happy with the results here.  Demigod shows excellent growth from their early days and shows real promise for their future which is later lived up to on The Satanist.  That drummer is a wild wild menace in his field, and he makes what could've been just another decent death album much better by leading the bands as the melodies work around him.

83

Hint for tomorrow's INFINITE album:

I didn't tag it metal when I put it on my chart.  Skip it.

As for this song, just plain heavy psych to me.

There seems to be an early "taditional heavy metal" backdrop in the production in some places, but it can be easily compared to the metallic backdrop of 80's metal into hair metal, so I'm not gonna call this metal.  But it sure kicks some fuckin' ass.

Maybe.  But there are very few "post" subgenres of metal that I really take seriously.  But as I've said before, if they're missing the sludge then I just won't call it atmo-sludge.  Biggest example is Rosetta.  Too atmo, not sludgy enough.  There needs to be more "truth" to the "post" tag for post-metal as well, which is where bands like Solstafir come in.

Feel like it's pertinent to put this here rather than anywhere else, just found out that my old college radio station has moved away from music for the most part and is just another NPR station that spouts pre-recorded talking shows and such. Dunno how I feel really, other than sad. As someone who enjoys music and sharing it, I'm just glad that I was able to take advantage of that opportunity when I could. It really shaped how I look at music, and especially Metal music, when I was able to share it with so many people that would legitimately call in and cared about what they were listening to on some random college station in their hometown. As things move forward I can only see it getting worse for these kinds of stations, so I can only be thankful what what I was able to do in my 3 years there. 

The pain of cancellation of something you love.  It's kinda like a part of your soul was disrespected. 

There's definitely early doom influence here, but as a full on song, it's mostly typical 70's hard rock.

I'm not Fallen, but I really do see a clear distinction between atmo-sludge and post-metal, and refuse to call one the subgenre of the other.  There's a little overlap, and that's it as far as I'm concerned.  Post-metal shouldn't just be long atmospheric metal.  Take bands like GYBE, Sans and Tortoise in post-rock.  There's more to it on a structural spectrum, and most atmo-sludge doesn't meet that standard.  They're just slow and atmospheric, big woop, like atmo-black.

So my final point is: I wouldn't mind if atmo-sludge returned as a separate entity, but I have little to do with the Fallen save voting on alls that the Fallen happen to be on, so whatevs.

Bluesy and proggy, but not heavy enough for a metal tag.

Forgot about the album this week.  It'll continue next Tuesday.

I think the horn is distracting people on this one. Hard rock.

I listen to power metal.  Horn doesn't bother me.

Ride the Sky was also a single, and since singles are usually released before the album, but Zeppelin also performed the song for the first time t the 1970 Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music in June.

Major Rainbow vibes here.  Heavy metal.

I found about a third of it to be "traditional heavy metal" and that's about it.

Fixed.

Hard rock in every sense of the term.

Kinda psych but mostly blues rock.

Turns out the edition I heard when I made my first comment had sides A and B reversed, so my comment on the first track was from muscle memory on the wrong tracklist.  So I switch my commentary on the first track to this rym standard:

Hard Rock, Blues Rock

Heavy Metal

I feel like it's more inspiration than anything.  The Planets is too popular of a classical piece to credit as your own.

Yeah, I'm going stoner metal and traditional heavy metal on this one.

It’s the added complexity in the arrangements & song-structures as well as the cold, angry atmosphere. It also helps that it’s a thrash riff masterclass with all four band members at the absolute peak of their powers from a performance & musicianship perspective.

Gonna have to give it a replay today.

After I'm done with Draconian, I guess I'll put together private doom and goth lists and see where they're going.  Unfortunately, I'm still in a position to where I'm safe with the way I want my log if I listen to one metal album a day, assuming I listen to enough albums in that day to make up for it.  Today I finished the Poppy catalog and heard the new Duran Duran as well as their debut.  But I'm definitely not into them as much as I'd like to be considering their status in the new wave scene.

My day's likely going to be spent with DJ Shadow.  He's got a new one out and I've only heard his debut and a singles compilation.

I think I'm gonna go hard rock heavy metal on this one because it's got a lot of energy that makes me want to bang my head despite its obvious blues rock elements.

Lotsa thrash there.  Hard to avoid it in that decade.  Out of curiosity, what sets And Justice for All above Master of Poppets and Ride the Lightning IYO?

I don't care what folk we put it under as long as it's not metal.

I seem to remember that as well, but I think that was a good move for them because the two sides compliment each other well.

Another good example is how The Moody Blues were another pop rock band in 1965 before Days of Future Passed.

I was more impressed with than album than most people.  Even though they're better at hard rock, Deep Purple proved that they can really bring out the fantasy vibes through rock long before symphonic prog or any fantasy genres of rock and metal ever existed.  It was a very "vibes" album from what I remember.  And yeah, the prog wasn't always the MOST creative as it had been done more well before, but I kinda believe that the first two real prog bands were Moody Blues and Deep Purple, and this was one of those albums that helped cement it before King Crimson came into the picture (and coined the term).

If they did plagiarize it, they did that song a favor.  The production doesn't do anything good about that Ritual song any justice...

I don't remember Woman from Tokyo very well, but I'm more or less going with Daniel's description on this one.

Today's HORDE album:

Behemoth - Demigod (2004)

Genre: Death

Votes: 1

Reason: Behemoth is an understated essential in modern death.

Review:

I'm nowhere near into solo Ozzy as I am into Black Sabbath, and I know I'm not alone in this.  Because of this, I've spent very little time in Ozzy's solo career.  Up until today, I had only heard his first two albums.  I really think it's about time I stopped putting both solo Ozzy and solo Dio off and gotten to a couple of their albums.  But I'll keep this brief.

I was glad that each song felt a little different at times.  Some were pretty speedy like the title track and (ironically) "Slow Down," some were more about the beat and biker attitude like "Waiting for Darkness," and songs like "So Tired" added a more symphonic and melodic side, steering itself away from typical power ballads by keeping the gothic vibes of the album intact.  There's also some time for raw creepiness a la Alice Cooper, like on the song "Spiders."  But I think what really made the album so enjoyable is that all the melodies are very strong.  It seems to be a major focus on the album where everything else, including the variety factor, seems to work around the melodies.  And this leads up to the album's only flaw: stylistically and structurally, it's a pretty typical 80's heavy metal album.  None of the songs are bad, but thanks to this, it comes nowhere near Paranoid as a whole.  In fact, its typical structure is also why I'm keeping this brief, because there really isn't a lot stylistically that's unique enough to talk about.

Well, I'm largely impressed with this album.  From what I can remember, this seems more focused on doing different things with typical heavy metal songs than Blizzard of Ozz.  This is a great continuation of a solo career built on two great albums, and I highly recommend it for any metal fan that wants darkness in their music, even for extreme metalheads.

91/100

Budgie debut maybe?

Forgot to post the hint for today's Horde album.  I'll do that, and then I'll post the review for Bark at the Moon.

Less heavy than before.  Hard rock.

Especially since my mouse is acting up a little.

Looks like your list is restored with a different name: https://metal.academy/lists/single/261

Whew! An epic list like this shall not be lost.

I had to remake it due to the late reply.  Can we implement a notification that says, "Are you sure you want to delete it?"  It serves as a good warning before the accident actually happens.

I think this track is at least hard rock heavy metal for its edge, but most of the songs on the album really aren't QUITE as heavy so it might require a second listen.

Damn, I don't even remember the first five.  They were probably Scorpions albums as they were the first metal band I really got into.  One of them might've been, as is my opinion, Appetite for Destruction, and another might've been Dirt.  At first I was into heavy metal, and thrash took some time, but after checking out Helloween and Blind Guardian, I wanted more power metal pretty quickly.  Basically, my journey into metal started with hard rock, and I forced myself into more extreme genres overtime.  Black was the last one if I recall correctly.  I remember the first three death metal albums I've ever heard: Symbolic, Unquestionable Presence and Focus.  I don't even remember how grind started, but my first two black metal albums were At the Heart of Winter and Bergtatt.

Maybe, but there are some albums that would attract multiple people.  Not saying Paranoid is necessarily one of them, but in the end the decisions won't cause a massive riot one way or another.  I mysel largely don't care which clan we put it under.

Besides, it's obvious that the people who attribute "prog" to different genre tags have different meanings

They shouldn't though in my opinion.

I agree.  Unfortunately, they do.  So I reserve those tags.

But Empire feels to radio-friendly for me, that's the thing.  And I repeat: it doesn't need to be overly technical, but I'd appreciate a little more in Empire.  There's some, but most of the album gave me radio-rock vibes.

Besides, it's obvious that the people who attribute "prog" to different genre tags have different meanings, and I don't tag a prog electronic album that way unless it feels less radio friendly and conventional.  New and proggy are also two different things.

Considering that they were working their way up to that, I wouldn't be against the tag.  I'll give it a spin today, as I've been meaning to.

I don't need them to be SUPER technical, but a little more than that.

Heh, I just realized, your hard rock vs. heavy metal opinions are like my prog opinions, and vise-versa. :P

In the case of our closer, it really pushes that line between hard rock and heavy metal, but I think I'd go 60% hard rock, 40% heavy metal.  There's definitely some heavy psych in parts, but I'm not really convinced it's a primary.  But when I think about it, stoner metal seems a little like a direct subgenre of heavy metal when you count bands like Spiritual Beggars.

This is another case of too many subgenres of metal to really judge.  We have three kinds of metal on your tags, even though I would add heavy metal to Iron Man.  In other words, the most accurate way to do it would simply be to call it a "metal" album again, which we can't really do on Metal Academy, so it's another screwy situation.

Btw, you said "Electric Wizard," not "Electric Funeral."

It's hardly prog, either.  Honestly, Queensryche genre tags seem to be the result of fanboys who love lumping things in with cooler tags for credibility.

I was a pretty big fan of Draconian's 2020 album, but never made the jump back to their earlier stuff. Seems like I might have to remedy that as it looks like they're incredibly consistent straight from the start. I only have a few go-to Gothic Metal bands so it'd probably be worth branching out a bit. 

I remember a little of a buzz around that album when it came out, but I never got around to a lot of goth metal back then.