Xephyr's Forum Replies

April

Deftones - "Tempest" - Koi No Yokan (2012)

April

Evergrey - "Leaden Saints" - Escape of the Phoenix (2021)

Witherfall - "Tempest" - Curse of Autumn (2021)

IOTUNN - "Waves Below" - Access All Worlds (2021)

Opeth - "The Funeral Portrait" - Blackwater Park (2001)

Ne Obliviscaris - "Forget Not" - Portal Of I (2012)

April

Todd La Torre - "Hellbound and Down" - Rejoice in the Suffering (2021)

Crystal Viper - "Whispers From Beyond" - The Cult (2021)

Epica - "Code of Life" - Omega (2021)

Avantasia - "The Final Sacrifice" - The Metal Opera Pt. II (2002)

Orden Ogan - "Come With Me to the Other Side" - Gunmen (2017)

April

Stormlord - "Far" - Far (2019)

Sur Austru - "Taina" - Obârşie (2021)

Yoth Iria - "Unbound, Undead, Eternal" - As the Flame Withers (2021)

I can't place exactly why, but I didn't care for this. After the 3rd listen it didn't even feel like one of those albums where I understand why I "should" enjoy it; there's just something about it that rubs me the wrong way. I think Daniel saying "For fans of Atlantean Kodex" is the best explanation I can give, because that band makes me feel the exact same way. There's something about the incessant, soaring lead vocals that just ruins the sound for me, even though the doomy chugs and softer acoustic sections are well written. I can't really say much more than that because I don't quite get why this is bouncing off of me so hard, but it just is. The back half of the album from "Blackthorne" on keeps me much more interested than the front half, although it's still kind of hard to sit through the 15-minute closer. I'll have to come back to this one in a few weeks or months to see if I'm still just clueless on what to think about this one. 

3/5

It's been quite a long while since I've listened to In Waves, and I've always thought highly of Trivium in general since they were one of the only Metalcore bands I found during my high school days that I could stomach. I fell off from listening to them pretty quickly, especially after their disappointing Silence In The Snow, but I honestly enjoyed going back to this album. The impressive part is how many of these songs I actually remembered while going through, which is a testament to the "catchy little tunes" like Sonny said. I was instantly able to place "In Waves", "Inception of the End", "Watch the World Burn", "Forsake Not the Dream", and a few others once they came on. 

I think for me it goes on for a bit too long; I get tired of the style by the time I get to "Chaos Reigns", but In Waves will still be one of the staple albums for me that embodies the kind of Metalcore sound that I like without going full-on Converge style. The songs are incredibly catchy and memorable but still aggressive, chuggy, and technical. There's a contrast between harsh and clean vocals, but the clean vocals aren't high-pitched and whiny and the harsh vocals aren't a guttural  mess of nothing. 

Although I don't think that In Waves is an essential part of the Metalcore timeline, I respect the hell out of Trivium for writing something that hits the perfect middle-ground between accessibility and edginess. 

3.5/5

Epica - Omega

I've been absolutely loving Epica's new 2021 release and just put up a pretty lengthy review about it. As someone who thinks that Symphonic Metal is a slightly dying genre, Omega has been reinvigorating. So many great riffs and tracks that are still overly bombastic and slightly silly sometimes, but more down to earth thanks to the more aggressive guitar tone and harsh vocals that Epica has. I haven't gotten tired of this one over the past 2 weeks, so hopefully it'll stand the test of time through 2021. 

So, the truth is that I picked this because I don't really care for this album all that much. Avantasia and I go way back, with The Scarecrow being the first album I heard by them and it took me quite a while to check out their supposed masterpiece The Metal Opera. It looks like I first rated it about 5 years ago with a staggering 2.5/5, which was a massive disappointment at the time because I was (and am) such a huge Avantasia fan. So fast-forward to now, I thought that The Academy would be a good place to revisit it just to hear some other opinions and to see I'd have a change of heart. 

Well...not much has changed, it turns out. I feel like The Metal Opera appeals immensely to fans of more classic Power and Heavy Metal, and I can't say that I've ever been a massive fan of early Helloween, Gamma Ray, or anything in between. Hence Avantasia's earlier material really falls flat for me in a lot of ways compared to The Wicked Trilogy or their most recent album Moonglow. Even though the Avantasia songwriting is present front and center, everything sounds so basic at the end of the day. Even on his debut album Tobias Sammet doesn't push the riff boundaries almost at all, and shallow riffs are one of the only big complaints I have about Avantasia as a project. The solos are still fantastic and there are certain parts that really shine, but at the end of the day this album is just a ton of similar fast chugging like Daniel alluded to. I certainly like it on some tracks, but on future Avantasia albums it feels like Sammet got better at filling the monotonous dead space created by his somewhat basic riffing structures. 

I mostly listen to Avantasia for the vocals and all-star guest lineup though, and Sammet really takes over this album in a sort of annoying way. Don't get me wrong, I like Sammet's voice, even though I can easily see how he can get grating after a while, but wow, it's sometimes hard to even remember any of the guests' parts on this. It doesn't help that the lineup is much different than modern Avantasia, with the vocalists being a product of the time considering this was recorded at the tail-end of the 90's. There are still massive names on here, from bands like Angra, Gamma Ray, and Helloween, but I think my issue with them is that they blend in with Sammet to a ridiculous degree since they're all high-register Power Metal vocalists. Rather than the contrasting harmonies and characters you get with vocalists like Jorn Lande, Russell Allen, or the one-offs like Hansi Kursch or Tim Owens, you just get a lot of vocal parts that sound like varying degrees of Tobias Sammet. The harmonies are still extremely well written and they work for what they're going for, but I can't look back on the vocal lineup on this album and be impressed when tracks like "The Raven Child" exist nowadays. 

For being a supposed Metal Opera this album always felt extremely choppy to me too, with the transitions between songs sometimes being completely amateurish (see "Breaking Away" into "Farewell"). It definitely feels like there's some grand adventure going on, but the interludes are so scattered and somewhat useless that any semblance of story progression kind of fades away after a while. The orchestral breaks like "A New Dimension" are well done but they sound dated to me, like a knock-off version of a full piece. Plus the symphonic elements take a pretty large backseat for most of the album, only supplying a chord every now and again in the background to create a fantasy/heavenly sort of atmosphere. 

Even though I feel like I'm being overly critical, I can instantly point to a lot of flaws that I think this album has. The singles are still solid, with "Serpents in Paradise", "Breaking Away", "Farewell", "The Glory of Rome", and "Avantasia" being great songs in my opinion, but it stops dead there. "The Tower" isn't the bold and dramatic ending that others claim it to be, "Sign of the Cross" is pretty forgettable, and "Inside" is incredibly skippable after the first few spins. I think I appreciate this more than I originally did a few years ago, but I'm going to hold fast to my original score because it's obvious that I can go on and on about how The Metal Opera isn't exactly what I expected it to be even still. At most I can see myself bumping it up to a 3 given how many singles I like, but I still don't think it works as an album overall. 

2.5/5

Please add Evergrey's new album Escape of the Phoenix, thank you!

Hey Daniel, are we doing the full write-up introducing the album as well? Or will you take care of that and you just need the album from us? 

I haven't listened to this album as of late, but I've listened to it enough to know that it's still a 5/5 for me. 

I listened to Verisakeet extensively before checking out this one, so I went into it thinking that there's no way that it would top that one considering it's my favorite Folk Metal album of all time to this day. While I think I still prefer Verisakeet, Hävitetty is its own beast that makes some daring shifts to their sound considering how fantastically their sound evolved starting with Kivenkantaja, which I wasn't as much of a fan of. The production and atmosphere of Hävitetty is much rawer but it has a ton of depth, leading to an even more "epic" feel than Verisakeet had. While Moonsorrow's extended songwriting has been great before, they really allow it to shine with doubling their average song length for Hävitetty.

This is going to be one that I want to review eventually and just rave endlessly about, so I think the gist is that Moonsorrow followed up one of my favorite albums of all time with something that was completely different and just as fantastic in its own right. It's definitely slower than Verisakeet and even that album can be quite slow with the drawn out ambiance of "Jotunheim", so I don't think that everyone will be as immediately drawn to this one as I was. 

5/5

I'm glad I spent a bit more time with this one, because even though I still don't think Hexecutor is a true sleeper hit, there's definitely some cool stuff in here. I was wanting to write it off after the first two listens since nothing really gripped me and I didn't quite get what it was trying to do, but after letting it settle for a few weeks I got a lot more out of it than I thought. 

Hexecutor are really carving their own path in this record, with the jarring transitions between Thrash and more traditional Heavy Metal proving to be rather unique, at least to me. The vocals are always Thrash/Black Metal centric, leading to some...interesting portions where the Thrash riffs haven't kicked in yet. I found myself really enjoying the riffing and thrashy ideas on tracks like the opening "Buried Alive with her White Silk Dress" and the more Heavy/Speed metal oriented "Eternal Impenitence". It strikes such an interesting balance between two styles that both do and don't work together. 

The record is still extremely clumsy though, with most of the transitions being almost nonexistent and thrown together with no effort. Beyond Any Human Conception of Knowledge feels like an album with a ton of concepts it wants to explore but has no real tact on how to display those concepts in a way that makes sense. I've found I love individual parts of this album, but the complaints of those above me still hold true with how thrown together it all feels. Part of me really enjoys unfocused albums just because you never quite know where the band is going to go next, but Hexecutor doesn't exactly blow my mind with how haphazard they are with riffs coming and going after the same old drum fill for 8 tracks straight. 

Seems like I got more out of this than most, probably thanks to the non-thrash parts having some great riffs and moments, but I agree in that I'm not sure where all the hype for this one came from. 

3.5/5

March

Alcest - "Kodama" - Kodama

Soen - "Lumerian" - Imperial

Caligula's Horse - "Dark Hair Down" - The Thief, The Tide, And River's End

March

Nightwish - "Sahara" - Dark Passion Play

Allen Lande - "The Artist" - The Showdown

Galneryus - "End of the Line" - Into The Purgatory

March

Yoth Iria - "The Mantis" - As The Flame Withers

Grima - "Rotten Garden" - Rotten Garden

Mefitis - "Fenshaden Deeps" - Offscourings

Persefone is one of those bands that I used to listen to quite a bit, with Aathma turning into my favorite release from them after initially listening to Spiritual Migration. Shin-Ken was an interesting concept album too, but I kind of fell out of them after a while. Never checked out Core though, and I think they're due for a revisit for sure.

I decided to check out a few of these this month after misplacing my flash drive that I use to listen to music at work. 

Bands I need to check out from this: 

More Draconian, great track. 

Old The Ocean, I only know their more modern stuff and they sound way better on this 2010 album from what I'm used to. 

That Warning album seems essential for Doom Metal, need to get around to it. 

Need to go back to last month's feature and check out Rosetta, impressive stuff. 

Could Labÿrinth's new 2021 be added please? Awful cover art and all?

Could Second to Sun be added please?

Agreed, I fell off of doing them because of end-of-year stuff and just not thinking I've had too much to share, which is kind of not true.

I'll definitely hold myself to contributing again. 

Ohms really grew on me after giving it more chances from being featured on here, and after hearing how they sound on this album compared to White Pony, it might put Ohms into better perspective. I didn't find Ohms to be as impactful and emotional as you're saying Daniel, but Koi no Yokan was much closer to achieving that for me. I still don't think Deftones are the kind of band that I would go out of my way to listen to on the regular, but they're good enough that I really enjoy coming back to them every now and again. 

I think the reason why I constantly go back to the point of Deftones sounding like Deftones is that there's a fine line for music commenters between bands that are bad and stagnant because they consistently sound the same and bands that are brilliant because they consistently sound the same. If I were to ever do a full Deftones review for any of their albums I'd definitely want to explain my stance on that a bit better, since Deftones and other bands like Bolt Thrower get to hone their craft playing one style with minimal overall changes with no backlash. Obviously it's because the style they landed on is incredibly good and no one cares if, at the surface level, many of the albums follow and use similar ideas. Deftones are an interesting case because while they obviously deliver exactly what the listener expects, there's a ton of nuance between this album and White Pony as well as even this album and Ohms, even though they do many of the same things. 

Good band is good.

Riot have popped up on my radar as one of the slightly more underground classic Heavy Metal bands, and I was never a big enough fan of what I heard to really take the plunge into their material. Thankfully it looks like the band turned over a bit of a new leaf at the end of the 80's and released ThunderSteel, which is way more up my alley in terms of early, proto-Power Metal. I always have had a soft spot for the higher pitched, androgynous vocals that have become a staple for the more traditional, classic style of Heavy and Speed Metal even for modern bands, so ThunderSteel wins out in that regard. 

The album is still pretty hit or miss though, with the front side being quite a bit stronger than the back. "Johnny's Back" and "Blood Streets" are noticably weak and "Buried Alive" goes on for a bit too long, plus "Run For Your Life" teeters right on the edge of being irredeemably cheesy with its robotic backing vocals. The first few songs are great though, with "Thundersteel", "Sign of the Crimson Storm", and "On Wings of Eagles" really showcasing what Riot can do with their lineup. I also really like the Rock and NWOBHM influences with all of the crazy guitar solos and flourishes, even though I might be misplacing those genre comparisons. 

Overall I'm just happy that I found a Riot release that I liked, considering how highly acclaimed they seem to be. They still don't stack up to any of the other older Power Metal bands I enjoy, but I enjoyed my time with this record, even though the B side really wore on me enough to bump my score down by half a star. 

3.5/5

Massive snoozefest for me, plus the raspy vocal style isn't something I'm particularly fond of, comes off as a bit weak sounding for the most part. There were a few decent songs like "Mount Skull" and "The Nameless Elite" but this is definitely just another Death Metal record in my opinion, not too much reason to go back to it. And Necroceros loses out to the other standard Death Metal albums I've had recently like Frozen Soul's Crypt of Ice (Highly recommend!), or even Omegavortex and Necrot from last year. Just some run of the mill stuff here sadly. 

Y'know, after 5 featured albums I'm starting to think that Deftones might just be a good band. 

And surprisingly enough, Koi No Yokan might actually be my favorite one yet. Even though I haven't revisited White Pony for a month or so and Around the Fur for a few months now, this one has some serious replayability for me. Still, as I said with Ohms, Deftones are ridiculously consistent when it comes to their acclaimed albums, so this is another record where you get exactly what you expect. But thanks to some slight differences in the production of the vocals and songwriting, Koi No Yokan has really smoothed out some of the issues I've had with other Deftones albums. 

After discovering Deftones really late given I listened to quite a bit of Alternative Metal in the past, I'm inclined to agree that they're essential to the subgenre. However, their shtick on Around the Fur and White Pony wears on me quickly, even though I do really like those albums, especially White Pony. The vocal performance of Moreno is a blessing and a curse, since I think it obviously makes Deftones who they are, but I can only handle his voice having unmitigated sexual intercourse with my eardrums for so long. Koi No Yokan, however, puts a limiter on Moreno's microphone so that you don't hear every single slight sound that comes from his mouth, and it's a game changer for me. I listened to this one almost on repeat for the past 2 days and it hasn't worn thin, showing that Deftones still have something special 12 years after their "quintessential" release. Plus with Ohms being so well received, it doesn't seem like they're finished anytime soon, despite some duds in-between. 

I'll probably change my mind on this later but Koi No Yokan tops White Pony for me overall, just due to ease of listening and some fantastic sounding riffs and memorable songs. It's not exactly challenging, but it's essential Deftones material that's just well done. 

The only bad thing about this is that Daniel is quickly running out of Deftones albums for easy Gateway monthly features!

4/5

I think I'm going to end up right in the middle of you two after revisiting this. I found Katatonia years ago and while I really enjoy most of their material I never had a strong desire to go back and listen to albums like The Great Cold Distance more than a few times. Obviously three or four years ago me had some strong enough feelings to initially rate it a 4.5/5, but going back to it left me feeling a bit lukewarm. 

Since I'm not familiar with their earlier Death Doom days, Katatonia was always one of those groups that just sounded extremely clean, polished, and consistent throughout all the material I've heard from them. The Great Cold Distance is no different in that regard because even though there isn't a whole lot of variety through the 12 songs, I never really get tired of their style. They know what they want to do and do it extremely well, which I think is worthy of a lot of praise. However, this time around The Great Cold Distance didn't really grip me in the same way that Daniel begins to explain this time around. Katatonia always manages to create extremely complex atmospheres out of very simple and easy to understand passages and layering, but eventually the album started to drag on with too similar of ideas. It's fortunate that Katatonia have carved out their signature sound so heavily that it doesn't bother me too much in the end, but I still think it's a criticism that I have. 

To sort of agree with Andi's point though, The Great Cold Distance is wholly accessible, but not necessarily in a bad way. There's still a ton of complexity to be had and I agree that this album may very well be a grower, to Daniel's point about subtlety. Alternative Metal styled Katatonia are one of those bands that I consider to be a gateway into the genre for people who say they hate Metal because all the music has is the same guitar riff over and over and someone screaming into the microphone. Alternative/Prog Metal like this shows that you can have a substantial and heavy emotional edge to something without necessarily going overboard with crazy Death or Black Metal riffing. The nice thing is that there are still plenty of heavy riffs to be had in this, so not much is lost by going towards the realm of accessibility. Great album, even if I don't quite think it's a full-blown masterpiece anymore. 

4/5

Well, I guess this is what you get when you just go and listen to random Power Metal albums from lesser known bands. I have zero clue what they were going for here, but man does it not work. At all.

Edit: Apparently the other YouTube video didn't work? Region locked maybe? 

Bolt Thrower - For Those Once Loyal & ...For Victory

Since it's the beginning of the year I've been trying to knock out some albums and bands that I know I should have been listening to for years now. Bolt Thrower is definitely one of them, and For Those Once Loyal  and ...For Victory didn't disappoint. Straight up quintessential Death Metal that doesn't necessarily do anything special solely because it doesn't have to in order to be outstanding. 

I was really looking forward to Serpent Column's 2020 release Kathodos since I was such a big fan of Mirror In Darkness back in 2019. On first listen I thought that Kathodos was an interesting spin on their style and rated it highly, but on subsequent listens it felt like it was missing something that Mirror In Darkness had. Obviously Serpent Column decided to go down a different route with less aggression and more theatric atmosphere, but it didn't have the same chaotic replayability as their previous effort. 

So, imagine my surprise when I see a 2020 Serpent Column album that isn't Kathodos pop up on the Academy. I had completely missed this one, since I was so focused on Kathodos. And because of how much I tried to like Kathodos, this album satisfied me immensely with the complete chaos that Serpent Column can bring. Apparently they took all the unmitigated aggression and just threw it onto this short 20 minute EP that never slows down and has some serious energy about it. Even though I don't normally care for this stuff, there's something about the way Serpent Column does it that got me really excited for this one, even for repeat listens. I honestly prefer this over Kathodos, which is kind of crazy to say but that album really fell off for me. This EP has zero fluff and is a prime example of one of the many style Serpent Column can play in. Normally they do a bit more compositionally, but sometimes it's a nice change of pace for a band to just put all their effort into one thing and just run with it. So, surprisingly, I really enjoyed Endless Detainment and it'll probably be making its way onto my 2020 list as something I missed. 

4/5

I'll take it Sonny, I remember a long time ago you had the same reaction to Elvenking's 2019 album so I'm glad I'm 2 for 2 on Power Metal rec's so far. Eternal Champion is nothing fancy, but it has some nuanced differences to how they approach the Power Metal formula that really grew on me after 10+ listens. Definitely a grower for me, but maybe a BIT overrated, especially since 2020 was completely devoid of any truly great Power Metal releases apart from Falconer's swan song album. So towards the end of 2020 when this album dropped I was really looking for something to satiate my Guardians itch. 

Review is up for me:

Eternal Champion - Ravening Iron Review

I originally had this rated at a solid 4/5, with it jumping high up into my year-end list when I listened to it in the beginning of December. US Power Metal normally isn't my thing but I was really impressed by these guys. 

While I was writing this review I went back to their debut and listened to Ravening Iron a ton more. By the end of writing I had to bump it up to a 4.5/5, since I just wasn't getting tired of having it on repeat. The riffs are fantastic and the vocals and overall production are unique enough to have this be one of my favorite Power Metal albums I've heard in a while. It's short, sweet, straight to the point, and uses the general US Power Metal ideas in a way that resonates with me way more than any other band I've heard. 

4.5/5

I think I've done a good job of avoiding burnout thus far, I never completely force myself to listen to new albums or write X amount of reviews a week. I revisit music that I actually feel like listening to whenever it pops into my head through the day, so I've been able to listen to over 250 new 2020 albums and over 900 in total in the past 2 years without necessarily feeling put off by it. 

I wish I could do more of Sonny's review style so I could be more casual about reviews on occasion, but whenever I start writing something in that vein I either end up writing a multi-paragraph review or get one or two sentences in, run out of things to say, and scrap it. Just not my style. 

Track by track reviews are interesting, since I share the same opinion as Daniel. My eyes just glaze over and I keep scrolling. Technically my Blackwater Park is a track by track review, but I still structure it in a way that reads like an analysis instead of a bulleted list. I think it works out, but it's a lot of work if you really want to talk about every single one of the tracks. 

I've been trying to get acquainted with more music theory related stuff because it goes along with how I write, but having never taken any classes or anything it's pretty tough to truly talk about music in that way. Nor do I really want to. I think that the objective music theory aspect can be interesting but loses its luster after a while because at the end of the day the question is always if you thought the album sounded good, not how many different chords there are or 5th major harmonic pinches the guitar did. 

I'd be interested to hear others' strong thoughts because, turns out, I have some unexpected strong thoughts about Terria as well. 

I've known about Devin for almost a decade now but only really started to delve into his other stuff after Empath came out in the beginning of 2019. I was aware and listening to stuff off of Transcendence and City, but didn't go back to the likes of Biomech or Terria until mid-2019 and early 2020. Biomech has become one of my favorites, no surprise there, but I was kind of taken aback by how much love Terria gets compared to the rest of his discography, at least on sites like RYM. Even though Biomech saw Devin experimenting with his initial "wall of dreamy sound" shtick, Terria is where he really brings his unique style into what people know him for and...it doesn't do a whole lot honestly. 

Yeah it's a massive sounding, dreamy soundscape of echoing bits and bobs with Devin's signature vocal lines and quirks, but I always find myself bored by this album. None of the songs stick out to me at all, it's not memorable, it just...sounds nice? I mean, it sounds nice enough for me to give it a 4/5 just because I do really like Devin Townsend in a pretty biased way, but I really don't see how this is considered to be one of his best. The choruses and hooks are corny and weird even for Devin, like him screaming "RECYCLE" and "It's your birthday, it's on Earth Day!", which have almost no zing to them whatsoever. At least on Empath's "Why?" I can chuckle at how ridiculous Devin's lyrics are since he plays them up so much, but it's like Terria exists in this weird middle ground where I'm not sure whether I should be taking him seriously or not. 

I'll give it a few more spins and probably tackle a full review for it, since it's such a strange blip on Devin's discography for me. It might be my most overrated 4, looking back. Might have to lower it after more thought. 

4/5

Cleaning out my ratings for the new year, could we please add:

Oubliette

Cleaning out my ratings for the new year, could we please add:

Blue Stahli

Cleaning out my ratings for the new year, could we please add:

Megaton Sword

Iron Savior - Skycrest (2020)

Lèpoka

The Lightbringer Of Sweden

Cleaning out my ratings for the new year, could we please add:

Singularity

Pulchra Morte - Ex Rosa Ceremonia (2020)

(There's a double entry for Venom Prison when you search in Bands)

Cleaning out my ratings for the new year, could we please add:

Coexistence

Soilwork - A Whisp of the Atlantic (2020)

Lucid Planet

Pyramid Theorem

Chaos Divine - Legacies (2020)

Mick Gordon - Doom: Horrible. I'm sorry but I hated this. If a two-hour computer game soundtrack is the best a clan can come up with, then I guess it's not for me. 1/5

Quoted Sonny92

I struggle with this too sometimes, primarily because videogame OST's are completely separate from "actual music" in my brain. I've always been deep in the gaming community but one thing I've noticed as I've socialized with more and more different sectors of the community online is that people LOVE their OST's. It seems like it's all they listen to sometimes, with all the songs they share being songs from videogames. It still feels wrong to me to judge OST's on the same playing field as normal albums because these songs are made for a distinct purpose inside the game, not just purely for listening. 

One thing I will say to try and suade you is that game OST's have come an INCREDIBLY long way in recent years. The days of a track simply playing start to finish behind the gameplay then looping are pretty much behind us, with most worthwhile OST's being dynamically programmed to go along with what's going on in the game. It's why people who play these games latch onto some of these newer soundtracks so much, like DOOM or Hades, because the way the music swells and changes with what's happening really leaves an impact on the experience. DOOM is pretty much the perfect example of this, since the atmosphere is dark and brooding as you're making your way through a dark hallway, then the guitar riff builds slowly once you walk into a room with demons to kill, then kicks into overdrive once you fire your first shot. Music is becoming an experience through the gaming medium, which is awesome, but it makes it really hard to objectively rate/discuss OST's as standalone things in my opinion. People will overrate game OST's because of the experience the music gave them while enjoying some of their favorite games, and I'm definitely guilty of this (see the Hades OST), so it's just something to look out for and think about. 

I'll still be relistening to a bunch of 2020 stuff trying to nail down a list I feel happy with. It's getting really close, so I'll probably end out 2020 with some pop and rap  albums that had a lot of buzz in 2020, just to fill out the year. There might be one or two metal albums from the random lists I've been seeing pop up that I might check out, and maybe try and write reviews for Neptunian Maximalism, that Spectral Lore / Mare Cognitum collab, Oranssi Pazuzu and Imperial Triumphant? Those are some difficult albums to review though, so I'll have to see how I feel about it. 

I also want to catch up with the Feature Releases again, try to make it more of a habit in 2021. Work has been escalating so I've found myself being forgetful about grabbing new music for the day, since my workplace blocks Spotify for some reason. No, I don't work in a prison, even though some of the stuff they do around here makes it seem like it. Looking back, I had a very productive 2020 music-wise and the Academy has definitely been a cornerstone for that. 

I didn't realize that MA even had the DOOM soundtrack on here, so I finally pulled my old review over. I have some interesting takes on this one, since it's no doubt one of the best videogame OST's in the modern era, or ever for that matter, but it's kind of a slog on its own. The extremely high rating has to do with how I choose to rate OST's, which is thinking of them while you're actually in the game and playing, but I keep going back and forth on whether that's the "correct" way to go about it. I gave the Hades soundtrack from this year a 4.5/5 as well because the music for that game is phenomenal and holds up on its own extremely well, much like DOOM, but the 4.5 is still because of that rush you get when you hear the guitar kick in as you walk into a room or into a boss fight. Maybe I'll make a thread to talk about how others go about rating videogame music, because I'm always so torn. If I had to rate this album completely on its own without the DOOM demon massacring experience, it would probably be a 3.5 or even a 3.

It's a shame that the DOOM Eternal soundtrack had production issues with Gordon versus Bethesda, so he didn't even master most of the tracks for the OST release. I think people overstate how "bad" it is, but you can definitely tell. Eternal's OST is also extremely bloated compared to DOOM 2016's, clocking in at 4 and a half hours instead of 2 hours. I already thought that 2 hours was a bit too much DOOM, so Eternal was really too much in that regard. 

Review:

https://metal.academy/reviews/19542/1682

January

Lucid Planet - "Anamnesis" - Lucid Planet II (2020)

Caligula's Horse - "Valkyries" - Rise Radiant (2020)

Imperial Triumphant - "The Greater Good" - Alphaville (2020)

January

Eternal Champion - "Skullseeker" - Ravening Iron (2020)

Falconer - "Rapture" - From A Dying Ember (2020)

The Lightbringer of Sweden - "Skeletor" - Rise of the Beast (2020)

Oh hey I remember stumbling on this group years ago, didn't realize they were still coming out with new stuff. I'll have to check it out before the year ends. 

After giving this another spin alongside White Pony for comparison, I have to slightly retract my first statement and align more with Daniel, even though I still don't think it's worthy of 4.5/5 praise. Ohms is definitely a modernization of their style and while I may have missed the stepping stone considering I haven't checked out Koi no Yokan, it's definitely a bit more than "just another Deftones album". It's much cleaner and tighter than White Pony, and while I think that makes it a bit less interesting overall, I also think that the mixing and balance of this album falls more in line with what I like. Although White Pony has this sort of unhinged and in-your-face atmosphere, most of that comes from Moreno's moans and breathing being piped directly into the listener's eardrums at all points in time. Ohms is more moderate and puts the mixing right in the pocket of where Deftones' sound probably should be, for better or worse. There are some tracks that go back to the older sound, like the beginning of "This Link Is Dead" and "The Spell of Mathematics", but it's not a constant assault. The synth experimentation also fits in really well, never feeling like it's out of place. It also should be noted that there are some hefty riffs in this one that are great as standalone features instead of always being accented by the vocals like White Pony tended to do. "Genesis", "Urantia", and "Headless" all have great chuggy riffs that hit harder than most of their previous material. 

So yeah, I think I wrote this one off a bit too soon. It's still a Deftones album, but it's a good Deftones album. Not good enough for me to bump it up to a 4/5, but I came around to it after a few more listens. 

I'll add more to this after I relisten to it, but I'll leave the description that I put for it on my 2020 list here for starters: 

"Deftones are back with another Deftones album. This Deftones album has some serious Deftones in it as they attempt to be as Deftones as possible in this new Deftones album. They really Deftones it up in every possible Deftones way.

...It's a Deftones album, what else do you want from me?"

Still liked it. 

3.5/5

I'd be interested to see what the analytics of split releases are in terms of streaming services and how Spotify handles split releases. 

There's no doubt that there have been some amazing splits this year, as my ratings have shown as well, but I wonder if the question to ask is if the band was better off just releasing a short EP rather than sticking themselves on top of another artist. My gut instinct is to say that splits still have a purpose through what you said, giving a smaller band exposure by being released alongside a more popular artist, but do these songs and splits even show up on people's Spotify recommended lists and such? If the algorithm throws these albums into some weird middle ground where they're stuck in limbo, then the whole point of discovery with the split is pretty much lost to modernization. As long as sites categorize them correctly I agree with you in that they're a fantastic way to shed some light on upcoming artists. 

Splits are relatively new for me to be honest, with 2020 being the first year they've really shown up on my radar. 

With my limited experience I'd say there's a stark difference between something like the Spectral Lore/Mare Cognitum split and the Almyrkvi/The Ruins of Beverast split and they should be treated as such. I'm a much bigger fan of Astrology since Spectral Lore and Mare Cognitum are able to exchange the spotlight with almost no disturbance in album flow. The two acts are so close to one another in sound that they're able to bounce off each other in a really cool fashion. Some of the other splits are exactly what they're called: splits. There's an obvious gap between one band and the other and it's incredibly easy to tell, since most of the splits from 2020 have one band carrying a ton of weight. (See the Nechochwen/Pantopicon split with "Rune's Heart"). 

Splits are another form of album I've yet to really dive into, and I'll definitely start to look out for more of them, but as of right now I prefer splits that have a true collaboration between two artists rather than two acts mashing a few of their songs together. 

I've fallen off the a bit with the monthly releases but looking to recommit to it, since I was always trying to do all 9 each month. Here are the ones that I got through this month, hopefully spurring me to actually post on the page with some more thoughts: 

1. Neptunian Maximalism - "Eons" (2020) 4.5/5

    Eons is going to be one of my top albums of the year, I've been consistently impressed going back to it over and over the past few months. It's such a unique blend of so many things that it defies classification sometimes. It's heavy, wacky, atmospheric, jazzy, and many, many other things all at once. 

2. Faith No More - "Angel Dust" (1992) 4.5/5

    Angel Dust is such an improvement over Introduce Yourself that I couldn't believe my ears. I never really cared to try and understand why Faith No More are held in such high regard, and now I get it. 

3. Gaza - "I Don't Care Where I Go When I Die" (2006) 3/5

    This was a tough one, because I understand the appeal, but it still doesn't appeal to me. It's visceral, but not exactly emotional for me, if that makes sense. There's still some great stuff but it's a bit too aggressive in ways that I'm not a fan of overall. I'm not going to let my bias get the best of me, hence the 3/5 score, because there's some impressively disgusting stuff in this one. 

4. Strapping Young Lad - "Alien" (2005) 

    I remember listening to Alien once a long time ago, but I apparently never rated it. If I remember correctly my opinion was "This is kind of just worse than City", but I'd have to actually go back to it to see. 

6. Disillusion - "Back To Times Of Splendor" (2004) 3.5/5

    I actually wasn't a fan of this one, although I'd have to listen to it again because the album's already completely left my memory. I just remember not being too interested in it, feels like a very love it or hate it kind of album. Still great, but I'm not sure what all the hype was about, going to have to go back to it. 

7. Undeath - "Lesions Of A Different Kind" (2020) 3.5/5

    I had checked this out in my 2020 listening and I'm really glad it made the cut for The Horde this month, there's a ton of great stuff in it. It obviously doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it's leaps and bounds above other "generic" Death Metal released this year. 

9. Warbringer - "Weapons Of Tomorrow" (2020) 3/5

    I listened to this 2020 Thrash album earlier in the year and it was undeniably forgettable for me, another one that I'd have to give another spin to have some actual thoughts about it. Apparently wasn't bad though.