Xephyr's Forum Replies

Hey Ben, could you possibly take a look at the "Apply other person's ratings" button whenever you click into a list? I think that a descriptor or heading would make it much more clear as to what it actually does. Even though I was able to figure it out on my own, it looks out of place since its use isn't immediately apparent. I originally assumed that it was used for Clan Challenges to filter the list of albums to only show the ones the person had completed, but if it's going to be at the top of every list then I think some direction is important. 

The list creation is really nice by the way, the ability to search either artist name or album name without having to change a bunch of search options is way more convenient. Showing the full release information with the reviews/ratings on all the lists is a great call too in my opinion. 

Nice pick on the Cloudkicker song Daniel, I didn't realize you included it in the playlist and, by coincidence, I've been listening to Solitude for the entire week so far, I think it's incredibly good. 

I was writing out a request but re-read what you had in mind for the categorization aspect and it completely took care of my issue, so the system seems great to me. Having Lists filtered by Clan is really important and the other two are just icing on the cake for future-proofing searching for lists, so I'm all about it. 

Would the thumbnail of the list default to the collage of album art like in the lists currently? Could we select the 4 albums that are shown? Allowing custom images obviously opens up the possibility for issues in the future, but it's something to think about. 

The Lightbringer Of Sweden - Rise Of The Beast (2020)

This new project from Herbie Langhans has satiated my occasional need for some powerful, straight up Heavy Metal this year with some great vocal work and pretty catchy songwriting. I knew his voice sounded familiar because I've heard him on Avantasia's Ghostlights and Moonglow as a session vocalist, but the man has been around the block in the EU Metal scene it seems. Most notably for me is his work with Beyond the Bridge, a Progressive Metal project that's been dormant since 2012 since I've been waiting all this time to see if they had another release in store. Seems unlikely since all of the members are obviously off doing their own projects, so it's nice to hear Langhans show up on some new material at the very least. 

Nothing really incredible about this release, just some well-written, mid-tempo Heavy Metal anthems. 

3.5/5

Sorry I'm late:

December

Lamp of Murmuur - "Of Infernal Passion and Aberrations" - Heir of Ecliptical Romanticism

Selbst - "The Depths Of Selfishness" - Relatos de angustia

Necromantia - "Pretender To The Throne (Opus I: The Userper's Spawn)" - Scarlet Evil Witching Black

I took the opportunity to use the new Leaves' Eyes record to talk about what I outlined in this thread, and sadly they fall into the same expected traps.

Review below:

Leaves' Eyes - The Last Viking

December

Chaos Divine - "Unspoken" - Legacies

Anubis Gate - "Airwaves" - Horizons

DGM - "Tragic Separation" - Tragic Separation

December

Edguy - "Mysteria" - Hellfire Club

Elvenking - "Reader of the Runes - Book I" - Reader of the Runes

Traveler - "Starbreaker" - Traveler

Please add the new Leaves' Eyes album The Last Viking, thank you.

Also Memories of Old and their new album The Zeramin Game.

Thanks for the reminder about the playlists. 

Just to make myself perfectly clear, I don't actually want to remove The Sphere, I think it makes sense the way it is, but just to play devil's advocate if a change were to be made, I would personally be okay with what I proposed.

Tell you what though, I'm going to intentionally mince Andi's words here and take his "The turning of the year will decide on a sacrifice or victory!" and take it upon myself to specifically check out a few Industrial releases from 2020. It's honestly making me curious as to what the genre is even like anymore, since it's been so quiet on RYM and other places I check for music. 

I agree that The Sphere is a bit out of place, with notable Industrial Metal being few and far between. Even though it's an important genre for popular bands like Godflesh, Rammstein, and others like Fear Factory, I can't really see the use of the clan moving forward. I've listened to a lotta modern albums in the past 2 or 3 years, and I don't pigeonhole myself into certain Metal genres, and there have been next to zero notable Industrial Metal releases since 2017 apart from Rammstein's return album, which hardly categorizes as Industrial. 

If a change were to be made, I personally wouldn't mind pulling bands like Godflesh or Ministry into The Gateway, while putting Cyber or the more Electronic/Industrial side of The Sphere, like Sybreed, into The Revolution. I'm sure that there are examples where these categorizations don't quite hit the mark, but the blanket of "Alternative + Industrial Metal" might work out considering we're also talking about acts like Strapping Young Lad being moved around? 

Appreciate it Daniel. I sometimes wish my review style was a bit more freeform so I could crank them out more often instead of needing to wait for the creative juices to build up, but I'll always prefer quality over quantity.

_{(Shakes fist at 1st wave Black Metal Clan Challenge that I swear I'll finish eventually)}

I finally got around to this, and I truly, truly hope that this is the last I'll hear of Big Frog and his gang of amphibians. 

1/5

Full review here:

https://metal.academy/reviews/19202/19843

I'm really glad I came back and checked this one out because, for me, it shows how much my musical taste has grown throughout the years. I used to be a massive Dream Theater and Prog Metal guy, in awe of their 20+ minute songs and insanely technical writing and somewhat random transitions. However, over the years, I've gotten tired of that kind of "whiplash Prog Metal", and Green Carnation's extremely cohesive and gradual style is now much more appealing to me. The whole thing is superbly written and has great pacing, even though the album is generally more low energy than most Prog Metal since it dives into Doom/Gothic themes for its massive climaxes. There's a great deal of variety stuffed in here, especially with the sax/vocal interlude, and it all comes together like very few hour long tracks can. 

I think I've grown to appreciate the progression of melodies and ideas more and more as I've drifted away from the likes of Dream Theater. Tracks like "Octavarium" and "Metropolis Pt. 2" are obviously stunning and impressive, but they're an entirely different beast compared to this. DT's brand of Prog lives off of subverting the listener's expectations by constantly swapping between ideas that sometimes have nothing to do with one another and are there to just sound cool. Light of Day, Day of Darkness has almost none of this and while it requires more patience to really get a solid listen out of it, the payoff is definitely worth it. I can see why people were so hyped up about Green Carnation's return album this year and while I wasn't too impressed with that one, I'm glad I finally came back and got to appreciate this album from them. 

4.5/5

Regarding The Roundhouse Tapes, really solid set. Pretty much a perfect selection of songs that sound fantastic live, which is a pretty big feat given how production focused some of Opeth's stuff is. The only complaint is that "Bleak" sounded a bit thin, but you're absolutely right when you said it was what I hoped it would be. I saw Opeth live here in the states in 2016 or so, when they were touring with Sorceress, and they only played one song that had harsh vocals, I think it was off of Your Arms, My Hearse? In any case, it's exciting to hear Akerfeldt excited and willing to play Opeth's heavy material since this was before the prog-rock swap of Heritage, because during the show I attended he definitely only played one song with growling in order to appease the crowd, not because he really wanted to. You could just kinda tell.

I think the biggest recurring theme on all of the feedback sessions we've had is "This would be really great, but we don't have enough people!". There isn't a particular solution to this, since the internet is incredibly random with what becomes popular and what doesn't and there's not much you can do about it. But I do think that most of the things that we do here are for the hardcore. I don't know actual statistics, but the number of people who actually write thought out reviews is astronomically low. It looks to be around 10% for popular, new releases on RYM that have around 2,000 ratings, but dips down into the 2% range on known classics that have even more ratings. More likely than not, those 2% of people are the ones who are going to be perusing the Academy Forums, making playlist contributions, and sharing their new favorite Metal album they found that no one else has ever heard of. But to get more people involved, appealing to only the "super-hardcore" fanbase is going to land us in the exact same feedback position every single time. 

Personally, The Academy lets me curate my listening outside of checking out all the new albums that come out every year. It's been fantastic being pushed to check out a ton of 80's and 90's Metal that I wouldn't have otherwise thanks to the monthly features and recommendation threads. But I think I'm one of the extreme cases since, as Sonny said in his reply, a lot of people are more interested in the modern and upcoming music scene rather than constantly reminiscing about the past one. Deep cuts are always amazing to find (Artillery's By Inheritance for example, turned out to be one of my favorite classic Thrash albums), but I think that trying to find creative ways to push new music will garner more attention to the site. That's why whenever I suggest ideas to the site, I always pose the question of how can we make this as accessible and appealing as possible to anyone who comes in here, not just people who have listened to over 1,000 Metal albums and can discern an exact Slayer riff from 1000 yards away. The playlists are a great start, since I'm able to share them with friends and post them in other servers I'm around.

I think as more features are being pushed forward, like the Monthly Features, the Monthly Playlists, as well as the Anniversaries tab, I can't help but agree that the Hall of Judgement feels a bit out of place. I never cared for genre discussion since I always consider my knowledge of older metal to be few and far between, so it's not a feature I'm interested in keeping up with. I gave it a fair and honest shot with my Manowar submission and trying to go back and forth with Daniel about a Voivod release, and it really wasn't something I particularly enjoyed. It's tough because I agree that since the Clan system is so important there needs to be a way to properly move releases around Clans if something isn't properly labelled. But I don't think facilitating genre disputes on the forums has the most welcoming atmosphere to it for your average metalhead. It's a tough problem to solve. 

To cap this off, I think the thing I like most about this community is that there's a lot of emphasis placed on reviews and discussion rather than just the RYM shoutbox, with members being able to comment under reviews to spark discussions, as well as the Clan Challenges aspect. Not everyone is a reviewer, but it helps the site push towards having more content rather than just rating albums and moving on.

Writing a review for this one is going to be a massive task, even though I've been thinking about doing it for quite a while. Eons has been on the top end of my year-end list for a while now and I really, really enjoy it just because of how much it caught me off guard at first and how it kept me coming back despite it's gargantuan length. It's an experience like I haven't had before, and it reminds me a lot of Empath from last year in that regard. 

Since it's just so strange though, it's hard for me to really nail down any solid opinions for a review. I'm going to try my best though, since it's a review I want to have finished before the end of 2020 to go along with my year-end list. It's definitely not an album for everyone, but I think that everyone should check it out because it is incredibly unique, unless you've listened to some really off-the-wall avant-garde Jazz in the past. 

4.5/5

Hate is a strong word, so I'll say that I strongly dislike System of a Down. It's been one of my hot musical opinions for quite a while, and sadly it hasn't changed when revisiting Toxicity. I can see the appeal since, like Saxy said, SOAD reinvigorated the Nu-Metal genre in a way that only they could have. Their songs are manic and crazy, keeping the listener on their toes at all points with their constant swaps between stripped down, but still complex melodic sections and crunchy chug sections. 

There's only one problem with their style though; I find it incredibly, unbearably annoying. I can't point to any individual part of SOAD's sound and say it's objectively bad, like I don't think that Serj is a bad vocalist and their riffs hit pretty hard, but something strange happens when you put it all together. It's incredible how much willpower it takes me to listen to Toxicity cover to cover, since there's always this urge to just skip to something else with none of the riffs or sections getting any sort of reaction out of me. 

"Chop Suey!" is obviously a classic that's been joked about for almost two decades now, "Aerials" is always a nice one to go back to every now and again, but no matter how many times I try, SOAD can't win me over. I think this'll continue to age well for the people who enjoy it since I doubt any other band will be able to capture the same sort of style as SOAD has, but I'll be seeing myself out now. 

2/5

Chaos Divine - Legacies

Legacies shows a much needed return to form from one of the old Progressive Metal bands I found when first started to really branch out and search for new music. I've always really enjoyed their style of having a great blend and balance between more atmospheric Progressive Metal sections with decent-enough Death Metal vocals and riffing. While I still don't think the tracks have the overall quality of The Human Connection, it's a step up from Colliding Skies where they focused a bit too much on portraying a heavenly atmosphere which ended up grinding most of their songs to a halt, save for a few standouts like "Landmines". Legacies has more memorable songwriting and hits pretty hard for a Chaos Divine album, so I'm pretty happy right now. 

I honestly even don't care for Fleshgod that much, even though I do think they're doing solid work. I'll be checking out those live albums since I'm pretty curious as to how Kamelot sounds nowadays with performing their old material, since their new stuff has become so generic since Haven, like you said. Definitely check out Dawn of the Dragonstar, "With The Light Of A Thousand Suns" is probably the best orchestral piece to come out of Metal in 2019. There's even an orchestral version in the deluxe edition that sounds just as good without the Metal guitar, drums, and vocals, which is a pretty impressive feat. 

It's just hard to even imagine where all these bands can go from here, since writing generic Symphonic Metal isn't working out for anyone right now. Which is a shame, because "meat and potatoes" Death Metal and "generic" Black Metal still seem to have their place in the new, modern releases, but man is generic Symphonic Metal such a slog to get through in comparison. I'm not even a big fan of meat and potatoes Death Metal and I'd rather relisten to this year's Skeletal Remains or Necrot than try and go back to Terra Atlantica or Seven Spires. Maybe because the albums are longer and more drawn out in general rather than the straight-to-the-point Death Metal? Not really sure, but man, Symphonic Metal really needs something new right now. I'd even take a return to the classic form at this point, let's regress a bit so maybe the genre can progress again, who knows.

When I first came across Swallow The Sun I really, really enjoyed them, and they put on a great live show when I saw them in 2019, but as time as passed they started to drift to the wayside as I found other Doom and Death Doom bands that grabbed my attention. They still have a very unique sound even to this day though, with their Death Doom style leaning way to the Doom side and creating creepy and haunting atmospheres rather than suffocating and crushing ones. Their songs always had so much more depth thanks to the background strings and other slightly progressive elements and their confidence to really slow down their compositions with cleaner, melodic parts before transitioning back into the heavy stuff. 

The biggest problem I've found I have with Swallow The Sun is the sheer length of their albums and ideas, with most of their albums being a massive undertaking to slog through since their style, as refined as it can be, doesn't change a whole lot. They always seem to find new, little ways to add to their creepy atmosphere, but their Death Doom formula has pretty much remained the same old stuff. In this case, the same old same old turns into plodding monotony that I've seldom had the motivation to go back to. So, what does that mean for the 1 hour "EP" Plague of Butterflies?

The title track is obviously the focus, and it does a fantastic job of boiling down Swallow The Sun's style into one extended piece that touches on pretty much everything that lets them stand out. The transitions in and out of the more Death focused riffs are great, the overall atmosphere is haunting and mysterious, and the track progression through all its different movements is impressive, even though I didn't think it was very cohesive on my first listen. "Plague of Butterflies" is definitely a grower in my eyes, since there's so much song to get through. Even though it's technically broken up into three separate parts, it's not as clear-cut in where these begin and end, leaving the listener fully responsible for piecing this 35 minute mammoth together. Although their style can be incredible to listen to whenever it all comes together, Swallow The Sun have always been slightly wonky to me, with their harsh vocals not quite hitting the mark it feels like they should, and the clean vocals being extremely hit or miss, especially on this one. I've gone back and forth as to how much I truly enjoy this track, and I think I'm settling on a higher score than I initially thought just due to the amazing use of the strings and choir elements throughout, since it's so easy to have these elements come off as corny in Doom Metal like this. 

I do think that this 35-minute track is quintessential Swallow The Sun and probably their greatest release. It's a more succinct package that shows what Swallow The Sun does best rather than their other, even more extended works. The rest of the songs are so-so, pretty much just B-sides or maybe songs that didn't make the cut for New Moon at the time. 

4/5

Serpent Column - Kathados (2020)

After Mirror In Darkness ended up highly regarded on my 2019 list, Serpent Column is back already in 2020 with another extremely dissonant and aggressive Black Metal offering. Kathados is slightly less chaotic but still has a ton of technicality while keeping the despair-laden atmosphere. Definitely worth a listen if you like Deathspell Omega styled Black Metal.

Please add local-to-me band Earthworm Von Doom (USA) and their strange 2018 album 8279.

Thanks Ben.

Great to hear, they just released a new album today actually, which is why I included it! I wasn't able to check it out, I'll be sure to put it in the New Music Thread when I get a chance. I'm real excited but Colliding Skies was a bit dull compared to The Human Connection, so I'm hoping for the best.

DGM - Tragic Separation

New no-holds-barred Progressive Metal from these Italians, which is a continuation of their more aggressive style off of their 2016 release The Passage. Although it covers a lot of similar ground, DGM are just fantastic at what they do, which is writing technically impressive but condensed Prog Metal that doesn't fall into the meandering 10+ minute song trap. 

November

Almyrkvi / The Ruins of Beverast - "Asomatous Grove" - Almyrkvi / The Ruins of Beverast Split

Plus the extra you had down for me

Intervals - "Slight Of Hand" - The Shape of Color

Amorphis - "Heart of the Giant" - Queen of Time

DGM - "Daydreamer" - The Passage

Avantasia - "Runaway Train"  - The Wicked Symphony

Gloryhammer - "Beneath Cowdenbeath" (Instrumental) - Tales from the Kingdom of Fife

(Plus the Running Wild from last month)

Pulchra Morte - Ex Rosa Ceremonia (November 6th)

Pulchra Morte's Divina Autem et Aniles was one of the many standout debuts for me last year with a solid mix of Death and Doom (mostly death), so I'm pretty stoked to see them announcing another album so soon. 

I think that Falkenbach exists in the "this is pretty good I guess" zone of Folk Metal for me. After listening to this and Heralding I might have to admit that straight up Folk Metal doesn't really do it for me, especially in the way that Falkenbach presents it. This album is incredibly smooth, pretty, and easy to listen to, but I can't help but feel like nothing really happens. I don't necessarily get any atmosphere the same way I do with other Folk Metal bands I tend to gravitate towards, like Moonsorrow. I'm sure that these guys are massive favorites for people that enjoy straight up Folk Metal because, again, this album was admittedly gorgeous. But I still can't exactly recommend it because of the reasons said above me, it wasn't engaging nor particularly exciting for me. 

The fact that this album came out in 2012 blows my mind, since that was when everyone I knew was neck deep in rocking out to their respective Warped Tour Metalcore bands, whether it was A Day To Remember, August Burns Red, Atilla, Sleeping With Sirens, We Came As Romans, or whatever have you. If I had known that Converge released something like this during the heyday of whiny teenage angst in metal form my old opinions of Metalcore would have been a lot different, because wow was this good. 

Converge are a weird band for me, since I apparently didn't enjoy their 2017 album whatsoever, and Jane Doe left me pretty conflicted with what it was trying to do. Even though Jane Doe seems to be universally loved by critics, it felt so alienating to me. Like I wasn't angry or sad enough about something to "get it", even though I could tell where other people were coming from with their perfect scores. All We Love We Leave Behind reigns in the aggression just a touch and it makes all the difference for me. Instead of a blinding assault that I didn't get much out of at the end of the day (Jane Doe), this one struck me and just a stellar Metalcore album with some seriously heavy breakdowns, beautiful moments of respite ("Coral Blue"), and just a more balanced product. Like Daniel said above me, the vocals actually being slightly intelligible is a massive plus as well. This easily surpasses Jane Doe for me, at least for right now, and it really makes me want to go back and check out The Dusk In Us to see if I wrongly threw that album under the bus.

4/5

This is an interesting one because I don't really think that this OST is a very good standalone product outside of the game. They definitely chose vocalists to appeal to the modern Alt-Metal crowd which doesn't exactly go along with the rest of the cyber/industrial stuff, but it's not that terrible in the end. If this released as a normal album I'd have to say it's pretty weak even though it has a lot of energy. Like Daniel said the guitars are pushed behind the drums and synth so much that it takes some careful listening to glean anything out of this except the front and center drum beat. There's some great moments here and there, like the strings in "Collective Conciousness" and the guitar solos in "The Stains Of Time", but it all comes and goes so fast that I almost wish that some of these tracks were 4 or so minutes instead of 2 and a half. I think this still does a great job of being an energetic and futuristic inspired take on a game OST and I can definitely see the appeal, but it's pretty surface level all things considered. 

I did a pretty in-depth review of the DOOM 2016 OST (shamless plug to RYM if you're interested) so I've gone down this Industrial Metal inspired video game OST road before, and let me tell you, DOOM definitely spoils you when it comes to stuff like this. DOOM's soundtrack is made to rise and fall with what's happening in the game, so you'd think that it wouldn't make a great standalone OST, but that isn't the case. It's just so hefty, so layered, and has more to it than something like this even though it's almost purely instrumental. That being said, I think this OST is the perfect example of something working within the game and not necessarily outside of it. All of these vocal remixes sound pretty hammed up at times to go alongside pretty generic cyber-industrial ideas, but when you're in the game zipping around destroying robots and "RULES OF NATURE" screams out from behind the rest of the game's sound effects, it hits a bit different. I haven't played Revengeance but I've seen gameplay and this soundtrack absolutely fits perfectly, which is probably why it's so highly regarded since people normally rate OST's in respect to them being in the game rather than standalone products. I don't necessarily agree with that idea, which is why I gave the DOOM 2016 OST a 4/5 instead of the 5/5 it probably deserved since "Rip and Tear" blasting into your ears as you're removing a demon's jaw from its face gives the music just a bit more punch.

2.5/5

Draghkar - At The Crossroads Of Infinity

Hey all, a member of Draghkar (Brandon Corsair) recently reached out to me about their debut album and I think it's something pretty unique that quite a few people here would be interested in. It's got a great mix of Death and Black Metal with some old school style production and a ton of interesting ideas which don't overstay their welcome. I pointed Draghkar to The Academy and I'm assuming they'd enjoy hearing some feedback since they've been reaching out to RYM reviewers. Daniel, Ben, and Macabre are the ones off the top of my head that probably need to hear this.

For October:

Manegarm - "Sigrblot" - Vredens tid

Ensiferum - "Twilight Tavern" - From Afar

Nokturnal Mortum - " Україна" (Track 4) - Голос сталі (The Voice Of Steel)

For October

Isis - "1,000 Shards" - In The Absence Of Truth

John Petrucci - "Gemini" - Terminal Velocity

Chaos Divine - "Landmines" - Colliding Skies

For October:

Running Wild - "Renegade" - Death Or Glory

Luca Turilli - "Ancient Forest of Elves" - King of the Nordic Twilight

Bloodbound - "Nosferatu" - Nosferatu

Kaatayra - Só quem viu o relâmpago à sua direita sabe & Toda história pela frente

It's time to bust out the Frog Facts again. Writing that other random Phyllomedusa review was actually fun so I'll bite on another. 

Surprisingly, I'm not much of a Helloween fan. I ended up giving their debut EP a 4/5 just because it was the clean and classic beginning of Power Metal but I found that Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part I rubbed me the wrong way for whatever reason. Although they were the originators, I can't help but think that Helloween haven't exactly aged too well compared to many other classic Power Metal bands. They were, and still are, pretty generic and lackluster for me personally even with Kiske's impressive singing and the clean and fast guitar riffing. That being said, I agree wholeheartedly with Daniel in that this album is their best one by far. I had Part I rated as a 4 before listening to Part II, and Part II was such a massive improvement that I ended up dropping Part I down to a 3.5 and putting this one at a solid 4. The songwriting and overall album flow is just better, with most of Part I's great moments only coming around during the 13-minute "Halloween". This album is so much more consistent with "You Always Walk Alone", "Dr. Stein", "I Want Out", and "Keeper Of The Seven Keys" all being Power Metal classics that perfectly show what Helloween's sound is all about. 

That being said I'm still not the biggest fan! Even though a 4/5 may seem high I would put so many other classic Power Metal bands above Helloween in terms of personal preference. I'm generally not a fan of any other bands that seriously leans into their style either, apart from Edguy and Avantasia, who have featured Kiske on multiple different albums of theirs. Something about their songwriting and sound never gripped me as much as Blind Guardian, or Rhapsody. I'll acknowledge their importance and i definitely enjoyed this album, but I have a feeling that if I delve farther into Helloween's discography the scores will only go down from here, especially since I'm already familiar with Walls Of Jericho and their 2000's material. 

4/5

As I've said in the past when Lateralus popped up here, I was (and still am) a massive Tool fan and they still scratch a certain itch for me that no other band can. Their riff grooves and overall songwriting is unmatched when it comes to Alt Metal, even though they can go off the deep end a few too many times. Aenima sits below 10,000 Days as my second favorite Tool album, beating out Lateralus by quite a large margin. Even though the interludes are pretty silly and kind of unnecessary, I prefer how they're done in here over Lateralus' strange atmospheric drones that begin and end out of nowhere. For better or worse they're more memorable and, for me, actually add to the album experience. While Tool did try to go for humor I really think it's a nihilistic, ironic sort of humor that never really bothered me in the same way it seems to bother Saxy. 

That being said everything in-between the interludes is fantastic, with pretty much every song except for maybe "H." being a Tool necessity. The amount of anger and cynicism towards the world comes out heavily in Aenima and makes the complex riffing hit just a bit harder. "Third Eye" is a bit too drawn out for my liking, "(-) Ions" never fails to make me exceedingly uncomfortable even though I know that's the point, and "jimmy" is definitely forgettable compared to the rest of the album. That said this is definitely still Tool at (almost) their best, so the end product is still going to get high marks from me. "Stinkfist", "Eulogy", "Forty Six & 2", and "Pushit" still have killer grooves and fantastic, emotionally charged vocals that still hold up as being essential to the Alt Metal genre. 

4.5/5

Well for this one let me break my normal review/forum character since we're talking about Dopethone. 

Dopethrone is sick. Even though I found that I really like Come My Fanatics... and their debut a lot, Dopethrone stands alone as one of those Stoner Metal albums that, in many ways, feels like the full Stoner Metal experience. It's slow, it's groovy, it's heavy, it's expansive, but it still has that edge that some Stoner Metal loses eventually. Honestly I should bump it up to a 5/5 since it's what I compare most high-ranking Stoner Metal releases with, but there's something about the genre that keeps me from really saying it's a masterpiece. Maybe it's the repetitiveness? The slowness? Eventually it gets boring? At the same time if I'm in the mood for some serious Stoner Metal, Dopethrone is a prime example of what I turn to. For me, you can't really have great Stoner Metal without the groove to get lost in, and this album has them in droves. Each extended track has massive instrumental sections that feel improv'd and just drone on and on without losing the initial groove, and Dopethrone is one of the only releases that I can really get lost in when it comes to the Stoner Metal genre. 

For me this is the gold standard for classic Stoner/Doom Metal. There are others that give their own spin on the genre, like Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, but sometimes you can't beat the traditional. Although there are some admittedly awkward moments in this album, it's immediately what I think of when it comes to an album drenched in Stoner vibes. 

4.5/5

Even though I'm not the biggest fan of Stoner Metal on the whole, one or two releases each year slide into my listening rotation so I should definitely check out some of your top 10 here Sonny. Last year it was Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard who ended up pretty highly rated on the year-end list, and this year it has been the slightly weaker Acid Mammoth, so that's the only one I can vouch for so far. Dopelord and Elephant Tree were good but didn't really leave any lasting impression, so I'm interested to see what the rest of these are about. 

Download Adobe Reader, go to Tools, hit Export PDF, Convert To Image, Choose JPEG, export it, post it. 

Fluisteraars - "Nasleep" - Bloem

Havukruunu - "Pohjolan Tytär" - Uinuos Syömein Sota

Paysage d'Hiver - "Weiter, Immer Weiter" - Im Wald

Protest The Hero - "All Hands" - Palimpsest 

Black Crown Initiate - "Invitation" - Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape

Imperial Triumphant - "Atomic Age" - Alphaville

Unleash The Archers - "The Matriarch" - Apex

Cirith Ungol - "Fractus Promissum" - Forever Black

Twilight Force - "Hydra" - Dawn Of The Dragonstar

Not going to lie, before this I normally shunned live albums. I never really understood the appeal personally, but Leprous's is definitely something special. With the style that Leprous has their studio albums can sound a bit sterile and lacking in a bit of energy regardless of what you think of Coal, Bilateral, or The Congregation. I personally love Leprous and even I can admit that they fall into the Progressive Metal trap of sounding dull and unenthusiastic sometimes in the midst of being technically impressive. This live set solves that problem though since there is so much feeling put into this entire setlist that it's kind of mind-blowing. 

This recording is simply immaculate for being a live set. Their sound is completely intact but has an extra punch with sharper drums and an insane vocal performance that outdoes the studio version on almost all accounts, which is the exact boost that Leprous needed to go from a strange-ish, somewhat thinking-man's Prog Metal act to something that absolutely crushes the stage. 

I find it really interesting that this album is so highly regarded by the niche base that has rated it and they ended up playing almost all of The Congregation, which is the album where the vocal minority seems to say that Leprous goes downhill. While I do agree that The Congregation is a bit stale compared to their previous 3 releases, I still really enjoy it, but this performance puts that album in such a different light. It's just so well done. You'd think that a highly regarded live album from Leprous would include a ton of tracks from Tall Poppy Syndrome and Bilateral, but it's almost the opposite, with most of the tracks coming from The Congregation or Coal. I really do wonder if Leprous no longer plays anything off of Tall Poppy Syndrome just because Einar isn't able to do the harsher vocals he did in the past. 

Great find Daniel, and it gave me an excuse to go back and actually rate all the Leprous albums I listened to long ago but never jotted down. My heart says to agree with you on the 5/5 just because it's such an outlier for a live album, so that's what it's gonna be for now. 

Going to post my review for BABYMETAL'S Metal Galaxy here since it echos a lot of the short points I'll make about this one.

https://metal.academy/reviews/14061/14278

Surprisingly, Metal Galaxy is much better put together than this debut, with a lot of the songs on here being EXTREMELY erratic and silly, with most of the choruses being completely different songs than the verses. There's a surprising amount of harsh vocals in this one too and even though they're not the greatest thing ever, the fact that they stick around for a pretty long time does speak volumes for BABYMETAL'S attempt to really bring as much Metal as they could into their performance. 

At the end of the day though, BABYMETAL is very much just a performance, with their history being rooted in some Japanese idol group manager who happened to love Metal deciding to take the chance on a new act. It obviously went over very well, with them becoming a household name just because of how strange and different it was. I'm not going to lie, I absolutely rolled my eyes whenever someone told me that "BABYMETAL goes hard af" or anything like that since I was already starting to dive into the more extreme sides of Metal in 2013/2014. Like Saxy said, they certainly have a place in the mainstream Metal community to try and ease people into harsh vocals and Death Metal riffage. It was always eerily similar to Rammstein when "Du Hast" made its rounds thanks to Rock Band 3. Everyone knew the weird German song with the "NEIN" shouts and the heavy as hell riff, and it was the same sort of story with BABYMETAL'S "Gimme Chocolate!!" and "Megitsune".  

I think the newer albums do a way better job of incorporating the girls' voices and general wackiness that they have, but this debut certainly had a lot of...ideas. A lot of them aren't very good, but a few do work. The crazy rhythm game synths and Eurobeat are pretty good in some tracks, some of the solos rip pretty hard, and there's a ton of variety, but there are just way too many things that make me roll my eyes. It's just all over the place, with "Megitsune" being the only track that I legitimately think is pretty great. It does have its place in the Alternative Metal scene and I'd love to hear more bands experiment with this sort of sound without being so pandering and off-the-wall, like an even more Metal version of Wagakki Band. Look them up, their songs "Tengaku" and "Senbozakura" are massively popular (127m views? Jeez I didn't know they were THAT popular) and I'd love to see a middle ground between that and BABYMETAL. It probably exists somewhere out there, especially since we have that Vengeful Spectre release from this year. 

2/5

The more I listen to Sólstafir, the more I'm realizing just how hit or miss Post-Metal really is for me. My thoughts from Köld haven't necessarily changed, since I still really love their style but can't necessarily point out exactly why. Maybe it's the warming reverb? The calming and meandering songwriting that never really goes anywhere but never exactly gets boring for me? Needless to say they've had me extremely conflicted on what to write for this entire month, so this one is going to be way more off-the-cuff than normal as I try and find some bearings on how exactly to explain anything here. 

Although they share the same sort of sound style, Köld and Svartir Sandar are very, very different albums. Köld is dark, brooding, even menacing at times. This one is just as atmospheric but more riff and melody driven, with most of the tracks sounding strangely uplifting in their own Post-Metal kind of way. It's more dreamy and almost ethereal at times. The fact that Svartir Sandar is a double album is a bit much though, since it packs even less punch overall than Köld did. The percussion is reverbed to hell, with most of the cymbals sounding like a white noise radio most of the time. The riffing is good enough and the Icelandic lyrics give it a homely feel since it's the band's native language, but it certainly drags over its runtime. At the end of the day I think I prefer the darker, more dismal atmosphere of Köld over Svartir Sandar, even though this album has more content to sink your teeth into. If you're a huge Post-Metal fan, this album is probably a slice of heaven for you, and while I still love Sólstafir's overall sound, I can't give this one too high of a score. I could definitely see this album being a grower though, I think I have to give Post-Metal in general some more time to sink in compared to other genres. 

3.5/5

I'll counter the Trivium request with their track "In Waves" if we're doing Revolution requests, which I think is a pretty underrepresented Clan here in the Academy. If anything, after checking out "Becoming the Dragon", it means that I have to check out Trivium a bit more since I didn't know they were a thrashy band before leaning into a more Death/Metalcore angle. 

Hence why I think I'd be neat to have a "playlist request" system, I think this would help to supplement the "Track of the Day" thread like Andi previously said.