Xephyr's Forum Replies

I'm definitely guilty of the "rate after one listen" mentality, but I always listen twice or more if I'm writing a review or giving an opinion past "I gave it this score". There's so many new albums always coming out that I wouldn't be able to keep up if I give every single release 3+ listens, especially for the ones that I know that I won't like to begin with.

My 4 ratings tend to change the most, either dropping to a 3.5 or moving up to a 4.5.

I've been learning to just embrace the bias most of the time. As long as you have an idea of what exactly your bias is, you can make educated decisions on what you think is better than what. It's cool seeing wildly different lists depending on the person, especially when they can explain their biases well.

Sometimes I'll leave an album at a lower score because I think I'll overrate it compared to other releases, example being this year's Gloryhammer, but that happens very rarely. 

I'm gonna take a risk and rec Elvenking's Reader of the Runes. It's still very much Power Metal with a ton of folk thrown in there, but it has the most serious and heaviest riffs of all the albums on my list. It even has some harsh vocals and tremolo picking on "Malefica Doctrine", so it's more varied than other Power Metal albums. It's still very much fantasy DnD metal though, so if that's going to be a sticking point for you then I'll just have to take the L here. 

A lot of Black Metal this year. An overflowing amount. Here's what I ended up with for a Top 10:

1. Funereal Presence – Achatius 

2. Serpent Column – Mirror In Darkness 

3. Saor – Forgotten Paths 

4. Obsequiae – The Palms of Sorrowed Kings 

5. Deathspell Omega – The Furnaces of Palingenesia 

6. Stormlord – Far 

7. Grima – Will of the Primordial 

8. Mgla – Age of Excuse 

9. Fen – The Dead Light 

10. The Great Old Ones – Cosmicism 

Devin Townsend and Wilderun absolutely crushed it this year, but here's the rest of the 2019 Progressive Metal Top 10 from me:

1. Devin Townsend – Empath 

2. Wilderun – Veil of Imagination 

3. Opeth – In Cauda Venenum (Metal In-Spirit)

4. Tool – Fear Inoculum 

5. Soen – Lotus 

6. Liturgy –  H.A.Q.Q. 

7. Evergrey – The Atlantic 

8. Myrath – Sehili 

9. Richard Henshall – The Cocoon

10. Alcest – Spiritual Instinct

As said in my other post from this year, it's a great time to be a Power Metal fan. There were also a ton of great straight up heavy metal releases this year too, so here's my Top 10:

1. Avantasia – Moonglow 

2. Twilight Force – Dawn of the Dragonstar 

3. Elvenking – Reader of the Runes – Divination 

4. Gloryhammer – Legends From Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex

5. Turilli/Lione Rhapsody – Zero Gravity 

6. Lunar Shadow – The Smokeless Fires 

7. Galneryus – Into The Purgatory 

8. Tyr – Hel 

9. Beast in Black – From Hell with Love 

10. Steel Prophet – The God Machine 

I ended up listening to a surprising amount of Death Metal this year. While it may not have the most deep cuts, here's 10 from me:

1. Blood Incantation – Hidden History of the Human Race 

2. Tomb Mold – Planetary Clairvoyance 

3. Insomnium – Heart Like A Grave

4. Pulchra Morte – Divina Autem et Aniles 

5. Allegaeon – Apoptosis 

6. In Mourning – Garden of Storms 

7. Ossuarium – Living Tomb 

8. Hath – Of Rot and Ruin 

9. Belzebubs – Pantheon of the Nightside Gods 

10. Children of Bodom – Hexed 

Echoing Sonny's sentiments of 2019, here's 10 from me:

1. Inter Arma – Sulphur English

2. Cult of Luna – A Dawn to Fear 

3. Runemagick – Into Desolate Realms

4. Weeping Sores – False Confession 

5. Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard – Yn Ol I Annwn 

6. Troll – Legend Master 

7. Esoteric – A Pyrrhic Existence 

8. Lord Vicar – The Black Powder 

9. Waste of Space Orchestra – Syntheosis 

10. Asphodelus – Stygian Dreams

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

1. Inter Arma – Sulphur English

2. Devin Townsend – Empath 

3. Wilderun – Veil of Imagination 

4. Avantasia – Moonglow

5. Cult of Luna – A Dawn to Fear

6. Funereal Presence – Achatius

7. Twilight Force – Dawn of the Dragonstar

8. Runemagick – Into Into Desolate Realms

9. Weeping Sores – False Confession

10. Blood Incantation – Hidden History of the Human Race

I should probably check out Ministry next, I've heard their name tossed around enough and I've never checked them out. 

Runemagick

Runemagick had one of my favorite 2019 releases with Into Desolate Realms, so I'm currently chipping away at their discography. They seem to release very regularly, about once a year, and their sound doesn't seem to change all too much, but I'm not complaining. 

While I can say I enjoyed Earth Crisis more than modern Metalcore, this was just absolutely exhausting for me. I can appreciate the aggression and anger as well as keeping more to hardcore punk with more of an edge, but something just doesn't draw me into this. 

I think I look for more than just pure aggression when I listen to Metal or any kind of music, which is why I stray away from genres like Industrial, Metalcore, and Slam/Grind. There has to be something more substantial within the music for me to really connect with it, rather than just looking for raw evil and anger. Thankfully Earth Crisis does have something more substantial with some dirty riffs and climactic breakdowns that I found way more interesting and heavy than something like Bring Me The Horizon or Parkway Drive, so at least I can rest easy knowing that 90's Metalcore kicks the teeth out of 2010's Metalcore. 

Still though, I can't say I'll be going back to this by my own volition. 

From this release alone, I can already tell Industrial is going to be the toughest metal genre for me to crack. It's not like I dislike this, I just find it boring and grating, which is sort of the point of the genre to begin with. I think I need to keep listening to other Industrial releases and see if I can find my niche in it and what makes the most sense to me. 

After my first listen of Selfless, though, initial impressions are that it was boring, repetitive, and definitely not for me. I'll probably force another one or two listens of this at some point since I do want to try and edge into the Industrial side of metal, but this was rough for me. I may check out Streetcleaner before going back to this one just to get some kind of comparison. 

Although they've been gaining some more traction, I still believe Caligula's Horse to be underrated. I've been pushing these guys for years now, especially when I first started my college radio gig. While they may not be the most technically impressive and don't push too many boundaries, they're overall one of the most universally liked bands I've ever come across. If someone doesn't listen to Metal in the slightest and they want a recommendation from me, I always start with Caligula's Horse, and so far they have a 100% success rate. Since In Contact was released in 2017 I'm expecting an album in 2020 and I couldn't be more excited. 

Speed Metal Rush

An infectiously fun album cover to cover. It was a pleasant surprise hearing a female vocalist on an album like this who has the pipes to really drive the act home. When I first put this on I could have sworn I was listening to an alternate universe version of Rush, which is still a compliment in my book. Maniac slows down a little too much after the two blistering openers "Max Overload" and "Maniac", with "Black Car" and "America" being noticeably less energetic. "Bottoms Up" also overstays its welcome just a bit, but any of these songs are far from being bad. All of the ingredients of great Speed Metal are here, from the tight and accurate 16th note shredding to the intense and heavy chugging of "Prince Of Hell And Fire", which turned out to be my favorite track in the end.

Although they're overlooked, Acid delivers a fantastic Speed Metal performance for its time with a unique and talented female vocalist at the front of well written Speed Metal riffs.

Fvneral Fvkk - Carnal Confessions (2019)

As I've been trying to round out my year end listening, I came across this Doom Metal album I skipped over. Despite the awful name, this despondent Doom release is top notch, keeping to a heavier more traditional style with plenty of crunchy riffs with a slightly monotone but effective vocalist that sounds suspiciously like Volbeat at times. I think the package works very well and delivers some powerful tracks with better than average lyrics.  

I may take time to write a full review later since I found this album very interesting, but I gotta say this was a strangely charming release with some well done electronic experiments. It's absolutely silly with the cartoon-character-like growling vocals and experimental synth-pop parts, but that didn't turn me off from the album at all. I've never heard anything quite like this and it's definitely a product of its early-80's time period, but I think that's what makes it so enjoyable. The chugging and riffs in the back of all the weird experimental stuff are engaging and compliment whatever the hell else is going on remarkably well. 

I think this is one of those releases that just shouldn't work on paper, but in practice it comes together to form a strangely alluring piece of music. This will definitely be my go-to if for some reason anyone wants to know how to properly use cheesy 80's synth in a strangely metal way. 

Since my review was short I'll just copy and paste it here for discussion sake:

A Molten Foundation

Bestial Devastation shows the remarkable beginnings of a young Sepultura as they recorded this fiery but disheveled EP in just two days. While obviously messy and laden with performance issues, the amount of ideas and concepts for an even darker and more aggressive take on Thrash Metal is ambitious and impressive. I think their ambition got the best of them as they struggle to keep up with the intense tempos and compositions that require the band to play perfectly on time together, but the messiness on an already lower quality EP adds that classic grime that early Death Metal thrives on. It's raw, furious, and somewhat exciting even by today's standards. Certain parts and melodies sometimes just end out of nowhere and could have been written better and expanded more, but for what Sepultura had to work with at the time the riffs and solos that come out of Bestial Devastation are more than sufficient. Not to mention the drummer goes absolutely nuts on the entire album, showing that Thrash style drumming can be expanded upon to hit even harder than it already did. A fun but definitely dirty EP that shouldn't be skipped over when looking at the classics of Death Metal.

This track (and the entire album, honestly) has been my go-to for one of the worst things I've ever heard. I feel like this is how metal sounds to people who really dislike metal. 

I read over Daniel's review after giving this a listen and I'm inclined to agree, this is some high quality, straight up and to the point early 80's heavy metal with a fantastic vocalist. I have a soft spot for that powerful but high pitched wailing that legends like Dio and Halford were and are so adept at. It's a shame that Avigal was only around for one album and never really caught a big break. Seems like he has released a solo venture, but not much else past his 80's Dutch heavy metal days. 

This album just has that heavy metal attitude about it that a lot of other bands like them fail to capture. I don't think there are many standout tracks, but there aren't any lackluster ones either, the album is great through and through. "Diamond Dreamer" and "Message From Hell" sound exactly like premier 80's heavy metal songs that could still be rocking out on classic rock radio stations, but for some reason got completely skipped over. 

While Picture doesn't reinvent anything or create anything particularly fantastic on Diamond Dreamer, the quality of the entire album definitely rivals some of the greats of that time, which is no easy feat. 

I really thought that I'd enjoy this more than Hammerheart, but by listening to them both back to back they evened out for me. Cleaning up the production for the guitar tone and drums makes Twilight of the Gods sound infinitely better than Hammerheart, but it also makes it lose that dirty edge that Bathory's old production had which helped to sell the Viking theme. Twilight of the Gods sounds like it's telling the tales of Gods rather than the mere mortals present on Hammerheart. The dirty old production is replaced with full and clean sounding guitar tones and bass rhythms, distant but bombastic sounding drums, and folky but powerful acoustics, creating a more familiar atmosphere for me in terms of viking and folk metal. 

While I don't think it should be overlooked and it has its place in the classic Bathory discography, I think that it's definitely missing something compared to Hammerheart or Blood Fire Death. With the entire album being rather low tempo and plodding, it loses a bit of its luster after the first three or four songs. It's very well written and certainly epic, but Hammerheart and Bathory's other albums had more spice to them. 

Full review is posted on the album page, but man this was a tough one. 

I gave it about 4 and a half full listens and I just never cracked it. The more I listened to it the more awkward it became as a whole, just not for me. When their style worked it worked really well, like on "Faster Disco", "Chinese Arithmetic", and "We Care A Lot", but everything else ended up sounding...awkward. That's always the word that I kept coming back to when trying to write out the review. 

Richard Henshall - The Cocoon (2019)

Fairly dense Progressive Metal from the guitarist of Haken. The first half of the album is well performed and written but run-of-the-mill heavier prog metal, although that hardly means it's bad. Intricate solos and time signature changes galore form the silken backbone of this concept album and I quite enjoy it since I'm a sucker for self-indulgent prog metal. 

The second half of the album takes a few more risks that sometimes pay off and sometimes...don't. "Twisted Shadows" has a mean Dream Theater guitar solo tribute as Jordan Rudess pays a visit as well as some other well known prog musicians to form a pretty star-studded cast. 

I've posted my review on the album page itself, but I'll summarize quickly for here. 

A lot of the Doom Metal I've listened to hasn't been traditional, so this album is like stepping into a time machine and having to reorient my expectations when it comes to composition and guitar tone. The guitar work was fantastic, but I wish the production and other effects, such as the vocal echo and reverb as well as the poorly mixed drums, didn't muddy it up so much. I enjoyed pretty much every riff, especially the somewhat progressive-psych insanity of "Voyage To Hell", but everything else didn't give me that distinct Doom Metal vibe that I was expecting. When it tried to create some atmosphere with synths or effects, it came off as somewhat misguided and annoying rather than atmospheric and gripping. "17 Day" almost gets there, but the synth effects at the end taking up so much space and pushing all other sounds back really put me off. 

I should re-listen to Firepower apparently, because everyone except me seems to really like that album. I listened to it quite a few times last year and at the time just didn't get much out of it, but since then I've gone through pretty much all of their discography over again so maybe I'll get something different out of it.

It's always great to see that a legendary band is still making music, but I'd rather see a band like Preist go out on a "swan song" album like Firepower that fans really enjoyed rather than another attempt to capture what they had before. It sounds like they're really enthusiastic still so I'll slide over into the "high hopes" side of this. 

Equillibrium (pre-2014) - Rekreator is quite possibly my favorite metal album of all time. (Sagas is a close second, Rekreator just grabs me more personally) Symphonic Folk Metal at the absolute best.  New album is horrific, don't waste your time with it. 

I actually enjoyed Sagas more, but Rekreator is still a great album. I think I liked the folkier and more varied style of Sagas, whereas Rekreator felt safer and more straight up metal focused. There were more standout and memorable moments on Sagas for me personally. They're definitely two of the best examples of straight up Folk Metal I've heard though, can't believe I didn't go back and check out older Equilibrium sooner. 

Korpiklaani

Netherbird

Thanks!

Rings of Saturn

Eye of the Enemy

Great to see some new people migrating all their stuff and getting the walls of requests back in action!

Alter Bridge (2019 Release) (Up in the air to whether you would consider this metal)

Lacuna Coil (2019 Release)

BABYMETAL (2019 Release)

The Raven Age

Thanks!

I'll be checking out Equilibrium sometime today probably, since the only stuff I've heard from them has been Waldschrein and onward. I'm glad we can both agree that their new 2019 album is absolute garbage. 

I'd be a big fan of this, would definitely participate. 

The rare Revolution Requests from me:

Crown the Empire

The Dark Element (It says Symphonic/Power metal, but there is a LOT of synth in Songs the Night Sings)

Korn (2019 Release)

Equilibrium (2019 Release)

Thank you!

Hell yeah, I believe I posted about Wilderun somewhere else already. This album as absolutely incredible, it skyrocketed to the Top 3 of 2019 for me.

Welcome! I'm actually going to see High On Fire this weekend!

Any Prog Metal guys are very welcome around here. 

Deathspell Omega - "Paracletus" (2010)

Fucking supreme avant-garde/dissonant French black metal. This album pretty much went over my head when I first encountered it back in 2010 but once it clicked it's absolutely nailed me. It's pure genius in many ways.

4.5/5

I finally got around to listening to this and I have to agree. I'm going to have to make an effort to keep coming back to this one just because there's so much to unpack. I didn't think I'd like it as much as I did, it's definitely on another level compared to The Furnaces of Palingenesia and I even really enjoyed that one. I try to come into these "classics" with a more negative mindset so I don't give into the hype too much but this one delivers on the pure chaos aspect of Progressive Black metal. 

Edenbridge (2019 Release)

Kobra and the Lotus (2019 Release)

Visions of Atlantis

Thanks!

Legacy of the Dark Lands was such a letdown. I thought that BG would do something different with the orchestration due to the lack of metal, but it just feels like an extension of Nightfall in Middle-Earth without the metal band. The production is super blown out and awful sounding during the massive swells/climaxes and even though Hansi's vocal performance is great there just wasn't anything else there. Such a shame. 

Wilderun - Veil of Imagination (2019)

I've hit the jackpot with this one. An absolutely majestic piece of work with perfect use of symphonic and progressive elements with incredible Opeth-like heavy metal riffs. After only one listen I'm slapping the perfect 5/5 score on this. Hopefully I can form enough substantial thoughts and opinions to get a review out before the end of the year, because this shot straight to the top 3 of my 2019 list.

Invicta

Lich King

Striker (Canada)

White Wizzard

Mostly Speed Metal, thank you!

There's definitely enough to get angry about in the world right now, so they could make a big comeback, but I'm not sure. Prophets of Rage was a thing with Tom Morello and it didn't go so well, so they'll have to really come out with some interesting material to win over people in the same way they did before. I think if they come back and just rehash their old formula it might be good for a song or two, but that's about it. 

Seeing them live would be awesome so you're right on that part.

It's a shame that Forum based websites are a tough sell nowadays, with most casual music fan discussions taking place in shout-boxes on other review websites, YouTube comments, or other forms of social media. This site actually has a stellar design for both, with the forums being overly organized with the Clan system (which is a good thing) and with the ability to add comments to existing reviews for another quicker form of communication. 

Plus, I feel like the site is in a much better place and is going to continue to be in a better place as the music library grows. When I first joined, it was a weird feeling only being able to rate/catalog under half of my library, but now that has risen substantially and it'll only get better from here thanks to Ben's hard work. It's much easier to recommend the site now that most common searches won't turn up empty. 

Fragments of Unbecoming

Ghastly

Inferi

Infernal Coil

Lantern

Mammoth Grinder

Nailed To Obscurity 

Pyrrhon

Carnifex (2019 Release)

Thank you!

I forgot Turilli-Lione Rhapsody, fixed!

Very happy to see Fallujah and Bell Witch on your list. There's two bands that I need to spend more time with.

Fallujah is sadly a one-hit-wonder for me. Dreamless just hit me a certain way that I doubt they'll be able to replicate, especially since their newest release is pretty awful.

I like that Ruins of Beverast made your list, that album was fantastic. As well as Katatonia. They're a band I definitely need to spend more time with, I listened to The Great Cold Distance and The Fall of Hearts and really enjoyed them but never really went back.

I guess I'll try my hand at this too even though I'm in the same boat as Ben with not really being able to order it. I was never a fan of the "Of-All-Time" lists since it's so hard to really quantify and compare so many albums from so many different time periods. So here goes I suppose: 

Opeth - Blackwater Park (2001)

Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper (2017)

Insomnium - Winter's Gate (2016)

Fallujah - Dreamless (2016)

Moonsorrow - Verisäkeet (2005)

Tool - 10,000 Days (2006)

Iron Maiden - Powerslave (1984)

Kyuss - Welcome to Sky Valley (1994)

Saor - Aura (2014)

Devin Townsend - Empath (2019)

Blind Guardian - Somewhere Far Beyond (1992)

Bathory - Blood Fire Death (1988)

Inter Arma - Sulphur English (2019)

Megadeth - Rust In Peace (1990)

Månegarm - Vredens tid (2005)

Caligula's Horse - Bloom (2015)

Gojira - From Mars to Sirius (2005)

In Flames - The Jester Race (1996)

Ne Obliviscarus - Portal of I (2012)

Evoken - Hypnogogia (2018)

Slayer - Reign In Blood (1986)

Avantasia - Moonglow (2019)

Emperor - In Nightside Eclipse (1994)

Dream Theater - A Change of Seasons (1995)

Amorphis - Under the Red Cloud (2015)

My list is surprisingly recent, with 11 of the 25 being in the 2010's, which makes sense given my listening habits. Kinda neat. 

Weeping Sores - False Confession (2019)

As the year winds down this album came out of nowhere and blew me away with its varying and complex death-doom metal riffs contrasted by a sweetly evil sounding violin. Easily one of my favorite Death-Doom albums I've heard. Incredible atmosphere and work by the lead singer of Pyrrhon, I'm extremely glad he decided to create such an awesome side project considering I really disliked Pyrrhon's style of Death Metal. 

Finnr's Cane

Hermóðr

Rhadamanthys

Strigae

Ulsect

Veldes

Waylander

Zornheym

Finsterforst

Thank you!