UnhinderedbyTalent's Forum Replies
You chose the correct clan to post about “Black Metal” in my opinion Vinny. Well done!
P.S. “Sabotage” is my second favourite Sabbath studio album from “Paranoid”.
I really like the experimental side of Paranoid, it is such a challenging record in places which puts it just behind the superb Master Of Reality for me which is the all-time great of the Sabbath discography.
This clan was the only place for that Venom record to my ears as well. I realised that I had never played the second LP (my copy is a reissue gatefold) and there's a heap of BBC sessions and singles on sides C & D so been an interesting listen this morning.
Unearthly Trance - Stalking The Ghost (2017)
I bought this on vinyl on a whim as I was moving house and wanted something new to listen to at my new place. Wasn't the most beneficial whim I have ever had from memory and I have hardly played it since but giving it a spin this morning as I get through chores and feel like I want something gloomy and moody on that still has a bit of bite to it also.
Venom - Black Metal (1982)
Black Sabbath - Sabotage (1975)
Brief and altogether really unhelpful input from me.
STOP WASTING YOUR LIVES PUTTING EVERYTHING INTO PIGEON-HOLES!!!! DRIVES ME MENTAL!
Rant over.
Carry on. (Not like you weren't going to anyways)
I sat last night and watched the documentary on which most of the album Kentucky is based. It's a tough watch at times in terms of the quality of the footage but at the same time really interesting to understand the reality of the struggle and the levels of corruption and even murder that they encountered to eventually get nearer to what they wanted (the eventual contract wasn't as appealing across the board depending on age/years of service in the mines). Definitely worth a vie when you have a couple of hours to kill one evening.
Go on, I'll bite first.
I don't disagree with the majority included on your list (have to revisit that Opprobrium album before commenting on it - and Carcass would not make my list) but I would re-order them.
1) Obituary - Slowly We Rot, this is simply a huge album for me as it was my gateway album into death metal and genuinely listening to this for the first time is one of the greatest moments of my life.
2) Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness, probably one of the most essential death metal releases of all time. Total non-conformity from Trey with certain keys or scales make this an album that challenged the very form of music itself.
3) Pestilence - Consuming Impulse, to quote my review "This was all from a band several thousand of miles away from the developing US death metal scene, yet the Dutch band from Enschede, Overijssel dropped an album of such magnitude and presence that it could trade blows with the Morbid Angel's and Obituary's of the time and only narrowly lose out on points."
4) Death - Leprosy, no argument from me here, top of the pile of Death releases for the 80's. Huge strides taken from the debut in just a year, pushing the band and the genre further forwards than we imagined possible.
5) Death - Scream Bloody Gore, surprised myself with the inclusion of this behind Pestilence but in all honesty I just know the Pestilence album better and I think that this album's importance is more relevant terms of the genre definition it did at the time. The best was very much still yet to come from Chuck at this point.
6) Autopsy - Severed Survival, filthy stuff put plain and simple. Plug in, no fuck's left to give death metal that crushes all in its path. Reifert pulls another early death metal classic out of thin air and lands on his feet again.
7) Macabre - Gloom, upping the unpredictability stakes ten-fold is what Macabre do best. Nineteen tracks of serial killer themed blasting two minute grind is a superb night out in my book.
8) Possessed - Seven Churches, the birth of death/thrash gets a look in towards the end of the list. Not as highly-rated as perhaps some of my peers would want to see it I know but this release sort of passes me by most of the time nowadays.
9) Terrorizer - World Downfall, we are getting to the bottom of the barrel now for me and these last two only really qualify for the fact that they were released in a decade with limited number of releases.
10) Bolt Thrower - Realm of Chaos, not that I hate it but I have big problems with the production on this making it one of the most stifled sounding death metal albums of the time.
Winner, winner. Chicken dinner.
I can't begin to throw enough superlatives at this record. The same week that my vinyl copy of Mestarin Kynsi arrived I discover this gem also and will no doubt be testing my bank balance again this month now.
What a tense and intriguing record from start to finish. Delivered within structures that I find terrifying to listen to personally as they can take very simple effects and use them as conflicting ideals within each song or key passages in each, building this sense of false security all the time which keeps me absolutely hooked.
The review says it all.
5/5
So first of all, thanks Xephyr for introducing me to this album. It is fair to say that I was not expecting to enjoy it as much as I have and equally clear is that I might just have a new favourite band. The connection I made with this record was more or less immediate and was one that was as unexpected as it was welcome. From the sheer quality of the musicians to the compositional ability of the song writing and the balance to everything, there's so much to admire here.
Brittney is one of the most talented without being overtly showy vocalists I have heard and the way she controls her delivery to compete with (and often best) the fire and energy of those riffs and leads is extraordinary. There's no high-pitched shrieks needed her for her to make her presence known, a real solid no-frills performance if ever I heard one. The one black mark against the record is Grant's poor efforts at harsh vocals which as I note in my review are laughable at times and the one thing that keeps the album away from full marks.
4.5/5
Portal - Avow (2021)
After Altarage earlier in the year this needs to be an extraordinary record to stand up to what the Spaniards delivered. First full listen through this morning so we will see.
Just got my CD copy a couple of days ago. Love this album, Vinny and thanks for putting me onto it. But have you seen the large number of snarky comments on it's RYM page? I fucking swear, I don't know what some people expect from an album sometimes. Can't they just accept it as a good/great black metal album that doesn't threaten to change the face of black metal but is just a damn entertaining listen? Or does one person state a dislike for it and then others feel compelled to jump on the bandwagon? That's one of my main beefs with RYM I guess, the pile-on bully mode that sometimes takes the place of considered thought. Luckily that's not an issue here at the Academy and another reason I prefer to engage in civilised discussions here - I virtually never post on RYM forums, but as you can tell it's hard to shut me up on the MA ones!
I don't do RYM in all honesty but I have heard the elitism is rife there. Yeah, that's one of the main draws here for me too, an open atmosphere without being fluffy. On my other site were I moderate we have pretty much the same ethos.
Suggestions for July's playlist:
Kanonenfieber - Grabenlieder (5:25) from Menschenmühle (2021)
I have played that album to death since the CD/Tee bundle arrived and that track is one of the standouts. Good choice sir.
I own it on CD and do play it regularly enough to agree with some of what Xeph says about the "loose" values around the performance and production - which likewise I accept is part of the charm for some (myself included). I personally prefer Remains of a Ruined, Dead, Cursed Soul for my Mütiilation hit when needed although both probably deserve my two penneth of a review.
Austin Lunn, aka Panopticon, gives a nice career retrospective on today's Bandcamp Daily.
https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/panopticon-black-metal-list
Interesting stuff. I still criminally neglect his discography beyond Kentucky and The Scars of Man... and really need to delve into picking up some vinyl of his.
The tortured soul character certainly fits the music he makes but it is never melancholic for melancholy's sake, there's a real raw depth to it.
That version of "Am I Evil?" is actually in this month's playlist Vinny.
Bugger.
Please replace with Iron Maiden - Caught Somewhere In Time from Somewhere In Time (1986) 07:27
July:
High Command - Inexorable Darkness from Beyond the Wall of Desolation (2019) 04:57
Traitor - Mad Dictator from Knee-deep in the Dead (2018) 04:27
Desaster - Learn to Love the Void from Churches Without Saints (2021) 03:58
Nekromantheon - The Visions of Trigmegistos from The Visions of Trigmegistos (2021) 04:48
Demiser - Through The Gate Eternal from Through The Gate Eternal (2021) 03:58
Usurper - Kill For Metal from Cryptobeast (2005) 05:32
Total = 27:40
Amorphis - Black Winter Day from Tales From The Thousand Lakes (1994) 03:51
Cancer - Hung, Drawn and Quartered from Death Shall Rise (1991) 03:25
Venom Prison - Defy The Tyrant from Primeval (2020) 03:50
Grave Miasma - Glorification of the Impure from Endless Pilgrimage (2016) 05:21
Baest - Goregasm from Necro Sapiens (2021) 04:24
Portal - Eye from Avow (2021) 05:35
Lik - Funeral Anthem from Misanthropic Breed (2021) 03:28
Total = 29:54
July :
Cloven Hoof - Bathory from Age of Steel (2020) 05:46
Bitch - Be My Slave from Be My Slave (1983) 04:40
Fates Warning - The Apparition from Spectre Within (1985) 05:50
Metal Church - Fake Healer from Blessing in Disguise (1989) 05:57
Diamond Head - Am I Evil from Lightning to the Nations (1980) 07:40
Total = 29:49
July:
Vreid - Shadowland from Wild North West (2021) 09:53
Nattverd - Det bloer paa alt som spirer from Vandring (2021) 06:34
Imperium Dekadenz - Nebelbrandung from Dämmerung Der Szenarien (2007) 06:46
Total = 23:13
A strong start to this month's North list with that Spectral Wound track which is one of my regular spins of the past month or so. Once I get the mining riffs of Fuath out of my head I soon find myself wondering why I have never really pursued more Obsequiae and quickly make a note to check out more of their stuff. Moving swiftly into one of the worst things I have ever heard from Skyclad (not my usual experience of them) but then all is saved by the rich earthiness of that WITTR track - the in form Sonny does it again!
Heretoir just drifts by after that - through no fault of their own, just a tough track to follow - and I find myself reaching for the skip button to end the nonsense that is Bal-Sagoth before Arkona get things back on track - although at first I found myself caught off-guard because this clearly wasn't the Russian band I was familiar with. More quality stuff from Shining follows and I have a little sleep during that Xasthur track to recharge my batteries (good track just heard it many times so spied my opportunity) before my new favourite band Mare Cognitum drop another stellar track which forces me to go even further into their back catalogue. The conflict of whether I like Diabolical Masquerade this year or not is presented to me next and I decide 2021 is a good year for Blackheim.
Now I discover that Wintherr's at it again and this news has passed me by somehow. I fell out with him for Im Wald which was far too long and my attention span struggled massively with it. On this release it seems the internet is a bit upset with this release but from what I hear on this track it is nice and abrasive stuff. Sonny wins himself another 100 internet points for putting my second favourite band in the world Yith on the list.
Good month (again), fuck me we are good at this!
I really enjoyed this month. It was full of stuff that made me remember exactly why I got into thrash in the first place and had a few classics that I hadn't heard for a while (Anthrax and Slayer in particular). Picked up on that Lich King track as they are a band I have struggled to get on with but his one was really energetic and frenetic so I will be checking out the whole album based on that track. I do need to still check out that Hydra Vein album that Sonny recommended the other week.
I don't know why I haven't heard Paranorm before but I will be exploring them further also. I am even giving Steel Bearing Hand another go.
Still not loving Evile or Skeletonwitch though. Even the vocalist change on Evile hasn't turned me onto them.
Virtual hi-fives all round though.
Hello, I think you're still not the oldest here btw. Good to see new blood on the site.
We just did a feature on that Loathe record - which wasn't to my particular taste but each to their own and all that.
Looking forwards to hearing your thoughts on releases in reviews and forum threads etc.
I don't mind "it" as it happens. The Deftones influence is strong enough to even carry off the blatantly commercial sounding Two Way Mirror without it grating that much. The bouncy metalcore aspect to it works in the main also , I'd just like the record as a whole to be a little more settled compositionally as they clearly have a lot to say but it is too much like hard work trying to keep with the expression of it.
I don't love it but at the same time I don't hate it. As with most Revolution (and a few Gateway) bands - I don't need it in my life though. There's not enough intrigue to keep me interested for fifty minutes as nothing feels framed that well and it is not that I need boundaries to my metal music (far from it usually) but for the obvious clash of styles that go on, the focus on detail is off.
3/5
Title track from the latest Baest album. Whole album is a great listen with a consistency that makes for one energetic and varied experience. Not flawless but still very entertaining.
4/5
Quite an easy one for me. If Emperor include symphonic elements in their sound does that make them classical music and not metal, or if they include metal in their symphonic sound does that make them metal and not classical? Answer to both questions is that Emperor are a black metal band who incorporate symphonic elements into their sound.
Horse incorporate a multitude of influence into their sound (not all terrible) and as a result they are too blended to be considered metal with the electronic elements being the less dominant strain in comparison to their largely screamo sound. Don't feel they have any place in MA.
Sky Eats Airplane have a more consistent metal vocal style over some basic nu-metal riffs saturated by a more consistent electronic element which is no more alien than some nu-metal from back in the 90's. Gateway/Revolution clan/s.
Last band Daniel featured are 100% not metal, they are an alternative band with electronic and screamo elements. I know we are not supposed to comment on quality but this is fucking terrible.
Demiser - Through the Gate Eternal 2021
Blackened thrash for Saturday lunchtime. Fans of Sodom, Butcher and Destroyer 666 should dig this.
Hello Ben, please add the following releases:
Yith - Passage (2021)
Latest album from Nattverd - Vandring (2021)
And one band:
Lowered - from US (one release, self-titled, 2018)
Sonny? I would assume you are all over this black/doom outift? I have been playing it this past week after it came up as a suggestion after me battering the latest Yith album.
Cryptic Shift - "Visitations From Enceladus" (2020)
Ben & Vinny, have you checked out this progressive death/thrash debut from Leeds, England yet? It's a high quality effort that reminds me of Vektor, Voivod & Gorguts.
I couldn’t get into it, a bit too Voivod from memory and I don’t get on with them unfortunately. May well get a revisit at some point but initial view wasn’t positive.
Vreid - The Morning Red from Wild North West
Never heard Vreid before but I have been playing their latest album over the weekend after a promo track on a cover mount CD. The album takes some getting used to but on the whole I like it even if the vocals are a bit cooky sometimes.
There has to be some control and I think 3 months is fine. Anything longer than that will result in engagement loss and the lists will lose the personal element from the site users. Nobody in full time work and/or with a family to look after and spend time with can stretch to checking if a song has been used in the past 8 or 16 months Andi. That’s ridiculous.
Needless to say I am not as enamoured with Nemesis but then again I have never been a fan of Grip Inc. and just don't understand the hype around them. This album is disjointed and undulating to the point of being unpalatable for me and with me already hating Gus Chamber's vocals there's little going for Grip Inc. from the off really. Can't fault Lombardo's skin work or the guitarist fella but the song writing and compositional effort that went into this is shocking. A flurry of ideas is what I would describe this as, there's no real album here for me to listen to in all honesty.
2.5/5
A savage and aggressive new album of Norwegian thrash courtesy of three-piece Nekromantheon:
Daniel, Vinny you may both find this of some interest.
I have been spinning this recently and loved it - it matches Rise, Vulcan, Spectre in terms of consistency. Good to see the Kolbotn Thrashers Union still going strong.
Ah, I get it now! To be honest I sometimes miss details like that if I'm not realy concentrating due to my annoying tinnitus - not just metal music caused, I used to work in a metal rolling mill back in the eighties when health and safety wasn't quite as robust as it is nowadays and so I'm stuck with a continuous hissing in the ears that can block out more subtle sounds. Perhaps one reason I like extreme metal music as it drowns all that shit out!
I have tinnitus too - entirely my on doing with earphones/headphones as a young fella with no concept of the damage volume would do later in life. Not helped by a bad ear infection ten years or so back that burst my eardrum in my right ear. There's bits to records that I miss too or bits I interpret differently as a result. Getting old sucks. I want a refund on life!
Review is up. An often overlooked record that could stink of a band just throwing any old shit out to try and remain relevant some three years after they dropped one of the greatest albums of their career (of the genre arguably). Instead they pulled together 5 tracks of solid death metal, shaved off a bit of the technical edge and just let rip. There is a sadness in the fact that upon reflection this is (for me) the last great Suffocation release and the EP gets way too little attention in all honesty. It showed they had a lot still left to give but for whatever reason they split after this and although they reformed in the early noughties, they have never shown much of a hint of being able to capture this kind of form again.
4/5
Sorted it. I get this with MA intermittently where I can't load image URL's as well and I have to clear my browsing history in Chrome. Feels like some really aggressive caching that just needs clearing every now and again. Can't see it being my ad-blocker on here as there's nothing to block.
Can you please add:
From the UK - Celestial Sanctuary and their debut album, Soul Diminished
I've recently noticed that our Spotify playlists don't tend to come up in Spotify searches & a little research has seen Ben & I discovering that it's most likely because they don't have large quantities of followers. This is primarily due to the fact that we create a brand new playlist for each clan every month which essentially starts the follower count again from scratch. So in order to combat this & make everyone's lives a bit easier, I've decided that from next month we'll keep a single current playlist per clan & I will change the tracklisting at the start of each month so that you'll never have to look for the latest lost. That should see us accumulating followers over time & you'll still have access to our past playlists as I'll keep creating new lists for the previous month's material so that they can be accessed at any time in the same way they are now. Does that make sense? Any concerns with this approach or do you think it'll be a positive move?
Makes sense. Anything to get the attention levels up will be of use.
Robin Trower - Bridge of Sighs (1974)
One of the greatest blues rock albums ever made. Haunting and ethereal as well as super soothing also.
June -
U.D.O - Man and Machine from Man and Machine 2002 05:40
Sabire - Rise To The Top from Gates Ajar 2018 03:55
W.A.S.P. - Chainsaw Charlie (Murders in the New Morgue) from The Crimson Idol 1992 08:43
Dokken - It's Not Love from Under Lock and Key 1985 04:59
Viper - A Cry From The Edge from Theatre of Fate 1989 05:11
Total = 28:28
June:-
Circle of Dust - Contagion from Machines of Our Disgrace (2016)
June-
Killer Be Killed - Curb Crusher from Killer Be Killed 2014 03:31
Inculter - Open The Tombs from Fatal Visions 2019 04:02
Cryptosis - Game of Souls from Bionic Swarm 2021 04:30
Havok - Interface With The Infinite from V 2020 04:02
Infant Death - Troops of Dead from Violent Rites 2016 03:30
Evoke - Demons of War from Seeds of Death 2020 04:12
Nuclear Assault - Something Wicked from Something Wicked 1993 04:42
Total run time = 28:29
June:
System of a Down - Spiders from System of a Down (1998)
This is a clever pick. I had heard this previously but dismissed it at the time due to not giving it enough time in all honesty. It is an album that needs time, both in terms of full attention during the playing thereof but also repeat spins to really understand it. I am not reviewing it yet for his very reason as I need a few more spins to fully process this. My initial thoughts are that this is BM played in Italian Prog length structures. At first what seem like four lengthy and arduous tracks are actually quite succinct pieces of the story when you reflect on the listening experience.
Review to follow when I have had chance to process more. That pesky Xeph making me think 
So, in terms of context for why I chose this as my featured release for this month, back when I was a consultant working the length and breadth of the British Isles I found myself working for a number of weeks in a place called Milton Keynes which is a short train ride out of London (for the uninitiated). Given hotel prices in London, I opted to stay the other side of Milton Keynes in a place called Northampton in a hotel near the train station. Each day on my commute to Milton Keynes on the train I would be making that soulless journey to the tune of Hammer of the North, raising my spirits with the rousing metal of one of Sweden's finest exports.
As such, this album holds a particular nostalgic place in my heart for accompanying me through a time when I was far away from home and encouraged to imagine places even further away thanks to the amazing imagery conjured by the fantastical lyrics of JB Christoffersson. As a side note I was bitterly disappointed during my research for this review to find that the digital copy I owned (?) has disappeared from my music stream and also other popular streaming services. As much as I am a fan of the physical formats of albums, my overarching experience of this album was on digital format and it is a little disappointing to see it absent from immediate access outlets due to whatever bullshit politics goes on between streaming services and record labels.
Anyway, the main thing I like about this record is that (in the main) it encapsulates everything I got into metal for in the first place. Memorable songs, hooks that bury themselves so deep into your flesh they pierce internal organs, an aggressive and gruff style that make the music seem inaccessible despite it being one of the more immediate releases I owned (shakes fist at the internet), melodic yet never flashy leads and song writing so catchy it is fucking criminal. At the same time you will notice a less than five star rating because I honestly can see the limitations of the record despite all that I love about it. It is an album that tries to be nothing other than what it is; a record made by genuine fans of heavy metal that may be more than a little guilty of flogging the same ideas more than once, yet it does this so well it is near impossible to resist it's charms.
If you read my reviews with any regularity on here you will pick up that I note the quality levels of a record by how well I can recite the tracks in my head without having to listen to the album itself. Needless to say I can do at least seven of the ten tracks here from start to finish in my head - despite all the other shit that is in there at any given time that occupies valuable brain space. The album just rewards you after one listen, balancing melody and rampant rhythms perfectly as the simplicity of tracks such as the title track, Black Sails, Mountains Be My Throne, The Lord of Lies and Ravens Guide Our Way layer themselves in your memory banks, track after track.
As I go off to buy a physical copy of the album, I leave you with the notion that if all artists recorded albums like this (you know what I mean; throw caution to the wind, fuck what's cool today and lets just do what we like mentality) then the world would be a much better place. I have increased my rating by a half star during this review, just because I can.
4.5/5
Had a very enjoyable morning blasting this playlist whilst working (which I normally avoid doing as I can't focus on the music enough as a result). I am finding that my resistance to Power Metal and the more Symphonic bands is slowly being broken down overtime as I listen to more of these lists. I am not saying that I am actively seeking out these bands discographies but I am not hitting skip as much on the likes of Epica etc.
That Týr peaked my interest too and like Andi, I have had a few failed attempts over recent years to get into them so maybe they will be one act I do explore more. I will be seeking more Cauldron and Ram as I picked up on them during my research for this playlist but didn't get much chance to explore much of their discogs.
So, on the Metal Forum (imaginative title I know) I have kept a Promo thread going since Dec 19 albeit intermittently. Currently at over 345 views in the thread but not sure if anyone (other than Ludo) has found the place from that link.
Spectral Wound - A Diabolical Thirst (2021)
What an icy cold blast this is on a bank holiday Monday morning. Previously unknown to me until this weekend, this unforgiving yet unexpectedly melodic at times album is a real treat. Need to spin a few more times before getting a review up.
Vinny, we actually included that Frozen Soul track in our March playlist. Would you like to pick a replacement?
Frozen Soul - Hand of Vengeance from Crypt of Ice (2021) 04:20