Daniel's Forum Replies

I was looking forward to checking out this album. It's primary genres on RYM are black metal and thrash metal, and it's ratings there aren't terrible. The first time I listened to it I started laughing uncontrollably. The musicianship is poor to say the least, but the vocals...oh the vocals!!!!...are so hilariously bad that the album is close to unlistenable for me. He sounds like a mix of Flemming Rønsdorf from Artillery and Tim Baker from Cirith Ungol, but much much worse than that comparison suggests. I've given it two solid listens and some of the music is admittedly somewhat enjoyable, but the album's flaws are just too huge to get over. And if I have to listen to the guitarist play one more decreasing scale lead (Daniel, what's the technical term for what this guy's doing in every track?), I may create some flames of my own.

I've put this comment in The North, but honestly, I'd love to know what you guys think of this album's genre(s). I don't hear much black or thrash metal at all. This just seems like poorly played and produced heavy metal, with a smattering of speed and doom, yet those genres don't even get a look-in on RYM. I could be wrong. The vocals are so off-putting. Thoughts?

1.5 stars

So I finally got around to giving this a few listens & I agree with you that there's no black metal or thrash metal here. It's a combination of traditional doom metal & speed metal with a little traditional heavy metal tossed in here & there. If I had to pick a single subgenre I'd likely go with traditional doom metal because over half of the duration of the album is taken up by the three doom tracks & that tag has always allowed for a fair bit of variance on the doom theme (see the first Trouble record or the first couple of Saint Vitus records for examples). That said, I don't hate "Fire & Steel" as much as you do though. The vocals are certainly unusual & the Cirith Ungol comparison is definitely valid but they're not a deal breaker for me. The lead guitar work is much harder to overcome in my opinion. The tone is terrible & his reliance on those descending chromatic runs is dictated by his complete lack of theoretical understanding. But I don't find that this means that I genuinely hate any of this material. In fact, I actually like a couple of tracks in the eleven minute doom epic "Heroes in Black" & the Motorhead inspired "From the Grave". It's not enough to command revisits though & I still consider this to be an overrated release.

3/5

For fans of: Venom, Hellhammer, Saint Vitus

Ben, please add Sentinel Beast (USA).

Ben, please add Semen Datura (Germany).

Ben, please add Sarcophagy (USA).

I feel very similarly about tracks 2 & 3 Sonny but found some major obstacles that I failed to overcome with opener " Welt aus Eis". The vocals & drumming to be more specific. The vocal delivery is very different & much more direct than on the other two tracks. It sounds kinda childish & immature to my ears to be honest. I'm not sure whether it was intentional to make the drumming sound so sloppy & primitive either. Perhaps it was & I'm just not on board with it but the drums get more buried in the mix on the other two tracks & they're much better off for it. "Gefrorener Atem" & "Der Weg" certainly take some time to develop but the second half of both of those songs are nothing short of wonderful.

Atmospheric black metal perfection from Switzerland.

I can't speak for Ben on the topic but I definitely want to include them. The site would feel incomplete without them.

Sorry folk metallers but I simply can't help but feel that Nokturnal Mortum's "The Voice Of Steel" album is overrated. Feel free to have me tarred, drawn & feathered in a public place for the pleasure of the Pagan community though.

Ben's just adding a new band called "Rosetta / East Of The Wall / Year Of No Light" for example. He found that there was no way he could tie these split releases back to the individual bands so you won't see that release come up under Rosetta.

Ben, please add Sarath (Norway) & Secrets Of The Moon (Germany).

Ben, please add the Rosetta / East of the Wall / Year of No Light split & Rwake (USA).

Nokturnal Mortum - "Голос сталі" (2009)

Pagan folk metal from the Ukraine. Not my bag at all but fans of bands like Moonsorrow, Kroda & Temnozor will likely love it.

3/5

This track sounds like Emperor meets Dire Straits.... & in a good way too.

This is absolutely categorically not my bag at all.

Ben, please add Rise To Fall (Spain) & Rompeprop (Netherlands).

Ben, please add Rev. Kriss Hades (Australia).

Ben, please add Wolf Spider (Poland).

Look, you're not alone in your feelings there Andi. "By Inheritance" is a very well regarded record in the thrash community. Particularly given that it was released in the 90's when thrash was on a steep decline. But I make no secret about the fact that I struggle a bit with the more melodic styles of metal (i.e. melodeath, melodic black metal, melodic metalcore, etc.) & this record sits right at the more melodic end of the thrash spectrum. Don't get me wrong. I still get a fair bit of enjoyment out of it. I've just never come close to thinking of it as a classic release in the entire thirty year relationship I've had with this record which is partially a matter of taste. I recommended it to you because I knew it would tick a lot of your boxes so I'm not at all surprised to see that you love it.  In truth, the tracks that you said were your highlights were the ones that I don't have any time for which is a strong indicator that our musical palates come for opposing ends of the metal spectrum. Neither of us are right or wrong though. We just have different personalities & perspectives. I'm just very pleased that the site is helping people identify releases that are so perfectly suited to their unique personal tastes.

I'm gonna shake things up a little by claiming that this "classic" thrash metal album is overrated. Discuss!

Artillery - "By Inheritance" (1990)

Andi, if you haven't already heard this Artillery's third album, I think it could be right up your alley.

I completely agree with you Sonny. In fact, since returning to metal in 2009 after spending close to a decade immersing myself in electronic music, the whole atmospheric sludge/post-metal movement has probably been the musical realm that I'm most consistently impressed with. The sheer ambition & scope of some of these works go far above & beyond the original ethos of what a metal band was trying to achieve i.e. stringing a bunch of heavy riffs together along with some catchy hooks.

To be fair Tymell, I think it's pretty easy to be influenced by the sheer class & ambition of a record like "By Inheritance" as it's certainly quite an achievement from an artistic & technical point of view. But the question I had to ask myself is whether I actually enjoyed listening to it as much as a more raw & intense thrash release & the answer ended up being a recounding no. To my ears it sounds like the melodeath of thrash i.e. a subgenre that I certainly appreciate but rarely hold up on a pedestal when comparing it to other forms of death metal.

I finally got around to revisiting "By Inheritance" over the weekend &, while I quite like it, I have to say that I don't share the immense adoration that many thrash fans do for it. I think it's simply a little too melodic & (at times) light-weight for my personal tastes. Still a decent record but I don't consider it to be the classic that most seem to.

3.5/5

I find it very difficult to tolerate this Middle Eastern influenced intro track to be honest:

Here's a couple that have been floating my boat over the weekend:

E-X-E - "Stricken By Might" (1987)

Some rough & ready underground 80's metal that combines thrash, speed & traditional heavy metal. In fact, there's even a little crossover thrash here too. I quite like it. Particularly two of the last three tracks. For fans of Exciter, Hallows Eve & early Slayer.

3.5/5

Artillery - "By Inheritance" (1990)

3.5/5

Ben, please add E-X-E (USA) too.

This "feature" is of course part of some exciting & ground-breaking new functionality that we've been testing over the last few weeks. It's in no way a total complete & utter fuck-up by the site administration & in time you'll see its true genius.

It's really an exercise in choosing the clans where our knowledge & experience can add the most to the site & its other users. To truly be a good fit for a clan you need to have a good knowledge of the history of its contained subgenres & be very passionate about most (if not all) of them.

The Pit - Thrash & speed metal are predominantly 80's based subgenres while groove metal is mainly 90's. You've openly spoken about the fact that you haven't spent much time with 80's metal your ratings for The Pit releases are all more recent. Many that cross over into The Infinite anyway (i.e. Vektor, Nevermore, etc.) so you'd already be influencing those releases without being a part of The Pit. I don't think this is a good fit for you to be honest.

The Fallen - You definitely have a stronger passion for the bands contained within this clan than for The Pit but your interests do tend to reside in small pockets (i.e. gothic metal & a bit of doom/death) rather than the overall clan. I've seen little evidence of a passion for traditional doom metal, funeral doom metal, drone metal, stoner metal, sludge metal, etc. so I don't think this is the clan for you either.

The Guardians - This is a no-brainer really. You have far more experience with subgenres like power metal & symphonic metal than most of our other members & I feel that you can really add benefit through your opinions & thoughts. You've always been drawn to the less intimidating & more melodic styles of metal & this clan is custom made for people with that characteristic. In all due respect, I've always thought that The Guardians should always have been your third clan along with The Revolution & The Infinite.

The Fallen - 0

The Guardians - 3

The Pit - 0

Teutonic thrash that takes more of a cleaner US direction ala Exodus.

Accu§er - "The Conviction" (1987)

A decent enough thrash/speed metal debut from this German outfit. The A side is in the German speed metal style while the B side is in a US thrash style. Think early Iron Angel/Holy Moses/Living Death & the more aggressive Accept material meets Exodus.

3.5/5

Don't worry Ben. I got this. I've got a long list of poor quality, obscure, completely unknown demos & 7 inches that I wanted to add anyway. Most whose cover art is simply a hand-drawn picture of something ridiculously childish & offensive where the only online pics available are blurry photos that show someone's hand holding them up in front of an old Nokia cell phone in poor light. I'm sure you'll be fine with it.

Ambient, droney post-metal from Georgia, USA.

The Angelic Process - "Weighing Souls With Sand" (2007)

Ambient drone/post-metal from Georgia, USA.

3.5/5

That's pretty much exactly the same as my own Tymell.

Ben, please add Accuser (Germany).

Ben, please add Resist The Thought (Australia).

Ben, please add Ramesses (UK).

My system looks a lot like Daniel's, except that I may be a bit too generous with my 5 star ratings sometimes. I don't know if there's that many "perfect" albums, if you define perfect as every track being a 5/5. Even stone cold classics often have one track that's a bit less awesome than the rest. I rate more on how an album makes me feel and how much I would want to hear it again, so it doesn't have to be perfect as long as it gives me that indefinable feeling that I know makes it a classic - to me at least, in other words a "go to" album.

I don't define a perfect album as having every song being a 5/5. It's more about the average being closer to a 5/5 than a 4.5/5. So you can afford one 3.5/5 track as long as the rest are right up there. You probably couldn't have any real duds or else the average won't be able to recover.

Your wish is my command Andi. Enjoy!

Would you like me to find you an album worthy of a 2 (or lower) so that you can break your cherry Andi?

A real stinker from these Brazilian thrash metallers 1987 debut album.

A fantastic mid-80's Brazilian death/thrash number from a comparatively disappointing album.

Utterly stunning avant-garde black metal from the French masters of the sound.

Deathspell Omega - "Fas – Ite, maledicti, in ignem aeternum" (2007)

4/5

Ben, please add Putrid Pile (USA) & Pyrexia (USA).

Ben, please add Chakal (Brazil).

Ben, please add Profanatica (USA).