Daniel's Forum Replies

Blind Guardian - "Live" (2003)

A double live album from these German power metal heavy-weights.

3.5/5

A double album where Hansi maybe has to do a single album's worth of singing? 

Quoted Chinese Whispers

He puts in an absolutely monumental performance here to be honest. In fact, I don't think I've heard a more polished live release in my entire life & (despite the fact that it was put together from various different concerts) I find myself questioning its authenticity. The production & performances are absolute perfection which makes "Live" an absolute must for any European power metal fan. I mean even the crowd sing perfectly in tune. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining as I love a well produced & performed metal live album. The only reason I haven't scored it higher is because I still have problems with the cheesier medieval stuff. Blind Guardian are about the only European power metal band I can stomach but that doesn't mean I love everything they do. The first half of the second disk is truly fucking awe-inspiring though.

Blind Guardian - "Live" (2003)

A double live album from these German power metal heavy-weights.

3.5/5

It's a great review too. Well done Andi.

I have to admit that "October Rust" was a huge record for me & it's my clear favourite of their back catalogue. I always thought it sounded like a doom version of Duran Duran (who were my very first love as far as music went) & that's a huge positive as far as I'm concerned. The hooks stayed with me for weeks on end & I found myself listening to little else for a while there.

Ben, please add Die (Denmark), Diminished (USA) & Disfiguring The Goddess (USA).

Ben, please add Détente (USA).

Ben, please add Desecravity (Japan) & Devour The Unborn (USA).

I've been on a trip with the family for the last week & a half so my listening habits have been driven by what I can get away with. The girls seem to find techno or downtempo quite soothing so I often play that sort of stuff while they sleep in the car. Here's some of the stuff that's been on rotation:

Daniel Stubbs - "Cocktails & Sunsets (Downtempo set - January 2013)" (2013)

Tim Wolff - "Live At Awakenings Festival 2012" (2012)

Jeff Rushin - "Live At Awakenings 2012" (2012)

Speedy J - "Live At Awakenings 2012" (2012)

Yes I still listen to my old DJ sets. So sue me! And I went to the Awakenings Festival in Amsterdam in 2012 so those sets bring back some awesome memories.

I agree with you there Vinny. "Colored Sands" had a big impact on me too & I prefer it to their more highly celebrated "Obscura" album to be honest. I'm not sure it was my overall favourite of the decade but it was certainly up there.

How do you rate it Vinny? Personally I love all of Death's albums but I'd place "The Sound Of Perseverance" right in the middle of their back catalogue. Despite the fact that Death was my introduction to death metal in the late 80's, I actually prefer their more progressive records over their more traditional ones so it'd be slightly ahead of the first three but a bit behind albums 4-6.

I think the US power metal term is pretty much redundant to be honest. Ben & I did a deep dive into that scene over several episodes of the podcast & both came to the conclusion that US power metal is essentially just traditional heavy metal with all of its hard rock influence removed. There’s no need for a unique label really.

Oh... & “Crimson Glory” is an excellent heavy metal record.

Welcome to the site Caroline. Ben & I are thrilled that you enjoy our little podcast & are also so glad that you've decided to register for this website as it really is a labour of love for us. In fact, we've designed the site to fit in with our concept of the perfect metal resource & it's getting closer & closer to that ideal every day with all members having a say in how it looks & feels. I'm probably the more social of the two of us & having an avenue for self expression & communication with like-minded music fans has always been important to me so I fully intend to ensure that our forum becomes the most active in the entire internet metal scene. Plus, we're both tired of the prejudice & bullying that goes on at other major competitor's websites so there will be none of that tolerated here. It's a place where metalheads can be completely open in sharing their opinions without having to worry about being trolled due to their experience, age, gender, sexual orientation, musical preference, etc. So please don't be shy! Get amongst it & I look forward to hearing your thoughts on everything metal. Enjoy yourself!

Daniel

P.S. Where are you from if you don't mind me asking?

I also like to feel my rating system is absolute, in that it holds for all genres of music, so a rating of 0.5 is for absolute shit that I really can't stand, probably the likes of Justin Bieber, Crazy Frog or some other crime against music. A 0.5 or 1.0 is only meted out to metal albums on extremely rare occasions ( Adema and Atreyu are the only metal bands that I've ever given 0.5s to).

My feelings exactly. I remember having a debate with a couple of mates about the fact that my scoring tends to be in a bell curve with 3.5/5 at the centre. One believed that 2.5/5 should be the centre of the bell & the other thought that my rating distribution should be equal across the various possibilities. My argument was pretty simple really. I know what I'm likely to enjoy after all these years so I expect that I won't be selecting too many releases that I'm gonna hate. In reality I expect to enjoy the stuff I listen to more often than not & that naturally leads to an average of around 3.5/5.

Also, I reserve the bottom four ratings for stuff that I a) consider to be pretty awful or b) genuinely hate. So I don't dish them out to many metal releases in my chosen subgenres. I don't think I should have anywhere near as many 5/5 or 0.5/5 scores as I do 3/5 or 3.5/5 scores. There's got to be more average releases than classics in my opinion as I think it's got to be hard to score the extremes at either end of the spectrum. Otherwise you have no way of differentiating between the absolute elite like "Reign In Blood" or "Master Of Puppets" & other high quality releases. And 0.5-1/5 only goes to stuff where I consider the musicians can't play their instruments or where the sound coming out of the speakers doesn't even qualify as music at all & how many of those releases am I gonna actively seek out to listen to? Very few it would seem.

Of course, everyone is free to have their own thoughts on this & employ their own scoring system on Metal Academy as we promote equal opportunity so don't worry if yours doesn't line up with mine or anyone elses.

I think having a well defined scoring system is essential for standardizing your scoring across a large quantity & cross-section of releases. I've been using the same one for many years now & it's served me well. People will have different ideas on what constitutes a good or a bad score (for me a 3.5/5 is the first score to constitute a good result with a 3/5 having just missed the cut ) but the important thing is to keep it standard & to have a defined concept for what every score in the spectrum means so that you can be sure that you're allocating the appropriate one on every occasion.

It's also extremely important to give releases multiple listens before rating them. I find that the first listen rarely gives me a good understanding of an album as I often need to have my internal biases reset so I just let it sweep over me without thinking too much about it. It means that I'll go into subsequent listens with an understanding of what to expect. The second listen is where informed opinions start to form but the third listen will see those becoming clearer. If a release requires more than three listens I can usually tell pretty obviously by how far my initial scoring is changing between the second & third listens. If there's been a noticeable change in my feelings then I'll likely give a release some more time to see if those feelings will grow further.

Ben, please add Desecrator (Australia).

Ben, please add Deranged (Sweden).

With the “Coma Of Souls” head on the front? That’s a fucking beauty! Well done to your missus.

This is not a problem for me as I allow myself to simply score releases on my own personal enjoyment alone. I mean what good is an artistically relevant & clever album that you don’t enjoy?

A belter of a heavy metal power ballad from these New York thrashers.

Nuclear Assault - "The Plague" E.P. (1987)

4/5

Ben, please add Demonic Resurrection (India).

A classic death 'n' roll track from the originators of the subgenre.

Entombed - "Wolverine Blues" (1993)

The Swedish death metal gods move away from their traditional sound towards what we now know as death 'n' roll. I kinda dig it too.

3.5/5

Definitely. They’ve got a lot more energy & urgency than the sludgier Godflesh. It sounds like that might appeal to you more.

Ben, please add Decimation (Turkey).

Good question. I'll put some together in the next couple of days.

Radiohead - "OK Computer" (1996)

An amazing album from one of my all-time favourite bands.

4.5/5

Californian thrash metal.

Testament - "Live At Eindhoven" E.P. (1987)

3.5/5

Ben, please add Deadly Remains (USA).

Argentinian heavy metal from 1983. I love the way the lead guitar work builds here.

V8 - "Luchando por el metal" (1983)

The debut album from the most important Argentinian metal band of the 80's in Buenos Aires four-piece V8. The production here is very inconsistent with the drums sounding a big strange & the guitar solos being much louder than the rest of the music. Perhaps this is because the solos are of a very high quality & are by far the most interesting thing about V8. The Spanish vocals are pretty inadequate though & don't do anything to enhance the band's chances of global domination.

Musically, V8 are influenced by the greats of 1970's heavy metal & hard rock with Motorhead, Black Sabbath & Rush all playing a part but there's also a noticeably punky edge to most of these tracks. Particularly the few faster speed metal numbers included. I can appreciate some of the song-writing but overall I have to say that I struggle with the vocals on most tracks. I'd suggest that fans of Spanish heavy rockers Baron Rojo might find something of interest here but I'll have to take a pass myself.

3/5

Classic German thrash metal.

Destruction - "Mad Butcher" E.P. (1987)

The German thrash metal legends continued to hone their craft. This time recruiting a new drummer & an additional lead guitarist & going for a cleaner & much more complex sound. The guitar solos are a real highlight & one gets the feeling that the entire purpose of the E.P. was to showcase the improved technical skills of the new lineup. The re-recorded version of the title track is an improvement on the sloppier, dirtier original while the two new originals are both extremely entertaining. Particularly the very sophisticated "Reject Emotions" which reminds me a lot of "Rust In Peace" era Megadeth in its melodic & structural extravagance. Unfortunately the cover version of Plasmatics' "The Damned" is an obvious misfire but there's enough quality here to make this an enjoyable release for fans of Teutonic thrash.

4/5

Ben, please add the Dead (Germany) / Regurgitate (Sweden) split.

Ben, please add Dark Star (UK).

Swiss tech thrash from 1989.

Coroner - "No More Color" (1989)

The Swiss gods of technical thrash metal start to head in the more progressive direction they'd take during the early 90's & it makes for a stronger record than their previous material. There are no weak tracks here although I do still find Tommy's neoclassical moments to be a little cringe-worthy. The classy riffs flow in a never-ending stream from your speakers however & even though I prefer 90's Coroner over their 80's releases there's little doubt that they'd hit a new creative peak with this album. Fans of bands like Toxik, Mekong Delta & Obliveon will be absolutely all over this as Coroner were setting the standard at this stage.

4/5

Overrated:

Overkill - "!!!Fuck You!!!" E.P. (1987)

This was my first revisit to this little E.P. since we back in the day & it's not hard for me to see why. "!!!Fuck You!!!" includes a two minute cover version of the title track from 1979's self-titled debut E.P. from Canadian punk rockers The Subhumans followed by four live cuts taken from Overkill's first two albums. The production on the live tracks isn't terribly amazing & the cover version isn't worth purchasing this release for so I don't see much reason to seek this one out.

3/5

Slam/brutal death metal from Laos.

Delusional Parasitosis / Ecchymosis / Dissevered / Bleeding - "Scaphism 4-Way Split" (2017)

A four-way split album of slam/brutal death metal featuring bands from the USA, Thailand, Laos & the Netherlands. These bands really do take all of the trademark characteristics of the slam movement & accentuate them to their extremes. I'm generally a big fan of the more brutal side of death metal so there's a fair bit to interest me here however the ridiculously pingy snare sounds, overuse of gravity blast beats & continuously monotonous vocal delivery that makes no attempt to enunciate actual words can be challenging at times. Thankfully the riffs are always chunky & exciting though. I didn't like Ecchymosis much but the other three bands were all pretty cool. Particularly Delusional Paratosis. Fans of bands like Afterbirth, Artery Eruption & Infected Malignity should really dig this.

3.5/5

Ben, please add Daemon Foetal Harvest (Australia).

Ben, please add Cyclone (Belgium).

Seems kinda lazy to me Ben. I would have thought you'd have been well over 100,000 by now. Just sayin'.

*fetches popcorn, sits back & waits for reaction*

These two lists might also interest you members of The Pit as they include a few early thrash metal releases amongst them:

Top 10 Releases Of 1983: https://metal.academy/lists/single/7

Top 10 Releases Of 1984: https://metal.academy/lists/single/8

Ben, please add the split album from slam death metal artists Delusional Parasitosis, Ecchymosis, Dissevered & Bleeding. It's generally called "Scaphism 4-Way Split".