Daniel's Forum Replies

Nasum - "Helvete" (2003)

Blasting ball-out grindcore from Sweden. This genre doesn't get much better than when Nasum lets go of the shackles & just goes for it. The slower tempo groove sections aren't as strong but they maintain a nice level of consistency across the 22 tracks with no obvious weak tracks. I fucking love the ultra-aggressive vocals & drumming. "Helvete" kicks serious arse in my opinion.

For fans of Rotten Sound, Wormrot & Brutal Truth.

4/5

Post-blackgaze from San Francisco, USA.

Classy post-blackgaze from San Francisco, USA.

Deafheaven - "Ordinary Corrupt Human Love" (2018)

2013's "Sunbather" record was one of the most divisive I can remember in my extreme metal journey & it's not hard to see why either but I'm not afraid to confidently state that I fell firmly into the camp that thought it was a masterstroke. Deafheaven's debut album "Roads to Judah" was a really solid example of post-blackgaze however "Sunbather" saw the band maximizing all aspects of their sound &, in doing so, set the metal world alight. Given the magnitude of that album, future Deafheaven releases were always going to be compared to it & that can probably be seen as a disadvantage, particularly given the tendency for people to prejudge based on past experiences. And this brings us to Deafheaven's fourth full-length album "Ordinary Corrupt Human Love" which sees the band taking their sound even further away from the black metal scene's comfort zone.

If you come in looking for black metal here then you'll be disappointed as there's really very little on offer apart from George Clarke's Ihsahn-like gurgles. In fact, it's quite hard to identify much in the way of any sort of metal for most of the record to tell you the truth. Instead the instrumentation draws from widely disparate (yet universally accessible) forms of rock music & manages to pull it all off with an ease that only the elite artists in the scene can manage. Melodic shoegaze? Tick. Stripped-back post-rock meanderings? Tick. Whispy dream pop vocals? Tick. Lush & progressive art rock excursions? Tick. Ethereal darkwave atmosphere? Tick.... & all executed with aplomb too. Opening track "You Without End" offers about the only weak point on the record via some ill-guided black metal shrieks layered over some particularly easy-listening art rock instrumentation which sounds well out of place. Thankfully the musicians execute their parts with enough sophistication to leave the track feeling predominantly positive as a whole but I have to admit that it was a strange decision to open with the weakest number on the tracklisting. From that point on Deafheaven don't put a foot wrong but in saying that they don't ever really see me thinking about reaching for my higher scores either. I guess the musical positivity that Deafheaven surround themselves with is still a little too far away from my sweet spot for that however I can't deny that they've managed to fully realize yet another brave & ambitious artistic undertaking here.

The more intense parts are still my favourite parts which won't surprise anyone but the indulgent post-rock sections are nothing short of lovely too. It's interesting that, despite the lack of genuine metal here, I still think the album is best described as post-blackgaze, mainly because George's vocals simply don't belong anywhere outside of the metal spectrum. There's not even all that much shoegaze on offer here either but there isn't another black metal-related subgenre that could possibly encompass the positivity in these melodic themes so it just seems to fit.

I'm honestly not sure that Deafheaven can put a foot wrong at this point no matter what subgenre they tackle & "Ordinary Corrupt Human Love" is yet another strong release that sees them flexing their creative muscles. Thankfully the extreme metal world seems to be ready for it too.

For fans of Alcest, Ghost Bath & Oathbreaker.

4/5

Two & a half hours of Henry Rollins telling the story of his days in Black Flag. It'll completely reset your vision of the rock star lifestyle forever.

It's been an intense last couple of weeks at work & that's not likely to change any time soon as I'm heading to New Zealand tomorrow morning to spend a week traveling around the country visiting key customers. It's a little bit stressful to be doing that right now as the COVID risk is rising again in Australia & there is the chance that the borders may be shut at some point. It's also made worse by the fact that my 81 year-old father-in-law has COVID at the moment & is being monitored by my wife. I've already cancelled this trip twice before though so I think I'm reluctant to do that again & are just gonna have to play it by ear.

This release has been posted in the Hall of Judgement.

Glorious psychedelic funeral doom metal from Birmingham, England.

My updated list after revisiting Esoteric's "The Pernicious Enigma" over the last couple of days:

01. Esoteric - "The Maniacal Vale" (2008)

02. Esoteric – “Paragon of Dissonance” (2011)

03. Esoteric – “Metamorphogenesis” (1999)

04. Ahab - "The Call of The Wretched Sea" (2006)

05. Esoteric - "The Pernicious Enigma" (1997)

06. Evoken – “Atra Mors” (2012)

07. The Howling Void – “Shadows Over The Cosmos” (2010)

08. Thergothon – “Stream From The Heavens” (1994)

09. Monolithe – “Monolithe II” (2005)

10. Ea – “Ea” (2012)

https://metal.academy/lists/single/132

Esoteric - "The Pernicious Enigma" (1997)

When I first heard English funeral doom masters Esoteric's highly regarded sophomore album "The Pernicious Enigma" back in the day I found myself struggling with various different elements. There's no doubt that the production job could have been much better & that was my main obstacle however I also found the continuous wave of layered vocals & the extreme length of this release (i.e. a 115 minute double album of funeral doom metal can be daunting at the best of times) to be a challenge. Since that time Esoteric have become one of my absolute favourite bands though & this revisit has seen the penny finally dropping for me with everything the band were trying to achieve now being hungrily lapped up by this fussy ol' bastard.

That's not to say that "The Pernicious Enigma" is a perfect record(s) by any means. The occasional use of more up-tempo sections are nowhere near as effective as the rest of the material with the short industrial death metal piece "At War With the Race" failing to meet expectations. There are a few attempts at off-beat drumming that don't really stick the landing either & the fact that they've had to resort to using a drum machine for a few tracks tells a pretty clear story about fill-in drummer Anthony Brewer's talents. Nonetheless, the consistency with which Esoteric are able to deliver wonderfully monstrous masterpieces of psychedelic depravity is unprecedented & one needs only take a cursory glance at the likes of "Dominion of Slaves" or "Sinistrous" to realise how all-encompassing that idea can be when all the planets align. The incorporation of a diverse array of influences also helps to free the band from the strict stylistic confines of the funeral doom metal genre with Godflesh style industrial moments & slowly building post-metal build-ups proving to be invaluable assets here along with Esoteric's inimitable penchant for mind-expanding psychedelia.

Esoteric are untouched in their field & even a thin production job where the rhythm guitars have nowhere near the weight that they deserve is not enough to stop them from looking down on the competition from their funeral thrones while we bask in yet another glorious procession of unwavering doom.

For fans of Evoken, Thergothon & Skepticism.

4.5/5

I added an entry in the Hall of Judgement for this release to be added to The Pit. If that's successful then we'll add another one to have The Guardians removed. Otherwise we could potentially be left without a clan.

I don't see any reason to remove these releases to be honest. They've obviously been deemed to be pretty close to metal or metal-related by some people & we've always intended the site to be very much against the "gatekeeper" style approach of some of our competitors. As long as these releases are marked as Non-Metal then I don't see that they cause any harm unless they're an obvious piss-take.

C A S I N O ☆★☆★☆ M A S T E R - "☆★☆ ボーナススピン幸運 ！！！" (2014)

This release is a 14 minute collage of sounds which sees the English producer taking samples from casinos & making them into an arrangement that loosely resembles music. I don't mind it purely for background atmospherics as I don't really need to focus on it & the sounds are completely foreign to my everyday life. Still... it's completely disposable from an artistic point of view.

Swedish melodeath.

In Flames - "The Jester Race" (1996)

If the style of death metal I like most is a full-bodied & complex Barossa Valley red wine then "The Jester Race" is a simple, sweet-fruited & light-bodied Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc with a floral bouquet. There's no denying that it's a well composed & executed metal record but it's simply far too light-weight for my taste, particularly the rocky drumming which has very little to do with death metal. I can feel my manhood shrinking with every repeat listen so I've been left with little alternative other than to place this album back into the "not-for-me" box where it's resided ever since I first encountered it back at the time of release.

For fans of Dark Tranquillity, At The Gates & Soilwork.

3/5

Tim Armstrong - "A Poet's Life" (2007)

The debut album from this Californian ska artist. It's not bad for what it is but didn't really connect with me stylistically.

This release has now been posted in the Hall of Judgement.

This release has now been posted in the Hall of Judgement.

This release has been posted in the Hall of Judgement.

Swiss death metal.

Bölzer - "Aura" E.P. (2013)

A 23 minute, three track beast of an E.P. from this Swiss duo. I really dug this record at the time of release & it's still ticking my boxes today with it's thick & murky brand of death metal.

For fans of Grave Miasma, Malthusian & Lantern.

4/5

Early sludge metal from California, USA.

Black Flag - "My War" (1984)

This album is widely regarded as the birth place of sludge metal & I can see why. The A side is made up entirely of shorter hardcore punk songs while the B side sees Henry Rollins & co. embracing their Black Sabbath influences & getting their doom on. In fairness there's really only two metal songs out of a tracklisting of nine so I think it's a pretty big stretch to call this a sludge metal release. It's predominantly a hardcore punk album with some sludge & post-hardcore moments. It's also a wildly inconsistent record in my opinion. I genuinely enjoy over half of the material but the fails are significant enough to drag down the stronger material & leave an unpleasant taste in my mouth. The musicianship is ridiculously bad too but it has its charms in that DYI space I guess.

For fans of Superjoint Ritual, Pulling Teeth & 16.

3/5

Townes Van Zandt - "Townes Van Zandt" (1969)

Put this man-&-his-guitar style country album on over the last couple of days to accompany casual home time with the family. It's much more my wife's thing than it is mine & I found myself getting a bit bored apart from a couple of songs.

Here's my adjusted Top Ten Traditional Doom Metal Releases Of All Time list:

01. Solitude Aeturnus - "Alone" (2006)

02. Candlemass – “Nightfall” (1987)

03. Saint Vitus – “Born Too Late” (1986)

04. Candlemass – “Epicus Doomicus Metallicus” (1986)

05. Paul Chain Violet Theatre – “Detaching From Satan” E.P. (1984)

06. Pentagram – “Pentagram” (1985)

07. Candlemass - "Ancient Dreams" (1988)

08. Saint Vitus – “Saint Vitus” (1984)

09. Trouble – “Psalm 9” (1984)

10. Candlemass - "Tales of Creation" (1989)

https://metal.academy/lists/single/129

Epic doom metal from Stockholm, Sweden.

This release has now been posted in the Hall of Judgement.

This release has now been posted in the Hall of Judgement.

A Texas thrash metal anthem from my youth.

Here's my updated Top Ten Groove Metal Releases Of All Time list after revisting Pantera's "Cowboys From Hell" this weekend:

01. Coroner – “Grin” (1993)

02. Grip Inc. – “Nemesis” (1997)

03. Pantera – “Far Beyond Driven” (1994)

04. Exhorder – “The Law” (1992)

05. Sepultura – “Chaos A.D.” (1993)

06. Pantera – “Vulgar Display Of Power” (1992)

07. Pantera – “Cowboys From Hell” (1990)

08. Anthrax – “Sound Of White Noise” (1993)

09. Trepalium – “XIII” (2009)

10. Pantera – “The Great Southern Trendkill” (1996)

https://metal.academy/lists/single/175

Pantera - "Cowboys From Hell" (1990)

Let me set the scene for you. It’s mid-1990 & a fourteen year-old boy (admittedly a very good looking one) sits in his bedroom in Sydney late at night with his headphones on listening to the radio with a cassette player set to record the show at the same time. The track changes & a chuggy throb starts up that’s unlike anything the youth has ever heard before. A guitar appears & starts playing a palm-muted melodic run then all of a sudden… IT HITS! The whole band kicks in & starts slamming out one of the tightest, chunkiest grooves metal had ever heard to the time. It's fair to say that the young man’s ears have more than pricked up by this stage but what’s this? The guitar solo comes in unaccompanied in a similar way to his idol Eddie Van Halen. And Jesus Christ this dude can shred! He’s got chops for days, weeks & years! And those vocals! They exude a powerful hardcore attitude but still maintain a strong sense of melody. The boy would replay this song repeatedly over the next week until the late night metal show returned the following week. This time we had another inclusion from this supposedly new band Pantera but it was a heavy metal inspired ballad with soaring vocals & dive-bombing guitar solos like none he’d heard before. This ongoing week-to-week process would go on for some time before the boy felt the need to pick the full album up through tape trading & he would give it a good ol' thrashing over the next year or so. Pantera would release their breakout sixth album in 1992 & would subsequently change the world with their story going down in metal history for all eternity.

I imagine that this would be a fairly familiar story for many of us but it’s one that I remember vividly. It was immediately apparent that there was something different about Pantera’s “Cowboys From Hell”, an album that most fans assumed was their recorded debut until they’d learn otherwise. You see Pantera had begun life as a decidedly run-of-the-mill heavy metal band with an unusually talented lead guitar virtuoso in their early teens under the guidance of Darrell & Vinny’s record-producing father. They’d release four albums between 1983 & 1988 that would drift a long way under my radar before finally discovering a new sound & taking it to the world. The resulting “Cowboys From Hell” album not only showcased that new direction to the world but it would also signal somewhat of a changing of the guard for a thrash metal scene which was starting to decline in the wake of the fast ascending grunge phenomenon that would completely explode the following year. But listening back now it’s hard to deny that “Cowboys From Hell” was very much a transitional album too as the tracklisting doesn’t completely embrace this new sound (known as Groove Metal) at the expense of past glories. I think it’d be more accurate to suggest that it incorporates it as the primary source of creativity while blending it with more familiar sounds. As a result, I find it hard to deny that this is as much a thrash record as it is a groove metal one with the remnants of Pantera’s Judas Priest worshipping US power metal experimentation still showing their head on quite a few occasions.

I think it’s important to note that if I had of rated this album back in the day I would likely have scored it a bit higher than I have here but it’s also worth mentioning that I’ve somehow managed to shun it completely for a good couple of decades which seemed kinda strange too. When listening to “Cowboys From Hell” with new ears now though it’s certainly not a perfect record & I can easily see why it wasn’t the soundtrack for my youth that it was for so many others. You see it hasn’t aged as well as I’d hoped. The production sounds kinda dated now, particularly the rhythm guitar tone which left so many jaws on the ground back in the day. It’s also easy to forget that there are three or four weaker tracks amongst the twelve on offer. No weak ones mind you, it’s just important to recognize that it wasn’t all hits. I have to admit that the whole groove metal thing isn’t really my cup of tea & that’s reflected in my opinion on some of the supposedly classic tracks on the album. Songs like the title track & “Domination” don’t smash me like they do/did other metal fans. I certainly like them (& I adore the guitar work in particular) but they aren’t going to see me reaching for my elite scores. Those are reserved for the tracks that steer away from the new groove metal sound with thrash metal anthem “Message In Blood” being the clear album highlight for me. It’s interesting that it’s also one of the least popular tracks on the album but that’s not unusual for me. The other track that completely slays is the classic heavy metal ballad “Cemetery Gates”. The main riff has clearly been inspired by Randy Rhoads era Ozzy Osbourne & is one the greatest in the history of metal in my opinion, particularly when used in conjunction with Phil Anselmo’s wonderfully emotive chorus hook. What an amazing climax Darrell & Phil created at the end too!

The new groove metal sound is best championed on the title track, “Primal Concrete Sledge”, “Clash With Reality”, “Medicine Man” & “The Sleep”. “Heresy”, “Message In Blood” & “The Art Of Shredding” are pure thrash metal though while tracks like “Psycho Holiday”, “Cemetery Gates” & “Shattered” give hints towards US power metal & even your more traditional heavy metal. The fact that you can very easily differentiate the different songs & parts of songs into their various categories tells you that Pantera’s sound was still a work in progress at this stage. It was a very impressive work in progress of course but I wouldn’t say that “Cowboys From Hell” is where we see groove metal being truly defined. That would have to wait for Pantera’s 1992 sixth album “Vulgar Display Of Power”, a record that I’ve now decided I appreciate a touch more than this one after all these years. There can be no denying the power of this band as a unit though. The rhythm section were as tight as you’d find & when they hit on one of their classic grooves it draws a physical response from the listener. For me though I’d suggest that there’s not a lot of depth to some of the groovier material outside of that head-nodding, body swaying thing that happens. I find songs like “Heresy”, “Domination”, “Clash With Reality” & “The Sleep” to be more of a pleasant experience than essential listening. Phil’s vocal performance still has one foot in the higher register Rob Halford camp most of the time & I wonder whether my knowledge of his screamier & more aggressive hardcore-inspired future is seeing me subconsciously craving a bit of that when listening to “Cowboys From Hell” these days.

Ultimately it’s very hard to be critical of this record as it sounded so fresh at the time & changed the metal landscape forever in several ways. While my score is still a good one it’s definitely limited by my musical comfort zones. I think I might need to revisit some of Pantera’s later works over the next few months to see how those records have been treated by time too. I suspect that I might find at least one of those to overtake the two early 90’s big boys at this point in my life.

For fans of Soulfly, Sepultura & Exhorder.

4/5

Singaporian grindcore.

Wormrot - "Hiss" (2022)

Singapore's metal pride & joy return with another enjoyable blast of grindcore shenanigans, this time choosing to dilute their blasting grind sound with a whole range of different subgenre shifts in the name of creativity. You'll even find the use of strings on a number of tracks although still in a fairly stabbing & abrasive manner for the most part. To be honest though, I still listen to grindcore for the short, sharp shock of brutality that only that subgenre can bring so I found myself enjoying the more traditional tracks a lot more than some of the more artsy ones. "Hiss" doesn't overstay it's welcome at just over half an hour for the 21 tracks though & ticks most of the grindcore boxes along the way but I can't say that it's something I can see myself returning to all that often even though I enjoyed it while it was on. It may be the talk of the town on Twitter right now but there's better grind releases out there in my opinion.

For fans of Insect Warfare, Nasum & Pig Destroyer.

3.5/5

I find it really interesting to read your perspectives on these releases Sonny as they're very different from my own but are just as relevant. I think our upbringings & the period we grew up in play incredibly important roles in our long-term opinions on music & this is a prime example of that. Both of the records you've reviewed reside quite comfortably in my top four heavy metal records ever recorded & I don't doubt that this has a lot to do with when I discovered & fell in love with genuine metal music. While I was surrounded by hard rock & commercial metal from a very young age, it wasn't until I discovered Maiden, Priest, Sabbath & Motorhead in 1987/88 that I moved away from rock altogether in order to focus all of my time (& arguably my life) on proper metal music. It needs to be highlighted that Maiden's  "Somewhere In Time" & "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son", Priest's "Turbo" & "Killing Machine", Motorhead's "No Remorse" & an Ozzy-era Sabbath compilation were the records that won me over & by the time 1988 was over I'd not only bathed in the strength of all of their back catalogues & branched out to the other senior heavy metal acts but had also discovered "...And Justice For All" & my extreme metal journey had begun. Given that pedigree, I've always held those records up on a pedestal & the two Maiden albums are still my favourite heavy metal albums of all time ("Somewhere In Time" having the slight edge). Interestingly, I've never understood the hatred for "Turbo" either & it's still in my top three Priest studio records today. It sounds very much of its time but I was at a very impressionable age & had commercial radio around me at all times in my family environment so was much more open to things like stadium rock anthems & 80's synthesizers than I'd imagine you would have been as a more educated & mature music fan. I completely flipped out when "Painkiller" was released in 1990 though as my taste had come a long way by that point. It's still arguably the most metal record I've ever heard & is the very epitome of the genre in my opinion. In fact, it's the only Priest record that resides in my Hall of Metal Glory. Anyway... I've gone off topic a bit. I think it was inevitable that when I went back & listened to Priest's mid-70's albums after having already indulged myself in their 80's material that I'd find them to sound a little tame in comparison as the tone was a lot more organic & less over the top than I was used to so & I still held up the more expansive, shredding & far less bluesy 80's model of virtuosic post-Eddie Van Halen guitar playing as the benchmark & probably always will as it's what I was raised on.

For the record, I agree with you that "Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son" is the superior record of the two but not by much.

Harmonious Thelonious - "Kabriman" E.P. (2019)

An outstanding German tribal techno E.P. that comprises of three tracks, all of which draw heavily from African tribal music as a theme. It's deep, minimal, repetitive & cerebral i.e. right up my alley.

Post-black metal from Languedoc-Roussillon, France.

Alcest - "Écailles de lune" (2010)

I didn't have much time for French blackgaze outfit Alcest's 2010 sophomore album at the time of release as I simply couldn't accept a wispy, ethereal & generally positive sound within the context of extreme metal at the time. It just seemed too much at odds with my concept of what a black metal record should be. I think it says a lot about how far I've come as a music fan that I'm now able to not only accept but actually enjoy albums like this one these days. It's simply a matter of accepting that this isn't meant to fit into my personal ideals & needs to be judged on its own merits instead of being placed next to my beloved Bathorys & Mayhems.

"Écailles de lune" sees Alcest presenting combination of shoegaze, black metal & post-rock elements (along with some noticeably goth rock inspired clean guitar sections) in what I'd describe as a post-blackgaze release overall. The vocal style ranges from dreamy, unintimidating & androgynous clean singing to screamy black metal shrieks while the instrumentation offers a lot of variety with noise-laden shoegaze walls of sound leading into blasting black metal tremolo-picked riffage & stripped back post-rock meanderings. My enjoyability of the material included across the six tracks also varies quite a bit too with the brilliantly executed short dark ambient piece "Abysses" being my clear album highlight. Opener "Écailles de lune - Part 1" & the wonderful "Solar Song" see Alcest indulging in your more traditional shoegaze melodicism while closer "Sur l'océan couleur de fer" opts for a drawn-out post-rock excursion. The black metal elements are mainly left for post-black metal anthem "Écailles de lune - Part 2" & the disappointing blackgaze of "Percées de lumière" which is the only one of the six tracks on offer that I don't get along with.

The production job is of course lush & accessible with everything sounding very easy on the ear. It's interesting how Alcest can manage to use the black metal tools of evil in such a positive way but still make it sound so natural. It certainly makes for another interesting Alcest release but I can't say that I enjoy "Écailles de lune" quite as much as I do some of their other albums like 2016's "Kodama" or their 2007 debut "Souvenirs d'un autre monde". I don't think I find it's appeal to be quite as consistent this time & the inclusion of "Percées de lumière" does tend to grate on me a little bit when you consider that there are only the six tracks on offer. Still... I get quite a bit of enjoyment out of "Écailles de lune" these days & can't really fathom how I could have scored it a 2.5/5 back in the day given that I was actually pretty close to going with a 4/5 on this revisit.

For fans of Amesoeurs, Deafheaven & Lantlôs.

3.5/5

"Images & Words" was hhuuggee for me too & is still my favourite Dream Theater release today. "Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory" has certainly caught up quite a bit over the years though & isn't far behind now to be honest.

Yeah I absolutely love "Psalm 69" too. It's definitely one of the pinnacles of the industrial metal genre in my opinion & is easily Ministry's best work.

Blackened melodeath from Mexico.

The Chasm - "Conjuration of the Spectral Empire" (2003)

Once again I find myself significantly underwhelmed by a revisit to a supposedly classic album from Mexican death metallers The Chasm. I haven't heard this one since 2009 & I can see why now. As is usually the case with The Chasm, people find it very hard to pigeon hole them into any obvious subgenre but I find it very strange that the melodic death metal tag isn't dished out far more often because this record comfortably fits into that category. Much like its follow-up "The Spell Of Retribution" though there's a noticeable black metal component to this material, particularly in the arpeggiated riff style. In fact, I once again see myself wanting to call this blackened melodeath which is probably why I struggle with it more than most extreme metal fans. As usual, The Chasm smash as many melodic riffs as possible into every song, rarely giving them much time to breathe. There's inevitably some gold in there somewhere but no sooner than you've discovered it you'll find it disappearing again never to return. Also, there are many people who rave about the musicianship on The Chasm albums but the truth is that their performances are generally always pretty sloppy. It's like their technique has never caught up with their ambition & the dodgy production doesn't help either. In saying that, I do enjoy a good half of the tracklisting so it's not all doom & gloom. The lengthy & fairly flat instrumentals placed at either end of the album don't do it any favours though.

For fans of Cenotaph, Shub Niggurath & Adramelech.

3/5

French progressive metal.

Gojira - "The Way Of All Flesh" (2008)

I wasn't the biggest fan of French metal megastars Gojira's fourth album when I first encountered it back in 2009. Perhaps it just sounded a little flat in comparison with the band's classic 2005 record "From Mars To Sirius" but it would seem that my opinion has changed significantly over the years as I now find "The Way Of All Flesh" to be a very enjoyable metal release indeed. It's probably a little more straight forward than I remember from the band as it isn't their most progressive release but it's definitely hard to categorize. I'd suggest that it sits somewhere in the grey area between progressive metal, death metal & groove metal although neither of those labels is really all that reflective of the music it contains. If pushed I'd suggest that progressive metal is probably the closest description of the three but this era of Gojira kinda sounds like Strapping Young Lad meets "Domination"-period Morbid Angel with the vocals sitting very much in that Devin Townsend space. There aren't the quantity of genuine classics to see this record pushing for elite status but there are rarely weak moments either (with the exception of the clear low point "A Sight to Behold" which I have very little time for). Interestingly though, the two most impressive moments are left right to the end with the closing title track being the pinnacle of the Gojira sound at the time & the untitled hidden post-metal track being the best thing on the entire album.

"The Way Of All Flesh" is a very solid release in it's own right. It may represent the band going through the motions to an extent but if that was the case then it's proof that even Gojira's less inspired work is top shelf metal music.

For fans of Hacride, Mastodon & Devin Townsend Project.

4/5

This release has now been posted in the Hall of Judgement.

Brutal/technical death metal from New York, USA.

Suffocation - "Breeding The Spawn" (1993)

If there's one record in the history of extreme metal that has a right to feel hard done by then it must surely be New York brutal/technical death metal legends Suffocation's 1993 sophomore album "Breeding The Spawn" as there has rarely (if ever) been an album that offered so much but was let down so badly by production issues. On the surface it sounds absolutely horrible but if you can manage to dig a little deeper & uncover the actual content you'll soon find that it had the potential to be as influential as any of the band's other classic era releases. "Breeding The Spawn" sees the band upping the ante on the technicality fairly significantly while maintaining the ultra-brutal sound they'd developed on "Effigy Of The Forgotten". When you hear a song like the title track re-recorded for the classic "Pierced From Within" album you can see very clearly the class that this era of the band had to offer & I don't think death metal song structures had been this complex before. Strangely there are a couple of tracks that suffered even worse production issues than others (see "Epitaph of the Credulous" & "Ignorant Deprivation" which were pretty much ruined) but the rest of the album has the potential to be enjoyed if you try hard enough. I'm pretty sure that most of our regulars will already know of my 30+ year love affair with Suffocation & that probably sees me being a little more lenient than some might be here though. Nostalgia would also come into it as I absolutely idolized these guys at the time.

For fans of Dying Fetus, Deeds Of Flesh & Pyrexia.

3.5/5

As to why it should be in The Spheres, this has a collection of influences and shifting sounds that sounds to me like a lot of prog bands with a focus on shorter songs.

I assume you meant The Infinite rather than The Sphere, correct?

My favourite song from Marduk's death metal-oriented 1992 debut album is really more of a doom/death track.

Marduk - "Dark Endless" (1992)

I've never been the biggest fan of Swedish black metallers Marduk's 1992 debut album & this weekend's revisit hasn't seen that position changing much. "Dark Eternal" doesn't have much to do with black metal to be honest. The band were still experimenting with the classic down-tuned Swedish death metal sound at the time & there are only a couple of sections that see the black metal genre being represented. I think some fans use Andreas Axelsson's screamy (& not especially effective) vocal style alone to make the link to black metal shriek but it's not all that different from At The Gates' front man Tomas Lindberg's approach & there's a lot more to black metal than that. There's actually significantly more doom metal on "Dark Endless" than there is black metal & the doom parts are really the best parts of the album in my opinion. The more conventional death metal material isn't all that special to tell you the truth & 1993's defection to black metal for their sophomore album "Those of the Unlight" was most welcome for me personally.

For fans of early Darkthrone, At The Gates & Absu.

3/5

CODE KUNST - "People" (2020)

Took the family for a relaxing country drive & stopped in at a farm for morning tea before returning to the beach for lunch. This South Korean R&B album wouldn't usually be my thing but made for a relaxing accompaniment that the whole family could chill out to.