Morpheus Kitami's Forum Replies

Interesting, I didn't realize how much a lot of it is like Jimi Hendrix, since I never really sat down with him, just hearing hits on the radio. That does make their inability to make it big back then, since I think they do have the sensibilities to be looked back fondly on by the same audience who usually listens to classic rock radio.

Back in the day I used to think quite highly of this album compared to it's predecessors and successors. I can't see why now. Gone is the power part of the equation that was so great about Oceanborn, yet it doesn't quite embrace the more fully symphonic sound that the Olzon-era would become. Instead, it's just sort of awkwardly sitting in '00s chug.
I daresay that if it was someone else who made this album, it would be a lot more controversial at best, outright hated at worst. (In the metal world, anyway) I Wish I Had an Angel, in particular, you could just slap into any dance club mix and it would fit perfectly; Right down to the sexy lyrics which are far more dark than they are on the surface. I can't rightly put my finger on why I like it compared to something like Evanesence.
Which isn't to say I dislike the album. I think the first four songs (including I Wish I Had an Angel, that's just an observation) are possibly the best Nightwish have ever done. Dark Chest of Wonders is a good opener, oddly structured. The chorus is incidental to sweeping instrumental sections, only appearing twice. The use of a choir singing sharp, short notes is odd, but I don't listen to enough opera to know if that's truly as odd as it appears to me. It really strikes a good balance between symphonic and metal, reminding me why Nightwish still kind of is the top of the roost when it comes to the sub-genre.
But then we get Creek Mary's Blood, which starts off Nightwish's trend of long, overwrought and pretentious self-indulgence. Stopping everything for an important message, though the Trail of Tears is less pretentious than 15 minutes of "it sucks being Toumas Holopainen". Nightwish's grand symphonic sound clashes with the depressing nature the lyrics invoke of people being torn from their ancestral land. It's not that it's a bad subject for a song, Satan and Running Wild did the same broad subject, I just don't think Nightwish can do effectively a funeral dirge about it.
I wouldn't say songs after this get bad or anything, but they definitely suffer coming after this song. Doubly so on extended versions of the album. By the time Ghost Love Score is over, I'm about done with the album, yet on the version I listened to, there were still five more songs. Even with just two more songs on the normal version of the album, that's a lot to go through.
Lyrically, it's a lot of cheesy, sentimental self-loathing from a Finnish man with a questionable grasp of English, and I love it. There is a subtleness, that perhaps I'm imagining, to the package, that you can't get solely by hearing the album or reading the lyrics. This comes out most strongly in Planet Hell, in which one line is supposed to be "you wanderer", but Tarja clearly sings "you murderer". Considering the content of the lyrics otherwise, I'd be surprised if that was accidental.
In the end, I still stand by my original thought that this sits awkwardly between better albums, even if it has really strong elements to it. I can see why someone else would think of this as their favorite.

4/5

Sir Lord Baltimore - Kingdom Come
Of those early metal albums, on casual listens Sir Lord Baltimore was an odd duck. It always seemed to me to be just as firmly in the genre as Black Sabbath, yet it's presence was far less talked about than arguably less important bands like Deep Purple and Rush.
Paying attention to things this time, I can kind of see the reason now. I think occasionally we metalheads forget that non-metal (and non-punk) bands can be frantic and aggressive too. This isn't to say there aren't metal tracks, but it's not a hidden, undiscovered metal band from the '70s. Not really helped by it feeling like a lot of songs were done by different bands.
I'm going to say something I'm shocked I would say, but the franticness of the album works against it. The guitar never stops doing something new, but oddly, the vocals feel far more like a backing element to the guitar dancing around. It's like the vocalist is the backing track to a never-ending guitar solo. Which in theory I don't have an objection to, except that I usually don't listen to the sort of psychedelic hard rock this is, and thus to my ears it can frequently turn into noise. A lot of these tracks would just be better without vocals. Not because they're bad, but because vocals are ill-fitting for the sound the band is usually going for.
Aiding this impression is that most songs have a similar structure, BPM, and lyrical content. It wears when very song can be summed up with, doodooduldedo, WOMAN, doodoodolololo, LEEEEEEEEEEEFT ME, lululhudoo! It's telling that the song that has always been on my mind is the title track. The song finally lets every element breathe. But I suppose it shows why they did what they did. You can make their songs into a three minute piece going incredibly fast, or you can bring it out to six minutes. I guess in theory they can't win.
In the end, this album feels like a monkey's paw. Occasionally I'll think the backing bits during the vocal parts of another band's song will be boring, but this album shows exactly why they do it that way.

3/5

Isn't there some way for forum software to automatically make a thumbnail of an image that's too big? I don't know how it works on this forum, but I've seen it on other forums.

People tend to divide manga from comics, but there have been some metal related manga over the years. Often moreso related or referencing the genre than western counterparts. (Dunno about most Eurocomics though) Detroit Metal City is a comedy series about a guy who was somehow forced into a black metal band despite being into poppy singer/songwriter stuff. I have no idea if most of the stuff it references is based off something real, but a lot of it just works off simply off reputation. Yeah, you'd believe a metal band would think up this goofy gimmick for themselves or some sort of crazy event. There's also Bastard, which has a lot of references, and generally fits the whole dark fantasy vibe a lot of metal goes for. I didn't read it yet, so I can't tell you the specifics.

I will say that if you haven't, you should watch Heavy Metal 2000, it's just a good, well-made movie. It'd work even if it wasn't based off a story in the comics, with all the licensed music.

Oh, it wasn't specifically about metal. Oh, well. I like the usual stuff, haven't read nearly as much as I'd like. Some just haven't gotten around to, others are in languages I can't read. I'd like to read more Dylan Dog, that Italian horror comic series which is massive over there, but thanks to a looser view on copyright, hasn't really been done well in English circles. My Japanese is getting good though, so soon I think I'll pay for Amazon Japan's Kindle Unlimited and see what wonders untranslated '70s manga has in store for me. Back to stuff I've actually read, I'd suggest Astro City if you haven't read it. It plays out like the culmination of the superhero comic, sort of the philosophy of the whole genre. Because it isn't tied into a particular universe it's more free to do what it wants, but doesn't abuse that freedom to make something screwy.

Surprise.

Black Sabbath - S/T (1970)

Let's see if I can say something unique about this one. Probably not. I've been trying to get back into playing the guitar, which I generally can't make as intelligent observations about my own skill or lackthereof outside of stuff like "how the fuck do you play that chord?" or "made that note high-pitched". Every skill from guitar to language learning has observations you can make as an amateur and observations you can only make if you actually know what you're doing.
This applies here in that there are two albums called Black Sabbath. The Black Sabbath we all have in our head that's heavier than everything released until 1982, which is really just the first song, and then the other Black Sabbath, which has that and then far more psychedelic music flow throughout it. I don't need to explain the former album, even if you haven't listened to Black Sabbath its the exact thing you have in your head from reputation or the album cover, it's the latter that needs explaining. The album minus the title track.
While the album is very heavy for 1970 it is not so out of place for the most part. Other bands occasionally reached the heaviness on one or more tracks an album. Basically every single distinct song on this album is at least a bit metal. The key word is distinct song. There is a lot of more jam session-esque pieces on the album bridging songs. Not Dream Theater, more Grateful Dead. An almost ambient backing, carrying the dark mood far more than most metal bands would do afterwards.
In this regard, no one imitating the band has gotten close to them. It's very easy to imitate the heavy sound these guys had, but it's another to imitate the whole package. To start off with something that sounds like it should be playing over the apocalyptic wastes before switching to a heavier version of '60s bluesy rock instrumental. To not make it sound forced or obviously distinct, but for it to just be. Not their doom metal imitators, nor their occult rock imitators. Even my personal candidate for the band carrying on the original Sabbath spirit, Ningen Isu, only ever get as far as imitating most of their elements. If metal is defined as imitating Sabbath, metal has failed.
This is back in the days when Ozzy still sounded weird and alien, rather than a coked out methhead behind a 7/11. You get some strange contrasts. On The Wizard, despite sounding dark and depressing, comes off as oddly upbeat which by all accounts should come off as deeply sarcastic. Especially since the album ends with a song in which he laments about a love he never had. It's one of those things that happens because this is the era where a band doing X genre absolutely must do so and so lyrically.
Sabbath's debut is just as unique now as it was originally. Did it invent heavy metal? Basically, but it's not just that, and that's why 50 years down the line it's worth listening to even as probably millions have imitated it in some way.

9/10

Being one of the heaviest things in the early 70s counts for a lot in that regard.

I don't see why it counts for anything at all to tell you the truth. We're comparing these releases to the modern-day understanding of what metal is. Not what it was back then when it was still yet to be defined.

It does for a lot of people....a point you already acknowledged when you said we had differing opinions. Heavy is very much a factor for some people in a genre called heavy metal. Some people don't consider power metal to be metal because of that. Further, for the most part, in the early '70s you basically have them and Sabbath as your big (generally accepted) options, they sound fairly similar to each other and quite different from the sounds of even their immediate successors. People generally work off what they know, and if it quacks like a duck...

I'm not talking about why Budgie were linked to metal back in the early 1970's. I'm referring to why they continue to be linked to metal today, despite not possessing the required attributes to warrant it, while others with stronger claims don't receive the same privilege. I'd suggest that it's almost certainly the Metallica link. Besides, it's been clear for a while now that you & I are working off different criteria when judging a release's metal credentials.

So was I. Being one of the heaviest things in the early 70s counts for a lot in that regard. How many albums have we come to the conclusion that despite being listed as metal have less metal than Budgie? We don't really need an much of an explanation for why the heavy rock band who sounds very similar to Sabbath in 1970 is considered to be metal today. If there are any other bands that do something similar, you can feel free to include them here.

Sorry I haven't been posting anything this past week, Christmas was busy and then my computer went all funky, not that we need much on Sabbath anyway.

Hi, Ben, could you add:

The newest Don't Drop the Sword

Solitary Sabred

Diamonds Hadder

Tower Hill

Drugstore Woman/Bottled, blues rock.

Young is a World, opening/outro is prog, while I'd say the in-between bit is hard rock/heavy metal.

Stranded, hard rock with bits of metal here and there.

This result is really cementing my long-time feeling that Budgie would never have been linked to metal if not for the links to Metallica who've covered a number of their tracks over the years.

(side note, can we get a quote function in the reply box? It's annoying to have to quote the whole message to have to quote one particular bit)

I don't think that's true in the slightest. What made Budgie get linked to metal is how they were the heaviest thing in 1970 outside of Sabbath themselves. There have been bands who have gotten linked to early metal for far less material than Budgie did.

Also, unless there's a pretty massive difference, I think it's safe to remove live albums from the running.

I don't see any reason to argue on those two tracks. (well, more like not caring about the specifics of something that isn't rock on the former...)

M-A has them as pop rock for a period, it might very well be most of their '70-s albums.

Rocking Man, this one's another very hard to define song, but I'm going to go with hard rock/heavy metal.

Rolling Home Again, acoustic I guess.

There's enough metal in the rest to put it to 40%.

Anyway, Whiskey River is a hard one to put my finger on, it seems like a mix of about 4 different genres despite being such a simple thing.

That one seems to me to be hard rock/heavy metal, not just a hard rock song.

That puts me at 3 out of 8, which I guess is ambiguous enough to go either way.

Unquestionably hard rock.

Future Shock, I'd say doom/heavy, reminds me of a track I can't quite remember from a decidedly not metal band.

I like being able to get those bonus tracks, so as long as the changes aren't too bad I don't mind too much. Funnily enough, despite the obsession with vinyl, the only reason why that escaped the loudness wars is that you just can't do that to a vinyl record. Early CD presses are usually good about that sort of thing too. Funny how the superior format ends up being worse because companies insist of being shitty.

Isn't that Megadeth album kind of weird? Some versions have a censored version of the Nancy Sinatra cover, others lack it entirely.  The former practically turned it into a gag song.

Come with Me, hard rock I'd say.

Our Home, feels like something off a band like Kansas, not quite sure where, but prog rock.

Curiously Pink Floyd-ish, not metal.

I hear nothing that would put it as anything but hard rock.

A straight mix in my opinion of both.

Come Down, prog rock.

Blind, very Led Zeppelin-ish, not metal.

Nightmare, uh, same as Blind, maybe a little bit of metal.

Don't Start Flying, rock of some kind.

I guess I got 1.8 or so tracks as metal. Not really metal.

My suggestions for the next playlist:
Lord Vigo - Eternal Saviour (off Blackbourne Souls)
Ningen-Isu - 鬼  (off 修羅囃子)

The Ningen-Isu album is in The Guardians and not The Fallen, so I cannot accept that suggestion, Morpheus, but the Lord Vigo has been added.

Hasn't this argument already happened? It's a Fallen track from a generally Fallen band.

My suggestions for the next playlist:
Lord Vigo - Eternal Saviour (off Blackbourne Souls)
Ningen-Isu - 鬼  (off 修羅囃子)

I'd say both get my vote for heavy metal.

Heavy psych gets my vote.

Pretty sure most, if not all Deep Purple albums after this point are just hard rock. I know Rex said differently about Perfect Strangers, but that's no longer The Roots of Metal.

Deceased's seemingly legendary concept album based on Romero's zombie movies, as they existed in the late '90s. The dead walk the Earth again, killing and eating everyone they can get their hands on. Something that humanity would easily be able to bounce back from if we could stop arguing about pointless crap for 5 minutes.
These guys are not the kind of band who should make long concept albums. Firstly, we get several interludes which add nothing to the music. I'm not really sure there IS an album improved by some dude talking for 2 minutes in the middle of it. Further, I'm not really sure that what death metal was missing was songs with about 8 riffs going on for 8 minutes. There's a very tedious aspect to this album because of it. Growly choruses that go on forever are not my favorite thing in the world.
While the album gets a lot better as it goes on, I can't help but think of this album as not knowing what it wants to do. The band jumps all over the place from drop and gritty death metal to Maiden-worship with some growls. There's some good stuff in here, but I got some serious tonal whiplash at times.
Speaking of tonal whiplash, the lyrics. These get weird. It's not quite the full tonal whiplash Romero's films would eventually get with zombies are actually the good guys, but it is out there. It goes through the expected arc of a zombie story, fleeing from zombies, fighting them, and eventually scientists trying to figure out how to cure it...and then the protagonist gets bitten and dies in Unhuman Drama. The final two songs involve him becoming part of some kind of zombie hive mind. It's a trip.
I'm not really sure how I feel about the album in the end. It's very all over the place.

3/5

SubRosa is an old favorite band of mine. I don't know how I found them, but I found the whole whole female-fronted sludge/stoner metal with violins idea a lot more intriguing than I normally would. While they used the violins on their debut album, it was far more sparingly than they would use starting here.
They really sought to make this album as crushingly heavy and depressing as possible. Usually when one thinks of metal and violins, one thinks of the later providing some contrast. Not so here, here it's just another element adding to the sorrow. There's a very on-edge effect the violins add. Without it, the band would be quite mundane, with it, a tension atypical of such bands.
While I like the EP, it's only after trying to figure out what the albums before and after it have that this lacks that I figured out what was missing. Two of the three tracks were remade for the follow-up, No Help for the Mighty Ones, and those versions of the songs are just better in every way.

3.5/5

This one's probably a coincidence, because Europeans were more Amiga kids, but this masterpiece (D'pahk if the link doesn't work right) from the Ironseed soundtrack:

And Ayreon - Comatose:

I agree with hard rock.

I'd say hard/prog rock. Kind of hard to just be prog rock when the track is under 3 minutes IMHO. Gets a bit metal at times but too scattered in what it does to truly be metal.

Er...I said yes in the post just above you.

This one gets stoner metal. Once again I think we're agreed this one is unanimously metal, unsurprising really. It'll be interesting to see when we're agreed that something other than Sabbath is metal.

How about this one, coincidence or plagiarism? Or judging by what one of my friends said when I showed them this, non-existent?

The pianos on this...

...and the flute/fiddle on this? It's a somewhat deep cut, but it wouldn't be unreasonable for Toumas to listen to darkwave.

An amusing little song consisting of nothing but Duke Nukem references. (just the one I timestamped at 5:00, not the rest)

So you’d like to nominate the Night Sun recordfor investigation here then Morpheus?

Yes.

Lord of this World, I'd say doom metal.

Solitude, I don't know what genre I'd say, but not metal.

I'm not really sure what I'd put an acoustic interlude under, beyond not metal.

Having given the two albums Daniel brought up a listen, Tarkus seems hard to tell over the noise, but I'd wager not metal. Night Sun could go either way, it has enough going on that it might just be enough.

Embyro, not really sure I'd say folk, but the specifics seem moot considering it isn't metal.

Children of the Grave, unambiguously metal.

I found this one quite by accident, having randomly decided to listen to SMG today, finding the chorus of this song:

...And noticed a similarity with a Metallica song.

The question is, intentional reference or plagarism?

Sweet Leaf, stoner metal, pretty obvious.

After Forever, while jolly, it seems pretty solidly heavy metal to me.

If you're looking for suggestions; Dissection, Dark Mirror ov Tragedy, and Bal-Sagoth are pretty nice and I'm pretty sure none have much in the ways of satanic lyrics. Though Dissection has some weird stuff going on with it.

Hi Ben, could you add the new-ish Lord Vigo and Domination Black?

Considering that it seems to be just you and me at this point there's not really much point to it if you don't think so.

I'd say this track is at least partially metal as well. This one was interesting, I don't think I ever heard Budgie before and it's surprising just how heavy they are, before this I heard no one from that time who got as heavy as Sabbath. I think I lead towards not metal myself, though it gets close in places.

That seems pretty solidly in the folk category, not metal at all.

I've kind of grown tired of melodic death/black metal and such sounds. Often, it feels like an excuse for a bunch of people who can't sing and some guitarists whose only virtue is their speed. How I long for more bands to style themselves after Satan's Host, but alas, I seem to be the only person on the planet to like them. Malkarpatan falls into the former category, but honestly, they aren't half bad.
I can't quite put my finger on what their melodic parts sound like. I wanna say Iron Maiden, but I can't think of a single Iron Maiden song which sounds like something off this. It almost feels like a glam metal inspired riff style. To complicate matters, this is mixed in with at least a dozen instruments and synths. I had my answer on Panstvo Salamandrov, it's black metal ELP. Everything makes sense now.
This isn't necessarily to pin the band into one specific thing, because this album does so many things yet feels very cohesive. They possess the unique talent to do something like play rigid black metal and then follow it up with something that wouldn't fit on 90% of albums that try it. Yet, they make it sound as natural as the calm before the storm.
They're an interesting band, and I look forward to hearing more of them.
4.5/5

I'd say some sort of rock as well.

I would go for hard/blues rock myself too.

I lean between heavy metal and hard rock. Not really sure which one I would give the predominate point.

Hang on, you sent the wrong version of Everything in My Heart, on the album that's less than a minute long, the track you linked includes The Author in it.

Changing votes based on this knowledge:

Everything in My Heart, folk.

The Author, a third folk, the rest metal.

I would say...

Guts, kind of hard, not necessarily metal, but not necessarily anything else. Some unholy heavy metal/heavy psych hybrid.

Everything in My Heart, half folk half metal.

Will get back to you on the Buffalo album.