Saxy S's Forum Replies

I hate to be "that guy", but djent has never been my subgenre of metal. Djent, for me, has always felt like the hybrid of the groove heavy nature of metalcore, combined with the technical proficiency that is technical death metal. And while I do believe that their are bands that can pull this kind of sound off well, Meshuggah have never been that group.

This album sounds like a collection of ideas left on the chopping board from previous albums that were slapped together with no sense of direction or intention. The transitions are non-existent between the different ideas and the first half of the track leaves no emotional impact on me whatsoever. The second half is more memorable and I point those moments out in my review.

But I also take time to discuss my general distaste for modern trends in progressive metal and the rise of djent as a subgenre over the last few years. There are instances in which djent can be pulled off well, but they need to be controlled and balanced with something else to allow for the technical stuff to hit with more authority. When the entire song is chugg-chugg-chugg, it loses it grandeur after a while. I also mention long songs with no sense of direction or inter-connectivity. If I was a six or seven song EP, I might be a little bit more forgiving... but these guys sold this as a twenty-one minute song, and as a result, I have to critique it like a twenty-one minute song!

Meshuggah have never been for me, and will probably never be "for me", and that's okay. Melodic songwriting has never been Meshuggah's bread and butter; rather their dank grooves, and their is an audience for that. But so long as "progressive metalcore" bands like August Burns Red, and more technical djent bands like Animals As Leaders and TesseracT exist, I won't be joining the masses to sing this songs praises.

5/10

Let's keep this thread alive shall we?

I don't know very much about Robert Andersson or Morbus Chron, but this album, The Eternal Resonance by Sweven just appeared on RYM and early returns have been remarkably high. I'm listening to it right now and wanted to see if what anyone else thinks.

https://sweven.bandcamp.com/album/the-eternal-resonance

I don't dive too much into "Avant-Garde" music simply because of the very drastic differences in quality that you can get from artist to artist. But Kayo Dot's debut record is one of the most bizarre and yet, enjoyable experiences I've had with one.

Yes, this album is flawed. Many of these flaws exist through the revolving door of genre bending that is taking place here. Sometimes the album can become a little too overwhelming such as on the outro of "The Manifold Curiosity", and these moments can change your opinion on this album if you aren't prepared for them.

On the other hand, the album is mixed incredibly well, and the band do a wonderful job of having their dynamics sound raw and authentic. The songwriting doesn't spend too much time worried about hooks or melodies, but a couple of these tunes do become memorable through their long lived ideas and distortion of those ideas.

I was not familiar with Kayo Dot until late last year when I heard their album Blasphemy and I felt like I had no reason to return to Toby Driver's pet project. So thank you Daniel for bringing this record to my attention. Very solid record, even if it will not be for everyone.

7/10

Neo-classical virtuoso guitar albums don't leave me with very much to say in the best of times. But I will say this: Jason Becker had chops. Holy crap, the cleanliness in every note that he played on this album was crisp and precise.

However, playing a lot of notes really fast doesn't always mean the music sounds good. This album does have a lot of compositional faults that I highlighted in my review, but many of them stem from the fact that, Becker is the only thing that your ears can hear. Everything else is pretty generic and safe.

I will say that this album does get better later on, but getting over that first hurdle can be a difficult one. When you see the album cover of Jason Becker and his guitar and that's it, you already know what you're getting yourself into by listening to this. When it comes to shredders, John Petrucci and Steve Vai do it way better all around.

6/10

...Well I was expecting this. Since the featured album of the month for February was S/T by Rage Against the Machine, the precursor to nu-metal, it only made sense that we would talk about the OG at some point.

To be honest, Korn have always been my least favourite of the nu-metal pioneers. Their production has always been lousy, the songwriting has always felt unfinished, and Jonathan Davis writes lyricism from the perspective of an angsty, privileged teenager. I might have excused this if the production was better, instead of having the bass sound like it was replaced by a toddlers rattle toy!

When I think back to my youth, when nu-metal was extremely prominent in the mainstream, I clearly remember how much I detested this band compared to their contemporaries and going back and listening to this album again was a chore. There are a handful of terrible debut albums from nu-metal bands that I would rather listen to again than S/T by Korn. Give me Disturbed's The Sickness or Mudvayne's L.D. 50 any day over this. 

3/10

I might be a little less qualified to talk about this record than most, but allow me to follow-up what I talked about in my review.

Panopticon is a great post-metal album that builds upon the trends that were being dabbled with in the 1990s by a band such as Neurosis. For too long in the 1990s, before post-metal became an established genre in metal, much of the metal of that decade had been merely about who can play the fastest or slowest, depending on the genre. Melodic dominance was never given the importance it rightfully deserved. Sure, progressive metal outfits like Queensryche, Dream Theater and Opeth were trying, but many found their music too difficult to appreciate.

So enter ISIS and their album Panopticon, a record that took sludge metal and gave it a new coat. It was still clearly progressive, but without all of the odd time signatures, technically demanding solos, and meta narrative. It was progressive metal for those who just wanted to relax, perhaps take in some illegal substances, and get lost in a way not that dissimilar to more traditional sludge/doom metal.

ISIS along with their "step-siblings" Agalloch in black metal, would create new waves of progressive metal in the 2000s; ISIS specifically influencing the likes of The Ocean and Cult of Luna. It might not be a perfect record, but I can respect its cultural significance and what metal would become.

8/10

Hey Ben, could we get Astronoid (USA) added to the website?

Wow Daniel, you really hit us with a behemoth this month!

I wrote a review just now, so I will be brief. Ashes Against the Grain is one of the crowning achievements in all of metal. It, alongside The Mantel, served as my introduction to more extreme tendencies in heavy metal and showed me how beautiful it can sound, instead of chugging guitar riffs, pummeling blast beats, and gurgled vocals. I can listen to this album from top to bottom at any time and never skip a moment. And going back and listening to it again for this, I only find the album to be even better than I remember. There are a lot of folk/post-metal bands trying to replicate this sound and failing to this day. I think that represents the true essence of lightning in a bottle.

10/10

I got to see these guys live way back in the day when Kezia was brand spanking new and I was very pleased with what I heard. Later that week, I bought a copy of this album from my local HMV and spun it nonstop for weeks. This is metalcore with a ton of technical prowess from the entire ensemble, but not in the tech death or mathcore sense. These virtuoso's use their instrumental competence as a integral part of the music itself; that is to say, these songs have some genuine grooves and melodies, as well as some crushing metalcore parts.

In hindsight, this album still sounds great, but now stands in the shadows of the almighty Fortress, an album that pushed the boundaries as to what progressive hardcore could sound like. But this is certainly no slouch. Kezia stands out even today as one of the most unique sounding metalcore albums that I've heard. And, of course, Canadian content. We have a lot more than just Nickleback up here.

8/10

I went back and listened to this album again recently to see if it held up. And it turns out that it mostly did. This album was able to establish Deftones in the mainstream, as they received lots of mainstream adjacent airplay with this album and its singles during the nu-metal boom. But this album does seem more heavily influenced by post-hardcore music rather than nu-metal. Those influences are still there, but not as prominent as I remembered. Unfortunately, songs like "Rickets" and "Headup" do hold the album back considerably. And Deftones realized this by abandoning much of those tropes in 2000 with White Pony and beyond. White Pony is still their best record by a considerable margin, but Around the Fur is still no slouch.

7/10

Dream Theater's Images and Words is a monumental album that put this group on the map. Perhaps a little too well.

While this album has aged incredibly well, its influence can be heard on numerous progressive metal albums today. You can still hear its influence on Dream Theater albums today! And I do view that as a problem. As a band who were so innovative and pushing boundaries as to where metal could go, to see them lock into a formula in recent years is disheartening.

Talking about this album, it does sound like the band dipping their feet in the water to see if anything will bite, before making the full dive later on. "The Miracle and the Sleeper" is easily my favourite moment on the album, with its free form composition, which was unconventional for metal at the time, and how it planted the seed that would influence the bands superior albums, Scenes From a Memory and Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence.

This is still a great album, but one that has dampened on me over the years. I can appreciate the musicianship on display as well as what the band was able to accomplish, but it just.... loses its grandeur when you have heard it so many times.

8/10

Veil of Imagination is the third LP from Boston based Wilderun. It's progressive metal that hovers mostly around the symphonic side. There is also a little hint of melodic death metal as well.

https://wilderun.bandcamp.com/album/veil-of-imagination