Rexorcist's Forum Replies

I guess in your case it would be more appropriate to see if you have one of those top tens.

Not as yet but it would be an interesting undertaking at some point.

It's that interesting undertaking that drives me.

I don't dish out the full five stars very often Rex as there are very few releases in music as a whole that I regard as being perfect. I doubt very much I'd find a Celtic new age release that I'd be tempted with but it would certainly have to omit the cheese & the moments that see me thinking of a cross between Christmas music & Riverdance (which is a comparison I found myself drawing upon during "Ommadawn" on a couple of occasions).

I noticed, but I figured it didn't hurt to ask.  I guess in your case it would be more appropriate to see if you have one of those top tens.

I just went on a Fairport Convention marathon today.  Here are my ratings:

1. Fairport Convention - fun and catchy, sounds like a lot of folk albums from that era but with the healthy spirit needed to get noticed.  82

2. What We Did on Our Holidays - This boasted the spirit I was hoping to find in a classic folk rock band that the music community loves.  It has quite a few different types of beautiful songs and some incredible shared vocals between the band members.  96

3. Unhalfbricking - This is where they go for a more straightforward and traditional folk sound, rocking their instrumentals while handing full vocal duty to Sandy Denny.  This new format doesn't have quite the same originality as before, but for a traditional-stayle folk album, this features some wonderful instrumentation and a magical feel.

4. Liege and Lief - A more traditional album.  It boasts all of the strengths of the previous album with one flaw: it's a bit more drawn out for the same length range.  92

5. Full House - Even though Denny's departure was beyond unfortunate, the band largely made up for that with some beautiful and yet surprisingly poppy tunes that don't break new ground but constantly entertain.  91.

6. Angel Delight - And this is where the scars are showing.  The group is still writing pretty enjoyable tunes in the long run, but the magic seems largely missing in the first half, and the progressive aspects don't carry melody well.  72.

I assumed you haven't been educating yourself in Celtic new age exclusively, not in new age as a whole.  I remember you talking about new age as a whole, and remember that you said it was the Celtic stuff that you had difficulty with.  And if we all have an obsession with it, then I see no reason for me to be called out.  Perhaps the phrase "certainly not" seemed demanding, but even if I compare one user's awareness of a specific genre towards my own of the same genre, this is not the same thing as comparing the whole of two users' musical knowledge.  For all I know, you've heard 50,000 albums, but I'm still proud of the 1500 I've heard.  I do have my favorites, but they are strictly for musical fun rather than the education I put myself through.  And some of my favorites have obvious flaws to them, like the overlength of Bat Out of Hell II which I have to address as a technical issue if I'm being perfectly honest.  If you struggle with something, then there's a part of me that wishes to suggest an alternative outlook and method into approaching it.  This is what lead me to favorite albums from outside my comfort zone, including Music for the Jilted Generation, Celtic Woman for the nostalgia and especially Graceland.  If I talk about my own traits that I view as skills, then I expect the rest of the community to boast the same pride because we're all trying to educate ourselves.  But we all have weak points as well.  Example, I'm grossly uneducated in drum and bass as well as country, which I've struggled to get into.  But I'm still going to give them another shot someday.  I expect the same pride from other users here, especially the veterans, and I'd never complain as it is never my intention to challenge another user's pride.

But I do have to wonder, if you could give a Celtic new age album 5.0, what would it be?  I assume one that feels less cheesy.

I love it when you get all condescending & elitist Rex, looking down on all of us mere mortals from above. It makes me feel all warm & fuzzy. My point stands though as nothing you said attempts to combat it. In my world, a rating is simply a numerical representation of how much you enjoy a release in comparison to all other music you've heard. Enjoyment is the only criteria that matters. Not originality, variety, cultural impact, whether it's the best example I've heard from its subgenre or any other element. It's all about how many jollies it gives me. That's how I see it & you can feel free to disagree with me at your leisure.

It's probably worth mentioning that labelling Tim Hecker as a drone artist is stretching the truth a bit too. That's probably why you like him more than artists with a genuine claim to the tag.

What the hell was that about?  I'm literally talking about something that I love and am attempting to have a conversation.  I happen to legitimately like cariety and originality, and I never said anything about cultural impact.  You've known for a long time that I get bored with samey albums.  And just so you know, he's voted as drone all the time on RYM.  How DARE you talk like that.  Boss or not, that was fifty kinds of rude.  You're literally acting like I was never allowed to have a different criteria from you to begin with.  If you weren't the head honcho here, I'd report you.  I never said I was better than you.  I was speaking my beliefs, and you allowed me to do that.  I was having a happy conversation with you until you misguidedly assumed I was trying to condescend to you.  I don't know the name of the Martian who came down to you and taught you that line of thinking, but I love talking about ratings and reviews.  I am literally here for that.

I love being a critic, and I treat all genres fairly because I want to treat all artists fairly.  That means I treat the original stuff YOU create fairly, too.  There isn't a single album in my top 200 that didn't amaze me ON THE STANDARDS OF THE GENRES, so don't go acting like I've been faking my way through these forums for the last twelve years.

I love variety.

I love making lists.

I love talking about music.

Are you all going to criticize me for that?  HOW DARE YOU.  You invite people who love music here.  I am autistic.  I do things MY way, and who gives a damn if it's normal or not?  And yes, you can do things you way, but you never wrote a rule that says I can't help you to enjoy a new kind of music, and you never wrote one that says I have to rewrite a list of 15000 ranked albums just because I don't do things your way.  That is all I was trying to do, and you will not speak out for me by trying to rewrite my intentions.  If you're gonna burn me at the stake, lemme know so I can leave my will and testament to leave everything I owe to you because you're just that painfully hurt from me talking about what I love.

All you could've said was, "If I didn't get into it then, I'm likely not going to get into it now" and left it at that.  I would've accepted that, and since I'm the first to think about it, what does that say about your behavior towards me?  And what, in any possible universe, is wrong with a guy suggesting you open yourself to a new world of music?  Tell me how learning to love a new genre is a negative?  Tell me how it's so painful, please do.  Tell me how it's so horribly rude to even suggest that.

You're the one who turned a friendly suggestion into an entitlement issue and a rank issue.  You wanna play that game?  Let's play.  You can say you heard it as a kid and didn't get into it, but that doesn't mean you gave it a proper shot.  The distance between now and the first time you did something is NOT the same thing as experience.  Anybody can spend thirty years being familiar with a concept, but the actual time spent trying to study it is what matters.  So if you say you're not into it and I say I am and I say something that suggests it's a better genre than you think, you deliberately told me that there's something I accomplished that you didn't.  And then you get mad at me suggesting to you the way I went about it and detailing it for you?  So much for this place being called "Academy" if the creator isn't gonna bother learning new things.  Your limited clan system defeats the very idea that a person can love music as a whole.  I played along with the clan system because I wanted an account, but I grew to love other metal genres on this site, and you're trying to deny me that.  Totally hypocritical.  You deliberately said there's something I achieved that you didn't, and I suggested a way for you to achieve it.  Period.  Etc. Bottom line, all its variants on a silver platter.

I haven't been this mad on the forums in years.  Congratulations, Daniel.  You achieved something nearly impossible at this point.

I have a pretty reasonable understanding of the subgenre Rex as almost all of the artists you mentioned were played around our family home when Ben & I were young. I disagree that we should put our own personal taste preferences & prejudices aside when rating a release though. On the contrary, I believe that a rating should solely be a reflection of how much you enjoy a release when compared to every other release in existence, otherwise it comes across as disingenuous as it's not a true reflection of the reviewer's feelings. It's like me saying "if I liked folk metal then this release would be the pinnacle" & awarding it five stars when the fact is that I enjoy even a subpar death metal release over the most highly regarded folk metal records. That's why we have this whole clan system in the first place i.e. so that we can voice our honest opinions without tainting the potential for a release to appeal to others. That's just my two cents though so please take it for what it is.

Certainly not.  Awareness of how another genre operates allows you to learn about those standards and eventually come to a reasonable consensus.  It takes practice as literally every genre does.  It's possible to like at least one album in a genre you don't like.  Example, my least favorite genre is drone, but the works of Tim Hecker have touched me in ways most musicians, even great ones, have failed to do so, while still holding true to the base technical criteria (if nor more so) that is demanded from the tech perspective.  This is why I have an honest top 100 that holds practically every genre imaginable, save drone simply because Tim Hecker was recently kicked out and I haven't thoroughly explored drone the way I have, say, symphonic prog, which I've recently put together a top 100 of 9/10 minimums for.  This doesn't mean I'll never explore it, though.  There is certainly nothing disingenuous about attempting to train yourself in this awareness.  I have absolutely no intention of being dishonest.

It didn't take me long to rely on my criteria while acknowledging personal experiences.  If a strong personal vibe can be achieved through the experience, even if you wouldn't call it a favorite, you can still greatly acknowledge the experience you were given.  This is how I avoid discrimination.  And yes, there will be times where I may need to re-evaluate albums due to changed standards.  In fact, I re-evaluated several Pink Floyd albums last week after having discovered Banco, and I'm overdo on re-evaluations of Never Mind the Bollocks, the first two Oasis albums and a few others.  But if you have a willingness to explore everything, then it should be maximized.  This is what led me to create a decent top 100 for doom, and good top 100's for death and black, all outside of my clans.

You need a little cheese to properly get into prog, IMO, as much of it is rooted in classical cheese.

I don't think that's the case at all Rex. But then it's already been well established that you have a much higher threshold for cheese than I do so I guess that's hardly surprising. I enjoy myself some new age music on occasion but the cheesier Celtic end of the spectrum is often too much for me.

But that's on new age music, and not all new age is cheesy.  This is also about prog.  Cheesiness is an aspect that can be done just as properly as something more serious.  And of course, there are cases where the balance is much more noticeable, such as the different between Solaris's two albums, 1990 which doesn't maintain a balance between the electronics and classical as well as it should, and Nostradamus which features all the same elements tamed for a more cinematic and emotional approach, displaying incredible maturity after one album.  Cheesiness can also get in the way, but it can also be an instrument in its own right.  I guess the finest example would be the difference between Bat Out of Hell and Space Jazz.

Of course, as an aspiring critic I learned early on to show absolutely no prejudice towards any genre, which includes accepting the genre for what it is and judging based on the standards you receive from some key releases.  This is why I often start out with fairly popular albums in the genre to wet my beak before heading to the raw classics.  Now in Celtic new age's case, I had already been a fan of Celtic Woman since I saw the PBS special when I was 10.  Comparing them to Enya and Clannad before going to McKennitt and Oldfield made things extremely easy.  There's real seriousness and professionalism in the latter two which may be drowned out for those who haven't gone on an educational binge for the genre.

Now 7/10 was the rating I originally gave to Master of Puppets when I first started albumming 12.5 years ago.  After exploring more thrash, that all changed.  And lemme tell you, Celtic new age can be the best thing for a stressful day, if you're willing to try and get into multiple genres.  Moving from hard rock to Arcade Fire, jazz, even some ambient, EDM, it's been the best ride of my life.

Ommadawn is #350 in my top 500 right between Alive 2007 and Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.  You need a little cheese to properly get into prog, IMO, as much of it is rooted in classical cheese.  Of course, this is coming from a guy who owns Meat Loaf's biography.  Ommadawn showcases a flawless combination of Oldfield's strongest traits.  I've heard a decent deal of new age already, so it's easy to compare him to acts like McKennit, Vangelis, Enya, Yanni and Arkenstone.  His atmospheres are perfect from flying you right into the middle of nature while being able to show off instrumental prowess without making it feel like "showing off."

Ah, yes.  I remember when I went on a Moody Blues binge here last year.  A couple relistens put this in my top 100, and it's still there.  In Search of the Lost Chord is also brilliant while being a very different record.

Speaking of prog, I've been on a neo-prog binge lately in my efforts to expand my prog knowledge.  Right now it's Drifting Sun's On the Rebound.

I just finished the Motley Crue movie The Dirt again.  For a generic rock biopic, it's got legit acting and some seriously powerful, if not potentially NC-17, humor.

That movie inspired me to check out the three Wildside albums.

1. Under the Influence.  Would've been a moderate success if the group formed six years earlier.  Sleaze rock didn't get far.  86/100

2. Wildside.  So now they're ripping off Alice in Chains the year after Cobain killed himself and the grunge scene?  52/100

3. Formerly Known as Young Gunns.  More of the first, but a little more generic.  Not bad.  Not done yet, halfway, but for this first half but I'm thinking about a 73/100.

I've been on Progarchives lately.  Gave a shout out to MartinDavey there.  I've been looking for recommendations for more diversified albums since so many of them are samey, but I need to educate myself in the essentials as well.

Arena - Songs from the Lions Cage (1995)

Genres: Neo-Prog, Prog Rock

Impressive first attempt.  Energetic and focused on melody and personality.

8. Frank Zappa
Genres: Exp. Rock, Jazz-Rock, Jazz Fusion, Comedy Rock

When I was first getting into albums, Freak Out was my first venture into experimental rock, and I loved every effed-up second of it. That raw level of boldness in Zappa's music is justified by his absurd personality. The guy knows how to write what's potentially the worst music on Earth, and make it more fun than a drunken night out on the town. And why? Why did we need Zappa? Simple. Sometimes, we just need to let loose.

Freak Out!: 100
Hot Rats: 100
Apostrophe: 100
Over-Nite-Sensation: 99
Joe's Garage, Act I: 97

Score: 99.2 / 5
Staying Score: 100

Didn't you say that you were separating Frank Zappa's solo work from the Mothers of Invention releases Rex? "Freak Out!" was the debut album from the Mothers & I'm pretty sure that "Over-Nite Sensation" is also considered to be a Mothers release.

There's the "Rule of Names."

Before I post this, I must note that there has been an update to the rules that I forgot to mention. Because certain bands like say "Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers" are also counted as part of an artist's main career, there will be a "namesake rule" that states that a solo act can count their time with a band as part of their major career, especially since some bands continue without their frontman, and can still be two separate entries, such as the difference between The Mothers of Invention and Frank Zappa. Thus, the band and the frontman can have two separate entries. This does not count for duets like Simon and Garfunkel, but for a frontman and a named band sharing album title credits.

The Mothers of Invention are also known all over the internet as "Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention."  This rule is based on the notion that the band itself is just as relevant to the solo artist's career under his name.  This means that Zappa can count his time with The Mothers under his slot, and Tom petty can do so as well.  But this is only true if extra credit to the frontman is established by name in the fanbase or the album releases.  Nobody really refers to Petty's band as just, "The Heartbreakers."  Alice Cooper could do the same thing had he made it, and "The Alice Cooper Band" would have a separate entry as well.  RYM does this, too, and it was pretty obvious why.

This is one of those cases where an idealist has to have every little thing be perfect without realizing that "evil" itself is based in justifying a low opinion of a whole group by pointing out something they often do that may be perceived as "wrong."  There is no such thing as "perfectly evil" or "perfectly good," thus there's no merit to attacking a persona's musical abilities along with their beliefs in many cases.  He's doing the same thing that Burzum's doing, stereotyping.  Evil keeps placing blame and then justifying cruelty.  And zealousness is a form of cruelty, as it's built on drastically low opinions of people.  The way he's thinking, it's like saying "You can't say Hitler was good at strategy!  He's evil!"  But if he wasn't good at strategy, then he wouldn't have been a major dictator.  Basically, the lie that a person needs to either be good at everything or bad at everything is a disappointment, and I honestly believe people who think like that shouldn't even be allowed to vote...

I would say all of this to this person and then reply with, "and how do I know you don't support something evil?  Did it ever occur to you that someone you support could be doing something evil and hiding it?  Don't tell me you can confirm that none of your favorite artists do that."  Then I would block him.  People like that tend to focus on the last thing said, which will either make this person more mad or plant a seed in the head that might grow larger or both.

Marillion - Seasons End (1989)

Genres: Neo-Prog, Prog Rock

This was exactly what I needed for my 1989 chart.

There are many of us music reviewers who can't stand it when a band betrays their classic sound or when a major player in a band leaves, and then there are those of us who will accept the change if it's necessary. In this instance, it was the departure of England's most obvious Peter Gabriel wannabe, Fish. With the new AOR-oriented vocals of Steve Hogarth in play, it was time for Marillion to try something new. And is this a good thing? Well, for most neo- prog fans, Marillion is practically the go-to band for the rawest quality and for an introduction. But I treat all genres equally. I have favorites, but I never judge them unfairly towards other genres. And in this case, all Marillion is to me is a very catchy pop group that kept rewriting the same damn pop songs every album during the whole Fish era.

Seasons End might take slack for the chance in sound, but after four albums of the exact same thing which drew me away from neo-prog in the first place (after 12 years I haven't even gotten to 30 neo albums yet), I welcome it with arms more open than the range. Right from the glorious intro, The King of Sunset Town, I was taken in by the more progressive instrumental behavior and its raw beauty. Throughout the whole eight minutes, I was thinking to myself, "It's about time Marillion started acting like a prog band." This proves that Fish's whole vision for the band was, "What would Genesis sound like today is Gabriel didn't leave?" But of course, there's some room for hard- hitting AOR with songs like The Uninvited Guest and Holloway Girl. This gives us a stronger taste of what we had before, the poppier melodies but with a stylistic choice of bands such as Magnum. And as a man who believes On a Storyteller's Night almost rivals the Boston debut, I am not complaining about this. The album will also take time to soak in its atmospheres with the beautiful but potentially overlong titular track. And I even get a little jazziness in Berlin, and jazziness is something neo-prog needs. Do the smooth jazz aspects right, and it's perfect for the subgenre.

This is the Marillion album I wanted: a multi-faceted one. With a more serious and less obvious style, Marillion have finally distanced themselves from the Genesis sound and took some time to expand. I suppose the legal issues that caused Fish's departure were just what the band needed to finally expand their horizons. Seasons End is the more intriguing album of the classic era, and it gives me hope for the albums after this one, even going as far as to potentially ignore the negative reviews.

97/100

Paco de Lucia - Almoraima (1976)

Genre: Flamenco

Returning to this to see if I still consider it a perfect album.  It's extraordinarily rare for me to consider an album where every song is practically the same genre a perfect one these days, but this is getting really, really close to it after five tracks.  Three to go.

Premiata Forneria Marconi - L'Isola Di Niente (1974)

Genres: Symphonic Prog Rock

So there are only about 50 prog albums in my 80-100 section on my log.  Fixing that.  It's about time I got around to these guys again.

Not listed as crossover on RYM, but this is 100% crossover.

Garlic Boys - Smegmania (1990)

Genres: Street Punk, Crossover Thrash

The genre-tagging on RYM's a bit on the screwy side.  There's a seriously metallic side to this album that rules almost the whole 36 minute runtime.  Having recently re-evaluated some Ratos de Porao and Wehrmacht just a couple days ago, I'm fully convinced this is crossover.  Having said that, I don't really need to put this on Metal Academy, and why?  Because it's just an alright album.  It has some of the melodic tendencies of the previous more punk-rooted album, and the production's clear enough to grasp everything.  There's also the fact that the metallic edge was a total and somewhat pleasant surprise.  But since the major focus seems to be the crossover sound, there's a little less of that weird variety present in the previous album.  Consider that the previous was only 24 minutes and this was 36, we have yet another Master of Puppets scenario with a noticeable drop in quality.

61/100

Dark Angel - Leave Scars (1989)

Genres: Thrash Metal

Ironic that the first post on this thread is a Dark Angel review.  This is a return to the album after having it in my thrash chart for a couple of years.  But a return to Darkness Descends a while back and a lowered rating  made it necessary to return to this and see if it still belongs in my top 100 of thrash or my top 100 of 1989.  It seems pretty obvious from the first track that the primary focus of this album is simply to thrash and be heavy, so that's not necessarily a good sign despite appealing to the metalhead in me with its raw power, especially where Hoglan is concerned.  This guy's prowess goes far beyond the standard thrash that these guys play.  But in this raw power is also some subpar mixing.  Things are a little fuzzier than I like, and combined with the ambiance of the vocals, I can barely make out what Rinehart's saying.  So the production alone has a big pro and a big con.  On top of that, the guitarists' solos aren't really doing anything for me anymore.  Thankfully, there are some instances of real compositional skill.  The seven-minute song No One Answers gets better as it goes along, for example.  But the mixing can also really screw things up.  The instrumental Cauterization's maxing is constantly getting in the way of the guitars, almost making it sound more like a harsh noise album than a metal album.  I get it, they have power.  Now can that power be molded with SONGWRITING?  You know, like Butcher the Weak, Ride the Lightning, any Emperor album, PAINKILLER?

I'm not sure why I ever gave this album a 9/10.  Did the heaviness really hypnotize me that much when I first heard it?  Damn. That actually hurts.  They didn't even manage to do justice to that Zeppelin cover.  Was I even paying attention to the album?  It really is a brutal album.  This is the kind of brutality that slam death metal bands wish they could achieve, and thankfully the band makes it look easy.  Unfortunately, everything is album the album is just OK.  Having said this, even though I'm disappointed in myself for betraying my long-time standards for heaviness back then, I'm happy about this major correction.

65 / 100

Roy Orbison - Mystery Girl (1989)

Genres: Pop Rock

My first venture into Roy Orbison, still working on my 1989 chart.

Astor Piazzolla - Libertango (1974)

Genre: Tango Nuevo

Heard two of his albums a couple days ago and was utterly wowed, and this is said to be better than the two I heard.  I made some decent progress on my 1989 chart today with a couple of other albums, and need to keep up with that, but I still need to check out some other genres, so thankfully I found the tango master to help with that.

I'm gonna blow through all four Lounge Lizards albums today while I polish off The Drawing of the Three.  This first one is brilliant so far.  Extremely catchy, highly intriguing.  There's only one flaw: a couple of these brilliant jazz-rock songs are WAY too short.  Two minutes?  Really?  With a little more length in these tracks, this would be a perfect album.  I'm on the second to last track, Epistrophe, which is the longest track at 4:15, and this is looking a lot like this album's getting a 96/100.  Really can't wait to get through the rest.

The book's also very well done as well.  I'm about to see Odetta getting drawn.

Peter Gabriel - Passion (Music for The Last Temptation of Christ)

Genre: New Age

This is extraordinarily difficult for me to find.  The only band of this example with more four albums that I can think of is Boston, and they aren't even metal.  Yes, each one did get gradually worse, and they only have six.

Klaus Schulze is a big part of the reason why 70's Germany was so incredible and revolutionary.  With Tangerine Dream, these two bands redefined atmosphere.  Irrlicht is a wonderful debut and one of his best.

Pat Metheny - Imaginary Day (1997)

Metheny's just perfect for introducing jazz to newbies.  He's the perfect mish-mash of jazz's more traditional wild nature and accessibility.  So far, these first three tracks are much more spiritual than his usual output.  Nice to know I have another jazz favorite.

Dream Theater: Parasomnia (2025)

Genres: Prog Metal

I've been avoiding to many potential "sure-fire" metal albums to get my yearly top 100's more diversified, but this is a new year, and there are some bands I will make that exception for.  Dream Theater was the band that got me into prog metal, and although they're not my favorite anymore, if they've got an album the fans like then I will check it out on the day of its release.  And this is an event to look forward to for fans everywhere, and why?  Simple...

Portnoy's back.

Since Dream Theater mastered the standard style early in their career, we must already deal with some sense of familiarity.  So all that's left is how far they drive it.  And they're driving it all the way from NY to CA.  Some of these bits here are straight-up thrash metal with a strong edge backed up by some of their most clever riffs since Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, and especially Portnoy's drumming.  This is the album where he blew the mercury out of the meter.  He outperforms everybody here without even thinking.  Anything familiar or maybe even only decent about the songwriting is empowered by him.  This is easily some of the best metal drumming I've ever heard, IMO.

As for the rest of it, the short story is that this is yet another "cool" entry into their catalog.  Instead of choosing more meta concepts like the "octave," or telling another rock opera, they went right into a more conventional type of concept.  Much like Metallica's Ride the Lightning covered various forms and themes concerning death, this album's all in the title.  This is probably the perfect theme for Dream Theater of all people to tackle.  I mean, if the band name didn't say it all, albums like Scenes from a Memory should tell you.  Lyrically, they're doing everything they can to bring out the fear factor in each song, almost like we're hearing horror stories but we're supposed to pity the subjects rather than be scared for them.  Instrumentally, even though their riffs aren't always the most original, they're effortlessly heavy and easier to get behind.  Although, once again, Portnoy's masterful performance helps.

Parasomnia seems like a creative splurge for the band, but it doesn't get in the way of the style they developed for a single second.  In fact, I could even say it makes the same mistake as Paramainomeni in the sense that all tracks are following the same goal, but every song shows them doing everything they can at that point to recall the classic era with something a little new.  They never really stopped being relevant, but this feels kind of like a comeback album in a sense.  Dream Theater, ever since Metropolis Pt. 2, has been the kind of prog metal band you need to immerse yourself in, much like a good old ambient album.  And this is the album where they got that back.  No overdoing metal themes like Octavarium, no 2112 knockoffs, just Dream Theater being dreamy and heavy.

90 / 100

Oh, yeah.  I've heard all 12 Slayer albums.

1. South of Heaven

2. Seasons in the Abyss

3. Reign in Blood

4. Decade of Aggression

5. Hell Awaits

6. Show No Mercy

7. Divine Intervention

8. Undisputed Attitude

9. Christ Illusion

10. God Hates Us All

11. Diabolus in Musica

12. World Painted Blood

13. Repentless

I was thinking about checking that one out today, but I decided to focus on artists I've already experienced, so to satisfy my electronic mood I headed to quite the brilliant little obscurity: Susumu Hirasawa's Ice-9.  Highly recommended for anyone into atmospheric electronic music.

The Kinks - Muswell Hillbillies

Genres: Country Rock, Pop Rock, Roots Rock

Gotta say, when I first checked out the Kinks years ago, I had zero interest in them as a country rock band.  But I'm 31 and I'm tired of putting off this shit.  So far, I'm really loving it, but Acute Schizophrenia's tempo and vibe, as great as they are, only make me wanna sing "I'M JUST A SWEET TRAAANS-VES-TIIIIIGHT-AH!"  Did my coworker really have to play THAT today?

Darkthrone

1. A Blaze in the Northern Sky

2. Transilvanian Gunher

3. Under a Funeral Moon

4. Panzerfaust

5. Soulside Journey

6. Ravishing Grimness

7. Arctic Thunder

8. Total Death

9. Eternal Hails

10. Goatlord (Demo)

11. Land of Frost (Demo)

12. Oldstar

Alright, jumpin' on the Crazy Train.

1. Paranoid

2. Master of Reality

3. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

4. Black Sabbath

5. Heaven and Hell

6. Sabotage

7. Mob Rules

8. Vol. 4

9. Past Lives

10. Technical Ecstasy

11. Born Again

12. The Eternal Idol

13. Never Say Die

14. The Seventh Star

Blind Guardian

1. Imaginations from the Other Side

2. The God Machine

3. Nightfall in Middle-Earth

4. Live

5. Somewhere Far Beyond

6. A Night at the Opera

7. At the Edge of Time

8. Tales From the Twilight World

9. A Twist in the Myth

10. Beyond the Red Mirror

11. Follow the Blind

12. Batallions of Fear

Helloween (I'll do this one in reverse, because no. 1 might surprise you, as the ads say.

19. Rabbit Don't Come Easy

18. Chameleon

17. Pink Bubbles Go Ape

16. My God-Given Right

15. Keeper of the Seven Keys: The Legacy

14. Straight Out of Hell

13. Master of the Rings

12. 7 Sinners

11. Gambling with the Devil

10. The Dark Ride

9. Helloween EP

8. Keeper of the Seven Keys: The Legacy World Tour

7. Live in the UK

6. Time of the Oath

5. Walls of Jericho

4. Kepper Pt. 1

3. Keeper Pt. 2

2. Better Than Raw

1. Helloween (2021)

Exodus: Bonded By Blood

In the eyes of many metalheads, heaviness canbe a more defining factor than writing ability. This is why some more simplistic albums, like Kreator's Pleasure to Kill, are more well-received than many of their more creative efforts later on. So since this is Exodus' debut, it's not much of a surprise that a few of the songs have the same tempo and vibe. This album helped to push the limits of what was generally accepted in metal at the time. You can tell from the structures of the songs that these guys listened to a fair bit of that old-fashioned NWOBHM stuff like Iron Maiden, which explains the thankful focus on melody and riffs being handled and treated like equals. That's a difficult thing to do for a lot of thrash bands. Unfortunately for me, I'm a Metallica guy, and I'm that way because their golden age is diversified, exceptionally poetic and has a vocalist who doesn't need all those effects to maintain a form of power. I'm certain this singer here's done that without effects on other albums, but it was a faint distraction for me.

Now if I wanna pump myself up, I might choose a couple of songs from this album for the sake of that. The fact that each song goes for the same vibe, core and genre does in fact mean it's not a very creative effort in that vein, but the balance of melody and riffs is quite impressive, ensuring that Bonded By Blood is a consistently great effort and a good example of how to do thrash right, even if it's technically just one way.

90/100

Never could get into Mechina.  A lot of their songs are overlong and sound the same.

It's not a perfect process, but then there really isn't one. It's the one that I enjoy using and feel happiest with the results.

That's the only thing that matters.

I take all of those things into account in my individual track ratings Rex. That's one of the reasons that I'm so meticulous about listening to releases from start to finish & in their entirety as a complete piece of art.

Another place where I find that the methodology Ben & I use isn't perfect is when you've got a lengthy single-track release like Meshuggah's "I" E.P. for example. You end up with a flat score for the release that doesn't differentiate it with smaller percentages. It's not a major problem but it's worth noting nonetheless. It's better when those lengthy tracks are broken up so that you can score the individual parts (see the Spotify version of Edge of Sanity's "Crimson" for example).

Something that long is typically a chance to see how long the thrill of the ride lasts, to put it basically.  It's kind of like the one-hour piece I just heard by Pat Metheny, for whatever reason separated into four tracks: The Way Up.  It's really one long piece dividing the audio clip, but for a hour of Metheny-style jazz fusion it was absolutely wonderful.  The thing is, if it's one piece, I'd rather treat it as one piece instead of judging individual parts, so if the ride keep all its thrills throughout, even if a couple parts are a little weaker, it's still an incredible achievement because it's so rare to get something like that right.  In the end, it still gets a numerical score to compare with all the others, so even though we must remain analytical, the end result will be the same.

It's an average track rating Rexorcist (that also takes into account the length of each track).

As for Daniel's comment that it's extremely difficult for a release to achieve a 5 star rating using our technique, that's very true. It's for this reason that I tinkered with mine a bit. For me, any release that scores a 4.60 or higher gets 5 stars (I've also made it easier to get 3 stars and less). When I wasn't doing that, I found that about 90% of releases I was checking out were getting between 3.5 and 4.5, which wasn't a particularly good use of the 5 star rating spectrum. I now have a wider spectrum of ratings, but it results in Daniel and I not agreeing on what albums are rated, despite us pretty much giving them the same decimal score (I think I rated one of Sepultura's releases 5 stars and he gave it 4.5, but when we were comparing notes we found we had exactly the same track ratings).

I likely don't have to tell anyone who's been in this field longer than I have this, but looking at the album as a whole is just as important as the track-by-track basis, and in my opinion can make up for less-than-ideal averages.  For example, I'm willing to forgive a 7/10 track on a collective of nine songs, ex. The Lady in My Life.  The album is only 40 minutes, anyway.  A different example would be an hour-long album like Hysteria, where Love and Affection is just a nerfed version of previous tracks, while The Lady in My Life has its own identity which is similar to Human Nature at the very most.  So that's one song I won't forgive.  It could've been left off easily, thus Thriller gets a 100 and Hysteria gets a 98.

Now I won't forgive a song I don't like.  No 100's there.  The first example that comes to my mind is Rape Me on in utero.  It's just a recycled and more noisy Smells Like Teen Spirit with overly repetitive lyrics that are somehow praised by "What If" haters.  If not for that one song, in utero would be my IDEAL grunge album.  It's actually extraordinarily rare that I get an album with more than six tracks and all of them are five-stars.  The idea of raw perfection throughout is nearly impossible in that vein.  Closest I can think of is Paranoid, which has a 95/100 minimum for all eight in my opinion.

This is where I take into account other things.  The flow of the album is extremely important in that vein and can potentially forgive any imprefect yet enjoyable song, and I'll allow for some experimentation as long as the emotional boundaries feel consistent, such as the occasional dark humor on Bloody Kisses or the point of variety made early on in Planet Hemp's A invasão do sagaz homem fumaça.  Sticking within the same genre is a good idea on paper, but unless you can work within all the constraints of that one genre like Slayer showed in South of Heaven, chances are you could end up overlong or monotonous very quickly, like any Trapt album.

One example of flow being totally fucked with is an album everyone loves: In the Court of the Crimson King.  21st Century Schizoid Man is a flawless, hyperactive, jazz-rock gemstone, and I'll forgive the immediately shift into folksy rock on the second song.  I encourage that.  But the other three songs follow in the vein of the second and not in the first, making the best song feel out of place.  This is why I favor Red: none of it feels out of place.

Of course, taking into account the length isn't something I ever thought of.  I typically only do that when it comes to determining genres in the event that many songs of a genre are too short or long.

Daniel's correct. I use the exact same technique. It has been extremely helpful in my latest attempt to finally put together a list of my top 50 metal albums of all time, as it allows me to rank them quite precisely. As Daniel mentioned, things can be massaged when I'm not entirely comfortable where a release sits, but for the most part it works pretty well. I still have another 250 releases to thoroughly listen to and rank before I'll have covered all the releases I know will be around the 4.5 to 5.0 rating, along with a stack of releases I've never heard before but that I feel have a possibility to achieving such a rating.

I plan to unveil my top 50 at some point, so won't display any of that just yet (no spoilers!), but to give you an idea, here are the releases currently ranking 100 to 120 on my list. It's all completely subjective of course.

And to think I was afraid of rating something 99.4.  I might actually start using more in-depth decimals.  Or is that an average track rating?

I have a ranked list of nearly 15000 albums.  I've been working on it ever since it was at a measly 35 that were off the top of my head, and I decided to exclude comps.  That was 12 years ago, and I'm extremely happy with the top 100 I have.  It really helped me shape my ideals as to what I consider great music, and it's interesting to go back and see both the typical and the unconventional choices.  Example: I have a new #2 punk album that I put in my top 100 just yesterday (not counting post-punk), and I didn't really expect it: Sex Made by NoMeansNo.  And keeping this list has also helped me balance out which genres I need to explore more.  One great example is how there's plenty of spiritual jazz in my top 100 jazz albums and very few "bop" albums.

But it's cool to look through other lists just to get an idea of what they like.  The idea of a list also helps the creator keep their opinions consistent when they aren't entirely sure of an opinion.  The more you work on them, the more sure you are.  But even then, you can still become certain of something new with the addition of one more album, because your standards can always change, even slightly.

Pat Metheny - The Way Up (2005)

Genres: Jazz Fusion

Really surprised at how easily Pat makes holding a half-hour song feel.  The group kept that first part extraordinarily fresh throughout, making it look easy to do, especially since it also remains accessible the whole time.  I mean, Pat Metheny was always good at accessible jazz fusion, but I didn't think he had this kind of power in him.

Grateful Dead - Blues for Allah

Genres: Psych Rock, Folk Rock, Jazz-Rock

Bro, I don't even know if I'm gonna finish it tonight.  I had to help out with a pregnant goat and cleaning a bunch of stuff up, and now I'm worn out.  I can't even finish that Black Dresses album because I need something more chill right now.

Nice review, Rex, though I consider The Land of Rape and Honey an industrial metal album, therefore a Sphere album, with the same level of industrial metal as in Killing Joke's Extremities, Dirt and Various Repressed Emotions.

The latter seems heavier to me, switching evenly between rock, metal and post-punk.

Ministry - The Land of Rape and Honey

Genres: Electro-Industrial, Industrial Rock

I swear I've heard this album before, but it's not on my log for some reason.  That Kind of annoys me, so I'm fixing that right now.  I know I did at some point, because I remember thinking to myself, "this album is certainly not metal enough to be industrial metal."  I didn't get that with the other Ministry albums; I all tagged the properly.  And after listening to it, I still feel that way.  I can't really vote on that, though, so forget the hall for now.

So the album seems to almost be more punk than metal, and its repetition is both aesthetically appealing to a punk fan like me, but also a bit disappointing concerning the other electro-industrial bands at the time who focused more on composition, like Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly.  I was pretty happy when the more psychedelic route was taken on Golden Dawn, but I felt the twist came a little late.  But I can really get behind that proud independent power.  Instead of focusing on dancing, it's basically pumping you up to the max.  And while melody can sometimes DRASTICALLY suffer for this, the shouted vocals and raw abrasion can still satisfy.  I gotta say, I love that mutant army vocal effect on You Know What You Are.

I like my industrial music with a little more melody, but this certainly sufficed otherwise.  Hardcore punk attitude, great vocal effects and some good noisy production make this an improvement over Twitch.

82

All That Remains - Antifragile

Genres: Melodic Metalcore

Well, it's Friday again, and I've got an ass-ton of albums to check out.  My first new release for the day was last week's Mogwai, and now I'm on the new All That Remains.  Never really was a fan of this type of music, but I explored some of it due to my sister and he ex-husband's interest in it.  I've heard their first five albums, and all of albums are between 62 and 68 save one 52, and I don't think it really matters if I tell you which is which at this point.  Lemme just tell you what I got: almost exactly what I expected.  They obviously focused on melody and vibe here, so they belted out some pretty decent stuff here.  But this doesn't change the fact that, partially due to them, I've heard this album 50,000 times before.  Tempos, moods, instrumentation styles, they're all the same, and it does in fact get a bit tiring halfway through.  In other words, this album is strictly for the fans. However, I found that the ratings on some places are a bit better that all the albums I haven't bothered with yet, so this might actually be their best album in a while.  I have very little interest in confirming that, but I enjoyed this album well enough for its type.

58

Train - Train Does Led Zeppelin II

Genres: Hard Rock, Blues Rock

I listened to all previous Train albums in preparation for this one.  Now as I mentioned in my top 100 thread recently, Led Zeppelin is my favorite band, but I give EVERYTHING a fair chance.  If it works, it works.  if it doesn't, it doesn't.  I even gave Train a multitude of chances, only knowing one song that they did (Hey, Soul Sister) and not even being aware that they wrote other songs I've heard.  Cute and catchy, but not much else.  That describes every album before this one.

Apparently, these guys were once a Zep cover band before doing their own thing.  What the fuck happened?  No one was prepared for this.  To the majority of the world, this was as questionable as Gus Van Sant's almost duplicated Psycho remake, and almost as questionable as the next year's Tom and Jerry Wonka crossover.  But you know, if they really love Zep so much, the least they could've done is mingle a few hard reock singles in their long-running career.  it's not like it would've actually hurt their career.  They were pretty much ruling modern, ahem, "rock's" say on radio once people started saying "rock is dead."  But the irony here is that singer Patr Monahan claims Led Zeppelin is his favorite band, and throughout the band's album career, they did absolutely nothing to replicate that since 1998.  So now that it was 18 years into their career, how do they "honor" Zep?  A full-on cover album, almost note-for-note, ripping them off.

Ironically, this is the style they coulda/shoulda gone with, and it might've provided a more interesting alternative to the tenth-assed chord progressions that may or may not be played on a different string instrument just to pretend their being more diverse than they were on their debut album.  But as far as practical copies as opposed to covers go, Train is missing two things.

A: The spirit is only partially there.  They obviously love Zep, but seeing them try to replicate that sound only comes off as part of the way there.  Hell, it was more impressive when I saw Joe Satriani almost nailing but still visibly struggling to capture Eddie's guitar style when I saw him play with Sammy Hagar.  Part of it is that this just isn't heavy enough.  The edge is slightly watered down.

B: Subconsciously, I can't help but keep comparing Patty Mayonnaihan's voice to Robert Plant's, and it just gets in the way.  Pat's trying to adjust his voice to the Robert Plant style, but it comes off as worse than his usual singing voice on all of Train's singles.  The cruel irony.

However, considering that the music is very similar, it's kind of impossible for me not to enjoy the music anyway.  Ironically, although the existence of the previous album erases all necessity to listen to this album even once, the enjoyment factor isn't necessarily cancelled out.  It's nice to know that they were at least able to partially replicate a better band, which is a major step forward from the simple pop tripe they've been putting out since after For Me It's You, from Save Me San Francisco onward.

Okay, so what's my consensus?  The irony of this is simple: it's still a better album that practically everything else they've done before.  It does have a couple of serious distractions, but at least Train tried to mix it up, and I'm not going to hate on the album just because they didn't get it perfect.  There was only the slimmest chance of them doing that.  Hell, I spent the entire album thinking about how I would've done the album in a personal style I decided on myself, and even found myself proud of the mental decisions I made (I might not be a musician, but I have life-long practice with trying to mix things up).  Basically, this is a pointless album which is still basically enjoyable, but the cruel irony is that there is no reason to ever listen to it again for either Train or Zeppelin fans.

67/100

Ornette Coleman - Dancing in Your Head

Genres: Jazz Fusion, Avant-Garde Jazz

Not really a Coleman guy.  I mean, I "get" his talent, but I don't "get" HIM.  Good, if not great, but a bit overrated IMO.  I'm hoping the fusion and funk of this album will make it a standout for me.

Abigail Williams - In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns

Genre: Symphonic Black Metal

This debut album is basically what would happen if a bunch of metalheads discovered real extremities for the first time, decided that Born of Osiris was just as good as Emperor, and then thought they would be the coolest thing on Earth if they decided to mash the two.  Well, they didn't end up the coolest thing on Earth, but it's not that bad of a debut.

The most important thing to keep in mind are the veterans these guys got to help with the album, notable a couple of metal veterans: Emperor drummer Tryn, and metal producer James Murphy.  High grade celebs.  The worst thing to keep in mind is the constant deathcore-infusion, which the symphonics can't quite drown out.  The writing itself is pretty good, going into a lot of complex and unpredictable parts while maintaining a constant vibe.  But with the album always switching between another blast beat, violins and the bare essentials that symphonic black metal needs, it pretty much becomes 46 minutes of the same thing; it's variations of the same song that gradually get less original and slightly worse overtime.  Now this doesn't mean the album eventually sucks.  In fact, the first two songs: The World Beyond and Acolytes, are actually very good.  Acolytes is almost incredible in a way, largely due to a keen awareness of what extreme metal needs to sound like.  Obviously, we have our two veterans to thank for that.  But eventually, the album bears the same originality as any Fleshgod Apocalypse album.  Thankfully, there's one shining example of great writing on side B: Empyrean.  That song really carries some of the Emperor spirit and is one of the heavier tracks.  I might even say it's my favorite song on that album.

So, starts of great, finishes decent, has instances of brilliance.  Stays brutally heavy throughout, and beautifully produced.

82/100

Sixteen Horsepower - "Sackcloth 'n' Ashes" (1996)

I discovered the debut album from this Los Angeles artist a couple of years ago & have thoroughly enjoyed my first revisit this week. In fact, they may well make the best country music I've ever heard, albeit with a strong gothic element to it. This is some bad ass shit featuring a front man with serious charisma as well as artistic talent. Great stuff!

For fans of Jay Munley, Tarantella & Me and That Man.

4/5

Same here.  This has been in my top 100 for a long time.  All of their albums are great, though.  Too bad they broke up after only four.  Haw, For Heavens Sake and especially Black Soul Choir are among my favorite country songs.  The only country album I rank higher than this album is At Folsom Prison.

Nice choice Rex. I've always been a big Mahavishnu fan & bought "Between Nothingness & Eternity" on CD around three decades ago. I might pull it out for a revisit shortly.

I've played a couple other albums of theirs today, the last one was The Lost Trident Sessions, which currently stands as my favorite of their works.  For my last album of the day, I'm going with Travels by Pat Metheny.

Mahavishnu Orchestra - Between Nothingness & Eternity

Genres: Jazz-Rock, Jazz Fusion