Rexorcist's Forum Replies

Participation in the Hall of Judgement only helps if the member understands & appreciates the clan well & are willing to explore the release in question with an open mind. Otherwise it can just as easily be a hinderance to the accuracy of our genre tagging. There's no point in someone that doesn't really like or understand the symphonic metal genre making calls on a symphonic metal record & that's the whole point of the Metal Academy clan philosophy. It's actually our differentiator over the competition.

I guessed that.  I'm honestly in full support of this issue, of course this is also why I find it hard to decide what my fourth will be.  Ideally, whatever has the biggest range for me to participate in.  After literally 2,000 metal albums, the process of selecting one out of six mathematically twice as hard as selecting three out of nine, and I kinda of feel that pressure.

Oh, I see what you’re saying. Sorry. I forgot you have to complete your existing clans before attacking a fourth. Consider it locked in.

Thanks.  But something tells me this is not a recurring theme here, is it?

Quote:

"Completion of any Clan Challenge will "lock in" that clan for that Metal Academy attendee. Note that completing any Clan Challenge will achieve this, so you don't have to complete them all for any particular clan. Once you've locked in all three of your starting clans, you can lock in a fourth one to add that clan to your profile. That's right, you can earn yourself a fourth clan!"

So what does "lock in" mean?

I've reviewed all 25 of the Early Days of Power Metal list, and I made sure they were in-depth, at least a good paragraph or two long, and carried much of my personal judgement.  So how does the "lock in" thing work?

If Rising actually did become non-metal, what would that have meant to the clan list they're featured in? Seems like it might have been weird to have a non-metal release be important for a challenge.

This.  Maybe the lists themselves do need to be updated, of course, for anyone who's reviewed albums that would be kicked off or replaced after the update, that could pose a problem if they need to review more than 25 albums for the same list... unless of course each user could keep a recorded score of the list, so that they don't lost "points" if an album they reviewed is replaced.  Of course, this is only in the event that a list needs to be updated.

From what I looked up in the halls section, this marks the first finished hall for the Fallen.

Alright.  I got a few noms prepared already.

I don't remember that.  I remember it being pretty samey, but then again it has been a year.  Still, whatever speed tracks are on that album might be very good, but stylistically they're market brand.

Currently listening to Rage - Black in Mind.

Lemme share with you some Metalforum usernames: Goatmaster General, Relentless Oblivion, Sheol, Surgical Brute, Macabre Eternal, True Belief and Father Alabaster.  You'd think they'd have something better down for the ranks, especially if we implement them here where there's a clan system.

Actually, I wouldn't mind if each clan had different names for the ranks.

I found myself on an Embryo binge today, since I'm in need of a bit more jazz fusion.

Clan Legends sounds way more metal.  Metalforum actually has a ranking system depending on some sort of point system.  There are 14 titles, apparently.  But they're lame ones like Newbie, Apprentice, Explorer, etc.  Right now I'm "Enthusiast."  What the hell is that?

Finally!  I get to represent a punk genre that isn't forced under another metal tag like crossover thrash!  Also, I don't think I'll be joining the revolution for my fourth clan when I get the right to a fourth one.

It's an interesting suggestion thanks Vinny. I assume that the idea will also encompass the polar opposite functionality so that I can filter the forums to show only my beloved genre-tag related threads? :) Would the ability to simply filter out the Hall of Judgement forum suffice?

In that case, to avoid tediousness among users there would have to be two separate filters where one of the two is a special case specifically for that subforum, and the other applies to single threads.  There's no real reason to filter out any other entire subforums.

True but considering the staff is very limited, there may be other potentially more important features to include and program first.  Even RYM has a million things to do and they have a staff of around 200 moderators, but only two developers.

No need to get snarky.  If you think of a good enough conversation then people might post on it 

Why not start a few new threads of your own?

I was mostly speaking from the mindset of Heavy Metal Maniac.  But still, speed is more about that attitudinal energy, which is The Pit's signature trait.

Then lemme take a crack at it.  First, lemme say that I'm 100% what you said about the difference between thrash and speed.  Take bands like Exciter.  Each song is basically an attempt at being a fast and energetic hard rock song, which is basically the most generic form you can takes.  ADX falls in this category as well.  Power metal is different in the sense that it's a much more anthemic and dramatic genre, where as thrash is almost entirely about riffage, which is where technicality comes in as well.

In the context of neoclassical metal, it doesn't require the bombast of symphonic metal and is much closer to a progressive sound than it is to a power sound.  But because there was never a scene, the term can get loose.  A good outlier would be the difference between two different albums: Under the Force of Courage by Galneryus which is more focuses on the complexity that classical has shown before, and Dawn of Victory by Rhapsody, which is more focuses on the vibe and sound of classical in general in a more cinematic way.  Basically, the difference between speed and thrash is mostly the same difference between symphonic and neoclassical: presence vs. technicality.

At least this is the basic rundown of how I see it.  Now power metal is RELATED in the sense that it can attach itself to these four genres like it was nothing.  Power thrash is a relatively easy combination to make, as proven by early Iced Earth, Imagika and Parodox.  However, as far as comparing relations goes, power metal doesn't often get confused with anything except the US brand, which is less bombastic and more focuses on heavy metal roots.

I don't think it's interchangeable with thrash at all.  Despite that, because of its direct attitude, I believe it belongs in the Pit.  Power metal albums are mostly focuses on melody and drama, but speed and thrash are both focuses on attitude, even though rhythm and jams are a bigger part of speed metal.  Besides, we already have one clan taking five genres, I don't think we need another.

Personally, I have always viewed speed metal as the evolutionary step between heavy metal and thrash metal, so I'm kind of on the fence with this one and feel that both The Guardians and The Pit have a valid claim on it's inclusion. Maybe as it was birthed within The Guardians remit though, then they have the stronger claim, but I could be persuaded either way.

A key outlier for me is jam factor vs. riff factor.  Thrash metal tends to be less melody-oriented and focused on a more evil or just malevolent presence than speed metal, which is closer to the original heavy metal spirit, like hard rock on steroids.  The Angel Dust debut either switches between the two or merges them, and it makes for a good exercize in determining which is which, especially if you go right for the next album which is almost entirely absent of thrash.

But.... Grin is their best album! (hides to avoid immediate backlash)

Honestly I couldn't give a crap about the backlash over stuff like that, especially since this whole "signature album" rule is broken often, especially by The Beatles.  Sometimes it;s a war between two albums, like Cocteau Twins' Treasure and Heaven or Las Vegas.  Plus, my favorite Coroner is No More Color and I'm kinda disappointed in the Beatles cover on Mental Vortex.

Plus, all the Coroner albums are good enough to justify a "favorite album" comment, and in Grin's case, if someone likes groove more that thrash, or is just tired of straight thrash, it makes sense.

Coroner is back together and working on new studio material.  Is anyone else as hyped s I am?

THese guys are incredible thrashers.  This is a Pit essential if you ask me.

Thank you for the apology.

To be fair, the system is all about walking fine lines because of the overlap in genres becoming unpredictable.  For example, take Hell II's incredible usage of sludge, doom and drone with hints of death and black.  With its major genres, it's the perfect album for The Fallen.  And then we have a mix of power metal and thrash metal on Burnt Offerings, boasting mild symphonic, prog and doom and death influences.  It likely fits in both the Guardians and The Pit (no way Dante's Inferno is power instead of thrash), but it also takes atmospheric influence from key genres of the Horde and the Fallen.  When a band like Fleshgod comes around, that's when things get technical and the discussions begin.

Of course, I can't speak for Apocalyptica, but I was thikning along the lines of the high-energy music of Dawn of the Dragonstar by Twilight Force and the symphonic power sounds of Galneryus.  The heaviness of death metal mixed with the high symphonic focus brought the same feeling somewhat to life, thus through heaviness the similarities are found where they likely shouldn't be found.

This reminds me of a movie I saw which surprised me with how well it handled two completely different genres and combined them so seamlessly: gritty film noir and children's cartoons.  Roger Rabbit.  The key factor in combining the two was violence.  The scene explaining Bob Hoskin's disdain for cartoons in the bar said it all.

Rexorcist, if you read the notes on that Hall entry you'll find that it was never in question that "Agony" is a Symphonic Death Metal album. The Hall entry was really about whether a record like "Agony" should reasonably sit in our heavy/power/symphonic/neoclassical metal clan alongside the likes of Nightwish, Within Temptation & Epica (not to mention Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Helloween & Blind Guardian) or not.

The way I see it, that's essentially the same thing.  And I DID read the notes.  Plus, you seem to have forgotten above the notes that says, "This change would also remove the Symphonic Metal genre from this release."  I'm perfectly fine if you create a symph-death metal genre, and for some time I've questioned why the phrase isn't very common.  But I also feel that the album catered to me needs as a Guardian by changing its brutal tech death behavior from the debut and the EP to an attitude somewhat closer to what I expect from modern symphonic power bands that focus on heaviness.  It catered to my needs, so I voted not to remove the genre.

Having said that, I'm not against a symphonic death metal tag.  But I do believe that FGA has become something different from most death metal, and just different enough to consider.

Also, don;t take this the wrong way, but I;d prefer it if you didn't assume I didn't read something again.  Not everyone will read things the way you do, and there was never anything that stated I didn't read the post or that I got the idea that someone said it wasn't "symph death" as opposed to "symph."  Phrases like "misuse of the Symphonic Metal genre" makes that pretty clear.

Voted to keep symphonic on that one.  There might only be one instrument handling the symphonic genre, but the tone and focus of the album is centered on that violin's symphonic behavior.

Don't take this as bragging, but I've heard over 10,000 albums in the last ten years, that's how you can make a judgment.  It might not be the MOST ACCURATE judgment, but it's still an educated one, especially since .  But to be fair, I never said that you thought it was a metal album, as I guessed you had admitted to that when my eye caught the "For fans of" section, but I can see how that message would come across concerning my phrasing, so I'll admit to poor phrasing.  Basically, with enough fixation on genre differences themselves, (something at the front of my mind with all music I listen to), and with enough practice, you can form a basic idea of what the album is like in your head.  However, all I really needed in this instance was whether or not this was metal.  Hell, I'm even listening to a non-metal album by an avant-garde metal band who posted this as black metal, when it's closer to dark ambient with black ambient influences: Cycle of Emptiness by Kitties of Death, and I'm sorely disappointed in this as a market-brand ambient album with no special traits.  It's obviously pretending to be metal, and clearly isn't.  It has it moments of OK atmosphere and that's it.  22/100.  Gonna let Ben know not to include this one whenever he puts the band up here.  But that was just the example.  Basically, I can take that sound, read what people have said, audiate it with more new age attached and boom.

These guys have ten albums, so they can wait: Keydragon.  I may consider making a worst metal albums ever list, but that won't be for a while so I can wait.

Kitties of Death, please.  I've heard their first five albums, and they suck as much as RYM suggests.  Their sixth album and two EP's released last year aren't on RYM, but they are on the Bandcamp page, and the sixth album is listed on Metallum.

I'm gonna stop you right there at "these vocals can only be found on a black metal release."  Music progresses by combining elements from various influences, so even though I haven't heard this album, it seems clear that that just makes this album an unconventional ambient album.  I am very curious, hover, what albums you're thinking of when you say "better new age releases."

Not necessarily.  I'm just saying that it's more noticable of a change on those two Metallica albums that the bands I listed strayed towards.  Like I said, "The Thing That Should Not Be," "Sanitarium's" first half and the last two songs of MoP bridge that gap.  Sure the band adds more power to their percussion and tone, but "thrashing" is more along the lines of practically every single on "Peace Sell," which we can safely say tracks 1, 2, 5 and 6 focus more on than the other songs.

True but they aren't a very diverse band and their hot albums steer way too close to groove.  I think we're debating different definitions of heavy metal by accident.

Well, I'm careful about debating speed metal as it is a loose term on RYM and can vary depending on the online community.  But I'd attach it to Seventh Son and Black Hand Inn at any time.  Running Wild goes hand-in-hand with Metallica for how brutal their music can be.  Around the internet these guys are tagged as heavy metal.  Metal storm doesn't even consider them power metal.  But Metallica attracts metal fans of various types, and that's why the albums are so special.  We can't deny that the general heaviness of both albums compositions lower and in side A.  Yes, the guitars are heavy, but the band isn't always "thrashing.". On top of that, the bands I tagged are many of the most popular bands in the thrash scene.  I'd even include Annihilator, Pantera and maybe Artillery.  Obviously I'm not counting early Pantera.

While I do disagree, I'm in the camp that considers Metal Church thrash so of course I would, I would like to point out that if Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets are thrash/heavy records, then quite a lot of thrash records should be in thrash/heavy too.

I think it really depends on how diverse the band gets.  Albums like the first four Megadeths are too focused on thrashing front to back for that to happen, and by Countdown the thrash had been largely forsaken.  The same about thrashing front-to-back is especially true for Slayer, who rarely steered into new territory longterm until they made a straight-up punk album with Divine Intervention.  Off the top of my head, bands whose classics are excluded from this combo include Megadeth up to Rust, Slayer, Vektor, Coroner, Kreator, Sepultura, Voivod and Celtic Frost.  Metal Church is a good example of the combo (depending on who you ask), T0urniquet is definitely both and Overkill is a maybe.  And because US power metal is a direct heavy metal subgenre you could also include Iced Earth by technicality.  I'm almost done with Peace Sells, and from front to back the first thing on its mind is thrashing.  It doesn't really exercise diversity until its cover of "I Ain't Superstitious."  I guess in comparison to most thrash bands, there are only a few bands who bridge the gap.

I might give you Seventh Star, but I've never heard anyone say those other two aren't heavy metal.  Plus, those albums sounded like the were more worried about modernizing than anything.  They were still heavier than another influential metal album at the time (and you can't convince me this isn't metal), Deep Purple in Rock.  It also bridged the fine line between hard rock and heavy metal, but displayed a level of heaviness that most early bands had difficulty reaching, and had already included the more melodic nature that would be seen in ballads and symphonic metal songs of the 90's and onward.

Not necessarily.  The point of rock and metal is to overcome limits and try new things.  Sabbath didn't use new tech, they just toned down the guitars, which anyone could've done.

Yeah, that's pretty fuckin' punk.

So are you saying it's impossible for a metal song to sound like a rock song?  Theoretically?

You sure?  It was a good conversation.  And from what I can tell, neither of us are on edge and the discussion's getting strong points from both parties.

Personally, I don't consider early Judas to be very heavy at all.  But if Sad Wings of Destiny counts as a metal album, so does Rainbow.  There were too many moments on that album that just don't really match up, and much of the album walks the fine line between hard rock and heavy metal just as Rainbow's Rising did, and part of this is because Halford's voice still needed some maturing.  At that point, Plant and Gillan had more metal voices.  Halford just had the scream (listening to the album now).  Of course, I could say the same thing about most Judas Priest until Painkiller.  It even gets to the point where I don't really consider Sad Wings a metal album (albeit JUST BARELY under the minimum requirement for the time).  Even Machine Head could get heavier and I don't consider that metal, either.

80's hard rock / heavy metal, however, reached an entirely new standard to the point where "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Live Wire" are considered non-metal by metalheads everywhere (although I theorize some of them just want to diss glam and GNR).  Take Powerslave for example.  That was a truly metallic sound, and they could get just as heavy as the songs on those Metallica albums that I singled out.  That right there is the clear factor.  We're essentially covering the level of heaviness increasing between the releases on "Deep Purple in Rock" and "Powerslave."  This was a standard I was taught by a few users on RYM due to heaviness itself having been criticized.  Both the Zeppelin and Sabbath debuts originally got mixed reviews because people weren't used to the heaviness.  The scene was small, yes, but there was one.  The first usage of the term can be traced to '71, and since then there were people seeing how far they could push the envelop until finally we had people blasting music as loud and noisy as possible in Norway.

Aren't wolverines essential small bears?

No, they are a particularly vicious relative of the polecats or weasels.

From wikipaedia:

"The wolverine has a reputation for ferocity and strength out of proportion to its size, with the documented ability to kill prey many times larger than itself."

 If that's not a "metal" animal, then I don't know what is!

I never said it wasn't METAL.  I just don't know if it's PUNK.  When I think of punk, I think of hyperactivity and obnoxiousness, as well as rebellion and... revolution.  Wolverines are one of my favorite animals because of their raw fucking power, and I'd love a wolverine to represent something here, but I don't know if The Revolution is the right place.  Of course, I'm not a member of the Revolution and I've never taken part in their discussions the way I have Guardians.  And I know it's technically a relative of weasels; the point I was making was that it's still pretty similar to a bear in shape, structure and strength.

Doesn't a "wave" of something typically determine the common tropes and differences between other waves?  Like the difference between first and third wave ska?  Or the alternative-rock includion differentiating 80's power pop and 90's power pop?  Fans of the later organize that genre by waves; I've seen it in discussion on RYM.  Heaviness itself was an ongoing journey for more than 15 years until black metal pretty much nailed it.  That growth needs to be addressed.  Before Sabbath, no one even used the term "metal."  The term was coined in 1971, and since then bands either tried to match Sabbath or beat them.  In the 80's it was a gradual journey from NWOBHM to thrash to death to black.  Nowadays we have to rely on technology to make things sound heavier than they really are, usually boiling down to production techniques, such as the heaviness displayed on the albums Hell II and Hell III.  Production plays a big roll in those albums.  Basically, the metal scene had to evolve more than most genres did overtime, because it's not dying anytime soon.

What I'm saying is those other albums spend more time doing actual thrashing with lots of energy where Metallica spends more time with build-up, melody and slowing down some, especially in MoP's case since it's a bit longer than RtL or Rust in Peace.

And keep in mind that Rising was released in a time when metal itself was closer to hard rock.  We're talking about a ten-year difference during the early development of metal, so the exact standard gets technical.

Aren't wolverines essential small bears?

I'm not entirely sure that we can make that claim.  Off the top of my head, Arise, the first five Slayers, Beneath the Remains and Rust in Peace barely have any straight-up heavy metal.  Take an album from this collection and it's 90-100% thrashing.

The heaviness of Metallica's tamer songs and ballads mostly comes from the guitar tone, the production and Ulrich, but it's by far not just thrash.

I like the idea of using aliens and angels for a magical creature theme.  Alien would be the best choice for The Sphere in that instance, but I understand how hard it is to think of an animal for a genre who's leading concept and image revolves around machinery.

Fallen: Mammoth seems to be the most interesting idea to Fallen members.

Gateway: The only entry was a rabbit, and that was more of a personal spirit animal thing.

Guardians: Eagle it is.

Horde: Mixed bag so far, but I'm still really leaning on Rat.

Infinite: So far we've had a couple of sci-fi ideas and a monkey.  So nothing concrete.

North: Wolf or raven.

Pit: Snake or shark.  Snake pit, anyone?

Revolution: just a spirit animal thing for bear, so nothing concrete.  But bear doesn't really say "punk" to me.

Sphere: Nothing concrete, despite the sci-fi ideas.

Lemma rephrase that last post: "I figured that would be the case."  Well, I've got more free time with music now that I'm not busting my ass off with that metalforum top 100.  I'll be able to get to a couple of the albums in the hall.