Rexorcist's Forum Replies

I'll typically listen to an artist in chronological order if I'm serious about studying them, like what I'm doing right now with Devourment.  I've never undertaken the "chonological genre history" route, but with all the subgenres coming out between the 80's and 90's alone, it's gonna be difficult.  The RYM charts will easily help with the history, but when it comes to the exploration of each individual form of metal explored at once, you might want to focus mostly on key bands in each scene.

So when the best album by the best band in this genre doesn't even qualify, it just feels so awkward, 

I get what you're saying but "the best album by the best band" is purely subjective & often doesn't match up with "most popular" which I assume is what you really meant?

A: Fixed your quote.

B: Whenever the Rexorcist says "best," just assume he's talking about his personal opinion and not everyone else's.  There's such a thing as a "subjective best" as opposed to a "favorite."  I have my own albums that I love to listen to in my spare time, but when I "rate" something I focus on whether or not I feel the performance was high quality.  Having said that, the idea of quality itself is also subjective, but the artform itself does matter.  So I judge every album based on whether or not I feel the band perfected their own artform and, for lack of a better word, "justified" their album.  This shows a clear difference between which albums I would rather listen to in my spare time, as I feel that relying on favoritism as a rating system runs the risk of treating some genres unfairly.

Example?  Not a fan of drone, but the critic in me ADORED Ravedeath 1972 because Tim did what he wanted better than any other drone artist ever did.  In drone metal terms, I can also apply this to Hell II.  And yes, there is SOME overlap between favorites and subjective bests depending on the type of album.  The best example would be that my favorite metal album and the best I've ever heard IMO is Ride the Lightning.  But on the grander scale, it varies widely.  This system also helps me to rank albums without having to undergo constant reorganization.  I treat movies, books, video games and even freaking soft drinks the same way.

It's harder for me.  I have a very strict ruleset for albums I will regard with the highest respect on an artistic view.  I've had a difficult time finding a crossover thrash album I hold with this regard, because many of the best albums still show the bands making at least one of the biggest mistakes in making an album that's brilliant front to back, and this mistake is usually sameyness and the lack of variety to keep things original.  So when the best album by the best band in this genre doesn't even qualify, it just feels so awkward, unlike the difference between Pogues' Rum Sodomy and the Lash and If I Should Fall From Grace with God, which are both IMO flawless and tackle their respective different genres (celtic rock and celtic punk), without blemish.  For Suicidal Tendencies, the genre switch here happened right after the band had used up their best ideas.

I'm curious Rex, if you regard sameyness & a lack of variety as deal-breakers in achieving a classic record, how did Devourment's "Butcher The Weak" make it through to achieve a full five star rating this morning?

Rare exception.  I stated in my review that each song had a bunch of surprises due to a somewhat more avant-garde / prog behavior in comparison to the first two albums.  On top of that, the production was flawless, and it's likely the heaviest album I've ever heard, especially the heaviest I ever heard that got the production just right.  However, I guess it also helps that the album was only 30 minutes, ande a lot happened in those 30 minutes.

Devourment - Unleash the Carnivore

I just gave a glowing review to the rerecording of Butcher the Weak.  One would think that after a significant improvement over the original version, Devourment would've learned their lesson.  Nope, the resort to almost exclusive heaviness again.  Now Devourment are just as extreme as ever.  There's no denying that they're a major contender for the heaviest band on Earth.  But does that mean they're the best writers?  They only pretty much understand one thing about metal music, and they only incorporate enough of the bare essentials not to sell anything "bad."  This album really proves that.  Each song is basically a rehash of elements from the first two Devourment albums with the heaviness of the third, but with less polished production.  As a result, we get another case of the bad wall of cymbals drowning out the rhythms, leaving a fairly rhythmic headbangers' album that doesn't do the band any real justice.  Honestly, the very idea of them immediately going back to their bad habits after one surprisingly well-written and tightly-knit album is pretty annoying.  It's obvious that Devourment cares more about the rep than anything.  In the end, this album is STRICTLY for Devourment fans, because the fans will likely be satisfied that their heaviness factor hasn't waned.

6.5 / 10

Minnie Riperton - Perfect Angel

Considering that this is a follow up to one of the greatest soul albums ever, and is largely helmed by Stevie Wonder, I had super high hopes for it.  But while it's catchy and you can catch everything, the whole album feels overwritten, as if they tried too hard to make a good follow-up, and Riperton's rhythms don't really "mold" with the instruments, especially since she's relying to hard on her signature squeal in fairly inappropriate places.  Still, it has a better atmosphere and overall presence that most soul albums.  The whole album is taking the very idea of creativity very seriously, and the album';s largely consistent.  Still, it has its noticeable spots.

7.5/10.

I still maintain that Suicidal Tendencies have never topped their debut and as such were a better hardcore band than a thrash band. I still spin that album quite often (even though the Reagan stuff is outdated now) but almost never play any of their later material.

It's harder for me.  I have a very strict ruleset for albums I will regard with the highest respect on an artistic view.  I've had a difficult time finding a crossover thrash album I hold with this regard, because many of the best albums still show the bands making at least one of the biggest mistakes in making an album that's brilliant front to back, and this mistake is usually sameyness and the lack of variety to keep things original.  So when the best album by the best band in this genre doesn't even qualify, it just feels so awkward, unlike the difference between Pogues' Rum Sodomy and the Lash and If I Should Fall From Grace with God, which are both IMO flawless and tackle their respective different genres (celtic rock and celtic punk), without blemish.  For Suicidal Tendencies, the genre switch here happened right after the band had used up their best ideas.

Suffocation basically took Cannibal Corpse's gimmick to a new level, except from what I hear, Cannibal Corpse was better.

5.5 / 10

To be fair, Suffocation's signature sound predates Cannibal Corpse's one pretty comfortably as Suffocation had already pretty much defined their sound on their 1990 "Reincremation" demo & further refined it for "Human Waste", both of which were released prior to Cannibal Corpse upping the ante on their brutality for 1991's  "Butchered At Birth" sophomore album.

That was supposed to say "Devourment," not "Suffocation."  Fixing it.

Devourment - Butcher the Weak (2005)

Today I'm gonna get through both versions of Butcher the Weak.  If you want total, raw heaviness, then this album is a major improvement over the already further step of heaviness from brutal death that their debut was.  I ever noticed early on that there were some improvements to the rhythmic aspects of their music.  The heaviness, however impressive, still has a habit of acting as a wall to drown out some of the more creative aspects.  And as a result, it can be seen that Devourment are still guilty of the very same mistake of sameyness that many death metal albums, including their debut, follow.  Instead of showcasing everything slam death can do, they decide to throw around a few creative ideas per song, not realizing that many songs share the same ideas, and let heaviness do the rest of the talking.  Sure, there are occasionally clearer songs that only have a few moments of raw heaviness, like Serial Cocksucker.  But songs like Tomb of Scabs have almost no actual writing aspects, and just maniacally beat music on the head with Goblimon's studded cudgel rather than focusing on songwriting.  But overall the album feels more like another exercise with heaviness with just enough of a creative improvement to keep the band's career strong.  It's kind of like the difference between Symphony X's first two albums: Symphony X and The Damnation Game.  I'd give both sets of albums about the same ratings.  So if you're hypnotized by raw heaviness, you're far more justified in loving this than loving the debut, but I'm still concerned about Devourment's lack of fixation on the artform that many death bands have proven death metal can be.  In short, the SOUND of the album is perfect.  Everything else is hit or miss.  If the re-recording is superior like RYM says, let's find out.  But I was NOT impressed with their debut, which some say is their best, so maybe not.

7/10.

Oh... my... god.  This was freaking insane.  Thanks to some clearer production and a more progressive outlook on many of the song structures, this album boasts some insane creativity in comparison to Devourment's first two albums.  This official re-recording of the previously self-released sophomore is all about improvement.  On this re-recording, Devourment is no longer being simple slammers.  They actually manage to be much more surprising.  This takes the headbanging quality of the flawed original and mingles it with constant surprises that never let up on the super-extremities, not even during the lighter moments.  Even Mike Majewski is trying out a variety of vocal tricks on songs like Serial Cocksucker, which was already one of the more creative songs on the previous album.   Hell, even of Tomb of Scabs, which was pretty freaking weak on the original work, this completely crazy slam track has both extra-gutteral and somewhat intelligible vocals among the pig squeals.  And thanks to this consistently unpredictable behavior of each song, the sameyness factor is a minimal problem, acting more like Pg. 99's Document 8 in the sense that it handles a genre and its child, (screamo and emoviolence, in comparison to brutal and slam), and showcases a wide variety of tricks without getting too samey, something that original felt monotone about the original album.  However, since the creative diversity was more on a song by song basis, I'd say that the edge still goes to Document 8.  But even though our guitar structures and singing here are at a creative peak, the star of the show is still our drummer Eric Park, who's combination of speed and heaviness rival that of many of the greatest drummers on Earth, especially when he's got that combination of snares and cymbals going at the same time.  In fact, the craziness here is on par with a good avant-garde jazz album.  In fact, I don't know if there's a song on this album I couldn't rate five stars.  In fact, it even made a point of bringing unpredictability and surprises to what was the weakest song on the original: Babykiller, largely by starting it off as lighter and more intelligible, as a brutal death song before a slam death song.

Well, congratulations, Devourment!  After 2421 metal albums, you have created the heaviest metal album I have ever heard.  There are even some ways in which Devourment match Suffocation, and I do NOT say that easily about death metal bands at all.  Maybe it doesn't have the genre-diversifying creativity of albums like Unquestionable Presence by Athiest, but I don't think this album really needs it.  This is more than just a showcase of heaviness; it's proof that even these young and dumb hopefuls who obsess over the grossest humor possible can show creative intelligence, and even though it's samey it NEVER get old. They flawlessly overcame their lack of diversity to reach a new metallic height that might not be replicated ever again, beating Kreator, Cryptopsy and Cannibal Corpse at the heaviness game. This is both clear and polished while being disgusting and dirty, and it molds creativity with sameyness perfectly.  This is some peak death metal here.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to listen to some female-fronted new age to heal my brain front this sonic assault.

10/10.

Echo & the Bunnymen - "Heaven Up Here" (1981)

Post-punk/gothic rock from Liverpool, England.

That's a good one from what I remember.  EatB had a good hotstreak in their early days.

I'm going through another day where I blow through a bunch of short vaporwave albums.  Today I'm gonna focus on Vito Genovese and his many aliases.

Devourment = "Molesting The Decapitated" (1999)

After putting together yesterday's list I felt like indulging in some slamming death metal while driving around the city to pick up one of my wife's event styling jobs so I pulled out this oldy that I haven't heard for a while. It was extremely influential in the underground death metal scene at the time but I didn't get to experience it until around 2009, by which time every man & his dog was doing this stuff so it had lost some of its impact. Honestly, nothing has changed much with how this Dallas-based outfit conduct themselves in the more than two decades since this debut album. "Molesting The Decapitated" concentrates entirely on two concepts: ultra-fast blast beats with a super-tight pinging snare drum sound & slow-to-mid-paced Suffocation-worshipping slam riffs. That really does sound very good to me on paper & in honesty I was always going to find this record enjoyable for that reason but it's definitely not without its flaws. Firstly, the blast beats aren't very tightly performed, particularly the gravity-blasts which is no doubt accentuated by the snare sound which sounds like a toy monkey playing a tiny drum. Secondly, the vocals are ridiculously gutteral & unintelligible to the point of ridiculousness & there's been no attempt whatsoever to resemble the actual lyrics which are admittedly some of the most vile & putrid you'll ever read. As with 2019's "Obscene Majesty", the lack of guitar solos is a clear missed opportunity too as there's very little to break up the monotony. All things considered though, I just love super-brutal death metal with chunky riffs & it's hard to argue against this album possessing those attributes in spades, even if it does sound very generic by today's standards. "Molesting The Decapitated" does easily enough to keep me interested & in doing so has managed to usurp Kraanium's "Post Mortal Coital Fixation" by breaking into the top ten slam death metal releases list I only put together yesterday.

For fans of Cephalotripsy, Abominable Putridity & Kraanium.

3.5/5

Now for my review, excluding the ugliest album ever ever.

OK, it was very heavy for its time, and kind of unique.  But I never judge an album for its influence.  I'll respect the influence, but I won't use it to judge the music.  It's like what has been aforemention not just by Daniel's review here, but by others: this sounds generic by today's standards.  Why?  Is it because everyone's just copying it?  Partly, but people do the same with the great Ramones debut, which was repetitive but also kind of diversified and ccatchy.  Punk rock was completely new.  This is just a heavier expansion of an already extremely extreme genre pioneered by Suffocation, who remain my favorite brutal death metal band for their three five star works, Effigy of the Forgotten, Pierced from Within and Human Waste.  I avoided Devourment and Echymosis for their obscenely violent lyrics for ages, but I'm caring less and less overtime if it's guttural and unintelligible, but I still went looking for slam acts that didn't have as much violence, and composed a top 50 or so.  So I've got enough albums to compare this one to not just from a brutality perspective, but a writing perspective.  And I have to say that this greatly pails in comparison to Suffocation, who joined Cryptopsy in bringing technicality and brutality together to create something high on imagination and extremity.  The Devourment debut, however, is basically the audio chronicle of a bunch of stupid 20-somethings trying to be as dark, heavy and edgy as possible and relying on that to help.  If it worked for Wes Craven (it actually didn't), it'll work for them, right?  From an influential perspective, yes.  But all of the songs here are samey and copied to the point of no redemption, and the faint moments of creativity are greatly overshadowed by the generic death metal behavior.  Basically, even if the album was heavier to the point of inventing a new subgenre of brutal death metal, it still feels like generic brutal death metal, slam differences aside like the fixation of snare drums.  Basically, stick with Suffocation, because if you play this and Human Waste back to back, hopefully you'll find a greater sense of technical achievement, unless you're just flat-out hypnotized by the idea of heaviness and edginess like a poser.  Devourment basically took Cannibal Corpse's gimmick to a new level, except from what I hear, Cannibal Corpse was better.

5.5 / 10

Ecchymosis - Aberrant

Amusement in Cadaveric Vomitplay (2016)

Yeah, this pretty much played out like I expected.  In comparison to their sophomore album, this debut uses the snare drums to bring in a sense of complexity with their absurd heaviness, and the production's a little more polished than their next album.  But overall, it makes the same mistakes.  The songs are repetitive and rely too much on heaviness and an abundance of occasionally unpredictable snare drum techniques.  The drumming is the main focus while everyhting else can't even compare.

6.5/10

So I've got 6 more albums to go before my list of every album I've heard is lowered to exactly 20% metal, but even then I still have to be careful.  So I'm gonna spend the day listening to asstons of short vaporwaves albums while working on Nialoca illustrations and managing the Movieforums Top 100 War Movies Countdown thread.  Even then I still have to get some stuff ready for work tomorrow and get ready to go to bed at 9 because I work an early shift.  I get my eight house no matter what.

The point?  After all that, I'll be heading over to the next Ecchymosis album.  They've got one more studio album released and a third one in the works.  Let's hope this other one lives up to the hype.  Btw, head a few Devourment songs from different albums.  Not bad.

So I've actually listened to my first uber-violent death metal album:

Ecchymosis - Ritualistic Intercourse Within Abject Surrealism (2020)

Considering how long this has been in the top five slam albums on RYM's charts, it seemed pretty obvious to me that this album was highly regarded as a slam classic.  Unfortunately, I don't judge slam the way most people do, but rather the same way I judge every album in any known genre on this planet, so I knew there was a strong chance I would see things differently.  And lo and behold, it didn't really appeal to me.  The album makes an immediate point of gruesome heaviness, which is quite impressive.  But I find nothing more innovative or interesting about this album than I do with the average slam album.  Ecchymosis came very late to the slam scene as far as partaking in the originality department goes, so every song just sounds like a cheaply-written blast of well-produced heaviness and that's that.

6/10

I've been listening to Twilight in Olympus to help me get into the Nialoca mood and work on it more.  Symphony X is pretty much my go-to band for that.

The rest of the Killing Joke catalogue please?  Or do you want that I just ask to add the one album I need for my top 100?

And thanks for adding Deep Purple and GNR.  Having said that, there's only a couple out of them that I'd like to suggest for metal tags.

It would be great if you could tell me the album(s) you feel should have metal tags. Thanks!

I thought the whole discography was supposed to go up as non-metal if a band has a metal album?  Or was that changed?

Oh wait, I think I get why you ask.  OK.

Extremities, Pylon, and the live albums Total Invasion, Laugh at Your Peril (both the Berlin and Roundhouse ones), and Malicious Damage

The rest of the Killing Joke catalogue please?  Or do you want that I just ask to add the one album I need for my top 100?

And thanks for adding Deep Purple and GNR.  Having said that, there's only a couple out of them that I'd like to suggest for metal tags.

It would be great if you could tell me the album(s) you feel should have metal tags. Thanks!

I thought the whole discography was supposed to go up as non-metal if a band has a metal album?  Or was that changed?

Today's list challenge album is Catch 33, which I remember liking more.  It's weird, but it feels like the album's trying to hard to be "fancy" and not enough to be "complex," since it has a tendency to drag on.  It's got some cool tricks, but that's about it.

Today's list challenge album is Isa by Enslaved.  Not as good as I remembered it, but still good.

It's certainly not clear-cut & I remember pondering over the correct tag at the time but ended up conceding in the end. Feel free to nominate it for the Hall of Judgement as that's what it's there for.

It sound like you should play the album again, back to back with Terria just to be certain.

Yes, I’d suggest that it qualifies as progressive metal.

I really don't see it at all.  How?

This is supposed to be prog metal?  It's more like alternative and industrial metal.

So Christopher Bowes, the dude behind Alestorm and Gloryhammer, is back at it again with another hilariously over the top and slightly questionable band called Wizardthrone who seem to specialize in a slightly Gloryhammer-esque brand of Melodic Death Metal about mathematics, hyperdimensional space wizards, and a ton of other very long and bombastic words. It's not great, don't get me wrong, but I expected much, much worse. It's definitely fun for a few spins here and there. I want to believe this release exists in the same world as the current Gloryhammer story but there aren't any references that I've picked up on. 

You're kidding.  I just heard a bunch of his early novelty albums on Bandcamp.

As for now, since I've heard so many non-metal albums today, I'm limiting myself to 1 new metal album today, and I'm starting with a band I've been curious about for a while.

Esoctilihum - Eternity of Shaog

This has a perfect and evil slightly unique atmosphere.  Despite not being an atmo-black metal piece, its monstrous presence has an ambiance about it that makes it just as tame as it is maniacal.  And the range of different kinds of black and death is matched by the range of different vocal styles, even varying between either one of black or death metal.  Some of these songs seem a little drawn out, but it's pretty obvious that this is a very meditative album, so it's not a big problem, especially since the album has a tendency to throw enourmous surprises at the listener.  This is the kind of extreme metal album I've been desperately looking for.  It mingles the violence of Suffocation's Human Waste with the beauty of Alcest's Souvenirs d'un autre monde, while keeping a diverse background on par with that of the best works by Oranssi Pazuzu.  99/100.

A while back I ran into a problem.  I have a log of every album I've ever heard, ranked from best to worst.  As it currently stands, more than a fifth of it is metal, and it's showing.  So I've been spending weeks trying to lower the percentage and be more fair, so I haven't been able to hear new metal albums as often as I used to.  Having said that, I'm gonna spend some time re-evaluating albums on the challenges I've already heard so I can review them.

I've only got about 60 or so albums before I lower the percentage to 20.  And even then, I still need to be careful.  Thankfully, I found a couple of prolific artists with short albums (15-30 min.) in the vapor scene, so I've been spending some time with them.  I should be done with that in a week or two.

I don't actually think Metal Archives' issues are related to a misguided understanding of what metal is. My impression is that the key players simply don't like certain genres & use their platform to try to warp people's impressions of them which is something that I'm very much opposed to.

With other platforms it comes down to education or the methodology for adding bands & releases to their site in my opinion. People need to stop believing everything they read on the internet because the ability to create & finance a website does not make someone (including me) any less ignorant. How else can you explain the argument Rex mentioned earlier whereby some people are tempted to link those last couple of Death albums to thrash?? Also, no administrator can possibly listen to every band/release before adding them to a database so you have to use something as a guide which leaves you open to the accuracy of that guide. We certainly experience that here at the Academy but thankfully we've developed a community & a platform that are more conducive to accurate outcomes than our competition which was kinda the point of creating the site in the first place.

And for the record, I wouldn't say that the hair metal argument is a joke. Many of those releases are a combination of metal & hard rock so there are examples that fall on either side of the equation or both.

I don't think it's so much "warping" as it is metal fanboy pretentiousness, you know overstrictness to what real metal is, and then (potentially hypocritically) adding Deep Purple while the "poser" band Avenged Sevenfold is left out to rot in the hot sun.  The website seems to have it out for a lot of metalcore, but from what I've noticed it seems to be towards some more popular bands.

And yes, some hair metal albums are indeed true metal, notably Motley Crue and Dokken, but let's be honest: there are quite a few people who still confuse it with real metal.  Apparently, Poison is metal... Apparently...

Aside from the joke of the hair metal discussion, we still have people discussing, or even bickering, over whether or not Converge are too punk to be metal or too metal to be punk or both.

Metal Archives seems to think it's the former.

Believe me, much I what I say stems from the questionable behavior of Metal Archives.

Please bare in mind that everything I'm about to say is just my opinion & I raise it purely in the interest of healthy discussion Rex but personally I don't think anyone is being disadvantaged by being dual tagged. In fact, I'd suggest that it's an advantage as there's a greater potential for fans of both genres to investigate the artist in question. I don't think the lines are as blurred as you're making out either. Perhaps they USED to be back in the 70's & 80's, mainly because a lot of the trademark sounds were still being defined so there was a lot of cross-pollination & the actual written definitions hadn't been firmed up as yet. That's not the case now though as we have clear definition around the attributes that each subgenre should possess in order to qualify. Sure, there will always be bands that represent hybrids but I don't see anything wrong with that.

I actually think that a lot of the confusion you mention comes from people that don't take the time to understand what a particular genre is all about by exploring the important releases that prompted the genre's creation in the first place & paying attention to the key elements at play before using the label to tag releases. Many people simply end up taking the genre names at face value & creating their own interpretations of what constitutes an x metal release. I'd suggest that's the case with the speed metal example you raised earlier as you need to go back to the underground scene of the 1980's in order to understand that genre properly but, once you do that, I don't think it's all that hard to identify. As an example of where the lines have been blurred unnecessarily, the term "melodic death metal" doesn't refer to ALL death metal that employs melody. It refers to a particular sound that contains some defined attributes but we often see people overlooking those by tagging any death metal that's remotely melodic as melodeath. The same goes for sludge metal. People seem to want to tag anything with a guitar tone that they deem to sound "sludgy" as sludge metal. Another example? "I hear a breakdown here. Must be metalcore then!" Is there actually any genuine hardcore influence though? Often the answer is no. I could go on & on & on about each genre in a similar manner but the moral of my story is that music doesn't just need to be "heavy" in order to qualify as metal in my opinion. It still needs to possess the attributes of the genres definition. If it possesses all of the key attributes of the hard rock definition but just happens to be heavy then it's simply a heavier example of hard rock. I don't think there's all that much of a grey area in the definitions. It's all in people's interpretations of them as a release either possesses the required attributes or it doesn't. If it possesses the attributes of both heavy metal & hard rock then a dual tagging is fine. There's no confusion there at all as far as I can see.

Actually, the comments detailing blurring comes from the internet's variety of tagging the albums in general.  And Deep Purple, the so-called "metal gods," aren't the only ones part of this.  Aside from the joke of the hair metal discussion, we still have people discussing, or even bickering, over whether or not Converge are too punk to be metal or too metal to be punk or both.  And there's also the discussion concerning the early melodic metalcore works of Avenged Sevenfold.  And these are only a couple of examples.  The most analytical in years is the discussion on whether or not Death's Symbolic and The Sound of Perserverance are more thrash than death, which both Metallum and Metalstorm seem to have differing opinions toward.  There are plenty of high-profile metal websites that have their own consensus concerning these things.  So the blurred lines don't always stem from the uneducated but from those who've had their metal experiences defined by key albums in their histories. Not to mention, there's the historical relevance of some early examples of the next step towards heaviness, before the "metal structure" was formed but still during the time when metal was an applicable tag.  And yes, we had some jokers tagging AC/DC as metal back then and we still do.  But in the case of In Rock and AFD, we have multiple components being blended with the hard rock sound of both respective time periods.  Thus, because of the blurred line and the subjectivity of heaviness, metal history may end up forgotten aside from naming certain albums "influential."

Maybe it shouldn't happen, but these are the kinds of things that still lead to some unnecessary confusion.  Nobody can even figure out what speed metal is anymore, apparently, and there are a million Killing Joke albums that blur the rock and metal line beyond the three more blatantly metal works: Hossanas, 2003 and Pandemonium.  Basically, there's still room for growth in the technical definitions that we have, which is why a lot of hard rock heavy metal hybrids suffer when the line is blurred.

I listened to this fairly recently and don't consider that it meets the modern criteria as a metal release. As someone who was actually a rock/metal fan in the 1970s I think I could add some perspective here. Deep Purple were considered heavy metal back then, as were Led Zeppelin, UFO, KISS, Ted Nugent, BOC and even AC/DC. But the term was more an umbrella term for the heavier bands around, as opposed to the likes of Boston, Kansas and Aerosmith who had a lighter sound. Metal has since become an actually defined term and can be applied more rigourously and into which several of these earlier bands no longer fit, Deep Purple being one such I would suggest. GnR were never called heavy metal in my experience and were always referred to as a rock band.

Sadly I don't have a vote as I am not in The Guardians but a metal top 100 with Guns n Roses in it just seems so wrong for the premier internet metal site.

I think we as metal historians should try to remember what metal was back today.  I mean, but the logic of evolution, one can say that Metallica won't even be metal once the world has gotten used to something much heavier than that, which IS possible.

DUUUUDE!  When did Deep Purple get added!?  However it got added, thank you SO MANY BUNCHES.  Now let's see if I can accurately make my top 100 metal albums list!

Your wish was my command. As is my method, I added all releases between the two albums you requested, so there are 22 releases on the site.

I'm gonna relisten to the albums I feel I need to listen to right now as a thank you for this decision.  I'm actually surprised you went that far as to add everything up to Perfect Strangers on a maybe.  Having said that, I'll remain honest about it.  I'll even listen to Deep Purple in Concert tomorrow for the first time so as not to let this decision go to waste.

The rest of the Killing Joke catalogue please?  Or do you want that I just ask to add the one album I need for my top 100?

And thanks for adding Deep Purple and GNR.  Having said that, there's only a couple out of them that I'd like to suggest for metal tags.

DUUUUDE!  When did Deep Purple get added!?  However it got added, thank you SO MANY BUNCHES.  Now let's see if I can accurately make my top 100 metal albums list!

Let's try to keep it to one album at a time for now so that peopl deon't feel like the game takes too much effort.

There's a bit much going on with Kolossal's first album.  Cryogenic Pandemic has a lot to it, and the band does play these songs pretty well, displaying a rare boldness that is trying hard to appeal to the whole metal community.  As a metal work itself, there are various angles of appeal.  The problem is the consistency factor, neglecting that the art of the album matters as well.  For example, there's the run of Withering Course, Devouring Cataclysm and Dissonance Is Here.  it's one thing to switch between a proggy deathcore song to an atmospheric black metal song.  While both songs have an eerie darkness about them in different ways, one is a short burst of After The Burial aggression while the next is a wintery and meditative piece of simplicity with the kind of focus you feel on a Burzum album.  But then with Dissonance is Here, we switch over to a three minute song which is trying to do so much in its short time that it goes against the kind of thing Devouring Cataclysm was building up, almost as is it was an attempt to make early ASF heavier.  It's a shame, because that's the catchiest song on the album.

Their second album might be shorter, but it makes the same mistake.  For example, the band tries to pass themselves off as a power metal band, but only three of the ten songs have a serious level of power metal while the album ambles around various other metal genres, and suddenly it becomes a Bathroy album, a Rhapsody of Fire album and even a Type O negative album that's only connected in style by the singer, who can switch from genre to genre well enough, unlike the rest.  Once again, we have some cool solos and emotional / creepy riffs, but the creepy riffs aren't merging well with the more melodic aspects of the album.  it's obvious these guys are fans of Wintersun and Children of Bodom, but they have the ability to put their own black or punk spin-off on that sound.  Once they really learn how to merge that, we'll have something great.

Album 1: 7.0.  Album 2: 6.5.

Born from the Slime - Old-Ass Genesis Games

Genres: Crossover Thrash, Melodic Metalcore

Subgenres: Melodic Hardcore, Funk Metal, Avant-Garde Metal, Comedy Rock

1. The Gory Rebirth of Alex Kidd (2:10, Melodic Hardcore, Crossover Thrash / Grunge, Noisecore, Comedy Rock)

2. Drink (Alestorm Cover) (4:07, Melodic Metalcore, Crossover Thrash / Power Metal, Funk Metal)

3. In One Word: Fucked (4:29, Funk Metal, Crossover Thrash / Melodic Metalcore, Noise Rock)

4. The Long One (A Musical Representation of Our Dicks) (7:44, Crossover Thrash, Melodic Metalcore, Comedy Rock / Avant-Garde Metal, Funk Metal)

5. The Short One (The Edward Elric Song) (1:40, Crossover Thrash, Funk Metal)

6. I Burst Through a Wall and Felt Real Good (3:46, Melodic Metalcore / Melodic Hardcore, Groove Metal)

7. Satanic Messages in the Static (3:21, Crossover Thrash, Melodic Metalcore / Noisecore, Avant-Garde Metal)

8. Here's Your Grand Finale (5:18, Melodic Metalcore, Melodic Hardcore / Crossover Thrash, Prog Metal, Fanfare)

So is war metal pretty much black metal 2.0?  I mean, imagine it is a commercial:

More blasphemy, more gore, more heaviness.  You can trust war metal.

I took inventory of the deathcore albums I've heard.  I just barely passed 100, but it's not enough for a top 100 considering that quite a few of them made their way to lower ratings.

The bottom one ended up being Fallacy by Attila, but after hearing so much other deathcore, including shitty stuff, I don't know if that's my true opinion anymore.

If you're up for some non-generic deathcore with atmospheric orchestral sounds, here's what I recommend to you, Rex:

Lorna Shore - Pain Remains

Make Them Suffer - Neverbloom

Mental Cruelty - Zwielicht

Thanks a bunch.

1. Shadow of Intent - Primordial: 100

2. Fit for an Autopsy - The Sea of Tragic Beasts: 97

3. Shadow of Intent - Melancholy: 96

4. Brand of Sacrifice - Lifeblood: 95

5. Fit for an Autopsy - Absolute Hope, Absolute Hell: 95

6. Shadow of Intent - Reclaimer: 92

7. Fit for an Autopsy - The Great Collapse: 91

8. After the Burial - Rareform: 87

9. Mörser - Two Hours to Doom: 86

10. Brand of Sacrifice - The Interstice: 86

Shadow of Intent started out as a Halo-themed band.  I'm no Halo junkie or anything, but the space and orchestral sounds really worked for their sense of diversity, until they degraded into a generic deathcore band.  Fit For an Autopsy has more heavy and intriguing "progcore" than most punk bands of that type of music.  And Brand of Sacrifice are one of the more surprising and atmospeheric bands of the genre.

I have to admit that I don't really know what Shoegaze is, which makes it difficult for me to understand why an album is or isn't considered to be Blackgaze.

Is anyone here experienced enough with Shoegaze to provide a few examples of tracks that have a sound that's recognisable when listening to Blackgaze? To be clear, I could easily go to RYM and look up Shoegaze albums, but I'm hoping to hear something representative of what resulted in Blackgaze, if that makes sense.

Basically combine alt-rock with noise rock and dream pop.  Here's a base chart for you to find key differences:

Shoegaze: Loveless by MBV

Both: Souvenirs by Alcest

Blackgaze: Sunbather by Deafheaven

Being heavy isn't the sole deciding factor in whether a band are metal or not though in my opinion. You either play metal riffs or you don't. You can be heavy as fuck but if your sound is still rooted in blues-based rock riff structures then you're not a metal band as far as I'm concerned.

There's a lot of doom metal out there that doesn't have riffs.  Plus, a riff is defined as a repeated sequence of chords, which practiaclyly makes up that album.  What's your definition of a "metal riff" in this instance?

OK, I know this will probably get me lambasted by all and sundry, but listening to this month's North playlist I was struck by just how out-of-place the Sadness track felt. Are we entirely sure that The North is the place for such as this? In the same way that atmospheric sludge metal was/is getting eased out of the Fallen and into The Infinite, I think the same could be said for Blackgaze (although maybe The Gateway is more rightly the place for it than the Infinite, due to the shoegaze influence). To utilise an argument that has been proffered in other cases, would Sadness be enjoyed more by fans of Marduk, Mayhem, DsO, Blasphemy, Immortal etc or by fans of more, for want of a better word, gentile genres. To me blackgaze sticks out like a sore thumb in The North and is the classic case of a square peg in a round hole.

Any comments?

It depends on how diverse each band is going to be.  Example: Alcest likes to dive into real shoegaze alongside their metal songs, but Sunbather usually are more straightforward as a metal band.  Now Sadness have done plain shoegaze before.  Which song was it?

Kyuss and Elder are classified as stoner metal, so I'd go with someone a little less brutal in that regard.  I'm no EXPERT on stoner but I do know a few things.  I'd say QOTSA, but their attitude seems closer to punk than metal.  And I'll completely avoid tagging Colour Haze and Monster Magnet as close to metal.  I guess Fu Manchu would be a good one.  The line between stoner rock and stoner metal can be hard to determine.

Quoted Rexorcist

Kyuss & Elder are incorrectly tagged as stoner metal in my opinion. In fact, Kyuss are tagged as Non-Metal here at the Academy & we have a number of Elder releases in the Hall of Judgement too. The grey area is that Stoner Rock possesses a Black Sabbath/doom metal influence by definition which often confuses things but sees it being an obvious candidate for this thread.

The problem here is that Kyuss albums tend to boast a heaviness that metalheads often cite as difficult to overpower.  Stoner rock can be heavy, but Welcome to Sky Valley posses a tame brutality.

I'd go with some of these subgenres:

* Stoner rock bands like Kyuss & Elder.

* Some of the more extreme hardcore punk subgenres like crust punk & thrashcore.

* Heavy psych bands like Flower Travellin' Band, Buffalo & Sir Lord Baltimore.

Kyuss and Elder are classified as stoner metal, so I'd go with someone a little less brutal in that regard.  I'm no EXPERT on stoner but I do know a few things.  I'd say QOTSA, but their attitude seems closer to punk than metal.  And I'll completely avoid tagging Colour Haze and Monster Magnet as close to metal.  I guess Fu Manchu would be a good one.  The line between stoner rock and stoner metal can be hard to determine.

On the subject of thrashcore, I call to the stand Dropdead.

This was the album were they really started getting closer to mastering their signature sound

Interesting perspective. Personally, I would have thought that when most people refer to the signature Deathspell Omega sound they're really referring to the more dissonant & avant-garde experimentation of 2010's "Paracletus" rather than the more traditional black metal sound of “Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice”.

Yes, but it had its variety.  Variety can sometimes be a predecessor to heavier experimentation.

Swans - The Beggar (2023)

Genres: Post-Rock, Experimental Rock

Subs: Ambient Drone, Avant-Folk, Neofolk, Gothic Rock

I've been more and more hyped about the new Swans for ages, especially since I saw The Beggar appearing in Rateyourmusic's top albums of 2023 a couple weeks before it actually came out.  Nobody had it on YouTube, I couldn't find a good leak, so I waited impatiently while fawning over the incredible genre-tagging of this album.  Going through the various secondaries, avant-folk, gothic rock, drone, neofolk, gothic country, etc., it felt like this would be the most Swans thing ever.  I got through all the other Swans albums I hadn't played yet (The Great Annihilator, The Burning World, Love of Life, My Father and Leaving Meaning) before I came to this.  Now I'm fully familiar with their history and prepared to take on this album.

The album's overall atmosphere isn't quite as dark as before, but it's still very emotional.  It relies on a more autumn approach to sadness and hope, something that goes hand-in-hand with Swans music while being completely separate since we relied on depression told through anger and sadness told through post-punk and gothic rock.  The atmosphere is quite healthy, perfectly produced so that the ambience and reverb are never too little or too much.  It's just that RIGHT amount of both.  I suppose one can take note of the fact that it's one of those albums that lets the singer (Michael Gira) drive the melody while the instruments are staying simple and monotonous, but there are two problems with that.  First of all, Swans have become an atmosphere band.  That was always a strong point for them, but it's become the primary focus ever since the first became a post-rock band back in 1996 when Soundtracks for the Blind was released.  So I'll judge this by the atmosphere.  It's beautifully done, but it's hardly overpowering, which was the strong point of various Swans albums.  Despite this, while some songs take more than halfway through to come close to overpowering, most of the songs add something a little different every now and then so that these monotonous and drone-style rock songs become progressive in nature.  Good balance.  And having said THAT, it's possible that the atmosphere simply doesn't feel that overpowering on a first spin because one can be so familiar with the horror and terror that drove them since their 80's debut Filth.

This is not to say that the album itself drags on, just a couple of the individual songs.  Even when I was nearly done with the ten-minute title track, I couldn't believe I had already gotten through those ten minutes.  That is a perfect example of how to use slow-building drone behavior in a way that makes time fly.  So in the end, the two hours mostly goes by astonishingly quickly.  On another note, it feels like the shorter songs are the ones that get drawn out more often, including the shortest track, Los Angeles: City of Death at a tiny little three-and-a-half minutes.  When comparing this to the next track, the six minute Michael is Done which is more experimental and unpredictable despite never breaking the consistency, it's easy to see where the focus of the album's weirdness goes into.  One minute into the eleven-minute Ebbing, the quiet intro grows louder until we get into a folk song, and one minute into that we get a creepy alien wind instrument driving the backing rhythm while Gira and Jarboe sing together.  It keeps getting more and more unpredictable from there for a while before settling into a long and atmospheric vocal middle act that lets the drummer take on the craziness instead.  In other words, there would be a noticeable improvement in the album if a couple of the shorter tracks were left out, even if those shorter tracks are still nice to hear, and I suppose you could take two or three minutes off of Ebbing.

But I guess what you guys really want to hear about is the 43-minute monster knows as The Beggar Lover (Three)?  Well, it takes all the mystique that you expect from an experimental post-rock album like this, but with less rock.  The ambient, drone, electronic influences as doing whatever the hell they want at a fairly slow pace, combining to keep things really freakin' creepy and unpredictable while Gira croons, groans and growls on and off to spice it up.  But about twelve minutes in, it becomes a rock song, acting very deep, mysterious and a little bluesy as the bass kicks in.  I'm certain a million people have said this about one song or another, but I'm gonna take my turn: it's like being sucked into the Twilight Zone.  Literally.  I found myself hypnotically head-bopping to this, and it didn't even have an actual melody.  Afterwards, the kind of drone-rock you'd expect from a good Boris album lets the atmosphere take over as this hypnotic bluesy beat merges with a serene but harsh reverb with the intensity of a twister.  Halfway through it becomes a vocal harmonization lead by Jarboe with some deeper male vocals barely heard in the background holding a single not, keeping the atmosphere original through its hypnotic monotony.  But then it twists itself into a collection of electronic beeps that would make Plastic Neesound proud.  In other words, for the entire 40 minutes you're not sure what's gonna happen next, and one has to keep listening to know what.  It's almost as if the 43-minute track is mocking everything Swans did before, taking everything they've done and more and mishmashing it into something built for a lot of conversations on the internet.  Hell, wait until you get to the kid.

Now part of the reason Swans have lasted so long and been so well-received over the last 40 years is because they built themselves on new directions.  When one was tired, they'd switch to the next.  For the last five albums they've tackled dark post-rock, with the exception of Leaving Meaning, which was lighter and less weird.  It seems like this is a new, more hopeful direction for them.  It may not be as dark, and it might draw out sometimes, but it never stops being "magical."  I appreciate the new direction, and I'm guessing Leaving Meaning was a practice album for this.  The Beggar may turn out to be a predecessor to something timeless.  I could be wrong on that, but I'm behind this well-constructed new look on the 80's experimental band.  It's not QUITE cream of the crop Swans, but this is currently my number 1 of the year until I find something better.  And considering we get at least one perfectly made album a year IMO with so many coming out, that's very likely.

96/100.  In the same league with Curtis by Curtis Mayfield, Crimson by Edge of Sanity, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road by Lucinda Williams and RTJ3.

I ranked this as my third best DSO. amd IMO it's in the same league as PetroDragonic Apocalypse, A Hard Day's Night and No More Shall We Part.  This was the album were they really started getting closer to mastering their signature sound, so the 77 minute runtime IMO was totally necessary for their development to bigger and better things.

Swans - "The Great Annihilator" (1995)

High quality experimental post-punk & gothic rock from New York, USA.

Just heard this yesterday.  And I got a couple more albums before I head towards The Beggar.

I think it's more like Gizzard's take on thrash.

I've been hosting a war movies ballot on Movieforums for a couple months, so I've watched a lot of war movies in prep for it.

I'm curious, any interesting pre-20th century films on any of that stuff you watched? Like American Revolutionary War, Napoleonic War type stuff, since once you get further back from that it tends to just be historical dramas with some swordfighting thrown in (not that I wouldn't mind that) and later is generally just a western. I think of the the three that I can recall, The Patriot was best, though with the usual historical treatment of the English you come to expect from a Mel Gibson film, who apparently hates the English for some reason. I remember being disappointed in Barry Lyndon and John Paul Jones was dreadful thanks to Robert Stack's awful acting debasing a great American war hero.

Try all four of Russia's War and Peace movies from the 60's, as well as the Civil War movies Glory and Cold Mountain.  And a couple years ago, I saw the silent five-hour Napoleon biopic just to challenge myself.

King Gizzard and the Wizzard Lizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse (2023)

Genres: Prog Thrash Metal

Subs: Speed Metal, Stoner Metal, Psych Metal

Let's be honest: King Gizzard are a bunch of dorks, despite the quality of their music.  For years their clever usage of garage-rock and punkish monotony took the musical underground by storm.  two-hour long psychedelic albums would make this "projects" band comparable to The Grateful Dead, and they were one of those bands you only listened to if you were a "real" music buff.  And then they became a thrash metal band.  I was surprised with the good reception of Infest the Rats' nest, but I haven't gotten around to it just yet.  I figured the thrash thing would just be a gimmick rather than a serious new side of them.  And then PetroDragonic Apocalypse gets ALL the ladies  I may be a Christian, but I love album covers with giant dragon motherfuckers telling the world it's his bitch.  With reception on par with a classic-era thrash album or a Vektor album displayed on the internet, how could I refuse and stay true to myself?  I'm a thrash and prog fanatic, and I can't get enough of it because there ISN'T enough of it, at least not enough that's good.  So I put this on.

Son of a bitch.  That Motorhead influence TACKLED me.  The album is filled with repetitive but engaging progressive structures that leave the rest of the work to the charisma of the band harmonizing their vocals and jamming like hell.  Even when playing a melody properly, these guys KNOW HOW TO JAM.  And it isn't just because they've always been jammers due to their psych rock history, but they revive a side of metal that has been consistently overshadowed by the extremities of black and death as well as the surreal behavior of many modern acts like Oranssi Pazuzu, Krallice and Blut Aus Nord: the side of metal that jammed back in the days of 80's speed metal.  This made the album stand out among the rest of the metal crowd.  And because Gizzard also made sure to keep their fuzz factor in mind, this prog-thrash album also has stoner and sludgy undertones working with the Motorhead influence to further empower the jam factor.  Thus, the personality is usually more engaging than the actual progressive structures, which themselves offer only a few surprises and may not be so enjoyable without the KG vibe. There are even some trippier moments scattered around that heavily recall the psychedelic side without falling into the genre.  So the band is balancing out Motorhead, apocalyptic surreality, metallic jam factor and punk monotony all with their signature vibe fully intact.  That's pretty ingenious, and almost fully justifies the occasionally lacking proggy structures.  But get this: they saved the best for last.  The nine-minute Flamethrower shows all the best of the previously mentioned aspects in the roughest display of heaviness on the album with abnormal consistency.  It even includes the only actual psychedelic rock riff on the album, and it fits in no problem.

So maybe the individual tracks of PetroDragonic Apocalypse aren't the "best" thrash songs ever written, but they certainly are fun.  Any aspects that shouldn't be very surprising are made much more surprising because King Gizzard implemented their psychedelic garage essence and personality into the thrash genre so well that this album, while being a completely different genre, still remains a King Gizzard album.  The album didn't reach my lowest reasonable expectations.  It was a little higher, but not the masterpiece the internet made it out to be IMO.  But it seriously proves that Gizzard can pretty much do anything, assuming they aren't putting out six albums a year for the online rep.  I feel that thrash fans should listen to this potential modern classic, but you'll get more out of it if you're already familiar with a few classic garage or psychedelic King Gizzard albums.  This album represents one of the most effortless genre transitions I've ever seen out of hearing nearly 12,000 albums.  But if you really wanna know what a prog Motorhead sounds like, then listen to this as soon as you can.  King Gizzard have always been masters of monotony and personality through repetition, and their second thrash outing does their wacky catalog full justice.

92/100.

Haven't checked in for a while, so here's the catch-up on my slow-paced and boring autistic life.

I've been hosting a war movies ballot on Movieforums for a couple months, so I've watched a lot of war movies in prep for it.  Also checking out energy drinks once or twice a week with tip money to motivate me to exercise more.  When I'm not doing that, I've been working on various novels trying to force myself into the mood for any one to no avail.  Thankfully, studying my favorite show FMAB again helps me want to work on the sequel to my first book, especially since Nialoca is a very metal0influenced story and there are also a few new metal albums I need to check out this year by Twilight Force, Thy Catafalque, King Gizzard and even the horrific Total Eclipse, who I was hoping would release a hilarious travesty soon.  I'm mostly looking forward to the King Gizzard as some people say it's one of the best prog thrash albums ever.  Is there anything these guys can't do?

On that subject, the new Gloryhammer is nice but not great, Immortal's new album is unfortunately their worst, the new Lovebites rocks the shit hard, and no surprise, 72 Seasons is meh.

So yes, my TV time is now in break mode concerning war movies and is currently spent on FMAB.  Even then, it's not that much TV time a day, since it's gonna be difficult writing and watching the show at the same time.  I mean I can do it if I hyperfocus, but I'd rather not.  I'm also slowly creating a manual for the Nialoca universe so I don't contradict myself.  I've already got the ending of the series planned, anyway, so I have to be extra careful.  Apparently, Rowling wrote both the first and last HP's at the same time?  That kind of inspired me.  However, sales have been empty.  Thankfully, I've got an idea for next year that's bound to raise my popularity a little, but I'm remaining silent on the plot to everyone except my family and closest friends.

Oh, and the family got a new goat with the biggest fucking balls I've ever seen.  He's got three long black beards and looks like an evil wizard.  I'm afraid both ends will get caught on something.  His name is Flash, and I'm totally basing a character off of his in something.

Some of you may recall me mentioning that a record label called Sphere of Apparition was interested in mastering & re-releasing the two mid-1990's demo tapes from my old brutal death metal band Neuropath. Well, things have been progressing nicely since I last provided an update. The mastering has been completed & both tapes sound as good as it's possible to get them. The CD cover layout is almost finalized. Options for the front cover artwork are being explored at the moment too. I'd guess that the final release date will be some time in the middle of the year depending on how quickly we can get the cover art signed off. It'll be starting in a CD only format but there's potential to expand on that depending on demand. There may be t-shirts too. It's very exciting stuff for an ol' metalhead like myself.

I consider Metal Church's first 3 to be among the best USPM albums I've heard so far.  I also classify the first 3 as speed metal, but they fell out of the speed sound after that.