Rexorcist's Forum Replies

This week's GUARDIANS album:

Crimson Glory - Crimson Glory (1986)

Genres: US Power Metal

Votes: 4

Reason: Crimson Glory's most famous album, Transparency, has 6 votes already, so I figured I might as well bring this to the charts with its brother.

OK, the hint for the Guardians album coming tomorrow:

I got my pick.  Owwsla.  I'll review it later today on site and post it here when it's my turn.

OK, so I've given my Top 100 Metal Releases of All Time list a crack:

https://metal.academy/lists/single/227

THERE we go!  There's a definite love of the dark and grody here, and that love is shown through a lot of angels.  But the best part was finding some albums I've never heard of, like the Lucid Planet one.  It seems to have a little of almost everything, including a folk metal and a djent album.  And +1 for having a Merzbow collab up there.

I really love the variety and production here, as well as Lil Ugly Mane's various rapping tricks.  But I do have ONE problem with it so far: many of these songs aren't really changing or progressing despite the variety of the album as a whole.

Mechina - Cenotaph (2023)

Genres: Symphonic Metal, Cyber Metal

You know what I hate?  When people say they absolutely love a band that is writing the same song over and over and over again.  I mean, let's be honest.  Mechina are more samey than AC/DC.  So when I played this last Mechina album I needed before I completed another metal catalog, I knew what I was getting into.  This is another dull example of overly speedy drums working with synthy riffs and vocals going for a stronger "epic" vibe than the third Legend of Spyro game.  I saw those cutscenes, and this band might've been perfect for that.  And on top of that, almost every song is 7 minutes or more, and I'm including the six-minute-fifty song because I might as well.  Sure, it's well polished and very speedy.  But it gets to the point where you kind of realize that the only one displaying talent is the drummer.  The good stuff fluctuates and is often drowned in excess repetition, so this album may as well be strictly for Mechina fans.

57/100

Hah!  The last post was three years ago?  OK, I'm raising the activity here before things get any deader than they are.

Sybreed - Antreas (2014)

Genre: Cyber Metal

Cyber metal is probably the single metal genre most metalheads don't take seriously.  I've been through and started a fair share of cyber metal albums, and usually I don't find something that appealing.  It's a shame because I like the idea of spacey-industrial metal, but not enough people know how to take charge of it without falling into Periphery half-djent half-metalcore territory.  Maybe this is because one of the big bands that started the genre seems to take a few cues from them.

As for Antares, there is one compliment I'd like to start with: these guys are pretty good with atmospheres.  Even though their style is typical and their components are expected, their atmospheres and the vocals bring the album together pretty well.  This is especially true for the slower songs like Isolate.  But the best thing about this album is that, even though the components are expected for this kind of Periphery knockoff, there's some clear variety.  For example, there's the musical midtro of Revive My Wounds, which goes really deep into atmosphere, neoclassical synths and even a couple seconds of robotic vocals.  The extra variety is a good move to me; I had started Slave Design but I didn't finish it because it was quite samey.  There's also some clear melo or tech death mingled in with the melodic metalcore.  Of course, despite the variety, the emotional touch seems to have each song fluctuating between sadness and anger too often, another Periphery trait.  Eventually, it just becomes too much.  I mean, ending this overlong album with a nine-minute epic was a band move, considering it offers nothing really new to the album.

If I had to fault the album for anything besides the typical radio-metal components, I'd say that it's a little too noisy.  It's heavy most times, but at other times it feels needlessly noisy.  They should've gotten a producer like Andy Gill, who brought cleanliness to the sound (and as a result, griminess to the style) of Killing Joke 2003.  So while these guys have talent, they were clearly more worries about the reputation of the tropes rather than making a name for themselves alone.  So it's a cool album with many strengths that justify its flaws and tropes, but I would only really recommend this to people who like industrial music already.

85/100

Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You (2023)

Genres: Art Pop, Alt-Pop, Electronic

First, let me say that for a female-fronted alt-pop album, this is one of the COOLEST things I've ever listened to.  The whole album, even in its incredible variety, maintains a deep, soulful and hypnotic mood of chill like I've never heard before.  And this variety is carefully strutting like a smooth criminal all over the pop world with both acoustic and electronic genres carefully working together and taking turns in the focal points.  It's like Lorde overdosed on Portishead and got a member of Celtic Woman to sing it.  Just listen to Crude Drawing of an Angel.  There's a Lynchian vibe about it that just captivates the listener.  This lady obviously listened to Julee Cruise and Enya, and the influence did its job.  The album even has a couple worldbeat touches scattered throughout, as we have faint African undertones and even a flamenco song. 

As an example of the cool vibe, let me point out which, might surprisingly, even be one of the worse songs on the album (and that's a hard thing to judge).  Bunny Is a Rider is all about that unique and quirky percussion, justifying the lack of real instrumental melody in a rare and clever way that never gets in the way of its effortlessly and overpoweringly "cool girl" mood.  That percussion and the backing effects work together perfectly to bring me the surprises and consistency I demand.  Of course, before anything, this "pop" album is largely an atmosphere album.  This is proven by what may be the single worst track on the album, although its merits are five-star strong: Fly to You.  The instruments have no melody, and rely on reverb and Polachek's vocals to drive it.  However, I won't judge Fly to You as a blotch on the album, as its strong points are very strong, and we've had our share of melody-based songs and a percussion-focused track already.  Besides, immediately after this song is one of the best tracks: Blood and Butter, a folktronica song with both melody and great percussion tricks.

One more thing I have to mention is that Polachek is a vocal genius.  Her deep, new age voice can go into impressively high territory, and she really knows how to carry her voice in an atmospheric and lightly operatic way.  There are backing vocals that work very well with her, but she still manages to outshine them all.  Although it must be noted that her vocals tend to take over a lot, but I think that's actually fine considering that, while I would normally be bothered by that, the mood, instrumentation and atmosphere are made incredible because of her perfect voice.  In fact, one would say that because of the handling of these elements, the album is extremely unique despite its pop and electronic genres that it tweaks and rearranges so often.

So this is an album that may be really hard to get into, like Kid A for the best example I can think of, but I think it's totally worth it.  This album gives me everything I ask for in an album, variety, consistency and new tricks, while justifying elements that would likely be flaws if someone else had attempted it.  This is like Portishead meets Radiohead meets Enya, except this one album beats them all, and I hold all three in high regard.  One must remember that the vocals are considered an instrument this time, as well as the auto-tune, and are leading the melody with the instruments, even when percussion is the main focus of the instruments.  This is an album I will return to with no questions asked.  It's some of the most fun I've ever had with the surreal side of music, especially with pop.  It took more than half of the year, and I avoided alt-pop for reasons pertaining to awareness of alt-pop's radio-friendly reliance, but I dived into it again and I finally found my "perfect" album for the year.  It's my firm belief that with so many albums out every year, at least one of them has to be perfect, or at least there has to be at least one that I can consider perfect.  This is it.

10/10.

To clarify our position on that, technical death metal isn’t a Metal Academy genre. It’s a subgenre of death metal in the same way that dissonant death metal is. It’s our belief that dissonant death metal doesn’t necessarily have to be technical & vice versa so have made them seperate tags in their own right. It’s also worth noting that we’re not led by RYM when making decisions on our genre-tagging structure. We prefer to run our own race.

I figured all of that out.  Why else would you have the halls?  That's why I also made the Ulcerate comparison, as it's the only album in my ten that doesn't have both the dissonant and tech tags.  I won't immediately know all the tiny differences and similarities to RYM, so it would help if we had a genre tree.

I've heard everything on the above list except for that number one. I'll make room for that today and/or tomorrow.  Lovin the RYM genre tags.

I just went through my top ten tech death albums.

1. Death - The Sound of Perserverance (my number one death metal album in general)

2. Death - Human

3. Gorguts - Colored Sands

4. Suffocation - Human Waste

5. Athiest - Unquestionable Presence

6. Death - Symbolic

7. Suffocation - Pierced from Within

8. Ulcerate - Stare Into Death and be Still

9. Gorguts - Obscura

10. Cryptopsy - None So Vile

I'll go with you on both accounts.  I mean, there are plenty of albums that I think need the speed metal tag after RYM went through some weirdass cleansing of supposedly mistagged albums, but they made some mistakes, like taking the tag off Rust in Peace while keeping it on its live counterpart.  This is one of those albums I think should be re-evaluated in the tagging department.  Honestly, if we're going into other primaries, the closest we'd have would likely be either power metal or US power metal, and I don't really think it fully fits those bills.

Marty Friedman - Dragon's Kiss (1988)

Fun fact: This is the album that convinced Megadeth to hire him.  And it worked out.

Other fun fact: At the day of writing this review, the album turns 35.

So it should be noted that, first and foremost, this is a “riffs” album, one where that's the primary focus, much like Yngwie Malmsteen's debut, Rising Force.  Malmsteen made a smart decision to make his songs more radio friendly so that the heavy metal can compliment the classical riffs and vise-versa.  And as a result, we have a lot of “riff” albums with no other purpose in life, which is reflected in that music.  But with Friedman's debut, the rest of the band is there to compliment his riffs.  The drums are heavy and they carry the various vibes of Friedman's riffs perfectly.  I mean, just listen to the work done on Anvils.  Half of that track is the drum job and not Friedman's finger duties.

I mean, sure, there are some weaker songs that are mostly there for some cool solos, like Dragon's Kiss, or Namida's Kiss which didn't live up to its full potential as a magical folksy midtro, but there are also some interesting unpredictable compositions here.  There's a weird mysticism that goes into the intro of Evil Thrill before we're kicked off into a ferocious speed metal tune.  Even though the production needs some improvement, you hear what's going on just fine, and lemme tell you: the flawed production gives us enough of that atmos and reverb to make out everything just fine.  The drums are loud and hard, the guitar and bass work together well, and the riffs are monstrous.

Unfortunately, he needs some work on softer tracks.  The first half of Jewel, for example, is kinda boring.  But the proggy magic happens once the tone picks up.  And I love soft music as much as metal, being a huge Paul Simon fan.  So it's very clear that not every song will be a five-star.  Thankfully, the softer intro of the eight-minute prog epic Forbidden City has a good intro that builds up to the neoclassical parts.  And I was flat-out blown away by this epic.  Thunder March is a weird case.  It has both guitars making fine rhythms, but they're not molded well due to the production.  Also, the drums aren't quite as heavy as they should be for this marching example of "epica."

I have a little of a personal touch with this album, but I;m not gonna let that alter my rating.  Basically, what I want to say is simple: it's obvious that this album's guitar tone and melodies had a major say in the soundtrack to F-Zero GX, and its Guitar Arrange version.  Of course, that also makes it easy to compare this album, despite being a different type of metal.  This is a fine example of the genre-bending balance that a great metal album needs, and handles that aspect perfectly.  Unfortunately, a few songs need some re-evaluations in the compositions department, but there are a few 9's and 10's on this album and I'd easily recommend it for the effort and the historical relevancy.

91/100

Today's GATEWAY album:

Primus - Suck On This (1989)

Genres: Funk Metal, Alt-Rock, Alt-Metal

Votes: 2

Reason: Primus is a pretty big name band.  So for their cult-classic debut to only have 2 votes on what may one day become one of the world's most relevant metal databases feels just wrong.  These guys practically reinvented funk.

Review: Funk metal isn't a genre I take that seriously.  Most of it is just a bunch of dorks mindlessly ambling on either "cool" or "experimental" music without really taking the time to appreciate the music.  Thankfully, Primus keeps their weirdness more palatable without diving too far into either side of the funk metal spectrum.  They're just cool and experimental enough for their personalities to do the rest of the work, and that was clear from their live debut album.

Now I've heard this album once before, and at the time I gave it a 94/100.  So it was damn close to a five-stars.  Will it hold up?

The first thing I noticed was that the production is WAY better than a live debut album by a bunch of experimental dorks had any right to be.  It wasn't "perfect," as the sound quality is just slightly fuzzy.  But you can hear everything clearly.  So when we get into the really wild stuff, like the funk and riff-heavy Groundhog's Day, we're pretty much getting more than what we paid for.  They made it perfectly clear that, even though they're a bunch of comedians, they know how to jam and groove.  That bass of Claypool's is perfect for the weird rock and metal being played.  You can feel the Bootsy love.  But the best thing about it is how well the crazy but controlled drums carry the funky  and noisyriffs.  Never let it be said that Herb can't drum.

Even though they're a wacko band, they also have some deep, surreal and psychedelic vibes, like the middle section of Pressman.  Who would've thought comedic experimental funk metal could get so hypnotic and aural?  And this is right before that Sabbathy doom solo on the same song.  Pressman might be my favorite song on the album just for that.  After that, the album gets easier to let yourself just go with the flow.  I came to realize that the band is kind of mocking the weirdness of funk, likely with the band's whiteness.  But it works.

Anyway, I gotta say, even though I don't know if I can take the music seriously enough to give it five stars, I think that 94/100 rating I gave it before was pretty accurate.  Maybe my biggest concern is that they didn't really change their pace or sound as often as I would've liked, but they kept it fun.  I mean, seriously.  This is a VERY fun album.  You just kick back and let the weirdness do all the talking, jamming out like you're listening to a Ramones album.  Although it's not QUITE as original as I remember, I still recommend it.

92/100

Of course, if you need me to, I'll get through them all and review them.  I've already completed one Guardians list challenge so 'm not suggesting this because need to do another Guardians list to get my fourth clan, but I would like to be the first to complete this list if we do this.

Given I haven't heard a single release on the list, I'm not sure I'm qualified to judge whether or not it would make a good clan challenge.

I took them from the RYM too charts.  I also made sure I had the more popular albums by each act not already present in a list challenge.  Personally, I prefer Marching Out to Rising Force, but the latter is more historical.  Cacophony is a Mart Friedman band and Michael Romeo is from Symphony X.  But since it's such a niche genre, we don't need three or four era-based challenges.  Although, lists for more specific brands could be cool for Metal Academy.  Imagine dissonant death metal, war metal and djent lists.

Marty Friedman's debut, Dragon's Kiss, turns 35 tomorrow.  Gonna play that.

Solid list, Rex! This might be great for a possible neoclassical metal Guardians clan challenge. What do you think, Ben?

Thanks a bunch!  Although I don't know if it's the kind of list we need here; too many obscurities.  Of course, it IS a pretty niche genre.  I mostly made it for fun, but if by some chance it gets uploaded, awesome.

I made a couple adjustments to this.  I wasn't all that proud of my last neoclassical challenge list, but I think this one feels more appropriate since it has a couple more popular albums than the last two of the previous edition, and it includes Michael Romeo's solo career debut.

1. Symphony X – Twilight in Olympus

2. Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force – Rising Force

3. Marty Friedman – Dragon's Kiss

4. Royal Hunt - Paradox

5. Galneryus – Under the Force of Courage

6. Vinnie Moore – Mind's Eye

7. Iron Mask – Hordes of the Brave

8. Magic Kingdom – Symphony of War

9. Space Odyssey – Embrace the Galaxy

10. Tony MacAlpine – Maximum Security

11. Concerto Moon – Rain Forest

12. Jason Becker – Perpetual Burn

13. Michael Romeo - The Dark Chapter

13. Narnia - Awakening

14. Cacaphony – Speed Metal Symphony

15. Ring of Fire – The Oracle

16. Evil Masquerade – Welcome to the Show

17. Exmortus – Ride Forth

18. Impellitteeri – Stand in Line

19. Time Requiem – Time Requiem

20. Apocrypha – The Forgotten Scroll

21. Warmen – Beyond Abilities

22. Joey Trafolla – Out of the Sun

23. Majestic – Trinity Overture

24. Wolf Hoffman – Classical

25. Patrick Rondat - Amphibia

My favorite last time I listened to it is Hell - Curse and Chapter, while something that reflects more of what I listen to is Doom - Human Noise. Well-crafted technical, often veering into controlled chaos is more my forte than something that's just a perfectly crafted album of metal.

Different Hell than the one I've heard.  Classic heavy metal from the modern day is always welcome.

George Clanton - Ooh I Rap Ya

It's supposed to be the internet's hottest album for the time being.  But even though that Animal Collective-esque vibe is as pretty as a jewelry shop, I can't fully get past the decision to give all these songs very similar tempos.  It has a plethora of atmospheric strengths, cleverly using its various sound effects and melodies to maximum effect, but on the 0-10 scale, this one flaw keeps it from being perfect.  We'll see how it goes once I finish it.

Accidentally deleted this when I tried to edit it, so posting it again :P

Here's a hint for the next Gateway album.

What I wanted to say in editing it was, even if you guess right, I won't reveal the correct guess until Tuesday.

I've been on an industrial kick today.  I went back and reevaluated a couple of industrial metal albums just to check my views, and even heard Mutter for the first time.  Currently listing to a pretty heavy and atmospheric cyber metal / EDM album that's kind of replicating my feelings towards variety, but the genre listing looks both consistent and outlandish at the same time:

Internet Protocol by Master Boot Record

Primaries: Synthwave, Cyber Metal, Darksynth

Secondaries: Chiptune, Industrial Metal, Neoclassical Metal

I also notice hints of thrash and djent, and there's definitely a Malmsteen vibe.  Synthwave is kinda iffy for me, and so is cyber metal, so I'm hoping the rest lives up to the hype (and stays diversified).

Slayer's "Reign In Blood" is my favourite metal album of all time but the release that best reflects my taste & preferences is Suffocation's "Pierced From Within" as I've always been most inclined towards the more brutal end of death metal & it simply doesn't come more professionally executed than that record. I'm generally more inclined towards death metal vocals where you can actually understand what they're saying & Frank Mullen makes the adjustment towards greater intelligibility on that particular release too.

I actually feel that the better record is Pierced from Within.  It stays create and heavy through a longer runtime while a couple songs from Reign in Blood, while perfectly played, feel the same.  That's why my favorite Slayer is South of Heaven, and excellent bridge between the heavier and slightly less creative Reign in Blood to the more creative but slightly less heavy Seasons in the Abyss.  Of course, I feel that South of Heaven has greater creative prowess than Pierced from Within, which is also about on par with Seasons in the Abyss. 

I kinda hated David Wayne's singing on Masterpeace.  On the subject of USPM, how come Mark Shelton decided to let his softer side handle most of Crystal Logic?  It really didn't fit.

Good.  I need this.

EDIT: Are you sure it's possible?  I can't seem to.

I just took an inventory of my djent ratings by composing a private list of top djent.  It's kinda shitty.  I only finished albums by a handful of bands and many of the albums by the same bands came up.  There's only 20 that ended up being at least 3.5 stars. So if anyone has any djent recommendation, please PM me.

I like very diverse albums.  No Meshuggah or Sithu Aye, though.  I'm familiar enough with them,.

Well, it worked perfectly for my Meshuggah review.

https://metal.academy/reviews/26159/2600

If that doesn't work, can you try cutting the text and pasting it into Notepad and then copying and pasting it back into the review, then pressing Save? I know that's an unwieldy solution, but it will just help me understand what's happening.

I've done that before and it works. You think that will work for you, Rex?

Read the above post.

I've done it a few times over the years and seems to work for me. So to be clear, you've tried highlighting all text in the review, clicking Remove Font Style, and then pressing Save?

If that doesn't work, can you try cutting the text and pasting it into Notepad and then copying and pasting it back into the review, then pressing Save? I know that's an unwieldy solution, but it will just help me understand what's happening.

From what I can tell, this problem occurs sometimes when people copy and paste reviews from somewhere else (such as from RYM), not when the review is written directly into the review box. Whenever I paste anything into Metal Academy, I make sure to use Paste as plain text.

It's amazing you suggested that second method, because both of those a while ago.  And the scary thing is that I didn't post it from anywhere else, I wrote it right there.  It's probably some weird glitch.

I'm about to write a review for reevaluating Destroy Erase Improve, so I'll let you know if it does the same thing.

It's not working.

OK, then I'll rephrase it: Anthrax, the band that wishes they were as drunk as Metallica.

But yeah, Anthrax might be good, but they're kinda posers just capitalizing on the cooler side of the California rock scene without fully grasping what made thrash cool.

I'm gonna see what the buzz about Pentatonix is about.  Anthony Vincent uses them in his Ten Second Songs a lot.  I started with the first hristmas album, and was completely taken by surprise by the appearance of that Fleet Foxes cover.

Anyway, so far it's just a cheesy a capella album.

Mustaine would traditionally already have been smashed before he even arrived.

And the rest of the band? :P

Really interesting list. My top 100 would be way less diverse than this one, that's for sure! I can see a number that would likely make mine though, including Metallica, Arcturus, Suffocation, Opeth, Death, Blut Aus Nord, Emperor, Iron Maiden and My Dying Bride.

You know, now that you mention it, I really do want to see what your top 100's look like.  A top 100 says a lot about a person, and they're a lot of fun to look through.  Now you've got that 80's death metal list and that early black metal list.

I'm in the process of trying to figure this out. I've listened to around 80 of the biggest death, thrash, black and doom releases in recent months, and have them all rated and ranked. I'll continue with those genres for a while before adding others that I enjoy, such as progressive, industrial, gothic and heavy. I'm afraid it's going to be a while before I have something to show for it, but I'm enjoying the process.

I actually keep a log of every album I've ever heard ranked from best to worst.  I don't expect you to do THAT, but a couple notes every now and then about things you're absolutely certain about will help a lot.  Because the more thought you put into a big project earlier on, the quicker you can think about it and make decisions later.  Or so I keep hearing.

Really interesting list. My top 100 would be way less diverse than this one, that's for sure! I can see a number that would likely make mine though, including Metallica, Arcturus, Suffocation, Opeth, Death, Blut Aus Nord, Emperor, Iron Maiden and My Dying Bride.

You know, now that you mention it, I really do want to see what your top 100's look like.  A top 100 says a lot about a person, and they're a lot of fun to look through.  Now you've got that 80's death metal list and that early black metal list.

Here's a new one: my top 100 power metal albums.  I wanted that to be the first genre chart I put up here for my first clan choice: the Guardians.

Can you please add the Czech power metal band Steelfaith, Japanese band Marchen Station, Spanish band Third Dimension and (you're gonna hate me for this one) Ron Wasserman, a member of Fisher who does his own original works as well as... a certain TV soundtrack.

Thanks, guys!  It's got a few updates from when I last posted it anywhere, notably the switch from Seasons in the Abyss to South of Heaven being my favorite Slayer album.  Still, the variety here is nothing compared to my top 100 albums ever.

I'm gonna be working on some genre charts.  I might even work on a bottom 100 metal albums list :P.

Can you please add the following:

Scorpions: Tokyo Tapes

Scorpions: World Wide Live

Sweet updates.  The clan cover ratings chart must look very different.

Rex, you can make that address into a link by using the LINK button when posting (hint: it looks like a chain link). Interesting list by the way. Nice variety.

Fixed.  Thanks for the comment and the info.

I took the liberty of composing a list of choices for each week for the whole year, categorized by clan, obviously.  Suffice it to say, I have next week's Gateway album already planned out.

My top 100 metal albums

I think Anthrax is more worried about being a "metal" band than a "thrash" band.  Thrash was the "cool" thing, but they took to it from a pretty radio-oriented perspective more often than the others in the Big 3 did.  As a result, they sometimes miss the point of what made thrash metal so special.  It wasn't just the extremities, it was the steps forward.  While Anthrax have done cool stuff, they haven't usually reached the introspective behavior of songs like "Holy Wars" or "For Whom the Bell Tolls."  Basically, Anthrax is the most likely of the four to get drunk first if they were all at a bar.  They may have before, but nowhere near as much as the other big names in the scene.  Of course, it was wiser for them to choose thrash metal instead of speed, which might've been more appropriate for their personality.

Thanks a million for adding those Killing Joke albums!  At somepoint I'll add the ones I tagged for Halls, but we have too many now so I'll use what I can for lists.  This helps more that you know.

This week's FALLEN album:

Hell - Hell (a.k.a. Hell IV) (2017)

Genres: Sludge, Doom

Votes: 1

https://metal.academy/releases/9984

Reason: This was a pretty difficult choice.  But I came to this conclusion when I saw some great ratings for MSW's Oblivion.  Before operating under that name, he was "Hell."  He made a series of concept albums pertaining to being trapped in hell.  This is the fourth of the series, as I had already rated the first three, but I also hear that this album is a good and less challenging album for those uninitiated in his combination of sludge, drone and doom (aka, perfect Fallen material).

Review: When I listen to a Hell album, I expect something soul-crushing.  I will not settle for anything less, not after thejobs Hell II and III did to me.  I gave both of those albums five stars for the way they improved on the imaginative but flawed debut.  I've been meaning to finish up the Hell / MSW catalogue for a while now, and reviewing is the best way I can think of to spread the word about this brilliant act.  I had full faith in Hell IV to deliver the atmospheric goods, and it didn't let me down.

Now the digital bandcamp release takes the outro, "Seelenlos," and makes it the intro by putting it at the start of the album.  So depending on which version you'd like, be careful. the spoken word post-rock is a pretty standard but nice intro / outro track that either puts the listener at a calm at the end of the album, or one that's that's obviously going to build up into that soul crushing power, playing to a weird avant-garde poem with some odd and intriguing imagery to it.   I listened to the album with the song at the start, and then decided to play it again at the end so that I could absorb both effects.

The album rarely takes part in the same drone metal that was the major focus of the first two hell albums.  The soul is crushed very quickly by the brutal heaviness of "Helmzmen," which seems to incorporate the slightest hint of Sabbath in the melodies while MSW uses weird effects to make either him or his guitar (I can't even tell sometimes) sound like a literal fucking demon.  I gotta get myself that voice box :P.  We get slight variations of this pattern throughout the whole album.  I found myself patiently waiting for the next demonic growl, squeal, screech or whisper to echo through the canyons, and thought it was just the COOLEST thing when they vocal effects morphed into powerful wind-style effects at the end of SubOdin.  Beautiful combination of tech and imagery there.  But the raw power of the album really emerges with the brutal and loud "Machitikos", which takes the percussions up a heavier notch while multiple guitars chug to an excessively eerie and heavy chugging riff before we get a freaky black metal guitar solo turning the album from a standard doom album into a METAL album for a short time.  Next we have a kind of stoner track building up atmosphere through weird voice samples being overpowered by Sabbath and Saint Vitus style riffs: WanderingSoul.  Basically, this is the track for the metal fan rather than the atmos fan, although it still has a decent atmos to it.  Then we have something more on the drone side with "Inscriptus," which is all about the dark atmosphere.  The rhythm is a little more complex that most of what we've had before, and the fear factor on this track is pretty high.  I'd say this is the track with the most creativity thus far.  The album ends with the twelve-minute epic, "Victus."  This is where everything comes together for a complete breakdown of all the types of styles that the album wrought upon the ears of the listener, especially when the black metal riffs merge with the windy storm effects and the death metal growls, the very combo that proves that this is a Hell album.  Afterwards it gives the listener a very slow and symphonic midtro that calms us down with depression after such a heavy wave of evil had been beaten upon the listener's head for the last 40 minutes, before bring us back to the despair of doom basses and black guitars.

Most of the crush factor is performed by the guitars and bass.  MSW made a point of bragging about the bass on his Bandcamp, talking about how "disgustingly awesome" they are.  I'd say MSW earned his bragging rights, because the filth level here would make some of the dirtiest sludge bands on earth jealous.  This is filthier than Melvins ever got, and I expect nothing less from Hell.  I wish the percussions were a bit harder-hitting, and they felt a bit like the weakest point of the album.  On top of that, I didn't get the full sense of variety that made numbers II and III so good.  But at the same time, while the album was soul-crushing, it was never too much or too challenging, because the two main focal points of the album were atmospheres and riffs.  This was less about drawing out the fear factor and the concept and more about using the music as a more accessible way to get into the concept of the series.  I can get behind that.  As such, I can also get behind the notion that this is the more accessible of the four albums, and is also a good intro for the four-album series.  I honestly recommend this as the starting point for Hell, as I and II might be a little more challenging due to their usage of length as an atmospheric tool.  I can also appreciate the lessened usage of post-rock, which made Hell III feel like a sadness album as often as a fear album, but also seemed like the very thing Hell III needed to separate itself from the first two albums and wasn't necessarily needed here.

The whole Hell catalogue can be found on MSW's bandcamp page, and I recommend you get through all of them.  I don't care if you decide to go through them chronologially or not, because you really don't need to, even though that's what I did.  But I still recommend you get through the least challenging album first, and to me that's Hell IV.  This lived up to the atmospheric factor as well as I could've hoped for, and because of that alone it will stand with the other Hell albums as modern classics, even if its stronger sludge and doom sounds might not attrack the gothic, black and death fans that II and III could.  The writing might not be as clever, but the power is still there in full force.  I'd even go as far as to say that, as an album, it's better than the debut.

83/100.

Alright, then I'll start the thread in the general chat.  One album a week.  And I'll switch between clans to keep it nice and even.  But the only problem I have is people misinterpreting things and twisting my words without even realizing it.  That was the only problem I've had.  It caused a lot of problems for me before.

I'm third.