Tymell's Forum Replies
Going through and rating album covers is making me realise how much I dislike photos of the band as the cover. With rare exceptions it almost always looks either silly, boring or cringe-inducing (or some combination of them).
Oh you mad bastard, now I have to go and rate all 1580 releases again. Possibly more. On an entirely new element. I love it.
I have already started cover rating but I've encountered a bit of a dilemma. I began intending to rate covers purely on aesthetic appeal (to me). Now I'm not sure if that's what you intended when you introduced the feature. For example, do you think a cover should be rated highly if it is particularly appropriate to the atmosphere or aesthetic of the music, despite not being a great piece of "art"? I'm thinking here of genres like black metal with some very simple b&w covers that aren't necessarily great artistically, but really convey the music's ethos well (early Darkthrone albums for example) and the more shocking death metal related covers that I don't appreciate at all artistically but, again, very successfully convey the music's brutality. By extension is it valid to rate the cover of an album you have never listened to?
I guess ultimately it comes down to whether you consider an album's cover a piece of art, or a piece of packaging. Speaking for myseIf, I don't know much about art (or music), but I do know what I like - and what I don't!
Personally, I'm intending to apply the same sort of standard as I do when rating the music itself, which is basically just on how much it appeals to me. There might be pieces of music that are very well crafted on a technical level, but just don't do anything for me for whatever reason, and there might be pieces that aren't especially impressive or creative, but just work so well. I think the same applies to the art.
I started listening to Onslaught's new album, Generation Antichrist, yesterday, and so far I'm feeling distressingly underwhelmed by it.
I love Onslaught: The Force is an underknown 80s gem, Killing Peace was one of the albums that got me into the whole thrash revival of the mid-late 2000s, and 2013's VI quickly became one of my absolute favourites of that year, or thrash of the last decade period. I couldn't stop listening to the new song "A Perfect Day to Die" when it was released. I was pumped.
Then the news came out that Sy Keeler had left the band, and that was certainly a blow, as I feel he's an outstanding thrash vocalist. Still, he certainly wasn't the only thing I'd liked about them before, so I determined to wait and see.
Then the whole album hits and it's just...not there. Missing Keeler's vocals is a part of it, sure, he was fantastic, but credit where it's due, new singer David Garnett has some good variety in his delivery, and can't be accused of simply trying to copy his predecessor. I don't want to sound like I'm just shitting on him, even if I prefer Keeler.
No, I think my problems go beyond that. For one thing, the mix feels lacking, it sounds somewhat muted and muffled. I listened to a bit of Generation Antichrist, then VI, and the contrast in sound quality is noticeable. There's a huge energy and ferocity in VI that just isn't there now. The same applies if I listen to the original version of "Perfect Day" back-to-back with the new one. A certain feeling of bite and weight is missing.
Though that might also be due to a shift in style as much as production. It feels like Onslaught are straying towards more of a groove or even metalcore-influenced sound, as we heard a bit of in Sounds of Violence. I'm not suggesting they've suddenly turned into a completely different band or anything, it's still thrash metal overall, but I definitely hear elements more akin to Lamb of God or recent Prong albums in the mixture.
I love Reise Reise. I know for a lot of people Sehnsucht or Mutter is the definitive Rammstein album, and I certainly like both of those (I listened to Mutter a lot in my late school years), but RR is pretty much a perfect Rammstein album for me. You've got big stomping energy mixed with shockingly catchy rhytms, tongue-in-cheek silliness and satire alongside unsettling moments , and even a genuinely moving piece in "Ohne Dich". There's hardly a single track here that I feel is under-developed or tend to skip.
I like that, I like it a lot.
I'm absolutely a physical collector. I just find having racks and racks of CDs on my wall satisfying, plus it means I've always got a back-up (and I can rip them in whichever quality I want).
I did a lot of downloading back in the day, but for years I've been working to convert that into a physical collection, and I'm gradually getting there (I still usually try out albums digitally first, e.g. via youtube, but if I like it, it goes on the list). Currently I have 790 CDs physically and 282 still to track down physical copies of.
Every so often I'll visit local stores and browse the metal sections, seeing if I can find anything I need for that, and I love visiting CD stores in other cities whenever I travel.
An interesting thing to read about!
For me personally, track order doesn't have much of an impact. While I do listen to whole albums, I often have it set to shuffle anyway. Though if I'm paying close attention, it can be interesting to notice patterns, like the best songs being at the start or end, etc. But I can't say it influences my opinion of the album that I'm aware of.
I'd like to request Ignea's latest release be added please, The Realms of Fire and Death (brought up here as prog metal is the highest voted genre on there currently).
I'd like to request the following:
Wolftooth
Embr
Chasing Ghosts
Jupiterian
Bleeding Eyes
Apologies for my absence for so long, hope to be able to get back to this site a bit more now.
And here I am with more requests for you Ben! I'd like to request:
Greyhawk
Stargazery
Satan's Hallow
Gomorra (MA link as the Gomorra I'm after aren't on RYM - https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Gomorra/3540468314 )
Also, I think I might've asked about this one before, apologies if I missed a reply: is there a reason why Epica's The Classical Conspiracy isn't on here?
Cheers Daniel, some solid thrash there, very old school.
An utterly amazing 37 minute single-track ambient sludge/doom metal excursion from this Washington-based grindcore outift.
I keep meaning to listen to this one: I'm not a big grindcore fan, so I don't normally go for Pig Destroyer, but this one always sounds fascinating to me.
And RIP Pete Steele indeed! I think that was the first Type O song I ever heard, while out drinking at a club at University.
A tricky one for me, I really like both records, and it partly depends on what mood I'm in. I find Brave Murder Day is more for when I want something to sink into, something truly morose and dreary. October Rust is more "fun" (as fun as it can be given its style), and also delightfully sexy for a metal record...
Anywho, overall I give it to October Rust, but it's a close one.
Brave Murder Day - 1
October Rust - 2
Hi Ben, I'd like to request Macbeth (Germany) to be added to The Pit.
I have to give it to Rising. Sad Wings is great, but Rising is just pure quality for me, every track on there is a winner.
Rising 2 - Sad Wings of Destiny 0
I'll cast another vote for Dirt. Angel Dust is an interesting album, but it never really clicked with me. But Stayley's great vocals and Cantrell's outstanding riff-smithing work wonderfully together.
Dirt 2 - Angel Dust 1
Thanks so much for working through all those I requested Ben, you're a legend!
Time for a bit of rec'ing!
I strongly recommend Khemmis to any fellow fans of classic doom style, very old-school, very dominated by deep, rumbling riffage:
Time for a bit of rec'ing!
For fellow Guardians, I've been really enjoying Brothers of Metal lately. I got to review (a re-release of) their first album a little while back, loved it, and they've just put their 2nd out with much the same style, power metal that hovers on that tongue-in-cheek line:
Thanks Ben, much appreciated!
I thought that might be the case, but none of their releases meet the criteria for Metal Academy. It's all Experimental Rock. The Black Flux is the only album with a Black Metal primary, but the votes are 27 yes, 24 no.
While I've got you, I've had failed attempts to add Let 'em Burn, Man.Machine.Industry and Toby Knapp. Let 'em Burn appear to have only released two demos to date, while the other two bands have albums with zero genre votes on RYM. Unless you can confidently tell me what genres to attach to each of their releases, I might sit on those until there's more uptake.
Aha, no worries, I didn't know Virus were so heavily voted for experimental rock. Never mind!
Eh, probably best to leave the others for now then. I got one of Let 'em Burn's demos years back, and the others I just got sent one album each to review, so I certainly couldn't peg all their releases. No biggie.
Hi Ben,
Sorry, I should've been more clear: on the previous page, the Virus I was requesting was the avant-garde metal band from Norway.
I've been thinking of revisiting it lately too. I think my ratings of that (and maybe Terror Squad too) were a bit influenced by others at the time.
Cheers for the rec! I think my screenshot cut off at a bad point, but I have actually listened to and rated (and enjoyed) most of MDB's stuff, I love 'em! Looking forward muchly to Ghost of Orion! Never actually tried As the Flower Withers though, so I might get round to that one sometime.
As to the vote, hey, it's ultimately your call what you go for, if you feel more strongly about the Fallen then go for it.
Screenshot of what I'm seeing.
Here's another example of Alestorm f***ing things up with an anchor, this time an actual song. Now THIS is awful as f***! And it's not just because of the excessive swearing....
Personally I love that one, it's the only song from their last album I really enjoyed :p
Hi Ben, I'd like to request Owl Maker (USA) and Toby Knapp (USA). Owl Maker doesn't have a page on RYM right now I believe, though if it's of use they do have a metal-archives page below:
Hi Ben, when you have a chance could you please add Sekhmet (UK) and Let 'em Burn (UK)?
I'd also like to request Lumberhead (Germany) and Lonescar (USA), but currently neither are on RYM. If it's any help, both have metal-archives pages below:
Hi Ben, when you have a chance could you please add Thoren (USA)?
I'd also like to request Blutfeld (Sweden), Casket Feeder (UK) and Khiral (Finland), but at this time I believe they don't exist on RYM. If it's any help, they have metal-archive pages below:
https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Blutfeld/3540452868
https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Casket_Feeder/3540422669
Hi Ben, when you have a chance could you please add Famous Last Words (USA)?
Hi Ben, when you have a chance could you please add Deathkings (USA) and Nomad (UK), as well as Novembers Doom's 2019 album Nephilim Grove?
Also, My Dying Bride's page shows 2 entries for 1995's The Angel and the Dark River. Possible error?
I think ultimately it's something up to every individual, but since you're specifically asking for input, I'd probably lean away from The Pit. You seem to have far fewer releases rated for that, and a lot of what you do have has overlap with other clans anyway.
Just going on the numbers, Guardians definitely has the most in your collection, so I guess my vote is for that, though I could certainly see The Fallen instead if you feel more strongly about that.
The Fallen - 0
The Guardians - 2
The Pit - 0
I suppose, given the purpose of the clans, it also depends on what you feel more confidently about, since the idea is to have your clan votes be those you're most knowledgeable about. Usually that's going to be whatever you have most votes in, but it doesn't always have to be. So if there's one where you just feel like you know it better, that could be the one.
My system, which I originally wrote when I first joined RYM, and have generally stuck to since, is:
5 stars = Legendary. An absolute classic, a true pinnacle of its respective style, it has me enthralled from start to finish. I'll return to it over and over, and keep on finding more to appreciate.
4.5 stars = Brilliant. More or less succeeds perfectly, only lacking in that extra special something to make it truly legendary.
4 stars = Good. A good, solid album. The odd problem/duff track, but only to be expected. Really enjoyable all round, well worth a go.
3.5 stars = Decent. Has some issues holding it back, with the flaws being bigger/more apparent than a 4-star. Still decent and worthwhile if you're a fan of the band/genre, but there are better.
3 stars = Mediocre. Has its moments and good songs, but I have little desire to go back to it. Ultimately forgettable, being neither particularly good nor bad.
2.5 stars = Weak. The crap starting to outweigh the good now, serves little real purpose. Has some nice points here and there, but plenty of rubbish too.
2 stars = Poor. Maybe a handful of good moments/aspects in the whole thing. A definite let-down from any reasonable band.
1.5 stars = Terrible. Hardly any saving graces. Even if it isn't genuinely offensive there's nothing of real worth either.
1 star = Crap. A terrible excuse for an album which I had to force myself to get through. Worthless.
0.5 stars = Atrocious. An insult to music, barely even qualifies as listenable. Something has to be fundamentally wrong with the artist or this particular attempt to warrant this score.
Key points for me are that the 5 and 0.5 scores are for special cases. A 4.5 from me basically has nothing wrong with it (and a 1.0 has basically nothing right), it just doesn't quite have the extra wow factor to go even further beyond (thank you, Goku).
And 3.5 is my own "good" threshold, even if 3.5 still has some noticeable issues. It's the point at which, if I've tried out an album first, I'd want to add it to my physical collection. Anything below that, even if not terrible, I'd pass on actually purchasing.
Good job Sonny92!
That's one of the ones I want to tackle, though I'm going for the heavy metal 1st era first.
I love that album, and am looking forward to reviewing it as part of the clan challenge. It was one of my first exposures to the band, and though it might not be their heaviest album, it's just so damn catchy, every song is brimming with hooks.
Some great classic metal news: Cirith Ungol are putting out a new full-length on 24th April, Forever Black, their first album of new material in almost 30 years!
I shall give it a spin sometime. I liked their debut a lot, and The Raging Tides was one of my faves of 2016.
Cheers!
Hey Ben, Ravage (USA) is listed as added to the Academy on 12th February, but I can't find them when I search.
Sonny, Vinny, Ben & Tymell, I think you'll dig this for some nice raw & aggressive speed metal-infused US thrash in the vein of Metallica, Testament & Megadeth's debut albums (particularly the faster stuff from "Kill 'Em All").
Cheers for the rec! I'm giving a try right now, loving the riffing and tone, definitely does remind me of some old school thrash ala Kill 'em All or Artillery.
Ultraboris giving it a bad score on metal-archives is also always a fantastic sign.
1990: Morbid Saint – “Spectrum Of Death”
2006: Celtic Frost – “Monotheist”
2009: Alice In Chains – “Black Gives Way To Blue”
Always pleased to see fellow lovers of Morbid Saint and Monotheist, and Alice in Chains' epic comeback!
Mention of This Godless Endeavor also reminds me what a difficult year 2005 is for me to narrow down, there are so many of my favourites there. This Godless Endeavor, Catch Thirtythree, Kreator's Enemy of God, Draconian's Arcane Rain Fell, Strapping Young Lad's Alien, Kamelot's The Black Halo...
Great call for '74, Tymell. Burn is one hell of a track, certainly one of Purple's best and definitely the best album David Coverdale ever recorded.
Compiling a list like this it's great to see how Metal has ballooned in popularity and availability. Obviously for most of the 70's there are very few choices, especially for the early years, but as the time rolled by those choices become harder and harder. It's almost impossible to choose an absolute favourite from some years - 1986 for example, Reign in Blood, Master of Puppets, Peace Sells, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, Darkness Descends, Pleasure to Kill and In the Darkness (Paul Chain) - tough decision indeed.
Cheers! Yeah, the 70s is definitely a lot less populated for metal. I do find it interesting that while the 80s is often most immediately thought of for metal (understandably, since that's when it really took off and a lot of defining releases came out), the numbers have generally only gone up since then, even within the oft-maligned 90s. There was a time when I looked at Metal-archives' data and you could see this trend, and on a smaller scale you can see it in a project I keep with aggregate review scores: the number of releases has generally only gone up over time (though in my own project, I am seeing more of a retraction in most recent years).
1970: Black Sabbath - Paranoid
1971: Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
1972: Deep Purple - Machine Head
1973: ZZ Top - Tres Hombres
1974: Deep Purple - Burn
1975: Black Sabbath - Sabotage
1976: Rainbow - Rising
1977: Judas Priest - Sin After Sin
1978: Rainbow - Long Live Rock 'n' Roll
1979: Motörhead - Overkill
1980: Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
1981: Black Sabbath - Mob Rules
1982: Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
1983: Dio - Holy Diver
1984: Metallica - Ride the Lightning
1985: Magnum - On a Storyteller's Night
1986: Metallica - Master of Puppets
1987: Candlemass - Nightfall
1988: Metallica - ...And Justice For All
1989: Torture - Storm Alert
1990: Morbid Saint - Spectrum of Death
1991: Dark Angel - Time Does Not Heal
1992: W.A.S.P. - The Crimson Idol
1993: Savatage - Edge of Thorns
1994: Acid Bath - When the Kite String Pops
1995: Iced Earth - Burnt Offerings
1996: Corrosion of Conformity - Wiseblood
1997: Strapping Young Lad - City
1998: Iced Earth - Something Wicked This Way Comes
1999: My Dying Bride - The Light at the End of the World
2000: Darkseed - Diving Into Darkness
2001: Manticora - Darkness With Tales to Tell
2002: Jerry Cantrell - Degradation Trip
2003: Overkill - Killbox 13
2004: Exodus - Tempo of the Damned
2005: Meshuggah - Catch Thirtythree
2006: Celtic Frost - Monotheist
2007: Machine Head - The Blackening
2008: Dark Empire - Humanity Dethroned
2009: Thy Catafalque - Roka Hasa Radio
2010: Overkill - Ironbound
2011: Powerwolf - Blood of the Saints
2012: Therion - Les Fleur du Mal
2013: Onslaught - VI
2014: Triptykon - Melana Chasmata
2015: Jorn Lande & Trond Holter - Dracula: Swing of Death
2016: Witherscape - The Northern Sanctuary
2017: Hulkoff - Kven
2018: Powerwolf - The Sacrament of Sin
2019: Beast in Black - From Hell With Love
Happy birthday! Fantastic album and song!
I definitely want to do them eventually, as I love the thought of getting access to a 4th clan (which would probably be The Sphere for me. Most of the others I have some taste for, but they're not big favourites as a whole. The only other real contender for me would be The Infinite, but Sphere has so few members, I like the idea of contributing to that more). I'm trying to set some time aside in my daily schedule for revisiting some of those challenge albums, and trying out others for the first time.
With some of them, there's an element of intimidation in reviewing them. The albums I feel most strongly about are the ones I really want to do well.
Good job! I really need to muster up the willpower to sit down and do some of these myself.
I also like to feel my rating system is absolute, in that it holds for all genres of music, so a rating of 0.5 is for absolute shit that I really can't stand, probably the likes of Justin Bieber, Crazy Frog or some other crime against music. A 0.5 or 1.0 is only meted out to metal albums on extremely rare occasions ( Adema and Atreyu are the only metal bands that I've ever given 0.5s to).
My feelings exactly. I remember having a debate with a couple of mates about the fact that my scoring tends to be in a bell curve with 3.5/5 at the centre. One believed that 2.5/5 should be the centre of the bell & the other thought that my rating distribution should be equal across the various possibilities. My argument was pretty simple really. I know what I'm likely to enjoy after all these years so I expect that I won't be selecting too many releases that I'm gonna hate. In reality I expect to enjoy the stuff I listen to more often than not & that naturally leads to an average of around 3.5/5.
Yeah, I think that makes sense. After all, most of us are usually listening to things we think we'll enjoy. Occasionally something will be a letdown, or we might be trying something different on a whim or because it got a lot of attention elsewhere, or we might be reviewing something for a publication, but or the most part I don't listen to stuff without expecting to at least somewhat enjoy it.
Looking at it, my most common rating is 4 (though 3.5 is close behind) so I guess I lean on the generous side :p
Really interesting to read other people's methods on this.
I think having a well defined scoring system is essential for standardizing your scoring across a large quantity & cross-section of releases. I've been using the same one for many years now & it's served me well. People will have different ideas on what constitutes a good or a bad score (for me a 3.5/5 is the first score to constitute a good result with a 3/5 having just missed the cut ) but the important thing is to keep it standard & to have a defined concept for what every score in the spectrum means so that you can be sure that you're allocating the appropriate one on every occasion.
I'm the same, I keep a list of short summaries of what each score means to me, and when I'm in doubt I read them and ask myself, "Which description fits this release?". I also have the same sort of feeling on the scores themselves: for me, 3.5 is good albeit with some issues, 3 is not really a bad album but not a good one either. For me, that's also my purchase threshold: assuming I've haven't bought it already, a 3/5 is one I'll usually pass on, but a 3.5/5 or more I will usually want to add to my physical collection.
I used to be more strict about many listens before scoring. Most of the time I still will listen a bunch of times, but I am okay with rating after an initial listen since I can always change the score as my opinion changes. That's still rare for me though, unless it's something I absolutely hate and don't want to go back to.
Yeah, good points, and I need to get more into that mindset and less obsessive about it probably 