SilentScream213's Reviews

Divine Intervention has remained not only my favorite slayer album, but my favorite album of all time since I heard it in my freshman year of high school, 2010. Not that it immediately became my favorite album upon first listen – no, this is a slow grower, but a very easy album to come back to. And come back to it I did, many times; I’m sure this is in my top 10 most listened albums of all time, and a certain contender for the #1 spot.

But, why Divine Intervention?

Why the album AFTER Slayer stopped being the greatest Thrash band in the world? After the lineup change and the death of metal in the 90’s? The album with troubled production and almost no live representation?

Quite frankly, because I don’t give a damn about any of that stuff.

I speak with utmost sincerity when I say I think this album is absolutely as great in every department as the 5 preceding it. The only exception being that the production is lower quality, but you know what? That higher class sheen on Seasons in the Abyss never did it for me as much as the raw, honest sound that we get here. The complaints about the production quality are completely unfounded if one enjoys Show No Mercy, or Kill ‘Em All, or basically any Black Metal.

With sufficient clarity on why none of this album’s “weaknesses” bother me, let me now express why I love it so much.

The mood. The atmosphere. The writing. Slayer were always that too evil band that were somehow mainstream. From day one they were writing about Satan, demons and infernal hellfire, and they remained consistent in that approach throughout the 80’s, with growing themes of real horrors as well, including war and mental illness. However, on Divine Intervention, hell froze over. The hell fire faded and the demons gave way to a much more terrifying being – humanity. Strongly influenced by literature about serial killers as well as newspaper articles, Tom Araya took a stronger writing role here and focused almost exclusively on real world evil and suffering. Songs took a deeper look into the psych of serial killers, criminals, and even drug abuse on the closing “Mind Control.” The riffs followed suit, and as such, this album isn’t as flashy as their previous material, and I think that gets lost on a lot of people. The riffs here are cold and calculated, evoking sincere darkness and an unrelenting bleakness that remains consistent throughout the entire album.

Which leads to an immense strength of this album; the songwriting. Hints of Tech Thrash break through in many of the tracks here, with less conventional rhythms courtesy of Paul Bostaph taking the songs into twisting territory that deviates far from their simpler punk roots. The guitar solos on this album are actually good, and more often than not add to the song with more thoughtful melodies as opposed to pure chaos. The title track and closing track both have perhaps the best solos by the band, and truly these songs felt like they had gained a level of maturity and depth in their structure. Tom’s vocals are also the most aggressive, manic and eclectic he has ever laid to record; in title track “Divine Intervention” he pushes his yelling to its limit, and haunting “Serenity in Murder” allows his lower registry to croon wickedly between more thrash roars. Divine Intervention could easily be argued to be Slayer’s heaviest album, which cannot be said for most metal releases from bands that were “declining” in the 90’s.

At the risk of sounding crazy, I’ll also confess that the insanely dark lyricism and mood on this album, particularly on tracks like “Killing Fields,” were immensely helpful for me emotionally. Since I discovered it, Metal has always been an extremely cathartic way for me to deal with negative emotions. Divine Intervention did that better than any other album I’d heard, and still remains one of my weapons of choice when I need it. People don’t usually label Slayer as being emotional music, but they probably forget that anger is an emotion. Some people have their OK Computers, some people have their Dark Side of the Moons, and I’ve got my Divine Intervention.

A volte-face to anyone who thinks Doom Metal can’t be energetic and exciting, and a great lesson in what makes true Doom a completely different beast from Trad Doom. Wish I Could Dream It Again is one of the earliest true Doom albums, having zero Sabbathian influence, none of the 80’s Doom groove, and a total focus on somber, melancholic atmospheres. And unlike most prior Doom bands, it doesn’t rely on being consistently slow to achieve this. Lethargic, doomy sections still run through the compositions, but a lot of this material is lively, especially the rhythm section. Simple melodies and morose chords permeate the songwriting, but that drumming ensures a complex and ever-changing foundation to the music.

Novembre also have very melancholic lyrical themes, sticking to the introspective and poetic, drawing upon aquatic, summery and warm imagery across the album in another first for Doom Metal. The sentimental mood here was pretty unique at the time, but the general melancholy on display became a staple for the genre. Doom bands had already begun adopting this focus on gloomy atmospheres, which is how true Doom was born in the early 90’s, but Novembre here upped the ante. This was probably the most melancholic metal album at the time of its release.

As debuts can be, it’s a bit rough around the edges in some places; the clean vocals in particular are quite amateur, though they don’t bother me at all because they perfectly encapsulate that morose feeling of Doom. Either way, a landmark release for the genre, and a great learning experience for those who aren’t privy to the great variation that can be found in Doom Metal.

If I had to pick one song, not as my personal favorite, but as the best piece of music – one that pulled from all aspects of what makes music such an mazing and beautiful art – it would be Art of Life. As pretentious as that sounds, and as pretentious as writing a 30 minute epic about life may be, this song can actually back up such a monumental title. Am I biased as a metalhead, a fan of X Japan? You bet. But I only love these things because of what they offer me. Metal, to me, is ultimately an incredibly raw, even bestial display of human art. The harshness and aggression of it feels like a death throe. When one is in a life-or-death situation, or pushed to their limit, or faced with overwhelming emotion or psychological trauma, the ugliest, yet purest expressions surface. This is what Metal is to me.

X Japan do a fantastic job of mixing into that Metal foundation the sonic embodiments of young love, of beach sunrises, city-lit snowfall, a tear of joy. They have mastered both the ugly aggression and the passionate beauty, each in excruciatingly pure form. “Art of Life” is their magnum opus that displays every talent they’ve mastered. At times the music gets insanely fast as the guitars and drums exercise every last shred of pain, and at others slows to let the piano and strings cover you like a gentle rain. The song goes to all extremes and everywhere in between.

The lyrics are poetic, evocative, and hold an immense amount of depth especially for a band writing in a second language. Band leader and main writer Yoshiki was going through the grief of losing his father, among other things in his life, and in his words, tried to draw from every emotion he had when writing the song. And yeah, he succeeded, without a doubt. This is conveyed both in the music and the words, which tell of an existential crisis of love, longing, and loss. The lyrics are not specific enough to pigeonhole the song, and therefore almost anyone could listen to this and attach a very personal meaning to it.

Lastly, I’ll talk about that piano solo. That god damned piano solo. Originally, I hated it. I didn’t get it, I didn’t respect it, I didn’t think it contributed to the rest of the song, nothing. I went out of my way to make an edit of the song that cut it out so I could listen without having to fast forward through it. I didn’t get it.

I do not like when people chalk someone’s dislike of something up to them “just not getting it.” As if a song is so transcendental that a human cannot understand it. As if one has to be “in” on something to judge it correctly. As much as I do not like that and do not think it is a good response to any sort of opinion, I will allow myself to say it just once, for this piano solo. I get it now. After going through a psychological and emotional low, I got it. It became so clear what Yoshiki was feeling as he hit that cacophony of keys, how it played into the rest of the song, what it represented, everything. And magically, I immediately started enjoying it. I absolutely cannot listen to the song without it now. It took an experience and a perspective I did not have before to grasp it. And while this is no fault of any listener and I would not wish it on anyone, if you haven’t had that sort of experience, you just might not get it.

Bullhead is usually considered Melvin’s first truly great album. The Sludge Metal pioneers are relatively peerless in this era, as you could count the number of notable Sludge bands on one hand when this dropped. These circumstances made Melvins kings of the movement by default, and I think that’s why it doesn’t really appeal to me.

Bullhead is an album that is special by circumstance, because it had no competition and no comparison. It was influential and unique, but those things don’t matter to me when I’m listening to it. The music itself is very basic, monotonous, and droning. These qualities can be fine when done right (or if that is your taste) but I feel this album just doesn’t have enough going on to warrant much entertainment out of that. There aren’t any great riffs, no striking vocal performances, no rhythm grooves, its just a lot of repetitive heavy chords. It’s slow, but it’s certainly not doomy, because there’s no atmosphere and no strong mood aside from kind of anxious.

Unfortunately I have yet to find much enjoyment out of early Sludge, and this album was not the one to change my mind. Onward we go.

Sometimes when you listen to one of these acclaimed albums and don’t like them so much, you can still see what makes the album so great. You can recognize what other people see in it and write it off as just not being your thing. But sometimes, you might just be left mystified, wondering “What am I missing?”

Just before Streetcleaner, I had been listening to Peter Gabriel’s Passion, one of his most revered releases and a widely acclaimed New Age/World Music album. The album didn’t do anything for me, mostly because I’m not a fan of the style of music. However, I could still acknowledge the great compositions and brilliant atmospheres crafted in the soundscapes, and it was no mystery to me why it is so well liked.

Streetcleaner is a different case. I love metal. I love dark, misanthropic, heavy music. But listening to Streetcleaner, I struggle to find any appeal at all. The songs are all incredibly simple, and it sounds much less like a performance and much more like each member came up with one loop and just had it repeat for 5 minutes. There’s nothing innately wrong with this, but if you’re gonna repeat something for so long, at least make it good. The riffs are barely there; boring, slow, uninspired guitar that does little other than add a sludgy atmosphere, and ditto for the bass. The drum beats are equally boring and uninspired, and aside from some occasional addition of double bass, never do anything interesting. The vocals are sometimes there, and that’s all I can say about them.

The album is certainly dark, but the problem is that it is not active in achieving this. All the music is incredibly passive, and by that I mean there’s a lot of nothing going on aside from sounding heavy and dissonant, and it becomes the listener’s job to project any actual mood to it. The music doesn’t invoke anything on its own, but rather acts as a pool to collect such projected feelings. Unique at the time, and influential for everything that came after… but I’d say this is another case of influenced far surpassing the influencer.

South of Heaven was my first favorite album. The first one I ever listened to while thinking “god damn, this is music for me.” I had never heard sincerely dark or heavy music before that, and I never looked back.

It all started with my first videogame, DOOM. I played that game when I was just 2 years old – I worked the gun while my father did everything else, but it was still an incredibly memorable experience that was burned into my memory. I didn’t play the game for a long span of time because we had to get rid of it after Columbine happened, and then it became kind of a pipe dream to be able to play it again.

It was actually right as I was entering public school in 8th grade (I was homeschooled prior) that we managed to get the game again. Man that was a triumphant moment, and the game was just as great as I remembered. However, one thing that struck me was the music – holy hell, that music kicked ass.

I wasn’t even into music yet at this age. I listened to The Beatles, I listened to whatever the parents had, and I didn’t really listen too intently. I didn’t even know what metal really was, other than hearsay. But I LOVED this game’s music. I went to shady websites to download mp3s of the game tracks, and naturally, I started reading up about it more. Well it turns out a ton of the tracks are based on real songs by real bands – all metal bands I had never heard of save Metallica. I had to get this stuff.

I actually downloaded all of the original songs without listening to any of them first, bought my first mp3 player, and then listened to them all at once. It was a rite of passage of sorts. I loved everything I heard, even the gruff stuff like Pantera, who’s vocals were too much for me but the riffs were good enough to get through it. This new form of dark, aggressive music was striking all my chords, even though I had no experience with it. But at the end of the list – as the bands were in alphabetical order and there were only 10 or so – was Slayer.

Slayer hit different.

The three songs from DOOM were “South of Heaven” “Silent Scream” and “Behind the Crooked Cross” and they instantly became my favorite songs (barring “The Long and Winding Road", which will never not be one of the most beautiful songs ever). Such condensed aggression and evil had never struck me in aural form like that before. I mean, even Pantera, who were just as heavy, didn’t sound nearly as dark and evil as this. And the lyrics! Holy hell, they were actually disturbing at that age. A song about abortion – what the hell was that. And I loved them.

Finding that the songs were all from the same album, I got it immediately – digitally, physically, everything. I didn’t even know what riffs were before this! This was insane to me. The whole album was just as good as the few songs I’d heard. I easily listened to it at least once everyday for probably the rest of that school semester. And it ended up being really important in me finding my identity in a crucial period of life – I now knew that metal was my passion. I knew what kind of music I liked, I could talk about it, I met people through it, and I searched for more.

The funny thing is, though Slayer remains my favorite band, their other material didn’t click with me at first. Turns out this album was Slayer at their slowest and most melodic; if I started with any other album, I may not have been infected so easily. But yes, it was South of Heaven that turned me into a full-time metalhead, and it was the first album I could confidently say was my favorite. Listening to it while writing this review, I’m not surprised in the slightest that it gives me the same feeling of intense bliss as it did nearly 10 years ago, still comfortably sitting among my favorite albums of all time.

At exactly 19 seconds into this album, you can feel what it's like to have your skin melted off your face from the inside out.

What the fuck are you waiting for?

I’ve always loved Slayer, this album being among my favorite releases by them, but it becomes so much more amazing when compared to the contemporaries at the time. Absolutely nothing was this insane – not even close.

Speed? We had Metallica, but they’d only go into overdrive on a couple songs – and even then, it never matched Slayer. Tremolo guitar picking has never been this fast. And Dave’s drumming was something else. The speed and technique of the drumming here had never been seen in metal before. I’d guess only some Jazz and the best Prog Rock drummers had the level of chops Dave put on this album back in 1983.

Riffs? Hell no. You think Paranoid had great riffs? Number of the Beast? They were all lacking something. Slayer doesn’t just deliver riffs – they deliver evil riffs. Wailing, screaming guitars walked the line between melodic and chaotic, bringing a perfect harmony of very catchy riffs and a dark, harrowing mood. No music sounded this dark and melodic at this time; any other bands attempting the evil schtick relied on purely being noisy and chaotic with little technique (Venom, Hellhammer).

And then there’s the vocals. Not just the style, but the delivery. Tom’s trademark yelling here has become something often imitated, and I daresay it was many people’s introduction to harsher vocal styles. Tom was not the first to employ a harsh vocal style (Venom, Black Flag), but he absolutely did it better than anyone else at the time. He brought just the right amount of melody to the table; he can hit notes, and his words are very intelligible. Despite that – or perhaps, because of it – his bark comes off as much more convincing. As opposed to the flat screaming or growling of bands like Hellhammer and Venom, you could discern emotion in Tom’s voice, and that emotion was anger, hatred, a general misanthropy and dedication to the dark arts. That delivery carries over to the lyrics – again, Slayer were not the first to write Satanic lyrics. Venom mostly started that, but they didn’t take it too seriously. Slayer, along with King Diamond, were really the first band to convince you that those lyrics about Satan, murder, and black magic were genuine. Of course they weren’t, but damn was Tom’s fierce, rabid bark convincing.

Back in 1983, there were absolutely no albums that matched this. Any other album that had traits of what makes this great was missing something else, whether it be the speed, aggression, technique, or mood. Slayer was the first band to unite these qualities in a way that would spawn a staple style of dark metal carried on by thousands of bands.

Even after listening to hundreds of albums that were released pre-1983, Show No Mercy remains chronologically my earliest 5-star release, and nothing up until that point in music has come even close to instilling in me the sense of awe as Slayer did with their debut.

Melodic Death Doom, perfected. The Morning Never Came is the debut album of the Finnish lords of gloom, beauty and despair. While I adore all of Swallow the Sun’s albums, I must confess that their debut is my favorite of all. The band simply crafted the absolute peak of the genre on their first try.

The Morning Never Came is, like most Doom, dark, very melancholic, atmospheric, and somber. But it’s also passionate, lush, melodic, equal parts beautiful and crushing. Undercurrents of depressive hopelessness and apocalypse are lit up by moonbeams of longing and twinkling starlight of love from long ago. Riffs and leads on this album are phenomenal; every single song has multiple that could go down as some of the most iconic of the genre. The bass is amazing, smooth and melodic, which is rare for Doom; the mix does it wonders so you can hear the attention to composition in the basswork. Similarly, the drumming is nice and active, intelligent, swapping between funereal and punchy to serve the songs. The keys are that extra layer that bring this from S tier to SS tier; so beautifully lush, simple but very, very memorable, backing the chords and leads in a way that solidifies each song as extremely memorable. They never compete with the guitar leads, instead adding another layer of backing chords that also avoid competing with rhythm guitar by sticking to higher registers. Just genius compositional work. Last but certainly not least, fantastic vocals that can range from death growls to black shrieks, even some cleans here and there, and morose yet captivating lyricism.

The Morning Never Came is not only one of my favorite albums ever, but one of the most consistent and flawless. There isn’t a single thing about this album I could point out that I don’t love. Even the production and mixing are perfect. The reverb is wonderfully atmospheric but doesn’t sacrifice detail. The layering is just enough to make the album sound lush, but perfectly restrained to ensure every instrument is audible and serving a specific purpose. The craftsmanship here, on all levels, is masterful.

The thing about albums like this is, beyond all the technical aspects, the compositional aspects, the musicianship, the production, it still has one more thing going for it: the emotional value. These songs are deeply affecting, on every front. The melodies are heart-wrenching, the vocals are powerful, the keys provide that plastic synthetic beauty that contrasts so well with the crushing devastation of the rhythm section. The mood here is so damn gloomy. The gloomiest album I’ve ever heard. Every song sounds like finding that which is most important to you broken and buried in the snow. Some songs instill the wrath that follows, and others the grief, but there’s always loss, there’s always melancholy, and there’s always cold, bitter snow, with no sign of the morning in sight.

Well, this just proves how much of a sucker I am for Anders. I’ve also got a soft spot for this style of 2000’s Alternative Metal that fused elements of extreme Metal with commercial sensibility, and always came with heavy doses of angst. I was growing up in that era, so of course it’s nostalgic for me. When I found out a couple members from one of my favorite bands put out an album in this style two decades ago, my interest was piqued.

To be blunt, this is a very standard 2000’s Alt Metal album on the surface. The band takes a ton of influence from the American scene at the time, adding in some Nu Metal influence. The rhythm section is pretty simple, most of the riffs are standard chord-based fair, and the songs follow verse-chorus format. But below that, there are elements of quality and care that make this a very complete package. Subtle but interesting synths are used to create atmosphere or even underlying melodies, and work especially well during the softer sections of the songs. Niclas reminds us he is not just any guitarist, but the riffmaster of the most legendary Melodeath band ever by composing gentle lead guitar melodies (often clean) that instead of taking focus, provide extra layers of depth to the verses and playing off of Ander’s vocals very nicely.

At the end of the day, though, Anders takes the center stage. At this point in his career, he had never used primarily clean vocals on an album, but what a welcome surprise it is. His cleans have always been a point of contention among fans (though I have always adored them) but one thing that cannot be denied is, god damn, the man can write a hook. Fantastic vocal melodies, harmonized with multiple layers (and styles) of vocals, even crafted with lyrics that flow perfectly… the choruses here are monumental. The verses are similarly captivating, less focused on melody and more on using these either angry or melancholic lyrics to build the mood of the song. The instrumentation on this album is simple, but it is to give the man full focus and play off of his strengths, and that is done to perfection here.

A lost gem that should appeal to any fans of that early 2000’s Alt Metal scene or fans of Anders’ vocals.

Listening to Banquet for the Darkness, a Melodeath album that was released in 2003, I continuously found myself thinking “how has no one done this before?” The riffs and leads on this album are just so damn catchy, but at the same time… simple. And by simple, I don’t mean they are easy to play or anything like that, just… again… how had no one thought of these before?

Despite releasing a decade into the genre’s development, Banquet for the Darkness is filled with guitarwork that sounds like it should have been foundational to the genre. And yet, it doesn’t sound like they are ripping off contemporaries. Everything here sounds fresh, unique, and at the same time, classic. Now of course, over two decades since its release, the album IS considered a classic in the genre, but as someone who has listened to a lot of Metal releases chronologically, this truly sounds like something that would have come out in 1994 rather than 2003. It even has the mix of true OSDM in the sound that many of the earliest Melodeath still retained. 

What can I say specifically about this album? Riffs. Riffs. Leads. Riffs. Solos. Riffs. The rhythm section is great as well, and the vocals are fully serviceable growls that occasionally lean towards Black Metal shrieks, but God damn, those guitars. Every song here has a lick that could go down among the classics.

The only thing I can say against this album is that it’s not quite as good as the debut in my humble opinion. With the debut being the absolute masterpiece that it is, that’s like saying a juicy medium-rare ribeye steak is not quite as good as a cut of A5 wagyu, but I really wish it did have one track that stood up to the majesty of “Cannibal Sodom.”

This was the album that shot Dir en Grey to the semi-mainstream, thanks in large part to the music video for “Obscure,” which is, to this day, one of the most bizarre, graphic, and disturbing music videos ever made. It makes Tool music videos look tame and normal.

But let’s talk about the music. For an album with 15 tracks and a certain amount of eclecticism that includes influences from Hardcore Punk, Avant-Garde Metal, Gothic, and J-Rock, Vulgar is a surprisingly consistent record. Kind of a blessing and a curse of this album is that pretty much every song features some dissonant, aggressive or avant-garde parts as well as more melodic and accessible sections. Depending on which you prefer, it essentially evens out with every song being at least good and listenable, while none of them truly reach masterpiece status. But by and large, most of these songs are great.

Despite the album title, only a couple songs here are explicitly vulgar. Many of the songs, even the renowned “Obscure,” use poetic, symbolic imagery that paints a surreal picture. I was impressed with the lyricism on display here, and can only imagine it reads even better untranslated. Kyo’s unhinged vocals and writing were my favorite part of the record.

Sure it could benefit from some trimming, but I think the wild eclecticism works in the album’s favor. The “weaker” songs are songs I can easily see being some people’s favorite tracks depending on their taste – the album has a little bit of everything here, although every song is steeped in Dir en Grey’s graphic, bizarre style like a tea bag of rotten pomegranate.

This was the album that made me a Devin Townsend fan. Everything before this was too inconsistent, too bizarre, too unserious… here, everything comes together so well. His previous albums had moments of genius, songs that displayed an incredible potential, but he was too unhinged, and the songwriting was way too all over the place to put down a full album of quality material. 

On this album, Devin actually sounds like he wants to say something rather than hide behind cryptic lines about eating vegetables. A lot of these songs tie into love and relationships, as well as mental health. Devin’s still got his sarcastic sense of humor, but most of these songs are driven by genuine passion and serve to deliver a mood and message rather than just serve as a playground for him to experiment with 100 layers of sounds.

Speaking of layers of sounds… beautiful. Production is fantastic, density is immense, yet at the same time everything feels weightless, clean. Even that album cover evokes the immaculate era when we thought the future would look like Frutiger Aero. The album is a treat to listen to again and again thanks to every moment being loaded with undercurrents of melodies, chords, and ambience that can only be picked up on after multiple passes. 

The choruses here are great, and Devin’s voice is just fantastic. The screams are phenomenal. There’s passion, power, control. The songs are really atmospheric and dense, so the choruses work as the perfect earworms to work in tandem with the otherwise overwhelming songs.

One criticism I have is that almost every song on this album features one riff or chord progression that just isn’t good. I dunno what it is with this guy, but he seems to self-sabotage everything he does by throwing a garbage passage into his would-be fantastic songs. Every single song on this album has the potential to be a masterpiece, but most of them had parts that I really just wasn’t crazy about, dragging the song down a bit.

It’s not a perfect album, but it is a clear embrace of Devin’s strengths as a singer, musician, writer and producer. Terria, while inconsistent, proved to me he could write some fantastic songs; Accelerated Evolution proved to me the man can write a great ALBUM, and henceforth I’m incredibly excited to listen to all of his following works.

I always viewed Lamb of God as a sort of “2000’s Pantera.” Not only were they in the same Groove Metal gang, but they also were one of the biggest Metal bands of their respective decade, and shaped the trajectory of popular Metal as a whole in their early career. Yeah, and they also had the same southern tough guy attitude.

After really rough start as “Burn the Priest” for a few years and a completely unremarkable debut (another mirror to Pantera’s long-forgotten beginnings?) Lamb of God released a quite remarkable and game changing sophomore release in “As the Palace Burns.” This album is one of the founding albums of the modern Groove Metal style (not sure if it’s the very first, but it’s certainly the most popular and impactful).

By 2003, Groove Metal on its own had started to become stale and quite hated by the Metal community. Many fans had to watch their favorite artists stop playing good music to release Groove Metal slop in the late 90’s because that’s what was trendy. It was a dumbed-down version of what ruled the 80’s, featuring a lot of boring, simple riffs and repetitive, mid-tempo rhythms. On the flip side, Groove Metal was seeing IMMENSE success when merged with other genres like Nu Metal, Alt Metal, Metalcore, etc.

And so, Lamb of God very successfully joined and lead this new wave. They merged Groove with Metalcore to adopt a more modern sound accessible to more than just pure Metalheads. They injected a fiery dose of Thrash into their veins for energy, aggression, and riffage that was absent in most of the blander Groove Metal. And lastly, a seasoning of Melodic Metalcore to ensure guitar leads that were catchy enough to make the otherwise harsh and heavy songs memorable and slightly accessible.

And they had a winning formula. Even purists tend to like Lamb of God. And you can add me to the mix too, because this album has made me a Lamb of God fan. It’s not the most incredible album, but for what it is, the band pulls off everything they set out to do very well. All of the genres played, some of which I’m not the biggest fan, are played to a high degree of competency. I can’t help but enjoy it. This is a band I wasn’t really expecting to like that much, but came away from this album more and more impressed each time I listened to it. Simply enjoyable.

After the doomy intro “Thi13teen,” I was met with the first Type O Negative song I’d ever heard that sounded really, truly great. “I Don’t Wanna Be Me,” as simple as it is, is carried by a guitar lead that is, in essence, the perfect upbeat Gothic Metal riff. Drumming is bouncy, chorus is catchy, it’s full of melancholic energy, almost emo honestly.

Now, I also realized immediately that I’d heard this somewhere before, in fact I was quite certain Anathema did this song, and I was quite certain it was on Alternative 4… That’s right, it was track 3, “Empty.”

No, the songs are not identical, but it’s a very, very clear influence.

However, that’s not a bad thing. Type O Negative were one of the first Gothic Metal bands around, and one of the most influential. But “Life is Killing Me” is the first album that really sees them going from influencer to influenced, taking inspiration from the plethora of Gothic Metal that had arisen since their inception.

Since I think a good 95% of Gothic Metal bands that came after are way better than Type O Negative who influenced them, that’s a big plus for me.

Unfortunately though, “I Don’t Wanna Be Me” is far and away better than almost all the following material. Most of the other tracks fall victim to Peter Steele’s atrocious lyricism and goofy antics. There’s some nicely dense compositions going on here, and the band has all the right ingredients to make fantastic songs. Unfortunately, the band members work against one another. Peter Steele is constantly sabotaging any good songs with his embarrassing shenanigans. The keys/synths occasionally add in sounds that sound way too playful or just contrast the otherwise dark atmosphere. The guitar leads are great sometimes… but pretty much everytime the drums switch to doomy plodding, which is when a GOOD RIFF is most necessary, the guitars decide to be as boring as possible.

Thankfully, “Anesthesia” towards the end of the album showcases the band putting all their potential songwriting prowess to good use a delivering a genuinely melancholic masterpiece of gloomy, doomy, Gothic Metal. The density of this track is fantastic, and all the layers contribute to a hazy, moody atmosphere. Even Peter’s lyrics and delivery on this song are good! 

“The Dream is Dead” is a good closer as well, resulting in this album being a plethora of eclectic, dense, but ultimately mediocre Gothic Metal bookended by genuine quality and highlights among the genre.

Of course, if you like frat boy humor and less conventional songwriting in your Gothic Metal, I suppose you will probably just enjoy all of it. But I don’t.

Still, it is easily my favorite Type O release so far.

I’ve heard a lot of Neoclassical albums lead by “guy who is really good at guitar/keyboard.” And out of all of them, “Embrace the Galaxy”… falls somewhere in the middle.

This is an album with strong songwriting and performances. It’s not guilty of just having one instrument wizard who steals the show while the other members do the bare minimum. It SOUNDS like a fully capable band playing and constructing good songs. The vocalist is strong too, even if he sounds like his mouth is full of pizza most of the time.

The density is strong, with shimmering keyboard notes and spacey ambient pads adding layers of melody and ambience to the Metal instrumentation. The keyboardist Richard Andersson is smart in that he uses many different synth effects rather than sticking to one that becomes overdone by track 3. There are electronic synths, but also synthed strings, horns, harpsichord, and other sound effects. The core band sounds great, not unique, but not lacking in any way.

Why does this album fall in the middle then? Well, it’s got no real weaknesses, but it also doesn’t have any strengths separating it from contemporaries either. Of course the playing is phenomenal, but that goes for every Neoclassical Metal album (double for Progressive Neoclassical Metal like this). It doesn’t have any particular riffs, choruses or solos that blow my mind or get caught in my head. The composers are great at playing notes in key, but not great at playing notes that evoke feeling or emotion. Which is annoying, because in Richard Andersson’s previous band Majestic, ALL of those points were hit successfully. This has a space theme and sound, if that counts for anything, but aside from that it won’t break the ceiling beyond being more than another strong Neoclassical album.

The ever-persistent Sabbat are back again in the big ’03 delivering Blackened Thrash that still sounds fresh out of ’85. And that’s the appeal of Sabbat; a band that consistently delivers a specific sound from a specific era that is never influenced by the modern era even slightly.

That being said, if you’ve heard one Sabbat album, you’ve heard them all, so there’s not much to say. The album is fun, aggressive, energetic. It’s still got Sabbat’s signature Heavy Metal influence, but a bit less so than previous albums, with most tracks falling more squarely in the Blackened Thrash category. Lyrics, delivery, songwriting, same as always… honest to Satan 80’s extreme Metal.

There is only one misstep on this album, and that is the boring and goofy “In League with Devils” which has a tribal drumbeat and a very repetitive, annoying nature. The rest of the songs are extremely fun, bone-crunching, Satan-praising thrashers of dark occultism. “I’m Your Satan” in particular is one of the band’s best tracks, with nonstop Thrash drumming and a particularly sinister delivery overtop the better riffs of the album.

Sabbat had been releasing material very consistently since the mid 80’s if demos are to be included, but unfortunately after this album, their releases became much more sporadic, with full-length albums dropping only once a decade.

Doom Metal is a mood-driven genre of Metal that focuses on moody atmospheres and negative emotions like melancholy, mourning, or even misanthropic hatred. At its brightest, bittersweet and longing. It uses slow, plodding tempos to help emphasize the funereal atmosphere, evoking the lethargy of depression, a funeral march, or a dying villain’s last hurrah. The heaviness embodies the crushing weight of despair, solitude and alienation. Every aspect of the genre is an ingredient in emphasizing the darkest of human emotion.

Drone Metal is a texture-driven genre of Metal that focuses on building atmosphere using extremely slow, drawn out, and usually repetitive guitars, with special emphasis on the textural aspects that can be achieved with the guitars . Rather than evoking mood or theme, the style typically opts to home in on creating a droning wall of fuzzy, hazy, bassy guitars that provide a sort of “white noise” with their textural assault. Drone Metal styles commonly employ simple instrumentation and repeat patterns for extended lengths of time, compositionally sharing similarities with traditional Drone and Noise music.

If one can understand this, one can come to the sensible conclusion that Dopesmoker, despite being labeled with the disastrous misnomer “Stoner Doom,” is NOT at all a Doom Metal record, but hybrid Stoner and Drone Metal record.

I’m a massive Doom Metal fan. This album lacks every single quality I find enjoyable in Doom Metal. So it’s either A) the worst Doom Metal record ever (incorrect) or B) not Doom Metal (correct).

Among Metal genres, Grindcore and its subgenres are often among my least favorite comparatively. Aside from Deathgrind, which usually features prominent riffs, I find the noisy, dissonant, chaotic structures laden with non-stop blast beating simply… unpleasant most of the time. Even when the riffs are good, they can struggle to be heard over the oppressive drumming, vocals usually screaming but buried, every aspect of the music competing with each other to be perceived resulting in a mess of noise.

Nasum has consistently been one of the stronger Grindcore bands I’ve listened to, but third album Helvete easily catapulted into my top Grindcore albums of all time. The entire album is played fantastically, with tremendous technicality and precision ensuring the music is manic, chaotic, but never messy. Some songs feature tempo changes, chord progression, lead guitar, calmer sections (by Grindcore standards), all things that are almost always absent from the genre. This prevents the album from ever becoming tiring or too oppressive. 

And goodness gracious, the production. This is the best production I’ve ever heard for a Grindcore album. I can hear every instrument clearly, even when the band is truly going for it. The vocals are powerful but not piercing nor buried, perfectly placed in the mix. And all this without sounding “clean” or sterile in the slightest. Magnificent job there.

Great songwriting. Great performances. Great production. No bad songs, no weak points. The only reason it doesn’t get higher marks is because, typical of a Grindcore album, it doesn’t feature any truly standout songs that I want to listen to forever. I can’t really fault the band so much as it’s just incredibly difficult to make a Grindcore song true to the genre that I really adore (although Pig Destroyer have managed to do it).

Lost Horizon are quite universally beloved for emerging onto the Progressive Power Metal scene, dropping two masterpieces in the genre within two years, and then hanging up their gloves. More realistically, they’ve been inconsistently active, with sparse announcements but no actual releases since.

Just like their first album, “A Flame to the Ground Beneath” is more of their technical, dense, maximalist Progressive Power Metal, with influences of Heavy Metal and Symphonic Metal throughout. It’s hard to praise any singular aspect of the music, because the band pretty much excel in every area, from every single instrument played, to the vocals and melodies, to the songwriting, technique, etc…

And they manage to do all that without making the music sound soulless. Quite the opposite, as Ethereal Magnanimus has some of the most powerful and passionate vocals ever, and lays down some incredibly triumphant vocal lines. The music melodies never once stop evoking “epic” and carry with them an encouraging wind of spiritual power. This may be technical progressive music, but it’s also music that makes your very essence brim with power.

And then, of course, I was hit with the meme moment. I had no idea it was coming. Blows my mind to think I had heard Lost Horizon probably almost 2 decades ago, before I was even into Metal on some random Youtube Poop. That technically makes Lost horizon one of the first Metal bands I ever heard.

Unfortunately, this sophomore album suffers from the exact same issue as the debut. There are 9 tracks here… and 3 of them are interludes. “The Song of Earth” is nice, but the others are boring, useless, and way too long. That really detracts from the full album. I cannot fathom why bands do this…

I did also notice that the album wasn’t actually that fast for Power Metal. There aren’t any moments of Speed Metal-style pounding double bass or tremolo picking. For me, that’s a negative, because that’s one of my favorite things to hear.

As amazing and majestic as the album is, I do find it… overrated. I can completely understand the praise, and by and large, it is deserving of said honor. But me personally? Well… there are many, many Power Metal albums I would rather listen to than this one. Though that’s less of a knock against this album as it is a declaration of how much I adore Power Metal.

The Lord Weird Slough Feg – a band celebrated for bringing back good old-fashioned Traditional Heavy/US Power Metal. Even the vocals to this band are reminiscent of Mark “The Shark” of Manilla Road, and thematics are typically rooted in literature or mythology with a healthy dose of sci-fi. Essentially, very “nerdy” Metal. 

Slough Feg do not try to be very dark or evil, nor do they go for overblown theatrics. The music is not layered with synths or symphonics, nor is it pushing any technical limits or progressive boundaries. Nay, Slough Feg is just Metal. It’s just fun. And for many, this has been enough to earn them praise, especially in a time where Metal bands were doing everything they could to be heavier, more experimental, more maximalistic, or even gimmicky. Slough Feg was just Slough Feg (Or The Lord Weird, if you will).

Anyway, about Traveller. Traveller is a narrative-driven sci-fi concept album about a smuggler-esque alien dogman. I mean, it goes way deeper than that, every detail based on the game of the same name. What, you haven’t heard of it? “Traveller is a science fiction role-playing game first published in 1977”! For the 72 people who have heard of this game, the album is (probably) an absolute treasure trove of deep and nerdy references. We follow our (anti) hero as he seeks revenge for the gene-splicing mutilation he’s forced to undergo, leading to galactic wars, and… yeah, it’s a fun time.

The music to Traveller is, as I mentioned before, pretty standard US Power Metal. And this is where I think the band starts to be a bit overrated. Traveller is definitely their best album, no doubt about that – not only does it have the fun concept, but it’s packed with energy, showcasing the band’s best drumming for sure and interesting songwriting choices. That being said, there are a very large number of USPM bands out there who have a “best album” that I’d put above this. It’s a good cut of the genre, but nothing I’d put in the USPM hall of fame or anything. The playing is good here, but in terms of memorable guitar melodies or choruses etc, it falls a bit flat.

Still, a great album, if overrated a bit. More fun than anything. Definitely rewards those who pay attention to lyrics. The best part of the album is probably the fact that is closes on the best song the band ever wrote, “Addendum Galactus.” Man, I love a good closer.

Very epic. Does an excellent job in putting the listener right where they want them – some ancient pagan winter where polytheistic Gods intervene for fun as mankind struggles against the natural threats of the wilderness. In every way, the atmosphere and sound succeed at what they set out to do.

The layers here are fantastic. Walls of heavy rhythm guitars are interspersed with folky acoustic guitars, choral and string synths, and more traditional instruments here and there. Vocals are also epically stacked for a powerful effect. There are plenty of quiet sections, but even those are beautifully laced with soft strings, pads, and quiet plucked traditional instruments.

The compositions and songwriting are strong as well. The progressions are satisfying, and despite the extreme length of some of these songs (the opener is over 13 and a half minutes) they never feel overlong.

So what’s lacking here? Well, when I’m listening to this kind of music (extreme Folk Metal?) I want to hear more darkness, more melancholy… more negativity. Like on the band’s Tämä ikuinen talvi demo. Harsh vocals plus jolly fanfare music doesn’t really mesh well for me. Some of these end up sounding like heavy drinking songs (which I hate).There are also some quieter, synthesizer driven sections that I feel clash with the otherwise very medieval/pagan atmosphere. Synthesized instruments are fine, but synths that just sound like electronics take me out of it a bit.

Also, your mileage may vary, but the last two songs are by far the weakest to me. I hate when albums have weak endings.

Overall a strong album with a wonderful number of layers to get lost in as the atmosphere takes you to another time and place.

After a lengthy period of quiet, Killing Joke return with their second self-titled album (so Killswitch Engage isn’t the only band who did this?) and what lies within is one of their heaviest and most aggressive records to date.

The political state of the world was a strong motivator for such an album. The war on terror had turned the Middle East into an apocalyptic zone, and the world was shaken after the events of 9/11. Killing Joke were not American, nor from the Middle East, but they still had a lot to say. There is a lot of anger and passion directed at those in power and the state of the world. Surprisingly, there’s not actually much about war specifically here, or even the events of the times; rather, the lyrics are pointedly timeless, aggression towards the same follies of corruption and power that have plagued humanity since Adam and Eve.

Musically… well, your mileage will vary, and obviously this is a very popular album, but musically the album really isn’t that special. The tracks are very repetitive, usually with one or two drumbeats that repeat the whole song, a simple, shallow riff that doesn’t really evoke much, and there’s probably bass too. The actual instrumental work on this album is lackluster. What improves the tracks are the effects, samples and layering thrown underneath the simple instrumentation that adds as a strong soundscape of industrial dystopia. 

What IS special are Jaz Coleman’s powerful, passionate, melodically shouted vocals. He’s got the perfect voice to deliver such venomous lyrics, and you believe every word. The way he can shout in such a gruff manner while also hitting notes and creating melodies is excellent. I WISH he had better music to shout over, cause the album would be so much stronger.

There is one song in particular I have to shout out – “You’ll Never Get to Me.” This is by far the best and most special song on the album, and maybe in the band’s entire career. This song is not political – it’s introspective, emotional, crushingly depressive but also impossibly uplifting and powerful. Instead of a boring riff, it relies on a melancholic chord progression evocative of Shoegaze material. The music, lyrics and vocal delivery all come together perfectly on this track.

Also, the scorching bonus track “Inferno” is better than every song that actually made the album except the aforementioned “You’ll Never Get to Me.” Don’t miss out on that one.

A nearly 13-minute orchestral darkwave overture is not how I’d prefer to start my METAL album, but the more one listens to this album in full, the more it becomes apparent that this is just barely a Metal album at all. Most, though not all, of the songs have electric guitars, but they are mostly just a supporting instrument, playing simple chords and not even featuring very prominently in the mix. The drums are similarly simple and never a focal point.

What IS a focal point are the orchestral compositions and vocal performances. And they are… good, mostly. Good. But not great. The compositions on this album are closer in style to the classical era of music. And I don’t mean this as a drag against the great masters like Mozart and Beethoven, but the classical era is a lot of sticking notes together that are in the same key, harmonize well, and evoke absolutely nothing.

The last thing I want from a Gothic Symphonic Metal record is a lack of emotion. But that’s really what this is – a few overblown songs with lush compositions and a bunch of notes that sound good together, but don’t really evoke anything. I want Gothic music to be sadder, more melancholic. But this leans more into the operatic side of the genre. The songs and soundscapes are epic, but again, the guitars and drums are usually quite boring, which makes it difficult to enjoy as a Metal album.

What about as a Classical album? Maybe it works? I dunno. I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, but I like my classical music to focus on mood and atmosphere, to highlight melodies that evoke something within me. Just not feeling that with this album.

It’s lush, and there’s a lot going on. Even the quieter moments are layered with soundscapes and melodies. I appreciate the compositions. With better drums and guitars, I may have really liked this. But the album is held back by the simplicity of the METAL aspect of it, despite the deep layering and complexity of the Classical elements.

“If You Don't Like the Style/Genre, Don't Review It. The point of a review is to give critique of the material on the album, as it pertains within it's genre. If you aren't into the genre, don't fucking rate it.” – BadFist from RYM, for their review on The Blessed Hellride.

I can understand this mindset. If a review is for the reader’s value, then it makes sense the reviewer should be someone who is into the genre being reviewed, who is interested in it, who wants to see the best in it, and can pass their opinion down to similarly minded readers with similar taste.

But, I have a few counterparts.

1. I don’t write reviews for readers. I write them for myself, and share them because someone somewhere out there might enjoy them.

2. I am a reader as well, and I write exactly the kind of reviews I like to read.

3. I go into every album with good faith and interest, even among genres I don’t like.

4. Sometimes, the opinion of someone discussing music outside their preferred genres can be even more interesting to read than someone within the fanbase.

I say all that because I am the person BadFist is talking about. Why? Well, because I’ve heard all of Black Label Society’s previous albums and didn’t find any of them that incredible. And despite loving Metal with all my heart, Southern Metal is easily one of my least favorite genres in the tree so far. So, why am I reviewing this?

I truly believe every Metal subgenre has a shining star that I can really enjoy, somewhere out there. I didn’t love any pure Stoner Metal album until I found Terra Firma [Album444503]. I didn’t love any Drone Metal album until I found Coma Waering [Album560273]. And so I scour every album in the tree, from the roots to the leaves, always with an open mind, searching for something to love on every branch.

…But The Blessed Hellride is not that album. The Blessed Hellride sounds identical to the previous three Black Label Society albums. As such, it adds absolutely nothing to the Southern Metal formula despite weaving between Heavy, Groove, Stoner, and even Sludge at times. And so, I review this album to say – this isn’t the one. This is a painfully average Southern Metal album, and unless you froth at the mouth for “oooh yeeaah”s and chuggy, crunchy guitars, you will not find anything worth keeping around here. It’s certainly not a bad album, it’s fun enough if you like fun, and dark enough at times if you like dreariness, but the music is consistently sub-par.

maudlin of the well released some of my favorite Avant-Garde Metal albums, a subgenre of Metal that is very hard to please me usually due to it either taking bizzarro experimentation way too far, or just sounding like circus Metal. maudlin of the well were very nearly guilty of the former, but the compositions were strong enough to offset the weakness, and the captivating, surreal atmospheres ensured everything was interesting.

Kayo Dot – at least on this album, the debut “Choirs of the Eye” – seem to have lost sight of that. Is there good stuff here? Absolutely. Is it sandwiched between long, droning droughts of meandering boredom or chaos? Absolutely.

Kayo Dot seem to continue the previous band’s trend of crafting songs that sound like dreams. Musically, lyrically, atmospherically, they succeed in this regard. The music sound like dreams. They are strange, ever-changing, jumping from one setting to another, random, surreal, spacy. Some are quiet, some are loud. Some are calming, some are frightening. And they all feel dreamlike. 

The issue is, plenty of us have dreams that are boring, or stressful, or nonsensical. Kayo Dot successfully captured not just the feeling of captivating dreams here, but also the mundane boredom of the dreams we forget, the stressful dissonance of dreams we rejoice upon waking up from, the fever dreams we find ourselves trapped in with a fever of 103.

…What I’m trying to say is, there’s a lot of fat here that could be trimmed off. I don’t want to feel bored or stressed out when listening to music, but “Choirs of the Eye” evokes just that often enough.

Of course, there’s also plenty of material that avoids that – calm and peaceful atmospheres of warmth, doomy dirges of darkness, dense layers of successful experimentation. The songs feel like surreal adventures. The adventures simply vary in enjoyability. 

A very unique album, a dense piece of work that rewards deep, in-depth listening. At the same time, a slight disappointment for someone who expected a bit more based on maudlin’s work.

According to The Infallible Denizens of RateYourMusic Dot Com, as of writing this review in the early winter of January 2026, “Boris at Last -Feedbacker-” is the *checking charts* 13th greatest Metal album of all time, and if recent years are anything to judge by, still rising. 

Here’s what I can tell you. Is this album one of the top 13 Boris albums of all time? Yeah, probably. Out of the ones I’ve heard, it’s easily one of their better albums, but they have like 69 albums so I can’t say for sure yet. Is it one of the top 13 Drone Metal albums of all time? Well, again, this album is labeled as a Drone Metal album by The Infallible Denizens of RateYourMusic Dot Com despite not having a single Drone Metal song on it, so, no, but if it counts, then it would possibly have a fair shot.

Boris at Last -Feedbacker- is inoffensive. It’s decent background noise. It does feature one guitar solo that is actually quite good. It features zero good riffs. It features zero interesting drumming, but the hypnotic, repetitive drumming on “Untitled” (2) works in the song’s favor. It features some vocals, but they aren’t special in any way, and most of the time they aren’t there. It probably features bass, but it didn’t do anything interesting. Sometimes the fuzzy, noisy textures are decent, often they are boring and entirely unevocative. “Untitled” (2) has a little bit of nice build up and progression in it, every other song goes absolutely nowhere, but “Untitled” (3) makes up for it a little by being the only song with a modicum of energy.

Instead of “Boris at Last -Feedbacker-” being in the top 13 Metal albums of all time, here are 13 Metal albums that I prefer to “Boris at Last -Feedbacker-” :

St. Anger – Metallica

Metal Magic – Pantera

Octagon – Bathory

Evolution – Disturbed

Cold Lake – Celtic Frost

Battles – In Flames (5-star album by the way)

Forbidden – Black Sabbath

Demolition – Judas Priest

Supercharger – Machine Head

Nation – Sepultura

Sounding the Seventh Trumpet – Avenged Sevenfold

Virtual XI – Iron Maiden

Volume 8 - The Threat Is Real - Anthrax

“Why did the bear sing to the rattlesnake?”

“I dunno, why?”

“Because it was Thursday!”

The two start to laugh heartily. And then, one by one, everyone around them begins laughing. The laughing evolves into hysteric hollering and cheering, and everyone in the room seems to concede that this was the funniest and best joke they’ve ever heard.

But I’m not laughing. I don’t get the joke. And it’s not because I missed some crucial detail, some hidden setup. No, it’s just because the joke doesn’t make sense to me. Really, I can’t fathom how it makes sense to ANYONE. But everyone else loves it. Is it just the bandwagon effect? Herd mentality? Did people start laughing just because they saw others laughing, or did they really think the joke was THAT funny?

And that’s how I feel about Akuma no Uta. Well, Boris in general, basically, but especially Akuma no Uta. Akuma no Uta is Stoner Metal with really bad production that is played decently enough. It’s pretty empty, with none of the psychedelic synths that can make Stoner music interesting. Only three people perform and it doesn’t sound like they overlay any extra layers, so the music is minimal and shallow sounding. They jam on a few tracks, and they’re okay at it, nothing transcendental. It doesn’t have any good riffs. The drumming is pretty fun, I guess. The lyrics are cryptic and the vocals are nothing special. It literally sounds like a group of friends started jamming in their garage and recorded it the same day. Not an exceptionally talented group of friends, just an average group of friends. 

But in the eyes of the world, this is a top 5 Stoner Metal album of all time. I have a sneaking suspicion that if this album were not released by Boris but instead by a band no one’s heard of from a country that isn’t cool (like the USA or England) no one would care about this. But I live in a world that worships Boris, so I guess this is the peak of Stoner Metal.

Dreams D’Azur is a re-imagining of Novembre’s debut album, Wish I Could Dream it Again… The album is completely re-recorded with new compositions and played in their newer style. Wish I Could Dream it Again… is a Death Doom record through and through, while this one trade some of the Death Doomy sound for a more contemporary Progressive Gothic Metal sound, though still retaining the Doom influence.

The biggest weaknesses with the debut were the rough production and amateur performances. It goes without saying that both issues are completely mended here. Through the years, Novembre have adopted a smooth and lush production style that contrasts and compliments their heavy style, allowing for dense compositions that sound fantastic. The bass is given especially great treatment on this album, being very audible and having plenty of excellent lead parts. The playing as well has improved dramatically, with the band transitioning from a slightly messy, green footed band to masters in their genre. The drumming on this album in particular is the best in the band’s career up to this point. The poor clean vocals from the debut are improved with harmonized, reverby vocal lines that act more like another layer of instrumentation.

What about the compositions? One issue the debut had absolutely no problem with was compositions. Novembre were already crafting amazing songs right from the beginning, and in my opinion the debut still stands on its own as an amazing Death Doom record. Here, the compositions become a bit denser, with scant layers of synths and more atmospheric guitars weaving in and out of the compositions, crafting a much more dreamy and surreal feel than the debut. From a technical standpoint, the compositions are improved quite a bit, and have more going on in each track to add to the density.

However, I will say, it’s a trade off for me. While almost everything has improved in terms of quality, I do find myself… preferring the original style. Progressive Death Doom is, to me, preferable to Progressive Gothic Metal. I loved how heavy and melancholic the original songs were, how they charged forth with energy rare to the genre but carried intense gloom and beauty. As I said before, these compositions lean a bit further to the “dreamy” side of things, and they definitely still sound amazing. But, unlike a lot of people who think this album completely negates the debut, I see different strengths in each, and this far from eclipses the original in my eyes, instead offering a different take on the incredible compositions.

Absolute legends of riff-oriented cavernous Tech-Disso-Death release another masterpiece.

Immolation is such a special band because they are technical and dissonant, yes, but they never let that come before the fact that they are extremely dark, atmospheric and moody. In fact, they utilize technical and dissonant songwriting to further add disorientation and disturbance to the listener, but not so much so as to prevent the songs from being extremely memorable and digestible.

Unholy Cult is a continuation of the band’s previous sound, meaning you can expect some of the heaviest, densest, most well-composed music out there. However, I think the album does manage to stand out from the predecessors in some key ways. Chiefly, the atmosphere on here is crazy. Layers of dissonant guitars create a sublime cacophony of perpetually disturbed darkness that feels like a thousand hands dragging the listener into the depths of an abyss. It’s astounding how much they do with just a traditional Rock ensemble, as even without keys, pads, or symphonic elements of any kind, they construct masterful caverns of sound that feel absolutely massive and crushing. The interplay between guitars, both dissonant and harmonic, is nothing short of genius.

That’s not to say the other members of the cult are outdone. The drumming on here is flawless; incredibly varied, technical, complex, power… yet not overdone. In fact, the drums go about as far as they can without sounding like they are doing too much. The endlessly impressive fills and pummeling blast beats are spaced apart by slower or more conventional sections that last only long enough to ensure the songs are never without clear structure. The drummer also has a wonderful habit of playing technical parts with the sticks while keeping a constant, unbroken stream of double bass to maintain a cast-iron foundation to the chaos.

The bass adds a wall of pressure to the atmospheric and moody density, focusing on filling out the low end with an ominous weight that is not as immediately noticeable, but nevertheless just as important in ensuring the thing sounds denser than tungsten. The guitar leads tend to get quite high and piercing at times, so the 6-feet-under bass does a great job at complimenting and contrasting those. The vocals are also essentially perfect guttural growls, fantastically enunciated so each of the superbly written lyrics shine through. I can actually hear a few moments here and there where the vocalist just barely has time to breath between delivering lines and I love that so much because so many harsh vocalists who deliver fast screams will just do separate vocal takes for each line and throw one next to the other to compensate for the fact that they could not actually do such a feat in reality. I’d rather hear a little bit of natural struggle and know that it’s all real, like I do here.

One more thing that ties into the focus on atmosphere on this album – the band is a bit more inclined to flirt with Death Doom in a few spots. It’s lovely every time they do because they’re essentially Incantation on cocaine when that happens – twisted, cavernous walls of twisting and turning dissonant guitars.

Probably their most consistent album… perhaps my favorite thus far.

Immortal continue their style of riff-driven Black Metal, still heavily influenced by Thrash. And it’s still delicious.

Honestly, there’s not too much to say about the album if you’ve heard the previous few. Perfected Black-Metal shrieks that are low, intelligible and strong – check. Fantastic riffing finding that sweet spot between dissonant and melodic – check. Walls of Black Metal Tremolo picked guitar – check. Rhythm section that is technical and varied far and above the standard for Black Metal – check. Bass that can be FELT – check. Lyrical endeavors that are on-topic yet serious, epic, and triumphant – check. No weaknesses and every strength one could hope to find in the genre.

There was just one thing that stuck out to me about this album, and that’s the fact that the production is so damn HEAVY. Most Black Metal albums have paper thin production, and even better produced stuff usually leans on the treble-heavy side of Metal. Sons of Northern Darkness feels like a sledgehammer of solid ice bashing your head in repeatedly. You can really hear the power of the drums and bass crushing you under their weight. I can’t quite recall whether or not the previous records had such power on the production end, but this is probably the best production I’ve heard on a Black Metal album. Mind you, it’s not overproduced at all. There’s still chilly walls of buzzing guitars, and even the leads have an aspect of messy imperfection to them. It still sounds natural, sounds like Black Metal – but God is it powerful.

Deliverance. Opeth’s last Death Metal record, and one of the heaviest of their entire career. In somewhat uncharacteristic fashion for the band, opening track “Wreath” drops you right into the onslaught of pummeling rhythms, deathly screams, and one of the most ominous riffs the band ever wrote. The increasingly complex and odd-timed songwriting here just makes everything that much more disorienting – “Wreath” is a straight up challenging song that mixes the heaviest and brainiest of Opeth’s compositional prowess into one package that just completely annihilates you.

After that, you’re given a bit of space to breath… kind of. While “Wreath” is definitely the heaviest and most aggressive song on the album, that’s not to say the following tracks are worse in any way. Title track Deliverance focuses on pushing the band’s technicality and complexity to its limit, an over 13-minute epic of masterful musicianship and songwriting. “A Fair Judgement,” not forgetting what makes this band so special, reintegrates deeply melancholic moodiness, a Doomy dirge of Prog that shows the band had not sacrificed their emotional depth when honing their technical abilities and pushing the complexity of their songwriting.

The album is, pretty consistently, dark, ominous, heavy, and complex. More so than any of their previous albums. For that reason, it’s definitely a bit of an all-or-nothing affair; it’s the perfect fix if you’re in the mood for some uncompromisingly dark and brainy Progressive Death Metal – if not, prepare to drown in its unrelentingly ominous waves.

I was quite blown away by Agalloch’s debut album. Despite the music being relatively simple, they were already masters at crafting melancholic guitar leads and somber chord progressions that evoked a dark, emotional atmosphere. The songs were so memorable they sounded like a band that had long since mastered their craft rather than a debut. I had high hopes for their next album.

The Mantle is usually regarded as not only the band’s best, but one of the greatest Metal albums of all time, particularly standing as a monolith of Post-Metal. However, the first thing that stands out about this album is that not only is there a lot less extreme Metal (Black Metal influences here are relegated to secondary) but there’s also just a lot less Metal in general. There is so much Folk (primarily Neofolk and Dark folk) that it competes with Post-Metal as the primary genre for the album.

Thanks to this folkiness, the album is exceptionally pagan and nature-oriented, the whole journey feeling like a lonely camping expedition in the dense Cascadian forest mountains of North America. Constantly stumbling upon native burial grounds and bygone mythology while trying to escape the thoughts and feelings of the girl who just left you. This is all captured in spades, and the shift in sound from their debut creates a far more unique experience that even today remains an enigma.

The songwriting for the most part weaves acoustic passages both between and within the Metal tracks, layering guitars atop one another as they build towards crescendos. Many simple but effective guitar melodies will slowly change and build upon each other in a slightly droning fashion, resulting in a smooth ascension towards harmonic peaks. There ARE still extreme Metal sections left, and such passages with black shrieks and pounding double bass drums provide much needed energy and aggression to the otherwise passive music.

Now for all its praise, I must say, the album was a slight disappointment and step down from the debut for me. Some of the acoustic oriented tracks just sounded a bit too generic – like your average campfire dude with a guitar playing the 6 chords he knows. There is a lot of instrumental stuff here, and while some of it is exceptional (Odal, the second half of The Hawthorne Passage), other tracks just feel a bit pointless (A Celebration for the Death of Man, The Lodge) like they don’t have a strong enough idea to make them their own song, and would have been better worked into a longer track rather than standing on their own. The lyrics and vocals are quite enjoyable for me, so the final track A Desolation Song is quite good thanks to the personal, introspective lyricism despite the exceedingly simple music; the aforementioned instrumental tracks are sorely lacking because they don’t have any poetic lyrics to make up for their uneventful songwriting.

Another thing I will say – the shift away from extreme Metal towards Folk, and much of this album being clean and acoustic, makes it FAR more accessible. I have to wonder if the only reason it’s considered such a masterpiece is because it can be enjoyed by far more people than a Black Metal album can.

Let there be no mistake though; this is a FANTASTIC album. The ONLY reason I have some harsh words for it is because I am coming off of their incredible debut, and had my expectations set to the sky. If I had heard this one first, I think it would have blown me away in a totally different way. Incredibly unique experience in the Metal spectrum. I recommend this one for a nature hike in winter.

Always love to hear Neoclassical acts that are actual bands rather than First Name Last Name guitar (or keyboard) heroes. As you might expect from a Neoclassical band, Time Requiem is filled to the brim with awe-inspiring solos that boggle the mind. But not just from the guitars.

Yes of course, the guitars are majestic. The smooth running up and down scales while essentially tremolo picking is just wild to me. Thankfully, the guitars do much more than that, offering great riffs and more traditional style guitar solos as well that offer more depth than Yngwie-style wankery. Keys are another key component (ha) to this lineup, and yeah, the keyboardist does some insane wizardry that could put any classic pianist to shame. I mean, the keyboardist is the composer, so not only is he an absolute madman at his instrument, but he’s a strong songwriter as well. Keys and Guitars duel here, but they also give each other space to show off without competing for the spotlight depending on the song.

But this album isn’t just a melodic showcase! The RHYTHM section is also flashy as hell. Obviously harder to hear, but the bassist is putting in some crazy work on this thing. It can best be heard in the mind-blowing ending to “Brutal Mentor” (which in itself is just one of the best displays of technical musicianship I’ve ever heard). And the drums! God those drums are great. Speedy, technical, progressive, and doing the perfect amount of showing off insane chops without overplaying. And of course, lets not forget the vocals. Vocalist Apollo was in one of my favorite short-lived Neoclassical bands Majestic, and he helped elevate their accessibility with fantastic choruses. He does the same here.

For anyone who enjoys technical prowess in musicianship and songwriting, a must-listen. For those who don’t, it’s thankfully full of great songs that are well-written and worth much more than their technical prowess alone.

Some nice words that could be used to describe Beyond Abilities would be insanely technical, melodic, and proficient. All the musicians here are experts at playing, and they waste no time showing that off. The keyboards are the focal point, with playing that rivals any masters of the Classical Era. Nods to Mozart are made throughout, so it’s obvious what the influences and aspirations are.

Some less kind words that could be used to describe Beyond Abilities would be sterile, emotionless, and generic. The musicians may be masters at playing, but they can’t evoke an emotion to save their lives. In fact, the only song that evokes any emotion is the cover of Alone. The songwriting is the bare minimum for Neoclassical Power Metal fare, which is quite a demanding genre; this means the band does nothing to stand out from contemporaries. The playing may be perfect, but that only goes so far. As someone else pointed out, everything sounds like it was made in a factory.

If you’re a fan of Neoclassical Power Metal, like I am, it’s a nice, enjoyable album. If you’re a fan of technical prowess exercised through music, this is admirable and probably of great interest to aspiring keyboardists. If you want something new, unique, memorable or moving, move along.

What I like: The lyrics! Especially to the opening track “He Who Accepts All That Is Offered (Feel Bad Hit Of The Winter).” I love how hateful and humbling they are, offering so much vitriol towards the over-glorified, hedonistic lifestyle of drug use that finds itself abundant in rockstar and alternative culture. The filthy, ominous sound of the song and vocals fits how nightmarishly surreal a bad drug hit might feel.

What I don’t like: Essentially everything else. Riffs are EXTREMELY boring, evoking absolutely nothing. Song compositions go nowhere fast…nowhere at all, actually, with the first track featuring no structural builds or crescendos in nearly 30 minutes of runtime. The drumming is better than most Drone drumming, because it’s present and does something. The production is fine, focusing on capturing as much of that wonderful guitar fuzz as it can, and succeeding in that. If you are a super textural person, I can see you enjoying this, as the guitars scratch your brain in a pleasant way, but I need A LOT more than that from a record to consider it “good.”

Still waiting for someone to utilize the potential of Drone Metal to actually build an atmosphere that evokes something other than nothing or nihilism (which is essentially nothing).

Avant-Garde Metal is one of the subgenres in which I am hardest t please. At the time of writing this, I’ve been listening to Metal for over 15 years, and haven’t awarded a single 4.5 star rating to an Avant-Garde Metal album. That is, until I took look into The Sham Mirrors.

First off, the album does something VERY important in ensuring that it’s a GOOD Avant-Garde Metal album – it’s not Circus Metal. While the album sounds bizarre and occasionally playful, it by no means ever falls into goofy territory. The arctic space aesthetic is persistent across tracks, painting a cold, surreal image of a distant future among the stars.

And then we get to the music, which is very very good. It definitely took a few listens for the non-Metal sections to grow on me (this is a very eclectic piece, with genre shifting within almost every track) but there’s a very important reason it did. You see, while each track jumps between multiple genres, they don’t feel fractured or jerky. It never feels like the band is just genre hopping for the sake of being quirky and weird. Even when shifting styles, the band retains their cold, special aesthetic. The evolution of each track feels connected, falling and rising in a fashion that feels earned. Despite the eclecticism here, there isn’t a moment that left me bored.

The Metal, which is still the meat of the album, is fantastic Symphonic Prog Metal, and the vocals, both clean and harsh, fit nicely. Drumming is fantastic, guitar leads are striking, energy is at perfect level, and tempo and intensity rise and fall to suit the music. No weak points, no wasted moments. I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy some sections more than others, but wow is that a well put together record, a triumph of one of the hardest genres to do well in my opinion.

For sure one of the most interesting Industrial Metal acts that has been around since very near the beginning of the genre. Red Harvest have undergone a lot of evolution throughout their career, but along the way settled on an extreme style of Industrial Metal with generous Post-Metal influences and a dual focus on atmosphere and aggression.

Sick Transit Gloria Mundi open up with some of the best songs of the band’s entire career. “AEP” is an all-out aggressor that showcases the band’s strong ties to both Death and Black Metal, charging ahead with mechanical apocalypse. “Godflesh” is an extremely doomy and atmospheric track that showcase the opposite spectrum of their skills; crafting dense, building atmosphere into an all-encompassing sound that retains their mechanical edge. “Humanoia” is another shot of aggression and energy, slightly more contained than the overwhelming “AEP” but still packed with power, great drumming and mechanical riffs.

Unfortunately, after these opening songs, the album fails to reach such heights again. The rest of the album ranges from great to decent, constantly shifting gears between aggression and atmosphere, but never quite pulling either off as well as they did in the opening tracks.

The album is not quite a concept album, but contains many references to humanity being overtaken by machines, extending to the point humans themselves begin fusing with technology and computers until their humanity may as well be gone. It’s a fun take on the digital apocalypse and remains consistently grim and gloomy throughout.

Without a doubt, this is a quality album through and through, but the opening had me thinking this was about to be one of the best Industrial Metal albums I’ve ever heard. It’s great, but if they’d maintained such quality throughout, it’d be a masterpiece. At least it displays the band’s potential.

Oceanic is a monstrous record, a storied masterpiece in the genre of Atmospheric Sludge, and the first Isis release to show the band with a fully developed sound and knack for building dense, layered atmospheres.

Or so they say. While listening to Oceanic, I have to confess I found myself underwhelmed. The guitars in particular are very repetitive and simple, almost exclusively power chords changing ever so slightly. They do layer nicely, yes, and the production helps gives them a heavy, dense yet smooth sound. But lead guitarwork is scarce, simple and quiet, almost completely drowned out by the repetitive chords. Similarly, other layers of effects, which usually create the rich atmosphere typical of Atmosludge, are subtle or absent, leaving the compositions surprisingly… shallow.

There are a significant amount of Post-Rock sections here, where the heavy guitars subside to let other instrumental parts have some time to craft quiet, layered soundscapes. I think these parts are done quite well, and they add great diversity to the long, plodding tracks. The contrast between these sections and the droning, repetitive heavy chords elevate both and help eliminate fatigue from the latter.

The saving grace of this album, to me, was the lyrical concept. I was far more interested in the songs once I learned of the concept and paid close attention to the lyrics and how the songs work to evoke the same mood and themes as the out-of-order story. There is a consistent aquatic feel to this album which gives it a unique atmosphere, and the twisted, troubled sexual undercurrents add to the tensity of the dissonant atmospheres.

Some Atmospheric Sludge albums have the issue of having a few really incredible tracks or moments within the tracks surrounded by long stretches of filler. Oceanic is actually quite the opposite; it is extremely consistent throughout, even among stylistic changes, the only exception being the useless untitled interlude. This means as a full album, Oceanic is a much easier listen than many of its contemporaries; however, it also lacks any memorable peaks or crescendos that truly stand out.

It's a strong album with some impressive walls of atmosphere and compelling themes and lyricism. But one of the best Atmospheric Sludge albums ever? Personally I would have to disagree. A VERY solid and consistent example of the genre, but nowhere near my favorite.

Reverend Bizarre are a Doom act that received notoriety for reviving and reintroducing the Metal world to the old-school fuzziness of Traditional 80’s Doom (and of course, their roots in the earliest 70’s Sabbath material).

By the end of the 90’s, true Doom had fully developed, and with it the more extreme iterations of Death Doom and Funeral Doom. Trad Doom had been mostly left behind or adopted by Stoner bands as newer Doom bands focused on the emotion, mood, and atmosphere of the true strain of the genre.

Reverend Bizarre invites listeners back into the fuzzy and occult rituals of the old guard, enveloping the senses with fuzzy, repetitive guitars, plodding rhythms and the voice of a pagan preacher. Most of the music is lethargic and monotonous, but sections of more energetic jamming pop up usually when they are most needed.

For this listener, Reverend Bizarre remind me of everything I dislike about Trad Doom and why I feel it’s better left in the past. I’ve mentioned in multiple reviews before that the reason Doom works so well is because the emotional, moody atmosphere is heightened by the crushing heaviness and funereal speed. So take away all the feeling and mood, and what are you left with? Slow, heavy, and boring. No emotion to fill the empty space left by the plodding, repetitive instruments. And that’s what Trad Doom is. The slowness of Doom without any of the emotion, passion, and melancholy that makes it so special and unique.

As far as Trad Doom itself goes, In the Rectory of the Bizarre Reverend is… average. Painfully so. Most songs have good ideas, but repeat them far too many times for far too long to the point they become tiring. Songs are not long because they have a lot to say or do, they are just long to fill space. Lazy and lethargic is the best descriptors for these songs.

Opening track Burn in Hell has a damn good riff and nice evil atmosphere, and is definitely one of the stronger tracks. However, the aforementioned issue of the song just being way too long and repetitive ruins its power, making the good riffs tiring because of how simple they are and how often they are repeated. “The Hour of Death” is the best track for sure, holding some genuine grief as it details the loss of a loved one, but even then, the song doesn’t actually sound super emotional, although it is quite good. “Doomsower” is just plain fun misanthropy.

I think timing is part of why this album is revered as it is. Trad Doom had been kind of dead and buried for the better part of a decade by 2002, so these guys were definitely appealing to aging Metalhead’s nostalgia as well as introducing a new era to the old school sound. But throw this album in a basket with the rest of the genre, and there’s nothing special about it. Sounds the same as everything that was already done in the 80’s, and it doesn’t do anything that well or unique to warrant such accolades. If you love the genre, you’ll definitely love this. If you don’t… you won’t.