Sonny's Forum Replies
I too am getting really long load times on my shitty laptop and on my tablet - I would say more than 20 seconds, maybe even double that. I've begun entering the site via the forums too, especially on the tablet where I can stay logged in. I hadn't thought of it before, but that could be a contributor to people not sticking with the site, we all know how impatient people can be nowadays.
I'm not at all versed in the ways of deathcore (or almost any-core to be honest) and I'm not even sure I know what breakdowns or gravity drops really are - sorry I'm just exceptionally ill-informed (or possibly uninterested) in that respect. I think this is probably a generational thing and, being an older metal fan, deathcore, metalcore etc. have never played a huge part in my listening habits and I'm perfectly happy to leave it to you younger whippersnappers. In truth any kind of djenty chugging immediately puts me off, but hey, good luck to you if that's your thing - I don't consider it a lesser form of metal, it just isn't my thing, so shoot me. Consequently I have no idea if this is any good or not in the deathcore pantheon, but I didn't take against it anything like as much as I thought I might. Sure, by album's end I was glad it was over but at least I made it that far which is pretty good going for me when faced with a -core album and OK it's only 34 minutes so that helps. The band's personal beliefs are irrelevant to me also but I guess if they are christians it may well have hindered their popularity in the metal scene as a significant number of metal fans are kind of weird that way. I'm not sure if comparing the vocalist to Phil Anselmo is any great advert for the band either, it certainly doesn't make me any more sympathetic towards them and yes, Daniel, the accusation of Kroegerness is valid as regards the clean sung vocals on My Light Unseen.
So that's all I have to contribute really and essentially Baptised in Filth is an album I am mostly indifferent to, but at least I didn't hate it, so there's a plus!
2.5/5
Having approached this from a position of knowing the sum total of zero about the band and their roots, I have to confirm that there is no metalcore to be heard here. Also, despite not professing to be any kind of authority on death metal or it's subgenres, I would be loathe to ascribe a melo-death tag to it either. To me this sounds more like tech death taken to another level and given the whole progressive nine yards. Although it initially felt a bit dense to my ears, after a couple of listens it's appeal is beginning to open up to me and I think I am beginning to hear why Daniel holds it in such regard. In truth, due to my own preferences and struggles with technical death metal, I doubt this will ever achieve classic status for me but it is definitely an album I will have no problem returning to time and again. I would rather listen to a progressive metal album like this that still has some balls than the kind of drab and banal releases that former favourites like Enslaved are churning out nowadays.
The vocals are great with a gruff, pit-dweller growl, the leads are extravagant, yet controlled enough not to irritate and the songwriting does indeed show plenty of promise. It doesn't have the hooks of prime era Opeth, but the tracks do seem to develop really nicely and have more than satisfactory resolutions. They do occasionally suffer from the old tech death issue of random leads and inorganic time changes, but not enough to radically upset the flow of the album. Overall an interesting and involving death metal album that I enjoyed far more than I suspected I would.
Is this band still a going concern and if so how come they've not released an album in ten years? And how the fuck can Metal Archives claim any kind of legitimacy if they don't allow an album this good onto their site?
4/5
I would also support an extreme progressive metal genre tag being implemented as there is quite a bit of difference between this and Dream Theater-type progressive metal that may not necessarily appeal to both sets of fans.
Yet another quality Pit playlist this month. Plenty of classics to enjoy, but I particularly enjoyed the run of tracks from the new Vio-lence to the Hostility track - some lesser known stuff that seriously kicks ass. I can honestly say there wasn't a single track that I disliked. Shout out to the Iron Reagen track - not heard it before and it's the best I've heard from the band yet. Well done Vinny!
Released in 1994, Allegiance's debut was a bit late to the thrash metal party. By then the binmen were carting the empty bottles away and cleaners were mopping the pools of puke up from the moshpit floor. There was an explosion of exciting and blasphemous new shit coming from the icy wastes of Scandinavia and doom was spreading over the world. To release a debut of pretty standard sounding, albeit fairly well done, Bay Area worship at this point in time meant that Allegiance were never likely to make much of a splash beyond their own shores and prove the old adage that "timing is everything".
The album's temporal misfortunes aside, it is very well done and all involved are impressively competent musicians. The vocalist, for the most part, seems to utilise the intonations of Hetfield and Chuck Billy for that authentic Bay Area sound and the rhythm section is solid. It is the guitar work that makes this worth listening to however with some cool riffing and impressively executed guitar leads.
On the downside there are of course the sparsely used, but ridiculously out-of-place death growls which I'm surprised they stuck with because they sound so jarring in this context. Furthermore, I'm sorry to say that the songwriting didn't exactly overwhelm me either. Although each track is well perforrmed and is inherently fine, I didn't feel as if anything jumped out and grabbed me by the throat and at album's end I struggled to recall anything truly killer.
If it had been released six or seven years earlier it may have been able to stand proudly alongside second-rung stuff like Exodus, but even the titans of thrash were disintegrating into mediocrity or reaching beyond the genre's borders at this point in time, so D.e.s.t.i.t.u.t.i.o.n was always destined for relative obscurity it seems. I would love to be able to claim it is some kind of undiscovered and ill-ignored gem, but in truth I found it to be well-executed but unexceptional Bay Area worship that would struggle to find much purchase outside that scene's most ardent devotees.
3.5/5
In regard to "Death", I actually don't think it needs both War Metal & Death Metal tags. War metal is essentially a combination of Black Metal & Death Metal anyway so I see no reason to add the Death Metal tag to this release when it will so clearly appeal to the War Metal audience. I've been tempted to post a Hall entry for it actually.
I agree. Even though it does lean towards the death metal side of war metal, it is still primarily a war metal release and I'm not sure it would appeal to a death metal fan who doesn't like war metal and as such, I don't believe it needs any further tag than war metal.
It's one of my favourite war metal albums too actually Sonny. I held it in pretty high regard when it first came out & my feelings haven't changed all that much to tell you the truth. You're certainly right about Spain not exactly being black metal central though. This record is probably the most significant Spanish black metal release I can think of at the moment.
Obviously I nipped over to RYM and had to produce a Spanish black metal chart and indeed Teitanblood are responsible for three of the top four. I did notice though that Altarage are also up there and I know you thought a lot of Succumb, Daniel, although it seems like more of a death metal album than black metal to me. Another war metal album is at #5, Proclamation's Execration of Cruel Bestiality which I will definitely now have to check out. Other than that, there doesn't seem a whole lot to get excited about.
On a more general theme, I find it hard to consider war metal as a purely black metal genre as it is so heavily influenced by death metal and Teitanblood's Death certainly seems to contain a significant amount of death metal. In the same way I guess that a band like Autopsy straddles death and doom metal yet is mainly considered to be a death metal band. It kind of illustrates how difficult it can be to ring-fence certain genres within a specific clan as it feels like a small number of clearly defined subgenres straddle multiple clans. It's only an observation and is unimportant in the scheme of things, but feels a bit like an itch in a hard to reach place that is sometimes difficult to ignore.
Teitanblood - "Death" (2014)
You can expect to experience pure chaos & extremity from this Spanish outfit's 2014 sophomore album which beautifully combines the pure war metal sound that Blasphemy originally intended with the chunky down-tuned death metal riffage of bands like Entombed, Autopsy & particularly 80's Carcass. I absolutely love the screaming war metal vocals & there's even a brilliantly executed four minute death doom piece right in the middle of the album. The drums can sound pretty messy at times but frankly who gives a flying fuck with this style of metal. It's simply not intended to be over-analyzed & this is definitely one of the stronger war metal releases you'll find.
4/5
Yeah, came across this one during a war metal binge late last year (I think I submitted a track from it for one of the North playlists). One of the best war metal albums I've heard in recent times. The extended track lengths are unusual for war metal, but the band really make them work. Not exactly a hotbed for black metal Spain is it, but this is an impressive record, which I still need to buy a copy of.
While black metal has come on immensely over the years and is now as diverse a genre as any, I have reservations. Some modern black metal releases feel a bit like menthol cigarettes or alco-pops or those weird toffee-flavoured coffees that have become popular in recent times. Me, I prefer high-caffeine, full-strength, 40 degree proof black metal and (much as I enjoy a lot of the hybridised black metal releases) I still love that straight-up, raw blasting style of the nineties and that, essentially, is what we have here. I sometimes get a feeling that black metal is straying too far from it's roots with bands like Deafheaven and Alcest making inroads into the world of the RYM hipsters on regular occasions, so it's great to know that there is still plenty of room for second wave-style blasting and (small "m") mayhem. Chuck in a war theme and I'm pretty much sold. It's not quite as unremittingly pulverising as Panzer Division Marduk but it is certainly likely to appeal to the same people who love Marduk's best. That closing track is a bit odd though, basically just a list of dictatorial mad men's names in place of lyrics spoken over a repetitive refrain, but it doesn't distract massively from the rest and with it being the last track you could always end the album early and pretend it isn't there!
Ultimately, anyone who sticks a flag in the ground in an attempt to reclaim black metal from the grasping mitts of the hipsters and "trendsetters" is going to get a thumbs-up from me.
4/5
Thanks Ben. Khazad-dûm eh? I thought I was the only one who liked that album (although not many people have even listened to it!)
Sorry Vinny, but I haven't been listening to a lot of Pit-related stuff this month, so I'll just go with:
Destruction - "Release From Agony" (4:43) from "Release From Agony" (1987)
Holy Terror - "Blood of the Saints" (3:47) from "Terror and Submission" (1987)
Metallica - "Seek & Destroy" (6:54) from "Kill 'em All" (1983)
Hi Ben, apologies if I've missed it, but do you have any suggestions for the March playlist as I have started knocking it together and would like to complete it at the weekend.
Hi Ben, could you please add US stoner/sludge band Sky Pig and stoner doom crew Tar Pit.
I have just been putting some tracks together for the March Fallen playlist and realised that this will be my fifth playlist now and I don't really have any idea how they are being received. I would like to be putting together playlists that A) do The Fallen justice and B) make people want to listen to them. To this end, I wonder if any of you who have listened to any of the four previous Fallen playlists could do me a bit of a solid and let me know if you have any thoughts. I would be particularly interested to know if you think that the genres covered are a good representation of the clan and if each of the eras are covered well enough. Also are the tracks too obscure, too popular or is there a decent ratio of familiar and unknown? Are there too many recent releases or not enough? As there are quite a lot of genres under the Fallen umbrella and it spans a lot of years it is difficult to know if the mix is right and actually compiling the lists makes it hard to look at them critically. I don't want to just produce lists I like myself, but I would like them to be a good advert for the site and for my favourite clan and be of some interest to fans other than myself, so if you could help I would appreciate it. Please be as honest as you can as I just want to improve the playlists and any feedback, negative as well as positive, is good. Anyway, cheers in advance.
Internal Void - Standing on the Sun (1992)
As you may have guessed by my last couple of posts, I'm currently on an early nineties doom metal trip and in Standing on the Sun I think I may have found one of my favourite examples of that genre. If you dig on the grooves of The Obsessed, Saint Vitus or Pentagram then you really need to get onto this.
Congratulations Sonny. That's an exciting lifestyle change alright.
My family are taking one ourselves actually. We sold our two bedroom apartment on the Northern Beaches of Sydney a week & a half ago & then bought a five bedroom house with a big pool on the Gold Coast in Queensland. We'll be moving up there in early April.
That sounds fantastic, Daniel. That sort of place us ordinary folk can only dream about in a cramped island like Great Britain. I sincerely hope you and your family will be happy there - and why wouldn't you, it sounds like heaven!
So, I've finally decided to get out of the rat race. Been giving it a lot of thought for a while now and then I got into a blazing row with my boss on Wednesday and thought "Fuck it, I've had enough of this shit" and put my notice in today. Gonna give early retirement a chance and see how it goes. Looking forward to it now!
Penance - The Road Less Travelled (1992)
Debut album from Penance, a Pittsburgh traditional doom band formed from the ashes of legendary thrash/doom outfit Dream Death. Crunchy, Sabbathian riffs with a vocalist who sounds surprisingly like Tom Araya. Not the most sophisticated album ever, but pretty cool if you are a doom metal fanatic (like me).
Glad you enjoyed them Andi. Alive in Athens is surely one of metal's most awesome live albums and deserves to be even more popular than it is.
Upsidedown Cross - Upsidedown Cross (1991)
An album that is every bit as unhinged as it's cover suggests. Doom/sludge/noise with huge fucking helpings of acid, smack and coke to boot!
If you haven't listened to it Andi, I would heavily recommend Iced Earth's double CD, Days of Purgatory. They re-recorded 21 tracks from their first four albums with their best singer, Matt Barlow. It is my favourite power metal release and one of my absolute go-to albums. The Alive in Athens triple live CD also has a lot of the same tracks on and again features Matt Barlow on vocals - one of my favourite live albums ever. These two, along with Something Wicked This Way Comes, are all you ever need Iced Earth-wise.
In truth, you won't really get an accurate polling of the most popular bands from internet music websites as most participants are likely to be music nerds to a greater or lesser degree and popularity is overwhelmingly determined by the undedicated. I just thought it might make for an interesting talking point is all.
Here are my March submissions:
Ufomammut/Lento - "Infect Two" (from "Supernaturals - Record One", 2007)
Converge - "Blood Moon" (from "Bloodmoon: I", 2021)
Neurosis - "Lost" (from "Enemy Of The Sun", 1994)
Hi Daniel, it appears "Lost" and the whole "Enemy of the Sun" album are not available on Spotify in the UK.
Do you have an alternative selection?
An ultra-slow, funeral doom sea shanty from one of the greatest metal albums ever made.
When people talk of atmospheric metal releases they usually point to atmospheric sludge or atmo-black albums and it is true, these can both conjure up marvellous atmospheres. I particularly enjoy the natural world atmospherics of atmospheric black metal, be it the icy coldness of bands like Paysage d'Hiver and ColdWorld, the sweeping highland majesty of Saor or the awe-inspiring cosmic metal of Darkspace or Mare Cognitum. However, nothing expresses the atmosphere of the most fundamental forces of the natural world, such as heaving tidal forces, than funeral doom. At it's best it is overwhelming and implacable, either smothering or sweeping away all that stands before it in the same way that lava flows or tidal waves are capable of doing. German four-piece Ahab and their debut album The Call of the Wretched Sea, based on the novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville from whence they get their name, is one of the great albums for summoning up the sensation of being out on the deep ocean and it's immense tidal forces, along with the interaction of Ahab with it's most huge and implacable denizen, the white whale Moby Dick himself. As we all know, Mastodon released their classic Leviathan album two years prior, but the fact that they both draw on the same source material is the only real connection and I don't think Leviathan had any influence on Call of the Wretched Sea at all. The Mastodon album is a straight-up narrative of storytelling whereas Ahab's aims for a more immersive and overwhelmingly tactile experience.
Funeral doom metal is not really for the impatient and will most likely always be a niche genre, particularly with the modern world's obsession with instant gratification and ADHD-like impatience in it's junkie-like hunt for that next dopamine hit. However, for those willing to invest the time and to surrender themselves to it's all-pervasive heaviness, funeral doom is ultimately one of the most rewarding of metal genres. Call of the Wretched Sea is one of the greatest examples of why and is one of the absolute peaks of funeral doom metal in my opinion. There is a genuine sensation while listening to this that forces way beyond our ken or ability to control are at large and that ultimately men are at the whim of these vast, unknowable forces. Whilst listening to this and indeed any truly great funeral doom, I feel like it registers on a physical level and can almost feel it's ebbing and flowing within my own bloodflow, such is the power of this music for me.
Despite being over an hour in length Call of the Wretched Sea never gets dull or overly repetitive as there is more than enough going on to keep things interesting, but it is never hurried and the tracks are allowed the time to develop in a natural and organic way. Funeral doom gets a reputation for being monolithic and eschewing riffs for huge chords, which can certainly be true, but here there are definitely some great riffs, albeit they are exceedingly slow, smothering, and crushingly heavy - check out the riff to The Sermon, it is basically an ultra-slow, mega-heavy sea shanty. Keyboards are used fairly subtly, but they add an extra layer to the already thick atmosphere that increases the cloying nature of the music and adds to the sensation of being dragged down to a watery grave in the lonely isolation of the vast and unforgiving ocean. Daniel Droste's subsonic growl further adds weight and sounds like some Cthulhian elder crooning into a drowning man's ear to just let go and surrender to the ocean's lure.
This is not just one of my favourite funeral doom albums, but one of my favourites of any genre, metal or otherwise and stands as testament to sheer unadulterated heaviness and almost palpable atmospherics.
5/5 classic status.
So, as a follow-up, I looked at the releases on the Academy with the most ratings and found that the top 23 (all albums with 17+ ratings) were dominated by five bands - Sabbath (3), Metallica (5), Slayer (4), Maiden(3) and Bathory (4). Megadeth had a couple of entries and Tool and Celtic Frost filled out the rest with one each. Interesting indeed, showing the difference between a metal-oriented site and a more general interest site, with around half of the entries on the RYM chart making the Metal Academy chart. Bathory's first entry on the RYM chart is #107 so they seem to be much more popular amongst dedicated metalheads, less so the alternative metal bands popular on RYM.
#1 Metallica - Ride the Lightning (28 / 4.4)
#2 Metallica - Master of Puppets (27 / 4.7)
#3 Metallica - Kill 'Em All (25 / 4.1)
#4 Slayer - Reign in Blood (24 / 4.6)
#5 Black Sabbath - Paranoid (22 / 4.4)
#6 Metallica - ...And Justice for All (22 / 4.4)
#7 Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (22 / 4.1)
#8 Bathory - Blood Fire Death (21 / 4.3)
#9 Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss (19 / 4.4)
#10 Megadeth - Rust in Peace (19 / 4.2)
#11 Megadeth - Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? (19/4.1)
#12 Slayer - Show No Mercy (19/4.1)
#13 Iron Maiden - Powerslave (18/4.4)
#14 Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (18/4.3)
#15 Bathory - Under the Sign of the Black Mark (18/4.3)
#16 Slayer - South of Heaven (18/4.3)
#17 Tool - Lateralus (18 / 3.9)
#18 Metallica - Metallica [Black Album] (18 / 3.8)
#19 Bathory - Hammerheart (17/4.4)
#20 Black Sabbath - Master of Reality (17/4.4)
#21 Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast (17/4.1)
#22 Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion (17/3.9)
#23 Bathory - Bathory (17/3.7)
Raw, no-fucks-to-give black metal from one of the infamous Les Légions Noires. Band mastermind Meyhna'ch was quoted in '94 saying "Today, black metal seems to be dead, trendies has (sic) taken everything in hands... and Black Imperial Blood is one fist in their pigfaces". I don't know what his feelings are on modern black metal if this was how he felt in 1994!
Interesting that Jane Doe has more than twice the ratings of the next album on the list, which I would take to mean it gained traction outside of the usual Revolution sphere. Not surprising, I don't suppose, as it is probably first point of call for anyone looking to dip their feet into the metalcore waters.
Again, as these are the most recognisable names I guess they would always dominate any popularity list. I am still surprised at Sunbather's huge popularity, proving that it probably made a lot of traction outside of metal circles.
The overall Guardians top 20 looks pretty much how I would expect it to. I don't know enough about power metal to comment on the second list, but even I have heard of all those bands so it is probably fairly accurate.
With, as Daniel rightly pointed out, RYM being so US-centric I'm a bit surprised to see no Slipknot or Korn albums in the top 20 Gateway list. It also seems to indicate that there are a small number of acts that are exceedingly popular and dominate in the wider public mind.
'94 was indeed a special year for black metal - so many of my all-time favourites were released that year. 1994 is the new 1986!
This was an absolute belter of a list and I've played through it three times now. The only thorn in this bed of (black) roses is the Ereb Altor track - I really took against their new album as a whole and this track illustrates why. Whoredom Rife, Nameless Mist, Wiegedood and the Havukruunu track were all new to me and I loved them.
Excellent work everyone involved and thanks Ben for one of the best playlists yet.
Not feeling as much of the heavy/power metal vibe as much as I used to, so these submissions might be my last for now. Will explain more about it later.
It's interesting to hear you say that Andi because your ratings don't reflect that at all. In fact they indicate the exact opposite. If we look at all of your The Guardians related ratings since October 2021 they average a score of 4.54/5 across 14 releases which is a phenomenally high result. There wouldn't be another member that could compete with that across any clan actually. I don't mean to overstep my welcome but do you think that your tendency to commit to rating/reviewing every release in a band's back catalogue is contributing to your drop in enthusiasm given the large commitment that takes? I would think it would certainly make it a challenge to come up with fresh playlist ideas. I know when I've been too scripted about my listening habits I've started to feel boxed in & the best thing to do has been to just listen to whatever the hell I feel like for a while & all of a sudden music just seems a whole bunch more fun again. Variety is the spice of life after all. Feel free to tell me fuck right off though of course. Sometimes I well & truly disserve it.
I echo the 'boxed in' sentiment and I have certainly felt like this in recent months to the point where I no longer plan any listening. Yes, I will run through the features here but I am learning to live a little better with silence so far this year. I can drive somewhere in silence if I want, I do not have to have music on in my office / lair every time I go in there. I have been at this for over 30 years and so burnout is inevitable.
I definitely get where you guys are coming from. I have dropped my metal releases of the year list on RYM and the inherent demands of listening to and reviewing 150-200 releases from the current calendar year. I have so far only heard two albums from 2022, neither of which were very inspired listening I must admit. In fact, I have spent most of the last week listening to Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull, just because I wanted to! I have found that just going "fuck it, I'll listen to what I want" is very liberating, as is resisting the need to review every release even if I've got very little to say, so I'm sure you'll all be pleased to see my number of reviews dropping off quite steeply! And similarly to Vinny, I've even been out walking the dog without headphones on some days, which has been unheard of over the last few years.
I find this list less surprising than you do Sonny. It all comes down to RYM's market which is heavily weighted towards the United States. Iron Maiden have always struggled to gain the same sort of traction in the USA as they have in Europe for example while the likes of Rage Against The Machine & System Of A Down are easily more popular in the USA than they are anywhere else in the world.
RYM also has an inherent bias towards certain genres & subgenres of music for the same reason actually. I've often noticed that genres like hip hop, folk, progressive rock & indie rock seem to pick up enormous numbers on RYM compared to where I would think those genres sit with the rest of the world. In metal circles it's very hard for a traditionally focused metal album to score well these days with the more progressive, avant-garde & atmospheric releases inevitably scoring more interest. This was one of the reasons we started up the Metal Academy website in the first place actually. Plus, there are pockets of the globe that receive very little attention compared to others. Take my home country of Australia for example. There are loads of great Aussie releases that have been around for years/decades but are still yet to receive 100 ratings on RYM & these are often worthy of much more adoration than some of the top rating releases (see last month's The Sphere feature release for example which was my album of 2013 yet is only sitting at 81 ratings at present). Hopefully we eventually see MA taking off a bit & giving us a more rounded view of the wider metal opinion.
With that being said, do you think the days of the "mega" acts are pretty much over for metal. Are there any modern metal bands (let's say post-2000 for arguments sake) who could play massive worldwide stadium tours like Metallica, Sabbath, Maiden and Priest were able to do? Has the metal scene now become so fractured, encompassing such a wide variety of genres that it is very difficult for single acts to "break out" into the wider mainstream subconscious. Most metal acts, certainly in the UK, would struggle to fill a hall holding 1000 people and then only play one or two dates - in London and er, another part of London probably.
RYM being more US-centric makes it even more surprising that Burzum managed to get an album in the top 20. Maybe the truism that "all publicity is good publicity" played into his success.
And finally, I agree that most metal media does ignore huge amounts of the world's metal scenes and personally the "smaller" scenes are areas I would be very interested in hearing more about. Maybe here at the Academy we could do some kind of scene spotlight feature or discussions to engender awareness. For example, who are the best Australian bands and albums? I am familiar with quite a few, but I would love to learn more.
My submissions for March:
Archgoat - "In Extremis Nazarene" (3:35) from "Worship the Eternal Darkness" (2021)
Leviathan - "Made as the Stale Wine of Wrath" (8:44) from "Massive Conspiracy Against All Life" (2008)
Burzum - "My Journey to the Stars" (8:10) from "Burzum" (1992)
Runtime 20:29
Nah... Epica won out by sending me a 1349 COVID mask & a set of limited edition Devourment condoms. I dunno why my wife freaks out so much when I wear them simultaneously though. It's a mystery.
Now you've ruined it for next year telling everybody what the going price is!
(Just so any bands know, if you need a hand in earning a prestigious award like Metal Academy Clan Release of the Year, my star ratings are available at very reasonable rates)
Just our of interest, did you apply a number of ratings filter when determining the clan release winners and if you did, did it vary from clan to clan?
I'd just like to stick up for the Accept cover. I like it's simplicity and it certainly screams "METAL". The trouble with a lot of the power metal covers is that, like the genre itself, they throw the kitchen sink at them and they often end up too busy for my taste. That said, I voted for the Everdawn cover as I really dug the whole Cleopatra and cats thing - very Liz Taylor!!
Not a bad choice at all, especially for fans of Tool. Personally I would have liked to see Whitechapel win, but hey, you can't have everything.
Great record and possibly my favourite ever Sphere release. Another one I ended up buying a physical copy of (CD).
Another worthy winner, although I was a bit late to this one too, but I did buy the vinyl LP last week so a big hurrah for this one. I do like that Apsu cover as well.
Couldn't see any other winner in The North to be honest. I also bought the Gloosh CD and I really dig that cover too.
Can't argue with either of those, especially the Supulcros cover seeing as Mariusz Lewandowski is my favourite active artist (and not just cover artist). I came a bit late to the Converge/Chelsea Wolfe party, but was damn glad I did.
February 2022
1. YOB - "Quantum Mystic" from "The Unreal Never Lived" (2005) [submitted by Sonny]
2. Anathema - "Sunset of Age" from "The Silent Enigma" (1995) [submitted by Daniel]
3. Dystopia - "Population Birth Control" from "The Aftermath" (1999) [submitted by Daniel]
4. Kyuss - "Son of a Bitch" from "Wretch" (1991) [submitted by Daniel]
5. Age of Taurus - "Walk With Me, My Queen" from "Desperate Souls of Tortured Times" (2013)
6. Sirenia - "On the Wane" from "At Sixes and Sevens" (2002) [submitted by Ben]
7. Church of Misery - "Blood Sucking Freak (Richard Trenton Chase)" from "Houses of the Unholy" (2009) [submitted by Sonny]
8. Uncertainty Principle - "Pain Hate Fear" from "Sonic Terror" (2021)
9. Pentagram - "Be Forewarned" from "Be Forwarned" (1994)
10. Converge & Chelsea Wolfe - "Flower Moon" from "Bloodmoon:I" (2021)
11. Crowbar - "The Only Factor" from "Time Heals Nothing" (2005) [submitted by Daniel]
12. SubRosa - "Borrowed Time, Borrowed Eyes" from "No Help for the Mighty Ones" (2011) [submitted by Ben]
13. Dvne - "Towers" from "Etemen Ænka" (2021)
14. Neurosis - "To Crawl Under One's Skin" from "Souls At Zero" (1992) [submitted by Daniel]
15. Crust - "Darkness Becomes Us" from"Stoic" (2021) [submitted by Sonny]
16. Paramaecium - "The Unnatural Conception in Two Parts: The Birth and the Massacre of the Innocents" from "Exhumed of the Earth" (1994) [submitted by Ben]
Cryptosis - Bionic Swarm
I'm returning to this now after a gap of nine months from it's release as I failed to connect with it at all first time around due to it's technical edge, me not being the biggest fan of so-called "technical metal". Now that I have given it chance to settle in I am much better disposed towards it than I was last spring. Yes, there is a degree of technicality to the Dutchmen's thrashery, but it isn't as wanky as some technical thrash bands and the tracks still do what I like thrash tracks to do which is provide sufficient neck-wrenching aggression to facilitate headbanging overload. The musicianship is excellent and the songwriting is great, as I said, it does provide a degree of technicality but never loses sight of the fact that it is first and foremost a thrash metal record and ensures that it delivers on that front before incorporating the technicality into the songs.
I love Laurens Houvast's vocals, they are plenty aggressive and just the right side of ragged to give the impression of a singer pouring his all into his art. The riffs are sufficiently memorable and are tight as fuck with not a single note out of place, no matter how fast they are played and the soloing (always a bellweather in thrash metal) is impressively white hot. So with these thrash fundamentals firmly in place I am more than willing to overlook the odd bit of technical bollocks as it in no way detracts from what I turn to a thrash album for. Better late to the party than never to party at all I guess.
What is of particular interest is the incorporation of that old favourite of 70's prog outfits, the mellotron. It is actually utilised extremely well and doesn't impinge on or blunt the album's aggressiveness in any way. It is most obviously felt, I think, on Prospect of Immortality, which seems to be the track everyone is talking about due to it's slower pace and it's more diverse and even proggy feel. Ostensibly the album is a science fiction concept album, which is no problem for me at all as I love both sci-fi and concept albums, but in all truth I don't think this should be a deal breaker for those who don't as it still works merely as a damn fine thrash album. Nearly everyone is comparing this to Vektor and I will concede to those who know the work of the Arizonans better than I, but I prefer this to Vektor as this just thrashes harder.
So, to summarise my thoughts, this is a great thrash album that happens to have a bit of a technical bent and some interesting use of keyboards that enhance the band's thrash credentials rather than detracting from them. More of this, please.
All that said, I think I still have Steel Bearing Hand in the lead (it's damn close though!)
Nordicwinter - Le dernier adieu
Sedately paced atmospheric black metal from Canadian solo project Nordicwinter with nary a blastbeat in sight. This doesn't make it a bad record by any means, in fact it's a decent listen for any atmo-black afficianado, but neither is it going to set the gates of heaven ablaze. I was particularly enamoured of the distant-sounding vocals, which I really like in atmospheric black metal as they give the impression of ghostly voices heard on the wind. I would have liked a few pacier and more aggressive sections as overall the album feels almost too laid back and muted, but as I said it is decent enough, albeit fairly innocuous black metal.
3/5
Whitechapel - Kin (2021)
I remember hearing Whitechapel on one or two Terrorizer Fear Candy cover discs (which I still have somewhere) and fucking hating them! Since then I have given them a very wide berth indeed, so it is with some trepidation that, fifteen years later, I approach their latest album, Kin. Well I must say, the intervening years have been pretty kind to these once-irritating deathcore merchants because this is really good and I found myself enjoying it quite a lot. Like an annoying angsty teenager who has grown up to be quite the poet or artist as he hits middle-age, the band have matured and directed their energies into a more coherent and artistically satisfying direction. Sure, there's still anger and aggression here, but much better controlled and expressed than when they were younger. The calmer, clean sung sections provide a relief from the accumulated aggression, making it more effective as a result and giving it a progressive death metal atmosphere. I would have liked to hear them explore these clean sections a little further and think that would be a rewarding avenue for them to pursue going forward. All in all though I was pleasantly surprised by this and will look out for any further releases from Whitechapel with much more anticipation than before.
3.5/5
Chevelle - "Niratias"
Despite having been going for over twenty years I've never come across these guys before. I don't know what the rest of their discography sounds like but wow, these guys must really like Tool a lot if this is anything to go by. I mean the vocalist is endeavouring to sound EXACTLY like Maynard James Keenan (fairly successfully I must admit). Sounding like Tool seems to have got a bad name over recent years, but there are a lot worse bands to seek to emulate. Anyway, this is excellently performed and the songs are decent, even if it isn't my go-to kind of album I can appreciate it up to a certain point. I wouldn't buy it but I wouldn't turn it off if it came on randomly on Spotify or something. More my kind of Gateway release than most in that clan.
3.5/5