Sonny's Forum Replies

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.

4.5/5

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

Happy two days after your birthday, Sonny, and once again, so sorry to hear your dad's gone. RIP... I just had my birthday yesterday, and on that day, I was in an interview/photoshoot for the book series that I write, in support of a diversity campaign from a company who insist they be kept private for the time being. So that's a unique start of the next age chapter of my life.

Thanks for the best wishes. That sounds really interesting Andi, all the best of luck.

Well, it's been quite a week. On Monday I turned sixty and today we had my dad's funeral. I guess that's the end of another of life's chapters. Anyway, onto the next then.

I think for the purposes of the site it must be tagged as progressive metal. True, there are singular forays into more extreme genres, but not sufficient of any single one to merit a genre tag. Zeuhl is a genre I have never really understood the meaning of as I am not well-versed enough in it to comment. Possible additional, non-MA, tags are heavy psych or just psychedelic rock. Especially early on, the vibe is very late 60's psych. To be sure it is an eclectic release and is not easily pigeon-holed, but I definitely don't hear anything even remotely avant-garde - it can't be, it didn't give me a headache! But seriously, none of the tracks listened to in isolation are especially challenging and are of fairly typically structure, so I don't see where avant-garde comes into it at all. It seems that some people think if you put a saxophone onto a matal record then it instantly becomes avant-garde. So, for me it is a Progressive Metal album for the purposes of MA.

Updated my list a bit. Decided to grant the Anathema & Pig Destroyer releases qualification after all.

Just noticed you've got Electric Wizard's We Live in your top ten. Definitely EW's most underrated album and every bit as good as Dopethrone in my opinion. I think fans got too precious about Bagshaw and Greening leaving and Jus Osborne bringing his girlfriend, Liz Buckingham,  into the band so they turned their collective noses up at it.

Fange - "Pantocrator" (2021)

Where the fuck did this short thirty minute gem of an album come from?! I think I might just have found my new AOTY right here. Imagine the super dark & crushingly heavy sludge metal of Primitive Man combined with the mechanical industrial beats of Godflesh & the cold production of Uniform & you won't be far off the mark. Throw in some death metal riffs too just to stroke my comfort zone a but more too. I just fucking love this shit!

4.5/5

Yeah, I enjoyed it's bleak, confrontational sound so much I bought the CD. My favourite industrial-adjacent album in years, if not ever!

Papangu - "Holoceno" (2021)

I'm not sure that I'm completely convinced by this one. The individual tracks are all fine in their own right, but it just doesn't seem to hold together coherently and the myriad differing styles on offer sometimes make it feel like a label sampler of different artists. We have sixties / seventies style psychedelic rock, stoner rock, progressive metal and even attempts at sludge and black metal and while I can imagine any number of listeners getting off on this variety - and indeed no end of people on RYM seem to have wet their pants over it - I don't feel it is completely successful. One thing I really did enjoy that WAS consistent throughout was the percussion, which was fantastic with plenty of interesting drum patterns going on. An ecological message is always laudable (although admittedly lost on me  as I have zero grasp of Portuguese) yet I can't shake the feeling that this is aimed at a very specific audience. It seems like a worm on the hook for the well-meaning, liberal intelligentsia and aimed more at fans of Radiohead than Darkthrone, Judas Priest or Incantation. Maybe I'm not in the right place at the moment for this one and may return to it at some point when I feel more inclined to it's eclecticism, but for now I feel it is heavily flawed, although extremely competently produced.

3/5

There has been some very nice covers this year, but I must say it seems like an awful lot of bands just aren't trying and there is a lot of shit out there too. I guess because they don't need to catch the eye on the shelf anymore as everybody streams everything nowadays and as such the covers just aren't that important to some bands anymore. Is the art of the cover a dying art?

Mystras - Empires Vanquished And Dismantled (2021)

Ayloss' second full-length under the Mystras banner follows very much the formula of the first, 2020's Castles Conquered and Reclaimed, with the meat of the album revolving around fairly aggressive and raw black metal (certainly compared to his work under his Spectral Lore monicker anyway), interspersed with folk-laden interludes. The black metal is very busy with some frenetic guitar work and mostly hurtles along in neck-breaking fashion and this, along with the distant, multi-tracked vocals, oftimes provides a somewhat disorientating experience. This time around there is a bit more variety to the folk interludes, which are quite interesting for the most part and serve to segregate the black metal tracks from each other so that the album doesn't just pass by in one big blur and gives the listener's befuddled brain time to regroup before the next aural assault. Of these interludes I particularly enjoyed the flute and female vocals (provided by Nina Saeidi) of Cheragheh Zolmezalem (Opposition's Fire) which reminded me a lot of Lisa Gerrard on the Gladiator soundtrack. Unfortunately, the female-voiced Wie Schändlich es ist is not so good, sounding like something from The Lord of the Rings sung by an elf.
Castles Conquered and Reclaimed was one of my favourite albums of 2020 yet for some reason, despite not veering away from the debut's premise too much, this just didn't grab me in the same way and left me feeling more than a little disappointed.

3.5/5

Converge & Chelsea Wolfe - Bloodmoon: I

While the album is definitely a genuine collaboration, it does seem to be more of a metal album than Chelsea Wolfe would normally produce, so feels like Converge were the dominant side of the partnership with their music being tempered by Chelsea's presence rather than being an equally divided recording. This is no bad thing and I'm guessing this was the natural way for the album to come about, without worrying about ego and  preciousness, the music coming first.

From the opening track, the almost eight minutes of Blood Moon, it is apparent that Chelsea Wolfe's gothic darkwave influence acts as the perfect temper for Converge's withering intensity, providing the moments within the music that allow it to breathe and offer some introspection rather than merely deploying relentless aggression which, for me personally, is a big plus as I find the sustained intensive aggression of metalcore and mathcore to be insufferable most of the time, but these gentler, more reflective parts provide contrast and context to the whirling maelstrom and make it much more effective as a result. Don't be misled though, there are still plenty of great riffs and metal moments - I'm particularly fond of the riff towards the end of Coil as the track peaks from the extended build-up. Chelsea's influence can also be felt on the crawling, Soundgarden-ish Flower Moon which also has a great riff and crunchy guitar sound as it ramps up the intensity for a real stand-out track. Flower Moon is followed by Tongues Playing Dead which sounds more like I imagine Converge to usually sound and, I must confess, if the whole album sounded like this track then I would struggle with it. Lord of Liars is similarly intense, but the presence of Chelsea Wolfe's clean vocal and the whirlwind guitar work make this a far superior number.

Anyway I have no intention of producing a track by track breakdown, suffice it to say that Bloodmoon:I provides far more variety and interest than I originally expected and although I certainly wouldn't say it's a perfect album, the protagonists, despite coming from very different directions, work well off one another and have combined to produce an album that should appeal to a large cross-section of fans of metal and more mainstream taste alike.

Solid 4/5, has potential to push itself up to a 4.5 with subsequent listens.

Could you add UK blackened thrashers Hellfekted please Ben.

I had Borknagar's debut pegged as a solid 4.5. However, it must be a dozen years since I last listened to it and those years haven't been kind. OK, I accept it's more likely that it is my taste that has changed rather than any fundamental alteration in the metal climate - it's my fault, not yours, Borknagar. The reason for this change of heart is those folky interludes which just get in the way of some pretty intense black metal. I mean, I'm just really getting into some decent old-school, second wave blasting then this drippy folk shit pops it's fucking head up and completely spoils my private party - again and again. Well I'm not gonna stand for it I tell you - I'm dropping this fucker down to a 3.5!

Actually, I'm so peeved about it because when they hit that bm sweet spot, which they do on several occasions here, they really are fantastic, but the impetus is completely drained by those multifarious folk breaks, like a turd in a pool party. I guess I'm just no longer the same tolerant guy I used to be several years back. Life's too short for endless interludes on black metal albums and if I want folk music I'll buy a Bob Dylan album instead - or Wardruna - those guys are much better at it anyway.

3.5/5

I guess I'll end with this: don't ostracize new metal fans because they like the popular metal trend. In my experience, hipster culture is the one factor above all else that has distanced me from popular trends. Acceptance is what leads newbies to expand their listening experience beyond their comfort zone. You never know; the next giant in heavy metal might not even listen to metal at this moment. Just give them time to get there.

Great point there, Saxy. It would be unrealistic to expect new fans to dive immediately into Deathspell Omega, Hell or Esoteric. I doubt any of us jumped straight into the deep end with extreme metal and for us older fans (from the 80s or earlier) it was something that developed along with us as we aged with it. Now there is a bewildering amount of stuff that is termed as metal just sitting right there and I'm sure it can be daunting to get into. Hopefully this is where a website like Metal Academy can help out the newer, less informed fans, but let them walk before they can run and then we won't scare them away.

If the music is good enough and we help to get it heard - the clan playlists are a great vehicle for this if we can get people outside our admittedly small circle to listen - then I'm sure the next generation of metal fan will jump onboard and secure it's future.

Could you add Mizmor's latest EP, Wit's End please Ben.

RYM page

Bandcamp page

Could you also add German epic doom band Servants to the Tide please Ben.

RYM page

Finally I got round to reviewing Swallow the Sun's gut-wrenching latest album, Moonflowers. I think it is a classic of gothic death doom and just drips with sorrow, mourning and futility, but also contains an enormous amount of beauty too.

Some excellent points there. One thing that seems plain is, as far as Academy members are concerned, there is still plenty of quality output, but none of it is readily accessible to the mainstream and, in the great scheme of things, metal is still very much a niche scene. It still seems to have a problem appealing to the 50% of the human race that we used to call female (I don't know what the current accepted designation is, sorry) and neither is it the best at self-promotion. However, for the enthusiasts and those willing to dig, there are loads of exciting new releases to add to the already fantastic back catalogues of bygone days and there should be more than enough quality stuff to satisfy even the most rabid metalhead.

This is a decent enough album, albeit a bit too polished for my taste, but I don't feel it is a true representation of The Fallen. It is about 25% sludge and 75% progressive metal as it attempts to reproduce latterday Mastodon's sludge-prog. Personally I would feel a bit short-changed if it was considered Fallen AOTY as I think it is more suited to The Infinite. That's just me though, so have a listen and see what you think.

While compiling February's Fallen playlist I stumbled across this absolutely brilliant album of blackened sludge metal from Russia. It was criminally overlooked last year, by me as much as anyone, but it deserves way more attention than it got hence I'm posting it here. It's not on MA yet, but I have asked Ben to add it.

Like Andi, I don't listen to a lot of avant-garde metal (a lot of it just gives me a headache) so I'll go with a top 5 also:

1. Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin kynsi (2020)

2. Deathspell Omega - Paracletus (2010)

3. Jute Gyte - Perdurance (2016)

4. Thy Catafalque - Naiv (2020)

5. Jute Gyte - The Sparrow (2017)

Hi Ben, could you please add Russian sludge outfit Crust.

RYM page

Also UK drone metal project Uncertainty Principle

RYM page

I'd not even heard of this album before this month's feature and have only the very briefest of dalliances with it's protagonists. The cover is especially uninspiring and gives no clue as to what may be concealed within, so I wasn't completely sure what to expect. Anyway, it all turned out well, because it's heavy, metallized space rock is very much my sort of thing. This is real wall-of-sound stuff, a wall built of the ultra-heavy stoner doom of Sleep and Electric Wizard, cementing it to cosmic-flavoured post-rock, such as that found on Barrows' superb Red Giant album (which this predates by seven years, so may have been an influence on) then reinforcing it with some Hawkwind-style space rock. Some may sniff at the 'Wind comparisons, but the jam during Painful Burns Smoke as the Presence Sets Us Down in Supersonic Waves sounds so much akin to the sort of jams heard on the numerous live versions of classic Hawkwind tracks like You Shouldn't Do That and Brainstorm and The Overload has such a lot in common with The Age of the Micro Man on The Hawklords' 25 Years album that it is impossible to conceive that the UK's veteran cosmic travellers weren't a strong influence. Of course this is way heavier than Hawkwind ever were and certainly has also taken plenty of influence from the best of sludge and atmospheric sludge outfits like Neurosis, ISIS and even Eyehategod. In fact it is so heavy it feels like it creates it's own gravity well and may well be the densest stoner metal ever produced.

I like to think I have a decent imagination and I absolutely love albums that may not possess too much of a narrative of their own, but allow the listener's mind's eye to roam and create it's own narrative structure around the music. Supernaturals - Record One is absolutely one such album and, having listened to it a number of times, I can say it feels like a different journey each time I take it, filled with cosmic power and awe, from the thrusting propulsion of tracks like Infect One and Painful Burns... to the drifting in space, open-mouthed, witnessing of galaxy-wide supernovae sensation of Maestoso. This is absolutely an album in the stoner tradition and I can imagine it would probably take on a whole other level of meaning if listening was pharmaceutically assisted, but those days are long gone for me and I will settle for the raw, unaltered sonic trip as offered up in it's unfiltered form as it is a terrific slab of cosmic metal.

I must admit, all the same, I had to raise an eyebrow, Daniel, when I saw that you had it pegged as your fifth favourite metal album ever, even higher than ANY death metal. Just goes to show how people can surprise you some times, eh? Anyway, for me, I can't in all truth rate it that highly, but it is certainly a fantastic album (in all senses of the word) and is one I will definitely be returning to many times I predict.

4.5/5

That's a very big claim on behalf of Zero Tolerance (a mag I have read a couple of times, but in common with all printed media, they exist to sell advertising). I'm not sure I'd want to listen to the opinion of anyone who claimed to be THE authority on anything.

My intention was for a nice interactive discussion around what us metal fans consider to be extreme, but I don't think I've put that across very well so maybe it sounds like I'm personally seeking to define extremity in respect of music, which I most definitely am not. I merely intended to seek others opinions as I thought they might be interesting.

I understand what you mean Vinny about being outside your comfort zone with popular music, most non-metal modern music is outside my own personal comfort zone. I was thinking more of music that's outside your comfort zone, but that you still enjoy as it energises you in a different way to what you may be used to.

Interesting comment from Ritual Butcherer about satanism becoming "overly complicated with different factions jealously sand-boxing their own little variants". Isn't that what has happened with all religions and belief systems since the dawn of Man?

OK, so I get the accepted definition of Extreme Metal. So let's change the discussion then and I'll pose a different question,  just for discussion's sake. What do you personally consider to be extreme (with a small "e"). For me it's the more brutal regions of death metal with it's excessive glorification of violence and the more intense sludge/drone/doom acts like Khanate and Hell. Both of these force me out of my comfort zone with varying effect, the former pushes me into a place I don't enjoy and the latter takes me into a place where the discomfort becomes thrilling and triggers sensations unavailable elsewhere.

I don't consider many other accepted Extreme genres as extreme personally as they don't take me out of my comfort zone. My love of most black metal, old-school death metal, thrash and funeral and death doom mean that they are now so familiar to me that I feel completely at home with them so can't in truth stamp them as extreme.

I'm not trying to come across as some elitist asshole, but out of a genuine interest for the opinions of other Academy members, what do you all personally consider to be metal extremity? (There is no right or wrong answer!)

Thanks for the reply Andi. It kind of confirms what I suspected which is that, like so much in the modern world, it has become nothing more than a convenient label, or a corporate logo. This allows for easy digestion and assimilation which then removes any need for crirical appraisal of the art form. How very apt that you mention Marvel movies as a comparison, the ultimate corporate hijacking of popular culture.

It's interesting that you quote Cradle of Filth as an example of genuine extreme metal because for me, they are anything but. Yes, they were influenced by extreme metal, but they are a band who are more about image and wear the tag like a T-shirt. Compared to a band like, say, Khanate, they are about as extreme as Britney Spears! This version is the "ripped jeans" of metal. ( Ripped jeans are one of my major bugbears. We used  to wear ripped jeans back in the day because we couldn't afford new ones - see also "patched denim". Now fools buy ready-ripped jeans for sometimes hundreds of pounds, without any awareness of the irony.)

With the introduction of melodic variants of previously extreme genres like black and death metal, can we still claim these genres to be extreme merely by definition? Personally, I don't think so.

Submissions for February:

Sadistik Exekution - "Cautness Darling Blood" (4:04) from "The Magus" (1991)
Coroner - "Reborn Through Hate" (4:52) from "R.I.P." (1987)
Slayer - "Kill Again" (4:56) from "Hell Awaits" (1985)
Exodus - "The Beatings Will Continue (Until Morale Improves)" (3:01) from Persona non grata (2021)
Aggressive Perfector - "Vengeful One" (4:15) from "Havoc at the Midnight Hour" (2019)
Iced Earth - "Pure Evil" (6:33) from "Night of the Stormrider" (1991) - I know this may be a controversial choice, but I think it's thrashy enough to merit inclusion, but if you don't Vinny, then it's fine if you don't feel able to include it.

Runtime: 27:41

Featuring drummer Dobber Beverly and guitarist Beau Beasley of grindcore act Insect Warfare and progressive metallers Oceans of Slumber, along with the latter's Mat V. Aleman, Malignant Altar prove that they are extremely capable musicians and songwriters who are able to master a variety of metal genres. Under the Malignant Altar guise they tackle the long-established genre of doomy old-school death metal that first reared it's foetid, ugly head around the turn of the nineties.

I've got to say this is right up my street, the filthy, old-school sound is exactly the right stench of death metal that I enjoy most of all. Whilst it is better produced than the old classics and sounds clearer and cleaner as a consequence, that doesn't detract much at all from the fact that these guys seem to know exactly what they are about in reproducing that cavernous 1990's sound. There is not much room for variety or innovation within this style of death metal, it's rules being set in stone at least a couple of decades ago now, so new bands like Malignant Altar are judged on how well their releases stand up to aforementioned classics from bands like Autopsy, Asphyx and Cianide. Realms of Exquisite Morbidity stands up very well indeed and rivals one of my modern OSDM favourites, Coffins' Buried Death, for sheer festering, evil-sounding, filthy, modern death metal, it's chugging riffs and crawling, menacing, doom-ridden sections exactly hitting my death metal bullseye. This predictability in OSDM can lead to the tracks starting to merge together into a bit of a blurry miasma, but Malignant Altar fully realise this and so keep the album to a concise 33 minutes, which is a bonus point in their favour.

Nice choice for a feature Ben, cheers for bringing it to my attention. 4/5

Punky black metal from the debut EP from US anti-fascists, Melissa.

Superb promo track from French, female-fronted, stoner doom outfit Deathbell that bodes really well for the full album due out 25th February.

I've been assumed to be a bot by RYM a number of times while putting together playlists in the past which I found really annoying. Lately I've been thinking that I'd rather not use a competitors site for the task anyway & are planning on trialing the prioritized use of our Latest Reviews page (filtered by the clan in question) & the Track Of The Day threads in each clan forum so as to guide my track selection in a way that most accurately highlights the listening habits of the site. I can easily see the dates of each rating on the Latest Reviews page which makes it easy to pick the ones that you've all been listening to within the month in question.

How would you pick up stuff that we have been re-listening to that we have rated previously, possibly even years before, Daniel?

Can I just give a mention to Be'lakor's Coherence.

For me, in addition to the Panopticon and Mare Cognitum albums, I would like to mention:

Kanonenfieber - Menschenmühle

Les Chants de Nihil - Le tyran et l'esthète

Paysage d'Hiver - Geister

Archgoat - Worship the Eternal Darkness

As Xephyr rightly says, it was another great year for black and blackened metal.

It was down for a few hours one day last week for maintenance but other than that as far as I'm aware it's OK. I've never had the issue, but apparently it is notorious for not responding or kicking you out if you are flicking from page to page too quickly as it thinks you are a bot. Maybe that is part of the issue Andi?

We're having our two bedroom apartment internally repainted on Thursday, Friday & Saturday. We'll be packing the kids into the car & heading south of Sydney for a few days while it's done. My wife is currently forcing me to make a decision between ten different shades of white. One of us is taking this decision far too seriously while the other couldn't give a flying fuck which shade we go for & is getting very annoyed with having to be involved. I'll let you guess which one I am.

We recently had a new kitchen fitted and I am having the same issue with shades of green. The In fact, I didn't even realise that there was that many shades of green! I'm completely with you on this one - it's really difficult to appear to be interested in the search for a perfect colour match when in reality you couldn't care less.

Hi Ben, do you think it would be at all possible to have a "wishlist" or "to check out" button or some such? At the moment if there are releases I want to check out but can't listen to right away, I have to go back to RYM and note them there. If there was a checkbox or button on the release page you could then filter on the releases page by "on wishlist" or similar and Ta-da! there they would be. It's just a suggestion, it's not important, but it would be nice.

Fear Factory - Aggression Continuum (2021)

In truth, I've not listened to a new Fear Factory album since 2001's Digimortal and of those that I have listened to, Demanufacture is the only one I ever return to much, so I am pretty unfamiliar with where the band headed thematically and musically during most of the 21st century. I understand that Burton C. Bell has now left the band, although he had recorded his vocal parts for Aggression Continuum before heading out the door. Shame, as Bell has a distinctive voice and his vocals are one of the most striking parts of FF's arsenal.

Well, it seems like I haven't missed a huge amount in the last two decades as Aggression Continuum does not sound strikingly dissimilar to the band's earlier albums such as the aforementioned Demanufacture and Digimortal. I guess they may just be trying to recreate their glory days but, in truth, this is Demanufacture-lite and after the passage of so many years we would be unrealistic expecting them to still spit out the same venom and aggression as on their earlier material. If even bands like Slayer struggle to pull it off, we can't expect FF to be able to either. Probably most disappointing is that it still sounds SO much like the earlier material that it doesn't feel like they've actually developed that much musically. I don't know what I was expecting, maybe something a little more progressive sounding or atmospheric, but this very much follows a formula established long ago, pitching itself somewhere between industrial and groove metal and if anything it now feels more entrenched in the groove metal camp, which would never especially endear itself to me personally.

There is also an instrumental version of the album available. Not sure that there's enough going on here to merit it, but if you want it, it's there.

Are Fear Factory making a bid to write the theme song for the next Bond movie with Recode from latest album Aggression Continuum. I swear it sounds like Chris Cornell's You Know My Name in places.

What is the actual cut-off date when the winners will be decided, Daniel? I ask so that I can make sure to get a few listens in for more of the albums and give them a reasonably informed rating.

I kept my list private for a few weeks, Vinny, then made it public with no issues. I too see duplicate entries on your list. Have you tried remaking it anew and seeing if the same happens again?

I did the same for my Fallen list and I have had no issues using Firefox Vinny.

I've previously posted my top 50 Fallen releases of the year list, so anything near the top of that would be a recommendation from me.

https://metal.academy/lists/single/150

Again, I apologise if you think I'm being difficult.

Sonny, the release of the year will simply be decided on the highest scoring release using our Site Ratings & whatever minimum rating cut-off seems to make sense. The shortlists I'm providing are not intended to tell everyone the only releases that are in contention. That's not the case at all. Metal Academy obviously only has a small number of regular contributors at this stage so the shortlists are intended to draw people's attention to the releases that are getting the most attention on social media & other metal-related websites. The Dvne release has been included in the shortlist because (despite the fact that it only has one rating on this site) it has been popular on other metal mediums e.g. it's been making a number of well-informed people's AOTY lists on Twitter where I spend a fair amount of time & has scored highly with a large number of ratings on competitor's sites.  The long & short of it is that I'm looking to minimize the chances of important releases slipping under the radar of our small group if at all possible. I'm not saying that these five releases are the only potential winners.

Ah, OK. It just seems like favouring the same releases that other sites have been championing just because they are championing them. With four of the five releases on the shortlist being sludge-related it also feels like we are pushing for that genre to be the ROTY because it's the genre of choice elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, the three I've heard are all great albums, but shouldn't the shortlist be a bit more varied? Perhaps one release per relevant genre?

Sorry, I don't wish to seem argumentative but it seems to be unfairly weighting certain releases because people who are not members of Metal Academy like them.

Hi everyone.

With only one month to go until we announce our release of 2021 for each clan (which will once again be based on our site ratings), Ben & I thought it'd be worth highlighting five key releases contending for each title in order to give everyone the chance to investigate some (or all) of them this month if you wish to. These were some of the more highly regarded releases in the doom, sludge, stoner, gothic, drone & Southern metal space last year:

Converge & Chelsea Wolfe - "Bloodmoon: I"  {US gothic post-sludge collaboration}

Worm - "Foreverglade"  {US doom/death}

Cult of Luna - "The Raging River" E.P.  {Swedish post-sludge}

Dvne - "Etemen Ænka"  {Scottish progressive sludge metal}

Amenra - "De doorn"  {Belgian post-sludge}

Dvne is currently sitting with 3.5 from one vote while Wolvennest is at 4.2 site rating with 3 votes, Hooded Menace is on 4.0 with 4 votes so I don't see how Dvne is a highly regarded release and those aren't. What is the criteria for the release of the year as I'm a little fuzzy on the deal?

My submissions for February are:

Dauþuz - Der Bergschmied IV: Zauberwerk (5:52) from "Vom Schwarzen Schmied" (2021)

Mystras - "The Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem" (14:26) from "Empires Vanquished and Dismantled" (2021)

Sorry Ben, it's a few seconds over 20 minutes but I'm sure no one will notice.