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Rodman
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 10:15 am
Posts: 976
Location: Sydney, Australia
PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 6:22 pm 
 

Yes, it's an unoriginal thread topic. Yes, it has the potential to degenerate into dick swinging and bickering - welcome to the internet.

The only posts that I've found uninteresting so far are those that are denigrating the thread itself.

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des91
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue Nov 25, 2014 8:51 pm
Posts: 361
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:59 pm 
 

Overkill's Horrorscope really bores me because most of the songs sound sort of similar in composition with a couple exceptions. Granted, I haven't heard it in a few years but when I did hear the whole thing (multiple times) that is how I felt. Sucks because I really want to like it but Taking Over is just so much better with more memorable songs.

Also, relating to Overkill, Blitz's vocals were MUCH better when he did that high pitch style of Taking Over and Feel the Fire. I mean, he could actually fucking SING!!! Why change that shit to sound so off-putting, imo.

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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:58 pm
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Location: Where the dead rule the night
PostPosted: Wed Sep 19, 2018 8:47 pm 
 

As fun as it is to "debate" random personal preferences, gotta say it's pretty dumb hearing that Maiden, Priest and Sabbath made pop music and Altars of Madness isn't heavy. Only on MA...

That said, Megadeth was never that interesting and I'm never in the mood for their noodling around anymore. Nevermore is mostly just shapeless songwriting and bad vocals. Visigoth is not bad but not nearly as amazing as some people have said. I guess those are my main ones.

Oh, pretty much any Gothenburg melodeath is lame to me... and Amorphis was always pretty boring and weak sounding to my ears.
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~Guest 334273
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Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:19 am
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 1:30 am 
 

I've always felt that Dismember's debut suffers too of the "first song syndrome", Override the Overture is one of the craziest riff fests of the whole genre and every song after (except maybe the album closer) that can't live up to its level. Still a good album tough

The usually i get the most divisive reactions with my opinions on Beneath the Remains and Tortured Existence.
I don't know if it's the production, but i just don't feel the energy of the riffs and the vocals sound more clumsy than savage. With bands like Slayer, Morbid Saint, Antichrist.. i immediately feel the adrenaline and the need to move, but with those two classics i usually feel more the need to check the songs's playtime.

Probably they work better in live setting, but i don't really feel the urge to find it out

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TheMysticWombat
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Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2011 2:29 am
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Location: CA, U.S.A.
PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 2:14 am 
 

Morn Of Solace wrote:
The usually i get the most divisive reactions with my opinions on Beneath the Remains and Tortured Existence.
I don't know if it's the production, but i just don't feel the energy of the riffs and the vocals sound more clumsy than savage...

Probably they work better in live setting, but i don't really feel the urge to find it out


Epidemic of Violence completely shits on Tortured Existence, and yes the production on the latter is not good at all, but Hydrophobia is a fucking solid track and drives me fucking nuts. You should give Beneath The Remains a visit again as the production on that one is supreme. Sometimes felt like Max just talks on the album but it's still a fucking great album.

But yes, seen Demolition Hammer twice now and they don't fuck around, absolute savagery. The Tortured Existence tracks are killer live.

Empyreal wrote:
...gotta say it's pretty dumb hearing that Maiden, Priest and Sabbath made pop music and Altars of Madness isn't heavy. Only on MA...


Would you really call Altars a heavy album with that thin production? Apart from that it resembles thrash more than death metal.

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~Guest 334273
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 2:33 am 
 

Well, a little re-listen can't hurt anyone: i kinda realized that the last time i've listened to Sepultura/Demolition Hammer was at least one or two years ago :lol:

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CannibalCorpse
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Joined: Fri Oct 01, 2004 3:55 pm
Posts: 1011
Location: Austria
PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 3:04 am 
 

Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance

Massive letdown after "the Hellion/Electric Eye". Then turns to even sappier shit right after "Riding on the Wind".

Darkthrone after "Soulside Journey" might have been most influental but many of their clones did it better.
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HaPoStaPu
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Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2018 9:20 am
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 6:33 am 
 

Just more obvious obversations such as Exodus only had one good album (ok, I guess Tempo of the Damned isn't bad as well), Metallica sucked after MOP, Maiden sucked after SSOASS, Voivod did after Nothingface (though I quite like Phobos). Can't think of more peoples' life's work to dump on right now. Actually, Carnivore, good fun, Type O Negative, rubbish. Kreator, Scheisse after COS.

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Mass Suicide
Metal newbie

Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 7:32 am
Posts: 92
PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 6:44 am 
 

HaPoStaPu wrote:
Kreator, Scheisse after COS.


I think that's too nice, they sucked already after PTK.

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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:58 pm
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Location: Where the dead rule the night
PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:44 am 
 

TheMysticWombat wrote:

Empyreal wrote:
...gotta say it's pretty dumb hearing that Maiden, Priest and Sabbath made pop music and Altars of Madness isn't heavy. Only on MA...


Would you really call Altars a heavy album with that thin production? Apart from that it resembles thrash more than death metal.


The production is thinner than, say, Incantation or MA's own Covenant a few years later, but Altars will still fucking wreck you if you play it at even a reasonable volume. It's in the writing, not the sound. And yeah it's definitely not fully developed DM yet as it was so new, but I wouldn't say it's thrash. It's the beginning of what DM would be.
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schizoid
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Joined: Mon Jul 19, 2004 8:35 am
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Location: New Zealand
PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 7:52 am 
 

I don't know why people are complaining about the production on Altars when it's their next album, Blessed, which has the driest, most lifeless sound ever found in death metal.
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Cosmic_Equilibrium
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Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:03 pm
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:15 am 
 

I've said it many times before here, but Rust In Peace is massively overrated.

It starts brilliantly, though. Holy Wars and Hangar 18 are two of the strongest Megadeth tracks ever, with great musicianship, fantastic riffs and interesting structures. They're deservedly staples of the live set. Likewise, the album ends strongly with Tornado Of Souls and the title track. You'd think judging from the start and end that this would be a classic - but no. The middle of the album is completely dead in the water. The middle four songs are thrashy, sure, and they have a lot of riffs, but almost none of the riffs are interesting, and there's just no coherence or flow to the songwriting, it all sounds really forced.

When I first got the album I noticed that the middle of the record didn't make an impression on me. I thought it might grow on me with time. Nope, never has done. It's a classic case of Who's Next type album structure, except that even on Who's Next the middle section is way more interesting and better written. I remember reviewing it here and giving it a score in the low 60s, noting that Point Of Entry was a better comparison - a weird mix of classics and filler - and that still seems apt.

If you took the first two tracks and the last two tracks (I don't really count Dawn Patrol as a song, it's just an instrumental interlude) and put them on an EP, you'd have one of the best Megadeth releases of all time, but as it stands there are other Megadeth albums which I'd rather listen to because the songwriting is more consistent. Also, a lot of people didn't like the remix job, but the original production is nothing to write home about, there's just no bass to the original mix at all, it's really trebly and tinny.

As a further note, Endgame is also massively overrated, and could be the least interesting Megadeth album that I've heard. It's like the middle section of Rust In Peace made into a whole album but with crappy conspiracy theory lyrics. Yet it seems to be acclaimed as a return to form and a modern classic.

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Cosmic_Equilibrium
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Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:03 pm
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:25 am 
 

Also while it's not a bad album KM/HBFL is a massive drop off in quality following Stained Class (which was admittedly an absolute peak for JP).

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Ace_Rimmer
Metal freak

Joined: Wed Jun 14, 2017 11:30 am
Posts: 4580
PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:39 am 
 

Empyreal wrote:
The production is thinner than, say, Incantation or MA's own Covenant a few years later, but Altars will still fucking wreck you if you play it at even a reasonable volume. It's in the writing, not the sound. And yeah it's definitely not fully developed DM yet as it was so new, but I wouldn't say it's thrash. It's the beginning of what DM would be.


Fucking A. Heavy is in the riff writing, not the production. Its why so much nu-metal sounded so flaccid to me despite being down-tuned and technically "heavy". You can't make a weak riff powerful and its hard to hold a powerful riff down with less than stellar production. Then again personally I think Alters sounds just fine.

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Ace_Rimmer
Metal freak

Joined: Wed Jun 14, 2017 11:30 am
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:41 am 
 

Cosmic_Equilibrium wrote:
Also while it's not a bad album KM/HBFL is a massive drop off in quality following Stained Class (which was admittedly an absolute peak for JP).


This is true.

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true_death
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Joined: Thu Sep 26, 2013 6:47 pm
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:27 am 
 

The production on 'Altars' isn't thin at all, if you ask me, and I also don't see how it's not "fully formed" death metal...I think it is, 100%! To me, 'Scream Bloody Gore' was the album that completed the evolution that 'Seven Churches' set in motion and turned death metal into it's own genre totally separate from thrash, and 'Altars of Madness' essentially took those albums and pushed it even further.

Also, 'Slaughter of the Soul' is in no way a sacred cow, and hasn't been for years. If anything, the massive hate-boner some people have for it actually has the opposite effect and makes it kind of underrated, at least for me :lol:. It's not one of my favorites, but "Blinded by Fear" is arguably one of the greatest album openers of all time, so there's that.

Anyway...here's a sacred cow, Angelcorpse are great, but I've never been able to get into Order From Chaos. I blindbought the boxset a couple years back, and it all just sounds generic and kind of faceless, to me. Just really boring, uninteresting riffs and lazy songwriting with a lot of really dumb ideas (the first song on 'Dawnbringer' comes to mind). Granted, I guess I can blame the guitarist more than Pete himself, as his other band Ares Kingdom suffers from basically the same problem, just sounding really generic and uninteresting.
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Twisted_Psychology
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:43 am 
 

I've never liked Hell Bent for Leather. The creepy yet metallic Stained Class tone just doesn't suit the material and British Steel is far better when it comes to commercialism. That said, Hell Bent for Leather is an amazing song and there are select songs that I think are nifty.

Paradise Lost's Icon is another awkward transitional album for me. True Belief is pretty great but for some reason, nothing else from it really sticks with me. Draconian Times does everything it does better.

Also seconding Sepultura. I absolutely love Arise but I can't really get into much else that I've heard from them. Beneath the Remains leaves me cold and Chaos AD doesn't have much appeal for me beyond the singles. I think it comes down to Max Cavalera's voice just being too monotonous for my taste. That said, Bestial Devastation is pretty fun in a lovably inept sort of way and I do still need to give Schizophrenia a listen.
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thrashinbatman
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Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:31 pm
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:10 pm 
 

TheMysticWombat wrote:
Epidemic of Violence completely shits on Tortured Existence, and yes the production on the latter is not good at all, but Hydrophobia is a fucking solid track and drives me fucking nuts. You should give Beneath The Remains a visit again as the production on that one is supreme. Sometimes felt like Max just talks on the album but it's still a fucking great album.

But yes, seen Demolition Hammer twice now and they don't fuck around, absolute savagery. The Tortured Existence tracks are killer live.




Yeah, Tortured Existence is held back quite a bit by it's awful production. Epidemic of Violence may be one of the best produced thrash albums ever. It's so absurdly aggressive and mean. That snare is probably the most intense snares ever put to tape.

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ingmar birdman
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Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2014 10:23 am
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:37 pm 
 

true_death wrote:
Anyway...here's a sacred cow, Angelcorpse are great, but I've never been able to get into Order From Chaos. I blindbought the boxset a couple years back, and it all just sounds generic and kind of faceless, to me. Just really boring, uninteresting riffs and lazy songwriting with a lot of really dumb ideas (the first song on 'Dawnbringer' comes to mind). Granted, I guess I can blame the guitarist more than Pete himself, as his other band Ares Kingdom suffers from basically the same problem, just sounding really generic and uninteresting.


Agreeing about Order from Chaos and my story is almost identical. I'm a huge Angelcorpse fan and also bought the box set, and every few months I try to get into them again but the songwriting just feels totally incoherent and leaves no impression on me. I figure there has to be something there though since so many of my real life friends love them so much.

I take issue with your assessment of Ares Kingdom though! :guns:

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Thy Shrine
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 4:55 pm 
 

ingmar birdman wrote:
true_death wrote:
Anyway...here's a sacred cow, Angelcorpse are great, but I've never been able to get into Order From Chaos. I blindbought the boxset a couple years back, and it all just sounds generic and kind of faceless, to me. Just really boring, uninteresting riffs and lazy songwriting with a lot of really dumb ideas (the first song on 'Dawnbringer' comes to mind). Granted, I guess I can blame the guitarist more than Pete himself, as his other band Ares Kingdom suffers from basically the same problem, just sounding really generic and uninteresting.


Agreeing about Order from Chaos and my story is almost identical. I'm a huge Angelcorpse fan and also bought the box set, and every few months I try to get into them again but the songwriting just feels totally incoherent and leaves no impression on me. I figure there has to be something there though since so many of my real life friends love them so much.

I take issue with your assessment of Ares Kingdom though! :guns:



Thirding OFC, every once in a while I'll listen to Stillbirth Machine to check it out, and try to enjoy it, but I can never get past the second or third song. It just doesn't hold my interest for some reason. Maybe it's the production?
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Sonic_Titan
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Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2018 1:07 pm
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 5:20 pm 
 

true_death wrote:
Anyway...here's a sacred cow, Angelcorpse are great, but I've never been able to get into Order From Chaos.


Same, OFC just never really clicked with me for some reason, despite multiple attempts.

Been drinking so perhaps this is not the moment to give it some proper thought, but I recently revisited Immortal - Battles In The North and I thought it aged really, really bad.

Also, I never got into Crowbar, despite the fact that I like a lot of sludge. I'm fully aware that they're considered a seminal band but there's just something about their sound that I find extremely off-putting.

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StainedClass95
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Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2014 4:14 am
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 5:30 pm 
 

It was a thread like this that I first posted on this site, deja vu. No one will see their opinion changed, but it is fascinating now and again to see what everyone's thoughts are on certain albums, bands, styles, etc. Thinking back, I believe several of the bands I listed have since become among my favorites or at least enjoyable up to a point.

ingmar birdman wrote:
While I can appreciate songs from Dismember, Grave, Entombed, etc. that style of music overall is dull as dirt to me. In my opinion those albums just lack the atmosphere of greater OSDM albums -- Altars of Madness, Onward to Golgotha, Nespithe, Dawn of Possession, To the Depths in Degradation, etc.


This caught my eye because it is nearly the opposite of my own tastes. I tend to prefer the FL and Swededeath bands to the NY and to a lesser-extent Finnish because the emphasis on that sound/atmosphere just does not work for me most of the time.

As far as slaughtering a sacred cow, I enjoy most of the FL bands except Death and Morbid Angel. The latter I fully understand why they do not appeal to me. Death on the other hand should be in my wheelhouse, an older, thrashier death metal band, perhaps the death metal band, yet nothing. None of it really stands out to me beyond the odd track here and there.

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Thy Shrine
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 8:10 pm 
 

Speaking of Morbid Angel, Altars and Domination are really their essential albums to me, and I might consider Gateways if I was in a generous mood. Domination in particular is fucking great, and I never got the hate for that one

Blessed and Covenant are good, but MA did better Imo.

And I could never get into that Infester album, though it's right up my alley.
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Rodman
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Joined: Wed Aug 24, 2011 10:15 am
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Location: Sydney, Australia
PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 9:05 pm 
 

Thy Shrine wrote:
Speaking of Morbid Angel, Altars and Domination are really their essential albums to me, and I might consider Gateways if I was in a generous mood. Domination in particular is fucking great, and I never got the hate for that one

Blessed and Covenant are good, but MA did better Imo.

And I could never get into that Infester album, though it's right up my alley.


I totally agree. It always confounded me that so many people considered BATS to be their magnum opus.

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metroplex
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Joined: Mon Oct 30, 2006 1:28 am
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Location: Peru
PostPosted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 9:31 pm 
 

Same here. A and D are way better than B an C.

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~Guest 389043
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Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2016 3:29 am
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 1:04 am 
 

Been listening to COD for near on 28 years. Love it.

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Frenetic Zetetic
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Wed Aug 15, 2018 4:16 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:33 am 
 

Slayer - "Reign in Blood" *dodges tomatoes and assorted rotting veggies*.

The single-most overrated metal album of all time for me. The riffs just aren't there for me. Yes, I just said Slayer riffs are non-existent. Jeff was the golden goose of this band. This album (and most of Slayer's discography) exemplifies to me what people who don't listen to metal think metal sounds like. It's fast for the sake of it with no substance. Other than the opener and closer, I can't recall a single song as being memorable. Even the bands that worship Slayer took the sound and made it better.

Pestilence - "Testimony of The Ancients"

As a prog guy, this album still sucks all kinds of wind for me. Pestilence has always been a poor man's Dutch DEATH clone. Patrick Mameli writes stock semi-tech riffs that go nowhere, and those damn interludes that eat up half the album come off amateurish and rushed. It's like shit a 13 year old would think is cool after figuring out how to dub with two boom boxes.

Entombed - "Left Hand Path"

I tried so hard to like this "classick", but it just didn't stick. I never got into the heavy sound this band was attempting to employ (BOSS HM1 pedal cranked to 11; I think At The Gates used the same?).

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Lord_Jotun
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Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2003 5:02 pm
Posts: 2747
Location: Italy
PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 4:51 am 
 

ingmar birdman wrote:
true_death wrote:
Anyway...here's a sacred cow, Angelcorpse are great, but I've never been able to get into Order From Chaos. I blindbought the boxset a couple years back, and it all just sounds generic and kind of faceless, to me. Just really boring, uninteresting riffs and lazy songwriting with a lot of really dumb ideas (the first song on 'Dawnbringer' comes to mind). Granted, I guess I can blame the guitarist more than Pete himself, as his other band Ares Kingdom suffers from basically the same problem, just sounding really generic and uninteresting.


Agreeing about Order from Chaos and my story is almost identical. I'm a huge Angelcorpse fan and also bought the box set, and every few months I try to get into them again but the songwriting just feels totally incoherent and leaves no impression on me. I figure there has to be something there though since so many of my real life friends love them so much.

I take issue with your assessment of Ares Kingdom though! :guns:


Ha, I'm pretty much the opposite - love OFC, but Ares Kingdom lose my attention after a few songs, which is odd because I quite like their stuff.
Don't give up on OFC so fat, though; they are a hard band to get into exactly because of their unorthodox song structures.


As for my contribution, I guess I could name Meshuggah, since they are well respected in their field and something of a pioneering band. I have a lot of admiration for their skills and their ability to develop and maintain an extremely personal sound, but that's about it; their music just refuses to connect with me on any deeper levekl, and I've tried over and over again (although I is a really cool ep).
Aside fom their tech.thrash debut, Destroy Erase Improve and None are as far as I can go without having to physically struggle to make it to the end of an album. I can take some songs here and there, mainly because of Thordendal's solos and the very occasional melodic breaks (a la Straws Pulled at Random), but nothing more.

On a side note, I can't stand 99% of that whole "djent" (I hate this word too) crap that the Swedes involuntarily spawned. Textures are the only band somehow related to that wretched movement I can listen to (well, for completeness's sake I could state that Periphery have some interesting musical ideas here and there too, but lose me with boring segments, the patented horrid overcompressed "djent" digital production and annoying vocals). Thank fuck that entire subgenre got oversaturated from the start with hundreds of bands sounding all exactly the same in the space of two weeks, and faded away about as quickly.
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Mass Suicide
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Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 7:32 am
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 5:45 am 
 

Frenetic Zetetic wrote:
Slayer - "Reign in Blood" *dodges tomatoes and assorted rotting veggies*.

The single-most overrated metal album of all time for me. The riffs just aren't there for me. Yes, I just said Slayer riffs are non-existent. Jeff was the golden goose of this band. This album (and most of Slayer's discography) exemplifies to me what people who don't listen to metal think metal sounds like. It's fast for the sake of it with no substance. Other than the opener and closer, I can't recall a single song as being memorable. Even the bands that worship Slayer took the sound and made it better.


Reign in Blood is obviously a very skilled state of art thrash album, but for me it completely lacks that distinct evil dungeon keeper atmosphere which is so present on the first two albums (and HTC). I mainly blame Rick Rubin for that. Criminally Insane is one of their best songs, though. Underrated!

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Bishop_Drugsalot
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 7:50 am 
 

Don't understand people who like post-Beneath Sepultura. Arise is mediocre at best, and Chaos AD is downright shit. You can already sense the jumpdafuckup that is to come.

I could diss everything from Megadeth, Anthrax, Metallica and Testament as well but that just boils down to my personal preferences in thrash metal.

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joppek
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:12 am 
 

Bishop_Drugsalot wrote:
Don't understand people who like post-Beneath Sepultura. Arise is mediocre at best, and Chaos AD is downright shit. You can already sense the jumpdafuckup that is to come.


same here - beneath the remains is probably my fav thrash album ever, and they went to shit right after that - granted they did get even worse as time went on, but everything that's so terribly wrong on subsequent albums, is already clearly present on arise
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Cosmic_Equilibrium
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:30 am 
 

I can understand someone who likes BTR and has less time for 90s metal to not like Chaos AD (even though I personally think it's a great album) but I've never been able to get my head around how it's possible to love BTR but dislike Arise, which is pretty much the same thing, just with a bit more variation here and there. I honestly don't think there's a lot of difference between the two albums, and Arise probably has slightly better song writing.

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MetallicaTrueFan
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:43 am 
 

For me I still feel that Reign In Blood has some great songs that aren't the bookends but I still find the album overrated. For me the problems are the stiff delivery of the songs and the underdeveloped songwriting as a whole. I have seen short and to the point albums done better with albums like Vader's Litany or The Berzerker's Animosity... those albums are just as hardhitting but the songs feel more complete. I still think Reign In Blood is a good album but it isn't my favorite from Slayer. I would much prefer the epic but chaotic sound of Hell Awaits or the slower doomier sound of South Of Heaven.
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true_death
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:09 am 
 

Frenetic Zetetic wrote:
Pestilence - "Testimony of The Ancients"

As a prog guy, this album still sucks all kinds of wind for me. Pestilence has always been a poor man's Dutch DEATH clone. Patrick Mameli writes stock semi-tech riffs that go nowhere, and those damn interludes that eat up half the album come off amateurish and rushed. It's like shit a 13 year old would think is cool after figuring out how to dub with two boom boxes.


All those things you mentioned make it Pestilence's best album, in my book. I personally think that's their most artistic and inventive album, because it's able to find a really nice middle ground that doesn't stray too far into any one direction, and allows the band showcase some really catchy riffs, amazing songwriting, and spell-binding lead work. I also love the interludes, as cheesy as they might be I think they contribute to the overall atmosphere and flow of the album.

I personally don't think Pestilence became a "poor man's Death" until Spheres, because that was when Mameli gave up his main strength - songwriting, in favor of trying to impress people with his musicianship. I'm not pulling that out of my ass either, he actually said in an interview around that time that he now despises all metal, including all their albums before Spheres, simply because it wasn't as technical as the jazz he had just discovered, and basically said that technicality was the only thing that defined good music :lol:. Regardless, the problem in my opinion, was that not all the musicians were up to his level and the album ended up sounding really stiff and stilted compared to pretty much any of their contemporaries like Death, Atheist, Cynic, or Atrocity.
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InnesI
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:39 am 
 

TheMysticWombat wrote:
Altars of Madness shouldn't qualify for being death metal: it's a great album, but where is the heaviness? It's fast as FUCK but even Terrorizer is more chaotic and heavier.


No matter if one thinks Altars of Madness is good or not it is quite clearly a camouflaged thrash metal album. Not that much on it is pure death metal even though it is clearly taking steps towards what would become Morbid Angel as a death metal band.
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Empyreal
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:46 am 
 

InnesI wrote:
TheMysticWombat wrote:
Altars of Madness shouldn't qualify for being death metal: it's a great album, but where is the heaviness? It's fast as FUCK but even Terrorizer is more chaotic and heavier.


No matter if one thinks Altars of Madness is good or not it is quite clearly a camouflaged thrash metal album. Not that much on it is pure death metal even though it is clearly taking steps towards what would become Morbid Angel as a death metal band.


This kind of stuff is just silly. It's not a thrash album... the vocals, the writing, etc are more intense and twisted. It's a death metal album, albeit an early one that was just forming the sound. It's not gonna sound like a later period Nile album or something, is all. The way it's done isn't like any thrash album except for the crisper, sharper sound of the guitars. The actual writing is death metal. I feel like comments like this don't take into account the fluidity of genres back then, and how fast things were evolving. To say Altars sounds like an Overkill or even a Kreator album just doesn't make much sense to me I guess.
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Human Crouton
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Sun Feb 25, 2018 8:47 pm
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:48 am 
 

nekrosonic wrote:
Let’s just get this out of the way now - nothing by Sabbath, Priest or Maiden lives anywhere near the hype and praise people lather them in. They each maybe have a couple of songs I truly enjoy and that’s it, otherwise those records are just pop music with distortion.


Not too long ago, a friend of mine said something along the lines of "The ubiquity of the internet and the ability to just find what you like and insulate yourself in a bubble means that there are heaps of young people who will never explore metal in a natural, organic way. They got into brutal death metal or slam and think that's the way metal sounds. Older bands like Priest or Death are grandpa dinosaur rock, like The Eagles." I was like "No way, nobody is that retarded" but here you are.

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Osmiumthemetal
Metal newbie

Joined: Tue May 24, 2016 10:30 pm
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 11:03 am 
 

This isn't really a sacrifice per say, but since we're giving out some classic hyperbolic style opinions, then I think that most of Bolt Thrower's output kinda pales in comparison to Realm of Chaos. There's something so inhumane and - "matter of fact" about it that I've never really heard in the rest of DM. What I mean is that it honestly sounds like not the output of humans but instead some sort of hellbent machine (in the best possible way) if that makes any sense, it's such a brutal and crushing sound and the sudden transitions from the groovy riffs to the grindcore segments are so strange and abrupt yet somehow make sense within the context of the record.

The production makes the guitars sound less like the standard DM guitars of later BT releases and more like noises produced from some mechanical process, so fucking far removed from anything else in '89.

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Ace_Rimmer
Metal freak

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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 11:05 am 
 

RoC is easily their best record.

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Dungeon_Vic
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2009 11:00 am
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 12:10 pm 
 

Ah, the thread where Rust in Peace, Reign in Blood, Beneath the Remains and fuck, why not, Sabbath, Priest and Maiden are deemed (massively) overrated. Oxygen, food and water are overrated too. Because, you know, I don't like them man, they do nothing for me.

It's all in the wording. I get unpopular opinions and tastes. I don't get "overrated".
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