Iron Maiden were certainly popular, and they weren't all like 'Bitches wooooo'.

I was only aware of their chart position for earlier records, which were around #33 and stuff (think that was for Number of the Beast). Still popular, sure, but AJFA got to #6 which is a fair bit higher.

Yes, they were more like 'Satan and dry retellings of battles/literary works woooo', which is little better.

From Empyreal's review of Mabool:



Huh? Ocean Land has one of the catchiest choruses I've ever heard. In fact, Mabool is one of the catchiest metal albums I own.

And furthermore, since when was the hook a key element of metal? The hook is certainly a key element of bands like Iron Maiden or Dark Tranquillity, but Cannibal Corpse, Gorod, and Cryptopsy have made careers out of not having hooks. Hell, Cryptopsy's latest is probably the only hooky album they have, and it sucks.

I admit to mostly listening to Traditional/Power Metal, and so I mostly just wrote that without considering bands like Gorod or Cryptopsy, because the hook is definitely a big part of those genres.

BUT even to those genres which do not have catchy choruses or riffs or whatever else, the good bands from them at least contain something that makes you want to go back and listen again - the piano intro in Cryptopsy's "Phobophile" or the solos in "Crown of Horns" and "Slit Your Guts" for instance. If a band is not catchy and has nothing to make me want to go back and hear them again, then they are mediocre and lame, case in point Orphaned Land.

Of course, the last part is subjective, but whatever.

A hook isn't necessary. Memorability and an exciting tune that you can get behind, however, is. I think that's what Empyreal is trying to say there.

The rest of the paragraph pretty much confirms such, even though I will freely admit to having said that the hook is a key element of metal. I guess that's just the traditional metal purist in me speaking, but it had no place in the Orphaned Land review.

from GoreDisorder's review of "Gorelord's Force Fed On Human Flesh"



That sentence really does not make any sense. Death metal, smooth? Is mindnumbing monotony a good thing?

None So Vile is full of hooks.

So what is the definition of "hook" we're using here? Because if it's just "something that you remember from the song in question" then I used it correctly anyway.

hells_unicorn, gawd bless him, gawd bless him! This one was a bit bizarre, getting wound up over the scientific inaccuracies of Geezer's lyrics!

'“They can put a man on the moon quite easy” is classic textbook ignorance. I challenge Ozzy or Geezer to go over and try to mentally comprehend the years of work it took to solve the equations necessary to formulate how to escape the earth’s atmosphere, not to mention sending a human being out there and then bring him back. Furthermore, it is important to note that NASA is often at the forefront of new cures for the diseases that are killing everyone, and also most of the places where disease is rampant are places where you don’t have modern technology.'

Ignorance, yes, but what did you expect? Could he possibly clarify whether that was irony (I never can tell with him) or just rambling. Still quite the jem either way! Sometimes it might be best if you stick to power metal!

So popular heavy metal bands that have been around for a while like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest have better production than the debut from Jag Panzer? That's a totally unfair measure of judgment. Anyway, the production isn't nearly as bad as he makes out (double-negative or no). Also, Megadeth's debut didn't come out until 1985, and its production was far, far worse than Ample Destruction's.

While I disagree with his opinion, I would be perfectly willing to appreciate his point of view if The_Boss gave evidence of knowing what the hell he was talking about. Unfortunately, he doesn't.

To be fair, he does acknowledge that the production isn't that bad, there's merely something about it he finds irksome. Personally the production on Priest's Defenders of the Faith drives me nuts, even though I seldom here complaints from others.

He says that it's "an absolute killer point" and "terrible, plain and simple", yet somehow it's not that bad? It can't be both. It's major enough to ruin the album for him, but he can't even describe what it is? This leads me to believe the fault is with the listener. For the record, I don't see any problem with the production on Defenders of the Faith either.

While it's a subjective thing and there are some production jobs that seem to displease certain ears, Boss would do well to try and explain exactly what he is talking about. If I ever do a review of "Court in the Act" I'm sure I'd be harping on about the shitty way Neat Records had of making debut albums sound worse than demos.

Ugh, yes. Xeogred may like it, but honestly I can't stand the production on Court in the Act. I've tried, but I have trouble getting past it to enjoy the music, which is definitely good.

Tell me about it; that album epitomises for me what could go wrong with underground 80s metal production jobs. I wish there was a demo of the album floating around. The "Guardian" demo sounds so good! .. but it's only three song!

You are right, I completely fucked up the timing of Megadeth's debut, but I was trying to get the point across that at the time of the release (early-mid 80's) there are still a bunch of decent albums with better production, and yes I honestly think the production on Killing is My Business... and Peace Sells is very good.

I did say that it was the killing point in the album and it's terrible and bad BUT at the same time it's not as bad as it could have been just bad. It's not THAT bad but it still was bad enough to ruin the album for me by being terrible. It was all a bit rough for me in the end. I hope I didn't come across and negating the two out in my review, I did re-read it twice and didn't remember myself being so if I do I can easily edit it.

And I have never had problems with production on any Priest/Maiden album, and yes they were/are hugely popular but I don't think that makes too much of a difference, I'm listening to Rocka Rolla right now and it's a bit low mixed or whatever the term is but it's a helluva lot better than Ample Destruction, I can hear each instrument perfectly, it has great overall sound and it wouldn't matter if they would eventually become a hugely popular band in the end because it was their debut.

Is the Megadeth comment based on the remastered version perhaps. DotF has a good guitar sound but the drums at times sound like a man punching a baboon.

btw is no one going to comment on the hells_unicorn post? I thought that was a masterpiece of science vs. God!

Nah, no one is going to comment on hells_unicorn anymore. Criticizing "Geezer is being unscientific but I believe in God!" is as moot a point as it gets.

If I had a dime for every piece of dogmatic rubbish like this I've heard from would be critics of religion, I'd retire and buy one of the Bahamas.

@ANationalAcrobat - I don't regularly receive responses to my jokes, particularly when they risk taking the thread off-topic, not that EntiZha didn't already help to accomplish this.

Screw you guys!

lol. I'm certainly in the minority with that I guess. Well, I seriously will never say the production on it is "good" and the mix does funk up sometimes (with the solo's, hate when that happens on albums) ... but, I guess it just doesn't bother me enough to ever really come to mind. The music is just too delicious. Anyways, I swear I had their demo's ... but they're all up at TM (though not the "Guardian" one which isn't listed on the archives either?) I can't really remember them though, looks like a lot of material on Court in the Act is on them but they seem to lack Brain Ross! Re-checking them out again either way.

And come'on failsafe, the production bothers you but you can endure Cloven Hoof's Dominator? I've always been kind of picky against that one. I guess it's just hard to tell whether someone will like a wacky production or not, heh.

Boss: I'm still curious what version of AD you have, since I'm pretty sure they amped up the quality a bit with the No Posers re-release/bootleg (includes the EP as bonus tracks).

You must be talking about the remaster. I don't think anyone with ears could call the original production better than AD's.


Uh, this "clarification" of what you meant had the opposite effect. I guess what you're saying is that the production totally ruined the album for you, but it's not THAT bad and could have been worse? How can it get worse than ruining the album?


I'm willing to bet regardless that both Judas Priest and Iron Maiden had access to far better recording/production resources than Jag Panzer did at the time of their debut. In any case, judging an underground American band by the standards of popular British ones (debuts or not) is totally unfair. If you had wanted to make your point stick, it wouldn't be too hard to dig up examples like Battle Cry, but for every one of those you've got Cirith Ungol, who I don't think ever had a really good production job (objectively, of course, as I think they've got one of those black metal-style "so bad it enhances the atmosphere" kind of productions).


Ha, I totally acknowledge that the production on Dominator is balls, but it mostly just has everything but the vocals and guitar leads/solos way too quiet, rather than anything really funky. It's not like actively annoying, because luckily the vocals/leads/solos are all really good, but you do have to listen closely to hear the riffs/drums/bass. The problem is one of omission, rather than a positive problem (if you get what I mean). Anyway, if only that goddamn remaster will finally come out, we can safely sweep these problems under the rug.

I don't even know if they're going to fucking happen anymore , seeing how they just came out of nowhere with these new "Definitive..." compilations, which (ironically) enough I like to compare to Jag Panzer's Decade of the Nail-Spiked Bat compilation. It just doesn't work for me, but at least Russ North still sounds great. I mean I'm hyped to hear their new stuff but I wouldn't hesitate to take remasters over re-done material.

Edit: Odd, I can't even find the old news about the remastered releases (curious to see how long it's been).

It's been at least a year. If it gets to be much longer with no news, I'll probably try to contact relevant parties to inquire.

Uh, this "clarification" of what you meant had the opposite effect. I guess what you're saying is that the production totally ruined the album for you, but it's not THAT bad and could have been worse? How can it get worse than ruining the album? [/quote]

Yes, I don't see what's so hard to understand. It's what ruined the album to me the most, BUT it wasn't that bad and could have been worse. Obviously it would have made it an absolute turn off, I mean it's the worst part of the album BUT it's still listenable.

I understand what you're trying to get at, but your word choice is poor. It can't get worse than ruining the album. It would make more sense if you said "it's bad, but it could be much worse" or something. Still, the main problem is you never explain just what the problem is in the first place.

I think by God I actually meant Geezer. Whatever, short term memory loss.

Does no one stop and wonder the quality of stereo system we're using to listen to these albums? A pair of B&W 803 Diamonds would definitely sound better than the Donald Duck record player with the one speaker we used in my first grade class. Do those rinky dink computer speakers really give the mix justice? Or maybe the download just rots. An overspun and washed-out cassette has certainly lost its luster, and "it's not live, it's Memorex" recording tapes weren't that great. It's why we often sought out the real deal afterward. Is there a sub-woofer so you can really hear that bass? Oh, and how's your crappy car stereo that you got from K-mart, the one without the equalizer?

All stereo systems/listening devices are not created equal. Maybe we should consider this a little.

This is a good point, and I try to take this into consideration nowadays a lot more than I used to, especially after finally getting a subwoofer. I wont' hesitate to say that a lot of albums sound a hell of a lot better to me than they used to, and the little speakers that come with most soundcards are just no way to listen to metal, period.

For the record, I don't really have that much of an issue with "Dominator"'s sound; I can hear everything pretty clearly and the distant, echoey sound of everything (even the up-front vocals) seems to add to the atmosphere somehow. "Court in the Act" still sounds like a murky, washed-out mess to me. Sure, Brian Ross is a great singer, but the mix totally robs him of power. I want this kind of metal to sound right "in my face"; "Court in the Act" sounds like the band is playing at me from another room in one of those rehearsal halls I always practice at.

Hmmm, this might lend to a whole new perspective on certain Sabbath songs, possibly a little self-aggrandizement in some of Geezer's lyrics, particularly "Lord of this World" and "After Forever".

Well, that's the problem of the reviewer, not the reader. Personally I always use headphones, as I can't actually afford a good stereo system. Anyway, that's one of the main reasons I'm always willing to give a band the benefit of the doubt when it comes to production, unless it's really really really really just plain awful. The production, in most cases, isn't actually a part of the composition, and shouldn't be treated as such.

Love my headphones, Sennheiser HD555's! It's definitely odd going from headphones to my car, sometimes it works and sometimes it's just ... what the hell?

And yeah, going along with what Gutterscream said, for the downloaders out there (not saying I'm not guilty) with older material, remember those are rips which can certainly not capture the correct sound of the actual album. I've noticed this quite a bit and when I find higher quality and more accurate rips, it's like listening to a whole new world. The difference can be drastic.

I've also noticed that you can't just go by the compression rate of the files you've downloaded. It's entirely possible for a 320kbps rip to sound worse than a 128kbps one. I suppose it depends on the codec that people use, or the quality of the source material.

Oh, definitely. In extreme cases I've heard rips of vinyl-only releases with scratches and pops and skips and shit, which obviously can't be blamed on the production.

The albums on the Vibrations of Doom website tend to sound washed out and clouded a bit. Wonderful site, though.

Janster just wrote this title for a St Anger review....

An unintentionally avant-garde masterpiece - 94%

And Grimdoom on Fear of the Dark....

One of the best! - 100%


is this trolling?? I think there should be rules for giving albums 9/10 cos really in art or music its almost impossible to have 90% i know u cant judge but i mean common st anger and fear of the dark over 90 even if i loved the album....

While the reviews in question are indeed questionable (but not necessarily trolling, mind you), why should we have rules for what ratings we can give out? That is stupid, and such things are not even really a big deal; most people use the reviewing system properly.

While I'm always glad to see a positive review for FotD, I find it rather sad that it comes from a guy who submitted a 100% In Flames review at the same time.