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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2006 6:58 pm
Posts: 35183
Location: Where the dead rule the night
PostPosted: Tue Aug 27, 2019 1:10 pm 
 

It's amazing how much people cared about "true metal street cred" back then. It hardly seems to matter even a little bit now. There are so many good metal bands that the genre isn't under siege or anything. I think back then we were all younger and cared way too much about looking cool. I've been playing KSE's End of Heartache for the first time in years and it's fucking solid.
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Twisted_Psychology
Metal freak

Joined: Sat May 16, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 6260
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Aug 27, 2019 1:29 pm 
 

I didn't start getting active on the Archives until 2008-2009 but that is a spot on summary of what I was like as a teenage metalhead. I'm quite happy to not be the tight-ass I was back then and being able to listen to music at work has allowed me to give some honest listens to some of the bands that I blindly hated. Metalcore may still not sit right with me but I can't think less of somebody just because they enjoy it. Hell, I've been on an alternative/nu metal kick this week and there's a certain satisfaction in knowing that sixteen-year-old me would squirm at such a thought.

I think it really does come down to the scene not being as insecure as it used to be. There's still this weird drive to prove our "legitimacy" at times with all the vocal coach react videos and such, but having better connected scenes to fall back on is always nice.
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droneriot
cisgender

Joined: Sat Aug 28, 2004 1:17 pm
Posts: 10812
Location: Spahn Ranch
PostPosted: Tue Aug 27, 2019 1:34 pm 
 

I heard a total of four metalcore songs in my life. One by Bullet for my Valentine, one by The Black Dahlia Murder, two by Trivium. Of those four, I remember one, "Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr" because of that wrong lyrics Youtube thing. The other three I only heard late last decade because I watched one of those MTV knockoffs at my parents' house after surgery - I haven't had a TV myself since 2005. Also Bollywood movies and lots of reality TV and fucking recovering from surgery fucking sucks. Didn't care much for the metalcore, either. Deathcore I heard that Job For a Cowboy EP and reviewed it once, and I think that's all, dunno why I'd want to hear more after that shining example.

And then of course there's Varg which makes everything mentioned previously sound like Running Wild's Gates to Purgatory in comparison.

PS: I remember thinking that Black Dahlia Murder song wasn't half bad, the band in the video just looked like they were about to sing "Hey hey we're the Monkees"...
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Acrobat
Eric Olthwaite

Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2007 8:53 am
Posts: 8854
Location: Yorkshire
PostPosted: Tue Aug 27, 2019 3:51 pm 
 

I have a feeling it wasn't half as big on the continent as it was in the USA and, to an extent, Britain. It was weird because as a teenager I remember everyone went from ska punk/pop punk to playing metalcore. I think the 'face' of metal was different on the continent and therefore metalcore was probably less visible unless you were in high school. I dunno, I thought that stuff sucked when I saw it on Metal Hammer DVDs in 2004 (my fault, I should never have given them money) and I still think it's shite now. BH is definitely right about the exposure thing, though.

I don't remember being threatened by it, mind, even as a 15 year-old... when everything is utterly serious. :P
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BastardHead
Worse than Stalin

Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:53 pm
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Location: Oswego, Illinois
PostPosted: Tue Aug 27, 2019 7:35 pm 
 

droneriot wrote:
I heard a total of four metalcore songs in my life... one by The Black Dahlia Murder...

I remember thinking that Black Dahlia Murder song wasn't half bad, the band in the video just looked like they were about to sing "Hey hey we're the Monkees"...


The fact that The Black Dahlia Murder has been 100% metal since the first album and metalloids only stopped calling them metalcore after they grew their hair out and made their merch less colorful is actually a perfect example of the whole moral panic thing I was talking about. And, oddly enough, it also kinda shows the flipside with the metalcore scene being rather image focused itself. TBDM was metal with a metalcore image and they were initially shunned by the metal scene and embraced by the metalcore scene. Maybe it's just the people I interact with nowadays being different, but it really seems that people in general just care less about image purity nowadays than they did back then.
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gasmask_colostomy
Metalhead

Joined: Thu May 27, 2010 5:38 am
Posts: 1640
Location: China
PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2019 12:41 am 
 

droneriot wrote:
Also Bollywood movies and lots of reality TV and fucking recovering from surgery fucking sucks.

You have totally spoiled my image of droneriot. Now I’ll just see him dozing on morphine and watching Bollywood films forevermore.

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Bloodstone
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Mar 11, 2004 11:48 am
Posts: 560
Location: Germany
PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2019 3:17 am 
 

BastardHead wrote:
droneriot wrote:
I heard a total of four metalcore songs in my life... one by The Black Dahlia Murder...

I remember thinking that Black Dahlia Murder song wasn't half bad, the band in the video just looked like they were about to sing "Hey hey we're the Monkees"...


The fact that The Black Dahlia Murder has been 100% metal since the first album and metalloids only stopped calling them metalcore after they grew their hair out and made their merch less colorful is actually a perfect example of the whole moral panic thing I was talking about. And, oddly enough, it also kinda shows the flipside with the metalcore scene being rather image focused itself. TBDM was metal with a metalcore image and they were initially shunned by the metal scene and embraced by the metalcore scene. Maybe it's just the people I interact with nowadays being different, but it really seems that people in general just care less about image purity nowadays than they did back then.


It fascinates me how much metal scene's opinion of TBDM changed over the years, I honestly can't think of a metal band it's shifted that much for the positive (although this may well from a perspective of my more true metal bubble both IRL and on the internet, as they've obviously has had a lot of success from the start). I personally get into their stuff for whatever reason, but they seem pretty much universally respected at this point.
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droneriot
cisgender

Joined: Sat Aug 28, 2004 1:17 pm
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2019 7:32 am 
 

Kinda seems like the career of The Black Dahlia Murder is the career of In Flames in reverse. Wonder if kluseba hates them for selling out.
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true_death
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Sep 26, 2013 6:47 pm
Posts: 2390
PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2019 7:46 am 
 

The vast majority of hatred pointed against BDM was simply passive-aggressive trolling...I know, because I was one :lol:. To be honest, melodeath is one of my favorite styles and yet I always hated BDM - regardless of which style they fall under, I always found them very bland, mediocre, and dull. As such, I always found it hilarious when like 80% of discussion surrounding them was "IT'S NOT METALCORE IT'S MELODEATH" so I intentionally mislabeled them every time I brought them up in conversation just to spite their fans.

I finally came around in 2014 when it turned out Trevor Strnad is a fan of my own damn band, I guess he bought our second album and totally out of the blue started hyping us on the official BDM facebook page...talk about a fucking curveball...I figured that if he was willing to give my no-name Suffocation/Cannibal Corpse-clone death metal band from bumfuckt egypt a chance, the least I could do is stop being a little bitch and return the favor. Bought Everblack and still didn't really like it despite numerous chances, but the latest one Nightbringers is admittedly a very good album - really love their new guitarist, he added a lot to their sound and "Kings of the Nightworld" is such a great, great track.
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Sweetie
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Dec 16, 2014 1:19 am
Posts: 1091
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2019 8:58 am 
 

Black Dahlia Murder was actually my first "extreme" metal show. 2013 when they toured with Skeletonwitch. Not really a fan of BDM anymore, but it was a hell of a show.
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Rhinosaurus
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2016 2:36 pm
Posts: 86
Location: Netherlands
PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2019 6:45 pm 
 

On Superchard: While I think that his reviews are very good, informative and easy to read, the contradictions between Master of Puppet and Peace Sells had me scratching my head. On the one hand, he's praising all of the horseshit bullshit, toss wank on MoP i.e. Shit like the 'Battery' intro, stupid-arse interlude on MoP, and that completely nonsensical bollox at the beginning of 'Damage Inc'. On the other hand, he criticises the darkly atmospheric intros on Peace Sells, which are connected to the main part of the song. Oh yeah, and he rates Killing Is My Business more highly, but just listen to 'Last Rites' - I think it's based on music by Bach - maybe used in horror movies - and that my friends is the dark intro connecting us to a song about killing your girlfiriend - 'I loved you to death!' The Bach piece on 'Damage Inc' is connecting us to nothin'. It reminds me of the really shit part on Overkill's 'Evil Never Dies'. It's my one gripe about Years of Decay; don't copy the shit from MoP.

Apart from that and the creepy 'gets hard for' final note, the reviews are really good reading, even the Puppets one.

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zeingard
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2007 7:49 pm
Posts: 659
PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2019 10:59 pm 
 

BastardHead wrote:
Words


I can only speak for myself but I was exposed to 'Ashes of the Wake' and that promptly ended any interest I would ever had in the band. Combine that with the media referring to them as thrash metal, in a time that thrash metal was completely fucking dead outside of maybe one good release per year, it gave teenage me even more reason to actively avoid them at every possible turn out of spite. I feel like a lot of people fell into that bucket of "I don't particularly like Pantera and I sure as fuck don't like metalcore-Pantera coming into the scene".

Perhaps the hysteria was more of a US thing, but it was hard to see that the popular "metal" music of the day was channeling the worst attributes of bands from a decade ago and then extrapolating that data to a decade ahead. The genesis of deathcore sure as fuck didn't help either and basically gave everyone an aneurysm for the next two or three years.

We have djent as the shit mainstream heavy genre now and nu-metal apologists giving us albums like 'errorzone', but the breadth of music available and accessibility has removed any need to get mouth-frothingly mad about it. What will come in a decade's time? Hopefully my swift death.

Anyway your reviews have been a pleasant read and trip down memory lane BH. I still maintain LoG fucking suck and I would sooner throw myself dick first into a woodchipper before listening to another song, but I can appreciate your fondness for them.
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CHAIRTHROWER
Methed-burnt rogue babelfish

Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2015 7:10 pm
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Location: Canada
PostPosted: Wed Aug 28, 2019 11:52 pm 
 

Sweet Blackdeath review, Storm! Will check out, double duly!

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droneriot
cisgender

Joined: Sat Aug 28, 2004 1:17 pm
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Location: Spahn Ranch
PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 4:08 am 
 

Just saw this, it's NausikaDalazBlindaz in the advanced stages of cerebral cancer:

https://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/ ... hamuz/4748
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~Guest 334273
Veteran

Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:19 am
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 4:55 am 
 

droneriot wrote:
Just saw this, it's NausikaDalazBlindaz in the advanced stages of cerebral cancer:

https://www.metal-archives.com/reviews/ ... hamuz/4748


Debemur Morti should instantly hire this guy

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Twisted_Psychology
Metal freak

Joined: Sat May 16, 2009 8:22 pm
Posts: 6260
Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 1:25 pm 
 

Not sure if I can trust somebody who thinks that Voice of the Soul should've been a bonus track.
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TheStormIRide
Certified Poser

Joined: Fri Jan 20, 2006 6:45 pm
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Location: Brazildonesia
PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 2:38 pm 
 

CHAIRTHROWER wrote:
Sweet Blackdeath review, Storm! Will check out, double duly!


Thanks Chair! I plan on dusting one off every now and then, but I have so much less time than I thought I would.
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CHAIRTHROWER
Methed-burnt rogue babelfish

Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2015 7:10 pm
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Location: Canada
PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 3:25 pm 
 

Same here, but I'm (temporarily!) all fucked up and on the street, and I just want to write like a normal person again, soon, one day.

At least I diligently edit the ever-loving crap out of the few I presently expunge, as to avoid completely falling off the map...

I see a lot of good reads today for bands right up my alley, so will kick back and read a few of them sometime this afternoon.

Cheairs

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TrooperEd
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2004 6:18 pm
Posts: 2115
Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 11:19 pm 
 

BastardHead wrote:

The fact that The Black Dahlia Murder has been 100% metal since the first album and metalloids only stopped calling them metalcore after they grew their hair out and made their merch less colorful is actually a perfect example of the whole moral panic thing I was talking about.


:lol: Its so true. I was watching a Nuclear Blast documentary on Overkill and Jason popped up with long hair and I almost didn't recognize him. My brain every so often thought "I can't believe he used to be in Shadows Fall."
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Unorthodox
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2006 8:08 pm
Posts: 2347
PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2019 2:51 am 
 

BastardHead wrote:
droneriot wrote:
I heard a total of four metalcore songs in my life... one by The Black Dahlia Murder...

I remember thinking that Black Dahlia Murder song wasn't half bad, the band in the video just looked like they were about to sing "Hey hey we're the Monkees"...


The fact that The Black Dahlia Murder has been 100% metal since the first album and metalloids only stopped calling them metalcore after they grew their hair out and made their merch less colorful is actually a perfect example of the whole moral panic thing I was talking about. And, oddly enough, it also kinda shows the flipside with the metalcore scene being rather image focused itself. TBDM was metal with a metalcore image and they were initially shunned by the metal scene and embraced by the metalcore scene. Maybe it's just the people I interact with nowadays being different, but it really seems that people in general just care less about image purity nowadays than they did back then.


What I never understood was everyone's obsession with calling them an At the Gates ripoff band. Like, I could hear the influence, but holy shit there are a lot of melodeath bands that have a strikingly giant At The Gates influence. Totally unnecessary critique, they were just that band that every tr00bie loved to hate. Which is a shame, because their first two albums were their best. Everything else has been just OK.
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Sweetie
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Dec 16, 2014 1:19 am
Posts: 1091
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2019 8:04 am 
 

That review of Great Southern Trendkill was great! I myself do enjoy that disc and don't agree with his response, but the description wasn't off and it read very well. Props for the new guy!
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CHAIRTHROWER
Methed-burnt rogue babelfish

Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2015 7:10 pm
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Location: Canada
PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2019 11:01 pm 
 

Twisted Psych, I see you partook in a (golden) oldie review, as I did with Cleveland's Boulder - now Midnight. (I knew right away just from glancing at its length!) Never really dug into Mastodon...should I, and if so, which album(s) should I check out, primordially?

XChairs...

p.s. for #400 on my end, it's a toss-up between Amulet, Bible of the Devil and Duel - although, the latter I think has jockeyed hard and earned the honor, with its brethren following suit toot sweet!

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~Guest 135946
MUH BOTH SIDES!

Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:34 pm
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 31, 2019 1:20 am 
 

CHAIRTHROWER wrote:
p.s. for #400 on my end, it's a toss-up between Amulet, Bible of the Devil and Duel - although, the latter I think has jockeyed hard and earned the honor, with its brethren following suit toot sweet!


For a milestone like that I'd say go out of left field for a find, do something totally random. I'd like to see how many chairs fly to GWAR or even some Fuck You Yankee Blue Jeans:


Hell, drop a review for Devildriver, I'm sure this could get you flinging furniture (extra points if you toss in some Scrubs references):

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CHAIRTHROWER
Methed-burnt rogue babelfish

Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2015 7:10 pm
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Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sat Aug 31, 2019 12:33 pm 
 

Satandriver, maybe...YBJ...WTF?!

Hahaha...oh, I need some advice; should I spartanize my use of adverbs? I mean, so long as I avoid Tom Swifties, should be fine, no?

Oh, btw, Twisted Psychology, I re-read your BotD review this morn and was musing upon this line here:

"While Feel It isn’t the strongest album under the Bible of the Devil banner, it’s great to see the band sustaining their brand of classic metal twenty years into their career."

So, which album of theirs is best, in your (sagacious!) opinion? I feel it's Feel It, myself! (Who is Mr.Krabs?!)

Thankxs

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BastardHead
Worse than Stalin

Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:53 pm
Posts: 10857
Location: Oswego, Illinois
PostPosted: Sat Aug 31, 2019 11:41 pm 
 

CHAIRTHROWER wrote:
(sagacious!)


I actually missed this?

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Vadara
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2016 11:14 pm
Posts: 484
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 5:19 pm 
 

Should you care (I know you don't), Djent actually stopped being the hot new thing recently--the genre sort of sputtered out on its own self-indulgences and now the hot new thing in -core is old-school metallic hardcore revival and this weird sort of atmospheric deathcore stuff. Also I'm surprised you consider Djent a prog metal subsubgenre, Bastard--in my eyes it's absolutely not metal in the slightest with rare exceptions and is instead some weird tiny fourth genre in the quartet of Metal/Hardcore/-Core/Djent that I collectively call "Heavy Music". That's just my personal compartmentalization though.

Anyway, I have like ten reviews I want to make but I don't want to shit out crappy 3 paragraph reviews even for albums that suck. Dammit.

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~Guest 135946
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 5:35 am 
 

CHAIRTHROWER wrote:
Satandriver, maybe...YBJ...WTF?!

Oh, btw, Twisted Psychology, I re-read your BotD review

I feel it's Feel It, myself! (Who is Mr.Krabs?!)



Oh. . .
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so. . .
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you. . .
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don't. . .
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BastardHead
Worse than Stalin

Joined: Thu Aug 18, 2005 7:53 pm
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Location: Oswego, Illinois
PostPosted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 8:44 am 
 

Vadara wrote:
Also I'm surprised you consider Djent a prog metal subsubgenre, Bastard--in my eyes it's absolutely not metal in the slightest with rare exceptions and is instead some weird tiny fourth genre in the quartet of Metal/Hardcore/-Core/Djent that I collectively call "Heavy Music". That's just my personal compartmentalization though.


Yeah everybody views it in their own way, I'm not here to say there's a specifically correct way to classify the genre necessarily simply because it's so young and nebulous.

I think it'll always be prog metal to me because I was very active of a guitar nerd forum back during that era of 10ish years when Meshuggah was basically the only band doing it. Vildhjarta hadn't come around to give it a name yet and there were very, very few bands ripping off that style at the time. All of their fans were also fans of Opeth, Dream Theater, Symphony X, jazz fusion, etc. You know, guitar nerds. It was for people who were totally entranced with the polyrhythms and rhythmic complexity, the type of people who see an eight string guitar or a 13/16 bar leading into a 7/8 one and would instantly get hard. It wasn't so much the aggression or the distinctive guitar tone, it was purely the complicated time sigs and rhythmic tightness that attracted everybody I knew who was into them at the time. And... well, there was just no question, it was a weird take on prog metal and that was it. Maybe it was just because they were the only band doing it for a long time and thus didn't have a scene around them, and until the scene popped up it didn't really have a name, so maybe I'm just refusing to evolve with the times, I dunno. But to me, that's what it's always been, that's what I knew that sound to be for nearly a decade, that's how I'll always view it.
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Subrick
Metal Strongman

Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2010 7:27 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 10:23 am 
 

To add to the discussion from before about people shitting on TBDM solely for their aesthetic, I remember around the same time they were getting big, Abigail Williams was starting to get more attention, and some people were absolutely relentless in dogging the band for any reason whatsoever, from their music to their clothing choices to their hairstyles to whatever. It didn't help them that they still actually did start as a metalcore band had some latent metalcore elements sprinkled throughout their first album, which was otherwise a straight symphonic black metal record. Unlike TBDM however, who became more accepted by "true" death metal fans as they changed over the years, no one really took to Abigail Williams as the years went on and they changed into the different types of black metal they'd become on subsequent albums (meloblack Dimmu/Emperor worship on In the Absence of Light, WiiTR-style atmoblack on Becoming, and Nachtmystium-esq psychedelic black metal on The Accuser). Such turmoil in both their sound and lineup from album-to-album didn't do them any favors, but I'm sure that after their first EP and album there was a subset of people that were not going to support that band no matter what they did. They could have gone full corpsepaint and armor and started making Gorgoroth worship and the people that disliked them at first were always gonna hate them, unlike TBDM who ended up getting a lot of their initial detractors on board over time.
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droneriot
cisgender

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PostPosted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 10:58 am 
 

That band is like a professional (in that they can at least play their instruments) version of Mystic Circle, try every popular style of black metal until people buy it. Music's just as memorable as Mystic Circle, too.
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Subrick
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 7:06 pm 
 

They honestly should've stuck with the first album sound, even though I'm a huge fan of the second album. That was the era that everyone discovered them during, the one that fans of the band recall with the fondest memories, and arguably the best and most memorable album they've ever made from a musical standpoint. If they stuck with that sound for at least one or two more albums (and managed to keep a lineup that didn't change every five minutes), they might very well be in the position that The Black Dahlia Murder are in now, but for black metal. They certainly wouldn't be playing leaky dive bars for 30 people, that's for sure.
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I'm just perpetually annoyed by Sean William Scott and he's never been in a movie where I wasn't rooting for his head to sever by strange means.

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~Guest 135946
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Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:34 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 6:09 am 
 

That is a broad stroke of changes over the years. Did it really seem more like they were just going gimmick by gimmick to find a fanbase or did it sound more convincing than that over time? I got way too into Abigail Williams' first album and then forgot about them some years back so this is all news to me. Did they keep much of that core breakiness as well or was that done with after 'In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns'?

"Floods" and "Watchtower" are still nasty songs, I've always had 'Legend' and that first full-length listed as deathcore on my media player. It's not the most exact listing but the early stuff seemed to have that kind of overall feel, albeit with a blackened edge (plus it's easier to streamline subgenres rather than put symphonic/blackened/death/etc. for every band that doesn't ride the line)

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BastardHead
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 6:48 am 
 

I view Abigail Williams similarly to Job for a Cowboy in terms if their evolution. Short version I can bang out on a bathroom break at work is that it's really kind of up in the air as to whether or not they were hopping from trend to trend or if they were just naturally inspired by their peers, but both bands started as innovators (yeah they just spliced existing styles together and JFAC's style definitely caught on more, but innovators nonetheless) and then immediately dropped what made them different in order to sound like more established/respected bands, and it's hard not to view that through a cynical lens.

I think Becoming was alright for what it was but the lineup volatility (I saw one of the guitarists quit onstage in Chicago) and a lack of coherent identity just made AW die out fast.
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Twisted_Psychology
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 8:36 am 
 

As someone who was always hesitant to check out Abigail Williams back in the day, I was shocked by how much I enjoyed The Accuser. The band is never destined to catch on with anything but I can be a real sucker for solid atmoblack.

In regards to your questions there, Chair, Freedom Metal was the most enjoyable Bible of the Devil album I'd listened to though there are others I could still stand to check out. I'd also recommend Crack the Skye as a good entry point for Mastodon; that was the album that really got me to rethink them as a band.
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GuntherTheUndying
Crimson King, Eater of Worlds

Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:36 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 9:23 am 
 

BastardHead wrote:
I view Abigail Williams similarly to Job for a Cowboy in terms if their evolution. Short version I can bang out on a bathroom break at work is that it's really kind of up in the air as to whether or not they were hopping from trend to trend or if they were just naturally inspired by their peers, but both bands started as innovators (yeah they just spliced existing styles together and JFAC's style definitely caught on more, but innovators nonetheless) and then immediately dropped what made them different in order to sound like more established/respected bands, and it's hard not to view that through a cynical lens.

I think Becoming was alright for what it was but the lineup volatility (I saw one of the guitarists quit onstage in Chicago) and a lack of coherent identity just made AW die out fast.

Yep, hit the nail on the head. That must have been quite the spectacle witnessing one of their band members quit on stage.
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~Guest 135946
MUH BOTH SIDES!

Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:34 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 9:44 am 
 

Twisted_Psychology wrote:
As someone who was always hesitant to check out Abigail Williams back in the day, I was shocked by how much I enjoyed The Accuser. The band is never destined to catch on with anything but I can be a real sucker for solid atmoblack.

You weren't kidding, "Godhead" is on a whole other level from how they started.


Thank you for all of the insights guys, a lot of difference a decade can make lol. I remember JFAC being a whipping boy and never got around to trying them out either.

Señor Head, do you have more to that story about the guitarist quitting? I can bring out the little butt mats.

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BastardHead
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 11:44 am 
 

Five_Nails wrote:
Señor Head, do you have more to that story about the guitarist quitting? I can bring out the little butt mats.


Wasn't much of a story really. I can't even remember if the guy was officially out of the band after that show or not (but I'm like 90% sure he was). Either way, they were opening for either Deicide/Belphegor or Napalm Death/Exhumed, I don't remember which show it was but either way they plainly didn't fit on the bill. They were only playing songs from Becoming, so it was very minimalist and atmospheric and the crowd was clearly not into it since they were there to see death metal, and after a song or two the rhythm guitarist angrily stormed off stage with seemingly no provocation. Ken was giving him dagger eyes as he was leaving but finished the song before running backstage after him. He was only gone for like ten seconds before he came out and said something along the lines of "I'm a fucking professional and I'm going to finish this set" and then doing exactly that.

We didn't get big drama or anything but it was pretty fuckin' awkward.
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Subrick
Metal Strongman

Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2010 7:27 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 1:30 pm 
 

Five_Nails wrote:
That is a broad stroke of changes over the years. Did it really seem more like they were just going gimmick by gimmick to find a fanbase or did it sound more convincing than that over time? I got way too into Abigail Williams' first album and then forgot about them some years back so this is all news to me. Did they keep much of that core breakiness as well or was that done with after 'In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns'?


They dropped all the metalcore elements after the first full length, and even then the metalcore stuff on the first album was contained to a breakdown in one song and a couple guitar licks sprinkled throughout here and there on some other songs. I think their style hopping was a mix of trend hopping and Ken’s tastes naturally changing over time, possibly a little more the latter than the former. I find it hard to believe that Ken would willingly stop playing the style of black metal that his band gained all their initial, and most fervent, fans with just to try and seek a bigger fan base by playing styles of black metal that had less and less widespread appeal, especially since, as someone who’s closely followed the band their whole career, Ken’s personal tastes have shifted heavily from stuff that sounded like what they used to play to what they play now. The idea of someone willingly taking their band more and more underground in attempt to get more widespread recognition just doesn’t compute to me.
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CHAIRTHROWER
Methed-burnt rogue babelfish

Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2015 7:10 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 3:00 pm 
 

Er, sweet review for Witching Hour's Past Midnight by sweetleaf_95 - it's a doozie: spot-on, light and earnest, your reviewing style has that nice and compact brevity factor going for it...
Oh, and congrats, duly, for nailing #300! What a milestone, eh? And you did it quick, like. JGS*

*a new cryptic acronym I'll likely forget the meaning to, by tomorrow -

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Sweetie
Metalhead

Joined: Tue Dec 16, 2014 1:19 am
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:02 pm 
 

CHAIRTHROWER wrote:
Er, sweet review for Witching Hour's Past Midnight by sweetleaf_95 - it's a doozie: spot-on, light and earnest, your reviewing style has that nice and compact brevity factor going for it...
Oh, and congrats, duly, for nailing #300! What a milestone, eh? And you did it quick, like. JGS*

*a new cryptic acronym I'll likely forget the meaning to, by tomorrow -


Thanks! I don't know if I'd say it's a doozie but I definitely got less than what I was expecting. Their newest one though.... fire!
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