Evergrey_Rocks's Stratovarius review is pretty good, even if it feels silly to think of an album from 2011 as something to look back on to see if it holds up. It being a good album also helps.

Yeah, anymore I usually skip them.

Jesus Christ, Elysium really did come out 8 years ago...I don't want to feel old, goddammit!

Funny, I just popped in here to see if anyone else was annoyed by the Superchard Motorhead review. It's like he's just making up his own bullshit narrative to fit the LOL LOUD ROCK stereotypes.

Twisted_Psych mused:

Does Superchard even review anything that isn't a classic?

Well, that recent Wytchfynde write of his surely careens off the beaten path! Good stuff, I'd completely forgotten about those raucously wizened crypt-keepers...just youtubin' "Leaving Nadir" as I write this, felicitously boppin' my noggin like the boys and gals in Priest's Wild Daze & Crazy Nites...but anyhow, it's a stellar review, 'chard, 'specially this part:

"From an imagery standpoint, Witchfynde had everything down to a science, but then you start playing the actual record and realize that Witchfynde's sound and image don't match up, and for many I'm sure that's going to be more than disappointing to find out they weren't the first Venom, or even to take influence more from Motorhead than they do from the likes of Canada's Rush. This fits them squarely into a very bizarre category perhaps more in league with Samson in which there are very few moments a listener can point a finger and say "that definitely comes straight out of the punk rock textbook" that the new wave of British heavy metal movement was founded on apart from the title track. The rest? Predominantly blues rock mixed in with progressive rock actually..."

If this album wasn't a classic then, it is now thanks to you!

Oh, and glad you dug those Metal Studies links gas...I actually took 'em off my edit, figuring the links to be blaze somewhat but now I regret doing so - I can't relocate them! - as they're indeed, rather blazing!

Also thrilled to hear from aperson663 in the Big Apple (yeah, I hear the East is getting whambo'd, deep-freeze wise, this Winter...) as steering like-minded metal lovers towards wicked, albeit shamefully unrecognized, trad metal outfits is what reviewing is all about - well that, and boxing folks upside their (Rhinophyma afflicted) shnozzes with outrageously plump werds!

(By the way, stellar job on the Agentpunch write, your very first too! The whack cover is truly atrocious though, I admit!)

Think about how old I feel every time I look at the release date of Destiny, which came out 21 years ago.

Been a while since I listened to the first two The Great Kat albums, but revisiting them now I gotta say the people who write negative reviews for them must be either completely braindead or retarded. However, most seem to be written by trad metal fans, so maybe they're expecting Fates Warning or something?

The Great Kat is more for fans of Hellwitch, Nuclear Death, G.I.S.M., general unhinged chaotic extreme metal stuff, it's like it is to Hellwitch or Nuclear Death what Bathory was to Darkthrone and Mayhem, a proto-form of that insane style, and completely great at it in its own way.

Sorry. *shrugs* Couldn't get into it.

That's the first time I've seen Die With Your Boots on and Flight of Icarus highlighted as Piece of Mind's weak points. Umm, points for originality?

And a small little post has been converted into a full review, I love it when that happens.

Superchard needs to fuck off already. I cringe every time I read 'Superchard gets super hard for....' Anyone who uses something as dopey and classless as this as a tagline has no right to complain about anything.

Oh my, I'd never even noticed he did that until now. Maybe because I've never been able to stomach more than the first two paragraphs of any review.

...yet another from him today. It's obvious that he doesn't read this thread, and that's probably for the best.

Thank you! I've had reviewing those albums on the back burner for several years and you basically summed up why I love Kat's stuff, that and her crazed WWE persona in interviews. Gonna have to hit up her material again soon and maybe put my 2 cents in on them.



Amen! I don't know if the guy is trying to ape off the comedic approach some reviewers have taken here or if it's just a lame gimmick to distract from his reviews being unbearably boring, but his entire approach is an absolute train-wreck.

Kinda wish he did, I find it funny when horrid reviewers discover they're being talked about.

The whole "Superchard gets super [duper] hard for..." would work better if he reserved it for select humdinger albums, not each and every time as an in-felicitous tagline...(like I don't refer to flinging chairs or other seating arrangements on every review, only when it's indelibly - and duly! (haha!) - called for...even though I'd like to!

As much as I dug his Wytchfynde write-up - he does nail the odd release's essence very well from time to time - his wry take on Maiden's Mind Piece was as uncouth as Superman whacking off in his phone booth...

[*xtra edit here]

oh! just gleaned Chard's St.Vitus_Hallowed Victim review...and enjoyed it, especially the part about their "pink" album (i.e Born Too Late) being painfully slow - excruciatingly so, might I add!
Suffice to say, he redeemed himself greatly with me over the above lapse.

I don't see why everyone's getting their knickers bunched up over his writing style...(says "the chair"!).

You answered your own question, you're a chair, and therefore have a perspective on things that those of us non-sitting objects lack. Granted, the "super hard" gimmick might be construed as offensive to mythical creatures like yours truly who get shit for their horn being similar to a phallus protruding from their foreheads, but you seriously don't see why a guy who's reviewing style reeks of the kind of arrogance reserved for a man in love with the smell of his own glorious fits of nuclear flatulence might be off-putting to those of us possessed of a functioning nasal cavity?

Sorry, decided to try out your modern free verse poetic shtick, don't think it worked out too well.

Furniture is known to be tolerant, just like the table lets Lars have that drum sound.

No, no, Hell's U, your wantonly convivial rhetoric came out quite well...Thank you; I am pleased.

back to Super C.; the kid's young, a few tweaks + a bit of humility and less hubris should serve him well...I've a feeling he'll come - no pun intended here - into his own eventually.
(He's a good [y]egg), all told...)

Hell, in my view, anybody who diligently sits down at wee-fee and a computer and puts time and effort into putting his views out there - however controversial and wry - is an asset to this crumbling Werld.

In other nooze, rampantly dug - like a hatchet faced (original) night stalker!* - Neheroth's forceful and compact write for the French Sacrifizer (wicked band name/appellation btw!) and its "poseur" shreddin' debut EP, La nuit des rasoirs, quoi! Check it:

"The guitar composition is impressive, and with two guitars, both handled by Night Reaper and Steel Grinder respectively, the lead melodies are never neglected for the black metal melodic shredding, and vice versa. This allows for a veritable feast of face melting riffs that will leave you air guitaring even in your sleep."

Good 'ol metal monikers!

Oh, and congrats 5 Nails, for breaking both the top 40 as well as 300 review mark!

*Just read the following in one, intense, rocking and rocked crepuscular sitting (no chairs have been harmed during and/or throughout); a f*cking, creeped-out, edge of your seat, nail biting doozy if there ever was one!:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/350 ... n-the-dark

Highly recommended, even if this isn't quite the right thread for such enthralling, albeit colloquially brutal, steerage...

Thanks Charsey, also I heard an interview with Patton Oswalt about that book. It was his wife who was writing it when she passed away so he and a few other writers worked to finish and publish it for her. Here's the interview if you're interested: https://youtu.be/Kw10-QwuBHs?t=91

Awesome, thank you kindly (and sordidly, considering the subject matter...Sheesh, what an F'in, king loser creep that EAR-ONS...Craziest part is how my mother, aunt and uncle grew up in Raunchy, ahem, Rancho Cordova (i.e.suburb of Sacramento, South of the Folsom River and the airport, I think), right smack dab in his triangle of operations, albeit years before - the 50s and 60s, as opposed to those scurrilous, anti-hippie "hoodie" era, the 1970s)

Well, back to review discussions now...

Just gleaned those nifty Beast In Black (Betes en Noir) writes put up recently...Sweet band, no-how, just zampled Born Again and Blind & Frozen...
Oh, dig this meritoriously cheeky (closing) line from Nausika's Monobrow (!) review from 2017:

"On the whole though, this is an enjoyable work of instrumental doom / stoner rock that just missed the space bus to greatness."...I want in on that, randomly fawning non-sequitur withstanding!

That Deathcult for Eternity: The Triumph review was an interesting read. How we hope you die can claim it's not an original album is beyond me though.

He used the term "neoclassical" in the title for that review, but he also used it in his Gorguts review to describe what the band originally sounded like. That's kinda weird. Their first two albums are pretty much straight-up traditional death metal, and not "Canada's answer to Suffocation" (who aren't neoclassical either).

From this review (emphasis mine):



For the record, the drums on this album are programmed.

Special (hifalutin') thanks to all the erudite throwers for their sagaciously enthused, as well as stunning and revelatory, write-ups of late for Hellsinki's Beast In Black! (my newfangled [p-metal] fetish group, if you will...).

Oh, these beg(at) the question: do Battle Beast and Beast In Black make a fine power metal wine and cheese pairing, or something along those meritoriously pumpin' (disco-infused) lines?

He! She's none too bright, eh? Could'a really hurt someone or caused a major accident. Glad they nailed her, although I admit I'm guilty of tossing the odd (plastic) ashtray out the window to rattle the 'headz who create alleyway disturbances below...

Droneriot's artwork is pretty cool, albeit truculently grim! I dig the very first spectral drawing - the starkness of it reminds me of Jeff Lemire' idiosyncratic style i.e. the Canadian thought-provoking graphic novel author who diligently triples as artist/colorist...

Oh, that "80s cover"? Sure beats John C. Melloncamp's Hot Dogs And Hamburgers!

What's an "iconoclast" again? Some kind of lizard or iguana?

Enbilulugugal up!

Beast in Black is terrible... I'm tempted to review it but honestly I just think at this point it's the style itself that isn't for me, so eh, maybe not a good idea.

Er, OK, so I haven't spun the entire thing yet, that is, Beast in Black, but a few of the songs - the second especially - agreeably reeled me in...Maybe out of sheer ennui, or subtle, unconscious yearning to hear whirligigin' keys...When I say "fetish" band, I often mean, the band which strikes me at the moment more out of quirky decorousness than outright musical proficiency.

In any case, I don't think it's awful, nor the bees' knees...As they say in the old country, "chacun ses gouts!" (To each their own...).

It sounded pretty good the first time I heard it, but it's got the depth of a kiddie pool. All surface gloss. But that's just the style, not like it's claiming to be anything else, so whatever, not much point in me reviewing it like that...

Sometimes people don't need depth, they need to just have some fun and cut loose. I'll admit up front that I'm not the world's biggest post-disco fan, but the whole concept of turning the Scarface soundtrack or a bunch of Rocky IV songs into a metal album is good times had by yours truly.

It's just not my kind of fun I guess. That whole Sabaton/Powerwolf style is seriously grating to me. I have a lot of fun listening to plenty of other stuff instead.

Yeah, it's cheese and toffee mostly... and that's why it sticks with you, god damn it. I gave it another spin the other night; but rest assured that my finger was on the "stop" button for at least half the time.

I didn't plan in reviewing Beast in Black because I could sum the whole thing up in one sentence and I already reviewed Battle Beast a few days ago, but yeah there's a surprising amount of discussion about it going on here. Surprising for a forum that generally shuns Sabaton and bands of that ilk.

Beast in Black is seemingly the new "hill to die on" band right now. Personally, I haven't listened to them yet, but I really like Battle Beast, and the guy behind Beast in Black wrote everything Battle Beast did up until he got fired, so I'll probably like them too when I do get around to them.

Nice sardonic kiddie pool jibe regarding Beast In Black's depth, though Hell's U has a point regarding its oh-so-phlobotic fun factor...indeed, it largely evokes visions of flying furniture and pink bubblegum, aside from that Zordof track or whatever.

In any case, I mildly dig it, actual musical kicks-wise, in a similar way as Cardian or Frozen Crown, for eg...

As for Cosmic's Hellnite_Midnight Terrors review, his opening statement caught my attention:

"Hellnite has had the best of my afternoon sessions for a few days now with their debut full-length album titled Midnight Terrors. Their thrash and heavy metal infused sound offers strong shots of nostalgia for any gamer that remembers the mid 80s to mid 90’s. I say that because there is a very light 8-bit tuning coming from the instrumentation that reminds me of menu and game-play music featured in Metroid, Doom, Duke Nukem and games of that era."

Does he mean, perhaps, the bass has that pseudo-digital thump, like a rapid, frenetically bopping pulse or something other? Found the same quirk on a Toledo Steel EP, as well as many Latin trad/thrash bands, from Columbia and Brazil, usually. This arcane, oft production resultant feature has a certain charm I can't quite describe but yeah, I think I read CM loud and clear on this one...

In any case, its cover art slays, in a grueling Tyson Dog sort of manner!

Those two Beast In Black singles did not impress me enough to want to check out whatever so called deep cuts might be floating on From Hell With Love. I'll admit No More Hollywood Endings (the song) is not as strong as it should be given this critical junction in Battle Beast's career, but I'll take that over either of those two turds.

Also, after glancing over BH's review of the s/t Battle Beast, I can only conclude that everyone else got a different track called "Machine Revolution," cos the one on my copy of the album is fucking ghey. It ends on a solid note, but that opening dancy synth part makes me not surprised at all that Anton would go on to write Sweet True Lies.

"Ghey"?!...at least I'm not alone in my cheeky word mangling...

That's how Martin Popoff spells it, and I don't want to be too homophobic.