Requiem

I'm going to make it my business to re-listen to these songs and hold judgement, because I'm such a fair-minded guy.

I've only seen the Adelaide Oval on TV, but it's basically my perfect stadium. I'm a huge test cricket fan and love traditional grounds like that a hell of a lot more than massive concrete stadia. For football, massive concrete stadia. For cricket, quaint country grounds like Adelaide.

I have a heap of CDs from bands that I purchased without listening to first, based on artwork or label or whatever. It doesn't happen a lot these days in the age of Youtube. Anyway, occasionally I'll take some of them into my car to give them a good airing. In most cases I find that I was right the first time, but sometimes I see things differently and I actually really enjoy the album. Blind Guardian is probably the last band that this happened with - although I never actually had a full album from them, just a couple of songs on samplers. I tried to enjoy Ghost Brigade the other day again and just confirmed how boring and empty they are as a band. For some reason I actually own two of their albums, can you believe it.

Dude it was you and me standing there in an empty room, sipping warm beers, nodding politely to each other, looking at our watches.

Oi, don't knock our major sporting landmark! The MCG is more precious to we Victorians than our own mothers. I was actually at the other ground, Etihad Stadium, watching a really boring match between St Kilda and Gold Coast, of all teams. Free tickets, hence our attendance. Good times.

I know what you mean. The sound is so dense with that guitar tone. Goddamn though, 'King' is such a great album. It's one of those albums that just blossoms with the lyrics. Both bands have amazing lyrics.

You should have told us you were coming to Melbourne and we could have partied like it's 1993. Also, you came all the way to Melbourne and bought Port Adelaide stuff! Irony!

Yeah we saw that. Well, TB saw it and dutifully informed me like the good bloke he is.

How can you not like x? 'Revelations' and 'Die with your Boots On' are really cool songs, especially the latter. Here are the main filler songs from classic Bruce era Maiden: The Number of the Beast: 'Gangland' Piece of Mind: 'Quest for Fire', 'Sun and Steel', 'To Tame a (B)land' Powerslave: 'The Duellits', 'Back in the Village' (Maiden's worst 80s song) Everything else is mint in my opinion.

You misspelt 'awesome' as 'plodding'. 'Number of the Beast' has a bit of filler, but 'Hallowed', 'Run', '22', 'Children' and the title track are all classic metal anthems. That's five absolute hits in my book. Really the only hits on 'Piece of Mind' are 'Icarus' and 'Trooper', and second tier tracks like 'Where Eagles Dare'. In fact I'm surprised how devoid of hits 'Piece of Mind' is, sandwiched as it is between two classics. It's still a very good album though.

How could I resist rating a Mayhem track? Great song from a great album/EP. 8/10

I've given 'Meliora' quite a few spins by now and it actually gets a lot better as you go. In the right context it's actually a lot of fun. The thing is, there's so much better music out there that is more deserving of my/our time. There's just something funny about it that just blocks me from loving it. I think my temporary interest is done, put it that way.

The weather's always great in the world's most liveable city! http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/08/daily-chart-14 By 'great' I mean prone to changing at the drop of a hat and providing the garden with a nice sprinkling of irregular rain. Actually, I'm going to print this admission of Relentless's out because this sort of things is rare from South Australians

Bathory - 'Twilight of the Gods'

You also left out Poison's 'Open Up and Say Ahhh'. But seriously, I really used to like 'No Prayer for the Dying' too and I think it's underrated. I do prefer 'Seventh Son' though. It's so cohesive and exciting (I reckon).

I can't believe Father Alabaster ignored our brotherly shout-outs! I'm totes devo. Shut down more than the time I asked my friend's mum out....

Me too, but I'm always a bit nervous about each release too. I'm excited to see if they've kept up the amazing quality that was found on 'Hammer of the Witches'!

I was slightly disingenuous with the wines because half of those were afterwards at our friends' place. And the food was only so/so and we said we probably wouldn't be back. Actually the food was pretty good but they seemed to rush us by bringing out each course really quickly. It was fun but we had to tell them to slow down!

I've seen HIM a couple of times and I can definitely concur with your view about Valo. The first time I saw the band they were great and Valo was amazing, the second time he was so skinny and I thought he was definitely on some sort of drug as he really wasn't engaged. At one point he stopped a song after a few seconds and admonished the drummer before making them all start again. He also left the stage in the middle of the set to have a "break" which was really weird. He asked the crowd and they all said "No" and he just said, "Actually yes" and just walked off. All very odd. The ego was huge. Awesome to see another fan of The 69 Eyes! As for Sentenced, if you haven't heard their last two albums in their entirety ('The Cold White Light' and 'The Funeral Album') make sure you do! Much more 'metal' than HIM and The 69 Eyes.

Yeah, I edited it because I put the album on as I was posting and found it to be neither awkward nor as riddled with falsetto as I remembered it. It's actually a really good album and for some reason I remember it being worse than it is.

I couldn't agree less. I definitely like 'IX E', but it doesn't hold a candle to 'Anthems'. The essence of the album is good, no doubt, and it has some great moments, but it's so complex and 'deathy' that the things that made Emperor great in the first place are really lost. It's cool, for sure. But gosh, to compare it to 'Anthems'. No.

So does Mayhem. This is a very odd way to determine your personal preference for a band's music, especially because Burzum has no official live albums out. It almost seems as if you're not taking the content of the music into account at all. Also, let's count the official Mayhem releases: Studio: 7 (Deathcrush, De Mysteriis, Wolf's Lair, Grand Declaration, Chimera, Ordo, Esoteric) Live: 5 (Zeitz, Liepzig, Mediolanum, Euro/US Legions, De Mysteriis Alive) With some pretty significant line-up interruptions, I think this is still a pretty good output. If you prefer Burzum, just say Burzum.

Ok, let's map this out: Food: Chinese duck broth Spring roll with sweet chilli sauce and lettuce San Choi Bao Peking duck wrapped in pancakes Wines: Random Cabernet Sauvignon x 2 Random Riesling x 1 Jacobs Creek sparkling wine x 1 Marlborough (New Zealand) Sauvignon Blanc x many

Ha! Brilliant post. That's next level clever. I tip my hat to you, sir. 10/10. Finally another Sirenia fan around here. This is from my least favourite album of theirs but I applaud you nonetheless! Now Playing: Ex Deo - The Immortal Wars

This is definitely not the band to start with if you're exploring folk metal. That would be more like Moonsorrow or Thyring. Anyway, some really good Ensiferum albums are 'Iron' (with their best track 'Iron') and 'From Afar'. 'From Afar' in particular is quite a huge and epic album by this band's standards. 'Unsung Heroes' has some great tracks but if you're looking for more intense music it can probably wait.