GoatmasterGeneral

I knew there was a reason we've kept you around Doc. This is good. This could even be a purchse, but I'm only 9 minutes in.

Teitanblood - The Baneful Choir, Spain 2019. I really don't remember seeing a lot of hate for this one 4 years ago. (not calling you a liar @navybsn) Personally I think this one crushes every bit as hard as any of their others, maybe more than some of them. I do remember 2014's Death getting some shit just for being so damn long (69 minutes) but with this kind of music personally once I get in the cavernous filth groove I can't seem to get enough, I can listen to 10 of these in a row. Thinking this has got to be my favorite overall sub-genre as far as how the music makes me feel, even if it's not my most listened to sub-genre as there are only so many really top quality albums in this cavernous black/death/filth/war metal space. Pestilength - Basom Gryphos, Spain 2022 Nevermore - Enemies of Reality, 2003. I'm assuming my copy is the original version that I bought on CD and ripped to MP3s. But I'm not about to go hunt for whichever box of CD's it might be in out in the storage trailer to check. But I have A-B'd the two versions of the title track on Youtube, and while not the most scientifically accurate method, it has left me fairly confident that I prefer the original version. This was the last Nevermore record that I really liked. https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/andy_sneap/credits/ I've looked over Andy Sneap's list of 138 credits, and there are only a very small handfull of these that I've ever owned or even heard. Looks like he doesn't do much work if any in the black or death metal arenas. Working backwards from the present day I have: Overkill's Grinding Wheel from 2017 which he mixed and mastered, Nevermore's 2010 Obsidian Conspiracy which he mixed and mastered, Testament's Formation of Damnation 2008 mixed, mastered and engineered, Exodus' The Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit A 2007 he actually produced this one. Scrolling back even farther I see that everything else I have that he's worked on is either by Exodus, Nevermore or Testament. And of course these are all third and fourth tier bands if we're just going by how much airtime they get at the Goatmaster lair.

I went through a Hammerheart phase this past spring/summer when I became completely infatuated with the record and must have played it at least 40 or 50 times or more over a several month period. It really sucks you into and immerses you in the viking thing and it has endless replayability. Quothorn's singing definitely belongs in the so bad it's good category. Yet I've come to the iron-clad conclusion that Hammerheart is unequivocally my favorite Bathory album. Black Mark moving down a notch to my #2. Sad to say I missed this band completely back in the 80's. I'd seen the records in the stores but I'd never actually heard a Bathory record until the early 2000's, probably right around the time of his death from cancer in 2004. But over the last 20 years Bathory have become a rock solid staple of my library. It feels to me at this point like they've always been with me from the beginning. Weird how that can happen. NP: Morrigan - Headcult, Germany 2005, hands down the absolute best Bathory worship band. First 6 albums are all solid gold. Chose this one this evening 'cos I probably play it the least of the bunch. Have we decided Le Cabbage is hunkered down in Louisiana? I thought his profile said the midwest? He said yesterday "one of the small town clusters that surround the two major cities in my state." so I was thinking either Missouri (the belt buckle of hypocrisy) (KC/StL) or if as it sounds like the cities are grouped together then probably Minnesota. (Minneapolis/StP) Could always be Kansas (KC and Topeka) but not sure if Topeka counts a 'major' city. Also Michigan (Detroit/Ann Arbor) but again Ann Arbor isn't a major city, only has that many people there cuz it's a college town. Anyway... it seems I have somehow missed this Woven Black Arteries EP that came out two years before Death and must track it down immediately!

I love the smell of filthy rancid cavernous blackened death in the morning. Just listened to that Ceremonial Bloodbath album you just posted which I've got, now moving onto some Cerebral Rot since they're right next to them in my MusicBee library. Re: Teitanblood, you're probably missing 2019's excellent The Baneful Choir. Better get on top of that shit Cabbage, it's 4 years old already. You've reminded me I'm gonna have to revisit Impetuos Ritual sometime soon. I've been hearing their name coming up a lot lately but I dismissed them some years ago as impenetrable disso-atonal fuckery so I can't remember exactly what they sound like anymore. So I'm thinking a drive-by is probably in order. Another step in my ongoing plight to make sure I have enough of a variety of utterly obscene and filth caked options at my disposal. Cerebral Rot - Excretion of Mortality, death/doom Seattle WA 2021 Void Rot - Descending Pillars, death/doom Minneapolis, MN 2020

Interesting. You don't often see people using "Gen-Y" over "Millennials." My daughter's a Millennial (1990) and as it happens she also lives in hell which kinda sucks. Maybe if Floridians got together and elected a new Governor it would be a bit less horrific. But I think Millennials got a bad rap. For many years us old people made Millennials the butt of our jokes, and many wondered aloud how they'd ever be able to get their shit together enough to successfully navigate their way through life. But now that they've grown up a bit and the oldest ones are in their early 40's, and even the youngest ones are pushing 30, turns out they're about as normal and typical and unremarkable as all of our previous generations. I don't know too many of yiz in real life though. Besides my daughter obviously. Mostly I just have a few token Milennials that I interact with on the forum here: Blivvington, James Thomas, Serpico and Le Cabbage come to mind. And Zack if he ever decides to come back and visit his old friends. Anyway, welcome to our little metal forum. Hope you have fun poking around and can find some better music to listen to, assuming of course that you've come here at least partly in search of new musical recommendations.

What?!? I wish they'd put their energies into suing to get the rights to their masters instead of pursuing this re-recording nonsense, which never ever works out well. It always sounds worse. If any metal band has ever re-recorded an album of theirs that came out sounding even half as good as the original I'm certainly not aware of it. I happen to really love that album just the way it is, so I will definitely not be listening to any re-recording nonsense. I got the vinyl when it first came out and at some point a decade later I also bought it on CD. Not my fault the band signed away their rights and didn't/don't make any money off the sales of Icon. Not to go off on a tangent or anything....but that's who you should be directing your ire at Jon boy, the predatory labels who actively fucked over these naive bands and saddled them with these unfair shitty contracts. Not the Spotify people who use it as the modern day equivalent of the free radio I grew up with as my only way to hear new music as a kid. Except that these days they get to choose their own content because we have the technology to do that now. I don't use any of the music streaming services myself, but I don't think we should demonize or shame those who do. They're not trying to fuck anyone over. As a band leader and shot caller if you don't like their 44 million plays to make 87 cents business model then you don't have to have your music available on their service, right? If labels are making package deals with streaming services which make certain bands' music available on streaming services without their knowledge or against their will, for pennies, again that's on the labels.

Hell's Coronation - Transgression of a Necromantical Darkness, Poland slow groove black/death Black Priest of Satan - Element of Destruction, Germany 2016 fuzzed out black/death filth

Altarage - NIHL, España 2016 Teitanblood - Death, España 2014

Bald chicks are hot man. Don't knock it.

I can agree with that. An mediocre album with a great closer doesn't do anyone any good. I was thinking more in terms of what sets the albums we consider truly great apart from the rest. An epic closer is part of that for me, but you absolutely need that killer opening track to grab you first. Many of what I've come to think of as my favorite albums of all time start off with two killer tracks and then they've really got you. I just hate when the first 4 or 5 songs are all great and then the last 4 or 5 all suck. Those albums where you never used to bother to flip them over because all the good songs were on one side.

No, they were proto. A case could be made for their 80's albums being a primary inspiration for both black and death metal without actually being either one of those themselves. They're also not thrash metal which was what many people wanted to call everything that was a bit more extreme in the mid 80's. We hadn't ever really had any need for metal sub-genres before about 1983 or '84, and it took a couple of years before we all agreed on what we were going to call everything. As far as CF after the reformation when they completely reinvented themseves in 2006 with Monotheist, again they sort of defy sub-genre categorization. There's lots of little bits of different influences you can hear on Monotheist, gothic, doom, sludge, black, maybe just a little tiny bit o' the death metal too, but I certainly wouldn't describe them as a death metal band or a black metal band. on topic:

Not exactly sure how the legal aspects work but my guess would be it's an issue of rights. Original album was on WTC Productions and they probably owned the rights to the masters or whatever and there was likely a dispute over money, so they re-recorded it with some producer named Marco Morselli for Iron Bonehead so they can sell their own version that they do own the rights to. They tacked on a couple of extra tracks so fans might have a reason to buy it. Wouldn't have a probem with it other than the fact that it sounds like they either recorded it with the microphones up their asses or maybe they put them out in the lobby and recorded the band through the wall or something. Can't believe they couldn't hear how bad it sounded and then maybe give it another shot.

This is black metal of the Blasphemy, Black Witchery variety. Makes me so sad to see that Monuments of Doom Revolved with its atrociously muffled production seems to be the standard now, but it's actually a 'live' in studio re-recording of their highly superior 2012 debut album Monuments of Doom Revealed for Iron Bonehead. Fortunately I have the original version which does still seem to be available, but it's only on YT in individual videos. Revolved does have 3 extra tracks, 5, 9 and 11 (a Black Witchery cover) but the production and performance on Revealed was so much better. This is why I hate re-recordings. Here's a couple of tracks from the original for comparison. You can hear the production is so much clearer. Like night and day. 02. Thorybos - Bones 04. Thorybos - Orgiastic Rites of Bacchanalia

I was going to include that very same picture in my post, but then my a drake is a duck or a rapper joke wouldn't have worked. Good to know Zachariah's still alive and kicking. Tell him to bring his ass around and say hi.

I do tend to listen to whole albums 95% of the time, but I think most songs can also work as stand alone entities that can make sense on their own outside of the context as a piece or a chapter of the entire album. But just listening to a snippet of a song, "the payoff" would be stupid. Agree totally though that the closer is often the best and most important track on an album. Or it should be anyway. I've often used a baseball analogy for album sequencing that I'm realizing you non Americans and anti-sports nerds won't understand or appreciate. But anyway... the way most bands do it the leadoff track sets the tone, gets on base. Tracks 2, 3 and 4 are the "meat" of the lineup, track 3 or 4 generally being the "cleanup" hitter. You hide your weaker infielder low average batters in the 6, 7 and 8 slots. Pitcher bats last because pitchers can't hit they only live to throw. And that's why album sequencing reminds me of baseball lineups. But the way I'd do it, the album closer is the album's anchor. You put your biggest weightiest most epic behemoth of a track last to close the album out with a bang, give them something to remember and hopefully want to come back for more. I also appreciate when bands reserve some of the better more interesting tracks for side 2. I used to hate when bands would front load an album and stack all the best songs all right in a row on side 1. There were so many albums I desperately wanted to re-sequence back in the day. If you have 10 tracks, 5 on each side, I would put a zippy upbeat rocker with a memorable riff first, a couple more of the better catchier songs at #2 & #3, then if you have any weaker tracks you need to hide put them either at #4 or #6. Never as a side 1 closer or the side 2 opener. Put the less obvious good songs together on side 2, tracks 8 and 9 should be good solid songs that lead you up to the big bang epic closer #10. I was always a side 2 guy. There were so many albums where my favorite song wouldn't be the obvious leadoff track, but something more quirky or different from side 2 that grew on me over repeated listens until it was my favorite.