GoatmasterGeneral

Thatguy gets excited? I wonder what that would look like. Would a casual onlooker be able to distinguish excited Thatguy from regular Thatguy? Or is it just like an imperceptible 2mm eyebrow raise or something?

1. You seem to be missing the entire point of why we come here each day. 2. It is not irrelevant, the year of release is crucial info because if it's not from this year or last year I need to know this. I'm much less likely to click on things if they're more than a year or two old. 3. You've fooled me before. 4. I'll take your word for it. NP: Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God. Pissed my brother in law offf this evening by turning my nephew onto Amon Amarth. Kid's got hair down to his waist, just turned 21 yesterday but yet he knows nothing of metal. He's a video game, D&D, anime nerd and they told me he was going through a viking phase where he's interested in all things Scandinavian especially viking mythology type stuff so I whipped out my phone and pulled up a Twilight of the Thunder Gods video. "Here check this out, you might like this." He sat there and headbanged through like 8 songs in a row then asked me if I needed my phone back. Told him I wasn't going to leave without it, but that he could listen some more at least until we left and that I'd get him the CD for his birthday. My sister and her husband heard the growling and their eyes got wide, I don't think they've ever really heard anything resembling extreme metal before.

Who names their band Fister? I haven't heard it, and I have no idea who they even are, but Fister? That name provokes an automatic go fuck yourself from me. I almost want to check it out now just to see what bunch of mooks named their band Fister and what sub-genre it is. But now the name is actually making me think of that band Seether and they're beyond terrible so looks like I shall go to my grave not knowing who Fister is. NP: Gauntlet Ring - The Howling Call of the Moon (Comp) USBM 2022 A sub-genre and a year of release would be nice. The bare minimum in other words. That way if it's avant-ambient-post-progressive I just keep scrolling but if it's some kind of actual metal maybe I'd pause long enough to have a little listen.

Obviously we've been listening to two different albums Jon-O. Without a clunker track?!? Seriously?? The whole fucking thing was a 38 minute basket of clunkers! Could not find these slightly harsh vocals you referenced either. As far as the album's production is concerned, I don't think the most fantastic production in the world can save an album with bad material. Maybe I'm weird but I don't choose albums to listen to based on their production, I choose albums with the songs I want to hear at that moment. The material on the album in question just sounds much, much too commercial to me, which is an unforgivable sin in my book. I'm talking zero tolerance. And that's without even looking at any band photos. Although obviously it's not a problem for everyone, as I've heard many people claim to really like the album quite a bit. I did like the obligatory acoustic intro though if that helps. Technical thrash to me is stuff like Coroner, a Swiss band who were also active in the late 80's. Now there's a band that made albums with teeth, with balls, their material had an edge to it. It was headbanger shit as we used to say. American thrash bands back in the day who weren't in the top tier of high volume sellers, (which would be bands like the Big 4, Overkill, Exodus, Testament...) made pussy soft-cock thrash because the record companies demanded to get some return on their investment if they were going to be expected to continue to finance the band's further making of albums. Cock rock ruled the day in '89 so the labels pushed all the little bands to become more commercially viable by incorporating elements of cock rock into their sounds and their looks. Annihilator is very clearly a victim of this record company interference imho. Yes, even on Alice. They look pretty much like your regular average 80's metal dudes. I won't take points off for the two bleached blonde dudes with the dark roots as I lightened my hair back in the 80's myself. Sorta like the dude on the left with the requisite black leather jacket we were all required to obtain within 30 days when they gave us our metal cards. And we sure were fond of denim back then, weren't we?

Riot - Fire Down Under, 1981 The Rods - Wild Dogs, 1982 Saxon – Wheels of Steel, 1980 Motörhead - Ace of Spades, 1980

I'm not scared of your music Doc if that's what you really believe - which I'm 100% sure it's not. I'd say perplexed would more acurately describe the way I feel when voluntarily listening to some of your more non-musical, musical recos. Obviously we do have some small amount of overlap you and I which is more than you can say about your lovely daughter, but there are definitely times when I'm genuinely mystified as to how anyone can listen to some of that stuff you dig and enjoy it as music. But if you ever have occasion to pick me up at the airport in your luxury electric BMW I will no doubt declare my wholehearted and reservationless appreciation for whatever esoteric avant-garde ambient or microtonal nonsense you throw at me because it'd simply be the polite thing to do. We're not savages after all, we're Boomers. Funny, I did that at a friend of mine's house one time, he played some Skinny Puppy for me and seeemd eager for me to like it, so I mumbled something about it being ok and he took that as a ringing endorsement because for years after that day he thought I actually liked them.

Ernte - Albsegen, Switzerland. Yeah not bad at all. Monachopsis Art - An Empty Existence, Finland

Listen man, don't be giving Doc too much credit or it will go to his head and he'll start believing we actually like some of his weird music. Man I really want to hear this new Burial Hordes record but it doesn't drop for two more months yet. I hate when they tease them that far ahead of release. There are 4 out of the 8 individual tracks up on BC and YT andf I've heard them but I'm not gonna keep listening to them because I'd rather hear the whole album all together in order.

I don't have any idea where I'd find a record shop these days, not without drivng 2 hours into the city, I buy just about everything but groceries and building materials online. So I imagine I'll just hear the new Overkill sooner or later when it pops up on Youtube. I've never been one to follow release schedules and keep track of what's coming out soon, I'm happy to let it be a surprise when a band I know drops a new album. I've really gotta be in the mood for thrash with the clean vocals too so Overkill is no longer a weekly thing for me like they were years ago. I'll just have little Overkill binges where I'll do 3 or 4 of their albums in a row every few months or so. My go-tos aren't even their first 5 albums anymore just because I've heard them so many times. I'd still rank Taking Over and Horrorscope the highest, and they still get a little attention now and then but I'm more likely to reach for their early 2000's stuff when the Overkill urge strikes me, or a random 90's one or that last one WoW from a few years ago really hit the spot for me. Being in the states, all of our mainstream (radio & tv) exposure to metal back in the day was primarily geared towards glam. I never really watched or listened to any of those late night weekend metal shows like Headbanger's Ball very often though, because they were all glam-centric pushing all these mainstream bands we didn't give a fuck about. And we were almost always out in the clubs on the weekends seeing bands we actually liked. So for all I know Overkill could have made a video or two that received some play on some of those stupid late night shows and I wouldn't know it. Dee Snider actually still has a radio show today they broadcast here on the weekends maybe 10pm Saturday or something like that called House of Hair, I've heard it in the car a couple of times when I found myself out and about at that time of night for some reason. It's just a bunch of shitty old glam rock, there's no metal happening there. People have told me there were college radio shows that played some metal back in the day too but again I wasn't often home listening to the radio on weekend nights. We were usually out in the clubs, but when I did occasionally find myself at home on a Friday or Saturday night in the 80's I'd be hanging out with my gf trying to get some nookie not listening to hair bands on the radio. And I can tell you we learned about a lot more good bands out in the clubs seeing bands play live and talkinbg to metalheads than we ever could have sitting at home listening to Bon Jovi, Warrant and Poison on the radio or on MTV.

Yes I'm aware, that's why I laughed. That's all us old farts do is piss takes on top of piss takes, and then you've already gone on the record as being a fan of the band. But I'm sure there are people here who really would rate it below 5 and that's fine. I've never ever heard Overkill played on the radio, not in the 80's, not in the 90's, not ever. I don't think I could even imagine what that might've felt like. Unlike the big 4 who have some small amount of name recognition within certain segments of the broader mainstream, most Americans have never even heard of any other thrash bands and would likely be surprised to learn there are hundreds of them. I don't think even Years of Decay ever really 'broke' up here, the general love for that album developed some years after the fact and then only among metalheads. I'd put Years well behind killers like Taking Over and Horrorscope and even quite a few of their later 2000's albums which I'm head over heels for, but I've noticed over the years that most fans want to put Years in their top 2 or 3. Except our friend Jimmy-T of course, he's very young so he puts all the post Ironbound stuff at the top of his list. I'd put U the I even farther back than Years, but for me Overkill is such an integral part of my DNA that I find even most of their lower tier albums to be well worth listening to. Except for Immortalis, I can't find anything redeeming there, they phoned that one in and I'd rank it dead last.

I used to use Firefox for my web adventures on the computer but being a low-tech guy it's just easier to use Chrome on my phone.

Hahaha, see? If we all rated things the same what fun would that be? What would we have left to discuss? Personally I think it'd be totally reasonable for someone to rate Under the Influence 3.5 if they didn't like the album. Don't expect everyone around the world to be Overkill fanbois just because I am. I've been made aware that Bobby's voice is an acquired taste. I would have rated the album a bit lower myself a year ago but I revisited the album a few months ago and realized there were actually more good songs on there than I'd remembered.

No it's cool, I've got it now. There's a way to make Chrome force the dark to override whatever was not letting it do its thing. I absolutely hate looking at web pages with bright white backgrounds so where there's a will there's a way.

Cannot be objective about Overkill as I am a certified fanboi. This would be the weakest album of their first 5, but I still think it's very good as the other 4 are just unfuckwithable. I'd go about 7.5 or 8/10 as well.

I cannot "rest easy" as I finally set up my new phone that's been sitting in a drawer for the last 21 months last night and I've managed to get every god damned app and webpage to display with a black background except for this one. Had no problem accomplishing this feat on my last phone, but not on this one. I won't be able to rest until I figure this out. Has something to do with going from Android 10 to 11 I think. I fucking hate technology. Or rather I hate that I'm too stupid to figure out how to get shit to work properly. Newer phone is supposed to be more user friendly not less. EDIT: Alright I figured out how to force the black background for this site. And I got my music files moved to a new folder where my offline player can access them, so I guess now I can rest easy. If I could just find something similar to my old beer can pop top text notification sound I think I'd be all set. I picked an unobtrusive notification off the phone's menu but I don't like it. Maybe I should make Alice in Hell my new ring tone? Hahaha no, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

Maybe I was a bit harsh. How about 3.8? It's a shit album no matter the number. Just my opinion of course you are all free to continue to enjoy it.

Tsjuder - Legion Helvete, Norway 2011 Dodsferd - Spitting With Hatred, The Insignificance of Life, 2011

Wolf Hex, good idea. Outstanding punky/thrashy Canadian black metal with cool melodic guitar solos. 2021

Whoa, hang on a sec let me check my calendar, is this a rare Saturday appearance by my friend Jon-O?? What happened, the wife and kid went out shopping? Gotta disagree on your assesment of Alice in Hell. I know my tastes don't lean toward the mainstream metal, and you might want to accuse me of looking at these things through the filter of my goat colored glasses, and maybe you'd be right. But believe it or not back in the 80's I was not yet this crusty old goat you see before you now. There was a time when I listened to stuff in this general vicinity. Obviously you and I would've had different perspectives and been keeping different metal company 34 years ago in 1989, what with you being a young schoolboy of 14 at the time and me being an older veteran metalhead twice your age. So it's not at all surprising that we see things differently here. This album seems to be attempting to marry technical thrash with mainstream cock rock/hair metal. Not sure how this marriage came about but it certainly seems like a strange pairing to me, because by 1989 the core audiences for these two styles were fairly separate and distinct. But the record companies wanted everything to look and sound like commercial hair metal in the pre-grunge days of 1989 which created an over-saturation of the market that was impossible to escape, and which gave us albums like this turd all of which contibuted to drive that commercial heavy metal scene into an early grave by 1991. I know there are many people who think of Alice as a 'classic' and that's certainly their perogative, but I just can't see it. We have two different styles of metal fused together here on this album and the band fails at both of them. I mean they're good musicians, but that's about all I can say for them. Shame they didn't have any good material to work with. The Annihilator debut ended up as a kind of mish-mash of glammy thrash or thrashy glam and most of it's just boring and generic heavy metal that isn't anywhere near heavy, fast or intense enough for the real hardcore thrash dudes, and it's not nearly catchy and sexy enough enough for the chicks and casuals that were keeping cock rock erect with truckloads of hairspray in '89. These songs just aren't very good. So no offense to anyone who might happen to like Alice in Hell but this record really sucks. 3.5/10 I mean look at some of the great thrash albums that came out in 1989: Beneath the Remains, Years of Decay, Fabulous Disaster, No More Color, Practice What You Preach, Hande With Care, Agent Orange, World Downfall, Horrified, Leave Scars, Annihilation of Civilization... You can't put Alice in Hell up next to these classics, the comparison is fucking embarrassing man. Mr Waters should be ashamed.

Rot - As Darkness Burns, Vietnam Teuta - Spirito Antico, Italy

I'm all in for robust, honest, pull no punches criticism of music, both positive and negative. So yeah, I agree that some of the bad stuff needs to be talked about. But if you're gonna go back 30 years to highlight a long forgotten album by writing a review and starting a new thread to bring it to everyone's attention, then pick one worth revisiting. Pick one that brings something to the table and will stand up to some scrutiny. Why waste time exhuming ancient 30 year old 2.5/10 relics you don't even like that have long been dead and buried just to execute them all over again? Let the dead rest in peace and dignity.

Lampir - Awaiting the Predatory Dreamscape, USBM 2020 Ara Subversor - Vow of Dominion, USBM Nachzehrer - Misanthropie Demo, USBM

Coroner RIP, 1987 Bathory - Under the Sign of the Black Mark, 1987

I had never even heard of Canadian band Annihilator back in the day, they were a 2nd tier or more realistically probably a third tier thrash band that didn't really get started til the first wave of thrash was already well on the decline. It's only been within the last several years that I have become aware of this band and their album Alice in Hell's existence, although I've not actually heard more than about 30 seconds of it because mediocre 34 year old third tier thrash albums aren't something I have much interest in, that'd be the Orca's wheelhouse. But I have to ask, what's the point of digging up shitty 30 year old pop metal albums to review when there are so many hundreds and thousands of really good high quality albums you could be listening to?