Random metal thoughts

[Dead1]

6 minutes ago, navybsn said:

Last Rites isn't bad, but you won't like it @Dead1. Probably too crusty for you.

Actually I don't mind Last Rites.  It's one of the few music blogs I visit.

Again writing style is bland*, but the content  is a lot more interesting.

*I still find writing styles in mags like Zero Tolerance and Decibel to be better than the internet blogs.  Could be impact of actual editors or they simply try to recruit people with some journalistic skills.

[AlSymerz]

Do people actually read other website, blogs, news sites, whatever for end of year lists?

I don't think I've ever found a website that actually reflects my top albums and therefore usually don't get past the headlines or leading links talking about them.

[Dead1]

24 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

Do people actually read other website, blogs, news sites, whatever for end of year lists?

 

Yes it's always been quite a popular topic on the old Metal-fi forums where a lot of us come from.

 

Quote

I don't think I've ever found a website that actually reflects my top albums and therefore usually don't get past the headlines or leading links talking about them.

Totally agree.  I think the last time someone published an end of year list where I liked a lot of the choices was Terrorizer some time in the early 2000s.

 

[AlSymerz]

I've always participated in them on other sites but I've never gone looking for what other sites/ people are listing.

[SurgicalBrute]

2 hours ago, navybsn said:

I'm sure there's plenty of challenges we don't know, but does seem that the last big blog left that's worth a shit is on the decline.

I've kind of gotten that impression as well. I don't know if it's the wider range of visitor's with different interests that's drawing their attention in a newer, different direction, or if, in their goal to be more careful about what bands and labels they promote, there's maybe been a subconscious shift away from underground favorites to more kind of "I, Voidhanger" types of bands...but yeah, a lot of what they're covering these days falls outside my personal interest range. Too clean, too modern, or too off the wall/proggy/technical.

 

2 hours ago, Dead1 said:

I also think Andy Synn's is too lenient and just praises everything.  There is nothing to be gleaned from his writings.

Andy and I are almost at complete opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to what we like, and there's been more than a few times (including this year) where I've side-eyed some of his choices, but you do have to keep in mind that it's really not meant to be a critic site either. It's more of a "recommend me" thread put into blog form. They don't cover stuff they don't like, so you're definitely not going to find a lot of meat to dig into in their articles regarding pros and cons...so I get why that probably isn't your thing

 

1 hour ago, KillaKukumba said:

I've always participated in them on other sites but I've never gone looking for what other sites/ people are listing

Best way I could describe it, is It's really kind of a case of dick measuring meets, maybe I actually missed something cool. I like to read them just to see if anyone know what they're talking about...at least by my standards

[AlSymerz]

When it comes to forums the idea of participating is more than enough for me to have some interest but when it comes to sites like news blogs and magz I can barely relate to anything they put forward. Even the sites where they actually have genre specific polls, (public or website content creators only) I tend to have massively different ideas. I think over the years the closest I've ever come to finding something close to my ideas is Bravewords, but over the years that site seems to change their minds about what is good and what isn't quite a bit.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

3 hours ago, navybsn said:

Last Rites isn't bad, but you won't like it @Dead1. Probably too crusty for you.

I don't usually bother with any metal blogs or news sites or anything like that, but for shits & giggles I just went and checked out the Last Rites combined staff picks for 2022. Lets just say crusty was not the impression I came away with. The Decibel list was crustier. Only two albums on here that I own, numbers 11 & 12, neither of which will be on my year end list. Didn't even see anything that made me want to investigate further other than the new The Chasm album which I've known about, but for some reason just haven't gotten around to checking out yet.

 

LAST RITES STAFF PICKS 2022

25. TÓMARÚM – ASH IN REALMS OF STONE ICONS

24. FER DE LANCE – THE HYPERBOREAN

23. PHANTOM SPELL – IMMORTAL’S REQUIEM

22. THRESHOLD – DIVIDING LINES

21. VÓRTIZE– ¡TIENES QUE LUCHAR!

20. QUEENSRŸCHE – DIGITAL NOISE ALLIANCE

19. STRATOVARIUS – SURVIVE

18. HEAVING EARTH – DARKNESS OF GOD

17. BEYOND MORTAL DREAMS - ABOMINATION OF THE FLAMES

16. MESSA - CLOSE

15. MOTHER OF GRAVES - WHERE THE SHADOWS ADORN

14. ARES KINGDOM – IN DARKNESS AT LAST

13. THE OTOLITH – FOLIUM LIMINA

12. DARKTHRONE – ASTRAL FORTRESS

11. AUTONOESIS – MOON OF FOUL MAGICS

10. ARTIFICIAL BRAIN – ARTIFICIAL BRAIN

9. ASHENSPIRE – HOSTILE ARCHITECTURE

8. SIGH - SHIKI

7. VOIVOD – SYNCHRO ANARCHY

6. INANNA – VOID OF UNENDING DEPTHS

5. HAMMERS OF MISFORTUNE – OVERTAKER

4. BLIND GUARDIAN – THE GOD MACHINE

3. IMMOLATION – ACTS OF GOD

2. WORMROT – HISS

1. THE CHASM - THE SCARS OF A LOST REFLECTIVE SHADOW

[Thatguy]

Ha.

Two good albums on that list, and it's not 11 and 12 neither.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

12 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

Ha.

Two good albums on that list, and it's not 11 and 12 neither.

I won't argue with you unless you try to tell me it's: 4, 5, 7, 10, 19 or 20.

[RelentlessOblivion]

Hmm I liked Immolation, can’t speak for most of the others.

[Thatguy]

2 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

won't argue with you unless you try to tell me it's: 4, 5, 7, 10, 19 or 20.

None of the above.

Wait for me list.

[navybsn]

7 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Lets just say crusty was not the impression I came away with

Was tongue planted firmly in sarcastic cheek.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, navybsn said:

Was tongue planted firmly in sarcastic cheek.

You soft spoken guys are always the toughest to read. And you'd think I would always assume things are meant to be tongue-in-cheek because that's how I roll. Yeah I figured that out once I got there, but you got me man because I really don't go looking on the internet for any metal recos or discussion on any of these blogs or anything because I know there's nothing for me out there. And I'm ok with being on my own and just finding my own shit. But I heard the name Last Rites and thought "Hmmmm maybe my boy Navy's found a light in the darkness?" But noooo it was just as pathetic as all the others. Do any of these sites reflect what real people actually listen to? Are people so starved for metal chatter that they'll just accept anything?

[navybsn]

38 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Do any of these sites reflect what real people actually listen to? Are people so starved for metal chatter that they'll just accept anything?

No. Yes.

Honestly, there really isn't enough quality out there to write a regular blog, especially focused on reviewing new stuff, that people will frequent enough to get any sort of notoriety. They have to put out volume to keep people coming back which of course compromises quality. Even the really good ones like Bardo Methodology (which is interview focused and maybe biannual) still comes up with stuff I don't find interesting. I do peruse the big ones for entertainment purposes and do occasionally find something of interest. Some of the artists' EOTY list have good stuff too, but generally those sites are just for idle reading to kill time.

[SurgicalBrute]

3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Do any of these sites reflect what real people actually listen to?

I have to disagree with my boy Navy here.

It's not that they don't reflect what people listen to, it's more that they need to reflect their primary audience's listening taste. Most of these lists, particularly by "bigger" blogs and magazines, are basically written by committee, so you get a couple of picks from the prog guy, a couple from the underground guy...etc, etc...and those picks are probably going to be reflective of whatever their audience seems to gravitate towards the most. Hence why it's more fun to play..."who's going to be every blogs/magazines pet band this year?"...and see if you can guess which albums are going to appear over and over and over again - (I'm looking at you Undeath)

 

[markm]

This is a curiosity to me. On the metalbandcamp webpage on the right tool bar it lists "friends" with metal blogs like NCS, Invisible Oranges, etc. Why on earth haven't they taken off the long defunct Metal-Fi??? It still lists the post Best and worst sounding albums of 2019. Not to be OCD, but it's getting on my nerves as I do go here to occasionally check out some of the listed blogs out of convenience. 

http://metalbandcamp.com/

[SurgicalBrute]

5 minutes ago, markm said:

This is a curiosity to me. On the metalbandcamp webpage on the right tool bar it lists "friends" with metal blogs like NCS, Invisible Oranges, etc. Why on earth haven't they taken off the long defunct Metal-Fi??? It still lists the post Best and worst sounding albums of 2019. Not to be OCD, but it's getting on my nerves as I do go here to occasionally check out some of the listed blogs out of convenience. 

http://metalbandcamp.com/

Uh...Mark, my dude....that website hasn't been updated in over 2 years. All you're seeing in the right hand tool bar is automatic feed updates

[markm]

2 hours ago, SurgicalBrute said:

I have to disagree with my boy Navy here.

It's not that they don't reflect what people listen to, it's more that they need to reflect their primary audience's listening taste. Most of these lists, particularly by "bigger" blogs and magazines, are basically written by committee, so you get a couple of picks from the prog guy, a couple from the underground guy...etc, etc...and those picks are probably going to be reflective of whatever their audience seems to gravitate towards the most. Hence why it's more fun to play..."who's going to be every blogs/magazines pet band this year?"...and see if you can guess which albums are going to appear over and over and over again - (I'm looking at you Undeath)

 

But, the thing is there is such a range of genres, that there is no one size fits.  honestly that's how I round out my listening towards the end of the year. I know, I'm a "normie" or "casual" but the real normies and casuals wouldn't touch, say immolation or Autopsy with a ten foot pole. Personally, I like curating a good range of styles and mixing it into my own little annual heavy music witches brew regardless genre affiliation-a little black, a little death, some noise, some sludge, some doom, experimental, some hardcore, some stoner, some prog....I really like the range even though by goat standards a lot of it is clean sounding or what I would call metal with a modicum of production values, but not necessarily the over processed, sterile sounding modern sound.  

 

22 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

Uh...Mark, my dude....that website hasn't been updated in over 2 years. All you're seeing in the right hand tool bar is automatic feed updates

I know that. Why is it still even listed? 

[SurgicalBrute]

33 minutes ago, markm said:

But, the thing is there is such a range of genres, that there is no one size fits.

Think you misunderstand...when I say "primary audience" I'm not talking about the metal audience as a whole, I'm talking specifically about that particular publications primary audience. On some level, most of those places should be tracking at least some form of customer metrics, so they should be aware of which bands, albums, and reviews are getting the most engagement. That's going to shape their year end lists because their audience is expecting to see certain types of releases, with maybe one of two dark horse, unknowns thrown on there to add variety.

 

33 minutes ago, markm said:

I know that. Why is it still even listed? 

Because someone would have to go in and actually remove it, and there's literally no one actively operating the website right now....hence my point about it not having been updated in 2 years

[markm]

27 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

Because someone would have to go in and actually remove it, and there's literally no one actively operating the website right now....hence my point about it not having been updated in 2 years

Oh OK, I know I'm a little dense when it comes to website tech, you mean no one operating metalbandcamp, I thought you meant Metal-Fi. I noticed  Bandcamp came out with a best metal albums of 22 but it wasn't under the metalbandcamp banner. 

https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-of-2022/the-best-metal-albums-of-2022

[GoatmasterGeneral]

23 minutes ago, markm said:

I noticed  Bandcamp came out with a best metal albums of 22 but it wasn't under the metalbandcamp banner. 

https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-of-2022/the-best-metal-albums-of-2022

Now I know where the Last Rites staff got half their albums from.

 

3 hours ago, SurgicalBrute said:

(I'm looking at you Undeath)

I happen to like the new Undeath record quite a bit. It won't be in my death metal top 10 I don't think, but it's certainly list worthy. Hard to say, there are so many death metal albums I have yet to relisten to. But if having it ranked highly on all of these semi-mainstream committee lists manages to steer some mainstreamers or n00bs towards at least checking out some actual death metal for the first time then they're providing a valuable public service. 

 

 

[SurgicalBrute]

1 hour ago, markm said:

Oh OK, I know I'm a little dense when it comes to website tech, you mean no one operating metalbandcamp, I thought you meant Metal-Fi. I noticed  Bandcamp came out with a best metal albums of 22 but it wasn't under the metalbandcamp banner. 

https://daily.bandcamp.com/best-of-2022/the-best-metal-albums-of-2022

No worries..

Yeah, that's what I meant, though...Metalbandcamp was it's own separate thing, and from what I can tell they were never officially tied with Bandcamp. Whoever was running it though hasn't added anything new since 2020, so I'm pretty sure it's dead.

Bandcamp Daily, where that new list was posted, is an actual part of the Bandcamp site, and their metal column is written by a different guy

[SurgicalBrute]

6 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I happen to like the new Undeath record quite a bit.

 

Well, Twitter and this message board 😁

Dude...you've known me long enough to know that if I thought it sucked, I'd have just said it sucked. I wasn't even talking about quality, just pointing out that Undeath seems to be the chosen one this year for death metal for some reason, popping up on a ton of lists.

Personally, I think the album is fine, but not half as good "Lesions of a Different Kind", so the degree of praise does feel a little overblown

[GoatmasterGeneral]

29 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

 

Well, Twitter and this message board 😁

Dude...you've known me long enough to know that if I thought it sucked, I'd have just said it sucked. I wasn't even talking about quality, just pointing out that Undeath seems to be the chosen one this year for death metal for some reason, popping up on a ton of lists.

Personally, I think the album is fine, but not half as good "Lesions of a Different Kind", so the degree of praise does feel a little overblown

I never said I thought you thought it sucked. 🤷‍♂️ Was just making a random and possibly unneccessary observation that maybe some of these mainstream end of year lists aren't completely useless after all. We both know I love to argue, but believe it or not I'm not always trying to argue with you Surge. I think you're a fairly astute individual and more often than not I agree with you. I haven't perused too many 2022 lists yet so your telling me Undeath was this year's critic's darling was new information.

[navybsn]

5 hours ago, SurgicalBrute said:

I have to disagree with my boy Navy here.

It's not that they don't reflect what people listen to, it's more that they need to reflect their primary audience's listening taste. Most of these lists, particularly by "bigger" blogs and magazines, are basically written by committee, so you get a couple of picks from the prog guy, a couple from the underground guy...etc, etc...and those picks are probably going to be reflective of whatever their audience seems to gravitate towards the most. Hence why it's more fun to play..."who's going to be every blogs/magazines pet band this year?"...and see if you can guess which albums are going to appear over and over and over again - (I'm looking at you Undeath)

 

It was a snarky comment at best directed at the regular posts on the site, not the EOTY lists. But, I was thinking that he was asking if these sites reflect what people on this site listen to. I'd say that's predominantly a no. Do they reflect what the larger community of metal heads listen to, somewhat. Like you said, they have to represent a little from every facet. Not a bad thing since if they were just focused on blackened-progressive-folk thrash from Lithuania, they never would have gained any sort of "metal mainstream" traction. At this point, I think they mainly review or write up what they are sent by labels and artists rather than hunt things down, but that's just my speculation.

And Undeath-Frozen Soul-Squishabugg-200 Stab Wounds are all the same band. Saw them all on the same bill this year and besides the backdrop on the stage, I couldn't tell them apart. All decidedly mediocre at best.