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On 7/22/2022 at 8:19 PM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Why 'obviously'? Why couldn't a newer and more currently relevant band in their prime with several albums under their belt be considered as good or better than any legacy/nostalgia band? Vast majority of any legacy band you care to name's best stuff was almost certainly created within their first decade (give or take) of existence. Your dudes Inter Arma have been around since 2006, that's 16 years and counting so why wouldn't you allow yourself to think of them on even footing with say Maiden or Priest or AC/DC?

It is definitely possible in theory, but probably not possible in practice. For me, that is obvious enough.

Absolutely correct that any legacy band you can name did its best work in the first five albums (for Sabbath it was the sixth, for AC/DC I think technically the best album is Back in Black even if I would then rate every Bon Scott album straight after it, bar the Australian debut) but those albums are just better than anything a newer band can produce. And any given newer band would agree*. Everyone is chasing the dragon of trying to better what was produced in the 70s for just general musical awesomeness, the 80s for thrash, the 90s for death metal. Interestingly, that is why metal is still so great. It is being pushed in new directions and awesome music is being produced all the time....but it has not topped the classics.

Is this nostalgia talking? Most definitely, but there is some objectivity to it. I can allow myself to think a more modern band could be the greatest musical entity that ever existed, but so far it has not happened.

Inter Arma ticks most of the boxes for me ...except the really big box of extended album length (oh the irony of me singling this band out when they consistently commit the cardinal sin of making albums too long!), but are they objectively better than AC/DC, Judas Priest or Queen**? Nope. 

* "My band is better than Black Sabbath. Every night I blow Tony Iommi off the stage and consign his ridiculous stubby fingers to history with my more awesome riffs" - said no one. Ever.

** Career missteps and latter waning of Priest and Queen taken achingly into consideration.

On 7/22/2022 at 1:41 PM, FatherAlabaster said:

I've never gotten into their recordings, but I gotta say they were fantastic live. Memorable and charismatic. I was there for Ulcerate but TBH Inter Arma had a better set.

They have odd production choices on record but it works for me. 

I only saw Ulcerate once live and it wasn't that good because the drums were too type-writer sounding. Opening band's curse (on a Nile tour). I suspect it would be better now because they are that much more seasoned. The newer Ulcerate stuff has plenty of dynamics which is why Inter Arma is so good live. Lots of variety, blast beats and breathing space.

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1 hour ago, JonoBlade said:

It is definitely possible in theory, but probably not possible in practice. For me, that is obvious enough.

Absolutely correct that any legacy band you can name did its best work in the first five albums (for Sabbath it was the sixth, for AC/DC I think technically the best album is Back in Black even if I would then rate every Bon Scott album straight after it, bar the Australian debut) but those albums are just better than anything a newer band can produce. And any given newer band would agree*. Everyone is chasing the dragon of trying to better what was produced in the 70s for just general musical awesomeness, the 80s for thrash, the 90s for death metal. Interestingly, that is why metal is still so great. It is being pushed in new directions and awesome music is being produced all the time....but it has not topped the classics.

Is this nostalgia talking? Most definitely, but there is some objectivity to it. I can allow myself to think a more modern band could be the greatest musical entity that ever existed, but so far it has not happened.

Inter Arma ticks most of the boxes for me ...except the really big box of extended album length (oh the irony of me singling this band out when they consistently commit the cardinal sin of making albums too long!), but are they objectively better than AC/DC, Judas Priest or Queen**? Nope. 

* "My band is better than Black Sabbath. Every night I blow Tony Iommi off the stage and consign his ridiculous stubby fingers to history with my more awesome riffs" - said no one. Ever.

** Career missteps and latter waning of Priest and Queen taken achingly into consideration.

That's why I like you Jon-O, you always return some well thought out responses, make lots of good points and give me plenty to think about in just a few short concise paragraphs. 

I will certainly agree with you that Inter Arma has not topped Sabbath, Priest or AC/DC. But that's easy for me to say as I'm not particularly a fan of your Virginia doomsters who make the long-ass 70 minute albums.

I do think it's fair to take a band's best decade into consideration and ignore some of their later possibly weaker material when deciding where they fit in to your all time rankings. I think we all have certain favorite go-to albums from our favorite bands and that's what we all use to judge them by.

Of course I think about all of this stuff quite differently than you do. As you know I've been listening to hard rock and heavy metal for a very long time. I enjoyed many of those 70's & 80's bands back in the day and I'll still throw a few of them on from time to time mostly for nostalgia's sake. I'll do a whole 80's day every now and then and binge on my old favorites. Definitely never go more than a month without listening to some old 70's Sabbath. And the first 4 Ramones records never fall too far out of the rotation.

But the thing is nowadays I enjoy the more modern sub-genres a lot more than I ever did those old fashioned 70's & 80's ones so it's really hard for me to compare bands from different eras head to head as they're playing completely different kinds of music. Personally Highway to Hell would be my top AC/DC album (B in B 2nd) and Sabotage is also my favorite Sabbath album. Two bands I loved from the 70's. And there were others, Ramones, ZZ Top, Molly Hatchet, Scorpions, Saxon...I'm not saying I don't love them anymore, but how can I consider them "better" than my beloved black metal? Or even death metal?

I suppose it really doesn't need to be a contest, I can love bands from both eras in my own way for different reasons. But I mean go ahead and ship me off to the proverbial desert island tell me I can bring just 40 albums and then with gun to head I will leave behind almost all of that 70's and 80's stuff so I can take as much newer black and death metal as possible.

Guess I'd grab Sabotage and a Motorhead album from the early 80's or something, probably To Mega Therion from '85 and Reign in Blood '86 would have to come, but that's as far back as I'd need to go. I'd think about Mercyful Fate but then probably end up leaving them. Candlemass debut might have to come along. Maybe one each from Overkill and Coroner possibly Sepultura and that's about it from the 80's. 90's would just be like one each from Necrophobic, Paradise Lost, Bolt Thrower, Social D, Type O. That's 13 albums representing the 20th century and then the other 27 albums would all be black and death metal bands from years starting with 20.

So I guess what I'm saying is that when you get right down to it for me the newer stuff has indeed topped the classics. But it's always interesting to hear other people explain why it hasn't for them though.

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There are exceptions as well to the rule that legacy bands tended to do their best work on their early albums, death for example never put out a bad album in my opinion, and battery had a stunning return to formwith Nordlands I and I. I’m with GG though there are certainly bands making records now I prefer to most of the old guard.

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5 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

I only saw Ulcerate once live and it wasn't that good because the drums were too type-writer sounding. Opening band's curse (on a Nile tour). I suspect it would be better now because they are that much more seasoned. The newer Ulcerate stuff has plenty of dynamics which is why Inter Arma is so good live. Lots of variety, blast beats and breathing space.

I've seen them twice as headliners and they still sounded like that... drums too loud, guitar and vocals not loud enough. I got the sense from watching their drum setups and sound checks that Jamie is extremely particular about his drum sound (makes sense) and everything else becomes an afterthought. Super impressed with their playing but underwhelmed by the show as a whole. It would have been better with a second live guitarist, too. He had a looper to cover some of the parts that really needed two guitars, and it was a valiant effort, but the music needed more. I get why it's probably too much of a pain to make that happen on a North American tour. Oh well. It would be great to hear the new stuff live, anyway.

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3 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

There are exceptions as well to the rule that legacy bands tended to do their best work on their early albums, Death for example never put out a bad album in my opinion, and Bathory had a stunning return to formwith Nordlands I and I. I’m with GG though there are certainly bands making records now I prefer to most of the old guard.

Well Death only released 7 albums in 11 years because their career was cut short for obvious reasons. Most legacy bands are good for anywhere from 3 to about 6 quality albums over their first decade give or take, so Death ended right before the slide would typically have started. Now if you were to ask me I'd tell ya their first 3 are clearly their best and I don't listen to the rest of them as much. But I know that's not the general consensus, I know lots of people do enjoy the later albums more.

Naturally you being much younger would be expected to have more connection with newer music and less connection to the older stuff from well before your time. Not that people can't go back and get into music from before their time because nowadays that's pretty easy since everything's been well preserved for us and it's all there waiting to be discovered. Young people have 40+ years of metal to pick and choose from. Teenagers can mix and match bands and genres and eras and find whatever they like the best and focus in on that. I didn't have that luxury of having any metal when I was a teenager in high school. I had a handful of 70's hard rock bands I was aware of to pick from or there was 60's music like the Beatles and Hendrix and that was about it. If I wanted to get into stuff from before I was born I'd have to go back to music of the 50's and 40's which doesn't interest me so much being a metalhead who craves heavy music.

So it's not too surprising to hear someone under 40 say that they prefer some newer currently active bands to most older stuff. Most people I know of my age are pretty well stuck on the music from the 70's and 80's they grew up with and think it was the best era ever for music and that most newer music sucks. So I'm more atypical of my generation when I say I like the newer stuff much better and if I had to I could easily live without most of those old legacy bands from 30 - 40 - 50 years ago when I was younger.

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1 hour ago, FatherAlabaster said:

I've seen them twice as headliners and they still sounded like that... drums too loud, guitar and vocals not loud enough. I got the sense from watching their drum setups and sound checks that Jamie is extremely particular about his drum sound (makes sense) and everything else becomes an afterthought. Super impressed with their playing but underwhelmed by the show as a whole. It would have been better with a second live guitarist, too. He had a looper to cover some of the parts that really needed two guitars, and it was a valiant effort, but the music needed more. I get why it's probably too much of a pain to make that happen on a North American tour. Oh well. It would be great to hear the new stuff live, anyway.

Not surprised. For someone who has always been highly involved in his own production, Jamie still makes terrible choices. The last album was good though (production-wise, musically it is awesome and my favourite of theirs). At least the drums are not distracting. It is such a waste when the drum sound distract from the music. 

The other day I put on Carcass - Torn Arteries and never fail to burst out laughing with the intro drum solo. It is just embarrassing, and why I would never hire Andy Sneap to mix a record. Andy Sneap who wrote the greatest British thrash album of all time - so I love the guy - but if you can't get Carcass to sound good this far into your mixing career, you should go back to writing killer thrash records. 

5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

That's why I like you Jon-O, you always return some well thought out responses, make lots of good points and give me plenty to think about in just a few short concise paragraphs. 

....

I suppose it really doesn't need to be a contest, I can love bands from both eras in my own way for different reasons. But I mean go ahead and ship me off to the proverbial desert island tell me I can bring just 40 albums and then with gun to head I will leave behind almost all of that 70's and 80's stuff so I can take as much newer black and death metal as possible.

....

So I guess what I'm saying is that when you get right down to it for me the newer stuff has indeed topped the classics. But it's always interesting to hear other people explain why it hasn't for them though.

Yeah, I reckoned this was a thought provoking topic, although only a variation on well trodden ground.

The desert island scenario is where you find where you stand.

I'd try my darndest to get as much variety in there as possible, old and some new. No point just choosing 10 albums of each "favourite legacy band." Actually 40 is quite a lot so I don't reckon I would regret too much whatever I chose.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Death ended right before the slide would typically have started.

Death was coming to a close anyway... From what I read, Chuck was tired of it and wanting to move on with Control Denied. I heard speculation and rumors that the final Death album was repurposed Control Denied material to fulfill a contract, which seems plausible, even though Chuck denied it. 

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No, I'm still working on my year by year Top 100 Death Metal Albums list. Those were 3 of the 4 candidates for 2006. The other is the Funebrarum/Interment split, "Conjuration of the Sepulchral." The Funebrarum half more than qualifies but I'm not entirely sure about the Internment half. It's not bad but it's not really the best of the best. It's the only split release I'm considering just because I love Funebrarum so much. Will probably end up leaving it off as I'm sure I'll still be up over 100 albums when I get up to the 2020's.

I had scrolled through my MusicBee last week one day and just typed down a bunch of albums for each year. But by 2016 I already had 262 which I realized was way too many so I stopped there. Now this afternoon I'm going back through from the beginning and just trying to pick the best of the best. I have 60 albums selected now up through 2006 with 15 years left to go. Which is still too many as I know that a ton of my personal favorites will be coming up soon starting here in 2008 and all the way through the 2010's and I won't be able to kep it to just 3 or 4 per year. So once I get to the end I'll have to go back through the whole thing yet again, but at least then I'll have an idea how many I'll need to cut.

 

Decrepitaph - Condemned Cathedral, 2008

 

Psychopathic Terror - 230204, 2008

 

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9 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Well Death only released 7 albums in 11 years because their career was cut short for obvious reasons. Most legacy bands are good for anywhere from 3 to about 6 quality albums over their first decade give or take, so Death ended right before the slide would typically have started. Now if you were to ask me I'd tell ya their first 3 are clearly their best and I don't listen to the rest of them as much. But I know that's not the general consensus, I know lots of people do enjoy the later albums more.

Naturally you being much younger would be expected to have more connection with newer music and less connection to the older stuff from well before your time. Not that people can't go back and get into music from before their time because nowadays that's pretty easy since everything's been well preserved for us and it's all there waiting to be discovered. Young people have 40+ years of metal to pick and choose from. Teenagers can mix and match bands and genres and eras and find whatever they like the best and focus in on that. I didn't have that luxury of having any metal when I was a teenager in high school. I had a handful of 70's hard rock bands I was aware of to pick from or there was 60's music like the Beatles and Hendrix and that was about it. If I wanted to get into stuff from before I was born I'd have to go back to music of the 50's and 40's which doesn't interest me so much being a metalhead who craves heavy music.

So it's not too surprising to hear someone under 40 say that they prefer some newer currently active bands to most older stuff. Most people I know of my age are pretty well stuck on the music from the 70's and 80's they grew up with and think it was the best era ever for music and that most newer music sucks. So I'm more atypical of my generation when I say I like the newer stuff much better and if I had to I could easily live without most of those old legacy bands from 30 - 40 - 50 years ago when I was younger.

That’s true although it’s Worth noting my connection with metal started with many of those legacy bands from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. When I first joined this place I was probably of the opinion that metal peak in 1987, It’s an interesting conversation anyway.

it’s an interesting conversation anyway.

 

NP: Dawn - Slaughtersun

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13 hours ago, Thatguy said:

svrm - розпад . svrm are reliably good.

CRIMSON THRONE - Of Void & Solitude. Also good.

 

Language: This is a picture of the Ukrainian alphabet, along with the  soundings of each letter and its w… | Ukrainian language, Russian alphabet,  Bulgarian language

 

I think I might be turning into a xenophobe Doc. I get annoyed when bands spell their album titles using foreign alphabets. Don't know what they mean, can't write them, can't pronounce them, can't remember them, it's a pain in the ass. Generally seems to be the Greeks and the Ukranians that like to do this a lot. But then I suppose at least I won't have to worry about being shelled by Russian tanks today (I almost typed Soviet) so there is that. It is a good record I think, just not in the mood for it right this minute. Looked it up, it's Ukranian cyrillic, translates to Rospad. It means Disintegration. 3 is Z, n is p, P is R, and backwards R is ya. That would drive me nuts.

The Crimson Throne sounds promising, kinda sad, but it's too bright and sunny for that right now at 11am so I'll have to make a note to come back to it at nighttime. If I can remember. 

 

Beenkerver - Ontaard, Netherlands

 

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I do listen to a lot of bands who write and sing their lyrics in a foreign language which I always thought was cool but the Scandinavians use our same Latin alphabet so it doesn't seem weird to me. I guess what I really just don't like is when I copy and paste an album on a desktop notepad to come back to it and when I go to save it, it tells me I can't do that and turns the characters into ???????

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