What Are You Listening To?

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Man, it's almost like everyone (the real metalheads) seems to love Deicide except me. But they just don't do anything at all for me. Morbid Angel either, I have absolutely no use for either one of them. Can't imagine what it is I could be missing, I do listen to lots of death metal, just don't happen to care for those two well loved bands.

It just so happens that I have three American death metal bands left on my list as well. Or technically 2 American bands and one Mexican band who has been based in the US (Chicago) for 30 years since before their first full length album came out, so I count them as Americans. The 3 bands are sitting at numbers 23, 24 and 6. So being that it's 3:40 am already here, I might not get to them tonight as I'm only currently up to numbers 27 & 28. And here they are.

 

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

28. Extreme Noise Terror - Being and Nothing, UK death/crust/grind (648) the whole album was not avaiable on YT in a single video at this time, so I just posted the title track. Wasn't about to change albums, this is the one.

 

27. Extinction of Mankind - The Nightmare Seconds...  UK (652) phenomenal album, phenomenal band. But so many metalheads are inherently resistant to anything punk so they don't know it.

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

6 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Man, it's almost like everyone (the real metalheads) seems to love Deicide except me. But they just don't do anything at all for me. Morbid Angel either, I have absolutely no use for either one of them. Can't imagine what it is I could be missing, I do listen to lots of death metal, just don't happen to care for those two well loved bands.

It just so happens that I have three American death metal bands left on my list as well. Or technically 2 American bands and one Mexican band who has been based in the US (Chicago) for 30 years since before their first full length album came out, so I count them as Americans. The 3 bands are sitting at numbers 23, 24 and 6. So being that it's 3:40 am already here, I might not get to them tonight as I'm only currently up to numbers 27 & 28. And here they are.

 

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

28. Extreme Noise Terror - Being and Nothing, UK crust (648) the whole album was not avaiable on YT in a single video at this time, so I just posted the title track. Wasn't about to change albums, this is the one.

 

27. Extinction of Mankind - The Nightmare Seconds...  UK (652) phenomenal album, phenomenal band. But so many metalheads are inherently resistant to anything punk so they don't know it.

it’s hardly surprising, we’ve kind of established already your taste runs against the grain. Joking aside, tasters personal. Dude, there’s plenty of much loved metal bands I don’t get, Cannibal Corpse and electric Wizard spring to mind.

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

52 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

It’s hardly surprising, we’ve kind of established already your taste runs against the grain. Joking aside, taste is personal. Dude, there’s plenty of much loved metal bands I don’t get, Cannibal Corpse and electric Wizard spring to mind.

Yeah Cannibal is another one, too technical, too many notes for me. So I understand that one. But Morbid Angel and Deicide are on paper at least two bands that I'd probably be expected to like. Deicide in particular has been popping up a lot of different places lately and it just seems to be a given that everyone loves them, but I don't, I can't stand them. And it's not like anyone is shaming me for not liking them or anything, but when I notice 90% of people who I see as essentially dudes with taste like me and they all dig the same band and I'm the odd man out, after awhile it does make me wonder what's the problem I have with that band that no one else seems to be having. But I guess if there's one thing I have learned tonight it's that other people don't question things as much as I do, they're much more willing to just accept things while I always need to know why.

[RelentlessOblivion]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Yeah Cannibal is another one, too technical, too many notes for me. So I understand that one. But Morbid Angel and Deicide are on paper at least two bands that I'd probably be expected to like. Deicide in particular has been popping up a lot of different places lately and it just seems to be a given that everyone loves them, but I don't, I can't stand them. And it's not like anyone is shaming me for not liking them or anything, but when I notice 90% of people who I see as essentially dudes with taste like me and they all dig the same band and I'm the odd man out, after awhile it does make me wonder what's the problem I have with that band that no one else seems to be having. But I guess if there's one thing I have learned tonight it's that other people don't question things as much as I do, they're much more willing to just accept things while I always need to know why.

Well I think most of us realise taste is subjective. It’s not as if you’re regularly lampooning these bands, insulting their fans etc. generally people are bees, the exceptions are always these kids, or people who act like kids, who can’t conceive of a world with someone might disagree

 

Edit: people are reasonable, here anyway. 

[JamesT]

Saxon - "Denim and Leather"

Saxon - "Strong Arm of the Law"

Evile - "The Unknown

Metal Church - "Congregation of Annihilation"

Mark Lopes is a fantastic singer!  Really couldn't have picked a better replacement for the late Mike Howe, may he rest in peace.

[CumBloodSucker]

Hard to explain why I love these bands and I don't even want to know why. Has something to do with first exposures and the scene sucking me in. Meanwhile, more opinnion dividing stuff coming through.

---

CBS's top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

10. Black sabbath - Vol. 4

I actually got into older stuff during these last two or three years.

9. Bathory - Bathory

 

8. Morbid angel - Gateways to annihilation

I actually like all Morbid angel albums. Even Idi. Fans just can't digest industrial.

 

7. Dissection - Storm of the light's bane

6. Graveland - In the glare of the burning churches

#1 dm album: Tomb of the mutilated

#1 blackened death metal: Storm of the light's bane

And #1 black metal: In the glare of the burning churches. Pure black metal attack.

That's how it is and is going to stay for awhile.

[Nasty_Cabbage]

NP: Drottnar - Monolith

▶︎ Monolith | DROTTNAR (bandcamp.com)

There's a few different elements at work here. The first noticeable thing is that, despite the 'black metal' label they're mostly avoiding tremolo picking. It certainly wouldn't qualify as death. It's not melodic enough to be melodeath either. Categories are just categories when it's all said and done, and it's probably best not to get too bogged down in subgenres. The music itself has a ton of hooks, and they also use some pretty unique scales. The band they remind me of most would be RedemptoR without a lot of the vocal effects. Interesting to say the least.

[CumBloodSucker]

And here we are. I don't really have much to say. The music speaks for itself. My work is done for awhile.

---

CBS's top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

5. Akitsa - Sang nordigue

4. Samael - Blood ritual

3. Autopsy - Severed survival

2. Burzum - Hvis lyset tar oss

1. Rotting christ - Thy mighty contract

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Go to sleep for a few hours, clean up the house a little bit, make a few calls and wouldn't you know the Cum Blaster has finished shooting his bloody load, he's all done now and having a smoko. And here I am still at #25/26 after having such a big lead a few days ago. But that'll happen when the other dude switches to doing 5 at a clip and I'm still posting doubles. But it is what it is. I'll finish eventually, don't know if I can do all 13 remaining pairs today but should be able to wrap it all up at least by tomorrow and then Doc will just have to find something else to complain about.

 

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

26. Integrity - Those Who Fear Tomorrow, Cleveland Ohio. Call it metalcore, call it hardcore, call it crust, call it metal, I don't care what you call it but these dudes are an important band for punk loving metalheads, they give you the best of both worlds.

 

25. Decayed - The Black Metal Flame, Portugal (655) It can be hard to know where to draw the line between black and black/thrash but who cares, this is fucking awesome. Records like this make me wonder what Venom might have sounded like had they actully been good and known how to play.

 

[CumBloodSucker]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Go to sleep for a few hours, clean up the house a little bit, make a few calls and wouldn't you know the Cum Blaster has finished shooting his bloody load, he's all done now and having a smoko. And here I am still at #25/26 after having such a big lead a few days ago. But that'll happen when the other dude switches to doing 5 at a clip and I'm still posting doubles. But it is what it is. I'll finish eventually, don't know if I can do all 13 remaining pairs today but should be able to wrap it all up at least by tomorrow and then Doc will just have to find something else to complain about.

 

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

26. Integrity - Those Who Fear Tomorrow, Cleveland Ohio. Call it metalcore, call it hardcore, call it crust, call it metal, I don't care what you call it but these dudes are an important band for punk loving metalheads, they give you the best of both worlds.

 

25. Decayed - The Black Metal Flame, Portugal (655) It can be hard to know where to draw the line between black and black/thrash but who cares, this is fucking awesome. Records like this make me wonder what Venom might have sounded like had they actully been good and known how to play.

 

Yeah, pipes are still burning hot. Next time I won't be shooting so fast. But now I can just sit back and watch how the Goat-punk-metal-General is going to finish up. Damn it's great to have someone who also takes the best out of both genres. I've taken a lot of bands into my backpocket already for later visiting.

---

Currently revisiting this mix of black/crust/hc

Dishammer - Vintage addiction

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

24. Father Befouled - Desolate Gods, Atlanta Georgia (666) These are my two favorite established American death metal bands. I always have some current favorite releases during the year by newer bands but these are the two I always go back to. Some say FB were just a clone of Incantation, but at this point they've gotten so good at it I often wonder if maybe they've out Incantationed Incantation.

 

23. Incantation - Diabolical Conquest, NJ/OH/PA these dudes have moved around a lot. (666) Definitely a proponent of the Incantation school of dark murky evil stench of death metal. The "evil" thing is just so much more appealing to me than the rapid fire machine gun style a lof of the Deicide and Hate Eternal clones have gone with.

 

[AlSymerz]

Premature ejaculation wins the day!

 

 

[MacabreEternal]

Lamp of Murmur - The Burning Spear of Crimson Agony (2020)

 

Hulder - De Oproeping Van Middeleeuwse Duisternis (2019)

Mäleficentt - Night of Eternal Darkness (2020)

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

22. Morrigan - Enter the Sea of Flames, Bathory-inspired celtic pagan black metal from Germany. I've posted their third album Celts numerous times on the board so thought I'd switch it up and pick a different one for a change. Their first 5 are all absolutely mandatory. This is another case like Father Befouled where I probably listen to the disciples more than their master. Essentially straight up Bathory worship but they decided to mix the early black metal stuff together with the later viking stuff and it fucking works beautifully for me, I fucking love these guys. They're like my Iron Maiden.

 

21. Azaghal - Omega, no-frills no compromise brutal hard hitting black metal from Finland. (672) I think this was my first Azaghal album from 2008 when I was just starting to delve deeper into black metal beyond just the basic bands everyone likes to reco to you first. And these fuckers (along with Behexen) were instrumental in my coming to understand that Finland would be the epicenter of the kind of riffy abrasive yet melodic black metal I like the most. They also showed me how much cooler black metal sounds with some low end in the mix which means they're also partially responsible for my generally preferring post 2000 black metal over the 90's stuff. Even now in my extreme elderliness this is one of those bands that makes me want to get up and fucking destroy shit. If this band doesn't immediately turn you into a fan of Finnish black metal right on the spot and make you start sprouting little nubs of goat horns out of your forehead then nothing will, just fuggeddaboudit and go listen to some nice emo nu-metal or Def Leffard or Asking Alexandria or In Sync or some shit. Maybe some lovely relaxing post-metal llike Fen or Deafheaven or whatever would be more your speed.

 

[Kristiko]

Nevermore - This Godless Endeavour (album)

[MarkhantonioYeatts]

SNORLAX - The Necrotrophic Abyss 

WAR WEAVER - Eulogies For The Vanquished

 

[Thatguy]

5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

then Doc will just have to find something else to complain about.

There's always something. That's part of the human condition.

I congratulate CBS for finishing before you. It's been an interesting ride and I don't have to agree with any of it, but it has been fun and it will be dull when you are both done.

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Maybe some lovely relaxing post-metal llike Fen or Deafheaven or whatever would be more your speed.

Naming Fen and Deadhaven in the same breath is done just to make me complain. So there it is. I am officially aggrieved.

[Nasty_Cabbage]

40 minutes ago, Kristiko said:

Nevermore - This Godless Endeavour (album)

What are your thoughts on this one? I think Warrel Dane drags the whole thing down. His range is clearly gone, and even his timbre seems to take random expeditions into the land of 'what the hell key am I in again'. That said, even if the predominately lower end guitar doesn't give him much to work with, they can still pretty clearly put a neat song together. Medicated Nation, Sentient 6, and the title track are all pretty good, and it's no coincidence that those are the ones that deviate from the stringent verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus structure the most. Too often it goes for mood over music and trips over itself.

NP: Morbid Prototype - The Darkest Descent

▶︎ The Darkest Descent | Morbid Prototype (bandcamp.com)

So this is a double album with a really long runtime from a few years back. I have to admire them for putting in the work on a debut like this, but man it can be a slog. They could really use some interplaying harmonies in a second guitar because for this kind of runtime you really want to give the listener as much to chew on as possible. There are some good riffs here, and the album's at its best when in lets the leads just go nuts. Dude's got some good melodic sensibilities. I still can't 100% recommend it, though.

[RelentlessOblivion]

38 minutes ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

What are your thoughts on this one? I think Warrel Dane drags the whole thing down. His range is clearly gone, and even his timbre seems to take random expeditions into the land of 'what the hell key am I in again'. That said, even if the predominately lower end guitar doesn't give him much to work with, they can still pretty clearly put a neat song together. Medicated Nation, Sentient 6, and the title track are all pretty good, and it's no coincidence that those are the ones that deviate from the stringent verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus structure the most. Too often it goes for mood over music and trips over itself.

NP: Morbid Prototype - The Darkest Descent

▶︎ The Darkest Descent | Morbid Prototype (bandcamp.com)

So this is a double album with a really long runtime from a few years back. I have to admire them for putting in the work on a debut like this, but man it can be a slog. They could really use some interplaying harmonies in a second guitar because for this kind of runtime you really want to give the listener as much to chew on as possible. There are some good riffs here, and the album's at its best when in lets the leads just go nuts. Dude's got some good melodic sensibilities. I still can't 100% recommend it, though.

as with most nevermore albums, I think the highpoints are high, and the low points are very low, as you said the title track is probably the best thing about that one.

 

RelentlessOblivion’s top 200 bands according to him:

 

because I’m clearly very self centred LOL I couldn’t be bothered waiting for lost.

200. Morbid Angel - Covenant

199. Paradise Lost - Shades of God

198. Sadistik Exekution - Fukk

[GoatmasterGeneral]

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

20. Killing Joke - 25th anniversary show live in London UK 2/25/05. (682) I've owned the KJ debut for over 35 years since shortly after Metallica covered The Wait on Garage Days EP back in '87. But I never really listened to it much over the years. My buddy Marko has been singing these dudes' praises for years and I guess I never paid much attention until one day last August I just decided to jump in and see what was going on with this band. Bought their 2nd album from '81 and then I grabbed the reformation self titled from '03 (my personal favorite) and then I ended up having this big KJ epiphany. I watched their doco and fell competely in love with this band, couldn't get enough of them and so I picked up not all of their albums but a good 8 more of them within the next few weeks and just playing a few of them every single night for the next month or so. I slowed down a bit after that first month but I still racked up enough plays in just under a year to get them into my top 20. And that's not even counting a whole bunch of YT spins. If I had come around to discovering their awesomeness 2 or 3 years ago who knows, they might be in my top 10 by now. Can't say enough good things about this band, they really resonate with me. They're not strictly metal, they actually started out as a post-punk band in the late 70's and had some minor chart success in the early 80's. But they've gotten much heavier over the years since they stopped trying to write catchy singles and just started writing for themselves. And even I don't listen to metal all the time, there are other things that interest me from time to time. And this band is deffo one of them.

 

19. Grave - Endless Procession of Souls, Sweden. (691) Grave has always been my favoroite Swedeath band. A lot of people go with Dismember or Entombed or I've even heard some say Unleashed, but for my money Grave easily tops them all. Not much to say about them, they simply play no frills caveman death metal just the way I like it. CBS went with You'll Never See (nice choice) so I'll go with this banger from 2012. 

 

[Dead1]

44 minutes ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

What are your thoughts on this one? I think Warrel Dane drags the whole thing down. His range is clearly gone, and even his timbre seems to take random expeditions into the land of 'what the hell key am I in again'. That said, even if the predominately lower end guitar doesn't give him much to work with, they can still pretty clearly put a neat song together. Medicated Nation, Sentient 6, and the title track are all pretty good, and it's no coincidence that those are the ones that deviate from the stringent verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/chorus structure the most. Too often it goes for mood over music and trips over itself.

Personally I love this album.  The title track is one of my favourite tracks of all time.

Agreed Warrel's voice was not as good as previously  but not enough to ruin my enjoyment of it.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, Thatguy said:

There's always something. That's part of the human condition.

I congratulate CBS for finishing before you. It's been an interesting ride and I don't have to agree with any of it, but it has been fun and it will be dull when you are both done.

Naming Fen and Deadhaven in the same breath is done just to make me complain. So there it is. I am officially aggrieved.

Not saying those two bands are exact replicas of each other, but if you can't see that they're both members of the same sub-genre then you're seriously missing something. They're both post-metal bands masquerading as black metal. But don't take offense Doc because I've already stipulated to the fact that the recent Fen album was "good" and I'm even happy to admit that Deafheaven is a good fucking band as well, they're just much too pretty and soft-cock for me and I hate that people want to call them black metal. 

But it's OK Doc, don't worry we can still bond over Killing Joke and ragging on the Orca.

[Dead1]

12 hours ago, JamesT said:

 

Metal Church - "Congregation of Annihilation"

Mark Lopes is a fantastic singer!  Really couldn't have picked a better replacement for the late Mike Howe, may he rest in peace.

Are the tunes any good?  Last Metal Church I heard (XI) had weak as piss song writing.

[AlSymerz]

The last few Metal Church albums were fairly average because Kurdt forgot he was in Metal Church and kept writing music for Presto Ballet. Congregation is a good come back album for them, although probably not on par with the early albums.

[Thatguy]

24 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I'm even happy to admit that Deafheaven is a good fucking band as well,

But they are not. And they are nothing like Fen...

Orca is an easy target.