What Are You Listening To?

[GoatmasterGeneral]

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

These were two really important albums for me, if we were doing a list of albums instead of bands these would surely both have to be in my top 5.

 

14. Paradise Lost - Shades of God, Halifax, West Yorkshire UK (734) I'm sure I've written more than enough about this band and especially this album on the board by now and the last time was not even that long ago so I'll spare you all from having to read it all again.

 

13. Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion, Switzerland (777) This is the band that stumps me the most, I really don't know what genre(s) to put them in as they exibit traits from so many, but don't quite fit perfectly into any. Thought about maybe picking a different album for CF (no, not Cold Lake despite what I might've told Hungarino) but this was the one that really put them on the map and cemented their place in metal history. Fave track: Beyond the North Winds, but the whole thing smokes from cover to cover. I do love almost all their albums though for different reasons, and Tom G Warrior wil always be my metal hero.

 

[Nasty_Cabbage]

NP: Smallpox Aroma - Festering Embryos of Logical Corruption

▶︎ Festering Embryos of Logical Corruption | SMALLPOX AROMA | INHUMAN ASSAULT (bandcamp.com)

Oh look: grindcore. I'm so clueless when it comes to this stuff. I used to really like Phobia, Nasum, and Prowler in the Yard era Pig Destroyer, and my go to was that Terrorizer album that was posted a few pages back. I think I was biased against it pretty early on when, after hearing the name thrown around as the be all and end all of the genre, I finally heard Napalm death as a sophomore in high school and I despised it. I still don't like them to this day, and I cannot stand Barney Greenways stupid horse-grunts. Him coming off like an insufferable tool in interviews doesn't help either. Pretty much single handedly turned me off grindcore for the better part of a decade. This stuff's alright I suppose.

4 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

When drinking to get drunk, what is the mountain lions' usual bevvie of choice?

Peet-bog water made with a 1/4 corn mash distilled fourteen years in a barrel made from the bones of a minor Hapsburg princeling with regressive genetics from years of inbreeding, and placed in a hermetically sealed deep freeze the second the microbes activate and begin consuming the sugars. Garnish with Arizona buzzard tail-feathers and enjoy with no ice. God, I miss booze some days.

[Kristiko]

13 hours 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.

 

Well, I can't say I was the biggest fan of the band, but this album has an interesting combination of modern melodic death/progressive/thrash metal sound (I should say, more polished production from the older records) and almost like power metal singing, but not really, really specific thing. I kinda like that it's not the usual high-pitched power metal singing, but not going for some rough vocals, it makes the music more authentic. Since 2008, when I first heard it, "Born" and "Medicated Nation" were my favorites. The riffs, guitar work, and drumming are fantastic, I like the lower tuning. Over time I appreciate the record much more. I wouldn't listen to it every day, but I think this album deserves more credit.

[Kristiko]

Metallica - Ride The Lightning (album)

[JonoBlade]

New 'Cocke!

Decades Of Devil Worship | Akercocke | Peaceville (bandcamp.com)

This was a pleasant surprise when it reared its head the other day. 

Considering I haven't heard the first couple of albums very much (production sounded like a swarm of angry bees trapped in a bottle), it's good to have a live album that sounds decent...albeit with David Gray's plastic triggered drums. It's a necessary evil with this band and all his projects.

NP: Gnosis | Russian Circles (bandcamp.com)

Basically ISIS without vocals. 

To the Gory End (Deluxe Edition) | Cancer | Peaceville (bandcamp.com)

I made a note to check out Cancer but only just came across it on Bandcamp. Good old Peaceville. It's great. 

[FatherAlabaster]

46 minutes ago, JonoBlade said:

New 'Cocke!

Decades Of Devil Worship | Akercocke | Peaceville (bandcamp.com)

This was a pleasant surprise when it reared its head the other day. 

Considering I haven't heard the first couple of albums very much (production sounded like a swarm of angry bees trapped in a bottle), it's good to have a live album that sounds decent...albeit with David Gray's plastic triggered drums. It's a necessary evil with this band and all his projects.

 

Thanks, I hadn't seen this. Old 'Cocke... and slightly longer 'Cocke than I thought you would have liked... but in any case I'll be psyched to get this 'Cocke into my ears later today.

3 hours ago, Kristiko said:

 

Well, I can't say I was the biggest fan of the band, but this album has an interesting combination of modern melodic death/progressive/thrash metal sound (I should say, more polished production from the older records) and almost like power metal singing, but not really, really specific thing. I kinda like that it's not the usual high-pitched power metal singing, but not going for some rough vocals, it makes the music more authentic. Since 2008, when I first heard it, "Born" and "Medicated Nation" were my favorites. The riffs, guitar work, and drumming are fantastic, I like the lower tuning. Over time I appreciate the record much more. I wouldn't listen to it every day, but I think this album deserves more credit.

Agree, this one has grown on me a lot since it was first released.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

2 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

slightly longer 'Cocke than I thought you would have liked...

 

Tortured and twisted, he walks the streets alone
People avoid him, they know the street's his home
Long 'cocke of silver, his eyes they burn so wild
Mean as a tiger, Akercocke's own child

Those who tried to burn him paid
You don't do that to Jon-O Blade
He's the meanest guy around his town
One look and he will cut you down
with his long 'cocke, Jon-O Blade

Life has no meaning, and Cocke's his only friend
Will fate surprise him, where will he meet his end?
He feels so bitter, yes he's so full of kale
Decades of devil worship, I guess that's Jon-O's fate

Drum triggers all across the land
He kills them with his 'cocke in hand
He's the meanest guy around his town
One look and he will cut you down
with his long 'cocke, Jon-O Blade
Milky Beans, Jon-O Blade

Well you know that Jon-O's a spider
And his web is the city at night
He's a victim of plastic triggered drums
That's the reason he likes the longer 'cocke

Spotify's the one who should be afraid
What will happen to you, Jon-O Blade?

Oh he knows his future's decided
And he ain't gonna change it, no way
He was born to eat only plant-based
He'll keep riding that 'cocke `till the end of his days

Been alone all through his life
His only friend is a Gibson SG
Spotify's the one who should be afraid
What will happen to you, Jon-O Blade?

You 'Cocke the people
Who's 'Cock-ing who?
It's time to listen
Who's 'Cocke are you?

 

...sung to the tune of Sabbath's Johnny Blade

 

[MacabreEternal]

Arvo Pärt - Tabula Rasa (1977)

 

 

[Serpentboi1992]

never would've thought blending goregrind and melodic black metal could work, but lipoma has pulled it off. lipoma sounds like haggus meets sacramentum. most unique band ever

[GoatmasterGeneral]

51 minutes ago, Serpentboi1992 said:

never would've thought blending goregrind and melodic black metal could work

Black metal goes with everything!

 

Guess I'd better get back at it and finish this thing up today.

 

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

12. Cosmic Psychos - Dung Australia, Victoria AUS (809) Love this band, Carlissimo the Marickvilian turned me onto them several years back on the other forum and I took to them right away. Since then I've played one of their albums bi-weekly at a minimum. Essentially the Australian Ramones, Knighty and crew are the godfathers of rude Aussie Bogan punk rock and I love them. They have a lot of damn albums but I just picked this one because it has my favorite Psychos track, Follow Me Home.

 

11. Ramones - Road to Ruin, Forrest Hills Queens NYC (818) Hey Ho let's Go! Fuck you and the horse you rode in on if you don't like the Ramones, you should hang your head in shame. My New York ass fucking loves the Ramones, they invented punk and changed my teeenage life in the prog rock hell of 1976. They're all dead now, but I will cherrish their music and bang my head and sing along til my dying breath. First song here (I Just Wanna Have) Something to Do has always been my favorite Ramones track, but they have dozens of great ones. Loudmouth, Go Mental, Havana Affair, Commando, You're Gonna Kill That Girl, Tody Your Love Tomorrow the World....

 

[agamerwholovesmetal]

hall of the mountain king (1987) - savatage

[GoatmasterGeneral]

14 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

NP: Smallpox Aroma - Festering Embryos of Logical Corruption

Oh look: grindcore. I'm so clueless when it comes to this stuff. I used to really like Phobia, Nasum, and Prowler in the Yard era Pig Destroyer, and my go to was that Terrorizer album that was posted a few pages back. I think I was biased against it pretty early on when, after hearing the name thrown around as the be all and end all of the genre, I finally heard Napalm Death as a sophomore in high school and I despised it. I still don't like them to this day, and I cannot stand Barney Greenways stupid horse-grunts. Him coming off like an insufferable tool in interviews doesn't help either. Pretty much single handedly turned me off grindcore for the better part of a decade. This stuff's alright I suppose.

Peet-bog water made with a 1/4 corn mash distilled fourteen years in a barrel made from the bones of a minor Hapsburg princeling with regressive genetics from years of inbreeding, and placed in a hermetically sealed deep freeze the second the microbes activate and begin consuming the sugars. Garnish with Arizona buzzard tail-feathers and enjoy with no ice. God, I miss booze some days.

Yeah, ice is for poseurs.

 

I like grindcore a lot in small doses, but I couldn't take a steady diet of it all the time. I feel sorry for dudes in grindcore bands who are locked into having to play nothing but their own music all the time to the exclusion of everything else.

 

 

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

10. The Beatles - Let it Be, Liverpool, UK (822) If I have to explain The Beatles to you then you wouldn't be interested. My first expoure to rock music when I was a little kid, before all the 70's hard rock bands got started this was the heaviest shit going. I don't listen to the Beatles that oten really, not every month or anything even approaching that, but when I do I'll run off 6 or 8 albums at a time and go back to them for several days in a row. My 9 year old likes them now too though, so sometimes in the car I'll give him a break from the black metal and we'll sing along to Paperback Writer.

 

 

9. Type O Negative - Dead Again, Brooklyn NY (826) Amazing band, again if I have to explain it to you then you won't get it. Pete left us way too soon, a bit sad thinking there will be no more TON records ever. As much as I love World Coming Down and October Rust, I have really over the last year or so come to see this final TON swan song as their best album, their magnum opus. I was listening to this one no exaggeration about 6 times a day at one point for a solid month or more several months back, and it's just so good the 78 minutes goes by in a flash, feels more like 30. Truly an amazing collection of songs and sounds, and I now know every note on here backwards and forwards. No one has ever sounded like Type O before or since, and no one ever will. I doubt anyone could even hope to successfully cover them. Pete always said his two biggest musical influences were The Beatles and Black Sabbath, and as a kid those were two of my three early musical loves as well, (the other being Led Zeppelin). But that makes sense since Pete and I were the same age and we both grew up in NY. I will go on Type O binges for days sometimes and that's how they ended up so high on my list. 

 

My top 8 bands will all be brutal extreme metal I promise.

[Nasty_Cabbage]

NP: Perricide - Underdog

▶︎ Underdog | Perracide | Emanzipation Productions (bandcamp.com)

As per the bandcamp page: "The album consists of fourteen slabs of undeniable metal magic. Five of the tracks being new and original songs showcasing the versatility and extremity of Perra and his chosen brothers in arms. [...] The remaining tracks are fresh renditions of Perra’s favorite tracks from the myriad of legendary acts he’s been a part of..."

I've heard some rerecorded albums that serve their purposes very well, whether that's a kind of update to the tracks with better recording to showcase how the band wanted it to sound, or just to expose older material to newer fans. The same goes for compilations and label samplers, but interspersing rerecordings of older tracks from different bands whose common thread is one particular member along with new material as it's own entity is not an approach I think I've ever seen before. The list of "guest" musicians here is stacked to. I can honestly say I don't think I've ever seen so much extreme metal cred. gathered on one album. This guy's pedigree is tungsten levels of heavy, and he's attracted a fucking hadron collider of metal stalwarts for this one.

[AlSymerz]

Hooker Spit - Krotch Splitter

[MarkhantonioYeatts]

TOXIC HOLOCAUST - Critical Mass

MORKHIMMEL - Sheep In The Labyrinth

BROTTSKOD 11 - Brottskod 11

 

[JamesT]

On 7/26/2023 at 7:28 PM, Dead1 said:

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

The tunes are fantastic in my opinion!  Mark Lopes has the perfect voice for the band.  The guitar work is great, and the songs are engaging all the way through.  Highly recommended!

[Dead1]

1 hour ago, JamesT said:

The tunes are fantastic in my opinion!  Mark Lopes has the perfect voice for the band.  The guitar work is great, and the songs are engaging all the way through.  Highly recommended!

 

Just chucked it on now.  Mark Lopes is pretty impressive.  Curious to see how music stacks up.

Metallica - Ride The Lightning

Metal Church - Congregation of Annihilation

 

[JamesT]

11 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

 

Just chucked it on now.  Mark Lopes is pretty impressive.  Curious to see how music stacks up.

Metallica - Ride The Lightning

Metal Church - Congregation of Annihilation

 

Excellent!  I'll be eager to hear what you think!

[GoatmasterGeneral]

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

It's not as much fun now since the other guy finished his list. I've got no one to race to the bottom.

                                    
8. Vargsang - In the Mist of Night, Germany (842) I must have posted this 20 times in the last year so I'll skip the explanation about who he is and all the fluff about how awesome this is and how it gets my goat penis tingling and just say this album is exactly what I would want my hypothetical black metal band to sound like.

 

  7. Horna - Sanojesi Äärelle, Finland (846) Hard to pick a favorite Horna album because there are so many. (12 full lengths and numerous EP's and spits over 29 years) It could very well be this one, it's certainly a contender. They're not my absolute favorite of the Finnish black metal bands, (not that I could even pick a lone favorite out of the 40 or 50 I listen to, but there are a handful I like just a little more than Horna) they just have a shitload of albums out so they rack up a lot more plays than some of the others who only have 3 or 4 albums. Still you can't go wrong with any of the Hornas, they're still going strong after30 years for a reason.

 

[AlSymerz]

5 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

It's not as much fun now since the other guy finished his list. I've got no one to race to the bottom.

Don't sell yourself short. With what you've been posting I think you reached the bottom about 180 albums ago!

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

Nastrond - Toteslaut

Hmm makes the 46th BM band who is entire discography. I’ve listened to in my quest to decide my top 100 albums in the genre.

[Dead1]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

It's not as much fun now since the other guy finished his list. I've got no one to race to the bottom.

         

It's still interesting to see what you listen to a lot.

[CumBloodSucker]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

It's not as much fun now since the other guy finished his list. I've got no one to race to the bottom

Next race I won't be in a rush, probably. I actually started to convert some of my cd's so we'll see how the list looks next year.

I'm trying to carve out that top 100 bm albums list on the other thread.

I don't give a shit about Beatles but Type O Negative is great.

Wolfsmond - III

 

[Dead1]

2 hours ago, JamesT said:

Excellent!  I'll be eager to hear what you think!

I'm not one to say this lightly, but on first listen it's a real return to form.  I intend to spend more time with it.

Agnostic Front - Liberty and Justice

[GoatmasterGeneral]

8 minutes ago, CumBloodSucker said:

Next race I won't be in a rush, probably. I actually started to convert some of my cd's so we'll see how the list looks next year.

I'm trying to carve out that top 100 bm albums list on the other thread.

Deal, I'll meet you here next year same time and we'll do it again, see what's changed.

I couldn't do the top 100 bm albums, it's impossible. I tried, but ended up with 200. 

 

GG top 200 most played bands countdown according to lastFM

 

6. The Chasm - Procession to the Infraworld, Mexico/Chicago (866) No one quite like the Chasm. Corchado's writing is untouchable. I've had the pleasure of seeing them a few times, just incredible. They're not a caveman wall of noise Incantation clone like most of my favorite death metal is. But I won't call them tech and I won't call them prog because those are 4-letter words. They just have a little something extra without being all weird, inaccessible and angular like your Gorguts and your Pyrrhons and your Ulcerates and your Ad Nauseams. Just straight-forward, uncompromising, well wriitten old school death metal.

 

5. Archgoat - Whore of Bethlehem, Turku's finest. (935) Is Turku the most evil place in Finland? Because that's how I imagine it. When the Puolakanaho brothers walk down the street the wind whips up, the sky turns black and the plants shrivel and die. I never realized they were twin brothers until just last year because they use stage names, and because Lord Angelslayer wears his dark hair long and his twin brother guitarist Ritual Butcherer shaves his head for the tours so when they play live he goes onstage bald. But then I saw him with a full head of hair in a Rauta interview and I got quite confused, thought it was his brother and they'd just made a mistake and put the wrong name up in the description. Don't know what really needs to be said about their music. Love them or hate them I would think by now every metalhead has at least some idea who Archgoat is. They're from the Blasphemy school of black metal/war metal, not of the 2nd wave side of things. They've gotta be the foremost exponent of war metal to ever rise from the underground to this level of sub-mainstream noteriety. To me more than any other band they sound like the aural equivalent of what you'd expect to hear eminating from the very depths of hell. Except with irresistably delicious head-banging breakdowns. They were already my favorites, but seeing them live in 2017 really cemented their place in my mind as the preeminent Finnish black metal band. It's their crown to be taken.