What Are You Listening To?

[AlSymerz]

Cannibal Corpse - Chaos Horrific

 

[Kristiko]

Nirvana - Nevermind (album)

Megadeth - Rust In Peace (album)

[Dead1]

What a busy weekend - I didn't manage to listen to more than a couple of songs here and there!

Phew...

Cannibal Corpse - Red Before Black

Carcass - Torn Arteries

Metallica - And Justice For All

Napalm Death - Words From The Exit Wound (ironically this album sits better alongside Metallica than any kind of grind or death metal.  Good album though people would say it reeks of selling out!)

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Incantation - Sect of Vile Divinities, took a few spins this arvo but I'm settling in with the new one.

 

Incantation - Dirges of Elysium, 2014

 

[Nasty_Cabbage]

55 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Incantation - Sect of Vile Divinities, took a few spins this arvo but I'm settling in with the new one.

 

Incantation - Dirges of Elysium, 2014

 

Well that's good. I should probably give their new one another spin or two. For some reason I just wasn't vibing with it. I've come to accept that we're probably never going to get another Onward to Golgotha, but even taking that into consideration the new one struck me as mundane, and wouldn't have been spared a second thought were it not for the name Incantation on the cover. In the meantime, though...

NP: Anthreology - Monuments of Misanthropy

https://necromancerecords.bandcamp.com/album/monuments-of-misanthrophy

 

[AlSymerz]

Cirith Ungol - One Foot In Hell

[Nasty_Cabbage]

7 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

Cirith Ungol - One Foot In Hell

Absolutely love this album or really any Cirith Ungol album save maybe their material that had too much of a Led Zeppelin feel. King of All the Dead is top twenty of all time material.

NP: Devastated Graves - Deliverance (The Prophecy of the Poisoner)

https://fallentemple.bandcamp.com/album/deliverance-the-prophecy-of-the-poisoner

Damn. Poland strikes again with this one. Good riffing, a mix of extreme metal vocal styles, and recording values that sound low budget without sounding like it's trying to sound low budget. Yet another cantidate that I can say will be on my list of contenders come the end of the year.

[Thatguy]

ASET - Astral Rape

ALTARAGE - Worst Case Scenario

Yers can't argue with these.

LUXAETERNA - Luxaeterna. Noice. Fussy boots won't like it.

SPECTRAL LORE - 11 Days

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Incantation - Vanquish in Vengeance 2012

 

Incantation - Profane Nexus, 2017

 

[JonoBlade]

On 9/22/2023 at 8:15 PM, GoatmasterGeneral said:

The only Priest platter I could listen to all the way through and throw superlatives like "great" at might be Vengeance. But they never did another one like that again. I did think Angel of Retribution in '05 was not too bad either, that's the first and last one I ever bought post-Defenders.

I consider Vengeance and Defenders two sides of the same coin. Both have some not-great tracks but the highs are high and overall sets well balanced. Heavy Duty/Defenders of the Faith still gives me goosebumps all these years later. Few songs achieve that mainline of pure joy.

Does anyone else get that? Y'know, that shiver that can only be borne of sonic perfection.

I should keep a list of those, because surely that would be the playlist at one's funeral. 

One other I can think of is the monk chant bit at the end of part IV "Requiem for a Soulless Man" from Gravitational Constant: G = 6.67 × 10−8 cm−3 gm−1 sec−2

 

..and not always old nostalgia tracks. This one gets me at around 7.00 onwards

Tides of the Mourning | Void Of Sleep (bandcamp.com)

There is a pattern here....outro tracks.

Just me? Nevermind.

 

[JonoBlade]

On 9/23/2023 at 8:21 PM, JamesT said:

Interesting take!  I wouldn't begrudge anyone of his or her musical opinion or taste - that's for sure!

Personally, I think the modern Judas Priest output is every bit as good as some of the classics.  In fact, I have both "Redeemer of Souls" and "Firepower" in my top 5 JP albums in the catalog.  "Firepower" ranks #2, only behind "Painkiller" for me.  "Angel of Retribution" is in my top 10 as well.  "Nostradamus" has some strong tracks, too.

The classics are undeniable, though!  

What are you, the nicest guy on the internet? Forums are for hate-filled and spiteful rhetoric designed to belittle and ruin.

While I can't agree with Redeemer being anywhere near the top 5 of anything, a lot of other people seemed to really like Firepower. My main gripe is that it could have been great if they just trimmed it to the best 10 tracks. I don't want everything they've got, just the best. Priest is a peculiar band in that the extra session tracks they have released as bonuses over the years have been quite terrible* which shows that they've got 40 good minutes of songwriting in them at any given time and were wise to quit while they were ahead.

I started writing a rebuttal of @GoatmasterGeneral's comment about Firepower sounding like it is written by AI, but then realised my own opinion is based on Ritchie being the epitome of paint by numbers song writing. One could argue he has been trained on a dataset of classic metal such that his output is indistinguishable from a competent AI engine. 

However, "sounds like it was written by AI" is a charge you could level at practically any band that is past their prime. Even the filth GG listens to could be accused of being written by AI if it merely ticks off multiple tropes of the genre.

Nevertheless, I would Iike to give due credit to KK's songwriting on his new albums. It does sound a bit derivative of a genre he helped invent but the songs hang together well enough. I always assumed he played second fiddle to Glenn's superior playing and writing talent, since Tipton has sole songwritiing credit for my favourite track, Hell Bent for Leather. Also, Sinner, which KK seems to use as his conceptual basis for everything, is a Tipton song!

What I am getting at is, if Sermons of the Sinner were released 40 years ago, it would have been considered very good, if not great. I certainly would have loved it because the production would have been authentic. As it is, it's a decent album for a trad metal fanboy to get their fix, and it does show that KK was a better songwriter than I realised.

*there is a bonus track from the British Steel sessions called "Red White and Blue" which is so awful, eventually I really liked it.

 

[Arioch]

Gamerra - Tedium (2023)

Cannibal Corpse - Chaos Horrific (2023)

Ritual Carnage - Every Nerve Alive (2000)

Testament - Dark Roots of the Earth (2012)

Bolt Thrower  -...For Victory (1994)

 

[navybsn]

DAKHMA - Hamkar Atonement

[agamerwholovesmetal]

At war with satan (1984) - venom

 

alters of madness (1989) - morbid angel

 

Ave santanas (2017) - venom inc

 

[navybsn]

Haar - Ouroborus

Ouroboros | Haar (bandcamp.com)

Tomb Mold - The Enduring Spirit

The Enduring Spirit | Tomb Mold | 20 Buck Spin

The Waning Moon - A Dream or a Vision

A Dream Or A Vision | The Waning Moon (bandcamp.com)

[navybsn]

Gris - Il etait une fortet

Il était une forêt... | Gris (bandcamp.com)

[navybsn]

meurtrieres - Ronde De Nuit

RONDE DE NUIT | meurtrières (bandcamp.com)

Black Wound - Warping Structure

Warping Structure | Black Wound (bandcamp.com)

[GoatmasterGeneral]

11 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

While I can't agree with Redeemer being anywhere near the top 5 of anything, a lot of other people seemed to really like Firepower. My main gripe is that it could have been great if they just trimmed it to the best 10 tracks. I don't want everything they've got, just the best. Priest is a peculiar band in that the extra session tracks they have released as bonuses over the years have been quite terrible* which shows that they've got 40 good minutes of songwriting in them at any given time and were wise to quit while they were ahead.

I started writing a rebuttal of @GoatmasterGeneral's comment about Firepower sounding like it is written by AI, but then realised my own opinion is based on Ritchie being the epitome of paint by numbers song writing. One could argue he has been trained on a dataset of classic metal such that his output is indistinguishable from a competent AI engine. 

However, "sounds like it was written by AI" is a charge you could level at practically any band that is past their prime. Even the filth GG listens to could be accused of being written by AI if it merely ticks off multiple tropes of the genre.

Nevertheless, I would Iike to give due credit to KK's songwriting on his new albums. It does sound a bit derivative of a genre he helped invent but the songs hang together well enough. I always assumed he played second fiddle to Glenn's superior playing and writing talent, since Tipton has sole songwritiing credit for my favourite track, Hell Bent for Leather. Also, Sinner, which KK seems to use as his conceptual basis for everything, is a Tipton song!

What I am getting at is, if Sermons of the Sinner were released 40 years ago, it would have been considered very good, if not great. I certainly would have loved it because the production would have been authentic. As it is, it's a decent album for a trad metal fanboy to get their fix, and it does show that KK was a better songwriter than I realised.

*there is a bonus track from the British Steel sessions called "Red White and Blue" which is so awful, eventually I really liked it.

I do believe it's been scientifically proven that people tend to think the stuff with the wrong tropes almost always sounds terrible, so we're much quicker to discredit or outright dismiss that stuff as irrelevant and worthless. People who admit they really just don't like certain sub-genres are obviously going to think less of even the best top tier stuff that sub-genre has to offer. We're also happily, possibly in part subconsciously giving more credit than is probably due to stuff with the tropes we do like. This makes the tropes half the battle. This is why hardcore fans and apologists of any given sub-genre are much more likey to be fairly tolerant of even the C and D-grade stuff than people who don't prioritize that sub-genre would be.

So basically we all think we're looking for good memorable songwriting arranged and presented in a style we enjoy. We just all define what is that very differently. Which tells me that no music has any real intrinsic value, it's all completely subjective to the ears and minds of the listeners.

I had to laugh out loud (Ha!) Johnny Blade when you said that Priest had 40 good minutes of songwriting in them at any given time. Just glad I wasn't drinking anything at the time or I'd be on Amazon right now ordering a new wireless keyboard. Judas Priest don't have any albums other than possibly Screaming for Vengeance that contain more than maybe 15 - 20 minutes of solid material at most. That means at best 40% of their songs were good on any given album, some albums had less than that. Vengeance was the exception with (other than the Hellion intro which I don't consider a standalone track) 6/9 good songs so 66%, woo hoo! They really should have been releasing EP's all those years with just the good songs on 'em and then even I might think they were the best trad heavy metal band ever. (Sorry, in reality I'm a Saxon man and you should be too bruv, they're Yorkies)

No top tier legacy band that I can think of off the top of my head has ever had more filler and just outright dog shit tracks that made their way onto the albums because it was the best crap they could come up with that month, than Judas Fucking Priest. Even during their hey-day when they were the kings of heavy metal (which for me is '78 to '84) those five 'classic' albums were all chocka with filler. To the fucking brim mate. Could probably make one pretty good double album out of all those classic era albums if you distilled them down to their best tracks. In fact let me whip up a quick list of their worthy tracks. Turns out there's 23 what I would consider to be worthy tracks out of 49 total from those 5 albums, so that's 47%. Better than I thought it would be. Without Vengeance it drops down to 17 good songs out of 40 so 42.5%. Pretty pathetic.

 

Judas Priest  1978 - 1984

Delivering the Goods

Hellbent for Leather

Killing Machine

Burning Up

Green Manilishi  (a cover, but they rearranged it and made it their own)

Running Wild

Rapid Fire

Breaking the Law

Living After Midnight

The Rage

Steeler

Heading out to the Highway

Desert Plains

Electric Eye

Riding on the Wind

Bloodstone

Devil's Child

Screamin for Vengeance 

Another Thing Coming

Freewheel Burning 

The Sentinel 

Heavy Duty 

Defenders of the Faith

 

11 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

Heavy Duty/Defenders of the Faith still gives me goosebumps all these years later. Few songs achieve that mainline of pure joy.

Does anyone else get that? Y'know, that shiver that can only be borne of sonic perfection.

I should keep a list of those, because surely that would be the playlist at one's funeral. 

Oh I definitely get that feeling Jon but certainly not from HD/DotF. Tbh I could live without that song which was clearly last minute low effort on their part. I only included that one on my list at all because you said it gave you the shivers and I figured it'd make a decent outro wind-down for my hypothetical double album. I should probably only have counted those two as a single track like Hellion/Elecric Eye.

I get that chills feeling when a black or death metal band hits their stride in full gallop with furious riffing. When you're just in awe of what you're hearing. Having trouble explaining what I'm trying to say here, but I know it when I hear it. In the olden days of the 1970's I used to get that chill down my spine feeling sometimes during a particularly masterful and creative guitar solo. Think Gilmour on Time or Page on Stairway. But the era of the guitar hero is ancient history now like snail mail and telephones mounted on the kitchen wall.

[SurgicalBrute]

This morning's music run:

Kings Rot - At the Gates of Adversarial Darkness

https://hypnoticdirgerecords.bandcamp.com/album/at-the-gates-of-adversarial-darkness

 

One Master - The Names of Power (preview track)

https://eternaldeath.bandcamp.com/album/the-names-of-power

 

Vargaskri - Hyllningskväden

https://vargaskri-northernsilence.bandcamp.com/album/hyllningskv-den

 

Deathfucker - God Devourer (preview track)

https://blackseedprod.bandcamp.com/album/god-devourer

 

Dagagh (Դագաղ)- Dungeon Lust

https://bloodcolouredbeast.bandcamp.com/album/dagagh-dungeon-lust

 

Plus a couple of other albums that really didn't do anything for me and aren't worth mentioning

[Serpentboi1992]

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, Thatguy said:

ASET - Astral Rape

ALTARAGE - Worst Case Scenario

Yers can't argue with these.

LUXAETERNA - Luxaeterna. Noice. Fussy boots won't like it.

SPECTRAL LORE - 11 Days

No he won't. But he was prepared to give them a shot til they hit him with the pretty clean vocals. Then he had to move on.

Never cared much for Spectral Lore so I didn't bother with that one.

Not sold on that Aset either, it wasn't straight-forward enough for me. Too off-kilter and proggy pretentious. Apparently the album was a collaboration between the bands Seth and Oranssi Pazuzu which explains a lot. Oranssi Pazuzu are a bit too astral and progressive for me even when they're playing black metal. Not sure who Seth is, MA lists 6 bands named Seth and it could be any of them or for all I know even some prog band not on MA. My guess would be it's the black metal Seth from France, but that's just a guess.

Altarage is problematic for me. The first album was monumentally good and with each subsequent album I keep expecting them to come to their senses and go back to that style, which they're clearly not ever going to do. Won't say I don't like them since the first album though because they're alright, they have their moments. It's just that they veer into buzzing bee Portal territory a bit too much for my liking. So I don't like them enough to collect their abums, I'm good just having the first one.

But either way Worst Case was easily the best case out of these 4 selections by default. Might have picked Luxaeteria though if it wasn't for those too pretty vocals. But probably not, because the Alterage got more brutal, especially towards the end of the album.

 

NP: Nordicwinter - Sorrow, Montreal, Quebec 2021. Here ya go Doc, more atmo/depressive bm for you to rip apart for being too basic and not musicaly adventurous enough.

 

Teke - Beginning of the End, Turkish bm. Can't stop myself from going back to this one from July. I find myself thinking about sections of this album when I'm doing other things.

 

[Nasty_Cabbage]

NP: Theosophy - Bleeding Wounds of the First and Last

▶︎ Bleeding Wounds of the First and the Last - Pre-sale | Theosophy | Epictural Production (bandcamp.com)

Death tinged black metal. Out in a month. I am picking up whatever these guys are laying down. Surprisingly catchy for what it is. Sort of like if you rebalanced Tribulation to not be so purposefully goth-esque. I ought to enjoy this more when it actually drops.

[Thatguy]

3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

So I don't like them enough to collect their albums, I'm good just having the first one.

This gets us back to something we were all rabbiting about one some thread or another. It is, of course, perfectly fine to like one album from a band and not have any particular expectations that you'll like their others.

SPECTRAL LORE don't routinely interest me, but enjoyed this album.

LUXAETERNA is the same dude as NOIRCURE so there was no way you were going to tolerate it.

[FatherAlabaster]

17 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

This gets us back to something we were all rabbiting about one some thread or another. It is, of course, perfectly fine to like one album from a band and not have any particular expectations that you'll like their others.

No! Flawless catalog or death! One clunker is proof that everything else was a fluke! Talentless hacks!

 

I am of course also talking about Altarage.

[FatherAlabaster]

Hieronymus Bosch - The Human Abstract