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khaos

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Necrolord Contributor

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On 4/27/2024 at 8:23 PM, AlSymerz said:

Iced Earth - Something Wicked This Way Comes

 

Good album when it's heavy but too many slow songs. 

It does have one of the best guitar tones I've ever heard for shredding. Doesn't get much better than this:

 

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Was Playing (suggestions for albums similar to Dissection - The Somberlain)


Dawn - Slaughtersun
Unanimated - In Light of Darkness
Necrophobic - Hrimthursim (I gave up on this after the 3+ minute intro... could never get into this band even in the past when I gave them a chance)
Sacramentum - Far Away From the Sun
Sarcasm - Burial Dimensions
Thulcandra - Under a Frozen Sun
Vinterland - Welcome my Last Chapter

Call me a picky bastard but none of these albums did much for me even though a few were pretty good and similar to The Somberlain. The most similar were Sacramentum & Vinterland, and both albums are solid, esp the 1st half of Sacramentum which does a lot of interesting patterns esp with the drums. Sarcasm were very cool with the raw production and interesting guitarwork. 

 

I just didn't hear hardly any evil melodies in any of those albums. Not so say Dissection's melodies are all evil, cuz Somberlain has some wussy melodies too. But nothing in any of those bands, except maybe Unanimated, ever gave me that menacing dark sound I'm after. Instead they were all the kind of melodies that evoke feelings of sadness, epicness, grandness, or deep thoughtfulness, and I'm not a fan of that style. What's the point of black metal if it's not evil sounding?


Also I know it's hard going up against Dan Swano but the production on The Somberlain sounds way more dynamic and punchier to my ears than any of those albums.
 

On 4/26/2024 at 3:47 PM, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Mayhem have had such an interesting career. I'm one of those nutcases who will actually defend A Grand Declaration of War onward era Mayhem. This album in particular seems to love making use of rests and what I would call very loud silences in the guitar work. It tends to push Attila's rangy growls a little further to the front, but in return we get erratic quick lashing riffs that actually finds me listening to the rests as intently as the notes themselves. You don't get into the listener's head like that without long years of experience and high confidence in your songwriting.

 

NP: Mayhem - Ordo Ad Chao

I checked this out after seeing @FatherAlabaster's post. Still enjoying it thoroughly after 3 or 4 listens. Very dark. Lots of evil-sounding riffs that come out of nowhere and you never hear them again. "Erratic quick lashing riffs" is a great description. Unusual song arrangements featuring strange instruments / sound effects. Lots of slow hypnotic sections. Just a nice overall dark vibe and very different from what I was expecting. It was exactly what I needed after not finding anything evil on those Somberlain suggestions. Will be spinning this one more!

 

P.S.  I also enjoyed Grand Declaration of War when it first came out. It was different and stood out compared to what was happening in the scene at the time. Hellhammer's drumming was insane on it. Might need to revisit it soon.

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Arioch Veteran

Arioch

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My impressions of the 3 albums I listened to this morning:

Darkthrone - It Beckons Us All (2024)
I'm not a fan of the band's Doom period (recent albums). On this one, Darkthrone varies the styles a little and it makes for a much more interesting album. It makes you want to listen to it again.

Deicide - Banished By Sin (2024)
A long way from the dirty, unhealthy Deicide of the early days! The sound is clean, nothing sticks out. The Floridians' death metal is still wicked, but too melodic for my taste.

Pentagram (Chile) - Eternal Life of Madness (2024)
Here again, an album that deserves more than one listen. I'm not bowled over by the music, but I'll give it another listen.

But now's the time to listen to the album I bought last week, which still makes me want to go back!

Hekseblad - Kaer Morhen (2024)

Love the cover artwork, love the music, love ALL !

 

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MacabreEternal Veteran

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32 minutes ago, Arioch said:

My impressions of the 3 albums I listened to this morning:

Darkthrone - It Beckons Us All (2024)
I'm not a fan of the band's Doom period (recent albums). On this one, Darkthrone varies the styles a little and it makes for a much more interesting album. It makes you want to listen to it again.

Deicide - Banished By Sin (2024)
A long way from the dirty, unhealthy Deicide of the early days! The sound is clean, nothing sticks out. The Floridians' death metal is still wicked, but too melodic for my taste.

Pentagram (Chile) - Eternal Life of Madness (2024)
Here again, an album that deserves more than one listen. I'm not bowled over by the music, but I'll give it another listen.

Most albums are minimum three listens for me (unless they are terrible of course).  So, I listened through that new Darkthrone and was not too enamoured with it tbf but there's still a couple of more listens to determine if it is a keeper or not.  New Deicide just pased me by when I tried to listen to it, like you said, nothing to grab hold of.  Overtures of Blasphemy was better but was 6 years ago.

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Arioch Veteran

Arioch

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59 minutes ago, MacabreEternal said:

Most albums are minimum three listens for me (unless they are terrible of course).  So, I listened through that new Darkthrone and was not too enamoured with it tbf but there's still a couple of more listens to determine if it is a keeper or not.  New Deicide just pased me by when I tried to listen to it, like you said, nothing to grab hold of.  Overtures of Blasphemy was better but was 6 years ago.

Everyone has their own way of discovering an album and deciding whether or not they're going to like it.

As far as I'm concerned, I know from the first listen whether I'm going to like it or not. And that's far from a good idea, I admit.

There have been times when I've bought a record on the spur of the moment, because I found a really nice track. And then, once I had the album, I had to listen to it once or twice and then put it away.

And vice versa. Some albums that I didn't like on first listen I liked because I listened to them several times, usually a few years later. I'm thinking of Nocturnus' The Key, for example.

But here, Darkthrone appealed to me in a single listen. As for Deicide, I actually thought of Overture of Blashemy, which I found much better than the last one. And that was an album I liked from the very first listen. But I'll try Deicide again later this week.

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FatherAlabaster Grand Master

FatherAlabaster

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Unanimated - In The Forest Of The Dreaming Dead   ...went back out of curiosity. Meh. This hasn't aged well. One of the first few "melodic black metal" albums I bought in the mid 90s. I remember thinking Ancient God Of Evil was a polished sellout album by comparison, and it kind of is, but this one is pretty amateurish and scattershot to my jaded 40-something ears.

Mayhem - Ordo Ad Chao

Abigor - Verwüstung

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