What's on your mind?

[AlSymerz]

I guess I'm old school too. But I've never thought of it that way. To me it's just like buying anything else I want. If I want it I buy it. I stream some things as a preview but my rule has always been that if I listen to it online three times I buy it. Works for most things, although something bandcamp and imported shit can be hard to get here, or you just don't trust the seller.

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

I’ll tend to buy things when I can afford them, they at the moment I’ve got no space for physical media so if something isn’t available digitally, I’ll try and support the artist in other ways buying merch etc

[markm]

One difference between me and Pete/Sea of Tranquility is that I have no issue listening to things in random play or playlists. I do tend to listen to whole albums for sure, but I'll also make a playlist of newer albums  and listen in shuffle. Right now, my go to is new music from 2023-24 and I'll often listen to that when I don't have  specific album I want to listen to.  Or I might listen to a genre in shuffle. 

[AlSymerz]

I only listen to stuff on random in the car or tractor. The tractor has a USB stick of albums in it that I change when I think about it and in the car it just runs off my phone. But if I'm in the house or the shed I generally listen to albums. I used to use the CD stacker on random with the stereo but these days I generally just play one CD after another.

[FatherAlabaster]

I'll only do shuffle if it's off a playlist I make from albums I like together. Pretty much only for longer drives these days. Shuffling everything on my phone is a non-starter, way too jarring.

[AlSymerz]

I don't think I've ever made a play list. I pushed the shuffle button on my phone years ago and it's never changed, not even when I changed cars. I add and remove albums from the card occasionally but otherwise it just plays whenever the car ignition is on. It's great going from headbanging music straight into some 60's rock n roll, then into some country, then into some pub rock.

[AlSymerz]

I just spent the last hour adding and removing albums from my phone. There is 290 albums on the card. Even at an average of 10 or 11 songs per album that's about 3000 songs, it's no wonder I don't get sick of hearing the same stuff too often these days when the average time I spend in the car is about an hour.

 

[FatherAlabaster]

I couldn't do that. I can't even listen to most of the stuff I have in the car because it's got so much road noise it's impossible to make things out, and then all the albums have different volume levels. But I've always been one to put on one album front to back.

It looks like I have just over 1100 albums on the phone right now, almost 94gb. The playlists are just albums I wind up grouping together a lot, like Nordic folk music, fusion, favorite albums by certain bands that I don't mind on shuffle.

[AlSymerz]

Even on the shitty country roads I travel the road noise isn't that much in the car. The tractor is a bit different and the music really is just back ground noise in to drown out the drone of the engine or the noise of the rubber on the bitumen.

My albums have all be saved at the same levels from the same computer so the levels don't vary much and with the ones that I cant do much with they usually do make it onto the card. I used to listen to albums back to back in the car, even when I had 3 x 12 disc stackers in the car I'd listen to the full albums but these days it's just set and forget in the car with a new surprise every few minutes.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

 

On 4/4/2024 at 10:07 PM, markm said:

 

This is pretty much me, except I do download stuff I can't get on CD or is too expensive, and I do stream for convenience in certain situations. But, yeah, like NY Pete, I'm an an old school stuff guy.

 

I get that Pete Pardo like most people our age want to have or feel they deserve to get something they can hold in their hand when they have purchased music. But as someone who moves around a lot I don't understand why anyone would want to own 10,000+ CD's. Silly to argue they take up less space than vinyl bevause if space was really a concern you'd go all digital, which takes up no space at all. Not everyone has a spare room they can dedicate entirely to their large and ever growing physical music collection. And who wants to keep all those discs organized and then have to get up and go look for the ones you want and then put them all away again later when you could just scroll and click? I understand that some people do get value from staring at the little booklets, but I'm old and I can't read print that small anymore anyway. So just the files for me thanks. I hate when something I really want is only being offered on some physical format and not available digitally. First world problems I know.

But still fuck these old guys like Pete Pardo with his extensive Tom Petty collection and his prized signed copy of Fly Like an Eagle. Can you say milquetoast? And they wonder why people make fun of Boomers. Actually it seems he's your age Mark, he's 58, so he's just a Gen-X'er with the musical taste of a Boomer, even worse. I'm a Boomer with the musical taste of a Gen-X'er. I don't know many Boomers who have really embraced extreme metal and the black arts. Most of 'em are happy playing around with their Billy Joel, ELO, Fleetwood Mac and Eagles box sets. Maybe some Van Halen or AC/DC if they're feeling frisky. 

[markm]

3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 

 

I get that Pete Pardo like most people our age want to have or feel they deserve to get something they can hold in their hand when they have purchased music. But as someone who moves around a lot I don't understand why anyone would want to own 10,000+ CD's. Silly to argue they take up less space than vinyl bevause if space was really a concern you'd go all digital, which takes up no space at all. Not everyone has a spare room they can dedicate entirely to their large and ever growing physical music collection. And who wants to keep all those discs organized and then have to get up and go look for the ones you want and then put them all away again later when you could just scroll and click? I understand that some people do get value from staring at the little booklets, but I'm old and I can't read print that small anymore anyway. So just the files for me thanks. I hate when something I really want is only being offered on some physical format and not available digitally. First world problems I know.

But still fuck these old guys like Pete Pardo with his extensive Tom Petty collection and his prized signed copy of Fly Like an Eagle. Can you say milquetoast? And they wonder why people make fun of Boomers. Actually it seems he's your age Mark, he's 58, so he's just a Gen-X'er with the musical taste of a Boomer, even worse. I'm a Boomer with the musical taste of a Gen-X'er. I don't know many Boomers who have really embraced extreme metal and the black arts. Most of 'em are happy playing around with their Billy Joel, ELO, Fleetwood Mac and Eagles box sets. Maybe some Van Halen or AC/DC if they're feeling frisky. 

He's milk toast by your standards definitely, but for some odd reason, I had some time to kill and listened to his 20 albums that changed my life and found some parallels. I''ll post it here in case anyone has some time to kill and is interested. 

 I'm milk toast by your standards also. He lists some classic rock and prog and jazz but he's obviously been listening to some form or other of heavy music most of his life, just like I have. I mean, clearly, not everybody who claims to like heavy music, listens to mostly bestial black/death goat metal.

He's much more of a collector than I am, but was pretty heavy into standard fare hard rock and metal in the 70's-80's . He has one video where he ranks Motorhead's albums. Also, like me got turned off or burnt out on metal in the 90' and like me and you actually, started listening to some extreme metal in the early aughts and like all three of us  found Blackwater Park as a gateway and clearly knows his way around progressive death and black, but is a pretty a big prog rock/metal guy, and jazz fusion, and I just dabble in prog here and there, and I have a few jazz fusion albums myself. 

He claims to have gone from jazz fusion  in the 90's to listening to mostly extreme metal in the early 2000's where I just started picking up random extreme metal albums here and there around 2004.  I don't know really how typical that it for your average average 58 year old guy to have listened to mostly extreme metal in the early 2000's? Maybe there are tens of thousands, but I kind of doubt it. 

[AlSymerz]

I used to consider myself a bit of a collector. I do have a lot of old stuff, a lot of classic stuff, and some collectors items, as well as newer stuff which I guess some what fits the term collector. But over the last few years I've been a lot more selective with what I buy. I used to hunt out the new release lists every Saturday, go through everything to see what it sounded like and whether I wanted it. But after years of doing it I realised I was just adding albums to the collection for the sake of it. Many albums would get listened to once or twice and left for dead, some weren't even worth listening to twice.

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

2 hours ago, markm said:

He's milk toast by your standards definitely, but for some odd reason, I had some time to kill and listened to his 20 albums that changed my life and found some parallels. But I'm milk toast by your standards also. He's much more of a collector than I am, but was pretty heavy into standard fare hard rock and metal in the 70's-80's . He has one video where he ranks Motorhead's albums. Also, like me got turned off or burnt out on metal in the 90's and like me and you actually, started listening to some extreme metal in the early aughts and like all three of us found Blackwater Park as a gateway and clearly knows his way around death metal, but is pretty big prog guy, and I just dabble in prog here and there.  I don't know really how typical that is of your average 58 year old guy. 

Well right off the bat most 58 year old guys aren't obsessed with music like we are to begin with. But it's certainly more typical that a 58 year old guy would be a big prog rock guy and an 80's hard rock & metal head and an album collector than he'd be someone who's more interested in hearing the latest and greatest blackened goat filth. I've seen a few of his videos where he'll have multiple guests on, some of them a bit younger than him, and they'll talk about and rank different stuff, and it's always 99% mainstream shit that I wouldn't be interested in, or shit I might've liked once upon a time in my youth that I wouldn't give the time of day to now. You seem to be somewhat more familiar with Pete's channel than I am apparently, but if he "clearly knows his way around death metal" then I must've missed that video. And it's not "milk toast" my friend, the word is "milquetoast" and it's spelled with a Q. 

Most of what I've seen Milquetoast Pete talking about on his videos is mainstream stuff from 25-45 years ago. I looked up that 20 albums that changed my life video and it was all classic rock, prog rock, and jazz fusion. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that just seems to me to be more Boomer-ish than Gen-X-ish, that's all I'm saying. Many of my Gen-X friends have musical tastes that span a pretty broad range, and they're all physical album collectors like you and Pete. But we did all originally meet on a metal forum, so when they're listening to 'metal' it's mostly gonna be extreme death and black metal, not old Ozzy and Dokken records. That's why most of my friends are 10 - 15 years younger than me, because that's the Gen-X generation who listens to the most old school black & death metal. If 33 year old millennials my daughter's age happened to be the generation who mostly listened to old school black & death metal, then all my friends would probably be 33 year old millennials.

I don't know anyone else from my age group who's primarily into the extreme stuff. Usually it's either none at all, or the heaviest would maybe be thrash and they have an aversion to the more extreme stuff. But if anything like Mr. Pardo maybe they just dabble a little in some of the heavier bands from decades past. Well there is our buddy Doc, he's old like me, but he also listens to a lot more non-extreme, non-metal stuff than I do, prog, avant-garde, post-rock, jazz and classical and what have you. And when he is listening to some of the more extreme stuff, he comes at it from an entirely different angle than I do. He's not a lifelong metalhead, a dyed-in-the-wool denim & leather wearing headbanger, he's an old prog guy who played in wedding bands and against all odds we've just somehow managed to develop some musical overlap here in the 21st century. And I love Doc, but 30 - 40 years ago he and I lived in completely different worlds listening to completely different music, no overlap whatsoever. We took radically different paths to get to the same general destination in our old age. So I have to give Doc an asterisk, which means I'm still waiting to meet some old Boomer dude my age who mainly listens to the same kinda stuff that I do. Marko's probably the closest I've ever found, but he's still a few years younger than us, another Gen-X dude born in the late 60's. Where are all the 60+ Boomer bangers? I can't be the only one.

 

When it comes to metal, Pardo and his buddies are all stuck in 1984. They should get the Orca to guest star on there, but no one would be able to understand his bogan accent.

The Hudson Valley Squares: Album Wars (1984)-Anthrax/Manowar/Metal Church/Exciter

 

[markm]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Well right off the bat most 58 year old guys aren't obsessed with music like we are to begin with. But it's certainly more typical that a 58 year old guy would be a big prog rock guy and an 80's hard rock & metal head and an album collector than he'd be someone who's more interested in hearing the latest and greatest blackened goat filth. I've seen a few of his videos where he'll have multiple guests on, some of them a bit younger than him, and they'll talk about and rank different stuff, and it's always 99% mainstream shit that I wouldn't be interested in, or shit I might've liked once upon a time in my youth that I wouldn't give the time of day to now. You seem to be somewhat more familiar with Pete's channel than I am apparently, but if he "clearly knows his way around death metal" then I must've missed that video.

And it's not "milk toast" my friend, the word is "milquetoast" and it's spelled with a Q. 

Well thanks for that, General, I just learned something new-milquetoast! Being mild or timid. Thank you!  I always greatly appreciate your attention to detail and spelling corrections

Yeah, I had to check if I listed the wrong video-but it's right around minute 8:45 when he intros Blackwater Park as the album that got him into extreme metal in the early to mid 2000's.

I haven't seen that many of his videos. I must have done a search for best Motorhead and best Neil Young albums because I remember seeing his rankings for both. For years I mostly listened to Motorhead's No Remorse and then some of their later albums and recently decided to pick up some of their back catalog. And I went on a Neil Young bender recently and did a little research on his classic albums. 

[AlSymerz]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 They should get the Orca to guest star on there, but no one would be able to understand his bogan accent.

 

Of course they would, with the added bonus that all the chicks swoon at the wonderful Aussie accent

[Thatguy]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

he's an old prog guy who played in wedding bands

I've been summed up in various ways over the years - the latest being my son 'with yer cool sunglasses and cool leather coat you look like a hipster, but we know you are in fact just an oddball' - but this actually gets pretty close to the essence of Thatguy too.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

4 hours ago, AlSymerz said:

Of course they would, with the added bonus that all the chicks swoon at the wonderful Aussie accent

Except there ain't no chicks/Shielas gonna be watching no old man podcast about 40 year old metal albums by the likes of: Metal Church, Manowar, Anthrax and Exciter. That's a sausage fest if ever I've seen one. The chicks might only tune into the podcast when it's about the sexy 80's glam metal MTV bands they remember having crushes on.

And did no one ever tell you that of all the accents of all the English speaking countries, Americans typically find the Australian accent the least pleasant to listen to? Even the Kiwis have a more pleasing accent. Personally I'd rank South Africa as the worst of all the English accents, and then Australia'd be next, and then Canadia right ahead of OZ just for their silly O sounds. Aotearoa goes in front of Canadia. Scottish and Irish are at the top of my list #1 & 2 I could listen to them talk all day. And then that leaves England which is the hardest to rank because English accents run the gamut. They have some truly lovely and very appealing melodious accents over there while some others are just pants. 

 

5 hours ago, markm said:

Well thanks for that, General, I just learned something new-milquetoast! Being mild or timid. Thank you!  I always greatly appreciate your attention to detail and spelling corrections

Yeah, I had to check if I listed the wrong video-but it's right around minute 8:45 when he intros Blackwater Park as the album that got him into extreme metal in the early to mid 2000's.

I haven't seen that many of his videos. I must have done a search for best Motorhead and best Neil Young albums because I remember seeing his rankings for both. For years I mostly listened to Motorhead's No Remorse and then some of their later albums and recently decided to pick up some of their back catalog. And I went on a Neil Young bender recently and did a little research on his classic albums. 

Now I think I might get inspired to come up with my own albums that changed my life list. Blackwater Park won't be on mine, but Dark Tranquility probably will, as they were my main gateway band into extreme metal with harsh vocals in '04/'05 along with Hypocrisy.

Might have to give this some thought for a few days though, because I'm too distracted tonight. Electrical inspector is coming tomorrow and of course my hallway smoke detector starts beeping at 10:30 pm. 3 quick beeps every minute apparently means "fault" but I'm not sure exactly what that means or what I can do about it. I took it off and took the backup batteries out for now so the kid can sleep, he goes back to school tomorrow after 10 days off and he was totally freaked out about the loud beeping right outside his door in the hallway, he was expecting fire engines to start rolling up any second. These 6 hardwired units are all brand new only 3 months old, that's what fucks me off. Just replaced one of the two downstairs units that had been doing the same thing after changing the backup batteries (twice) didn't work, and we were all good for 36 hours no beeps anywhere. Now it's the one at the top of the stairs giving me problems. If only I could hear the Orca's soothing mellifluous bogan tones and let them lull me off to dreamland.

[AlSymerz]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Except there ain't no chicks/Shielas gonna be watching no old man podcast about 40 year old metal albums by the likes of: Metal Church, Manowar, Anthrax and Exciter. That's a sausage fest if ever I've seen one. The chicks might only tune into the podcast when it's about the sexy 80's glam metal MTV bands they remember having crushes on.

And did no one ever tell you that of all the accents of all the English speaking countries, Americans typically find the Australian accent the least pleasant to listen to? Even the Kiwis have a more pleasing accent. Personally I'd rank South Africa as the worst of all the English accents, and then Australia'd be next, and then Canadia right ahead of OZ just for their silly O sounds. Aotearoa goes in front of Canadia. Scottish and Irish are at the top of my list #1 & 2 I could listen to them talk all day. And then that leaves England which is the hardest to rank because English accents run the gamut. They have some truly lovely and very appealing melodious accents over there while some others are just pants. 

 

 

It doesn't matter the content of the podcast the chicks just flock to the hot Aussie for the sound of his voice.

To be honest I have never heard an American suggest the Aussie accent it unpleasant. Maybe I'm taking the piss a bit suggesting all the chicks will flock to such an accent but most American's I know rate the Aussie accent pretty highly.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

28 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

It doesn't matter the content of the podcast the chicks just flock to the hot Aussie for the sound of his voice.

To be honest I have never heard an American suggest the Aussie accent it unpleasant. Maybe I'm taking the piss a bit suggesting all the chicks will flock to such an accent but most American's I know rate the Aussie accent pretty highly.

That's the posh high falutin ABC newscaster voice Yanks like so much. I was talking about the common bogan accent or what's known as the broad Aussie accent. I can only understand about 42% of the words coming out of his mouth.

Every Concreter Ever... | Garn.

 

[markm]

5 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Except there ain't no chicks/Shielas gonna be watching no old man podcast about 40 year old metal albums by the likes of: Metal Church, Manowar, Anthrax and Exciter. That's a sausage fest if ever I've seen one. The chicks might only tune into the podcast when it's about the sexy 80's glam metal MTV bands they remember having crushes on.

And did no one ever tell you that of all the accents of all the English speaking countries, Americans typically find the Australian accent the least pleasant to listen to? Even the Kiwis have a more pleasing accent. Personally I'd rank South Africa as the worst of all the English accents, and then Australia'd be next, and then Canadia right ahead of OZ just for their silly O sounds. Aotearoa goes in front of Canadia. Scottish and Irish are at the top of my list #1 & 2 I could listen to them talk all day. And then that leaves England which is the hardest to rank because English accents run the gamut. They have some truly lovely and very appealing melodious accents over there while some others are just pants. 

 

Now I think I might get inspired to come up with my own albums that changed my life list. Blackwater Park won't be on mine, but Dark Tranquility probably will, as they were my main gateway band into extreme metal with harsh vocals in '04/'05 along with Hypocrisy.

I'd have to really think about that myself. I'm not sure if it would be that different than my 20 favorite albums of all time. I've got a couple of thoughts. As far as gateways, Dark Tranquility was one of my first intros but I honestly don't remember if I bought  Character or Damage Done first, but both of those would be up there and are kind of interchangeable. My gateways would include those and albums like  Ghost Reveries, Slaughter of the  Soul and Gorgoroth's Ad Majorem was one of the first BM albums that riveted me. But the albums that really had an impact were more in the post metal and stoner/doom realm because they convinced me there was interesting riff rock I needed to dig for-off hand I'd say, Oceanic, Through Silver and Blood, The Illusion of Motion, Leviathon, Surrounded by Thieves, In Search Of, Welcome to Sky Valley, Blast Tyrant, Dopes to Infinity....

[GoatmasterGeneral]

2 hours ago, markm said:

I'd have to really think about that myself. I'm not sure if it would be that different than my 20 favorite albums of all time. I've got a couple of thoughts. As far as gateways, Dark Tranquility was one of my first intros but I honestly don't remember if I bought  Character or Damage Done first, but both of those would be up there and are kind of interchangeable. My gateways would include those and albums like  Ghost Reveries, Slaughter of the  Soul and Gorgoroth's Ad Majorem was one of the first BM albums that riveted me. But the albums that really had an impact were more in the post metal and stoner/doom realm because they convinced me there was interesting riff rock I needed to dig for-off hand I'd say, Oceanic, Through Silver and Blood, The Illusion of Motion, Leviathon, Surrounded by Thieves, In Search Of, Welcome to Sky Valley, Blast Tyrant, Dopes to Infinity....

Interesting. I wouldn't put stoner rock and post metal/rock in the same realm, they'd seem to be at odds with each other, at least to me anyway. One's riffy, the other's not. But that's probably because I like the one and can't tolerate the other so I don't connect the two. I've loved Sabbath since the beginning so I always liked stoner rock with the recycled Sabbath riffs. But that's casual listening, that kind of stuff didn't ever have the same impact of the heavier shit.

That was my musical journey back in the early days, essentially just a search for the heaviest shit I could find. So the albums that changed my life were usually the ones that reached a new level of heaviness, or in some way opened my eyes to shit I had yet to experience. Which is quite different than my 20 favorite metal albums, which would disproportionately be stuff from the last 25 years. The game changers would mostly be older stuff, 70's-80's-90's much of which I rarely listen to anymore. Because once I got up to speed with the real heavy shit then new albums weren't really life changing for me anymore, they were just new albums.

Now you've got me wondering what the very first black metal album I connected with might've been. I really don't remember. I mean Don't Break the Oath in '84 could have been the first unless you consider Celtic Frost black metal, which I don't. But for stuff that everyone would agree is black metal I'm gonna say Darkthrone's Panzerfaust could have been the first. Hard to say for sure because when I joined my first metal forum in '08 I was getting tons of recos and discovering many years worth of black and death metal all in a short period of time. I remember the general consensus back then on that board was that Mayhem's DMDS was the best black metal album ever made, a sentiment that I strongly disagree with. So I had to find most of my favorite black metal on my own, because most people, even most metalheads, are black metal casuals who just want to recommend all those same old early 90's Norwegian bands like Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum, Immortal, Emperor, Gorgoroth and Satyricon. But besides Darkthrone whom I worship, none of those other Norge bands really do much of anything for me. So I had to do some digging to find the good stuff that no one was recommending. So it was probably Darkthrone first, but it could have been one of the Finnish bands, Behexen, Horna or Azaghal.

[markm]

4 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Interesting. I wouldn't put stoner rock and post metal/rock in the same realm, they'd seem to be at odds with each other, at least to me anyway. One's riffy, the other's not. But that's probably because I like the one and can't tolerate the other so I don't connect the two. I've loved Sabbath since the beginning so I always liked stoner rock with the recycled Sabbath riffs. But that's casual listening, that kind of stuff didn't ever have the same impact of the heavier shit.

That was my musical journey back in the early days, essentially just a search for the heaviest shit I could find. So the albums that changed my life were usually the ones that reached a new level of heaviness, or in some way opened my eyes to shit I had yet to experience. Which is quite different than my 20 favorite metal albums, which would disproportionately be stuff from the last 25 years. The game changers would mostly be older stuff, 70's-80's-90's much of which I rarely listen to anymore. Because once I got up to speed with the real heavy shit then new albums weren't really life changing for me anymore, they were just new albums.

Now you've got me wondering what the very first black metal album I connected with might've been. I really don't remember. I mean Don't Break the Oath in '84 could have been the first unless you consider Celtic Frost black metal, which I don't. But for stuff that everyone would agree is black metal I'm gonna say Darkthrone's Panzerfaust could have been the first. Hard to say for sure because when I joined my first metal forum in '08 I was getting tons of recos and discovering many years worth of black and death metal all in a short period of time. I remember the general consensus back then on that board was that Mayhem's DMDS was the best black metal album ever made, a sentiment that I strongly disagree with. So I had to find most of my favorite black metal on my own, because most people, even most metalheads, are black metal casuals who just want to recommend all those same old early 90's Norwegian bands like Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum, Immortal, Emperor, Gorgoroth and Satyricon. But besides Darkthrone whom I worship, none of those other Norge bands really do much of anything for me. So I had to do some digging to find the good stuff that no one was recommending. So it was probably Darkthrone first, but it could have been one of the Finnish bands, Behexen, Horna or Azaghal.

 I didn't mean to imply that stoner, doom and post rock were similar but it probably read like that when I used the word riff rock which obviously applies to stoner and maybe doom but not post rock. 

I was 35 in 2,000 and had a realization that I missed discovering new music and yearned for heavy rock and metal like a woman yearning for a child...OK, that's what my wife went through in her mid 30's haha. I would randomly pick up a new album by any of the big 4 or other mainstream thrash or 80's metal bands I liked in the day, but I knew there must be something else out there for me. I had never exposed myself to what you'd call the underground, really. So I ended up buying this book and reading about various bands: 

 

[markm]

I see now, that Encyclopedia of HM book was updated ten years later in 2012, so it must have been 2002 when I bought the book and started reading about stoner and doom and figured that might be up my alley, because I had no interest in death metal at the time. I bought a Lamb of God album and hated it and sold it back to the store-hard to believe but the Baltimore area chain Record and Tape Traders would actually give me my money back if I didn't like an album-wtf? What a great place that was.

Looking at LoG album covers, I think it was New American Gospel (2000) or maybe it was As the Palace Burns ('03)-which places my time frame between 2000 and 2003 when I started dabling and that LoG album made me think death metal was not for me until I started listening to Opeth, Behemoth, Nile, Kataklysm,etc.  It was literally unlistenable to me. 

It just so happens there was a lot of newer stoner metal, hardcore influenced stoner/doom and post rock that came out in the early aughts and it was my metal rebirth.  I keep a list of albums like most of us probably do that I buy each year. It was the years between 2000-2005 that solidified my listening. I think in retrospect there was a kind of renaissance of metal and heavy psyche during these years that helped create or delineate many of the sub genres or incubate kernels of heavy musical ideas that would flower that we see prominently today and haven't seen that kind of growth and creativity since...at least in what you'd call mainstream and maybe "arty" metal. Maybe it's different in bestial black/death circles but the aughts were special in my old world of stoner/post metal/post hardocre/doom/hard doom/sludge/avantish, blackened sludge, prog black/death, etc, etc. Something was in the bong water back then.

Here are some of the albums that made a big impression on me. In a sense these are all gateways:

I list them by  year but I didn't buy them all by release date. I jumped around a good bit from year to year. I don't think I really started buying any "mainstream black/death" until 2003 or so:

2000:

***Electric Wizard/Dopethrone -this was like the heaviest thing I'd heard in years and it was somewhat of a come to Satan moment of me. 
**The Haunted/Made Me Do It- I probably found this album a few years later but was one of those albums where I opened up to 'core vocals and hardcore influenced vox enticed me before death or black vox.
Nevermore/Dead Heart in a Dead World
**Fu Manchu/King of the Road-Definitely a eureka album-I absolutely loved Fu.

2001:

***Boris/Amplifier Worship-Boris were a big influence on my listening especially their early drone masterworks like this beast. It was actually released in '98.

***Opeth/Blackwater Park-I actually came to this after Ghost Reveries

2002-was a big year: a lot of foundational albums for me in my re emergence

**Isis/Oceanic-Isis began the post metal plunge for me and at this point I was listening to a lot of Neurosis

**Agalloch/The Mantle 
**High on fire/Surrounded by Thieves 
Porcupine Tree/In Absentia
**Dark Tranquility/Damage Done
**Entombed/Morning Star-this was my introduction to Entombed and it was years before I went back to their classics
**The Reverend Bizarre/In the Rectory
Arcturus/The Sham Mirrors
Pentagram/First Daze Here The Vintage Collection (recorded between 73-74 w/  original line up) & Pentagram/Turn to Stone compilation (80’s & 90’s classic Peaceville releases)
**Immortal/Sons of Northern Darkness
**Xasthur/Nocturnal Poisoning-somehow I jumped in to Xasthur early
The Hellacopters/By The Grace of God
Opeth/Deliverance
Orange Goblin/Coup De Grace

2003-

**Mars Volta/Deloused in the Comatorium
**YOB/Catharsis
**Cult of Luna/The Beyond
Katatonia/The Great Cold Distance
**Spirit Caravan/The Last Embrace (probably Wino's finest hour, IMO)
Nebula/Atomic Ritual
**Boris/Akuma No Uta
**Boris At Last/Feedbacker
Naglfar/Sheol
Sleep/Dopesmoker

2004  really opened up the flood gates

**Mastodon/Leviathan-this definitely pushed the needle-Mastodon's death metal album, some would say

**Enslaved/Issa

**Marduk/Plague Angel-this was a pretty big turning point and began my love affair with Mortuus
**Isis/Panopticon 
**CUL/Salvation
**YOB/The Illusion of Motion-one of my favorite albums of all time!
**Blut Aus Nord/Works that Transform God ('03-such an important album in my metal renaissance)
Therion/Lemuria/Sirius B-went through a symphonic/operatic phase
***Behemoth/Demigod -not the first Behemoth album I bought, but an early death metal album that made a strong impression
**Clutch/Blast Tyrant-still one of my favorite hard rock albums 
Neurosis/The Eye of Every Storm
Goat Snake/I and + Dog Days (reissue compilation full length plus EP)
The Haunted/Revolver
Borknagar/Epic
**My Dying Bride/Songs of Darkness, Words of Darkness-perhaps beginning my MDB love affair and a great album
Red Giant/Devil Child Blues

2005:

****Opeth/ Ghost Reveries-this was my first Opeth album 
Bill Evans / Bill Evans Trio/The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961 (essential jazz purchase remastered and complete)-OK, not metal but brilliant!
The Mars Volta/Frances the Mute 
**Sun0))/The Black one
***High On fire/Blessed Black Wings 
**Akercocke/ Words that Go Unspoken, Deeds that go Undone-still one of my favorite extreme metal albums ever
Nevermore/The godless Endeavor
**Earth/Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method    
**Dark Tranquility/Character
Deathspell Omega/Kenose
**Primordial/The Gathering Wilderness
*Moonsorrow/Verisakeet
Acid King/III

 

[navybsn]

Guess the world didn't end with the total eclipse. Either that or I wasn't in the group being Raptured. Too bad, I hadn't planned for dinner tonight and didn't really want to do any chores tonight.

Guess I'll have to wait for the next predicted extinction event to procrastinate.

[FatherAlabaster]

9 minutes ago, navybsn said:

Guess the world didn't end with the total eclipse. Either that or I wasn't in the group being Raptured. Too bad, I hadn't planned for dinner tonight and didn't really want to do any chores tonight.

Guess I'll have to wait for the next predicted extinction event to procrastinate.

It ended and was reborn as Rahu was defeated and forced to vomit forth the sun, get your facts straight!