Metal Reviews

I know exactly who he is. (btw, I live in the Netherlands...). Anyway, to be honest, some Pestilence I can get along with, Aspyhx just never really was my thing. I just have a very hard time seeing HoB as good, even less worthy of a spot on the top list of 2008.

I must agree with you on ShitSymmetry though. It's so fucking horribly badly done, it is nowhere near original, groundbreaking or whatever else people are saying. And then having the audacity to throw the death moniker at them makes me a bit mad, they're shitty pop at best.

But hey, each to his own.

.:c:.

Well, I need it.

Hail of Bullets was my top 5 death metal and Septicflesh in my top 5 doom/gothic/dark. New Krisiun bored me, I've not listened to Mirrorthrone or Cor Scorpii.

And Cynic is, of course, far better than all the albums you listed

About the vocals, the reason for my reaction is that his vocals are pretty distinct on nearly everything he's ever done. No surprises there. While its (since I'm pretty sure I know what aspect of his vocals might be seen as annoying by some, not sure how to phrase it though) more distinct in some cases than others, he's pretty much unmistakable no matter what. But vocals aside, have you heard the entirety of ...Of Frost and War? Even if one doesn't like the vocals, the album itself is pretty great and is probably the best WWII concept album I've heard. Red Wolves of Stalin, Inferno at the Carpathian Mountains, and Berlin, plus that intro is just great.

Cool that you are from Holland btw. I'm hoping to move there this summer, actually. And hopefully I'll get the chance to see HoB there

@ganeshaRules, no disrespect to Cynic for sure (why I put them on the exceptions), but I still prefer HoB. Cynic is one of those bands I respect and can occasionally enjoy...but can't get into as much as most people. No denying their talent, though.

Holographic Universe is one of the best melodeath releases of late. If you don't like melodic death metal, that's your problem.

lol@Hail of Bullets, Septic Flesh, or Krisiun being better than Protest the Hero. fuck yeah playing death metal: free pass for making bad music o/

Wow, to be honest I'm not even sure how to respond to this. Its kind of one of those comments that seems so inane you automatically think the individual is actually being sarcastic, but then some screeching nails-down-the-chalkboard voice in the back of your skulls screams that this may, in fact, be some kind of mirror realm where shitty metalcore may actually be considered..."good". God I hate waking up in alternate dimensions

I'm almost afraid to ask what your reasons are for disliking an album like ...Of Frost and War. The band set out to make WWII concept album in the old school style and they did it quite perfectly. You don't get overly complex riffage or an abundance of solos but what you do get is a real sense of the album's concept. The drumming and bass work is absolutely militaristic but often slow and trudging. Combined with van Drunen's performance you get the sense of a war that's dragging on, the fatigue of the soldiers. Even the song titles perpetuate that feeling (Ordered Eastward, Advancing Once More, The Crucial Offensive, Inferno at the Carpathian Mountains etc.) It feels more like your reading a war diary or watching an old war movie than merely listening to an album. The whole trudging sound of it, like a march into unavoidable chaos, is hammered into the listener through and through on this album. Its so perfectly unified and achieves what the musicians were attempting to put across I just don't get how it can be "bad", even if you don't enjoy the vocals.

Your comments on Septic Flesh's Communion boggle my mind even further. I don't even know where to begin there, but feel free to rethink your comments whilst listening to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5kORR7luAw Anyways I think I'll go about cleansing my soul from the shock of this encounter with a little Bolt Thrower now.

Wow. That was pretentious. While I don't think metalcore is the über alles genre, I don't dismiss it out of hand like that. It's just got a different approach to musical transmissions. It's like giving Wagner to a pop fan.

Just responding in kind And wait...did you just compare Wagner to metalcore or did I just misunderstand that?

ugh. this is everything i hate about death metal from the last 10 years. the drums sound like a machine (is it a machine? probably), the vocals don't sound human, and they've got those goofy orchestral synthesizers everywhere. seeing as how death metal is supposed to sound aggressive and visceral, i don't see why bands try so hard to sound so digital and soulless. even Trivium have realized that not sounding like a real drummer isn't very metal by now, so why haven't these guys? i honestly don't see how people can listen to more than 30 seconds of this :\

Hail of Bullets aren't bad, but there's already so much old school death metal and it's such a monochromatic genre that i really don't need another band like that. also pulling off a concept album about war can't have been too hard since most death metal sounds like there's a war going on anyways.

i guess we'll just have to agree to disagree since i think Protest the Hero are one of the best bands of the decade for being unique, catchy, emotional and writing awesome songs.

I dunno, to me it adds to the music here. Its kind of like The Key in a sense that it tends to add a little to the sci-fi and/or Lovecraftian atmosphere of the music. Also its not entirely consistent throughout the album in the case of Communion. You get songs like Sangreal and so on that deviate from what's being aimed at with Lovecraft's Death, for example.



No, writing a concept album about war isn't new, but its the way they executed it and the resulting sound. Very few of those albums, at least in my opinion, actually succeed in producing such a concept album wherein all its elements so perfectly complement each other to produce the desired effect. I've rarely heard other bands produce such a cold, fatigued feel (well the title says it all). I'd disagree about that last comment though, though I suppose it depends on your perception of dm. Then again, if you're tired of anything with an old school dm sound to it then not much you can do I guess. Personally I never get tired of it. But honestly I don't see how that makes it even comparable or inferior to metalcore like Protest the Hero who I'm not quite sure what people think they have to offer...I just don't hear it, personally.

@Noodles: I do recommend Septicflesh's album, though. Annubis, Sangreal, Sunlight Moonlight have clean vocals.

for me the atmosphere really isn't worth it. Meshuggah probably pull off the "sounding inhuman" atmosphere best, but even in their case it still makes the music really tedious most of the time. i'd rather bands just use production/recording techniques that actually sound good than try to capture some sort of sci-fi or machine-like mood.

Not exactly, I was pointing out how different musical styles have different approaches to transmitting what it is they want to.

Are you any good at writing reviews, IronD? We could use another elitist around here now that people are reviewing Pearl Jam and stuff. Not an official offer, you understand, just wondering...

I'll have to take a deeper look at "...Of Frost and War" then, I'll get back to you.

I'm not Dutch, I'm Swedish, I just happen to be living in Holland at the moment, ;)

I saw HoB at a free open air festival in Rotterdam, so it was at least no loss for me,



It's not that I don't like melodic death metal. I'm quite an avid fan of the genre, I just don't see how the latest ScarSymmetry was anything different, or even good.

As for it being my problem? Not really, I just play other melodic death metal that I enjoy instead.

.:c:.

Thanks for the Septic Flesh link, that was a fucking awesome song. Yeah the double bass did sound a bit artificial, but that's probably the production. The song has fucking atmosphere and IMO the vocals fit the music....

noodles, in that case do you hate bands like Dying Fetus because of their vocals?

A lot of bands fail at it, I think. Hypocrisy's s/t for one, and I actually can't stand Meshuggah at all. But a band like Septic Flesh pulls it off beautifully in my opinion. The only way I can currently think to describe it beyond technical aspects (sorry a little sleep deprived these days) is that, same as with HoB and a few other bands, they are capable of fully integrating the subject matter of a song or album into the music itself so that you don't even have to know the lyrics to understand what the band had in mind.

A band like Meshuggah's music doesn't tell a story. To me there's a difference between simply sounding "mechanical" to fit a sci-fi-ish feel and actually making your music into the perfect soundtrack for the story your lyrics or whatnot tell. There's a togetherness (among many other things) that Meshuggah lacks.



Ah, I see what you mean, but while I agree in some cases I just can't really, in good conscience, apply that to certain genres like metalcore or the various modern "-core"s.

For example, myself I rarely listen to anything other than metal, typically preferring to stick with black, thrash, and old school dm for the most part, but when I do its usually classical or folk music. Most other genres just don't sit well with me and don't give me the same intensity and musical "fullness" and power that metal or classical (and then only in composers like Rachmaninoff, Wagner, Beethoven, Grieg, Halvorsen etc.) give me.

However, even though I wouldn't sit down and listen to blues or jazz on my own I can still appreciate both genres and what they strive to achieve despite the fact that they don't provide me with what I typically look for in music.

Bands like Protest the Hero, however, pretty much embody everything I despise from the music itself down to the typical metalcore attitude. There's a kind of cheapness to their sound, a bit like the whole hipster "post-blahblahblah" trend these days. Protest the Hero vocals sound like a cross between a whiny Linkin Park fan deciding to "step it up a notch", and a Blink 182 or Offspring fan who decided to combine an epic phail attempt at traditional metal vocals with "emotional" boy band vocals. The music itself partly suffers from Dragonforce syndrome: ie. wanking for the sake of wanking without any quality riffs whatsoever. They're one of those bands who seem to want to come off as technical just because they can play slightly varied note patterns over and over again real fast, ma! Take that to the extreme and you get something like Orthrelm's OV at which point you just want to shoot yourself in the eye socket in a desperate attempt to stop your ears from bleeding. Fortunately Protest the Hero haven't taken it that far but have still managed to produce needless music without much substance or anything particularly interesting at all. Basically take the above description and add in some breakdowns and voila! "omg b3st album of teh yearz0rz!"

Maybe I'm being a "pretentious" ass again, but that's the way I see it.



I've only ever written one album review to be honest, and have more experience writing book (mostly history) reviews than music reviews. So I'm not entirely sure I'd be what you'd be looking for.

I do believe that was sarcasm.

I used to think exactly the same way, but there is a certain value in what metalcore bands do. It's a different approach to quality than what Death or Black metal bands do, because instead of focusing on building up atmosphere, playing with dynamics (beyond the trademark breakdown) and making you dig for something deeper, metalcore bands are like the pop of metal. Catchiness, simple aggression, occasional wankery for the sake of wankery, yes, but many bands (some of my favourites are Lamb of God, Unearth, Mendeed, Slowmotion Apocalypse and Bullet For My Valentine) have very good insight into just how to correctly arrange the songs for just the right amount of impact. There's a reason Metalcore is currently the most mainstream genre, it's easily reachable and in many ways superficial. But there is quality there, it's just not what we're used to.

People who are good at writing are generally good at writing, if you know what I mean. From what I've seen from your posts, you're capable of describing music well, what it means to you, etc. I think you'd be good, but I'm not trying to push you towards anything, I just keep a constant look out for potential writers. It's quite a commitment, esp. here where we like people to be reliable and consistent in quality and quantity of reviews, two a week the ideal. Hey, if you're interested PM me, I'll not hassle you about it again.

By the way, agreed about Protest The Hero, but to a lesser extent. I've tried hard to like them, but the vocals are too typically 'corey even though I quite like that sort of music, technical and unstructured. Lacks emotion, too, but not in a good way like Meshuggah, which to me sound like a man slowly turning into a machine. Yeah, a dreadfully pretentious way of looking at it, I know.



Haha! For once, I was serious.