Metal Reviews

The album has leaked, and it is absolutely fantastic. Trial of Champions is, in my opinion, the best song they've done. Grab it if you haven't already.

God of The Cold White Silence is my favorite so far, amazing stuff. I will be buying this the first time I catch it in stores.

The first half of the album is AMAZING. They kinda loses momentum on the second half, but great album nonetheless.

I'm sure this will rule.

I will not download it, but with all you saying how good it is. I will definitely buy it. Like I wasn't going to anyway.

Well, we're all certainly being nicer to them than last time round.

Hmph. You mean the songs are noticeably different this time around? And actually different, not just similar shit with different lyrics?

They haven't changed their style, but the album seems a bit more musically mature.

I'm gonna wait, since I'm going to the cd release party over here on the 28th. Pretty damn psyched, I'll pick up a copy there.

Yea, I was considering whether or not to go to that.

This will be an interesting one considering every member of the band other than the vocalists has changed since Advance and Vanquish. Hopefully they will all be improvements and bring more mtaure songwriting to the fold. Goatrider's Horde is a fantastic tune.

Holy shit, what a surprise. Everyone better look the fuck out come June 26th... Assuming both Iced Earth and Behemoth dissapoint us with their respective albums this year, I believe "Fire Up The Blades" could be the album of the year for me. It's so metal.

No. I actually found more individuality on their previous. There's no song here to grab you like Deadly Sinners did.

This album bored the hell out of me, at my first two listenings. I don't get the hype around it. Album of the year, Dylan? Give me a break, go buy the new Cage and see how it's done

Deadly Sinners was the only song worth keeping A&V for. I didn't.

I feel the exact opposite about the individual songs. "Night Marauders" grabbed me by the scrote, as did "Goatrider's Horde" and "Trial of Champions".

For the record, some of the most celebrated albums in metal lore have very similar sounding songs with similar lyrics.

Reign in Blood (especially)
Transylvanian Hunger
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Schaffer can't seem to write a straight heavy song without adding triplets in everywhere, though I'm still a huge fan of the band.)
Close to a world below - by Immolation (the other two albums I have have pretty similar songs as well)
Meshuggah's Chaosphere (and everything else after that really...)
Napalm Death's "The Code is red...long live the code"
Any DragonForce album
The last Sabaton album had really similar souding songs to me...
Cannibal Corpse doesn't even bother to change up their lyrics, but I still think they rule.

Sure, there are bands that mix it up on their albums more than the ones I've listed (like Nevermore!!!), but tons and tons of metal bands that you surely know and probably like to some degree, fall into the pit shared by many other metal bands, and that is writing every song in the same key and (basically) the same tempo.

Meh, I disagree. There's a difference between writing similar-sounding songs that, once you've unlocked them with a few listens no longer sound so similar, as your list of examples there, and songs which are crap no matter how many times you listen. Like 3IOB.

Well, I guess that the new 3IOB album doesn't do for you what it does for me.

the same thing happened with the last album outside of orcs and wykydtron.

I picked up a copy last weekend while browsing through Hot Topic. It's a great CD. One of the year's best so far.

continue discussion in the review forum.