Metal Reviews

Judas Priest-Rocka Rolla pales is comparison to Sad wings of Destiny[and any other Priest album up 'till Turbo IMO].

Darkthrone-Soulside Journey is a damn good death metal album IMO,but it seems somewhat forgotten.

Yeah, I was gonna mention Darkthrone, but Soulside Journey is actually a decent album and it's kind an odd comparison, for obvious reasons.
I agree with the Priest mention as well. Rocka Rolla is good, but it got blown out of the water by their subsequent output.

Darkthrone like to pretend they were always Kvlt True Norwegian Black Metal.

Kinda like Pantera pretending the Glam days never happened.

Oh and I'll happily add Pantera to the mix - crap beginnings but then grew into a monster.

I like it too, but I prefer the later stuff like Persecution Mania and Agent Orange. Not to mention the awesomeness that is Better off Dead or Code Red or mostly every other one of their albums.

I never understood the hate towards Rocka Rolla. It sure is not Sad Wings or Stained Class but it's still one hell of a album.

One for the Road
Rocka Rolla
Winter Retreat
Run of the Mill
Dying to Meet You

they are all awesome songs that are waiting to be enjoyed. You just can't go in listening to Run of the Mill expecting Screaming for Vengeance.

Explain, please.

Rocka Rolla is good enough, just their later stuff is better.

I'd say Rocka Rolla is a classic. I can listen to it as much as I can any other Priest album.

I'll even choose it over others. Like pretty much every 80s and 90s and today's outputs.

Rocka Rolla women for a rocka rolla man. Take her if you want her, if you think you can.

Tiamat's and Unleashed's beginning albums were quite stale, though in the case of Tiamat they dipped and reached an apex with Wildhoney. Unleashed really hit a creative high on their recent album Hammer Battalion, though the success of their entire career depends solely on ones perspective of mediocrity vs. consistency.

As for mentions of Darkthrone it's a puzzling one for me, A Blaze in the Northern sky, Transilvanian Hunger, and Panzerfaust were incredible, and their mid career was passable yet now they've returned to some of their more punkish roots, and they've lost a lot of power in their soun.

Darkthrone's earlier material epitomizes black metal.

Precisely.

Rocka Rolla is a standard prog rock album after that from SWOD onward is when they started to add metal to their music and they became a lot harder and a lot faster.

So even though RR isn't a metal album it still is a classic prog rock album and should be enjoyed as such.

Rocka Rolla is prog rock?

Well it's got some elements of prog rock but I call it prog rock because it has basically the sound of a lot of prog rock bands of that era

Back in the day (mid 1990's) they pretended Soulside Journey never happened. Most Black Metallers seemed to do the same.

Then it's settled, because a good album should never be mentioned on a mediocre albums list, regardless how much it has been overshadowed by greater albums in following years.

In The Sign Of Evil is far and away from what I view as a mediocre beginning as well.

I don't really know who to nominate, pretty much every big name that comes to mind has had a great debut, or at least a good or decent one. Perhaps Accept?

Neurosis and Converge came to mind first for me.

What's settled?

Not a punk fan? For shame.

Meads Of Asphodel were a bit poor at the start, ditto Akercocke.

Opeth