Metal Reviews

When you have a band such as Nile or Kreator whose discography has many albums, when do you believe a listener has fully comprehended the brunt of the band's work. At what point, does a listener fully understand a band's contribution to the scene, and does it involve solely listening to the bands seminal albums to learn about their significance? When you have bands such as Sodom and Vader who regularly churn out decent albums with a consistent quality, how do you explore their newer albums when they haven't deviated much from their winning formula? Are there any bands that you believe have an album that rises above their others in importance?

I believe the next level of understanding is achieved when you read some well written articles about the scene at the time, which include journalistic analysis, hindsight retrospectives, as well as interviews from the band members themselves and other bands doing the same thing or influenced by them in some way.

I guess I believe the best way to find out which albums influenced other artists is to ask them. Unfortunately, not all artists particularly like to give interviews, nor do they like to give away the keys to the kingdom so to speak.

For example:

or Precious Metal: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces

http://www.amazon.com/Precious-Metal-De ... 406&sr=1-3

Like all music, I believe understanding is achieved if you are able to enjoy it from the perspective of the artist, which paradoxically kind of requires that you understand what the artist is attempting to "say" with his music and why he is attempting it in the first place.

I don't think you really understand music until you're in your late teens or early 20's. I know I didn't when I was younger. A lot of people in their early teens will listen to an album by a band or even just 30 seconds and then completely dismiss them and never listen to them again, yet alone listening to an album 30 times and realizing just how great the album or artist is.

Understanding a bands work takes some time. There's been several bands that I wasn't into as much when I was younger, like Dimmu Borgir because I didn't spend that much time listening to them, I only heard a couple songs, didn't think they were that great, but now it seems like my hearing has actually changed, this is something I noticed after doing psychedelic mushrooms.

I know I talked a lot on this forum about that Ov Hell album. At first it sounded like this generic boring black metal album with no real direction at all. I listened to 3 songs off of it. However I decided to sit down and really listen to this album several times and I got hooked on it for weeks. I really understood the sound King ov Hell was going for from the riffs to even the production of the album, or how it sounded.

I'm not just a casual music fan though and with what I'm studying in college it's going to be my job to make music sound good and to listen to albums and songs countless times in a row. So right now I sometimes treat listening to music like it's my job.

I believe depending on the complexity and the arrangements of composer of an specific band it takes many months or maybe even years to fully comprehend an album. Take Emperor's Prometheus. The music is highly complex and classically infused Progressive music that takes many many listen to understand. It is also an album that has aged tremendously in my opinion.

Related to that is technical music. It being Metal or Classical, Jazz or some form of Avant-Garde music, depending on how the composer or whatever else you want to call the writer of the music that which takes him to write the music, it will take maybe twice as long or sometimes even more time to fully grasp what the music written is trying to convey and what emotion it delivers at an specific time or mood.

Another great example is 1970's progressive music. Take King Crimson. Albums like In The Court of The Crimson King, Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Red, Discipline and other albums in the same veins as those take many many listen to fully digest what the album is trying to say and how it will effect the listener. Music in general is an art that wants to elevate the spirit in one way or another it being of strength and glory or of freedom and Nihilism.

Music should looked as a whole. And what I mean by that is there is certain point when one is deeply listening and analyzing their music in which the guitar, the bass, the drums and whatever other instrument involved come in unity to form a whole.... To unite... And to be in so-called perfect harmony. That takes many listens and for that matter very careful listens to dissect and form a whole again.

I think it's one of the things where, unless maybe you know how to play every song in their discography on every instrument, there's always more to know. Otherwise: I feel like I 'know' a musician when I can listen to a new release by them and think "that riff/melody/arrangement is so Slough Feg" or whatever band it is.

I dunno. It's an odd question. I kind of liked Trophy Scars and These Arms Are Snakes for years and years, but then all of a sudden something clicked and I saw their music in a different light and loved it a lot more.

With death metal bands that don't change much I find I lose interest after really loving two albums.