Metal Reviews

Perhaps, it would be better to state the original phrase "one-off" classic album as the rare exception to the rule, as an album that is groundbreaking and genre defining without the aid of a scene, comrade bands, or externals support. Of course this is not limited to metal, but with stalwarts such as Kreator, Vader, Hammerfall, and other bands pushing lengthy back catalogs, what is more longlasting in the underground and the entirety of the metal scene- the influential career or the monolithic album? What are some bands whose long discographies have produced absolutely nothing in terms of influence, yet what are some bands that existed briefly that challenge the relevance of more longstanding acts?

The first one that came into my mind is Lost Horizon. Two amazing albums that practically destroyed Power/Speed/True Metal. After them, everything sounded lame in comparison.

Hammerfall played an important role in the revival of the late 90's Power Metal movement, but the first two albums are the ones that influenced most, the rest of the discography is pure repetitiveness.

Deicide - self titled was very influential followed by a career of mediocrity.

Testament - Legacy was classic followed by a career of mediocrity with occassional glimmers of "I wish they could do more of that stuff."

Annihilator - Alice In Hell/Never Neverland followed by a career of mainly shit.

Wait, are you saying that The New Order and Practice What You Preach are mediocre albums?

Yep! I prefer Low to them and that's not the world's greatest album.

Testament are very samey. I was listening to a few of their albums two weeks ago. They blurred one into another. I lost track of what I was listening too.

I totally understand why they failed to expand the Big 4 into the Big 5 (as some commentators in the day thought they would be).

I'd say that most thrash bands at the time were beginning to blur as there really wasn't much room for the genre to expand musically.

But I've always seen New Order and Practice as two of their strongest musically, with everything after Souls of Black starting to dip.

Even The Gathering?!

The Legacy is the best hands down. Let's keep on topic

Everything Testament has done is mediocre, and poor ole Dead is wrong Legion is also a good album and Serpents of the light is also a decent album.

Dead is just wrong. Annihilator had two great albums. Testament has three in New Order, Practice and Gathering and Deicide has their first two plus Serpents. Fail fail fail.

And The Stench of Redemption.

Possessed - Seven Churches

that one EP was decent.

I realize that Negura Bunget has/had a few excellent albums, but 'Om' was a one off classic in the sense that it towered over their other releases and basically destroyed the band. Sometimes material proves too good to follow up.

At the Drive-in--Relationship of Command
Refused--Shape of Punk to Come

Them are a couple of one-off classics. Not metal, but you know.

As someone who dabbles in all genres rather than being super addicted to any one, I'll usually prefer one classic to a bunch of years of "pretty good" (AKA Dark Tranquillity).

those two.

If you knew Annihilator you'd know that there are two albums mentioned in my initial post:



As for Testament, they just got mediocre. After the Legacy they quickly ran out of ideas. The stuff was mediocre - i.e. average. It didn't shine at all.


As for Deicide, sorry but I do think other bands were better at whole DM thing after the self titled album (and even that has duds like Blaspherereion which absolutely grates and it's one of my most hated metal songs of all time).

Personal opinions and all that.

With me it depends on the genre and the band.

I think Dark Tranquillity gets away with "pretty good" because melodic DM seldom does anything exciting anyway and most melodic DM bands are horrifically inconsistent in terms of output quality.

I also think Thrash gets away with pretty good or even just average (e.g. Testament ) cause of the type of genre it is. I seldom hear a Thrash song that I can't enjoy.

Other genres offer smaller potential for greatness or even mediocrity but offer great potential for total shit e.g. Groove Metal. So here the preference is for classic albums.

I agree to some degree
I luv all the discography of the mighty Dark Foggy Forest, but yeah, Om destroys them all and them too! It's one of those albums that makes you proud to being into metal and understand this magnificent music.

But the thread said one album. Plus Set the World on Fire is pretty decent as well.