Metal Reviews

I wonder, leaving aside the very raw types of black metal, can an "unrefined" production make an album actually better?
Sometimes I listen to great albums that I know they have a good music, but they suck...
But on the other hand albums like -
Covenant - In time before the light
Opeth - Morningrise
...sound just unique and perfect as they are.
Any other examples?

I really like modern production, and I'll almost always prefer the most contemporary recording technology to be used. So I don't normally mind re-recordings, like for example I think Testament's First Strike Still Deadly is pretty cool.

I think it's especially true for the more extreme genres like Grind and Brutal Death because you really need to be able to hear what notes the band are playing in order to make sense from the chaos.

So most of the time I would say better production = better album.

But with that said, and to answer your question directly there are a few albums that, for whatever reason, sound perfect with their raw charm.

The example that comes immediately to mind is Bonded by Blood. I think it shits all over the re-recording they did. It has a charm that all the technology in the world couldn't recreate.

Old Destruction is a million times better than new. That old school rawness added to the atmosphere of the albums. The re-recording they did was bland and kinda boring. Same with Tankards.

Now that you mention it, the German thrash scene in general. Old sodom and kreator certainly have their charm. Although in terms of sound I do personally prefer the slightly later albums like Extreme Aggression and Agent Orange. They provide a good balance between raw and polished, whereas I think going back further than that the albums suffer a little from the sound quality, particularly in the case of Sodom.

I much prefer the first few Sodom (In the Sign and Obsessed, even Witching Metal) both quality wise and sound production wise.

Strangely, Destruction's Sentence of Death (aside from a few tracks) suffered for it. Infernal Overkill is a massive step up.

Depending on the guitar tuning of a particular band, the atmosphere intended and the emotion (colours) evoked, and ultimately the purpose of the sound created... production will eventually matter!

Fuck no. There's no excuse for amateur bullshit, which is actually rare because even a lo-fi quality sounding recording is engineered to death to sound that way. That must be what you mean, right?

uhhh i'm listening to under the sign of hell right now and the original recording sounds a million times better than the lame re-recording. there's a lot of black metal that if it had some lame deathcore production would sound horrible compared to the lo-fi sound.

I grew up in an era where unsigned—and even some signed—bands rarely could afford quality production, so I don't mind it at all. Some shit is simply so poorly recorded that it's barely listenable, but a raw, less-than-pristine production doesn't bother me.

And this is from a dude who calls Def Leppard's Hysteria his all-time favorite album. Haha.

I enjoy raw production now and then, usually with newer up and coming bands that don't have any other albums to compare it to. There is also something to be said about a band that releases a quality album with less than stellar production because they couldn't afford more. It gives it that "blue collar" feel.

That said, established bands that are simply trying to go retro for the sake artistry (or whatever) usually don't ring true for me.

Oh, and St. Anger.

St Anger is not bad production, it's no production at all and Lars having the usual difficulties of making his drum kit sound like an actual drum kit (remember AJFA?).

Bad production is good for raw, unpolished, aggressive music but you gotta have good songs (or good music) to make it work.

He may be bat-shit, but he's pretty on the ball here. There's "raw" or "unpolished" production, which works for some bands, then there's bad, which works for none.

I think And Justice for All is the best Lars has ever sounded and played. His drumming was brilliant on that album, and I loved the tone.

But really? Can we blame the musicians for this stuff? You can blame Metallica for St. Anger, but not Justice. I don't know that they were popular enough back then to have such control in the studio and during the mix. Maybe they did though.

Still think Justice sounds awesome.

Crappy production always bugs me, but sometimes I'll put up with it. I don't think rawness/energy/atmosphere and clarity are mutually exclusive.

I prefer crappy production for more extreme metal genres.
I hate it when a thrash, black, or death metal album sounds too overproduced.

Like Noodles said, there's a difference between overproduced and clear.

An album isn't automatically overproduced just because you can tell hear what all the instruments are playing.

Nothing wrong with some good ole fashioned low fi production, bands like Darkthrone and early Swedish death utilized it without any hitch and made their respective aesthetics noteworthy for that very reason.

I strongly dislike modern production and I hate remastered albums. It's incredibly rare that I can find an album released in recent years that has impressed me production-wise, it's all been negative as far as I'm concerned.

When I go through my album collection, I would say right around the mid 90s is when everything went sour. Plastic sounding drums and overkill amounts of compression is enough to really turn me off from modern music.

A lot of albums that are considered to have "weak" production I feel actually have strong production. I'm not talking about when black metal bands purposely sabotage the production, but I love hearing a nice organic production that is dynamic and lively, in which instruments stand out on their own rather than having everything super compressed sounding glued together in a wall of sound.

I would point to To Mega Therion as the perfect example of clear production that can still sound raw and not over produced. So many albums from the eighties were simply not very well produced, and ended up spawning a 'sound' by accident, methinks.

word.