The Playlist of Life --- Trollheart's resurrected Journal

Unknown Soldier · 10-01-2013, 01:53 PM

so it's finally arrived and I for one will be following with both interest and also with a critical ear.

Btw Brazil has hosted some of the best and most interesting metal bands over the last couple of decades. It always surprises people I guess that a samba loving country like Brazil could've embraced such a genre like metal, but then again the social and economic inequalities inside the country, do actually make it a breeding ground for genuine metal. Just think Sepultura which means tombstone/vault in English and you have one of the angriest and best bands in the history of metal, then there is the other end of the spectrum with a band like Angra who are power metal romantics and a delight on the ear. There are more of course like Violator who you've covered above.

The Batlord · 10-01-2013, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

From their own website, they describe themselves as the "third-world sensation of thrash" --- though in these politically correct time perhaps that should be the "developing world sensation of thrash" --- nah, hasn't got the same ring to it, has it? But they certainly seem to be on a mission to return thrash to its roots, to integrating the underground "DIY" scene with the mainstream in metal, having supported some major names and toured Europe and Asia. But true to their name, rather than conquer the world they want to "annihilate any throne or altar". I have a feeling The Batlord would, or does, love them.

Haven't listened to them and I have no real desire to. The whole new wave of thrash metal is by and large utter ****. Just goofy bands too busy being self-consciously retro and tongue-in-cheek to actually make good music. Real bands make their own music rather than rehash the same Nuclear Assault songs over and over.

If you want some real Brazilian thrash (and I'm sure you don't) then these are far superior.

Ugly and glorious as ****. On a side note one of the members of Sarcofago was the guy on my last avatar.

Trollheart · 10-01-2013, 08:08 PM

US, welcome to the cool side of town! Hope you enjoy yourself here. Kick back, have a beer (or eighteen) and let me know what you think. Don't be afraid to correct any errors I make: as I said in the intro, in the school of metal I'm still very much learning.

Batty, you should know that Sepultura are coming up at some point. I think, I hope, you will find a lot of bands/albums here you would never expect me to listen to. Hell, there are a lot of bands/albums here that I would never expect me to listen to!

First album reviews tomorrow!

Trollheart · 10-02-2013, 09:13 AM

Okay then, time to get this party started properly. And nothing shakes the house and brings out those air guitars better than .... Doom Metal??

Ancient dreams --- Candlemass --- 1986 (Active Records)

I had to wait almost a minute before my dealbreaker was decided: if the singer was a "growler" then I'm afraid you lovely people (except you there, third from the left, second row: you're damn ugly!) would be reading about a different band, and I'd be listening to a different album. I just can't stand growlers. Yeah yeah, we know, Trollheart! Stop going on about it! Well! Sorry for breathing, I'm sure!

Anyhoo, the music as I say goes on for about a minute into the first track before the vocalist comes in, and I really was hoping it would be a singer I could listen to, because I like the hard, grindy metal that I'm hearing, sort of my second only Doom Metal album if you don't count Sabbath. But when Messiah Marcolin begins to sing my fears are assuaged: he's no Ozzy but he's definitely easy enough on the ears, in a metal sense. To be honest he reminds me of Mac MacDonald from Threshold, God rest his soul. "Mirror mirror" gets the album underway with a track not as slow or plodding I'll admit as I had been led to expect from Doom Metal. Anyway it's powerful and heavy, but certainly following the Sabbath formula, with some fine soloing from Lars Johansson though I don't find the percussion as heavy as I might have expected, not on this opener anyway.

Slowing down even more then for "A cry from the crypt", with again a big snarly guitar opening which leads into a faster, galloping fretfest before slowing down again and taking us into the second minute when Marcolin establishes his control over the song with a strong vocal. There's an almost operatic sense about how he sings, and you wonder just how high are the notes he could hit if he wanted to. As in most if not all metal though it's the guitars that paint the scene and Johnasson and rhythm guitarist Mats Bjorkman do a fine job here, while Edling keeps the bass dark and heavy. From starting off slow and doomy the song has increased in tempo by the halfway point, where it slows down again.

"Darkness in Paradise" is good too, though so far I'm seeing these songs all as being basically quite similar, but we'll see how this develops. "Incarnation of evil" has a rather theatrical dark voice at the beginning, and "Bearer of pain" is okay but yeah, everything sounding quite the same now. Good though. Some really nice guitar work here, but I think Doom Metal is going to be hard for me to get really worked up over. Maybe that's the point. There's a great grindy start to the beginning of the title track, actually reminds me of Asia's "Time again" -- bet you never thought you'd hear Doom Metal and Asia mentioned in the same sentence, huh?

Song gets quite epic and dramatic with some lower-register choral vocals, it sounds like, and the guitars are nice and grindy too, while "The bells of Acheron" has an opening straight out of Iommi's playbook, though it does then kick into decent life then on the back of the percussion and chugging guitars. Good to get a little speed in the metal to shake things up a bit. "Epistle no. 81" then returns to the slow plodding style that mostly characterises this album, and for all I know this subgenre, with heavy guitars and doomy slow pounding drums, then there's nothing bad I can say about the Black Sabbath medley that closes the album, including such favourites as "Sweet leaf", "Sabbath bloody sabbath", "Electric funeral" and of course "Black Sabbath", the song that started it all, way back in 1970. Way to pay your dues!

TRACKLISTING

1. Mirror mirror
2. A cry from the crypt
3. Darkness in Paradise
4. Incarnation of evil
5. Bearer of pain
6. Ancient dreams
7. The bells of Acheron
8. Epistle no. 81
9. Black Sabbath medley

I think I became quite bored with this album fairly quickly, when it was made clear that the basic style and melody was really not going to change much. As I said, I know Candlemass are a respected leader in the Doom Metal subgenre, and if they're the best it has to offer I don't hold out too much hope that I will be impressed by others I'm going to look at here. But that doesn't mean it's bad music, just not to my taste. I prefer a little more variety in my metal. Still, for what they do, as I so often say, Candlemass do it very well. They've certainly stood the test of time, still around after nearly thirty years, only a decade less than their heroes.

Further information on Candlemass here Candlemass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Trollheart · 10-02-2013, 10:03 AM

Who says Metal bands don't bother about writing good lyrics? Yeah? Well, chew on this studded fist, buddy! You only have to look at the lyric in the opening song of the debut album of the darkest and most loved Metal band of all time to see how important the words are, or were. Sure, when those first deadly guitar notes rang out you got a chill down your spine because you knew something really "bad" was beginning, and you loved it, but would it have been the same had Ozzy sang about love and peace instead of doom and destruction? Apart from that, it's not just a song of doom that characterises "Black Sabbath", but the deadly, innate fear inside all of us of the Unknown, the recognition of the presence of Evil, and perhaps, just perhaps, the fear of being chosen for something we do not want to be chosen for.

Black Sabbath" (Black Sabbath) 1970, from the album "Black Sabbath"
Music and Lyrics by Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne

When Ozzy sings "What is this that stands before me?" you know he's not looking at anything pleasant, and the dread and fear in his voice, mingled with a dark fascination for the macabre just loads the song with extra purpose. Of course it has survived over forty years now on the basis of its dark, cloying, creeping mysterious horror, the credit for most of which must be given to Tony Iommi and his groundbreaking new way of playing guitar. But when the guitar echoes in the background and Ozzy's voice shivers into the song, that's when it really takes on the mantle of shadowy terror that has resulted in its being one of the classic Metal songs of all time, a marker for future generations that has yet to be passed.

His cry "Find out I'm the chosen one/ Oh no!" evokes the image of someone finding out the depth of the evil that lies in their soul, that they have been selected for a deep, dark purpose and there is nothing they can do to avoid it. To me, it's always been about the Antichrist finding out his destiny, though of course that is probably all allegorical and it's to do with the Vietnam war or something, as Sabbath always maintained they were not connected with, or interested particularly in the occult. But then, the Big Guy is mentioned by name --- "Satan's sitting there/ He's smiling" --- so draw your own conclusions. After four decades I'm sure everyone has their own ideas as to how to interpret the song, and it means different things to different people.

But it's a real classic, of that there can be no doubt.

What is this that stands before me?
Figure in black which points at me.
Turn around quick, and start to run:
Find out I'm the chosen one:
Oh no!

Big black shape with eyes of fire
Telling people their desire.
Satan's sitting there, he's smiling:
Watches those flames get higher and higher.
Oh no, no, please God help me!

Is it the end, my friend?
Satan's coming 'round the bend.
People running 'cause they're scared:
The people better go and beware!
No, no, please, no!

Trollheart · 10-02-2013, 10:58 AM

Never one to suffer a Poseur for any reason, True Metalhead and Defender of the Faith, The Batlord is here to warn the unwary and counsel the young and foolish against falling under the spell of some of the worst bands ever to claim Heavy Metal as their genre. Yes, it's

10. Trivium:

Trivium is an easy target these days, and not entirely without good reason, but they're certainly not the worst offenders of the melodic metalcore/deathcore scene. After all they're not the only band to mix thrash with dull metalcore to try to trick foolish youngsters who wouldn't know Exodus if they walked up and dropped their ten pound ballsack in their mouth, but they are pretty much the band to popularize this, and I think that any poseurs worth talking about are notable for their influence as well as their posing.

It can perhaps be argued that, while misguided, they are at least honest with their "innovations". With their The Crusade and Shogun albums Trivium legitimately tried to evolve into something more respectable, but subsequent efforts have returned to bargain basement metalcore masquerading as thrash and proven that they have neither the integrity nor the balls to take the leap. Fucking poseurs.

9. Slipknot:

Slipknot aren't the worst band on Earth by any stretch of the imagination, but for what they are I think they deserve a place on the list. They pretty much play "extreme metal" for people who don't know what extreme metal is and wouldn't like it if they did. And then there's the imagery: goats and not-quite-pentagrams meant to imply Satanism but not so much that they won't get stocked at Walmart, shock rock-lite masks and boiler suits to scare all the little tweens, and silly rhetoric that just comes across as watered-down black metal posturing.

8. Dimmu Borgir:

All right, real talk? I've never really listened to much Dimmu. Whenever I've listened to them in the past they always just bored the snot outta me. I was never the biggest fan of Norwegian black metal in the first place, but when you water it down to the point where it becomes a soulless impersonation of the genre then I'm asleep. Throw in symphonic keyboards so tasteless, overdone, and overbearing that it feels like the symphonic black metal equivalent of smoking a menthol cigarette (shut up, it makes sense) and Emperor starts looking mighty good.

7. Poison:

Honestly I don't really know much about Poison's history so I don't know if they brought glam metal to any new lows or anything, but all I know is that they're pretty much the poster boys for everything that was goofy about hair bands. "Look What the Cat Dragged In" aside, their music was about as deballsified as it was possible to be without being Michael Bolton and their "look" took the hair band self-parody to its logical conclusion (although to be fair, you know you'd probably take eighties Bret Michales home after a few too many shots of tequila.)

Trollheart · 10-02-2013, 11:05 AM

6. Motorhead:

Psyche! If you actually thought Lemmy was a poseur then you just made the list.

5. Linkin Park:
(Trollheart: This band suck so much I couldn't find a reasonably small picture of them! This is the smallest I could find: one was five thousand pixels! Yeah, that's what I said...)

The name should tell you all you need to know about how much this bands blows. Nu metal was all set to die and then comes along these asshats sounding like a whinier version of Limp Bizkit. Seriously has anyone actually listened to "One Step Closer" past the age of twenty? I heard it on the radio a year or so ago and almost shit myself laughing at how unintentionally hilarious it was. That song might just be the biggest abortion this side of "Droppin' Plates".

And what the fuck is up with that "rapper"? He's actually worse than Fred Durst. How do you even do that?

4. Bring Me the Horizon:

(Trollheart: Same with these. Wait a minute, I'm making a connection here. The crappier and more Poseur the band, the bigger photos their fans have to put up on the net to compensate for the awful music they play...)

There's certainly a testicle load of shitty deathcore bands out there, but most are at least genuine in their attempt to "bring death metal forward" (i.e. suck) Bring Me the Horizon however are the biggest steaming pile of poseur in the fringecore scene. For on, though they may be called deathcore all they've really done is awkwardly weld some earlobe-stretchingly derivative death metal influences onto the dullest possible melodic metalcore. Lyrically they're even worse. They can try to throw in some tough guy bug snot all they want, but the none-more-emo, honey-hide-the-razor-blades-and-the-Aspirin-I-think-Jimmy's-crying-in-his-room-again shite in their songs belies the truth.

P.S. Whoever thought up the name "Bring Me the Horizon" should be made to eat a peanut butter and dead spider sandwich.

P.P.S. Oli Sykes is an emo fashion designer. Not to sound like a Neanderthal, but fashionistas are gay.

3. Mötley Crüe:

It pains me to include the Crüe, but poseurs is poseurs. Their first two releases were some of my all-time favorite albums and, for better or worse, helped to inspire a genre of music that would leave its mark upon the world with a trail of empty syringes and deflowered virgins. But having accomplished this they decided to become parodies of themselves, release two shamefully mediocre albums, and use their careers merely as a means to acquire as many controlled substances as they could possibly drink, snort, and inject into their veins. The last is normally a laudable goal, but under the circumstances...not so much. And most egregious of all they unleashed the hair metal power ballad upon the world (yeah, yeah, we all secretly like "Home Sweet Home" but you can't deny that it has been responsible for a great deal of evil.)

They redeemed themselves a bit with Dr. Feelgood, and though it was still rather poseurish, it at least had the decency to kick a relatively sufficient amount of ass. And extra points to Nikki Sixx for using his heroin overdose to write one of the greatest feel-good (

) party anthems of all time.

And to follow up a seeming victory they proceeded to record two...something-or-other albums in a pathetically desperate attempt to stay relevant after the fall of glam. Honestly I don't even know how to talk about those albums cause I can't even bring myself to listen to the damn things all the way through.

And fuck Tommy Lee. (Trollheart: I thought he was quite good in "The Fugitive" to be honest, and he didn't totally suck in "Men in Black" either...)

2. Limp Bizkit:

It's kinda pointless to even mention these twats. I know they're poseurs, you know they're poseurs, hell, even Fred Durst probably thinks Limp Bizkit sucks. But leaving them off the list would be like leaving Manowar's Kings of Metal off one of Rolling Stone Magazine's best albums of all time list. There's not much to say honestly, in as artless a way as possible they combine shitty alt-metal with rap so atrocious that the Insane Clown Posse are jealous while Fred Durst proceeds to take a dump in your ear canal.

1. Varg Vikernes:

This might seem like an odd choice since Burzum's music is pretty much the antithesis of poseur music, which is why I said Varg and not Burzum, because Varg's attention seeking behavior qualifies him as the world's biggest fucking poseur.

So far as I can tell the whole black metal "Evil" schtick was started by Euronymous of Mayhem and not Varg, but Euronymous just kind of seems like a creepy goofball with too much time on his hands whereas Varg took the idea and really ran with it. But talking about evil wasn't enough so he wanted to show the rest of the black metal clique just what an alpha wolf he was so he went and burned a few churches, which of course led his retard friends to do the same. Not content with this level of attention seeking he then contacted the media and basically said, "Not that I've burned any churches or anything, but if I had..." When this of course blew up in his face and he, shockingly, found himself arrested for arson, he apparently decided that evil and Satanism were passé, so he now "one-upped" himself and all of a sudden he was now an Odinist-neo-Nazi.

If that wasn't poseurish enough his historical revisionism is more than sufficient to land him in the "Poseur Hall of Fame". Over the years he's claimed to have been misquoted, his activities exaggerated, and that downright lies have been told about him. The church burnings were not in fact the work of a bored, disturbed youth looking for a cheap thrill, they were an act of righteous terrorism against the Christian church that had destroyed the culture and religion of his Viking ancestors. Never mind the fact that no one who knows Varg can remember him being an Odinist nationalist at the time. And apparently he's been a Nazi since he was a kid and was even a skinhead as a teen. It's strange then that, again, nobody remembers this. Not even his own mother.

So not only is Varg Vikernes a murdering psychopath, he's also the world's biggest fucking poseur to boot.

Unknown Soldier · 10-02-2013, 03:42 PM

Candlemass- You really listened to the wrong album here, because the two before it Epicus Doomicus Metallicus and Nightfall are far better albums and are considered classics of the genre.

Black Sabbath- The debut has one of the best a-sides ever, but the b-side is mostly filler.

Batlord's list- Agree with nearly all the entries on there.

As for A's- You could add Agent Steel, Anacrusis, Angel Witch and Armored Saint.

The Batlord · 10-02-2013, 05:03 PM

@ Trollheart

I'm guessing you're not the type to listen to your music at too high a decibel. If you wanna listen to doom metal then you've gotta turn it up. A proper doom riff registers as a 8.3 on the Richter Scale and crushes your face against the floor with the weight of a red giant star.

Trollheart · 10-02-2013, 06:42 PM

Never, Neverland --- Annihilator --- 1990 (Roadrunner)

The second album from Canada's biggest Thrash Metal band is considered something of a classic of the genre. I'm not that familiar with Annihilator --- which is to say, not at all --- but with a name like that I think I can imagine what to expect. Perhaps I'm wrong though: has to happen sometime! So let's hit play and see what assault our ears end up enduring.

Good hard-hitting guitar intro to "The fun palace", which also looks to be the longest track on the album, just shy of six minutes. Nice sort of marching beat to it with a great little guitar solo and then the vocal is not bad at all. Glad to hear that Coburn Pharr (seriously? He couldn't get a more metal name than that? Sounds like some pop icon!) is not a growler, his voice something of a cross between David Coverdale and Sammy Hagar but a lot heavier. Great guitar work from Jeff Waters and David Scott Davis, with Pharr hitting something of a falsetto about halfway in, then a solo worthy of any southern rock band you can think of and we're heading onto "Road to ruin", which hammers along nicely and reminds me of "Two minutes to midnight" in places.

Some fine drumming from Ray Hartmann drives the song along and there are more great guitar solos, though when Pharr sings he definitely commands the attention. A nice chimy, jangly guitar starts off "Sixes and sevens", before faster harder electric kicks in and the whole thing gets really rockin'. The song runs for over five minutes and it's well into its second before Pharr comes in with the vocal, a harder, more rapid-fire delivery than he's done previously, elements of punk in the style. Kind of reminds me of Tank too. Superb solo here, just amazing. Even so, not my favourite track on the album, even so far.

"Stonewall" is more the kind of thing I like, just belting along on fast heavy guitar and surely great for headbanging to, for those of us who still have hair... Nice little introspective guitar piece before it heads back into the heavy stuff, then the title track doesn't disappoint with a real fretfest to start off with, galloping percussion and a somehow progressive metal vibe before it goes back right into a deep Thrash Metal groove, down and dirty. The song kind of wavers between the two styles, which really is quite interesting to hear. It ends on a slow chimy guitar fadeout and takes us into "Imperiled eyes" (odd title) with some more start/stop guitar that kind of reminds me of Yes (!) and some acoustic thrown in so haphazardly you almost feel your file is corrupt and you're getting music from another album sandwiched in here.

It soon sorts itself out though and heads off on a pure metal track, a gruff, powerful vocal from Pharr before the odd sensitive guitar returns for a few seconds, blown away by hard electric then it comes back again and it's almost like there's a battle going on between the two. Another superb guitar solo (well I think it's two guitars but let's still call it a solo) as the song heads into its final minute. I don't know what "Kraf dinner" means but it's another rocker, heads-down thrashfest and I think it's meant to be something of a joke song. Good and heavy though. "Phantasmagoria" has almost two minutes of power instrumental before the vocal comes in, and then it just gets better. The lyric is hilarious --- "Don't you know that ghosts never rest?" and "Phantasmagoria: sleep well! / Phantasmagoria: in Hell!"

"Reduced to ashes" is another great metal rocker with some finger-burnin' fret action and the album then closes on "I am in command", which doesn't allow the pace to slow down for a second even as we head towards the final minutes of the album. Driving, punching guitars, rattling drums and another rapid-fire vocal delivery put the finishing touches on a really great album, proving Canada can headbang with the best of them.

TRACKLISTING

1. The fun palace
2. Road to ruin
3. Sixes and sevens
4. Stonewall
5. Never, Neverland
6. Imperiled eyes
7. Kraf dinner
8. Phantasmagoria
9. Reduced to ash
10. I am in command

Yeah, I really like this! I can see how it's so highly rated. The album is in fact so revered in the band's catalogue and in Canadian Thrash Metal circles that it has been rereleased twice, once in 1993 and once in 2003. Sad to say Coburn Pharr left Annihilator after this album, so I don't know what the other albums sounded like vocally, but I definitely intend to put them on the (ever-growing) list. Who says Canadians are only good for progressive rock, huh?

Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilator_%28band%29

10-01-2013, 08:08 PM	#1903 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	US, welcome to the cool side of town! Hope you enjoy yourself here. Kick back, have a beer (or eighteen) and let me know what you think. Don't be afraid to correct any errors I make: as I said in the intro, in the school of metal I'm still very much learning. Batty, you should know that Sepultura are coming up at some point. I think, I hope, you will find a lot of bands/albums here you would never expect me to listen to. Hell, there are a lot of bands/albums here that I would never expect me to listen to! First album reviews tomorrow! __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-02-2013, 09:13 AM	#1904 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	Okay then, time to get this party started properly. And nothing shakes the house and brings out those air guitars better than .... *Doom Metal??* Ancient dreams --- Candlemass --- 1986 (Active Records) I had to wait almost a minute before my dealbreaker was decided: if the singer was a "growler" then I'm afraid you lovely people (except you there, third from the left, second row: you're damn ugly!) would be reading about a different band, and I'd be listening to a different album. I just can't stand growlers. Yeah yeah, we know, Trollheart! Stop going on about it! Well! Sorry for breathing, I'm sure! Anyhoo, the music as I say goes on for about a minute into the first track before the vocalist comes in, and I really was hoping it would be a singer I could listen to, because I like the hard, grindy metal that I'm hearing, sort of my second only Doom Metal album if you don't count Sabbath. But when Messiah Marcolin begins to sing my fears are assuaged: he's no Ozzy but he's definitely easy enough on the ears, in a metal sense. To be honest he reminds me of Mac MacDonald from Threshold, God rest his soul. "Mirror mirror" gets the album underway with a track not as slow or plodding I'll admit as I had been led to expect from Doom Metal. Anyway it's powerful and heavy, but certainly following the Sabbath formula, with some fine soloing from Lars Johansson though I don't find the percussion as heavy as I might have expected, not on this opener anyway. Slowing down even more then for "A cry from the crypt", with again a big snarly guitar opening which leads into a faster, galloping fretfest before slowing down again and taking us into the second minute when Marcolin establishes his control over the song with a strong vocal. There's an almost operatic sense about how he sings, and you wonder just how high are the notes he could hit if he wanted to. As in most if not all metal though it's the guitars that paint the scene and Johnasson and rhythm guitarist Mats Bjorkman do a fine job here, while Edling keeps the bass dark and heavy. From starting off slow and doomy the song has increased in tempo by the halfway point, where it slows down again. "Darkness in Paradise" is good too, though so far I'm seeing these songs all as being basically quite similar, but we'll see how this develops. "Incarnation of evil" has a rather theatrical dark voice at the beginning, and "Bearer of pain" is okay but yeah, everything sounding quite the same now. Good though. Some really nice guitar work here, but I think Doom Metal is going to be hard for me to get really worked up over. Maybe that's the point. There's a great grindy start to the beginning of the title track, actually reminds me of Asia's "Time again" -- bet you never thought you'd hear Doom Metal and Asia mentioned in the same sentence, huh? Song gets quite epic and dramatic with some lower-register choral vocals, it sounds like, and the guitars are nice and grindy too, while "The bells of Acheron" has an opening straight out of Iommi's playbook, though it does then kick into decent life then on the back of the percussion and chugging guitars. Good to get a little speed in the metal to shake things up a bit. "Epistle no. 81" then returns to the slow plodding style that mostly characterises this album, and for all I know this subgenre, with heavy guitars and doomy slow pounding drums, then there's nothing bad I can say about the Black Sabbath medley that closes the album, including such favourites as "Sweet leaf", "Sabbath bloody sabbath", "Electric funeral" and of course "Black Sabbath", the song that started it all, way back in 1970. Way to pay your dues! TRACKLISTING 1. Mirror mirror 2. A cry from the crypt 3. Darkness in Paradise 4. Incarnation of evil 5. Bearer of pain 6. Ancient dreams 7. The bells of Acheron 8. Epistle no. 81 9. Black Sabbath medley I think I became quite bored with this album fairly quickly, when it was made clear that the basic style and melody was really not going to change much. As I said, I know Candlemass are a respected leader in the Doom Metal subgenre, and if they're the best it has to offer I don't hold out too much hope that I will be impressed by others I'm going to look at here. But that doesn't mean it's bad music, just not to my taste. I prefer a little more variety in my metal. Still, for what they do, as I so often say, Candlemass do it very well. They've certainly stood the test of time, still around after nearly thirty years, only a decade less than their heroes. Further information on Candlemass here Candlemass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018 Last edited by Trollheart; 10-22-2013 at 04:28 PM.

10-02-2013, 10:03 AM	#1905 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	Who says Metal bands don't bother about writing good lyrics? Yeah? Well, chew on this studded fist, buddy! You only have to look at the lyric in the opening song of the debut album of the darkest and most loved Metal band of all time to see how important the words are, or were. Sure, when those first deadly guitar notes rang out you got a chill down your spine because you knew something really "bad" was beginning, and you loved it, but would it have been the same had Ozzy sang about love and peace instead of doom and destruction? Apart from that, it's not just a song of doom that characterises "Black Sabbath", but the deadly, innate fear inside all of us of the Unknown, the recognition of the presence of Evil, and perhaps, just perhaps, the fear of being chosen for something we do not want to be chosen for. Black Sabbath" (Black Sabbath) 1970, from the album "Black Sabbath" Music and Lyrics by Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne When Ozzy sings "What is this that stands before me?" you know he's not looking at anything pleasant, and the dread and fear in his voice, mingled with a dark fascination for the macabre just loads the song with extra purpose. Of course it has survived over forty years now on the basis of its dark, cloying, creeping mysterious horror, the credit for most of which must be given to Tony Iommi and his groundbreaking new way of playing guitar. But when the guitar echoes in the background and Ozzy's voice shivers into the song, that's when it really takes on the mantle of shadowy terror that has resulted in its being one of the classic Metal songs of all time, a marker for future generations that has yet to be passed. His cry "Find out I'm the chosen one/ Oh no!" evokes the image of someone finding out the depth of the evil that lies in their soul, that they have been selected for a deep, dark purpose and there is nothing they can do to avoid it. To me, it's always been about the Antichrist finding out his destiny, though of course that is probably all allegorical and it's to do with the Vietnam war or something, as Sabbath always maintained they were not connected with, or interested particularly in the occult. But then, the Big Guy is mentioned by name --- "Satan's sitting there/ He's smiling" --- so draw your own conclusions. After four decades I'm sure everyone has their own ideas as to how to interpret the song, and it means different things to different people. But it's a real classic, of that there can be no doubt. What is this that stands before me? Figure in black which points at me. Turn around quick, and start to run: Find out I'm the chosen one: Oh no! Big black shape with eyes of fire Telling people their desire. Satan's sitting there, he's smiling: Watches those flames get higher and higher. Oh no, no, please God help me! Is it the end, my friend? Satan's coming 'round the bend. People running 'cause they're scared: The people better go and beware! No, no, please, no! __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018 Last edited by Trollheart; 09-29-2014 at 02:53 PM.

10-02-2013, 10:58 AM	#1906 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	Never one to suffer a Poseur for any reason, True Metalhead and Defender of the Faith, The Batlord is here to warn the unwary and counsel the young and foolish against falling under the spell of some of the worst bands ever to claim Heavy Metal as their genre. Yes, it's 10. Trivium: Trivium is an easy target these days, and not entirely without good reason, but they're certainly not the worst offenders of the melodic metalcore/deathcore scene. After all they're not the only band to mix thrash with dull metalcore to try to trick foolish youngsters who wouldn't know Exodus if they walked up and dropped their ten pound ballsack in their mouth, but they are pretty much the band to popularize this, and I think that any poseurs worth talking about are notable for their influence as well as their posing. It can perhaps be argued that, while misguided, they are at least honest with their "innovations". With their The Crusade and Shogun albums Trivium legitimately tried to evolve into something more respectable, but subsequent efforts have returned to bargain basement metalcore masquerading as thrash and proven that they have neither the integrity nor the balls to take the leap. Fucking poseurs. 9. Slipknot: Slipknot aren't the worst band on Earth by any stretch of the imagination, but for what they are I think they deserve a place on the list. They pretty much play "extreme metal" for people who don't know what extreme metal is and wouldn't like it if they did. And then there's the imagery: goats and not-quite-pentagrams meant to imply Satanism but not so much that they won't get stocked at Walmart, shock rock-lite masks and boiler suits to scare all the little tweens, and silly rhetoric that just comes across as watered-down black metal posturing. 8. Dimmu Borgir: All right, real talk? I've never really listened to much Dimmu. Whenever I've listened to them in the past they always just bored the snot outta me. I was never the biggest fan of Norwegian black metal in the first place, but when you water it down to the point where it becomes a soulless impersonation of the genre then I'm asleep. Throw in symphonic keyboards so tasteless, overdone, and overbearing that it feels like the symphonic black metal equivalent of smoking a menthol cigarette (shut up, it makes sense) and Emperor starts looking mighty good. 7. Poison: Honestly I don't really know much about Poison's history so I don't know if they brought glam metal to any new lows or anything, but all I know is that they're pretty much the poster boys for everything that was goofy about hair bands. "Look What the Cat Dragged In" aside, their music was about as deballsified as it was possible to be without being Michael Bolton and their "look" took the hair band self-parody to its logical conclusion (although to be fair, you know you'd probably take eighties Bret Michales home after a few too many shots of tequila.) __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018 Last edited by Trollheart; 10-02-2013 at 01:16 PM.

10-02-2013, 11:05 AM	#1907 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	6. Motorhead: Psyche! If you actually thought Lemmy was a poseur then you just made the list. 5. Linkin Park: (Trollheart: This band suck so much I couldn't find a reasonably small picture of them! This is the smallest I could find: one was five thousand pixels! Yeah, that's what I said...) The name should tell you all you need to know about how much this bands blows. Nu metal was all set to die and then comes along these asshats sounding like a whinier version of Limp Bizkit. Seriously has anyone actually listened to "One Step Closer" past the age of twenty? I heard it on the radio a year or so ago and almost shit myself laughing at how unintentionally hilarious it was. That song might just be the biggest abortion this side of "Droppin' Plates". And what the fuck is up with that "rapper"? He's actually worse than Fred Durst. How do you even do that? 4. Bring Me the Horizon: (Trollheart: Same with these. Wait a minute, I'm making a connection here. The crappier and more Poseur the band, the bigger photos their fans have to put up on the net to compensate for the awful music they play...) There's certainly a testicle load of shitty deathcore bands out there, but most are at least genuine in their attempt to "bring death metal forward" (i.e. suck) Bring Me the Horizon however are the biggest steaming pile of poseur in the fringecore scene. For on, though they may be called deathcore all they've really done is awkwardly weld some earlobe-stretchingly derivative death metal influences onto the dullest possible melodic metalcore. Lyrically they're even worse. They can try to throw in some tough guy bug snot all they want, but the none-more-emo, honey-hide-the-razor-blades-and-the-Aspirin-I-think-Jimmy's-crying-in-his-room-again shite in their songs belies the truth. P.S. Whoever thought up the name "Bring Me the Horizon" should be made to eat a peanut butter and dead spider sandwich. P.P.S. Oli Sykes is an emo fashion designer. Not to sound like a Neanderthal, but fashionistas are gay. 3. Mötley Crüe: It pains me to include the Crüe, but poseurs is poseurs. Their first two releases were some of my all-time favorite albums and, for better or worse, helped to inspire a genre of music that would leave its mark upon the world with a trail of empty syringes and deflowered virgins. But having accomplished this they decided to become parodies of themselves, release two shamefully mediocre albums, and use their careers merely as a means to acquire as many controlled substances as they could possibly drink, snort, and inject into their veins. The last is normally a laudable goal, but under the circumstances...not so much. And most egregious of all they unleashed the hair metal power ballad upon the world (yeah, yeah, we all secretly like "Home Sweet Home" but you can't deny that it has been responsible for a great deal of evil.) They redeemed themselves a bit with Dr. Feelgood, and though it was still rather poseurish, it at least had the decency to kick a relatively sufficient amount of ass. And extra points to Nikki Sixx for using his heroin overdose to write one of the greatest feel-good () party anthems of all time. And to follow up a seeming victory they proceeded to record two...something-or-other albums in a pathetically desperate attempt to stay relevant after the fall of glam. Honestly I don't even know how to talk about those albums cause I can't even bring myself to listen to the damn things all the way through. And fuck Tommy Lee. (Trollheart: I thought he was quite good in "The Fugitive" to be honest, and he didn't totally suck in "Men in Black" either...) 2. Limp Bizkit: It's kinda pointless to even mention these twats. I know they're poseurs, you know they're poseurs, hell, even Fred Durst probably thinks Limp Bizkit sucks. But leaving them off the list would be like leaving Manowar's Kings of Metal off one of Rolling Stone Magazine's best albums of all time list. There's not much to say honestly, in as artless a way as possible they combine shitty alt-metal with rap so atrocious that the Insane Clown Posse are jealous while Fred Durst proceeds to take a dump in your ear canal. 1. Varg Vikernes: This might seem like an odd choice since Burzum's music is pretty much the antithesis of poseur music, which is why I said Varg and not Burzum, because Varg's attention seeking behavior qualifies him as the world's biggest fucking poseur. So far as I can tell the whole black metal "Evil" schtick was started by Euronymous of Mayhem and not Varg, but Euronymous just kind of seems like a creepy goofball with too much time on his hands whereas Varg took the idea and really ran with it. But talking about evil wasn't enough so he wanted to show the rest of the black metal clique just what an alpha wolf he was so he went and burned a few churches, which of course led his retard friends to do the same. Not content with this level of attention seeking he then contacted the media and basically said, "Not that I've burned any churches or anything, but if I had..." When this of course blew up in his face and he, shockingly, found himself arrested for arson, he apparently decided that evil and Satanism were passé, so he now "one-upped" himself and all of a sudden he was now an Odinist-neo-Nazi. If that wasn't poseurish enough his historical revisionism is more than sufficient to land him in the "Poseur Hall of Fame". Over the years he's claimed to have been misquoted, his activities exaggerated, and that downright lies have been told about him. The church burnings were not in fact the work of a bored, disturbed youth looking for a cheap thrill, they were an act of righteous terrorism against the Christian church that had destroyed the culture and religion of his Viking ancestors. Never mind the fact that no one who knows Varg can remember him being an Odinist nationalist at the time. And apparently he's been a Nazi since he was a kid and was even a skinhead as a teen. It's strange then that, again, nobody remembers this. Not even his own mother. So not only is Varg Vikernes a murdering psychopath, he's also the world's biggest fucking poseur to boot. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

10-02-2013, 06:42 PM	#1910 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	Never, Neverland --- Annihilator --- 1990 (Roadrunner) The second album from Canada's biggest Thrash Metal band is considered something of a classic of the genre. I'm not that familiar with Annihilator --- which is to say, not at all --- but with a name like that I think I can imagine what to expect. Perhaps I'm wrong though: has to happen sometime! So let's hit play and see what assault our ears end up enduring. Good hard-hitting guitar intro to "The fun palace", which also looks to be the longest track on the album, just shy of six minutes. Nice sort of marching beat to it with a great little guitar solo and then the vocal is not bad at all. Glad to hear that Coburn Pharr (seriously? He couldn't get a more metal name than that? Sounds like some pop icon!) is not a growler, his voice something of a cross between David Coverdale and Sammy Hagar but a lot heavier. Great guitar work from Jeff Waters and David Scott Davis, with Pharr hitting something of a falsetto about halfway in, then a solo worthy of any southern rock band you can think of and we're heading onto "Road to ruin", which hammers along nicely and reminds me of "Two minutes to midnight" in places. Some fine drumming from Ray Hartmann drives the song along and there are more great guitar solos, though when Pharr sings he definitely commands the attention. A nice chimy, jangly guitar starts off "Sixes and sevens", before faster harder electric kicks in and the whole thing gets really rockin'. The song runs for over five minutes and it's well into its second before Pharr comes in with the vocal, a harder, more rapid-fire delivery than he's done previously, elements of punk in the style. Kind of reminds me of Tank too. Superb solo here, just amazing. Even so, not my favourite track on the album, even so far. "Stonewall" is more the kind of thing I like, just belting along on fast heavy guitar and surely great for headbanging to, for those of us who still have hair... Nice little introspective guitar piece before it heads back into the heavy stuff, then the title track doesn't disappoint with a real fretfest to start off with, galloping percussion and a somehow progressive metal vibe before it goes back right into a deep Thrash Metal groove, down and dirty. The song kind of wavers between the two styles, which really is quite interesting to hear. It ends on a slow chimy guitar fadeout and takes us into "Imperiled eyes" (odd title) with some more start/stop guitar that kind of reminds me of Yes (!) and some acoustic thrown in so haphazardly you almost feel your file is corrupt and you're getting music from another album sandwiched in here. It soon sorts itself out though and heads off on a pure metal track, a gruff, powerful vocal from Pharr before the odd sensitive guitar returns for a few seconds, blown away by hard electric then it comes back again and it's almost like there's a battle going on between the two. Another superb guitar solo (well I think it's two guitars but let's still call it a solo) as the song heads into its final minute. I don't know what "Kraf dinner" means but it's another rocker, heads-down thrashfest and I think it's meant to be something of a joke song. Good and heavy though. "Phantasmagoria" has almost two minutes of power instrumental before the vocal comes in, and then it just gets better. The lyric is hilarious --- "Don't you know that ghosts never rest?" and "Phantasmagoria: sleep well! / Phantasmagoria: in Hell!" "Reduced to ashes" is another great metal rocker with some finger-burnin' fret action and the album then closes on "I am in command", which doesn't allow the pace to slow down for a second even as we head towards the final minutes of the album. Driving, punching guitars, rattling drums and another rapid-fire vocal delivery put the finishing touches on a really great album, proving Canada can headbang with the best of them. TRACKLISTING 1. The fun palace 2. Road to ruin 3. Sixes and sevens 4. Stonewall 5. Never, Neverland 6. Imperiled eyes 7. Kraf dinner 8. Phantasmagoria 9. Reduced to ash 10. I am in command Yeah, I really like this! I can see how it's so highly rated. The album is in fact so revered in the band's catalogue and in Canadian Thrash Metal circles that it has been rereleased twice, once in 1993 and once in 2003. Sad to say Coburn Pharr left Annihilator after this album, so I don't know what the other albums sounded like vocally, but I definitely intend to put them on the (ever-growing) list. Who says Canadians are only good for progressive rock, huh? Read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilator_%28band%29 __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018 Last edited by Trollheart; 10-22-2013 at 04:29 PM.