Trollheart

I've checked and confirmed there are no duplications (other than Norg's triple post which was ignored and which he later reposted properly) and I'll be keeping an eye on this to make sure nobody doubles up.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

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96. Dopesmoker aka Jerusalem by Sleep

Not sure what to list as the release date for this given all the different versions, but regardless of the version, the result is the same. Heavily inspired by the Melvins' epic drone masterpiece Lysol, Sleep's desert doom epic is an hour and three minutes (that time is shortened considerably on Jerusalem) of doom riffs, booming vocals, and lengthy guitar solos, and that is it. It is borderline-drone metal, a turnoff for some, but the booming instrumentation and the epic tale of a group of robbed figures navigating a desert planet while smoking weed is irresistable for a majority of listeners. You will not find an album that is heavier than this and as atmospheric.



I think everybody will agree that the 2012 Southern Lord reissue of Dopesmoker is the best version by a wide margin, but Jerusalem is sort of worth checking out for its unique production, even if there are a total of a few minutes of material missing from the latter.

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The Batlord

Kind of hard to describe this bitch. I guess it's kind of like the Ride the Lightning of stoner metal: certainly part of its genre, but with such an eclectic collection of songs that just calling it stoner metal doesn't quite do it justice. You've got stoner doom in "The Blue", the pure Sabbath-meets-hardcore-punk stoner of "Tranquilized", flirtations with death metal and death/doom on "Jezebel" and "Dr. Seuss Is Dead", and one of the most nihilistically beautiful ballads in existence with "Scream of the Butterfly". Their singer is also an integral part of their sound. His tortured screams are present and correct, but he has a clean singing voice somehow even more horrific, mocking in its morbid delight at the disturbing tales it reveals.

This record is a towering monument of stoner metal that completely eclipses all but the very finest of its competitors; a masterpiece with unique songs that are catchy as sin, creepy as ****, and that will make your head bang right off its neck with or without your consent. If you have any love for stoner or just metal in general then you owe it to yourself to listen to this albums five times in a row ... now ... right now. Go away and blast this **** already, *******!


Unfortunately, there are like no Youtube videos of either any single songs or the entire album on Youtube, so here's a Grooveshark link. Enjoy.

Grooveshark: Acid Bath - When the Kite String Pops

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The Batlord

TBH this is an album I didn't really dig for the longest time, and there's so much going on that it's hard for my Philistine head to wrap my head around even though I've listened to it about ten times in the last two days. Regardless, it just sounds so ****ing cool.

It's a clear influence on bands like Opeth and Between the Buried and Me with its constantly shifting styles: old school technical death metal, prog metal/rock, jazz-fusion, all with some strange vocoder vocals to enhance that feeling that this album was beamed straight from space... often all in a single song, creating a schizophrenic record that boggles the mind with its eclectic eccentricity. I should hate this, and it's certainly hard to pick favs due to song structures that make little if any sense, but again, it just sounds so ****ing cool.

Many of their contemporary "progressive death metal" bands like Atheist and Pestilence tended to play relatively straight death metal before dropping oddball influences somewhere around the halfway mark, creating the illusion of experimentation while not having the balls to truly challenge their fans without any thought to the consequences. Those bands released some good ****, but nothing as singular and just plain bizarre as Focus.

Just take opener "Veil of Maya": those vocoder vocals mix with clean spoken word, before slowly building to melodic tech death/thrash with old school DM vocals in full effect; then bring in the prog metal before switching within seconds to ultra-melodic, dreamy prog or jazz-fusion or whatever-the-****; cut back to death metal with extreme metal vocals contrasted with more vocoder vocals; then some soloing that even my ignorant ass knows are fire; out of nowehere more dreamy prog, then a few seconds of death metal, then prog metal, more death metal, with each transition within seconds of each other; end song on a melodic note. That's one ****ing song. I honestly don't even know what the **** just happened, but I also don't really care.

The rest of the album is pretty much just as cracked, giving you no chance to really breathe and settle down with any one sound. It's jarring but totally fascinating and strangely intense. Also hella respect for the best DM album cover of all time.

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Bishie

Agree with every single word! Dax Riggs was an awesome vocalist. Their second and final album Pagan Terrorism Tactics was also brilliant. Not as good, but not far behind either.

Frownland

Nah, everyone kind of figured that we didn't really need to hear it before we died because they're probably be torturing us with it in Hell after we die.

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mythsofmetal

This album to me is Einherjer's crowning achievement. I would place this album by the likes of Vredens Tid by Månegarm, and Steadfast by Forefather. It's just a great, very consistent Folk/Black Metal album that to me seems like it's charm will last forever to these ears. This album has a great many guitar leads laden with catchy yet uncheesy folk melody, good, interesting guitar rhythms, excellent varied drum work, good inclusion of synths, and well executed vocals. There's a good amount of variety too, which might normally be unexpected for an album which's quality is so consistently great.

There are nice doomy/groovy songs with interesting synths and drums, with some very catchy guitar riffs and good vocal work like "Dead Knight's Rite." There're faster songs like "Wolf-Age" in particular which has some folksy guitar leads that you may not be able to first discern as cheerful or menacing, Wolf-Age also has a very cool guitar solo, and plenty of fast guitar rhythms guitar rhythms. There's cool doomy, slower Viking Metal sort of songs like "The Eternally Damned," which focuses on creating an interesting, menacing, and brooding atmosphere in a sense that seems to be building up to some sort of epic battle, with great use of synths, drum work, and guitar riffs to accentuate that atmospheric feeling. Soon after "Ware Her Venom" sounds like a continuation of what "The Eternally Damned" alluded to in that it sounds like battle may have begun, or things are getting more heated/action packed, and it's quicker pace helps create that feeling while also still being quite doomy sounding, with more great synths and drums as usual. No Folk/Black Metal album would really be complete without some sort of epic, and "Hammer Haus" provides that in spades.

So, this really is a must listen for anyone who is interested in high quality, and varied (while still staying in the genre,) Folk/Black Metal, especially for people who are interested in hearing a variation of the style that really utilizes synths and drums to keep things interesting instead of just the guitar, (though the guitar does lots of great/interesting stuff throughout as well, plus the vocals are done very well as I said before.)

Thelonious Monkey

Gave that Vektor album a listen out of boredom. Pretty terrific album. Took me a bit to get used to those vocals, but in the end didn't come out disappointed. Thanks for putting that on the list. I'll be sure to give this album a try as well, as I trust your judgement, and you make it sound pretty fecking awesome.

The Batlord

**** it, why not? And #100, bitches!

This is death/doom the way it should be: crushing riffs, hateful vocals, and the occasional blast'n'grind to remind you that there's "death" is in the genre name. There aren't many bands that do this as well as Asphyx, and, so far as I know, none who've been doing it longer. Alternating between slow doom, mid-paced chugging, and faster sections, this is an album which becomes neither tedious nor samey, only bitchin'.

Integral to the sound is the production. I can't think of many albums that sound as heavy as The Last One (besides newer Asphyx albums of course), but instead of bathing in walls of distortion, like Electric Wizard do, they stick their distortion to their riffs like shards of broken glass, making a sound that is abrasive in a way that millions of bands would be ripping off if they had the slightest bit of common sense.




This isn't on the album, but it's quite possibly the greatest death metal song of all time, and I wanted to post it in case I never get around to this album.

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The Batlord

Considered one of the most important early metalcore bands, and a founder of mathcore, Deadguy get the shaft, largely because they're associated with a metal genre most ignorant metal fans consider to be bereft of any redeeming values (also because they only released one full-length). One listen to this brutal collection of angular, dissonant, challenging riffs and venomous, misanthropix, hardcore punk vocals would be like a slap in the face to their smug, purist faces.

This album rather defies comparison to anything that came before (that I'm aware of at least). It's certainly metal, but Deadguy clearly come from a hardcore background, which leaves them refreshingly and uncaringly out of step with what a "metal album" is "supposed" to sound like, even one with a heavy punk influence. Yet it spits on hardcore conventions as well: they have plenty of slower breakdown sections, but the oddball time signatures turn what is usually "The Mosh Part" into a nihilistic exercise in barely contained mania that is integral rather than tacked on.

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