Music Banter - Wpnfire? Who's Wpnfire?!'s Journal

Music Banter (https://www.musicbanter.com/)

- Members Journal (https://www.musicbanter.com/members-journal/)

- - Wpnfire? Who's Wpnfire?!'s Journal (https://www.musicbanter.com/members-journal/76994-wpnfire-whos-wpnfire-s-journal.html)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wpnfire (Post 1575347)

While I disagree with most people and think this album is one of the best death/doom releases I have heard, I have only heard one other death/doom album, so my opinion is rather useless presently.

That list got awesome towards the end. Those last four are interesting enough for me to listen to, though I'm not sure about the rest, except for Coffins, which I already have.

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...32.56%20PM.png

Genre: Heavy Metal
Released: 1978
Position in discography: fourth album.

This is second time I will be reviewing this... sort of. I still can not stand this album, and there are so many problems I have with it it boggles the mind why people laud it so much.

To start with, the good things. The guitar tone is ****ing ace. It is a sublime 'clean' tone where you can hear everything, but it is inexplicably heavy as well. By far the heaviest "clean" tone I have ever heard. It even beats out Vol. 4's legendary 'clean' tone for this title. I played "White Heat, Red Hot" and "Snowblind" consecutively, and the tone for Stained Class came out the victor. It is legitimately the best guitar tone I have heard. It beats Dopesmoker and Master of Puppets easily.

Spoiler for Stained Class vs. Vol. 4:

Wait, I guess that is it for the good things.

As for the bad things. Well, where to begin. There is too much singing, the riffs are shockingly poor and rarely take advantage of that wonderful tone, the guitars are a little too loud and drown out Halford, the drumming is consistently dull, and "Exciter" is a bad opening track.

And that's it! I can't stand to talk about this anymore, much less finish the album.

Maybe sometime in the future I will give this entire album its due, but for now...
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...5at15040PM.png http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...5at15040PM.png http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...5at15040PM.png/5

Everything you think is inverted. Everything about that album is brilliant... except for the dated, 70s production.

The guitars drowning out Halford should be among your good things, you know, since "there's too much singing".

3/5 for an album you couldn't be arsed to finish? Now, that's generosity.

Dopethrone - Electric Wizard
http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...28.42%20AM.png

Genre: Doom metal, funeral doom, stoner metal, sludge metal, stoner rock.
Released: 2000
Position in Discography: Third album

It has been a while. Too long, actually.

There is not much to discuss with Dopethrone that has not been said. "Vinum Sabbathi," the opening track, is one of the band's best songs, and is a prime example of the template for the instrumentation on the whole album. Complicated, but technically very simple, drum beats, guitars turned up to 11 with screechy amounts of fuzz and bass, and horribly distorted vocals.

Of all the aspects I listed, the drumming is at or near the top of my favorite things about this album. Dopethrone is highly varied in what you will get on each track. Some songs are screeching noise, some are pure doom, and some are more stoner metal, and the drum beats on the more uptempo tracks like the opening track, closing track, and "Weird Tales" are ****ing awesome.

The distortion is absolutely barbaric. I still remember the day when the Batlord posted "Funeralopolis" and when I played it, I drew allusions to Marty McFly in Back to the Future thinking, "Woah, this is heavy."

Finally, when you look at that cover, you know you are stepping into muck.

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...5at15040PM.png http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...5at15040PM.png http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...5at15040PM.png http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...5at15040PM.png/5
There are some dull spots though, so I have to deduct a star.

Stronghold - Summoning
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...Stronghold.jpg

Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal, Symphonic Black Metal, Dungeon Synth
Released: May 11, 1999
Position in discography: fourth album

This album is well outside my comfort zone–an infinite abyss stands between this album and what I normally listen to. There is almost nothing I like about this.

Before I continue, I would like to make one thing perfectly clear: **** symphonic metal.

There is a reason I say that though. My hatred of symphonic music originates from my childhood. I have three older sisters, the youngest of which is six years older than me, and two of them played instruments when they were younger. Between the two of them the harp, violin, viola, upright bass, and both played the piano. They both also sung in the choir though at different levels because they were different ages.

Now, because I was the youngest, and my youngest sister is still six years older than I am, when I was around the age of seven and until I was around eleven years old I had to go to each and everyone of their concerts. One of my most hated rituals growing up was attending the dreaded sister concert. To be fair, some of these concerts were entertaining, but this was rare. Most of the time, they were either boring or excruciatingly boring. Mind you, my opinions of these concerts are all based off of my recollection of them, which should be taken with a heaping of salt because I was eight and it felt like I was at these concerts for three times as long as they actually were (an hour and a half at most). So yeah, I grew to despise those damn concerts–and there were SOOO many (there were not that many. Again, I was eight, and sitting through one concert felt like four.)

Oh and this album came out in 1999, the first year I was dragged to one my sisters' concerts. Also, May 11 is my birthday. Weird.

As far as this album though…well where to begin? First of all, does it sounds like the soundtrack to the Lord Of the Rings? Ignoring the vocals, yes, it does, but I do not recall there being synths or epic vocals in the ost so that is a silly comparison to make. And it sure as **** is not superior to the original soundtrack, that is outright blasphemy. Anyone who says that should be ashamed of themselves for uttering that. The original soundtrack is fanciful, epic, gloomy and doomy, and evil all when necessary.

So yeah, I can not stand this. 1/5. The intro is cool, but the double-tracked echoey black metal vocals are awful, and the operatic vocals are way too intense and sound horribly misplaced.

Also what is with the cover? The back cover of the album is awesome, but the front cover is ****. We get it, Nordics love Hammerheart, but do you have to put every cover in the same color scheme as that?

Spoiler for This is what the cover should have looked like.:

Oh, and if you are wondering what instrument I played, I did not play one. I am not entirely sure why either. I am now going to pull a Varg and claim that me not playing an instrument was actually intentional, that I rebelled from that path, and I have always been anti-establishment from the beginning. A ****ing kvlt mother****er, that is what I am.