I love that Pantera album :eek:

It's one of the better songs sure, but not the best. "The Art of Shredding" is better than that.

Genre: Post-thrash
Release: 1992

The first thing I notice with this how much better the album actually sounds. The sound is slightly less top-heavy than the previous album. It is a minor change, but it makes a world of difference.

It's still not a great album.

There's not a bad track on this album, at least, not anything two-star worthy, but there's not much better than a three-star either. "This Love" and "Rise" are the standouts for me, though the former is far too long and I have no idea how people can say it is the best track. "Rise" is killer, and far and away my favorite.

Overall, this album is better than Cowboys from Hell.

Genre: Black Metal (ambient)
Released: 1993

This is a cool album. It's got some neat riffs provided by downtuned and distorted guitars that sound like they were recorded with a mono-tape recorder, and sound fittingly screechy (in a good way). Varg is both a genius songwriter and very skilled at arrangement, and he goes all over the place on this album. 3 minute tracks, 5 minute tracks, 7 minute tracks, 9 minute tracks, songs with vocals, songs with extended instrumental sections, pure ambience... Obviously, this variety allows every song to stand out on its own as a unique piece.


Favorite tracks: "En Ring til å Herske," "Lost Wisdom," "Han Som Reiste," "Naar Himmelen Klarner"

"En Ring til å Herske" has a wonderful doomy riff that plays for an extended amount of time with Varg singing off-and-on intermittently. The second half of the song sheds the riff for a bit and wanders till the song ends.

"Lost Wisdom" is a 4 minute riff-fest with a sensational beat and vocals from Varg that blend very well with the instrumentation. This very well could be my favorite black metal song.

"Han Som Reiste." The Batlord described this song best: it's like a Lord of the Rings soundtrack, though not nearly as stupid as that sounds. Indeed, it is not stupid, and gets you in the mood for the second half of the album with bottom-heavy synth work that is highly addicting and quite original.

"Naar Himmelen Klarner" is a progressive song featuring a riff that plays for over a minute before increasing in complexity as the drums come in. When it ends, I find myself wanting it to continue on.

Genre: Fake metal.
Released: who cares
Position in discography: first of the ****-era of Metallica

Look at the cover, LOOK AT THE COVER. Metallica did not even have the balls to show their logo on this like they did on all prior albums. They knew the songs on it would not fly with their fans–THEY KNEW–and they chose to hide their logo just like they hid their thrash metal sound. Did they think they could slip this one under the radar? Be a pop metal band and a thrash metal band? I guess the answer does not matter because either way, this is the followup to ...And Justice for All, and if that album was the beginning of the end of Metallica, this ****ery outright killed them.

Musically, this album resembles earlier albums though everything is worse. There are tons of downstroke-picked riffs, though all of them are slow and not that technical, which leads to most of them being rather boring. Ulrich's drumming is played at a quarter of the speed and he never uses the double bass, and Hetfield is the worst part of all as he sings FAR, FAR too much. At least Heftield does not sound like he did on Ride the Lightning.

"Enter Sandman" is acceptable, though woefully overrated as it is basically a less technical "Master of Puppets" played at a eighth of the speed of that track. "Sad But True" is interesting to me because of the riff and the harder-than-steel drumming by Ulrich. The fact that the beat is in rhythm with the riff greatly magnifies the heaviness. "The Unforgiven" is boring, save for the solo. I do not like fancy solos so it is nice to hear Hammett play some simple stuff for a change.

Every other track sucks. A big F U to "Nothing Else Matters." Currently the only Metallica song in their entire discography that is ****ty enough to warrant a one-star rating from me. **** "Nothing Else Matters."

I think the thing that bugs me most about that song, is that you know, the second you say how boring it is, some musically illiterate cretin is going to look down his nose at you for not having the taste to like the acoustic song. As if the fact that they claim to like it is somehow evidence of their diverse taste in music.

Refreshing to read an honest and accurate review of the Metallica self titled album. :beer:

Just found this hilarious article written by Ross Sewage, band member and de facto frontman for death metal band Impaled, giving advice about touring expenses for some indie band called Pomplamoose.

Excerpt as follows:

Read more here

Nah that sounds cliché.

Up until now, I have been aimlessly reviewing albums I come across with no real topic or focus. A few days ago, I played Effigy of the Forgotten by Suffocation randomly, and I noticed the music failed to frighten me as it normally did. I played a different track and that did not affect me either. It actually sounded rather nice.

Yes, it appears I am now immune to brutal death metal.

This can only mean one thing, I must like this genre. I immediately went out and scoured the web tirelessly searching for death metal I liked, and needless to say, I found a few. Here are my thoughts on...

Genre: Death Metal, Doom metal.
Released: 1991
Position in discography: second album

This album is so ****ing death metal, the band name and album title are illegible: it is the same color scheme as...whatever the hell that is on the cover. Looks tasty.

Anyway, I have some trouble getting into this album. With this release, Morbid Angel slows the tempo occasionally, which gives some songs a very slight hint of doom metal to them. Unfortunately, that makes some of them a bit stale at times. There are a few good parts. Singer David Vincent is awesome. His vocals are bottled aggressiveness, and whenever he growls out a verse, it is pure bliss. There are several intro tracks on this album, and all of them provide a very impressive atmosphere. "Intro" starts with guitars played with extreme distortion, with samples of people screaming and what sounds like a baby (?) crying playing in the background. It’s like the opening to “Hell Awaits” by Slayer…only twice as metal as that, though not as evil. Atmospheric and metal as ****.

My other favorite tracks would be "Fall From Grace" because of the awesome riffs, blast beats, and David Vincent's singing is hella sick, and "Day of Suffering."

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...5at15040PM.pnghttp://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...5at15040PM.pnghttp://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...5at15040PM.png/5
for Blessed Are the Sick.

Their next album, Covenant, is considered by many to be their best album, but I'm not as big a fan. It does have "God of Emptiness" though, which is amazing. And the Laibach remix is even better. All they really did was muddy the sound up, but it makes the song so much more ****ed up sounding.