Natrlhi's 2011 End of Year List Orgy

[treghet]

Originally Posted by Natrlhi

Revocation - Chaos of Forms
I loved their previous album. I'm either over these guys already, or this album was inferior to "Existence Is Futile". The problem is, I don't care enough about them to figure it out anymore. Damn shame, that - but at the end of the day I just felt I had better music to spend my time on in 2011 than this.

I felt the same. There were a few tracks I really loved, but as a whole this is nothing compared to Existence Is Futile.

Originally Posted by Natrlhi

Destruction - Day of Reckoning
Way, way, way, WAY fucking better than D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N. - the problem is, that's not saying much. This album definitely brought back some memories of past albums of theirs that I liked, but in the end I still find myself wanting another album like "Release from Agony.", and it's never gonna happen.

I didn't expect much from this record, but it has some good moments. I'd be happy if they just put out something on par with The Antichrist.

[SomewhereInTime72]

Agreed on all counts on the albums on that list that I've actually heard. All pretty disappointing (because I expected better than ok).

[Rocco44]

Originally Posted by SomewhereInTime72

Agreed on all counts on the albums on that list that I've actually heard. All pretty disappointing (because I expected better than ok).

This exactly. Only disagree about Witch Mountain, although I haven't listened to any other material from them.

[GarageMetal468]

Originally Posted by Natrlhi

Fifteen Metal Albums That Were Just OK

Exhumed - All Guts, No Glory
See "Decapitated - Carnival is Forever".

[Seventhzealot]

I actually enjoyed South of Salem but then it was the first record I'd heard by them so I don't know if I should be disappointed

[mastodon421]

Yeah, I can't agree with Darkest Hour, Mastodon, Skeletonwitch and (especially) Revocation making your albums that are just alright. All of those albums made by top 20 (the latter 3 made my top 10). I know this might be just be crazy-ass opinion, but I though Chaos of Forms absolutely DESTROYED Revocation's earlier work. I mean I fucking love Existence is Futile, but Chaos of Forms just crushes it on every single level. Every single on the album kicks a ton of fucking ass, I can't say the same about Existence is Futile. It's the more mature, refined, faster, more melodic nd unpredictable version of Revocation and it's easily their best work to date imo.

[Natrlhi]

Thanks everybody for your comments. It seems as if the majority of the heartburn was around Witch Mountain and Revocation being on the list. I don't hate either one, but I just expected more from each.

I listened to them both again today based on the number of comments made, and I still feel that Witch Mountain was subpar compared to what I had hoped it would be. It was just OK to me.

At first, I was thinking I had fucked up on Revocation (because the album starts out rather strongly), but as I continued to listen I figured out what had turned me off before. The answer actually stems from one of the observations which was made above. The album is more fully developed that their last one, for sure, in that there is more variety and some excellent songwriting going on, but therein lay the problem for me as well. I guess I was just impressed with Revocation in the past with how they could keep up the speed and the heaviness for so long without losing my attention, but on this album, they start to wander around from tech death to thrash to more jazz-influenced, progressive stuff, and to me it seemed a little unfocused. There's nothing wrong with experimentation, it just seems to have taken a bit of the edge off that was such a hallmark of theirs on previous albums - and by the term "edge" I mean brutal heaviness coupled ever so carefully with a perfect level of super-clean precision.

In other words, to me, their previous album was like a perfectly honed attack on my senses, whereas this one is still technically impressive, yet explorative at the same time, so it lacks the punch of the previous one.

It's a bit hard for me to explain, but that's my best effort - which probably means that there's a good chance I'm wrong about what I'm saying...so in the end it may just be a matter of taste.

But yeah, Witch Mountain was kinda bland to me. That one is easy to explain.

[Natrlhi]

This next list can be summed up by the following smiley:

These are albums that I feel had a real chance of climbing into the upper echelons of my list, if I had had the chance to spend more time with them, but alas. A few of these are here because I only got to listen to them a handful of times. There are some potential growers on the list (Loss and Yob, for example), as well as some which showed early promise but never made it back into my listening queue (such as Unearth and Tides from Nebula). There are even a couple that I know are damn good (Flourishing, Evan Brewer, Thomas Giles), but because I ran out of time, I just didn't know where to put them in my list in order to do them justice.

So, I thought I would feature them here. They are in no particular order, but suffice to say that I liked them all, and wish I could have listened to them more.

Fifteen Metal Albums That I Probably Would Have Loved, Given More Time

• Tides from Nebula - Earthshine
• Yob - Atma
• Evan Brewer - Alone
• Loss - Despond
• Thomas Giles - Pulse
• Krallice - Diotima
• ChthoniC - Taskago Army
• Flourishing - The Sum of All Fossils
• Hail!Hornet - Disperse the Curse
• Unearth - Darkness in the Light
• Delta Cepheid - Entity
• Oranssi Pazuzu - Kosmonument
• Brutal Truth - End Time
• Jesu - Ascension
• Lionize - Destruction Manual

EDIT: My wager is that maybe half of these may have ended up in my top forty somewhere...

[masterguy49]

Originally Posted by Natrlhi

Fifteen Metal Albums That Were Just OK

Darkest Hour - The Human Romance
Not a bad effort from a metalcore band I can actually tolerate, but I thought Unearth's 2011 album was much better than this.

Mastodon - The Hunter
Come at me, Mastofans. I love this band, and this album definitely had its moments, but the experimental tracks on here just ruined it for me because I didn't like them and it made the album seem like it was somewhat slapped together.

Revocation - Chaos of Forms
I loved their previous album. I'm either over these guys already, or this album was inferior to "Existence Is Futile". The problem is, I don't care enough about them to figure it out anymore. Damn shame, that - but at the end of the day I just felt I had better music to spend my time on in 2011 than this.

Exhumed - All Guts, No Glory
See "Decapitated - Carnival is Forever".

Skeletonwitch - Forever Abomination
Better than their last, but failed to excite me the way "Beyond the Permafrost" did. These guys were surprisingly "meh" when I saw them open for Obscura last summer, too.

Originally Posted by Natrlhi

Fifteen Metal Albums That I Probably Would Have Loved, Given More Time

• Yob - Atma
• Loss - Despond
• Thomas Giles - Pulse
• Unearth - Darkness in the Light

EDIT: My wager is that maybe half of these may have ended up in my top forty somewhere...

[larvtard]

Originally Posted by Natrlhi

Thanks everybody for your comments. It seems as if the majority of the heartburn was around Witch Mountain and Revocation being on the list. I don't hate either one, but I just expected more from each.

I listened to them both again today based on the number of comments made, and I still feel that Witch Mountain was subpar compared to what I had hoped it would be. It was just OK to me.

At first, I was thinking I had fucked up on Revocation (because the album starts out rather strongly), but as I continued to listen I figured out what had turned me off before. The answer actually stems from one of the observations which was made above. The album is more fully developed that their last one, for sure, in that there is more variety and some excellent songwriting going on, but therein lay the problem for me as well. I guess I was just impressed with Revocation in the past with how they could keep up the speed and the heaviness for so long without losing my attention, but on this album, they start to wander around from tech death to thrash to more jazz-influenced, progressive stuff, and to me it seemed a little unfocused. There's nothing wrong with experimentation, it just seems to have taken a bit of the edge off that was such a hallmark of theirs on previous albums - and by the term "edge" I mean brutal heaviness coupled ever so carefully with a perfect level of super-clean precision.

In other words, to me, their previous album was like a perfectly honed attack on my senses, whereas this one is still technically impressive, yet explorative at the same time, so it lacks the punch of the previous one.

It's a bit hard for me to explain, but that's my best effort - which probably means that there's a good chance I'm wrong about what I'm saying...so in the end it may just be a matter of taste.

No man, I totally gotcha. Their new one is way more out there, so many diverse influences, etc. I like it just as much as their previous two, if not more, but I completely understand why someone wouldn't like it as much. I dunno if it's unfocused per se, but it's definitely not straight-up Revocation-style tech-death this time around.